Together with her basketball-star husband, Dwyane Wade, Gabrielle Union, welcomed daughter Kaavia James via surrogate in November 2018 when Union was 46 and Wade was 36. Though Kaavia’s long-awaited arrival was joyous, Union recently shared that using a surrogate had an extreme emotional cost.

The actor and advocate reflected on the process and why, at the time, it felt less like a medical solution and more like a personal defeat.

Gabrielle Union has often been open and transparent about her fertility journey throughout the years in hopes to make other women feel less alone. The successful actress shared her honest feelings about having a baby via surrogacy, revealing it felt like “public humiliation” because she had to watch someone else carry her child.