‘The Closest I Came to Death’

Florence Welch has opened up about experiencing a miscarriage and ectopic pregnancy in 2023.

In a new interview with The Guardian, the Florence and the Machine singer said in August 2023 she found out days after she had a miscarriage that the pregnancy was ectopic. An ectopic pregnancy is when a fertilized egg implants in a fallopian tube instead of the uterus.

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The fallopian tube ruptured, and caused internal bleeding. “The closest I came to making life was the closest I came to death,” she told the publication. “And I felt like I had stepped through this door, and it was just full of women, screaming.”

Welch said that two years ago, she and her boyfriend decided to try to have a baby. “It was my first experience of even trying to get pregnant, and I thought, there’s no way, because I’m ancient,” she said she thought at the time; she was about to turn 37. However, she became pregnant the first time they tried. “It was a big shock. But it felt magical, as well. I felt I had followed a bodily instinct, in that animal sense, and it had happened.”

The miscarriage happened early in the pregnancy, so they had not yet shared the news with anyone. “I think, because it was my first time being pregnant, and it was my first miscarriage, I was like, ‘OK, I’ve heard this is part of it.’ I spoke to my doctor, and they are not generally dangerous. Devastating, but not dangerous,” she said.

Just a week later, she said she was scheduled to headline a festival in Cornwall, England. She decided to continue with the show. “Emotionally, I was sad and scared, but I think, also, I was coping,” she said.

It wasn’t the first time she soldiered on to deliver a performance. The year prior, Welch broke her foot while dancing onstage, and continued to perform while bleeding. “With physical stuff, I have a strange, otherworldly strength,” she told the outlet. “Emotionally, I’m an absolute nightmare. Literally, will crumble,” she said. “But broken bone? Fine. Internal bleeding? Let’s go.”

In the case of the day of her performance in Cornwall following the ectopic pregnancy she was not yet aware she had experienced, she said she was in incredible pain and immensely bleeding. Though ectopic pregnancies are rare, occurring in about two percent of all pregnancies, according to the Cleveland Clinic, her doctor advised her to get checked, and she planned to get a scan when she returned home to London. “Women! It’s funny. I took some ibuprofen and stepped out on stage,” she said. She said she had an amazing show, but while on the tour bus back to London, the pain returned.

“Do you know the fucked-up thing?” she added. “I didn’t want to go for the scan. I thought, I’ve done this show, I’m fine, I can cope. But my doctor’s insistence that I come in saved my life.”

During the scan, her doctor paused, which caused her to “panic,” she said. Her fallopian tube had ruptured and she “had a Coke can’s worth of blood in my abdomen.” She had emergency surgery, but her fallopian tube had to be removed. She was due to fly to another festival, but she said, “If I’d got on that plane, I’d have come off on a stretcher. Or worse.”

Florence and the Machine’s upcoming sixth album, Everybody Scream, arrives on Oct. 31. Ahead of the LP, the band have shared the title track and the song “One of the Greats.”

“I feel like I die a little bit every time I make a record, and kind of literally nearly died on the last tour,” Welch said in a statement about “One of the Greats,” which she and Idles guitarist Marc Bowen wrote in one take. “Yet I always dig myself up to try again, always trying to please that one person who doesn’t like it, or finally feel like I made something perfect and I can rest.”

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