‘We Are All With You’: Outpouring of Support as Platner Family Shares Fertility Heartbreak

An outpouring of support met US Senate candidate Graham Platner's announcement on social media Monday evening that his wife Amy Gertner suffered a miscarriage following the couple's decision to pursue in vitro fertilization treatment in Norway earlier this year.

In announcing this past January that they were traveling to Norway in an effort to have a child, Platner and Gertner said Monday that the couple had aimed "to shine a light on a hardship that millions of people face but is too often disregarded in our society and our politics." IVF treatment in Norway, the couple had shared as they embarked on their trip, would cost less than a quarter of what it would have cost in the US.

"Just as the difficulty in accessing fertility treatment is overlooked, so too is the heartbreak of loss," said the couple on Monday. "We suffered that heartbreak recently, when we experienced a miscarriage."

They emphasized that they "felt it was important to be open, because so many families have experienced the same. One in five known pregnancies end in miscarriage."

"To anyone who has experienced a loss like this: You are not alone," said Platner and Gertner. "We're with you—just as so many of you have been there for us."

US Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who endorsed Platner's Democratic Senate primary run weeks after the combat veteran and oyster farmer launched his campaign last summer, said the couple's decision to share their experience would "light the way for countless others."

Karthik Soora, a former Democratic Texas state Senate candidate and clean energy advocate, also expressed sympathy.

"Sending his family positive energy as someone who lost a child-to-be at 22 weeks," said Soora. "We are all with you and you are not alone."

Platner and Gertner concluded their statement by asking for "grace as we grieve, and space as we figure out what comes next."

Platner is facing Maine Gov. Janet Mills in the US Senate primary, scheduled for June 9. Platner is running on a platform focused on passing Medicare for All and a billionaires' minimum tax, and has spoken out forcefully against President Donald Trump's mass deportation agenda and the US-Israeli war on Iran. In recent surveys he has polled ahead of Mills by up to 38 points.