Colton Underwood Says Finding Out About His Infertility Was “Devastating” To His Ego

Before Colton Underwood went on The Bachelor, or The Bachelorette, even before he was in the NFL, his second grade teacher asked him to draw a picture of what he wanted to be when he grew up. When he drew a football player, the teacher told him to redo the assignment. “They were like, ‘pick a more realistic goal and career.’ That’s what she said,” Underwood tells me. “So then I went back to my desk and I drew me at home.” When the teacher asked what this career was meant to be, he explained, “I’m going to be a stay-at-home dad. That’s very much still a goal of mine.”

Fatherhood has been on Underwood’s mind a lot lately both personally with husband Jordan Brown and professionally. On Feb. 16, he launched his new podcast, Daddyhood, which explores infertility and other challenges for queer couples hoping to build families together. The first full episode was released Feb. 21.

Fatherhood, Underwood explains, was one of the very first things he and Brown bonded over when they first started dating. “We both knew we wanted to be parents and we wanted to have kids, so we knew pretty early on,” he says. But when they began taking steps toward realizing their dream, they were met with a shock. Underwood’s sperm count was in the single digits (fewer than 15 million sperm per milliliter is considered low) and what little he had appeared to have motility issues.

“I think I was pretty casual and naive in a way about fertility,” he explains. “I just figured I’m healthy. Look at me! I work out every day. I feel like I watch what I eat, I do all of these great things. So it came to as a complete shock and it was both devastating to my ego, but then also just it was really emotional. I know why men don’t talk about it, and when they do, it’s with shame.”

And due to that shame, perhaps, Underwood found talking about infertility with others complicated, both on a personal level and logistically. While he eventually opened up with a limited circle of family and friends, he nevertheless felt there wasn’t a space or community he felt he could turn to.

“That’s sort of why I started Daddyhood,” he says. “I realized that a lot of people don’t talk about it. A lot of people carry such shame and stigma, and also they have their own ways of processing different traumas through this. And I never really felt comfortable pushing or poking. It’s also so intimate. It’s a little bit more of a delicate dance than just a casual, ‘You should go see my nutritionist or my chiropractor.’ This is a really intense and invasive way to help people.”

Daddyhood seeks to raise awareness on the world of IVF, surrogacy, family planning, fertility, adoption, and other paths to parenthood, centering on LGBTQ+ experiences. Underwood explains that even as more and more same-sex and queer couples are opting for parenthood, it’s still underrepresented. “It’s not as flashy or sexy or cool as other aspects of our community,” he says. “A lot of people in our community don’t really have the desire to have families or to be parents, and that is completely fine, too.”

“It’s taken me a few years to really find my lane in our community, and I sort of found that in the intersection of sports culture with queer culture,” Underwood adds. “Now I’m leaning into this, and this could be another cool area and topic for me to really try to be a voice and to represent to my fullest.”

Underwood says that as soon as he began to dive into the world of infertility and family building, he began to reassess his own approach to the subject, starting with the misconception that fertility was a women’s issue. But his shift went beyond simply new information and misunderstandings. “Even my approach with talking to new couples and people who are recently married, I experienced that. ‘When’s kids coming in?’ I’m not going to sit there and be like, ‘I don’t know. When I get my sperm to be healthy?’ I’m not going to say that. It is a pretty invasive question that we always just throw out there and we sort of pressure people into answering.”

As he delved into Daddyhood, he also began to understand on a grander, legal scale how difficult it can be for some, especially LGBTQ+ folks, to have the families. “It’s been so eye-opening; this system is broken. There are 13 states right now that can still openly discriminate against same-sex couples when it comes to adoption. Up until a few years ago, even in California, [non-biological same-sex parents] would have to legally go in and adopt their spouse’s baby because it wouldn’t qualify as their kid. There definitely still are little loopholes like that. How are we not seeing this? Fixing [these loopholes] seem like no-brainers,” he smirks ruefully, “but also you would feel like that for other topics in our country, and we make a big deal of them.”

In addition to Daddyhood, Underwood has advocated for the passage of the TEAMS (Targeting Emotional And Mental Stability) Act in Congress through the Colton Underwood Legacy Foundation, which includes legislation that would allow colleges and universities to receive funding to implement life-saving mental health programs. “I think it’s getting better these days,” he concedes, “but there’s still stigma around mental health and then asking for help. I think back when I was playing, you were only supposed to go ask for help when you were in crisis or when it was too late.”

Give the high-stress environment of sports, I ask Underwood if he’d be inclined to let his hypothetical future child pursue athletics at an elite level like he did.

“I would encourage them,” he says immediately. “I mean, the thing is just letting them be who they want to be when they grow up is so important. Letting the kids find themselves, but yet give them enough guidance and structure to be successful and to help inspire and motivate them is my goal.”

Whether he’ll be doing this encouraging as a working dad or stay-at-home dad — per his childhood dream — remains to be seen. Certainly, he’s pushing for the latter. “I joke with my husband all the time that I’m going to be a stay-at-home dad. And he’s like, ‘No, you’re not’ and I’m like, ‘Well, we’ll see…’” he smiles. “I still have the opportunity to possibly get both of my careers done that I picked when I was in the second grade.”

Daddyhood is available now on Spotify and wherever else you listen to podcasts. New episodes will be released weekly.