Gabrielle Union was 'devastated' when Dwyane Wade had a baby with another woman before they got married

"The experience of Dwyane having a baby so easily while I was unable to left my soul not just broken into pieces," the actress writes in her new book.

• Gabrielle Union opens up about her now-husband Dwyane Wade having a child while they were broken up.
• In her new book, "You Got Anything Stronger?" Union details that the two "were not in a good place."
• "To say I was devastated is to pick a word on a low shelf for convenience," Union wrote.
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In her new book, Gabrielle Union opened up about Dwyane Wade having a baby outside their relationship when the two were broken up.

"To say I was devastated is to pick a word on a low shelf for convenience," Union said in her newly-released memoir "You Got Anything Stronger?"

The "Bring It On" star and the retired NBA star have been dating since 2008 and married in 2014. Wade is a father to Zaire, 19, Zaya, 14, and Xavier, 7, from a previous relationship, and has a 2-year-old, Kaavia, with Union. Wade also fathered a now-7-year-old son, Xavier, with Aja Métoyer.

"It should go without saying that we were not in a good place in our relationship at the time that child was conceived," Union wrote in her book. "But we were in a much better place when he finally told me about the pregnancy."

Noting that "strangers who I will never meet" have been upset that she's never spoken about the incident before, Union explained why: "I have not had words and even after untold amounts of therapy I am not sure I have them now."

Union also opened about the emotional process of her not being able to conceive naturally and the role it played in their relationship. The actress has previously said she's had "eight or nine" miscarriages due to being diagnosed with adenomyosis, a condition that effects the uterus, but noted in her book that in actually she "could not give an exact number."

"The experience of Dwyane having a baby so easily while I was unable to left my soul not just broken into pieces, but shattered into fine dust scattering in the wind," she said. "With desperate hands, we gathered what we could to slowly remake me into something new."

After a doctor told Union that her "best chance for a healthy baby would be surrogacy," it became an option she had to consider. The two then welcomed daughter Kaavia through surrogacy in 2018.

Union's book, "You Got Anything Stronger?" is available now in stores.