Jordana Brewster remembers feeling like she didn’t need to take time off after the birth of her first child in 2013 because she was using a surrogate.
“One of my closest friends said, ‘You should take maternity leave,’ and I was like, ‘I’m not able to carry my baby so why should I get that? I should go straight to work,’” Brewster told TODAY Parents. “I was punishing myself for something I couldn’t help.”
The “Fast & Furious” actor and her former husband, producer Andrew Form, went through several rounds of failed IVF before growing their family through surrogacy.
“It’s this wonderful, beautiful, amazing thing, but I struggled,” Brewster revealed. “I felt ashamed.”
Brewster worried that people were judging her — and it's understandable. The stigma surrounding surrogacy is pervasive.
“I think a lot of people assumed that because I was young and an actress that I was using a surrogate to avoid gaining weight,” she explained.
After Julian, who is now 7, was born, Brewster joined a moms group in Los Angeles. She recalled feeling the need to defend her choice even though no one ever questioned it.
“I’d make this big deal out of announcing that I couldn’t carry, so that's why Julian was born to a gestational surrogate,” Brewster said. “No one ever asked for the information. I would just offer it."
But Brewster no longer feels shame — or the need to justify her choice.
"I let go of the baggage. I let go of the noise in my head," she said. "I've done so much work to create this beautiful life and I'm going to enjoy it."
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The “Dallas” alum, who welcomed her second child, Rowan, 4, via a surrogate in 2016, is now helping to destigmatize talking about surrogacy and fertility issues. Recently, she teamed up with Clearblue for the company’s #Conceivinghood campaign, which was created to spark honest conversations about the difficulties 7.5 million women in the United States face when trying to conceive.
“When I started trying to get pregnant about a decade ago, women didn’t really talk about fertility — there wasn’t as much community around it. My friends were getting pregnant really easily and I expected the same thing to happen to me, but it didn’t and I felt like something was wrong with me,” Brewster said. “That’s why I love the [Clearblue] initiative. It’s comforting when you see other people are going through it too.”
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