Hilaria Baldwin reflects on miscarriages during Infertility Awareness Week: 'I think of the babies I lost daily'
Hilaria Baldwin opened up about her two miscarriages, which she experienced in 2019, in an emotional tribute to "the babies I lost."
On Saturday, the 37-year-old yoga instructor and podcast host who shares six children with husband Alec Baldwin — daughter Carmen, 7, and sons Leonardo, 4, Rafael, 5, Romeo, 2, Eduardo, 7 months and daughter Lucia, who was born via surrogate nearly two months ago — shared two photos, both depicting her pregnant.
"It is Infertility Awareness Week…and while I am so blessed to have my babies, I have a few angels too," wrote Hilaria of the annual observance from April 18 to 24. "I had two miscarriages in a row in 2019 – the second at 4 months. I was told 'It’s just bad luck'… there is so much mystery why certain souls come into our lives and others do not."
She continued, "Today this baby I cried for in this picture would have been about a year. April 23 was her 39 weeks. I had to go home and sleep with her inside of me for one more night before having surgery the next. This was the last photo of my girls at the time. My face so swollen—I remember being surprised that the body could make so many tears—kept on thinking I’d run out of them."
"The next photo was a snap I took a day or so before I found out I had lost her," Hilaria explained. "I looked tired, but happy...celebrating the pregnancy."
"A year since she was due, my Edu and Lucia are constant companions, but I think of the babies I lost daily," she reflected. "Resigned and respectful of how my life has unfolded. Allowing for gratitude and grief, wholeness and longing to be the dualities of my reality."
"We all have different fertility/infertility stories and there are so many ways we can become parents," she added. "Being a parent truly is caring in the deepest way for another soul…through that giving energy we nurture ourselves and fill the world with love. I am just as much a mother to my angel babies as I am to the ones I can physically hold in my arms."
Hilaria concluded by affirming the connection she feels with her unborn two babies and expressed her support and love for anyone who experienced similar losses. "If you are struggling or have struggled—or will struggle, know that you are not alone...if it serves you, connect with others as you grieve. We are a mighty bunch who carry this heaviness in our hearts—and together we can lighten each other’s load through support and understanding."
Miscarriages are a common occurrence, with the World Health Organization reporting that “one in four pregnancies end in miscarriage, generally before 28 weeks" with 2.6 million babies stillborn. Unfortunately, miscarriages remain stigmatized in modern society, as women, in particular, are often left feeling isolated and shamed rather than free to express their grief outwardly.
However, celebrities like Hilaria and Chrissy Teigen, who in September lost her unborn son Jack from a pregnancy complication called partial placenta abruption, are helping to de-stigmatize the topic. And last November, Meghan Markle published a New York Times opinion piece about her own miscarriage writing, "Losing a child means carrying an almost unbearable grief, experienced by many but talked about by few."
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