Celebrity
Jessa Duggar Shares She Suffered A “Missed” Miscarriage In Heartbreaking Video
“Missed miscarriages can be so jarring.”
Jessa Duggar Seewald took to her YouTube channel recently to tell her 245,000 followers that she had suffered a miscarriage. The former 19 Kids & Counting star opened up about her heartbreaking experience in a 19-minute video on her YouTube channel, beginning with the moment she told her kids she was pregnant again and ending by letting people know she would be taking a break from social media in the aftermath of her miscarriage.
Jessa and her husband Ben Seewald opened the video with their four children, 6-year-old son Spurgeon, 4-year-old son Henry, 3-year-old daughter Ivy, and 1-year-old daughter Fern, as they gave them the news that their family would be getting bigger. “I popped my clues,” son Spurgeon said. “You’re going to have a baby.”
Later in the video, Jessa said that she was “very sick” at 11 weeks in her pregnancy, noting she had some “spotting” and decided to book an ultrasound. When she went in for that ultrasound, the technician told her that the baby “did not look good.” And it was truly devestating for Jessa. “Nothing could have prepared me for the weight of those words in that moment,” she said. “At that moment I was just in complete shock. I didn't have words. I just immediately started crying.”
Her husband Ben was there with her, and put his arms around her while the technician gave them their space to process the loss. “We were just sitting there holding hands and crying, like, ‘what do we do from here,’” Jessa explained. “I feel like in some ways missed miscarriages can be so jarring because you don’t have clear signs of something going wrong. I had minimal spotting for 24 hours, and that was it.”
A missed (or silent) miscarriage happens when the fetus has died or not developed in vitro but has not miscarried. These often happen without any symptoms or signs. Approximately 1 to 5% of pregnancies end in missed or silent miscarriages, according to experts, and tend to be found during the 12-week ultrasound check-up.
After consulting with her doctor, Jessa decided it was safest to check into the hospital to have a dilation and curettage (D&C) procedure to remove the fetus from her womb rather than waiting for it to pass at home due to previous complications with hemorrhaging. And the moments after that process were some of the most difficult of her life, she explained. “Those 10 to 15 minutes before I was taken back to the room where Ben and my mom were waiting were probably some of the hardest in my life, just laying there feeling so alone.”
In the aftermath of her miscarriage, Jessa felt “grateful” for the help and support of family, but now has decided to “take a break” from social media to try to recover from the emotional experience. To be with her kids, her husband, and herself. And try to heal.
