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In a very personal interview with the popular podcast Infertile AF, Samantha Busch, wife of NASCAR star Kyle Busch, Infertility Advocate, and star of Racing Wives, gets real about her years-long struggle with infertility—including having their now four-year-old son, Brexton, through IVF, her devastating recent miscarriage, how infertility has affected her marriage, and how the couple is now considering surrogacy to have their second child.
The revealing, highly entertaining interview comes on the heels of Infertile AF’s announcement that the podcast has reached 100,000 unique downloads in under a year! Here are a few highlights from Samantha Busch’s interview:
On her devastating miscarriage:
“I was pregnant, the numbers were climbing, everything was great. It was at five weeks, we did this video on Thanksgiving and announced that we were having a daughter, and a week later we lost her out of nowhere. My gosh, it’s been a while, and it’s still...it’s hard to talk about. It’s sad and frustrating and even though I’ve made some peace with it, I’ll never get to watch her grow up, I’ll never get to know her like I was supposed to. And it’s hard. You know, people will say things like, ‘Well, at least you weren’t that far along,’ but you know what? It doesn’t matter, and I hate when people say that, and I try to educate people: ‘Please don’t say that to people, because I don’t care if you were four weeks, four months, nine months, it hurts.'”
On how the miscarriage affected her relationship:
“It was really hard. At first we were grieving together and there for each other, but then Kyle was in the mindset of like, 'Okay, this has happened, and it’s sad and it sucks, but we have to move on.' And I could not physically, emotionally, mentally move on. And so that caused a lot of tension because I wanted to talk about it every day, and every day I was upset. And he was like, 'Ok we have to move on.' And I was like, 'How dare you? We can’t move on. We can’t ever forget about her.' He’s like, 'I’m not saying we’re gonna forget about her but we have to start picking up the pieces.' And it was a lot of tension. It wasn’t until finally, we went to a therapist to be like, 'We’re fighting all the time. This is not good.'”
On losing the romance:
“With all the hormones and obsessiveness about having a child, it was like, making love was gone. It was just a job, it was a chore, it was so much pressure. I felt like the littlest thing would set me off, and that was hard, and then it would set Kyle off, and it was just fighting over nothing. Fights because we were both so frustrated with not being able to get pregnant that we’d pick fights with each other over stupid stuff: Dishes, laundry. It doesn’t matter, just because you are so angry.”
On jealousy:
“Another thing I was to talk about is jealousy. You don’t want to say you’re jealous of your friends, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t. Going to baby showers and seeing all these announcements on Facebook and Instagram and Twitter—it hurts. You want that so badly, and it’s like you’re trying everything. Every sex position, every natural supplement, every timed ovulation, everything and it’s not working, and it’s hard.”
On dealing with the press:
“Kyle and I finally came up with a statement that each of us felt comfortable saying. So that we weren’t caught off guard anymore because it happened so often. It was hard though—we would have to go to appearances or sponsor events and it was during this huge NASCAR baby boom—everybody was pregnant—babies everywhere. And it was so hard to just smile and be like, ‘Oh, you know, one day,' or 'We’re kinda busy right now but we do want a family,' to just have to lie and lie and lie. It was so much pressure that I finally was like, ‘You know what? Nope, I’m laying it all on the table. I would rather be honest and tell it like it is versus doing this fake smile, happy-go-lucky when you don’t feel that way.’ It’s mentally exhausting to have to pretend for people. And I was like, ‘I can’t do it ever again.’”
On the shame of infertility:
“This was seven-plus years ago, and so it wasn’t talked about like it was now. Instagram wasn’t this huge thing, there weren’t celebrities speaking out about it, it wasn’t in the mainstream media. So I just felt lost and I felt really embarrassed when I thought it was just me. Like, almost ashamed: Like, ‘I’m a woman, I’m supposed to be able to have a child, all my friends and family are having kids, what is this doing to our marriage?’”