Why Mark Zuckerberg and His Wife Opened Up About Their 3 Miscarriages on Facebook

While miscarriages aren’t discussed regularly, they’re more common than you might think. Anywhere from 10 to 25 percent of clinically recognized pregnancies will end in miscarriages, according to the American Pregnancy Association.

Friday, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced his wife Priscilla Chan’s pregnancy in a Facebook post. While the couple is excited to welcome a baby girl into their family, the road to this announcement hasn’t been easy.

Zuckerberg and Chan have had three miscarriages before this pregnancy. In his Facebook post, Zuckerberg wrote:

You feel so hopeful when you learn you’re going to have a child. You start imagining who they’ll become and dreaming of hopes for their future. You start making plans, and then they’re gone. It’s a lonely experience. Most people don’t discuss miscarriages because you worry your problems will distance you or reflect upon you — as if you’re defective or did something to cause this. So you struggle on your own.

Zuckerberg and his wife know the pain of a miscarriage and want to help others going through it feel less alone. He hopes that other people will feel comfortable sharing their own stories after reading theirs. As of Monday, Zuckerberg’s Facebook post had more than 48,000 shares.

We commend this couple’s strength. Read Zuckerberg’s entire post below:

Priscilla and I have some exciting news: we’re expecting a baby girl!

This will be a new chapter in our lives. We’ve already been so fortunate for the opportunity to touch people’s lives around the world — Cilla as a doctor and educator, and me through this community and philanthropy. Now we’ll focus on making the world a better place for our child and the next generation.

We want to share one experience to start. We’ve been trying to have a child for a couple of years and have had three miscarriages along the way.

You feel so hopeful when you learn you’re going to have a child. You start imagining who they’ll become and dreaming of hopes for their future. You start making plans, and then they’re gone. It’s a lonely experience. Most people don’t discuss miscarriages because you worry your problems will distance you or reflect upon you — as if you’re defective or did something to cause this. So you struggle on your own.

In today’s open and connected world, discussing these issues doesn’t distance us; it brings us together. It creates understanding and tolerance, and it gives us hope.

When we started talking to our friends, we realized how frequently this happened — that many people we knew had similar issues and that nearly all had healthy children after all.

We hope that sharing our experience will give more people the same hope we felt and will help more people feel comfortable sharing their stories as well.

Our good news is that our pregnancy is now far enough along that the risk of loss is very low and we are very hopeful.

Cilla and our child are both healthy, I’m extremely excited to meet her and our dog Beast has no idea what’s coming. In our ultrasound, she even gave me a thumbs up “like” with her hand, so I’m already convinced she takes after me.

We’re looking forward to welcoming her into the world and sharing more soon when she’s ready to come out and meet everyone!