Cindy Margolis: ‘I Took Becoming a Mother For Granted’
 Roger Karnbad/Celebrity Photo |
For some women, the path to motherhood is smooth and direct and for others, not so much. Cindy Margolis was shocked to find herself a member of the latter category, describing her path to motherhood as a “long, rocky, and sometimes heartbreaking journey.” “I took becoming a mother for granted,” she admits in a new interview with momlogic. “It never occurred to me that it might require more inner strength and determination than I had ever imagined I had in me.”
With the help of IVF, Cindy welcomed a son — Nicholas, 6 — in 2002, and three years later twins Sabrina and Sierra, 3 ½, were born via surrogate. Although her dream of motherhood was ultimately realized three times over, Cindy’s struggle with infertility left a lasting impression. In her new book Having a Baby…When the Old Fashioned Way Isn’t Working, the 43-year-old model and celebrity spokesperson for RESOLVE, the National Infertility Association, opens up about her experience. “Doctors don’t really focus on telling you how emotionally draining it can be and they don’t (or at least didn’t in our experience) talk much about how hard infertility can be on your self-esteem and your relationships,” Cindy says. “They also don’t prepare you for how much harder you will have to work to build your family than the couples who can get pregnant naturally.”
“I wanted to change that. I wanted to talk about those things, answer those questions and remove the stigma of infertility that seemed to keep me from finding the support we desperately needed in our own journey.”
That her marriage to estranged husband Guy Starkman ended is something Cindy attributes at least in part to the stress associated with their quest to have children. Noting that “the struggles and the heartaches took their toll, individually and as a couple” Cindy says that that toll is something couples facing infertility “need to accept” at the onset. “In the best of circumstances, deciding to start a family demands change, adjustment and even sacrifice,” she explains. “Infertility takes that all up a notch or two.” Single-motherhood is “hard,” Cindy says, but do-able.
“I’m learning, coping and with a little luck, becoming better at it every day.”
Click here for a recent photo of Cindy and her children.
Source: momlogic
- Posted on Jan 12, 09 at 9:00PM
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- 20 Comments
January 12th, 2009 at 9:16 pm
It’s so important to realize that for most women fertility starts going down after 30. By the time your 40 most women’s chances have declined a lot. It’s difficult to think about it, but it’s reality.
January 12th, 2009 at 9:46 pm
It is still a hard thing to come to grips with, especially when we’re told we can have it all!
January 12th, 2009 at 10:03 pm
Its actually 35. The women are generally most fertile between 20 – 35 years old.
January 12th, 2009 at 10:37 pm
My information says best time to have children is between 22 – 30. From 30 it already starts going down. After 35 it goes down even faster and after 40 the chance is very low to conceive naturally (for most women).
January 12th, 2009 at 10:41 pm
Good for her to speak openly about this issue. I am the proud mom of a 5 month old little girl concieved after a very long, exhausting struggle with 7 cycles of medicated IUI and 4 cycles of IVF. It is refreshing to have someone speak openly about the terrible emotional side effects of the treatment process.
January 12th, 2009 at 10:58 pm
That is sad news about her marriage. So sorry to hear that.
I didn’t know that she had twins also – Congratulations Cindy!
I went through IVF also – 4 times. It is SO hard, and the majority of the people in the world are completely clueless as to what it like going through it and all that is involved. When I’d hear someone say, “Oh, just relax and it will happen” I just wanted to kill them. Here is the thing – for those who cannot have children, the last thing you want to hear is some comment like that from someone who has no clue what they are talking about. And the jealousy of others who are pg and have children… it’s just really painful.
January 13th, 2009 at 1:11 am
At one point they were saying 27, a woman starts to produce less eggs obviously making the chances start to decrease. But that was a few years ago and I heard it on Oprah.
January 13th, 2009 at 3:27 am
How true and great she is so open about it. Never understood why infertility was such a taboo subject … makes it even more painful (it’s like we have a disease and they are afraid of catching it ! stupid !)! We struggled 2 years with 1 year of treatment before finally conceived our little girl (now 1) naturally ! Last month, just before Christmas I was diagnosed with an ectopic pregnancy and my right tube is pretty much useless now … Not an easy situation to understand and accept. But as I’m Gma would say : “Everything happens for a reason” & “God does not give us more than we can handle” … Guess some of us are pretty special ;o)
January 13th, 2009 at 5:16 am
I really enjoyed Cindys book. I don’t know why infertility is seldom discussed.
I agree the worst thing is to be told to relax. How could you possibly relax!
January 13th, 2009 at 6:17 am
I remember seeing photos of her and her children on a beach a while back. Her twins were so gorgeous. Would love to see some recent photos of them.
January 13th, 2009 at 7:42 am
I think women of this generation are fed the myth that you can you can plan everthing done to the last minute. You hear women (including) celebrities say once I do this in my career, I will have children in the next five – seven years. Reality is, that life(yoru body)is not waiting on your career and your plans.
January 13th, 2009 at 8:08 am
Kudos to Cindy for speaking up on this issue. Infertility is such a taboo topic these days- I couldn’t even talk about it in my own house!
We finally did get pg naturally with my son (with a complicated pregnancy) and we decided we wanted to start trying for #2 soon after his birth. Now, almost three years later, we are still trying (although naturally) and I went through several medicated (pills and injection) cycles of IUI without success. My hubby and I decided not to do IVF based on our beliefs (and our pocketbooks). I can say without a doubt that this has been THE hardest thing for our marriage and he still doesn’t completely understand my emotions. (Other people’s are worse!) What makes it even more difficult is that I’ll be 30 in August- most people don’t understand that this effects women in their late 20’s too.
January 13th, 2009 at 10:31 am
I think a lot of people (w/o fertility problems) approach infertility a bit like death: they have no idea about the right thing to say and so the most terrible thing they could possibly say (like “just relax”) comes out. One of my good friends recently told me that she just had her 3rd miscarriage in a little over a year. I had no idea what to say because I felt so bad for her, so I just told her I was terribly sorry and to let me know if there was anything I could do to help her while she recovered, but I don’t know if that was the “right” thing to say or not.
I hope that more celebrities and regular women will speak out about their struggles to help make this subject less taboo, and at the same time, provide some guidance about what people should say.
January 13th, 2009 at 10:46 am
Again, kudos to Cindy for speaking about this issue. Particularly with so many celebrities conceiving and giving birth in their late 40’s and early 50’s, and so few of them being really honest about the reproductive technology they used to conceive, people can get a rather unreal idea of the impact aging has on a woman’s ability to conceive naturally, and the window of opportunity during which a woman has to conceive.
January 13th, 2009 at 11:09 am
Actually, and sadly. age has little to do with infertility. Yes, fertility does start to decline at 35. That doesn’t make it right to criticize women who have waited. And the fastest growing group of infertile women are in their mid-20s.
Infertility hurts like a pain I have never known before and does not go away. I am ever-so-blessed to finally have my son…however, having a baby cures childlessness, not infertility. It leaves behind some pretty brutal scars. And the journey makes you appreciate your child in a way that I know I could not have before. I would go through it all over again for him.
As far as how to treat friends going through this? Treat them like your friends! Don’t turn your backs on them because they are going through a very difficult time. It may be impossible for you to understand how they are feeling, but just being present will make a difference. Listen. Ask them out. Stop by to visit on a day they have had a procedure. They are still your friend, they are just going through something very difficult.
Kudos to Cindy for this book and being the RESOLVE spokesperson! She is doing an amazing thing for so many women!
January 13th, 2009 at 2:56 pm
I feel this comment by Nicole needs to be repeated!
“Actually, and sadly. age has little to do with infertility. Yes, fertility does start to decline at 35. That doesn’t make it right to criticize women who have waited. And the fastest growing group of infertile women are in their mid-20s.”
Infertility doesn’t discriminate based on age. Sure it is well-known that by the age of 35, fertility starts to decline, but that doesn’t mean all women were on equal footing to begin with! All this talk of how women are waiting – that is definitely not the one and only cause of infertility. You can be infertile at any age – everyone should know that.
January 13th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
Thank you, Nicole. I did multiple rounds of IVF and became a Mommy through adoption. It has eased the pain, but at the end of the day, I’m still infertile. And my fertility was taken by a doctor who didn’t do their job when I was only 22. Major kudos going out to Cindy for speaking up and fronting RESOLVE. Thank you…
January 13th, 2009 at 5:37 pm
I don’t see any of the previous posters saying that age is the one & only reason for infertility, nor do I see anyone criticizing any of the moms who waited until they were older to pursue motherhood. But age does have an impact on a woman’s fertility, even if there aren’t other fertility issues present. That is the truth. I can’t think of a single RE or OB/GYN who would recommend a woman delay childbearing until her late 40’s or 50’s, citing that age has little to do with infertility.
January 13th, 2009 at 6:52 pm
I’m sure more women wish that they were in a position to have a child at the best possible age – but not everyone is.
January 15th, 2009 at 2:41 am
Adoption is also a wonderful option. There are over 100,000 children up for adoption in the US, we found our wonderful kids on the web site adoptuskids.org and they made us the happy family that we are today. Please consider adoption of an older child, they need loving homes and can bring so much joy!!