Kate Beckinsale Opens Up About Her Past Pregnancy Loss As She Sends Support To Chrissy Teigen

‘I absolutely collapsed inside and no one would have known,’ Beckinsale said of her experience

In the wake of Chrissy Teigen and John Legend’s devastating loss this week, fans and celebrities alike have come forward to rally around and show support for the grieving parents. While the news of the loss of Jack due to pregnancy complications was met with inane, vile criticism, her supporters were even louder, including actress Kate Beckinsale, who took to Instagram to not only address the unfair and disrespectful criticism of how they chose to grieve, but also share that she, too, lost a baby years ago, while she was at 20 weeks.

“I’ve noticed people criticizing @chrissyteigen for sharing deeply intimate photos of the loss of her baby,” Beckinsale started. “As if there’s some protocol during soul-scouring calamity that, if not observed, emboldens people who do not know her or her family to say how she should be handling the unimaginable.”

Beckinsale revealed that, years ago, she lost a baby at 20 weeks. She kept the pregnancy quiet, “and I absolutely collapsed inside and no one would have known.”

“There is grief, shame and shock so often that come with an experience like this, plus the heartbreak of your body continuing, after the loss, to act as if it had a child to nurture. Your milk comes in, with no one to feed,” she continued, describing this time in a grieving mother’s life as “the loneliest, most soul destroying period of time, particularly if you are not in the position of having an emotionally connected, supportive partner like Chrissy has.”

“I think it’s an honour to be allowed into another person’s grief, especially with a subject like this which so often puts a woman into that hall of mirrors state of life continuing as if the world hasn’t, for you, come to a bloody and terrible halt,” Beckinsale writes.

Beckinsale paired the caption with an image that read: “Some babies are born to be angels and given Heaven instead. They are carried inside the hearts of broken-hearted parents and their families forever; learning to fly with wings in paradise, where nothing can hurt them, instead of learning to walk on Earth. We grieve for them and what they might have been asking why we couldn’t be together.”

The loss of Teigen and Legend’s third child happened seemingly quick.

On Monday, Teigen revealed she was having pregnancy complications that left her bleeding on and off for about a month before she checked into the hospital.

On Tuesday, Teigen posted to social media from the hospital, revealing that she was to have her second blood transfusion.

Then, yesterday, they lost Jack.

“We are shocked and in the kind of deep pain you only hear about, the kind of pain we’ve never felt before,” she wrote on Instagram. “We were never able to stop the bleeding and give our baby the fluids he needed, despite bags and bags of blood transfusions. It just wasn’t enough.”

Since, Beckinsale hasn’t been the only woman to open up about their own experience.

“I was just so grateful that she (Teigen) put herself out there like that,” Lisa Patel, a pediatrician at a hospital in San Francisco, told CNN. “Because until I started talking about it, you just feel so lonely.”

According to the World Health Organization, every year 2.6 million babies are stillborn. And according to the American Pregnancy Association, miscarriage occurs in 10 percent to 25 percent of known pregnancies. When Teigen chose to be so open about her pregnancy and her loss, as difficult and painful as it likely was, it opened the door for grieving mothers and grieving parents to do the same.

“Sending so much love to the Legend family, but also so much to the women and couples who have kept it quiet and suffered. I know there are so many,” Beckinsale wrote.

“Thank you @chrissyteigen for making sure it is abundantly clear how devastating this is, and how life changing it can be without support,” she continued. Let’s let the grieving decide what’s right for them. Send support or keep quiet. This is a really hard time to bear. Blessings and hugs to all.”