Quitting Isn't Giving Up
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This is John Cameron Mitchell and my new fiction podcast series, Cancellation Island, stars Holly Hunter as Karen, a wellness influencer who launches a rehab for the recently canceled. In the future, we will all be canceled for 15 minutes. But don't worry, we'll take you from broke to woke or your money back.

Cancellation Island's revolutionary rehab therapies like bad touch football, anti-racism spin class, and mandatory ayahuasca ceremonies are designed to force the cancel to confront their worst impulses. But everything starts to fall apart when people start disappearing. Karen, where have you brought us? Cancellation Island, where a second chance might just be your last.

Listen to Cancellation Island on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Hunter, host of Hunting for Answers on the Black Effect Podcast Network. Join me every weekday as I share bite-sized stories of missing and murdered black women and girls in America. Stories like Erica Hunt. A young mother vanished without a trace after a family gathering on Fourth of July weekend 2016.

Welcome to Can't Believe Reckless, a production of iHeartRadio and The Black Effect. ♪♪

And just like that, we're back with yet another Carefully Reckless episode with your girl, Just Hilarious. What do I be doing? I be fixing mess, and y'all already know. Now, my girl Taylor, like I said, she's out pregnant. I'm going to keep giving y'all weekly updates about Taylor. I don't care, because that's my baby. That is my baby, and she having a baby. So this is the second Breakfast Club baby, because I had the first one, who's Marley, and she is six months. Yes, I know y'all be wondering how my baby's doing. She good. She good. And she's starting to look like me around the eyes, y'all. Just a check-in on Marley. Yep.

because every time I post a picture y'all be like Jess Chris needs a paternity test from you y'all be trying to say that my baby don't look like me at all we got the same blood type like and we got the same eyes she's starting to have the same eyes and I'm not talking about the eye color because yeah she got her dad's bright brownish grayish eyes whatever I don't even know if that's like the final color they're gonna be because they went from gray to hazel

to brown. Now they're turning gray again. Or they may change colors. I'm not sure. However, I mean the shape. The shape of the eyes. My baby is starting to look like me. Around the eye. You know, with the shape. The eye shape. You know what I'm saying? Anyway, whatever. So that's why Taylor's not here. Because she's dealing with pregnancy. And she's just... She's getting bigger and bigger. And I'm just going to love her little baby when it gets here. Okay. So, this is what we're doing. Alright? We don't have any voice memos today. We have...

written passages so bear with me y'all here we go

Hey, Jess. So I'm kind of going through it. My husband and I have been trying to get pregnant for a year and we're starting to lose hope. Oh, man. I've miscarried twice and I just don't want to keep going through the fields of not ever making it to a full term pregnancy. I know we're starting to wear my husband down, too. I feel the energy. It's no one's fault. I guess it's just God's timing. When my husband and I first got married, we talked about kids and we would adopt.

We both said yes. I want to bring that back up, but it's different circumstances and I don't want him to feel like this is our only option because I still have faith. I just want to see where his head is at with it. Jess, this is just all so overwhelming and so stressful. All I ever wanted to do was be a mom and I'm just nervous, girl.

I've never really opened up that much about it so if you decide to read this I really appreciate you for listening absolutely first of all my heart goes out to you because I do understand how you feel I can't say I feel how you feel um because I've never uh struggled with that um like it did take a a while for Chris and I to conceive Marley um it was a period where I thought that I couldn't conceive anymore I didn't know if I had messed my body up in my 20s um

And that as a result of that, it wasn't that easy to conceive my daughter. And we planned her. I wanted her, you know, I wanted to be able to give Chris a child. I always wanted more children, you know, and it just took a lot longer for us to conceive Marley. You know, I went for tests. He went for tests. And, you know, we never got to the point of blaming each other, you know, and I'm glad you and your husband did.

had an understanding. I don't know if that's what's going on now because I know it's weighing on you both, but I'm hoping that this is not driving you two apart. Like this is not dividing your home, you know, and the oneness that you guys have, you know, this is your husband. I hope that, you know, this should bring y'all closer together. You understand what I'm saying? I would want that to be the case. A lot of times, a lot of couples, they don't know how to handle these types of situations. So my heart goes out to you and your husband.

Now, you've miscarried twice. So it seems as if you don't have a problem conceiving, you have a problem carrying full term. We don't know what's going on most of the time. A lot of times the doctors don't even know, babe. So like you said, it may be it's God's timing because that's exactly what it ended up being in my situation.

You know, after getting tested and for all these things going, you know, trying to figure out whether we would have to do IVF. And I'm like, yo, how? When I've had a baby before. But, you know, I was doing so much with me traveling and me doing Breakfast Club and then me having a still. It was so much responsibility and it was a lot of stress.

around that you know and we trying to balance work life and mom life and trying to build my family and keep my family together and then you know it was just a lot and I don't know what your profession is what your husband's profession is what you guys career choices are but it could most certainly be the stress because that is the number one key to a lot of health issues stress

diet as well, but stress. And a lot of people don't even know when their body is stressed out. It will tell you. And, you know, even if it don't tell you right away, you'll feel, you'll start feeling certain, I don't know, I guess symptoms, I would say, you know, you would start feeling that, you know, I don't know what it, what it may be for you, but just getting back to the initial advice, talk to your husband, talk to him,

That's what I want to say. I want to say that y'all need to stand stronger than ever now, because this is not easy for either one of you, especially not you. You had two miscarriages. You had to endure that. And even trying again, that can be very discouraging after losing two babies. It could absolutely be discouraging, but I don't want...

for this to tear up a happy home, a marriage. I do think you should revisit the conversation that you guys talked about before with the adoption because you said that he was open to it, you know, but you don't want him to feel like you're giving up because you still have faith. Absolutely.

But a woman can only put her body through so much, so much more. You know what I mean? And that can have a big effect, a big impact on your body and on your health as well. You know, more miscarriages. And, you know, I just don't want you to feel like.

You have to keep putting yourself through this when there are certainly other alternatives. You know what I mean? And this is just going back to that communication factor, sitting down with your husband, because that's your husband. He understands. He's seeing you go through it. Not only did, you know, he go through it, you went through it as well. And you are the one that was carrying the babies, you know, so he knows. Now, guys.

No, they're not always the brightest bulbs when it comes to, you know, women's bodies or whatever. But you married him for a reason. He's with you for a reason. And y'all do everything together. Y'all can't make decisions just for yourselves anymore. You have to make decisions with him in mind, but also yourself. And I think it's not giving up. If you love me, you'll listen to this commercial and then we'll be right back.

It's not giving up. Quitting and... Listen, up at the Breakfast Club, right? We had an interview. Will Packer came up. This was like something that he ministered to me with. And I took it as ministry. You know, he was just talking, but I took it as ministry. He said, quitting and giving up are two different things. Giving up...

It's something that I never want to do. Giving up and I know you feel defeated. As defeated as you are, you still don't want to give up because you still want to be a mom. You still want to give that beautiful bundle of joy to your husband. But quitting, quitting is different. You know, quitting is realizing, okay, maybe this is not for me. Maybe this is going to make things worse. I don't want to cause any more harm to my body, which can, you know, because a lot of miscarriages can affect you, affect you.

You know, it can affect your body in other ways where something else goes wrong. And, you know, you know, you just don't want to sacrifice your body to the point of no return when there are other alternatives and one in which y'all discussed. And I think if you just sit down and you be 100 percent open with your husband, he will definitely see. You know, I think so. I think you should update me and just see.

the possibility of adoption again, you know? Or how about a surrogate? Because you never know what you're going to get when you adopt, right? You know, and I don't know. I hear a lot of horror stories when it comes to adoption and,

you know, things like that, because these kids, they grow up and then they do have questions. Where do I come from? Who am I? And there's someone that actually wrote me, because I've been fixing mess for seasons, okay? This is season four. I remember in like season two, I believe. It was either two or three. I'm going to say two, because this was well before I was pregnant. Somebody had wrote me about a situation similar, you know, to what's going on. And they were going through the same thing, you know, and they ended up

going the adoption route and they adopted their child and then you know he he grew up and he felt like he didn't belong where he was you know he felt like he didn't belong to them like he just knew these are not my real parents nobody ever told him that uh nobody ever even talked about adoption in the house you know so how would he have known that you know

But he did know. I can't remember whether it was the mom or the dad writing me, but they were saying that they wanted advice on whether they should help him find his real parents or still just like...

They were trying to figure out whether or not they wanted to reveal they weren't his real parents because he had started asking questions. And he was just like, yo, I don't feel connected to y'all. You know what I mean? In some type of way. And I think it was very real. I think there is a connection at birth.

Right. Between a mom and a child, whether that mom is in the child's life, proceeds to be in the child's life or not, there will always be a connection because this person birthed you. You you grew into a baby in their belly. You guys shared the same heartbeat. You guys shared the same blood. You guys like you were made by this person. You are an extension of a human being.

that you only get one mother and whether that person gives you away at birth or not, you will always be connected to the person that birthed you. Right. And so with that child growing up and coming to his adoptive parents, like, yo, I really, really feel like there's a disconnect between me and this family. Like, where am I from? You know, and I did give them that advice. My advice to them was,

Yes, definitely. It's absolutely he has. It is absolutely only right that you guys go help him find his family, especially if he's feeling a disconnect. He doesn't feel like he belongs. And that's not because they treated him a certain way. They gave him the best of everything, according to them. The story that they both told me, you know, because I can't remember whether it was the mom or the dad. But the story that I got from either one of the parents, I don't know.

They raised him the right way and everything. He had good schools and good threads on his back and he ate and provided water and food and everything that a child would want, toys and everything. He grew up and he just still felt like there's somebody that he's connected to and it ain't them in that house. And so they never gave me an update, but adoption can be a little tricky, but I'm not trying to...

Um, because, oh, Lord, you probably gonna be like, I'm so you're totally discouraging me from finding my.

From adopting, you know, when that may be the only alternative that we can afford. I don't know what you can afford. I don't know. You know, I don't know. I do know that there are other alternatives. But then, baby, it may just be God's timing. You know, there's so many factors. You know, you don't know. We never know. But I do think this is the time where you and your husband does not need to divide. Y'all need to come together and stay strong. Because y'all have to make these decisions together. You know, you have to make these decisions together.

Not by yourself, not only for yourself, you know, yes, you do come first because it is your body that's going to house all of this. You know, you're putting your body through this and it can be very tumultuous, you know, but you're going to need your foundation. You're going to need your support system. And that is your husband. That should be your husband.

You know, so just sit down and talk to him. You know what I mean? And just get back with me and let me know exactly what the update is. Oh, I feel so I feel for you. I feel for you. My heart goes out to you and your husband. I mean, if nobody else told you, I love you. All right. So we moving on. I just want to say, right, because I think this episode actually speaks to a lot of moms out there.

You know, like I said, I was, me and Chris, we didn't, I'm not going to deem it struggling. I'm not going to label it as struggling to have a baby. You know, we were struggling for a while, you know, but it did take us like a good six months to conceive, you know? And like I said, I thought it was something wrong with me. And I thought it was something wrong with him. I mean, he thought it was something wrong with him. And, and, you know, I lived wildly in my 20s.

Hold up, hold up. I know this shit getting good, but listen to just a couple seconds of a commercial. If you love me, you'll listen. Immediately, when I could not conceive, I thought, you know, when I couldn't conceive right away, I just thought back to how I treated myself in my 20s with all the drinking and the drugging and the goddamn Plan Bs and all of that. You know, that shit fucks you up. People were using Plan Bs for contraceptives. Like, I mean, like for...

birth control. Plan B's are not birth control. And then birth control is not even healthy for us. We're putting this shit in our bodies instead of just using condoms and shit, you know? But that's a whole nother story for a whole nother time, honey. But what I felt was I fucked myself up so bad that maybe this is me. Or, and you know, I even started thinking like, maybe I'm not meant to have any more kids, you know? But then I'm like, no, that wouldn't be right because I'm

God sent me this man after his own heart. You know, my, my fiance is a very, very, very serious Christian. He, um,

He loves God dearly. God, fair man, to say the least. Like he, we, we, on our first date, he talked about him wanting to be a father and him wanting to be a husband who takes care and provides for his family. He wants to build an empire and wants to create generational wealth. And he just wants children. He wants to live that life that he dreamed of living ever since he was a young boy. You know what I mean? And, and even,

you know, how he grew up, you know, wasn't the best, you know, he was raised by his mom and his grandparents, you know, solely his grandparents, but it was just like, he wants to give his kids what he didn't have growing up. And, you know, that's all I wanted to do even prior to meeting him. I always wanted to give my son, my first son, my Ashton, the life that I didn't have growing up, you know, and that's just always what you want to do as parents, you know what I mean? And

if there's something getting in the way of that, it can totally make you feel defeated. Like, you know, it is, it's, it's not easy not being able to have children, especially when that's all you want. Like that is your desire. Your, your everlasting wish is to, to make a family and produce, you know, to somebody to carry on your legacy, you know? And when that process is tainted in any way,

You start going crazy in your mind. You start thinking. And listen, the factors are endless. It could be endless reasons why you just never know. And that's why you should also take care of yourselves. Definitely take care of yourselves. Go to the doctors. Keep up with your health, your body. You don't know. Listen, I'm 33 years old. I remember...

Back in the day, everybody used to say, not even back in the day, like recently, like just a couple of years back, people were saying, you know, get a mammogram. Ladies, get your mammograms at 40 and guys, get your heart scanning, your colonoscopies at 40. And no, we got to start doing that shit in our mid 20s or, you know, everything is so different.

They're changing the shit in our food. They're putting shit in our food and they're putting shit in the goddamn beverages and snacks that we eat and everything. Like y'all don't notice that shit is way different. Shit don't even taste the same. Shit don't even taste the same. So like I know I said stress is like number one factor of most health issues. And then I did say diet. Yo, we need to change all of that.

We need to change our diets. We need to start. And this sounds crazy because when I first met my fiance, he was like, yo, we got to start farming. Like, you know what I mean? Like when we made it official, he was like, yo, we got to buy farms. We got to start like, like producing our own food, fruits, vegetables and shit, like raising our own cattle and stuff like that. Like we have to start going like fishing and cleaning our own fish and like, like we have to do that because they're killing us with this food.

Slowly but surely, you know? Why do you think our fucking kids got to get so many goddamn shots and shit? Why? Because it's just new diseases popping up and shit? No, like...

There has been shit changing forever. You know, over the course of time, they change formulas to shit. They change chemicals. They put different chemicals and shit like in the ocean and they start fucking with certain things. And after years and years of us consuming this shit, it has a different effect on us. We start developing these health issues that our generations before our family members before took a while to develop.

forever to develop and shit, you know what I mean, now we're getting sicker, quicker, we are dying younger, we are developing, you know, diabetes and all these, at young ass ages, like, oh my god, so bad, you know, so we just have to take care of ourselves, definitely go, go get checked, go get your heart checked, go get just a full body scan,

I remember reporting something up at Breakfast Club with Lauren LaRosa not too long ago. Dwayne Wade, you know, he had cancer and he didn't even know. He just asked his doc. He went to the doctor and he was just like, yo, check my whole body. I want to know what's going on with my whole body. Everything like, you know, and I know people who have money have it, you know, where they can go and get these scans and then pay for this shit or whatever. But yeah.

If there is any type of way like you can look into, because there are certain clinics and facilities that do these body scans for free, or they do take state insurance and insurance that, you know, that you may feel you don't have the best insurance. You can get body scans for free. You just have to look up, you know, your local facilities that do so. You know, I know there is a place in Memphis that does, um,

I think they do something with some type of like leukemia treatments for free and you can get a scan for free. You can go and get checked up for free. This is in Memphis. I'll do more research on it, but y'all just take that gem I dropped and y'all do y'all research too. Like, you know what I mean? Definitely take care of yourself for sure. So we're going to end this episode on that note. Love you guys. Take care of yourselves and catch you next week.

This is John Cameron Mitchell and my new fiction podcast series, Cancellation Island, stars Holly Hunter as Karen, a wellness influencer who launches a rehab for the recently canceled. In the future, we will all be canceled for 15 minutes. But don't worry, we'll take you from broke to woke or your money back.

Cancellation Island's revolutionary rehab therapies like bad touch football, anti-racism spin class, and mandatory ayahuasca ceremonies are designed to force the cancel to confront their worst impulses. But everything starts to fall apart when people start disappearing. Karen, where have you brought us? Cancellation Island, where a second chance might just be your last.

Listen to Cancellation Island on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Hunter, host of Hunting for Answers on the Black Effect Podcast Network. Join me every weekday as I share bite-sized stories of missing and murdered black women and girls in America. Stories like Erica Hunt. A young mother vanished without a trace after a family gathering on Fourth of July weekend 2016.

No goodbyes, no clues, just gone. Listen to Hunting for Answers every weekday on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Do you remember what you said the first night I came over here? Ow goes lower? From Blumhouse TV, iHeart Podcasts, and Ember 20 comes an all-new fictional comedy podcast series. Join the flighty Damien Hirst as he unravels the mystery of his vanished boyfriend. I've been spending all my time looking for answers about what happened to Santi. And what's the way to find a missing person? Sleep with everyone he knew, obviously. Listen to The Hookup on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

I'm Mary Kay McBrayer, host of the podcast The Greatest True Crime Stories Ever Told. This season explores women from the 19th century to now. Women who were murderers and scammers, but also women who were photojournalists, lawyers, writers, and more. This podcast tells more than just the brutal, gory details of horrific acts. I delve into the good, the bad, the

the difficult, and all the nuance I can find. Because these are the stories that we need to know to understand the intersection of society, justice, and the fascinating workings of the human psyche. Join me every week as I tell some of the most enthralling true crime stories about women who are not just victims, but heroes, or villains, or often somewhere in between.

Listen to the greatest true crime stories ever told on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.