Hollywood actress Gabrielle Union is opening up about her emotional surrogacy journey.
Union has been very open about her infertility struggles. She shares that she was desperate to carry her child with Dwyane Wade herself.
“I was not ready to do that,” Union wrote in an episode for Time Magazine. “I wanted the experience of being pregnant. To watch my body expand and shift to accommodate this miracle inside me.”
Union had experienced having multiple miscarriages over the years and was diagnosed with adenomyosis.
The actress also opened up about finding out her husband had gotten another woman pregnant before they were married.
“In 2013, before we were married, Dwyane had a baby with another woman. It should go without saying that we were not in a good place at the time that child was conceived,” Union recalls. “But we were doing much better when he finally told me about the pregnancy. To say I was devastated is to pick a word on a low shelf for convenience. There are people—strangers I will never meet—who have been upset that I have not previously talked about that trauma. I have not had words, and even after untold amounts of therapy I am not sure I have them now.”
She says that every day, Wade put in the work to be forgiven, and they eventually moved on from the heartache.
Union describes the process of selecting a surrogate. They decided on a surrogate named Natalie. According to WebMD, gestational surrogacy has become more common than a traditional surrogate and approximately 750 babies are born in the U.S.a each year using gestational surrogacy.
Union recalled seeing her baby for the first time.
“Natalie lay down for Dr. Baek to pass the ultrasound wand over the bump. “There she is,” she said. And she was. There. Here. This very clear little baby in there,” she gushed. “Her big-a— head, her spine, her little heart pumping, pumping, pumping. Determined to live. It was suddenly incredibly real. Dwyane took my hand, and there was so much happiness on his face, I lost it. My cry was a choke stopped up in my throat, tears streaming down.”
Continue reading over at Time Magazine.
