Despite everything she’s been through over the last few months, Meghann Turner still has hope for her future.
Deciding to take a leap of faith, the 39-year-old realtor joined season 19 of Married at First Sight, hoping to walk away with her forever love. However, the whirlwind experience didn’t go according to plan. During the finale, viewers saw Turner and her match Derrek Wiedeman celebrating their fairytale ending as they agreed to stay married and revealed to the experts that they were expecting a baby.
Shortly after filming the decision day episode, things turned sour. Near the end of April, Turner found out she was miscarrying and, about a month later, the pair split. She first revealed the news of her pregnancy loss and divorce at the season 19 reunion, which aired on Thursday, Nov. 20. Speaking out for the first time since her announcement, Turner tells PEOPLE that the entire experience has been “very overwhelming” for her.
“Even now, I’m going to tear up about it,” Turner says. “It was a lot to have a miscarriage, being married to a new husband, and then filming, and then keeping it a secret from all the cast and friends. It was very overwhelming [and] a lot to process.”
Reflecting on the pregnancy loss, Turner says the experience was “very traumatic,” adding she experienced the “worst pain” in her life.
“I will say that it was very traumatic actually going through a miscarriage. Not only was it the worst pain I’ve ever had in my entire life, I bled for three months after,” she says. “You have a constant reminder of this loss.”
Before the miscarriage, Turner explains that she believed her and Wiedeman’s relationship was “very strong.” However, she adds that the circumstances of marrying a stranger and getting pregnant added a lot of pressure to their relationship, making it harder to stay together when they lost the baby.
“I think, once that happened, we both were devastated and didn’t necessarily know how to handle that grief,” she tells PEOPLE. “I didn’t know the first thing about how to handle the situation.”
“One, getting pregnant by basically a stranger, and then navigating the miscarriage and everything. And I don’t really have any friends that had gone through that,” she adds. “I mean, obviously, no one on the cast went through that, so it’s a very new field that I’m in.”
During this rough time in her life, Turner leaned on her friends, including costar-turned-close friend Brittany, and family to create a “safe space” for her to express all of her emotions without fear of judgment.
In addition to talking with her support system, Turner tells PEOPLE that she “cried 20 years’ worth” of tears as she watched back all the highs and lows of her experience with Wiedeman. The emotional release that came with crying was new for Turner, who says she never cried a lot before the experience.
“I’ve cried 20 years’ worth … and it was very therapeutic to cry,” she says. “I understand why people now cry. I cried so much [that] I was like, ‘Get it together, Meghann. Come on.’ But, it was very cathartic to really cry and to grieve all that.”
By sharing her story, Turner hopes to be an example to other women who can identify with different parts of her story.
“I know that it’s harder to get pregnant when you’re older, and so I think that us not trying to get pregnant and it just [happening], I hope that gives people hope that even later in life … you can still get pregnant,” Turner shares.
“Things happen that are unexpected, and I think that if you have a good, solid core of people around you, or a good therapist … life does go on,” she adds. “It’s maybe not what you wanted, but there’s a reason for it, and I think that it’s okay and everything is how it’s supposed to be.”
As she continues to give herself the space to grieve her past, Turner remains hopeful about her future.
“It was pretty traumatic, yeah, but I’m okay,” she tells PEOPLE. “I’m whole. I know God’s got my back. I know that my future is bright, and I know that, as my therapist said, ‘All those things that you wanted out of life, Meghann, a husband and a baby, those will all be things that you get in the future, they’ll just be with somebody else.’ “
“The dream is not gone,” she continues. “I want other women to know [that it] is as terrible as it is when you’re going through it, [but] there is light at the other side.”
Married At First Sight season 19, which is produced by Kinetic Content, is streaming now on Peacock.