Dylan Dreyer: ‘Opening Up About My Miscarriage Changed Everything’

Ten percent of all known pregnancies end in miscarriage. So why does the subject still feel so taboo? For women dealing with the complicated grief of miscarriage, it’s not the stat that’s comforting—it’s the knowledge that they’re not alone, that there is a space to share their story. To help end the culture of silence that surrounds pregnancy and infant loss, Glamour presents The 10 Percent, a place to dismantle the stereotypes and share real, raw, stigma-free stories.

It couldn’t have been easier to get pregnant the first time. My husband and I hadn’t talked much about kids, but one day we looked at each other while watching TV and decided we wanted a baby. So we tried, we got pregnant, and everything went smoothly. In December of 2016 we had our son Calvin.

When it came time to try for a second baby, I was prepared for more of a challenge. After Calvin was born, I’d found out that at 37, I had about as many eggs left as someone in their mid-40s. On top of that, I’d had some uterine scarring and a subsequent surgery—the odds weren’t great. But then—in news that came as pure joy—we found out that I was pregnant a second time. It was a “jump up and down, jump into each other’s arms” kind of moment. We were so excited.

Then one morning eight weeks later, as I got ready to go into work on Today, I realized I was bleeding like I never had before. I was having a miscarriage. To go from that high of finding out we were pregnant to this extreme low—right before I had to go into work—it was like a nightmare come true.

You doubt yourself. What did I do wrong? I thought back on everything I’d done over the past several weeks: Did I walk too much? Did I exercise too much? Should I not have done this or that? I even thought of a moment a couple of days earlier when my brother had playfully thrown a snowball at my back. As irrational as it was, my mind ran with it: Was it the snowball?

Of course it wasn’t the snowball or the exercise or the walking. But in that moment, the self-blame is hard to escape. You just have this ultimate guilt.

After the miscarriage I decided I wanted to share my story. There’s something cathartic about coming out with something you’re dealing with, but I didn’t know the feedback would be as positive as it was: People sharing their words of encouragement and prayers and stories made dealing with the grief of miscarriage so much easier.

After I told my story about the miscarriage, all of a sudden I was hearing from close friends of mine who had been dealing with their own losses or fertility struggles. We were all dealing with these things—why weren’t we talking about them? Those first three months of pregnancy are absolutely terrifying; you feel like you can’t tell anyone you’re pregnant, but you’re going to bed every night thinking, “I hope everything’s okay.” The stigma surrounding miscarriage and infertility is so strong that sometimes it feels nearly impossible to talk about even with the people you’re closest to.

After the miscarriage, we dealt with secondary infertility—struggling to get pregnant after having a child—and I wanted to keep being open about our journey. I needed to be open about it. I was going to work, I was taking care of my family, I was making sure my son’s backpack was packed and ready to go at the end of each day, and I was going through this incredibly difficult thing. When we don’t talk about it, it’s easy to think we’re alone—that we’re isolated in our grief.

But when I spoke up about my secondary infertility, I realized just how many women I know have dealt with their own fertility struggles. It’s an amazing thing when you hear other women say, “Yes, I struggle with this. Yes, my days are long. Yes, I’m tired at the end of the day, and yes, I had to go through IVF too.” When you actually hear that people are going through the same things you’re going through, it takes the burden off. You feel less alone. But these are all conversations we didn’t have until I actually put my story out there.

Happily, I’m pregnant again. Our second child is due in January. But it’s important to me to keep talking about the things that feel taboo. Anything involving women’s bodies is so taboo—I mean, we can’t even walk to the bathroom while on our periods without sticking the tampon discreetly up a sleeve, you know? It’s something we all go through—so why do we hide it?

These moments—miscarriage and infertility—are hard enough on their own without the added shame of silence. These are moments when your mind is going crazy, when you need to talk about it. So I’m glad to see it’s changing. These are the things that are happening in our bodies—and I think we’re all kind of itching to talk about it.

Dylan Dreyer is a cohost on the third hour of Today and weekend Today, and the NBC News meteorologist.

Originally Appeared on Glamour