What 'This Is Us' Got Devastatingly Right About Losing a Baby

“This Is Us” spoilers ahead…

On Tuesday night, I tuned into “This Is Us” where I proceeded to bawl my eyes out as we watched Kate go through something that 1 in 4 women go through: a miscarriage. At the end of the previous week’s episode, we were given a glimpse of what this week’s episode would be about. I thought I was mentally prepared to watch this episode, but boy was I wrong.

This episode was more emotional than I had prepared myself for. The whole show hit home from the first few minutes when the ER doctor told Kate that although she should expect bleeding, there was no reason why she couldn’t go back to living her life and that the good news was since they were able to get pregnant once, they could try again in four weeks. So many of us experience comments like these during some of the hardest days of our lives.

When we first learned about Kate’s pregnancy, she was scared to be excited about it because she was afraid it wasn’t really going to happen. But then we watched as she did get excited about her baby. She was doing everything right, but in the end, she still lost her baby.

One of the most emotional moments of the episode for me was when Kate’s mom, Rebecca, opened up about her own loss. Kate and Rebecca haven’t always had the best relationship, but they are now part of the same club — a club no woman wants to be part of. Although their losses were different, it didn’t matter. When Kate questioned how she could be this sad even though she hadn’t even met her baby or even knew if it was a boy or a girl, Rebecca didn’t try to compare their losses. Instead she told her she understood because she had never held Kyle, who died at birth. When you lose a baby, whether it is an early loss, a late loss, or a stillbirth, you still lose a baby. You are losing all of the hopes and dreams you had for that baby.

Rebecca told Kate about a time in the grocery store when the babies were still very little and her loss was still very raw. She had been holding her grief in, but that day it all came out. As I watched this part of the episode I related to it so deeply. It hurt.

In the store Rebecca was breaking down over a bag of yellow onions. She’d gone to reach for them but got distracted by her babies. When she turned her back for a moment, someone else took them.

“I want my yellow onion,” she yelled to a clerk who came over.

“I want what I came for. I want my yellow onion.”

“It’s not fair that I have to sit here and go without my yellow onion.”

“I’ve been planning this dish for a whole week.”

Those are just a few of the quotes from Rebecca at the store, but if you replace the word “yellow onion” with “baby,” you see quotes that run through every loss mom’s head at some point.

I want my baby.

I want what I came for. I want my baby.

It’s not fair that I have to go without my baby.

I’ve been planning his life since I found out I was pregnant.

So far, I think “This Is Us” has done a wonderful job at accurately depicting the pain of child loss. I might have bawled my way through this episode, but I was satisfied with the way in which they portrayed this devastating event. It is my hope that they continue to tackle this difficult subject that personally touches so many.

Follow this journey on Remembering Robby.

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