Award-winning actress, Nse Ikpe Etim, has revealed that she can’t have children because doctors removed her uterus for her to live a normal life.
The University of Calabar Theatre Arts graduate said 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.
Nse, 44, revealed this aspect of her life during an event which held in Lekki, Lagos, and was tagged, ‘Conversation with Nse,” the Nation reports.
READ ALSO: Lagos Commissioner, Kehinde Bamigbetan, escapes death in auto crash [Photos]
Speaking from her heart, Nse said; “I was told I couldn’t have kids,” she said to the now sombre 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 literarily 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…”
Nse Ikpe said she is thankful for her acting career and for the strength to endure internet trolls.
“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. I’m thankful for Nollywood. I push my pain through every single character,” she added.
Nse further disclosed that prior to the hysterectomy, she wanted to have children “so badly”.
“I wanted a set of twins.
“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.”
The actress also said she has embraced her pain and spoke of her desire to have a foundation
“If I registered a foundation, I would look into women like me who are questioning that they are no longer women because they can’t bear children, women who are marginalised because they suffer one way or the other,” she said.
There’s so much that we go through that nobody sees but yet we smile. I’m not saying men don’t go through it. Men have to struggle because there’s so much pressure on the man…
“Mentorship… I would want to do that. I want to do it because the creators of the internet failed us, that’s why I want to do it. When they let it out, they didn’t know what it was.”
As teens, Nse and her husband, Clifford Sule, started a relationship and called it off and he came back again. They finally got married at a Registry in Lagos on Valentine’s Day in 2013.
