Chrissy Teigen Writes Heartbreaking Essay On The Loss Of Her Son Jack

Chrissy Teigen wrote an emotional essay posted on Medium, about the loss of her and her husband John Legend‘s 20-week-old son, Jack, in late September.

In the essay, she says, “I’m writing from the downstairs couch, still cozied up in a blanket but buzzing from a morning of friends and fried chicken. I’m reading off countless notes from my phone — thoughts that have randomly popped up in the weeks since. I didn’t really know how I would start this, no matter the room or state I was in, but it feels right to begin with a thank you. For weeks, our floors have been covered in flowers of kindness. Notes have flooded in and have each been read with our own teary eyes. 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.”

Chrissy addressed the photos she chose to post when announcing the loss of her third child on social media. “I had asked my mom and John to take pictures, no matter how uncomfortable it was. I explained to a very hesitant John that I needed them, and that I did NOT want to have to ever ask. That he just had to do it. He hated it,” she admitted. “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. And I absolutely knew I needed to share this story.”

“I cannot express how little I care that you hate the photos,” Chrissy said, referring to the trolls who criticized her for taking photos during her pregnancy loss. “How little I care that it’s something you wouldn’t have done. I lived it, 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.”

 

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We are shocked and in the kind of deep pain you only hear about, the kind of pain we’ve never felt before. 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. . . We never decide on our babies’ names until the last possible moment after they’re born, just before we leave the hospital.  But we, for some reason, had started to call this little guy in my belly Jack.  So he will always be Jack to us.  Jack worked so hard to be a part of our little family, and he will be, forever. . . To our Jack – I’m so sorry that the first few moments of your life were met with so many complications, that we couldn’t give you the home you needed to survive.  We will always love you. . . Thank you to everyone who has been sending us positive energy, thoughts and prayers.  We feel all of your love and truly appreciate you. . . We are so grateful for the life we have, for our wonderful babies Luna and Miles, for all the amazing things we’ve been able to experience.  But everyday can’t be full of sunshine.  On this darkest of days, we will grieve, we will cry our eyes out. But we will hug and love each other harder and get through it.

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Chrissy went on to describe Jack’s birth writing, “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. 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.”

She ended the essay telling readers, “I wrote this because I knew for me I needed to say something before I could move on from this and return back to life, so I truly thank you for allowing me to do so. 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.”

Read the full essay here.

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