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Fans of Remy Ma and Love & Hip Hop: New York are well aware of the rapper’s struggle to conceive.
Ma and her husband, rapper Papoose, documented their difficulties on the reality show, with the pair sharing heartbreaking news that after an ectopic pregnancy, which means the fertilized egg attaches itself to the Fallopian tube or in a place other than the uterus, Ma would no longer be able to get pregnant.
During a Tuesday night conversation with Another Round at NYC’s The Wing, Ma revealed that the ectopic pregnancy had been her second and that she no longer had her Fallopian tubes. Devastated, Ma was initially unsure of what to do next, then her doctor told her about the other options that were available if she wished to have a child.
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Ma was happy to learn that IVF, in vitro fertilization, was an option, but shocked at the price tag attached. “He [the doctor] was like ‘Yeah, it’s going to cost you anywhere from $10,000-$20,000’ and I didn’t think about it because, I’m not bragging, but I have about $10,000-$20,000 to pay for it.”
She added, “It wasn’t until I came out with it that I realized a lot of other women go through what I went through, because I definitely felt like I was the only person on the planet who went through it, and about 80 percent of women that can’t have children would actually be able to have children if they could afford in vitro.”
Ma continued that the thing that bothered her about the situation was that health insurance doesn’t cover the cost of in vitro, “We have all these politicans that claim that they’re pro-life and that women shouldn’t be able to get abortions and all this other stuff, but there’s nothing more pro-life than helping a woman who wants to have a child have a child.”
“I can use my health insurance to not have a child, if I want to, but not to conceive. I can use my health insurance if I want to be skinny and get gastric bypass, but not if I want to have a child. That made me start paying attention to what’s really going on in this world as far as women are concerned.”