Monday, October 23, 2017

Thank you for keeping it real, Shawn Johnson

So I'm not sure how many of you have heard the news from Shawn Johnson and her husband Andrew East from over the weekend. Shawn Johnson is a former gymnast and Andrew East is football player. Shawn posted a 20 minute video that showed her announcing to the world and then to her husband that she was pregnant. That is a moment that every woman who has ever been pregnant can remember and it's usually a moment filled with tons of emotions! This was no different for Shawn. She said that this pregnancy was unplanned but she was still excited and happy about it. 

Then things take a bit of a change in the video. Shawn was on the phone with her doctor and the next thing you see is her and Andrew driving to the doctor's office for her to get blood work and an ultrasound. Then they get the worst news possible: she lost the baby. It's so crazy because some people may think "How can you miss something you never had?" I've never had to experience this, but it completely makes sense to me about how you can miss something that wasn't even born yet. She had known she was pregnant for about 4 days before she found out she lost the baby. That may not seem like that long, but it truly is. From the moment you find out you're pregnant, you have all these thoughts going through your mind about who that baby is going to turn into and how different your life is going to be in 9 months. To have that suddenly all go away...I can't even imagine!!

I think Shawn is so brave to have shared her story with the world. "We feel like a lot of people go through this so we wanted to share it," Johnson says in the video. Miscarriage just isn't something that people talk about and so to see this video out there is just so brave of her. This happens to more women in the world than people may think and I just hope that women who have experienced this in their lifetime know that they are not alone. Like I said, I never had to experience this, but my heart breaks for women who have.

Some of the comments on this video make me angry. I saw one that said "Get over it, it happens to all of us. No biggie." Again, not speaking from experience, but this is in no way a situation in which to say "no biggie." Yes life does go on for people who experience this, but it's not like they just say "Alright, just have to shake this off, no biggie." I'm sure people think about their miscarried babies more than people think they do. Their lives would be completely different had that baby survived, so it isn't something you can just get over.

Along with the bad comments, I think there are a million more good ones!! I'm just loving the support that everyone is giving them. It makes me so happy that there are still a ton of great people out there in this crazy world!!

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