“We were able to create joy during a hard time and that was a parenting win for me.”
While Kylie Kelce wants her podcast “Not Gonna Lie” to be a “fun” place where people can take their “mind off of things,” she also wants to use her platform to bring attention to the causes that she cares about the most.
One of those causes is women’s health.
And as Kylie explained in her October 2 podcast episode, October is pregnancy and infant loss Awareness Month.
As a result, Kylie opened up about her own experience with pregnancy loss.
“I wanted to share some more details, because when I experienced my miscarriage, I felt like a bunch of people came forward to support me and offer words of encouragement or love, and in so they divulged that they also had experienced losses,” Kylie explained, adding that “it is interesting how sometimes it takes you experiencing a loss, for people to open up about their own.”
Given how common pregnancy loss is, Kylie said she believes it should be a more open discussion.
Kylie revealed that she and her husband, former NFL star Jason Kelce, endured a miscarriage in 2018 before welcoming their oldest daughter Wyatt into the world.
“I went to my I think it was a six week appointment, and the baby was measuring what would have been a few days late, and they said, ’It’s still within normal limits,” Kylie explained. “‘We will see you back for your 12 week appointment.’ And I scheduled it for the week following that, which would have been my 13 week appointment, because we had travel plans.”
While traveling with their families, Kylie and Jason shared the news of their first pregnancy. At the time, Kylie was 12 weeks into her pregnancy, around the time most couples share the news with loved ones.
Kylie got visibly emotional on her podcast recalling the moments she shared the news with her in-laws. “All of these interactions were recorded for like, memory purposes. And I think there was the thought process was like, yes, maybe one day we'll sort of clip them together and share them,” she shared with tears in her eyes, adding that despite now having four children, the memory of her first pregnancy “still hurts.”
“When we got back from our family trip to Ireland, I went to my regularly scheduled 13, what was supposed to be my, 13 week appointment. And I went into one of the regular rooms, not the ultrasound room, and they tried to do the Doppler,” Kylie explained, admitting it was in that moment that “everything went into slow motion.
“They could not find the baby on the Doppler, and at 13 ish weeks they should. And the nurse that was doing it was so sweet and very quick on her feet to say, like, ‘oh, sometimes, like, they hide down below your pelvis. We will take you in for an ultrasound, and we'll be able to find them better.’”
Kylie, to this day, doesn’t know if she “was almost expecting it,” but she remembers “being like, oh, there, there isn't a heartbeat, like you didn't find one because there isn't one.”
An emotional Kylie then recalled the moment her doctors confirmed there was no heartbeat with a vaginal ultrasound. “They estimated that the baby had stopped developing between, I believe it was nine and 10 weeks.”
Kylie had experienced what is known as a missed miscarriage. According to the Miscarriage Association, “a missed (or silent) miscarriage is one where the baby has died or not developed, but has not been physically miscarried. In many cases, there has been no sign that anything was wrong, so the news can come as a complete shock.”
That devastating day was also Jason’s birthday.
“I still remember going to the car and calling my mom, which is not a good idea when you are heaving crying in the car, but I called my mom and told her that I couldn't tell Jason because it was his birthday, which seems very silly. It seems very silly because obviously I'm going to tell my husband what happened, and I did, and it was hard for both of us.”
Two days later, Kylie had what is called a D&E. Dilation and evacuation “is a type of in-clinic abortion” that’s also an “effective way to remove tissue that remains after a miscarriage,” Kaiser Permanente reports.
Kylie admitted that her experience with miscarriage affected how she responded to each of her pregnancies afterward.
“I will say that having had that experience, then messed with my brain for every consecutive pregnancy,” Kylie told her audience. “So for Wyatt, we did not share that we were pregnant until I was after 20 weeks. I, for consecutive pregnancies, waited till I was at least 16 weeks.”
“I Googled almost every week what the percentage likelihood was that a baby could survive, which sounds really dark,” Kylie admitted as she cried. “I literally did it for Finn,” her youngest daughter who was born in March.
Despite the emotional toll recalling that story has on her, Kylie said that talking about it helped her get through it.
“I talked about it with just about everyone, because since that point, I have had friends or people that I know who have experienced a loss, and like I said, it just it never leaves you.”
But while talking about it has helped her heal in some ways, Kylie encourages women who have experienced loss not to compare.
“I always like to tell people, comparing miscarriages, comparing infant loss, comparing any of this between women, comparing is apples and oranges. It is scarring and stays with you in a way that is yours only, and whether you have a loss at six weeks or 13 weeks or whenever that loss is real.”
