28 Celebrities Who Have Shared The Realities Of Their Fertility Journeys
For a long time, it seemed like discussing fertility was a taboo subject. For a lot of couples, the idea of not being able to naturally conceive a child together was something that seemed like it had to be kept hush-hush. That is, until more and more people in the public eye started opening up about their own struggles to become parents, and people realized infertility may be more prevalent than they thought.
In fact, according to the Centers for Disease Control, one in every five married women in the U.S. between the ages of 15 and 49 who have not welcomed a child before do not get pregnant within the first year of trying for a baby. As nurse and midwife Jennifer Meyers explained to Today, "Although infertility doesn't have the same stigma it did decades ago, many people still hold a lot of shame. There is societal pressure to have children, and it can be overwhelming to hear, 'When are you going to get pregnant?'"
That's why so many celebrities have spoken out about their realities. That includes the good and the bad of their fertility journeys, with many sharing success stories and others opening up about never becoming a parent despite trying — and why that's sometimes okay, too.
Jennifer Aniston's IVF rounds were not successful
Not every fertility journey results in a pregnancy, and sometimes that's okay. Jennifer Aniston is proof of that — she's shared how personally she used to take all the speculation about if she'd ever become a mom, even as she was secretly undergoing fertility procedures.
"All the years and years and years of speculation ... It was really hard. I was going through IVF, drinking Chinese teas, you name it," the former "Friends" star told Allure in 2022. "I was throwing everything at it. I would've given anything if someone had said to me, 'Freeze your eggs. Do yourself a favor.' You just don't think it. So here I am today. The ship has sailed."
Aniston's IVF revelation came eight years after she shared in a piece for HuffPost that she was content with her life without a child, despite her previous attempts to become a mom. "We are complete with or without a mate, with or without a child. We get to decide for ourselves what is beautiful when it comes to our bodies," she wrote of the pressure on women and why she wanted to be a role model for them to make their own decisions in life. "We don't need to be married or mothers to be complete. We get to determine our own 'happily ever after' for ourselves," she added. And we couldn't agree more.
Kourtney Kardashian tried for years to get pregnant again
Kourtney Kardashian was very open about her struggles to conceive a child with her husband, Travis Barker, before she announced her pregnancy in June 2023. Kardashian froze her eggs during Season 15 of "Keeping Up with the Kardashians," before sharing several years later on "The Kardashians" that she and Barker were trying IVF to conceive.
"It hasn't been the most amazing experience," Kardashian admitted in one scene on the show that aired in March 2022, while chatting with her mom, Kris Jenner. A year later, when a fan speculated that she might be pregnant in the comments of a March 2023 Instagram upload, Kardashian (who shares three children with her ex-boyfriend Scott Disick) used the opportunity to educate people on what fertility treatment can actually do to the body. "The after-effects of IVF. I only acknowledge this comment because I do think it's important to know how IVF affects women's bodies and it's not spoken about much," she hit back in the comments section (via Cosmopolitan).
Kardashian then revealed on "The Kardashians" during a May 2023 episode that she and Barker had officially ended their IVF journey. "We are officially done with IVF. We would love a baby more than anything, but I really believe in what God has in store for us. If that's a baby, I believe it will happen," she said.
Gabrielle Union went through a lot before welcoming her daughter
Gabrielle Union has also been very open about her difficulties in welcoming her own child. In her 2021 book "You Got Anything Stronger?", she wrote, "I had been through an adenomyosis diagnosis and more miscarriages than I could confidently count, and all I could do was nod. I was not ready to do [surrogacy]. I wanted the experience of being pregnant."
Union explained she'd already tried numerous cycles of IVF in order to welcome a child with her husband, Dwyane Wade, and was ready to take drastic measures to get pregnant by considering taking Lupron, which would have given her a 30% chance of pregnancy. However, she decided against the drug because of the side effects, which can result in brittle bones and early menopause.
Also in the book, she opened up about the devastation she felt over not being able to get pregnant easily after finding out Wade has fathered a child with another woman during a break in their relationship. "At that point I would have sold my soul to get out of the endless cycle of loss," she wrote in the heartbreaking passage. "The experience of Dwyane having a baby so easily — while I was unable to — left my soul not just broken into pieces, but shattered into fine dust scattering in the wind." Thankfully though, Union and Wade eventually welcomed their adorable daughter Kaavia via a surrogate in 2018.
Michelle Obama conceived her daughters via IFV following a miscarriage
Former First Lady Michelle Obama shared her fertility journey during a 2018 appearance on "Good Morning America," telling the world that she and former President Barack Obama conceived their daughters, Sasha and Malia, via IVF in the wake of a traumatic miscarriage.
"I felt like I failed because I didn't know how common miscarriages were because we don't talk about them. We sit in our own pain, thinking that somehow we're broken," she explained on the ABC morning show of her pregnancy loss, adding she decided to turn to IVF when she was about 34 years old. Michelle said she decided to share her struggles because she wanted to let other people in similar situations know they're not alone.
Michelle also opened up about the sad miscarriage in her 2018 book, "Becoming," and how the couple's excitement quickly turned to despair. "We had one pregnancy test come back positive, which caused us both to forget every worry and swoon with joy, but a couple of weeks later I had a miscarriage, which left me physically uncomfortable and cratered any optimism we felt," she wrote.
Kim Kardashian had a number of pregnancy complications
Kim Kardashian hasn't shied away from sharing her fertility journey with the world, opening up about her road to welcoming more children with Kanye West following the birth of her first two children, North and Saint West. Writing about North's birth on her blog in 2017, Kardashian opened up about the difficulty she had giving birth to her first daughter naturally, sharing, "My doctor had to stick his entire arm in me and detach the placenta with his hand, scraping it away from my uterus with his fingernails. How disgusting and painful." The star shared that she suffered from placenta accreta, which is where the placenta actually fuses with the womb wall.
Two years later, she opened up even more about her fertility struggles in a YouTube video for Skims, sharing she also experienced pre-eclampsia, which is why she opted to use a surrogate to give birth to her and Kanye's youngest children, Chicago and Psalm West. "I actually had to have five different operations within a year and a half to fix the damage that all of that did from the inside," she shared of giving birth to Saint, revealing she became pregnant for the second time after freezing her eggs. "I am just so thankful for my beautiful kids. You know, no matter how they came to me, they came to me. I'm so thankful for surrogates. And I am really thankful for my family," she added.
Jamie Chung chose to use a surrogate to welcome her twins
Jamie Chung told fans she and her husband, Bryan Greenberg, conceived after visiting a fertility clinic. Shortly after announcing the birth of their twin boys, "The Real World: San Diego" reality star shared a photo on Instagram of herself cuddling her bundle of joy and wrote in the caption, "Every fertility journey is unique, it's a tender topic. This would have not been possible without (Dr. Shahin Ghadir) at (SoCal Reproductive Center)." She added in the November 2021 caption, "Thank you for taking such good care of us through our journey."
The following year, Chung confirmed to "Today" that she and Greenberg had chosen to use a surrogate so she could focus on her career. "I was terrified of becoming pregnant. I was terrified of putting my life on hold for two-plus years. In my industry, it feels like you're easily forgotten if you don't work within the next month of your last job. Things are so quickly paced in what we do," she explained of the decision.
Chung told fans around three years earlier that she'd undergone a procedure to freeze her eggs. "Here I am over a week ago at my [doctor's] office getting an orientation/lesson on how to inject myself with growth hormones," she captioned an Instagram photo showing her holding a piece of paper with the words "Embryo Creation" written across the top.
Carrie Underwood got angry after three miscarriages
Though it may seem like Carrie Underwood has the perfect family from the outside, she had quite the struggle to get there. The star, who shares two sons named Isaiah and Jacob with her husband Mike Fisher, has opened up about experiencing three devastating miscarriages before falling pregnant with Jacob.
Underwood shared during a 2018 appearance on "CBS Sunday Morning" that she first miscarried in 2017. "In the beginning, it was like, 'Okay, God, we know this is, just wasn't Your timing. And that is all right. We will bounce back and figure our way through it.' And I got pregnant again in the spring, and it didn't work out. Got pregnant again, early 2018. Didn't work out. So, at that point, it was just kind of like, 'Okay, like, what's the deal?'"
She later learned she was pregnant again but felt she was miscarrying, which is when she got angry with God. Underwood recalled of a desperate prayer, "I was just sobbing. And I was like, 'Why on Earth do I keep getting pregnant if I can't have a kid? Like, what is this? Shut the door. Like, do something. Either shut the door or let me have a kid.'" Two years later, Underwood and Fisher opened up about their journey in their docuseries, "Mike and Carrie: God & Country." "I was hurt. I was a little angry and, of course, you feel guilty for being mad at your creator," Underwood explained.
Hoda Kotb felt undeserving after adopting her two daughters
Back in 2007, after receiving treatment for breast cancer, Hoda Kotb was told by a doctor that she would probably never be able to conceive a child naturally. "She basically said that given my age and [my breast cancer treatment], it was pretty close to a dead end," the longtime "Today" show star told Good Housekeeping during a joint interview with co-host Savannah Guthrie, recalling how she was advised to freeze her eggs.
"I was in my room and I just sobbed. I thought, 'Well, that's that, isn't it?" Like, you almost blame yourself," she said, admitting she had to push away the feeling of wanting kids because it was so painful. "How do you survive knowing you can't have what you desire and what you feel like you actually physically need?"
A decade later, though, Kotb was on "Today" announcing she and her then-partner Joel Schiffman had adopted an adorable baby girl named Haley. Two years after that, she became a mom again when she adopted a second little girl named Hope. But the star has admitted she's struggled with feeling like she actually deserved motherhood after her long journey getting there. "I used to feel almost undeserving of it," she candidly told E! News in February 2023. "But I don't anymore. Something happened within me where I was like, 'You know what, I'm worthy of these children, I'm worthy of myself."
Aisha Tyler made the difficult decision to stop IVF treatment
Speaking on "The Talk" in 2011, "Archer" star Aisha Tyler bravely shared that she and her now ex-husband, Jeff Tietjens, made the difficult decision to stop undergoing IVF treatments because of the side effects and the small (only 5%) chance of getting pregnant.
The actor and talk show host explained that she had to have injections every single day as part of the treatment, which she didn't react well to. "They make your body crazy, they make you emotional, they hurt," she said, noting that what made it worse was the fact that it was Tietjens who had to keep injecting her. "He hated giving me the shots, he probably cried more than I did," she recalled. Tyler also spoke about the moment they decided to call time on their parenthood journey, sharing, "We just decided it wasn't worth it to go through that and so we decided to stop. It was better to not go through that torture."
Tyler spoke out again about their decision in 2014, sharing an important message to other couples in the same position. "When we found out that [getting pregnant] was going to be difficult to impossible, it really was a choice to stop," she admitted to HuffPost. "I wanted families [and] couples to know that it was a valid choice not to get on this crazy merry-go-round of IVF and tens and tens of thousands of dollars."
Chrissy Teigen welcomed children via IVF and a surrogate
Chrissy Teigen and John Legend are the proud parents of four children — three conceived via IVF and one born via a surrogate. But it wasn't an easy road. Speaking to The Cut in 2018, Teigen shared, "You hear stories about IVF working the first try. But you'll hear a lot more stories about when it takes a few times. Ours didn't work the first time, and it was devastating. You realize that a lot of it is luck, and you can't blame things on yourself."
After welcoming her first two children via IVF, Teigen and Legend tragically lost their unborn son Jack at 20 weeks due to a pregnancy complication. Teigen initially described the loss as a miscarriage, before coming to realize years later that it had in fact been an abortion "to save my life for a baby that had absolutely no chance," she said (via The Hollywood Reporter). Teigen wrote candidly in a 2020 Instagram post that, "We are shocked and in the kind of deep pain you only hear about, the kind of pain we've never felt before."
In February 2022, Teigen shared via Instagram that she'd started IVF again. Shortly after, she fell pregnant, and gave birth to daughter Esti in January 2023. Five months later, Teigen announced via Instagram that her surrogate had given birth to their son, Wren, after previously losing an embryo.
Tyra Banks faced years of questions about children
Before giving birth to her son, York, Tyra Banks faced years of questions about why she was childless, and she's spoken out about the reality of struggling to conceive while being bombarded with baby questions. "You don't know what I'm going through," she said during a 2015 episode of "Fab Life" while speaking to fellow infertility awareness advocate Chrissy Teigen.
"Putting needles in your tummy every day and having to come to work and smile when you feel like you want to throw up and lay down," she continued, before encouraging people to be more respectful of other people's fertility journeys and not pry. "Have respect for that working woman that might not want a child now, and let's not attack each other and feel like, 'Oh, you're doing that but you need to do this,' and just remember, you never, ever know what somebody is going through," she said.
The following year, Banks became a mom for the first time, when she welcomed her son via surrogate with her now-former partner, Erik Asla. Following York's birth, she opened up to People about the process. "There are so many stages. It's like, 'Okay, it's a healthy embryo. Okay, it's month one.' I was just constantly living on edge until I held him for the first time," she said.
Anne Hathaway's journey to motherhood was anything but easy
Another star who's talked about the fact that becoming a parent isn't always easy is Anne Hathaway. "The Devil Wears Prada" star opened up to Daily Mail about how she struggled to become a mom to her sons Jack and Jonny. "Each time I was trying to get pregnant and it wasn't going my way, someone else would manage to conceive," she told the outlet in 2019, adding, "What made matters worse was that I was embarrassed to feel like that because there was no conversation to be had about it. This is something people don't talk about, and I think they should."
Hathaway's candid comments came after she sent love to all those struggling to conceive on Instagram, also sharing a photo of herself proudly showing off her baby bump. "For everyone going through infertility and conception hell, please know it was not a straight line to either of my pregnancies. Sending you extra love," she captioned the 2019 upload. The star later confirmed she welcomed her first child in November 2019 during a 2020 appearance on "Live with Kelly and Ryan."
Two years later, while speaking to WSJ Magazine, Hathaway opened up more about what she faced to become a mom. "There's this tendency to portray getting pregnant, having kids, in one light, as if it's all positive. But I know from my own experience ... it's so much more complicated than that," she confessed.
Brooke Shields tried for two years to have a baby
Brooke Shields has been raising awareness of fertility issues ever since she decided to become a mom. The actor is now mother to two daughters, Grier and Rowan, with her husband Chris Henchy. But while trying to get pregnant in the early 2000s, she found the experience much more difficult than she'd imagined.
"After a while, when you're not successful, you start to associate the word 'failure' every time you pee on a stick and it doesn't come out the right color," she told NY Metro Parents in 2005. "What starts out as a dream becomes a project that's all-consuming — everywhere you look, women are pregnant, and every song on the radio seems like it's all about being pregnant! It becomes a very frustrating, frightening place."
Shields shared that she and her husband were trying for a baby for a year before realizing it wasn't happening for them, and it then took them another year after seeking help via IVF to fall pregnant with Grier, during which time Shields suffered a miscarriage. She opened up about how difficult she found her pregnancy loss on "Today." "In one night, I became a full-blown adult. It was the way I looked at it. I was like, 'Oh, this is what real loss is," she said.
Giuliana Rancic's hopes for a second baby didn't work out
"At age 33, I had no idea that hundreds of shots, multiple rounds of IVF, miscarriage and heartbreak would be in my future. I had no idea that I would become of one of the seven million Americans struggling to have a baby." That's what former E! News host Giuliana Rancic told CCRM Fertility in 2018 following a difficult road to motherhood.
Giuliana bravely let the world in on her and her husband Bill Rancic's journey to welcoming their son, Edward "Duke" Rancic, on their Style reality show "Giuliana & Bill," documenting their attempts to become parents. Cameras rolled as the couple experienced several unsuccessful IVF attempts and a miscarriage before they turned to surrogacy following Giuliana's breast cancer diagnosis.
"The second [round of IVF], I did not get pregnant, and that was the biggest kick in the stomach, because I just could not believe you go through so much to get those eggs and put them in ... That was the most shocking," she told Health in 2012. "I would go, 'I'm a good person, and I could give someone the greatest life of all, but yet I can't get pregnant.'" In 2015, Giuliana shared her and Bill's desire to have a second child with Life&Style, noting it was their last shot to become parents of two. Their attempts sadly didn't come to fruition, though she noted how lucky she felt to have her son.
Jaime King was diagnosed with multiple fertility issues while pregnant
When Jaime King was just 26, she was told she had endometriosis, polycystic ovarian syndrome, and adenomyosis, all after going from doctor to doctor following years of long, painful periods. At the same time, she was told she had an ectopic pregnancy (via E! News).
King went on to have five miscarriages before giving birth to her first child, son James, in 2013, but that pregnancy wasn't without its own struggle. The "Pearl Harbor" star told the outlet she had to have multiple examinations as well as five different rounds of IVF treatment, stating, "It was awful. It was humiliating. It was painful. It made me feel like something was broken in me." Thankfully, James was delivered healthily, and King and her husband, Kyle Newman, welcomed another son, Leo, in 2015.
King also spoke about her journey to motherhood on Instagram in 2020, writing in a since-deleted post about the reality of pregnancy and giving birth. "9 doctors until Dr. Randy Harris diagnosed me & saved my life from a severe ectopic, 5 miscarriages, 5 rounds of IVF, 26 IUI's, most with no outcome, 4 [and a half] years of trying to conceive, 26 hours of brutal labor, early delivery b/c of sudden preeclampsia, tearing and tearing after the stitches were in once I was home, milk supply issues, painful mastitis, uncontrollable crying while breastfeeding," she wrote.
Maria Menounos didn't welcome her first child until 10 years after starting IVF
Maria Menounos and her husband, Keven Undergaro, tried for around a decade to have a baby before they announced the happy news they were expecting their first child in February 2023. "Just after a decade of trying everything, we are so grateful to the beautiful family helping us conceive our baby," Menounos told People, confirming that they'd decided to use a surrogate to become parents.
The couple has spoken out multiple times about their struggles to have a baby, with the former "E! News" host telling People almost exactly a year before she announced her big baby news that she never thought her journey to motherhood would be such a long one. "We've used different services, different people. It's just been a very frustrating process," Menounos confessed.
She shared that she'd undergone her first round of IVF 10 years earlier but that she and Undergaro had opted for surrogacy, only to have one attempt fall through. But the two never lost hope. "There's something called a mock cycle that my fertility doctor suggested because we only have two really good embryos and we want two kids. Had we not done [a mock cycle], we would've probably lost our only chances," she shared.
Nicole Kidman yearned for a child following a miscarriage and ectopic pregnancy
Nicole Kidman had years of struggles when it came to fertility, experiencing an ectopic pregnancy and a miscarriage during her marriage to Tom Cruise (as she told Tatler in 2018). Kidman was told that it was pretty unlikely she'd be able to have children of her own, which is why they adopted two children together, Isabella and Connor. She opened up about how difficult she found her pregnancy losses, sharing, "I know the yearning. That yearning. It's a huge, aching yearning. And the loss! The loss of a miscarriage is not talked about enough. That's massive grief to certain women." She added, "There's an enormous amount of pain and an enormous amount of joy on the other side of it."
Kidman later went on to welcome two children with her second husband, Keith Urban, with the couple becoming parents to daughters. Kidman gave birth to Sunday naturally in 2008. Their second daughter together, Faith, was born via a surrogate three years later. "We were in the place of desperately wanting another child," Kidman said on "60 Minutes Australia" that year. "Anyone that's been in the place of wanting another child or wanting a child knows the disappointment, the pain, and the loss that you go through trying and struggling with fertility. Fertility is such a big thing, and it's not something I've ever run away from talking about."
A miscarriage at four months pushed Christie Brinkley to try IVF
Christie Brinkley is another woman who, tragically, experienced more than one miscarriage before turning to IVF to welcome her third child. The star shared her traumatic experience during an interview with Express. "After the first miscarriage, I tried to take the attitude that it was my body's way of telling me that this pregnancy wasn't meant to be. But after the second one, it was really devastating," she said, confirming her second miscarriage happened four months into her pregnancy.
"Four months is a lot of living with that little life in you — thinking about it, eating right for it, nurturing it, and all of a sudden, it dies. After the second one, we decided to try in vitro, because both Peter and I felt we couldn't handle another failure. We thought, 'Let's let the best of science try it for us' When I miscarried we had to come to terms with the possibility that this wasn't meant to be. It's just amazing that two months later I got pregnant."
The star was already a mom to Alexa Ray (with Billy Joel) and Jack (with Rick Taubman) at the time. She then had a successful round of IVF that led to the birth of her third child, her first with Cook, when Sailor Lee came into the world in 1998.
Tia Mowry thought her endometriosis ended her ability to get pregnant
Tia Mowry and her now former husband Cory Hardrict waited seven years in between their first child and their second, and Mowry had admitted it wasn't exactly planned that way. "I didn't think I'd be able to have a second child, and it's been over seven years since my first pregnancy. I put it off, but I did want to have another child," the former "Sister, Sister" star told People. "I didn't let my infertility issues define me or define what my goals were and what I wanted out of life. We did try for a long time. It was hard. But I didn't give up."
The star explained to Today that it took her a long time to be diagnosed with endometriosis — including at least one misdiagnosis. "When you have endometriosis you're prone to having an ectopic pregnancy, because of the scar tissue. With my firstborn Cree, I was experiencing excruciating pain after getting pregnant and that was a fear that the doctors were talking about," she explained, adding it took her and Cory a long time to naturally conceive their daughter, Cairo.
Heather Rae El Moussa tried IVF twice before getting pregnant naturally
"Selling Sunset" star Heather Rae El Moussa and her husband Tarek El Moussa actually tried two cycles of IVF before they welcomed their son together, Tristan Jay, naturally. The couple got candid on "The Jennifer Hudson Show" in May 2023, opening up about the surprise of learning they'd conceived their little boy naturally.
"We went through the entire thing, doctors and shots everything," said Tarek, who also has a daughter named Taylor and a son named Brayden with his former wife, Christina Hall. Heather added, "I did not think I was going to be successful at having a baby. And I have two beautiful stepkids and they're incredible and they made me want to have babies." She added that she and Tarek still have two embryos frozen and have spoken about the idea of having another baby.
Heather also opened up about the process of trying to get pregnant on Instagram, sharing a poignant pregnancy post in July 2022. "We've been doing IVF and went from having seven frozen eggs to ... having an all-natural pregnancy. You just never know what life has in store for you," she wrote. She then added of falling pregnant with Jay, "Our baby is a miracle baby — the odds were definitely against us but all that matters is that it happened."
Courteney Cox had to be funny on Friends amid her miscarriages
Courteney Cox is another star who's shared her experience with pregnancy loss before welcoming a child into the world. Back in 2003, the former "Cougar Town" star shared with People she and her then-husband, David Arquette, had been through multiple miscarriages before becoming parents to daughter Coco. "I get pregnant pretty easily, but I have a hard time keeping them," she said. "I don't say it's a walk in the park. But what are you going to do? We just try again."
She expanded on her fertility issues to NBC News in 2004, explaining she'd been diagnosed with a blood condition in which her body attacks the fetus during pregnancy. Cox said they'd done IVF twice — which meant giving herself daily injections of heparin — and opened up about the difficulties of her struggles while working on "Friends."
The star admitted it was extra tough when Jennifer Aniston's character Rachel Green gave birth on the show, around the same time as one of her miscarriages. "That was hard ... I remember one time I just had a miscarriage and Rachel was giving birth ... Oh my God, it was terrible having to be funny." The now-former couple conceived their daughter Coco via IVF and, in 2009, Cox told OK! she was preparing her body to welcome a second child. That didn't come to fruition, though, and Coco remains her only child.
Megan Mullally proved fertility journeys don't always have to end in pregnancy
"Will & Grace" star Megan Mullally and her husband Nick Offerman (of "Parks And Recreation") don't have kids — but that's not for lack of trying. The couple opened up during a joint 2017 interview with GQ about why they never became parents, with Mullally admitting they did try, but it just never happened for them.
"I never had a burning desire to have children. But then I met Nick, and I thought 'This is the only person I'd do this with,'" she shared. The couple tried to conceive a child together naturally, not turning to any alternative methods, although Mullally admitted she probably wasn't young enough to conceive a baby naturally. The star was 41 when she met her now husband. "We tried for about a year or so, and it didn't happen, and took that to mean it wasn't meant to be," she said, with Offerman adding that one reason their relationship works so well may be because their attempts to have children didn't come to fruition.
Emma Thompson welcomed a child a different way
Emma Thompson gave birth to her first child with her husband Greg Wise while she was in her 40s, and it wasn't an easy journey to motherhood. Thompson and Wise gave birth to Gaia in 1999 via IVF, two years after she had a miscarriage, but when they tried the method to conceive again, the star was left devastated.
"We tried to have another child, it didn't work, and I went into a deep clinical depression. It's only now that I no longer count other people's children or judge myself harshly for not providing my daughter with a sibling," she told EW in 2006. The couple attempted three more years of unsuccessful IVF before deciding another child may not be in their future.
But the star learned that there's more than one way to become a mom. In 2003, Thompson and Wise took in a child soldier from Rwanda named Tindyebwa 'Tindy' Agaba, and Thompson told The Guardian in 2010 that Tindy filled a hole in her heart caused by her fertility issues. "I couldn't have more children, and that was hard; but perhaps if I had [had more], I'd have missed out on this extra act of mothering that I've had with Tindy. Because there was space in my life for him, and I don't think there would have been space if I'd had another young child around," she shared.
Tragic news saw Khloé Kardashian welcome a son via a surrogate
Another Kardashian to speak up about fertility issues is Khloé Kardashian. Just like her famous sisters Kourtney and Kim, Khloé has let the world in on the difficulties she faced becoming a mom, which started back when she was married to Lamar Odom between 2009 and 2016. In 2013, she explained to Redbook that she was taking hormone injections while married to the basketball player in order to bring some stability to her hormones and increase her chances of conceiving. "You have to take those shots consistently," she explained. "And then after your cycle, you have to go to the doctor for ultrasounds and more testing ... It's a commitment."
The two eventually split and the star welcomed a daughter, True, with her now-former partner Tristan Thompson in 2018. During a March 2021 episode of "Keeping Up with the Kardashians," Khloé revealed she almost miscarried True early in her pregnancy, so the now ex-couple opted to try IVF and documented their attempts on the E! reality show.
However, following an egg retrieval procedure, Khloé was told she faced an 80% chance of having a miscarriage if she got pregnant again. The two then decided to try surrogacy and welcomed their second child together, a son named Tate, in 2022. Khloe later admitted on "The Kardashians" that she felt a lot of guilt over not carrying him herself.
Elizabeth Banks shared her experience with 'unexplained infertility'
After finding out she was infertile, Elizabeth Banks opted for surrogacy to become a mom in an attempt to quash the stigma that can come with being unable to birth to a child. She explained on the podcast "Call Her Daddy" that she'd never been pregnant, and believed when she was younger it was because she was always so regimented in taking her contraceptive pill. However, she later found out it was more likely to be linked to infertility.
"There's a small percentage of women who basically have unexplained infertility, and that's me. I'm in that category," "The Hunger Games" star shared. "I had always had plenty of eggs, I never had trouble making embryos; they did not implant. For whatever reason, my uterus is hostile; I don't know what's going on, but they just will not stay in there." She also opened up about what she told her children about why she didn't carry them, recalling she told them, "'Mommy had a broken belly.'"
Banks also spoke candidly about her decision to use a surrogate while speaking to Net-A-Porter in 2019, admitting she was happy to see the topic of infertility becoming more widely discussed. "I definitely think I'm still judged for what I've done and that people don't understand my choices, but I don't feel I owe anybody any explanation," she said. "And if my story helps people feel less alone on their journey, then I'm grateful for that."
The pain of a miscarriage made Whitney Port question IVF
Former "The Hills" star Whitney Port announced her miscarriage to the world in 2021, about two years after she experienced another pregnancy loss. "Tim [Rosenman], and I weren't sure if we still wanted to put this out there. I wasn't sure I wanted to relive the pain," she candidly told her Instagram followers, discussing how difficult she and her husband were finding their second loss.
She then shared more about what happened in a video on YouTube, confirming the doctor found no heartbeat during a scan. Port also told fans that her doctor had recommended IVF, but admitted she wasn't too sure if it was an avenue she and Rosenman wanted to walk down. "It's not something in my heart that I ever wanted to do, but now just the thought of not having a second kid is too painful to bear," she said.
The following year, Port opened up about her potential plans for baby number two to E! News, but admitted she had nothing in motion when it came to trying IVF. "I feel like we definitely want a second kid. We don't know when, or if, that will happen," she said.
Sharon Osbourne had such a traumatic time with IVF she could only do it once
Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne are proud parents of three children (Aimee, Kelly, and Jack Osbourne), but the former "The Talk" co-host shared in her 2006 book, "Extreme: My Autobiography" that becoming a mom of three wasn't as easy as it may have appeared. She revealed she and Ozzy (who also has three children, including an adopted son, from a previous relationship) struggled to conceive after Jack's birth.
They tried IVF, but "Sadly, it didn't work," Sharon wrote of attempts to have a fourth child. "After I had Jack, I got a stomach infection, and I didn't treat it, so the infection spread into my tubes and messed them up. So we went through IVF, but oh my God, I just couldn't take that ride. The wait for the results, for each phone call, was mental torture. It did me in, and I couldn't go through it again."
Savannah Guthrie stopped thinking she would ever have another baby
Savanna Guthrie lost hope she would have a second child after the birth of her daughter, Vale, and a subsequent miscarriage that left her devastated. The longtime "Today" star spoke out about her journey to Good Housekeeping in 2022 in a joint interview with Hoda Kotb. "I stopped even letting myself hope or believe I could [get pregnant] because the years were getting on," she said. "It wasn't that I thought it was impossible; I just thought it wasn't likely. I didn't want to get my hopes up."
Guthrie and her husband, Michael Feldman, decided to undergo IVF treatment after their tough pregnancy loss. The couple underwent two rounds before they eventually fell pregnant with their son, Charley. "I knew it was the winning lottery ticket to have one child. So I never dreamed that I would have two," Guthrie told Health (via E! News). "Vale was a miracle, and Charley was a medical miracle." She also told the outlet she felt Charley came from the very last egg in her body. "Going through what we did, it makes you realize that everything has to go just right to have a healthy baby," she added.