Actress Gabrielle Union is opening up about her surrogacy journey and how crushed
she was when Dwyane Wade stepped out on their relationship and fathered a child with another woman.In a powerful memoir excerpt shared with Time, the LA’s Finest star speaks candidly about how desperately she wanted to conceive a child and how Dwyane welcoming a child after cheating left her “shattered.”
“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,” Union revealed.
“We gathered what we could to slowly remake me into something new. There was no way to disguise where I’d been glued back together.”
Union had already suffered so much loss through a series of miscarriages even after trying IVF.
“I would have sold my soul to get out of the endless cycle of loss,” she wrote in the follow-up to her 2017 memoir We’re Going to Need More Wine. “What was the going rate for souls? What was mine worth, anyway?”
Now, as a loving and present mother to 2-year-old Kaavia James Union Wade
, it wasn’t an easy journey to welcome their baby girl. But the Bring It On star was determined to have a child even if it meant using a white woman as a surrogate and feeling guilty throughout the process.“This growing bump that everyone thought I wanted to see was now a visual manifestation of my failure,” Union said. “I smiled, wanting to show I—we—were so happy and grateful. But part of me felt more worthless.”
Ahead of releasing the full memoir, Union shared the excerpt hoping to help others find peace from the pain she had to endure.
“Excerpt from one the most challenging chapters of my life,” she captioned a tweet. “Whew 😢😭😭😭 I hope sharing these stories helps someone out there.”