Milano thought the miscarriages were punishments for her choosing to terminate two pregnancies early into her career.
Editor’s note: This article was originally published on November 9, 2021. It has since been updated.
Trigger Warning: This story discusses miscarriages that may be disturbing to readers.
Dealing with the loss of a pregnancy is hard, and most women tend to think the miscarriage happened because of something they did, and they blame themselves for it. Alyssa Milano was no exception to it. The Charmed actor experienced two devastating miscarriages in her 20s, and she thought it was her fault, according to TODAY.
“I definitely had this moment of, ‘Well, I’m being punished,' basically for abortions in my 20s,” Milano, 48, told Me Becoming Mom podcast host Zoë Ruderman. “It took a while in therapy to realize that that was something that I was putting on myself.”
Milano terminated two pregnancies in 1993 because she conceived despite taking birth control. She spoke about the time when it happened, adding she was engulfed by emotions for the man she was in love with.
“I was in the love for the first time, in the breathless way you can only be in love when you are young. It was huge… It filled every part of living. It was a joyful and exciting and powerful time in my life,” she shared on her Sorry Not Sorry podcast in 2019.
“It was devastating. I was raised Catholic and was suddenly put in conflict with my faith,” she revealed. Becoming a mother was not on her agenda, and she knew that she “wasn’t equipped to be a mother,” which is why she “chose to have an abortion,” but for years, the guilt lingered.
“I chose. It was my choice. And it was absolutely the right choice for me,” she told her listeners. “It was not an easy choice. It was not something I wanted but it was something I needed — like most health care is.”
After she got her first abortion, she learned that she was pregnant, yet again, and she terminated it. But it was not easy on her. The miscarriages only made her feel her absolute worst.
The constant worrying didn't end even when she had two beautiful healthy babies —son Milo, 10, and daughter Elizabella, 7— whom she shares with husband David Bugliari. “I always felt like, ‘What if something happens to these two little beings that I love so much? And is there a world in which they’re taken away from me for whatever karmic resolution needed to happen?” Milano said.
The actor endured her two miscarriages before she went on to become a mother to two kids, and she now believes it was “part of the process” of becoming a parent. But it wasn't easy for her to think that way for a very long time, reports The Weekly Journal.
"It was a bummer, but it felt like I got the two pregnancies I was supposed to get. And that's how I kind of looked at it the entire time. I know that a lot of women take miscarriages very hard, but for me, it was part of the process, I guess. Both miscarriages were, I think I was maybe 7 or 8 weeks pregnant, so if it wasn't viable, my body did what it was supposed to do. I still look at it like that."
Milano isn't the only one that feels that way, and while it may seem sad, it's the truth.
References:
https://www.today.com/parents/alyssa-milano-thought-miscarriages-were-result-abortions-t238030
Cover Image Source: Getty Images | Photo by Emma McIntyre
