infertility
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Elizabeth Banks gets candid about her struggle with infertility. (Photo: GettyImages)
Elizabeth Banks is reflecting on her journey with surrogacy 11 years afterwelcoming her first of two children into the world, sharing that there’s still”so much shame” attached to her infertility.
The 48-year-old actor joined podcaster Alex Cooper on an episode of Call HerDaddy where Banks discussed her life with husband Max Handelman, beginningwith their meeting at college. While Banks described her dreams of marriageand having a family as “traditional” at the time, she explained the process ofletting go of what that had meant to her as she discovered the impossibilityof getting pregnant.
“I’ve never been pregnant and when I was young I thought it was because I wasreally good at taking the pill, which I definitely was. But I have no idea.There’s a small percentage of women who basically have unexplained infertilityand that is me, I’m in that category,” Banks said. “I had always had plenty ofeggs, I never had trouble making embryos, they did not implant. For whateverreason, my uterus is hostile, I don’t know what’s going on but they just willnot stay in there. So I had a broken belly, is what I told my kids, mommy hada broken belly.”
Banks has publicly shared her journey with infertility before and has spokento the judgment that she faced as she and her husband made the decision towork with a surrogate in order to grow their family. “This is a long time agobefore surrogacy was like a Kardashian thing. Nobody was doing it back then,”she reminded Cooper. Banks also addressed the grief that she faced for thepotential of carrying her own child before she was able to celebrate thisalternate route to motherhood.
“Your fertility is such a part of your life, men and women. But for womenespecially in a society that’s like, this is why we value you, we don’t valueyou because you could be a CEO, we value you because you can procreate andkeep the race going. So if you can’t do that, you are less of a woman. That’sthe messaging. And my fertility was something I had to mourn. I had to grievefor it. It was a loss. And I had to really work through that before I couldinvite someone else to help me make my family,” she explained. “It wasconfusing too because it’s like my husband and I could make these beautifulbaby cakes and I just didn’t have an oven to bake them in. And so it reallywas my fault, do you know what I mean? It was on me. And I felt that deeply,like I’m the problem.”
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While still trying to carry a baby herself, Banks said she blamed herlifestyle when it hadn’t worked and said she “did everything” to improve herchances.
“I stopped drinking, I stopped eating, then I started eating because someonewas like, ‘You’re too thin, you’re too this. You use that cream and it’s got achemical in it.’ Like, ok everything has a chemical in it,” she recalled.”It’s like everything you’re doing is wrong.”
Banks explained that it took gaining perspective to feel more confident aboutthe decision to move forward with surrogacy. She credited a lot of that to anumber of friends who offered her advice throughout the process.
“I had a great friend who was like, ‘At the end of the day, there’s gonna be ababy and you’re gonna be a parent and nobody’s gonna care how it happened,'”she recalled. “The other great advice I got was like, ‘Is your goal to bepregnant or to be a mom?’ And I was like, ‘Oh, s. It’s just to be a mom.Right. I don’t need to be pregnant, f, I just want the baby.’ So it waslike what’s the best way to get to the baby? What are you doing? Who caresabout the pregnancy? Get the baby.”
Ultimately, it was when Banks met a potential surrogate who she had “anincredible conversation” with that she felt at peace with the way she’d begrowing her family. She explained that “still to this day” she maintains arelationship with that surrogate who brought 11-year-old Felix and 10-year-oldMagnus into the world. “It’s my son’s 10th birthday today and I’m gonna sendher a picture of him, cause she helped make our family with us. Her mom hadbeen a surrogate, that’s how she got into it. She had three beautiful kids ofher own with her awesome husband,” Banks said. “It takes like the wholevillage to do this.”
Now, 11 years after becoming a mother, Banks said that the moment she had herson in her arms the worry about how he was born washed away. “It madeeverything else so stupid. So silly. Everyone’s judgment, it’s like, ‘Oh, f***off.’ Now they get to judge me for how I parent,” she said. “It starts allover again, it’s a whole other side of the cycle.”
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