Photo: Jim Smeal/ BEI/ Shutterstock.In a recent interview with People, Nia Vardalos opens up about her decade-long struggle with fertility. It was only after 13 rounds of IVF treatments and several miscarriages that she and her husband, actor Ian Gomez, opted for adoption.
And now, according to People, she "couldn't be happier about being a mom."
Getting to this place was certainly a journey, though. Vardalos ended My Big Fat Greek Wedding (which she produced and wrote) with the suggestion that her character goes on to have a child, but she didn't feel like she could depict that experience honestly without being a mother herself.
"I wouldn’t know the emotions of what to write," she explains.
In the years following the film's release, she started trying to get pregnant, a nine-year process she describes as both "sad" and "long." When it eventually became clear that she couldn't conceive on her own, Vardalos and Gomez decided to adopt and looked into the American foster care system.
Vardalos' candidness will certainly be a refreshing reminder to the 6.7 million women struggling with fertility that they're not alone. Even though other celebrities like Chrissy Teigen, Nicole Kidman, and Brooke Shields have all been open about their fertility struggles, the topic, unfortunately, remains a source of shame and secrecy for many, many women — and Vardalos was no exception.
"I felt so embarrassed that I couldn’t have a biological child," she says.
Fortunately for Vardalos, when she and her husband were finally paired with a 3-year-old girl, that feeling completely vanished. Their daughter, Ilaria, is now 10 years old, and clearly the light of Vardalos's life: "I am so grateful and can’t imagine my life without her."
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