Adrienne Bailon-Houghton Says She Spent Over $1 Million On IVF Treatments Before Welcoming A Child Via Surrogate
You know Adrienne Bailon-Houghton from iconic R&B groups 3LW and the Cheetah Girls.
You also might know that Adrienne welcomed her first child, Ever James, with husband Israel Houghton via surrogate back in 2022.
In an IG post announcing the arrival of their child, Adrienne had reflected on her "challenging" fertility journey. "He is worth every tear, every disappointment, every delayed prayer, every IVF cycle, every miscarriage," she wrote. "Everything."
In a recent interview with People, Adrienne opened up further about her fertility struggles before bringing Ever James into the world.
"I only did eight cycles of IVF, but that doesn't include the amount of IUIs I did and every other kind of imaginable treatments that you could imagine for fertility," she explained.
The NHS describes IVF, or in vitro fertilization, as a process in which "an egg is removed from the woman's ovaries and fertilized with sperm in a laboratory. The fertilized egg, called an embryo, is then returned to the woman's womb to grow and develop. It can be carried out using your eggs and your partner's sperm, or eggs and sperm from donors."
IUI, or intrauterine insemination, is defined by Mayo Clinic as a process that involves "placing specially prepared sperm directly in the uterus, the organ in which a baby develops."
"So it was a pretty tough six years of trying to have my son."
During the interview, Adrienne was apparently asked how much she spent on IVF, and she estimated that the treatments cost "easily over a million" dollars.
"And that is not realistic for the average person," she admitted. "And I recognize that."
Head here to read more fertility experiences from those who have gone through them.