When Heartbreak Becomes Public: Justene Alpert's Courageous Choice

On December 22, 2025, influencer Justene Alpert Trueblood received the kind of phone call no parent wants to hear. Her pregnancy, which had just entered the second trimester, was no longer viable. Her son had been diagnosed with a rare genetic disease that meant he wouldn’t survive to birth. What followed was a deeply personal medical decision that she’s now choosing to share publicly—not for headlines, but for the countless people suffering in silence.

Trueblood’s doctors were clear: they highly recommended she terminate the pregnancy quickly. A few days later, on December 29, she and her husband Mason made the impossible choice. What makes her decision to open up about this moment particularly significant is how rare it is to hear this story at all. Medical terminations due to fetal abnormalities exist in a strange gray zone—not often spoken of with the empathy afforded to other pregnancy losses, and frequently shrouded in shame and judgment.

In her Instagram post on June 22, the author of The Finley Diaries broke that silence. She described the physical and emotional toll with unflinching honesty—the nausea, the grief, the trauma of saying goodbye to a child who was already so deeply wanted. But she also credited her husband for showing up in the smallest, most human ways: holding alcohol wipes to her nose in Pre-Op, trying to ease her suffering in real time. That detail, almost buried in her account, speaks volumes about what couples face when they’re forced to make this choice together.

What’s striking about Trueblood’s willingness to share is her understanding that silence equals suffering. She directly addresses anyone going through something similar: It’s OK not to be OK. Bawling is normal. The guilt and shame are unfair burdens that shouldn’t be carried alone. She and Mason grieved through the new year, thinking of their son Mads every day. In sharing this, she’s not asking for validation—she’s offering permission to grieve openly, and to acknowledge that some of the hardest decisions parents make are also the ones we’re least encouraged to talk about.

This is why stories like Trueblood’s matter. They puncture the silence around a medical reality that affects real families. They remind us that love and loss can coexist, and that sometimes the most loving choice is the hardest one to make.