>> age is the number one predictor in determining success rates. >> the stress of infertility can destroy a woman. >> i couldn't achieve my way out of this. >> we had been trying for ten years. >> i'm sheinelle jones from nbc news but also a mom, wife and sister. i've listened to so many stories over the years about what happens behind closed doors, but i believe it's time to come together and talk about it. i've brought in some of my best friends, and we've decided to share openly and honestly. >> obviously, this is happening a lot, especially to black women. >> i want to let people know it's very common. >> every woman has a story. had is ours. >> i know each one of you in different ways, and i think about, you know, would he talk about the fairy tale of, you know, first comes love, then comes marriage, and i think about my bridesmaids and all the girls that were behind me on my wedding day. and when i close my eyes and think about all my friends, more than half in not half of them are having problems. tell me, when you lie down and put your head on the pillow, do you allow yourself to grieve? >> i used to rely on my willpower to get me through and say just keep focussed on destination. and at the time, the destination was you're going to get the baby. i'm a problem solver. i can bear it if i get there, but then it's ten years, and then i'm like, oh, i'm tired. and there is loss. there is loss in infer infertil. there is pain and grief that you would never understand unless you've endured it. >> this little dress. 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 have not been able to will myself to wear it again, but 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 end me troe sis, and multiple fibroids. we had 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 end meet rum. in rare cases it can implant 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 had passed out in the hallway. and that was the beginning of a 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 starts 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 mill grams that i use a couple 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 as to why fibroids do affect women of color disproportionately. unfortunately, there's not enough research behind that to identify particular genes. >> when i would lay down, you would kind of see this mountain, like flat stomach, mountain, and then i thought, huh, 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. when he first came out his first comment to us was how did you bear this for so long. finally, somebody sees me, and somebody 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 that i heard. i was hearing stories like we're on ivf number eight because we get pregnant, but i've had five still births. then i heard a lady say, i'm in my 17th year of ivf. i've packed up my keys and i ran out of there. and 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, 2017, 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 for. 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 this misconception with infertility that you should always be heading in some direction, and it should end with a child. i'm okay with where i am now. that this is what 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. n this place of wha never, when. smell clean? 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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 lot of expectations, viewpoints on my own body. >> in-vitro fertilization, more commonly known as ivf, you're taking injectable hormone to try to grow as many eggs as possible. at the end of that seven to ten-day window, you take the trigger shot and then you'd 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 of my kitchen. >> i think i had fertilized seven embryos and only two ended up being that really high quality. on imflan plantation day we had two embryos that she wanted to implant. and she did implant two embryos, then there's a two-week waiting period to find out if the embryo did implant. the two-week waiting period is a very big thing in ivf world. it's a lot of, god, it's like you're almost doing a rain dance while you're drinking juice. it's like all the things. you're doing everything you can think of so that this is a successful implantation. then, we 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 after miscarriage. renaming this journey not infertility but fertility. >> i'm very grateful to see and hear what you all have been through. because after spending most of my life as a single person, once you hit a certain age you start asking why, why am i not married? 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what's wrong with me? okay, so i received all 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 like that runway to find a partner and to have a family is getting shorter and shorter and shorter and shorter. >> i was in my late 20s, early 30s in the fellowship, and there were people younger than me who were struggling. that was my first wakeup call. the lack of communication that we have with our doctors, with our mothers, with our friends just leads to stress and a paucity of information later on that is really 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 to do with my own. >> i probably would not have frozen my eggs if i didn't have a sister who is a 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 whitney, really, i think you should probably think about freezing your eggs, my initial response was no. my future is ahead of me. >> it's really difficult to watch my own sister to go through egg freezing. i don't want her or anybody else to feel like they're giving up hope when they choose to freeze their eggs. it's really empowering more than anything else. it's an important point to get across. so part of my reaching out to her is that i hope she reaches out to her friends and we just start the conversation of really empowering ourselves and taking charge of our fertility. >> all right, 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 were both like, oh, yeah, you should definitely 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, okay, okay, okay. it honestly was not as bad as i thought it would be. first things first. you go to the doctor and get your blood work done. and then once you get your test results back you start the process of giving yourself shots. >> let's do this. for seven to ten 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. i am about to head in for the retrieval, so wish me luck. i'd 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 that my fertility is dwindling every year, my body really is changing the older i get. and 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 shame that they may feel and to be vulnerable with their friends, because, as soon as you do that you find other people you can share your story with. >> and i think one of the things that will take the shame away is the information and understanding, because, you know, i think people don't realize how common miscarriage and infertility are. i had a miscarriage and went to one of my best friend's baby shower that same day. >> same day? >> same day. injectable cabenuva. cabenuva is the only once-a-month, complete hiv treatment for adults who are undetectable. cabenuva helps keep me undetectable. it's two injections, given by a healthcare provider once a month. hiv pills aren't on my mind. i love being able to pick up and go. don't receive cabenuva if you're allergic to its ingredients or taking certain medicines, which may interact with cabenuva. serious side effects include allergic reactions post-injection reactions, liver problems,...and depression. if you have a rash and other allergic reaction symptoms, stop cabenuva and get medical help right away. tell your doctor if you have liver problems or mental health concerns, and if you are pregnant, breastfeeding, or considering pregnancy. some of the most common side effects include injection site reactions, fever, and tiredness. if you switch to cabenuva, attend all treatment appointments. with once-a-month cabenuva, i'm good to go. ask your doctor about once-monthly cabenuva. super emma just about sleeps in her cape. but when we realized she was battling sensitive skin, with once-a-month cabenuva, i'm good to go. we switched to tide hygienic clean free. it's gentle on her skin, and out cleans our old free detergent. tide hygienic clean free. hypoallergenic and safe for sensitive skin. another thing that i want to talk about is carrying this 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 felt like when i was experiencing miscarriages, at first it felt like i could only talk about it to strangers, so if i was on a flight. >> yes. >> you start chatting with the person on your flight. >> as long as you don't know me, yes. >> and we would start chatting and somehow it would come up that i had a miscarriage and they would tell me about their fertility challenges as well. i'm one of those people who likes to handle things on my own. my name is zakieya barnett. i am 41 years old. i always knew i wanted a houseful of children. i dated my husband for about two years before we got married. we got pregnant two months after our wedding. we were not trying to get pregnant that quickly. having gotten married a little later at 36 i said this is a little sooner than i had planned but fine. i was very excited. we were both excited. it never cross my mind that when i was ready to start our family that we would have challenges. wiggle worm. i remember touching my stomach all of the time and just feeling oh, gosh, there's this life growing inside of me, and i started thinking about what this child would look like and be like and all the dreams for this child. that happens right away. i just started spotting. did some research and it said sometimes spotting can be normal, but it did say if the spotting gets heavier go see your doctor, you could 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 were fairly common it happens all the time. the doctor said the same thing. she said it's sad, it happens but give your body and your emotional self a couple months to recover and then try again. and about six months later got pregnant right away. went to the doctor at the ten-week appointment and i'm thinking, i don't have any issues, so good. when the doctor was doing the ultrasound, they heard and saw the heartbeat, but it was weak. the doctor told me we hear a heartbeat today but next week when you come in we probably won't. i came to terms with it, that this was probably going to end in a miscarriage. you have the option to have the baby removed from your uterus, but i have a natural approach. allowing it to happen naturally is taking control back saying i have control over my body and i'm not going to do anything i don't want to do. i really felt i wanted this to happen naturally and if they're supposed to pass naturally, let them pass naturally. i had a friend's baby shower i had to attend in new york. on this particular weekend, i felt cramping, i started spotting and cramping, and i thought, man, this is going to happen. at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning i went into my friend's bathroom and i miscarried. this one was definitely a lot more sad than the first one. it's just a lot going on in your head and a lot of emotions. very to keep moving, i have to keep pushing. i want to go to a fertility specialist, to see if there's something wrong, something we can fix and go on. i'm a problem solver by nature. all of the tests came back with no issue, no problem, you have plenty of eggs, you're fertile. sometimes miscarriages just happen. that's what my fertility doctor said. that's what my obgyn says, that's 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-free-ness and joy that you think of about being pregnant is taken away from you, because you're worried every day, and this time i remember sort of praying that i didn't have a third miscarriage. i remember saying, god, i can't. you know, 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 that you go through for however many hours you're in labor didn't matter. i'm meeting my baby for the first time. she was perfect. now having two beautiful, wonderful, healthy 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 anytime 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. 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, if you have your first miscarriage or you're trying to get pregnant and it's not happening, you feel like it's never going to happen, but realizing that that's a pretty common aspect of the fertility journey. that information will help you know, this may just be a step along the process, and i don't have to be ashamed about it. that's how bodies work. 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, right? ask questions. i think sometimes going to the doctor's office can be very intimidating. unfortunately in our medical system, they have to move on, and they move on very quickly, and we're not trained to ask questions, because sometimes we don't even know the next question to ask. hale] ♪ and my clothes smell so much fresher than before ♪ ♪ yeah, yeah ♪ ♪ i'm a ganiac, ganiac, check my drawers ♪ ♪ it's a freshness like i've never smelled before ♪ one sniff of gain flings and you'll be a gainiac too! the only detergent with oxiboost and febreze. (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. the information out there is either lacking, or it's voluminous. and either way it is frustrating and you legitimately 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 it 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 i could imagine in terms of being proactive. 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, and then comes a baby carriage. but at some point you realize life isn't so simple. i remember doctors asking me, you know, are your periods heavy? but how do i know what heavy is? how do i know it's normal? because 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 like what's going on? is this normal? and then maybe around 23, 24, going to the doctor and him telling me that 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 it starts to feel like nobody cares. my initial questions was, why am i growing these? and he said your body just likes to grow them. i'd never had an obgyn that i felt slowed down in that process. it was just there are certain signs, you are having these symptoms, you have to get them taken out, we're going to get 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 filleted. the position of it and size of it, they were not able to get it out through the smaller incision. every now and then when i notice the 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 that we preserve your fertility, do you want to have children? absolutely, great, okay, took it out, okay, fine. i'm fine now. had my normal annual, and the doctor's like, you are back, you have fibroids again. it is not a surgery you want to repeat. the impact of oh, you are getting these removed, could you be mitigating this problem by causing a new one. then we're deciding that we want to start a family. knowing my history and knowing that i had fibroids, i'm just going to go and seek the doctor's opinion and say listen, all the surgeries have actually impacted your uterus to the point where i don't even recommend you have a baby. i just thought it was a coplee 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 have told me very no other options. >> infertility is one of the top three stressors in terms of a medical diagnosis, up there with cancer. the stress of infertility can make a woman question her own being. >> you have friends and family members, and you touch their belly, and you feel the baby kicking and all the other things associated with pregnancy. i'll never have that. and so there certainly was like a loss. and so i needed time to process that loss. you learn very early on as a girl into a woman that no matter what is happening with you, you still very much show up. i learned very 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 month 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 in 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 it was only 18 fertilized and literally it kept getting cut in half. i ended up with four embryos, and so we just decided to, okay, we'll freeze for now, and we'll come back and just sort of figure out what we wanted to do. we both knew we still wanted children, and we still wanted our own genetic children. so the decision to go down the route of surrogacy was a very quick and easy decision. it is very much like online dating. they want to you tell your story. who are you as a family, as couple, individually, what's been your journey?couple, as a family individually, what's been your journey. i think that that kind of helps to connect everybody a little bit. at the beginning of covid, it has definitely slowed down the pace at which they're able to match you. initially it was oh, yeah, it will be four to six months. i've been waiting for seven months. 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 are 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 are less alone. 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're 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. sometimes even navigating what's the best option for me is crippling. and that's why this conversation is so important, because if we had those facts, we would prevent the suffering of so many women. fingersticks can be a real challenge. that's why i use the freestyle libre 2 system. with a painless, one-second scan i know my glucose numbers without fingersticks. now i'm managing my diabetes better and i've lowered my a1c from 8.2 to 6.7. take the mystery out of managing your diabetes and lower your a1c. now you know. try it for free at freestylelibre.us this... is the planning effect. this is how it feels to have a dedicated fidelity advisor looking at your full financial picture. this is what it's like to have a comprehensive wealth plan with tax-smart investing strategies designed to help you keep more of what you earn. and set aside more for things like healthcare, or whatever comes down the road. this is "the planning effect" from fidelity. ♪ ♪ 'tis the season to break tradition in a cadillac. don't just put on a light show—be the light show. make your nights anything but silent. and ride in a sleigh that really slays. because in a cadillac, tradition is yours to define. so visit a cadillac showroom, and start celebrating today. ♪ ♪ ever notice how stiff clothes so visit a cadillac showroom, and start celebrating today. can feel rough on your skin? for softer clothes that are gentle on your skin, try downy free & gentle downy will soften your clothes without dyes or perfumes. the towel washed with downy is softer, and gentler on your skin. try downy free & gentle. 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 it turns out, generations have been going through this, okay? when we talk to our moms, oh, yeah, i had about three or four miss carriages. that's a lot. oh, so you wasn't going to share this? why? so it does feel like a betrayal. >> i think when you are successful and you have control over so many other things and you're winning, winning, winning, and you encounter this thing that you feel like, okay, i'm not winning at this, and i really don't have a lot of control about how to fix it, that's where it just feels like a betrayal and feels so frustrating. >> that's a very good way to put it too. i think we've lived that way our whole lives, so much so we don't even notice we've been doing it all these years until we take a pause button and something doesn't work. >> it's interesting because i can identify with tracy a lot because we both grew up or have parents from africa. and when i grew up, it was close your legs. if you look at penis, you die. you know what i mean? and then the same people that have been saying don't have sex, wait until you get married, you get married, and then the same people, what's wrong with your route russ? why aren't you pregnant? i'm what do you want from me? i've done everything right and i'm still being judged. >> and for our daughters. >> yes. >> this is the thing. i was so happy to have a girl because i just want to keep the good stuff of our culture so, much, so much. >> yes. >> 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, people are working or in school we have relationship, 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 i got up the next day and i went to work, and i had meetings and i had reports to give and i just functioned as if nothing had happened, and it's very abnormal to do that. if you had a death in the family or you were going through something, you would take time off work, and everyone would support you, take your time, come back when you're ready. but because we feel like we can't share, we kind of push through life as if you're not experiencing the loss and the agony sometimes that goes with feeling 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. honestly, i know we say this, but if men were experiencing periods, we would have a week off. they would all be synced up. we'd have a week off every movement. it would be called men-struation week or daily. but femininity have eil after veil after viel. >> there is an expectation we go through life just moving on. you know how we say check on your strong friends, and we are all our strong friends because of the fact there is this expectation that you're supposed to just keep on moving. why would you crumble? you're going crumble because of that? it's happening to plenty of people. so you never 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? 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 they 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 and ob/gyn'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 feeling of inadequacy as a woman, and you just talked about women not getting the appropriate attention to their health and health care. 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. ♪ ♪ he was like i'm going destroy you. the fear was terrible. >> they can't even describe it. it's a surreal thing. >> people thought i was dead. >> the attack was sudden and savage. >> i saw a man standing there. >> i heard multiple shots. >> the wife the only witness. >> the only thing i could see was his eyes. >> her story was concerning about a masked man shooting her husband and leaving her alive. i'm worried did she kill him herself? 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