The 32-year-old actor spoke on the subject during an episode of 'The Man Enough Podcast.'
Grey's Anatomy alum, Giacomo Gianniotti is opening up about his and his wife, Nichole Gustafson's issues with fertility. During Monday's episode of The Man Enough Podcast Gianniotti told hosts Justin Baldoni, Liz Plank and Jamey Heath that his wife suffered back-to-back miscarriages, both of which resulted in a "medical abortion."
"Even though my suffering can’t be compared to my wife’s suffering, I still suffered," Gianniotti said. "I still lost two children. Never gonna get to meet them. Never gonna get to know their names. Never gonna get to push them on a swing. I lost that. That’s heavy."
Gianniotti detailed the traumatic experience, noting that each step of the process was beyond difficult, from finding out you've lost your child, to having to relive that trauma by having to share the news with your friends and family.
"For my wife and I, the trauma was threefold because the first trauma is finding out you’ve lost your child, which is hugely traumatic,” he explained.
He continued, "The second trauma is having to go to a medical facility where that child is having to be removed from her body and the finality of that is incredibly traumatizing. The third trauma is having to share this news with your community, loved ones [and] family and friends, and having to relive that trauma through sharing it."
Calling the experience "painful," the 32-year-old Italian-Canadian actor said he wanted to speak publicly about the experience to show how men are impacted by miscarriages.
"I can’t tell you what it means for me to bring this up without me having to bring it up," he said.
While it's been a trying time for the pair, Gianniotti said that he and his wife went to therapy to deal with the devastating losses.
"Having it happen during a pandemic, where we’re [not] being as social as we normally would, was incredibly isolating," Gianniotti, who tied the knot with Gustafson in April 2019, after dating since 2015, said. "We felt incredibly alone. Experiences like this can either make or break a relationship and I’m very lucky to say we got closer over it."
Following the interview, Gustafson praised her husband for having the "important conversation" despite it being such a "personal issue" for them and many others.
"Very proud of my husband to go on and talk about something so personal to us and so many others. … I hope that other men can feel seen by seeing a man like mine @giacomo_gianniotti be so incredibly vulnerable and feel like they too can speak on these issues," Gustafson wrote. "We need other men sharing their stories more. Giacomo, I love you so much ❤️,” she wrote in the caption alongside a video of her husband talking on the podcast."
For more on Gianniotti, check out the video below.
RELATED CONTENT
