dpa, Berlin
WWR Article Summary (tl;dr) The former first lady’s memoir is set to be released next Tuesday. In the book she shares her painful struggle to get pregnant.
WASHINGTON
Michelle Obama has revealed that she miscarried a child 20 years ago and that she and former US president Barack Obama conceived their two daughters with the assistance of in-vitro fertilization (IVF).
Obama, 54, describes the couple’s struggles with fertility in her forthcoming memoir, “Becoming,” part of which chronicles the start of her relationship and marriage to Barack and her journey to motherhood.
“It turns out that even two committed go-getters with a deep love and robust work ethic can’t will themselves into being pregnant,” Obama wrote in the book.
When Obama did ultimately get pregnant, she miscarried weeks later.
“I felt lost and alone and I felt like I failed, because I didn’t know how common miscarriages were, because we don’t talk about them,” the former first lady told broadcaster ABC in interview excerpts broadcast on Friday.
She later writes that infertility treatments allowed her to conceive their first child, Malia, and then Sasha.
“The biological clock is real,” Obama said in the interview. Once she reached her mid-30s, she and her husband opted for in-vitro fertilization to get pregnant.
“I think it’s the worst thing that we do to each other as women — not share the truth about our bodies, and how they work, and how they don’t work,” she says.
Obama’s memoir is set to be released on Tuesday. The full interview with ABC’s Robin Roberts will air on Sunday.
