For mom Samantha Busch, whom you might recognise as NASCAR driver Kyle Busch's wife or from her role on Racing Wives, having a miscarriage [1] at five weeks was understandably devastating. After she became pregnant with a girl through IVF [2], Samantha realised that she was bleeding while travelling with Kyle. She immediately went to the doctor, where she received the heartbreaking news in November 2018. Rather than keeping her experience to herself, Samantha recently shared with Alison Prato on the podcast Infertile AF [3] how their loss affected their marriage [4].
Although Samantha was already a mom to her 4-year-old son, Brexton — who was also conceived via IVF [5] — it didn't make the pain any more manageable. "It's hard to talk about," she told Alison though tears. "It's sad and frustrating, and even though I've made some peace with it, I'll never get to watch her grow up, I'll never get to know her like I was supposed to . . . People will say things like, 'Well, at least you weren't that far along,' but you know what? It doesn't matter, and I hate when people say that, and I try to educate people: 'Please don't say that to people, because I don't care if you were four weeks, four months, nine months, it hurts.'"
Samantha took the time to grieve privately with her family and share the news with Brexton. Although Samantha was trying to work through the loss as best as she could, it took a toll on her relationship with Kyle to the point where they needed to go to therapy.
"With all the hormones and obsessiveness about having a child, it was like, making love was gone."
"It was really hard. At first we were grieving together and there for each other, but then Kyle was in the mindset of like, 'OK, this has happened, and it's sad and it sucks, but we have to move on.' And I could not physically, emotionally, [or] mentally move on," Samantha explained. "That caused a lot of tension because I wanted to talk about it every day, and every day I was upset. And he was like, 'OK, we have to move on.' And I was like, 'How dare you? We can't move on. We can't ever forget about her.' He's like, 'I'm not saying we're gonna forget about her, but we have to start picking up the pieces.' And it was a lot of tension. It wasn't until finally we went to a therapist to be like, 'We're fighting all the time. This is not good.'"
As you can imagine, the feelings of frustration also translated into the bedroom. Being intimate with Kyle began to seem like a job, rather than something they did purely out of love.
"With all the hormones and obsessiveness about having a child, it was like, making love was gone," Samantha confessed. "It was just a job, it was a chore, it was so much pressure. I felt like the littlest thing would set me off, and that was hard, and then it would set Kyle off, and it was just fights over nothing. Fights because we were both so frustrated with not being able to get pregnant that we'd pick fights with each other over stupid stuff: dishes, laundry. It doesn't matter, just because you are so angry."
Although Samantha has a hard time looking back on the darker days, she has some valuable advice for anyone who experiences loss. "Feel how you need to feel . . . " she said. "People are just so ready to tell you, 'Get over it' or 'Stop being sad' . . . and you can't. You can't listen to anybody else. You have to go through your journey [in terms of] what's best for you and your family at that time."
Now, Samantha and Kyle are looking into surrogacy to bring their next child into the world. While Samantha admits she was certainly apprehensive at first, she says she's been warming up to the idea.