Tyra Banks, 41, has been in front of the camera and on magazine covers since her teen years. Since her modeling career ended, she’s been everything from a talk show host to an entrepreneur. But there’s one thing that she’s put off for a while, and now, when she finally wants it, it’s been hard to accomplish.
During an appearance on her new roundtable-format talk show, FABLife, Banks discussed the difficulty she’s been having conceiving.
“I am so tired of seeing on my social media, ‘Why don’t you have kids? Why don’t you have kids?’ You don’t know. You don’t know what I’m going through,” Banks stated.
“When I was 23 years old, I used to tell myself, ‘In three years I’m gonna have kids.’ Then I turned 24. ‘In three years I’m gonna have kids.’ And then just every single year I kept saying that. And then, after a while, it’s like, ‘OK, now I want to’—and it’s not so easy,” Banks said, in tears.
In a People magazine interview, Banks revealed that she’s had in vitro fertilization treatments for the last two years, which is the length of time she’s been in a relationship with her boyfriend, photographer Erik Asla.
“I’ve had some not-happy moments with that, very traumatic moments,” she said. “It’s difficult as you get older. It’s not something that can just happen.”
Banks said she’s trying to stay positive about the situation, especially since she doesn’t just want one kid—she wants a bunch of them.
“I want a litter! And I want to be the kind of mom where my child can come to me for anything,” Banks stated.
Banks’ story is similar to the story of many women who’ve waited until later in life to have kids and discovered that it’s not that easy. According to a 2012 report from the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology, there’s a record number of women visiting IVF clinics. The report showed that doctors at IVF clinics performed 165,172 procedures, including IVF, with 61,740 babies born as a result of those efforts in 2012.
Aside from IVF, of course, there are other options women can seek, especially if they can afford it, from surrogates to adoption, but many women want to experience carrying and delivering a child themselves.
Hopefully, Banks is able to fulfill her “litter”-of-kids dreams one day.
The full episode of FABLife airs Sept. 21.