Like many people living alone during Covid-times, I have been watching celebrity Instagram videos for company late at night, and have thus been following the saga of Chrissy Teigen’s surprise pregnancy and struggles with placental abruption, and now, her miscarriage of the baby she and her husband John named Jack.

She announced this loss late last Thursday on Instagram with a long post and a series of beautifully framed black and white photos from the hospital. The first photo is a sort of empty-armed pieta: Chrissy is bent over, seated on a hospital bed with her hair in a surgical cap. Medical staff move in the background. Her hands are clasped under her chin and tears are catching the light as they roll down her cheeks. 

The choice to document her loss and her and John’s grief publicly is, of course, catching heat from those who seek to fault-find with women who live in the public eye: the photos are too glossy, too posed. She’s just seeking attention, how gauche. 

Historically, miscarriage has been either private or political, with little neutral ground. Those with uteruses have quietly lost infants for centuries with little to no fanfare, unless they are suspected of ending the pregnancy deliberately, in which case they have been villianized as witches and criminals. Chrissy is already among those focused on by QAnon conspiracy theorists who believe that there is a celebrity cabal trading and selling in children for sex and for harvesting blood, so I’m sure the dark spiral of public discourse has already begun around her miscarriage. 

(Placental abruption is a life-threatening condition for the mother and under existing abortion bans in some states, it would be considered illegal to treat this early enough in the progression of symptoms to save the mother’s life by inducing labor when it’s become clear that the fetus will not survive the blood loss. We do not know what Chrissy and John had to weigh in the process of making medical decisions around her health and that of Jack, but I suspect if she was not a celebrity and was not in California, the public view on another woman of Thai descent might not be so kind as to call this a miscarriage.) 

For these reasons and many more, most people who experience the loss of a pregnancy do so without allowing themselves the outward expression of grief that would naturally accompany such a loss. Many assume blame for the loss--it’s common to attribute what is usually just a chromosomal abnormality causing an unviable pregnancy to some choice made by the parent. Lifting something heavy, exercising to exhaustion, drinking alcohol or taking other intoxicating substances, drinking coffee, etc., etc.--the list of ways to blame oneself for a miscarriage is practically endless. 

By choosing neutral language that defies placing blame on anything other than a malfunctioning placenta and by publicly showing the world her grief, Chrissy Teigen is consciously pushing back on these common narratives. This is no one’s fault, this is a real loss, this is something to grieve without shame. 

I am grateful for this narrative pushback, for her decision to make visible this documentation of loss and grief without shame. 

Back in March, the week before I began self-isolating, I had one last hookup and then threw myself into moving out of my apartment into a house outside of town. I expected my period the next week. It never came. 

I'd never been pregnant before, though when I was newly married I’d had a few near misses. Each time I found myself crippled with anxiety and night terrors, then massive relief at my period’s arrival. The day of my divorce at age 24, I got an IUD. I was vigilant about not taking any chances; I did not want to have a baby without intention or planning, and I did not want to allow my upbringing in a Quiverfull family to take the driver’s seat if I got triggered or afraid. 

And so then, a C-PSTD diagnosis, two IUDs, and seven years later, I was again waiting anxiously for my period, but this time the anxiety was anticipatory. I was just hungry for information now, rather than vibrating with terror. The work of therapy and time had softened my response. 

My marriage had been fraught with conflict, some about having children. I’d been immersed in helping my mom with my younger siblings for my whole life; when I got married I was desperate for a break. My ex had never so much as changed a diaper, and he said he wanted ten kids. My wants were secondary, so I punted. A few years together, then we’d try, we decided. We got a kitten in the meantime. I didn’t like how he treated her, worried he’d treat a child in such rough, reactionary ways. But my fears didn’t matter to him.  

After my divorce, I slowly grew into my own desires, fleshed out ambitions previously deemed selfish and cast aside. I wanted to get another degree, I wanted to teach at the college level, I wanted to have a career as a writer and educator. I wanted to travel, to learn more languages. I wanted to taste everything and kiss everyone. And so I did. 

Before my most recent serious relationship ended, I'd found myself watching him with his kids, craving the experience of parenting a child without fear. After the breakup, I got a puppy. Our instant bond and her responsiveness taught me I could "parent" a creature with gentleness, without fear or abuse. I realized then that my terror of pregnancy before was centered on my ex-husband as a potential parent--my subconscious knew that I couldn't trust him with an infant. 

As I waited for a period or a positive pregnancy test--alone this time, in a new house with my dog and the cat for company--I also waited for the nightmares to return. None came. My dog slept at my side, and I felt at peace.

I wasn't afraid anymore. I know that if I was a single mom, no one would be able to interfere and traumatize my child. I've felt hopeful during these weeks of quarantine, waiting for an answer. 

I started to miscarry around the 12 week mark. And while I was relieved to not be bringing new life into the apocalypse that is 2020, I was grateful that I am able to grieve over this loss, to have wanted a pregnancy for the first time. 

The day the miscarriage started, I had a photographer friend shoot a remote portrait session over Zoom. The photo shoot was planned in advance, well before I knew I was miscarrying. It was not a maternity shoot, it was just candid documentation of my experience quarantining alone with my dog. I’m grateful to have those photos now, but the grief was stalled, disinvited from these sun-soaked shots of me sitting on the floor of my spare bedroom in a linen dress with my dog wandering around me. 

It took me several days to actually begin to grieve, to let myself feel like the loss was real. I second guessed myself over and over--what if this was just a heavy period and I was mistaken? What if I’d just missed my period due to stress? Every time I second guessed, I ran back through my symptoms and the calculations I had done around my previous cycles and the hookup timing, and came back around to my initial conclusion. This was real. And once I accepted that, I smoked a CBD rollup in the bathtub and sobbed. I took selfies. This time, grief was visible.

I posted the photos my friend took on my Instagram. I never shared the selfies I took later. The grief felt too raw, too vulnerable to share. I didn’t want questions--as a single, queer femme living alone, I didn’t want to answer to the world about my decision making or my personal choices regarding risk during a pandemic. I was not strong enough to handle it, I was just barely able to handle the realization that I was not relieved to miscarry. Anything further would have felt like drowning. 

But I was grateful for that ability to mourn. It was a sign of healing: I could mourn this death, knowing with sureness now that I want to make life, someday. 

Even more so, I was grateful to be able to mourn without public scrutiny. I had the support of my close friends and I was open to them about what was happening, but I was not facing the spectre of misogyny and shame around miscarriage. I was alone in my loss, but I was not exposed. 

Chrissy is brave in her decision to document her grief in the public eye. She’s giving those of us who have or will miscarry a gift of pushing back on the stigma that comes with pregnancy loss, taking on that fight in the middle of her own anguish. She is reminding the rest of us that while miscarriage may feel like something we suffer alone, we are in fact surrounded by others who have experienced the same thing and this loss is very real.

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xo, e.