Mandy Moore discusses getting pregnant naturally after a failed IVF attempt

Actress Mandy Moore recently discussed getting pregnant with her third child after a failed IVF attempt.

Key Takeaways:

• Mandy Moore married Taylor Goldsmith in 2018; together, they have three children.

• After the birth of her sons, she decided to try in vitro fertilization (IVF) in the hopes of freezing embryos for the future, but that effort was unsuccessful.

• She and her husband were thrilled and surprised when she got pregnant with her daughter naturally afterwards.

The Details:

Moore welcomed two boys in 2021 and 2022, and in a recent appearance on the "Not Skinny But Not Fat" podcast, she detailed her plans for a third child, which originally began with IVF.

"Very candidly, I had done a round of IVF," she said. "I was like, 'Okay, if we want to I had the extreme privilege of being able to get pregnant and carry both of my boys, and I thought, I'm getting older, and I would love to maybe have a tiny bit more space potentially between if we are going to have a third.' So, I did a round of IVF and it was unsuccessful. We didn't get any viable eggs, no embryos."

Mandy Moore: Friendship, Motherhood & Life with 3 Kids

At first, she assumed that meant a third child was not meant to be.

"I was like, okay, well, this just settles that," she recalled. "If this is something that's meant to be, it will happen naturally. Otherwise, I am so grateful and so happy with these two guys, and our family will be complete if that's the way it's supposed to unfold."

Then, in 2024, Moore announced the birth of her daughter, Louisa, who was conceived naturally in a surprise pregnancy.

"Lou just had to show up, and she showed up very, very surprisingly," Moore said. "We were not trying, but obviously we were open to it because of the IVF of it all."

Zoom In:

Moore clarified that she had never struggled with infertility, but had pursued IVF as an insurance policy for the future.

"I was like, okay, so perhaps we can get an embryo," she explained. "Because when people say freezing eggs, that includes going through IVF, basically. So we did one round of IVF, of freezing eggs, and it just didn't work. And so I was like, okay, I am totally satisfied, I tried that, and really grateful again that I have my boys, and if this is meant to be it, it'll happen."

Previously, Moore had said she had been told she might not ever be able to get pregnant.

"There was a time when I thought I might not be able to have kids. I remember when the doctor told me there was a slim chance of getting pregnant… and then lo and behold to our surprise, I became pregnant with Gus," she wrote in 2024. "Motherhood is a beautiful, messy, sleepless gift and to have two kiddos under two… whew!!!"

The Bottom Line:

Women are increasingly encouraged to pursue assisted reproductive technologies, either as a safeguard or when struggling with infertility. Yet things like IVF are not pro-life. Creating embryos — actual human beings — just to leave them frozen in case they might end up wanted one day is unethical, and turns children into products to be ordered, created, and thrown away on demand.