The road to motherhood, for many women, can be filled with utter devastation. While there are so many modern interventions that can help women carry and give birth to their own biological children these days, it's not always a sure thing. For women who have a strong desire to grow their family this way, it's painful to learn that it simply won't be a reality, no matter how much they plan, how much money they spend, or how many surgeries they have.
Actress, writer, and producer Lena Dunham knows all too well about the excruciating journey. The 34-year-old has opened up in the past about her struggles with endometriosis, a painful condition in which tissue that normally lines the inside of your uterus grows outside your uterus. But now Lena is sharing that she will never become a mother biologically and will instead look toward other ways of growing her family, such as adoption. She just penned a breathtakingly sad and stunning essay for Harper's about learning she won't ever bear her own children.
Lena Dunham is a lot of things. She's outspoken, a trailblazer, and definitely a fashion icon. She's also unapologetically herself, and that means opening up about her struggles. For Lena, one of the toughest battles of her life has been with endometriosis.
The condition has caused the star chronic and sometimes debilitating pain. She's tried just about everything to alleviate it, from natural methods like yoga, dietary changes, and acupuncture to major surgery. It's something we truly don't hear enough about, either. But Lena opening up about her struggle has gone a long way to raise awareness about the condition.
In February 2018, Lena had a total hysterectomy. She also had her left ovary removed. While having a major surgery seems drastic, that's how much pain the star was in. She felt she didn't have any other options left other than to have her uterus removed. For a lot of women, that would mean the end of the journey toward having a biological child, but then Lena learned that her remaining ovary was still producing eggs.
She then underwent an in vitro fertilization cycle, using donor sperm. However, this past Memorial Day Lena suffered another crushing blow. She learned that none of her six embryos were viable.
Although her doctor told her at that time that they could "discuss my 'remaining options,'" the actress says she knew "there weren't really any."
"I was another cocky woman-to-be, sure that I would have what I wanted because I wanted it. Because I had always gotten it. Because the world told me it was mine to take," she wrote in her moving essay. "It's wild how far you can drift from yourself in the process of trying to get what you want. What started as wanting to carry the child of the man I loved became wanting to have a child with a man who was willing to help me have one. Soon that became hiring a lawyer to draft a contract for a sperm-donor friend and calling a surrogate who came highly recommended by another celebrity."
Lena's words are as straightforward and cutting as ever. She continues, "I was forced to admit just how much of it was about finishing what I started. I tried to have a child. Along the way, my body broke. My relationship did, too. In the process — because of it? — I became a functional junkie. I had lost my way, and a half-dozen eggs sitting in Midtown [Manhattan] promised to lead me home."
"There is a lot you can correct in life — you can end a relationship, get sober, get serious, say sorry — but you can't force the universe to give you a baby that your body has told you all along was an impossibility. Weak animals die in the woods as their pack mates run ahead. Bad eggs don't hatch. You can't bend nature," she wrote.
"The irony is that knowing I cannot have a child — my ability to accept that and move on — may be the only reason I deserve to be anyone's parent at all. I think I finally have something to teach somebody." It's such a powerful statement about how this journey has changed her as a person. It's also a perspective we don't often hear — that infertility can actually teach you so much about who you are and what you have to offer a child.
Lena's essay is devastating. When reading it, you can tell it was written from a place of pure emotional pain. However, the star isn't giving up on becoming a parent. She almost seems more certain than ever that she will have a child, even if she doesn't grow that child in her body.
When sharing with followers on Instagram that she had penned the piece, she wrote, "I hope this starts a few conversations, asks more questions than it answers and reminds us that there are so many ways to be a mother, and even more ways to be a woman." There certainly are.
Bravo to Lena for bravely opening up about just that.
