I'm Tamika D.
Mallory and it's your boy my son in general.
We are your host of t M I.
Tamika and my Son's Information, Truth, Motivation and inspiration.
Name New Energy. What's up, my son.
I'm blessed. They got a heat wave like heat.
Waves been before. They said it was a.
Heat but it was a heat wave.
I'm telling you, man, I have been traveling from state to state and it is extremely hot, extremely hot. Out of the country. The sun is peeling your skin.
In the country, the heat.
Is on Hell. The heat is on Hell.
It's hot. It's hot for sure.
And hopefully folks who are out there are taking care of themselves and staying hydrated. You know, I've made this commitment to drinking lots more water in a day, and I see a difference.
I feel different. Certainly, is very.
A whole fleet wherever you are, folks who are listening in that you're taking care of yourself, eating your fruits and vegetables, drinking your water, and staying in cool places.
And you know, I was watching the other day a young couple had a baby out and the baby was in the stroller and they were pushing the baby and the sun beaming down, and it was a brand new baby, maybe two months, and I was stinking to myself, wow, I wish that we weren't living in a time where as a woman by myself, I can't say because if you'd been there, you had been there, or anybody else, even another female, I'd have been like, sweetheart, you know,
please put something over that baby. But me by myself and this couple, who knows they might go crazy on me and start trying to fight me. So I'm like, I don't want to be, you know, intrusive. But what I did do is I kept looking. And as I continue to look and look and look for a few moments, it was like, oh, you know, they realized, or she did, because she was looking at me kind of like why you know, maybe it's a cute baby, but I was looking out of concern.
And mothers kind of know.
It's like if you out with your kid and your kid is like being bad and you see another mother just looking with that look, you'd be like, let me get.
My ance on me and sit at you know, let me show you that I con.
So she covered the baby, and I want to say that babies can't tell you they cold. They can't tell you they're hot. They can't say anything. So we have to be overly mindful in these conditions.
Not always, not always, not always.
I argue with my granddaughter, my granddaughter's parents all the time about needing her need in a sweater.
They don't. It's a different thing.
They like you bugging because I'm extra So you know, I come from the generation that you would have a snowsuit on in the fifty degree weather. Jenna's was laughing. That's the generation I came from. You would you will have a snow snow suit on in the fifty degree weather because they would be saying it's too cold.
You're gonna wear a scarf, You damn sure.
We're gonna have a hat on your head until it's about sixty degrees, no doubt. That's how I was raised. So when I see them, they just be hanging about and just chilling. But my granddaughter is so whoa she just she's busy and doing She ain't got time to be cold, noneless. Nonetheless, I'm always saying that. So I'm just saying it's a point of reference as we each one teach one. Please during this time, make sure that
you are being extra mindful of the babies. Like I see people putting like little not ice, but you know they'll wrap up something cold and put it on the baby's neck so that they don't get dehydrated. Because people be in the hospital with their babies, babies screaming all night long and they and a part of it is, you know, milk, sitting out too long, and heat. It's so many things that's probably just shouldn't be having kids when you're young, because the.
Job is but that's when you're supposed to do.
Actually, now when you're now, when you're nineteen and twenty years old, most need to be about twenty.
Five, but think about twenty five, but we.
And that's early thirty. Really, I guess I know the Bible, I have.
A conversation with fertility and all these things. So maybe we should ask.
That no, no, the body your best physical time to have children. I think it's even before you eighteen years old, exactly like your body, because I'm talking about your your mentality. It is a lot of stuff to do. Like now that I see my granddaughter and her parents, that's a whole new shit. I'm telling We talk about this all the time. Looking at how Nassan is so involved with you know, how he deals with his son and them as good great parents.
For Kassan, this is a new generation.
When we was younger, at twenty four to twenty five years old, I don't know what was happening.
If it wasn't for my parents.
I just why I was in jail so.
So death define.
It gets back to the point of why at twenty years old we do not need to be having children.
And you get to be about twenty five to twenty six, you can do it.
But it's still very, very very hard. The opportune time, even though it's not physically, the right time is about thirty, but then that's when you deep in your career.
I don't know.
Well, anyway, we're getting ready to talk about, like you said, fertility and all of that, and now the it's shit from late and ruin. So let me tell you my thought of the day. You know, we've been supporting Congressman Jamal Bowman. Hopefully at the point that you all see this interview, he has won his primary as the congressman, the continued congressman of District sixteen in the Bronx. And
this is not really so much about Congressman Bowman. But one of the greatest challenges that we faced as we stood with this brother and will continue to in all of his endeavors, is this idea that there are people who really believe in their hearts and mind that Vladimir, which is a man who ran against him a seventy plus. I think he's seventy one, but he's seventy plus. You're old white man who was the county executive in Westchester.
So there are people who know him, pastors and other things that he's done in the community.
People know him, right.
They thought that he was better than Jamal to be a congressman. Now I'm not even here to talk about the difference because again, hopefully at this point we beat him and that's the end of the story. But it's possible that at the point at this point next week, we haven't. So I don't know that that thing. But here's something I do know about the how we as humans. And I say we because all of us have some part of this hypocritical nature. We just we are hypocritical
and conflicted beings just in our makeup. Because we could sit and say we don't want to see you know, violence in our community and then watch all the BMF and power possible and love it. We can say we don't like sexual promiscuity and then be outside so my giddy sex seeet. So this is just the nature of humans, like it's it's and I don't even know. Maybe the word hypocritical feels hard, so I will say we're conflicted individuals.
But here's what scares me. Some of the same people who support Vladimir the seventy one year old white man are the same folks who are anti Trump. The same people who are saying we need a Congress in place that will block the Republicans, God forbid Trump becomes president. That won't work across the out too much to our detriment with people like the Marjorie Tail of Greens, who are completely crazy and will always compromise everything that we're
trying to get done that has to do with our wellbeing. Right, they would say, we don't need to have these older people going into Congress at this point in their lives, because we need to have younger, fresh people. Like we saw what happened with Ruth Bada Ginsburg same people. She was older, she probably should have retired while Obama was president, which meant that he would have been able to appoint someone in her position on the Supreme Court and we would not have lost that seat.
Right.
These are the same people who have this logic. They don't want Trump.
They don't want people who are in Congress that are sort of aging out, which gives other that makes them vulnerable for people to run against them.
I mean, they don't want people who will do too much compromise.
And that look like they're too much in the middle of the hole. They want them to be strong on our issues. This is what they say out their mouths. And then they decide that it is better to send someone who is in the retirement age of his life right to Congress over a younger man, a younger black man who is an educator, by the way, that they could get into Congress, and he has at least twenty five to thirty years of still being young, still being
on the issues. He's already showing that he is a very progressive and has a liberal mindset and is exactly what you need when you got a Marjorie Taylor green Maga mentality in Congress, you need a squad mentality also to help combat that.
Now, I'm not saying if you had a.
Situation where these people were just running at the same time, right, they just knew people running for office, and you decide, we know the county executive, we respect him, we respect some of the things that he's done. We're going to look at him because we know him better than we know Congressman Jamal Bowman. Jamal Bowman is the incumbent, he
is the current congressman. So you're saying you would rather send him home a young man, a young black man who has years and years and years before him that he can be there to make good in Congress.
So you could put a seventy one year old white man who is taking money from the very people.
You say you don't want, the same people funding Trump, the same people who are funding a genocide or at least fighting like hell to ensure that the people of Palestine are wiped out.
They okay with that as far as I can see. That's how I feel. Right.
These people are giving him money, the same GOP donors that are funding Trump.
And funding the campaigns.
Against How the hell you out here marching speaking against the discontinuance or the destruction of DEI and then you want to support a candidate that's taking money from the people who are funding the campaign against DEI.
It's not making sense to me.
None of it makes sense. And we always will vote against our best interest, right, And that's one of the major things that I've been saying lately that how did they trick us into believing that people and the very people that we say we against are better for us? Like this is this ship is like you just said, it's really mind but it's mind blowing to me. Like every time I look at these situations and we vote against we vote against our ultimate best interests.
Well, no, we don't vote against our best interests. You see, this is the problem. We most of the time don't vote at all, not not not all of us.
I'm not saying that, not all of us, No, I'm not.
I want to make it very clear this is the issue because I don't want there to be a gray area.
The issue is.
Too many of us don't vote at all at these times when we need to be.
But it is an interest, it's our personal win.
Y And that's the problem, not that it's not our aer, our best interest, our elect exactly.
Then that's what it is. And if you're talking about the collective, were talking about what's going on in our communities, communities of color, where we we are experiencing the brunt of all of the legislation, past the fucking judges that they putting into all like we are experiencing it firsthand.
If we're voting against the things that are going to change those against the people who are intentional about saying, now, I'm gonna make sure these communities have the proper school and they have the funding for the programs needed in the communities. I'm gonna make sure that the elderly are good. I'm gonna make sure the health insurance is good in
these communities. If we're voting against those people because somebody's gonna give my my program a couple of dollars, right, somebody's gonna fund my my personal thing a couple of dolls, somebody's gonna make sure that my business keeps running or the corporations that I have one, then we are fighting and losing battle. And that's what's happening. And that's that's when you look at these organizations that are funding the
people running against Jamo Bowman. They are focusing on a personal in of the people, like okay, you want some funded for this, Okay, We're gonna make sure y'all get.
This, you know.
And I think that there are some people who really have rationalized this, like they really believe that they're doing the right thing somehow because of whatever. And I I really it made me go even harder because I'm like, I know that there is no common sense to this right here, right, And as pissed off as I have been with Hakim Jeffries, who I love dearly as a brother, but I am so upset with how he has just
like it's like Israel just completely owns him, right. Just hurt my heart to see this, even he endorsed Jamal Bowman, it don't make sense to me of incumbent. You don't people incumbents are incumbents for a reason.
And let me tell you to speak to your point about or to speak to the point about the middle.
Of the line, like how you get these older especially democrats in there, and they're more like, you know, want to try to work with everybody and all of that. The man said it to Jamal where he damn near called him an angry black man. He said, you can't just stand around yelling at people on the stage. You got to figure out how to work with them. The only times I've ever seen Jamaal Bowman yelling at people was when some shit was going down that you need to be yelling.
It was that crazy.
They don't want the energy. The reality of the situation is as we get older, we just get more said on our ways. We less on conflict, right, we like the lion that's going to just the reality some of
us are. You have some elder who still have that fight in them, but then some are just beat up, right, some just say, you know what, I want to figure out how to work with you, even though even though I realized that the compromises not in the best interest of us all the way, right, And then you have young lines like Jamal Bowen, it's like, nah, there's certain
things on conference a stop. They gotta be somebody. It's like, no, this ship is a full stop, right, and that's what we need in leadership, Like that's what leadership is supposed to look like for us. And you know, unfortunately there are so many people who don't want conflict. They want they want to say you got to be able to do it this way, don't they They want the least you know, they want the least amount of resistance, and
that's where we are. And unfortunately, you know, we have we we we we sat on two sides, especially in our political parties. Is that there are likely you say, the moderates, and then you don't those they want to call radical. But I don't think. I don't think accent for people to stop killing innocent human beings is radical.
I don't think saying hey, don't fund, don't send money that taxpayers from America, you know, are paying to fund killing innocent people, and not fund the school systems, and not for fund our own health. Don't tell us you don't have insurance for elderly that they're dying at higher rates, but you have money to continue to send to fun wards. I don't. I don't think anything is.
Radical that's not radical.
And in fact, one of the critiques that I've seen online from people against Tama Bowman is oh, well, he voted for this or he voted against.
This, and that.
Yeah.
Sometimes he's actually been one of those people that knows how to compromise. He's not a he's an actual, a smart elected official with a smart man, just stop it.
Shout out to Jamaal Bowman, we love you man, and that brings you to my music spotlight. Today. I found this young artist in the song Touched Me. His name is ce five C five five. He's a young artist and he's from Oakland, and it was a song called letter to My Son. You know, he had a son in his arms, and it was since it's you know, in the spirit of the Father's Day. We just passed Father's Day. I just wanted to give him a shout out. A lot of his music, it's very touching, it has
a message. He's one of those artists who's building his following organically and it's based off just good music. Man. So shout out to C five five. Let us keep doing what you do. Let it to my son is dope.
All right, Well, let's get into our guest. Good conversation, lots to learn. Check it out. Our friends have.
Joined us again too.
Well.
First of all, our sister Keisha, how ya, Coach Jesse has been with us a number of times, and so it's really good to have y'all on our show because y'all been doing everybody else this show to talk about, you know, what has recently took what recently took place as a family that I think is incredible, beautiful, amazing,
And I see Keisha loa Keisha. That's how it has already just you know, helped you to walk into your advocacy, which I knew was going to happen for you at some point, and it's beautiful to watch that now.
So first of all, let me just introduce you all properly.
Lakeisha Randolph is now a black She is the leader of the Black Fertility Matters community.
Okay, let's get that straight.
So I feel an organization on the way, something big buildings and a lot of things I can see.
In the future.
And she Keisha has had to have IVF has also now an egg a donor.
You are have received eggs.
So I know Coach Jesse's gonna get all of this language clearness when we all learn.
I'm learning, I'm learning.
All the things.
And then Coach Jesse health activists and founder of the Detox Now but she's also our big sister that keeps us healthy, keeps us mentally stable. And we don't listen like we should, but we appreciate you, Coach.
Jesse, love you principal.
Thank y'all so much for joining the show today, and I think it would be great for us to hear from you, Keisha about that story, what took place and how all these other incredible women got involved.
Well, thank you so much for having me.
Yes, I am Lakeisha Laurel or Latisha Randolph or Keisha. I am the founder of a support group called Black Fertility Matters. I wanted to start the support group for women who have been on the road and who have been dealing with infertility for as long as I have. I've been dealing with infertility for over twenty five years.
I've had two feiled IVF cycles. I'm currently on the show Love and Hip Hop Atlanta season eleven, about to be season twelve, telling my story alongside of my sister Yandy Smith, whom volunteer to donate her eggs to me. So I am the I am the receiver, she is the donor. Yandy Smith is the donor. I am receiving her eggs to conceive have my own child. So we're
on our journey to motherhood. I wanted to provide a support group for women who may feel ashamed, guilty, depressed, anxiety, who go through an emotional roller coaster dealing with IDA and infertility soul. This is where my sister, alongside with my sister Yandy Smith, introduced me to Coach Jefse who is a health and wellness coach. I've also detoked with her many years ago. And Coach Jesse introduced me and Yandy who to our fertilities doctor, which is doctor Daniel Layne.
Unfortunately she had to go, but she is an amazing fertility that have been working with me and Yandy on our journey or my journey to motherhood.
So that's a little bit about our story.
We wanted to and Coach Jesse and doctor Lane wanted to also join the Black Fertility Matter to help educate, support and provide resources for the black and brown community. I just felt like I wanted to continue to tell my story.
I didn't know where to start.
I reached out to LaToya Bond, Yandy Smith, Coach Jesse, doctor Lane and said, listen, I need to tell my story because it's not only gonna help me. It was a time where I couldn't even talk this much about my process what's happening without me crying. So now for me to be able to stand up here and say I'm providing a support room for myself and other women who are going down this journey.
It's amazing. It's amazing.
I just thank you guys for telling my story and having Coach Jesse, doctor Lane, and Yandy Smith joining the Black Fertility Matters team.
Well that's powerful. Well how long have you been trying to conceive a child?
So I've been literally trying to conceive a child for over twenty five years. I've been dealing with fibroids and demetriosis, and then I've went to a fertilitis who you know. My gyn said, Okay, you cannot conceive due to age. Once you're over forty, your egg count becomes low. And then because I have fibroids and in demetriosis makes my fertility even harder. So I've been dealing with infertility for over twenty five years and now I'm called that can conceive healthy embryos.
Coach Jesse, you know our audience, our listeners, are no stranger to your story. But I think in the context of what Lakeisha has been dealing with, it would be great to be reminded of your story and how you got into this work and then if you could give us some insight on and you know, what was the process, what was your planning process to support Lakeisha?
Yeah, you know first of all, Lakesha she read she just my heart went out to her when I learned her story, because I battled in fertility that was paused by five roids. I battled bibras for thirteen years and infratility pause was five. It's one news and that percipisode of what I call my million dollar baby journey, where I had five IVF cycles, the individual fertilization cycles that Keisha was mentioning, and the first one I had miscarriage.
Three failed IVF cycles after that, and even after we did conceive more daughter, FIEF cycle had major rest certain situations. Whatever even told me actually because of the terminating my pregnancy at twenty one and twenty one weeks, because in the journey, I was either having fibriid survey or having IVF forstandards, because the fibrids kept coming and here they were more back and this literally threatened the life of my baby. Where they said that it was from my
hostile environment. Won't you know when we're now, thank God, my journey even though my heart stopped, nothing would follow on queer day. I do have my medical babel when I you know, when I learned after my journey, my story when she went you know, it went viral after us a published foot follower. That's what actually connected me to the fact that this was actually something that we'll do on her. It was and telling my story is actual connected medication because who were she can be heard
and walktually on Breakfast Club. And that is when they reached out to me and we started to to look at how we could support her.
Number one, have her just loving up overall, that's number one because when I did, she was dealing with advanced by boiling already beny triosis, right, And so for me that that look looking at what you know and so always about what we can do, what's in your power to do it?
And then you know, even then I was like, my my thoughts are how to bring out for us to think about parenthood outside of a box. And many times I remember teachers, you know, years long ago, you might have a loop of the pregnancy. You know, we're able to they do you know now Alice might think about the baby and for many years back and forth, but she wasn't.
For many years, I wasn't right there motherhood. I needed my motherhood to look normal.
But now I realized that's not normal for me.
Everybody everybody's is different. And I'm so proud of you, not just doing looks work for yourself, but how you are doing it more to provide support for people were literally all over the world who are struggling with this, struggling with it in silence and in silence, right in isolation and in silence. So once she told me, I remember writer, and when you told me, he said, you were telling your story. I said, I'm here. Whatever, let's
do this. We're going to do this together, because too many of us don't know about the access to support that you're available. We don't know about the resources. We don't know about the black fertility specialists. We don't know about all the things that are available to us and in our power to actually shape our family journeys.
You know, I've known Keisha for a long time. She's always so happy, and you would not know that she was dealing with this journey. I mean, when I'm listening to you, it sounds like you was dealing with levels of trauma, stress.
Trauma, depression, sadness, shame, not feeling adequate as a woman, that my body cannot produce what it was made to produce.
A child.
So all of these emotions I've been holding in for a very long time, right, So it now it's time for me to tell my story, heal my story, and heal other women. So yes, we needed to and it's very important for us to come on here and talk about IVF and what's happening now with IVF and this vote, because, uh, women like myself, we need IVF, we need we need
in vitro and fertilization. Because for me, with this whole Alabama Supreme vote saying that a frozen embryo is a child, and uh, if you whoever destroys this embryos, you're destroying your liable murder death.
It's murders.
I mean, I personally don't believe that in embryos is a child yet, but to each his own. So it just takes away from your own individual beliefs and rights. If I want to have the right to freeze my embryos later, let me have the right, like they should not have that right to call.
For women who are suffering what do you think like And it's a slow walk. It's a slow walk to actually taking away ibs for people. Right, So there are people literally I don't know if you have to hear of a condition called as aspermia. Right, I'm going to use the school's very very open lyrics option. So Tamika and my son, have you guys ever heard that that first of all, male fertility factor infertility actually plays the same has the same impact as female factor issues.
Have you ever heard?
I never really heard it. I mean, you hear about it, but it's not really something that's focused on because men we suffer in silence, like, man, ain't I say you know I can't make a baby?
Right you?
You've always assumed it's something else going on. You're not really even assuming that isn't because of you?
Right? Right? That's that's important. And then guess what who's the face of infertility? Women? Right?
Women?
So then now let's go back to the fact that if you don't know that your husband or your partner is the problem, now you're dealing. You're not even getting access to the real solutions. So there's an example where a man can you know, be be able to satisfy you sexually with no issues, meaning you know, becomes no issue, right, and do you know there could be no sperm in that ejaculate. It's called as you sperm in. Now, a person who has that condition cannot conceive a perfirm idea.
It's not possible because they have to go into and many times if there is sperm in the sack but not coming out through the penis what's happening now is they have to have a proceiper to remove the sperm. That first, we can never have ideas.
Let me, let me just get this straight. There's some there's no fluid that comes out.
Fluid, No, there's fluid comes out, but there's no sperm.
But it just doesn't it doesn't contain sperm that.
Can as correct.
Yes, that is a that is a condition, and there are to That's just one sample, right, one example of a way that that person can never conside apart from IBO right.
There, and then there are people who have many other issues. Again, I look at you know. IVF was a gift to me because there is a dominant kidney disease in my family. Okay, it is. It's it's called polycystic kidney disease, and fifty percent of every embryo this disease. But because we did IVF, we were able to test the embryos beforehand. All right, up to seventy five percent of people who have this condition end up on dialysis, and it killed so many
people in my family. I was diagnosed with it. But thank god, because of detox living, I'm able to be a testimony that you know, my doctor's like what right? But I didn't want my child to have to deal with it.
And because of IVF being able to test the embryo ahead of time, that condition will never be it will never be present in my line again, my daughter, it never has to worry about passing that dominant disease in our family.
That is a gift. That is a gift, and you can't do that apart from mind yet.
You know, first of all, I don't even understand why someone who doesn't deal with these situations, right, who can't even fathom the reality that couples and families go through with this situation and with these you know, diagnosis, would even want to have any input that would natively impact someone. I don't even understand that part.
I think it's control. I think it has to do a population control.
Absolutely, I definitely believe that.
But I want to ask you, Keisha, are you currently in a relationship.
I am currently in a relationship, yes, as of five months, but try into the five month I was not in a relationship, and was it hard?
Like was that situation? Did you did this play a factor in your mind in your relationships or did the fact that you weren't able to conceive cause any kind relationships? Well?
Prior to me being in a relationship, I felt nervous to get into a relationship because I knew that the male would want to conceive a child and or with any mail I would be with, they would want to have a child with me, right, So, and I knew that that wasn't an option for me. So it was
I was apprehensive of getting into a relationship. But now that I'm in a relationship and he knows what's happening with my body and infertility, and if now he wants me to use his sperm, right, but I've already went through the process of a process of going to a sperm donorm.
But yes, so it goes both ways.
Yeah, he wants me to use his sperm now, So that we can con see well at least have his demon or DNA, but I will I will still have to get an egg donor.
Right, so his sperm would have to go into the eggs that you now have in storage and then you and then the egg would be put inside of you and you would be trying to conceive that.
Way, that's absolutely what's happening.
So so Coach Jesse.
Talk about this stigma that if you can't conceive, you're doing something wrong, Like it's what you're eating, it's you know, your past life, who you slept with. You know, I know an old wives tell used to be when I was young. They would say, if you have too much sex when you're young, you're not gonna be able to have a baby when you get older. Like the things that we passed down, a lot of stories that are told to us to try to like keep us from
being promiscuous or whatever. And so therefore people grow up again with the shame that Keisha spoke about not not being able to talk about what's happening because they think they did something wrong to cause this infertility issue on themselves. Can you talk a little bit about that.
Yeah, you know, there are so many things that are passed on generation wrong because of fear. Right, it's driven by fear that, like you said, we don't want our children to have to make pregnancy. We don't want them to end up what we say, you know, ruldening their lives, which is you know, neither here nor there. But the biggest issue is that, you know, I think what we have to do is reclaim number one our overall priority of our health, because we have to think about our
health and opportunity together. I think that there has been so much demongering where it's like, oh my god, don't do this because you get pregnant, where women have done so much put them on birth control twelve years old, and it has affected their health negativity, okay, and then it has become an obstacle to their fertility down the road. Right, instead of saying, hey, you know what, we want you to health you so that one day down the road you want to have children, you're going to healthy in
order to give yourself. So really is changing the paradigm that's necessary. And there's also such a need to actually make fertility conversations a healthy conversation, right that actually that being part of your overall life's plan and planning for it because right now there's so many women who they want to focus on, especially in our generation, they want to focus on their career. They want to focus on
during the ball. But guess what their fertility is on the it's on, it's on the right, on the back brond.
Doctor Lane would say, what if you're over, if you're up to up until what thirty two years old? Five thirty five, thirty two thirty five, think about having a child and if not, yeah, thirty two, start free free them, start freezing up, and then continue on with your your life as far as your careers, your job.
Yes, what not that whole time, except of embryo being a light, which you know, I'm gonna put my dog out there in the hunt at embryo. How can an embryo be a life? If that's the truth, that every embryo that was implanting would grow okay, it doesn't grow automatically. If that is case, there would be no failed ivy outside because they would always grow right. But they don't always grow right because life doesn't happen the way I
see it. Life doesn't grow until it doesn't happen until actually talked in the womb and it starts to actually grow. That's my first friend. I agree with you. So ed reason becomes a problem. Egg freedom becomes a problem if embryos are thought as you see I'm saying, because now after third, after a certain number of years, like I think at forty, they freeze your action and they freeze embryos.
They don't even breeze eggs, right because they actually need you to fertilize them, gets firm and fertilized in order to breeze embryos. So it is the reason this is so for its because it is a.
Slow block to totally controlling your fertility right, and and fatility specialists can only they they if they can't if they can't breeze the embryos, and all of these.
These roadblocks are put up, it's gonna start shutting down our IBM centers, right, it shuts down idea finis So going back to your question, Snika, I hope I answered it, which was that there's a lot of fear mongering that has been put in our thought battery and the wind even raise and and not enough FULTI thinking about what needs to do to actually have healthy fertility, healthy libido, healthy, actual reproductive health period right, because there's been this whole
idea of trying to control things, but now we realize, no, we need to have a positive view of our old all reproductive health, which includes happy periods. And we talked about that before, right, that they do having very very uh you know, positive perspective about our cycle and not you know, looking at them as monster that they're supposed to be that and we're supposed to suffer and in silence.
And in Chaine, that was pretty much kind of thegister with the question I wanted to ask because there is a lot of fear mongering about you know, what causes
infertility and all those things. I just want to know what are some of the things that do cause facility other than you know, being running your family, Like, what are some of the things that causes infertility, and what are some of the things that the healthy processes that you know need to be taken so that women can avoid infertility women and men exactly My apologies.
Well, for me, my infertility was caused through fibroids and and demetriosis, and then age factored and once I became over forty, right, so and then coach Jesse would say, it's what dieting and environ lifestyle and life and lifestyles. And for me, honestly, I would even my mental I would say even abortion, streas or infertility and stress. Like coach, yes, you can add on, but those are the things for me that I feel caused my infertility.
If you really want to be on it. Reproductive health issues obviously, such as vibrants because variance in drom on endemy feels it's.
Our factors absolutely infertility, But we have to go back to what actually our root caused factors of those issues, such as you know, stress being one of their number one.
Okay, then it is such a thing as actual hormonal imbalance, that is drivers of things like fibroids, drivers of prints like indim feels, et cetera hormonal balance where echidnes is too high in your body and project thrones too well. And that's affected by everything from the products that we rite shout out to patients creating non doxic you know, male polity. Everything from the makeuping to be, to the to the deodorant, to the toothpaste, to the food that
all affect our home normal balance. Right, and then the one that's huge in the black community is viting. My deficiency. Vitamin deficiency is a huge factor when it comes to things like bibords and to be slosis because the number one normal that our body uses to fight Bible exactly divide in the demomal and because our melanin, as people of color, our melanin blocks the organ of the sun that the body uses for convert and create deeply hormone.
Because it blocks it, we need to be supplementing. That's literally why you know we create our prevention at at the detox now because like you know, the top three things that people come are viting to the deficiency, hormoral balance, and chronic inflammation, right, and the third thing I was going to say was chronic. So when you look at those things being present, then they're things like age, like
what you thought about, right. When it comes to women, men it's not really age for their parabodies create sperm all the time for year. That's why you meant a baby severally eighty years old. But women our eggs, all the eggs do ever that have we were born with them and at thirty five we plummet a number of eggs. Everything like the rustings right, and that after age, the age we need even more. But when it comes to the other factor is youneral age. And when it comes
to men, it things like smoking. They are factors lifestyle factors, going back to the men, because men's the quality of the nerves, canot and carriages. It's connected with in control, all right, And that's everything smoking, from drinking to you know, hot tubs that posted about this week to be and hot tubs and jaques where it overheats the sperm to weed is a major attend at you know, on quality sperm. The lifestyle factors, these are things we have change.
So based upon what you're saying, there are things we're doing wrong. To go to the original, it sounds like there's some things that we are doing to cause our infatility issues that.
We didn't know that they were connected to. Yes, absolutely, but they were not. They were not. They were not they were not seen as Wait a minute, these are things that I can actually change in order to improve, right, right.
So there are some things that can be genetic, some things that you know could be like they say, in your family.
But well guess what's in your family? Lifestyle? Lifestyle life, same that.
We have and all the things exactly, and we know fibrates and all that is certainly something that, based upon our life choices, can happen to absolute women from generation to generation, because I certainly know that in my family fibroids has been an issue for a long time. And as I mentioned to you before, when I was younger, I was in the cycle of bacterial vaginosis east infection, bacterial vaginosis east infection. Trying to figure out what was
going on. I ended up going to a series of doctors, like to Columbia University. I mean, I became a study for I stopped having sex completely because you know, first of all, it was uncomfortable, and then also just trying to figure out what the issue was. And I went to a doctor who was not in my insurance plan, my own doctor. After all the work that she did, she was frustrated. She didn't know what else to do, especially again within my network, and so she sent me to a woman who.
I had to pay cash. And I was like, lady, I don't care.
It could be whatever my whole for the rest of my life, I could be paying you freedom not the solved, but this problem I wanted. And God rest her soul. This doctor met with me, uh, and it took her one day. She took blood work today and the next day she called me and said, like most of my black women clients, you have zero vitamin D.
It wasn't in my system at all.
You know, do you know how many things you could have been dead from cardio, so many issues because of vitamin D.
And she put me on Vitamin D.
Put me on, made sure I had some iron in my system as well, because I didn't have that as either.
And I it was three days. Three days I began to feel better and then maybe in the next two to.
Three weeks I was healed completely and I never ever had that problem of those current infections again in my life.
It was all about vitamin D.
Makes sense, But go back to you know, vitamin D is huge when it comes to your immunity, right and when it comes to your body's ability to fight off infection. So yeah, it is one of those states. Every black person should be taking D three, Every black person should be taken D. Every single black and brown person it'll be taking D three, okay, yes, and you and ask your doctor for what high normal your level should be.
Don't let them tell you it's normal and it's more normal because as black and brown people, our bodies need more in order to overcome everything we're fighting. Just from the client information as the impact of basis of rebuild every day.
I want to let you go, Coach Jesse, and also U Keisha, thank y'all so much for your patience with us today, for being with us, and for being committed to getting this information out to our listeners and everyone who needs to hear both Keisha's story and the way in which you, as a health and wellness expert, continue to focus on black women. Coach Jesse, I want people to know how they can find you, how they can
get involved with your work. But I wanted to just leave with this point about my medical diagnosis during that time, and this has now been I'm forty four, so this has been about twenty years ago. I was about twenty five years old. What scares me is that I went to Columbia University. Doctor at Columbia, my own doctor sought after this doctor.
People were lined up.
You couldn't even get an appointment with her because she was actually a very good doctor.
G Wyan.
I went to all these places, other doctors looking online, calling aun tie them, trying to figure it out, and no one had the information about a simple thing like vitamin D. That's scary to me that I ad to the top those prestigious places all the way down to qual and t teeing them in the hood like yo, you ever had this issue like what's good? And everybody was telling me about Minusta was giving me. Minusta was making me feel like I was like I needed a fire.
Hose on fire, terrrible. That did not help me at all.
My issue was not coming from, like you said, from having you know, sex or whatever. My issue was coming from inside.
But I mean, nobody knew what to tell me. So it's very scary.
And I hope that now because of course we weren't in this big internet age and you know, things were a lot different. But I hope that now we're in a situation where black families, mother and father who have daughters and sons are not treating our health, our reproductive
health as if it is a taboo conversation. We can actually say the things that need to be said to teach our kids about our boys about cleaning their penises properly, our girls about their health as well, because what that is, what in my judgment, has been so much of an issue. You can't bring it up. I don't remember, you know, you just can't bring it up. It's just Grandma is not able to travel about your VIJJ.
Yeah, it was very different day. But it's a different day.
You know.
When my daughter had her cycle, we called all the family members on FaceTime one by one and said, hey, she got a pario because I was changing the paradigmage. I said, we're going to celebrate it at something that is a right. It happened that it says now that we need steeper in her life and we're going to delibrate it that she doesn't ever.
Canlche Thank you, thank you, Keisha, Thank you so much.
Drives for listening to our storytelling a story fighting against IVF and these Republicans who are going against IVF and what they believe and they should not have the right to women's body medications. Please continue to get the word out and continue to talk about IVF and infertility. If you guys for your guests, Black Fertility Matters Team every Thursday for on my IG Live that's at Lakeisha Laurel every a PM, we have a live discussion on infertility
in the black and brown community. We're trying to spread the word and give resources and educate our community on what's out there, what's available, different votes that are going against iv You have different doctors that are here to educate and help us. Please you can reach me at Black Fertility Matters ww dot Blackfertilitymatters dot com or on ig it's ig Black Fertility Matters. Also at Lakisha Laurel on ig coach Jesse.
And tell them where to find us. So, first of all, you know, we have to continue to spread the word and we have to advocate for and contact our legislators. So if I am Coach g E S s I E on Instagram and if we comment save IVF on any of my pots, you will receive a d M with the information on how to contact your legislator, what you can do, what's in your power. And then also if you look at the support on your continued journey, you know how we can help you control of that
as well. Invite either take our free foods at rgepom dot com and so you can learn you know what you think within your team for Portfolia and to wabble up. What video was our very first off with the wall.
Well, we want to thank you coach Jesse for always being the friends of the room and you know, and always bringing that information and informing us about things that we don't know about, because I'm very much informed now. And I just want to salute you Keisha for you know, knowing you for years and you being in the background and just you know, always having this spirit and now using your passion and using your experience to be an
advocate and be on the front line. You know, it's beautiful and I just I commend you cry so prod you almost made me quiet because I'm looking at you and I'm like, Keisha is really.
Taking you know, what's in my life, the pain of not being able to have a child, but to still have this face of everything's okay.
Is it takes a toll on you, and it takes a toll on your heart.
So you know, this is a process control of you taking control of your life. You take control of your narrative. And you are a face for so many women who are are sitting there and they're going through what you once went through. So your bravery and your ability to come forward is going to really change this world in the narrative around what this looks like. So we appreciate you.
You will ear more than just your own.
You will birth your own and you will birth an entire generation with the work that you're doing.
So thank you so much. God bless y'all. We love y'all so much, and thank you, thank you, thank you, and thank you again.
Thank you guy so very much.
Well, listen, there's a lot to learn about that topic, you know. First of all, like you said, Keisha, she's so amazing. And I think the thing about Keisha is that for her for a long time, especially since Yandy has been a celebrity, she's been a support system and a backbone, you know, absolutely for the kids, for the family,
for the businesses, for everything that Yandy has built. And I think that in and of itself is kind of like it's a lot of pressure when you're trying to help keep a family going because nobody, I don't know any celebrity that would say that they're in the position that they're in without the support of like a lot of people and a lot that goes into keeping them going. Yandy, you know, has a family and businesses, several businesses, and
she's on TV. Takes her mother, her father, her sister and Keisha and others to be a part of that. And of course you know her husband and so I know what it is and understand from her perspective what it is to be a backbone play.
To play that role.
And then now having to come forward or deciding to come forward with something that has been impacting her as well, and for Yandy to step up and immediately say I'm willing to support you know, I'm going.
To give you my eggs.
That to me is big because now it's reciprocal. It's like something that I needed. You're there for me as well. So I think it's a beautiful story.
Oh it's such a beautiful story. Man. Just knowing Keisha and knowing what she does behind the scenes important she is to Yandy and just the machine that she has there and to see her utilize her own personal experiences and her pain actually and change it into purpose.
You know.
The way she is now is just it's actually motivational, you know, and it brings me to my I don't get it. You know, everyone should have autonomy over their own person, Like I just don't get why there are people who actually want to pass laws that would affect someone like Lakeisha right from being able to have a baby, from being able to, you know, have a family, to make the decision about the bodies and the eggs that
they have, Like these things are very strange to me. Like, I think, if you don't want to abort your children, if you don't want to freeze your you know, your eggs, you don't want to freeze your embryos, you don't want to do those things, I think you have every right not to do those things. I just don't understand why we need legislation that prohibits someone who might need to
do these things to do it. And it really, it really mind boggles me when you when you hear people talk like they should have the right to tell you what to do with your body. Like it's very strange to me. And it's very weird that we have so many people who have that mentality, right, and a lot
of them are in positions of power and in government. Right, the fact that we actually the fact that we actually have to have this conversation that we have to fight for IVF, Like, what do you mean this is your personal body.
Right.
That's like actually telling someone who you can have sex with, right, all of these things, because that's what it comes down to. At a certain point, they'll be able to tell you when and how you conceive a child, right, who you conceive a child with, what time you need to be all these things. Is just basically taking your own human autonomy from you, your own human rights from you. So
it's very strange, man. I wish we'd get to a point in life where people start respecting people's personal space, people's personal opinions, people's personal choices. I would never be able to have a child, right, I would never know what that feeling is to carry to carry it, you have to literally carry and actually give birth physical birth to a child. You know. I don't know what that situation is. I don't know all those things that come
with that. So I don't think there should ever be a time when I should be able to have a voice that could impact that for a woman, you know. And so it's just very strange to me.
You know, well, I think that first of all, every all things lead to politics, everything, and the bottom line is that there is a segment of the population which is ultimately this.
Is like Handmaide's Seal. If you haven't seen Handmaid's Sell, you should probably check it out, because really it's playing out because they are a segment. There's a segment of the population, which is basically white men, older white men who are concerned about the declining numbers of their race.
That is what this is about.
That the Latino population is fast as growing, that at some point this country will be more brown than white. And of course we as black people, they always been trying to stop us or find ways to cap our childbirth, the growth of our communities, and the dominance of our communities. And therefore, and on top of all the things that you see, right, they're passing these laws to try to impact women's rights, to choose the autonomy for our bodies.
They're doing all of that, but they also are going into their churches, going into their places of worship, their organizations, and everywhere else, spreading a message of have more children to white women.
Right, they want white women to have more children. They are trying.
If you ever go out and just people watch, just people watch, you will see white women who have a baby walking a baby in nostrolla and they're pregnant.
And that is not just something that's happening. It's not by happenstance. It is literally becoming baked into their cultural existence that their past. The message is we are declining.
Our race is declining, especially as there's more integration of black people white people on others, the melting pot of people having children, getting married, their race is declining, and therefore they are.
Attempting to find ways to one.
Limit our ability to have children, to slow down the browning of America.
Said that already.
The other part of it, though, is that they are trying to stop their women from having abortions because white women, like every other woman, are very concerned about our careers, concerned about our finances, economics. We don't have the type of money most people that it takes to have multiple children.
And so they're you know, so white people are.
Facing the same thing, and they're saying, hey, listen, it's not the time for me to have a child. I'm going to law school, I'm climbing the corporate ladder, I'm doing you know, all these different things, and I'm not ready to have a child.
And so with that being said, this is intentional, it's it's not.
Happening because people just woke up one day and their beliefs are so strong. No, it's intentional, and it's coming all the way down from different perspectives. They change the courts, they have gutted Roe v. Wade, they have passed other legislation that makes it more difficult. I think it's the Dobbs decision. They have put things in place to from a layered perspective, prevent this country from changing to be
more diverse. So that is what we see happening. And for people who are sitting around toying with the idea of electing Donald Trump to presidency or staying home, what you are ultimately saying. And you know, let me just tell you this. I have been as you know, we travel the country. I talk to black men all the time. I'll stop a black man in the corner store and
get into conversations. And one of the things that I keep hearing, I see it online and I hear it, and I deeply hear it that black men are frustrated with this narrative that they hate black women and that there is so much of a divide, a division between.
Us, and in fact, there are a lot of black people.
You are one of them of a black man are who are very intentional about challenging that narrative and trying to figure out where is that coming from?
Is it social media drama? Is it real? Is it happening in your households?
Like?
Where exactly did this narrative that we are so divide it come from?
And why does it continue to spread? Let me say this, if it.
Is not a part of your political process, thought process, your political ideology, your political moves, to consider my bodily ationomy, my right to choose, my right to be able to get medicines like IVF drugs, birth control, and the things that I need to be healthy and also to be able to produce. If you make a decision in this election and elections two fourth that does not consider me as well and what we as women are experiencing, then who is helping to create the divide? Because that is
something that we will be watching. I talk to so many of them, and I asked, what's your main concern? The man said, economics, period. He said that he doesn't care about policing, he doesn't care about women's choice, he
doesn't care about any of that. And I asked him, as a black woman when I hear you say that you don't care one about criminal justice and policing, that scares me because now what I'm hearing you say is that it's okay for them to blow up our children, shoot them, put their knees in their necks, do all the things that they're doing.
You talk.
He didn't say that's the second or third issue. He said, it's not an issue for him at all. All he cares about is making money, which I still have not figured out where in the Republican platform you'll see the line items of how you're gonna make more money. I don't see that, but maybe other people do. And then I said, so now you don't care about that.
That hurts me.
That scares me because our young black boys and girls need the protection of a system that at least we can challenge it, at least there is a process. Okay, because Donald Trump is talking about he wants these people to be what's the word have immunity.
They should be able to kill us and not be challenged.
There should be no system for holding law enforcement accountable from his perspective, and him either, and him either. So that's one, But then we get down to something deeply personal and that's how I was made, how you were made.
My body needs protection. As a woman. I have the sanctity of our community.
Without me, we cannot continue to grow. So we die if we can't take care of our health, or if we can't say I'm not gonna have three babies when I'm young, because guess what, I don't hear these same men saying they gonna stop having sex if I can't get birth control pills to control the amount of times that I get pregnant. So some of this stuff that
we're talking about, I get it. There's a frustration, but we're just throwing spaghetti at the wall, or trying to be andrey for the sake of it, pissed off with elected officials, to hell with Biden. There's all of these different things that we're feeling, and yet we're looking at a threat that's in front of us that is extremely dangerous.
And I've not heard anybody give me clarity on what you wanna do when I can't get birth control pills, can't get IVF treatments, can't go to certain medical facilities, and they're talking about making it murder if I freeze my eggs, not just saying they thinking about it, they're passing laws in states right now to make that happen.
Well, with that said, I mean, there's not much you can argue with that.
Man.
I think we as men have to understand that there is a real threat to women's existence.
Right and so our existence.
I mean, but when you talk, when you talk specifically about the IVF and abortion and reproductive rights, there's a specific, directly intention to stop women from reproducer and you, like you said, ultimately it's our existence.
It's because women can't have a man or woman without a woman.
So if we and if we're not intentional, if that's not on our top priorities, then we can't ask why they saying this divide. So with that said, I get it, you know, but I don't get why people think it makes sense for us to even have any saying it. So at the end of the day, you know where I stand. I'm always gonna stay with women. I'm always gonna stand for a women sometime. Anyway that brings us
to the end of our show. We appreciate y'all. Shout out to coach Jesse, Shout out to La Keisha, you know for sharing it, sharing her testimony, coach Jesse for also educating us as she always does. Make sure you follow us at Tea and my Underscore show on Instagram. Dm us, let us know how you feel about the show. Give us some topics people you want to see, tell us you love us, tell us you hate us. We know you love us, and keep us the number one show in the world. Tm min is the number one
show in the world. How we appreciate you and we love you. I'm not gonna always be right, Tamika d. Mallory's not gonna always be wrong, but we will both always and I mean always.
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