Giving birth can be beautiful, frustrating, exhilarating, painful, and extremely complicated. Sometimes, the most complicated part can be getting pregnant in the first place. Even scarier than going through the potential land mines of infertility? Talking about it. Yet, every year, celebrities come forward and share their personal journeys and struggles. Most recently, Chrissy Teigen boldly brought up the topic of fertility multiple times when talking about her own pregnancy. True to her nature, she candidly revealed that she gave herself shots of in vitro fertilization, IVF, while on herSports Illustrated photo shoot. She also revealed that she chose the sex of her child during the IVF process, telling People, "John [Legend] deserves a girl."
In addition to Teigen, a number of celebrities spoke openly and honestly about the difficulty of getting pregnant. For many non-famous women, hearing stories of infertility and difficult conception is important. When celebrities come forward about any real-life experience, from children to parenting, it helps spark a much-needed conversation.
Kim Kardashian-West, 35, mother of North, 2, and Saint, 2 months
After giving birth to North West, Kardashian-West had issues conceiving a second child. We know that she ended up having that second child, but while she was still struggling, she spoke to C Magazine.
"They say if you've been trying [to have a baby] for a year, then you usually need a little bit of help. I had a tough delivery, so I understand what my challenges are. I mean, I'm seeing the best doctors and I'm trying to do everything I can to make that happen. They have recommended to me to get a surrogate, and I would like to hold out a little bit longer, and still try. I still have hope, so I'm just going to keep on trying. Never say never. I mean, we haven't talked about adopting..."
She added, "It doesn’t seem like that to me, though. It was over a year of trying and I had so many complications. I had this condition called placenta accreta. There were a couple of little operations to fix all that, so that created a little hole in my uterus, which I think made it really tough to get pregnant again. It was a long road. I would go to the doctor in Beverly Hills every day at 5 in the morning to get tested to see if I was ovulating. I was trying everything: I did acupuncture and got a nutritionist to eat healthier, thinking that was an issue."
Chrissy Teigen, 30, expecting
On FABLife, Teigen spoke about the nosiness of the public on the private issue of starting a family.
“I can’t imagine being that nosy, like, ‘When are the kids coming?’ because who knows what somebody’s going through, who knows if somebody’s struggling?” she continued. “I would say, honestly, [that] John and I were having trouble. We would have had kids five, six years ago if it had happened, but my gosh, it’s been a process.”
Trista Sutter, 43, mother of Maxwell Alston, 9, and Blakesley Grace, 6
In an interview with FOX News in 2015, the first Bachelorette talked about her struggle with infertility when she was trying to have children.
"I talk about in the book [Happily Ever After, 2013] how we struggled with infertility for almost two years. I always wanted to be a mom, it was always my dream and although I wanted to be a career person for a very long time, overplaying that at all times was to become a mother. When you get married, you believe, ‘Okay, the next natural thing is to have babies.’ When that doesn’t happen, you start to question your relationship, you start to question yourself, even God. It’s a very difficult thing to not be able to do anything about making a dream of yours come true and questioning whether something is wrong with you. So, that was definitely a dark time in my life."
Tyra Banks, 42, mother of York Banks, 3 months
In an episode of her show, FABLife, in September of 2015, Banks got emotional when talking about the pressures of being in the spotlight when dealing with infertility issues.
"I want to cosign what Chrissy is saying and say, 'You have no idea what people are going through.' Why am I crying? You just have no idea what people are going through, so when you ask Chrissy [Teigen] that or me that or anybody that, it is none of your frigging business, okay? And for any women, it is none of your business what somebody is going through," the former model continued, "Whether they want to have a child or don't ever want to have a child or may have a child on the way, it's none of your business, okay? Until somebody wants to make it your business. I am so tired of seeing on my social media, 'Why don't you have kids? Why don't you have kids?' You don't know. You don't know what I'm going through."
She also said, in addition to co-host Chrissy Teigen, that she, too, was undergoing IVF treatments. "We're kind of going through this similar thing with IVF," she said, looking at Teigen, "And you know, 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...I can't believe I'm saying this right now."
Khloé Kardashian, 31
In 2013, the reality show star told Us Weekly about problems with her uterus.
"About a year ago, we were like, 'Let's just see what happens.' And then, when it didn't happen, Kim was like, 'Let's go to the doctor. I found out I don't ovulate and now my uterus lining isn't thick enough and I have to take pills to make my uterus lining thicker. If that doesn't get thicker, then I cannot carry a baby.'"
Jaime King, 36, mother of James Knight, 2, and Leo Thames, 9 months
In 2014, the actress posted a message on Instagram, revealing that she had five miscarriages in addition to other pregnancy problems. Then, in 2015, she sat down with People and talked about her five years of fertility treatments.
"I felt so ashamed. Everyone who goes through it feels that way, no matter where they're from. I was in severe pain all the time, emotionally and physically. I felt so broken. Women are supposed to bear children, and I couldn't."
Hugh Jackman, 47, and Deborra-Lee Furness, 60, parents of Oscar Maximilian, 15, and Ava Eliot, 10
In 2012, Jackman spoke on the Today show about his wife's issues with getting pregnant.
"To be clear, Deb and I always wanted to adopt. So that was always in our plan. We didn't know where in the process that would happen, but biologically, obviously we tried and it was not happening for us and it is a difficult time. We did IVF and Deb had a couple of miscarriages. I'll never forget it, the miscarriage thing — it happens to one in three pregnancies, but it's very, very rarely talked about. It's almost secretive, so I hope Deb doesn't mind me bringing it up now. It's a good thing to talk about it. It's more common and it is tough. There's a grieving that you have to go through."
Guiliana Rancic, 41, mother of Edward Duke, 3
For her cover of Health magazine in 2012, the TV personality recalled her experience with IVF and how baffling it was to her.
"My first IVF, I did get pregnant — that was the miscarriage. But the second one, 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, and when the doctor calls you, to hear, 'Oh, sorry, it didnt work.' That was the most shocking. I would go, 'Im a good person, and I could give someone the greatest life of all, but yet I cant get pregnant.' And then you watch these TV shows, 16 and Pregnant, and these girls who want nothing to do with their babies are pregnant. And you're going, What? None of that made sense to me."
Elisabeth Röhm, 42, mother of Easton August, 7
The actress has been incredibly open about her fertility issues, from the hormone treatments to embryos. She chronicled her whole experience in her book, Baby Steps: Having the Child I Always Wanted (Just Not as I Expected).
“The biggest struggle was the moment I had gone through my first cycle of hormone treatments and I found out that it wasn’t good enough and I wasn’t producing enough eggs. It was the first time I really, thought, I may never get pregnant, ever. I really have never felt anything so painfully devastating. My greatest triumph was that in my first transfer, I put four embryos in and one took; and that’s my daughter, Easton.”
Mariah Carey, 45, mother of twins Monroe and Moroccan Scott, 4
In an interview with Barbara Walters in 2012, Carey talked about the changes to her lifestyle she made in order to increase her chances of fertility.
“The main thing I did that was tough was to go on progesterone like every month...and then when I was pregnant, I had to stay with the progesterone for 10 weeks. It minimizes the chance of miscarriage by 50%.”
Sofia Vegara, 43, mother of Manolo Gonzalez-Ripoll, 23
Following her recent marriage to Joe Manganiello, who has no children, the question of if Vegara plans on having more children often comes up. In February 2016, she told Harper's Bazaar Arabia that she isn't getting her hopes up.
“I cannot just expect anything natural anymore. We’ll see what happens. It’s not something that doesn’t let us sleep. But it’s not something I am completely opposed to.”
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