He’s the father of the world’s biggest social network, and now Mark Zuckerberg is going to be daddy to a little baby. The Facebook founder announced wife Priscilla Chan’s pregnancy in a surprisingly emotional post on — where else? — Facebook.
In it, Zuckerberg opened up about a topic rarely discussed in the public eye: miscarriage. Married since 2012, the couple has apparently been trying to conceive for quite some time, but it hasn’t been easy.
We’ll allow you a moment to wipe some tears from your eyes.
It’s wonderful news for Zuckerberg and Chan, but it’s also powerful to hear such public figures speaking out about something that women are often afraid to discuss in public.
More: Losing a pregnancy: When tears are not enough
Miscarriage is not as uncommon as most of us would like to think — according to some estimates, as much as 25 percent of pregnancies actually end in loss. And things get more complicated for women with each progressive miscarriage — having one ups your chance of having another by 25 percent.
But miscarriage is also a topic fraught with an unfortunate amount of shame. Although scientists will tell you that there’s rarely anything a woman could have done to prevent a miscarriage, nearly half the women who experience a loss confess to feeling a certain amount of guilt.
More: Sharing a miscarriage on Facebook: Yay or nay?
That’s where speaking out makes a difference. Whether it’s celebrities like Zuckerberg and Chan or just a regular old Jane opening up on her personal Facebook page (hey, Zuckerberg would support that!), being open and honest about pregnancy loss is a way to not only deal with your own grief but signal to others out there that they are not alone in this.
That’s the only way we’re going to beat the stigma.
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