MADISON, Wis. (SPECTRUM NEWS) - October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month. The month started with news from Chrissy Teigen and John Legend that they lost their son Jack, more than halfway through the pregnancy. 

Thousands of Wisconsin women and families experience the same thing every year. Now, doctors and advocates hope their experience helps others feel less alone. 

“They really just opened open to their heart up to everybody with this experience they're going through,” said Dr. Kristen Sharp. She’s the OBGYN at UW Health’s Hope After Loss Clinic. 

Sharp has experienced loss herself. When asked what that grief felt like, without skipping a beat, she said “it’s the loneliest of the lonely.” 

“There were no depths to the grief and loss,” Sharp said. “Which just totally took me by surprise, especially being an OBGYN and having cared for many women and families who've been through pregnancy loss. I just had no, no idea.”

Data has shown that approximately one in four women experiences a miscarriage at some point in her life. It happened to Emily Grorud twice. 

“November fifth of 2010, my water broke at home and I was 23 and a half weeks pregnant with our son,” Grorud said. “We went to the hospital and found out that I was in pre-term labor and we had to deliver him.” They named their son James. 

About six months later, Grorud got pregnant again with their daughter Josie. It was right at that 24-week mark, around the same time that Grorud lost James, that something went wrong again. 

“That was what kept going through my head, like this can't be happening again,” Grorud said. “It can't happen twice. That's just not fair. Not fair is once, but twice is just unimaginable.”

Their daughter Josie was born at 24 and a half weeks, and she was born alive. She lived for four days in the NICU before they had to say goodbye due to a severe brain hemorrhage. 

Later, Grorud and her husband adopted a daughter at birth. Years later, they adopted a second daughter. 

Grorud also became one of the leaders of Bereaved Parents of Madison Inc. She said the group helped her cope with her losses. 

“Baby and infant loss just isn’t talked about in our society very often. It’s just not something people want to talk about, I think,” Grorud said. 

It’s pretty common that after women have a loss, they hear from others close to them that they’ve also experienced a miscarriage or stillbirth. 

“After my last, there's a couple of people in my life, two aunts, one on my side, and one on my husband's side, that came up and said ‘I lost a baby around that gestation, too’,” Grorud said. "Back then it was even less talked about … But to know that was just kind of mind-blowing, that I grew up not knowing that two of my aunts had had babies.” 

“What I hear a lot is people just feel isolated, they didn't realize that this could happen to them,” Sharp said. 

Sharp hopes Teigen’s and Legend’s story helps other people feel comfortable talking about their own losses. “I think this will open the door for many people who lost a pregnancy or a baby and really haven't found a way to be open about that,” she said. 

“I think it’ll have far-reaching effects and that it’ll really help people,” Grorud said. “I imagine people will be saying ‘You saved my life by sharing.'” 

If someone around you has experienced a loss, Sharp recommends being open and ready to listen. 

“One thing that I commonly come across is people will say, ‘well I don't want to remind them, I don't want to make them sad,'” Sharp said. “But they're thinking about this 24/7. So if you bring it up, that's actually validating their feelings and making them feel supported.” 

For resources to deal with pregnancy and infant loss, click here.