Colton Underwood recently opened up about his fertility struggles, which inspired him to start a podcast called Daddyhood.
According to USA TODAY, the podcast “will aim to talk about the hard aspects of starting a family so others don’t feel so alone.” In a new interview with Parents magazine, the 32-year-old reality star shared that parenthood was one of the reasons why it took some time before he decided to come out as gay in 2021.
“As I’ve been on my coming out journey, (wanting to be a dad) was one of the factors that kept me in the closet. I didn’t really know it was possible to build a family as a gay man,” he stated.
Thereafter, Underwood eventually met his now-husband Jordan Brown, and the idea of being a father was something that connected them when they met. In fact, the couple started fertility assessments 2 years after they tied the knot in 2023.
‘The Bachelor’ alum then revealed,
“Day one of starting our family … I got my sperm results back, and I had four sperm. Three of them were dead. One was barely moving in my sample. It was one of those things where (I was basically) considered technically infertile. I was like, ‘This sucks. This is hard.’”
As a former professional football player, overtraining, certain medications, as well as “engaging in activities like biking and using hot tubs and saunas” were discovered to have an impact on his sperm health.
“I was basically doing everything I possibly could to kill my sperm, and I didn’t even know,” he stated.
Underwood also admitted how difficult it is to talk about the topic of fertility, expressing:
“I get why people don’t talk about fertility because it is hard, and it’s so intimate. I had so much shame around it. I felt inferior. My ego took a hit, because I pride myself on being a healthy athlete. All of a sudden, you can’t do the one thing that you really want to do and produce sperm.”
Thankfully, the months of making lifestyle changes paid off, as his sperm health has now recovered. After getting retested, the TV personality shared:
“My numbers bounced back fully, and now, we’re back up to being high. That was such a cool, fun payoff.”
Moreover, Underwood and Brown are now on their way to parenthood — reportedly having three frozen embryos, and finalizing things with their surrogate.
Sources: usatoday.com, parents.com
Wishing him luck in his efforts to gay parenting. It can be a tough road but it’s worth it.