Nollywood screen diva Nse Ikpe-Etim got some members of an audience listening to her shed tears. The legendary actress had to each time it happened, hug and comfort them.
Nse revealed that she will never be able to have a baby as she was diagnosed three years ago with Adenomyosis, a condition whereby the inner lining of the uterus breaks through the muscle wall of the uterus.
“I was told I couldn’t have kids,” she said to her somber audience.
“And so, I had to have a hysterectomy (removal of the uterus) to make me have a life again and to stop going through what I was going through. And I’m literally telling women and men, it really doesn’t matter if you can’t bear children. What really matters is what you would do for the world, for the universe.”
Recalling the moment when the doctor told her she’d have to have her uterus removed in order to live a normal life, Nse said “Tears dropped and then my husband squeezed my hand. It was reassuring there was someone there and it was telling me that this is reality, my reality.”
Depression
“I didn’t think there was any point anymore because my society taught me that I have to be a mother to be appreciated and every time I went online, I would have one troll or two say ‘you never born?’
“But I’m thankful that that didn’t break me.”
She is however appreciative of her acting career.
“I’m thankful for Nollywood,” she said.
“I push my pain through every single character.”
Nse revealed that prior to the hysterectomy, she badly wanted to have children.
“I wanted a set of twins,” she said boisterously.
“I wanted children. I wanted so badly I was brooding forever. Femi, I did IVF. I tried. Femi, I did everything our society wants every woman to do so that we can be accepted as women.”
Reflecting on her marital life
As teens, Nse and her husband, Clifford Sule, started a relationship, called it off and then he came back for a second time. They finally signed the dotted lines in a Registry in Lagos on Valentine’s Day in 2013. Nse said this was even after a story about her with the headline, ‘I’m not born to be married’ was published.
She repeated the same thing at the event.
“I still am not born to be married,” she said, though she admits she and her husband are still very much in love.
“I stand by it. I’m not. The only reason I was born is to affect the world. And if it happens negatively, take me the way I am.”
Source: Within Nigeria
