Why Adrienne Houghton Stopped Trying To Have A Baby

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As the saying goes, “If you want to make God laugh, tell Him about your plans.”

Even if you’re not someone of deep faith, I think we can all agree that when it comes to life, there isn’t much we truly have control over that we can plan out to the T. It took for Adrienne Houghton to go through some disappointment on her family planning journey for her to realize that, and to truly let go and let God.

After announcing to the world at the beginning of 2018 that she was hoping to have a child with husband Israel Houghton within the year, Adrienne found herself feeling the need to explain why no pregnancy announcement had occurred as the year progressed. She went from saying that they actually didn’t start trying until the second half of the year, and dismissing concerns about her fertility, to finally admitting that things weren’t happening in the way she had planned and she wanted people to stop asking her about it.

On Friday’s episode of The Real, she revealed that at one point, she and Israel stopped trying altogether because the timeline she wanted to have a child on fell through.

“When I started family planning, I thought I had to set it all up,” she said. “I thought, I don’t want to miss an entire season of The Real or be home for like days or months with my baby. I was like, ‘Ok! I want to have a baby. If I can get pregnant between this window, then I can give birth’ — that’s not how it works. It didn’t work out that way. And now because you guys have made me feel so comfortable, you’re constantly encouraging me. You’re always like, ‘Girl, let God have His way,’ and it will happen when it’s going to happen. But I think I initially stopped myself from working because I think I was so stressed from the idea of ‘Well, if I give birth May 19 then I can…’ and it was so stressful and I think sometimes that can hinder you.”

“We even took time off,” she added. “We were like, ‘Aw man, it didn’t work out like I thought it was. Guess I’ll try next year.’ Isn’t that crazy, how we as women put so much pressure on ourselves that it didn’t work out for the timeline I thought I wanted, so I actually stopped trying? Isn’t that crazy?”

It’s not “crazy” per se, it’s just what happens when you put a lot of pressure on yourself and think you control a process. Who hasn’t been there?

Adrienne did say during an interview with us last year though, that she didn’t regret telling people about her wish to start a family in 2018.

“On a show like The Real, we’re literally on television every day, Monday through Friday, talking for an entire hour. And you just speak your heart and you pray that some of it works, some of it touches somebody’s heart, and some of it is pointless but you hope that they’ll get it. You may watch and be like, ‘Why is she saying this? This is dumb.’ And I get that. It ain’t for everybody. Everything I say is not going to be for everybody. But when it comes to sharing my personal life, I don’t regret it because, again, there is somebody that may be watching it that it may encourage. And at the same time, yes, it is crazy to hear every day that I’m pregnant when I am not pregnant. And that sometimes can get a little frustrating because man, the day that I do announce that I’m pregnant, people are going to be like, ‘This girl has been pregnant for the last two years!'”