Arie Luyendyk Jr. and Lauren Burnham have shared the heartbreaking news that she recently suffered a miscarriage.
The Bachelor couple shared an emotional video on their YouTube account over the weekend, opening up about the roller coaster of emotions they've experienced within the past month, after first learning they were expecting their second child.
“This isn’t our typical positive vibes type of video,” Burnham says at the start of the video, as the couple explained that their journey began when they decided to film a YouTube video because Luyendyk Jr. was confident that Burnham was pregnant.
However, while she agreed to take a pregnancy test, Burnham, who believed she wasn’t expecting, initially planned to prank him by doctoring a test — but to her surprise, her husband was right.
“Guess we’re a family of 4 pretty soon,” she said in a flashback clip, as the couple cuddled with their daughter Alessi, who celebrated her first birthday on Friday.
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After learning their exciting baby news, the couple began to make plans for their future.
“We made so many plans,” the couple explained in the video description. "We bought a new house with more space, we planned how we wanted to tell you all and we envisioned our future with Alessi's little brother/sister. We were planning to share our journey through pregnancy with you, but unfortunately we didn't get the happy story we had hoped for."
During their initial visit to the doctor, they were told that Burnham's ultrasound showed that their baby on the way, who by their estimate “should have been 8 weeks” along, looked to only be around 5 weeks old.
“We were really confused by that,” Burnham explained. “But our doctor assured us that it could be a number of things and not to panic about it.”
“It could mean I’m just not as far as long as I was, it could mean I ovulated less, or it could mean that it’s not a viable pregnancy,” she continued.
Although within the next week, Burnham’s hormone levels continued to rise, which was a positive sign, the couple got more bad news at their next doctor’s appointment.
“I was expecting to see an 8 week old ish baby,” Burnham explained. “Now we’re measuring at 6 weeks exactly so that means we’ve made 5 days progress in the span of 14 days.”
“It’s not the easiest news to take in,” she added, while fighting back tears.
After another week of waiting, the couple went to the doctor again on May 28 and found out that Burnham had suffered a missed miscarriage, which occurs when the embryo has died, but has not been physically miscarried. The doctor went on to explain that her hormone levels were still up because her body hadn't yet recognized the loss.
“It’s been a roller coaster of emotions going from scared at first a little bit because it was so soon, then happy, then stress and worry for weeks on end, and then obviously today was the bad news,” Luyendyk Jr. explained. “It’s consumed our thoughts for the last month. It’s been hard holding this back from everybody.”
“I was really excited to tell you guys that we were pregnant, and I feel like this is the best way for us to tell the whole story,” added Burnham.
Although their story “doesn’t have the happiest outcome,” Luydenyk Jr. explained that they felt like it was important to share, to let people who have gone through a similar experience know “you’re not alone.”
“Hopefully the next time you see a video with the word pregnancy it’s positive and it’s good news,” he added. “We’ll get through this.”
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