Dancing with the Stars professional dancer Peta Murgatroyd went through a tough time when her husband was trapped in Ukraine.
When Russia invaded Ukraine and started a war, Maksim Chmerkovskiy was in the country working on a dancing competition series.
However, when the war started, he couldn’t get out of the country and had to lay low, hiding in bomb shelters, and trying to stay alive.
Meanwhile, his wife Peta was home in the United States with their baby boy. It was a happy reunion when Maksim finally escaped the country and made it home.
Now, it turns out that Peta was going through a lot more at the time.
Peta reveals she miscarried while Maksim was in Ukraine
While Maksim was in Ukraine working on a reality show, he had no idea that his wife was pregnant at home.
Peta didn’t even know.
In an interview with PEOPLE, Peta said she collapsed on the floor and had to call 911 to take her to the hospital.
She had recently tested positive for COVID-19, and she had lost much of her strength and developed breathing problems. However, there was one more thing wrong.
She was pregnant, and she didn’t even know it. That wasn’t the bad news. The bad news was that she had miscarried the baby.
“I ultimately had no idea (I was pregnant), which in hindsight was better for my recovery because I didn’t have that super joyous moment of, ‘I’m pregnant again!’” Peta said. “I just had the moment of, ‘You lost it.’”
However, it was tough on Maksim, who was on the phone with her when she learned she was pregnant. He said he got excited about it but learned they had lost the baby.
Peta also said that she feels COVID-19 is why she couldn’t carry the baby.
“I felt like I was dying, but then I obviously knew what happened,” Peta said. “It was just all too much for my body.”
Peta has suffered three miscarriages since 2020
Peta then shared that she and Maksim want to have another baby, but it hasn’t been easy.
On top of this incident, Peta also miscarried twice in the last two years. The first time it happened was when she was in a grocery store in 2020.
“I was completely embarrassed, ultimately ashamed. I didn’t even know how to utter the words and have that sentence come out of my mouth: I had a miscarriage,” Peta said.
“I’m somebody who prides herself on health wellness. I exercise every single day. But as I came to realize, that doesn’t really go hand-in-hand with the reproductive system.”
The second miscarriage was nine months later, and Maksim was upset, wondering how two healthy, athletic people could go through this more than once.
It isn’t stopping them, though, as they plan to undergo in vitro fertilization to help with the situation.
Dancing with the Stars is on hiatus. The dancing reality competition series will return in late 2022 to its new home on Disney+ streaming.