Peta Murgatroyd has suffered three miscarriages in the past two years while trying to expand her and Maksim Chmerkovskiy’s family.
The 35-year-old “Dancing With the Stars” told People on Tuesday that she suffered her first pregnancy loss in 2020 in a Whole Foods bathroom.
The dancer thought about the “shocking” experience, saying, “I was sitting in the bathroom sobbing. … That was something that will probably stay with me for the rest of my life, being alone in that toilet, knowing what happened and it can’t stop.”
Murgatroyd, who shares 5-year-old son Shai with Chmerkovskiy, was “embarrassed” and “embarrassed” by the experience.
“I’m someone who takes pride in his health,” she explained. “I exercise every day. But as I realized, that doesn’t really go hand in hand with the reproductive system.”
The New Zealand native suffered a second miscarriage five months later and Chmerkovskiy, 42, was “really upset” by the news.
“I never thought that two healthy, athletic people could be in a situation like this. It’s a lot to process,” he told the outlet, calling himself a ‘changed man’.
Murgatroyd’s third miscarriage occurred in October 2021 while Chmerkovskiy was in Ukraine. The actress was unaware she was pregnant at the time she went to hospital amid a battle with COVID-19.
“I had no strength. I couldn’t open a dishwasher. I couldn’t open the fridge to feed Shai, get him some toast,’ Murgatroyd recalled. “It got so bad that my breath started to bother me. It was really dramatic.”
Not knowing was “better,” she admitted, explaining, “I didn’t have that super happy moment of, ‘I’m pregnant again!’ I just had that moment of, ‘You’ve lost it.’”
Murgatroyd and Chmerkovskiy have been open about their plans to father a sibling for Shai since his arrival in 2017.
“I want a girl more than anything,” the Ukrainian native told Entertainment Tonight in February 2020. †[But] when it becomes another boy, it becomes unbelievable.”
Despite their fertility problems, Murgatroyd revealed on Tuesday that she is “in a happier place” and “eager” to try again now that she has seen a specialist and may have polycystic ovarian syndrome.
The couple, who married in New York in July 2017, are beginning the process of in vitro fertilization.
“I have no words other than hope and positivity,” Murgatroyd said. “I’m crossing my fingers that this is going to work.”