James Van Der Beek recalled the moment he learned about wife Kimberly Van Der Beek‘s 2019 pregnancy loss — which came during his time on Dancing With the Stars.
“It was just so much pain, and it was so unexpected because everything was right, everything was [a] fairy-tale. Everything was coming together perfectly,” the Dawson’s Creek alum, 46, said during the Thursday, March 16, episode of the “Bathroom Chronicles” podcast. “It progressed very quickly into being worried about Kim. We were both just crying and sobbing and there was a lot of blood. Way more blood than any delivery.”
According to James, he found out about Kimberly’s miscarriage when she said she “felt off” while they were watching TV.
“And then Kim lied down in the shower and then wasn’t waking up. So that’s when I called 911,” he continued, noting that he stayed home with their kids as Kimberly went to get medical attention. (The couple, who tied the knot in 2010, share six kids: Olivia, 12, Joshua, 10, Annabel, 9, Emilia, 6, Gwendolyn, 4, and Jeremiah, 15 months.)
The Connecticut native concluded: “You were gone. The ambulance had taken you away. I got Gwen back to bed. And I’m just sitting there in a bathroom full of blood. And a dead little baby on the counter. It was just a gut punch, an emotional gut punch.”
James, who was competing on season 28 of DWTS, revealed during the semi-finals that Kimberly suffered a pregnancy loss.
“My wife Kimberly and I went through every expecting parent’s worst nightmare. We lost the baby,” he said at the time. “The little soul that we had expected to welcome into our family took a shortcut to whatever lies beyond. You never know why these things happen, that’s what I’ve been telling my kids. All you know is that it brings you closer together, it breaks you open, it opens your heart, it deepens your appreciation. It makes you more human.”
The pair experienced a second pregnancy loss in June 2020. “I understand that I am very blessed to be able to birth five children. I’ve also had five miscarriages, two of which were really hard experiences,” Kimberly shared on “The Make Down” podcast in October 2020. “It has changed my day-to-day quite a bit, because I’m in very much a healing mode right now.”
Earlier this month, James gushed about his family in a sweet Instagram message.
“I’ve been feeling into a new relationship with time, lately. I used to try to bend it to my will: Speed it up, squeeze more into it, short cut it. Or panic at its passing. Or just ignore it altogether,” he captioned a March 8 snap with his kids. “But recently, I’ve found myself happier the more I’m in touch with reverence, and deference to time. Yes, it CAN be stretched. It can fly.”
In the lengthy social media post, the CSI: Cyber alum discussed the lessons he learned in honor of his birthday.
“The more I deference I can summon to the lessons earned only in time… the healthier relationship I have with miracles. And the easier it becomes to root in the present, open to the perfection of a process I was never meant to control,” he added. “Which is all really just a long-winded way of saying: Middle-age rocks.”
