Tori and Zach Roloff talk about the pregnancy loss they suffered, ahead of welcoming their third child.
Tori and Zach Roloff are opening up about the miscarriage they suffered, before welcoming their third child.
On Thursday's episode of the Raising Heights podcast, the former Little People, Big World stars open up about the loss of their child in 2021. Tori explains that she and Zach got pregnant "very quickly" after deciding that they wanted to try for their third child. The pair were already parents to Jackson, 7, and Liliah, 4.
The heartbreaking news came when the pair went in for their 8-week checkup, after Tori says she was experiencing an easy first trimester.
"It was not on my radar that something was wrong," she says. "I remember thinking, 'This pregnancy is really easy, this is going really well.'"
At the checkup, Tori says that the ultrasound tech knew that something was wrong, and although she wasn't supposed to, informed Tori that the baby didn't have a heartbeat.
"I immediately started crying," Tori says. "'This isn't happening. This isn't real. There is no way this is happening to me."'
After having two healthy pregnancies, Tori revealed that her perspective about the place where she always knew joy changed.
"I think that it was a huge mind shift for me, because going to those appointments, it was always such a fun experience," she says. "It was always so much joy. I was so excited, I get to see my baby. I get to get all these really cute pictures. I get to hear the heartbeat. I get to do all these really fun things. And it was on that day that everything shifted about what that clinic is and what that clinic can be."
Tori says that the doctors told her that she had the choice of letting the pregnancy pass naturally, or having an assisted procedure known as a D&C (dilatation and curettage) which is "a procedure to remove tissue from inside your uterus. Health care professionals perform dilation and curettage to diagnose and treat certain uterine conditions -- such as heavy bleeding -- or to clear the uterine lining after a miscarriage or abortion," according to the Mayo Clinic.
"I can remember just being so mad at my body after that," she shared getting emotional. "I had what was called a missed miscarriage, which means that my body didn't realize that the baby passed on. So I was left with the decision with how do you want to move forward 'cause it had been three weeks, because that's where the growth had stopped."
She adds, "I was so mad at my body, 'Why do I have to make the decision of how to move forward?' That's why I was so mad at my body, because this is not something that I want to be making the decision on right now."
Tori went through with the D&C.
Another layer of the miscarriage was the fact that she and Zach had shared her pregnancy with their families, kids and Little People, Big World crew, and had to make the heartbreaking reveal to them.
"Three kids you get kind of excited, you announce it a little earlier," Zach says. "You get a little bit more excited and you jump ahead a little bit. That's what I remember telling the TV people, the family."
After making the initial reveal of their third pregnancy on the show at the time, the couple had to backtrack on camera, and relive the heartbreak.
"Sharing things on camera that's sensitive in the form of reality television is tough, because it has to fit into their storyline or their structured episode," Zach says. "They can't show at 20 minutes, they can't share a 20-minute explanation, which we feel is necessary to understand your point of view. That's what makes it tough."
"They won't do it the justice that it needed," Tori adds. "This is our baby. To me, when you get pregnant, that's a baby. So when we lost that baby, that was like we just lost a part of our family."
The news of the miscarriage also came the same week Tori was going to share with social media. Instead, Tori shared the news with her followers that she and Zach lost their baby, and got an overwhelming sense of support.
"A lot of people came out of the woodwork, in my personal life, old co-workers, so many people that come out with their stories that you don't feel alone," she says. "I was so grateful that I shared that information just because then I felt comfort from the women who had gone through the same thing that I went through."
In November 2021, Tori and Zach revealed they were expecting their son. In May 2022, the couple shared the news of Josiah's arrival.
"We didn't tell people that I was pregnant with Josiah until I was halfway done," Tori says about waiting to go public with the news. "Because I didn't want to go through that again, and we have to backtrack."
However, in addition to sharing to make sure women didn't feel alone, Tori says that she couldn't imagine their life without Josiah.
"It's hard to picture out life now without Josiah," she says. "Like that's very difficult for me to like picture where we would be without him and how much I'm obsessed and I love him. He would not be here if it wasn't for everything that happened. One day, we'll get to meet our baby."
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