Chrissy Teigen suffers a miscarriage and shares her grief

INSTAGRAM / CHRISSY TEIGEN

Chrissy Teigen mourns the loss of their child.

Celebrity couple John Legend and Chrissy Teigen are in mourning after losing their baby because of a miscarriage.

"We are shocked and in the kind of deep pain you only hear about, the kind of pain we’ve never felt before," wrote Teigen on Instagram and Twitter. "We were never able to stop the bleeding and give our baby the fluids he needed, despite bags and bags of blood transfusions. It just wasn’t enough."

Her post was accompanied with a heartbreaking black & white photo (above) of her sitting on her hospital bed, hunched over with tears flowing down her cheeks.

Teigen was hospitalized two weeks ago because of the difficulty she was having with her pregnancy.

Teigen and Legend are both prolific on social media sharing with their thousands of followers tips on cooking and their travels, followers watched their two other children grow from infancy to their current ages, and comments on show business and politics.

"We are so grateful for the life we have, for our wonderful babies Luna and Miles, for all the amazing things we’ve been able to experience," posted the model and cookbook author. "But everyday can’t be full of sunshine. On this darkest of days, we will grieve, we will cry our eyes out. But we will hug and love each other harder and get through it."

Sharing their tragedy online with their followers is the unfortunate consequence of their using social media to share so much of their lives with their fans. They received praise for bringing attention to miscarriages, usually something most women don't talk about even though one in four women have experienced it and the shame and stigma often associated with the medical condition. 

The celebrity couple -- he is a famous songwriter and singer -- also suffered the dark side of being so prominent on social media. They were targeted by conservatives with nasty and just plain mean messages: some saying the miscarriage have remained private and others hoping the unabashedly liberal couple would change their position on abortion. 

October is Pregnancy & Infant Loss Awareness Month, a time of the year to raise awareness about stillbirth, miscarriage, SIDS, or any other cause of death of an unborn child or infant. According to Star Legacy Foundation, infant death and pregnancy loss affects tens of thousands of families across the United States, and yet the topic is one that is rarely talked about.

By sharing her personal tragedy, Teigen has, perhaps unknowingly, removed some of the stigma attached to pregnancy loss.

Since her post went live, parents, families, and friends have noted that they've found it easier to open up about their own, heretofore, private experiences with pregnancy loss and infant death. 

Teigen posted a followup tweet last Friday (Sept. 30).