Together with her basketball-star husband, Dwyane Wade, Gabrielle Union, welcomed daughter Kaavia James via surrogate in November 2018 when Union was 46 and Wade was 36. Though Kaavia’s long-awaited arrival was joyous, Union recently shared that using a surrogate had an extreme emotional cost.
“I’ll never have peace with it, ever,” Union told Marie Claire in an interview published on May 7. “It’s such a personal journey that I may never know full peace with the coulda, woulda, shouldas.”
Kaavia is now a thriving 6-year-old and Union said she is “very grateful to our gestational caregiver,” however, she didn’t mince words when sharing how turning to surrogacy affected her.
“For me, it felt like failure. My body failed. It just felt like such a f------ public humiliation,” she said in the interview. She had previously shared that she struggled through years of failed IVF cycles and around eight or nine miscarriages (there were so many she lost count).
“Surrogacy felt like a cuckold; watching somebody do something I can’t do. To be there for somebody else succeeding where I failed — it is a mind f--- for people who have had my journey and who feel similarly.”
Union knows that some people who haven’t needed to consider surrogacy may judge her for doing so, but she hasn’t heard negative feedback so far. She explained that “nobody has the balls to say that s--- to my face, so I don’t say s--- because nobody’s said s---.”
Her own attitude may have played a part in the type of responses she has received.
“I lead with an I don’t give a f--- attitude,” she said. “If I had the ability to do this myself, I would’ve. Your baby’s here and your baby’s awesome. My baby’s here and my baby’s awesome.”
Regardless of the way Kaavia — or her three stepchildren from Wade’s previous relationships — entered her life, Union seems to be thriving as a mother.
“Nothing we have done as parents feels revolutionary or groundbreaking. It just feels like common sense, kindness, compassionate,” she said.
And it was all worth it. Union shared that becoming a mother has brought her “unmitigated joy.”
