Celebrity chef, Katie Lee’s IVF cycle did not work out the first time, even though she was in her 30s and had been living a healthy lifestyle. She underwent multiple cycles and shared a few lessons, anyone could use.
When you’re trying but fail to conceive, the public interest and scrutiny around your pregnancy can become a painful.
Being tired of the excessive interest around her pregnancy, Lee decided to address her infertility via social media.
In a lengthy Instagram post, the Food Network star opened up about her fertility issues, mentioning how the intrusion of her fans and the people around her is taking a toll on her.
“I get multiple messages a day asking me if I’m pregnant or why I am not pregnant yet, I get comments saying I look like I’ve gained weight, so I must be pregnant,” she wrote. “After one said that I looked ‘thick in the waist’ I finally responded that it’s not ok to comment on a woman’s body and you never know what someone is going through.”
Never considered pregnancy would be difficult
There’s a fine line between being concerned and hurtful, when asking personal questions, and Lee was extremely disturbed on being constantly asked about her plans of having a family. When people comment on her body weight, she clarified how they do not know the back story and their assumptions can get offensive.
Katie Lee was previously married to Billy Joel with whom she split after six years in 2010. She married TV producer Ryan Biegel in 2018 and said that both of them intended to start a family immediately after marriage. They had never considered the difficulties and complexities involved in the process.
What did Katie Lee learn while trying to conceive?
So many healthy, young women are unable to conceive when they want to, but most people don’t understand that this can affect anyone.
Although certain health factors matter, there is no guarantee that you will be fertile just because you are healthy. 37-year-old Lee and her husband had fairly healthy lifestyles and assumed that they’d be able to have babies easily.
“I naively thought it would be easy,” she said. “I’m a healthy woman, I eat a balanced diet, exercise, I don’t smoke. Ryan is the same. But reproductive health is an entirely different ballgame.”
While they decided that they will continue to try conceiving the natural way, she ended up needing surgery to rectify a certain problem which led her to contract a serious infection and shingles.
How did Katie Lee’s IVF go?
After she suffered a mild blow to her health due to the infection, her doctor suggested in-vitro fertilization, when she was 37 years old.
Unfortunately for Katie and Ryan, the IVF cycle resulted in no healthy embryos.
“We just finished the intense process only to get zero healthy embryos,” Lee wrote. “Not only is IVF physically exhausting, but the emotional toll is also unparalleled. We were filled with hope and excitement only to be crushed.”
IVF involves a lot of preparation including hormonal suppression and ovarian stimulation, which may cause mental, physical, and psychological distress among other side effects.
She spoke about her weight gain caused due to the hormonal therapy. Lee says it is extremely invasive and upsetting when people find it acceptable to ask her if she is pregnant because of her weight gain.
IVF drugs can not only cause weight gain but also cause weakness that make it difficult for the patient to exercise.
“When people ask me when I’m getting pregnant, it hurts. It’s just a reminder that I’m not. When they say I look like I’ve gained weight, I have. I can’t exercise as much and the hormones have made me bloated.”
Opening up about infertility issues
Infertility is personal and it is not easy to talk about, especially when you are followed by people around the world. That is what Katie Lee faced as she poured out her whole story for the world to see.
However, she got the inspiration to share her story by other people who opened up about their fertility problems.
“Fertility issues are supposed to be private so many of us are silently in pain. I hesitated to share this but I feel comfort when I hear others’ stories and I hope any of you in a similar situation know you are not alone,” Lee wrote.
“I hesitated to share this but I feel comfort when I hear others’ stories and I hope any of you in a similar situation know you are not alone.”
For IVF-it just takes one
A priest on Easter talked about a family that had once struggled with infertility, but have now been blessed with a baby. “He said it is a time of new beginnings,” she recalled. “Tears streamed down my face.”
Closing her post, she wrote “I know a family will happen for us, it is just going to be a different journey than we imagined, we will keep working towards it. Someday we will have our happy new beginning and I pray any of you experiencing the same will have yours too.”
Katie Lee knew that “it only takes one” good egg and one good sperm to make a healthy, so she repeated her IVF.
What did Katie Lee learn from her IVF cycles?
“We tried to get pregnant the good old fashioned way, and when that didn’t work I went crazy with all the “dos + don’ts,” including acupuncture and not exercising,” Katie said.
She “understood overtime that all you need is one good egg. Typically, you start with a high quantity of follicles, and over the two-week waiting period, you watch the numbers dwindle which is discouraging and feels like a never-ending waiting game.”
However, with each round of IVF, she learned to temper her expectations and it became manageable.
Luckily, she had a friend who’d been through IVF and reminded her that the numbers don’t matter and you just have to get one good egg.
Katie Lee said, “In the end that’s what we got, our one good one. Therefore, to those that are also going through it, please remember this too, it’s what got me through.”
Katie Lee’s pregnancy & baby
Finally, she got her good egg and was pregnant during the COVID pandemic. In September 2020, the couple welcomed a baby daughter, whom they named Iris Marion Biegel.
A few months later, Lee brought her daughter on the TODAY show and gushed over how much she loved being a mother. “Oh my gosh. I love being this baby’s mom more than anything in the world. I mean, she’s just so sweet and cuddly. She’s very well fed, if you can’t tell,” she said.
Iris is now almost four years. Katie says motherhood has changed her approach to her profession.
“My cooking has definitely changed since I became a mom! I’m looking for recipes that are fast, that use maybe only one pan and that way cleanup is quick!” she said in an interview with Hollywood Life.