Laura Prepon on Terminating a Second-Trimester Pregnancy: “For Me, It Was Such a Loss”

Laura Prepon is opening up about what it’s like to terminate a pregnancy for medical reasons. In a recent interview on BuzzFeed’s AM to DM, Laura discussed her new book, You and I, As Mothers: A Raw and Honest Guide to Motherhood, and opened up about her and her husband, Ben Foster, having to make the difficult choice to end a second-trimester pregnancy while she was working on Orange Is the New Black.

“For me, it was such a loss,” said the mom of two. “I had to write about it because we were well into our second trimester and we thought everything was fine, and then we found out that there were major health problems with the baby, in that the baby wasn’t gonna survive, that I was at risk; and we really were left with no options. Once I had gone through that I struggled myself with so much shame, and I was so angry at myself [and] at my body.”

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After going through such an emotional experience, Laura realized that being open about that time in her life could help others. “I went through all of this while we were filming, and I was very, very private about it,” she explained. “But ultimately, I felt like so many women have gone through this and so many women don’t talk about it.”

She continued: “When it comes to stuff like this it’s a very personal thing, and I’m so glad that I wrote about it – because number one: it was so healing for me to be able to do that and show that,” she said. “And number two: so many people felt seen and heard and had gone through something similar . . . and I feel like it’s not really talked about, because I feel like there’s this kind of shame around it, and there doesn’t have to be.”

In an effort to reduce the stigma surrounding pregnancy loss, Laura is encouraging women to open up about their own struggles. “When you have someone who’s going through this and you can empathize with them and talk to them, you feel less alone, especially with what’s going on now,” she said. “We’re all self-isolating. I feel like to have that community and that support group is so important, and that’s one of the reasons why I really wanted to share this story.”

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Additionally, Laura gave an update regarding how self-isolation is going with Ben, their 2-year-old daughter, Ella, and how her family is adjusting to life with a newborn son.

“We already had it set up in a way that we could have that really great, intimate bonding that you have with a newborn,” she explained. “We had already set everything up to be our nuclear family so we could all bond and everything right after the baby came. And then it just so happened that this pandemic happened. So we’re just really trying to stay informed while also staying really positive and trying to really have this special time. These first few weeks when you have a baby, it’s so special, and we’re really just trying to embrace it, stay present, and just be a family.”