Chrissy Teigen Opens up About Her Miscarriage
Chrissy Teigen shared the news of her miscarriage in a Sept. 30 Instagram post. She also revealed that she and her husband John Legend had named the baby Jack. On Oct. 27, Teigen wrote a more detailed account of her experience in a Medium post.
Chrissy Teigen and the doctors tried everything
Teigen described a month of bedrest, as well as the partial placenta abruption that was complicating the pregnancy. Doctors visited her at home, but she says a hospital stay would not have changed anything. Jack was still losing fluid and Teigen kept bleeding.
“After a couple nights at the hospital, my doctor told me exactly what I knew was coming — it was time to say goodbye,” Teigen wrote. “He just wouldn’t survive this, and if it went on any longer, I might not either. We had tried bags and bags of blood transfusions, every single one going right through me like we hadn’t done anything at all.”
Finally, the emotional moment Teigen and her medical caretakers decided it was over arrived.
“Late one night, I was told it would be time to let go in the morning,” Teigen wrote. “I cried a little at first, then went into full blown convulsions of snot and tears, my breath not able to catch up with my own incredibly deep sadness. Even as I write this now, I can feel the pain all over again. Oxygen was placed over my nose and mouth, and that was the first picture you saw. Utter and complete sadness.”
Chrissy Teigen knew how her trip to the hospital would end
The procedure still required Teigen to deliver Jack.
“Here we were, just wheeled down to a new floor, me covered in a thin blanket to hide, knowing I was about to fully deliver what was supposed to be the 5th member of our beautiful family, a son, only to say goodbye moments later,” Teigen wrote. “At this point I had already come to terms with what would happen: I would have an epidural and be induced to deliver our 20 week old, a boy that would have never survived in my belly (please excuse these simple terms).”
Processing the miscarriage
Teigen went into further detail about her thoughts during and following the miscarriage.
“I’m not sure I’ll ever forget the experience. I had always laughed about how much I loved epidurals…not so much this one. I laid there for hours, waiting to be told it was time to push. I obviously never had to dilate much, he was still a tiny little guy. I had been laying on my side, switching sides every hour or so, whenever the nurse told me to. I remember laying on my right side, looking opposite of John, when I was told to make my switch. I opened my legs and started to turn to face John and just like that, he was on his way out.”
John and Teigen’s mother said their goodbyes to Jack, also.
“He was out. My mom, John and I each held him and said our own private goodbyes, mom sobbing through Thai prayer,” Teigen wrote. “I asked the nurses to show me his hands and feet and I kissed them over and over and over again. I have no idea when I stopped. It could have been 10 minutes or an hour.”
Even now, Teigen questions whether she held on longer than Jack wanted to.
“I dunno how long he had been waiting to be delivered for,” Teigen wrote. “That will probably always haunt me. Just writing it makes my nose and eyes tingle with tears. All I know now is his ashes are in a small box, waiting to be put into the soil of a tree in our new home, the one we got with his room in mind.”
