WASHINGTON — Michelle Obama says she felt “lost and alone” after suffering a miscarriage 20 years ago and she and Barack Obama underwent in vitro fertilization to conceive their two daughters.
“We were trying to get pregnant and it wasn’t going well,” Mrs. Obama, 54, writes in her upcoming memoir. “We had one pregnancy test come back positive, which caused us both to forget every worry and swoon with joy, but a couple of weeks later I had a miscarriage, which left me physically uncomfortable and cratered any optimism we felt.”
The Associated Press purchased an early copy of “Becoming,” Mrs. Obama’s memoir and one of the most avidly anticipated political books in recent memory. In it, she writes of being alone to administer herself shots to help hasten the process. Her “sweet, attentive husband” was at the state legislature, “leaving me largely on my own to manipulate my reproductive system into peak efficiency.”
Obama’s family revelations are some of many included in the book from a former first lady who has offered few extensive comments on her White House years. And memoirs by former first ladies, including Hillary Clinton and Laura Bush, are usually best-sellers. “Becoming,” one of the most avidly anticipated political books in recent memory, is set to be released Tuesday.
IVF is one form of assisted reproduction and typically involves removing eggs from a woman, fertilizing them with sperm in a lab, and implanting a resulting embryo into the woman’s uterus. It costs thousands of dollars for every “cycle,” and many couples require more than one attempt.
“I felt like I failed because I didn’t know how common miscarriages were because we don’t talk about them,” the former first lady said in an interview broadcast Friday on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” ”We sit in our own pain, thinking that somehow we’re broken.”
Mrs. Obama, said she and Barack Obama underwent fertilization treatments to conceive daughters Sasha and Malia, now 17 and 20.
“I realized that as I was 34 and 35,” the famously fit Mrs. Obama said in excerpts from an ABC special set to air Sunday. “We had to do IVF.”
WATCH: ABC’s Robin Roberts previews her exclusive interview with former first lady Michelle Obama on Friday’s “Good Morning America.”
The revelations come ahead of Tuesday’s release of Mrs. Obama’s memoir “Becoming,” in which she writes openly about everything from growing up in Chicago to confronting racism in public life and becoming the country’s first black first lady.
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The Associated Press purchased an early copy of “Becoming,” one of the most anticipated political books in recent memory. Mrs. Obama has offered few extensive comments on her White House years. And memoirs by former first ladies, including Hillary Clinton and Laura Bush, are usually best-sellers.
In “Becoming,” Mrs. Obama lets loose a blast of anger at President Donald Trump, writing how she reacted in shock the night she learned he would replace her husband in the Oval Office and tried to “block it all out.”
She also denounces Trump’s years’ long “birther” campaign questioning her husband’s citizenship, calling it bigoted and dangerous, “deliberately meant to stir up the wingnuts and kooks.” Trump suggested Obama was not born in the U.S. but on foreign soil — his father was Kenyan. The former president was born in Hawaii.
She expresses disbelief over how so many women would choose a “misogynist” over Clinton in 2016. She remembers how her body “buzzed with fury” after seeing the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape, in which Trump brags about sexually assaulting women.
Mrs. Obama also accuses Trump of using body language to “stalk” Clinton during an election debate. She writes of Trump following Clinton around the stage, standing nearby and “trying to diminish her presence.”
Mrs. Obama launches her promotional tour Tuesday not at a bookstore, but at Chicago’s United Center, where tens of thousands of people have purchased tickets — from just under $30 to thousands of dollars — to attend the event moderated by Oprah Winfrey.
LAURIE KELLMAN, Associated Press
This cover image released by Crown shows “Becoming,” by Michelle Obama, available on Nov. 13. Obama is launching a book tour to at the United Center on Tuesday to promote her memoir “Becoming,” a tour featuring arenas and other performing centers to accommodate crowds likely far too big for any bookstore. | Crown via AP
