Leroux shares loss

After miscarriage, star hopes to raise awareness for grieving women

Orlando Pride star Sydney Leroux shared news she lost a baby a few months ago, adding her voice to Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month.

Leroux, the wife of Orlando City striker Dom Dwyer, posted on her Twitter account Monday that she is joining the “I am the face, I am one in four” campaign that brings awareness to the many women who have a suffered miscarriage, infant loss or stillbirth.

The couple has a son, Cassius, and discussed possibly expanding their family during an emotional May interview with Lifetime. At the time, Leroux was unsure how to balance growing their family with trying to continue her professional soccer career.

Leroux posted a lengthy message Monday sharing their decision to grow their family and the subsequent loss of her baby.

She wrote, “A couple of months ago I lost a baby. I was naive to the pain of what this felt like. There was a moment when I was on bed rest where I wondered if the emotional pain could kill me. It doesn’t. I’m still here. Stronger than ever because I had an unbelievable amount of support from people in my life — the people who were there to pick me up off the ground ... to sit there and cry with me ... to feed when I couldn’t eat.

“I’m so thankful that I didn’t have to go through it alone and that Dom and I had our family, friends and team rally around us during our hardest times.”

Leroux confirmed that the time she missed during the Pride season due to illness was the stretch during which she was recovering from a miscarriage.

She wrote she was sharing the painful message with the hope others coping with the same grief would not feel alone.

“So in the later half of the season when I was out ‘sick,’ I was losing our baby. I hate that I couldn’t talk about it. I hate that it felt like I couldn’t because there was a sense of shame and embarrassment that came with losing a baby.