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Cardi B, Justin & Hailey Bieber, Margot Robbie & More Stars Welcome Babies in 2024
Sometimes ignorance truly is bliss.
At least that's how My Big Fat Fabulous Life star Whitney Way Thore felt as she was trying to choose a sperm donor to welcome a baby on her own.
As she inched toward her 41st birthday while filming the 13th season of her TLC series (Tuesdays, 9 p.m.), "I just thought I realistically should not waste any more time," Whitney explained in an exclusive interview with E! News of exploring artificial insemination.
But she found herself experiencing an extreme version of decision fatigue when she searched the database of potential donors.
"It felt not much different than being on a dating app, but having way higher stakes," she explained. "And I even find this on dating apps, it's almost like the less information I can see is usually the better, because men will find a way to ruin it."
While she wasn't too picky about the guy's physical traits, "It doesn't take a whole lot for me to go, 'Oh, never mind," Whitney added. And so she'd find herself getting her hopes up reading through a profile "and then there was a question-and-answer section and they almost seemed illiterate. And I was like, 'No, I can't.'"
Which is why she outsourced the choice to close pal Isaiah Martin, the husband of her trainer Jessica Powell.
"I honestly could not handle the responsibility," Whitney admitted. "I think I would still be trying to choose a donor if I was really shouldering that responsibility."
Had she met someone the old-fashioned way—you know, through a dating app—the North Carolina resident noted, "It's easier to fall in love and just accept, like, 'Okay, this is my baby daddy.' It's much harder to actually have to choose."
Whitney Way Thore/Instagram
Swiping right on motherhood, however, was an easy call.
"I have waffled and thought about it for so long and taken baby steps in different directions," Whitney acknowledged. But the louder her biological clock began ticking the more she felt it was time.
And after a stint in London teaching at Pineapple Dance Studios and connecting with the students there, she knew she wanted a mini partner of her own.
"I like kids in general, but I've met some children recently that are so amazing and wonderful," she explained of being swayed toward motherhood. "I get excited for the dance classes, the soccer games, stupid stuff like making lunches, going on vacations. It feels like an entire new life."
Growing up with her late mom Barbara "Babs" Thore and dad Glenn Thore, "I had such a wonderful childhood, and I just think of all the ways that I would want to replicate that for my children."
Which is why she was so crushed when her first stab at insemination didn't lead to a pregnancy.
Factor in a lifelong battle with polycystic ovary syndrome and "I feel like that's not the best sign in terms of my fertility," she explained, noting she's already dealt with "every single symptom" that affects those with the hormonal disorder, including weight gain, hair loss, facial hair and chronic inflammation.
"The infertility piece has been the one thing that I was able to ignore, because I wasn't trying to get pregnant," said Whitney. "And so now that's really at the forefront and I feel like I have finally won the PCOS Olympics."
For Whitney, not getting pregnant the first go-round "was just a discouraging assurance that it was going to be a difficult road."
Not that she's ready to change course.
Adoption "didn't look like a very viable option for me," said Whitney. And though she's frozen her eggs, her doctor suggested she may have to go the surrogacy route: "But I thought, 'Why spend all that money if I could just try it myself?'"
Courtesy of TLC.
So she's determined to live out her big fat fabulous life—however that looks.
Simultaneously exploring a future as a mother and one that sees her leaving her hometown of Greensboro, N.C. behind, "I have a lot of exciting things in the works," Whitney teased.
Having previously lived in Korea and Ireland and traveled all around the globe, "I feel like everywhere I've gone in my life, I have always found a community."
So she's confident she'll pull together that proverbial village wherever she might land. In her perfect world, she added, five years from now she'll have "two kids, three cats, two poodles and a man who loves me," Whitney detailed to E!. "Pretty easy."
But no matter the squad she assembles, "The journey is far from over," Whitney stressed. "And I'm very excited about the future."
Of course, she's not alone in voicing concerns about how tough it can be to build a family. See how other stars have worked to normalize the stigma surrounding fertility struggles.
Bella Robertson/Instagram
Bella Robertson
The Duck Dynasty star and husband Jacob Mayo have been open about why it’s important for them to give insight into their fertility struggles on her family’s new reality series.
“We share the story of infertility in the show and that’s something that we haven’t really shared publicly that much, but that’s something that others just don’t know.” Bella said in a joint interview with Jacob for Us Weekly published May 21. “When you just look at someone on social media, you can’t know what anyone’s going through.”
For them, it not only “felt right” but allowed the pair to be their “authentic selves on this new show.”
Instagram/Olivia Culpo
Olivia Culpo
Two years before the former Miss Universe and Christian McCaffrey shared they were expecting their first baby, she detailed how her endometriosis diagnosis may lead to future fertility issues.
“I want to have kids, but I want to make sure that I can,” Culpo, who was diagnosed with the disease in 2020 and subsequently had surgery to treat it, shared in a November 2022 episode of The Culpo Sisters. “It could be really hard for me to have babies.”
“Endometriosis can affect your fertility in a lot of different ways,” she continued. “You can have endometrial tissue growing near or on your ovaries, it can affect the quality of your eggs, scar your fallopian tubes.”
(Photo by Gilbert Flores/Billboard via Getty Images)
Caelynn Bell
Bachelor Nation member shared a candid message about her and husband Dean Bell’s difficulty conceiving in the nearly two years since their wedding-
“It’s hard,” Caelynn explained in a March 19 YouTube video. “I’m putting way less pressure on myself than I was in the first few months of trying.”
Although the process has been emotionally challenging, Caelynn is remaining positive as she and her husband get medically tested to “figure out what’s going on.”
Instagram / Julianne Hough
Julianne Hough
The Dancing With the Stars cohost has been open about her struggles with endometriosis, a female reproductive disease, and has been working to preserve her fertility for when she feels ready to try and have a baby. In June 2025, she shared that she froze her eggs for the third time.
Kristin Callahan/Shutterstock
Whitney Port
Since welcoming her son Sonny with husband Tim Rosenman in 2017, the Hills alum has been candid about the ups and downs of her fertility journey, including her two pregnancy losses and her surrogate’s two miscarriages.
In July 2024, Whitney confirmed she’s preparing for a second egg retrieval.
After sharing that she and Tim had attempted surrogacy only for the surrogate to suffer two miscarriages, in addition to Whitney herself experiencing two pregnancy losses, Whitney confirmed in July 2024 she was preparing for a second egg retrieval.
"I'm feeling definitely better than my last round because I know a little bit more what to expect," she shared, "and I just have so much trust and faith in my doctor."
But no matter what happens in their journey to welcome a second child, Whitney has been clear there is nothing lacking in her family of three.
"Especially now, as we embark on this fertility journey for number two, I know we are complete no matter what," she wrote as part of a birthday tribute to Sonny on his 7th birthday in July 2024. "You are a blessing. We love watching you grow and are beyond grateful for how chill you are."
Daniele Venturelli/Getty Images
Michelle Yeoh
The Everything Everywhere All At Once star—who married Jean Todt in 2023 after a 19-year engagement—once opened up about the challenges she experienced trying to conceive with her first husband, Dickson Poon.
"I always wanted to have children," Michelle shared during a podcast appearance in Nov. 2024. "I went and did fertility [treatments] to aid in the process. I think that's the worst moment to go through is every month. You feel like such a failure."
She continued, "At some point, you stop blaming yourself. There are certain things in your body that don't function in a certain way. That's how it is. You just have to let go and move on."
Gabe Ginsberg/Getty Images
Eve
The rapper, who shares son Wilde with husband Maximillion Cooper, once detailed a heartbreaking pregnancy loss she experienced due to an ectopic pregnancy while filming her sitcom Eve.
"It was 2006 when I found out that I was pregnant," Eve wrote in her memoir Who's That Girl?. "I had to have emergency surgery and stop filming the show for two weeks. I don't know why I lied to everyone on set and said that my appendix had ruptured, really. Maybe because I was lying to myself."
"If I faced losing my baby, then I didn't know if two weeks would be enough emotional healing time," she continued. "In the end, it was barely enough healing time for me physically, before I was right back to work on set. I had lost so much weight after the surgery, and my body was so frail."
Kayla Oaddams/Getty Images
Mary Bonnet
The Selling Sunset star, who welcomed her son Austin at the age of 15, has been candid about her and husband Romain Bonnet's fertility journey.
“We don't know what the outcome is going to be,” she told E! News in Sept. 2024. “We're just kind of taking it as it as it comes. I've been super busy right now with the book and with the season and everything. So, I know nothing's going to happen if I'm stressed out and if I'm running around.”
And in addition to undergoing a surgery to rectify a septate uterus (when the uterus is divided into two parts by a membrane), Mary said she and Romain aren't rushing into any decisions—and are happy with their dog.
“We have our fur baby though, Thor. Romaine is obsessed with him,” added the real estate agent. “So if it doesn't happen, he says he's OK. He’s got his little fur baby, and he is just beyond obsessed. We’ll be OK. What's meant to be will be.”
Photo by: Nathan Congleton/NBC via Getty Images
Erin Andrews
The NFL sportscaster and her husband Jarret Stoll, who welcomed son Mack in July 2023, have had their own fair share of ups and downs amid their journey to parenthood—including navigating Erin's cervical cancer diagnosis in 2017.
But having frozen her eggs before her cancer battle, she then underwent IVF to help her conceive a child—an experience she decided to share with the world.
"I just was so tired of keeping quiet," she explained of sharing her struggles in a 2021 essay. "It was such a hard, painful journey. I think I went numb through most of it, because you just feel like a robot and you're on this really unfair roller coaster that more times out of none, you're going to get really bad news."
She added, "I'm a vocal person, and I could speak from the heart and just talk about how crappy it was and that I get it for a lot of couples and families that are trying to have a child."
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