At the beginning of October 2020, Chrissy Teigen announced she lost her baby boy at 20 weeks. She and her husband, John Legend, are navigating an immense amount of pain.
Many people, though, do not openly speak about miscarriage and infant loss.
Personally, I have had a few miscarriages, all before 15 weeks. No matter the time of the loss, it is very difficult. Speaking from experience, the moment you get a positive test, you start imagining your life with that newborn baby and how much everything is going to change but in the best way possible.
I have four beautiful children, so I am incredibly thankful, but when those losses happened, the topic was so taboo. It seems to still be. I think no one really speaks about miscarriages because it can make women, who can’t have a successful pregnancy, feel inferior.
However, pregnancy loss is more common thank you think. One in four pregnancies end in miscarriage. I’ve known women to have two or three miscarriages and still have children, but no one knew about the losses until after the successes.
My hope is that with more people telling their stories, it becomes more openly talked about. The a woman experiences a loss, the last thing she wants to do is hold it inside. With talking about it, I feel like it might be a little bit easier to cope. We never know what someone else has been through until you start talking about your personal experiences without fear.
I often wonder why or how miscarriage and infant loss became such a taboo topic. I know women do not want to be seen as weak. Or I feel that women can feel ashamed that the pregnancy did not work out. But I think everyone knows it is part of life. Life is not always perfect, and everyone will experience loss or difficult times at one point or another — and they will be stronger for it. When Chrissy Teigen posted those pictures of her and her son, she got a lot of backlash for taking pictures. But this was not glamorizing; it shows pain and suffering, and to show it’s okay to struggle at times.
I know personally, it is helpful for me to talk about what I am going through with someone. It does not have to be a family member but can be someone you trust or even reaching out to someone going through something similar. In the past, I went out of my comfort zone to reach out to someone that I knew had experienced something like me just to have some sort of understanding of what they are going through. Women who have experienced loss have multiple outlets to speak to someone else going through the same thing.
I hope one day that people feel more able to talk about their experiences. I think it is so helpful for others to not feel so alone. In a time when you are hurting so bad, the last thing you want is to feel so alone. Find someone to share your pain with. Be the listening ear another mother needs.
We at Fort Worth Moms champion motherhood in all its stages — including loss. That’s why we dedicated the Forever Loved, Never Forgotten wall as a place to remember pregnancy and infant loss. Let us help you visually mark the precious lives, however brief, that brought so much joy — and the loss of which bring so much sadness.
