Natalie Joy Shares She's 'Actively Miscarrying' Her Second Baby with Husband Nick Viall: 'Biggest Heartbreak of My Life'

Yahoo

29-01-2025

Natalie Joy and Nick Viall are opening up about a devastating loss.
On a Wednesday, Jan. 29 episode of the podcast The Viall Files, which Joy and Viall cohost, the couple shared that Joy is actively experiencing a miscarriage. Joy and Viall, who are also parents to 11-month-old daughter River Rose, explained they recently found out they were pregnant with their second baby before the miscarriage.
"I've been trying to be a good mom to River and come and do my job, whether it's on the podcast or on social media for the past week," Joy begins. "And currently, as I sit here today, I'm actively miscarrying our second child, and it has been the biggest heartbreak, I think, of my life."
"I've never experienced something where I feel so empty inside," she continues. "My sister has had 12 miscarriages, and it's like you feel sad and you wanna be there for these people, but you don't really know the loss that they feel until you go through it yourself."
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Related: Nick Viall and Natalie Joy Share Plane Selfies with Baby Daughter River as They Head Out on Their Honeymoon
Sharing that although he feels like almost everyone has been touched by miscarriage, Viall says that he didn't know how to react when he heard the news.
"I mean, especially for everyone involved except for the mother, even as a father, connecting with your unborn child is a process," Viall admits. "And I think especially Natalie's desire, and correct me if I'm wrong to share this, is just to express what it feels like, especially for all the women out there and all the moms and all the women who desire to be a mom, especially those who have had a challenge conceiving."
Continuing, Viall explains that he thinks "every experience you have until you experience something, it's harder to empathize. And once you can, you sometimes feel a bit of guilt for not empathizing the way you feel like you should have now that it's happened to you."
Joy says that although it will take her some time to heal from the pain of the miscarriage, she hopes that discussing her experience will show other people that they aren't alone.
"I want River to be able to watch this back and see her parents' love for her sibling that could have been here," she says. "I just feel dead inside. And it sucks because I have to be so alive for River. You know? I have to be silly and goofy and funny and play with her"
"And then I have this overwhelming guilt that when I'm with you, I can't also do that," Joy continues. "I'm sad that the only version of me you get right now is this broken person, and I'm sorry for that."
She goes on to say that she's feeling "so tired" all the time and exhausted from "performing" and putting on a brave face to get through the pain.
"It's also just a really confusing state, I think, for anyone who's going through this, you question everything," Joy continues. "I look at myself and I'm like, 'I just had a successful, non-complicated pregnancy and birth, and I'm 26 years old. And like, why? Why me? Why did this happen to me?'"
Joy says she had been "spot bleeding" for a while and reached out to her sister for advice after thinking it might be a miscarriage.
"I think I knew from the jump," she admits. "But I didn't wanna accept that. And then it just got heavier and heavier. I'm just so thankful that we were home and not traveling and not in a hotel or on an airplane, but we got home and I went to go pee. And it was like I gave birth."
She says she began screaming and crying, which prompted Viall to come into the bathroom.
"And you know, you just think like, 'How are you supposed to stand up and flush this baby down the toilet? Like how do you do that?' " Joy asks, sharing that she was unable to flush the toilet.
Viall shares that after he discovered what happened, he took Joy out of the bathroom and went in by himself, recalling the "traumatic" experience of being able to "retrieve" what was in the toilet.
"That was definitely the hardest night of my life," Joy says. "Just experiencing that is something I wouldn't wish upon anyone. And unfortunately, I know a lot of women do experience it, and I just feel for these people so much because I was so mad at my body for letting it go. You know? I was like, 'Why couldn't you just hold on to it?'"
Eventually, Joy spoke with her doctor, who told her that the pregnancy would've been "unviable" outside of her body, which allowed her to start to heal.
"I think it's the only thing that you have to hold on to to be able to heal, you know, is to have the doctors assuring you of like, this baby wasn't gonna live regardless," she says. "Our doctor being able to say it was unviable. It wasn't going to live outside of your body, it gives you some hope of like, okay."
"Well, at least like, I don't know. If you focus on the scientific part, I think that's what gets you through it, which is incredibly hard to do."
Read the original article on People