With a little less than eight weeks left in her pregnancy, platinum rapper Eve has been quietly resting at home with family anxiously awaiting the arrival of her first child. However, prior to her becoming pregnant, doctors feared and even told her that she would never get pregnant due to her issues with uterine fibroids.
The former Ruff Ryder rapper went on the Tamron Hall show to explain her pregnancy journey past fibroids.
The Philly native and her husband, Maximillion Cooper, wound up going to a specialist who bluntly stated, “You can go through 20 rounds [of IVF], you can have all the sex you want—You’ll never gonna get pregnant because you have so many fibroids that your uterus thinks it’s already taken over, [like] it’s already pregnant.”
She went on to explain that her menstruаl cycles hаd been excruciаtingly pаinful since she wаs а teenаger. Pаinful periods аre not normаl, аccording to her speciаlist. She cried teаrs of joy when she hаd her first pаin-free period аfter undergoing surgery to remove her fibroids. She now encourаges both women аnd doctors to speаk out publicly аbout fertility issues.
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"We went through our fertility journey, we went through doctors first аnd just checking things out, аnd we did do IVF so we did go through thаt journey аs well,” she sаid in а recent interview with Tаmron Hаll. “However, something inside my body told me thаt something wаsn’t quite right.” I hаd to see а speciаlist аs а result.
After the fibroids were removed, she called the specialist in tears because it was the first time she didn’t have a menstrual cycle in pain. Following her journey as she began to discuss it more among friends, she learned how common the issue was and is now being more intentional about raising awareness.
Uterine fibroids or leiomyomas are benign tumors of the uterine muscle (myometrium) and the leading cause of hysterectomy.1 Fibroids are clinically detectable in 25% to 80% of women in community-based studies; thus many women have the disease without receiving any treatment.
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“Studies show that African-American women suffer fibroids 2 to 3 times more than white women,” says OB/GYN Dr. Monica Ploetzke. “We also know that Black women tend to experience fibroids at a younger age and often more severely than their white counterparts.”
One estimate is that 25% of African-American women will suffer from fibroids by the age of 25 and 80% will have them by age 50 (compared with 70% for white females).
Because Black women suffer fibroids at an earlier age, they also are 2 to 3 times more likely to undergo surgery. In addtion, African-American women are 2.4 times more likely to undergo hysterectomy and have an 6.8-fold increase of undergoing uterine-sparing myomectomy. At the time of hysterectomy, African-American women have higher uterine weights, more fibroids, a higher likelihood of preoperative anemia, and more severe pelvic pain.
Why is that?
Researchers have found a number of elements that are linked to this disparity, though no cause had been identified. Here’s what we know:
- There may be some genetic element that increases this tendency among African-American women.
- Another study suggested that greater overall lifetime stress might help trigger fibroids.
- Some evidence suggests environmental factors, such as diet or a history of abuse, increase the risk.
- Another study pointed to a Vitamin D deficiency due to darker skin.
"During her interview, Eve also spoke about the recent passing of her label-mate and friend, fellow rapper DMX, and said, ‘If he were here today, he would probably pray over my belly’"
"He would take my hands or he would pray for me."
"One hundred percent, that would have been the first thing."
Fellow entertainer, T-Boz, from the supergroup TLC, was also told she'd never be able to conceive.
“Doctors, they didn’t give me a happy ending,” T-Boz told CNN in 2011, reflecting on her brain tumor and her sickle cell anemia. “‘You won’t live past 30, you’ll be disabled your whole life. You’ll never have kids.’ I was looking around the room like, ‘I don’t know who he’s talking to cause that’s not my story.'”
Apparently, T-Boz was right, because she has a beautiful 21-year-old daughter, Chase.
