>> age is the major factor in predicting ivf success rates. >> the stress of infertility can destroy a woman. >> i realized i was having a miscarriage. >> we have been trying for ten years. >> i'm channelle jones from nbc news, a journalist, but also a mom, wife, friend, sister, and listened to so many stories over the years of what happened behind closed doors but i believe it's time to come together and talk about it. i've looped in some of my best friends and we've decided to share, openly, and honestly. >> obviously, this is happening to a lot of women, especially black women. >> just being able to help someone, is why i want to talk to more people about it and let people know it's very common. >> every woman has a story. this is ours. >> i know each one of you in different ways, and i think about, we talk about the fairy tale of first comes love then comes marriage and think about the brides mads and everyone behind me on my wedding day, then i close my eyes and think about all my friends, you know, more than half if not half of them are having problems, and we never saw it coming. >> tell me now, when you are by yourself, laying your head down on your pillow at night, do you allow yourself to grieve for a second then you snap out of it? >> for the longest time, i used to rely on my willpower to get me through and say, just keep focused on the destination, and at the time, the destination was, you're going to get the baby. i'm a problem solver. i can bare it if i get there, but then it's 10 years and i'm like, i'm tired. and there's loss. there is loss in infertility, there is pain, and there is grief like you would never understand unless you've endured it. >> i have worn this dress only one time. this was the dress i had on when the doctors told me they couldn't find my little boy's heartbeat. >> when she said, could you hold on a second, i'm going to go get the doctor, i just lost it. i am so sad, and i am so broken. >> i just kind of, hide it in the closet somewhere. >> my name is ada. i stopped counting ivfs after number eight. my diagnosis was stage four endometriosis and multiple fibroids, we have been trying for ten years. >> every month, when you have a menstrual period, what you're shedding and what you're bleeding is something called the endometrium, but for people with endometriosis those cells go back into your fallopian tubes into your abdomen and in rare cases can go in your lungs or brain and cause a lot of pain, every time you have a period and sometimes in between. >> i watched mom every month have painful periods. mine happened at 11. i got to school and i remembered rounding the corner and i felt this rush of pain coming from my uterus that was consuming my entire body. i don't understand, like i'm so hot, what's happening. i passed out in the hallway and that was the beginning of 25-year journey, before i got a diagnosis. i remember the doctor not responding how i thought a doctor would. the doctor definitely belittled the pain. oh, just make sure she started taking tylenol a few days before the period. you start with the regular strength tylenol. i've definitely gone up from the 200 to now 800 milligrams that i use a couple of times a day. after, you know, 30-something years, it takes a toll. for someone to just dismiss you and say yeah, i hear you're in pain, but just do this. you start to think, well, i guess this is a me problem. >> fibroids are an overgrowth of the muscle layer of the uterus. about 80% of women will suffer from fibroids, black women are at higher risk of developing fibroids. there's thought to be a genetic component of why fibroids affect women of color disproportionately, unfortunately not enough research behind that to really identify those layers and identify particular genes. >> when i would lay down, you kind of see this mountain, you know, and i wonder what this is? that little mountain was the fibroid. i finally got a name for it, now i can fix it. what was supposed to be 30 minutes was six, seven hours. when he went in, he said there was endometriosis lesions everywhere and when he came out his first comment to us was how did you bare this for so long? finally, somebody sees me and can understand that i'm not crazy after all. i actually, in my mind, thought, i've paid my dues. i've dealt with the pain, i've missed classes, i've rescheduled my wedding, so when it's time to have a family, you have a family. i never put two and two together. i didn't realize the spectrum of infertility versus fertility. i remember at that time also going to a learning about ivf session and i didn't expect to hear the stories i heard. i was hearing stories like we're in ivf number eight because we get pregnant but i've had fire stillbirths. then i heard a lady say i'm in my 17th year of ivf. i packed up my keys and i ran out of there, because i thought oh no, the doctor said i'm a great candidate. i don't know what they're talking about. so this is ivf number eight. from ivf four to eight was just awful. by the end of 2016, '17, we had four embryos. out of those four, we lost three. and we're down to one. i would sometimes say i feel bad, i wish you wouldn't have married me, because you didn't sign up for this. and he would say don't tell me what i signed up, i signed up to love you. but i still struggle with it. whether or not he knew he wanted kids then or later, i feel guilty. for the fifth ivf, i think something started to change because i started hearing him say, i don't want to lose you. he would tell me, i did not marry you for this but i'm also not going to keep allowing you to do more ivfs and more surgeries, because with every one comes a risk. i really think ivf and grief go hand-in-hand. there's just misconception with infertility that you should always be headed in some direction and it should end with a child. i am okay with where i am now. that this is what it is for me. it just seems like now we're doing life and it's a good place to be. >> for me, i always felt like i can't talk about it until i get the baby. i'm talking about it now because this is a place, and i think there are more people in this place of what if, never, when? 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(vo) reflect on the past, celebrate the future. season's greetings from audi. mom, hurry! our show's gonna start soon! i promised i wouldn't miss the show and mommy always keeps her promises. oh, no! seriously? hmm! it's not the same if she's not here. oh. -what the. oh my goodness! i don't suppose you can sing, can you? ♪ the snow's comin' down ♪ -mommy? ♪ i'm watching it fall ♪ watch the full story at www.xfinity.com/sing2 you know, fertility is something a lot of families deal with, whether white, black, asian, it doesn't matter. but what is it about being a woman of color you think adds another layer? >> my family came from a colonized nation, and it's still that sense of your worth is tied to what your womb can produce and if you're not producing there's no reason to even consider you a woman or consider you of value. and that comes through all of our foremothers to us on this couch in this moment. >> generational trauma. >> yes. >> which is quite impossible to undo in some cases. >> it was a little bit of a panic in her eyes. my mom says you're supposed to be getting married yourself and you're supposed to be starting a family yourself, and you're not meeting this expectation. it just felt like, if i don't get started on this, i'm going to be a huge disappointment. >> i'm tracy vrume, i'm in my early 40s. growing up, there was an expectation to be a good girl and that meant don't get pregnant, have a boy friend, then there was a mandate that i had to have a husband. for me, marriage wasn't necessarily the end-all, be-all, not necessarily the finale of the show. decided well, maybe not get there so might as well have fun and that's what i did. once we got married i was like great, and then, you know, questions of are you going to have children, he said to me this is not a maybe we will, maybe we won't thing to me. this is a, obviously we will. and i said to him, well, for me, it's a if it happens it happens, if it doesn't, it doesn't. and looking into his eyes and saying now what if we never have children? all that was onna, on the table, and it created a deeper connection with my husband for honesty and laid the groundwork for later the serious hard work of partnering. why were on a ski trip in utah and thought i was pregnant so i bought a pregnancy test, kind of early, still twilight outside, went take the test in the bathroom all by myself, got the lines, tapped him on the shoulder, show him the two lines, he flips out. i flip out. we're crying. it was a beautiful morning. and then we got back from that and then i started to miscarry. a few months went by. then it was some healing and some stays and sense that the kind of pain i went through hyperfocused me that i think i really want this. i want to raise a baby together, to know what it's like to be pregnant and have all those precious moments. i want that, and i want that with you. okay. let's do it. after months and months of trying, it just wasn't happening again. we were not getting pregnant. i'm seeing things are not moving, i go to my gyn, my gyn says you need to speak to a specialist. this is the hardest part. doctor is saying to me you'll have to do a test called hsg which tests your fallopian tubes to see whether or not they are functioning in the way they're supposed to function. then we get to the procedure, and it's extremely painful. and i'm screaming, screaming please, please, and he's you're going to be fine, just, push the fluids so it opens up, and the nurse is holding my hand and finally all right, he flipped around the screen and says see, here, here, those blockages. you're going to have to have ivf to have a baby, thanks, and leaves the room. i'm just laying there. my husband calls me, says how is everything, are you okay? first, breaking the news to him that you're not going to be able to give it to him, so it was the death of a life, expectations, the view on my own body. >> in vitro fertilization, known as ivf you're taking follicle stimulating hormone to try to grow as many eggs at one time. at the end of that seven to 10 day proximate hormone stimulation, you take the trigger shot and then you have an egg retrieval in the operating room. i think it's very important to acknowledge that it can be a long road. the process is complicated, it's emotional, it's trying. i think that most people will be successful if they persevere, but that doesn't mean that it happens the first time for everyone, but you should not give up. >> these are all the used needles. side by side, they will measure the length. >> i think i had fertilized seven embryos and only two ended up being that really high quality. on implantation day we had two embryos we needed to implant and she did implant two embryos and then there's a waiting period to see if the embryo did implant. two-week waiting period is a very big saying in ivf world. it's a lot of, god, it's like you're almost doing a rain dance while you're brinking juices, i mean like, it's all the things. you're doing everything you can think of, so that this is a successful implantation. then you get the pregnancy confirmation, and it was a beautiful morning. and a year later, i had her. i was holding her in my arms. i do believe that i was destined to be a mom. i love that my daughter is considered a rainbow baby. she's a child actor miscarriage, renaming this not infertility but fertility. >> i'm very thankful to see what you've all been through, after a certain age, you start asking yourself, why am i not married. >> why not me? married. >> >> why not me? only in theaters december 17th. ordinary tissues burn when theo blows. so puffs plus lotion rescued his nose. with up to 50% more lotion, puffs bring soothing relief. a nose in need deserves puffs indeed. america's #1 lotion tissue. nicorette knows, quitting smoking is freaking hard. you get advice like: try hypnosis... or... quit cold turkey. kidding me?! instead, start small. with nicorette. which can lead to something 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beautiful, doing well, work-wise, but still searching for a life partner. >> yeah, i mean, a lot of people are married at my age. after spending most of my life as a single person, after you reach a certain age you start asking like, why am i not married? what's wrong with me? okay, so i received all of my medications in the mail. so this is what we're going to be working with. my name is whitney, i'm 35 years old, i'm an entertainment lawyer and i always saw myself getting married and having kids. this is everything. on my 34th birthday, i came home from work. i had just started the dream job, had my apartment in new york, and there was nobody to share it with. i'm alone. i literally have no one to share my life with right now. and i cried now that i'm 35, i feel that runway to find a partner and have a fame is getting shorter and shorter and shorter and shorter. >> i was in my late '20s early 30s and when i started my internship and there were people struggling, the relationship we have with our doctors, with our family, with our friends, leads to stress and loss of information later on that is difficult to overcome. it's extremely frustrating to see women going through struggles that they may not have had to go through if they had the proper information. so i started talking to my sister about it when she was in college, really encouraging her to take control of her fertility as i tried do with my own. >> i probably would not have frozen my eggs if i didn't have a sister who is fertility specialist. it really wasn't until my 30s that my sister started encouraging me to freeze my eggs. when she pulled me aside and said no, whitney, i think you should really think about freezing your eggs my initial response was no, i'm too young for that, my whole future is ahead of me. >> it's really difficult to watch my own sister go through egg freezing. i don't want her or anyone else to feel like they're giving up hope when they choose to freeze their eggs. it's really empowering more than anything else, but that's a difficult message to get across to somebody who may feel like they don't want it in their lives in terms of relationship or infertility, so my point of reaching out to her, hope she reaches out to her friends and really start empowering ourselves and taking charge of fertility. >> this is day four of taking medications to freeze my eggs and yeah, let's see how this goes. >> i asked my parents if they thought i should do it and they're both like oh yeah, you should difficult do that. and i was actually very surprised by that reaction. and so, i was like, well, damn, i guess i should just go ahead and do this. >> i'm starting to feel a little bit on the moody side. unsure if that is anything related to the hormones i'm taking or if it's just the state of life. i thought of egg freezing as something people do when they have given up hope on their dating lives and freezing their eggs is the only option for now. >> okay. ready and [ laughter ] okay, okay. it honestly was not as bad as i thought it would be. first thing first, you go to the doctor and get your blood work done. then, once you get your test results back, you start the process of giving yourself shots. let's do this. for seven to 10 days, i gave myself three injections. by the ninth day, my follicles had grown large enough that the eggs inside were ready. then, one of my friends gave me the trigger shot. once you take the trigger shot, you go in for the surgery. all right, about to go in for retrieval. i've gone through two different cycles of egg freezing. the first time i had 14 mature eggs and then this time, i had eight mature eggs. as somebody who doesn't like to believe my fertility is dwindling every year, my body really is changing the older i get, so now i feel grateful. i can honestly say, it has been very empowering. there's a difference between giving up hope, and then feeling empowered. and i think it's important for people to lift that veil of embarrassment and change they might feel and be vulnerable with their friends. because as soon as you do that, you find other people you can share your story with. >> i think one of the things that will take the change away is the information and understanding. because i think people don't understand how common miscarriage and infertility are. i had a miscarriage and went to my friend's baby shower that same day. >> same day? >> same day. day >> same day? >> same day. how about a throwback? ♪ liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty ♪ only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty ♪ (vo) for fourteen years, subaru and our retailers have been sharing the love with those who need it most. now subaru is the largest automotive donor to make-a-wish and meals on wheels. and the largest corporate donor to the aspca and national park foundation. get a new subaru during the share the love event and subaru will donate two hundred and fifty dollars to charity. i've got moderate to 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the water is freezing. nice! if it's got to be clean, it's got to be tide. superpowers from a spider bite? i could use some help showing the world how liberty mutual customizes their car insurance. ow! i'm ok! only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ only in theaters december 17th. another thing i want to talk about is carrying the secret when you're moving forward with your life, you know, people are working, we're in school, you have relationships and you're carrying this secret. and yet, it's one of the biggest and most painful things a lot of people have dealt with. how do you describe that? >> i feel like when i was experiencing miscarriages of course i felt like i could only talk about it strangers, if i was on a flight, start chatting with the person on your right. yes. right. and we would start chatting and somehow it came up i had a miscarriage and almost inevitably they would start tell me about their fertility challenges as well. >> i'm one of those people that like to deal with challenges on my own, i am 41 years old, i always knew i wanted a house full of children. we got married two months after our we got pregnant. having got married a little later at 36, i said this was a little later than i had planned but we were both excited. it never crossed my mind that when we were trying to start our family that we would have challenges. i remember touching my stomach all the time, just, oh my gosh, there's this life inside of me and started thinking what this child will look like and be with and all my dreams for this child. that happens right away. i had just started spotting, did research and found that spotting can be normal, but it did say if the spotting gets heavier, go see your doctor. you may be having a miscarriage. i remember sitting on the toilet and i think at some point, i realized that i was having a miscarriage. i looked into it, that miscarriages are fairly common, it happens all the time, the doctor said the same thing, it's sad, it happens, but give your body and emotional self a couple months to recover and then try again. about six months later, got pregnant right away, went to the doctor, at the 10-week appointment and i'm thinking i'm having issues, so good. when the doctor was doing the ultrasound they heard and saw the heart beat but it was week. doctor told me, we hear a heartbeat today but next time you come in, we probably won't. i came to terms with it and just accepted that this was going to end in a miscarriage. you have an opportunity to have the babies removed from the uterus but i tend to want to keep a natural approach if possible. allowing to let it happen naturally was taking control back and saying that i have control over my body and don't want to do anything that i don't want to do. i really felt like i want this to happen naturally and if if they're supposed to pass naturally, let's let them pass naturally. i had a friend's baby shower that i had to attend in new york. on this particular weekend, i felt cramping, i started spotting, and i was like oh, man, this is going to happen. and so at two, 3:00 a.m. at my friend's apartment, i went into the bathroom and i miscarried. this one was definitely a lot more sad than the first one. just a lot going on in your head and a lot of emotions to deal with. i have to keep moving, keep pushing. this will not break me, this will not derail my plans, my life. so that's when i was like, i want to go to fertility specialist, see if there's something wrong, something we can diagnose or fix, i'm just a problem solver by nature. all came back with no issue, no problem, you have plenty of eggs, you're healthy, fertile, sometimes miscarriages just happen. that's what my fertility doctor said, my obgyn said, what the research says. i took a couple months and we tried again that summer, and got pregnant right away, so getting pregnant has never been an issue for us. some of the excitement and care-freeness and joy that you think of about being pregnant is taken away from you because you're worried everyday and this time, i remember sort of praying that i didn't have a third miscarriage, i remember saying god, i just, i can't. you know, just, come on. like i just can't, i can't do another miscarriage, please let this be the pregnancy that comes to fruition. and it did. i have a beautiful daughter. it's such a rush of just emotions and excitement and amazement, the pain you go through for however many hours you're in labor, doesn't matter, i held my baby for the first time, she was perfect, and i was just over the moon to be at this place in our fertility journey. now, having two beautiful, healthy, wonderful daughters, it's a conversation in our household, are we going to try for one more. make it a trilogy. in retrospect i probably would not have kept it in so much, because every time i spoke with someone or shared my story, it was healing and comforting to be able to talk and share openly. don't keep it to yourself and, you know, know that the family that you want is still very much attainable, if that's what you want. i think when you don't have that information, when you have your first miscarriage or you're trying to get pregnant and it's still happening or realizing it's never going to happen, but that's a pretty common aspect of the fertility journey. that information will help you know, this may be a step along the process and i don't have to be ashamed about it, that's how bodies work and that's how pregnancies work and i don't have to feel hopeless because there may be many other steps along the way. >> i think it's important for people to be informed more than anything else. like ask questions. i think sometimes going to the doctor's office can be very intimidating and unfortunately in our medical system it's like they have to move on and move on very quickly and we're not trained to ask questions, because sometimes we don't even know the next question to ask. -hey tex, -wooo. can someone else get a turn? yeah, hang on, i'm about to break my own record. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ with downy infusions, let the scent set the mood. feel the difference with downy. the best things america makes are the things america makes out here. the history she writes in her clear blue skies. the legends she births on hometown fields. and the future she promises. when we made grand wagoneer, proudly assembled in america, we knew no object would ever rank with the best things in this country. but we believed we could make something worthy of their spirit. trelegy for copd. ♪ birds flyin' high ♪ ♪ you know how i feel ♪ (coughing) ♪ breeze driftin' on by ♪ ♪ you know how i feel ♪ copd may have gotten you here, but you decide what's next. start a new day with trelegy. ♪ ...feelin' good ♪ no once-daily copd medicine has the power to treat copd in as many ways as trelegy. with three medicines in one inhaler, trelegy helps 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convenience pack. now you know. dayquil severe for you... and daily vicks super c for me. vicks super c is a daily supplement with vitamin c and b vitamins to help energize and replenish. dayquil severe is a max strength daytime, coughing, power through your day, medicine. new from vicks. as a dj, i know all about customization. that's why i love liberty mutual. they customize my car insurance, so i only pay for what i need. how about a throwback? ♪ liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty ♪ only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty ♪ the information out there is either lacking or luminous, either way it is frustrating. you don't know which direction to go down because everybody's story is different. the doctor initially said, i don't recommend that you even try, to have a baby, because of the risk that would pose to you. sure, my husband certainly felt the same way, that, okay, we get married and when we decide to start a family, we start a family. so you do feel guilty because you feel as if you are taking something away from them. i had done everything that you can imagine, in terms of being pro active. and so, i realized that i couldn't achieve my way out of this. my name is joy. i've always believed that first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes a baby carriage. but at some point, you realize that life isn't so simple. doctor's asking me, you know, are your periods heavy? but how do i know what heavy is? how do i know what's normal? all i know is my body. i remember laying down at night one time and i saw a bit of a protrusion, i'm thinking what's going on, is this normal? then maybe around 23, 24, going to the doctor and him telling me i had a fibroid. i had never even heard of a fibroid before. my immediate reaction to him was, am i going to die? unfortunately, i think we don't hear a lot about it because it disproportionately affects women of color and starts too feel like nobody cares. my initial questions were why am i growing these? and he just says your body just likes to grow them. i've never had an obgyn that i felt slowed down in that process. it was just, there are certain signs, you're having these symptoms, we're getting them taken out, we'll have you scheduled for surgery. so when i had the surgery, first off i was told i would have a very small bikini line incision and i woke up straight up and down flayed. the position and sides of it they were not able to get it out through the smaller incision. everything now and then, when i notice a scar, i sometimes think to myself, is there something else i could have done? the doctor initially said well, we're going to make sure we preserve your fertility, do you want to have children? okay great. took it out. okay. i'm fine now. went in for my normal annual and doctor's like, they're back. you have fibroids, again. a myoectomy is not a surgery you want to repeat. the impact of having these removed, you could be mitigating this problem by causing a new one. then, we're deciding we want to start a family. knowing my history and knowing i had fibroids i'm like, i'll just go and seek the doctor's opinions, they're like listen, all of the surgeries have actually impacted your uterus to the point where i don't even recommend you have a baby. i just felt there was a complete lack of awareness for showing empathy and essentially he was saying you should get a surrogate. you don't know my financial circumstances, you literally told me i have no other options. >> infertility is one of the top three stressors in terms of medical diagnosis up there with cancer. the stress of infertility can make a woman question her own being. >> you have friends and family members, you touched your belly, you feel the baby kicking and all the other things associated with pregnancy. i'll never have that, so there was certainly a loss. and the doctor telling me that was my loss. you learn very early on as a woman that no matter what's happening with you, you very much still show up. i learned early on to compartmentalize, thinking what is the priority right now? right now? we eventually decided to freeze embryos while we figured out what we wanted to do. you have to start with being on birth control for a months before you even start the process. you're getting blood work done. you are getting ultrasounds, daily with that blood work, to make sure they're monitoring the number of follicles developing. you're giving yourself shots. it is a commitment and it is a lot. my first yield was over, probably over 25 eggs. literally, the next day was, okay, only 18 fertilized and literally, it just kept getting cut in half. had four embryos so we decided okay, we'll freeze for now and come back and just sort of figure out what we wanted to do. we both knew that we still wanted children, and we still wanted our own genetic children so the decision to go down the route of surrogacy was actually a very quick and easy decision. it is very much like online dating. they do want you to tell your story. who are you, as a couple, as a family, individually, what's been your journey? i think that kind of helps to connect everybody a little bit. at the beginning of covid, it is definitely slowed down the pace as which they're able to match you. initially it was like oh yeah, four to six months. i've been waiting for seven months opinion but honestly, the waiting has allowed me to get to a place to recognize that everything has its timing. i know that i've done what i could and to position myself and my family to be able to grow and i'm at peace with allowing the process. thinking about my journey through womanhood, there were times when i had no one to talk to, and you learn so much you didn't know about other people the moment you start to open up. sometimes you just have to take the first step. you shouldn't be alone in this, and i think you feel less shame because you feel less alone, but there is such a community in sharing. >> it's okay to decide to do something different. >> yes. >> and it's okay to stop and just reevaluate because you are like conditioned to i need to do these things, and sometimes you say, do i want to? >> yes. >> everybody's experience is different, everybody's body is going to be different, so sort of sometimes, even navigating what's the best option for me is crippling and that's. >> and that's why this conversation is so important, because if we had those facts, we would prevent the suffering of so many women. ow! i'm ok! only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ only in theaters december 17th. ♪ ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ ♪ (man) still asleep. (woman vo) so, where to next? 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so it does feel like a betrayal. >> i think when you are successful and have control over so many other things and you're winning, winning, winning, you know, and you encounter this thing like okay, i'm not winning at this and really don't have a lot of control over how to fix it, that's where it just feels like a betrayal and feels so frustrating. >> that's a good way to put it too, i think we lived that way our whole lives so much so, we don't notice we lived that way all these years until we hit a pause button and realize it doesn't work. >> i can identify with tracy a lot because we both grew up and have parents from africa and when i grew up it was close your legs. if you look at peters, you die, you know what i mean? then the same people who have been saying don't have sex, wait until you get married, then the same people, what's wrong with your uterus, why aren't you pregnant and it's just like, what do you want from me? i've done everything right and i'm still being judged and it just is so -- >> and for our daughters. this is the thing. like i was so happy to have a girl, because i just want to keep the good stuff of our culture, so much, so much. and i also want to -- i just want to be transparent with her as much as possible. >> another thing that i want to talk about is when you're moving forward with your life, you know, people are working, we're in school, we have relationships, and yet it's one of the biggest and most painful things a lot of people have dealt with. how do you describe that. >> i feel like it's absurd. honestly. i know when i had my first miscarriage and got up the next day and went to work, and i had meetings, reports i had to give, just functioned as if nothing happened and it's abnormal to do that, right, if you had a death in the family or going through something you would take time off of work and everyone would support you and say take your time, you know, come back when you're ready but because we feel like we can't share, we kind of push through life as if, you know, you're not experiencing the loss and agony sometimes that goes with feeling, you know, just so alone. so i think that it's just absolutely absurd. >> and somehow, you know, it's that whole veil around women's fertility, what women are experiencing monthly. i mean, honestly, we, i know we say this, but if men were experiencing periods we would have a week off. they would all be synced up, a week off every month, it would be called men-struation day or week or whatever and would be talking about it so openly but because femininity has all these veils, we feel we can't talk about things like miscarriages. >> there's an expectation though we just keep going on, you know, the saying, check on your strong friends, because of the fact that you're just supposed to keep on moving. why would you crumble? you're going to crumble because of that? it happens to plenty of people. so you don't feel, you don't know what that expectation is. i know for me, i think it's important for people to be informed more than anything else. right? like ask questions. i feel like sometimes going to the is doctor's office can be very intimidating and, you know, unfortunately in our medical system it's like they have to move on and move on very quickly and sometimes you can't even ask a question before they're out the door and seeing the next patient. >> well that's why this conversation, though, is a fertility specialist, obgyn's dream, right? because first of all, i live and breathe the struggles of each one of you every single day with everyone that i see. and i just can't tell you how meaningful it's going to be for everyone that you're sharing, and i think it will help to remove the stigma, remove just the -- the feeling of inadequacy as a woman, and you just talked about women not getting the appropriate attention to their health and healthcare and that's true. that's real. that's real. you know, the amount of even just research dollars and funding that goes towards women's health, it's just abominable. so i just am so happy to see all of you sharing and really taking this to the next level and step of where we need to be in women's health, and especially minority women's health. >> the veil wasn't open until i started sharing what was happening to me. >> whenever i was in a conversation with someone who was sharing their challenges, i immediately opened up about mine. >> hopefully, it's the first of many conversations. i'm craig melvin. >> and i'm natalie morales. >> and this is "dateline." >> he had deeper feelings for me than just friends. he managed to get me to care about him. he had my whole life wrapped up. >> she's at the center of a riveting courtroom drama. the wife whose husband was found murdered one cold autumn morning. >> our whole family has lost its brightest light. and we don't know why. >> he's the one accused of

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