Olivia Plath Opens Up About Her Miscarriage on 'Welcome to Plathville'

There's little the Plaths won't talk about on Welcome to Plathville. But in the Aug. 31, 2021, episode, Olivia Plath opens up about something more important and more serious than a rift in the family. She talks to Ethan's younger sister, Moriah, about a miscarriage she had outside of the show.

This is news to viewers, as it's something she never talked about on the show before. But, Olivia explains, she wants to discuss what happened in order to take away some of the "stigma" that she feels surrounds some women who endure similar losses.

She says her miscarriage came soon after an unplanned pregnancy and she felt "relived" because she knew she wasn't ready to be a mom. And that, she added, is something she feels isn't talked about enough.

Olivia tells Moriah in the Welcome to Plathville episode that no one had really been there for her to talk about the relief she felt after she discovered she had a miscarriage. She got pregnant an undetermined amount of time before Season 3 and it was shortly after she stopped using birth control.

At the time, she and Ethan hadn't planned on having a baby and they both knew they weren't ready for the responsibility.

"When I did go off birth control, I did get pregnant … and I miscarried," Olivia says in the episode. "Like, I felt bad for being relieved, but I was so relieved because it was like a wake-up call of, like, I'm not ready to have a kid. I don't want a kid. And when I told him about everything that was going on with the miscarriage, Ethan was just as relieved as me."

Olivia then talks to producers about why she feels there's a stigma around talking about her specific feelings regarding her miscarriage and her circumstances. She says that many women feel differently than each other about this type of loss. Some women might feel relieved, as Olivia had. Others might feel the loss in a different way and mourn it instead of feeling relief.

"I know when I went through a miscarriage, I felt really alone because I was glad," she says. "And I felt like I was wrong for feeling that way. And I wish I'd had more people to talk to, who could've been a sounding board. Or who could've had a different perspective maybe, than what I was raised with."

Olivia grew up in a conservative Christian home, much like that of the Plaths. Although she and Moriah don't say it in the Welcome to Plathville episode, their families likely don't support the idea of birth control. Instead, many families in their religion believe in leaving the number of children they conceive up to God.

So when Olivia had a miscarriage, she understandably felt as though she couldn't talk to anyone in her family about her feelings. She felt relieved and she felt glad. But then she felt guilt for having those feelings. And, she believes, there are other women who feel the same way, but are afraid to talk about it.

In her small way, Olivia feels she is opening the discussion by sharing her own experience.

Watch Welcome to Plathville on Tuesdays at 10 p.m. ET on TLC.