Cincinnati Bengals guard Dalton Risner and his wife, Whitney, shared devastating news on Friday: they lost their baby boy at 16 weeks into the pregnancy.
The couple had only announced the pregnancy four weeks earlier, when Whitney posted, “Baby Risner, we can’t wait to meet you this year!” That hopeful moment has now given way to a painful loss, and Whitney addressed it in an emotional Instagram post.
“I wish I was writing any other post than this right now,” Whitney wrote. “I never imagined our journey to starting a family would begin like this.”
She said the grief has been unlike anything she has ever known. “This loss has introduced me to a depth of pain and heartbreak that I never knew existed,” she wrote. “It feels like I’ve lost so much… our precious baby boy, pieces of myself, and the future I had planned out for the past 4 months.”
Whitney also spoke about leaning on faith through the heartbreak. “I don’t know exactly what the future holds, and that uncertainty is incredibly hard. But even in the midst of heartbreak and grief, I know God is still good,” she wrote.
She made clear how much Dalton has meant to her through the ordeal. “More than ever, I’ve realized how important it is who you marry and choose to walk through life with,” she said. “I truly can’t imagine getting through this without my rock and best friend, @dalton_risner66.”
Whitney, a former college basketball player who founded the jewelry company WAAWEES and has more than one million TikTok followers, also said this was the couple’s “second loss in just a couple of months.”
She closed by thanking friends, family, and supporters for their prayers and kindness, while offering comfort to others facing the same kind of pain. “If you’re walking this same painful road, I want you to know that you are not alone,” she wrote.
Risner joined the Bengals in 2025 after stints with the Denver Broncos and the Minnesota Vikings. He entered the NFL as a second-round draft pick in 2019 and has started 93 regular season and postseason games.
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