What an IUD Pregnancy Taught Me about Passion

When I saw Those Two Pink Lines, bright as day, there were no questions running through my mind. Only one melancholic line from a Frank Ocean song:

There will be tears. I have no doubt.

There were hella tears. And not the happy ones either.

Four years prior to that moment, I had walked into my gyno’s office, never having been on birth control before in my life. I left with a shiny, brand-spanking new copper IUD nestled snugly inside my uterus.

I fully expected that for the next 10 years, my uterus would be better protected than the Chamber of Secrets and the Pentagon put together.

I was safe.

Fast-forward to the day my life changed forever, just a few hours before Those Two Pink Lines:

“Yes babe, as a matter of fact I do need something from the grocery store: peanut butter, jelly, and a pregnancy test please.”

There will be tears. I have no doubt.

Those Two Pink Lines prompted a series of gymnastic career leaps, twists, and turns that would’ve had Simone Biles clutching her golds. You see, on the day I peed on the stick, I was home in Atlanta, but only for a quick weekend visit.

I had just graduated from pharmacy school 6 months before. At the time, I was in the middle of year one of a 2-year post-graduate pharmaceutical fellowship program — my first semi-”big girl job”.

The fellowship had me bouncing around the country for months at a time: 6 months in Indy, 9 in Jersey, 9 in Silver Springs, MD.

Spoiler alert: Never made it to Maryland.

Those Two Pink Lines pointed me straight back to Atlanta where my then-boyfriend-and-fetus’-daddy and I had a house.

There were many, many, many more tears as I had to break the news to my supervisors (not one, not two, but THREE!) that I couldn’t complete the fellowship because I had to move back home.

Because I was…pregnant?! I hate to say it, but I felt so basic.

What I had forgotten amidst my despair and anger was that God’s plan is always greater than. Yes, it completely sucked that I wasn’t able to complete all two years of my training program. Yes, breaking this news to my supervisors was THEE WORST.

But ultimately, God came through. I found myself back in Atlanta with a different fellowship position in health communications at the CDC. It was my “dream” job.

Was.

After a few more career plot twists that involved me leaving the CDC temporarily, I returned to the agency as a contractor in a different division. I quickly learned that it wasn’t my dream position. Or my dream boss. Maybe not even my dream career anymore.

I began to dabble in interests outside of work to try to distract myself from how unhappy I was in my job. And a whole new world full of opportunities opened itself to me.

I created a public health pharmacy blog to help educate my friends and family about important health topics. Eventually, a health company noticed the blog and offered to pay me to write theirs (!!!).

This evolved into a freelance writing side hustle that brought in a nice bit of change every month.

It didn’t miss me that my son’s presence on Earth was miraculous. I mean given the narrow odds of even conceiving him, the danger of a tiny sac of cells sharing uterine space with a copper apparatus, and the heightened risk of loss after having the IUD removed, I was convinced that his existence was purposeful and divine.

And because of this intentionality, I started to look at my own life differently. I realized that while I loved being a public health pharmacist, I didn’t feel like I had just one true calling.

To be fair, it was my husband who really helped open my eyes to that fact. “I don’t think you’re going to be truly happy at any job,” he said to me.

I discovered that I could take freelance writing and make a career of it. And after watching a Ted Talk by Emilie Wapnick, I also learned that I wasn’t alone in my multipassionate nature. I wasn’t odd for working 8+ years to achieve a career goal that I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life doing.

When I became a pharmacist, my passions expanded to include health education for Black people.

As I became a mother, my passion for women’s rights and reproductive justice expanded to include motherhood and empowered birth.

As I became a freelance writer and then a business owner, my passion for writing expanded to include digital marketing and copywriting.

Might these worlds have opened to me at some point in life without falling pregnant with an IUD? Possibly. But this was the path my life took. And I’m eternally grateful for it.