Medication and egg sharing: how Black women trying to get pregnant create their own healthcare networks

Mutual aid helps these women navigate the tolls of infertility, offering support many say they rarely receive in clinical settings

For many Black women in the US, infertility has a complicated duality. The inability to conceive is often invisible, pushed out of view by shame, the racist notion that Black women are hyperfertile, or the idea that such struggles should remain private. Yet for people aspiring to parenthood amid fertility problems, getting the family they want often requires complete transparency about their condition.

Community support is particularly critical for Black women, who face a slew of health disparities in fertility medicine. They're much less likely to be referred by doctors for fertility treatment - perhaps due to the myth Black women get pregnant with ease - even though studies suggest that they experience infertility at a rate twice as high as white women.