Alanis Morissette reveals she's suffered 'a bunch of miscarriages'
Singer Alanis Morissette, a mother of three, opened up about her heartbreaking pregnancy struggles.
Joining Dax Shepard and his wife Kristen Bell on his recent "Armchair Expert" podcast episode, the singer revealed that she suffered "a bunch of miscarriages" when trying to grow her now family of five.
Morissette is the mother of 9-year-old Ever, 3-year-old Onyx and 10-month-old Winter. She's all too aware of the age gap between her first and second child.
"Not all of it was the ideal situation. I had a bunch of miscarriages... had a molar pregnancy," the 46-year-old confided to Shepard when he innocently asked if the age gap was intentional. "We were chasing and just showing up and then surprises and then devastations and all of it."
Miscarriage, or pregnancy loss, occurs in 10% to 20% of known pregnancies, according to the Mayo Clinic. A molar pregnancy is rare, and occurs when cells that typically become the placenta grow abnormally, the Mayo Clinic reported.
Despite the heartbreak, Morissette, 46, said she refused to let the tragedies defeat her. "I do trust," she explained through intermittent laughs, describing the feeling as a "trust pilot light thing that keeps cooking along, even when there's a torrential downpour [and] it's still flickering of hope and faith and vision for something to work out, whatever it is."
"I'm a cynical optimist," she continued, saying she "will get depressed and cry, but at the end of the day, there's still that little light."
The eight-time Grammy winner and Shepard also bonded over being parents to such young children, commiserating that they are "still in the trenches."
That led to Morissette joking about the sage parenting advice she received from her father, which was: "Don't worry about it, just the first 60 years are the hardest."