Comedian Katherine Ryan has said her miscarriage earlier this year made her feel “embarrassed and shameful”, and has called for better education on the subject for girls and women. Speaking on Laura Whitmore’s Castaway podcast, Ryan said she felt “embarrassed for getting excited before the loss” and described her body continuing to carry the embryo for three weeks after the loss.
Ryan, 36, discovered the miscarriage during a routine scan in February. She told Whitmore: “I thought I was very well-versed on women’s issues. I genuinely didn’t know that a miscarriage can happen in this way.” She added that she felt “like a walking tomb” until she eventually had surgery to remove the embryo. Ryan said the experience was “so grim” and that she “felt like a bad mom”.
Ryan, who has a daughter from a previous relationship and is in a civil partnership with Bobby Kootstra, continued to work through the ordeal, including performing a gig in Liverpool on the day of the diagnosis. She described putting on a “happy, smiley” front for the doctor and later for audiences, saying: “You think you did something wrong but you keep it to yourself.”
The Department for Education responded to the calls by stating that compulsory Relationships and Sex Education from September will ensure secondary pupils “will be taught the facts in relation to pregnancy, including miscarriage”. Ryan’s own podcast, Katherine Ryan: Telling Everybody Everything, also covered the experience in detail.
Whitmore, who suffered a miscarriage in 2018, said she related to the feelings of confusion and not knowing how to react. Ryan emphasised that she hopes her story can help others avoid the “hopelessness and shame” she felt, urging women not to keep such experiences to themselves.
