Michelle Obama Opens Up About 'Devastating' Miscarriage and Grueling IVF Battle With Husband Barack — 'We Tried and Tried'
Michelle Obama opened up about her fertility struggles in a candid confession.
May 13 2026, Published 4:55 p.m. ET
Michelle Obama made a surprisingly candid confession about the painful struggles she and her husband Barack faced while trying to start a family, RadarOnline.com can reveal.
The former first lady opened up like never before about delaying motherhood, only to suffer a devastating miscarriage when she finally became pregnant.
Michelle Obama Opens Up About Her 'Devastating' Miscarriage
The former first lady warned women that the 'biological clock is real' when it comes to having children.
"What I was never told was that the biological clock was real. And I try to tell a lot of young people, a lot of young women, that that clock is real," Michelle confessed while speaking with guest Serena Williams on the May 13 episode of her IMO podcast.
Barack was 31 years old, and Michelle was 28 when the couple tied the knot in October 1992. Both were focused on their careers, his as a civil rights lawyer and community organizer, while she had just transitioned from being a corporate attorney to the assistant to Chicago Mayor Richard Daley
"And Barack and I, we married in our late 20s, took our time hanging tough," Michelle said about how they waited to try for a baby.
"And then we started working on conceiving. I got pregnant once and miscarried, which was devastating," she heartbreakingly revealed.
Michelle Obama Got Pregnant Via IVF With Both of Her Daughters
Barack and Michelle Obama brought their young daughters on the presidential campaign trail in 2008.
Michelle went on to reveal the couple's struggle to become parents.
"And then we tried and tried and tried, and we had to do IVF for both girls. Which, you know, it becomes, it's more of a thing than I knew then," she said of the in vitro fertilization process.
Michelle finally became pregnant with the couple's first child, daughter Malia, in 1997, and she was born on July 4, 1998.
The Obamas used IVF again when they welcomed daughter Sasha in 2001.
Michelle Obama Felt Like a 'Failure' While Struggling to Conceive
Michelle Obama said she felt like a 'failure' when she was struggling to conceive naturally .
"I think more young women are talking about their conception journey, that it's not always guaranteed," Michelle confided to Williams.
The duo spoke in front of an audience of women when discussing their fertility journeys, as The Light We Carry author told them about how she felt like a "failure" when she wasn't able to naturally get pregnant.
"I don't know about all of you, but I know that when I struggled to conceive, I took that on, like a personal failure," Michelle confessed.
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Michelle Obama Called Miscarrying 'Lonely, Painful, and Demoralizing'
Michelle Obama detailed her fertility struggles in her 2018 memoir 'Becoming.'
Michelle first revealed her miscarriage and fertility struggle in her 2018 memoir, Becoming.
"We were trying to get pregnant, and it wasn’t going well. We had one pregnancy test come back positive, which caused us both to forget every worry and swoon with joy, but a couple of weeks later, I had a miscarriage, which left me physically uncomfortable and cratered any optimism we felt," she wrote.
Michelle added: "A miscarriage is lonely, painful, and demoralizing, almost on a cellular level. When you have one, you will likely mistake it for a personal failure, which it is not.
"Or a tragedy, which, regardless of how utterly devastating it feels in the moment, it also is not.
"What nobody tells you is that miscarriage happens all the time, to more women than you'd ever guess, given the relative silence around it."
