Michelle Obama has spoken publicly about the private struggles behind her marriage and family life in her memoir, Becoming. In an interview with ABC News, she said the book allowed her to discuss infertility, miscarriage and the strain that years of public life placed on her relationship with Barack Obama.
One of the memoir’s central themes is the couple’s path to parenthood. Obama said she suffered a miscarriage and later turned to fertility treatment before conceiving daughters Malia and Sasha. She described the experience as isolating and said many women carry similar pain in silence.
“It turns out that even two committed go getters with a deep love robust work ethic can’t will themselves into being pregnant.”
She also said the biological clock became a reality for her in her mid-30s and that IVF was part of the process that led to her pregnancies. In her view, women are often left without honest conversations about how bodies work and why conception can be difficult.
“The biological clock is real because egg production is limited,” she said. “I realized that as I was 34 and 35. We had to do IVF [in-vitro fertilization]. 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.”
Obama also said the demands of the Obama presidency affected the marriage and that the couple went for marriage counseling. She said the pressure of their schedules and public responsibilities created difficult moments even though the relationship was often seen from the outside as stable and effortless.
The memoir, especially the chapter titled Becoming Us, presents a more personal account of the Obamas’ life together than the public had previously seen.
