Kate Beckinsale Opened Up About Her Pregnancy Loss, Sends Love to Chrissy Teigen
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Actress Kate Beckinsale is opening up about her own experience with pregnancy loss. In an emotional Instagram, she described how heart-wrenching it was to lose a baby at 20 weeks, and commended Chrissy Teigen for openly speaking about losing her son, Jack, midway through her pregnancy.
"I've noticed people criticizing @chrissyteigen for sharing deeply intimate photos of the loss of her baby," Kate wrote in a moving Instagram caption. "As if there's some protocol during soul-scouring calamity that, if not observed, emboldens people who do not know her or her family to say how she should be handling the unimaginable."
From there, Kate described how hard it was for her to mourn the loss of her own child, explaining how incredibly lonely she felt after the experience.
"Years ago, I lost a baby at 20 weeks," she shared. "I had managed to keep my pregnancy quiet and I absolutely collapsed inside and no one would have known. There is grief, shame and shock so often that come with an experience like this, plus the heartbreak of your body continuing, after the loss, to act as if it had a child to nurture. Your milk comes in, with no one to feed. It can be the loneliest, most soul destroying period of time, particularly if you are not in the position of having an emotionally connected, supportive partner like Chrissy has."
"There is grief, shame and shock so often that come with an experience like this."
Kate continued, noting that families need to grieve in their own way and that Chrissy's vulnerability took incredible bravery. "I think it's an honour to be allowed into another person's grief, especially with a subject like this which so often puts a woman into that hall of mirrors state of life continuing as if the world hasn't, for you, come to a bloody and terrible halt," she explained.
"Sending so much love to the Legend family, but also so much to the women and couples who have kept it quiet and suffered. I know there are so many," Kate wrote. "Thank you @chrissyteigen for making sure it is abundantly clear how devastating this is, and how life changing it can be without support. Let's let the grieving decide what's right for them. Send support or keep quiet. This is a really hard time to bear. Blessings and hugs to all x"