“Bachelor” Star Vienna Girardi Announces Miscarriage of Twin Daughters at 18 Weeks—Shares Traumatic Details of Trying to Save Them

Former Bachelor star Vienna Girard took to Facebook on Sunday to announce “the hardest thing” she’s ever had to write.

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The 31-year-old shared that after carrying twin daughters for 18 weeks, she suffered a miscarriage and lost both girls.

“The pain I feel, I would never want any mother to ever feel,” she writes.

After going in for an ultrasound on August 3, Vienna learned that one twin had more amniotic fluid than the other. It was the first sign of TTTS—twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome. The condition occurs “when one twin takes more nutrients than the other,” she wrote.

Doctors said it appeared to have improved over the week. But the following evening, her water broke after the amniotic sacs ruptured.

“I spent the next two days in the hospital trying everything to save them.”

The former reality star had previously detailed her high-risk pregnancy, in which her twins were “monochorionic diamniotic,” meaning the girls shared a placenta and were more likely to compete for nutrients, resulting in TTTS.

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“The doctors had warned me that if I did not go into labor and deliver the babies, I was taking the chance of risking my own life and causing an infection in my uterus, but they could not survive at only 18 weeks,” she wrote on Sunday. “They also said that there was a very slim chance under 5 percent that the babies could survive and the fluids in their amniotic sacs replenish themselves.”

Vienna says she did what “any mother would do.” She did everything in her power to save them—even if that meant losing her own life.

But, on her second day in the hospital, “their little hearts stopped beating,” and Vienna went into septic shock with 104 degree fever.

“My little angels went to Heaven on Aug 5 and I was rushed into the OR for emergency surgery and was in the ICU for four days,” she wrote.

“I don’t know why this happened and I pray the Lord gives me strength to understand why he needed my little girls.”

After a few days of trying to navigate the sea of pain and grief she’d suddenly found herself in, Vienna’s doctor asked if she’d be willing to donate her daughters to science. She considered and then agreed, but admits it was the “hardest decision” she’s ever had to make. Her hope is for scientists to learn more about twin-to-twin transfusion and hopefully save other expectant mothers from her same heartbreak.

“This was the hardest decision I have ever had to make in my life but I knew my little girls were in Heaven already and the pain I feel I would never want any mother to ever feel.”

Vienna’s openness about miscarriage shows the heart wrenching pain that’s often associated, but muted, when it comes to child-loss and infertility. It’s honest posts and conversations like these that help other mothers heal after a pain that no one should ever have to experience.

Thankful today for influencers like Vienna Girardi, who, even in her brokenness, is erasing the stigma of child loss. Continued prayers for her and her family at this time.

Here are miscarriage quotes of loss for the grieving mother.