Crown Media Debbie Matenopoulos
Debbie Matenopoulos, host of Hallmark’s now-canceled “Home & Family” series, recently opened up about the nine miscarriages she suffered while she was hosting the show and how she had to give up on her dream of having multiple children.
Matenopoulos shared her experiences during an hour-long interview with Allison Kugel for the “Allison Interviews” podcast. You can listen to the full podcast on Apple Podcasts or wherever podcasts are available. An embedded YouTube video of the podcast is also included below.
She Said She Was Pregnant For Almost ‘Five Years Straight’
Matenopoulos opened up about her struggles with miscarriage for the first time with Kugel on “Allison Interviews.” She revealed that she had so many miscarriages, she was pregnant for almost five years straight while hosting “Home & Family.”
“I was fortunate enough to be able to have [my daughter] Alexandra, but unfortunately, and I have not talked about this before, but after Alexandra I had such a hard time staying pregnant,” she shared. “I had nine miscarriages. I was pregnant for, like, five years straight and no one knew except my stylist that I was pregnant. I would lose them, always. The first three were really hard, and then after that I got to a point where I was like, ‘Is this a joke? Really?!'”
She said the experience was heartbreaking for her and she felt like God was telling her that she wasn’t meant to have another child.
“My heart was broken so many times that I got to a point where I said, ‘Okay this is what the universe and what God wants, and this is just how it is supposed to be,'” she said. “So I just stopped trying. I stopped trying because I just felt so defeated, and God, I love babies. When I look at little babies my ovaries hurt.”
Matenopoulos shared that one of her worst experiences occurred when she was four months pregnant, the day before she was supposed to host an event at “The Golden Globes.”
Matenopoulos said:
I’d love to be able to give my daughter a sister, maybe even [through] adoption. That is not out of the question, but going through that again… I have a soft spot for anyone else who’s ever had a miscarriage. Probably the worst one for me was when I was about 4 months pregnant at that point, and I had to host the ‘The Golden Globes’ red carpet for The Insider. I had the D&C (Dilation and curettage) on Saturday and then I had to host ‘The Golden Globes’ on Sunday.
She added that if she knew how much she was going to love being a mom, she might have tried to get pregnant much earlier. She’d have 20 kids if she could, she shared.
She Left One Job to Help Her Dad When He Had ALS
Matenopoulos also revealed in the podcast that she left her job with the “Daily 10” on E! so she could care for her father with ALS.
“My dad passed away from ALS and that brought me to my knees,” she said. “It’s such a hateful disease. With ALS, the person knows what is happening to them, and they are a prisoner in their own body. They do understand what’s going on, and there is nothing they can do about it. He couldn’t move at the end. I fed him, I bathed him, I would have to pick him up. I left Hollywood and I went home. I quit [my career] for three years. I quit E! and they said to me, ‘Are you crazy? You are ruining your career. No one is going to hire you when you come back.’ I said, ‘I don’t really care. If you don’t hire me when I come back because I went to take care of my dad, I don’t want to work for you. That is just disgusting. What kind of human are you?’ I don’t want to work for a company like that. I have one dad. There will be a gazillion shows, and you know what, I don’t want to grieve, thinking I worked at E! but I didn’t go home to take care of my dad.”
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