Ronda Rousey broke down in tears while opening up about her fertility heartache, revealing that she suffered two miscarriages while still competing in pro wrestling in 2019.
The 38-year-old, also known as ‘The Baddest Woman on the Planet’ in both the WWE and UFC world, appeared emotional while recalling her first miscarriage from five years ago, as she said she fell pregnant a week before filming an episode of 9-1-1, where she almost lost a finger while performing her own stunts.
‘I found out I was pregnant right before the show started filming, and then my finger got chopped off from a boat door falling on it. We went and got checked out, the baby seemed fine, but then I had a miscarriage a couple of weeks later, Rousey said during an episode of The Diary of a CEO from earlier this month.
‘I always kind of felt like that was my fault,’ she continued. ‘I wanted to keep doing dangerous stuff while I was pregnant because I thought that made me cool.’
Rousey, who shares a daughter, La’akea, with former fighter Travis Browne, added that she hit an all-time low in between both miscarriages, as she struggled to come to terms with her first.
WWE and UFC legend Ronda Rousey opened up about two miscarriages she had back in 2019
Rousey, 37, has been married to former UFC fighter Travis Browne since 2017. The couple are hoping to be parents to more children in the near future
Rousey and Browne welcomed their child, a daughter, La’akea, in 2021 through IVF procedure
‘I was just depressed and drinking and smoking and not taking care of myself, then I got pregnant right away again, and then we never saw a heartbeat that time,’ the 2008 Olympics bronze medalist said of her second miscarriage.
‘But I wasn’t expecting anything more because I just wasn’t taking care of myself during that time.’
Rousey and Browne, who tied the knot in 2017, have been trying for more children after welcoming La’akea in 2001. But the former Bantamweight champion is still experiencing ups-and-downs in her ongoing IVF journey.
‘I went through IVF, four cycles of IVF to be able to get eight embryos because we wanted to have like three or four kids,’ Rousey said. ‘And the first one that we used actually worked! That’s, you know, La’akea, my daughter now.
Rousey (seen with La’akea) revealed that her ongoing IVF journey has been challenging, so far
‘But yeah, we’re in the process of doing it right now, and I just got news yesterday that our first cycle didn’t work.’
A procedure that involves several cycles of two or more weeks, IVF increases a woman’s chances of pregnancy, though Rousey has described her fertilization process as challenging.
‘It’s tough,’ she said. ‘Anyone going through it is tough, and like people don’t talk about it. But, you know, it’s hard because you have so much hope every time. And yeah, I don’t know. I’ll just have to wait till the end of this book tour to try again. But I was really hoping to be pregnant today…
‘But, you know, it’s the kind of thing that like nobody talks about it. So, and so do so many women think they’re going through it alone. But, it’s really, really common. But it’s just really hard when things don’t work out.’