Shilpa Shetty on why she chose surrogacy: ‘I had couple of miscarriages, waited years for adoption’

Actor Shilpa Shetty, who welcomed daughter Samisha through surrogacy earlier this year, has spoken about why she chose the route for having a baby. The actor and husband Raj Kundra have a son, Viaan Raj, together.

Talking about how she always wanted a sibling for her son, Shilpa told Pinkvilla in an interview, “After Viaan, I did want to have another child for the longest time. But I suffered from an auto immune disease called APLA and that came into play every time I get pregnant. So I had a couple of miscarriages so it was a genuine issue.”

Shilpa explained that she also tried adoption. “I didn’t want Viaan to grow up as a single child, because I’m also one of two and I know how important it is to have a sibling. Coming from that thought, I did explore other ideas as well but that didn’t pan out well. At a time when I wanted to adopt, I had put in my name and everything was underway. But then, the Christian missionary shut down because they had a tiff with Kara. I waited for nearly four years and then, I was so irritated and we decided to try the surrogacy route,” Shilpa revealed.

She went on to say that Samisha was born after three attempts. “We had been trying for second child for five years. I had signed Nikamma and had committed my dates to Hungama when I got the news that in February, we were going to be parents again. We cleared our work schedules for the whole month,” Shilpa had earlier told Hindustan Times.

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She also explained the meaning of Samisha: “‘Sa’ in Sanskrit is “to have”, and ‘Misha’ in Russian stands for ‘someone like God’. You personify this name - our Goddess Laxmi, and complete our family,” Shilpa had said.