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Former NFL player and Aussie Rules football star Patrick Murtagh and his girlfriend, Hannah Orval, endured the ramifications of a pregnancy loss one year before their baby boy was born sleeping.
“From the outside it can feel like everyone is blessed with their pregnancies, able to carry a child time after time without struggle,” Orval, 27, wrote to fans via Instagram in May. “Though I have come to understand it is just that we don’t talk about the other side of it. And personally we couldn’t at the time either so I understand why. But now I want to bring light to something that I hope no two people ever feel alone in again.”
Orval and Murtagh, 26, announced in a joint statement on Friday, July 31, that their baby son Meelo Michael Murtagh entered the world stillborn.
“Meelo Michael Murtagh, born into this big world early and sleeping. 🤍👼 he will forever be the biggest missing piece of the rest of our story. to be a family for even just for a day was irreplaceable,” the couple wrote. “Childbirth, I would do it over again every day in every lifetime to meet him. we are absolutely devestated [SIC], but forever our biggest achievement in life.”
Later, the influencer penned a personal letter to Meelo where she wrote that it was “a dream for a lifetime of being” his mother.
“I walk you through your next life too because I’ll always be your mumma,” Orval vowed via her Instagram Stories. “My heart will forever be frozen in time to the day we met you. Your little fingers, your little toes, your daddy’s nose.”
Calling childbirth “the most sacred thing” she’d experienced, Orval reached out to other mothers who have lost children.
“The pain that we, as mothers, would choose to go through over and over again in every lifetime. Nothing could ever prepare you for the feeling of your baby touching your skin for the first time, now I understand,” she wrote. “Though we are strong as mothers to bare these children, I 1785661589 understood more in that moment the real power of who we choose to have kids with.”
Two months before the loss of Meelo, Orval revealed in a powerful Instagram post that she and the athlete previously suffered a pregnancy loss in 2025.
“Last year we were so excited to be having our daughter. Our first child, our first pregnancy. We also then simultaneously carried the grief of a missed miscarriage,” she recalled. “Unfortunately at our 12.5 week scan we were made aware her heartbeat could no longer be found. She had unfortunately stopped growing the week prior & I had shown no signs of miscarriage. My body had not told me in any way so we were utterly shocked by the news.”
Orval clarified that the heartbreaking news came during a period of tremendous upheaval in her and Patrick’s lives as he was deep into training for the NFL. (Patrick signed with the Denver Broncos practice squad in August 2025 after being waived by the Jacksonville Jaguars that May.)
“A different country, a new state, a new team, a new bunch of faces. Just us two to carry something so great. Timelines, decisions, surgeries, recovery, grief. It truely [SIC] was a cruel experience and I want to give my heart to the many that face this,” she wrote.
She went on, “To carry both life and death. It does something profound to you. I craved the comfort of knowing other people had the same struggle, the same story. Though I didn’t want that experience for anyone else, I did want to know it wasn’t my fault, that I was not alone. I did everything right? Why us?”
Orval stressed that she was sharing her story so any couples going through similarly traumatic experiences will know that they aren’t alone.
“I by no means share this to scare anyone but I do want people to feel seen, to understand it is not their fault. They aren’t alone in that story, that grief or that loneliness,” she noted. “I hope this can open up conversation about the struggles many face. That it encourages women and men to both lean on their people for support during times of grief and struggle. You are never alone.”
She poignantly concluded her by post, writing, “The first piece of us is a piece that will always be missing.”
If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org.
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