It was a long road to parenthood for Chrissy Teigen and John Legend. “You hear stories about IVF working the first try, but you’ll hear a lot more stories about when it takes a few times,” the supermodel told New York Magazine’s The Cut in April 2018. “Ours didn’t work the first time and it was devastating.”
At times, the Cravings: Hungry for More cookbook author wondered if she had done something wrong. “I remember thinking, ‘Oh I was on my feet too much, and that’s why.’ You just look for anything to blame, especially yourself,” Teigen revealed.
But in the end, IVF worked. Teigen and the R&B singer welcomed daughter Luna in April 2016 and son Miles in May 2018.
Of course, Teigen isn’t alone. Gabrielle Union, Michelle Obama, Kim Kardashian and Jessie J have all spoken out about their infertility struggles. Click through the photos below to read their stories.
The former ’NSync member told Us exclusively in March 2020 that he and the artist were trying IVF again after their last “heartbreaking” attempt. He explained, “Unfortunately, the last time did not work so we’ve reset and we’re about to go again. Hopefully in the next couple of months, we’ll have some good news. But again, it’s gonna take a while to see if anything sticks.”
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The Saturday Night Live alum told Kelly Clarkson in February 2020 that she was undergoing “hardcore” IVF treatments, adding “The hormones are very intense and so many people go through this and we don’t talk about it enough, I think, as women. We need to raise more understanding and awareness.” Elliott joked, “This Valentine’s Day, I’ll be getting shots in my butt by my husband, [Billy Kennedy]. Very romantic.”
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The singer “stopped trusting” her body after suffering multiple miscarriages and “started to accept the fact” that she and Penn Badgley weren’t going to welcome a child. “Pregnancy after loss is a whole other thing,” the DOMINO band member captioned her February 2020 pregnancy announcement. “It takes everything I’ve got to detach lovingly from the losses I’ve been present for and be in my own experience.”
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Kellan Lutz’s wife opened up about her journey to pregnancy, writing on Instagram in January 2020: “I got married at almost 31, long after I thought I would. I am pregnant now at 32 after countless negative tests, a lost pregnancy, and a surgery to fix problems in my uterus and create a hospitable environment to actually grow a child.”
Brittany suffered a miscarriage at 6 months in February 2020.
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The model and her husband, Sean Avery, were “healthy partners” but suffered multiple pregnancy losses while trying to conceive. “After a few miscarriages, the pressure starts mounting and fertility doctors say, ‘You have this window. Maximize that window, a 4 to 5 day window with no rest,’” the former professional ice hockey player said on a January 2020 episode of his “No F–ks Given” podcast. The couple tried for six months before conceiving. The experience was “tough,” Avery said, explaining, “A few times, we were fighting and we don’t fight.”
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The comedian opened up in January 2020 about her and husband Chris Fischer’s attempts to give their son, Gene, a sibling via IVF. “I’m a week in … and feeling really run down and emotional,” the Girl With the Lower Back Tattoo author wrote on Instagram at the time. “If anyone went through it and if you have any advice or wouldn’t mind sharing your experience with me please do. My [Communtiy.com] number is in my bio. We are freezing my eggs and figuring out what to do.”
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“We were trying for eight months, and I couldn’t get pregnant,” the former professional wrestler, 36, revealed of her and Daniel Bryan‘s family plans in her January/February 2019 Health cover story with twin sister Nikki Bella. “I was stressed, and it wasn’t happening. There were a couple times that I was so late and was sure I was pregnant. Then I would get my period and bleed really badly. I think the universe was telling me something, like, it’s not a great time to have another baby.”
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After opening up about her fertility struggles in her 2013 documentary, Life Is But a Dream — calling the miscarriage she suffered before welcoming Blue Ivy the “saddest thing” she’d ever been through — the “Spirit” singer elaborated on the topic in a 2019 Elle interview. “I began to search for deeper meaning when life began to teach me lessons I didn’t know I needed,” she said. “I learned that all pain and loss is, in fact, a gift. Having miscarriages taught me that I had to mother myself before I could be a mother to someone else. Then I had Blue, and the quest for my purpose became so much deeper.”
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The Bachelor alum opened up about her chemical pregnancy loss in December 2019 on the “Miraculous Mamas” podcast, explaining, “I feel at peace about it, but when I do talk about it I get really emotional because I’ve never been pregnant before. It was the couple weeks of the positive tests and the excitement and ordering things. I already had our nursery wallpaper picked out, you know? It is such a let down. And then I feel stupid for crying because it was a chemical pregnancy, it’s like nothing was ever really there, which I know is ridiculous.”
Her husband, Vito Presta, went on to say that they will keep trying to conceive. “Life’s gonna kick us down, life’s gonna kick everybody down, you just gotta get back up and fight back,” he said. “And this fighting back is to just keep having sex and I’m okay with that. I think that’s a good fight to take on.”
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The Real Housewives of New Jersey star “tried to have a boy” using in vitro fertilization, she revealed in a November 2019 episode of the Bravo show. “They put three embryos in me,” the reality star said. “I didn’t even get pregnant.”
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The Chrisley Knows Best alum revealed on a November 2019 episode of her “Coffee Convos” podcast with Kailyn Lowry that she miscarried a child after welcoming her son, Jackson, in 2012. Medium Monica Ten-Kate told Chrisley at the time: “The message here is even though you’ve gone through loss, that they don’t want you to feel like you have to rush. … They don’t want you to worry that you might have some sort of issue or something going on that makes me have to rush the timeline.”
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James Van Der Beek‘s wife opened up about her three miscarriages, “all around 10 weeks gestation,” in September 2018. She wrote on Instagram at the time: “I let them all happen naturally. I had a loving husband, a compassionate birthing team and I felt spiritually grounded about them. And even in the best of circumstances, they all broke my heart. I was devastated every single time. After one of them, I sat in the shower crying for almost five hours. Thankfully I am fully at peace with them all now and have five children.”
In September 2019, the former business consultant announced that she and the Dawson’s Creek alum were expecting baby No. 6 — but she miscarried in November. “We’ve been through this before, but never this late in the pregnancy, and never accompanied by such a scary, horrific threat to @vanderkimberly and her well-being,” James wrote on social media following the pregnancy loss.
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Although she and Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino conceived their first child “the night he came home” from prison, Lauren miscarried at “about six and a half, seven weeks,” she revealed during a November 2019 Strahan, Sara & Keke appearance. “It was hard,” the former blogger said at the time. “It was really difficult.” That being said, she wanted to share the tragedy so other women could relate and she could “heal through the process.”
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After welcoming Carmen, Rafael, Leonardo and Romeo with her husband, Alec Baldwin, the fitness guru suffered two miscarriages in April and November 2019. “I didn’t know there were so many tears in the body,” the Living Clearly Method author wrote on her Instagram Story following her second pregnancy loss. “I’m trying to be present for my grief but understand that life goes on and there is still beauty, even in darkness.”
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“Although the road was long, I always believed I was going to be a mother,” the actress wrote on Instagram in November 2019. “As time passed and the battle became more difficult, it was just a matter of shifting my perspective. Today I am a mother of a beautiful baby boy. God had a plan that I could have never seen.”
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“I don’t like when people can see me breaking down, so I hid it from everybody how hard it was every single time,” the reality star said of her IVF journey in an October 2019 episode of her “Teddi Tea Pod” podcast. “You just get really stuck inside of yourself. All I could keep thinking was, ‘What is wrong with me? Why does my body keep killing these babies. What is happening?’”
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After two years of trying to conceive with Blake Julian, the Bachelor Pad season 2 winner was told she might have endometriosis. She decided to hire a surrogate following ovary surgery and unsuccessful rounds of in vitro fertilization and intrauterine insemination. The couple’s surrogate got pregnant twice and lost both babies at 8 weeks, which led Durst and Julian to pursue adoption. They met their daughter Poppy’s birth mother over Instagram and welcomed the little one in September 2019.
“We’ll send pictures whenever her heart is ready for it because it’s got to be hard to see,” the Bachelor alum told Us exclusively of Poppy’s birth mom the following month. “We text here and there. If she wants a picture, I’ll gladly send her pictures. We’re probably going to go up and visit her once a year.”
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“I just went through one of the most vulnerable, raw, massive, confusing, just phenomenal experiences that a woman could ever endure,” Matthew Morrison’s wife said in an October 2019 Instagram video. “I miscarried. I found out at four weeks and began the cycle of miscarriage on my sixth week. … The point of today is to tell you how meditation helped guide me through this journey and this experience.”
The actress used the practice to “rise above conditioned thoughts” about whether she caused her pregnancy loss or would suffer another. “I’m just going to choose not to go there,” she explained.
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While the actress was dating Ashton Kutcher, she became pregnant with a daughter they planned to name Chaplin Ray, according to her Inside Out memoir published in September 2019. After she suffered a miscarriage six months into the pregnancy, Moore blamed herself because she had started drinking again. She and the actor went on to pursue fertility treatments before their 2011 split.
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The Oscar winner noted in her July 2019 pregnancy announcement: “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 and her husband, Adam Schulman, welcomed their son, Jonathan, in 2016.
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While the Real Housewives of Potomac star announced in February 2019 that she and her husband, Michael Darby, are expecting their first child together, the couple struggled to get pregnant. In June 2018, the reality star suffered a miscarriage within a month of conceiving. “It was a very heartbreaking and exciting time within a short span,” she told her Instagram followers in a video a year later.
The Bravo personality went on to share her tips for “investing in her body” in order to carry her child the second time around from drinking celery juice to doing castor oil uterine massages.
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The singer and her husband, Carey Hart, share daughter Willow and son Jameson, but Pink hasn’t always had an easy time conceiving over the years. “At 17, I had a miscarriage,” the Grammy winner told USA Today in April 2019. “I was going to have that child. But when that happens to a woman or a young girl, you feel like your body hates you and like your body is broken, and it’s not doing what it’s supposed to do.”
She added: “I’ve had several miscarriages since, so I think it’s important to talk about what you’re ashamed of, who you really are and the painful [expletive]. I’ve always written that way.”
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The Wizards of Waverly Place alum and the 2011 winner of Miss Delaware welcomed their daughter, Pia, in March 2019 after three miscarriages. “Pia Philomena Francesca Henrie has brothers and sisters,” the new dad wrote on Instagram at the time. “Maria and I suffered three miscarriages before finally being able to carry Pia to full term. While it was insanely difficult recovering from miscarriage after miscarriage, we knew if we were ever going to be able to hold a baby of our own in our arms that we must not let the tragedy affect our marriage, but rather grow closer together!”
The former Disney Channel star added: “We stayed faithful to that conviction and had a little help from @francisus. The reason Pia’s middle name is Francesca is because I personally asked Pope Francis to pray for Maria and I to have a baby. He took our hands, held them together, said a special blessing, then looked up and told me not to worry that a baby would be coming — that was pretty much exactly nine months ago. For all those who are struggling #pray #hope and #dontworry !! Always.”
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The former first lady and 44th president Barack Obama used IVF to conceive their daughters Malia and Sasha. ‘‘We had one pregnancy test come back positive, which caused us both to forget every worry and swoon with joy,” the Harvard Law graduate wrote in her memoir Becoming. “But a couple of weeks later I had a miscarriage, which left me physically uncomfortable and cratered any optimism we felt.’’
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The former Real Housewives of Orange County star openly discussed her experience with IVF on the Bravo series. All the medication took a toll on her relationship with husband Jim Edmonds. “My emotions were just all over the board,” Meghan told USA Today in 2016. “Some days I would cry, and cry, and cry. And other days I’d be super angry. There weren’t any positive emotions to come out of it except that I was working toward a positive goal.” The couple welcomed Aspen that year and in June 2018 they became parents of twin boys Hayes and Hart.
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The Being Mary Jane star announced on Instagram in November 2018 that she and her husband, Dwyane Wade, welcomed a “miracle baby” into the world with the help of a surrogate. Union and the NBA player named their daughter Kaavia James Union Wade. The Bring It On actress spoke about her her infertility during a July 2018 appearance on Dr. Oz. “For three years, my body has been a prisoner of trying to get pregnant,” she revealed. “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.”
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After years of struggling with infertility, the supermodel and her husband, John Legend, turned to IVF to conceive both of their children. (Luna was born in May 2016, while Miles made his debut in May 2018.) One month before she welcomed her son, Teigen dmitted she sometimes felt resentful of people who become pregnant easily. “When you go through IVF, it does feel like, ‘Oh, it’s not fair I have to do all this,’’” she told New York Magazine’s The Cut. “Still it’s a complete miracle when it works. There are so many people that still struggle, even with the access to IVF.”
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The TV personality and her husband, Kevin Undergaro, hope to welcome a child via a surrogate. Pal Kim Kardashian, who used a surrogate with her third child, has been walking Menounos through the process. In September 2018, the radio host told Us: “Miss Kim K. has connected me with all her people.”
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The Keeping Up With the Kardashians star and her husband, Kanye West, struggled to become pregnant with their first child, North. “It was a long road. I would go to the doctor in Beverly Hills every day at five in the morning to get tested to see if I was ovulating,” she told C magazine in September 2015. “I’m like, ‘I’m ovulating, get home now!’ He’d be like, ‘Wait, I’m in the studio.'” The KKW Beauty founder and R&B singer conceived their son, Saint, with the help of IVF and hired a gestational surrogate to carry their daughter, Chicago.
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Amy Smart surprised fans on New Year’s Eve 2016 when she announced that she and husband Carter Oosterhouse welcomed their daughter Flora. The following month, the Varsity Blues actress gave a shout-out to the woman who carried their baby girl. “One month ago today, Dec. 26th our amazing beautiful daughter came into this world,” wrote Smart on Instagram. “Feeling so grateful to have her in my arms… after years of fertility struggles I give thanks today to our kind, loving surrogate for carrying her.”
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The British singer used a November 2018 concert as a platform to open up about her infertility. “I was told four years ago that I can’t ever have children,” she told a crowd that included her boyfriend, Channing Tatum. “I don’t tell you guys for sympathy because I’m one of the millions of women and men that have gone through this and will go through this.” But the performer is determined to become a parent. “I will be a mother,” she wrote on Instagram that month. “As will you. I believe in miracles. But if it doesn’t happen naturally. Then that wasn’t meant to be the journey. But a mother is within all of us.”
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After multiple failed IVF attempts and miscarriages, the country singer and her husband, Mike Caussin, conceived a baby boy naturally. The One Tree Hill alum and former NFL player welcomed their daughter, Jolie, in 2016.
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After announcing that she and her husband, Henry Hager, were expecting their third child, the journalist opened up about her tragic first pregnancy. “I go to the doctor’s office and she said, ‘Yeah, you’re pregnant, we gave the blood test, but we can’t find the baby,'” Jenna recalled on the Today show in April 2019. “I had no idea what an ectopic pregnancy was. They looked up and the baby was in my fallopian tube.” The former first daughter was rushed into emergency surgery and recalled the experience as being “very isolating.” She has since welcomed two baby girls, Mila and Poppy.
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“I wake up to just massive bleeding, to the point where I’m standing in the shower and it just won’t stop,” the weather anchor said of her miscarriage on the Today show in April 2019. “I tell [my husband], ‘I think I lost the baby,’ and the first thing he said to me is, ‘You didn’t lost the baby. … You didn’t do anything wrong.’” She and Brian Fichera, who already share son Calvin, 2, revealed that they were “in the middle of” their infertility journey and considering IVF.
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“When Ryan [Biegel] and I got married, our plan was to start a family right away,” the Food Network star captioned an Instagram selfie in April 2019. “I couldn’t wait to get pregnant! I naively thought it would be easy. I had to have surgery to correct a problem, got an infection, then I was so run down I got shingles. My doctor advised us to try IVF. We just finished the intense process only to get zero healthy embryos. Not only is IVF physically exhausting, the emotional toll is unparalleled. We were filled with hope and excitement only to be crushed.” Lee and the TV producer tied the knot in September 2018.
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