Chrissy Teigen and John Legend just announced the devastating loss of their third baby, months into her pregnancy, and our hearts are breaking for them.
Teigen shared the news on Instagram late last night.
“We are shocked and in the kind of deep pain you only hear about, the kind of pain we’ve never felt before.”
After spending weeks on bedrest for severe bleeding which eventually led to being hospitalized and undergoing multiple blood transfusions, the parents said their final goodbye.
We were never able to stop the bleeding and give our baby the fluids he needed, despite bags and bags of blood transfusions. It just wasn’t enough.
Her post was accompanied by a series of black and white stills poignantly capturing the gut-wrenching loss, including one of Teigen and Legend cradling their swaddled son.
Teigen has been updating fans throughout her pregnancy since it was first teased in the music video for Legend’s song, ‘Wild”, back in mid-August.
She discovered she was pregnant after having breast reduction surgery in June.
I did the routine pregnancy test you do before surgery. It said negative. It was not negative.
— chrissy teigen (@chrissyteigen) August 15, 2020
After having conceived via IVF with her first two children, daughter Luna Simone, 4, and son Miles Theodore, 2, this pregnancy came as a complete, albeit very welcome, surprise.
It also came with a series of complications that Teigen shared with her fans.
In a recent Instagram story posted two weeks ago, she said:
“In the simplest of terms, we can say my placenta is really, really weak. I feel really good, the baby is so healthy, growing stronger than Luna or Miles. He moves a lot, he moves so much earlier than they ever did. He is the strongest, coolest dude in the shittiest house. His house is just falling apart, it didn’t have a good foundation to begin with.”
Teigen was halfway through her pregnancy when she lost her son, who she revealed they had named Jack.
And it is to Jack that she penned a heart-breaking apology in her pregnancy loss post last night as she continued with the words:
“To our Jack—I’m so sorry that the first few moments of your life were met with so many complications, that we couldn’t give you the home you needed to survive. We will always love you.”
And my heart is shattered into a million pieces for her. I know the guilt that comes with a miscarriage. The feeling that you fumbled and dropped something that you should have held on to. That somehow, you had failed.
Miscarriage is a liar.
I know the anger, the guilt, the tears, the physical pain, the loneliness, the fear, the unfairness of it all, the isolation, the feeling of being less than a woman, the emptiness. The overwhelming grief. For what was, and what you dreamed would be.
Loss isn’t measured in time. It isn’t bound by the seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, or even years that someone spends on this earth. It isn’t counted in the number of heartbeats.
It is measured in love. The immense power of love a mother has for her unborn child. Loss is measured in the missing. The time that has been stolen away. A lifetime robbed of watching your child grow up.
The loss that Teigen and Legend is experiencing is real and raw and overwhelmingly painful. It is not made any less significant because of the short duration of time they were able to spend with Jack.
It is one that they will carry with them for a lifetime. And it is one that they have bravely shared with the world, showing others who have experienced the same devastation that they are not alone.
As Teigen left the hospital, she tweeted “Driving home from the hospital with no baby. How can this be real.”
Driving home from the hospital with no baby. How can this be real.
— chrissy teigen (@chrissyteigen) October 1, 2020
And her pain? Is agonizingly palpable.
However, even in the darkest of dark, there can be found slivers of light.
And it is these slivers that Teigen and Legend are clinging onto in the midst of their grief.
“We are so grateful for the life we have, for our wonderful babies Luna and Miles, for all the amazing things we’ve been able to experience. But everyday can’t be full of sunshine. On this darkest of days, we will grieve, we will cry our eyes out. But we will hug and love each other harder and get through it.”
In addition to sharing their grief, Teigen also thanked everyone for sending their thoughts, prayers, and positive energy. All of which they will need as they navigate the difficult days ahead.
To Chrissy, John, and all of the parents out there who experience the 1 in 4 pregnancies that result in miscarriage, our hearts are with you.