Chrissy Teigen has revealed that her late son Jack's passing in September 2020 was the result of a life-saving abortion, not a miscarriage as she originally stated.
The wife of John Legend, 36, explained that she made the 'difficult decision' to terminate the pregnancy at 20 weeks after coming to terms with the fact that she nor Jack would likely survive.
'Let's just call it what it was: It was an abortion. An abortion to save my life for a baby that had absolutely no chance. And to be honest, I never, ever put that together until, actually, a few months ago,' confessed Chrissy, according to THR.
The couple had previously said that Jack died as a result of complications caused by a partial placental abruption, which is when the placenta detaches from the womb depriving the baby of oxygen and causing heavy bleeding in the mother.
Chrissy is currently pregnant with her and John's fourth child. They share daughter Luna Simone, six, and son Miles Theodore, four.
She spoke candidly about coming to terms with her 2020 abortion while appearing at Propper Daley's 'A Day of Unreasonable Conversation' summit on Thursday in Beverly Hills.
'Two years ago, when I was pregnant with Jack, John and my third child, I had to make a lot of difficult and heartbreaking decisions,' the star began.
'It became very clear around halfway through that he would not survive, and that I wouldn't either without any medical intervention.'
Although she'd long considered Jack's death a miscarriage, Chrissy said that it was her husband John who helped her realize that she'd actually had an abortion.
The revelation came amid the shocking Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe V. Wade, which protected the right to an abortion, this past June.
Chrissy admitted that it came as a 'shock' to her.
'I fell silent, feeling weird that I hadn't made sense of it that way. I told the world we had a miscarriage, the world agreed we had a miscarriage, all the headlines said it was a miscarriage.
'And I became really frustrated that I didn't, in the first place, say what it was, and I felt silly that it had taken me over a year to actually understand that we had had an abortion,' she admitted.
In the final weeks of her pregnancy with Jack, Chrissy used Instagram to report on her concerning complications.
Specifically, the Cravings founder was experiencing uncontrollable bleeding. She was forced to wear adult diapers and was put on bed rest.
On September 30, 2020, Chrissy returned to the platform to report that doctors were unable to get her bleeding under control despite multiple blood transfusions.
'We were never able to stop the bleeding and give our baby the fluids he needed, despite bags and bags of blood transfusions. It just wasn't enough,' she penned, before revealing that Jack did not survive.
'To our Jack - I'm so sorry that the first few moments of your life were met with so many complications, that we couldn't give you the home you needed to survive. We will always love you,' read another portion of Chrissy's post.
Along with her heartbreaking text, Chrissy included a slideshow of black-and-white photos of herself in a hospital bed as she and John grieved their child.
One shot showed the couple crying and cradling their deceased son, while another featured a distraught Chrissy sitting on the edge of her hospital bed with tears streaming down her face.
Not long afterwards, she revealed she would be unable to carry a child again, writing on Instagram: 'I love being pregnant, so so much, and I'm sad I never will be again.'
In a blog post published to Medium in October 2020, Chrissy described how the partial placental abruption dramatically changed the course of her pregnancy.
'At this point I had already come to terms with what would happen: I would have an epidural and be induced to deliver our 20 week old, a boy that would have never survived in my belly (please excuse these simple terms),' she penned.
In another excerpt she recalled the moment that the doctor told her that Jack would not survive and that the pregnancy was also putting her own life in danger.
'After a couple nights at the hospital, my doctor told me exactly what I knew was coming — it was time to say goodbye. He just wouldn't survive this, and if it went on any longer, I might not either.'
In honor of Jack, Chrissy and John planted a tree in their house for him in Thai tradition.
'It's important for us in Thai tradition that we always embrace the ones we've lost, and they're never, ever gone.
'This tree being planted inside the home, the whole reason why I wanted it was so Jack's ashes could be in that soil and he could be with us all the time and grow through the beautiful leaves in this tree,' she said.
Earlier this year, Chrissy informed fans that she was undergoing IVF treatment -- despite previously claiming she would not be able to conceive again.
She completed the treatment in March and by August, the couple confirmed that they were expecting their fourth child together.
