The Bachelor's Arie Luyendyk Jr. and Lauren Burnham have had quite the relationship journey in the past couple of years. Lauren was originally Arie's runner up on his 2018 season, but they ended up finding their way back to each other soon after, and eventually married and welcomed a daughter, Alessi, a little over a year ago. Unfortunately, the couple has now suffered a miscarriage on the way to having their second child, and while they have shared the whole story with fans, they also want people to know why they thought it was important to talk about what happened.
This is already a difficult time for anyone who's pregnant or trying to start a family, but Lauren and Arie have the added pressure of being a still relatively new couple for whom things have moved very fast, who also deal with being in the public eye. The couple has a YouTube channel where they share their lives with fans, and went public recently with their experience of learning that Lauren's recent pregnancy was no longer viable. In speaking about their journey and why they decided to open up about the heartbreak, Arie said:
I feel like there’s people at home that go through this every day, that have this happen to them, and I feel like it’s important for us to document this and show you that you’re not alone. I think that, as a man, you don’t ever really think about this. You see that pregnancy announcement, you see the pregnancy test is positive, you’re hopeful and you’re happy. With Alessi, we never questioned if it was a viable pregnancy or not. No one really talks about this, at all. At least, guys don’t talk about this with each other. I think it’s important to share our story and Lauren’s story through this whole thing.
As Arie said, the main reason for sharing their miscarriage story was that they just wanted people to know that they aren't alone, but he and Lauren also wanted people to see what could happen in the early stages of pregnancy. This was especially true for men, because as Arie said (with Lauren agreeing), miscarriage is not something men talk about or even really think about when they hear they're going to become a father.
Suffering a miscarriage is surely difficult and terrible no matter how it happens or how a couple finds out about it, but Arie and Lauren had a particularly extended journey to getting the sad news. They originally started filming this process about a month ago, because Arie though Lauren was pregnant and had been teasing her about it. He then convinced her to take a test, but, as a joke, Lauren decided to mock up a fake positive as a prank.
When Arie realized Lauren was messing around with him, he managed to get her to actually take a test, which revealed that she really was pregnant. But, when Lauren went in for her first doctor's appointment a few weeks later, she was told that she was only a little over five weeks along, instead of being eight weeks pregnant, as she'd thought. Lauren then had to have some blood work done, but everything checked out fine, so she and Arie were, once again, feeling very excited.
Lauren's next appointment, which was in a couple of weeks, only showed about a week's worth of progress in the pregnancy, and the couple was told to wait another week to see where things stood. Arie and Lauren were on video chat during that last appointment, so he could get the update without being in the room with her, but unfortunately, the ultrasound revealed that the pregnancy wasn't viable. Lauren's body hadn't realized that yet, though, so it was still behaving as though she wasn't miscarrying. And, her doctor noted that this is the most common type of miscarriage.
You can take a look at their full video about it, below:
So, while Lauren and Arie had to go through a serious roller coaster over the past month, they decided to turn it into something as positive as possible by sharing their story with others, so that they could be aware of what might happen. Whatever you might think about the way these two got together, it's clear that they make a good team, and have their hearts in the best place. It's impossible not to feel bad for their loss, and hope that (when they're ready) they can have all the babies they want.
While we wait for word on Clare Crawley's 2020 season of The Bachelorette, be sure to watch the 10-week event, The Bachelor: The Greatest Seasons — Ever!, which airs on ABC, starting June 8 at 8 p.m. EST. For more on what to watch in the coming weeks, check out our guide to summer TV.
