Chrissy Teigen Pens an Emotional Essay on Heartbreaking Pregnancy Loss

Last month, Chrissy Teigen and her husband John Legend suffered a devastating pregnancy loss. While Teigen has been quiet on social media, on October 26 she published an emotional essay on Medium revealing intimate and painful details from her experience.

Teigen, 34, starts the essay by thanking her followers for their kind works and support. “For weeks, our floors have been covered in flowers of kindness. Notes have flooded in and have each been read with our own teary eyes. Social media messages from strangers have consumed my days, most starting with, ‘you probably won’t read this, but…’ I can assure you, I did,” she wrote.

She continued to explain that some of the best notes were the ones that started with, “You don’t have to respond to this,” simply because it helped take the pressure off to immediately respond to the kindness. “I wanted to thank everyone, share our story with each individual person. But I knew I was in no state to. For me, the ‘no need to respond’ note was such a true relief. I thank you for each and every one of those,” she continued.

Teigen then goes on to share vivid memories from the delivery room, including the people celebrating life outside her room. “One of the standout moments from that morning (or evening? I have no idea) was me going through the halls of labor and delivery, and John saying ‘What, is there a f——— party going on here??’ 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,” she explained.

Teigen’s complications were due to a partial placenta abruption. This meant, she explained, that she had to deliver at 20 weeks and recalled how, after bleeding for weeks, she had even begun to appreciate the various different prints on the diapers she was forced to wear.

“Finally, I had a pretty bad night in bed, after a not-so-great ultrasound, where I was bleeding a bit more than even my abnormal amount,” Teigen wrote. “The fluid around Jack had become very low—he was barely able to float around. At some points, I swore it was so low I could lay on my back and feel his arms and legs from outside my belly…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.”

She continued, “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." The image mentioned is the one she shared to her Instagram on September 30 to announce the loss.

Teigen then explained why she made Legend photograph the moment, even though he visibly didn’t want to. “He hated it. I could tell. It didn’t make sense to him at the time. But I knew I needed to know of this moment forever, the same way I needed to remember us kissing at the end of the aisle, the same way I needed to remember our tears of joy after Luna and Miles. And I absolutely knew I needed to share this story," she wrote.

She ended her essay by saying that her endless love for Jack is helping her heal. “I dunno how long he had been waiting to be delivered for. 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,” Teigen wrote. "People say an experience like this creates a hole in your heart. A hole was certainly made, but it was filled with the love of something I loved so much. It doesn’t feel empty, this space. It feels full.”

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