Gabrielle Union says using a surrogate mother "felt like failure".
The 46-year-old actress suffers from adenomyosis – which is a type of endometriosis – and tragically underwent at least eight miscarriages before she turned to a surrogate mother to help her carry her daughter Kaavia, now two months, whom she has with husband Dwayne Wade.
But the ‘Being Mary Jane’ star says she hated the idea of using a surrogate mother for the pregnancy, because she felt as though she was "surrendering" to her previous fertility struggles.
She said: "There’s nothing more that I wanted than to cook my own baby. The idea of [using a surrogate] felt like surrendering to failure."
Gabrielle says she wasn’t sure she would be "embraced as a mom" because she didn’t carry her daughter, and found the anxiety over what other people would think to be "terrifying".
She added to the March issue of Women’s Health magazine: "People want to see the bump, hear that you got haemorrhoids -they want to know you’re like them. I was like, ‘This is going to seem like the most Hollywood s**t ever. Will I be embraced as a mom?’ It’s terrifying."
The ‘Breaking In’ actress underwent several rounds of IVF treatment to try and conceive, and the couple previously said basketball star Dwayne had to tell her to stop for the sake of her health.
She said: "I could not let go of this idea of creating this life within me, and felt the need to be pregnant for everybody, including myself."
Whilst Dwayne added: "I’m watching her do things to her body and to herself that it’s getting to the point where it’s not healthy.’
"And as I always told her: ‘I want this baby just as much as you do, but I married you, and you are the most important thing to me.’
"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.
"When doctors floated the possibility of a operation, I had to step in and say: ‘Baby, it’s me and you, you know? I wanna grow old with you. And, you know, I want this – I want our miracle baby, but I want you.’"
Gabrielle Union: Using a surrogate felt like failing
