Bachelor alum Arie Luyendyk Jr. and wife Lauren Luyendyk (née Burnham) revealed they had a miscarriage with baby No. 2. The couple announced the tragic news in a YouTube video on May 30.
“A little over a month ago, we got the most exciting news and we found out that we were pregnant with our second baby,” read the video’s caption on their YouTube channel. “We made so many plans. We bought a new house with more space, we planned how we wanted to tell you all and we envisioned our future with Alessi’s little brother/sister.”
The couple noted their happy moment took a turn for the worse. “We were planning to share our journey through pregnancy with you, but unfortunately we didn’t get the happy story we had hoped for,” they continued. “We decided to share this part of our journey with you, because well, we share everything with you! But also because we hope that by talking about this we can make other couples going through these times a little less lonely.”
In the 28-minute video, Lauren, 28, explained she planned to prank Arie, 38, by buying two pregnancy tests and marking one as “pregnant” because the Netherlands native speculated she was expecting after being “so mean” to him recently. The prank ended up backfiring when the second pregnancy test revealed she was actually expecting — naturally an incredible surprise.
The couple took a third test to make absolutely sure before telling their daughter she was set to be a big sister. From there, Arie and his wife explained that throughout their doctor visits, things went from great to not-so-great. At her first check-up with her OB/GYN, Lauren’s ultrasound revealed the 8-week-old fetus was only the size of a 5-week-old fetus, but her blood tests confirmed the baby’s hormone levels were rising which was a good sign.
Undoubtedly, the coronavirus pandemic didn’t lessen the stress of the situation because Arie couldn’t be in the room with her for her visits. During the Virginia native’s second appointment two weeks later, her ultrasound revealed there hadn’t been much substantial growth. On May 28, just one day before their daughter’s first birthday, the couple learned they’d had a “missed miscarriage,” where the body doesn’t recognize the loss of pregnancy or discharge the tissue, so hormones continue to be released.
The race car drive told fans the rollercoaster of emotions have been difficult for the pair. “Going from scared at first a little bit, because it was so soon, then happy, then just worried for weeks on end and then obviously today was the bad news,” he explained. “It’s something you can never really prepare for.”
Our hearts go out to Arie, Lauren and their daughter, Alessi.