Lisa Ling's Pregnancy: A Short Story
As a correspondent for National Geographic Explorer and Oprah, Lisa Ling has fearlessly ventured into crime-ridden cities and maximum-security prisons. But the journalist's most harrowing assignment took place last December, when she walked on to The View (where she had cohosted from 1999 to 2002) and revealed that she had suffered a miscarriage in the summer. "I made a career of telling people's stories, but it's very difficult to tell my own," says Ling of her decision to go public. "But women need to know that you're not alone, that a miscarriage is not your fault."
Losing her pregnancy was only one of many heartbreaks that Ling and her husband of three years, physician and biotech firm president Paul Song, suffered during a tumultuous 2010. "Last year," says Ling, 37, "was one we never want to repeat." In April Song's father died of gall bladder cancer; two months later his mother had a horrific car accident, breaking her hip, neck and wrist. Even the year's one bright spot-Ling's sister Laura, who was freed from North Korea in 2009 after nearly five months in prison, gave birth in June to Ling's niece Li-"was bittersweet," says Ling, "because all this was going on with Paul." …show more content…
"It was a fluke," she says, "but as someone who fancies herself as competent, when the doctor said, 'You lost it,' I thought, 'Oh my God, what did I do?' I felt like such a failure." Her husband, preoccupied with work and his parents' tragedies, was of little comfort. "Had I been less of a doctor and more of a husband and friend," says Song, 45, "I would have been there for
Losing her pregnancy was only one of many heartbreaks that Ling and her husband of three years, physician and biotech firm president Paul Song, suffered during a tumultuous 2010. "Last year," says Ling, 37, "was one we never want to repeat." In April Song's father died of gall bladder cancer; two months later his mother had a horrific car accident, breaking her hip, neck and wrist. Even the year's one bright spot-Ling's sister Laura, who was freed from North Korea in 2009 after nearly five months in prison, gave birth in June to Ling's niece Li-"was bittersweet," says Ling, "because all this was going on with Paul." …show more content…
"It was a fluke," she says, "but as someone who fancies herself as competent, when the doctor said, 'You lost it,' I thought, 'Oh my God, what did I do?' I felt like such a failure." Her husband, preoccupied with work and his parents' tragedies, was of little comfort. "Had I been less of a doctor and more of a husband and friend," says Song, 45, "I would have been there for