Jaime King Shares the Harrowing Story of Son Leo Thames' Complicated Birth

Jaime King wears a very bold, very orange fur coat on Thursday (April 11) in New York City!

The 39-year-old actress was spotted out in the city before her appearance on Build Series NY.

During her Build interview, Jaime talked about her new Netflix series Black Summer, in which she plays Rose, a mother who is separated from her daughter during the first deadly days of a zombie apocalypse.

The series might be pure fantasy, but Jaime drew on very real experiences in her role as Rose. During the interview, the actress shared a harrowing and emotional story about the difficult birth of her son, Leo Thames, which helped inform her performance.

“As a mother, I think I was so deeply vulnerable because…I lost many of my pregnancies and my son, Leo Thames, crashed at birth and I didn’t get to see his face and they took him and I didn’t know if he was going to come back to life,” she explained, visibly emotional. “He had a serious heart defect called Transposition of the Great Arteries and I just heard, ‘He’s crashing, he’s crashing, he’s crashing, he’s crashing,’ and they, like, ran out of the room.”

Jaime went on to describe the hospital staff’s efforts to convince her to stay in bed and rest after the delivery–and her refusal to do so. The actress insisted on seeing her newborn in the NICU.

“I walked into this NICU and it was, legitimately, looking back, like a scene in the movie,” she said. “And it makes me really emotional, watching it, because when I walked in, everybody went pale and my child was barely alive.”

Watch the full interview segment:

Black Summer is streaming on Netflix.