Beverley Mitchell has revealed that she suffered a miscarriage earlier this year.
In an emotional blog post on Thursday, the "7th Heaven" alum opened up about how she and husband Michael Cameron were expecting twins a few months back, but the couple's dreams of expanding their family-of-four were shattered after Mitchell learned she had suffered a miscarriage only a few weeks later.
"A few months back Michael and I were thrilled, we had just found out we were pregnant, and though we were surprised, we were excited," Mitchell, 37, wrote. "It didn’t take long before we began to prepare for a life filled with more little people in it.
"And much to our surprise, we came to find out it was twins!" she continued. "After our shock, came acceptance and excitement. A few weeks later, our new dream of our growing family came crashing down; we had a miscarriage. This was a shock."
The "Hollywood Darlings" star explained that her "first instinct" was to say she was "fine."
"And to be honest; I was trying to be," Mitchell recalled. "I thought I had to be, for my family, for myself. I had to jump on a plane and go to work being surrounded by babies and kids while I was still miscarrying. That was interesting."
The mom-of-two went on to share a piece of advice a close friend gave her when she was pregnant with daughter Kenzie, now 5.
"I remember something one of my best friends told me during my first pregnancy, if the pregnancy is viable it will stick, if the baby (babies) are not viable they won’t," Mitchell — who is also mom to 3-year-old son Hutton — wrote, adding that even though "this makes perfect sense and was something I even said when I shared the news of our pregnancy to our closest friends, this challenged me.
"Because though it made sense in my head, my heart could not make sense of it," she continued. "I never really considered that I would miscarry being that I had already had two healthy pregnancies. This was my misconception, you see, I didn’t know much about miscarriages and I didn’t know many people who had miscarried, or so I thought."
However, once Mitchell starting sharing her loss with others, she found that people she knew "shared the same scars."
"I was now part of a group, the unspoken and hidden group who mourn their losses in the shadows," she said, noting that "this was the hardest part, suffering in silence."
"Every time I shared what we were going through I made people uncomfortable, no one ever knows what to say, and to be honest, there is nothing to say," the actress explained.
"Most people who are sharing their story, we aren’t looking for anything just the opportunity to share their story.
"It is with sharing it that the healing begins, the acceptance that it happened, it is when you ignore it or pretend that it never happened that you cause more pain," she continued. "Dismissing it almost makes it worse."
Now, a few months later, Mitchell says that "with time" she has started to heal.
"It is crazy how quickly you can adopt the idea of a new life and how fast that can all go away," the star admitted before thanking her loved ones.
"I am incredibly grateful for my rock of a husband who had patience while I worked through the gammot of emotions. I had my girlfriends who I relied on too, who though I didn’t talk with them much during this time, who constantly checked in and left me messages and gave me the time to heal but also to show the support was there when I wanted or needed it.
"To these ladies, I will forever be grateful, they are my ride or dies. They knew me and gave me the space to heal."
Mitchell concluded: "We still have dreams of growing our family but now more than ever, I look at Kenzie, Hutton, and Michael and just feel full. If we are blessed with more children they will fill us with more love, but for now, I look at my family and I am GRATEFUL, BLESSED, and THANKFUL."