Lea Michele is candidly discussing her challenging journey to conceive her second child. The 37-year-old actress and singer appeared on Katherine Schwarzenegger Pratt’s podcast, BDA Baby, on Thursday, July 25, and shared her emotional experiences with multiple pregnancy losses while trying to expand her family.
Michele, who is expecting her second child with husband Zandy Reich, described the process as “completely not what [they] expected.” The Glee star revealed that she endured “two back-to-back very early failed pregnancies” while trying to conceive after the birth of her first child, son Ever.
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“I had never had a miscarriage before,” Michele explained during her podcast interview. “The first one, I was like, ‘That was weird.’ When it happened again right away, I was like, ‘Wait a second. Something is wrong.'”
The actress took a break from trying to conceive as she began her role in Funny Girl on Broadway. “It wasn’t until a little bit later [that] I had another [loss],” she recalled. “I was working at the time. It was super challenging to process what we were experiencing at the same time, which was very painful.”
After several losses, Michele sought answers and was diagnosed with endometriosis. She underwent surgery and endured numerous medications and injections before successfully becoming pregnant again.
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Michele, who shares her 3-year-old son Ever with Reich, recently spoke with PEOPLE about the contrasts between her pregnancies. She noted that her first experience was significantly different from her current one.
“It was an incredibly different experience being pregnant with Ever,” Michele said. “We were in California, and we were in a pandemic. So it was a lot of just hanging out at home and very minimal activity. And now, it’s New York, it’s the busy streets. I’m working, I’m a mom, and it’s very different.”
Michele also expressed her joy at being able to share her current pregnancy with friends and family, something she was unable to do during her first pregnancy due to the pandemic. “None of my friends saw me pregnant, ever,” she explained. “You know, my best friend, Jonathan [Groff], never saw me pregnant. He wasn’t with me, and my dad was in New York, he was on the East Coast [during] the pandemic. So to be able to have this experience and share this time with my friends and family has been really wonderful, and not something that I got to do before.”
