Gabrielle Union has often been open and transparent about her fertility journey throughout the years in hopes to make other women feel less alone. The successful actress shared her honest feelings about having a baby via surrogacy, revealing it felt like “public humiliation” because she had to watch someone else carry her child.
After acknowledging everyone’s experience with surrogacy is different, she shared her journey wasn’t easy. “For me, it felt like failure. My body failed,” the Bring It On star said in her cover story interview with Marie Claire. “It just felt like such a f**king public humiliation. Surrogacy felt like a cuckold; watching somebody do something I can’t do. To be there for somebody else succeeding where I failed — it is a mind f**k for people who have had my journey and who feel similarly. When it’s never been your reality, I get the urge to judge and cast aspersions because we all want whatever route we took to be the ‘right’ way.”
Union welcomed her daughter Kaavia James in 2018 via surrogate with her husband Dwyane Wade. Prior to Kaavia’s arrival, Union spoke openly about her struggles with infertility and her experience with IVF. Kaavia is six years old now and flourishing as the baby of the family with two older brothers, Zaire and Xavier, and sister Zaya.
When asked about critics of surrogacy, Gab doesn’t care and recognizes her daughter being here is all that matters. “I think I lead with an I don’t give a fuck attitude. If I had the ability to do this myself, I would’ve. Your baby’s here and your baby’s awesome. My baby’s here and my baby’s awesome,” she continued.
However, when it comes to “making peace” with how things played out, the 52-year-old has accepted she’ll never be at peace because her yearning never ended. “I’ll never have peace with it, ever. And that’s not a what-anybody-has-to-say thing; that’s just—my yearning has never dissipated,” she vulnerably admitted. “I was so ready for my surprise, but all the prayers that didn’t get answered in the way that I thought made me more conscientious that my child is here.”
Union has balanced the ups and downs by keeping busy with work. In 2023, she garnered credits in Gabrielle Union: My Journey to 50, See It Loud: The History of Black Television Herself, The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder, and Truth Be Told. She released her first children’s book, Welcome to the Party, in 2020, which was an ode to newborns and non-traditional families that was inspired by her daughter. The following year, she collaborated with Wade on her second children’s book, Shady Baby.
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