Just one month ago, Chrissy Teigen and her husband, John Legend, opened up about the loss of their third child, who they named Jack. In an emotional Instagram post, the mom shared heartbreaking images from the hospital room where the family said their final goodbyes.
"We are shocked and in the kind of deep pain you only hear about, the kind of pain we’ve never felt before," Teigen wrote in an Instagram post. "We were never able to stop the bleeding and give our baby the fluids he needed, despite bags and bags of blood transfusions. It just wasn’t enough."
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After one month of grieving, Teigen is opening up even more about her experience, why she shared it, and how it has affected her in a personal essay on Medium. The piece details the complications around Teigen’s pregnancy, including her diagnosis of partial placenta abruption, which led to heavy blood loss and clotting. "After a couple nights at the hospital, my doctor told me exactly what I knew was coming — it was time to say goodbye. He just wouldn’t survive this, and if it went on any longer, I might not either."
Teigen went on to explain her decision to release the raw and intimate photos that were taken in the hospital room that day — the very ones she used to share the news with the world. The photos, which resonated with many who have experienced pregnancy loss, resulted in backlash from trolls on social media questioning why they took the photos in the first place and taking issue with the way the family chose to process their very personal grief.
"I had asked my mom and John to take pictures, no matter how uncomfortable it was," Teigen writes. "I explained to a very hesitant John that I needed them, and that I did NOT want to have to ever ask. That he just had to do it. He hated it. I could tell. It didn’t make sense to him at the time. But I knew I needed to know of this moment forever, the same way I needed to remember us kissing at the end of the aisle, the same way I needed to remember our tears of joy after Luna and Miles. And I absolutely knew I needed to share this story."
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There is no right or wrong way to grieve, and taking photos can be therapeutic to some. "It's just such an individual process. Some people may want the pictures and never look at them again, and for some people it's very cathartic," Lilli Dash Zimmerman, MD, fertility specialist at Columbia University Fertility Centre, previously told Refinery29. "For many people, having documentation and images reminds them of what they experienced and what they went through, in a positive or negative way. But I think it can be very helpful."
And for Teigen, it was. "I cannot express how little I care that you hate the photos. How little I care that it’s something you wouldn’t have done," she writes. "I lived it, I chose to do it, and more than anything, these photos aren’t for anyone but the people who have lived this or are curious enough to wonder what something like this is like. These photos are only for the people who need them. The thoughts of others do not matter to me."
The photos weren't just for the family — Teigen chose to share them widely to her millions of followers, too. To date, her post has received more than 11 million likes and half a million comments, many of which included notes of gratitude for de-stigmatising this kind of loss and helping others through their own pain. Now, with her raw essay, Teigen is opening up yet again — for herself, for families who know what she's going through, and as a way of saying thank you to those who have been there for her during this time.
"People say an experience like this creates a hole in your heart," Teigen writes. "A hole was certainly made, but it was filled with the love of something I loved so much. It doesn’t feel empty, this space. It feels full."