The Big Bang Theory's Melissa Rauch made a big announcement Tuesday: She's pregnant with her first child! In an essay for Glamour.com, the actress detailed her long road to motherhood.
"Here is the only statement regarding my pregnancy that doesn't make me feel like a complete fraud: 'Melissa is expecting her first child. She is extremely overjoyed, but if she's being honest, due to the fact that she had a miscarriage the last time she was pregnant, she's pretty much terrified at the moment that it will happen again,'" Melissa, who is married to Winston Rauch, began. "'She feels weird even announcing this at all, and would rather wait until her child heads off to college to tell anyone, but she figures she should probably share this news before someone sees her waddling around with her mid-section protruding and announces it first.'"
The miscarriage resulted in "one of the most profound sorrows I have ever felt in my life," the New Jersey native remembered. "It kickstarted a primal depression that lingered in me. The image of our baby on the ultrasound monitor—without movement, without a heartbeat—after we had seen that same little heart healthy and flickering just two weeks prior completely blindsided us and haunts me to this day. I kept waiting for the sadness to lift...but it didn't."
Melissa doesn't like the term "miscarriage," which she believes "deserves to be ranked as one of the worst, most blame-inducing medical terms ever. To me, it immediately conjures up an implication that it was the woman's fault, like she somehow 'mishandled the carrying of this baby.' F that so hard, right in its patriarchal nut-sack. It's not that a better name would make it less awful to go through. But for a while, my husband and I just started saying to each other—without any judgment or acrimony to the baby, of course—that the baby 'bailed' instead."
The 37-year-old actress, who plays Dr. Bernadette Rostenkowski-Wolowitz on the CBS sitcom, admitted that reading pregnancy announcements while struggling with fertility issues "felt like a tiny stab in the heart." Melissa explained, "It's not that I wasn't happy for these people, but I would think, 'Why are these shiny, carefree, fertile women so easily able to do what I cannot?'"
In those moments, Melissa said she would "feel guilt and shame" for being jealous of other women. "I've always been one to keep my eyes on my own paper, but when it came to having a baby, that proved to be a challenge. So when I thought about having to share the news about expecting this baby, all I could think about was another woman mourning over her loss as I did, worried she would never get pregnant again, and reading about my little bundle on the way," she wrote. "It felt a bit disingenuous to not also share the struggle it took for me to get here."
"Our pain is something to be worked through until it isn't anymore. On my better days, rather than being a big jerk to myself, I just started saying, 'It is OK to not be OK right now,'" she said.
It didn't help when people would often ask Melissa when she planned to procreate. "Before any of us ask a woman about popping out a baby, let's think to ourselves: We don't know what she's going through, what her body is capable of, or what she personally desires. Whether a woman wants to have children or not, if she wants to share that information, she will," she said.
"I know I've asked women about their reproducing situation in the past (as most of us unintentionally have at some point or another). It comes from a well-meaning, good place," she said. "My hope is that if we as a society become more aware of how common fertility struggles are, perhaps we won't be so cavalier in questioning females about what's on their baby agenda."
Melissa said the experience has changed her irrecoverably. "I know it's made me grateful for every moment of my current pregnancy, and I hope it will make me a better mother in some capacity when I can finally hold the child that has been in my heart in my arms. Although I can't categorize these lessons of humble appreciation and gratitude as 'reasons for this happening,' I will consider them a silver lining. (But to be honest, I would've much preferred to learn said lessons from either a fortune cookie or by watching a few heartfelt reruns of Full House.) So, to all the women out there who are dealing with fertility issues, have gone through a miscarriage or are going through the pain of it currently, allow me to leave you with this message: You are not alone," said Melissa, who's due this year. "And, it is perfectly OK to not be OK right now."