Spy Kids actress Alexa PenaVega returned to social media on Wednesday (May 15) to thank her fans for their support following the heartbreaking loss of her baby daughter.
Alexa and her husband, Carlos PenaVega, announced on Instagram last month that their fourth child died during birth. “After a beautiful and peaceful delivery our daughter ‘Indy’ was born at rest,” the couple wrote in a joint statement.
On Wednesday, Alexa returned to Instagram with an emotional video, where she shared an update with her fans and thanked them for their kind messages of support.
“Warning, I’m most likely going to cry,” the Dancing With the Stars alum said at the start of the video, noting she’d tried several times to film the video but always ended up crying.
While she did shed some tears during the video, she was also able to share her message with her supporters. “I just want to say, first off, that we’re doing well. We’re actually doing really well, considering everything,” she stated.
“Like, let me tell you, I don’t know how else we would have gotten through this season without all of you lifting us up in prayer,” she continued. “We feel it. We really, really do. I don’t care what anybody says, the power of prayer is so real.”
Alexa went on to talk about how the loss of her daughter affected her health, saying, “I don’t think I’ve experienced anything quite like this, and I hope to never experience anything like this again.”
“Losing Indy was very hard, and right after losing her, my health declined a lot, and nobody could figure out what was wrong,” she continued. “It was a very hard season for all of us to navigate.”
The actress, best known for playing Carmen Cortez in the first four Spy Kids films, Ruby Gallagher in the ABC Family series Ruby & the Rockits, and her roles in numerous Hallmark movies, said that despite “a lot of pain,” she also felt a “crazy” sense of peace.
“God has really met us in this place between pain and peace,” she noted, saying how Indy’s passing “transformed [her] completely.”
“Our family has never been stronger, our faith has never been stronger [and] our marriage has never been stronger,” she added.
Alexa and Carlos married in 2014 and share son Ocean, 7, son Kingston, 4, and daughter Rio, 3.
In their joint statement last month, the couple wrote, “This little girl has already changed our lives in so many ways. She was absolutely beautiful. And looked just like daddy. Dark hair and all. Indy Rex PenaVega, you completely changed our world… We love you [and] can’t wait to see how many other lives you change.”