Chrissy Teigen’s latest post on pregnancy loss offers important message about grief
Chrissy Teigen’s latest Instagram post about her pregnancy loss last year has an important message: Grief doesn’t have an exact timeline.
Teigen shared photos from husband John Legend’s “Wild” music video shoot, in which she first hinted at her pregnancy when she was 10 weeks along. In October, she lost the baby, whom she named Jack.
“To be honest, I thought the worst was over but I guess life and emotions aren’t on any sort of schedule,” she wrote. “Not sure I’ll ever be able to watch that video again without sobbing, but I hope he feels my tears and knows we miss him so. He would have been here any day now — if he were like Luna and Miles, I’d probably be holding him as we speak.”
Amy Beckley, a scientist and founder of the at-home progesterone test kit Proov, says prolonged feelings of grief are “absolutely normal.”
“If you could just turn it off like a light switch, I think that might not be normal,” Beckley says. Sometimes, she says, people think that, “if a miscarriage happens back in September, they should be fine now. No, it’s an ongoing thing that people think about.”
Beckley, who had seven miscarriages, says you can go through a range of emotions, from “feeling like a failure” to jealousy.
“They never get any easier,” she says. “You always blame yourself, you have thoughts of jealousy… You think, ‘It’s just not fair.’”
Dr. Janelle Luk, medical director of Generation Next Fertility in New York City and a former OB-GYN, says the sadness of losing a baby ”is always there even if it was a year ago or two years ago.”
Kim Ruocco, whose husband, Marine Corps Major John Ruocco, died by suicide in 2005, has said of grieving: “It’s not one feeling. It’s a whole bunch of feelings, and I think the advice for anybody who’s experiencing grief is that, whatever you are feeling, it’s OK, it’s normal, and it’s going to come. … I let it come, I look at it, I feel it, I express it, and then I try to let it go.”
In a 2017 interview, Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer, described her feelings after her husband Dave Goldberg’s death as “overwhelming grief ” and a “real feeling of isolation.”
Beckley says Teigen’s openness about her loss and grief “definitely normalizes it” for others, including her 33.9 million Instagram followers.
“It’s unfortunately such a common thing,” she says of miscarriage. “Coming out and really just talking about it — how raw it is, just how devastating it is — I think it’s really amazing.”
Luk says it’s important, even as you grieve, to make sure you’re staying healthy.
“It is very understandable for someone to be very sad for a long period of time,” she says. “But it should not be so sad that it would disrupt your daily activity and your normal functioning. If you cannot sleep, you cannot eat or you cannot function as a person, then I think it’s important to seek counseling and help.”
Ways to help cope with grief
Don’t rush it: The nonprofit Mental
Health America advises those living with grief to “be patient,” that “it can take months or even years to absorb a major loss.” Says Luk: “Sometimes, time heals. I know it’s kind of a cliché, but it does.”
Express yourself: On the American Psychological Association’s website, Katherine C. Nordal writes that talking things out with friends and family can help you “understand what happened and remember” your loved one.
Take care of yourself: ”Eating healthy foods, exercising and getting plenty of sleep can help your physical and emotional health,” Nordal writes.
Connect online: “With social media now … Facebook groups, Instagram group, so many people there have shared the same feelings, and I think it’s very important,” Luk says. Beckley suggests “finding a community,” even if means creating an “anonymous account on Instagram” if you want to keep it private.
Celebrate life: “No matter how brief ” someone was in your life, Beckley says, some might find it helpful to celebrate them, from sharing photos on social media, as Teigen did, to creating memory boxes with photos and other items.
Seek help: “If your grief seems like it is too much to bear, seek professional assistance to help work through your grief. It’s a sign of strength, not weakness, to seek help,” Mental Health America advises.
How to help others: To support someone who is going through a loss like miscarriage, Beckley says, “The most important thing … is to be there and to listen. If that person wants advice, they’ll ask for it.” She suggests showing support by saying things like, “I’m sorry for your loss. If there’s anything I can do, please let me know.”