There’s a secret sisterhood out there among women. Around 25 percent of all females stumble upon a miscarriage during their lives that rocks their world. No one is exempt from it. Nobody can opt out. It just happens. Like a meteor hitting the planet Earth. It happens. Like someone bludgeoning us to the back of the head when we didn’t see it coming. It just happens. Like having our heart ripped from our chests.

That’s what miscarriage is like. It’s a devastating loss. It’s virtually the only time we feel the loss of love for someone we’ve never met. Expectant mothers are suddenly not expectant. Dads-to-be are at a loss for words. No one can say anything to fix it anyway. Nothing but time can heal the wound. Even then, it’s there, in the back of our minds, festering.

It resurfaces when we get pregnant again and plagues us. It makes us worry to no end that the same thing will happen again and again. For some of us, it does. While only 1 to 2 percent of women experience multiple losses, for those that do incur three miscarriages in a row, the risk of miscarriage the next time around jumps to 35 percent.

The majority of the time, women who suffer from miscarriages do so in silence. Sometimes, they feel like failures. Sometimes, their marriages are falling apart. Sometimes, they just don’t want to think about it, because saying the words out loud makes it way too real. It might invite questions they aren’t ready to answer. It might draw them back into that place of numbness and pain that they couldn’t break free from when they first got the news that there was no baby.

No matter who it happens to, the pain is the same. No matter how many children they do or don’t already have, it hurts. No matter how far along they were in the pregnancy, it’s heartbreaking. While the average woman may not always be up for discussing her miscarriage on a Facebook page to help spread awareness and destigmatize it, there are people out there — celebrities — with a much larger reach and wider fan base who do. We take our hats off to these women for going public about their miscarriages and bringing light to topic that deserves more conversation.

14 Nicole Kidman

During her marriage to famed actor and notorious Scientologist Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman has suffered through devastating miscarriages, as well as an ectopic pregnancy alongside years of fertility treatments. Her marriage to Tom Cruise was met with a lot of erratic behavior on his part that some have theorized may have put undue stress on the actress. The couple adopted two kids during their marriage, son Connor and daughter Isabella Jane.

It wasn’t until 2007 with new hubby Keith Urban by her side that she was able to conceive and carry a child of her own to term. In July of 2008, her first biological child, daughter Sunday Rose Kidman Urban, was born.

Nicole went on to try to conceive again without any success, and in 2011, the actress and her country sangin’ husband welcomed their second daughter together via a gestational surrogate. They named her Faith Margaret Kidman Urban. The nearly 6-foot tall star stands as one thing for us: proof that even multiple losses can lead to a successful pregnancy. Don’t lose hope, mommas.

13 Mariah Carey

Back in 2008, just a few months after wedding now-ex-hubby Nick Cannon, Mariah suffered a heartbreaking loss when she miscarried their child. While Mimi is known to keep her personal life pretty private, she opened up to the public about this painful experience later on.

Mariah and Nick were slated to fly out to Aspen, Colorado during the holiday season. Anxious to spend time with their friends and family for Christmas, this would be a holiday they would never forget. Mariah had planned to make ornaments to announce their pregnancy to their loved ones, but a last-minute doctor’s appointment on the day of their travels would devastate them as the doctor informed them the pregnancy was no viable.

It was a loss that came on the heels of fertility treatments and acupuncture in an attempt to get pregnant. There’s no word on whether the pop princess knew she had confirmed fertility problems or not, but she was pushing 40 at the time. Three years later, Mariah would go on to give birth to Monroe and Moroccan Cannon, fraternal twins!

12 Oprah Winfrey

Trigger warning. This story of miscarriage is unlike most. Almost everyone is familiar with this name, but unless you’ve personally been a fan of the media mogul, you might not know that Oprah Winfrey had a child. Often viewed as opting out of motherhood by choice, the retired talk show host became a mother long before she was ever a household name.

Oprah’s story is deeply moving and speaks to the tragedies that are happening in homes all over the globe. She was sexually abused starting at the age of 9. Through early exposure to sex and a lack of boundaries combined with what she calls “bad choices”, she would become pregnant as a teenager.

Her best friend, Gayle King has been quoted as saying Oprah never knew for sure who the father of the child was. At just 14-years old, she was pregnant and when the baby died after a premature birth, she considered it a second chance to do something better with her life than what she’d been doing. Oprah has spoken publicly saying she named her son Canaan, because it means new land and new life.

11 Barbara Walters

Barbara Walters is 87-years old today. (Yes, and she’s still working) While married to her second husband, Lee Guber, Barbara struggled with fertility and lost three babies through miscarriage. Following that heartbreak, the couple chose to adopt.

In 1968, they welcomed home a baby girl that they named Jackie, after Barbara’s sister. Today, Jackie is 48 and has a close and loving relationship with her mother. Still, the famed journalist has spoken publicly on her regrets throughout her life, and one that often tops the list is not having more children.

She has looked back on her own life and noted that she loved her close relationship with her own sister, and she wished that she had given that kind of relationship to her daughter and had a bigger family. While she never elaborated on how, we imagine she would’ve been just fine with more adopted children. She certainly doesn’t discount her relationship with her daughter just because the bond isn’t rooted in DNA.

The point is, some women will miscarry and go on to carry a child. Others will not. Those women can still have extraordinary lives with a child whom they share an amazing relationship.

10 Kirstie Alley

Kirstie Alley went so public with the news of her miscarriage that she put in her book, How to Lose Your Ass & Regain Your Life: Reluctant Confessions of a Big-Butted Star. She is one celebrity on this list who really touches on how deeply a miscarriage can impact your physical being.

Kirstie acknowledges the miscarriage she suffered from back in 1990 as the beginning of her decline with her weight. In other words, it was that heartbreak and the grieving that ensued from it that made her begin to gain the weight she would struggle to keep off for the rest of her life thus far.

Married to Parker Stevenson at the time, Kirstie has noted it was actually her fellow castmates on Cheers that helped her through the tough time in her life following the loss. Kirstie has specifically noted that Rhea Pearlman was a huge supporter at the time.

9 Pink

Here’s what we love about Pink. In true artist fashion, she turned the tragedy and heartbreak she suffered from a miscarriage into a tragic and heart-wrenching song titled Beam Me Up. The loss came as a result of a pregnancy with a baby she and hubby Carey Hart had tried in earnest to conceive.

So, when the couple lost their baby, Pink put her pain into lyrics. While the intent was probably to make a song out of the experience, we imagine it had to be just as therapeutic for her as it is for fans to listen to.

Some of the lyrics include Could you beam me up, Give me a minute, I don't know what I'd say in it. Probably just stare, happy just to be there holding your face. And Some black birds soaring in the sky, Barely a breath like our one last sight; Tell me that was you, saying goodbye; There are times I feel the shivering cold; It only happens when I'm on my own; That's how you tell me, I'm not alone.

8 Giuliana Rancic

In 2010, Giuliana and her hubby Bill decided to take their lives uber-public and star in a reality TV series titled — what else — Giuliana and Bill, and with that came a very public journey through infertility. The couple was over the moon to be expecting a bundle of joy when the world came crashing down around them as Giuliana went through a miscarriage around her eighth week of pregnancy.

The devastation wouldn’t stop there, nor their journey to parenthood. In 2011, Giuliana was undergoing her third round of in vitro fertilization with her husband by her side when the doctors discovered a lump in each of her breasts during a mammogram.

The diagnosis would bring their dreams of conception to a screeching halt. Giuliana would proceed with cancer treatments, including a double lumpectomy and a double mastectomy. Still, through it all, they went on to have a son, named Edward Duke Rancic, through a surrogate.

Following that process and Giuliana’s journey to remission, their surrogate would conceive successfully again in late 2014, but miscarriage with the couple’s third and final embryo.

7 Liza Minnelli

The famous daughter of vocal and acting talent Judy Garland, Liza has suffered multiple miscarriages in the spotlight. During her first marriage to Jack Haley, she experienced her first miscarriage. She would endure two more during her marriage to second hubby, Mark Gero. The first came just one week after marrying him when she was three months along.

Back in the early 1980s, it was normal for doctors to try to prevent miscarriages. Women who experienced bleeding or other complications in early pregnancy were put on bed rest, often even in the hospital. It was still thought at that time that some miscarriages could be prevented. Minnelli spent ten days in the Washoe Medical Center in Reno, Nevada doing just that before eventually miscarrying on New Year’s Day in 1981.

Prior to that, she’d spent all three months of her pregnancy in a retreat in the Sierra Nevada mountains hoping to stop history from repeating itself. Minnelli never had luck with pregnancy again, nor marriage. After four husbands and four divorces, she vowed to say adios to marriage permanently. While many celebrities choose to adopt of use surrogates, that was never a choice Liza went on to make.

6 Celine Dion

Who could forget the interview Oprah has with Celine Dion where she opened up about her miscarriage on daytime TV? With tears in her eyes, Celine laid out the details for viewers and spoke softly about the loss of her baby with husband Rene Angelil.

Remarkably, as we’ve seen happen in many cases, the couple quickly conceived again following the miscarriage — with twins! Sons Eddy and Nelson Angelil would be born in late 2010 to their loving parents and big brother, Rene-Charles.

The Dion/Angelil family has suffered greatly over the years. In 2016, her husband of more than 11 years passed away after a long and courageous battle with esophageal cancer. Tragically, just days later, Celine would go on to lose her brother, Daniel to cancer, as well. We look forward to the next album knowing it will be full of emotion for the singer, who headlines her own show in Las Vegas each year since 2011.

5 Lily Allen

Lily Allen was once known just for her unabashed use of dirty words and the flair with which he sang them, but the British pop star has come to relate to her fans on a whole new level. Back in 2008, Lily broke the news that she suffered from a miscarriage. As though that wasn’t rough enough, she would go on to conceive again and lose her son at six-months gestation in a stillbirth two years later.

This momma has been to hell and back. She has spoken to the press about holding her son after his birth and how traumatic and horrible it was for her, noting that it’s something she will never really move past or get over.

Instead, you just have to cope with it. You have to get through each day, even though part of you is stuck there reliving that terrible experience in your past that has left you so scarred. She has remarked that while it was terrible, the tragedy sort of brought her closer with her husband. The couple has two daughters now named Ethel and Marnie.

4 Bethenny Frankel

This star of The Real Housewives of New York really hit home with many women when she spoke up about her experience with miscarriage. She’d had friends who endured these losses before. The term miscarriage wasn’t completely unknown to her. She would always respond with the standard, courteous replies that people expect and note how sorry she was to hear that they were going through that.

Still, as Bethenny has noted, it’s not until you experience that kind of loss yourself that you really get it. So, when the mother of Bryn, who is now nearly 7-years old, found herself in the midst of a miscarriage, it really sank in what it meant.

One moment, you’re planning for a new life to come in the world. You’re mapping out what wardrobe they’ll need, who will care for them while you’re at work, where they will go to school one day, and which of your friends’ kids they might marry. Then, suddenly, you’re told you’re never even going to meet that person. They aren’t going to have a life. Talk about ripping your heart out.

3 Vanna White

Did you know Vanna White came into our homes way back in 1982? This Wheel of Fortune star suffered a very public miscarriage, and probably learned a valuable lesson at the same time. Many mothers-to-be are warned not to announce the news of their pregnancies until the first trimester has passed. This warning exists because that is when the risk of miscarriage is the highest.

Unfortunately, Vanna learned this lesson in a hard and cruel way. The producers of the show thought it was a wonderful idea to announce Vanna’s pregnancy on a 1992 episode of the show by using a puzzle that would read Vanna’s Pregnant! It was a hit with the viewers and the contestants, but Vanna went on to miscarry soon after.

She and now-ex-husband George Santo Pietro eventually went on to give their already 1-year old son Niko a sibling, a little sister named Gigi, but she didn’t come along until 1997.

2 Nancy Kerrigan

While Nancy Kerrigan may regret that people remember her name more because of the Tonya Harding scandal than her amazing skills on the ice, those aren’t the only things she thinks about when reflecting on the heartbreaks she has endured in her life.

Nancy only recently opened up to the public eye about her history with fertility struggles, and she did it for an important reason: she didn’t want other women to feel alone. After she had already had her son Matthew, she and hubby Jerry Soloman decided they didn’t want him to be an only child.

Soon, they conceived, but Nancy went on to miscarry. She describes the situation as making her feel very guilty, like it was her fault that she lost the baby. In the following seven to eight years, she would have six miscarriages in total. The skater gave birth to son, Brian, in 2005.

1 Lucille Ball

While Lucille Ball’s marriage to Desi Arnaz was one of much public scrutiny, this couple did a fairly good job of keeping their private matters — private. Of course, that was back in the day when paparazzi has fewer rights, social media wasn’t a thing, and cameras weren’t in everyone’s pockets.

It’s all too ironic that the couple met on the set of a film titled Too Many Girls, as time would reveal that Arnaz wasn’t all that innocent in the fidelity department. While he was touring with his rumba band as Lucy’s career took to new heights in Hollywood, being apart slowly decimated their marriage — which they jumped into after only six months of dating.

Before giving birth to the couple’s daughter, Lucie, in 1951, Lucille Ball suffered through three miscarriages over the course of ten years in a pursuit of a family. During her first miscarriage, her doctor discovered that an earlier doctor had accidentally closed one of Lucy’s fallopian tubes, and he was able to repair it. Still, as many women do at a time like that, Lucy blamed herself for the loss.

Sources: Live Science, Reviews in Obstetrics and Gynecology, New York Times