With Baby Number 2 on the Way, Anne Hathaway Opens Up About Fertility Struggles

Now that Anne Hathaway confirmed she’s expecting her second child, the 36-year-old actress is opening up about her struggle trying to conceive.

In a recent interview with Entertainment Tonight, Hathaway discussed her fertility issues and revealed that’s she’s been waiting a long time for baby number two. “I’m really happy,” she said. “This is something I’ve been wanting for a while, and I’m really happy it’s happening.”

While she and her husband, Adam Shulman, are thrilled about their second pregnancy, growing their family hasn’t been easy. As Hathaway noted in her joyful Instagram post, “[P]lease know it was not a straight line to either of my pregnancies.”

Acknowledging that part of her announcement with ET, she noted: “I think there is a silence around the moments before that and they are not all happy. And, in fact, a lot of them are quite painful. I think the pain is that these women feel like we’re the only ones going through it.”

Although it’s difficult to talk about, The Hustle star hopes her story will inspire other aspiring mothers to keep trying.

“I just knew that somewhere my announcement was going to make somebody feel worse about themselves because—and it wouldn’t be their fault that that happened—you just can’t help it when you want something so bad and it feels like it’s happening to everyone else but you,” she continued. “And I just wanted that person to know that they’re included in my story too and that my story didn’t just have happy moments.”

Hathaway and Shulman started dating in October 2008 and tied the knot in a traditional Jewish ceremony in September 2012. They welcomed their first child, Jonathan, in 2016.

Thank you, Anne. We really needed this.