It has been a heartbreaking few years. Peta MurgatroydAnd Maks Chmerkovskiy. The Dancing With the StarsPros are open about having suffered three miscarriages within two years, even though he was working in Ukraine.
“I had no strength. I couldn’t open a dishwasher. I couldn’t open the fridge to feed Shai, to get him some toast. It got so bad, my breath was already affected. It was really dramatic,” the 35-year-old dancer recalled to PeopleAbout her miscarriage in October 2021.
Murgatroyd was admitted to hospital while Chmerkovskiy, her 5-year-old son Shai was abroad.
“I thought [the doctor]I was going to learn some very bad news. I was like, ‘What’s wrong?’ His face dropped. He said, ‘Did you know you were pregnant?’” she explained, noting she “had no idea” she was expecting. ”Which in hindsight was better for my recovery because I didn’t have that super joyous moment of, ‘I’m pregnant again!’ I just had the moment of, ‘You lost it.’”
Murgatroyd said that she was suffering from COVID-19 when she had her miscarriage. This was after she had visited Chmerkovskiy, Ukraine. “I felt like I was dying, but then I obviously knew what had happened,” she continued. “It was just all too much for my body and I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t believe that this was happening to me.”
Chmerkovskiy added that he felt “helpless” to not be by his wife’s side. Murgatroyd explained that she had a miscarriage in fall 2020 while shopping for Whole Foods.
Maksim Chmerkovskiy arrives at LAX with his wife Peta Murgatroyd after he fled Ukraine on March 2, 2022. London Entertainment/Shutterstock
“I was sitting in the bathroom sobbing. I’m surprised nobody walked in because I was crying so heavily and wailing, one of those deep cries,” she recalled. “That was something that will probably live with me for the rest of my life, being on that toilet by myself, knowing what was happening and not being able to stop it.”
Chmerkovskiy referred to the miscarriage as the “darkest” point in their marriage, which began in 2017. Nine months later, the couple lost another child.
“I try to do my best in supporting Peta. I’m a changed man because of this experience,” Chmerkovskiy said. “I think that if you look around, you will find that most of your friends have had issues [trying to conceive]. I realized that this is more common and this is not being talked about.”
Since then, the couple have sought assistance from a fertility specialist and began IVF to try to have baby No. 2.
“When? Why me? Why can’t I have another child when it was so easy in the past? All of these questions just really bothered me and that’s what brought me to finally see a specialist,” Murgatroyd, who believes she’s struggling from Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, said. “For the first time in nearly two years, I feel excited. I’m in a much happier place. I received answers. I don’t have any other words but hope and positivity. I’m crossing my fingers that this is going to work.”
