 I think it is important to have someone that you feel is concerned about your well-being and is locked in and tapped into what you need and not the idea of, well, black women are just strong, she'll be fine. Well, we are just strong, but that doesn't mean that we'll be fine. Now, my advice is actually the same for you both. Start with ovarian reserve testing to get a sense of what your egg counts are like. Having a realistic picture of what's going on inside your body will help you both make more informed decisions. Well, I'm not thinking of kids enough to do all that. If I had a nickel for every time a patient changed their mind about family. Like, I'm okay with having a baby at 50. If that is what's supposed to happen, I'm okay with having one at 40. I'm just not interested in trying to preserve right now at 36. If you're 40 years old and you look 20 on the outside, don't think that your ovaries think that you look 20. Like your ovaries are functioning like the ovaries of a 40-year-old, and that is going to be different. Welcome to the Harlem After Show. This is the space where we talk about my favorite topics, the biggest topic from episode three and four of Harlem. Now, if you are not caught up in those episodes yet, don't get me wrong, you can stay. But for the best experience, go over to prime right now. Watch Harlem. There's four episodes of season two out right now, and then come back here. And if you're really behind and you don't know what Harlem is, Harlem was created for people who are eager to celebrate the joy, power, friendships, and range of black women. It stars some people that we have loved for a very long time, and some people that we fell in love with during season one. You can have sex, or you can talk about it. As soon as the big sit-down happens, it's sitting on a big D, goodbye. But this is also not an Ian problem to talk about. This is a Camille just needs to relax problem. Okay, now that we're done with the intros, let me talk to the people, my people, who are caught up on the show. There was so much to love about episodes three and four, like this incredibly satisfying moment. I look kinda like this nigga Drake. It's something about the eyes, the eyes, the nose. Matter of fact, the hair above the eyes. Yep, I mean, to be fair, any scene with Tyler Lepley is a great scene. But my favorite scene by far from the past couple of episodes was definitely the one where Camille and Ty went to see an OBGYN who educated them, and consequently us, on ovarian reserve testing. I didn't know about ovarian reserve testing at all. So, honestly, when you said it, I said, hmm, one of the beautiful things that was not implicitly said, but shared is the power of having a black healthcare practitioner. And that was a beautiful scene to see, also because it was the power of getting a second opinion. Was that powerful for you guys to be a part of that? Well, I knew what you were saying. Yeah, I knew what you were saying. It's interesting, because I was just reading about the young woman who passed away because she was having her second baby. I think she was like 27, and she kept telling them, like, hey, I'm struggling here, you know? And they just didn't believe her, and she passed away. And then, you know, Jerry had made a comment earlier, and she was like, this is the same thing they did to Serena, Williams. If they're not paying her any attention, you can imagine what's happening, you know, all the time, and so I think it is important to have someone that you feel is concerned about your well-being and is locked in and tapped into what you need and not the idea of, you know, well, black women are just strong, she'll be fine. Well, we are just strong, but that doesn't mean that we'll be fine, you know? Which is interesting. I remember I smoked for a few years, and when I quit, like six or seven years ago, I went to the doctor, and I was like, I want to check out everything. I want you to, like, look at every single part of me, and they were like, well, you don't really need that test. I was like, I know, but I want that test. And they were like, yeah, but you don't need it. And I was like, but I want it. And I had to argue with them about getting, like, testing done for just checking if I had cancer, seeing if there was anything that, you know, anything. I just wanted to be preventative and thoughtful about if there is something catching it now and just seeing that. And, I mean, ultimately, I got the test done, but it was like so taboo to them that I would ask for this without having some type of symptom or some type of, like, reason to ask for it, except for that I, you know, did a thing that could cause that. Ooh, sounds like somebody's in the market for freezing some eggs. Um, I don't know if I can have cancer. My number count is low or something. I am joined by my favorite, Dr. Needle Landry, who is the author of my absolute favorite. This actually is my favorite book that I have read this year, for sure. That means so much. This is Crash Course. It is thick, because it needs to be thick. Thick. Can you talk about the work that you do? Well, I'm an OBGYN, so I deliver babies and do gynecological procedures and work in clinics and things like that. But I am actually, I'm a traveling doctor, so I go from place to place, especially marginalized communities. What I love about this book is it is written so conversationally, it is so accessible, and it truly is fit with accessible language. So we're using the term women, and you talk about this in the book, and that's just a term to describe biosex females or people with uteruses. Absolutely. So what do people need to know about their fertility? People need to know that even if you look 20 years younger than you actually are, you should not make the assumption that your ovaries are functioning the way that they function 20 years before. So, hypothetically speaking, if you're 40 years old and you look 20 on the outside, don't think that your ovaries think that you look 20. Like your ovaries are functioning like the ovaries of a 40-year-old, and that is going to be different. Because as you age, the quality and quantity of your eggs will decline, so you just wanna be mindful of that and make sure that you're planning accordingly so that you have the life that you envision for yourself when it comes to your reproductive future. This doctor was saying that, no, it's 15 to 21 are your peak fertility years. Is that true? A person's peak fertility years will be like late teens to late 20s. So yeah, it definitely is earlier than your 30s because by the time you reach your 30s, your fertility is starting to decline, and that decline becomes more rapid as you enter your mid-30s. And then by the age of 45, the probability of getting pregnant without any type of intervention such as IDF is going to be low for most women. It's interesting because we often rely on our mothers to do these, start these conversations for us, but this technology is really, really new. Yeah, yeah, and I'm assuming you're talking about ovarian reserve testing, right? Yeah, okay, so let's talk a little bit about that if that's okay. Please. All right, what is ovarian reserve testing? Okay, you're born with a certain number of eggs, and that number of eggs is called your ovarian reserve. Well, to put things very broadly and give you a general overview, as you age, two important things will happen. Number one, the quantity of eggs that you have in that reserve will decline, and number two, the quality of eggs that you have in that reserve will also decline, and when I say quality declining, that means an increased risk of things like chromosomal abnormalities, okay? Now, when we do ovarian reserve testing, we're really focusing on issue number one, so we're focusing on the quantity of eggs that you have, and when you do ovarian reserve testing, you're basically asking this question. You're saying, hey, is the number of eggs that I have typical for a woman my age, and if the answer to that question is no, then we say that you have a low ovarian reserve, and that's when you want to definitely have a conversation, preferably with a fertility specialist, just to talk about best next steps. However, if you do have a low ovarian reserve, I also want you to know that that test is just a piece of the puzzle, meaning, hypothetically speaking, you can have a person who has a lower ovarian reserve, but the eggs that they do have are higher quality. The other thing to remember is egg freezing or embryo freezing is a great option to consider, but it's not a guarantee. The only way to guarantee that you will get pregnant and deliver a baby is to get pregnant and deliver babies, but it is a good insurance plan. Now, we're not here to talk about price, but I was looking it up and I thought it was actually cheaper than my brain thought it was going to be. What was your brain thinking? My brain thought tens of thousands and thousands a year to store, but when I researched it was thousands to start the freezing process and hundreds per year to store it. That is accurate, but I mean, that's still a lot of money. It could just be my brain because when people said it, I was like, oh my gosh, it's like 30,000 a year to store these eggs in some high tech clinic. My issue as an OBGYN is I just don't like for people to not have all of the information. So what I don't want is for, like I was having a conversation with a friend who happens to be a little older tech quote unquote a little older, but I was talking to a friend and she was saying, I was talking to my girlfriends and I found out that they froze their eggs. And now by this time she's kind of in the menopause transition. So she's like, I wish I knew that they were freezing their eggs because I would have been interested in being a part of that conversation. So I just don't want anybody to be in a situation where they didn't have the information. They didn't even think about talking to their OBGYN or fertility specialists about the possibility. Because there is a taboo there. Absolutely, absolutely. And the thing about it is a lot of times we just look at social media and we look at the quote unquote highlight reels of a person's life. And not everybody is vocal about having a miscarriage or being or struggling with infertility. And that's okay because they deserve to go to take that journey the way that they want to take that journey. Some people feel comfortable sharing, some people don't and both ways are okay. However, sometimes people, they feel alone and they feel as though they're the only one and they're absolutely not the only one. Along that line of thought, I read a study that said that black women struggle with fibroids more than the average American woman, more than the average white American woman. Is that true and why? That is true. It is true. We don't know exactly what causes fibroids but there seems to be a link to hormones and also there can be a genetic link as well, yes. All right, let's back it up. What is a fibroid? A fibroid is a benign non-cancerous growth in or on the uterus. Now we talked about this offline how in the show the character Ty has fibroids. I was cursed with the Holy Trinity, polyps, fibroids, cysts and apparently I can't do endless transfusions. Yeah, it's hard for that to be your only treatment plan. Well, their only plan was for me to get a hysterectomy and that seems a bit drastic. Yeah, that doesn't always have to be the first step. Now I haven't been treating you so I'd need to know more about your medical history but there could be a less invasive treatment path before we get to hysterectomy. Why is it important for shows like Harlem to depict conversations with healthcare providers in the way that they did? You need to be able to start the conversation and sometimes you don't know what you don't know. For instance, when she said they recommended a hysterectomy and the doctor said, oh, there are so many things that we can do before that. Well, that's all she needed to say to plant the seed in a viewer's mind that, oh, I have fibroids and my doctor told me I needed a hysterectomy. What else is there? You shouldn't just be jumping straight to hysterectomy if they are clinically stable and they don't have a cancer that requires a hysterectomy. There are so many things that you can do before that and how dare you step in and take that right away from that woman. How dare you step in and tell a woman who maybe might kind of sort of want kids in the future or a woman who definitely wants kids in the future that her only option is to have a hysterectomy. Now, we know that there are other ways to become a mother and all of those ways are beautiful. However, nobody should be telling you that you have to have a hysterectomy if there are other options and I found that that does happen a lot more frequently than people realize. Why is it important for women and specificity black women to seek out a second opinion? It is important to seek out a second opinion because your health is worth fighting for and you have to advocate for yourself and you need to go with your intuition. We know that structural racism and implicit bias play a big role when it comes to healthcare for black women and this isn't just me talking as a black OBGYN. This has been proven by numerous studies, even major organizations like the American Medical Association came out and said, you know, this is not conjecture, this is proven and we have to do better. Therefore, taking that into consideration, you need to make sure that you're an advocate for your health and if something doesn't feel right, if you've done research on something and you know that there are other options, you need to seek a second opinion. What is empowering about what you're saying is providing people with the tools and information to rewrite the script but it's also discouraging because they have to rewrite the script. You can't just implicitly trust. So one, I do wanna talk about this because this is an incredible resource for people to get ahead and start asking the right questions and then when they get the answers to check and be like, is that the only answer? Are there better answers or different answers? I wrote that book because I wanted people to have all the information that they needed in one place when it comes to what I call repeat offenders. And when I say repeat offenders, I'm talking about the things that people come to my office complaining about or having issues with over and over and over again. So I wanted people to have a place to go where they can just have the information that they need to ask the questions that will get them the answers they need and deserve in order to be a healthier, happier version of themselves. I love me some Dr. Nita Landry and furthermore, I'm obsessed with Dr. Landry's book. I promoted it before in a couple of videos that truly believe it's a great piece of literature to inform and empower you whether you have to advocate for your healthcare or tell a friend and teach a friend, be the advocate for someone else. Each one teach one is her policy and she lives and breathes that work and I'm grateful for it and if you feel that same gratitude, show it. Go down to the info box, click the link for her book, follow her on social media, you're not gonna regret it and while you're down there, go to the comment section right now and I want you to put anything that you've heard so far whether on Harlem or through the interview I just did with Dr. Landry that you wanna make sure everybody else hears loud and clear and speaking of group discussions. What I love about Harlem actually, it is the perfect show to jumpstart your group chat whether that means asking your friends if they have ever heard of ovarian reserve testing and educating them or starting a debate with people on what's harder, giving head or riding a bike. Both things that I am glad I got the chance to talk about with this beautiful group of people. Have you ever heard of ovarian reserve testing? No. No, and I'm a whole woman. Have you ever thought before about going to get tested or looking into that at all? I am not interested, I don't, I just, I feel like I'm okay with having a baby at 50 if that is what's supposed to happen. I'm okay with having one at 40. I'm just not interested in trying to preserve right now at 36. But do you have an interest in them saying, okay, based on what you have right now, here is what you would need to do to prepare to have it at 50 or here's what you should be aware of. And I say no because I feel like that will change how I approach different sexual situations or relationships. Now maybe I feel pressured to have a baby sooner than I really want to. So now I, mm-mm, mm-mm. I realized, I recently came to epiphany within myself that I wanted to embrace this year as my year of freedom. And, you know, as a woman who's over 35, I felt like the pressures of my biological clock were getting in the way of my dating and my life goals. And this year I decided that I didn't want to do that anymore and I just wanted to be free from pressure, from, you know, society, from family, from expectations, from my, even from myself. And so as a result of that, I'm not putting a lot of energy into the planning of my future children. You're never gonna have more eggs than you have right at this moment. So it's just a bit of information to know, to be like, okay, now that I know that I may have low or I have excessive, what does that information for me and what do I want to do about it? So that actually might be a form of freedom. And so I do plan on freezing my eggs this year. Actually, I'm gonna start the process in a couple of weeks because of that very reason. Because I just want to free myself from the pressure, you know what I mean? And like, oh, if I don't find anybody, dating in LA is bad. I don't wanna think about that anymore. I just want to find my man and then we decide together if kids are for us. But in the meantime, have that insurance of having my eggs frozen for that later pregnancy. All right, with this conversation in mind, let's watch this clip. My number count is low or something. Oh no, Kimmy, shit. How are you handling the news? And sometimes we learn legacy is as much about what we leave. I'm not. I don't even know how to tell Ian. I've cost him 68 grand and mirror what I'm just supposed to drop this on him to. Drop what on me? All right, nobody here has had an ovarian reserve test or had their sperm count checked. Correct. You did, in theory, and you found out that you had low sperm count or a low reserve. How soon would you tell romantic partners? After I sit with the news and process my own thing with it then immediately, because those are lifelong decisions. Those are conversations that are very necessary because that could be a deal breaker for him. That might, you know, that might dissuade me from pursuing her further. I might, you know, start looking at other options at that point. And then would you be honest with her with that information? Like, hey, I'm ready, but I know you have to. I'm gonna tell you I would be. I don't know that I would be in the moment. I don't know that I would tell you, you know what the truth of the matter is, you got a low ovary count or ovarian reserve count. Yes. Your ovarian reserves are low, so my interest is as well. I don't know that I would do that. Hopefully not like that. I would know I'd be a little bit more tactful. Well, let's talk about Camila Nien. I mean, for the sake of entertainment, it would be so amazing because I love their love story, but I think that if they were real people and they're still instability looming over their relationship, I think that the responsible thing to do or not do is not bring children into that environment. Yeah, it looks cute, but ultimately, I think they would be unsatisfied for sure. And in that clip, you know, that things are looking good and on the up top of them, so it feels like you want them to have that love story, but their past has been kind of messy, right? And then she left him in life. Now we know at this point that he chose to leave his fiance, and this is what happens next, though. Okay, so we finally spent the night together, and it was so different than I remember. I mean, not bad exactly. It's just, I mean, the man has definitely learned some new moves since he been away. Oh, yes! I love when a brother boomerangs back with some age. Toys, bondage, misplay. Literally, who are you? Girl, piss on him. It's empowering. Yeah, but the thing is, is I was so in my head, I kept thinking, like, okay, he's definitely done this stuff with Mira, and so then I was like, I have to try some new things to compete, and then he does something new, and then we go back and forth, and it's basically multiple rounds of who can fuck the newest. Highland's skills. What? Like the cowboy girl. I can't believe I kept the cowboy thing. I was like, oh my God, that's awkward. Yeah. Megan Good, beautiful, oh my God, I have such a girl crush on her. Same. Knowing how awkward she is and how she gets, let's just, we don't have a crush on Megan. I'll say, Megan Good was definitely Megan Good. I was in 9th, 10th grade and it was Megan Good. Same. But her character is very awkward. She saw her ex with his ex now, and I'm sure that his ex lives rent free on her character's mind. So, you know, I think in this scenario of entertainment, I know it gets to her. Would that bother you to have that in your mind? And they're like, oh, I'm not my partner's best. Oh, they will fuck with me so bad. They will make me go back to the drum boards. Like you're Christmas-y looking at the game tapes. I gotta get right. Because then my question is then, what is keeping him there? You know what I mean? Everything else, your personality, the way that you make the person feel. Sure. Your potential for growing a family together, the business that you guys share, a million other things that make you amazing. We talked about this. Sure. I do not believe that I am my partner as best partner. However, I think what they love about me is my body parts and my minds and my personality and how I make them feel. I'm not the most adventurous. I'm not, I'm very sexual, but I'm not like doing, you know, all kinds of tricks and shit. I'm not doing that. And I don't want to. However, I have this, I feel very confident in my ability to connect with another soul and that's what brings them back. So I think it's really subjective to the experience and, you know, no one experience is the same, you know? I think you could kind of like objectively say who was better at head. 1000% say. For sure. Yes. I experienced a situation. What is it? Is that bad? Snake. Horrible. Are you snaking? Wait, what? I was gonna say, I'm not doing that. Don't do that. I want you to say. I'm not snaking. You like the little motion with the tongue real quick. I've never experienced that. Oh my God. Can we see it? La, la, la, la, la. Like that? That's not bad, the la, la, la, la. But it's the quick darting in and out. Oh, like tongue, like. Wait. I'll get a part of the trick here. You can use your nose to tickle the clit while you lick. Oh. Oh wow. Come on, nose. Tickling the clit with your nose. You know it. Look, if you got a big nose, Mom, what are you doing? That's a fun thing. You might have a quick bit of what you just had. I know it's gonna work. No, no, no, no. You know it. I got a little bit to work with it. So you know, do what you can with it. And I love that there's a little poem there. All right, kind of on this topic right now. I have a question for you. Good. So for us, right, like, vagina to vagina, there's not always a huge difference. I'm sure y'all would say the different. That's not to say the case with dicks. Yes. Right? We know that. Right. Size, girth, length, motion, rhythm. Why does everyone say it's like riding a bike to describe easy shit? It's like sucking dick. It's like finding a Golden Girls rerun. Those things are easy. Riding a bike is not. Actually, I would say that riding a bike is way easier than sucking some dick if you know what I mean. Oh. What do you think is harder, sucking dick or riding a bike? Sucking dick would definitely be harder for me to do. Riding a bike. I'd much rather ride a bike. Well, as somebody who gets their dick sucked, you might be like, actually, it's more complex than you think. I'd much rather ride a bike. Yo, just put your best effort. Just put your best effort. Nah, that's too vague. That's too vague. Put your best effort in. I hold on to what you said and learn how to take direction. So if I tell her, like, yo, spit on that. Yo, grab that. Yo, do that. But I'm very careful in what I say. I liked it, too. I liked it. I enjoyed it. I'm glad you liked it. I'm glad you liked it. I don't listen to it. We'll tell, I don't know if you've experienced it. I've definitely told a woman, like, yo, work teeth a little bit in that five seconds later, the teeth are back. They just remind her. Yes. How many times are we going to remind her? It's just about the technique. The teeth are back. Nobody purposefully scraped her the teeth. It's just an accident. You got teeth in their mouth, sir. What do you want us to do with them? We got gum. Y'all do that when you put your lipstick on. Do that when you put a dick in. Yeah, let me say, it's more complex than riding a bike. A riding a bike can get on, you know, you just drive. Oh, shit. Right. OK. Oh, OK, got it. You're doing it. You got it, eh. Don't let go, Dirt. I got you. All right. OK. Other interesting question from the episode. On a scale of 1 to 10, how happy are you? Oh. That's a pivot. That is. That was a question from the episode that rocked her world completely, should correct into simple questions. So. I'm a 9. I'm like 9, yeah. I'm good. I'm in a good space. Manifestation and all that good stuff. Tanisha, I would say I'm a 10. I recently realized that I live this amazing life and very proud of myself and very at peace with myself. I feel like I'm the most healed right now. I feel like I'm not pressuring myself to do or be anything else but myself. And I finally came to that post-35. And I feel like that is the vibe I want to stay on for the rest of my life. So a 10. Right now, I'm a solid 8. I'd say my base, my floor is about a 5. And I'm thinking 1 is miserable, 5 is whatever. It's cool. And 10 is a static. So I'd say my floor is a 5. Right now, I'm about an 8. But I can fluctuate day to day. I'm at a 7. 7, 8. That's heater around there every day. Well, cheers to the fact that we got a couch full of 8s and ups. That's beautiful. That's beautiful. Black boy, joy, black boy. It is. Black boy, joy, black boy. It's special and essential for black people to experience joy, especially in this time. But when we do, it liberates others. And it, I guess, expands the narrative on how we can exist and how we can experience love. So, yeah, to me, black joy is liberation. Oh, I love it ahead. That's good. Is there something that you're like, there's a call to action that you felt like, viewers? I hope they felt inspired to do this next. To get, to check on 5 break, because I know there's a lot of people who were like, what is that? You know, as a man, I hear the same things, too. You know, like black women in hospitals, I don't know the math behind it. But you know, we always hear about them just being dismissed and, you know, just being shelfed and, you know, they'll figure it out or she's over exaggerating or whatever the case is. So to see that is powerful because, you know, again, I'm with a black woman. You know, I'll be married to a black woman. You know, I have a child who's a little black girl. You know, so it's like it's important for them to see that, for them to also like, you know, have access to that. So even from a man's point of view, it's like that's the important for me to see and reflect it on our show. So by now, you see why we are all so obsessed with Harlem, right? There's so much to cover and we are only halfway through season two, which means that next week on Prime, episode five and six drop on Friday. And then consequently, you're gonna see me back here for episode three of our after show where we go in and discuss all that needs to be discussed. Speaking of which, now is your time to go down to the comments section below. Tell me what stood out to you in episode three and four and let's talk about it.