Last week Hilaria Baldwin, author, yoga instructor, and wife to Alec Baldwin, revealed on Instagram that she was likely having a miscarriage of her fifth pregnancy. Her post went viral, racking up more than 100,000 likes as she invited thousands of comments from people inspired to share their own stories of pregnancy loss. Here Baldwin opens up to Glamour exclusively about why she hopes sharing such a private moment—as it happens—will help drown out the stigma surrounding miscarriage.
EDITOR'S NOTE: On Tuesday evening, Baldwin confirmed the miscarriage of the pregnancy. "Thank you all for listening, for your support, and for sharing your own personal stories," she wrote on Instagram. "We are stronger together...I hope this conversation continues to grow and that we stick together through both the beautiful and challenging moments in life." Read her full post here.
When my husband and I found out I was pregnant for the fifth time, we hadn’t been actively trying, but we knew we wanted one more baby. Our youngest is only 10 months old, so at first there was a moment of Oh my God, we’re doing this again?! But then came the excitement. I found out my due date; my body began changing and I started dreaming: Will it be a boy or a girl? What will we name him or her?
Then, sometime before 10 weeks, I went in for an ultrasound. I know my technician so well—I’ve had four children under her care—but at this appointment she was silent. Every hopeful pregnant woman dreads this silence. She listened to the heartbeat again and again, taking new measurements, not really saying anything. I’m sure it was simply minutes, but it felt like an eternity.
And I just knew: Oh no, something is wrong.
The heartbeat was too slow for a healthy pregnancy, so she told me to come back in a week for another scan to see whether things improved. I heard the che-goom, che-goom, che-goom of the heartbeat, hopeful that it sounded faster than last time. “I can’t lie to you,” she said. “It’s not.” The embryo does not seem to be growing.
With pregnancy, you’re trained not to say anything about it for 12 weeks—the first trimester—when the risk of miscarriage is the highest. There’s superstition, but there’s also the fear that you might do something wrong and lose the baby. And that if you lose the baby, people are going to blame you, for eating the wrong way, for sleeping on the wrong side, for exercising too much or too little…the list goes on.
But this is exhausting, especially if you’re dealing with terrible morning sickness and presumptuous questions about why you aren’t drinking. I had already decided that if I got pregnant again, I would share the news right away. I’ve had so many talks with my girlfriends who either have had children or tried to have children, and just realized these first three months are really difficult and scary for a lot of women. It felt silly not to share—even if that meant sharing a loss.
Even before I got pregnant, I thought about what it would be like to have to share news like this. Having a miscarriage would hurt if I went through it in silence and it would hurt if I lost the pregnancy in front of everybody, I realized. At least sharing my story might help me and other women dealing with a miscarriage to find support.
Pregnancy loss is a topic that touches almost everyone—10 to 25 percent of all known pregnancies end in miscarriage. I’m not surprised at how common they are. Almost every single one of my friends has experienced some kind of struggle with infertility or miscarriage. I had such a fear of miscarriage with each of my pregnancies that I’d google the probability of miscarriage each day. And yet we’re still so quiet about it. For me, this doesn’t make sense. I understand why some women choose to keep this pain private, but it’s such a personal thing—some people need to process the loss on their own, and others need to process it more publicly. Women deserve to have the option to do whatever they need to heal.
That day after the ultrasound, I came home and felt so, so, so sad. For me, community is healing, so I started to write an Instagram post. I want to share with you that I am most likely experiencing a miscarriage… I read it to Alec and showed him the photo, and then as we sat together, I hit “share.”
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Within moments, people started sharing their own stories. I wasn’t surprised that so many other women had similar experiences, but I was surprised at how many of them wanted to be so public about them. Thousands of women—and men—told me in the comments it was the first time they’d ever opened up about their miscarriages. People told stories about carrying a pregnancy to term only to have a stillbirth; they shared their stories of multiple miscarriages and still holding out hope for a baby.
Critics say something so personal should stay quiet. But I want women to know if that’s not serving you, if that’s not the way that you’ll feel better, you don’t have to do that. I wanted to lead by example in saying that there’s another option out there.
I want women who have gone through this to know: There is nothing wrong with you. You are not alone. I know this didn’t happen because I did something wrong. This is just nature. Sharing allowed me to feel heard and helped me receive support and wisdom from other women who have experienced the same thing. Emotionally I’m still healing; physically the process is not over. Miscarriages can take days or even weeks, and I’ll have more checkups ahead. But my hope is that, whether it’s a miscarriage or some other trial in life, women realize that they don’t have to behave a certain way, or share a certain way, or hide a certain way.
In the midst of my miscarriage, I am reminded how lucky I am, not just because I have four healthy babies, but because so many women reached out with overwhelming positivity. This week, my five-year-old daughter Carmen said to me out of the blue, “Mommy, do you know there are more good people in the world than bad people?” She’s right. Whenever you can see people with all different experiences and walks of life coming together about an issue, supporting and sharing, that is beautiful.
Hilaria Baldwin is an author, yoga instructor, and cohost of the podcast Mom Brain.