After finding out her uterus never developed, scientist Chivonne Battle searches for an alternative way to become a mother.

Chivonne Battle is a VT graduate student with a B.S. in Material Science & Engineering (VT, ’05), ultimately in pursuit of a Planning, Governance, & Globalization Ph.D. Her career is based in engineering, however, growing up unexposed and embedded in the cyclic behaviors resulting from poverty, lives in her heart. Chivonne’s life changed when she connected her background to the social engineering world, in hopes of tackling the physiological and psychological impact of socio-economic despair. On this team, she seeks and unveils truth in working with communities/local governments with infrastructural concerns; while journeying on to reverse the effects of poverty.

This story originally aired on May 31, 2019 in an episode titled “Plan B.”

Story Transcript

“I’m almost finished.  I’m almost finished.  I have to get my homework done.”  I was racing the sun.  I was racing the descent into darkness.  You see, where I grew up, electricity, food to eat, clean water much less water in itself that was a privilege. 

I want you to take a journey with me.  Everybody in the room close your eyes.  I want you to hear what the descent into darkness sounds like.  Fighting.  “You stole my wallet.” 

Gunshots.  Pow-pow-pow-pow-pow. 

Zombies searching for their next fix anywhere they can find it.  Trashcans.  “Get out of my yard!” 

The sound of my heartbeat beating, waiting anxiously, watching every car turn onto my court hoping that that car was the car that was bringing my mother home. 

The sound of three kids laying in the bed together, me, being the oldest, nine years old, my baby sister next to me whining out of discomfort, my brother, gasping for air with his little baby asthmatic lungs. 

The sound of emptiness as I would have silent tears praying and crying myself to sleep at night, still hungry. 

That’s the sound of poverty.  Why me?  That was the sound of poverty. 

I want you to open your eyes now because even at nine years old I knew that there was another day, I knew that the sun would rise, I knew that there was school, a place where I could get two meals at least.  But school was my rabbit’s foot.  School was my everything because even though I could not control my environment around me, I knew I could control, just like those two meals, what I fed my mind. 

So I worked hard at it.  I worked really hard.  I was a stellar student.  I was the shyest kid.  I’m still shy, believe it or not.  And I would raise my hand.  I would speak up because I didn’t want to be left behind.  It’s not just that I didn’t want to be left behind but I wanted to pull those that were left behind up and I knew that this was my ticket to do it. 

So I worked hard all the way to my senior year and I said, “You know what?  Journalism, law, psychology, yes.” William & Mary accepted me.  I am on my way.  I can change someone’s life.  I can make sure a kid does not have a life like me. 

And that was until I went to the doctor.  You see, just like not having clean water or maybe food in the refrigerator, going to the hospital was only if you were close to dying or something was dying or you were dead.  So with that being said, my first woman checkup was when I was 17 years old, a senior in high school.  And I'll never forget that day because maybe going to the hospital for something dying it was telling of my journey. 

So the doctor comes in and he says, “Chivonne,” and I say yes.  He said, “Your uterus never developed.” 

“My uterus never developed?  What does that mean?  How can this be possible?  What is going on?  How is this possible, God?  What does that mean?  I can’t have children?  I love children.  I want to save children.  I want to make sure children didn’t have a life like me.  How is this possible?  How am I going to make a change?” 

My family, the discomfort, the disbelief and then the pity.  And my mother, my mother who was a kid when she had me, just every time she looked at me would swell up with tears.  It was like they felt what I felt.  But how could they feel what I felt?  I was the one that had something die inside of me before it even had a chance to live. 

But again, I knew the sun would come up.  If there was nothing else I learned from not having anything that was resourcefulness.  That was resiliency.  That was me asking, “What am I supposed to do with this?  There has to be more.” 

So I said, “Okay, doc, okay, family, okay, ma, I don’t have a uterus.  Okay, God.  I know what you want me to do.  You want me to create one.” 

Yes, I said it.  “You want me to create an artificial uterus.  I can do that.  No problem.” 

So I went to Virginia Tech.  I studied material science engineering, long, I guess.  I studied material science engineering with a biomed concentration and I was going to make that artificial uterus.  Only, I didn’t.  Thank goodness I picked up some skills along the way. 

So with those skills I went on to work as an engineer but there was still something pulling inside of me.  That little nine-year-old girl that wanted to change lives, I couldn’t feel that instant impact.  So I said I'd cheat a little.  I'll become a teacher.  I'll have a classroom full of kids. 

So I became a math and science teacher and I did that for a while but there was still something pulling at me.  It wasn’t enough.  God wasn’t finished with me.  That’s when he introduced me to my two little boys at four and six.  They were left at a Greyhound Bus Station in Richmond, Virginia. 

So I said, “Wow, you weren’t finished with me.  You gave me the pretest with the classroom and seeing if I was okay with kids, which I was all right.  Then you gave me a real test.  You did something bigger.  I didn’t have a uterus but you made me a mommy.” 

Initially, it was like, “Wow.  Okay, I got this.”  But I need to go back to engineering because, on a teacher’s salary, I can eat ravioli and cereal but I’m like I need to feed them some vegetables or something. 

So I went back into engineering but there was still something pulling at me.  I prayed about it and I talked to God and I’m like, “What I’m doing I’m changing lives.”

But that wasn’t it.  It wasn’t me changing those kids’ lives.  They changed my life.  They showed me what it meant to be a mother.  This was the real test.  God wanted to see if I could love any child, even a child that didn’t have my dimples or my laugh, even a child that would eventually become a teenager.  I have two of them now, those two boys.  I don't know if I like them.  I love them but he wanted to see if I could love any child.

And so I could but it still wasn’t enough.  I knew this and that’s when I had a chance encounter.  I was on an elevator running to a meeting and I happened to meet Dr. Mark Edwards.  He said four words to me that really let me know I wasn’t where I was supposed to be at that moment.  He said, “You will change the world.”  Five words, I’m sorry. 

“You will change the world.”  And it stuck with me.  Basically he said, “I'd like for you to start in Chicago.” 

If you don’t know what’s going on in Chicago, they lead the nation in med service lines but they also lead the nation in lead-poisoned children.  This was it.  This was a way for me to use my engineering degree to tap into that nine-year-old girl that knew what it was like to be the most vulnerable and to try and give back in some way.  This was my way to love any child.  This was God kind of playing games with me at that point.  He didn’t give me a uterus.  He didn’t give me the capacity to create an artificial uterus, but you gave me this huge universal uterus.  You gave me the ability to love any child, the ability to love a child that I did not give life to.  There was nothing bigger than that.  You made me a mom to seven billion, not just two. 

So this changed the course of my life.  I knew this was my opportunity.  This was my opportunity to actually allow kids that grew up like me to understand and connect with those words, “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,” something I wasn’t privy to.  I didn’t know what that meant. 

Liberty?  Liberty was determined to me by where I could get my food.  Liberty is about unchaining the mind.  I didn’t get that at nine years old, hungry. 

And life?  Life was really the well of liberty and happiness together that everyone should be able to sip from.  Everyone should be able to have clean water.  Everyone should be able to sip from that life. 

So this was my opportunity to tackle Chicago, to tackle other places in the nation, to make sure that kids that grew up like me didn’t ignore hospital visits, understood what it meant to have lead in your water and what that exposure could do.  This was my opportunity to be a mother not just to my two boys but to every child, young and old, in the world.  This was my opportunity to allow children that grew up like me to sip from that well.  This was my opportunity to prevent anyone else from descending into darkness.