Teddi Mellencamp is pregnant with her and Edwin Arroyave’s third child, but the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star has not had an easy fertility journey.
Although she conceived naturally this time around, the reality star used in vitro fertilization to welcome Slate, 7, and Cruz, 5. During the process, the Bravo personality experienced “crazy” mood swings and suffered a miscarriage — but tried to hide how much of a toll the process was taking.
“I don’t like when people can see me breaking down, so I hid it from everybody how hard it was every single time,” the ALL IN by Teddi accountability coach revealed on the Tuesday, October 22, episode of her “Teddi Tea Pod” podcast. “You just get really stuck inside of yourself. All I could keep thinking was, ‘What is wrong with me? Why does my body keep killing these babies. What is happening?’”
In fact, when the Indiana native suffered a pregnancy loss after welcoming Slate, she didn’t want to say anything. “I remember being like, ‘What am I going to do?’ and almost wanting to hide [the loss] from everyone in my life because they’re not going to let me [try] again,” she explained. “I remember feeling so broken.”
So when John Mellencamp’s daughter started IVF again to conceive her second child, she “became a totally different person.” Teddi explained, “I am not showing one person this is hard. I am not being upset about it because I can not let them pull it away.”
She hid her feelings in the same way when she experienced postpartum depression. “I remember being so embarrassed and ashamed,” Teddi recalled. “I didn’t know that happened to people. I just felt so down. Edwin would leave for work and I would sob, but I didn’t want to tell him that. You don’t want to tell your husband, ‘I don’t know how I’m going to make it through this day.’ Luckily with time, it lifted.”
Now, the reality star is determined to share her story with other women going through the same infertility struggles. “The more we talk about these things, the more people realize they are not alone,” she wrote on Instagram on Tuesday. “There is nothing to be ashamed about.”
Us Weekly broke the news in September that she and Arroyave are expecting baby No. 3 — and the pregnancy was a surprise. “My husband said, ‘I don’t want to see you going through IVF again — that was brutal,’” Teddi told Us exclusively at the time. “It was so many rounds, but this time we really weren’t doing anything! I was on vacation! Just having fun with my family! It was a complete surprise. I didn’t even know I was because I didn’t have a regular cycle.”
