This article delves into the hidden struggles of social media influencer Emily Blackwell as she faced the premature birth and hospitalization of her daughter, Eva. Emily meticulously planned her baby's online reveal, but reality took a stark turn. Forced to juggle the public image she cultivated with the intense personal challenges, Emily grappled with the ethical dilemma of transparency versus privacy during a vulnerable time. The piece highlights the pressure influencers face to maintain a flawless online persona, even in the face of adversity.
What a modern phenomenon this is: family planning, Insta-style. The life of a social media influencer is often glossy and glamorous – and always meticulously showcased. Intricate preparation is key, agrees Emily Blackwell, one-time star of Made In Chelsea and now a ‘brand’ in her own right. When Emily, 28, was laying the groundwork to introduce her first child to the world, she followed all the new rules.
In September last year there was a carefully curated announcement on Instagram – alongside a ‘paid partnership’ with the pregnancy test brand Clearblue, no less. There followed reels and posts about the joyous events unfolding – images of Emily cradling her growing bump, and with partner Jordan Oldershaw, who runs a recruitment company, making heart shapes with their fingers over her belly. Over on her mum Rachel’s Instagram page there was a video of the moment she learned she was to be a grandmother for the first time – when opening a gift bag containing tiny booties. Scan pictures flooded in next. As did the obligatory video of the gender reveal. The much-wanted baby was a girl so everything went pink. The casual viewer – and since she has nearly 400,000 followers on Instagram, there are plenty of them – might have wondered why Emily’s account went quieter than normal around the end of last year. But since she was still uploading some content (often endorsements for beauty brands or even cars but mostly for baby products) alarm bells did not ring. As she sits in our photo studio today, breastfeeding baby Eva, she reflects on the horror that was unfolding behind those seemingly perfect images. For at the time the Insta updates were posted, all through November and December, Emily was not gleefully test-driving a new pram, or sailing around a branch of Mamas & Papas, picking out tiny hooded sleep-suits, in preparation for the beautiful birth, as her Instagram account suggested. The birth had already happened, kept hidden from her followers – and at that point her tiny baby, who had arrived in the world ten weeks early, was in intensive care in hospital. Emily had gone into labour prematurely, without warning. So when she posted footage of herself examining baby baths, full of wide smiles, on November 14, telling fans she was picking up ‘everything we needed for baba’, this was not the sad reality. ‘Baba’ was at that very moment being fed by tube and a tearful Emily was desperately expressing breast milk to facilitate the process. But 2,092 fans liked that post and wrote about their own excitement that the birth was imminent. Ditto on November 29, when Emily posted about having chosen her pram (biscuit coloured; goes with everything, she trilled). Not as it seemed. On that day, the colour of the pram would probably have been the absolute last thing on her mind. It’s extraordinary really to look at her Instagram account now, aware of the disconnect between what was being played out here, and the reality. Never has Instagram – or the role of the influencer, dependent on delivering pre-agreed content – felt so at odds. The overriding feeling for Emily’s position, though, is sympathy. All carefully curated planning had gone out the window, leaving this new mum with a terrible dilemma: should she go public about what had happened and put a carefully-worded message on social media, effectively asking fans to keep her family in their thoughts, or even to pray for them? Tearful today even recalling that time, she tells me she simply couldn’t face that. Emily has now revealed the brutal reality of those 53 days sitting by her baby’s side in a paediatric special care unit, with little Eva hooked up to machines and fed by a tube ‘I could have announced her arrival, but then I’d have had people saying “congratulations”, meaning I’d have to say: “Hold the congratulations for now.” ’ Once she had confirmed to the world that baby Eva had arrived, her fans would have expected regular health updates, too. ‘With everything we were dealing with at the time – all the machines, the blood tests, even the brain scans – I just wasn’t in a place where I could do that,’ she says. ‘I could barely think. And at the back of my mind, I kept thinking: “What if...”’ It is not a part of the job description many influencers think about when they start sharing every cough and spit of their lives. It certainly put Emily in an impossible position. This is a young woman who first started living her adult life in the glare of the public gaze back in 2016 when she joined the cast of Made In Chelsea. Only now can she reveal the brutal reality of those 53 days sitting by her baby’s side in a paediatric special care unit, with little Eva hooked up to machines and fed by a tub
Social Media FAMILY PLANNING SOCIAL MEDIA INFLUENCER INSTAGRAM PREMATURE BIRTH HOSPITAL EMOTIONAL STRUGGLE PRIVACY PUBLIC IMAGE
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