Michelle Obama Just Got Candid About Her Fertility Struggles and Couples Counseling with Barack

Sam Reed
Updated

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Michelle Obama just got personal.

The former FLOTUS spoke candidly about her struggles to start a family while promoting her new memoir, Becoming (out Nov. 13), revealing that she not only suffered a miscarriage in her 30s, but conceived both of her daughters with her husband (you'll remember him as former President Barack Obama) with the help of fertility treatments.

Is a political future in the cards for Malia and Sasha? It's too early to tell, but they've certainly inherited their mom's impeccable style.
Is a political future in the cards for Malia and Sasha? It's too early to tell, but they've certainly inherited their mom's impeccable style.

She underwent in vitro fertilization to become pregnant with Sasha, now 17, and Malia, now 20. Her revelation comes weeks after a study revealed that black women have lower IVF success rates than white women; researchers are unsure of the cause.

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On Friday's broadcast of GMA, she opened up to Robin Roberts about her miscarriage. "I felt like I failed because I didn't know how common miscarriages were because we don't talk about them," she said. ''We sit in our own pain, thinking that somehow we're broken."

As to why she decided to share her struggles with the world, she said, "I think it's the worst thing that we do to each other as women, not share the truth about our bodies."

Separately, Michelle revealed that despite their lovey-dovey facade, she and Barack had undergone couple's counseling after their busy schedules began to take a toll on their relationship. "Marriage counseling for us was one of those ways where we learned how to talk out our differences," she said, according to E!.

"I know too many young couples who struggle and think that somehow there's something wrong with them and I want them to know that Michelle and Barack Obama, who have a phenomenal marriage and who love each other — we work on our marriage and we get help with our marriage when we need it."

Leave it to Michelle to keep it real.