HGTV / YouTube Mina Starsiak Hawk
HGTV host Mina Starsiak Hawk is letting fans into one of the hardest times in her life. In a March 6 Instagram story, the “Good Bones” host shared “The video I took after being told I would never have [my 2-year-old daughter] Charlie without [an] egg donor in December of 2019…..]”.
The video is of Starsiak Hawk, behind the wheel of her parked car, crying as she speaks into the camera.
“Just had my post-IVF round consultation and pretty much there aren’t any other options for me other than adopting or using an egg donor because I have hardly any eggs left, and the ones that they can – even the one I got this round I guess, from the very beginning, wasn’t developing properly and probably never was going to,” Starsiak Hawk said. This news came as a shock after the television personality had her first child, Jack (4), with relative ease.
“So now we just need to decide if we want to wait and do nothing, or start the egg donor process, or think about adoption, or just have Jack, which is awesome, but it’s just tough. Like I built this big house for our family and kids, and just a lot to think about. Yeah, that’s it,” Starsiak Hawk said, abruptly ending the video.
Mina Starsiak Hawk Detailed Her Fertility Journey on Her Podcast ‘Mina AF’
Starsiak Hawk shared this emotional Instagram story after releasing an episode of her “Mina AF” podcast all about her fertility journey. She first describes how easy it was for her to get pregnant the first time, detailing how she and her husband Steve Hawk married in June of 2016, and by the first weekend in November, she was pregnant with her son Jack. While she didn’t have many bumps in the road with this first pregnancy, Starsiak Hawk said that she did require an emergency C-section after 36 hours of labor.
This didn’t stop the host from trying for baby number two as soon as the doctors allowed it. “I wanted Irish twins, I wanted them to be less than 12 months apart. So we started pretty much right after I was cleared to have sex again, which I think is like six weeks.” After a little time had passed, Starsiak Hawk began having tests done to see why she wasn’t becoming pregnant as quickly the second time.
After learning she did not have many eggs left, Starsiak Hawk began the IVF process, which she documented on camera for HGTV. It was after one round of IVF that her doctor informed her that the likelihood of success was very low without an egg donor.
Mina Starsiak Hawk Got Pregnant Through IUI
After IVF treatments didn’t work for her, Starsiak Hawk got a second opinion from another doctor who suggested she attempt IUI, an artificial insemination treatment. Starsiak Hawk found out the treatment had worked and she was pregnant in a gas station bathroom while on her lunch break from filming “Good Bones”.
Starsiak Hawk remembered having to go to her doctor for the first ultrasound, unsure if there would be a heartbeat given her fertility struggles up until that point. She described her decision to have a camera crew film the ultrasound, saying, “The whole point of this – being on the show, having the platform, doing the podcast – is to share it all, and to give people the real story.”
Luckily, there was a heartbeat, and Starsiak Hawk was able to carry the pregnancy to term. “That was Charlie, and the rest is kind of history,” Starsiak Hawk said.