Jessica Capshaw opened up about the painful miscarriage she experienced a decade ago.
Capshaw, 47, shared the story during the Monday, July 15, episode of her and Camilla Luddington’s “Call It What It Is” podcast while answering a question from a listener who was wondering whether she should have more kids.
“I think that the answer is that it’s a very personal answer,” Capshaw said, adding that it’s easier to make decisions about family planning when you’re “really really in touch and really really honest with yourself and with your partner.”
She went on to say that she wasn’t “overwhelmed” by the idea of having several kids because she comes from a big family herself.
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“Luke is three years older than Eve, and then Poppy is only 20 months younger than Eve. So we went like, boom boom,” Capshaw said of her kids, whom she shares with husband Christopher Gavigan. “It was Luke, and a break then Eve, and then I got pregnant when Eve was 10 months old.”
After welcoming Poppy, Capshaw and Gavigan, 50, began discussing the idea of having a fourth baby and decided to go for it.
“I got pregnant and I was so excited and I had never had any issues before getting pregnant,” Capshaw recalled. “I was very lucky and I’m very grateful. And then all of a sudden, at my 10-week appointment, [I] went in for the ultrasound, was by myself, totally unsuspecting, and there was no heartbeat.”
Capshaw described the “horrible” experience as “the most shocking and deeply, deeply sad thing.” She went on to have a D&C (dilation and curettage), a surgical procedure that removes tissue from the inside of the uterus.
The Grey’s Anatomy star said she felt “very, very fortunate” to have such a “compassionate” doctor and husband throughout the “pain” and “disappointment” of a miscarriage.
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“And then you know, life carried on, and I had a chance to take care of myself and my body and my relationship and my other children, and it was really incredible,” she continued.
Capshaw shares Luke, 16, Eve, 13, Poppy, 12, and Josephine, 8, with Gavigan, whom she wed in 2004.
“With all the kids on sports teams, between 8 a.m. and 1 p.m., it is [a] full-blown driving and cheering squad,” Capshaw told People about her life as a mom of four in 2017. “And a lot of coolers that you’re toting around with juice packs.”
