“9-1-1” star Justine Alpert revealed in a lengthy Instagram post that she had decided to terminate her pregnancy due to a “rare genetic disease.”
On Tuesday, she recalled how she was “rushed to a geneticist” to confirm her nightmare that the fetus “would not be able to make it to term” in December 2025.
Alpert told her followers that she and husband Mason Trueblood were in the third trimester of their pregnancy and had been telling family and friends that they were expecting when they received the shocking news.
The “short phone call” took away Ms. Alpert’s “happiness” and “lightness,” she continued, and said the news was “hard to swallow” when during a subsequent ultrasound the doctor “pointed out fluids, organs, etc.”
Alpert did not go into further detail about the baby’s condition, but noted that experts said it posed a “high risk” and “strongly recommended that this pregnancy be terminated, and that if this was the case, that it be terminated immediately.”
The How I Met Your Mother alum recalled, “My husband and I tried so hard to enjoy Christmas Eve and Christmas with our new baby boy, fighting the sadness every day. … Mason and I prayed desperately for a miracle or a miscarriage. There was never anything like that on the bingo card. It still feels surreal.”
She added, “No one prepares you for this. No one talks about this. No one explains this to you when you’re trying to start a family. It’s frustrating and sad and traumatic to say the least.”
Alpert wrote that when the abortion took place a few days later, on Dec. 29, she was “so sad and traumatized that I almost threw up.”
“We didn’t have to make this decision,” her caption continued. “No mother or father should ever be put in this place. The shame and guilt is unfair. Having to go through something like this is rarely talked about and doesn’t seem to get the same kind of empathy as other situations. It’s the worst kind of pain.”
She went on to write, “My son was so loved that he has already gone to heaven,” and the couple “spent New Year’s Eve quietly cuddling on the couch.”
Alpert recalled, “No matter how stained we looked with tears, we were still a strong unit. We didn’t try to be strong. We were just us. We were a couple. We were bound together by love and faith.”
She said the heartbreaking experience made her “fall even more in love” with her husband because he supported her “in good and bad (and) in sickness and in health.”
In a carousel of snaps posted alongside her statement, Alpert shared moments from her pregnancy before the life-changing news.
“We wanted to share the old days with our friends,” she explained. “These videos make me smile. I’m glad we started sharing this news.”
She also thanked their “support system” who kept checking in on them throughout the ordeal.
“The dinners, the girls’ nights out, the random emails we still get, the flowers that turned our house into an English garden, the dance classes, the phone calls on the way to work, the Disney trips, the hugs, all of it – we are nothing without you, and Mason and I are so grateful,” Alpert exclaimed.
The Lincoln Lawyer alum shared her story in hopes of reaching other women going through similar situations who feel “alone,” “devastated” and “distraught.”
Alpert concluded the letter with, “To our baby, Mads Mason Trueblood, thank you for making me a mother. You are the one who gave me a backbone when I wasn’t sure if I was ready to be a mother. Well, boy, I was ready for you. I loved you then, I love you now, and I will love you forever.”
