Gabrielle Union: ‘I Have Had Eight or Nine Miscarriages’

In her soon-to-be-released book, actress Gabrielle Union reveals that she has struggled with infertility and has had “eight or nine miscarriages.”

The star of BET’s Being Mary Jane, Union discusses her battle to become pregnant in We’re Going to Need More Wine: Stories That Are Funny, Complicated, and True.

“I have had eight or nine miscarriages,” the 44-year-old actress states, as Page Six reports. “In order to tell you the exact number, I would have to get my medical records. (I am also not sure what the number is where you start to think I must be nuts for trying.)”

Union, who also was the voice of lioness Nala in the animated television series The Lion Guard – based on Disney’s 1994 film, The Lion King – continues about the struggles she and her husband, Miami Heat star Dwayne Wade, have endured in order to have a child:

For three years, my body has been a prisoner of trying to get pregnant — either about to go into an IVF cycle, in the middle of an IVF cycle, or coming out of an IVF cycle. I have endured eight failed IVF cycles … For as long as I can remember now, Dwayne and I have lived in a state of extended expectation.

“Did it take? Is the embryo normal or abnormal? Will I stay pregnant?” Union writes. “We are always in some stage, waiting for some news, some sign that we can move into the next stage. This child we want to have has been loved even as an idea. Each attempt at IVF is a loving action.”

Union and Wade have been married since 2014, and both share in parenting Wade’s sons Zaire, 15, and Zion, 10, and his nephew Dahveon, 16. Wade also has another son, Xavier, 4.

The actress reveals how difficult it is for her to attend baby showers or be subjected to reporters’ questions about whether she is pregnant.

“People who know my fertility issues often hand their babies to me to hold, or text me pictures of babies (‘To keep hope alive!’ they say),” she writes. “Nobody seems to think this is insensitive or maybe hard for me.”