Ali Fedotowsky-Manno is opening up about the pregnancy loss she experienced earlier this summer.
"I had a miscarriage recently. (I’m at the OBGYN right now for a follow up),” Fedotowsky-Manno, 35, began in an emotional Instagram post on Tuesday. “I’m not sharing this bc I feel sorry for myself or I want others to tell me they feel sorry for me. I don’t feel sorry for myself. I feel sad for what could’ve been. Sad for the baby that was growing inside me. Sad because it’s sad.”
The former “Bachelorette” star noted that "1 in 4" pregnancies end in miscarriage. Her first symptom was “intense cramping” that came on suddenly.
“I passed the gestational sac — which was the size of a plum — in my bedroom,” Fedotowsky-Manno recalled. “I sat and stared at it for hours — not able to fully comprehend what happened. And the utter exhaustion that took over my body in the few days after that was almost debilitating.”
Fedotowsky-Manno, who shares 4-year-old daughter, Molly, and 2-year-old son, Riley, with her husband, Kevin Manno, was caught off guard by her the depth of her emotions.
“I know that my loss is not the same as someone who’s had a stillbirth or lost a baby at 20 weeks. Or someone who has been trying to conceive for years,” she revealed. “But what I found so shocking about my experience is that it affected me so much harder than I could have imagined. So know that if you’re going or have gone through this, your feelings are valid — whatever they may be.”
Later that day, Fedotowsky thanked her fans for the outpouring of support, and admitted she initially had reservations about sharing her sad news.
“Almost all the reasons I didn’t want to share, ended up being the exact reasons why I needed to,” she explained on Instagram Story. “The grief and shame tied to miscarriage goes beyond what I originally thought people felt shame about when discussing it — at least for me. I never quite realized part of that shame was feeling like you don’t deserve support afterwards.”