During a speech given at Propper Daley’s “A Day of Unreasonable Conversation” summit, Chrissy Teigen revealed she just recently came to the realization what she previously thought of as a miscarriage was actually a life-saving abortion.
In September 2020, Teigen shared on Instagram she and husband John Legend lost their third child, Jack, at 20 weeks following complications.
She captioned the post:
"We are shocked and in the kind of deep pain you only hear about, the kind of pain we’ve never felt before."
"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."
"We never decide on our babies’ names until the last possible moment after they’re born, just before we leave the hospital. But we, for some reason, had started to call this little guy in my belly Jack."
"So he will always be Jack to us. Jack worked so hard to be a part of our little family, and he will be, forever."
"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."
Teigen concluded with:
"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."
On October 27, 2020, Teigen shared more details in a blog post.
"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."
"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)."
"I was previously on bedrest for over a month, just trying to get the little dude to 28 weeks, a 'safer' zone for the fetus. My doctors diagnosed me with partial placenta abruption."
Teigen went on to explained she had similar problems during her previous pregnancy.
"I had always had placenta problems. I had to deliver Miles a month early because his stomach wasn’t getting enough food from my placenta."
As the situation became worse, Teigen had to face a very difficult reality.
"My bleeding was getting heavier and heavier. The fluid around Jack had become very low—he was barely able to float around."
"After a couple nights at the hospital, my doctor told me exactly what I knew was coming—it was time to say goodbye."
"He just wouldn’t survive this, and if it went on any longer, I might not either."
Nearly a year later, Teigen shared another post to "the son we almost had."
"A year ago you gave me the greatest pain I could ever imagine to show me I could survive anything, even if I didn’t want to."
"I didn’t get to take care of you but you came and went to get me to love myself and take care of myself because our bodies are precious and life is a miracle."
They told me it would get easier but yeah, that hasn’t started yet. mom and dad love you forever."
According to the Hollywood Reporter—a media partner at the event, Teigen shared about the loss during her speech:
“Two years ago, when I was pregnant with Jack, John and my third child, I had to make a lot of difficult and heartbreaking decisions. It became very clear around halfway through that he would not survive, and that I wouldn’t either without any medical intervention."
“Let’s just call it what it was: It was an abortion."
“An abortion to save my life for a baby that had absolutely no chance. And to be honest, I never, ever put that together until, actually, a few months ago.”
Teigen recounted it wasn't until the overturn of Roe v. Wade she came to discover she had a medically induced abortion, not a miscarriage.
She recalled sharing with Legend how she felt sympathy towards those who have had an abortion, speaking of the emotional decisions they had to make along with everything else they had to endure.
Then Legend led her to realize she, too, was one of them.
“I fell silent, feeling weird that I hadn’t made sense of it that way.”
“I told the world we had a miscarriage, the world agreed we had a miscarriage, all the headlines said it was a miscarriage."
"And I became really frustrated that I didn’t, in the first place, say what it was, and I felt silly that it had taken me over a year to actually understand that we had had an abortion.”
Others have also come forward with their own stories since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
Actor Laura Prepon previously shared her experience.
"One of the worst days of my life was when I made the choice to terminate a pregnancy in the second trimester."
"The devastating truth is that we found out the fetus would not survive to full term, and that my life was at risk as well."
"At the time—I had the choice."
In a resurfaced 1989 interview, Debbie Reynolds revealed doctors told her, before Roe v. Wade, she had to carry a deceased fetus to full-term because "it was the law."
"In those days, there were no abortions allowed, whether you were ill, whether you were raped, whether the child died, which is disgusting to think there were those laws. It’s ridiculous."
“It had to abort itself—it could not be taken from me. It’s insane to think that could be.”
Doctors did eventually remove the fetus once they determined Reynolds' life was at risk, but they only did so once "a board" had taken a vote.
As for Teigen and Legend, they have no doubt endured pain and grief over the last two years, but things are looking up.
The couple celebrated nine years of marriage on September 14, and the parents of Luna, 6, and Miles, 4, have yet another reason to celebrate.
On August 3, Teigen posted to Instagram with the caption:
"The last few years have been a blur of emotions to say the least, but joy has filled our home and hearts again."
"1 billion shots later (in the leg lately, as u can see!) we have another on the way."
"Every appointment I’ve said to myself, 'ok if it’s healthy today I’ll announce' but then I breathe a sigh of relief to hear a heartbeat and decide I’m just too nervous still."
"I don’t think I’ll ever walk out of an appointment with more excitement than nerves but so far, everything is perfect and beautiful and I’m feeling hopeful and amazing."
"Ok phew it’s been very hard keeping this in for so long!"
Congratulations to the happy, growing family!
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