James Van Der Beek Says Wife Kimberly Just Suffered Another Miscarriage

Dawson’s Creek star James Van Der Beek‘s wife Kimberly suffered another miscarriage, the actor revealed in a heartbreaking Instagram post on Saturday. Kimberly was 17 weeks into the pregnancy, which came after she suffered a miscarriage in November 2019 while Van Der Beek was on Dancing With The Stars. This was Kimberly’s fifth miscarriage in nine years.

“After suffering a brutal, very public miscarriage last November, we were overjoyed to learn we were pregnant,” Van Der Beek wrote. “This time, we kept the news to ourselves. But last weekend, once again, 17 weeks in… the soul we’d been excited to welcome into the world had lessons for our family that did not include joining us in a living physical body.” Van Der Beek said the couple rushed Kimberly to the hospital, where she had “another harrowing night of blood transfusions.”

Van Der Beek stood by and watched as doctors helped saved her life. All he could do was massage her feet with a DWTS robe as a series of thoughts running through his mind. He went on to share those thoughts, beginning with, “We’ve got to take better care of each other.” He noted that the world is “in pain right now” with “denial, shock, numbness, anger” rising to the surface again. “And there are no words to ease that pain… to make the process hurt less or to solve it quickly.”

In the end, Van Der Beek noted that one way out of the pain starts “with an open, broken-hearted contemplation of this question: How can we take better care of each other? And to all the families who have gone through this… you are not alone.”

Van Der Beek and Kimberly have been married since 2010. The couple shares five children Olivia, 9; Joshua, 8; Annabel, 6; Emilia, 4; and Gwendolyn, 2. Kimberly shared Van Der Beek’s post in her own Instagram Story, adding “Last weekend… (miscarried at 17 weeks, again),” notes PEOPLE.

Van Der Beek participated in last fall’s season of Dancing With The Stars and made it deep into the season. In an October episode, he announced the couple was expecting their sixth child. But a few weeks later, he revealed Kimberly miscarried. “My wife Kimberly and I went through every expectant parents’ worst nightmare,” the actor said, adding that “The little soul that we had expected to welcome into our family took a shortcut to whatever lies beyond.” Kimberly also shared on Instagram that she almost died and needed multiple blood transfusions.

In December, Van Der Beek said the couple was “still in repair” after the miscarriage. “Discovering that healing happens at its own pace. Not the pace you’d like, and definitely not the pace at which the world keeps on moving… But it happens.”