Chrissy Teigen and John Legend announce new charity initiative

In their first interview together since suffering a miscarriage on Sept. 30, model and TV personality Chrissy Teigen and her husband, singer and "The Voice" coach John Legend, discussed sharing their heartache publicly, and their support of a charitable initiative.

"I didn't know that we could experience this grief and also share it," Grammy Award winner Legend, 41, said on ABC's "Good Morning America" Tuesday about the photos of themselves in her hospital room after losing son Jack, and an essay Teigen later wrote. "But when we did, it really meant so much to so many people and it was such a powerful experience for me to learn that. And I'm just grateful that my wife was courageous enough to do it."

Citing "thousands of letters written to me," Teigen, who turns 35 on Monday, thanked well-wishers. "Obviously it's so painful to go through something like this as a woman, [with] something that was inside your body that you were nurturing and taking care of. … The support for the both of us has just been so beautiful, so incredible."

Of critics who considered their public discourse oversharing, Teigen added, "I don't care if you were offended or disgusted," conceding, "I understand it can be that way for people." But the photos and her story, she said, were "designed for the people that were hurting" from similar circumstances.

"She felt like, really, that one of the ways we would carry on Jack's memory was to take pictures of that moment. … I was, like, 'I don't want to commemorate this pain.' But the crazy thing about having a miscarriage is you don't walk away with anything. You have this emptiness. And we wanted to take the photos so that we had something to remember him by."

Their grief has spurred them to partner with Ronald McDonald House Charities, helping promote the organization's support for families with hospitalized children. The couple devised a hand symbol suitable for online photos, with Teigen explaining on Instagram, "When you post the @rmhc heart with the hashtag #HereForRMHC, McDonald’s will give **$100** in your name as part of a $100 million commitment."

The couple are the parents of daughter Luna, 4, and son Miles, 2.