In Respect Life Month, Kylie Kelce did the impossible: She upstaged Taylor Swift, who is engaged to become her famous sister-in-law.
Taylor Swift’s new album should have been the talk of the week, but for many families, its risqué photography and explicit lyrics made it a nonstarter.
Instead, Kylie Kelce, the popular host of the “Not Gonna Lie” podcast, addressed a powerful, difficult subject: miscarriage. Her words were covered in USA Today, People magazine, the Today Show and elsewhere.
October isn’t just Respect Life Month; it has a related designation: Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month.
Kelce began her show with fun personal anecdotes, but then got serious.
“This is generally a very light show, something fun to take your mind off of things,” she said. However, “I started this podcast to be able to bring attention to issues I genuinely care about.”
One issue she cares about is pregnancy and infant loss awareness, she said, and told anyone who didn’t want to hear her miscarriage story that they could skip ahead.
The story is from 2018, when she was newly married to Jason Kelce, an NFL football player with the Philadelphia Eagles. The two were eager to start a family and were thrilled when she had her first positive pregnancy test in August, but they kept the news a secret.
It just so happened that in the third month of the pregnancy, the Eagles were playing in London. The couple made plans to travel with Jason’s parents in Ireland after the game and stage a special photograph to tell the new grandparents and capture their thrilled reaction.
Even telling this part of the story meant Kylie had to pause several times as she was overcome with emotion.
It took several tries for Kylie to tell the final part of the story.
Back in the States, Kylie had a regularly scheduled appointment that she says she still remembers as if it happened in slow motion.
When the nurse couldn’t find her unborn child’s heartbeat, she was given an ultrasound procedure — and her doctor had to tell her the awful the truth: Her newly second-trimester child was no longer alive but her body had "missed" the miscarriage. She had to schedule a Dilation and Extraction procedure.
“I still remember going to the car and calling my mom, which is not a good idea when you are heave-crying in the car,” she said. She thought “that I couldn’t tell Jason because it was his birthday, which seems very silly. … obviously, I’m going to tell my husband.”
She had recently given him baby booties as a gift.
The loss of miscarriage is real, she said, the emotions are raw and unpredictable, and the pain of losing one child isn't erased by having another child or children.
“This still hurts after having four children, because it does," she said.
“And it’s OK for people who are still in their journey and not yet having gotten over the hump of like getting to meet your tiny humans that you’re making. I am so sorry for people who have experienced loss."
Her main goal in sharing her story was to reassure women — and to direct them to find help.
“The things that helped me get through it were talking about it,” she said. “I talked about it with my mom who also had experienced a loss. I talked about it with just about everyone.”
Talking about it meant that she discovered just how many people share this pain.
“It just -- it never leaves you,” she said. “I always like to tell people comparing miscarriages, comparing infant loss, comparing any of this between women, is comparing apples and oranges. It is scarring and stays with you in a way that is yours only. And whether you have a loss at 6 weeks or 13 weeks or whenever, that loss is real.”
Kylie also shared how her husband Jason was, and remains, pained by the loss.
The pain is so real that it is shared even — maybe especially — by women who have had abortions.
On Respect Life Sunday each year, in the lines of pro-life signs at intersections in cities across America you will find some saying, “I Regret My Abortion” — just like at the March for Life — to share the pain when it is preventable. You also see “I Regret Lost Fatherhood” signs at these events.
The reality of life before birth is not a political talking point, and it is not just a scientific observation.
It is a reality that changes the lives of the families that “make tiny humans,” as Kylie puts it, whether they get to meet them in this life or not.
