6 Celebrities Share Their Experience Of IVF And Fertility Struggles

Gabrielle Union

In her book We’re Going to Need More Wine, Union shared her struggles with infertility as she tried to get pregnant with husband, Dwayne Wade. “I have had eight or nine miscarriages,” she wrote. “For three years, my body has been a prisoner to trying to get pregnant – I’ve either been about to go into an IVF cycle, in the middle of an IVF cycle, or coming out of an IVF cycle.”

In August of 2018, Union was diagnosed with adenomyosis, which could explain her struggle to get pregnant. But as Union explains, the hardest part was fielding questions from others about her desire to be a parent. “For so many women, and not just women in the spotlight, people feel very entitled to know, ‘Do you want kids?’ A lot of people, especially people that have fertility issues, just say ‘no’ because that’s a lot easier than being honest about whatever is actually going on. People mean so well, but they have no idea the harm or frustration it can cause,” she told People. 

Jimmy Fallon and Nancy Juvonen

On an episode of The Tonight Show, Jimmy Fallon and his wife opened up about their five-year journey with IVF. “At a certain point it had to almost become a job because it’s way too emotional to live emotionally through that,” said Juvonen. “So you just keep going and going and going, and if you really want something, you just make it happen. And you have all of these things where you go, ‘Yeah, but I would never do that. Yes, but I would never do that, but I would never…’ Then all of a sudden, you’re like, ‘Hey, I’ll do that. If it’s for my family, I’ll do anything.”

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Sharon Osbourne

In her autobiography Extreme, Survivor, Osbourne opened up about her experience of trying to conceive after her third child, Jack. Revealing the reason she didn’t have a fourth child, Osbourne wrote: “Sadly, it didn’t work. 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.”

Osbourne added, “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.”

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Erin Andrews

Recently, Andrews shared that she is undergoing IVF for the seventh time. She described the process as a “time consuming” and “emotionally draining” one, but wanted to share her story in the hopes that more people would be encouraged to talk about it openly. 

“On top of being on a special assignment last week where I was sometimes working up to 14 hours a day, I also had to set aside time for IVF treatment. For those familiar, you know it’s a time-consuming and emotionally draining process,” Andrews wrote. “This is my 7th one, and I’ve been going through these treatments since I was 35-years-old.” She added, “This is real life…I am not ashamed, and I want to be vocal and honest about this.”

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Emma Thompson

After suffering a miscarriage in 1997, Emma Thompson went through IVF and gave birth to daughter, Gaia, just two years later. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Thompson opened up about her fertility struggles: “After that, 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 said. 

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Courtney Cox

The Friends actress joked to People, “I get pregnant pretty easily, but I have a hard time keeping them.” She added that she and partner at the time, David Arquette, would bounce back pretty quickly after each miscarriage. “I don’t say it’s a walk in the park. But what are you going to do? We just try again,” she said. Cox and Arquette welcomed a daughter, Coco, in 2004 through IVF. 

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