Desperately ill and seven months pregnant, influencer Grace Victory had her baby delivered – then she was put in a coma for three months. Here, for the first time, she shares her story.
When Grace Victory first properly met her baby boy, Cyprus, he was already three months old. He was delivered two months prematurely by Caesarean on Christmas Eve, just before Grace was put into a medically induced coma to help her body fight Covid-19.The last thing Grace remembers before being taken into the ICU was hearing Lee, her partner and Cyprus’ dad, crying. ‘That’s when I knew it was bad,’ she says. The 31-year-old influencer, previously known to her 254k Instagram followers and 224k YouTube subscribers as a leading voice on everything from mental health to body confidence, was in a coma for three months.
While in the coma, Grace suffered a cardiac arrest, underwent a tracheostomy – where a tube was inserted into her lungs to help her breathe – and was given a 5% chance of survival. If she did make it, she’d never be the same again, her family were warned. ‘Lee was telling everyone, “She’s gonna make it. I don’t care what you tell me, she’s coming back because she’s got her son,”’ Grace says.
At first, Cyprus was kept in the neonatal ICU (NICU) until Lee was allowed to take him home on 17 January. Covid restrictions meant they couldn’t even visit Grace, but a news crew was allowed on to her ward. They filmed her, blurring out her face. ‘My family couldn’t visit me but they saw me in a coma on the news,’ she says. ‘To wake up and be told that you’re all over the news and there’s an image of you in your hospital gown in a coma is absolutely horrific.’
In March, doctors brought Grace out of the coma. She was determined to meet her baby, but the hospital was cautious about visits as Covid rates were high and Grace remained very ill – unable to walk and struggling to speak. However, she battled to see Cyprus and Lee. ‘I said, “I’m suicidal and I need to see my baby and partner because I can’t cope in here. I’m 30. I’m a new mum. They’ve allowed film crews in here and it’s not fucking fair. I want to see my family.”’ They agreed to brief visits every other day for Lee, and weekly with Cyprus.
Towards the end of March, he was finally wheeled in and placed on her chest. She stared into his eyes and told him she loved him. ‘I was an absolute mess,’ she says. ‘I put him on my boob and made him touch my hair. I wanted him to feel me; feel his mum.’ She gave him a bottle and put him down to sleep. ‘He just kept looking at me. I knew he knew me. Lee was like, “This is what everyone prayed for.”’
Grace went from strength to strength after meeting Cyprus, and by April she was designated medically fit. She was home by May and, physically, she’s made an almost complete recovery. There’s also no sign of Cyprus suffering long-term problems. But it hasn’t been a simple happy ever after.
Now, Grace is keen to shine a light on the shame new mothers who experience trauma around the birth of their babies can feel. ‘I was honestly shitting myself [when I met him]. Cyprus didn’t feel like my baby,’ she says. ‘I loved him with every ounce of who I am, but the sheer anxiety about seeing him and the nerves were unbelievable.’
She’s having to work through a lot of anger and confusion after being apart from him and her family for so long. ‘Everyone talks about the firsts: the first time you hold your baby; the first golden hour when you give birth. All these things I didn’t have: his first bath; first feed. My dream was to breastfeed and I couldn’t. There were so many things I was mourning while trying to be grateful to be alive,’ she says. ‘That shame and guilt of not being there for your baby, who is this incredible little soul… Knowing that he was in NICU and he had no human touch for two weeks of his life – that’s too much for me to even think about. That when he was crying, I wasn’t there,’ she says. ‘One thing people don’t talk about is that “oh fuck” moment when you realise the most precious thing ever in your life could be affected by something you couldn’t control.’
Moreover, as astonishing as Grace’s story is, she’s far from the only pregnant woman to go through this during the pandemic. Since she started sharing her recovery on social media, many have been in touch with similar stories and she’s brought together a community who’ve experienced the same thing: pregnant, Covid, coma, tracheostomy.
Grace doesn’t want to wade into the politics around the vaccine, and it’s unclear whether these women have had jabs. However, recent NHS England figures show one in six of the most critically ill Covid patients are unvaccinated pregnant women, raising concerns about how this vulnerable group has been handled.
With her platform, Grace hopes to be an honest, reassuring voice for women who’ve suffered like her. ‘I’m not special – it’s happening a lot so it’s important to raise awareness,’ she says. ‘An ICU nurse messaged me telling me they’re telling other pregnant women my story to give them hope.’
Whether it’s luck, modern medicine or divine maternal determination, the good news is that these new mothers are surviving. ‘We all have these babies. We go in a coma, we all come back. It’s like the fight for our children is real. We don’t want to die. We don’t want them to be alive without us,’ Grace says. ‘I wasn’t going anywhere.’
Now, her outlook on life has changed. ‘I’m scared of death now and I wasn’t before’ – mainly because the thought of being away from family again terrifies her. She tells loved ones she loves them more now, and thinks it’s important she shares her story but doesn’t want it to define her.
‘I don’t want to just be “the girl who lived”, I want to be “the girl who REALLY lived.”’ Her thirst for life has intensified: she wants more children, to travel, start a clothing line and do Strictly. ‘I couldn’t walk a few months ago; get me on Strictly, I want to dance!’
She wants the takeaway message to be that everyone should ‘live a life that is for them because at any moment it could be taken from you.’ How she sees her role as an influencer has also changed, and she wants to help people triumph over trauma. She’s also grateful to the women she’s met for their support. ‘No one understands until they’ve gone through it themselves,’ she says. ‘Everything felt shameful and hard and I know that I’m not the only person who feels that way. It’s important to shed a light on that, and to show people that you can overcome the most horrendous things,’ she says. ‘Cyprus literally saved my life.’
Grace wears top and skirt, Kai Collective; recycled ear cuff and large hoop earrings, Loveness Lee. Styling: Krishan Parmar at Carol Hayes Management. Photographer’s Assistant: Marlen Keller. Hair: Christopher Long. Make-up: Bianca Spencer