Melissa Gilbert Opens Up About Miscarrying Rob Lowe's Baby

Melissa Gilbert, who gained fame as the chaste farmer’s daughter, Laura Ingalls, on Little House On The Prairie, opened up to the Today Show about miscarrying actor Rob Lowe's unborn child almost two decades ago.

Promoting her new book, Prairie Tale, Gilbert, now a mother-of-two, said she "fell instantly, hopelessly and stupidly in love" with the actor when she was 17.

Gilbert said that when she told the actor of an unplanned pregnancy, he went nuts. She said she miscarried shortly thereafter.

“We broke up. It ran its course. I think we were just too young,” she said. "I had lost my baby and my relationship with Rob … and it hurt like hell."

She put the life experience in perspective now that she has grown kids.

"It was very, very painful. It was a very dark and difficult time for me … Now that I have children that are his age -- my older boys are 28 and 23, the age he was when we were together -- I understand it. But at the time it was devastating.”