For 10 years, 33-year-old Charvon Conner tried to get pregnant. She has polycystic ovary syndrome, or PCOS, a condition that can make it difficult to become pregnant or complicate a pregnancy. Conner said all she wanted was to become a mother, but her PCOS was severe enough that she said a doctor even laughed at the idea.
“Literally every day I was depressed,” she said. “I’m a woman, and the one thing that I was put on this Earth to do, I can’t do.”
For those 10 years, she hoped for a baby while under the additional daily weight of diagnosed major depressive disorder and anxiety that, at times, veered into suicidal ideation. She thought she’d never feel differently.
Around the same time, Conner started seeing a therapist who understood her health struggles, but the therapist was white so when it came to topics like the personal impact of racism, “it was just like, ‘You’re not understanding. And you’re trying, and I appreciate you trying, but yeah.’” She discontinued treatment.
Then, in early 2020, “all of a sudden it happened.” Conner was pregnant.
Charvon Conner, left, holds her daughter Luna Mosley on her lap at their home in Hazelwood. (Photo by Clare Sheedy/PublicSource)
