Chrissy Teigen has announced that she lost her baby in the middle of her pregnancy and posted a moving series of photos taken in the hospital. An approach criticized by some, but that Noémie, herself struck by perinatal mourning, supports.
On the night of September 30 to October 1, 2020, entrepreneur and supermodel Chrissy Teigen and her husband, singer John Legend, announced that they had lost their son, Jack, in the middle of pregnancy. Information accompanied by a very nice series of black and white photos, showing the couple in the hospital, as well as the silhouette of little Jack, swaddled in his mother's arms.
While thousands of messages of support have been pouring in since that night on the couple's social media, we can also read many comments shocked by the images and claiming that such a moment should have been kept private. An opinion that Noémie, 34-year-old business manager, does not share. In 2019, she and her husband lost Adam and Ruben, their twins, at five months pregnant. Noémie explains why she finds the couple's approach beautiful and useful.
"I was touched by the photos and the messages of Chrissy Teigen and John Legend. They are very beautiful, very modest. I myself experienced this drama and I also needed to have images, memories of my babies. At that moment, the feelings are mixed: you feel an extreme sadness, and at the same time, a kind of 'happiness', even if it is not a good word. But it is the only one moment that you will never spend with them, and you want to immortalize them.
You should know that in the event of perinatal mourning (the death of a child during gestation, during or after childbirth, Editor's note), good maternity hospitals offer parents to take photos. Either way, the medical team takes snapshots for the medical record, but warns that they are difficult to view and do not show them. However, the staff can also take it so that the parents have a souvenir. They can choose to take them away or leave them at the hospital, which will keep them. With my husband, we agreed to take pictures. It was the midwife who took them, after preparing our babies: she swaddled them, put a cap on them …
In this video, Noémie recounts the loss of her sons and the arrival of her "rainbow baby"
I wish I had a photo of them and I taken, which was possible, or asked the hospital to call a photographer, which is an option. The problem is, almost no one knows. We find out later, by doing research on the subject of perinatal bereavement … But we have the photos taken by the midwife, and this is the most important. For the moment, we have not shown them to our relatives. We didn't want to, it belonged to our privacy. Now I sometimes want to show them off, let people know what Adam and Reuben looked like… We start to wonder. There is an association called Souvenange which retouches these types of images to make them easier to watch.
Not only do I fully understand the process, but I find it important. It should be remembered that one in a hundred pregnancies does not succeed. It’s a lot and we have to talk about it. We lie to women too much about what motherhood is, we idealize it too much: "You will make love once with the man you love, get pregnant immediately and give birth to a healthy child" . Except that a pregnancy is a time full of dangers and contradictions. We begin to know that it can take a long time, that it is not always easy, and that sometimes you give birth to a baby that is not healthy and not necessarily alive.
The more we talk about it, the more people know how to react to the parents' distress. When that happens, we find ourselves faced with a range of reactions, from people who are sensitive in their reactions, who have the right words, to those who act as if it does not exist, or who flee … Speaking, publicizing the subject, it is to allow loved ones to manage the situation accurately.
Chrissy Teigen's approach is personal, intimate, but also militant, in the broad sense of the term. These are famous people, with enormous influence, who talk about the fact that perinatal mourning happens. Other celebrities have decided to talk about their career: in 2010, Lily Allen said she lost her baby, in 2019, Anne Athaway spoke about her infertility situation, this summer, the French actress and influencer Juliette Katz has talked about her miscarriage …
Sharing the photos like Chrissy Teigen and John Legend did is unheard of, it is a very nice gesture. No matter how people perceive them, they became parents, and this moment should be celebrated. Living or dead, these are our children. "