The 42-year-old star is married to wife Deborra-Lee Furness and they have two adopted children - Oscar, 11, and Ava, six.
He spoke to Australia’s Herald Sun about the moment they discovered they weren’t able to have children naturally.
He said: ‘It was painful. It’s not easy. You put a lot of time and effort into it, so it’s emotional.
‘I think any parent can relate - trying to have children is wonderful and when you feel as though that’s not going to happen, there’s a certain anxiety that goes with it.’
He added: ‘We thought we’d have a kid or two biologically and then adopt. But when we decided we’d had enough of IVF, we went ahead with adoption.’
However the couple soon moved on with their plans to become parents.
Jackman said: ‘From the moment we started the adoption process, all the anxiety went away. I don’t think of them as adopted - they’re our children.
‘Deb and I are believers in I suppose you could call it destiny. We feel things happened the way they are meant to. Obviously, biologically wasn’t the way we were meant to have children.
‘Now, as we go through life together, sure there are challenges, but everyone’s in the right place with the right people. It sounds airy-fairy, but it’s something we feel very deeply.’
“And I kept saying to Hugh when we were in discussions early on. I said I havn’t got a message yet, I’m waiting for a message. And I was on a flight from Los Angeles to Toronto where Hugh was shooting X-Men 1, I think it was, and I was sitting on this flight and I looked out the window and there was this incredible electric storm outside the window and it was so beautiful, I was just staring at it and I said to the guy sitting next to me, “Wow, look at that, it’s amazing, where are we, and he said I think we’re somewhere over Iowa,” And I, I knew that that was the birth mother I had been speaking to and I grabbed the stewardess and I said do you know where we are and she said oh come up here and took me up to the pilot’s cabin it was before September 11, and went in there and I said where are we? And he said, see down there, there’s Cedar Rapids, and tears started to roll down my face and I knew that was my message. And I loved it, it was like it wasn’t a subtle message, it was like, it’s me already, it’s like this huge electrical storm.”
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