Famous Moms and Dads Speak Out About Miscarriage and Their Quotes Are Inspiring
Famous Moms and Dads Speak Out About Miscarriage and Their Quotes Are Inspiring
Famous Moms and Dads Speak Out About Miscarriage and Their Quotes Are Inspiring
No matter how early you are in your pregnancy, a miscarriage is a tremendous loss. But it's a loss that is often mourned privately. Though there's nothing that can erase what happened, sometimes it helps to hear from others who have been through it. Here, celebrities describe their experience with miscarriage.
Ali Wong
Actress, comedian, and mom of two Ali Wong told Health magazine about her miscarriage experience. She said she "didn't realize miscarrying was a thing that could happen," which is why she told everyone about her third pregnancy when she was seven weeks along.
"I told everybody [about the pregnancy]. I told the lady who cleans my house and when she found out I was seven weeks along, she told me I shouldn't be telling people. Now I know why—it's because then you have to tell everyone the bad news." She said that some people have had "insensitive reactions." "Like, they will ask if it's because you had sushi or you were performing too much," Wong said. "They want to point to some cause and don't realize how bad that makes you feel."
James Van Der Beek
Upon announcing that he and his wife Kimberly Brook are expecting their sixth child, the former Dawson's Creek star opened up about struggling with pregnancy loss and said there should be "zero shame around it." On Instagram, he shared that "miscarriage" should be replaced, because "nobody failed to 'carry,' these things sometimes just happen."
We decided to put ourselves out there—not knowing what we'd find—in an effort to chip away at any senseless stigma around this experience and to encourage people who might be going through it to open themselves up to love & support from friends and family when they need it most.
—James Van Der Beek
A post shared by James Van Der Beek (@vanderjames) on Oct 7, 2019 at 5:28pm PDT
Hilaria Baldwin
The celeb mom, who is currently expecting her fifth child, shared on Instagram in April that she was "most likely experiencing a miscarriage." "I always promised myself that if I were to get pregnant again, I would share the news with you guys pretty early, even if that means suffering a public loss," Baldwin wrote. "I have no shame or embarrassment with this experience. I want to be a part of the effort to normalize miscarriage and remove the stigma from it. There is so much secrecy during the first trimester. This works for some, but I personally find it to be exhausting. I’m nauseous, tired, my body is changing. And I have to pretend that everything is just fine—and it truly isn’t. I don’t want to have to pretend anymore. I hope you understand."
A post shared by Hilaria Thomas Baldwin (@hilariabaldwin) on Apr 4, 2019 at 6:47am PDT
Whitney Port
On the season finale of The Hills: New Beginnings, the reality star said, "Pregnancy news is usually really exciting news, and when I found out I was pregnant I didn't immediately feel so excited. I was really scared, actually." She said she got nervous once her usual pregnancy symptoms came to a halt, and she realized what was happening. She described the grief she felt as "all-consuming."
It's like a death is happening inside your body, and you're also supposed to show up for your child that you have, and you can't really be sad in front of them, and you're just confused if your feelings are okay [or] if they're too dramatic.
—Whitney Port
Shay Mitchell
At the end of 2018, the Pretty Little Liars and YOU star shared a sonogram photo with a broken heart emoji on her Instagram account and wrote, "We all have to deal with various struggles and challenges in life. And sometimes it's easier to only showcase the good times on social media, which is what leads many people to criticize it for its lack of authenticity. Having so many people follow me on Instagram and read my posts is both incredibly humbling and hugely uplifting. The support and affection that so many of you show me lifts me up during even my darkest days, one of which happened last year after I miscarried and lost the child of my hopes and dreams," she added. She hoped that as part of their resolutions, people would be more "compassionate, empathetic, patient, and thoughtful with each other."
Mitchell has since welcomed her first baby girl into the world.
Michelle Obama
While promoting her memoir Becoming in an interview with ABC News, former First Lady Michelle Obama revealed that she had suffered a miscarriage and that her two daughters Sasha and Malia were subsequently conceived through IVF.
"I felt lost and alone, and I felt like I failed," Obama said. "I didn't know how common miscarriages were, because we don't talk about them. We sit in our own pain, thinking that somehow we're broken."
Carrie Underwood
In September 2018, the country music star told CBS Sunday Morning that she’d gone through three miscarriages in the last two years. “I’d kind of planned that 2017 was, you know, going to be the year that I work on new music, and I have a baby. We got pregnant in early 2017, and it didn’t work out,” Underwood said. She contended with anger and frustration, sharing that she thought to herself, “Why on Earth do I keep getting pregnant if I can’t have a kid? Like what is this? Either shut the door or let me have a kid.”
Jana Kramer
Before welcoming her second child last fall, the country singer shared on Instagram that she had suffered a miscarriage in 2017. She wrote, “I debated posting this for the exact reason why it’s a silent struggle. I don’t want 'I’m sorry' or sympathy. I just don’t want to feel alone. And I know I’m not. This unfortunately isn’t my first loss. When I first found out I was pregnant I wanted to shout it from the rooftop but I know for reasons like this we have to wait.”
For the women who have miscarried in the past and need support and a place to grieve their little one lost… let us all be there for each other.
—Jana Kramer
A post shared by Jana Kramer (@kramergirl) on Dec 9, 2017 at 10:35am PST
Halsey
In a 2016 interview in Rolling Stone, the singer spoke about her miscarriage "I beat myself up for it because I think that the reason it happened is just the lifestyle I was living. I wasn't drinking. I wasn't doing drugs. I was f***-ing overworked—in the hospital every couple of weeks because I was dehydrated, needing bags of IVs brought to my green room. I was anemic, I was fainting. My body just broke the f*** down," she added.
Ashley Williams
Actress Ashley Williams wrote a stirringly honest blog a few months after her painful miscarriage. “The Jim Gaffigan Show” star shares that following her heartbreak, she was shocked to learn how common pregnancy loss actually is. “If 25 percent of my peers are currently experiencing miscarriages right alongside me, why wasn’t I prepared? Why don’t we talk about it? Why was I feeling embarrassed, broken, like a walking wound?” Williams wonders in her blog, adding, “Not many people talk about a pregnancy until 12 weeks gestation for fear they will lose the baby or choose to terminate for any number of complex reasons. What’s the point in telling people who never knew you were pregnant the depressing news that you’re not anymore?” She writes, “My (still bloated) gut feeling is that something even more painful silences us — the fear that we, as women, are failures.”
The mom to a toddler son, Gus, urges women to speak out about miscarriages, writing, “I invite you to start, with me, a vocal army of the 25 percenters who can normalize miscarriage in the social sphere. You are not broken. You did nothing wrong. You are strong, you are brave, and there is hope.”
Hillary Scott
It took Lady Antebellum singer Hillary Scott nearly a year to speak publicly about her miscarriage, and she still wasn’t able to talk about her loss without getting very emotional. “This is something that is still not talked about very often. I also feel like there’s this pressure that you’re just supposed to be able to snap your fingers, and continue to walk through life like it never happened,” the country star told “Good Morning America.”
Elisabetta Canalis
"We can only accept it," the Italian model and TV presenter wrote on her WhoSay page. Canalis, who dated George Clooney from 2009 to 2011, was expecting her first child with boyfriend and orthopedic surgeon Brian Perri when she suffered the loss. She offered words of support to other women who have gone through miscarriage.
I just want to say that I feel you close, if you are suffering as I am doing. We can't deny it, it's like an incessant sorrow you can't get rid of. I just want to say to all those women who are going through it to stay strong because life goes on and it is nobody's fault and nature acts in incomprehensible ways.
—Elisabetta Canalis
Missy Robertson
The "Duck Dynasty" star revealed she had a miscarriage in 2002, after giving birth to sons Reed and Cole. "I was about eight to 10 weeks along when I miscarried, just enough time to be excited about it and start telling everyone," Robertson told Closer Weekly. "I'd heard of tubal pregnancies for years, but didn't really understand the mental anguish of actually having to go in and have someone remove what could've been your child." The reality star was concerned that she might not be able to have any more children, but she and husband Jase conceived their daughter Mia just three months later.
RELATED: How to Conceive After Miscarriage
Celine Dion
After the birth of twin boys Eddy and Nelson in 2010, the singer revealed she was originally expecting triplets, but lost one baby early on in the pregnancy. "He chose to let go to give space to his brothers to grow," she said during an in-depth interview with a French news station.
Lisa Ling
The journalist and TV host has a miscarriage in 2010 at age 37, when she was just about two months along. "We actually [hadn't] been trying that long. I don't know that I took it as seriously as I should have because it happened so fast," she said during an appearance on "The View." "But then when I heard the doctor say there was no heartbeat, it was like bam, like a knife through the heart." The experience left her feeling like "a complete failure," she said, and devastated that it might happen again. Three years later, though, Ling gave birth to daughter Jett Ling Song, and then a second daughter, Ray Ling Song, arrived in 2016.
Tori Amos
The singer opened up to Now Magazine about the heartache of experiencing three miscarriages before giving birth to daughter Natashya. "Going through this horror, I was humbled by what it was to be a woman," she said. "I could be a female icon and successful breadwinner, but my body couldn't carry a child." Amos said those miscarriages led her to decide against having more children after Natashya arrived.
Kirstie Alley
The actress revealed to People that she miscarried just one month into her first pregnancy. "The fetus just died. It was called a spontaneous abortion," Alley said. "I wasn't far enough along to feel the baby kick, so the loss I felt was more mental than physical. In those few weeks you mock up an entire life—who the baby is going to look like, where it's going to go to college. That's the loss we suffered." She and her husband, Parker Stevenson, went on to adopt son William True Stevenson and daughter Lillie Price Stevenson before the couple's divorce in 1997.
Lily Allen
"It was horrendous and something I would not wish on my worst enemy," the singer said about losing her unborn son during the sixth month of pregnancy. "It's something that I still haven't dealt with.... But it's not something that you get over." That was Allen's second pregnancy loss. Afterward, she went on to give birth to two healthy daughters.
Hugh Jackman
"It is a difficult time," the actor said about he and wife Deborra-Lee Furness' infertility struggles. "The miscarriage thing -- apparently it happens to one in three pregnancies -- but it's very, very rarely talked about.... It's almost secretive. But it's a good thing to talk about. It's more common and it's tough, there's a grieving process you have to go through." The couple went on to adopt son Oscar Maximillian and daughter Ava Eliot.
Nick Cannon
"She was so festive and smiling, obviously for the cameras, and spending time with everyone. And then, literally, at night, [she was] crying herself to sleep," the star said about wife Mariah Carey, after she suffered a miscarriage in 2008.
Beyonce
The singer, who suffered a miscarriage several years before welcoming daughter Blue Ivy in 2012, said she coped by writing music.
I went into the studio and wrote the saddest song I've ever written in my life. And it was actually the first song I wrote for my album. And it was the best form of therapy for me, because it was the saddest thing I've ever been through.
—Beyonce
Bethenny Frankel
"Not until you really go through it do you understand what it means [to have a miscarriage]," the star revealed on her talk show, "Bethenny." "It's not really about me and my experience, it's just kind of about being able to talk about it and women knowing that it's so common -- and it's not their fault."
Brooke Shields
"We were crushed," the actress told People about miscarrying after conceiving via IVF. "Up till then, I thought simply because it was time and I wanted to have a baby, it would work out."
What to Expect After Miscarriage
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