Weeks after suffering a pregnancy loss, Chrissy Teigen has penned a lengthy note to fans who’ve been worried about the “Cravings” author.
“Hi. I had no idea when I would be ready to write this,” she wrote in a Medium piece posted Tuesday. “Part of me thought it would be early on, when I was still really feeling the pain of what happened. I thought I would sit in the corner of my bedroom with the lights dimmed, just rolling off my thoughts. I’d have a glass of red wine, cozy up with a blanket, and finally get the chance to address ‘what happened.'”
Teigen, 34, briefly checked in with fans just over a week ago, writing “We are quiet but we are okay,.”
On Medium, she thanked those who lent their support.
“Notes have flooded in and have each been read with our own teary eyes,” she wrote. “Social media messages from strangers have consumed my days, most starting with, ‘you probably won’t read this, but…’. I can assure you, I did.”
The Sports Illustrated model went on to detail her time on bed rest before losing “baby Jack,” revealing she, “bled and bled, lightly but all day, changing my own diapers every couple of hours when the blood got uncomfortable to lay in.”
Due to her partial placenta abruption, doctors knew Jack “would have never survived in my belly,” Teigen claimed. Bed rest was an attempt to help the fetus make it to the “safer” zone of 28 weeks, after which Teigen would’ve been given an epidural and induced to deliver. Unfortunately, at just 20 weeks, she began bleeding excessively, leading to an emergency hospital visit.
“The fluid around Jack had become very low — he was barely able to float around. At some points, I swore it was so low I could lay on my back and feel his arms and legs from outside my belly.”
She continued, “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 also addressed those who took issue with her choice to share such an emotionally taxing experience on social media, revealing that even her husband, John Legend, was initially uncomfortable taking the photos.
“He hated it,” she confessed. “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 [her two children with Legend]. And I absolutely knew I needed to share this story.”
“I lived it,” she added. “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.”
Teigen went on to describe Jack’s delivery and the private moments he shared with each family member in the room.
“I had been laying on my side, switching sides every hour or so, whenever the nurse told me to. I remember laying on my right side, looking opposite of John, when I was told to make my switch. I opened my legs and started to turn to face John and just like that, he was on his way out. The doctors yelled for a bit and … I don’t know what to say, even now. He was out.
“My mom, John and I each held him and said our own private goodbyes, mom sobbing through Thai prayer,” she recalled. “I asked the nurses to show me his hands and feet and I kissed them over and over and over again. I have no idea when I stopped. It could have been 10 minutes or an hour.”
The grieving mother plans to combine her late son’s ashes with the soil of a tree in their new home, a tree she initially bought with the intention of placing it in baby Jack’s nursery.
Teigen went on to detail her recovery process, explaining how she’s found comfort in 4-year-old daughter, Luna and 2-year-old son, Miles.
“Jack will always be loved, explained to our kids as existing in the wind and trees and the butterflies they see. Thank you so much to every single person who has had us in their thoughts or gone as far as to send us your love and stories. We are so incredibly lucky.”
“With so, so, so much love, Chrissy.”