Actor James Van Der Beek spoke candidly about his wife Kimberly’s 2019 miscarriage and how devastating it was for both of them.
The 46-year-old actor talked at length about what happened during a new episode of the “Bathroom Chronicles” podcast, per People. Van Der Beek was competing on the reality competition show “Dancing with the Stars” at the time, and Kimberly was 17 and a half weeks pregnant when the loss occurred.
He describes how his wife felt “off” that night and went to take a shower, which is when she began having the miscarriage.
“It was just so much pain, and it was so unexpected because everything was right, everything was fairy tale. Everything was coming together perfectly,” Van Der Beek said on the podcast. “It progressed very quickly into being worried about Kim. We were both just crying and sobbing and there was a lot of blood. Way more blood than any delivery.”
“And then Kim lied down in the shower and then wasn’t waking up. So that’s when I called 911,” he continued. The “Dawson’s Creek” alum recalled decided to stay home with his five young children rather than accompany his wife to the hospital after the emergency medical team arrived.
After Kimberly was transported to the hospital, Van Der Beek began to process what had happened. “You were gone,” he said, addressing his wife. “The ambulance had taken you away. I got Gwen back to bed. And I’m just sitting there in a bathroom full of blood. And, dead little baby on the counter. It was just a gut punch, an emotional gut punch.”
Van Der Beek did end up finishing his run on “DWTS” despite losing his child so close to the final episodes. He said he did so at his wife’s insistence.
The actor has spoken about miscarriage before.
“Miscarriage (a word that needs a replacement — nobody failed to ‘carry,’ these things sometimes just happen) is something that people rarely talk about, and often go through in secret,” he wrote on Instagram in 2019.
The actor said he discussed it “in an effort to chip away at any senseless stigma around this experience and to encourage people who might be going through it to open themselves up to love and support from friends and family when they need it most.”
Van Der Beek and Kimberly welcomed their sixth child, Jeremiah, in November 2021 after experiencing two late-term pregnancy losses.