The Heartbreaking Reason TLC's Whitney Way Thore Doesn't Think She'll Have Kids

Two years ago, Whitney Way Thore put her plans for the future on ice. 

She had some anxiety "thinking to myself that my opportunity to have children could just be taken away from me," she explained to E! News at the time. And she thought that freezing her eggs might relieve some of the pressure. "I've got to remember that life has a time line all of its own," she noted, "so I'm kind of open to anything."

Including, she recently revealed, the possibility that parenting won't be a part of her fabulous life. 

"I was just crying about this yesterday," the single star confessed in an exclusive interview with E! News Aug. 23. "My goal would have always been to have a child with a partner. Single motherhood is probably not something that I'm interested in."

And with dating currently going, in a word, "horribly," the 39-year-old has begun to let go of her dream of that nuclear family. 

"My eggs are still on ice. So, I mean, if I met somebody tomorrow, and we decided..." she began before trailing off. "But, even then, I would still want years with a person."

And with her milestone 40th birthday on the horizon next April, "It's hard to come to terms with feeling like that really, legitimately is not going to happen," she shared. "And that, for me, biologically pretty soon it will be an impossibility. And then that's just it, it's done."

While the star of My Big Fat Fabulous Life, which returns to TLC Sept. 5, acknowledges that not every woman dreams of having kids, she had always envisioned a future of diapers and sleep deprivation. 

"I'm really sad about the fact that I just don't think it's in the cards for me," Whitney said. "I'm like, God, people have babies all the time, it's the easiest most natural thing in the world and somehow it just never happened for me?"

And for Whitney, that perceived reality feels all the more crushing when she thinks about her mom Barbara "Babs" Thore, who died last December. 

Referencing a Rupi Kaur poem she recently read, Whitney paraphrased, "She was saying, if I yelled at the sky long enough, could my mother come back to me as my child so I could give her all the love she gave me?" 

The words from the Canadian poet cut deep, said Whitney, "I just lost it. I mean, I would love if I could mother someone the way that she mothered me."

Losing her mom Babs to a prolonged battle with cerebral amyloid angiopathy, a condition that causes strokes and can lead to dementia, continued Whitney, "I started to think in a practical way about what about when I'm old. I mean, Lord, hope I'll be married by then. But if I don't have a husband, like, literally, who will take care of me? Who will love me? It's all very scary. So I try not to think about it, honestly."

Because getting back in the dating game following a split with her former French suitor hasn't had her feeling l'amour, Whitney revealing she's more likely to match with her brother Hunter Thore on a dating app ("I always have to swipe left on him real quick") than a potential husband. 

"I was like, 'I'm going to make myself go on one date, every month,'" she recalled of her strategy, "as though that was something that was in my control. And I think I've only been on one and it's been six months."

The main issue, she surmised, is that "the only men that want me are the 21 year olds, the 19, 18 year olds. And to them, I'm an older woman." 

In the spirit of keeping an open mind, she continued, "Sometimes I'll match just to see what they'll say. And they'll be like, 'I've always wanted to be with an older woman.' And I'm like, 'I'm not that for you. I don't know what that is. I can't teach you how to use the oven.' I don't know what to do with that. So that's been weird—really, really weird."

On the flip side, she said, "Men that are 10 years older than me, to me, look like my grandfather. So I can't do that either. So it might just be me and the cats and the dog."

And if that's the case, she's ready to load up on the squeaky toys. "I don't know what my love life holds," she admitted. "But it doesn't look promising, if I'm being honest."

Still, Whitney's got one very special man in her life. The self-described daddy's girl has been moving forward from her mom's death by helping dad Glenn Thore work through his grief. 

Tasked with completing a bucket list that included matching family tattoos, a glacier hike and indoor skydiving, Glenn really rose to the occasion, she shared. "He did amazing and I love to see him blossom and flourish and be celebrated," Whitney said. "He's totally rebranded. He's not Glenn Thore anymore. He's GT. That's his new persona. So you're gonna see a side to Glenn Thore that you've never seen."

My Big Fat Fabulous Life premieres on Tuesday, September 5th at 9pm ET/PT on TLC.