Fernando Leon/Getty Images for Vera Bradley
Bachelor in Paradise‘s Jade Roper Tolbert and husband Tanner Tolbert, who are expecting their second child, have revealed that she suffered a miscarriage before she got pregnant with their first.
The two revealed the news on Instagram and in a YouTube video posted on Tuesday.
“I had a miscarriage. These words have burned inside me for over three years,” Jade wrote. “I was honestly so scared to share our story, because I have always had this inner voice that’s said I don’t matter as much, especially when it comes to my struggles or my pain. My journey with my grief has been a rollercoaster, and so I’ve never even known really where to start with telling others. I’ve also been afraid to tell people Tanner and I got pregnant on Bachelor in Paradise while filming. I’ve been keeping this weight for a long time, but being pregnant with our second child, all these emotions have been on the surface for me. I just felt it was time to get it out of me and share our story and honor our baby. Thank you for all the kind words, they’ve made me feel very loved and have made me feel less alone.”
“You always hear those stories about those couples that get pregnant the very first time they have sex,” Tanner says in the YouTube video. “I never thought that would be me but it was and add on top of that the fact that it happened on a TV show in a fantasy suite made things a little complicated.”
“To be honest my first reaction was, Really, oh s–t,'” Tanner said. “I mean here we are, we just got engaged on a TV show I’m still getting to know Jade. In all honesty, we didn’t have any concrete plans of when we were gonna be like living together or what our next steps are…we were still navigating through that and now all of a sudden we had a very real life thing happen so it was really time to get serious and in a way, I think it brought us closer together.”
Jade concurred.
“We were engaged to each other but had only known each other for four weeks before we got engaged and this was about a month and after that and it just it was just a lot to take in and I think I think it brought us closer together,” she said.
“I decided to move to Kansas City and move in with Tanner and we were just gonna really work on our relationship and creating a family together like instantly, and sadly we did lose the baby, which at the time I didn’t really grieve because I just didn’t, I didn’t know really what to how to process it, it was so much so fast. In a really bad way, it was almost like a relief because we just like, we’re in such this whirlwind but it wasn’t really until after I had Emerson that I realized how much I love my child and how amazing of a miracle it is and I think I really grieved that child much later.”