Erin Spencer: dealing with childhood RACISM, IDENTITY struggles & INFERTILITY

Erin Spencer shares how growing up, as a half African-American, in a White American community led her to experience racism & face resurfacing rejection from an absent biological father. 

Erin also shares her struggle with infertility until conception of their first child & diving into question the root behind hormonal imbalances that Erin faced, along with her openness to the spiritual realm and  supernatural experiences.

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:01

Hello and welcome to Voices Unhindered. I'm Crystal Jenkinson. On this show, I give a unique perspective and listening air to voices that often go unheard. I want everyone to know that you are not alone and that your voice and story. This week Erin shared how growing up experiencing racism as a half African American in a white community led her to struggle with her identity and even feelings of rejection from having an absent father. Erin shares her struggle with infertility and her experiences with the supernatural. You don't want to miss this episode. Hi Erin, it's really nice to have you today. Thanks. Happy to be here. Yeah, oh, cool. I wanted to start a little bit about your background. So you grew up in America and California, right?

SPEAKER_02 0:45

Yeah, North America, California. Grew up on the indigenous Maidu lands close to Roseville, California.

SPEAKER_04 0:53

You said you were mixed and like part of it was we stayed in the city. I'm very mixed.

SPEAKER_02 0:56

We're still doing our genealogy, but uh I thought that my grandfather was an immigrant, but when I reached out to my mom recently to see about how I can get my Czechoslovakian citizenship, she said that my grandfather was actually born in uh Philadelphia. So that's interesting. Turns out my great-grandparents or my my um grandfather's mom immigrated to Czechoslovakia. So I'm a couple generations removed when I thought it was my grandfather, but you know, learning so many things.

SPEAKER_04 1:30

Did you still grow up with the Eastern Orthodox, like religious kind of house household?

SPEAKER_02 1:35

Not the religion. My great-grandmother was Russian Orthodox. Um, but it didn't really get passed down. I think once my grandfather got older and my my grandma, they just they didn't really follow like any particular religion. So yeah, religion wasn't really part of my household.

SPEAKER_04 1:58

And I wanted to ask about like, so you grew up with your mother, right? And your dad, biological dad wasn't really in the picture ever.

SPEAKER_02 2:06

Yeah, he left, I think, when I was three. So I don't remember anything about him, just through pictures.

SPEAKER_04 2:12

Yeah. What kind of culture was it at home with to do with like the racism? Did it impact your sense of identity?

SPEAKER_02 2:20

Yeah, I mean, I think it still impacts my sense of identity, right? Because my dad is West African, so um Whereabouts exactly do you know? Nigeria.

SPEAKER_04 2:32

That's really cool.

SPEAKER_02 2:34

I guess. I don't know anything about him or Nigeria or strong people.

SPEAKER_04 2:38

Like they have like those movies, famous movies.

SPEAKER_02 2:41

There is like um there's there's a lot of creatives that I really, really value. And they they usually turn out to be Nigerian.

SPEAKER_04 2:48

And then like Shade, that singer, she's like half Nigerian, half like Lover.

SPEAKER_02 2:51

Yeah, yeah, Z-Way, I'm thinking of really love her. She's gonna be me too. But yeah, um, so it's one of those things where it's like, I'm sure a lot of my like tenacity and determination and probably comes from like my ancestral lineage from West Africa. But beyond knowing uh what my dad looked like through pictures and stuff, I didn't really know much about him. And then my mom's side, my grandfather, his family, his side of the family immigrated. And then my grandma was adopted. So we know that she is likely Native American from Arkansas, somewhere in that area. So we're still trying to figure it out. But um, yeah, difficult to to kind of know the background when uh unlike a an adoption has happened, especially like in in those days, such a long time ago. So like 1900s, 1920s, whenever that was.

SPEAKER_04 3:49

Do you think your mom and her family w had elements of like racism in the conversation before they met your biological dad, or was it? There were conversations.

SPEAKER_02 3:59

So there were also some instances where my uncle, I think, got jumped by a group of black men, and like my mom got bullied by um Mexican girls in high school. So it's like a lot of these like racial interactions, these negative racial interactions that I think kind of set the tone. The story that I was told was when my mom met my dad and they decided that they were going to get married. Both families, so my dad's parents and my mom's parents, had a really difficult conversation. They pulled out some whiskey and were like, this is going to be really difficult because neither of them supported an interracial marriage. So neither side of the family. Um and so This is your biological day. This is my biological dad. Yeah. So his parents came over to talk to my mom's parents, and um, they were just really concerned with the implications and everything. Um, but they got married and they had me anyway. So apparently it worked out. Yeah, yeah. Obviously they got divorced and everything, and he left. But it was just like it's Were they in love though? Like, yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, they got married and and my mom didn't marry my sister's dad, and she actually like lied about who he was. But they did get married, they were in love, and then it just kind of fell apart because she was very young.

SPEAKER_01 5:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:22

Um, yeah, so it's just it and it's it that wasn't that long ago, right? That we're we're talking like that. So she loved him. She was like, she had a thing against You know, that's what's that's what's tricky, right? Like he was a black man, so he was good enough to have children with, but if you were to talk to her today, she'd have a lot of choice words for black men in general. So I don't know if maybe that, and then my stepdad, who was also a black man, I don't know if those repeated negative interactions with black men led to kind of how she feels today. It's really hard to understand to like get into that mindset.

SPEAKER_04 6:02

That makes sense. And how did growing up in a very white American, is it a white American suburb or like you moved around in white American suburbs?

SPEAKER_02 6:11

We moved around within Sacramento, yeah, like within um a predominantly white suburb where I went to school. So it's kind of like the neighborhoods were like kind of segregated off. Like there was maybe one other black girl at my school, and everybody else was white. And that was pretty much my experience throughout, I mean, until I got to maybe middle school.

SPEAKER_04 6:32

Did you grow up knowing you were half Nigerian? Like what age did you kind of know?

SPEAKER_02 6:36

Um, I really remember. I'll say that I admitted being black in high school, and before that I hadn't really identified with it. And I only let my boyfriend at the time know that I was black in high school because my mom pulled out a picture of my dad, and he was like, Oh, hey, so I didn't know you were black. And I was like, What are you talking about? And I was terrified because I was so ashamed of like what it meant to be black then. I didn't really know what it meant to be black, I just knew that like being black was something bad. So I didn't identify with it. She was just kind of drunk and she was like showing pictures to my boyfriend, and she showed him a picture of my dad, and that's he came to me and he was like, I I had no idea you're black. And I was really scared, and I was like, Oh no, like he's he's found me out, you know, and I just I was worried for all the implications of like what being black and and admitting that I was black, like what impact that was gonna have on my life, because all the information up to that point was like this is not a good thing, you know?

SPEAKER_04 7:42

Yeah. How did you become aware of the the N-word being wrong, like when you grew up in a household and around people related to you that use the subtle forms of racism?

SPEAKER_02 7:52

So called the N-word when I was six. I was just on the playground and I was waiting my turn to like get on the little climbing gym. And this little girl behind me kind of pushed me out of the way, and she said, I get to go next because you're an N-word. And so obviously, like in my mind, I'm like, okay, that can't be a good thing because that means that I don't get to go, like, I have to let somebody go ahead of me because of this thing. Like that's what you actually believed. I mean, I didn't know how else to take it. Like, she was really mean about it. So it was a negative thing. It wasn't like a it wasn't like a happy tone. I was a very I read a lot when I was a kid and I didn't have a lot of friends. So I overanalyzed everything. So as far as I can recall from being six, I mean, it had a huge impact on me. I knew it wasn't a good thing, but I can't recall what I was told when I brought it up. I must have brought it up. I can't remember if I brought it up. Like to your mom or to a teacher? I don't know. I I remember I remember asking my mom what the like what uh being called a bitch was, but I don't know if I ever asked her what what an N-word was. I just remember a little girl called it to me. It meant that I didn't get a turn and it was something negative.

SPEAKER_04 9:17

That you were below her kind of stuff like that. Yeah. And did you kind of internalize this from a young age?

SPEAKER_02 9:24

Like that that kind of Yeah, I mean it came out in therapy like last year. Because going through my PhD, I've had a lot of um feelings of like not being good enough or not belonging, or not like I'm just not meant to be at the table of of academics. Like it's just it's not a place that I'm supposed to be in. And so unpacking that in therapy, it always goes back to like that six-year-old me. They you know, like they talk about the inner child and everything. And I think that that's needed some healing because I think that imposter syndrome, that one? It's not really imposter syndrome, it's more just like because I know that I'm capable and I know like I have the confidence in what I'm talking about most of the time. But it's more just a matter of like, it's a club that I'm not I'm just not meant to be in. Okay. I'm kind of just like okay with it. I'm like, if I'm not meant to be part of this, then this just isn't a space for me. And that's kind of how yeah, I've felt through most of the PhD.

SPEAKER_04 10:33

And to what extent was your identity shaped by your environment at home, school, and in the community? Did you get your identity from these places?

SPEAKER_02 10:41

Like no. Yeah. Where did you get it from? My identity is still being crafted in this moment as we have this conversation.

SPEAKER_01 10:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:49

Like I was in Girl Scouts, right? So I never really got invited to like do the overnight. When I'd get invited to birthday parties and stuff, I got a weird sense that like once people saw me and realized that like I was like a little child of color, they didn't want me around anymore. So I'd never get invited back to things. Like I anytime I got invited somewhere, it was only the one time.

SPEAKER_04 11:12

Um were these predominantly white, like Oh, yeah. These were always white spaces.

SPEAKER_02 11:16

Which I'm kind of bummed my mom didn't put me in more like black spaces because my sister did get to be in like non-white spaces. So she has a total different trajectory to me. Yeah. So it's that constant signaling that like you're different, the way that you're different is not good. And so I really hid that for a long time. Like people didn't know my like nationality, my ethnicity. And so I really kept it ambiguous my whole life. And I never told people what I was, I never admitted to being black. I'd have a lot of black girls come up and ask me, like, what are you? You know, like, because I'm just I I don't like I could fit into so many different um ethnicities. And so I never really took ownership of being black until probably college when I did a creative writing degree and I was made to write about it. And I think unpacking that and the mentor that I had um at the time, I think that really started to help me. I think I was maybe 26. And that was the first time that I put down on paper and that I admitted like I'm African-American.

SPEAKER_04 12:31

Yeah. And was your dad, was he his parents immigrants from Nigeria?

SPEAKER_02 12:35

No, from what my DNA says, like when you do ancestry DNA, it gives you a map of like where your DNA is traveled from. Oh, yeah. And so when you look at my DNA, my DNA traveled from West Africa to the southern United States.

SPEAKER_04 12:50

I see.

SPEAKER_02 12:50

So it's African American again. If you understand like what the transatlantic slave trade was, that's probably how we ended up in America. Oh, that's so funny.

SPEAKER_04 13:01

Oh, I was calling you Nigerian, but it's like, yeah, we maybe like a little bit African-American.

SPEAKER_02 13:08

Like it Nigerian, yeah, like American against my will, probably.

SPEAKER_04 13:13

Yeah. Did this make you hate yourself, or what about your biological dad?

SPEAKER_02 13:17

Like, did you hate him for not like showing you like who you are, or like he's never really played a major factor in my existence, if I'm honest with you. I've had like some really incredible stepfathers. So my stepfather Randy, who passed away from cancer, absolutely um amazing man. My stepfather now also a really incredible man. So I think because my mom has by chance found some incredible men to be in our lives, I never really felt like I needed. Uh yeah. I mean, and I did try to reach out. I think my mom found my half-brother. Yeah, my mom found my half-brother on Facebook. And so then I re I tried to reach out and find like my uncles and stuff from that side, especially after the DNA, like the ancestry thing. Yeah, my dad's side. But nobody ever replied. So I'm like, By my okay, I'll just move on. Yeah. Not a big, yeah, not a big concern, honestly.

SPEAKER_04 14:26

How often did you move as a kid and describe your trailer mobile home experience with your grand grandma?

SPEAKER_02 14:32

My grandmother would hate me saying it was a trailer. Like that was she said it was a mobile home. It was a double-wide trailer. So I guess today you'd call it a modular home. But yeah, that's where she lived my entire life. And um, that's where I spent most of my childhood. It was between there and then just me and my mom living in apartments together.

SPEAKER_04 14:56

And so the supernatural or the spiritual, how did you become a wheel interested in the spiritual world as a child?

SPEAKER_02 15:04

Oh, probably movies. I watched a lot of horror movies at too much of a young age, but I loved them. I loved horror. I loved ghosts. Yeah, so I think I was just always aware of it. And my mom was always really open with her paranormal experiences, I guess. Really?

SPEAKER_04 15:22

Did she do like any like witchcraft?

SPEAKER_02 15:24

No, she's not like witchcraft. Like she would say she's a woman of God. Oh. Um, but being one yourself, you understand how that's yeah, a really interesting now. So yeah, I think it's more just because she talked about ghosts, and then we like experienced weird stuff in the houses that we rented out when I was younger. So I think it was more just yeah, just experiencing weird stuff that couldn't be explained. Like when I was laying in her bed one time, the TV was down really low. And I could hear, like, I don't know if we had just um cleaned the carpet or something, but like when you stepped on the carpet, you could kind of hear it, like a soft rustling noise.

SPEAKER_04 16:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:10

And so I was laying in bed and I could hear it. I could hear like the soft rustling of somebody stepping in the carpet. And when I looked onto the side of the bed, I could see feet prints in the carpet.

SPEAKER_04 16:21

Really? Are you serious? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:23

Like nothing was there, but no, nothing was there, but the feet prints, the feet prints were in the carpet.

SPEAKER_04 16:28

What did your the feet look like?

SPEAKER_02 16:30

Like a tennis shoe. Like like a like a foot. Like somebody had just pressed down a tennis shoe into the carpet.

unknown 16:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 16:37

Are you sure they weren't there before?

SPEAKER_02 16:38

Like stem prints from the carpet cleaning? Yeah, we never wore shoes in the house.

SPEAKER_04 16:42

So that's creepy.

SPEAKER_02 16:45

Yeah, a couple different things happened in that house that were just really weird.

SPEAKER_04 16:48

So it was like that house or different houses?

SPEAKER_02 16:50

That same house. And then other things in like different apartments and stuff like that. So it's just like noises and like noises, like things being knocked off counters, like And no one being there. And no one being there. I came home from school one time and there was um fishing wire um like wrapped around the entire house, like all around the table legs and um the chairs and everything. And and I came home from school and I saw that. I was like, oh my goodness, like what has the cat been up to? But then like the cat comes traipsing in from outside. So like it wasn't the cat.

SPEAKER_04 17:30

Does that kind of yeah? It just makes you go like, hmm. No one at harmed you.

SPEAKER_02 17:35

No, because it was just me and my mom and she works all day. So and there's we don't have like a cat door or anything, so there was no way for it to get in and out of it.

SPEAKER_04 17:43

Yeah, that's really out of it, eh?

SPEAKER_02 17:45

Yeah. So it's just things like that, and it just makes you kind of say, Okay, well, maybe something else is going on that like.

SPEAKER_04 17:51

Were you comfortable saying and hearing those things, or were you like, oh my gosh, something's wrong? Did you did it put fear in you, or were you just like, that's my life? Or I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 18:00

Kind of, I mean, I don't know, probably because of all the shows that I've watched, I'm like, this is just something that happens. It's it's very like normalized to me from a young age, I guess. So yeah.

SPEAKER_04 18:11

What about do you mind me asking about your knowledge and your experience with your guardian angel or spirit? How did you come to know about?

SPEAKER_02 18:19

I don't know that I know it. I just feel like there's been a lot of instances in my life where I put myself in incredibly dangerous positions and it should have ended up differently. But something intervened and I didn't end up getting murdered. Like those, you know, like really, really dangerous situations that I put myself in, and then just a lot of challenges in life. And um I had my first, like my first real boyfriend uh passed away when we were in our 20s. And so I think the trauma from that kind of I don't know, it was one of those things where it's like my whole life, I said things happen for a reason, and that was the first time where something happened where I said, I don't see any reason for why this possibly needed to happen, like why a 23-year-old needed to get, you know, cut down so early. Um, but then I met my husband, right? And I had my daughter, and I I told my husband, I said, if um if my boyfriend hadn't died, I would I would never have met you. And it was just one of those one of those times where like we just kind of thanked my boyfriend for his sacrifice because that's kind of what it felt like.

SPEAKER_04 19:39

Wait, how did you meet your now?

SPEAKER_02 19:43

Through friends. I met I mean, my my best friend.

SPEAKER_04 19:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:47

Um, he introduced us, and so that's how we met.

SPEAKER_04 19:51

So why do you say like you wouldn't have met him?

SPEAKER_02 19:54

Because I was so in love with my first boyfriend. We met when I was 16 and we had been on and off again until he died. So it's one of those things.

SPEAKER_04 20:05

How did he die? Do you remind me asking?

SPEAKER_02 20:06

He so there was a overdose of liquid morphine. Oh, sorry. So somebody brought liquid morphine to a party that was at his house. Oh, that's true. And we're not sure how he ended up drinking it, but it was too much. I think he drank probably an entire shot of it. And then I think that just makes your body shut down. And so that's kind of what happened. It's true. Um, but I would have kept seeing him, and I told him that when we were together. I was like, even if I get married, I'm still gonna be, you know, involved with you. Sounds like I'm wrong, but anyway. I can't explain uh what that connection was like, and I think that's why it hit me so hard, was because it was a soulmate type situation where I felt like that was the only person who was ever gonna understand who I really was.

SPEAKER_00 20:53

Wow. What superstitions did you grow up with uh as you grew up? Sorry.

SPEAKER_02 21:01

So like um we put a lot of salt on the doorstep to keep out evil spirits. You did that?

SPEAKER_04 21:06

Your mom did that?

SPEAKER_02 21:08

Yeah. She believed in it. Yeah, I mean everybody, uh like all the women in my family did. Um, like brooms, putting brooms next to the door to keep out evil spirits. Um Did you pray about it or did you just be like, there's no put no, there's not like like praying. Like people. I don't know that we'd ever prayed or anything. It's just like little things that you do, throwing solid over your left shoulder, like if it spills so that you don't have bad luck, burying, like if you break a mirror, you can not have as much bad luck if you like bury it somewhere. Um, so just like little ritual things that are really interesting because yeah, a lot of them are informed by like Nigerian culture, but like nobody else in my family knew any Nigerians. But I think it's that um Nigerians are real spiritual people. Yeah, I think it's the East. during European part maybe, where like my somebody just it's just things that get passed along, right? Just like cultural practices and stories that get passed along and you just um observe them, I guess.

SPEAKER_04 22:12

And how did your mother's second marriage, how did it cause a downward spiral at home? So it was the first marriage after my dad.

SPEAKER_02 22:19

So it was like the early 90s when she married my very first stepdad. And so I was probably about 10 years old and she was wildly in love with him because he was much younger than she was. I think sounds of we should have seen it coming because my family they did their best to make him feel welcomed, but he's a black man and they say weird things about black people and they drink and smoke.

SPEAKER_04 22:44

So she went with toe black different black name like your dad and then Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:48

Oh well so she did like Yeah no she had a type there for a while. My family super heavy drinker smokers and uh my stepdad at the time he was not he ended up being um a police officer after he cheated and left my mom. Um so yeah very straight laced guy so we should have known that that wasn't gonna work out but after he after it was found that he had cheated on my mom um and that marriage fell apart she was devastated. And I like I don't know that she ever really recovered from that. It was like the darkest moment of I think my mom's past that that I was privy to. I was 16 by the time that that had all kind of happened. And so between her being really depressed and me being like a teenager it just kind of ruptured that relationship and it's never really been the same.

SPEAKER_04 23:45

You mentioned your your mom had five brothers is it uh uncles I had five uncles and one no four I had four uncles.

SPEAKER_02 23:54

Oh yeah and how did they play a male role model in your life and what was it like being like half black and then having to hear their anti-black rhetoric um I don't know that I ever heard it from my uncles it mostly came from the women oh wow it mostly came from like like my grandma and my just my mom a lot maybe a little bit my aunt but I don't know my aunt's been pretty chill most of my life. One of my uncles I heard it from his kid when we got older so that just kind of confirms that like kind of how he was but again negative interactions when he was a teen so that probably led to that but as far as like hearing it directly from them I I don't really remember hearing it. But they probably had a really inappropriate um role in raising me. They're all so different, right? But the uncle that I was closest to my uncle Mike and he ended up um taking his own life um in my early 20s but we were the closest I think he just had a really flamboyant sense of humor that I really I just vibed with. And so he was just always there. You know he would just always have conversations with me. My other uncle was always like the the serious one like the I don't know the one who tell me when I'm messing up like I had a boyfriend one time and the first time he met him he he slipped him $20 and he said um there's more where this came from if you walk away right now. Because he knew he knew and that was a really like that was a really terrible relationship. So I should have just gone with what he was trying to do. You know, he was like they were all kind of the dad um sweet. Yeah played the dad role in some way. So even if they personally maybe didn't have any black friends or felt negative towards black people in some way, I never felt it. I never felt that coming from them like in my direction.

SPEAKER_04 26:09

So yeah yeah. Did you want to describe that time we saw your grandfather and he used the Ian word in front of you and Yeah I think that was the only time any of the males in my family I I had actually heard like any kind of isms come out of their mouths.

SPEAKER_02 26:26

I think it was Thanksgiving or something and um we were watching football as you do as an American um American football. And um yeah he was just like I think I was coming down the hallway so he didn't see me and he was talking to one of my other uncles and he was just like man there sure are a lot of N-words on the field or something like that. And my heart sank because I just I value my grandfather so much. And by that time I think I was in like my early mid-teens or something. So I had a much better understanding of what the word meant. So to me hearing him say that I was like oh like he never really loved me like he hates me I because I'm black and he hates black people. And so I brought that up I think to my sister or my mom or something and I was like can you believe what Poppy just said and it got back to him and then he just like broke down and and my my serious uncle he was like you need to have a you need to go have a conversation with Poppy because he's really upset. And I was like I'm the one who should be upset you know because I was all indignant and I was a teen and I was like how dare he but when I walked in he was yeah he was sitting on the bed and and he was kind of um facing the wall and he was looking down and I had never seen my grandfather upset. I never saw him angry maybe once when me and my sister wouldn't go to sleep one night. But I never saw him angry and I never saw him sad. I only ever saw him happy and like singing and like making like boom boom boom type of noises as he like toiled around the house. Um so it was a big deal. And so we sat down and and he just had a conversation about he told me about like a black neighbor that he had and um like it was like one of his really close friends and just kind of gave some context for that time and how hard it was to I guess have those kind of relationships like b between white men and black men. It just it didn't seem like it was a very easy thing to undertake then. And so from his perspective the word didn't mean anything like it it wasn't an emotionally loaded word to him like it was for me. And so he was really upset that I would assume that he meant anything negative by it. And I and I think those kind of experiences gave me a unique perspective on kind of racial tensions and conversations and like families, you know it's a complex thing I'd say. You kind of saw you were between both sides like you saw like it is yeah and obviously I didn't have any black friends growing up I only have you know like my sister and popular media to inform me of what it's like to be raised a black woman in America um because I I wasn't I was I was a black woman in America raised as a white girl. And I get a lot I still get a lot of like flack from my friends for that because when I'm kind of um with my hood friends they always make fun of me because I have you know like a white girl accent or whatever. But it's just it's just how I was raised. I can't I can't change that and and I don't feel like I need to apologize for it anymore either.

SPEAKER_04 30:00

Yeah you've got a different like perspective too like to Yeah I have a unique perspective.

SPEAKER_02 30:06

I think it's a really interesting standpoint that not a lot of people um yeah I guess have the have the the privilege I feel like at this point of of really understanding what it's what it's like. So I do I I give a lot more grace um I give a lot more grace in certain situations than I think other people do. Especially at this kind of this point that we're in globally there's a lot of division and like you know in in America in the US right now there's a lot of division and I think if more people had an upbringing like mine it would um yeah it could potentially heal some of that. Yeah so interesting what um what do you like to write about because you're a writer spooky stuff no I like I write about I write about my yeah I write about my upbringing sometimes I do just reflexive poetry um but yeah a lot of I I just have like spooky weird stories that come up and I'll jot them down and I'll kind of outline um like a plot for them and then I'll forget about it and move on to something else.

SPEAKER_04 31:19

Wow. Are you if I'm gonna write a book like an extra book I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 31:23

I mean the PhD is a book essentially I and it's kind of tough because before I started the PhD I really loved writing and this is starting to kind of kill that for me. So I'm really hoping that will come back it'll come back.

SPEAKER_04 31:41

And what about horror stories and haunted like stories attracted you like goosebumps for example as a child and did you hunger for something beyond the natural world?

SPEAKER_02 31:52

I think I hungered for something that explained the horrors of the natural world like we learned about so like we learned about the Holocaust right we learned about slavery and you just learn oh and then you you're you're growing up in the US in like the 70s the 80s you have a lot of a lot of serial killers you know so you have a lot of horrors in the real world and nobody can explain it. So when you look to the fantasy and you look to like you look to sci fi and you look to the horror genre there's explanation for all these things. And I think there's a sense of like kind of comfort in knowing like why Freddie Krueger is haunting your dreams and trying to kill you. You know what I mean? Like there's a reason for the horror but when you look at it in real life there's just no understanding why why these all these things are happening you know how um has an editude of gratitude been a part of your healing journey don't I recall that was not cringe at all in my opinion I don't even know where it came from I honestly I think somebody on Instagram said start a gratitude journal and I did and I just kind of stuck with it and then I didn't have to write it down anymore. I just started you know when something would go wrong I would just say oh well if this is if this is the worst thing I have to deal with right now then that's not so bad. You know what I mean? And then I just started actively thinking I think it really dawned on me once we moved here to New Zealand. I just woke up every day and the the birds I noticed this the bird sound didn't grade on my nerves it made me really really happy to hear the birds singing in the morning. And when we were back in the US, I woke up and like I can't tell you what a rage I would wake up in hearing the birds at 6 a.m I just I wanted to get rid of all of them you know and it's like I noticed that shift when I got here and all of these different stressors but you were from California right this is where you're living in California. California is absolutely beautiful. It looks no different to New Zealand honestly the landscape it's gorgeous and people for the most part are really great much easier to make friends in California than it is here in um New Zealand. But it was the stressors I think of living in a country that doesn't look after its citizens and not having universal healthcare like not having any time off all of these things watching my husband almost die because he wasn't given a break when it was like 36 degrees outside you know no water no break and he's out in the heat working as a construction worker. And so it's like all of these things add up and they just kind of sit in your soul and they eat away at you. And so any little minor inconvenience gets so inflamed because of everything else that you're dealing with. So when we moved over here and we sold our house and you know we left everything behind. It was just me, him and our daughter she was two at the time um and we were just here and and the birds were lovely and the clouds look so different and the air is clean.

SPEAKER_04 35:26

I was just thinking of like you know how some places have a different spiritual atmosphere I was thinking some places are like real heavy because like when I went to India it was like real heavy and I felt like real depressed but then like when you come here it's like lighter the atmosphere I think it's definitely lighter and it's not that the atmosphere was heavy in California.

SPEAKER_02 35:41

I feel like if we were living I don't know in like Tennessee or something the air would be heavy but yeah um I think it was just just the stress of and honestly it was COVID. Okay let's be real this was 2020 so this was like lockdowns this was we just had a we just had our first child during lockdowns. Things were a mess so let's that's probably more right and then we looked at the response in New Zealand and that was another big thing that like And why did you want to come here?

SPEAKER_04 36:13

Yeah the response the watching you wanted to yeah watching a country be able to lock up you know like close its borders well you know a lot of people here did not feel that way we felt like we were living in a prison and and that's why I'm really careful like not to bring that up because I understand like a painful thing for a lot of people that I feel like we did not like the leadership at the time we felt it was very unfair and wrong.

SPEAKER_02 36:39

And so where I was at I just had a new baby. I didn't even let my family come over to hold my daughter. Everyone who came over to see her, they had to see her through the window right yeah so I'm this super anxious like ball of nerves new mom and the lockdown started lifting. So we started going outside just to be able to like get groceries or gas or whatever and come home. And I was outside wearing a mask and I had these dudes in this huge like monster truck screaming at me out their window because I was wearing a mask because that's how angry people were I went to the grocery store and I I saw I was like I couldn't even shop at the grocery store anymore because I was worried about an active shooter situation. Because you had people who were so angry that they were being told to wear a mask in the store that they were brandishing weapons. So when you're in that kind of situation and then I'm tuning in every afternoon at the end you were just saying what's going on here from the news watching Jacinda every afternoon like telling her people what's going on and like going through the traffic light system. And then I'm looking at they want you to believe on the news and then I'm looking at our news and it's just like good luck you're on your own. You know like no where I was at it was a free for all. Well everyone was here wasn't great if you were here you actually have to be here to know as you at the time and that's kind of that's not pretty that was my perspective from the outside it looked it looked like a response and it looked like people were caring for politicians make it look like you guys also had like a 90% vaccination rate okay we shouldn't go into this because I guess we're you guys seem to look after each other is my point. Like when we came here um in 2022 the majority people were still masked like people were still masking on the bus and stuff because they cared enough about other people to put on masks and that was such a foreign concept for us. You know what I mean? Like caring about what what you're doing and how it could impact another person is such a foreign thing where we're where we were kind of situated.

SPEAKER_04 38:58

And I think that's that's what I think after the COVID and that particular leadership, that government, a lot of people lost trust in the media in this country.

SPEAKER_02 39:12

So I mean Yeah I mean we saw that too right we saw the protests and we saw like the fire in Parliament and like we know that no country's perfect. But then the other thing that happened outside of COVID was that Roe v. Wade fell. And so when our government is kind of telling us we're on our own, we're not getting any support for like for medical coverage and we're being told what women can and can't do with their bodies, that was kind of the last straw because I just gave birth to a little girl and I didn't know what her life was going to look like in that kind of environment. So it was kind of all these things that were just like stacking up on top of each other. And my partner and I just looked at each other and decided yeah we're gonna go ahead and we're gonna go ahead and go. And we did and we left before midterms and that was the the smartest thing we ever did and we've been here ever since so many people have left as well New Zealand after that they wanted to go to Australia or yeah a lot of New Zealanders have left but then everybody else is coming exactly yeah because it's gonna be a lot of that's what it looks like from outside you know like what do you call it like North is it North Korea?

SPEAKER_04 40:22

Like you hear that it's so lovely like I do not hear that North Korea You know that it's not lovely but like we're I didn't even hear that it is though.

SPEAKER_02 40:31

No we're not allowed to go there.

SPEAKER_04 40:34

What are you saying New Zealand's like North Korean oh gosh you know what I mean like the outside world like here's the thing New Zealand has incredible marketing.

SPEAKER_02 40:47

You guys have this pristine 100% that's what people have in their mind the image yeah yes absolutely and yeah people will find especially living here I don't know about being a tourist here might be different um but definitely living here yeah all of that facade kind of goes away and you're like it's just another it's another country it's just another place. It's another place that's a little bit safer than the place we came from. Just going back to the topic how do you believe that the absence of your biological father left you like vulnerable and seeking connection with other men especially in high risk um oh gosh I don't know I'm not a therapist but there's like the daddy issue trope right so if you don't have a dad you're gonna start seeking like for validation from other older men and I'm I can only assume that that's what played a role um you know being sexually active way too young and um yeah putting up with more than I should have an abusive relationship. Uh uh more mentally I think because my mom was like such a tough broad, she never let anybody hit her or raise a hand to her. So I think that that was in my head like, oh if you even tried to raise a hand to me like that's it. So I never I never put up with any of that. But more the psychological like oh it's still a you know you could like lose some weight or like this and that or whatever. Um yeah those kind of things I think I I overlooked a lot of the things that I notice as red flags nowadays um I just kind of yeah brushed aside just to be with somebody. Yeah or just stay with somebody.

SPEAKER_04 42:23

Just going into okay I'll just go into your infertility journey or fertility journey. Do you mind me asking when did you start using contraception like the pill or oh I think I was like thirteen oh well yeah I think I was 13 and I so my mom and I went to go see the Knights of Rodanthi at theaters just as the uh like lights were about to go down I said I had sex and I think I need birth control.

SPEAKER_02 42:53

At 13. Yeah but like the movie was starting right so she had to sit through the whole movie after me dropping that on her and when the lights came back on at the end of that movie like the rage on this woman's face she was so mad. Um and it wasn't that she was mad at me it was that she was mad because what I had also disclosed to her I was 13 at the time was that I had slept with a 26 year old.

SPEAKER_04 43:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:20

And so she was really up she called the police we tried to find the guy I didn't know what statutory rape was like I had no idea because I met the guy on the phone. It was like the party line or whatever. So that was really tough. That's when I started the birth control. Um and how long did you use it for Jeremiah? For my whole life. Until until now today until today. You're still using it I'm still not the pill. So I started with the pill. When did you stop the pill? Oh gosh I must have stopped the pill in my twenties. Yeah yeah because I started I started having to do the low dose pill the progesterone only because I was deficient in progesterone but also because Because the um the hormones were making me real loopy. And so I changed.

SPEAKER_04 44:05

What do you mean loopy?

SPEAKER_02 44:06

Um, I just I've always been really good about like uh being kind of in tune with myself. And when I notice like different thoughts or like different feelings that aren't inherently me, yeah, it kind of draws my attention to it. And so I'm like, oh, I had a weird thought. That's not that's not something I would normally think. Or, you know, I'm overreacting to what kind of weird thought too much. Um just like overreactions to things, like little things would make me like really overreact and be like really over-emotional. I'm really emotional, but really sad. Like I'm a like an emo emotional. Yeah. So when I would get angry, even today, like if I know that my hormones are off, because I'll start to like really get angry. And that'll just kind of like put a little ding, like uh, something's not quite right here. So that would happen. I would change the um manufacturer, like the the manufacturer of the pill, I'd change to like a different brand. And I did that throughout my 20s. Somebody told me about the low dose progesterone only. And so that was good for a while. Um, but then again, it's just constantly having to remember to take it. And so once I got pregnant after I gave birth, I just did the IED.

SPEAKER_04 45:19

Do you mind me going into your struggle with fertility a bit more? So when were you trying to conceive? And how did you come to realize that you were struggling to conceive?

SPEAKER_02 45:32

Oh, I was real mad. I was real mad with my doctor because she she advised me after we had been trying to conceive for about uh a year. She was like, I think you need a fertility doctor. And I was just like, How dare you? It hasn't even been that long. But that's like the cutoff. They're like, Okay, after 12 months, um, you should go see a specialist. Um, but I'm so glad that I did.

SPEAKER_04 45:56

Were you on the pill still when you were trying to get pregnant?

SPEAKER_02 46:00

Before that, before that, I had been on the pill. Yeah. So that was like the last contraceptive. But then they say, like, oh yeah, so sometimes it can take a week or a month or whatever. Is that what I'm saying? So it had been a year that I since I had stopped taking it and I still wasn't getting pregnant. And so then she that's when they have to sign off and say, Okay, as your doctor, I'm saying that you can go to the specialist so that it'll get paid for. You can't just go to a specialist on your own unless you have a lot of money. And this was in your like mid-20s? This was in my late twenties, yeah, 20 29, I think. 29 or 30. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 46:33

And did they tell you like why they thought you were struggling to conceive? Like, was it you or your partner or both?

SPEAKER_02 46:39

Well, she passed us along and then we did a bunch of tests. We went in there, we did a bunch of paperwork, we did a bunch of blood tests. He, you know, had to do a bunch of tests. Yeah. I did a bunch of tests. Um, and they said it was unexplained infertility. Um, so they couldn't really pin it down, but then they were like, you have a lot of scar tissue from endometriosis, so let's scrape that out and see if the because the egg wasn't sticking to the uterine wall. So they said, let's scrape that out and see if that gets the egg to stick. But then it's like, okay, you don't really have a lot of eggs, and the ones that you do are pretty old. So we also need to like artificially pump up the eggs to make those the best that they can be. And then they're like, okay, and then also um your partner could probably do with like having the like best and the brightest sperm separated from like the not so mobile ones. So it was that kind of infusion of like the best and most powerful components of pregnancy were kind of melded together and then um injected right into my uterus.

SPEAKER_04 47:41

Did you know that you had endometriosis before they were?

SPEAKER_02 47:46

No, I had really terrible cramping. I had it my whole life. It was debilitating. I couldn't go to work when I had my period, but nobody told me that that was like not normal.

SPEAKER_04 47:56

When do you remember the starting?

SPEAKER_02 47:58

Like the as soon as I had my period.

SPEAKER_04 48:00

I had When did you have your period? Sorry, I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_02 48:02

Oh, it came at no, it's fine. It came at um like 10. I think I was 10 years old. So probably a little earlier than it should have. I don't know. I feel like it's I feel like everyone I guess.

SPEAKER_04 48:11

I feel like race, like different races can make it come earlier too.

SPEAKER_02 48:15

I don't know. Or who knows like what makes it happen conservatives? I don't know. But yeah, 10 years old. And they were just always really, really bad. But it's like, oh, that's just how it is, you know, like that's what you're told. That's what the doctors say. Oh yeah, cramping's bad. But I think now the more that we start to actually give a damn about women's health as much as we can when there's funding for it, we're starting to realize that like, no, actually it's not supposed to be that painful.

SPEAKER_04 48:43

Did you have any did you have any doubt in your mind that the length of time that you were taking the pill for may have affected your chances of I know this is hard to um think about.

SPEAKER_02 48:55

I mean where I'm at now being a lover of like data and research and everything, there wasn't a lot that I could find that explained infertility at that time. So there were like a couple of um articles where it was like being on birth control too long might negatively impact you in this way or that. But I wasn't really sure. And also there was nothing I could do about it. Like I couldn't go back in time. I had been on birth control that whole like my whole life. Yeah. So I mean, I mean, I don't know that you're told, like you're told that it's gonna it could have side effects, but you're like, okay, but also being like a teen mom is probably gonna have more side effects. You know, you're kind of weighing that. You're like, I really want to have sex, but I really don't want to get cancer, but I really you know, so it's like um I don't know, you just have to weigh those options individually. Like we all just weigh those options, right? Yeah, exactly. And I I never plan on having a kid. Yeah. So when you tell me that there's a chance, like if you were to tell me, I don't know that anyone did, but if you were to have told like 13, 19-year-old me taking this pill might um, you know, make it difficult for you to get pregnant later, I'd be like, okay, sign me up. Because I had no idea.

SPEAKER_04 50:17

You were 13 when you started it. You had no idea about like what you were actually getting.

SPEAKER_02 50:21

But even as I continued it on into my 19, like 19 and 20, like I still had no um, I didn't see myself ever having kids. So it wasn't, I didn't really care what it was doing to my body, like as far as fertility goes.

SPEAKER_04 50:36

The fertility doctor, what did what did they recommend that you change or you and your partner change in your lifestyle?

SPEAKER_02 50:43

They didn't really tell us to change anything about our lifestyles. I mean, we're both pretty active. We both played a lot of sports growing up, so we're both fit-ish. Yeah. Um, and we eat fairly well. Yeah. Um, so it was more just I have a vitamin D deficiency, I have a progesterone deficiency. So I had to take hormones to correct those.

SPEAKER_04 51:04

Did they tell you what caused that um progesterone deficiency? Like the root cause. No.

SPEAKER_02 51:10

Well, they just like replace it with hormones because that's what Yeah, because there it's like you need so it's really they're a fertility doctor, they should know that they're not. It's really I I never asked. I just, I just wanted to get pregnant. But there's so many complex things that have to happen for you to get pregnant, which I didn't even realize. But you have to have a very specific level of each kind of hormone before, like, you know, the creation can occur. And so with my body being deficient, like it just it wasn't happening. Um, and so once they increased the progesterone that I was lacking, um, then we got pregnant. So it's just, and it was really trial and error. They were like, okay, we've introduced this, you're still not um getting pregnant. So let's add this to that. Okay, it's still not working. Let's add this to that and to that. And eventually they just hit the right concoction of pills and drugs and injections and everything, and and it worked.

SPEAKER_04 52:03

And it was expensive, right?

SPEAKER_02 52:05

Um, it would have been expensive, but because I worked for the state, I worked for the government. And so at that time, I think they pay 70% now or 90%, but at the time they were paying 50% of um of fertility costs.

SPEAKER_04 52:17

So do you mind me sh asking you to share your experience with the undisclosed pregnancy?

SPEAKER_02 52:22

Yeah. So uh because I was actively trying to get pregnant, I was monitoring my cycle. And so when I missed my period, I immediately started testing. So when you're testing at five weeks, you can sometimes get like a false um positive. And so I kind of thought that's what it was, because it was a very light um like response on the pregnancy test. And then the line started to get darker, and so I went in and they did blood tests, and then I had, I actually had pregnancy hormone in my system. So, as far as the blood results, um, you know, uh, I was pregnant. But I think this is why they don't let you like they don't give you an ultrasound until eight weeks because you could you miscarry, like so many miscarriages happen before those eight weeks. And so they don't kind of want to get your hopes up. But like my hopes were up. And um six weeks turned into eight weeks, and then eight weeks.

SPEAKER_04 53:21

Did you feel like something was in you?

SPEAKER_02 53:22

Like no, no, not at all. I mean, I just saw the levels. Yeah. So the levels were going up. So you have like a certain HCG account, uh, like a number. And so the number was going from like five to fifteen to twenty. And then what happened was I had a really, really bad cramping, and then I just started bleeding at work. And um, so I left for the day and I I kind of figured something was wrong. But then when you're looking at all the crazy like um like discourse online, it's like, oh yeah, I had heavy bleeding and I still, you know, had I still went on to have a normal pregnancy. Um, so I was really hopeful. Um, well, I went in and I got the ultrasound and they couldn't see anything. Like normally there's a little like sack saying, like, oh, there's a baby in there, it's gonna start growing. Well, they didn't see that sack. Um, but my levels were kind of steady. They weren't going down. So what they want is after a miscarriage, your pregnancy hormone levels have to start going down. Um, and they weren't. And so they were concerned that there was like um an embryo growing somewhere in my fallopian tubes or somewhere else that you couldn't see on the ultrasound.

SPEAKER_01 54:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 54:34

And so they were like, uh, we kind of have to call it. Or, you know, if there's something growing in your tubes right now, you could lose one, and that would pretty much like um minimize your chances of getting pregnant again. So obviously I have to make the hard call of like getting an injection which dissolves any um like pregnancy tissue or cells that are in my body wherever they were. Um, so I did that, and yeah, it was absolutely devastating. And it was really cold because you know, the doctors are just like what do you mean by cold? Can you the doctors are just really calculated when it's not like a like a fully fledged like baby with a heartbeat? It's I think it's just like they're very uh methodical and just just kind of wrote like, this is the shot that you need to get, this is how long it's gonna take, blah, blah, blah. Nice. And I guess they don't have the time or the compassion. I don't know what it's like to be a doctor. I'm sure it's stressful. But it'd be nice if they could kind of pass me along to somebody who could like sit with me and just like not even that, just like a like a miscarriage doula or something, you know, like someone who can just hold your hand and just say, I know that, oh God, I know that you were l really looking forward to like having this baby, but unfortunately, I don't think that um I don't think that this is gonna happen for you at this time, you know? But it wasn't. I got a shot, I was in a lot of pain, and then I was sitting in my car, like texting my boss saying, I'm I'm sorry, I'm gonna be late coming back into work. And that sucks. You should be allowed time to grieve and to process, and you're just not. We're just treated as like just like birthing pods, and there's real there's real people in in these bodies that give birth. And I just wish the world, you know, was a little bit more sensitive to that.

SPEAKER_04 56:24

I was just gonna ask, how did that impact you?

SPEAKER_02 56:30

No, it's tough, right? We don't even have like the language or like the to just to just talk about it and have it be like a normal thing. And I mean it's something that we all experience, whether we know or not. Like at some point we if we're trying to conceive, we're gonna miscarry and and the majority of the time you don't know that it's happening. But at the times that you do, yeah, there should be somebody helping you through that.

SPEAKER_00 56:56

If you want. Is that what you mean by cold, kind of? Yeah, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_04 57:04

Yeah. Thanks for um sharing that. Like I really appreciate that.

unknown 57:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 57:09

As a child, I just want to speak about you were quite intuitive. Were you um you mentioned that one of your I think it was your mom's sister's husband, your uncle gave you like an appropriate tickling. Was this around like other family members or anyone?

SPEAKER_02 57:24

I think for a lot of families, and I feel like I've run into it a couple times here in New Zealand where like you have a pervy uncle and that everyone just kind of says, Oh yeah, that's just how he is, just make sure that like the kids aren't alone with him. You know, like have you heard that? I don't know what it is. Because you come up a couple of times in my interactions with people here. Um But yeah, growing up, it's like if it was known.

SPEAKER_04 57:50

You mean a pedo, not a it's not just a perv, it's a pedophile, right? Like if you're touching little kids and doing things.

SPEAKER_02 57:56

1000%. Um, I'm just careful to kind of name anyone or anything with that label for legal purposes.

SPEAKER_04 58:07

Oh, yeah, I'm not, I don't even know how to cut. I just mean like if you're touching little kids in a couple of things.

SPEAKER_02 58:11

Yeah, absolutely. But like, and that's the thing. But over there, like if it was known, my family would never like you would be shunned. You wouldn't be allowed in the family if it was known that you were doing these things. It was a it was a very clear and severe cutoff. So, no, I don't think that anybody knew about it. But also when I brought it up later, there was kind of like a brushing it under the rug, like, oh, well, you know, he's not gonna be part of the family anymore because they're so-and-so are getting divorced. So, like, it's not a big deal.

SPEAKER_04 58:44

Did they get divorced?

SPEAKER_02 58:45

Uh yeah, they got divorced, but it's it didn't lessen the the um the impact.

SPEAKER_04 58:51

No, I mean like it changes the way you speak about. Yeah, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_02 58:54

It's just not of me. Like, there's other people that are involved who have been impacted by his behavior. I see. And so um none of that was lessened by my family just saying, like, oh, okay, you know, like he's not a part of this family anymore. Yes, but he's he's still in contact with, you know, people who he's impacting. Um so I think for me, I got out of that really lucky because um, you know, he was just some uncle that I saw every once in a while and then he wasn't around anymore. But I think again, that's one of those situations where it's like, I couldn't tell you why it wasn't appropriate, but I just knew and I never went to his house again. And my mom, and when I told her, and my mom obviously, like, she's very much like, what did he do? You know, I didn't tell her that, but I just told her I don't really want to go over to his house anymore. And she asked no question. She was like, Then you don't, then you don't have to. It's good, then you know, so yeah, she listened to you again. She was very protective, she was a very, very protective, very um um, she's a very intimidating woman. She's like six foot and she's like you're like quite very tough.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:05

So like Yeah, oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:08

Yeah. Interesting. Yeah, very protective mom. And very vocal about how she feels, obviously, about anything and everything.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:18

So I remember my dad tickling me when I was little, but I and I hated it. Like I'd laugh naturally, but like I it's so weird. I just thought about it when you told me that, and then I was like, I told my grandma that I didn't like it because it looked like I liked it because I was laughing, but I didn't. And I it's when you're a kid, you're just like, and you just like you don't really say like what you're feeling in because you're like bigger than it's like.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:41

You can either stand up. Because you're like, well, what do I know about any of this? I'm just a child. But you know, if you listen to whatever that voice is inside you, you know, you know.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:51

And like I didn't feel it was a pro not that he's done anything wrong to me. It was just more the what it is, is you didn't like it.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:57

Even like when we're forced to hug every single person, you know, in our family. Like, if you don't feel like you want to hug somebody, because maybe they hug you a little bit too tight or maybe they get a little bit too close, nobody should be telling you that like to to ignore those feelings. They should say, Okay, sorry, Uncle So-and-so, uh, she doesn't really feel like hugging right now. That's all you gotta do to protect these damn kids. You don't have to make a big deal and say, Oh, stop being soft. Oh, stop being, you know, overly emotional. Like your kid is saying something makes them uncomfortable. Listen to them.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:30

Is that clear? Yeah, I agree. And then she just told him, like, she doesn't like it. Stop. And then he like laughed and he like, Yeah. But like to him, like, I don't even think he realized that it was like disturbing me.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:44

Like, yeah. As long as he stops, yeah, you know, that's it. We don't even have to have a conversation. It's just she said this, you you're stopping that. Let's move on. It doesn't have to be a big deal unless you make it a big deal. And then that's that's something people should be looking into.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:59

I guess I felt scared to tell him, you know, like I didn't want to tell people.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:02

Well, kids aren't given a voice, kids are told, you know, you're not here to have opinions or to be listened to, like you just exist. And and I I I don't feel that way about the way that I'm raising my kid. It's coming back to to kind of bite me in the ass, but she's very opinionated and she knows that she has a say in in what she does or doesn't do. Yeah, it's good that you know that she tell you if something was wrong, like with a Yeah, and that she's not in trouble, you know, because sometimes you feel like, oh, well, uh, what did I do to make this thing happen to me, you know? And it's like, no, you're a child. This was done to you, not, you know, because of something you did.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:42

I guess it was just kind of bad. I see, yeah. But I don't know if you want to talk about like getting dead or um, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:49

IUDs suck and they're painful as shit. So get a localized anesthetic if you're gonna go get an IUD put in. It's it's great. I mean, I uh said it and forget it. Yeah. But also um, you have a risk of getting a an infection because once it like rips through the inside of your system, um, it's open to like bacteria. So look out for infections, get a local anesthetic, and you'll be right as rain.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:18

Thanks. Yeah, being a woman, I'm glad you shared your opinion. I think I'll end this interview here now. Is that okay? Absolutely. Cool. Thank you. Nice. Yeah, thank you. Subscribe to my Patreon, YouTube, and BuzzRoute, and the links will be below. Thank you for your support. It's great hearing from my listeners. Reach out with questions and comments through Insta or Facebook. Just search for Voices Unhindered. I'm interested to know what other topics and voices you'd like me to bring on the show. Subscribe to Voices Unhindered on Spotify or Apple Podcasts to never miss an episode.