“It was a challenging road for me, the baby-making road.”
Friends actress Jennifer Aniston has candidly shared her experiences with fertility and IVF, which she has described as “challenging”.
In an interview with Allure Magazine, she spoke about trying to get pregnant, while at the same time, the press speculated on her personal life and whether or not she was going to have a baby.
“I was trying to get pregnant,” she said. “It was a challenging road for me, the baby-making road. All the years and years and years of speculation… It was really hard. I was going through IVF, drinking Chinese teas, you name it. I was throwing everything at it.”
She added: “I would’ve given anything if someone had said to me, ‘Freeze your eggs. Do yourself a favor.’ You just don’t think it. So here I am today. The ship has sailed.”
Jennifer then went on to say that she now feels a sense of relief in the path she has since taken.
“I have zero regrets. I actually feel a little relief now because there is no more, ‘Can I? Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.’ I don’t have to think about that anymore.”
The actress also alluded to the deeply unwarranted criticism she got for not having children.
“God forbid a woman is successful and doesn’t have a child. And the reason my husband left me, why we broke up and ended our marriage, was because I wouldn’t give him a kid. It was absolute lies. I don’t have anything to hide at this point.”
Earlier this year, Jennifer challenged the narrative that suggested she chose her career over having children.
She told The Hollywood Reporter: “I used to take it all very personally. The pregnancy rumours and the whole ‘Oh, she chose career over kids’ assumption.’
“It’s like, ‘You have no clue what’s going with me personally, medically, why I can’t … can I have kids?’ They don’t know anything, and it was really hurtful and just nasty.”
