Yahoo Finance Sen. Tammy Duckworth Calls Going Back to Work After Having a Miscarriage 'Inhumane'
Sen. Tammy Duckworth is recounting her experience with going back to work after suffering a miscarriage.
The Illinois senator, 53, appears on a new episode of PEOPLE's podcast Me Becoming Mom, where she sits down for a candid conversation about motherhood and shares what it was like for her to keep up with her full schedule as a senator after suffering a miscarriage.
Duckworth, who made history in 2018 as the first senator to give birth in office, tells host Zoë Ruderman, Head of Digital at PEOPLE, that she was "scheduled" and her "day was full" after she miscarried.
"I went to the doctor in the morning like I always did. And that whole afternoon I had back-to-back meetings and things that I had to go to. So there was no break," she explains.
"And I'm a public official, so I was going to ribbon cuttings and giving speeches and talking to folks and inspecting hospital and all of that," she adds. "So right back on my schedule."
Subscribe to our new 12-episode weekly podcast, Me Becoming Mom, to hear celebrity moms open up exclusively to PEOPLE about their extraordinary roads to motherhood.
RELATED: Tammy Duckworth Just Became the First Sitting Senator to Have a Baby While in Office
Duckworth says even when she had her dilation and curettage (D&C) procedure she was "able to be on the couch for the rest of that day but I was still on the phone all afternoon."
"Even though we cleared my calendar for the day, I was still on the phone. There was no resting, you just kept on going," she continues. "It's inhumane."
Duckworth welcomed her older daughter Abigail, in 2014, when she was a member of the House of Representatives. In 2018, she gave birth to her second daughter, Maile Pearl.
Somodevilla/Getty Images Sen. Tammy Duckworth with newborn Maile in 2018
The senator shares both children with husband Bryan Bowlsbey.
The 12-episode weekly Me Becoming Mom podcast explores the various roads to motherhood through different interviews with both celebrity guests and experts in the field. Topics on the show include IVF, adoption, surrogacy, single parenthood, same-sex couples, home births, pregnancy loss, unexpected and surprising birth stories, among other subjects.
Guests on the show include Alyssa Milano, Hoda Kotb, Jillian Michaels, Shawn Johnson East and more.
