Whitney Harbor opened up about the struggles she faces amid her motherhood journey, revealing why she still doesn’t feel “complete.”
“I don’t think motherhood is anything like what I imagined,” she said hills alum, 40 years old, said in an interview with Spread the jelly published on Thursday, January 29. “I never thought I’d be a mother of an only child. I always knew I wanted more than one. I didn’t imagine that, and that’s been a little weird for me. My identity as a mother still doesn’t feel fully established because I feel incomplete. I really do.”
Port and husband Tim Rosenman married in November 2015 and welcomed son Sonny, now 8, two years later. After welcoming Sonny, Port and Rosenman, 46, have struggled to expand their family.
“I’m trying to get to a place of acceptance with having a child, because I haven’t been able to get pregnant with a second,” she continued. “We’re still on the journey and we’re still trying. But I feel like there’s a piece of my motherhood pie that’s not complete.”
Port confessed that she feels “insecure” as a mother because she is the mother of a son.
“That sounds awful, but there’s this feeling that it’s not enough, or it’s not that hard, it’s not that much to balance, or it’s not the whole picture,” he explained. “And I carry that insecurity. I’ve worked around it a lot. Most of the time, I’m able to say to myself, ‘OK, if it’s just us, it’s wonderful.'”
Although Port feels “so grateful” to have been able to have Sonny, there is a “part” of her that “doesn’t feel complete.”
Port has had her fair share of struggles amid her journey to expand her family. She has it she suffered multiple miscarriages and underwent fertility treatments.
“It’s been seven years of trying since Sonny. I got pregnant about a year after I was born, and then it was miscarriage after miscarriage. I got pregnant but the pregnancies didn’t stick,” she reflected. “Finally, I was told my chances would be better with a fertility doctor. I went to one who came highly recommended and began the process of egg retrieval, embryo freezing and IVF.”
Port recalled going through the recovery process, but was unable to complete a transfer after getting “very sick with a stomach virus” that caused a tear in his esophagus.
“After I recovered physically, I realized I had hit rock bottom physically and emotionally,” she said. “All the stress of years of trying, the miscarriages, the anxiety about the transfer not working, it had been four years at that point.”
Port and Rosenman discussed the idea of surrogacy. Port, for his part, had not considered the option as he was “afraid of the sentence”.
Hills alum Whitney Port and her husband, Tim Rosenman, are hopeful about their fertility journey in 2026. “The surrogacy journey is on a positive trajectory,” Port, 40, began on the Friday, Jan. 2, episode of her self-titled “With Whit” podcast. “We have just signed our contract and now we are waiting for the next steps for a transfer, but (…)
“I felt like I hadn’t done everything yet, so I didn’t deserve this option. I rejected the idea for a while,” he admitted. “Then I started talking to people who had used surrogates and had similar experiences. I decided to take my power back and see it as a privilege; I don’t need to keep putting my body through after six years of trying. I was 41 and I was losing myself.”
The couple found a replacement and did “two transfers,” but both failed. At one point, the surrogate was “pregnant for 11 weeks” before suffering a miscarriage. Since that tragic loss, Port shared that she and Rosenman went back to the drawing board.
“We decided it was best to change all the variables. We changed doctors, did another round of egg retrieval and embryo freezing and found a new surrogate,” she said. “We are now at the point of contracts with the replacement and we hope to make a transfer at the end of this year. This is where we are now.”