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Just a heads up, you should know that this episode deals with the trauma of pregnancy loss.

This is NPR's Life Kit.

I always knew I wanted to be a mom.

I'm a planner by nature.

As a woman, I just, in my head, was like, I'm going to be able to have kids.

As we are conditioned as we're younger you get married you have kids you get married

you have kids never in my mind that I entertained the thought of losing a baby

having a miscarriage having a stillbirth the doctors didn't mention it no one

mentioned it so I went in like a schoolgirl and of course my first pregnancy was perfect.

So then when I had my first daughter, I'm thinking like, okay, let's try again.

But my second pregnancy, I lost that baby from miscarriage, and then my stillbirth.

And then it kept on continuing.

I was just like, oh my goodness, I am failing as a woman.

And I felt all I was good as was birthing death. Everything was hush, hush. No one spoke of loss,

at least not in my circle. I'm Martina Abraham Zulunga.

And I'm Gabrielle Horton.

We're the host of Natal, a podcast docu-series about having a baby while black.

On our show, we pass a mic to black parents like Yvonne McCombs and my own mom, Marilyn

Abraham's, who you heard at the top of the episode.

...