Infertility affects 11% of women worldwide, yet it’s still a hush-hush topic—especially among Black women. But journalist and Comeback.TV CEO Erica Cobb is breaking the silence. By sharing her own journey, she’s not just starting a conversation—she’s amplifying voices, shifting the narrative, and creating a space where diverse stories around infertility are finally being heard.
“I realized how much connection there is in being transparent with your story,” Cobb says. “I had so much support. But what was most important to me was that I supported others who didn’t have that type of community to talk about these issues.”
When Cobb was formally diagnosed and actively began her journey to motherhood in 2021, she took note that most of the messaging and solutions surrounding infertility didn’t seem to include the voices of women who looked like her. She didn’t even see herself reflected in patients pursuing in vitro fertilization.
“When I started doing IVF, I walked into these clinics, and no one looked like me. No one seemingly could share my story. More importantly, the solutions and remedies for infertility have not included Black women,” she says. “I think what I’m experiencing speaks to the vacuum that we have experienced as Black women dealing with fertility issues.”
Seeking to provide other women and couples privately facing the same plight with community and commiseration, Cobb decided to use her breaking and trending news platform, Comeback: With Erica Cobb, as a space to foster conversations that are too often held behind closed doors.
“When I first started thinking about having this conversation, I wanted it to mirror my experience, which started with the [common] struggle of Black women’s maternal health,” she says. Cobb expressed some concerns to her clinician at the time but, as is the case for so many Black women, they were minimized by her provider.
“It started with the struggle of going to an OBGYN I’d been going to for years and sounding some alarms, but they were not being received or reciprocated in a way that it was urgent,” she shares. “I think often, when you voice concerns and your medical professional doesn’t sound alarms and make things urgent, we take that as some type of solace. We think, oh, If something were wrong, they would just totally let me know about it. The truth was, I was putting up blinders when I really wasn’t a priority for that doctor, nor that practice.”
However, a chance encounter ignited not only her own journey to pursuing parenthood, but also her passion for making sure others, Black women especially, could feel heard as they navigated their own.
“It was in my face and became something I couldn’t deny,” she says. “I threw a baby shower for a friend in my home and she invited her OBGYN, a Black woman. We had what I thought was just a casual conversation in my kitchen, and she looked at me with the most serious look and said, ‘I need to see you in my office next week,’” Cobb recalls. “Had I not had that exchange with her, I don’t think I would’ve been set up in the way that I was. We found out within weeks what the issues were and that I was never going to get pregnant naturally. It really made me think – How many other women have been in this position?”
Choosing the month of April, which encompasses both Black Maternal Health Week (April 11-17) and National Infertility Awareness Week (April 20-26), Cobb found the optimal timing to host a series of conversations with friends and colleagues who also faced challenges to becoming parents, called Fertility Unfiltered.
“The guests I chose for the podcast were people who shared a similar experience,” she says. Kicking off the series with a personal episode in conversation with her husband, Anthony, Cobb laid bare their full journey up to this point – from discovering her status, to pursuing IVF, to now searching for a gestational carrier.
To tie in Black maternal health, Cobb turned to CNN news anchor Abby Phillip, whose own pregnancy and birth experience led her to become a reproductive justice advocate. To add the voice of same-sex couples pursuing parenthood, she sat down with reality TV star Colton Underwood and his husband, Jordan Brown. Lastly, Cobb rounds out her conversations with NAACP Image Award-nominated travel journalist Oneika Raymond to discuss recovering from pregnancy loss and the global perspective on infertility.
“I’ve learned so much,” Cobb says of her experience producing Fertility Unfiltered. “Having the conversation with Colton and Jordan [for instance] was very eye-opening. They discussed this trepidation they experienced going to different clinics and being concerned about people being understanding or maybe being discriminatory based on the fact that they are LGBTQIA, and I realized that as a Black woman, I experienced those same things. We really can be stronger in these conversations.”
It’s a sentiment clearly shared by listeners, as Cobb’s comments and direct messages have evidenced since the series’ premiere on April 8. “It gets me a little emotional,” Cobb shares of the outpouring of personal stories and letters of thanks she’s received from listeners. “This is just such a blessing.”
Fertility: Unfiltered episodes of Comeback: with Erica Cobb air each Tuesday in April on all podcast platforms and YouTube.
