James Van Der Beek calls for a new name for miscarriage

'It will tear you open like nothing else'

James Van Der Beek has spoken out about the miscarriages his wife suffered and the effect they had on the couple.

The actor, best known for his role in Dawson’s Creek, shared a picture on Instagram of himself, his wife Kimberly and their newborn baby.

Van Der Beek revealed that Kimberly suffered her third miscarriage before she became pregnant with their fifth child.

“It will tear you open like nothing else,” the actor wrote on Instagram, as he called for a new name for miscarriage and highlighted that they’re more common than many people think.

“First off - we need a new word for it,” said Van Der Beek. “‘Mis-carriage’, in an insidious way, suggests fault for the mother - as if she dropped something, or failed to ‘carry.’

“From what I’ve learned, in all but the most obvious, extreme cases, it has nothing to do with anything the mother did or didn’t do. So let’s wipe all blame off the table before we even start.”

Van Der Beek went on to explain what suffering a miscarriage was like for Kimberley and him.

“It’s painful and it’s heartbreaking on levels deeper than you may have ever experienced,” he wrote. “So don’t judge your grief, or try to rationalise your way around it. Let it flow in the waves in which it comes, and allow it its rightful space.

“And then... once you’re able... try to recognise the beauty in how you put yourself back together differently than you were before.

“Some changes we make proactively, some we make because the universe has smashed us, but either way, those changes can be gifts.”

He pointed out that for some couples, experiencing the pain of a miscarriage brings them closer together, and others feel even stronger love for their children than before.

Many couples, Van Der Beek points out, have “happy, healthy, beautiful babies” after suffering a miscarriage, “and often very quickly afterwards,” he wrote. “You’ve been warned.”

Van Der Beek joins a range of high profile people to have recently spoken out about miscarriage.

Fitness expert and new dad Joe Wicks, AKA the Body Coach, revealed that he and his girlfriend Rosie Jones lost a baby two months before they became pregnant again with their new daughter Indie.

Speaking to Giovanna Fletcher on her podcast Happy Mum, Happy Baby, Wicks said: “[Rosie] fell pregnant really quick but unfortunately that baby was a miscarriage, so it didn’t quite progress, but two months later she fell pregnant again and then Indie was born.”

And granddaughter to the Queen, Zara Tindall, last week gave a candid interview on BBC Breakfast, in which she revealed that the hardest part of suffering her two miscarriages was that “everyone knew.”

However she was touched by how much support she received.

“I had so many letters saying ‘I’m so sorry, we’ve been through the same thing’, which was incredible - and thank you to all those people,” the former Olympian said.

“But it just showed how often it does happen and I have a very supportive family, Mike’s incredible – and it’s hard for the guys too.”