Justene Alpert, an actress who appeared in 9-1-1, The Lincoln Lawyer and more, is opening up about the difficult decision she and her husband faced when it came to their pregnancy.
In a candid Instagram post shared Monday, June 22, she revealed in a lengthy message that her and husband Mason Trueblood‘s unborn baby was diagnosed with a “rare genetic disease.”
“On December 22, my happiness, and if we are being completely honest, my light was taken from me,” she began in the multi-part message. “It was a short phone call outside my office. It was calm and frantic at the same time. I was pregnant and entering my second trimester. My husband and I were just beginning the rounds of telling our close family and friends and sadly our little tour came to a halt that day.”
Alpert said she was rushed to a genetic specialist for confirmation, adding: “[The baby] wasn’t going to make it to full term.”
“To the woman who is experiencing this or has experienced this before,” she wrote. “I’m mad for us. No one prepares you for this.”
According to Alpert, she and her husband were told “not only about our baby’s condition but the high risks that I would be subjected to as a woman my age.”
“I heard the phrase that I never imagined hearing when we were ready to have a family… ‘We highly recommend that you terminate this pregnancy and we need to do it quickly if so,’” she wrote, adding that on December 29, the couple said “goodbye” to their unborn son.
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“We didn’t want to have to make this decision. No mom or dad should ever have to be put in this place,” she said. “The same and guilt is unfair. Having to do this is something that is rarely spoken of and seems to not have the same kind of empathy as other situations. It’s the worst pain and many suffer silently out of fear of being judged or simply misunderstood.”
Revealing that they named their late son Mads, she thanked their unborn baby “for making me a mom,” adding: “You are the one who gave me the backbone when I was doubting if I was ready to be a mom or not.”
In the caption of her post, Alpert said she “thought long and hard about if I wanted to share this and how I would want to share this.”
Though Alpert did not reveal what kind of rare genetic disease their unborn child was diagnosed with, she said she wanted to “hone in on why I wanted to share.”
“Was it for me? Was it for awareness? Was it for our friends?” she asked. “I mean, I guess you can say a tiny bit of everything but the main reason and what I can get behind opening up for is this: I’m sharing this for the woman who may be in the situation I was in not long ago. The one who just had her heart shattered.”
This story ‘9-1-1’ Actress Reveals She Terminated Pregnancy After Baby Diagnosed With ‘Rare Genetic Disease’ first appeared on InTouch Weekly. Follow InTouch Weekly on Yahoo so you don’t miss what’s coming next.