Melissa Rauch of The Big Bang Theory is expecting her first child after a devastating pregnancy loss — and she’s talking about her struggle to stay positive during this pregnancy in an essay for Glamour.
More:These celebrities shared their miscarriages to help others cope
Rauch doesn’t pull any punches about her conflicted emotions. “Here is the only statement regarding my pregnancy that doesn’t make me feel like a complete fraud: ‘Melissa is expecting her first child. She is extremely overjoyed, but if she’s being honest, due to the fact that she had a miscarriage the last time she was pregnant, she’s pretty much terrified at the moment that it will happen again,’” she wrote.
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Rauch and her husband, Winston Rauch, are expecting their first child in the fall of 2017. Her words about pregnancy loss and infertility knocked us out with their power and candor. “…[E]very joyful, expectant baby announcement felt like a tiny stab in the heart… It’s not that I wasn’t happy for these people, but I would think, ‘Why are these shiny, carefree, fertile women so easily able to do what I cannot?’”
More:When a friend has a miscarriage, shut up and listen
We’re especially moved by Rauch’s reason for revealing her miscarriage as well as her current pregnancy. “[W]hen I thought about having to share the news about expecting this baby, all I could think about was another woman mourning over her loss as I did, worried she would never get pregnant again, and reading about my little bundle on the way. It felt a bit disingenuous to not also share the struggle it took for me to get here,” Rauch said.
The miscarriage crushed Rauch, who described the moment she discovered she had lost her baby as “one of the most profound sorrows I have ever felt in my life.“ She added that seeing the ultrasound image, with no heart beating, “kickstarted a primal depression that lingered.”
“[T]his kind of loss is not openly talked about nearly as much as it should be, there really is no template for how to process these emotions,” she said. “You’re not necessarily going to a funeral or taking time off from work to mourn, but that doesn’t change the fact that something precious has been unexpectedly taken from your life.”
More: I blamed myself for my pregnancy loss
Rauch loathes the word “miscarriage” and derides it as “one of the worst, most blame-inducing medical terms ever” — as if the woman is to blame for not being able to carry a child to term. (Amen to that, we say.)
Rauch encourages women who have endured pregnancy loss to allow themselves their grief and to be kind to themselves. “Our pain is something to be worked through until it isn’t anymore. So on my better days, rather than being a big jerk to myself, I just started saying: It is okay to not be okay right now,” she said.
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