We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Shemaine Fox-pickens a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Shemaine , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?
The Fertile Ground Foundation was created out of a need to provide women with the resources and support they need to battle the impacts of infertility. It was born from my husband and I’s own personal decade long journey with infertility; with battling misinformation, loss, miscarriages and life threatening ectopic pregnancies. It is our way of giving women and couples a safe space to heal mentally, physically and emotionally as well as bringing visibility to the conversation around infertility. That has meant bridging the gaps between doctors and patients and making resources and support more available to women and couples. It has meant sharing our story and our organization with as many as possible so that we can increase awareness around infertility and begin to understand ways to prevent it and help women and couple reach successful pregnancies. It has meant our own healing as we still are on the journey.
Shemaine , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
My name is Shemaine Pickens and my husband Herbert Pickens and I founded the Fertile Ground Foundation in 2021. It was born from my husband and I’s now decade long battle with infertility and the impacts of infertility. We wanted to create an organization that would be not just a safe space for women and couples dealing with infertility, but a resource for them; a healing place where they could find others who are dealing with infertility and know they aren’t alone. We are a place where they can seek healing, encouragement, resources, and more; a place that can put them on track towards a successful pregnancy or at least provide support along the way…and an organization that honors the survivors of infertility.
I am so proud of the relationships that we have established and the progress we have made! We are growing quickly and spreading our message of hope and healing to so many women and couples and that is our goal. Going through our own personal battle with infertility my husband and I have experienced 4 miscarriages and three ectopic pregnancies. I’ve had both fallopian tubes removed as a result in emergency surgeries. We have suffered loss, disappointment, anger, sadness and more. It has been one of the most difficult journeys of our lives but we endure and that is the message that we want to share; to remain hopeful and encouraged. We want to empower women and couples to take charge of their reproductive health and discover pathways to the family they dream of. And of course, to help them heal from what comes with the path of dealing with infertility and provide them with resources and support that will allow them to do that. Hearing the stories of women who deal with this everyday and feel encouraged when they see us post or speak or attend one of our events or meet other women through our organization means the world to us! It’s honoring their fight and their stories and helping the world truly understand the infertility battle and contribute to how we can fight it!
This is what we want anyone or any organization to understand about who we are when they connect with us. We are village of voices and we work hard everyday to add voices to our community. This is the only way the world will be able to hear us!
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
When my husband and I began first embarking on our infertility journey there was so much we did not know. We jumped in head first and our Doctor (OB-GYN) had not really prepared us. We had completed our second IUI, (Intrauterine Insemination) and were waiting for news of a hopefully positive pregnancy test. We ended up finding out that we were pregnant. We were overjoyed! Thrilled! It had worked and our journey on this road could end! Three weeks went by and it was the weekend of our daughter’s 13th birthday and she was having a sleepover. By the time Thursday came and I had done my second round of bloodwork to check my HCG numbers, the doctor seemed concerned. We went in Friday morning to speak to our doctor and the doctor advised us that they could not see a viable pregnancy on the ultrasound and that there was a possibility I could be having an ectopic pregnancy. I didn’t know what that meant but what I knew was that our pregnancy was in jeopardy. We were heartbroken. They recommended that we terminate the pregnancy as it could result in a life threatening condition. Of course, as devastated as we were we agreed to move forward with ending the pregnancy. My husband and I left feeling as though we’d lost something or someone. On top of that we had our daughters birthday sleepover to deal with. So, we pulled ourselves together and I went to pick up my daughter and her friends from school to start her birthday weekend. Throughout the weekend in between baking cookies, shopping at the mall, karaoke with the girls and more, I was going back and forth to the hospital to get methotrexate shots in order to end my pregnancy. It was hands down one of the hardest things I had to do in my life. Having to do that while at the same time putting on a smile for our daughter on her birthday was almost more than I could take. I thank God for my husbands support and strength. It showed me that together we can endure anything and that our strength comes from our love and support of each other. Our daughter had no idea what was happening and she was happy and had an amazing birthday. Although we were deeply saddened, we kept our family going. I’m not sure where the strength to endure that came from, but looking back I now understand that together my husband and I can overcome anything and we did just that.
How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
I would say sharing our story…I feel that it’s because like so many women and couples we have faced these obstacles too and are able to share those experiences with the world and within the community we support. It has allowed us to connect on so many different levels with the infertility community and build real relationships based on the true passion of loving on and supporting others dealing with infertility. There are thousands of stories like ours and we hope that we can continue to inspire women and couples to speak up about them; to share and through sharing heal from them. Things what grew our community and reputation; being authentic and being honest about this journey and being a champion of hope and a destroyer of fear.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.thefgfoundation.org
- Instagram: @thefgfoundation
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/shemainefoxpickens
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@FertileGroundFoundation
