Chrissy Teigen shares that her miscarriage was actually a life-saving abortion

In an emotional speech, Chrissy Teigen shared that the heartbreaking pregnancy loss she suffered with her third child, son Jack, two years ago was technically an abortion. An abortion she had to save her life, she says.

Speaking at a summit event on Thursday, Teigen admits that she didn’t come to the realization that her miscarriage was actually an abortion until recently. She and her husband, John Legend, lost their son at 20 weeks due to a severe pregnancy complication. Teigen is currently pregnant again after another round of IVF, having shared the news over the summer.

Related: Chrissy Teigen shares heartbreaking post about baby Jack: “I am so full of regret”

“Two years ago, when I was pregnant with Jack, John and my third child, I had to make a lot of difficult and heartbreaking decisions,” she said. “It became very clear around halfway through that he would not survive, and that I wouldn’t either without any medical intervention.”

Teigen was open about her pregnancy complications at the time. “We were never able to stop the bleeding and give our baby the fluids he needed, despite bags and bags of blood transfusions. It just wasn’t enough,” she wrote on Instagram after the loss.

She said she was very grateful to have the support of friends, family, children Luna and Miles, and many, many strangers who were there for her after the loss of Jack. She had previously called the loss a miscarriage, and stopped herself from using the term during her speech.

“Let’s just call it what it was: It was an abortion,” she said. “An abortion to save my life for a baby that had absolutely no chance. And to be honest, I never, ever put that together until, actually, a few months ago.”

When the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade earlier this summer, Chrissy Teigen said it made her realize that she was part of the enormous population directly impacted by abortion rights.

Related: Overturning Roe v. Wade is about so much more than abortion

“I fell silent, feeling weird that I hadn’t made sense of it that way,” she continued. “I told the world we had a miscarriage, the world agreed we had a miscarriage, all the headlines said it was a miscarriage. And I became really frustrated that I didn’t, in the first place, say what it was, and I felt silly that it had taken me over a year to actually understand that we had had an abortion.”

In August, Teigen revealed the happy news that she and Legend were once again expecting a child in an Instagram post.

“I don’t think I’ll ever walk out of an appointment with more excitement than nerves but so far, everything is perfect and beautiful and I’m feeling hopeful and amazing. Ok phew it’s been very hard keeping this in for so long!”