Gabrielle Union opens up to Oprah about IVF, miscarriage and surrogacy
"I could not let go of this idea of creating this life within me," shares Union.
After feeling alone and suffering silently for years, Gabrielle Union has been very open about her struggle with infertility since her memoir, We’re Going to Need More Wine , came out last year. She surprised many by writing about how she’d suffered “8 or 9 miscarriages” while trying to conceive with husband Dwyane Wade, and just over a year later the couple surprised the world again by announcing they’d just welcomed a baby girl via surrogate.
Union’s story is incredible, and one so many women needed to hear, and that’s why Oprah’s OWN network just aired a sit-down interview special with Union and Wade: Oprah at Home with Gabrielle Union, Dwyane Wade & Their New Baby .
(The audio version of the interview drops in two parts on ‘Oprah’s SuperSoul Conversations’ podcast on Monday, December 10, and Wednesday, December 12.)
The interview, which first aired over the weekend, saw Union open up about how the years of IVF treatments and disappointment left her questioning everything she knew. “I’ve just always been of the mindset — because this is what people tell you: ‘You work hard, you do the right things, you’re a good person, it will happen for you,’ eventually,” Union, 46, told Oprah.
“I could not let go of this idea of creating this life within me,” Union explains, adding that she felt the “need to be pregnant for everybody, including myself.”
As the medical interventions escalated, Wade became worried. “I’m watching her do things to her body and to herself that it’s getting to the point where it’s not healthy,” he told Oprah, adding that he always told Union that he wanted a baby as much as she did, but that he married her and that she was the most important thing to him.
“So it came to a point where, you know, I started to feel a certain way about that because I didn’t want something to happen to her,” Wade told Oprah.
So when the couple decided to explore surrogacy, Wade was pleased to see the medical part of his wife’s journey come to an end.
When the couple surprised the world by announcing the birth of their daughter, Kaavia James, Union was puzzled by comments that insinuated the skin-to-skin photo she used in the birth announcement was an attempt to “act like” she’d been pregnant herself, or that she really had been pregnant herself.
She notes she never tried to make it seem like she’d been pregnant, as she explained her daughter was born via surrogate in the caption for that photo, which was taken after the surrogate had a C-section.
“Our surrogate went into recovery, and we were able to go immediately into another hospital room,” Union told Oprah. “I had one of my New York & Company sweaters on, but skin-to-skin was kind of hard. And because the doctors kept coming in…it was easier to have skin to skin in a hospital gown.”
Wade said he found the comments painful. “I think for me the most hurtful thing was once we had the baby, and everyone started talking about why is she in the bed holding the baby, why does she have a gown on, why is she acting that she just had a baby,” Wade said.
Union and Wade say they hope talking about their story will help others tell theirs, and know that they are not alone. “So many people are suffering in silence and every time, when we’re candid and transparent about our journeys, no matter what those journeys are, you are allowing people to be seen and heard and empowered in ways that they’ve never been,” Union told Oprah.
She may have felt alone during her journey to motherhood, but by telling her story, Union is making sure other mamas don’t.
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