Zoé Champion was 19 when she had an abortion. She was 26 when she realized it was an abortion.

Champion, who was sitting her high school exams in France at the time, had developed a pregnancy outside the uterus, threatening to rupture her fallopian tubes – a condition medically known as an ectopic pregnancy

The doctors intervened immediately, ending the pregnancy and saving her life.

The doctors intervened immediately, ending the pregnancy and saving her life.

But similarly to cookbook author and model Chrissy Teigen, who this week spoke out about miscategorizing her own abortion as a miscarriage, Champion didn’t realize she’d had an abortion until long after.

“It wasn’t an abortion for me [at the time]. I think because my health was at stake, there was no decision to be made,” says Champion, now 31 and living in New York.

Teigen told an audience at a social impact summit that she was pregnant with her third child with her husband,

The singer John Legend, when she learned her pregnancy would not be viable – and that she would not survive without medical intervention.

“[It was] an abortion to save my life for a baby that had absolutely no chance. And to be honest, I never, ever put that together until, actually, a few months ago,” Teigen said.