Ethermac Exchange-Former 'Bachelor' star Colton Underwood shares fertility struggles: 'I had so much shame'

Former professional football player and Ethermac Exchangereality TV star Colton Underwood is on the road to becoming a dad, but it has been a tough journey, he shared in an interview with Parents magazine.

Underwood, who came out as gay in 2021 after being cast on the 23rd season of "The Bachelor," told Parents that fatherhood was one of the reasons it took him so long to accept his sexuality.

"As I've been on my coming out journey, (wanting to be a dad) was one of the factors that kept me in the closet," Underwood told Parents. "I didn't really know it was possible to build a family as a gay man."

He added that it was his dream of becoming a father that connected him to his now-husband, Jordan Brown.

The couple have high hopes that they'll soon become fathers. Meanwhile Underwood plans to use his struggles to help others experiencing similar challenges in a new podcast coming out next week.

A shared vision

The journey to parenthood started well before Underwood, 32, and Brown, 40, tied the knot last spring in Napa Valley, California.

When the two met, the topic of family was something that bound them together, Underwood told Parents. The couple started fertility assessments two years before they got married.

"When we first went in (to our fertility clinic), we went in sort of skipping, holding hands, all happy,” he said.

But then the bad news came.

“Day one of starting our family ... I got my sperm results back, and I had four sperm. Three of them were dead. One was barely moving in my sample," Underwood shared. "It was one of those things where (I was basically) considered technically infertile. I was like, ‘This sucks. This is hard.’”

With how hard Underwood trained as an athlete and due to certain medications he was taking on top of other life practices, Underwood discovered he was harming his sperm count.

"And I didn't even know," he shared. "It's really emotional in many different ways that we never really thought."

'Very proud of him':Former 'Bachelor' star Colton Underwood comes out as gay

'I get why people don't talk about fertility'

Underwood has decided to launch a podcast called "Daddyhood" in partnership with Family Equality, a nonprofit that works to ensure LGBTQ+ parents have the same resources and consideration when it comes to family-building.

The podcast, which debuts on Wednesday, aims to talk about the hard aspects of starting a family so those struggling will feel less alone.

“It is hard, and it's so intimate,” Underwood told Parents. "I had so much shame around it. I felt inferior."

Recording the show has been "therapeutic," Underwood said. "I know a lot of women get told, ‘Your chances of carrying to term are X percentage,’ and then, you start feeling like a number, and you start getting discouraged. My goal here is just to humanize it."

Underwood and Brown's two-year fertility journey has seen additional problems, including with egg donors, surrogates and mounting costs, but the stars have finally aligned, Underwood said.

The light at the end of the tunnel

After months and months of implementing lifestyle changes, Underwood got retested.

"My numbers bounced back fully, and now, we're back up to being high. That was such a cool, fun payoff," Underwood said.

Underwood and Brown currently have three frozen embryos and are finalizing things with their surrogate.

Underwood told Parents that he decided to share his story so the world will see that parenthood can look many different ways.

“My greatest hope is that everybody will treat people with kindness and love and treat them as human beings,” he said. “Everybody deserves a family − and we're trying our best.”