Infertility, IVF, and a Complicated Second Pregnancy: One Mom's Story feat. Rhiannon

Today we’re joined by Rhiannon Mann, a prosecutor, wife to a criminal defense attorney, and mom of two, who shares what it really took to bring her son into the world after years of infertility, medical uncertainty, and more procedures than most people ever imagine.  

We walk through the full fertility journey in clear, honest detail: the early gut feeling that something was off, the long wait to get into a fertility clinic, the reality of IUI success rates, and the leap into IVF with its steep costs, embryo attrition, genetic testing, and the brutal emotional math of repeated failed transfers. Rhiannon also opens up about the identity crisis infertility can trigger, the self-blame that shows up when control disappears, and why telling friends and coworkers can become its own form of grief.  

Then we shift to the part people don’t always warn you about: pregnancy and birth after infertility. Rhiannon describes a high-risk pregnancy complicated by autoimmune disease, placenta previa that didn’t resolve, fear of placenta accreta, and the grief of losing the birth experience she had hoped for. She tells the full C-section story, including a difficult spinal placement, being separated from her newborn, a NICU stay, and the isolating reality of recovery when everyone focuses on the baby and forgets the mother is a person too.  

If you’ve searched for infertility support, IVF and embryo transfer guidance, C-section recovery truth, NICU mom experiences, or postpartum mental health language that feels validating, this conversation is for you. Subscribe for more real stories, share this with someone who needs it, and if it resonates, leave a review. What’s one thing you wish people understood about infertility or birth trauma?

If this episode spoke to you, subscribe and leave a review so other listeners can find Heart on the Table. New episodes land every other Monday.

Join the conversation on Instagram @heartonthetablepod

Transcript

Postpartum Joy Mixed With Grief

SPEAKER_01 0:52

Welcome back to Heart on the Table. We are here today with Rihanna Mann, who is an attorney and a mom of two. She is a prosecutor. She's happily married to a criminal defense attorney for seven years. Opposites do attract. At work, she specializes in domestic violence prosecution through the challenges of her career, have been far from the toughest trials she has faced. After years of infertility treatment, setbacks, two high-risk pregnancies, and a difficult birth, she believes in shedding light on the tribulations unique to women and mothers. When she's not in the courtroom, you can find her at the gym, hiking, crocheting, reading, or cheering on the Chiefs.

SPEAKER_04 1:35

Welcome.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

Hello.

SPEAKER_00 1:37

Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_04 1:38

Yeah. I feel like I should probably have tissues on hand for Oh, yeah, like already. I know. I was just thinking that. So let me go. Yeah, you want to grab them? I'm gonna have the headphones on so I can just make sure that everyone's audio is good the whole time. It's the hormones, man. So thanks for joining us.

SPEAKER_00 1:55

Yeah, we're already tearful. Yeah, totally. I mean, it's still new, right?

SPEAKER_04 2:00

Like yeah, absolutely. Yeah, so I think it's probably worthwhile filling us in on like, you know, we're here to talk about kind of your infertility journey, but we're looking at like your little what two and a half week old baby. Yeah right now. So he's like 18 days old. Yeah, something like that. I think it would be relevant for you to just kind of tell you like where you're at right now because so like our listeners can know.

SPEAKER_00 2:24

Yeah, so this has started well, okay, where I'm at right now. I just gave birth about 18 or 19 days ago to my son, who was a whole thing to get here. But so still deep in the throes of newborn life. I also have a four-year-old, so trying to figure out how to balance toddler time and newborn time and kind of weirdly learning to cope with how we got here. That's where I'm at. It's weird to have this juxtaposition of both grief and happiness, excitement, joy. And I think that's what's tough for me to try to figure out right now where you know I couldn't be happier and more thrilled. I'm looking at my long-awaited son, but it's still the wound is a little fresh with everything that happened to get here. And so I I'm definitely hormonal and weepy, but that's kind of where we're at.

SPEAKER_05 3:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 3:23

Yeah. I was thinking you are just fresh postpartum. As are you. You are not as quite as fresh, but you are still pretty fresh postpartum as well.

SPEAKER_01 3:34

Yeah. I was just looking at your sweet little boy and thinking how that was not too long ago. Yeah. But it goes fast.

SPEAKER_04 3:43

Yeah. So I think that maybe like a good place to start would be. I was thinking about this this morning as like, where do we start? Right? I was kind of thinking like maybe you tell us a little bit about like how you first kind of started to learn about your infertility struggles, if that feels like a good place to start.

SPEAKER_00 4:05

Yeah, yeah, well, I'm happy to. I mean, maybe even a little before that. I spent my whole life kind of chasing the next thing. School, like academically, that was my thing. I loved school. I wanted to always do the next thing. I I went from I think I graduated from college at 20 years old. I took a gap year, took the LSAT, and then started law school at 21 or 22 years old. I think I graduated

Early Clues And The First Call

SPEAKER_00 4:36

at 24 or 25. So really pushing through that ambition and you know what's next in my career and kind of really focused on myself and what I wanted out of life, which, as everybody knows, pushes off family, starting family and fertility and stuff like that. I wasn't really sure that I wanted kids, but I it wasn't even really a thought to me. It was just so far out there from what I wanted to do and accomplish that I hadn't really considered that. I got married, my husband and I met in law school. And in 2013, we were trial ad partners, we were study partners. As you said in the intro, complete opposites. He's kind of a country guy, hunting, climbing, fishing, kind of outdoorsy guy. And I've always been a little bit of a emo punk rock city girl, and kind of met my match there, and then we got married in 2017. So we no, sorry, 2019. Oh my gosh. Yeah, I was like, no, it's just dating too. No, yeah, that's right. I was get that wrong. So we graduated in 2016, got married in 2019 in January, and then toward the end of that year was when I was like looking at my husband. Like my oldest brother had a child, and I think that was when it kind of the switch kind of turned on, like, hey, this is something I want to do. Got my IUD removed, and then just we're letting things happen. But I'm super type A. I don't just let things happen. So I was like immediately tracking and you know, kind of going for it, and it was about four or five months in that I was like, this is just not working, which is way too early for doctors to really intervene. I think I was 28 or 29 years old.

SPEAKER_04 6:17

You said four to five months in.

SPEAKER_00 6:19

Yeah, like four or five, six months in somewhere, you know, and they're like, You can try for a year. I'm like, I don't want to do that, I'm not gonna wait a whole year. I had always kind of had issues with my cycle, issues with hormones, like all growing up. I started my cycle when I was nine years old. So I kind of had the gut feeling that things were a little off. I had been diagnosed on and off with PCOS, you have it, no, you don't. So I kind of was tipped off early about me thinking something might have been up. So we did, I saw my OB, that kind of they were like, well, just keep trying. And then I don't know if you know anything about fertility stuff, but being a new patient, it's like six to twelve months to get.

SPEAKER_04 7:02

Oh wow. I did not know.

SPEAKER_00 7:04

Yeah, it depends on where you go. But the center I worked with, I think even I think now they're like eight or nine months to be in as a new patient. And so I had gone ahead and got my OB to just say who I should start seeing, and I had gone ahead and just made an appointment. I'm like, I I can cancel it if things go well. Like, I just I want something on the books, I want to talk to somebody. I've had hormonal issues my whole life. I just kind of want to check things out. So we started with that, and then how they start with that is they run just like a general panel, like blood work, see if you have any disorders. They also check you for a bunch of uh like hereditary diseases. So, you know, if you have tasks in your family or cystic fibrosis, it's some really bad disease. I don't it's often fatal for kids if they're born with it, or sometimes the embryos don't even survive. Okay. They look for stuff like you know, cystic fibrosis, people only live till like their 30s, stuff like that. They look for genetic carried diseases. So they ran a panel on me and they found like a couple of things that are not super alarming, but then they run those panels against my husband. And if I'm a carrier but he's not, then it won't pass along. So that was kind of the start of it. Most people they start you off with what's called an IUI, which I think means intrauterine insemination. So basically, they'll get a sample from the male partner, and what they do is they kind of put it in a giant syringe, like a giant turkey baster. It makes you feel really sexy and cool. And they put the uh like a cannular catheter past your cervix, and then after they wash the semen and get kind of like the good ones, they will inject them like directly into your uterus so they don't have to swim very far. So the the thought there is, hey, maybe if the swimmers are a problem, they can be delivered right where they need to go so they don't have to travel very far.

SPEAKER_03 8:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:57

The IUIs are statistically not super the efficacy of them, like they don't work much more than I guess what you'd call natural conception. So if

IUI Reality Checks And A Chemical

SPEAKER_00 9:11

if you have like a 20% chance of conceiving each month, which is about what it is, I if I remember right, this might give you like a 25% chance of conceiving. So it's not one of those. I think a lot of women, I'm in a lot of these fertility support groups, still believe in paying it forward as far as you know, people will get on there and be like, I'm having this procedure, what's it like? And I often answer those questions after having almost had every procedure.

SPEAKER_05 9:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:34

And they I think the hard part is it for infertility in general, you can't do much. Like there's not much you can do to help your situation. You can take vitamins, you can exercise, you can have a healthy diet, but at the end of the day, like the control is not yours. Again, for a type A person like me, super difficult to kind of surrender to the process. But um they just don't ex-I think some people don't, and I'm the weird one reading medical journals and stuff, trying to figure this out. But I think people don't understand that this is the first line of procedures that people try because one, it's relatively cheap and sometimes it works. But I think a lot of women put a lot of hope into this procedure that really just doesn't have statistically great outcomes. But if it does work, it's like $1,500, not like 30,000. Right. So say it's up to 25% per cycle that you could that it could be successful, but IVF is more like 60 to 65 percent. So the more money you're spending, the more likely your outcome will have a pregnancy, but even that's not guaranteed. So sure. We started with those.

SPEAKER_04 10:45

Let me ask you a quick question.

SPEAKER_00 10:46

Yeah, of course.

SPEAKER_04 10:47

So when you were beginning to feel like maybe something is off here, right? And you were talking to your OB, and were you aware at the time? I have a feeling that you were aware, knowing you, of like the wait list situation to see a fertility like specializing center.

SPEAKER_00 11:07

I don't think I knew that, but I just was like, he was like, you can start with a fertility, you can you can call them. I and he didn't really know much about it other than he had a list of two or three people that were like, oh, this is you know who we refer to. But I I called quickly because I know how doctor any doctor anymore, you have a giant wait list. So I didn't know how dire it really was, but you know, we live in Utah and this is a I don't know, the baby capital of the world, right? People really have a lot of kids. So I don't know if this is true, but I would I would bet that we're one of the the busiest fertility um seeking states for for people.

SPEAKER_04 11:48

Yeah. What were you feeling, knowing that you were kind of like ready and you wanted to have a baby and you're already feeling like maybe something is off after some months have passed, and then you learn like, oh, this is this could actually take more time here.

SPEAKER_00 12:03

I think I was just I eager to like my whole life, eager to get to the next step. You eager to know what's my diagnosis, what are my chances, what can I do? Like I was just eager to to kind of get gather information and start the process. Like, okay, if this is what my journey is, I wanna, I wanna go ahead and get it going because it it's funny, like I spent so much time trying to not get pregnant like everybody else does, and then all of a sudden you're 28, 29, and you're like, okay, like this clock is ticking. Like it's weird the urgency you get, even though in all these support groups that I'm in, some people are starting IBF at 40, 41, 42, which unfortunately the statistically the luck is not on your side the longer and older you go. So, and my husband is eight years older. We're learning more and more about male infertility, which it wasn't really his issue. But you know, I think the older you get on both sides of the equation, the less likely you are to have success. So I think for me, I just wanted to hurry up and figure it out.

SPEAKER_05 13:04

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:06

So we did a few IUIs. The first two just straight up didn't work. The third one was a positive pregnancy, but my HCG, which is the what is that? It's the one that comes up in the pregnancy tests. Let's just say that was like 16.

SPEAKER_04 13:22

Right. And that has to be like multiplying like every 48 hours.

SPEAKER_00 13:26

Yeah. And again, I'm not a doctor, but I have gone through so much of this stuff and spoken with doctors. I kind of know what it should be, but I'm again not I'm not a professional, I'm not an expert. But yeah, so my the third one was a positive pregnancy, but it was like the number was like 16, and it really should be between 50 and 100. And so they call me and they're like, You're pregnant, but we'll see how this goes. And you need, and I think that was like a Thursday or Friday, and they wanted to wait over the weekend and then test me again on a Monday, which was really like awful. And by the way, my home pregnancy test was negative, so it was very weird to be like, Oh, you are pregnant, but you know, I was like, Well, what are the odds? And they're like, Well, it doesn't, it's a low number, so we don't know. We've seen it go both ways. I'm like, cool, cool, so let me fret about this all weekend, and then came back and then the number had dropped to like zero. So that was annoying. I I didn't really buy into that one anyways, because I knew that the number was bad. But most like my how my doctor had told me that statistically speaking, if you're not getting pregnant within three IUIs, you should probably move on to something else because your your odds get lower. I've seen some women do like 10, 11, but to me, you're just a certain point, you're again, you're only having like a 20 to 25% chance on those, and they're $1,500 each. But if you had saved all those up, you might have had somebody going toward IBF. So if it were me taught telling a friend, I would say give it three, maybe four, and that's it. But sure. We did do a fourth because my doctor was like, Well, a chemical pregnancy is still a pregnancy, so you know, I have a little bit of hope. Try one more, tried one more, and it that one just outright failed. So four IUIs, and we did one timed cycle too, where you take clomid, which induces ovulation, which I never really had a problem with. Some people do. So that was like five failed cycles. And then she suggested moving on to IVF, but all a lot of stuff happened in between, like uterine biopsies. They did this test called an H HSG. I think it's called like a hysterosal pinogram or something crazy. But basically, what they do is they force fluid through your fallopian tubes and make sure that they're not blocked. So that's one thing. I had a uterine biopsy that hurts like hell.

SPEAKER_03 15:42

Yeah, it's not painful.

SPEAKER_00 15:44

Oh, super painful. And then that one, they were just checking for endometriosis or endometritis, which is like an inflammatory disease of the lining of the uterus. All my stuff kept coming back clean, which was almost worse in a way, because you're like, okay, so this is all unexplained. Like, you know, if I at least if I had endometritis, we they treat that with antibiotics. Or if

IVF Costs, Embryos, And First Win

SPEAKER_00 16:09

I had endometriosis, they could clear that out, or you almost wanted something to be wrong. So you can explain it. An answer in a possible treatment, right? And mine kept coming back like fine, good, great. So then we went, we moved on to an egg retrieval, which was super successful for us. We got a lot of embryos. I think we got 18, which most people are very grateful and lucky to have two or three. Yeah. So some people struggle to make embryos, some people struggle to get them to implant. I'm the latter. I struggle to get them to implant, but I feel for the women who have a hard time making embryos because if you don't have embryos, you can't even do the next step. So, and it's much more expensive. I think it's like baseline 15 grand plus the medic the pharmaceuticals that you need for it aren't covered by insurance. So that's another 5,000 out of pocket. And then each time you transfer an embryo is four or five thousand dollars. So it's it's just such a non-starter for some people, right?

SPEAKER_04 17:11

It's like really out of financial reach.

SPEAKER_00 17:13

I try to really respect and honor the people who uh, you know, maybe only had one shot at it financially or have tried three times and weren't able to produce embryos, but because there's so many points during the fertility journey that can break down that uh and that's the end of your road, right? Some people's end of the road is they can't get embryos, some is that they can't afford another try. It's it's really just a a numbers game, which is crazy because the attrition rate is insane. Like they retrieved like 31 eggs of mine, and then only like a certain percentage of those were mature enough to even inseminate, and then the drop-off is like 50% at each stage. So then after that, there was like X amount of embryos, and then you can choose to genetically test them and see if they're viable. Cause like one of my embryos was missing sex chromosomes, so it it might not even implant, or if it does implant, we'll have prop problems, right? They test them for Down syndrome, they test them for a lot of things that you can see, but there's also like a million things you can't see and know about every embryo. So we went through with IVF. Our first embryo transfer failed, and that was when it really started to get hard. I was like, maybe this will never happen for me because I kind of could shrug off, oh, the 25% chance procedure, okay, but the 65% chance procedure like just didn't work. So now what? And yeah. But my husband looked at me at one point and he and I was just like beside myself and he was like, um, you know, why like I want a child, but I want my wife more, so if this is just too much, like maybe we should reconsider, you know. Yeah, which is a sweet thing to say, right? Like, you know, I care about you and I care about what you're going through, and I don't want because I was just kind of a shell of myself, and he just didn't want to keep pursuing something that was gonna take me away from who I am and who I am to him. After that, though, we we were lucky enough to have a successful transfer with my daughter, who's now four. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 19:28

Um, and so it was just one failed transfer, and then it worked with Winter.

SPEAKER_00 19:33

The second time worked. So I was really lucky. Anytime you have an IVF pregnancy, it's considered high risk. But then I have like a slew of medical issues too, even only being like 29 or 30 at the time. I have had a part of blood clot in my lung and all this stuff, and so anytime I'm pregnant or doing IVF, I have to be on blood thinners. I have an autoimmune disease, and so anytime I'm pregnant, it's kind of a crazy journey. I have to be monitored closely to make sure that everything's good and great. But overall, my pregnancy with my daughter was mostly fine. I developed severe carpal tunnel, had to have four hand surgeries right after. So that was kind of crazy. But for the most part, it was, but maybe I'm looking back with rose-colored glasses now after this most recent one. But it was doable, I guess. If you want to say that, you do it because you have to. But um, but there were lots of there was lots of testing and in between stuff with her pregnancy that I'm probably missing for the fertility part. But but yeah, one failed. And so then fast forward three years later, we were ready to try again. And I was thinking to myself, like, oh, this should be a breeze because you know, we know that there was nothing wrong with me. And I think statistically, within three embryo transfers, 95% of people get couples get pregnant. So I was like, well, knowing this now, one failure and this number two success was not that that bad, especially again, if you everything can always be worse if you get in Reddit infertility, or I'm in some support groups on Facebook and whatever else. Somebody always has it worse. Somebody always has it better. It's kind of just a mixed bag of what's going on, but you could always make yourself feel better or worse depending on whose story you're reading. So then we went to start the next pregnancy or hoping to have a son. My husband and I really wanted two kids, and we had a daughter first because that was our

Trying Again And Transfer After Transfer

SPEAKER_00 21:31

best graded embryo. They were girls. All of my best graded embryos were girls, and then we had a lot of boys or lot, I meant not a lot, but we have a group of boys that were usable as well. Um, so we started off with that. Um, the first transfer failed, and so we're like, okay, we had three boys to work with that were viable and usable. And then we did, and my doctor didn't really think much of it because the fact of the matter is they just fail. There's no real rhyme or reason. Sometimes it just straight up does not work. So they went, we went into a second one without changing anything. That one failed.

SPEAKER_04 22:08

And so how long between each transfer do you have to well, it's per on your cycle.

SPEAKER_00 22:13

So they started on your, so it's a month. So anytime you're trying these, this is what really I think is exhausting about infertility is you're like, you're constantly waiting for the next thing, right? So like if even if you're doing trying to get pregnant at home, people know the two-week wait, or like I gotta just start my period so I can start a new cycle, or wait for ovulation, I gotta test for ovulation, it's all that, but you can't start again until your next cycle. So when I'm saying I failed four IUIs, that was four months. So a lot of people start to get really bugged out about like, oh my gosh, if I wait this cycle out, then you know, you get really you can't see the forest through the trees. Like the big picture, if you're waiting a couple months, like it's not gonna make a big difference in your life if your baby's born in January versus March. But after you've been had failure after failure, it starts to feel like forever. Um the second one failed. Then we decided to do some more diagnostic testing, like just what's up. Because I only had three boys, two of them are gone, right? Because when they fail, they just get absorbed into your body, they're gone. Weirdly enough, since I had so many embryos, the you can test 10, at least through my clinic and the testing place they use, they actually biopsy the embryos, so they take a little clump of cells out of them, they like have those frozen at like negative 300 degrees, and then they send them to a place in California for my clinic, test them, and then tell you the results. That's kind of a crazy thing. But the first 10 are like one, it's like one flat rate for the first 10. I had 18, so I t immediately tested the first 10, and I was like, oh, I probably won't even use the other eight. Well, fast forward, we did some diagnostic testing. I had a hysteroscopy between the first two and for my second pregnancy, where they put you under anesthesia, they put a camera up you and look in your uterus and make sure they don't see polyps or anything that, or scar tissue or anything in the way that they could like address, remove, and whatever. They I also opted to pay for a test called receptiva. And that one, the theory on that is that they biopsy your uterus, which is like my second time, but this time I was under anesthesia, so did not care. And they send that out and they look for like inflammation and protein markers that are indicative of endometriosis. And I'm like, I've never had bad cycles, I've never had any reason to believe I had endometriosis, but then that that test came back positive. And I'm like, okay, that sucks because the treatment for that is a drug called lupron. It's a gnarly drug. I had to actually have

Testing Everything When Nothing Explains It

SPEAKER_00 24:43

like a 45-minute consult with a pharmacist, like they force you to before they give it to you. The like suicidal ideations, weight gain, it it turns off your estrogen completely. So it's forced menopause. Gave me terrible night sweats. I put on 30 pounds in two months. It also costs like two grand a month. I had some special coupon that was like a hundred bucks, but it's a just another financial barrier for people. So the thought there was kind of silence the endometriosis with uh turning off your estrogen production. That's what they do. So this time it was October 2024 was my first failed cycle for this for a second child. And then November 2024 was a second failed one. I did the hysteroscopy in December 2025, which takes two months, and then I did a transfer in or sorry, in December 2024, I did a transfer in March of 2025, and then that third one failed too. So then we were out of boys and no more boys. We really wanted a boy, which is what it is. I mean, I'm I would have happily had two girls, but knowing that for my family, we only wanted two kids, I we just wanted a son. So then we had a weird, kind of ethical question, right? Do we unthaw the eight, test them and see what we have? Do we just have a girl? What do we do? And some people care so much about gender or sex that they will do more egg retrievals to get the gender or sex that they want. I was not willing to make more for the sex that I wanted, but I was willing to see what I already had in the free. Just pull out the freezer and see what you got. And so we, which by the way, to thaw them, biopsy them, and then refreeze them was another $5,000 to see what we had. It's just everything is so crazy. So we did, we ended up having two more boys in that lot that were viable, usable. Again, our girls were better, but they were like, they're completely fine. The statistics aren't such that they can't be used or that they shouldn't be used. So that was that was the next thing. So we did do that and moved forward. But I had this like inkling. I'm like, I just I don't think I have endometriosis. It's driving me nuts. Like, I just want to know exactly what's going on. But it's weird because you go to all these doctors and they're all specialists. So my reproductive endocrinologist is the fertility clinic doctor. Then you have an OB, then you have like whatever else. And I was like, is there like a endometriosis specialist? And she's like, yeah, there are like three in the country, and I don't live in Utah. Good luck. It's crazy how understudied, underfunded, under-educated we are on endometriosis alone, let alone everything else that can be going on with women. So I went and saw my OB and kind of explained everything that was going on to her. And I'm like, I just I feel defeated. I don't know how much I can keep doing this, but I want another child, but also I just don't, I don't feel like this is right. Like I just don't, you know, and she's like, well, a lot of people have silent endo. I mean, like, you have no symptoms. I'm like, I just I don't know. I don't feel so she ordered an MRI. I had an MRI on, and they saw what they thought was endometriosis on an MRI. It it's really like not a great diagnostic tool for endometriosis, but she saw that, and then they saw what they thought was a blocked tube, which I had had probably three HSGs where they look for the blocked tube before. Yeah, and they were all clear, so it's very weird. And I'm like, okay, and she's like, the only true way to diagnose endometriosis is to do laparoscopic surgery, just go in and look around. Like, that's really the only way. And I was like, fine, let's do it. Sign me up. You think it might be on the MRI, you can look at my tubes or whatever. So then I had that in August of 2025. They went in, zero endometriosis anywhere. None, zero. So I did that terrible menopause treatment for no reason, put on 30 pounds, had to lose the 30 pounds. So they don't statistically, if you're overweight, they're the

Silent Endo, Surgery, And A Surprise Cause

SPEAKER_00 28:50

fertility treatment's less likely to work. So I wanted to lose the weight to try to give myself a better chance. I did use a GLP one. Yeah, I needed to lose it 30 pounds quickly, and I had a lot of success with that. I liked it. I'd recommend it to anyone who's maybe in the overweight category trying to do fertility treatment because I think it is a very useful tool. You read all these things about Ozempic babies, like it's a thing. Yeah. It balances out your hormones, you lose weight, and they get pregnant. So I don't know, maybe I mean I don't work for a drug company, but for anyone who's struggling and maybe has a little weight to lose, I would totally recommend trying that.

SPEAKER_03 29:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:26

Especially because it's a lot cheaper than everything else that you have to go through. But anyways, I went on the GLPs, lost the 30 pounds, had the laparoscopic surgery, no endometriosis. But what they did find was that one of my tubes looked off. Apparently, I was like, okay, so I'm doing IVF. What what do we care about my tubes? They're putting an embryo right into my uterus. I don't, I don't need my tubes. Who needs those? Well, apparently, if they have fluid in them, that fluid is inflammatory and it leaks into your uterus and it can cause embryos not to implant. Wow, that's so easy. So then the big question was, should we remove my tubes? When I told my OB, I'm like, I trust you. And I was like, Well, there's something weird about this. I just am like, I don't want to just be removing body parts. Like, I I know I don't need them, but like, do you need to take them out? And she's like, Well, the one for sure, but apparently how your fallopian tubes work and how everything is wired in there, if one is like inflamed and leaking fluid, the other one will end up getting that way eventually. So I made the decision that if that was the case, just take them both. And so in August, she removed my tubes, which for some reason I had some existential crisis about. I'm like, well, for some stupid reason I've been infertile for years, but it's kind of like it's final, right? They're sterilizing you if they take your tubes out. And I was like, well, if there was ever a chance that I could, you know, have a baby on my own, it's gone now. And I don't know why I cared. It was never going to happen, anyways, but it really kind of bugged me out that I was taking that chance away forever. But, anyways, remove my tubes. And aside, I had a hip surgery in September that year, recovered from that, and then decided I was ready to try another transfer, which was really scary going into because I wouldn't call myself an optimist necessarily, but every transfer, every fertility cycle I've ever done, I have always truly believed that it was going to work. This is like the 20th time I'm like, this is actually really gonna work. And every time it doesn't, it just crushes you. But there's some like line between hope and you know, like, why are you doing it if you don't think it's gonna work? Like you have to buy into it at some point, right? We went ahead with one in November, and that's the one that finally worked for that's my son now. So yeah, that's the fertility part. Yeah. That that was, and I think I'm missing lots of testing and like at one point they test your blood for like everything, and they want to make sure that you have the best chance of success. So things that you would never think of if you're gonna conceive naturally. Like at one point they ran my blood and found out I am not, I don't make I didn't have antibodies for varicella, which is the chicken pox virus. And so they're like, Well, you need to get vaccinated for that, because if you get varicella while you're pregnant, it's like really bad and can make your kid I don't know, messed up mentally and physically, I whatever disease that is. I guess varicella. Yeah. And at one point, like they found out I didn't make antibodies for that. They're like, you need to get vaccinated, which means you get one shot, wait a month, get another shot, then wait a month,

Losing Control While Still Choosing Hope

SPEAKER_00 32:29

and then you can try again. So there was all this downtime waiting diagnostics, varicella, which I've I've been vaccinated for that like four times, and my body just does not take to it. So I just don't make antibodies for that, anyways. So there was a lot of stuff I probably missed, but yeah, the long and short of it, it took us a long time to get the first kid, and then I stupidly thought it would be very easy for the second one. It just wasn't. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 32:56

Before we move on to you talking about like this recent pregnancy, because I know that there's a lot there. I kind of want to take some time to just ask some questions about like some of the fertility pieces. Yeah, absolutely because there was just stuff that was popping up for me as you were talking. Do you have anything that you want to start with?

SPEAKER_01 33:13

I would just want to know. I guess what would you tell someone who was struggling with infertility today? Like, what is it that you needed to hear that was most helpful for you to hear?

SPEAKER_00 33:29

That's really that's really hard. I think what I would need to hear is probably stop being so hard on yourself. There's this inherent blaming that you go through, even though it's completely out of your control. But like, why can't my body just do what it's supposed to? What is wrong with me? Like, like this is the

What Infertility Does To Identity

SPEAKER_00 33:54

most basic human thing is reproduction. Like, what is going on? What did I do? Did I like get on birth control too early? Like, what did I do? Because there's all these wild theories out there, right? You scroll on the internet and they curate your feed, and it's all like, if you were on birth control when you were 16, 17, 18, like you made yourself infertile, and then you just start to spiral, and it's just not helpful. Uh giving yourself grace, which is like such a hard thing to say because I'm bad at it, right? But I think what I w would have wanted to hear was that like you're a complete and fulfilled person with or without children, right? This isn't what I mean, my children are a lot of joy for me, but I truly loved my life before any of this happened. And it was hard to get back to who that person was.

SPEAKER_04 34:51

After asking you to write your intro. Yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_00 34:53

I'm like, who am I? Still a journey. Yeah, no, I'm like, who am I? Especially when I'm not working. I'm on leave right now, and like I've always identified myself a lot with my job because I love my job. And so when I'm when I step away from that, I'm like, wait a minute, who am I right now? Like, all I do is pump and feed and change diapers, and like, what even am I? So I think just trying to remember who you are through this journey is important. You know, taking time to do your own enrichment, whether that's reading or running or whatever it is that makes you feel like yourself, is that you can't lose that. You got to keep going with that. And that was really honestly pretty hard for me because I I got really depressed. I lost interest in almost all these things anymore. But when I'm stressed at home, I bury myself in work. So I found more things to do. I was working late and on weekends because it was a distraction for me. Yeah. And I don't think that's super healthy. I mean, you guys are the therapists, like that's probably not a healthy coping m mechanism. But remembering who you are outside of work, outside of your roles to other people, trying to keep up, keep going to book club, keep going to the gym, keep whatever makes you you and makes you feel good. Don't lose sight of that because you're not defined by who you are to other people or by motherhood, whether that comes into existence or not. That is not who you are only, right? A big part, but not you know, you you can find happiness, joy, whatever in who you are alone. And that's that's hard, that's really easy to lose sight of.

SPEAKER_01 36:33

Sure. You're worthy regardless of whether or not you're a mother.

SPEAKER_00 36:36

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 36:38

I'm curious because you mentioned a couple of times like how easy it is to just scroll on the internet or through Reddit and how you've been a part of some Facebook groups for support. Were you a part of those support groups before your pregnancies?

SPEAKER_00 36:52

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 36:53

And how was that experience?

SPEAKER_00 36:55

I think it's it's like a double-edged sword, right? Because it's super helpful to log on and be like, hey, I've never had the HSG. Like, what was your experience? Do I need to ask for pain medication? Because as we know, we know we're never our pain is never taken seriously. Like, just an aside, I I here's a spoiler. I ended up having a c-section for this last baby, and my husband, like a week later, had an infected toenail that needed to be treated and pulled out. He got prescribed more painkillers for his toenail than I got for my c-section a week later. Oh my god, he got more oxycodone for his damn toenail than I got for a C-section where they cut through seven layers of my body and pulled a human out. His toenail. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 37:41

Oh my gosh, that's crazy. What a just like slap in the face right after that situation. When you and we'll get to all this later, but like you were in a lot of pain.

SPEAKER_00 37:50

Yes, tons. But yeah, I'm like, cool. So like a man's toe is worthy of you know intervention, but a woman's whole ass body, like, forget it.

SPEAKER_04 38:01

Yeah.

The Internet Spiral And Self-Blame

SPEAKER_00 38:02

Super crazy.

SPEAKER_04 38:04

Yeah. I was just thinking, just throughout your fertility journey, and you were talking about like how every time you have an the hell's a transfer. Every time that you have a transfer, there's this like hope. You're like, I this is going to work, right? Like, okay, we've already I'm assuming statistically too, you're like, okay, the first one failed, normal, second one, it's gonna work. What is the emotional piece of that?

SPEAKER_00 38:28

What were you yeah, I know what it's rough, but for me, I like I totally dunk my head into the toxic positivity when you're doing that because all of this is so stressful. And what you're told repeatedly is like, don't you like manage your stress. And again, like when you go through a transfer, it's like you let's say you transfer on like I think I transferred on November 1st, and then that you don't get your results till November 11th, or it's like 10, 10 to 12, 14 days, depending on your clinic. For me, it's 10. So you have to sit with this, like and for 10 days, which is painstaking after all of the stuff you've got you've been through, and you're like, okay, like I don't know if you believe in the universe, God, whatever it is, but you just have to kind of let it go and then wait and then think about, but that's all you think about, right? So, like you'll see in these support groups repeatedly, people will be like, oh my gosh, like they told me not to like lift weights, and I accidentally picked up a box because we're moving, and like, did I ruin my chances? And and like at the end of the day, what you do and don't do really doesn't matter, is what I've kind of come to the conclusion after doing how many are the two and six transfers. Like they tell you what you should and shouldn't do. And I can tell you I definitely did things I wasn't supposed to when it worked, and I definitely followed all the rules when it didn't, yeah, at times. And the rules are like, look, if you're not, you shouldn't be heavily drinking, like, don't do those things, right? But if you like pick up your toddler that weighs more than 10 pounds, you will be just fine. And these are the things that women are again with the blame putting back on themselves. Like it didn't work, I must have done something. And really, one of my doctors compared it to putting like like a what do you call that? Like a sunflower seed into peanut butter. That's what it's like doing an embryo transfer. So, like even if you went jogging, or it's not gonna like jostle around, it's not gonna not work. Like it's if you put a sunflower in peanut butter, it's gonna just stay or not. It just, it's what it is. And so I think sitting with that for 10 days, you're questioning everything you do, you don't do. I I went into some woo-woo voodoo stuff to, you know, like I was doing crystals and I was like doing well, it just I mean, like, for me, it's like so out of your control that it drives you nuts. But I'm like, well, I'm gonna do some stuff that makes me feel like I'm doing something. Sure. Even though I I'm not naive. I know that it doesn't make or break anything, but I was like, I'll put out the crystals or I'll do the meditation. There's lots of meditation apps if anyone's going through fertility treatment. I did meditation, which like is not a thing that I do. I'm I'm not a quiet mind person. Like I feel most at peace and at rest when I am intensely working out, whether that's weightlifting, hiking, whatever, I don't yoga. But here I am trying everything, doing the guided meditation and and all that. So it just, yeah, you sit with it for 10 days and hope for the best and start to really spiral about if you did something wrong when it turns out that it didn't work.

SPEAKER_04 41:25

Yeah. But I often tell my clients, like, I think when we blame ourselves, it gives us this illusion that like we do have control. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 41:35

It's true, yeah. And for people like me, really type A, really go getter ambitious people, like that's all you want is to control the outcome of everything because you always have it, it's always worked out in your favor or mostly right. So when you're handed situations where you have zero control, it just like totally messes you up. It totally sends me. And it's happened to me so many times lately. I can't eat and and I'm it's clearly a lesson that I'm not learning that keeps presenting itself in my face. So yeah, it's super humbling but super frustrating at the same time. And somehow I still just I'm not learning. So I'm sure it'll come up again. Hopefully, not in like a really terrible way, but I guess I'm a little more ready for it every time, hopefully.

SPEAKER_04 42:19

Yeah. Well, do you have anything else before we go into like this most recent pregnancy?

SPEAKER_01 42:25

Not off the top of my head, but I just I do want to take a moment to express appreciation for you sharing your story.

SPEAKER_00 42:33

Yeah, no, I'm I'm an open book with this stuff, and I think weirdly, all this stuff is still taboo. People still don't talk about it. I mean, I think I don't know if it's on purpose. Like, I I'm happy to share after the fact. I'm really bad at sharing during the fact or during the journey. Like, it's just so soul crushing. So I I know that there's a number of women who share their infertility journey on like their fertility accounts. Like there's a lot of there's one I followed and it was like trying to conceive journey, and I had watched her go through like eight egg retrievals and nine transfers or something, and I'm like, girl, like at what point can you I you know, my husband looked at me after one failure and was like, can you keep doing this? And I look at her and I'm like, I don't know if I admire you or think you're insane. Probably a little bit of both, but I understand the

Telling People And Carrying Their Reactions

SPEAKER_00 43:25

desire and the drive to keep trying. A lot of people are good at sharing and want to share that, but to me, like every failure, even though it's not my fault, it starts to feel like that. And then anytime I would tell like my close circle of what was going on, anytime I had to report a failure, like reporting it to me, reporting it to my husband was like such a blow. And then reporting it to my friends and my coworkers, because I have a small group at work. We have a team of four, and these doctors' appointments are overwhelming, right? Like come in every day for two weeks, or so you're you know, and and I my coworkers are the best. They're some of my best friends. I had no problem telling them because I needed to be like, oh, they scheduled me an appointment last minute. Today I have to go in. They were more than kind. My boss is great, my coworkers are great, they hands down jumped in to take over everything when I needed it, which is a lot to ask of them. But it it was it added more layers to the disappointment. Because, like, not only am I disappointed, and I'm sure my husband disappointed, he's kind of a stoic guy, by the way. Um, and then I have to report to other people, and then it gets awkward, right? Because especially people who haven't been through it, like they're very kind, they're very sympathetic, they're very empathetic, but at the end of the day, they don't know what to say. Like, what like what do you say to somebody who's going through this? I mean, they can say, I'm sorry, they can say, like, what do you need? Like, I'm so you know, I'm heartbroken for you, and it all helps and it's all kind, but it's I think uncomfortable to sit with somebody. Is grief and pain. And I don't blame them. I think I would have been like, gosh, this is so sad. I don't know how I can support you. And someone asked me, How can you support someone going through infertility? I don't really know because everyone is so different and handles it so differently. Just acknowledging it. But yeah, reporting it to five other people every time I failed ended up feeling really burdensome. You know, Brie was one of these people I I trusted and wanted to share with, but even the last time I don't I don't think I said anything at all. Like if finally after like three, four, five times, I was like, I I just cannot, like, I just we didn't tell anybody the last time.

SPEAKER_04 45:27

Yeah. So I was gonna ask you that too. Yeah. With the I do remember you talking to me about that through all this, like the difficulty in like other people are anticipating how to transfer.

SPEAKER_00 45:39

So to like 10 days, they're they're gonna start looking at their claw. Yeah. And it's fine. And and I think they're just excited for you and they want and they're going through it with you, and they they really truly are trying to be there for you. But then like it, it just starts to be another layer that I I had a really hard time. And so I think like I kind of just ghosted Breed on the whole subject, and I was taking a break for a while. Like I needed, I was medically taking a break. I was taking a break to I needed a hip surgery that I needed to have and recover from, which was also terrible. But and so I when I went started to go back into the fertility treatment, I just was not ready to share. I was like, I just I want to do this one privately, and I didn't tell people. And it wasn't anything to do with how people supported me, it was everything to do with gosh, I've put so much hope and dreams into this four times now, and I just I cannot report another failure to people. I just can't do it. Like it's just soul crushing for me. So the last one, like, I don't think Brie had asked, like, well, when do you think you're ready to do another transfer? I'm like, Yeah, I don't know. And I knew exactly when I was doing another transfer. It just was something that I was like, I just I can't handle the heartbreak myself. And so we kept it really close. And then even after it worked and I was pregnant, I kept it real, like I don't think I told people till at least the 12 weeks because you're all with fertility treatment, you're always waiting for the other shoe to drop, like a miscarriage or whatever. I was just like, and I had like my mantra for that was I have a hard time getting pregnant. I've always been very good at staying pregnant. So that kind of carried me through. But yeah, it that that layer of grief extends through your circle, right? And and I don't think people know that. I don't think that anyone no one's reaction made me be like, I'm never telling them anything. It was not that at all. It was just, yeah, I need to keep this close because I'm terrified. You're excited and terrified, right?

SPEAKER_04 47:35

I think there was a point as your friend too, where like it was on my mind, but I did stop asking because I was like, I she'll tell me when she she'll tell me. Yeah. Because I was like, should I be checking in? Like, but I did know at one point. I just am going to not ask her anymore.

SPEAKER_00 47:55

Yeah. Because it was a lot. And I think that's hard for you to figure out and maybe asking a lot for me to just ghost you like that. But I think I'm just like, I am barely hanging on here. I just need to keep it close. So I don't think that's asking a lot at all. I it's just kind of like, but when one like we were talking about earlier, is like, how can you support someone going through this? I don't know. Some maybe some people want to be asked a lot. And I don't mind being asked, I'm just gonna lie to you if I'm not ready to talk about it, just to keep my own peace and sanity. But it's I don't know, maybe somebody else wants to repeatedly talk about it, or maybe they won't go inside themselves like I do and get a little crazy and weird and isolated. But I don't know, there's a lot of things going on too. I think you know a lot, it felt like everyone around it starts to feel like everyone around you is pregnant. Everybody's, you know, and it's so hard to be live with this I hate, I use this word way too much, juxtaposition of I'm truly happy for these people, but I'm so sad for myself. And you can live with both, but it does get hard. And I I I was talking to Brie about this the other day. She was like, I want to be there for you in postpartum, it's important to me, and all this stuff. And I was like, Yeah, but remember, like, I had no capacity to be there for Brianna during her pregnancy, which I feel bad about. But I think at one point I just had to tell you, I'm like, I just I can't do it. I'm so sorry. Like, I just I don't have it. Like my brother ended up ha being pregnant. Like the timeline of that, which I don't even think they know this, so maybe if they hear this, sorry. In

Pregnancy Announcements When You’re Not Pregnant

SPEAKER_00 49:34

October 2024, our our first transfer failed, they told me they were pregnant, like right after. Then soon after that, my November one failed, they had a gender reveal that so it was like it was almost like if there's a god he's like super cruel, but it was one of those like the timelines were just painful, even though I I can be happy for other people. But when inevitably everybody going through infertility has one of these stories, like my next door neighbor got pregnant and her due date was the day that my baby was due that I miscarried, or whatever, whatever it is, that it always seems to be right in your face. And I think, you know, I wish I would have been able to be there better for maybe my brother or maybe your your pregnancies, they were pregnant like at the same time. Um, but I think maybe being honest is the next best thing.

SPEAKER_04 50:27

I think so. Right?

SPEAKER_00 50:28

Just being like, hey, I I just don't I don't have it in me. I want to do this for you, and I I just don't have it. I don't have it for you. I'm so sorry.

SPEAKER_02 50:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:37

Which is hard because you feel like a jerk, right? You feel like a terrible uh person, but I think the next best thing is if you can't show up to just be honest and tell people like I just can't show up for you. I'm so sorry.

SPEAKER_04 50:52

Yeah, and I think that's um that is an important thing is learning how to you know, and I think being on the receiving end of that, I think that people are very quick to make things about themselves too, right? Like I knew that when I was pregnant, I just knew where you were at, right? Like I understood that it was hard. I don't I didn't understand how hard it was because I'm not you. But like I think it is our responsibility when we're on the receiving end of other people's pain or grief to recognize like this has nothing to do with us.

SPEAKER_00 51:24

And that's true. And it it and I think even if I had been in your shoes, I would have been like, I think I don't know if I would have been able to decipher that. Like I don't know if I would have, I think that's a really difficult thing to remember remind yourself that like this is not personal. Although I can tell you I I do have a lot of pettiness in me. And so the like the hard part, remember, I'm a I'm a prosecutor, so I do like for people who don't know what that is, you try, you know, make charging decisions for criminal activity, and you you know, for lack of a better explanation, I put people in jail for a living, maybe not jail because I do mostly misdemeanors, but I'm seeing people, I'm charging people and holding people accountable for their criminal activity. And so I would see a mom who is charged for hitting her kid and I can't get pregnant. I would see a mom who is in drug court and testing positive for meth repeatedly and she's pregnant and I can't get pregnant. Like that kind of stuff was so brutal for me. I'm like, okay, so I I'm I'm convinced now after repeatedly seeing that meth methamphetamine is a fertility drug. So I probably should have tried that. It would

Courtroom Cases That Make It Hurt

SPEAKER_00 52:32

have been a lot cheaper, I can tell you that. But yeah, I mean, for the people, and you start to sort in your brain, which is totally messed up, who you think is worthy of being pregnant and who you think is not. And so for me, when I was struggling to be pregnant, I had this category of people I think are worthy of being pregnant and I was okay with them being pregnant. I just couldn't really talk about their pregnancy or necessarily had the capacity to be there for them. And then there were the people I just couldn't freaking stand because they didn't deserve to be pregnant and it made me angry. So which is petty, terrible, but I guess human.

SPEAKER_04 53:07

Sure. Right. Well, and I think it's a struggle when you're like doing quote unquote all the right things.

SPEAKER_00 53:12

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 53:12

Oh, yeah, I'm like paying money and you're trying some more. Juicing, drinking beet juice, stuff I hate.

SPEAKER_00 53:18

So that was a whole other layer of this. Is it I had to confront constantly this I guess burden I was carrying was was I was confident constantly confronting it all the time too. Like, you know, maybe if your issue is something that's not fertility, it's not always being brought up because when you're in your late 20s or 30s, people are always getting pregnant or having baby showers or whatever it is. And you have to learn how you want to navigate that. I've seen a lot of people in the fertility support groups who are just like, hey, I just don't go to baby showers. I've send a gift, I stay home, I tell, but you know, if you're not sharing that you're trying to get pregnant and struggling, people don't know. Like Brianna's first pregnancy, weirdly enough, the parallels here are kind of crazy. Like I had just failed my first transfer for my first kid, and then she was having a and I didn't know her super well back then, actually. We weren't quite close. No, we're we weren't close, but Brianna's husband is my brother's best friend. Our families are have been best friends for 30 years. Of course, we're invited to the baby shower. We're excited for her to have her child. My transfer didn't work in like June, May or June, and then she was having a baby shower, I think, in July. And I was sitting there sobbing, and I was like, I don't know. I like I'm happy for them, but I don't really want to go. And like I still hate baby showers. I actually have been a lot better. It's weird how even once you get your miracles or you find success, it's still just so hard. Like anytime people are like, Oh, I'm pregnant, I went off birth control, immediately happened. And I'm like, oh, wow. Like it's still kind of a little bit of a tiny jab, even though I ended up getting everything I ever wanted. It's still just like, oh my gosh, like of course you got pregnant, no problem, or whatever the story is. It's just kind of crazy that even after you've had success, you still have that tiny little cord that's that gets struck anytime people and they have no idea. And that's the that thing you have to remind yourself on this end of the of the street is that these people are just excited for themselves. They have no idea what you're going through. And it's not personal. They're not trying to attack you, they're not trying to make you feel bad. My mom said to me when I was like struggling on whether to go to Brie on a shower, she said, Well, here's something that's important. And I kind of believe, but I also understand the other the other approach to this is how you show up for others is how they show up for you. And she was like, You'll get your baby one day, which luckily she was right. And you know, wouldn't you want Brie at your shower? Or wouldn't, you know, how do you want to show up for people? And that was actually, I think, good advice. Maybe some people don't like that, you know. Some people like, I want to show up for them, but I just can't. And that's completely fine too. But it actually helped me it kind of push through being like, you're right. And I I think that if I dig deep, I do, I can do that for them. And you know, you can decide that. Maybe you don't discuss morning sickness and everything else that goes along with it that's hard for you. Because of course, anyone who's been pregnant, it's hard. And you want to talk about the hard all the time, but for people who still haven't gotten there yet, it's like, oh, you think that's hard? I can't even get pregnant. Like, I don't want to listen to your morning sickness. And and I I had a lot of both of that, right? So, anyways.

SPEAKER_04 56:38

Um, oh gosh, I had one more question and it has left me. Uh, I think it wasn't a question, it was just a statement on like the grief of it all, right? Like, I talk about grief probably more than anything in this office, and I just think that like, yes, you have everything that you could have wanted, everything worked out in the end. And yet that this what an emotional toll all of this has taken.

SPEAKER_00 57:04

Yeah, it's not only an emotional toll, it's an identity crisis, right? Like, because like it ends up being who you are. Like when my husband looked at me and said, I don't want to lose you who you are. I had completely lost myself. Like everything was only cycle tracking and eating right and exercising right, and he's like, You're just not even yourself anymore. You align yourself so much with that, and then all of a sudden it's gone too, which is also kind of weird because all I did for years was doctors' appointments constantly, which I thought was super annoying, and it is, but then I'm like, dang, I really like my reproductive endocrinologist, and now I never get to see her again. Like, can I just make an appointment? Like that, you know, think about in your line of work, you see a client every week for 10 years, and then all of a sudden they just leave and you're like, hey, like that was like something I did. Like, I don't know whether I liked it or not. Now it's like it's a piece of me missing, it's gone.

SPEAKER_04 57:59

It's weird. I have clients that I don't see anymore that I think about all the time. Yeah, like what happened with them? Are they okay? How I say that the weirdest part of this job is getting to know people so deeply, things that they've never told anyone ever, and I'm the first person that they've ever told it to, and maybe the last. Maybe they're like, I did that and now I'm done. I never see them again, which goes very contrary to me as a person. I am I I just hold on to all my relationships. So my clients, I'm like, wait a minute, you're leaving.

SPEAKER_00 58:28

Well, the only thing that is a little interesting about like the reproductive endocrinology stuff, the fertility stuff is that like they actually call you and they're like, We know you were pregnant, like did you have a live birth? Yeah is the baby okay. Like, so they actually the doctors know like what the end, what the result, the end was. I mean, they don't know the nitty-gritty of it all, but like they get to know whether it worked out or not.

SPEAKER_04 58:51

That's kind of fun for them. Yeah, that's such a like I'm sure honor for them too to get to be able to do that and reach out and yeah.

SPEAKER_00 58:58

My clinic actually has annually, they have like a what do they call it, like a baby get together. So whether your kids 10, yeah, two months, whatever, they host an event every year that you can go, like one year it was at like a animal farm or something, and so that all the doctors get to see all the all the kids, they helped bring into the world. I don't know why I'm getting emotional again, but it's like it's kind of cool because you get to go show this doctor who I repeatedly cried in her office, like, this is what you did, like this is what you did for me. Like, isn't that crazy?

SPEAKER_02 59:27

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:28

Like, I think that's like a really cool thing that mine does. And I I always send a birth announcement to them. And if you go into their office, they have hundreds of birth announcements, and they have like a little place where you can sign your name, like saying, you know, the kid you had and stuff. But it's also it's such a weird industry. They have to report their statistics, right? Because theoretically, if they purposefully

How Fertility Clinics Measure Success

SPEAKER_00 59:50

made them not work, they could make a lot more money out of you, right? But interesting. I don't know if it's licensing or what, but like there's certain like credentials you can get as a fertility clinic that are like higher or better that you can search in the country, like whether they're and I can't remember what it's called off the top of my head, but I know the clinic I used was like highly credentialed because of their like statistical success rate. So they track it for a reason, and I think legally they're required to report to you what what their outcomes are or what their results are. So when you're going in, but it's really interesting too because some of the results can be really skewed, depend like some clinics like won't. I don't think this is true of my clinic in particular, but throughout the country, some clinics won't take people over 40 because that skews their statistics, right? Because so if you want to go to a clinic and they're like, oh, you know, eight out of 10 women end up achieving a pregnancy, they're like, oh, well, if you're that drops off the older you are. So if you're researching clinics, like these credentials and these statistics are something you should you should look into. But you know, some people don't have a weight cut off, which some of them is are like you need to lose X amount of weight before we'll treat you. Yeah. Because that makes it harder for success. And some have an age cutoff too. But like my clinic said they will not transfer. I want to say they won't transfer an embryo like after your 50th birthday. And I was like, holy cow, like you'll transfer an embryo to someone who's 50. That's kind of crazy. But I know there was this story in the news where this woman had um a baby and had to have an emergency hysterectomy, and then her mother in law was like 60 years old carrying her baby, her next babies, which is so crazy. But yeah, so I guess maybe that's why. I mean, I don't know, ethically, you could go down a rabbit hole of what you think we should and shouldn't be doing as far as all that goes, right? I mean, adoption, you have to have a home study, all this stuff, and you want to go make a baby, a clinic will help you make one. That's kind of crazy to think about. But anyways, yeah, that's a whole other podcast story hours worth of conversation.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:43

Tell me about the being on the other end of this pregnancy versus the first pregnancy, because there's such differences here. Oh my gosh, yeah. And I think that like not only was you know it easy or difficult for you to conceive, right? Like, then you also had with this second baby, like this just a lot. Yes, just a lot.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:07

So tell me, let's talk about pregnancy. So as far as this pregnancy goes, like my first pregnancy was mostly uneventful. What was hard for that one? It was in the middle of COVID. And so I think I struggled a little bit mentally because of like we're all at home, we don't understand the effects of COVID on pregnancy, and then all the research starts coming out like if you get COVID and you're pregnant, like it's really lethal. And like I remember being like scared to death. And so I kind of just sat at home, worked behind

High-Risk Pregnancy And Placenta Previa

SPEAKER_00 1:02:35

a computer, and that that was mentally stressful. I think it was hard in my life because I was seeing a maternal fetal medicine doctor at the time, which is, you know, the high-risk pregnancy doctor, and their advice was super conservative, which was like, if you don't have your vaccine, if they're not COVID vaccinated, you can't be around them. And that was hard because I had some family who, for whatever reason, did not want to be COVID vaccinated. I had to look at them and be like, I'm literally not allowed to be around you right now. So that was tough to say the least. And then then the hands thing, I like could not move my hands. I had to wait till I gave birth and I had like four hand surgeries, and that really sucked. So physically, that was hard. Mentally, the COVID stuff was hard. Managing familial relationships and and trying to protect my peace and health, that was challenging. This one was a whole other thing. Um, this this pregnancy with my son, he there was a lot of weird stuff going on. And the I guess technological or medical advancements from four years ago to now is kind of crazy. They knew a whole lot more about how to treat people like me this time. So, like for instance, I have an autoimmune disease. It's called ankylosing spondylitis. Essentially, what it is is it's arthritis in my back and hips that really affects me physically. But also, if you have an autoimmune disease, you have an increased risk of stillbirth. I didn't know that. That didn't, they didn't tell me that the first time around. They didn't know that the first time around. I presume that's right.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:00

Crazy, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:01

So there's a lot of things they were balancing. That was one reason I was high risk. Uh, IVF in and of itself is another reason to be high risk. Like I talked about earlier, I have to be on blood thinners. So being on blood thinners, it makes you high risk. And then I f at 20 weeks I got diagnosed with something called placenta previa. For those of you who don't know, that is where the placenta implants itself or I guess creates itself within your uterus in such a way that it is covering your cervix. So you cannot, like, there's no way for the baby to come out. So that was at 20 weeks at my 20-week scan. And you know, you're in the the maternal fetal medicine for people who haven't done that, these ultrasounds they give you are like two hours long. They're insanely thorough. They are measuring ever the femur bones, the hip bone, like everything they're looking out. One of my friends just said that she went to the MFM and they saw some fluid in her baby's kidney. Like that, that's the insane level of detail. They can find things and maybe fix things or treat things or inform you of things and you can make decisions. But it's not, and I used to love going because like with my first pregnancy, I just gotta say the baby, this is exciting. It's an ultrasound. All my ultrasounds were done after like the first trimester with a maternal fetal medicine doctor, and then they work in conjunction with my OB. But they're a whole other level of specialty, right? High-level specialty that even the OB like can do but doesn't do because they deal with I saw now that they can do surgery and utero for spina bifida and correct it, like stuff like that. And that's the kind of thing that they're looking for. Um so at our first appointment with the at the 20-week scan, that's when I start seeing the MFM. They're like, Yeah, you have this placenta prebia. I'm like, Kay, like, you know, and you know that it kind of gets serious when the actual doctor comes in to talk to you instead of just like the nurse or tech or whatever, and you're like, And then they start asking me all these questions Do you smoke? Do you do recreational drugs? I'm like, no, no, no. Like, well, but you did IVF okay. Apparently, IVF isn't an increased risk factor for placenta prebia. Why? They don't really know. But yeah, he's like, so 85 to 90 percent of these just resolve on their own because as you get bigger, the placenta kind of moves back as your belly gets bigger, and so then it can leave a pathway for the baby to come out. And I'm just like, okay. So they put you on pelvic grass, you can't have sex, whatever. Luckily, like there's differing opinions on whether you should work out or not. And luckily, my doctors were like, because working out is with my autoimmune disease. If I am not moving all the time, I am in a lot of pain. So, and then mental health-wise, like I manage a lot of my stress and anxiety by working out. It's my jam, I love doing it. And so for them, they're like, you can't have sex, which sucks, right? You know, but then they're like, Oh, you can still work out. I was like, Thank God. I don't know, I would have lost my mind even more. And so that was something they're monitoring. But it's weird because they diagnosed me at like 20 weeks and they're like, Well, check you at 28 weeks. I'm like, okay, so for eight weeks I'm sitting with this, like, is it gonna resolve? Is it not? Like, statistically, it's like eighty to eighty five to ninety. percent though and I'm like, okay, so like I gotta make it through eight weeks and everything's gonna be fine. 90%, like that's a great, it's a great number. I'm I'm good with that. The other thing that was measuring a little off for him is he his head was like in the 99th percentile, his abdominal circumference was in the 99th percentile, and then his femurs were in the one percentile. So then you go through a Google rabbit hole of that, which it comes up as Down syndrome, which my embryos had already been tested for Down syndrome. So that was pretty much ruled out at that point because it's a chromosomal abnormality that they can see. And then the other thing was dwarfism. And I was like, gosh, like I had always contemplated you know some horrible outcome but I never even thought about what it would be like to have a child with dwarfism. You know, where mentally they're fine, but they have a, I guess, what I would consider a severe physical abnormality. And I kind of spiraled over that because I'm like, I didn't even think about that. That's another thing to worry about. So we come back eight weeks later for the first check on the placenta because it doesn't move quickly, right? So you have to sit with that for eight weeks. And my husband and I are like, oh, this won't be a problem. It's like 90% whatever coming at 28 weeks and they're like yeah so it hasn't moved enough. It moved a little bit in the right direction but not enough. We'll see you in another four weeks. So then it turns into 12 weeks of waiting. The femurs are still measuring small and I'm like what can you tell me about that? And they're like, well we think he's gonna be normal. And then they look at me and my husband is 5'10 and I'm five five we're not tall people but we are the exact national average both of us and so they're like well you know you guys aren't tall and I'm like excuse me I am not short though I do not have dwarfism myself but okay sure and they're kind of writing that off as like well you guys are kind of short people and we're like yeah okay we're we're short but we are not like five one yeah so then they're like looking you up and down being like well you're short I'm like I excuse me anyways come to the next appointment they're they're fairly certain that he probably doesn't have dwarfism we're like okay but the placenta's still in the way we'll check you in another four weeks so then we go then at like the 32 week appointment they're like yeah it's not moving and I was like well what happens now they're like you will have to have a C-section I'm like well is that the only is that the only choice and remember we're talking about curated feeds and scrolling and weirdly enough when I'm pregnant everything in my feed is home births and hospitals are terrible and I'm like that's really weird because I'm very much a science person and I would much rather give birth in a hospital and for me being high risk like I have to not only give birth in a hospital but it has to be a level one trauma center and all this stuff. And I'm like why am I seeing all this stuff? It's just like another layer of mom guilt. Like you're not even birthing right. Before you even give birth you're doing it wrong. Sure. And I have friends who do home births and find that very empowering and that's fantastic for them. But for me it's too risky of a situation. I can't be doing that but it does start to feel weird. So then I'm questioning things and again I'm a very analytical thinker and all of a sudden I'm like do I have to have a C-section like is that the only option because you know you're seeing all these feeds like don't do the vitamin K Shaw do do this and whatever else and I'm like are there other options not because I don't trust my doctors and science but because like is that really all I have is that really all I get and all these you know misinformation or people questioning the experts now it kind of got to me a little bit which is weird because that's not my personality at all. But so I'm looking at them I'm like I have to have a C-section and they're like yeah you like you like there's literally no way for this baby to come out. The placenta's in the way um I'm like so what happens if I don't like you die you die he dies everyone dies I'm like okay like I guess this is serious like everyone dies that's that's bad very bad. Um and I sat with that and I didn't really talk much about my first birth but my first birth was pretty textbook her heart rate was fine the whole time I responded immediately to induction medication I only had like a six hour labor I pushed for an hour she was out for a first pregnancy like that's pretty remarkable and the whole time after going through all the IVF after all the bad news I was waiting for her birth the other shoe to drop I was waiting for something to go wrong with her I kept having dreams like she's born but like the cords wrapped around her neck or like whatever it was and nothing remarkable happened. I gave birth to her she was immediately placed on my chest and everybody left me alone for about an hour and a half, two hours they didn't weigh her they didn't clean her nothing it was like what everyone calls the golden hour it was golden it was beautiful it was fantastic. I loved that birth would have 10 out of 10 done that again even though they didn't give me the epidural to I was nine and a half centimeters. And that's a whole other thing I did not plan to labor without an epidural but I here I was I did it I'm fine I was fine the baby was fine I didn't even tear sorry women out there who did I know that's like a whole thing that's how unremarkable and I guess quote unquote easy my husband will say your first birth was quote unquote easy. I'm like it was easy for whom? For you because like I still labored that was very painful but yes relatively easy birth okay and then now I'm being told like I have no choice I have to have a C-section otherwise everyone dies.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:01

And it's just like another place where control.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:03

Yep zero control. And so I immediately started grieving that already like the birth hasn't even happened yet and I'm already depressed sad grieving what I can't have because I've comparing it to the first time the first time was fantastic. It was magical it was my like special unicorn birth I don't know what you want to call it but it was it was fantastic. I would have loved to have done that again. My water did break on its own at 37 weeks so she was a little early but you know no NICU no nothing no problems everything was great normal birth weight nothing and here I am struggling like oh my gosh like I thought that was like my gift for going through fertility treatment like I got the nice birth and I thought I I was certain I was getting the nice birth again and and 90% of people with this problem it resolves and now I'm on the other side of a 90% problem. I'm a 10% person like holy cow

Grieving The Birth You Wanted

SPEAKER_00 1:12:53

I was not ready for that but I guess I should have known after having a blood clot in my lung at 26 years old being diagnosed with a severe autoimmune disease at 21 like you're the 10% person. I am the 10% person but not the 1% death person but like kind of the 10% we're gonna give you a shitty situation but it's not gonna be fatal. And I was like oh my gosh and I'm looking at my husband and we like truly believed it would resolve. So again that hope and crushing cycle repeated itself humbling to not be able to control anything. And I'm just like I'm just so upset. Like I don't want a c-section I've had surgeries where I'm awake before I don't do well with them because anyone who's had a c-section you know you don't feel pain. They numb you of the pain but you feel pulling and tugging and pressure and I see some women who post about loving their c-section birth and that's awesome. It's not for me. It is not for me. I don't like it. I was wigged out going in and it was just tough and I'm like I really can't believe that this is happening to me. And so it was like a slow burn of you know from 20 to I gave birth at 36 weeks for 16 weeks so four months of you know not knowing and then it not resolving and then having to deal with the grief of not even having the birth that I wanted obviously better than death right and so but I think a lot of people want to remind you of that but don't sit with your feelings about it right they're like if this were a hundred years ago you would have just died like you should be grateful. Like you should be so grateful for your c-section that I'm like yeah it still hurts a lot this is still not what I wanted what I expected and my my c-section was super painful. When I went in they have a spinal block and I had asked my doctor I was like hey like I'm fine with students and residents but like I've read online that some people with my autoimmune disease AS they have a hard time getting the spinal block in like can we please make sure I have like a seasoned person the guy comes in the anesthesiologist he's been doing this for 27 years and I'm like cool and then in pre-op too they're like hey oh I forgot this part they had told me it was very uncommon for the placenta to have not moved and that they were worried that I had something called accreta placenta accreta which where it embeds itself into the wall of your uterus and won't deliver. And so my doctor warned me she's like we it's just the fact that it hasn't moved is very weird. We can't see akrita on the ultrasound but it could be and so going into it two weeks before or like a week before my c-section my doctor because she in my file I'm labeled highly anxious and there's a reason for that and that's fine. I'm happy people know when they deal with me. That's great. But she told me like a week before my c-section the last appointment before I'm going in for my c-section she's like we're worried you might have an acrita we have the best team in the state for this but I was so happy because my c-section time was 5 p.m and then they moved it to noon and I was like this is great. I didn't want to have to fast till five like this is awesome. Well then she waited to tell me in person that the reason they moved it from 5 p.m to noon is they needed a team of specialized doctors in case I have this acrita because they will be performing a if this is the case an emergency hysterectomy through my c-section incision and also you'll have like multiple blood transfusions and it will be an emergent situation. I'm like cool cool cool cool um didn't think this could get any worse but here we are a week away and it's worse. And then I'm like okay so 36 weeks like what's the likelihood of a NICU and they're like 20% like 80% of babies are just fine. I'm like cool awesome like this is gonna be okay and then I was having that crisis again about taking body parts out like I'm done having kids I know I'm done having kids I'm like so certain of that and if I wasn't done before this experience I'm absolutely done now. And so I'm like going into this just terror I'm just terrified. And I think actually she might have told me about the Akreita two weeks before so it felt like and I would never want an emergency situation. I under not understand personally but I can see how like going in for a normal or quote unquote normal birth and then having an emergency situation is so scary that you're whisked away everything is intense and crazy. But for me personally sitting with this information for a long time before it happens was mental torture. But again I'd I wouldn't have wanted some sort of emergency situation that is scary or hemorrhaging or whatever else. But for me knowing because people like well at least you know I'm like that's true. I mean I guess having childcare prepared for my older daughter or like knowing when he's like I'm giving birth on this date and this exact time is kind of nice. Like it has some silver linings to it but for be sitting with that information and not knowing if I'm gonna have the accredita, not knowing if they're gonna take my uterus out, not knowing if I'm gonna have blood transfusions, but knowing that it's happening on this A was very stressful for me.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:44

I hate it every second it's also you sitting with your reality. Yep. Right? Like of course yeah we can sit here all day and say oh well at least it wasn't an emergency and you get to but that's not what your reality is right your reality is the reality that you've been given which like you can't sit there and be like oh but at least it at least it apply the at least to what your situation is.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:08

But that's what everybody wants to do because they want to soothe your worries.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:13

They want to I think people are more it's more about like soothing themselves.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:19

That's true. And I haven't thought about it that way but how I think about it is they want to help they want you to feel better. Even if it's soothing their own or stroking their own needs or desires I think truly that people are doing their best to try to see the positives because they want to be supportive but really it ends up just completely diminishing your feelings exactly and discrediting and dismissing and your grief versus just looking at you and saying this sucks.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:48

This sucks this is unfair this shouldn't have happened people are very I'm like we had to go get master's degrees to learn how to do that. Yeah right like exactly I think as a society we're just it there's like this feeling that we should be happy and we should be optim like optimists and we should be you know feeling that's not us. Like this is our situation and it's better than everyone else's but that's just not what it is like to sit with our own reality.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:16

I think counterintuitively too like validating someone's experience doesn't make it any worse whereas maybe applying that well at least or you know you should think of it this way that kind of makes it a little that does make it worse.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:32

Yeah like it bites it's invalidating it's like by the way like what you're feeling is whatever and at least it's not worse. Well it could always be worse but it could have been better right 90% of people had a better outcome than I did. So it's just and it's one of those things I mean you know you could have a stillbirth you could there's so many things that can go wrong with birth.

Why “At Least” Makes It Worse

SPEAKER_00 1:19:52

It's so complex and dynamic and fast moving at it when you go in but it it it was so hard and I think weirdly enough this is kind of a generational thing. I think our mothers the boomers like whatever our grandparents are they don't know how to do anything other than the well at least or you just wait. They don't know how and you find yourself when you've been raised by these people that you admire and respect that have that dialogue going on you find yourself doing it too. And the nice thing about text message or delayed response is that I think I try at least to think more about this kind of thing. Like how am I responding to somebody who's telling me about their pain, grief, stress like should I be saying well just try this or just do that or should I be saying that's hard that's really hard you know because you I think innately all of us want to be fixers or all of us want to be helpers when somebody's struggling but really it's not helpful. It's not helpful and even somebody who's trying to break that cycle I have to really sit and think about it. Or sometimes I'm like that wasn't the right response I should have said something like I should have validated their experience because that's all we want right we just want somebody to see us and tell us yeah that sucks or that's terrible or I'm happy for you or whatever it is, right? That's all we want. And but somehow we're so bad at giving other people what we want or what we're looking for.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:27

Most of us I think are looking for that all the time.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:29

I mean it's hard to sit and look at the dark right it's hard to sit in the dark. And so I think again counterintuitively the response is to like pull someone out of that or to pull them through their pain. You can't really do that. You have to actually sit in the dark with uncomfortable but but sitting in the dark with a companion like is or a witness to your suffering or to your pain is a lot a lot more healing I would say than just the isolation that comes from at least or in the invalidation.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:03

Yeah. And you know it's tough because like you're saying I don't think people mean to do that. No nobody's malicious here. Right nobody's malicious here but it's just like I think as a therapist I'm just like it's it's shocking sometimes how everyone's just so dismissive of just validating.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:21

That's because you're around therapists all I know right so you're around a group of really rooted and educated people in this situation. And I tend to be kind of cold um I don't mean to be I'm trying to rework that but gosh I came from this background my parents are a little bit of pull up your bootstraps kind of people which is fine it's okay I think their parents were I don't think that they're doing this to punish me or to be cruel or anything like that. And they've gotten better over time especially with this last experience they've been supportive for sure the pull up your bootstrap stuff like you guys are around each other you recognize it you see it but even you know I'm 34 even my track that's not a natural track for me to take is to sit in other people's pain. That's not natural I'm just like my parents are and just like their parents were so it takes a lot of effort and work to break to break that cycle and it's it's funny because I feel pretty raw and vulnerable still and I'm just like why can't you people just tell me this is hard or and and I do have a lot of really helpful supportive friends family members that have done that but for some of them there's a threshold that they needed to get through to be like oh you're right this is hard because and I I joke about this with my mom and her generation of you know women and men is that they like to play the misery olympics. That was hard or you know Susie had a C-section but I had a stillbirth or you know whatever it is they want to be like yeah what you went through is hard but mine is harder. And I think we all do that too whether you're educated or not but especially my background coming from this kind of lineage which is pretty normal I think um and then going through something like law school which is just freaking miserable it's you know it's cutthroat it's mean it's like people will give you the wrong notes on purpose and everything's a competition and you're vying to be the top of your class and it's brutal and so and and I think my job is still pretty brutal too like it's adversarial. Yeah you're directly trying to beat somebody half the time like you are trying to win and so for me to try to sit in my own grief and then try to get other people to sit in my grief and then trying to sit in grief for other people in return is like just so not natural for me. And I think that's like a pretty I assume common thing that you guys see in your practices.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:58

I would say so I feel like a lot of my clients I'll be like explaining something and I'll be like you've heard of this I've done that before too like wow all my clients are like what are you talking about? And I'm like oh my god I literally forget that like most of the population is not this is not the reality.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:14

No they're not in tune with that at all. Which is why I think that even like you being here with us today and sharing your story like I was listening to an audiobook on my drive here this morning about I think it's called Matrizons, but it it's just all about the motherhood experience and how you know the sleep deprivation and the isolation and the loneliness and all of the the things that come with it, the identity shift and just how unknown that all is I feel like for women who do choose to become mothers or have the opportunity to become mothers like it's a very isolating experience.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:50

Extremely and like oh what percentage of us do that and it's still isolating or I you'd be shocked it's like one in six or one in eight couples go through infertility and all of this stuff is so common. Like what I was looking up the C-section rate and it's like 30%

Sharing Publicly To End The Isolation

SPEAKER_00 1:26:08

or something like that. And I'm just like you know I didn't share along the way but then I found myself like really wanting to post or share about a lot of the stuff which maybe people who follow me think it's attention seeking or whatever else. I don't really give a shit quite frankly I'm like this is so isolating and I and my husband men go through infertility too but you know at the end of the day their feelings are valid and they matter but you are not injecting yourself with needles the men. They're not having what do you call that internal ultrasounds you know where they stick that fun wand in your vagina like repeatedly I can't even tell you how many of those I've had at the MFM they're like I'm so sorry you have to have an internal ultrasound today I'm like I've had about 500 of these I welcome to my vagina it's nice to meet you many people have been there before. But it's physically and emotionally invasive and I think there's a piece of that men empathize with and by the way my husband is the most kind sweet caring man and there's still a loneliness and a desire for him to understand me going through this and he does and he does his best but there is something else about what women go through that even if you have the most supportive most caring husband or partner in the world they just don't quite get it even if they're there for you even if they're helping you do the injections helping you prepare your medication cleaning your pump parts helping you know treating your incision they can do their absolute best and you still feel this lack of understanding from them. It just is what it is. And I think lately I've been questioning about like how much I should or want to share with my what 500 followers on Instagram my small what I deem small community I'm not an influencer. I don't have a lot of power or I guess influence over people or a wide audience but I you know the first I actually after my daughter was born I waited a little bit but it was like maybe Mother's Day I was like I really want to share how I'm feeling like I wasn't always sure I wanted to be a mother but then once I knew I wanted to be a mother like walking through this fertility journey has been so hard. A lot of people will take a picture of all the syringes they've ever used and all this stuff and I had a small box of them and then I got so overwhelmed by it I ended up throwing them out. Some people really hold on to all this physical look at this is a physical representation of what you've done and what you've gone through. And I did it for a minute and Anyways, I ended up sharing pictures of this and talking about my journey to motherhood and all that. And I couldn't decide if I wanted to post it or didn't want to post it or wanted to share or didn't want to. Am I attention-seeking? Am I going to hurt the people who are still going through infertility? Like all these things went through my mind. And then I was like, you know what? This was so lonely. If I could just reach one other person, if one other person wanted to confide in me what they've been going through, or they wanted to ask me what this test was like, or how I managed this or how I manage that, that's worth it to me. And so I made the post and I actually ended up getting like a handful of people who are like, gosh, like I had no idea you were going through this. I've been going through this too. Isn't this hard? Like, you know, just some commiseration or understanding or that validation. And that's why I shared the first time. That's why I decided to share again. And I've gotten a few messages again of like, wow, I a lot of validation actually. Like, I didn't know you're going through this. I'm like, yeah, you and I didn't post about being pregnant at all. And then all of a sudden posted that I birthed a child or had one cut out of me, at least for the people who want to say C-section isn't birthed. But yeah, and people are like, I didn't even know you were pregnant. Like, this is crazy. Or I had no idea you didn't you had to do this much infertility stuff again. And I'm like, I know because I kept it close, but now I'm ready, I'm ready to share and I, you know, I'm ready to hear from people. I'm ready to talk about my experience. I'd love to be there for somebody else. I even have a friend who's, you know, having trouble conceiving as well. And I didn't really quite know that until lately. And I was like recounting everything I've said to her. And I'm like, gosh, have I just been bitching about my pregnancy to somebody who's been going through this? Like, how do I not know better? And I think hers was a little more subtle, or maybe I sh I probably should have known, but she didn't expressly say to me what she's been going through. And I'm like, wow, as somebody who constantly complained about other people not understanding her, look at what I did. I didn't even think about this with somebody else. You know, like they don't have to expressly say this to me, but I think I didn't really know, or maybe I was tunnel-visioned with my own problems, which I tend to do. But I was like, wow, it's just nice to take a step back and think, like, how are you never know what other people are going through? You never do. Yeah. And it's nice to be mindful. And having been through this myself, I still am not the best at that either, right? But then again, I asked myself, how should I approach this person? Like, and it's always different, right? Maybe, you know, what would have what I would have wanted, she wouldn't want. And I I'm still like, wow, now I I think I get how people approach me, like they're walking on eggshells because they want to be there for me, but they just don't they don't know how exactly, or they don't know what I would want or what would be helpful. So it's even having been through it, you still are like doing the wrong things. So I think maybe back to a question Miranda had asked earlier, but like what would you want people to know, or how could you be there for people? And I think maybe just consistently showing up, whether that's hey, we should get coffee or tell me about how treatment is going, or if you don't want to talk about treatment, that's great, but let's let's connect because it's so motherhood's isolating, fertility treatments isolating, yeah, all of it, having a C-section apparently was really isolating for me somehow because it just oh my gosh, it was terrible. I guess we never talked about that, but we're really running low on time.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:29

But you can tell us, we have time, yeah. We as long as you're not like running out to get out of here. We have my podcast on my birth experience was like two hours long, and we just didn't do parts. We're only at an hour and 40 minutes. Okay. So there is time, and I think that you should end by telling us about the birth experience. The C experience and how it actually turned out.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:46

Yeah, I went in for my C-section, and weirdly enough, like they were running an hour behind because somebody else had an emergency. So that was also like, oh my god, a little stressful. But for me, I was just like, I cannot do this like one more minute, let alone another hour, and then you're fasted and all that. And then they come in, they did my IV. I always have trouble with IVs that sucked. And then they come back in and they're like, actually, the doctor just told us like we need to have an IV in your other arm too, because this one's doing anesthesia and medication. And the other one, if you have the secreta, like we're gonna pump like blood through you. So

C-Section Day And A Difficult Spinal

SPEAKER_00 1:33:21

you need to have two an IV in each arm. And that's like kind of horrifying because nobody told me that until right then. I'm like, could you guys just like give me a list and not put new things on it? That would be great. But they're being thorough, right? And so they tell me that, and then I'm that kind of stresses me out. And I'm looking at my husband, I'm just watching the prices, right? Because that's like my happy place, my show, and it was on, and we were sitting in there waiting. And I'm like, this is blowing my mind. And weirdly enough, like neither of us are talking to each other. I I and I can't shut up. I talk constantly, like, and all of a sudden I had I had nothing to say. I was just paralyzed with fear of potential outcomes of if he's gonna be okay, whatever. So they come in and they had actually told me they were like, Yeah, your husband's not allowed in for the spinal placement. Was yours?

SPEAKER_04 1:34:10

Yes, actually.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:11

So they told me that, and I was like, My doctor told me he could be in there. I want him in there. And they're like, Well, we'll have to talk to him. And I was like, I insist that he's there.

SPEAKER_04 1:34:21

Like, I I maybe Tori wasn't there, actually. I'm actually thinking I remember that I got my spinal place and then he came in.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:27

That's I think typical. And I was like, I absolutely insist, and like for sterility, I'm like, he's gonna be in the room. Like, what damn difference doesn't matter whether he's there for the five minute spinal? Yeah, right. And they're like, Oh, okay, well, we'll talk to him. And then my doctor, I think, knowing me, was just like, just freaking let him in the room. Like, let's just not stress her out anymore. I I kind of think that's what happened. I actually advocated for myself pretty well. I was like, Yeah, I need him in that room. So they take me into the room, and it's just so freaking weird. Walking into energy any surgery is weird, right? Like you're naked in the gown, you have a stupid-looking hair knit on. My dumbass decided I wanted to have makeup on because I was hoping to have some pictures and look and feel somewhat like myself after I haven't forever.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:15

And so I like I put a full face of makeup on, which now is just kind of silly, whatever. They take me in, and I think I said earlier that the anesthesiologist insisted that there shouldn't be a problem. He's been doing this for 27 years. They take me into the room, they have you, it's like cold, it's sterile, it's awkward. They have you hunch over. Anyone who's been through this knows this. And they're they take like a giant needle, it's like four inches long, and it's a 26 gauge, so it's pretty fat too. They numb your skin, and then my husband's on one hand holding my hand, and then my my doctor, I love her so much, is holding my other hand, and she's like, You can squeeze as hard as you want, like, I'm here for you, like you can do this. Yeah, and I of course I'm tearing up again because she was just great. But they go to put the needle in my back, and I had read somewhere that having AS makes it harder, and he's like, I don't think it will. And he actually was really good too, because he went and pulled like a bunch of MRIs and x-rays and stuff I had had to check out my back before they took me back there. And he's like, Yeah, I I don't think it should be a problem. I actually pulled all your stuff to look at your anatomy and it should be okay. And he's a really good doctor, but he couldn't get the spinal placed. So, like a two-minute thing turned into like a 15-minute thing. I don't know, it probably wasn't that long, it felt like forever. Sure. I bet my husband would say it wasn't that bad. But and I actually went and pulled my charts and my records after the fact. So I was just curious because and Intermountain has all these things. It's like, you have a new test result, you have a new this, you have a new that. And so it's like, you have a new note. And I went and read it. And his notes on the thing were like, I had to have four attempts with a four-inch needle to get this placed. And you can feel it, right? Again, you don't feel pain because they numbed up the skin, but they're moving this needle around in my back and it's four inches deep. You can feel it past your spine almost. That's probably anatomically incorrect. What it felt like was it felt like it was in past my spine. And then he's like, Can you feel that on the left or the right? And like, ask me all these questions. And I am sobbing. And I think it was both pain and fear. Brad's like, you did a pretty like I expected you to be way more of a mess. And he's like, but you did like, he's like, you were sobbing, but and it was like quiet because I was trying to just like control myself and breathe and think about, you know, everyone says, go to your happy place. So I'm thinking like one of my favorite places my husband and I always go to is up to Silver Lake, and I'm like picturing that and thinking about my daughter who we like dropped off at school, and are like, see you later. I'm gonna go have this baby cut out of me, which is also very weird. And I'm sobbing, but trying to really just zone out. And he's like, I really thought you would have been worse, but you were actually pretty good. So you're still sobbing, but you're calm. And they finally got it placed, but it was weird because they felt like I felt the zing all the way down to my foot, and all then they didn't tell me that would happen. And I was like, that hit my foot. Like, oh no, is this normal? And they're like, totally normal. But he had a hard time placing it, and he and his notes indicated as such, his medical notes. And so they finally get it placed, and then you start shaking. Like, I think that's pretty normal, like physiological response. But they start doing the they let me play my own music, like they tried really hard to keep me calm. My husband's up by my head holding my hand. And weirdly enough, like I try to talk about this with my husband now because I'm like, I don't remember a lot of things. Like, I feel like I have really vivid memories of the spinal and then the actual procedure. I remember they like touch you with cold stuff to see how far you can feel to make sure that you're actually numb. They're like, We're pinching you really hard. Can you feel that? Like, we're gonna cut you open. I'm like, I don't feel it. Good, great. And I specifically remember the feeling of them pulling my abdomen apart, and that is freaking gnarly. Like, again, you don't feel pain, but you feel like they're rummaging around in your body, like it's very weird, uncomfortable, un unsettling, maybe is a good word for it. And the doctor's like, you know, are you doing okay? And I'm kind of like like I just remember being like really choked up and really like shaky. And they're like, Okay, like you're gonna meet your son in in just a minute. I'm like, okay. When I was told Brad I was so worried about having a Nick you stay, and breathing was a big thing when they're 36 weeks, they're worried about respiration. They had given me the just like another procedure I had that I forgot about is they gave me the surfactant for your for the baby's lungs, which is just like a relatively large shot in your hip, butt, back area. And it is painful, I think, but you know, just another thing you had to do, and it was fine. But they're like, Oh, you're gonna meet your son in just a minute, and they pull him out and they hold him up to the strape, and you can't really see, you can't really like you kind of see him, but they're covered in blood, vernix, whatever. I'm waiting for to hear a cry. And I had told Brad, When the baby's born, I want you to immediately go to the baby. I want you, I don't want you leaving that baby side. I will be just fine because anyone who's had a C-section, the it takes them like five or 10 minutes to get the baby out, and there's like 45 minutes to sew you up. I think Brie and other people have told me they bring the baby immediately, like to you or to your face or to your chest. That was not an option for me because he's a 36 weaker and they needed to check his respiration immediately. And they told me this going in, they're like, You were not really. I'm like, Well, I want to hold him, I want to touch him. They're like, That's not, you don't get to do that.

SPEAKER_04 1:40:37

What if they didn't get to do that? Grayson was 34 weeks.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:40

And they did, yeah. What is that?

SPEAKER_04 1:40:42

I mean, he it wasn't very long, but they did let him come up to my face. But they did not like let us cheek to cheek.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:48

Maybe it's just a hospital thing, or I don't know, maybe they had another risk factor for me that I didn't know about. But so weird and unfortunate. Yeah, and I was like, Well, I want to meet my son. Like, I went from this berth with my daughter where she was put on my chest for two hours and everyone left me alone. And I'm like, I want to meet my son. I want him to know me. I want to touch him, I want skin to skin, I want to hear my voice, I want delayed cord clamping. They're like, Yeah, I'm I'm really sorry. And by the way, my doctor is super great about if it's at all possible, we will figure it out. And if it's not, I gotta just, and so I trust her. And she tells me we can't do this, we can't do it. And they told me when he was born they would like have the NICU people, like they're immediately giving him to NICU people, or they're immediately assessing him. And so my husband goes right over there. The only thing, the only sweet, tender moment I really remember, they hold him up through the drape. I feel like I can't see him. I feel kind of stressed about that. But I looked over at my husband and he's looking at the baby and he's tearing up, and I was like, that's the one thing I remember really well.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:50

That's sweet or sentimental when you don't get to have them cut the cord, you don't get to touch them, you don't get to hold them. That was the one moment that was kind of stuck in my mind as a good moment. So they rushed him away, they rushed the baby away, and my husband went with them. Um what I didn't understand is that after they sew you up, they take you to a recovery room and you're alone. You're sitting there alone. I had the shakes really bad. You can't feel from like your belly button down, and I remember just wanting to adjust myself in the bed, and I couldn't. And there's a very weird I don't even know how amputees feel, but if it's anything like I felt, it's horrific. Watching people move your legs that you can't feel, or like phantom limb, or whatever that syndrome is. I feel horrible for those people because that like really wigged me out. They're coming in and moving my legs, and I can't feel my legs, like that really bugged me out. It was like it was like like having like an omniscient point of view, like watching somebody, it's like you feel like you're in the sky watching yourself or something. Like it was just very weird. I had the shakes, I immediately

Alone In Recovery While Baby Struggles

SPEAKER_00 1:42:59

started vomiting, like non-stop vomiting. I think they counted the whole night from after birth until like I went to bed or in the middle of the night, I vomited like 18 times, like just insane amounts of vomiting. Um, I went and looked back through my text messages with my husband. I'm like, how is he? And the first picture my husband sent me of my son, he was kind of plopped up, you know, they took his weight and whatever. And by the way, he was big for a 36 weeker. He was seven pounds, 11 ounces. And I was like, wow, that was like on my way to a nine-pound baby if I went any longer. But yeah, they held him up and in the picture, his legs looked weird to me. I'm like, oh my god, the dwarfism thing. Like, does he like is he having and my husband's like, no, he's like, he's perfect, he's good. And I'm like, he looks weird. So like I'm alone, I'm sobbing, I'm vomiting constantly, like I'm hitting the button, like I need more of these to be bag things because I can't stop filling them up. And then it gets to the point where you've thrown up so much is like just straight liquid, and I'm I hadn't eaten because you're not allowed to, which when you just had a oh when you just had a 10-inch or 10 sorry centimeter incision, vomiting hurts. Like I couldn't stop vomiting. I know.

SPEAKER_04 1:44:04

I as a fellow C-sex mom, when you were telling me you were vomiting, I was like, I feel so bad for him.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:12

Oh, it was so bad. Like they kind of just leave you alone. And then I'm texting my husband, like, how's the baby? And then he's like, he's not breathing well, but they're trying to get him going. And he's gonna end up story, he's gonna be okay, but they need to work on him. And so I'm like, okay. And he's like, well, hopefully, if he passes this test, like we can bring him down to you. I'm like, well, if I can stop vomiting and once I can feel my legs, they said I could go up to you guys. And so all of our messages are kind of like, I think I'll see you in 20 minutes, but then like three hours goes by. It's kind of sad to recount. And I went and saved them, and I'm like, oh, I don't want to read these again for a while. But then I'm like, I'm just alone. And he's like, I can come to you. I'm like, no, don't leave that baby's side. But sitting there alone, they just cut you open. I can't stop vomiting. I can't feel my legs, I can't reposition myself. I'm sobbing. And I was not ready for that. In retrospect, like my husband and I are believers that like no one comes to the hospital. It's an experience for us only. Like, I didn't want my mom, his mom, anybody. I I didn't want anyone else there. That's how it was with my daughter. Like, I it's nothing personal. It's just like we think this is this is for us and it's private, and that's how we want to handle it. And for me, I'm easily swayed by other people's opinions, thoughts, whatever. Like, that's another reason I don't tell people my kids' names until they're born. I just, it's just another layer of we think this is personal and precious and vulnerable for us, and we don't want other people there. Well, I didn't know I was gonna be like taken to a recovery room and just left alone to sob and cry and be scared and worried, and neither of us could come see each other or whatever. And like I said, I told Brad to go with the baby. I did not want him with me. I didn't want anyone leaving that baby's side, but I was alone in retrospect. I think I would have wanted my mom or somebody to come to recovery and sit with me. I wouldn't have wanted my mom or anyone else in pre-op or in the room. I don't know if they would even allow a second person in the c-section. If I had any advice to anybody, is if you know you're gonna have a c-section or having an emergency c-section, I think it would have been nice to have somebody to sit with me.

unknown 1:46:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:46:17

I really wish I had had that.

SPEAKER_04 1:46:18

But it's crazy to think that that's the reality for so many people, though. Like that there's not somebody at the hospital that can be there with my mom.

SPEAKER_00 1:46:28

And the nurses were doing their job. They were doing great. They're getting my puke. Yeah, they're working and they have, you know, maybe one or two people assigned to them. But like, you know, maybe like an emotional support person would have been fantastic because it makes you feel so cast aside, makes you feel so much like an incubator, like your job's done. Now we're just gonna put you away, and you're just like, and that's another thing that people kept saying to me after all of this, they're like, Oh, like how are how's the baby? Or like, oh, you had a healthy baby, that's good. Period. No, the hallmark of a good birth, a good pregnancy, or whatever isn't just that the baby's okay. I am a person, I am a human, I have feelings. I'm not really okay, like still to this day, like mentally, I'm a little fucked up over this. Sorry, I've been trying not to say fuck on your podcast, but I did.

SPEAKER_04 1:47:18

I am no stranger to the word fuck. Yeah, it's said on this podcast.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:22

This has fucked me up.

SPEAKER_04 1:47:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:24

Physically, emotionally, mentally, and I'm just like, wow, like, and my doctor was great, the nurses was were great, like, but it makes you feel alone again.

SPEAKER_04 1:47:36

Like, I mean, it is holy cow.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:39

Yeah. And I felt it makes you feel like, okay, so if everybody wants to think the only thing that makes a successful birth and pregnancy is that the baby is okay, what are we again? Like, again, like women's pain, women's suffering, women's experiences so diminished all the time, invalidated, like not recognized at all. And I'm like, wow, through all of this, it's so lonely. And it's so, it's just again, like it you kind of don't feel like you matter. The baby's fine, great. Bye. See you later. All right. We'll have you fill out some postpartum depression papers a hundred times that don't even ask the right questions. Totally. And so long story short, is eventually I got to go see the baby. They actually wheeled my bed, my hospital bed, into the NICU. That bed does not fit in the NICU. That was very stupid. They did have to admit my son to the NICU. They had him on CPAP, they had him on a feeding tube. With so the first time, because I didn't feel like I really even saw my son when they held him up after the C-section. So the first time I see him, he's hooked up to this freaking machine. Like crap all over his face. I can't even see his sweet little face. Like he's hours old. I told Brad, I'm like, I can't even pick my son out of a lineup. I don't even know what he looks like. I and they told me, so they wheeled me in, let me see him from afar. I start vomiting again immediately. So they kind of like wheel me away, and I'm like, I want to see my son. And they're like, we'll have to take you back up and bring you back down when you're ready. Well, they don't tell you that you can't go back down until you can walk three steps to step into a wheelchair. And I'm like, Yeah, I want to go now. And they're like, Well, you're still vomiting. I'm like, I don't care. I haven't met my son. I saw

Meeting Him In The NICU

SPEAKER_00 1:49:16

him through a drape for two seconds. They whisked him away. I saw him for two seconds, hooked up to all the machines. I don't even know what he looks like. I haven't held him, I haven't seen him. Like, I want to see my son, and I want to see him now. And they're like, okay, like they're doing everything they can to help me. So they're not rude. They're not, they're just doing everything they can. They have two nurses hold me by the elbows. I make the three steps into the wheelchair and they wheel me down. And I finally get to meet him. I think it's six hours later. Six hours later, like to me, that's absurd. And again, like I'm sure there are worse cases. I'm sure there are people that their kids got whisked into surgery or whatever else could be worse. But for me, that was just excruciating to be alone. And I haven't seen my son, I haven't held him. I don't know anything about him.

SPEAKER_03 1:50:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:04

It was so painful that separating for me and cruel.

SPEAKER_04 1:50:09

Having the baby in you so for nine months. Yeah. Yeah. We meant to be separated. It's just like it's so against the biology of what is happening inside of us and what we need. And it's it is excruciating.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:24

It's against the biology, it's against everything I experienced the time before. Which makes it so much worse worse. Yeah, because you know what you could have had. Yeah. And it was just terrible for me. So I make it into the wheelchair. They're like, we can't even believe you're standing upright right now. And I'm like, girl, I assume any C section NICU mom has had this exact same ambition, drive, determination. You're getting your ass in that wheelchair and you are going to see your kid. Like, I'm guessing that's how you were. I'm guessing that's how a lot Of women are, and she's like, Well, most women like don't make the walk to the wheelchair, which again, three steps, or most women can't stand up right, and I'm sure that's true, but I don't know if it was adrenaline or what. But I was like, I am going with my son.

SPEAKER_04 1:51:03

Our nurse, the nurse, my nurse that I had on the podcast who she was talking about, like, I think I asked her, like, what something a question about like women and their strength. And she said, like, there is nothing like witnessing women who just get out of season the surgery where their their stomachs have been opened and they their sheer determination to get up and stand up and get themselves down to the NICU to see their babies. Yep. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 1:51:33

Yeah. And it's it's that's all I could think about. I'm like, I need to see my son. And I knew my husband was there. And then my husband, I was like, is he okay? And he's like, Yeah, they finally let me hold him. And I'm like, the hell you get to hold him before I do. I carried him for nine months, not really. I mean, like, it I was jealous of my own husband. Like, I know that's like such a petty, like, like really low-level emotion. And I'm just like, I am so annoyed. Like, it's like I I was so grateful that he was there and with him. And I was like, Can you talk to and I think my message is say, can you touch him? Because I think they he hadn't held me up. I'm like, Can you talk to him? I need him to know you're there. That was like the biggest thing. I need you to do what I would have done. And he's like, of course, doing it all. And I'm just like, you got to hold him first. Like, kind of bummy out.

SPEAKER_04 1:52:22

I know that's really silly, but it's not silly, but I'm so grateful that he did.

SPEAKER_00 1:52:25

But I'm just like, and so they wheeled me down. I immediately started vomiting again, and they're like, Well, we can take you back. I'm like, nope, give me my son. I want to hold him right now. And so then I got to hold him, and some of the pictures I was looking through. I looked terrible, but like you can tell I had been sobbing, but I'm just like so happy to see him. But I'm holding him with the machine, the I think I don't remember if the CPAP was on him or not, but there's a feeding tube, and so like even the next day they started testing this, having the CPAP off of him, which is like a giant thing all over his nose. And I'm like, I still felt like I didn't know him. I'm like, I don't even know him. I don't know. And it just felt so foreign and weird. I'm like, I don't know my kid, like, I don't even know this baby. And anyways, he only ended up staying in the NICU, I think two or three nights, two nights. I don't know. It was a very short stay. I know a lot of people have a lot. I look at Bree and I'm like, I have no idea how you did 21 days of this. Like, this was so utterly terrible for me, but I had been told that it was a 20% chance of a NICU stay for him, and so I got on the wrong side of the statistics yet again. Somehow stupidly, I still keep thinking I'm going to be on the good side of all the statistics. I do like if I had another thing you told me tomorrow, I would still be like, Well, I'm gonna be the 80%. Like, I I still would wholeheartedly buy into that, but yeah, so it was like the C-section NICU combo is pretty gnarly. Even having a short stay, it messed me up. I just was not ready for it. Although this guy was like the king of the hill giant guy, like we were in the Nikki. Yep, the Nikki was. I remember babies like that next to us too. And the Nikki was full, yeah, and we were sharing a room for at least the triage part till he was formally admitted with twins, and they were like three or four pounds each. Which and I'm just like, holy cow! Like, then you start doing like wow, like look at these other moms. Like, this is crazy. Like, bless them, because that is so tough. Like, yep, and going in and scrubbing in to see your kid, Lysoling your phone, like all of it. You're just like all of it's just so crazy. Like feeling like they're I'm like, I feel like I have to ask permission to do everything. Like, can I hold my my baby that I cooked for nine? Like, can I do this? And they never said you had to do that, but it just feels so like it just feels like they're so off limits. Yep.

SPEAKER_04 1:54:49

Like it just feels like it just doesn't feel like your baby. They have tubes in their noses or their mouths, or they're got I remember Grayson had like a thing on his head, like the first time I met him, like some like an IV line in his head.

SPEAKER_00 1:55:03

Like, oh my gosh, yeah, that's we did not have that, but I've seen pictures of that, and like my nephew had that, and I'm like, that is so sad. And like looking at this little guy's veiny head, I'm like, I get why they do that, but that looks ouchy, like gosh, like that looks terrible. Yep, it's so crazy. And so everything ended up being okay. I mean, the rest of the hospital stay was kind of a blur, but then they got really weird. They're like, My husband's like, but he's in the nursery getting shots or whatever. Like, let's go down to the cafeteria, and they're like, Oh no, she's not allowed in the cafeteria. I'm like, why am I not allowed in the cafeteria? And they're like, You can't leave the maternity floor. I'm like, Well, I go to the NICU, so I don't know what you're talking about. So then I ended up changing into like street clothes and just going there anyways. I was like, I like I'm gonna do whatever I want. Like, I I get why they wouldn't want the babies leaving the floor because I know they have like crazy security and their people are nuts, and I get it, but I was like, yeah, like, and I'm a very much a rule follower. I like rules, rules are made for a reason, you know, and I'm like, yeah, I'm like going to the cafeteria because I'm gonna go crazy. Yeah. I kept trying to get them to discharge me, and they're like, no, but then you don't want to be discharged because

Discharge Rules And The Car Seat Test

SPEAKER_00 1:56:13

your baby's in the NICU. So it's like this really weird thing, because I hate hospitals. I don't want to be in the freaking hospital. You know, I wanted off the drugs immediately, I wanted out of the bed, I wanted all of it. But it feels like you're stuck in a room. Yep. Like you're a prisoner, and then you leave. And yeah, and to me, it felt so pointless and ridiculous when my baby's in the NICU. And I'm like, I'm stuck in this stupid room, and he's down there, and I can go see him whenever I want. But like, why am I even here? Like, this is ridiculous. But I'm here because I'm close to him, and we stayed a couple more nights. They made us stay three nights. They told me two to five days with a C-section, but like I just wanted to go home. So the second night, he didn't pass the car seat test, which is like a really dumb, annoying thing. And so I was like, because you they have to sit in the car seat and not have breathe or oxygen levels drop for like 90 minutes. I'm like, yep, I am trying to go 12 minutes home. I know. Like, I will not go to Wendover. I promise you, I'll sign whatever documents you want, but like I just need to go home. And then finally, the our pediatrician like just signed it off, anyways, because like he failed it twice. And I'm like, I'm not gonna sit here for another 90. Like, like, just let me go home. Yeah, like I will sign whatever damn paperwork you want. I'm not gonna sue you. I just want to go home. Right. And so they finally let us go home. But in a car seat bed, yes, and it's so janky. Did you have one too?

SPEAKER_04 1:57:29

No, no, he passed well, he almost didn't pass the car seat test. They were like, We need to kind of check it off this morning to see. And I was like, I just refused it.

SPEAKER_00 1:57:37

They're like, we're gonna test him in the car seat bed. I'm like, what's the end result if he pass if he doesn't pass? And like the pediatrician says she'll still let you leave. I'm like, then I'm not doing another test. If the end result is still leaving, then I'm leaving. And this for any moms who have a car seat, it's like literally it looks like a little bassinet.

SPEAKER_04 1:57:53

It looks like the with straps in it. It looks like the snuggle me. Yeah. Snuggle me organic with the seatbelt over.

SPEAKER_00 1:57:59

Like, this is not going to save anyone. I was looking at that and I was like, is that and it it's so janky because the whole thought behind it is that that car seat position decreases their oxygen levels, and so it's safer to be flat. My son should probably be flat most of the time, but now he's bigger, so he's doing okay. Yeah. And that's the idea. And I'm like, cool. So like I'd rather risk his oxygen being like 85 for 12 minutes than him being flat and getting in this accident with this dumbass car seat that's not gonna save any. It would it's so picture. Yeah, it is the terror, it's terrible.

SPEAKER_01 1:58:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:58:36

Like as a mom, you'd be like, I am not putting my kid in that, but they won't let you leave the hospital until they show you that you're leaving in that. I'm like, okay, yeah. And then we used it that one time and we're like, I'm not using this ever again. Like, I'm not, I'm not using that. Like, I will absolutely not. Yeah, and that's what the pediatrician told us. She's like, until he reaches like eight or nine pounds, like you just shouldn't drive for more than like 20 minutes at a time. I'm like, done, easy. I don't want to see anyone or go anywhere anyway.

SPEAKER_04 1:58:57

They were like, don't go. They were like, How long? How far away is your house? I was like, 15 minutes. They were like, go home, don't go anywhere else. I was like, please, especially because we were in there so long. I was like, please just let us take him home.

SPEAKER_00 1:59:09

Like, I get it. Like, lawyers ruin everything. The people have been sued over this for like just leave me alone. I'm leave, I'm going home.

SPEAKER_05 1:59:17

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 1:59:17

But yeah. So that was pretty much it. I don't know, for some reason, like even talking about it now, I just I get so emotional about the whole thing. And I think just I had never really considered until a few days ago, like not this birth was traumatic for me. Like I said, I didn't like almost die or anything. Other people have had way worse. But for me personally, this has been so traumatic trying to process all of this, even with a happy ending, even with a healthy baby, even with like I'm generally really healthy and fine. I had never considered how all of this was compounded by the fertility stuff. And it has just been like five years of this, and I am so grateful for my kids, but I am so ready to close this chapter and be dying.

SPEAKER_04 2:00:07

Like you're finally in a place where like this is no longer hanging over

Trauma, Relief, And Being Completely Done

SPEAKER_04 2:00:12

your head of like, well, what is this gonna be like? What is trying again going to be like? I feel like I can relate in a sense where like I was very worried about preeclampsia a second time to have that like not hanging over my head. It's like it's like a relief where it's like, thank God.

SPEAKER_00 2:00:28

And if I had we only ever wanted two kids, but even if I had wanted more kids, this experience was enough for me. We are beyond done. And so when anyone's like, well, how about a third? I'm like, don't even talk to me about that. Like, like I don't even know how to tell you how offensive that is to me. And like people mean well, they don't mean anything, but like super offensive. Don't say that to me. Yep. I don't want to hear it. Yeah, I will get mad, I will be very curt with you and say, I am done, don't ask me again. People who want to encourage me to have more, I will get very mad. Um, but people who are like, Oh, are you done? I'm like, Oh, yeah, I'm done. Like, you know, this was a lot of people. People who know the story to ask you, if that's insulting. I think people just have their own motives and desires and whatever it is, and uh like that will that is a surefire way to piss me off and get me to be kind of rude, anyways. I think most everybody is like super understanding and kind and nice about it. And you know, I like I said, I wasn't really willing to talk about it while I was going through it all at all times, but now I you know I'd be happy to share with anybody or yeah who wants to hear from me or my perspective or wants to just commiserate or share their like I will be a sounding board for your experience. I mean, I do have opinions on things too, so it's hard not to inner not to interject those because people are like, well, I've done five IUIs, I've like stopped doing IUIs is probably what I would say. But you know, I can listen, I can just absorb your stuff, or if you want to hear my opinion, because I'm a freak who asked every question, saw every doctor, my my fertility doctor, weirdly enough, would be like, You have a lot of really good questions, you know, like you have a lot of really good questions, you know, I'd be like, This is this medical journal that was just published six months ago. It's relatively new. They suggest this, this, and this. And she'd like, wow, you like really come prepared. And I was like, excuse me, ma'am, like people are I'm I'm spending like $50,000 and doing really invasive procedures for in my body, and I have a lot of hopes and dreams connected to this. Like, what do you mean people don't ask

How To Show Up For Someone

SPEAKER_00 2:02:44

these kinds of questions? And she's like, Yeah, like people just kind of come in and take my advice and kind of go with it. But I guess I was just shocked to find out that people don't do that. But so again, I'm not a doctor, I'm not an expert, but anything 2019 through 2025, I probably read it or probably asked a doctor about it. So happy to always share misery or information or what I think about things, but take that with a grain of salt, it may or may not matter, but happy to do it.

SPEAKER_04 2:03:19

You know, I think the like process too of like being postpartum, you're so this is so new. Like this was so recent, right? So I appreciate you even coming to the share. When you shared your Instagram post, so we have a couple people that we've been trying to interview, and they were no one was available this week. And when I saw your Instagram post, I was like, well, Rihannan said she wanted to talk on the podcast. It's like why so it looks like she's willing to share. Yeah, absolutely. Two to just speak to the trauma of it all. I still can't talk about my Nikki experience without getting emotional. Yeah, and I feel it for you.

SPEAKER_00 2:03:52

Like it's crazy because you see other moms and you just immediately the water work.

SPEAKER_04 2:03:56

And I remember when you told me to that you when I when you told me like it is going to be a C-section, and I just looked at Tori and I was like, I feel so bad for her because I know what it feels like to like have the first pregnancy go pretty well. I didn't even know preclampsy was as big of an issue when they were like you're pre-clampsic. So scary. Oh, that's fine. We're just gonna be induced tomorrow, until I was sitting in my like perinatal mental health training, and I was like, What the fuck? Like this is a big deal. This is actually a huge deal, and I really hope I don't get this again. But when you told me you were having a C-section, I just looked at Tori and I was like, I feel so bad for her because I just know what it's like to like it's just the grief of it all, you know, and I don't know that that ever goes away. I don't think so. I always forever grieve the moments that I did not get with Grayson and wonder if that is what has had an impact on his temperament. Oh, it has to, you know, because that is also trauma for him.

SPEAKER_00 2:04:53

They're so I wanted to say absorbable. That's not a word. They absorb so much in utero, when they're out. Like they know, I truly think they know. Like maybe we're not there proving all of that all the way, but they know what's going on. There's a lot of research that backs it up. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:05:11

That's that's something I don't know much about. Part of the trauma work that I do with people is like prenatal trauma. They feel our vibe. Yep. They do.

SPEAKER_00 2:05:20

And they are the scientific way to say it, but they know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:05:25

I know they know. I mean, even the statistics that show like a mom experiencing domestic violence while pregnant, like her baby will be born.

SPEAKER_00 2:05:36

Right. Yeah. Yeah, and that's one of those handy statistics. I love to use it my job. We have the, you know, we I always get the case where it's like he's beating the shit out of her, and then she's like, I want to drop the protective order because I want him at the birth, and I'm six months pregnant. And the number one cause of death in pregnant and postpartum women is homicide.

unknown 2:06:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:06:01

More than preeclampsia, placenta previa, gestational diabetes, whatever complication you can think of combined. It's crazy. Yeah, that makes me sad. It it is sad, but that's you know, that's another layer of this that I take to work and that I'm like, yeah, like I understand these cycles of abuse that these women go through uh on a clinical level. I don't I've never been through that really. But like when I'm t trying to educate the judge and making a choice, I'm like, this is the most dangerous position you can put her in, is to allow him back into this sphere of hers. I know she wants him there for the ultrasounds, I know she wants him there for the birth, but this is statistically lethal judge. And it's been pretty, I've had a lot of success arguing for that. So when you talk about babies no, like, oh babies no, but also like women die. Yeah, and it's a whole other topic.

SPEAKER_01 2:06:59

But yeah, I just I think someone's going to listen to this and feel heard and seen. And so I just want to say thank you, and to all the women and moms out there, like I hope you have a space where you can feel seen and feel heard.

SPEAKER_04 2:07:19

Yeah. I think what is like talking we were talking earlier about like if just one person, like if I could share this on my Instagram with like 500 followers and it just touches one person, right? Like that's something that you have said with our podcast too. Like, we have 36 followers on Instagram. Okay, like I will say when we when we post a new episode, we'll probably get like 15 to 20 downloads that day, and then a couple, like some more will come in. But I'm just like, whatever. If this is like a passion project, and if it touches if one person connects

Final Reflections And Farewell

SPEAKER_04 2:07:51

with what we're talking about, that is enough for me. Same. Yeah. So thank you. Yeah, very invulnerable to come share with us today. Happy to do it. Yeah. Okay. Well, update. Like, I I think we're still just kind of slowly making our way through the summer with the podcast. I think we're still looking at getting a couple more like interviews or two through the summer. Summer's flying by though. It's almost midway through July. Oh, I know. Yep. Okay. Thanks for listening, and we will catch you later.

SPEAKER_01 2:08:27

Bye.