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Pregnancy

Losing a baby in the age of 24-hour celebrity pregnancy news

by

Melissa Willets

posted in Pregnancy

The Kardashians are pregnant! All of them. Jessica Alba’s expecting her third. Jaime Pressly just gave birth to twins.

Go to any website and you will be bombarded with celebrity pregnancy news. Even news sites aren’t safe if you’ve just lost a pregnancy like I did.

It’s not that reading about a reality star’s burgeoning baby bump is causing my pain. I hardly need a reminder that my pregnancy ended at almost 24 weeks. But in the age of TMI star-pregnancy reporting, losing a baby is made all the more unbearable.

I wake up in the morning, and the awful trauma I experienced is the first thing that flashes through my mind. Somehow I drag my battered body and mind out of bed, and make it to the bathroom, and then the kitchen for coffee. I force myself to get dressed, and pretend to be a human.

Everyone seems to be out to get me, and rub salt in the exposed wound that is my alien-feeling flattened belly. I drop my daughter off at preschool, and see another mom I’d been pregnant with at the same time, now wearing her newborn. A clueless neighbor asks, “Did you have your baby?” I muddle through the day until I can retreat to my couch and tune out by tuning into a mindless entertainment news show or surfing the Internet.

Celebrity pregnancy overload

But being bombarded with every aspect of celeb pregnancies has become unavoidable. Kate Middleton’s bump makes its debut! Khloe Kardashian is reportedly having a boy! So-and-so steps out for the first time since giving birth, and, of course looks fabulous! X celebrity mom shares first snap of newborn baby! This reality personality just announced she’s expecting!

When I was pregnant, I ate up every tidbit about star moms’ pregnancies and babies. Now that I’m not, the unrelenting stream of pregnancy and baby news feels like a slap across the face. Like, hey, in case you forgot, you lost your baby.

I get that I am probably hypersensitive to this subject matter, so it may feel especially overwhelming to me, and other moms who have experienced loss. But now that I’ve crossed over to this side, I think it’s worth pointing out that our obsession with star moms has a dark side, too. It leaves those of us who now count angels among our broods, out in the cold, alone, and ashamed.

To be fair, stars like Olympic gymnast Shawn Johnson have shared their pregnancy loss pain.

Celebrity pregnancy news has taken over

In the past, Lily Allen opened up about her devastating second-trimester pregnancy loss, while other stars from Pink to Nicole Kidman have had the courage to share their miscarriage stories.

Here’s hoping more people in the public eye will continue to be open about loss, but even more importantly, that the media will give these stories as much visibility as those that report on the pretty gift-wrapped moments of pregnancy and new parenthood that some of us don’t always get.

Do you think celebrity pregnancy reporting has gotten out of hand?

Photos: PR Photos

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