Dylan Dreyeris opening up about herstruggles with miscarriageand secondary infertility in honor ofNational Infertility Awareness Week.
On Monday’s episode of theTodayshow’sThird Hour— the same dayJenna Bush Hagerannounced she’sexpecting her third child, a boy— the show’s weather correspondent revealed shehad suffered a miscarriageover the winter while pregnant with her and husbandBrian Fichera‘s second child, following a struggle with trying to conceive for six months before being referred to a specialist.
Unfortunately, the loss was confirmed when Dreyer visited her doctor — an experience she recalled on the show as one that was extra difficult considering she had to go on with her work as usual.
“I’m devastated, and Ihave to go to work on theTodayshowand be happy and smiling and pretend like nothing’s wrong,” she said, adding that she did eventually tell her co-workers what had happened.
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On the show, Dreyer revealed that she got pregnant with her sonCalvin Bradley, now 2, after the couple tried to conceive only one or two times.
But with her second attempt, she was dealing with irregular menstrual cycles, and when she went to get things checked out, a blood test showed she had a low egg count — one similar to what doctors would expect from someone around age 45 as opposed to her age, 37.
Another potential issue was that her uterus “was two-thirds scarred shut” as a result ofthe emergency cesarean sectionshe’d had with Calvin, which resulted in a surgery where the doctor removed the scar tissue. Then, she got pregnant immediately before the couple suffered the tragic loss.
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Dreyer admitted she “didn’t know secondary infertility was a thing” until her experience, and that the couple are looking at in vitro fertilization for their next steps.
“Now we’re gonna startthe IVF process and the shotsand the scheduling and the blood work and everything that goes into it. We don’t really know what to expect right now,” Dreyer added, sayingin a separate segmentthat she is beginning estrogen patches next Friday. “You have to advocate for yourself. If there’s a doctor that you don’t feel like is listening to you, then you have to find the right doctor.”
She also revealed that “a part of me feels a little mad at my body for not being able to do this naturally,” but she’s thankful for “amazing doctors” and her “great support system.”
“God has a plan,” Dreyer said. “And I pray every night, ‘Just let me stay out of your way — youdo what is best forus, and we’ll figure that out.’ ”
“This is something you need more awareness of. There’s this guilt that you have for wanting a second child when I have friends of my own who couldn’t have a single child,” she said. “So here I am being ‘selfish’ that I want to have a second child and it’s like, no, that is not the case. This is our world.”
“Just like some people might say, ‘Well, Jenna just announcedshe’s pregnant today’ andit’s like, ‘Great!’ I’m so happy for her! That’s her world, this is my world. My sadness doesn’t take away from anyone else’s happiness, and my sadness isn’t minimized because someone else has a sadder situation.”
“I don’t want people to qualify anyone’s emotions. … We’re very lucky to have Calvin, but this is my family and if something like this happens, I’m gonna feel sad and I don’t want anyone to tell me if I should or shouldn’t,” Fichera chimed in. “That’s my wife, my child, and that’s my main focus and that’s my priority.”
source: people.com
