[Warning: Potentially Triggering Content]
Ronda Rousey is doing something incredibly brave, even for such an accomplished fighter. She’s opening up about her difficult fertility journey.
During an interview on the Diary Of A CEO podcast earlier this month, the professional wrestler revealed she suffered two miscarriages five years ago. She and her husband, Travis Browne, started trying to have kids after marrying in 2017. As Ronda recalled, she first found out she was pregnant a week before she needed to perform stunts on set for an episode of 9-1-1 in 2019. And during filming, the athlete nearly “chopped off” her finger when a boat door fell on it. OMG! Ronda went to the hospital to get checked out, and thankfully everything seemed to be OK with her pregnancy at the time. However, weeks later, she suffered a miscarriage:
“We went and got checked out, the baby seemed fine, but then I had a miscarriage a couple of weeks later, so I always kind of felt like that was my fault. I wanted to keep doing dangerous stuff while I was pregnant because I thought that made me cool.”
Oh no… We hate that she blamed herself!
Understandably, Ronda wasn’t doing well afterward. She shared that she became “depressed” and began “drinking and smoking and not taking care of myself.” During this time, she got pregnant again. But sadly, she experienced another miscarriage:
“I got pregnant right away again, and then we never even saw a heartbeat that time. But I wasn’t expecting anything more because I just wasn’t taking care of myself during that time.”
So heartbreaking. Following the devastating losses, the WWE star decided to do things differently next time. She began the long process of IVF. The couple found success with the process the first time, and they welcomed their 2-year-old daughter, La’akea, in 2021. Ronda said:
“I went through IVF, four cycles of IVF to be able to get eight embryos because we wanted to have like three or four kids. And the first one that we used actually worked. That’s, you know, La’akea, my daughter now.”
A couple years later, Ronda and Travis are trying to have another baby. She’s even undergoing IVF once again — though it’s not been an easy process for her this time around. Breaking down in tears, the actress expressed:
“But yeah, we’re in the process of doing it right now, and I just got news yesterday that our first cycle didn’t work. It’s tough. Anyone going through it is tough, and like people just don’t talk about it. But, you know, it’s hard because you have so much hope every time. And yeah, I don’t know. I’ll just have to wait till the end of this book tour to try again. But I was really hoping to be pregnant today.”
Our hearts continue to break for Ronda. Oof. She continued:
“But, you know, it’s the kind of thing that like nobody talks about. So, and so do so many women think they’re going through it alone. But it’s really, really common. But it’s just really hard when things don’t work out.”
We applaud Ronda for getting incredibly vulnerable about a tough topic like this, especially so soon after receiving her bad news. It must not have been easy. Watch the emotional interview (below):
[Image via The Diary Of A CEO/YouTube, Nicky Nelson/WENN]
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