Dear Chrissy Teigen: Thank you for sharing your loss, for all of us who have been there
Image by Chrissy Teigen’s Instagram
Dear Chrissy,
As a mom who has experienced pregnancy loss, thank you. Thank you for publicly sharing the heartbreak that so many of us have experienced in one form or another. I hope that in the past few days, as you grieved, you also felt the warm embrace of your community, which I’m sure includes support from a lot of women who have been in the same position as you.
Isolation makes pregnancy loss so much harder than it needs to be. Writing about my miscarriage helped me in ways I can never accurately quantify. But I’ll always remember the day I published my story. I kept telling my husband that I wanted to bottle up the support and love I felt that day. It gave meaning to our loss to share my story. More than a year after sharing the story of my miscarriage, I still hear from other women who found comfort in what I wrote.
Know that by sharing your story, Chrissy, you are helping the millions of women who have experienced this and will experience it in the future. Hopefully, they’ll let you know that your decision to share your loss gave them the confidence to do the same, and it made them feel less alone. Your post might be the reason that women feel comfortable talking about one of the most crushing parts of their journey to grow their family. They’ll know that they aren’t alone.
Of course, all people grieve in their own way. Many will want to share their story; others won’t. Your decision to speak out is yours alone, and nobody’s to criticize. It is gut-wrenching to know that people have treated you otherwise. The world would be so much better if people could grieve in the way they wanted to grieve, love in the way they want to love, and be authentic to themselves. That’s what was so powerful about your post, Chrissy. It felt real, raw, and authentic. And know that it will give women the power to grieve in a way that’s authentic to them, and if that means sharing their story, more power to them, and you for helping to open that door just a bit wider.
The photos you took and shared let you honor Jack in a way that’s special for you. In cases of loss, these photos are all we have. We don’t have other “first” photos to share. They are part of your family’s story, just like the ultrasound photos I have from my first pregnancy.
By sharing, you are raising awareness of an all too familiar story. Though the responsibility of educating the public about pregnancy loss doesn’t rest exclusively on those of us who have experienced it, your story helps others learn about it, and we all learn to approach others with more awareness and sensitivity. The more people who use their voices and platforms to share their pregnancy loss stories, the more we see these experiences as common and can better support each other.
I grieve with you, Chrissy, as a mom with a rainbow baby. I know the dark parts of motherhood and the twisty road that the path can take. I know what it means to love a life that you carried but never got to bring home. And I know many other women who have felt that pain in their own ways. We are your community of moms, and we grieve with you.
In solidarity and strength,
Sandy Myers Grawert
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