Gabrielle Union and her husband Dwyane Wade are doting parents to daughter Kaavia James, four, as well as Dwyane's three children from two previous relationships.
However, the Strange World actress' road to motherhood hasn't been easy and Gabrielle has faced heartbreaking challenges along the way, including "more miscarriages than I could confidently count."
WATCH: Inside Gabrielle Union and Dwyane Wade's stunning home
The actress spent years struggling to conceive and was often told by doctors that her age was the main factor behind her infertility issues and miscarriages.
However, the 50-year-old was eventually diagnosed with adenomyosis – a condition in which cells that normally grow into the uterus wrongly grow into the muscular tissue of the uterine wall instead – which she revealed came 25 years too late.
"It's maddening. You get so focused on the thing that they're saying that it is, and there's not a lot I can do about being my age. When the reality is, it's something that has nothing to do with that—it's something that's been plaguing me for over 25 years, and no one ever got to that issue," she said in an interview with Health in 2021.
TRENDING NOW: Christina Applegate details debilitating MS symptoms
TRENDING NOW: Celine Dion's agonizing ongoing health battle – all we know
She added: "By the time I got the answer, it was just like, 'Are you [expletive] kidding me?' Then, it went from shock to anger. Rage, really—an all-consuming rage. And then relief that it wasn't me. I felt like there was a thing that I could tag as the problem other than myself."
© Photo: Getty ImagesGabrielle and Dwyane welcomed Kaavia via surrogate
In an essay adapted from her 2021 book, You Got Anything Stronger? and published in Time, Gabrielle revealed that despite her diagnosis, she endured another year of "IVF cycles and losses" because she desperately "wanted the experience of being pregnant".
However, she did eventually accept her doctor's advice and turned to surrogacy, a decision that was made even more difficult due to Dwayne having a baby with another woman one year before they married in 2014.
"It should go without saying that we were not in a good place at the time that child was conceived," she wrote. "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."
Gabrielle added: "The experience of Dwyane having a baby so easily—while I was unable to—left my soul not just broken into pieces but shattered into fine dust scattering in the wind."
© Photo: Getty ImagesGabrielle was diagnosed with adenomyosis
Thankfully, the couple's daughter arrived safely via surrogate in 2018, but Gabrielle is still plagued by thoughts of would their relationship be different if she carried Kaavia herself.
"I will always wonder if Kaav would love me more if I had carried her. Would our bond be even tighter? I will never know what it would have been like to carry this rockstar inside me," she confessed.
"We met as strangers, the sound of my voice and my heartbeat foreign to her. It's a pain that has dimmed but remains present in my fears that I was not, and never will be, enough."
Read more HELLO! US stories here
Like this story? Sign up to the HELLO! Family Hub newsletter to get other stories like this delivered straight to your inbox.
