Gabrielle Union Felt Like a ‘Failure’ for Using a Surrogate

In early November, Gabrielle Union and her husband, NBA star Dwyane Wade, welcomed their daughter, Kaavia James, via surrogate. The Being Mary Jane actress has been open about her fertility struggles, telling Oprah Winfrey in December 2018 it was hard to let go of the idea of carrying her child. "Am I defective in some kind of way? Am I less-than in some kind of way? Am I less worthy in some kind of way?" she said at the time. Ultimately, though, Union embraced surrogacy and came to the conclusion there are "all different ways you can become parents."

Unfortunately, our culture still shames women who can’t conceive or deliver naturally—so much so that Union feared she wouldn’t be accepted by other moms because she used a surrogate. "People want to see the bump, hear that you got hemorrhoids; they want to know you’re like them," Union said in a new interview with Women's Health. "I was like, ‘This is going to seem like the most Hollywood shit ever. Will I be embraced as a mom?’ It’s terrifying.”

At first, the idea of surrogacy seemed like "surrendering to failure," Union said, but she adjusted her mind-set to focus on finding the right woman for the job. “Some people care about the race, religion, or food habits of their surrogate. I was like, ‘I want a reader,’" she tells Women’s Health. When a potential surrogate told Union she "loved the smell of pages" in books, she knew she found the one.

Union’s candor about the complicated emotions surrounding surrogacy struck a nerve online. "Please, stop making women feel like not being able to have a baby makes them a failure," tweeted one person. "Kaavia is as much your daughter as she would have been through a natural conception + birth or through adoption. Congrats," wrote another.

Union said she’s at a point in her life in which she’s in the "right mind-set and mental space" to be a mom. "I’m open to being the best mom I can be," she said. Read more of her Women’s Health interview here.