Dylan Dreyer is opening up about her struggles with miscarriage and secondary infertility in honor of National Infertility Awareness Week.
On Monday’s episode of the Today show’s Third Hour — the same day Jenna Bush Hager announced she’s expecting her third child, a boy — the show’s weather correspondent revealed she had suffered a miscarriage over the winter while pregnant with her and husband Brian Fichera‘s second child, following a struggle with trying to conceive for six months before being referred to a specialist.
” ‘I think I lost the baby,’ ” Dreyer tearfully recalled of what she told Fichera after she noticed “massive bleeding” five weeks after getting a positive pregnancy test, to which her husband replied, ” ‘You didn’t lose the baby. It’s your body doing what it needs to do. You didn’t do anything wrong.’ “
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 I have to go to work on the Today show and 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 son Calvin 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 of the emergency cesarean section she’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.
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 start the IVF process and the shots and the scheduling and the blood work and everything that goes into it. We don’t really know what to expect right now,” Dreyer added, saying in a separate segment that 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 — you do what is best for us, and we’ll figure that out.’ ”
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Dreyer explained on the show (where she was joined by Fichera and their infertility specialist, Dr. David Reichman) that she wanted to be open about her experience so other women know they are not alone — and that her experience is an individual one.
“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 announced she’s pregnant today’ and it’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.”
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