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Kiele Sanchez opens up on portraying real-life miscarriage on TV

Actress Kiele Sanchez has opened up about how playing out her real-life miscarriage on U.S. TV series Kingdom helped her to heal.
The 38-year-old star and her husband, fellow actor Zach Gilford, announced in August (15) they were preparing to become first-time parents in November (15), but in October (15), they revealed Kiele had suffered a late-term miscarriage.
To make matters even more difficult, writers on the acclaimed MMA drama had written her pregnancy into the series, but gave her time away from the show to cope with the loss.
She was absent for most of the series’ second season, but she made a return on the episode which aired Wednesday night (13Jul16), when her character Lisa also went through the same traumatic loss of her child – a storyline Kiele wanted the writers to put into the show.
Kiele penned an emotional essay for The Hollywood Reporter discussing her decision to mirror her ordeal, in hopes she could help other mums-to-be get if they suffered similar losses.
Kiele went on to describe how she tried all sorts of ways to treat her depression, from prescription drugs to exercise to seeking help from medical professionals, but nothing could stop her anxiety from the “abruptness of the loss”.
She explained how the dark cloud of sadness continued to overwhelm her as she built up to her first day back at work, when she had to act out the scene in which her character loses the baby – requiring her to put on a fake baby belly once again.
“I couldn’t look at people’s faces,” she recalled. “It wasn’t until I saw the prosthetic stomach I was going to have to wear that I started to buckle… When I looked at myself in the mirror my mind somersaulted. I’m pregnant again. It was all a bad dream. A bad dream I was going to have to preform again and again until we ‘got it.’
“As I made my way to set, the crew, who is family to me, looked everywhere but at me… They were so invested in my well-being and always took such good care of me that standing there, hugging them, I felt shame that I had let us all down. It was so quiet. Somber. We rehearsed and they were afraid to tell me I missed my mark. That I wasn’t in my light.”
Kiele admitted she felt hesitant for the first time in her decision to incorporate the story to the TV series, before she cut the tension with a joke. “Right before ‘action’ I looked at the ‘A camera’ and asked, ‘Do I look fat?’ Silence. And then laughter. And we all breathed for the first time since I walked in,” she smiled.
Kiele concluded, “It ended up being cathartic. A word I never really knew until now. I have so much pride that we didn’t shy away. That we created something that speaks to suffering that for some reason lives in shadows. I am grateful that I was put in a position that I did not have the option to hide. I’m glad that we leaned in. Went into the humanity of heartbreak.”
Kiele and former Friday Night Lights star Gilford, 33, wed in 2012.

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