Difficult pregnancies and infertility problems are painful, both physically and emotionally, and yet they are a common problem.
Even public figures experience the challenges of infertility, emphasizing that it can affect anyone. Some of them are:
Kim Kardashian:
After the birth of her daughter North, Kardashian West struggled to get pregnant again.
“I had so many complications. I had a condition called placenta accreta. There were a few minor surgeries to fix all that, which left a little hole in my uterus, which I think made it very difficult to get pregnant again,” she said in 2015. “It was a long road. I went to the doctor in Beverly Hills every day at 5 a.m. to get tested to see if I was ovulating.”
Placenta accreta is a high-risk pregnancy condition in which the placenta attaches too deeply to the uterine wall, causing severe bleeding, with the placenta not detaching after delivery.
Courteney Cox:
The Friends star suffered “quite a few” miscarriages before fathering her daughter Coco via IVF.
“I get pregnant pretty easily, but I have a hard time holding them,” Cox said PEOPLE in 2003, adding that she and ex-husband David Arquette would “recover pretty quickly” after each miscarriage.
“I’m not saying it’s a walk in the park. But what are you going to do? We’ll just try again,” she added.
The couple admitted at the time that trying IVF was “nerve-wracking” and Arquette said he feels “terrible that she has to go through so much.”
Nicole Kidman:
The actress revealed in 2011 that she has “had a rollercoaster ride with fertility” over the course of her life.
During her marriage to actor Tom Cruise, she had trouble conceiving, and they decided to adopt children Isabella and Connor.
In 2006, Kidman married singer Keith Urban, and after giving birth to daughter Sunday Rose in 2008, she struggled to conceive again.
“Anyone who has ever wanted to have another child or wants to have a child knows the disappointment, pain and loss you go through trying and struggling with fertility,” she said, adding, “Fertility is such a huge thing, and it’s not something I’ve ever run away from talking about.”
Then the couple decided to use surrogacy to carry their second daughter, Faith, about which Kidman said, “We were in a situation where we desperately wanted another child.”
“This opportunity came before us, and I couldn’t get pregnant… Children are children – you will die for your children. And if you feel that as a parent, that is the unconditional love,” she concluded.
Emma Thompson:
After a miscarriage in 1997, the actress gave birth to her first child, daughter Gaia, with her husband, actor Greg Wise, two years later at the age of 40 via IVF.
But Thompson’s guilt and failure over being unable to get pregnant again, despite trying IVF again, sent her into a deep depression.
“After that we tried to have another child, but it didn’t work and I fell into a deep clinical depression,” she revealed in 2006.
“Only now do I stop counting other people’s children or judge myself harshly for not giving my daughter a brother or a sister,” Thompson said of how far she has come in her healing process.
