Christina Perri Says 'Healing' Happened When Daughter Carmella First Held Baby Sister Pixie

Christina Perri/instagram, Rebecca Sapp/Getty

Christina Perri is sharing how her history of pregnancy losses impacted her 5-year-old.

Appearing on the Informed Pregnancy, podcast, the "Jar Of Hearts" singer, 36, opened up about bringing daughter Pixie Rose, now 3 months, home after a difficult birth experience and a NICU stay that presented many challenges.

"When your baby goes to the NICU, the only great thing is they check for literally everything. So, you know that when the baby graduates the NICU, they've checked everything," shared the mom of two.

"The only good thing about when we were discharged is we felt like Pixie was ready to come home. But they just kept finding things. At first, it's her breathing and her grunting. And then, it was her hematomas on her head, and then it was her jaundice levels, and then they told us we could leave."

The mom remembered the pure happiness that came with telling their older daughter, 5-year-old Carmella, that her baby sister was coming home.

"We told Carmella we were coming home with the baby, which by the way, just for a moment of joy, we got to FaceTime Carmella and show her little sister. Oh, she is so, so, so excited and so cute, and she just is obsessed with her. It was the moment of joy we needed."

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

christina Perri/Instagram

RELATED: Christina Perri Shares Sweet Photo of Daughters on Thanksgiving: 'Thankful'

Perri had previously explained that her time in the hospital in 2020 was tough on Carmella, who was a toddler at that point. Prior to Pixie's birth, the singer suffered a miscarriage in 2020, and later that year she also shared that she had lost her daughter Rosie during the third trimester.

"Carmella wasn't alerted to why we didn't come home. We were at the hospital for three days. She was so traumatized from that," she shared. "I remember almost worse than what happens later because we are so communicative with her. And then, all of a sudden, we just weren't there, so that was really jarring for her."

It made things all the more emotional for Perri and husband Paul Costabile when they watched their two daughters bond for the first time.

"Carmella held her on the couch. It was like that, 'Oh, my God!' That full circle thing, it was the best moment in my whole life," Perri shared.

The 5-year-old also informed her parents that she "knew her name was Pixie all along."

"What's really funny is Carmella did look at me and wink at me when we were reading Peter Pan two weeks before the baby came. It was a bedtime story, and Wendy was saying, 'We need to get to the pirates and bring the pixie dust.' And Carmella looked at me and winked."

"I said to Paul later, 'Did you see that?' And he was like, 'Yeah, like, What was that?' And I was like, 'I don't know. Did we say the name, ever?' And he's like, 'No, we definitely didn't.'"

"So, Carmella is probably molecularly connected to this little girl so much. And she goes, 'I knew it! I knew the name all along.'"

"It's kind of funny because it took three years to make Pixie. I kind of wanted I joked around about giving Pixie to Carmella and leaving, saying, 'Here, I did it! I'm so tired. Here's your sibling,' " she joked. "But truly, truly, I can't even put into words the healing that occurred that day."

The "A Thousand Years" singer says she "feels so lucky" to have grown her family because she knew "my family wasn't done yet."

"I still wanted so badly to have this experience. So, I'm trying to remind myself of that when I'm not sleeping in the middle of the night, or when I'm frustrated, or when I feel I just want to go to Hawaii alone," she admitted.

Perri continued, "I keep thinking, 'Well, I'm just going to go on vacation real quick. I'll be back in a couple weeks.' I keep feeling I need to get in the car and drive. I know these feelings, I've had them before. And I will say I'm letting myself feel them, and I don't feel guilty for feeling them."

"Because there's this other brand new guilt that comes from like, 'But your baby's alive, and how could you complain about having a baby.' Well, it's not so much complaining as it is sharing. But I'm letting myself have all the feelings."