Latest / DA CREW Podcast / DA CREW PODCAST SEASON 1_ EPISODE #112_HOST LATONYA MICHELLE LITTLEJOHN
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- 1:40money that you don't want to miss. M good evening, Good evening,
- 2:46Good evening. I am your host, Latonia Little John, and you are
- 2:52tuned into Delayed but not tonight the podcast. This is episode one twelve and
- 3:00show eleven for myself and tonight tonight, tonight, tonight, we're gonna be
- 3:08talking about infertility. But before we get started, I want to go to
- 3:15God in prayer. Heavenly Father would come to you right now, asking you
- 3:19to be in the midst of this whole conversation. Right now, Lord God
- 3:23take over, lead us and conveil message that the people need to hear.
- 3:30We ask it all humbly in Jesus name, We pray a man. Imfertility
- 3:36is a global health issue affect the millions of people of reproductive age worldwide.
- 3:44Available data suggests that globally, one in six people experience impertility in their lifetime.
- 3:51Tonight, I we'll be talking with miss Chaquana Scruggs and ma'am if you're
- 3:57there, Hey, hey lady, Hey, how were you good? Doing
- 4:04good? So before we get started, can I get you to introduce yourself
- 4:10to the audience. Hi? Everyone, my name's Chiquana scrugs of. Let's
- 4:18see, I don't mean not sure, not sure how to word it.
- 4:20U one of the many. I'm pretty sure there's more other women out there,
- 4:25but I'm one of the ones that very open about their infertility journey.
- 4:31Okay, so to jump start, how did you find out that you you
- 4:40have some imfertility issues? In two thousand seventeen, I was officially diagnosed,
- 4:47but from two thousand two all the way up to two thousand and seventeen,
- 4:54I was in the process just trying. So one particular regular obgyn a appointment.
- 5:00I just you know, I after so many tries and I was in
- 5:03a foreign relationship. Nothing no baby. So I had a regular, my
- 5:08regular O B G y N check up and I literally asked my doctor.
- 5:12I was like, where's my baby? So at the time my y N
- 5:16at the time, he really didn't have much to say. He was just,
- 5:19you know, just looking at me, and I didn't get the type
- 5:21of response that I wanted cause he really literally didn't have nothing to say.
- 5:26Really. So after I left that appointment that that following day, I started
- 5:31doing some research to find me a new ob gyn right, and I ran
- 5:36across a lady. Her name is doctor Demchack. I read all her reviews
- 5:41and I was like, okay, this is I'm gonna give her a trying.
- 5:45So a week after I had my appointment as a new patient, and
- 5:49of course she had my medical records and everything, and the first thing,
- 5:53you know, she's seen where I had been trying for all these years,
- 5:56no baby, and she was like, has anyone ever checked your tubes?
- 6:00So you know, you're like, what's wrong with my tubes? And she
- 6:02said it's possible that your tubes could be closed? So I didn't know that.
- 6:08Could you know that could actually happen? So she sent me off to
- 6:13get some testing done. And the procedure takes like five minutes, but it's
- 6:18it's very painful. It's like it feels like beast things on your womb and
- 6:25as soon as you know what they do, they push die through you,
- 6:29you know, through your uners. Once they pushed to die in. It'll
- 6:31let you know if it's gonna float to this tube, this tube, or
- 6:34if it runs back out. Your tubes are closed. And I was officially
- 6:41diagnosed on that day, January six, which is a day before my birthday.
- 6:46So that was like the worst news to find out, you know,
- 6:49a day before day before my birthday. It was. And all after all
- 6:54these after all the years, my previous O B. G. Y N
- 6:59never took the time to even say, let me, let me do some
- 7:01testing on you. He just kept wanting to get me pre native fields and
- 7:04I was just taking them for FUNN seemed like, right, have you ever
- 7:11been diagnosed with endometriosis? No, I have. I've actually spoken with a
- 7:18lot of women that has. They My doctor M Jake, she did test
- 7:23me for that. She tests me for fibroids and thyroids as well. It
- 7:28was the only thing pcos the only thing I negative all of those. Only
- 7:33thing is my my my tubes or clothes and what it's considered it's called proximal
- 7:39tubal block, is they're blocked on both sides. Oh wow, yeah,
- 7:46is there anything that they can do to correct it? So I've had two
- 7:54procedures done where they went in to open the tubes. The only thing about
- 7:59that particular procedure is not one hundred percent guaranteed that your tubes to stay open.
- 8:05It's possible one can stay open, want to close, both can stay
- 8:07open, or both of clothes each time both of mines closed back. And
- 8:13that particular procedure is it wasn't covered under insurance, so it was out of
- 8:18pocket, which was not cheap, which was not cheat right. I've had
- 8:26my own impertility issues. I you know, I was born with spina bifida,
- 8:33and I was told that I couldn't have kids because of a birth defect.
- 8:37But I got pregnant at fifteen and I had a son sixteen years old.
- 8:43He's twenty eight now. But then I got married in two thousand and
- 8:48two, and you know, you get married, you want to have a
- 8:52family with your spouse. And immediately I was like, okay, I wanna,
- 8:56you know, jump start family. And you know, we tried and
- 9:03tried and tried some more, and I got diagnosed with endometriosis. Everything that
- 9:11they could possibly do I think I had done. I did the thing with
- 9:16a die they went in, I had a DNC done, and it's it's
- 9:26a lot, but you know, hindsight, hindsight, if you continue to
- 9:33do it and it actually worked for you, you know, the end gold
- 9:41is to bring home a baby. So you know it didn't work for me.
- 9:45I was able to pass along that information that you know I had with
- 9:50another young lady and she was able to have a baby. So I feel
- 9:54like, you know, I did my part. You know, I did
- 9:58what God wanted me to do as sharing the information and passing as along.
- 10:03And so you know, a friend of mine has a baby now because I
- 10:07was able to share with her the procedures that I went through and that I
- 10:13went So where are you at as far as treatments now? So as of
- 10:20right now, I actually I have a new reproductive endocrinologists. As of right
- 10:28now, I'm pretty much, like I want to say, it's like case.
- 10:31I call it a break because I tell everyone I tell a lot of
- 10:33women I speak with when you feel like you just had enough of it,
- 10:37if you've got the mindset to keep going, I encourage everyone to keep trying
- 10:41exhaust our options, but take a break, because it does get it does
- 10:46get draining. Your body just your body goes through a lot of changes.
- 10:50I haven't did a cycle going on two years. The reason why I was,
- 10:58I did have a success for IVF cycle in twenty and twenty when I
- 11:03did become pregnant, but unfortunately I miscarried my twins two days before my birthday.
- 11:11Yeah, so after that I just putty much. I pretty much just
- 11:16had it on hold. And my new doctor, she's one thing I like
- 11:20about it. She's went through the treatments as well, I think a few
- 11:24times, and of course she understands and she said, whenever you're ready,
- 11:28you just give a call the office. We'll get you going. The hardest
- 11:33part with doing IVF if you're doing it, you know, as a single
- 11:37person. Of course, if you don't have a donor, you do have
- 11:41to purchase sperm. That alone, that's that's that costs as well if you
- 11:46do have a known donor. My particular OPI reproductive doctor, she actually wants
- 11:52your donor to go through like a six months considered like a quarantine phase where
- 11:56they go through therapy treatments they do. They laughs, make sure pretty much
- 12:03make sure everything is going good before you actually do your mixed IVA cycle.
- 12:11Okay, I don't know if you follow the bret and Judy, but you
- 12:16know, the Brett, she didn't have any viable eggs, and so they
- 12:22implanted us eggs inside of her to give her that experience of given of giving
- 12:30birth. Because of her age, I think she's like forty nine or something
- 12:35like that. Yeah, so I guess what I'm asking you. Do you
- 12:41feel like you're in a race to beat time or do you feel like time
- 12:46is on your side with trying to get all of this done well? Once?
- 12:52At first, when I first started doing everything back in twenty seventeen,
- 12:56I felt like it was like a race for everything. But I started going
- 13:01through the cycles because I've been through a total of four idea of cycles.
- 13:07And when I first started, I didn't have like nobody to guide me.
- 13:11I literally jumped into everything on my own. The first six months of me
- 13:16doing my treatments, I actually went through depression. I had met this young
- 13:24lady. Someone introduced me to her and told me she, you know,
- 13:26she went through it, and she pretty much you know, she told me
- 13:31different doctors and everything, and she was like, don't tell anyone what you're
- 13:35doing. So I had that in my mind, don't tell anyone. But
- 13:39during that time, for six months, I was depressed because I couldn't really
- 13:45talk to nobody because nobody knew exactly what I was doing. So one particular
- 13:50day, I think I left from one of my appointments and I was like,
- 13:54I can't just sit still and not talk about this. I know I'm
- 13:58not the only one going through infertility. And after that, from two thousand
- 14:03eighteen to now, I constantly talk to people. I talk to so many
- 14:11people. People send people to me because a lot of people won't speak up,
- 14:15which is fine, I understand because I was that once, that same
- 14:18person. I tell a lot of people of some some people don't have family
- 14:26support. Some people have the family support, but they just don't understand I
- 14:31have. I have the family support, and I have some family members that
- 14:33don't quite get it, which is fine. Don't bother you. Don't bother
- 14:37me. At first, it did, Now it don't bother me. I've
- 14:41with the women that I've met and a few actually a few guys as well.
- 14:46A lot of guys wan't talk about it. They're dealing with infertility too
- 14:48because of you know, low firm. So I just I think it's a
- 14:54blessing for me to be able to, you know, someone reach out and
- 14:56it was like, I really don't know which way to go it. I
- 15:00have any resources, I'm sharing it. I actually had someone tell me,
- 15:05not a year ago, you used to start charging people, you know,
- 15:07to give him information. No, I will not, because it's already considered
- 15:13a silent topic and it's it definitely a silent topic in the black community as
- 15:18well, So I couldn't see myself charging somebody this is you know, I'll
- 15:24let you know what I went through. I give y'all the resources I got.
- 15:26You want me to look up something for you, or you just need
- 15:30somebody to talk to going through it, you can call me, message me
- 15:33on Facebook. I when I tell you, I speak to so many people.
- 15:37I actually have a friend in the UK. She found me on Instagram.
- 15:41I've never met her. She checks in now. It's been like every
- 15:46two months. She'll just send me a message, just checking in with you.
- 15:50And she actually helped me through my mischaracter and she was in a whole
- 15:56other country. You know, sometimes God sends us people you know, from
- 16:06any different you know, types of walks of life that you know He gives
- 16:11you what you need when you need it, and you know sometimes you can't
- 16:15even turn to the people that live right in your community. You know what
- 16:19I'm saying. So you know, it's good that you have that support.
- 16:26So with the IVF, can you explain exactly what that is. So with
- 16:34IVF, of course, you do all the testing, you know, layouts
- 16:41blood work, they'll take your check your ead count and everything. So you'll
- 16:45start on for like two weeks, you're you're pretty much doing self injection medications.
- 16:51The medication is actually increasing your egg quality and the size of them.
- 16:56Different clinics have there what side they'll go by before they do an egg retriever
- 17:02where they take your eggs out. But for two weeks, you take your
- 17:06medicines. Every other day you're going to the doctor to make sure the eggs
- 17:10are growing in your body, is you know, handling the medication, And
- 17:14when your eggs get to a decent size, that's when they you know,
- 17:18call you to come in to do the egg retriever to retrieve your eggs.
- 17:22During that time, once they retrieve them, they'll take pretty much everything takes
- 17:26place in a little Petrie dish, like literally is a little dish. They'll
- 17:30from there, they'll inject the sperm into the dish and for five days embryologist
- 17:37watches pretty much reproductive take place in a petri dish. On the fourth day
- 17:42is considered a resting day. They won't bother them, they won't even turn
- 17:45a light on. It's just considered a resting day. And on day five
- 17:51they'll see you know how many has grew, if any fertilize, and if
- 17:56you're ready for it, they'll call you back in to do a train.
- 18:00Embryo transfer is when they put the embryo back in. Embryos are pretty much
- 18:06a baby. It's you know, everything's together. The embryo is a baby.
- 18:11A lot of people don't get that, but the embryo is a baby.
- 18:14And doing once they do the transfer, you wait for two weeks.
- 18:19It's the two week waiting waiting period, which is like the worst waiting period
- 18:25of your life because you want to take pregnancy tests like every day and they
- 18:29can. That alone will drive you crazy too. So I've been there.
- 18:34Yeah, it's like, Okay, I'm not gonna test. Oh I'm gonna
- 18:37go test. And then I've had some cycles where I didn't test at all,
- 18:42and I've had something where I tested like every other day. When I
- 18:45did have the successful cycle, I think I tested that very first day after
- 18:51actually having a dream from one of my aunts that passed away, and after
- 18:56that dream, all I could hear her saying us it's time. So I
- 19:00remember waking up in the middle of the night and just looking around like,
- 19:04okay, what is going on? So I went into the pregnancy tests and
- 19:08there was my two lines, so that right there was just over the moon
- 19:15to be pregnant started. Of course, I had to go to the doctor.
- 19:18The doctor that I was going to at the time was in Carrie,
- 19:22North Carolina, which is like it's considered a three hour drive, but I
- 19:26drive fast, so it was like two hours thirty minutes. So going there
- 19:30every literally every other day, leaving out at five o'clock in the morning,
- 19:33driving and coming back. A lot of these trips took carry and I took.
- 19:37I went by myself. My mom went a few times, and one
- 19:41of my one of my friend girls that stays in Clover, she came down
- 19:45and went with me and one of my sisters. Actually I actually woke up.
- 19:48I woke her up out of her sleep one morning for her to at
- 19:51least just ride with me because I was tired. I was I was just
- 19:55tired. I was tired. So once I got everything confirmed, it was
- 20:02everything confirmed, pregnancy. I was a week away from graduating from the fertility
- 20:08clinic. But you know God had other point. Yeah, and and you
- 20:15know, as as we're humans, but we know we can't question God's work
- 20:22and why he allows things to happen the way they do. But sometimes you
- 20:27just have to ask why, you know, why why can't I you know?
- 20:33And then for me, what makes me sad is seeing all these babies
- 20:38that are being mistreated, and you know, parents murdering babies and you know,
- 20:45doing things like that that bothers me to my my core. Yeah,
- 20:51I'm in the same way. Yeah, it's it's a lot. It is
- 20:59a lot. I guess what I want to ask you now, Has anybody
- 21:07ever came to you and said something along the lines of, well, since
- 21:11you can't get pregnant, you should adopt. Has anybody else approached with adoption?
- 21:18How I am now versus if you would have told me that when I
- 21:23first started, I literally would have cursed you out years ago. But now
- 21:30when someone says that, I actually tell them before you even bring up adoption,
- 21:37I want you to go look at the legal way in the legal price
- 21:41of adoption and then come back and we can have a conversation because when I
- 21:47at first, when people say you should have dot, you should have adopten,
- 21:49No, I'm not. You know how much it costs to adopt the
- 21:52legal way, and you know, people like such and such don't want her
- 21:56baby. You can it, don't If I do adoption, I'm taking you
- 22:00to court. I'm going We're going from A to Z the legal way,
- 22:03right, and you know you're you're gonna pay. I'm gonna play exactly right.
- 22:12Ats From from twenty seventeen until this year, I have spent forty two
- 22:18thousand dollars. All of it has added up. I did a go fund
- 22:25me account and it did okay. I had a lot of people donate to
- 22:30it as well. I took that that the money from my go fund me,
- 22:34I actually bought some medicine, actually all my medicines. That's another thing
- 22:40with doing IBF. The medicines itself can run you up to ten thousand dollars.
- 22:44It just depends on what your insurance cover. What your insurance don't.
- 22:48The job that I had previously, they didn't. They would cover it,
- 22:52but it's only they would only cover fifteen thousand. After a couple of doctors
- 22:57appointments and you buying medicine, you've hit fifteen thousand. Everything else is out
- 23:03of pocket. So I did to go fund me. I went through my
- 23:07full one K twice to what nothing left. I've got loans. I paid
- 23:11off the loans. I'm actually finishing finishing up another loan that I did that
- 23:15was that's almost paid off. But a lot of people will act, well,
- 23:22who's helping you pay me? I'm helping, you know, I'm pretty
- 23:26much like the main source of income. Even though I've did, you know,
- 23:30did the fundraiser to go fund me, and the jobs that I had
- 23:34a little bit of coverage, you know, I was thankful for that with
- 23:40the company that I worked for. Now everything is fully covered. So I
- 23:45look at that. It's like a blessing because after everything that I pretty much
- 23:49blood, sweat and tears and put through but being put through, I'm getting
- 23:53it back with a company that actually cares. They understand, you know,
- 24:00what I'm going through. I have. I'm on a new team with my
- 24:03job. I actually told them what I was going through. It They're so
- 24:06supportive and wanting to know you know more. If it was like, do
- 24:08you mind if we ask questions? No, I don't mind at all.
- 24:11I ask many questions as you won't because you never know your questions that you're
- 24:15asking. The next person I want to ask, but they're scared. So
- 24:19I'm so easy to talk to when it comes to infertility and doing the treatments.
- 24:29So what advice would you give to any young lady, couple or whatever
- 24:33that may be going through infertility right now and don't know where to turn?
- 24:41So I would tell first, first thing, therapy, Please see a Therapist's
- 24:48nothing wrong. I got a therapist. I love her to death. When
- 24:52I first started, I didn't have a therapist. I actually started going to
- 24:56therapy after my miscarriage, and I kind of wish I would have started it
- 25:00before then, but that's when I needed it the most. After that,
- 25:06definitely look into therapy. There's plenty, plenty of resources. I can even
- 25:10see you my therapist information. You know, if you're in the Carolinas,
- 25:14I think they got offices. Just find some type to find some type of
- 25:17therapy that's for like like pretty much you can say fertility. They have therapists
- 25:25that handles that particular type of therapy. There are some support groups on social
- 25:30media. I'm telling God's honest truth. Not all of them are good support
- 25:36groups. I've been in a few. Why I deleted myself because women would
- 25:38get on there and argue. I don't want to hear any I don't want
- 25:41to see or hear nobody argue. This is not the time to be arguing.
- 25:45Some people say some of the worst things, and we're all going through
- 25:48this, and there's a negative nancy. So I removed myself from a lot
- 25:52of groups, and I just started blogging. I created my own blogging page
- 25:57on Facebook and I share it on TikTok. And if you need somebody to
- 26:03talk to, my inbox is open. I don't mind share my cell phone
- 26:06number. I'll talk to whenever. Because when I first started, I didn't
- 26:11have anybody. It was just me until I started. Oh I gotta speak,
- 26:15I gotta talk. I gotta talk. I gotta talk. I gotta
- 26:18talk, I gotta talk. Well, just know that if you need me,
- 26:26I'm here. Okay, we get these babies popping our right. I
- 26:32won't try too much because I love the Okay, but you know, I
- 26:40I know that going through all of that is a lot doing on you,
- 26:45and it causes depression and anxiety and things of that nature. What keeps you
- 26:52you going? Really? Our answer, what keeps me going is knowing that
- 27:00anything is possible. You can. My one of my best friends, he
- 27:06always tell me, exhausts all your options till you just don't have any more
- 27:10options left. Right. I thought about just stopping the treatments, not doing
- 27:15it all together, But then it's this little little thought back of my mind.
- 27:18I know, let's try it again. You never know what can happen
- 27:22next you, just like you, You never know. Even though IVF is
- 27:26not one hundred percent guarantee that it's gonna work. Some people have success on
- 27:32the first time. Some people have success on the sixth, seventh, eighth,
- 27:36ninth. You just never know when I when I start back, this
- 27:38will be my fifth IVF cycle, even though I've had it success. I'm
- 27:42I'm gonna be going back for a fifth, you know, a fifth time?
- 27:48Right, Just just keep going. It's I know it. I know
- 27:53it's hard. I can relate. I know it's hard to you know,
- 27:57especially like when seeing birth announcements, kids going back to school, those Christmas
- 28:07holidays. I know they can be triggers because they used to trigger me until
- 28:11I started going to therapy and learning my triggers. And I and I tell
- 28:15a lot of people I talk to, if you know it's gonna trigger you,
- 28:18like would recently back to school, if you have to log off social
- 28:22media for a day or two, do so for your own mental health,
- 28:26because it will have you just slump. You know. One of my biggest
- 28:30things, I'm still getting people to understand I do not do baby showers.
- 28:37I don't know if I'll ever do a baby shower right. I want a
- 28:41lot of people to understand that. Well, I ain't gonna say a lot
- 28:45of people. The people that has invited me to baby showers, some of
- 28:48'em were scared to ask me that I want to come. Some of'em
- 28:52were scared to even send me an invite, but they wanted to invite me.
- 28:56Didn't want me to feel left out, which I was. Yeah,
- 29:00And when I said, you know I won't be able to make it,
- 29:03I'll send a gift, they respected that. And it's some people out here
- 29:10now and I've heard this a few times and it really tears my nerves up
- 29:15when someone say, well, when you get pregnant, no one's gonna come
- 29:18to your baby shower because you decline the invice. That's not true because the
- 29:22advice that I did decline. Those are some of my biggest supporters. They
- 29:27and some of them have actually had miscarriages and they understand. You know when
- 29:33I when I decline, so I respect, I respect the people that respect
- 29:38my decision. If you don't respect it, and nothing I can do,
- 29:41no love laws. You really don't have to say anything to me, to
- 29:45be honest, because I said this, this is what I'm not gonna The
- 29:51reason. One main thing is when I was diagnosed January six in twenty seventeen,
- 29:59and my birthday was the next day. I was. I was at
- 30:02a baby shower and when I left that baby shower, I cried for three
- 30:04days because I was sitting in a baby shower holding in so much because I
- 30:10had just got my diagnosis. And I said, I would never put myself
- 30:14in that position. I know, I'm just not gonna bring that energy around
- 30:19someone's happy time. I'm just not outstanding a gift. I love kids.
- 30:23I got four God kids. I love them to death. I will go
- 30:27crazy over my God kids. I don't play about my little people. But
- 30:32it's just sometimes people. Some people get it, some people don't. If
- 30:37you know somebody that's going through it, never tell them to just you know,
- 30:44stop trying. Or sometimes you just being there. It's support you And
- 30:48if you want to know more, just ask. Some people might not want
- 30:52to talk about it. If you ask me anything, I'm gonna tell you
- 30:56the God's understruths, the good, the bad, ugly. I want want
- 31:00you to know this is real. You see it on TV. I've been
- 31:03through it. This is this is real, Like this is real. It's
- 31:07it's just really sticking it. It happens. It happens. And never tell
- 31:15a grieving mother to get over it. I've had to tell other mothers.
- 31:21Someone told me you're never gonna get over it. You're gonna get through it.
- 31:25And at first I was like, I really didn't want to hear that,
- 31:27But as the days went by after my miscarriage, that still kept replaying
- 31:33in my head. You're gonna get through it, You're gonna get through it.
- 31:34And I actually met him a lady on Facebook. She was going through
- 31:40a miscarriage and she caught me in the middle of the night and she said,
- 31:42I don't have anyone but I'm going through it. I'm currently going through
- 31:45a mistatch. And I sat on the phone with her for four hours and
- 31:49she just cried because her body it was time for, you know, everything
- 31:55just to pass through. And I told her, I said, you're you're
- 31:57gonna You're gonna get through it. It's gonna be hard. I'm not gonna
- 32:00tell it's the easiest thing. It's not. It's not something that you're just
- 32:04gonna get over. You're not gonna get over it. When I had my
- 32:12miscarriage, the hardest thing for me was going to the O B G.
- 32:17Y N And seeing all these pregnant bilities around me because it just seems like
- 32:25everybody had an appointment that day and I'm like, just surround it at least,
- 32:31and I'm like, you know, my heart wanted to say, I
- 32:37know y'all could have brought me in here on the day they had less traffic.
- 32:42But right, you know, you can't hide from from the world like
- 32:46that. You know, we would like to took tale and hide. But
- 32:52you know, I thank you for being brave and putting a face to infertility
- 32:59because a lot of people don't know how to address the situation and they don't
- 33:05know where to go to get help, and you know, they're stuck and
- 33:10they don't you know, they want to and they want to create a family,
- 33:15and they just don't know, you know, what to do. So
- 33:22my next question, do you know of any place that offers help for people
- 33:28who want to start that journey but may not have all the benefits you know,
- 33:35to actually get it up and running. Yeah, there there is.
- 33:40There is a clinic in New York. It's called Seeing Why Fertility. You
- 33:46can look it up. The uh, the thing with Seeing Why. They
- 33:52offer payment plans. You can you know, they set up you can set
- 33:57up payment plans, you know, for your treatments. Some they do do
- 34:01idea giveaways where they cover some of'em be free cycles. Some I'm gonna
- 34:07be ten thousand, you know, ten dollars, you know, ten thousand
- 34:08dollars storage recycle. I went to CNY, right, and I went to
- 34:14the one in Albany, New York. I had the worst experience in my
- 34:17life as a black woman. The only conference I got while in New York
- 34:24was from the I got the most amazing treatment from the people at the hotel
- 34:29I stayed at, and just so happened One of the nurses was my old
- 34:34nurse at my clinic in Charlotte when I was going. She happened to be
- 34:37working in Albany that particular day, and when I walked in, you know,
- 34:44you know how you signed in where you go to the doctor and you
- 34:46know, you get all your little paperwork, insurance all, you know,
- 34:49the little whole nine. So the girl just, you know, pretty much
- 34:52to put the clipboard up there sign off. So I was like, okay,
- 34:54you know, said and she was like, someone be with you.
- 34:58So I sat down. I've seen a white couple come in. They greeted
- 35:01them as you know, pretty their whole tone changed. So I was just
- 35:07looking like, you know, did did you bypass? I didn't get greeted.
- 35:13You know, I know we're from the South, right. I know
- 35:16some people in New York their their attitudes is horrible. I'm sorry, but
- 35:21down here, I was raised to speak and I was raised with man's that's
- 35:25just me that that's just how I was raised. But I just sat and
- 35:30watched them greet Yeah. I just was literally just sitting like they didn't speak
- 35:37to me. You know, she pretty much just put the clipboard up there,
- 35:40sign off. But enough couple's coming in. So I was like,
- 35:45okay, maybe it's it because I'm black and I'm by myself. Because I
- 35:47did. I flew to New York by myself to do my do my procedure,
- 35:51and I just didn't like it. So when they called me back,
- 35:53I seen the nurse and she's a white lady and she said, well,
- 35:58you know, she asked me how did I get you know, what made
- 36:00me come to seeing why? When I was telling, I said, I
- 36:02don't like the treatment that I got up front, and she was like a
- 36:07lot of the a lot of report and report it right. I said,
- 36:12thank you, but they they was it was. It was just so horrible.
- 36:16I had a horrible experience with that particular office. After I left that
- 36:22well that cycle of course they didn't work, which was fine. A year
- 36:25later before were actually before I left that procedure, they told me that I
- 36:30didn't have any more sperm. I used it said, I used all my
- 36:35sperm for that procedure. A year later, the mail runs, I got
- 36:38a bill, so I'm opening up. I open it up the bill and
- 36:43I'm looking and it says storage fee. I said, why do I have
- 36:46a storage fee? And I was told a year ago I didn't have any
- 36:51more sperm. Well, so I called them and I was like, yeah,
- 36:53you have a viola sperm and there's a storage fee. I'm not paying
- 36:59that because three people told me when I left from y'all's clinic that I had
- 37:04nothing left. Everything was zero. But now I get a bill and I
- 37:07said, are you sure it's mine? It's my name attached to my social
- 37:12They was, and they read all my medical ideas and they was like,
- 37:15it's yours. So I said, okay, I'm still not paying this bill.
- 37:20It took me three weeks to reach the owner of the of the clinic.
- 37:24I had to get on social media and every time he would go live,
- 37:28I would go comment. I would comment. In one particular morning,
- 37:32he would get on at five o'clock in the morning, I set my lawn
- 37:36clock just to get up because I knew he was gonna be online, and
- 37:38I was just comment, comment, comment. I went on Google, left
- 37:42a Google review. I stayed on it, so I had got so frustrated.
- 37:47I called and I said, well, I'm on the line with my
- 37:51lawyer. My lawyer is listening in, and I broke it down to the
- 37:54lady and she was like, hold hold on, hold on, we could
- 37:59go ahead and get your appointment set up with the doctor so you can go
- 38:01over everything. And I was like, okay. He took me all this
- 38:06just to call and say I had a lawyer on the phone to now I
- 38:08could actually have an appointment schedule for the just actually speak with the doctor.
- 38:13And they scheduled me appointment to talk with him the next day. And when
- 38:15he got on that phone, I lit in on him something terrible and he
- 38:20was like, well, I do apologize, you know, he kept doing
- 38:23I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I saying you also told me before I left
- 38:27that my eggs were bad, and I did, well, you didn't say
- 38:30they were bad. You said my eggs had deteriorated, which means dead basically,
- 38:36I say, but I go to a new clinic and they did my
- 38:38testing. I have eggs. So what did you see that my new clinic.
- 38:45You know, they you know, they missed it. They not missing,
- 38:47you know, you said, and they're dead, but they're they're in
- 38:51I'm literally sitting on the table and they're counting my eggs up on the screen.
- 38:53And I was like, I was told no, woman said no,
- 38:55you still have your eggs. So he end up writing off the storage fees.
- 39:02And the only thing, only fee that I have to pay, it's
- 39:06just for shipping, which is three hundred and fifty dollars to ship it from
- 39:08New York to down here. So I have a vown sperm wre and then
- 39:15that's and I told him, I say, sperm is not cheap. It's
- 39:16almost three thousand dollars sitting in your storage unit. And I was told there
- 39:22was nothing, you know, So I said I would never go back.
- 39:25I'll you know, I tell people this is an affordable clinic. Me personally,
- 39:29I'm not going back just because of the experience I had, right right,
- 39:35yeah, And that was for some odd reason. We get the worst
- 39:40treatment ever dealing with doctors. I don't you know, I don't know why,
- 39:49you know, it's like that, but we get the short end of
- 39:52the stick when dealing with doctors. M yeah. And I tell a lot
- 39:57of people I've had some white reproductive interchnoledges doctors their their bedside. My manners
- 40:07is perfect, but some of them just had their ways with it can be
- 40:12good on one thing. Dad was something else. And my the ray that
- 40:15I had in Charlotte, I love her to this day. If I happened
- 40:19to send her emails, she probably would respond. And I haven't seen her
- 40:22in almost three years. She was pretty much I called my life saver because
- 40:29I did do an IVF cycle where it almost took my life. So she
- 40:36she got me up in enough time because I had went into a bad coughing
- 40:39spasm to where my oxygen levels was like I was about the flatline, that's
- 40:45how bad I was coughing. And she got me up just in time during
- 40:47the procedure to wake me up and got me out. And you know,
- 40:52when I woke up, you know, I'm looking what's going on, And
- 40:54she told me she looked like she had tears in her eyes. She was
- 40:59like, I stopped the procedure because you were coughing so bad and your oxygen
- 41:02levels was flattened. Was pretty much lowing out. They kept going down and
- 41:07down and now so I was like okay. And after that, I was
- 41:10like, I'm taking a break. And that's when I had took a whole
- 41:14year off from doing anything and just started talking to people, finishing up talking.
- 41:19I never stopped talking to people even while I was going through my treatments.
- 41:22I never stopped talking to people. Did you did your body have like
- 41:29a bad reaction to something that they were doing. I'm thinking it was the
- 41:34anesthesia, to be honest, because you know they when they was doing it,
- 41:39they had to put something down my throat and it was just uh horrible,
- 41:46And I just honestly think my body just did And it was so crazy
- 41:50because I did the procedure before, but that particular go around, my body
- 41:53was just not. I coughed, I was and I was so sore from
- 41:58coughing. My stomach was being I was already sore from being on all this
- 42:01medicine and my eggs worth two times in normal size to coughing to where I
- 42:07was cutting off my cutting cutting off my own oxygen. Wow. Yeah,
- 42:15So what's next for you? What's next for you? Right now? To
- 42:22be honest, I'm not in a rush to start back yet. I'm my
- 42:27mind saying I'm ready. My body, my body is saying you're getting there,
- 42:34and my heart is just like, whenever you're ready, let's go,
- 42:37you know. But when I do do my next cycle, it's gonna be
- 42:40with my new doctor with new clinic, where I'm not gonna say new because
- 42:44she's my doctor and they're okay than Charlotte. So whenever I'm ready, all
- 42:50I have to do is just pick up the cup phone and say, hey,
- 42:52I'm ready. I already have my medicines. This U When I did
- 42:58get my last set of medicines before or insurance read it, it was almost
- 43:02eight thousand dollars. I paid two hundred and fifty two dollars for my medicine
- 43:07because of the company I worked for. Let's covered. Wow, that's amazing.
- 43:15Well, we're getting to that point in in in the show where okay,
- 43:20we have to in things. But before we go, if anybody would
- 43:27like to reach out to you to maybe have you as a guest on their
- 43:31show, how can they reach you? You can reach me on Facebook.
- 43:37My Facebook My regular page is Shiquana Taquia. I do have a blogging page
- 43:45which is my Journey Continues. You see me a friend requests message me,
- 43:51that's fine. If you want my number, I might exchangeing numbers and we
- 43:53can go from there with it. Okay, So I'm gonna be keeping up
- 44:01with you to find out how you're going in this process, and I want
- 44:05you to know that you're not alone. If you need me I talk a
- 44:09lot, but if you need me to just listen, I don't mind.
- 44:15You got access to my inbox. If you need my number, I got
- 44:19you. So I just want you to know that you're not going through this
- 44:22by yourself, right for it system. Yeah, I appreciate it. I
- 44:29appreciate it. I want to thank you for joining me tonight and sharing your
- 44:37journey with infertility. It's my hope that it reaches somebody and they're able to,
- 44:45you know, figure out where they need to be in their journey as
- 44:49well. And when I end my show, I just like to you know
- 44:53the title of my show is delayed, but not denied. Life made throw
- 45:01us from curve balls that will delay us, but what God has for us
- 45:07is never denied unto us. And so with that being said, I will
- 45:13see you all on Tuesday, eight p m. I'll be here join me.
- 45:20Thank y'all for coming out. God bless you. Good night. Every
- 45:28second Monday at fourth Friday of each monthy is she that you don't want to
- 45:32miss? Fine,