Morgan Wade – Credit: David McClister*
Ever since she tested positive for the RAD51D gene, country singer Morgan Wade has taken preventative measures to avoid getting cancer. She underwent a double mastectomy in March 2024 and now is embarking on an IVF journey to get her eggs retrieved so that she can have a hysterectomy and eventually her ovaries removed down the line.
“The first doctor I went to [said] I don’t have a lot of eggs,” she says of a process she’s described as “draining and expensive,” especially as she’s been on tour.
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The 30-year-old Virginia native had been talking with friends about their fertility experiences as well. One friend she grew up with had been struggling to get pregnant and had to meet with several medical professionals before she finally found one who didn’t dismiss her issues because she was “too young” to be dealing with them.
In response to both her and her friends’ stories, Wade sat down and wrote the moving ballad “Hardwood Floor” in one take. It’s the only song on her new album The Party Is Over (Recovered) that is new – the rest of the project breathes new life into previously unreleased tracks she wrote and would sing live while she was in college and before she got sober in 2017. But “Hardwood Floor” felt urgent enough for Wade to release now, a song about yearning to be a mother and the feelings of failure that envelop someone when they feel like they can’t create new life.
“I don’t know how many Christmases I’ve gone to and they’re like ‘You think you’re ever gonna want a kid?’” she recalls. “Some of us just can’t do that.”
The response since the album came out has been overwhelming for wade. Her social media coordinator showed her the numerous TikTok videos using the song to soundtrack personal fertility struggles. “I knew people would hear this and that it could be an impactful song, but I didn’t realize people would connect with it like this,” Wade says, after having just watched some of the videos for the first time.
To make an equally impactful video for the song, Wade enlisted Nikil Melnechuk and Melissa Jackson, the team behind the upcoming film Daisies, in which Wade has a role. The singer wanted the video to be different than what she usually makes: “I wanted it to be cinematic. I wanted it to have a story.”
The “Hardwood Floor” video starts off with Wade taking a negative pregnancy test in a drugstore bathroom. From there, she witnesses the joys of motherhood that the women around her experience and drowns her sorrows with reckless behavior.
Like the song, the video is not a “100% autobiographical experience” but pulls from the pain that she and loved ones around her have felt, including her childhood friend who has since gotten pregnant. As for Wade, she’s taking time at the end of year to begin retrieving her eggs.
“People give me so much grief because I’m covered in tattoos and hate needles,” she jokes. On top of her needle anxiety, Wade’s had a busy summer on tour with Shinedown and preparing for her own solo trek. When it all slows down, she’ll do something that not only protects her future plans but the future health of her kids.
“I’m not having children right this minute, but getting pregnant would increase my risk for ovarian cancer,” she explains. “By doing this, my future children will not carry this gene, which is a great thing.”
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‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com ’
