Trigger warning: The following article contains discussion of miscarriage and baby loss.
The multi-talented Myleene Klass is a mainstay on the media circuit; having shot to fame as part of Popstars band HearSay, and after becoming a household name thanks to that white bikini on I’m a Celebrity, she has remained in the spotlight for the last 20 years as one of Britain’s best-loved broadcasters.
But the 43-year-old left people stunned last October when she revealed in a candid Instagram post that she had had four miscarriages, stating that she is a “mama to seven babies” including “four little stars in the sky” for National Baby Loss Miscarriage Day.
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And now, a year on, Myleene feels like now is the right time for her to speak candidly about her experiences of miscarriage in the one-off documentary, Myleene Klass: Miscarriage & Me on W.
You can watch a clip below.
“It wasn’t an easy decision,” she explains. “It’s very, very exposing. But I made it because it wasn’t an easy decision.
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“I said ‘no’ about three times but me and my manager both had four miscarriages over the years and in the end we sat down and said, ‘This is the film we need to watch; this is what needs to be said.’"
Myleene, who has previously said how she felt encouraged to speak out about her own baby loss following Chrissy Teigen’s candid Instagram post last year, feels there is still a lack of understanding about miscarriage as a whole.
“I don't think people understand the intricacies of what a miscarriage actually entails,” she says. “It’s a subject that's not taken very seriously because as women, we do just get on with it because what other choice do we have?
“But actually, when you break it down, I wanted to look at the impact it has on women going through it.
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“From a psychological point of view, people are more on point now with mental health so it's definitely not something that can be ignored, and you shouldn’t expect a woman to have all the tools to deal with it from a physical or mental perspective without any help.”
The hard-hitting film sees Myleene read through diaries she kept when she miscarried, as well as observing pictures taken at the time.
“The fact I wrote a diary during my miscarriages says a lot about the headspace I was in,” Myleene said. “I clearly needed to just to get something out.
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“When I read that diary back I was like, ‘I cannot believe who that person was.’
“The diary entries are the saddest, most detailed things. I wrote about a cab driver who took me home and had me sobbing in the back of his car on the phone to a friend. And as we pulled up he said, ‘It happened to my daughter. Should we say a prayer?’ I’d forgotten that happened until I read my diary. It was so kind. And life can kick you and you think you don’t have the strength or the breath to take the next step.”
“I did a photoshoot and I look at those pictures now and I can see how puffy I am. I was trying to hold my belly in,” Myleene continued. “It’s a joy when you hold your belly in when you’re first pregnant, but afterwards you’re holding it in because you’re trying to hide that you were pregnant and you’re just waiting for the hormones to leave and your boobs to go down. It’s just so sad.
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“People can be very judgemental. They say they wrong things very quickly. But I had a family and I couldn’t break so I had to keep going and being strong. But what do you give, in order to be extra strong?
“And it’s all there in that diary and those photos. But if I didn’t take any photos during that time, there’d be four years of my life missing. So I have these pictures in frames and I don’t really look at them often because they’re just part of the furniture but when you really look at them and you start scratching beneath the surface, those buried memories do come back.”
Elsewhere, Myleene meets Sheffield Hallam MP Olivia Blake, who is currently trying to reform miscarriage care, after being forced to cope with her own miscarriage alone in hospital as her husband was not allowed to attend due to coronavirus restrictions.
She also meets a number of women who formed a self-help group, due to the open lack of support.
“I felt so alone when it first happened to me which is why I wanted to make a documentary to show that we're not alone: far from it, sadly,” she says. “These women I met for the film, everyone had a story.
“There are a lot of women behind this film and they were so brave to make it because of their own experiences. We can see what happens when women are empowered and supported. It’s such an important conversation to have and it's such an important programme to make.”
Myleene is now hoping this powerful documentary will mark a change in how we deal with and process miscarriage.
“The change I'd like to see being made is already being made. The fact that we are having these conversations: I couldn't even say the word 'miscarriage' before,” she says.
“People are talking, which means that there’s something to say, because I think we've been all made to feel that it's not important, or certainly not important enough to be addressed or to be medically seen to. That's the message that we all hear loud and clear: it's not important. But it is important.
“There are people taking their lives because of this: it’s that important. It can put pressure on relationships. The PTSD that some women suffer afterwards is the equivalent of a soldier returning from war. So we need to address that.”
Myleene Klass: Miscarriage & Me, airs Thursday 14th October at 9pm on W.
For help, support and advice, you can contact charity Tommy's here.
Featured Image Credit: WTopics: Life, Health, Parenting