How My Big Fat Fabulous Life’s Whitney Way Thore Chose a Sperm Don
Eager to have a baby through artificial insemination, My Big Fat Fabulous Life star Whitney Way Thore faced a big, well, you know, decision. She detailed her road to motherhood in a chat with E! News.
Sometimes ignorance truly is bliss.
At least that’s how My Big Fat Fabulous Life star Whitney Way Thore felt as she was trying to choose a sperm donor to welcome a baby on her own.
As she inched toward her 41st birthday while filming the 13th season of her TLC series (Tuesdays, 9 p.m.), “I just thought I realistically should not waste any more time,” Whitney explained in an exclusive interview with E! News of exploring artificial insemination.
But she found herself experiencing an extreme version of decision fatigue when she searched the database of potential donors.
“It felt not much different than being on a dating app, but having way higher stakes,” she explained. “And I even find this on dating apps, it’s almost like the less information I can see is usually the better, because men will find a way to ruin it.”
While she wasn’t too picky about the guy’s physical traits, “It doesn’t take a whole lot for me to go, ‘Oh, never mind,” Whitney added. And so she’d find herself getting her hopes up reading through a profile “and then there was a question-and-answer section and they almost seemed illiterate. And I was like, ‘No, I can’t.'”
Which is why she outsourced the choice to close pal Isaiah Martin, the husband of her trainer Jessica Powell.
“I honestly could not handle the responsibility,” Whitney admitted. “I think I would still be trying to choose a donor if I was really shouldering that responsibility.”
Had she met someone the old-fashioned way—you know, through a dating app—the North Carolina resident noted, “It’s easier to fall in love and just accept, like, ‘Okay, this is my baby daddy.’ It’s much harder to actually have to choose.”
Whitney Way Thore/InstagramSwiping right on motherhood, however, was an easy call.
“I have waffled and thought about it for so long and taken baby steps in different directions,” Whitney acknowledged. But the louder her biological clock began ticking the more she felt it was time.
And after a stint in London teaching at Pineapple Dance Studios and connecting with the students there, she knew she wanted a mini partner of her own.
“I like kids in general, but I’ve met some children recently that are so amazing and wonderful,” she explained of being swayed toward motherhood. “I get excited for the dance classes, the soccer games, stupid stuff like making lunches, going on vacations. It feels like an entire new life.”
Growing up with her late mom Barbara “Babs” Thore and dad Glenn Thore, “I had such a wonderful childhood, and I just think of all the ways that I would want to replicate that for my children.”
Which is why she was so crushed when her first stab at insemination didn’t lead to a pregnancy.
Factor in a lifelong battle with polycystic ovary syndrome and “I feel like that’s not the best sign in terms of my fertility,” she explained, noting she’s already dealt with “every single symptom” that affects those with the hormonal disorder, including weight gain, hair loss, facial hair and chronic inflammation.
“The infertility piece has been the one thing that I was able to ignore, because I wasn’t trying to get pregnant,” said Whitney. “And so now that’s really at the forefront and I feel like I have finally won the PCOS Olympics.”
For Whitney, not getting pregnant the first go-round “was just a discouraging assurance that it was going to be a difficult road.”
Not that she’s ready to change course.
Adoption “didn’t look like a very viable option for me,” said Whitney. And though she’s frozen her eggs, her doctor suggested she may have to go the surrogacy route: “But I thought, ‘Why spend all that money if I could just try it myself?'”
Courtesy of TLC.So she’s determined to live out her big fat fabulous life—however that looks.
Simultaneously exploring a future as a mother and one that sees her leaving her hometown of Greensboro, N.C. behind, “I have a lot of exciting things in the works,” Whitney teased.
Having previously lived in Korea and Ireland and traveled all around the globe, “I feel like everywhere I’ve gone in my life, I have always found a community.”
So she’s confident she’ll pull together that proverbial village wherever she might land. In her perfect world, she added, five years from now she’ll have “two kids, three cats, two poodles and a man who loves me,” Whitney detailed to E!. “Pretty easy.”
But no matter the squad she assembles, “The journey is far from over,” Whitney stressed. “And I’m very excited about the future.”
Of course, she’s not alone in voicing concerns about how tough it can be to build a family. See how other stars have worked to normalize the stigma surrounding fertility struggles.
