In one sentence, Tiffany Haddish perfectly articulated what so many women feel about pregnancy loss.

Stand-up comedian and actor Tiffany Haddish highlighted the difficulty women have when making personal news public this week, after telling a journalist about her multiple miscarriages.

“Well, I’m going to be honest with you. This would be my eighth one,” 43-year-old Haddish said when recounting her most recent loss in an interview with The Washington Post.

“I’ve got a uterus shaped like a heart. It just won’t keep anything in.”

Haddish then revealed that aside from discussing her miscarriages with one close friend, her fear of worrying others caused her to keep them otherwise private.

“I don’t want people saying, ‘Are you okay? Are you all right?'” Haddish said. 

“Like a wounded animal, I'd just rather go in a cave by myself. Lick my wounds.”

Similarly to Haddish, Hollywood legend Sharon Stone experienced multiple pregnancy losses before later sharing the devastation she felt.

"I lost nine children by miscarriage. It is no small thing, physically nor emotionally, yet we are made to feel it is something to bear alone and secretly with some kind of sense of failure," the mum of three adopted boys wrote on Instagram in 2022.

Watch: A tribute to the babies we have lost. Post continues below.

I relate to both Haddish and Stone's heartache. There are no rules about how to reveal difficult personal news in a public way, and pregnancy loss comes with its own unique feelings of shame and guilt.

While I now have two boys aged 12 and six, I experienced three miscarriages while trying to conceive our second child. 

I recall needing time to process the bad news and work out my feelings about them before telling anyone else. 

There was the guilt I felt: if that cup of coffee I had caused the miscarriage or if I over-exerted myself on a jog or did something I shouldn't have.

I hated the sense I had 'failed' at pregnancy, something that everyone around me seemed to do so easily. Family and friends had their second and third babies as my son grew up and started school without siblings.

I felt embarrassed and ashamed anytime I was asked about my 'only child' or made assumptions about our 'choice' to parent just one. 

It was also often easier to smile and shrug and let the woman at the supermarket checkout think whatever she wanted, rather than go into detail about my highly personal experience of pregnancy loss.

The first miscarriage seemed hard enough to explain, but by the third, it felt much worse. I cannot imagine having to explain after the sixth, seventh or eighth time. I understand why Haddish remained quiet.

Preferring instead to "lick her wounds" in peace.

But that doesn't mean staying quiet about personal bad news is right for everyone.

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Chrissy Teigen went public with a raw post and photo when she lost her third child, a son named Jack at 20 weeks.

 "We are shocked and in the kind of deep pain you only hear about, the kind of pain we’ve never felt before," the model, author and entrepreneur wrote on Instagram about her loss in 2020.

With over 42 million followers, mainstream media coverage of Teigen's loss went global. Women saw the photo of the usually beautiful, happy Teigen sobbing in a hospital gown without her baby boy. 

The impact of her words and the now famous image of what pregnancy loss 'looks like' helped so many women like me to feel less shame and more compassion.

Last week, Australian podcaster and TV host Sarah Davidson went on the record about her miscarriage after leaving it a secret for a few months while working out if and how she could share the news with her community.

"Slowly, and by wanting to understand it, I learned that miscarriage is a very common experience for women – one in four pregnancies is non-viable," the Seize the Yay podcast host told Mamamia.

"I then became very rational and soon came to the realisation that I was perpetuating the silence around my experience. 

"I'm a spokesperson on so many varied topics and I realised I could use my loss and grief as an opportunity to talk to other people about theirs. I had seen so many women open up about miscarriage once they had their happy ending –  and a baby in their arms –  but not before. And so I decided I wanted to share."

By telling her story with both words and pictures, Davidson said the process has been so helpful as hundreds of women reached out to share their stories with her. 

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A post shared by Sarah Davidson (Holloway) (@spoonful_of_sarah)

"Since I shared my story, it's been the most cathartic and lovely experience."

"I hoped that a few people would be interested but that even if just one person was impacted, then it was more than enough. But I received hundreds of supportive messages from other women who reflected on why they had also hidden their loss from loved ones. Like me, they thought they should just be able to move on. Or like me, they used very reductive language around the experience. 

"I said things like, 'Oh we didn't even know the gender', or 'It was only a small one as it was before 12 weeks'. I think we can be very mean to ourselves like that."

When I wrote about my experiences of pregnancy loss, like Davidson, I too found the sharing cathartic: By bringing my bad news into the light, a weight was lifted. 

Many women reached out to me, and any worry I had about sharing my losses was unfounded. People mostly just offered kind words, support and compassion. 

Since her interview with The Washington Post, Haddish will probably have already received many messages from women asking if she is okay. 

I hope she feels only love and support, knowing just how much her candid words will have helped so other women feel seen, heard and understood. 

Because the more we share our stories, the more we destigmatise the experience of pregnancy loss and make our personal pain seem less lonely and shameful.

If this has raised any issues for you or if you would like to speak with someone, please contact the Sands Australia 24-hour support line on 1300 072 637.

Join the community of women, men and families who have lost a child in our private Facebook group.

Laura Jackel is Mamamia's Family Writer. For links to her articles and to see photos of her outfits and kids, follow her on Instagram and TikTok.

Feature Image: Getty/Instagram/ Canva