Meghan McCain Opens Up About Her Devastating Pregnancy Loss
Considering how loyal to her family's privacy Meghan McCain claims to be, the conservative spokesperson feels free to open up about issues she thinks are important. One such position is her previous experience with pregnancy loss.
McCain had penned an opinion piece for The New York Times back in July 2019 discussing her miscarriage from a few weeks prior despite that it was "not supposed to be public knowledge." But she felt it was important to talk about it — in part to quell rumors about why she had to miss work — to lend support to the many women who also experience it. Per Healthline, pregnancy loss is incredibly common, especially within the first 12 weeks, yet there is an unhealthy stigma around it (via Vogue). In an Instagram post that McCain shared the day after her op-ed was published she said, "My hope is by continuing to share grief and loss and addressing these taboo subjects head-on, it will help people who have experienced the same to feel less alone."
Fortunately, all worked out well for the former "The View" co-host and daughter of late Senator John McCain, as she and her even more conservative husband Ben Domenach have since given birth to a daughter, Liberty, born in September 2020, per ABC News. However, Meghan is still talking about her miscarriage, now on the new People podcast, "Me Becoming Mom," which interviews famous moms about their personal journeys to motherhood.
Meghan McCain found her pregnancy loss 'debilitating'
In the new People podcast, "Me Becoming Mom," Meghan McCain talked about her experience with pregnancy loss in 2019. She said, "I found it mentally, emotionally, physically debilitating." She also explained that she had to have a D&C, a dilation and curettage (where tissue is removed from inside the uterus, per Mayo Clinic), afterward, calling it "horrific."
McCain had stated in The New York Times op-ed, "I knew I was pregnant before I formally knew I was pregnant," explaining that her body also "told me in the same ways that I was miscarrying." However, on the new podcast (via Today), McCain explains she didn't definitively recognize the miscarriage. "The [pregnancy] symptoms started to fade a little bit," she says, but "I didn't know enough to know it was a bad sign." When the doctor confirmed a problem with her pregnancy a few days later, she was confused. "I think of having a miscarriage as, like, you start bleeding profusely in the middle of a room. And mine was very different." Yet, McCain's experience is much more common, earning it the name "silent miscarriage" — when the body doesn't recognize the baby's failure to develop, so there are no symptoms, which can result in a D&C, per Progyny.
Despite her new baby, McCain still feels the pain of this loss, telling People, "It's still emotional. I still think of it as the baby I could've had." Her only consolation, she said, is "I feel like that child is with my dad in the afterlife."