SAD BUT TRUE –
May 12, 2026 – “The first thing I’d thought of when I woke up was alcohol,” Panettiere wrote. “I labored with Kaya for 14 hours and was in surgery for three hours after she was born,” she wrote. “My blood wouldn’t clot during my C-section, so doctors had to close the blood vessels in my uterus to prevent me from bleeding out.”
Panettiere felt distant from her newborn—a feeling shared by many women who have difficult childbirth experiences.
“I had always heard that mothers feel an instant rush of love the moment they lay their eyes on their baby, but I felt nothing,“ she wrote. “Kaya was just there, and now I had to figure out how to bond with her. It felt like an insurmountable task, and I was only on the first day.”
When her daughter turned four months, Panettiere recalled feeling like she “needed a drink to function.” She had developed the daily habit while shooting Nashville.
After getting home, she would spend time with her daughter, eat dinner, and call her then-fiancé, Ukrainian former professional boxer and world champion Wladimir Klitschko.
