Jenna Bush Hager Says She Suffered an Ectopic Pregnancy

Jenna Bush Hager, who will soon be a mother of three, said on the TODAY Show Tuesday that she endured fertility struggles before starting her family with husband Henry Hager.

Meredith Vieira filled in for Hoda Kotb during Hoda and Jenna on Tuesday while Kotb is out on maternity leave, where Vieira and Bush Hager talked about struggles they both faced when first trying to start their families.

Bush Hager said that before she was pregnant with her first child, 6-year-old Mila, she actually learned she was pregnant — but that something was horribly wrong.

“Before I had Mila, I had a pregnancy in my fallopian tube. It was my first pregnancy,” she told Vieira, who commented on how dangerous an ectopic pregnancy is.

Bush Hager said she was on vacation with her sister when she learned she was pregnant, and was naturally very excited.

“I got to the doctor’s office and she said, ‘Yeah, you’re pregnant, we gave the blood test, but we can’t find the baby,’” Bush Hager recalled. “I had no idea what an ectopic pregnancy was. They looked up and the baby was in my fallopian tube.”

An ectopic pregnancy “occurs when a fertilized egg implants and grows outside the main cavity of the uterus,” according to Mayo Clinic. “An ectopic pregnancy can’t proceed normally. The fertilized egg can’t survive, and the growing tissue may cause life-threatening bleeding, if left untreated.”

Former President George W. Bush‘s daughter was immediately rushed into emergency surgery. “It is very isolating,” she told Vieira, noting that both her sister and husband were out of town. “There is joy and there is pain.”

Likewise, Vieira opened up about her own struggle, saying that while she “never had trouble getting pregnant, but I always had trouble holding onto pregnancies.” After her third miscarriage, her doctor gave her suppositories of progesterone to take — but she said there was confusion on how to take them.

“I finally called the doctor and said, ‘I’m sorry to be ignorant but I don’t quite understand how putting these suppositories in my rear end is going to help me keep pregnancy,’” Vieira admitted. “And he said, ‘What are you talking about? They go in your vagina.’ Which I didn’t know! But then I started doing that and then I had a child. So it worked.”

The talk show hosts’ stories of fertility struggles came a day after Bush Hager announced on Today that she and husband Henry Hager are expecting their third child.

“I’m pregnant! And I’m only telling because Mila and Poppy found out yesterday in their Easter baskets,” Bush Hager said of her two daughters. “They told the man behind me on the airplane. They told the people at church. …They are so happy. I mean to where they’re telling strangers.”