Many women endure a difficult journey on the road to parenthood. Even though as many as 25 percent of pregnancies end in miscarriage and a record number of couples are turning to IVF, there are still countless moms-to-be who are suffering in silence. From fertility treatments and surrogates to adoptions, these 21 celebrities have gotten candid about their own experiences with infertility in hopes of letting others know that they are not alone.
1Gwen Stefani
Image Source: Getty / Rich Polk
Although the singer was already a mother of two, Gwen Stefani had a difficult time getting pregnant for the third time. Before conceiving her third son, Apollo, Stefani shared her experience with Marie Claire.
"I really, really, really wanted one about two years ago. And it didn't really work out. So . . . I feel good with what we've got. Everything works out how it should. You can't plan anything, right? You can try."
1 / 21
2Nicole Kidman
Image Source: Getty / David M. Benett
Nicole Kidman struggled with infertility during her first marriage to Tom Cruise before they adopted their children, Bella and Conner. Two years after marrying Keith Urban, Kidman gave birth to Sunday Rose and later welcomed Faith via surrogate.
"I've had an ectopic pregnancy, miscarriages and I've had fertility treatments. I've done all the stuff you can possibly do to try to get pregnant. So the way it just happened with Sunday was like, 'What?' The percentages were so low. It is the miracle in my life."
While Monica Geller's character was struggling with her fertility on Friends, Courteney Cox was experiencing the same hardships in real life. Before giving birth to daughter Coco, she and then husband David Arquette experienced multiple miscarriages and rounds of IVF. Cox learned that she had a rare antibody in her blood that would attack the fetus.
"I get pregnant pretty easily, but I have a hard time keeping them."
.
3 / 21
4Kim Kardashian
Image Source: Getty / Jon Kopaloff
Kim Kardashian has been candid about her infertility struggle and almost turned to a surrogate when she wasn't able get pregnant with her second child after months of trying.
"There are definitely times when I walked out [of the doctor's office] hysterically crying. And other times when I was like, 'Okay, everything's looking good, it's going to be this month!' The waiting and waiting has been a roller coaster."
4 / 21
5Kim Fields
Image Source: Getty / Prince Williams
Kim Fields was overjoyed to be pregnant for the second time after welcoming Sebastian with her husband, Christopher. When she announced that she was having another boy, Fields revealed:
"It was planned. We’ve actually been trying for a couple years. We had gotten pregnant twice and [miscarried]. Chris and I were very blessed to really have one another, to have our family and friends and our God to really get us through that."
5 / 21
6Jimmy Fallon
Image Source: Getty / Myrna Suarez
Before having daughters Winnie and Frances via surrogate in 2013 and 2014, Jimmy Fallon and his wife, Nancy Juvonen, went through five years of infertility.
"We tried before, we told people and then it didn't happen. And it's just really depressing. It's really hard on everybody."
6 / 21
7Sarah Jessica Parker
Image Source: Getty / Jenny Anderson
Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick were unable to get pregnant with a second child after the birth of their son and opted to use a surrogate in order to welcome twin girls.
"Well, you know, we’ve been trying to expand our family for a number of years and we actually have explored a variety of ways of doing so. This was one of the things we discussed with seriousness that had real possibilities for us."
7 / 21
8Lisa Osbourne
Image Source: Getty / Stefanie Keenan
Two years after having a miscarriage in her second trimester, Lisa and Jack Osbourne welcomed a baby girl named Andy. When they first shared the devastating news of the loss of their son, Theo, Osbourne wrote on her blog:
"Having a late term miscarriage is by far the hardest thing either of us have ever had to go through."
8 / 21
9Brooke Shields
Image Source: Getty / Andrew Toth
Brooke Shields thought it would be easy to become a mother until she was diagnosed with cervical dysplasia. After in vitro fertilization, Shields had a miscarriage before eventually giving birth to daughters Rowan and Grier.
"The treatment wreaked havoc on my cervix, creating scar tissue. It's like jumping in a pool with no water. There's nothing to help the little guys swim through. Up till then, I thought simply because it was time and I wanted to have a baby, it would work out."
9 / 21
10Elisabeth Röhm
Image Source: Getty / Paul Archuleta
Elisabeth Röhm went through two rounds of IVF before getting pregnant with her daughter, Easton, and took to her blog to share the experience.
"It is devastating when you simply can’t do it the natural way and your body can’t function as you believed that it would during your whole young adult life."
10 / 21
11Hugh Jackman
Image Source: Getty / Victor Chavez
Hugh Jackman and wife Deborra-Lee Furness went through a period of infertility before adopting their two children, Oscar and Ava.
"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."
Before Jane Seymour became the proud mother of twin boys, she went through two miscarriages and IVF.
"I actually lost a pregnancy live on television, announcing the Rose Parade, but nobody knew at the time."
12 / 21
13Emily Robison
Image Source: Getty / Gary Miller
Along with her sister and fellow Dixie Chick, Martie Maguire, Emily Robison turned to IVF in order to have her children.
"[My husband and I] definitely had a plan. But we were under the naïve assumption that once we started we’d be pregnant the first month. When it didn’t work that way, I was in shock."
Khloé Kardashian began fertility treatments but stopped the process when trouble in her marriage with Lamar Odom began. Her sister Kim tweeted:
"Khloe did start fertility and she wanted to have a baby, but I believe in the middle of the process she realized timing wasn’t good based on what was going on with her relationship. She was not ready to tell us everything so she stopped treatment without telling us."
Khloé went into further details about her struggles on their reality show Kourtney & Kim Take Miami.
"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."
15 / 21
16Angela Bassett
Image Source: Getty / Allen Berezovsky
It took seven years of infertility treatments before Angela Bassett and Courtney B. Vance welcomed fraternal twins via a surrogate. She said that it wasn't until a friend revealed that she was using a surrogate that she considered the option.
"I was devastated when it didn’t happen [again and again]. I had to remain hopeful and resilient."
16 / 21
17Christie Brinkley
Image Source: Getty / Jerritt Clark
Christie Brinkley suffered three miscarriages in the process of having her third child, daughter Sailor Lee, with her fourth husband Peter Cook. She toldGood Housekeeping in 1998:
"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, and that it was better for everybody. But after the second one, it was really devastating. 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."
17 / 21
18Marcia Cross
Image Source: Getty / Jason Merritt
Marcia Cross and Tom Mahoney knew they wanted to be parents and started trying to conceive before tying the knot because Cross feared that her age would be a problem.
"We did in vitro a week after we got married. We were supposed to go to Greece and Paris and have this fancy honeymoon, and I said, 'Let's stay put and see if we can't give this baby a chance.'"
18 / 21
19Elizabeth Banks
Image Source: Getty / Vincent Sandoval
Despite years of unsuccessful attempts to expand their family, Elizabeth Banks said that her focus was on eventually becoming a mom when she and Max Handelman decided to use a surrogate to have their baby boy.
"It helps that other moms had said that once they had their babies, they forgot they were ever pregnant. So once my focus became the baby and not the pregnancy, it was a very easy decision."
19 / 21
20Jaime King
Image Source: Getty / Stefanie Keenan
Jamie King was very real with fans when she took to Instagram to share her struggles before and after the birth of her son James. In the post, that has since been taken down, King wrote:
"For all the struggling women & moms out there that think they are alone – This is the truth about conceiving my son and struggles after. 8 yrs of pain and undiagnosed PCOS & Endometriosis. 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, 4½ 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 breast feeding, worked until the day before I [gave] birth and went back after 6 weeks after because I was afraid of letting others down."
20 / 21
21Giuliana Rancic
Image Source: Getty / Imeh Akpanudosen
It turns out that Giuliana Rancic's four-year infertility struggle might have saved her life. She endured two rounds of IVF — one she miscarried, one didn't take — before being diagnosed with breast cancer. After a double mastectomy, she enlisted a surrogate for the third round of IVF and became the proud mother of Edward Duke.
"I always say how I chased my career instead of chasing guys. And everybody was patting me on the back. No one ever told me, 'Oh, by the way, your eggs change when you reach a certain age.' I didn't think 35 was old! So when the doctor said, 'Its not as easy as you thought it would be,' it was a real blow. Because I felt so young. I mean, this is a girl who was running six miles a day, and eating healthy, so how can you tell me that Im not healthy in that department?"