Fertility Road Issue 03

FERTILITY ROAD
CELEB NEWS
Fertility news amongst the flashbulbs
TURNING
TEARS INTO
DREAMS
COME TRUE
When your body refuses to
cooperate, and no matter
how many fertility treatments
or IVF attempts
you try you simply cannot fall pregnant, it
can be devastating. The realisation that you
will never bear children no matter how
desperately you want to is extremely hard to
come to terms with. Inevitably there will be a
period of grieving, a sense of loss, followed
by a gradual grudging acceptance.
But it’s important to remember that
being unable to carry a baby yourself does
not mean the end to your dreams of having a
family, because other options like adoption
or surrogacy can be just as rewarding.
Regular readers of Fertility Road will
remember our celebrity interview with
Sinitta in the last issue, when she recounted
the terrible ordeal she endured in a bid to
have her own children. And she described
how quickly and easily she bonded with
her adopted children and how much she
adores them. She said, “My path through
fertility didn’t end the way I expected it
to, but this will be the case for millions of
other people out there. We all go in with
hopes and dreams, and sometimes our
wishes aren’t granted. But I am proof
enough that there is another way if, at the
end of the long road, you haven’t reached
the destination you expected.”
Celebrity adoption has been much in
the headlines of late, thanks to stars like
Angelina and Madonna’s widely publicised
adoption of children from third world
countries. But, as admirable as that is, less
well known are the stories of celebrities
who adopted or chose surrogacy because
of their own fertility issues.
Hugh Jackman, the Australian star of
Wolverine and The X-Men, and his wife
Deborra-Lee Furness, adopted two children
when their plans for natural conception
didn’t turn out the way they’d hoped.
Hugh said they’d always planned to adopt
a child, but only after the two children they
expected Deborra-Lee would carry. In an
interview he said, “We still wanted to adopt.
That was our plan: we’ll have two and
we’ll adopt one. Anyway we didn’t have
children. We tried and that was tough. But
Jamie Lee Curtis
the moment Oscar arrived, it just felt like
he was always meant to come that way.
I forget he’s adopted; he’s just my son.”
Hugh and Deborra-Lee were present at
Oscar’s birth in 2000, having formed a
good relationship with his American birth
mother. “It was exhilarating. I remember
tears running out of my eyes in the
happiest possible fashion,” said Jackman.
The couple later adopted Ava in 2005,
also from America, mainly because Australian
adoption is so difficult. This was
after their own share of heartbreak over
failed IVF attempts and miscarriages.
Jackman said, “We’d been told by a
naturopath that you’ve got to make love
every day for a 10-day period. I never
thought I’d get to the point where I was
like, ‘Deb, can I have a break?’ It’s very hard
with IVF, there are a lot of emotions. We did
have a couple of miscarriages as well and
those are very tough. When we adopted, all
that seemed to melt away instantly.”
The pair now campaign for a change to
the Australian adoption laws to make it
easier for couples to undertake the process.
Jamie Lee Curtis and husband Christopher
Guest also chose to adopt following fertility
issues. Although she is private about her
life, Jamie Lee has spoken a few times
about it saying, “Adoption was the only
way for us to have a family. It becomes the
only viable option for you. If you want to
be a family, that’s how you’re going to be it.
I don’t think you feel like a family until the
child is born.”
Jamie Lee has been anxious to break
down some of the barriers and taboos that
sometimes accompany adoption. She and
Christopher opted for an open adoption
with each of their children – Annie and
Tom – and she has written a story book for
young children about adoption, called Tell
Me Again About The Night I Was Born.
But she is keen to keep her children’s
lives out of the public eye and says she will
not campaign around adoption until
they’re much older. But she has admitted,
“The only disappointment I’ll talk about
publicly in terms of not going through
childbirth was missing the unbelievable
love and affection you get from the world
around you, and the delicacy with which
people treat women who are about to give
birth. I have participated in this lovefest
14 fertility road | november - december