Having Grown Up Poor, Tamron Hall Says She Felt Guilty for Being Able to Afford IVF Treatments
Choosing between having a career or motherhood is a task faced by many women. However, at 48, journalist Tamron Hall was determined to do both, but it didn’t come without its guilt.
Hall has been quite open about her motherhood journey since welcoming her son Moses on April 25, 2019. Recently she shared another aspect of that experience, including how she and her husband Steve Greener used in vitro fertilization (IVF) to conceive and how she even felt guilty doing it.
Page Six reported that while discussing infertility treatments’ costs with Dr. Andre Perry and Dr. Joia Crear Perry, Hall made a surprising admission. “I have to be honest with you, being in the IVF clinic, for a while, I did feel guilty for being able to afford it,” Hall began. “I felt like the game was rigged, and although I grew up very poor [and], a 19-year-old single mother brought me home, that now I had an amount of money that put the odds in my favor in some way.”
Dr. Perry spoke about the disparities in the job market and health care industry that prevent many Black families from being able to benefit from the IVF process. “Given the fact that so many Black people don’t have the kind of insurance that would allow them to pay for these expensive infertility treatments, in addition, most of us have lower amounts of wealth because of past discrimination,” Perry explained in an article for The Nation. “So those factors led me to say, ‘Hey, we should be having babies like white people.’ But the intent is to say, we should remove the barriers that prevent people from having families.”
Hall shocked many when she announced in 2019 that she and her husband were expecting. At the time, the television talk show host shared a series of photos of her baby bump and one with now new dad Greener. “I’ve wanted to share this news for many months and now finally my doctor has said I am in a safe place at 32 weeks, to share my joy with y’all,” she wrote. “So, it’s clear a daytime talk show isn’t the only thing I’ve been trying to produce. There have been many tears, but today I embrace the smiles.”
She continued, “My husband Steven and I are beyond excited! We’re in constant prayer, so if you pray, add us to your list; if you meditate, send calmness our way; and if you believe in luck, we’ll happily take that too.”