Lagos, June 7, 2024 – Nigerian TV star Stephanie Coker Aderinokun, sits with Chude Jideonwo, host of the viral show #WithChude, where she narrates the heartbreaking IVF attempt that almost made her commit suicide.
She also shares her struggles with PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome), the unending hustle while relocating to Nigeria from London, and how she has been able to find her footing in the country.
Stephanie Coker speaks about battling with PCOS and the traumatizing IVF procedure “I did try, and when I tried, it didn’t work. I mean, naturally. I was tired of seeing pregnancy tests as negative. That alone is traumatizing because you feel pregnant. Oh yeah, maybe I’m pregnant. You get excited, and then it’s like, Oh, okay, I’m not actually pregnant. How many times am I going to do this? I can’t just keep going somewhere to the bathroom and get this negative answer. I don’t like it. Is there something else I can do, please? I want to get the show on the road. It was a costly decision to decide on doing IVF. Because we: my husband, we were talking about, like, 40,000 dollars back then. Then the second one was, like, 30,000 dollars. I had a failed IVF last year. A second one. I got pregnant on the first IVF cycle, but the second one failed, and I actually wanted to stand in front of a car and just let the car hit me. I wanted the car to hit. I’m not going to lie. PCOS, wow. I really hated myself then because I felt like I traveled all the way to Los Angeles to get pregnant, and my husband was doing elections.”
Speaking further on her recently produced documentary, she explains the various symptoms women with this syndrome experience. “Many ladies bleed for, like, three months. I thought I was bad because I go for like weeks. And if they don’t use anything, they can continue bleeding. The main symptom for me is hirsutism, and that was a really big deal for me. There’s hair growth. Then I have hormonal acne, because I couldn’t explain it. Like now, I have one nice pimple here, and I’m like, What’s all of this? I spend like 800,000 naira a month on my skin because I have to do laser hair removal as well. There’s that, and then the missing periods for a whole year. I didn’t have a period for a whole year. I didn’t bleed for a whole year.”
Stephanie speaks to her unending hustle while she relocates to Nigeria. “It was a very tough time because, again, when I moved to Nigeria, I had a friend. You know how this breakfast thing works? London girls are not used to Lagos boys. So for that one, it was breakfast between me and the person. I didn’t understand the setup in Naija and how men move in Naija. Do you get it? I’m a newbie. So this was like a spread of different continental breakfasts —everything.
Stephanie also shared more about her hustle in Lagos and her career growth. “So I went to Cool FM to audition, and I dropped my audition tape. Nobody got back to me. So I asked my cousin; he now asked someone he knew on cool FM. They said they didn’t get anything. So they were like, Come back for another audition and don’t drop the tape. Cut the long story short, somebody threw my audition tape away at Cool FM because they felt like this British accent lady cannot come here. They felt threatened. Eventually, I got a job at Cool FM, and the person actually told me that they threw my audition tape away. I was like, okay. By the way, everybody was mean to me there; I think it was only Kayla that was nice. I would cry going to work and crying back home. Because they would say, ‘She’s sleeping with the boss; that’s how she got the job.”
“If I tell you about my journey, haa, I really suffered. I’ve worked there for a month, and then I went back to the mainland. I started eating puff puff and indomie in the morning. Because my mom cut me off. I had spent like 1 million naira; this was when it was like 250 to 1 dollar. I finished her Skye Bank’s account. She was like, It’s enough. It’s either you come home or you are on your own. So I was like, How will I do it now? Will I enter runs? Because I cannot enter runs. My head is not fit for this runs life that I’ve seen these babes doing. It’s not for me; I cannot do it.
”So, I went to the mainland, and I would write proposals in a salon in Ebute Meta. I would sit there, and when they have light, it’s me and them. We will be there, gisting and watching Africa Magic. I would also write proposals and give them to somebody. They would say, ‘Do you want to go to Ghana?’ I will say no. I don’t want to follow you to Ghana, sir. That’s the end of the proposal. This time, Instagram is not popping, you know. So all of us are just hustling, and I’m like God one day, one day,” she added.
