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Kiyomi Leslie. At first glance, people may think gold-digger or video chick. But when it’s all said and done Kiyomi is a woman and sis goes through ups and downs like any one of us. One of those downs, has been miscarriage. In a recent interview with DJ Small Eyez, the Growing Up Hip-Hop:Atlanta reality star opened up about the loss of her child with Bow Wow earlier this year in May. The couple kept the incident under wraps for the most part until Bow Wow tweeted about losing a son. The post has since been deleted, but it lingered long enough for fans to start speculating.
“It was very stressful for me only because I felt like social media had so much to do it,” she said, on the verge of tears. Leslie was three-months pregnant at the time it happened. “I was stressed about people assuming things about me and I’m like ‘these people don’t think I’m good enough for you [to Bow Wow], these people hate me, why do they hate me so much.”
“I felt like I stressed myself out way too much, “she added. “I overexerted myself and eventually I felt like that was cause of me having a miscarriage.”
Although the doctors told her that was not the reason she lost the baby, she believed otherwise.
Check out the full interview below:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9d2paOFZMg]
One element that stuck out in Kiyomi’s experience was the reality of the lack of medical care expecting black mothers receive. Kiyomi revealed how she had tried to go see an OBYN but her appointment kept getting pushed back.
“I don’t know if Atlanta is very overpopulated or what with people having babies, but they kept pushing me back, pushing me back,” she says. “I was frustrated because I felt like if I would’ve went in sooner to the OBYGN, then maybe something would’ve helped.”
According to the National Institute of Health, African-American women are twice more likely to experience pregnancy complications, including miscarriages and stillborn, than any other race.
Kiyomi offered advice to women who have gone through miscarriages and says its OK to feel however they are feeling.
” It is OK to feel however you feel, whether you’re mad, sad, angry or upset. Those emotions are totally natural and it’s OK to not have an emotion at the time,” she says. “I don’t think drinking will help it, I don’t think that smoking will help it. I just think that talking to somebody and getting it out. The more I talked, the more I talked about it with my family and really actually let them in, the more I started to heal from the situation.
Bow Wow and Kiyomi started dating this past January and recently called it quits. Since the split, Kiyomi has been branching out and making a name for herself in the industry and encouraging women to be their best selves. Her platform is fun and free-spirited but in her own spunky way, she manages to encourage women to seek self-love and happiness.
You can catch Kiyomi on Growing Up Love and Hip-Hop: Atlanta and MTV’s Wild N’ Out.
