Jennifer Aniston Reveals Fertility Issues and Secret IVF Journey

11/12/2022

At 53 years old, Jennifer Aniston has lived most of her life under the Hollywood spotlight. But she managed to keep her fertility struggles out of the public eye. Now, the Friends star decided to open up about that very personal chapter in her life and how it helped her become the woman that she is today.

Jennifer Aniston was previously portrayed in the media as someone who didn’t want to have kids.

When Aniston broke up with her ex-husband, Brad Pitt, in 2005, some reports attributed their split to the actress prioritizing her career over having a family with Pitt. “(The) narrative that I was just selfish...it was absolute lies,” she said.

Her pain and frustration led her to write an op-ed in 2016, where she slammed people who defined a woman’s worth based on her marital or maternal status. “We are complete with or without a mate, with or without a child. We get to decide for ourselves what is beautiful when it comes to our bodies,” she stated.

The actress finally opened up about her pregnancy attempts.

Her character in Friends had a successful pregnancy, but in real life, Aniston wasn’t as fortunate as Rachel. “I was trying to get pregnant. It was a challenging road for me, the baby-making road,” Aniston shared in an interview. She added that she has protected this secret for many years because there is very little that she gets to keep to herself.

“It was really hard. I was going through IVF (in vitro fertilization), drinking Chinese teas, you name it. I was throwing everything at it.” She also wished that someone would have advised her about freezing her eggs. “You just don’t think of it. So here I am today. That ship has sailed.”

But despite everything she went through, The Morning Show actress explained that she does not have any regrets and that she is at peace with not having children of her own. “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.”

“I feel the best in who I am today.”

Aniston shares that she feels better now than she ever did in her twenties, thirties, and mid-forties. And she credits the hard times for shaping her into the woman that she is today. “I would’ve been stuck being this person that was so fearful, so nervous, so unsure of who they were. And now, I don’t care,” declared Aniston.

She also described her experience as “coming back into the light.”

The actress admitted to finally doing some personal work and healing, which she described as “long overdue.” She called herself a work in progress — someone who “gets blown apart and then somehow gets put back together into this beautiful mosaic.”

Aniston also thinks about writing her life story one day. “The [world] creates narratives that aren’t true, so I might as well tell the truth. I feel like I’m coming out of hibernation. I don’t have anything to hide.”