Episode 84: Transcript

You are listening to episode 84 of the Path to Motherhood podcast.

Welcome to the Path to Motherhood podcast.

I'm your host and fertility life coach, Sarah Randell.

Join us each week as we walk through navigating your trying to conceive journey.

My mission is to share the skills of managing your mind,

Processing emotions and living a full life to create a more authentic path to motherhood.

Hello and welcome back to the Path to Motherhood podcast. I am your host,

Sarah. I'm super excited to be talking with all of you today. I have a guest on, so I won't spend

too long. I want to dive into the episode, but just so you guys know a little bit more about our

guest today is Ms. Bailey. She will be introducing herself here in a moment, but I reached out to

Bailey on social media because she is someone I started following early on in my kind of dive

into the infertility world on Instagram. And she has been someone who has just been super supportive,

great to connect with and ask questions to, follow along on her story, and just always so

willing to be helpful, to lend a hand, to lend a piece of advice, to listen to a

piece of advice, to just share the real truth of what it is to be on an

infertility journey. And she does it in such a beautiful way. And I told her I

love following her because I can just see that she is doing what I see from the

outside as a pretty good job of balancing real life with infertility. That

That doesn't mean the infertility's been easy, but it means that she still is going out there

and traveling and doing things with her husband and building this amazing business and working

her full-time career and just really being an awesome woman while also going through

an infertility journey.

And I think some of us can kind of get a couple years down the road of infertility and look

back and be like, "What the heck have I been doing with my life?"

That's definitely not her.

She has been busy.

She has been building amazing things and I'm just excited to have her on.

After the last few weeks of just sharing all these other ways that we can keep connected

to ourselves and our identity while going through a infertility journey, I think Bailey

really does a good job of demonstrating that in practice.

So without further ado, we will dive into today's episode.

Welcome to the Paths Motherhood Podcast this week.

I am super excited to have a guest on with us.

And to kick things off and kind of dive into

what we're gonna talk about today,

I am gonna let Bailey introduce herself.

- Thank you, I'm so excited to be here.

So my name is Bailey Daikama.

I feel like I'm aware of many hats,

which probably most of us women could probably say.

I'm a wife, infertility warrior and advocate.

I am also a nurse anesthetist.

We have our first baby on the wave finally,

after a long journey,

which I'm sure we'll talk about today

because that's what we're here for.

I am also a small business owner.

And obviously we're gonna get into

how infertility has changed me and changed our lives.

And just, I think we grow and develop a lot through this,

right?

It stretches us and makes us grow.

But one of the things that I became really passionate about

during my infertility journey is preventative health

and hormone health specifically.

So I am really passionate about living holistically,

but I also like to say realistically

because you can totally go off the deep end.

And so there's always a good sense of balance there.

And I like helping other people to find the balance

and simple swaps and just adjustments

to their daily routine just to feel better

and live their best life.

- Yeah, I love that.

And we'll get into it, but I appreciate the find

the reasonable changes

because you can't absolutely go off the deep end.

- Oh yeah.

- I think that I've always like related to your stuff

on social media because we both have this

like medical background but are also doing other things

and going through this crazy journey of infertility.

So, you know, this month we're talking a lot about

how to balance everything that is taking all of our attention

in the infertility space while also trying to live a life.

Right? We can't just put all of that on pause.

And I think probably the best way to start out with that

is if you want to share just a little bit about your story.

You said you are expecting, which is super exciting.

I'm so happy for you.

And that will kind of help frame what we talk about

as far as how you've balanced everything.

- Yeah, absolutely.

So how much time we got here?

- I know, right?

- It's hard to get the clip notes.

So our infertility journey started in 2018,

fall of 2018. So it was about five and a half years. Took a lot of twists and turns as most do. So

I was never the person that grew up like I need to be a mom. Like you know, I mean obviously I played

with dolls or whatever I'm sure but you know I was like I always knew I wanted to be a mom but

that wasn't like my number one burning desire. And so I went to anesthesia school. My husband and I

started dating actually right at the beginning of my

anesthesia school, we got married while I was in school.

And that's a really stressful time.

And I just kind of, we always, we all laugh at this having a

plan thing, right?

When, you know, the other side of it.

But so the plan was to graduate school, start my new job, and

just enjoy being married and living for a year.

So before we started trying, and then I was going to try and

have two kids by the time I was 30 and I had a great little fairy tale I had.

So it got to about, I would say, like six months when I was out of school and like

one day a switch just flipped in me and I was like, I'm ready.

I'm ready now.

I want to have kids and it was like this really like almost bizarre feeling.

Because like I said, I had never been that person with that was just like had this burning desire.

So I had a couple trips coming up.

I wanted to stay on my birth control to get through those because, you know, of course,

when I got off my birth control, I was just going to get pregnant. And so a couple months

later came off the pill. I had a period. And then after that, my periods kept getting longer

and longer and longer. And, or I should say cycles, not my periods necessarily. And that

is a total mind game when you're trying to get pregnant, of course, because I'm like,

well, my period's missing. But the pregnancy tests are all negative, like what's going

on here. So I did not waste a lot of time before contacting my doctor. At one point, I think I went

about 90 days without a period and I had to have that induced with medicine. And so at that point,

thankfully, I had a like a working relationship with my OBGYN and she really didn't want to like

waste my time and emotions and all that and helped me to kind of move along the infertility path

before we had been trying the one year.

You know?

And so she worked me up and she said, you know, you don't fit the typical PCOS picture,

but I think you have PCOS.

And I'm going to send you on to somebody else who sees this a little bit more.

And she referred me to a reproductive endocrinologist.

We did a workup with my husband.

We also found that we have male factor infertility as well.

So he has a varicoseal.

he was gonna get that operated on.

And then a couple days later,

or a couple days before his surgery,

COVID shut down the world.

And so we never ended up having surgery on that,

which I'm okay with on this end.

We were able to overcome that side.

And we did, just to kind of speed things up,

three IUIs, all of those failed.

We started IVF and I did two retrievals.

We did four transfers with six embryos.

We had two failures, one chemical and one early miscarriage.

Like we got to our first ultrasound

that didn't have a heartbeat.

And at that point, my doctor was like,

there's something we're missing here.

Let's do more tests.

So we really did like the whole recurrent pregnancy workup.

We finally did a resuptiva biopsy, which came back positive.

And that is something that I am passionate about now

because I'm like, holy crap, this changed the trajectory.

And we did another retrieval.

I had surgery to remove endometriosis.

And that was really like from our last retrieval

to the time we were able to get through surgery,

do another transfer was almost a year,

but our transfer after surgery finally worked.

So embryo number seven is now the bun in the oven.

- That's amazing.

And like you said, that is like the crazy cliff notes

that fast forward all of those years.

I can absolutely relate to the switch flipping.

My mom always is like,

you always said you never wanted to have kids

and now look like the space that you live in

is talking about wanting them so badly.

I'm like, yeah, I know.

- Life is humbling.

- It is.

And then just in case somebody doesn't know,

the Reseptiva test is for looking for signs

of endometriosis.

- Yes, so, Receptiva is an endometrial biopsy.

So they go in and take a little tissue

from the inside of your uterus,

and they test for an inflammatory marker.

And if that comes back positive,

so it's not a like 100% diagnostic tool

for endometriosis, but if it comes back positive,

there's a 96% chance that they will find endometriosis

on a laparoscopy.

Leparoscopy is surgery, minimally invasive surgery.

And it is the only way to for sure diagnose endometriosis

and also the gold standard of treatment

to have that endometriosis excised.

- And a lot of people here,

like you have to have surgery to know if you have it.

Do you know, you may not,

but do you know if your tests were to come back negative,

it doesn't, you could still have it

it just didn't catch on the test?

I don't know that for sure.

I don't want to steer anybody in the wrong way.

Yeah, I was just wondering.

I wouldn't be surprised, you know, endometriosis kind of comes up in flares

and really what it boils down to is it's an inflammatory disease.

And so that's why they're looking for this inflammatory marker in your uterus.

I have heard people that have had a test come back negative and then they've

repeated it and it's come back positive.

Interesting.

my suspicion just like with my own medical background and kind of

rationalizing my way through it is that maybe if you're on medications like birth control or things like that,

that they typically use to suppress anometriosis, that it might not come back positive.

That makes sense. Yeah. And of course, like you're saying, we're not trying to give anyone advice about their medicine,

but it at least gives you ideas of things to talk about because I don't think that's a test that's always often recommended a lot of places.

But it can be a way to right overcome the big burden of, oh, I need to have this surgery.

If you have that comeback positive, it's going to help you feel a lot stronger about having that surgery.

So yeah, absolutely.

And I know a lot of people sometimes just go down that route to have surgery because they don't, you know,

they're like looking for answers.

And there's nothing wrong with that, but it's much less invasive to do the receptive of IOPC.

And personally, you know, because of my experience, I feel like it should be part of an initial work up.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So for you, going through this, like you said, the last year was a lot of

healing from surgery, preparing to have surgery, all that stuff, which I don't know that we're going

to spend a bunch of the time of the episode talking about this, but I think you probably could speak

to the importance of finding the proper surgeon to do that surgery is important.

Yes, absolutely. So a lot of OBGYNs operate and a lot of them, you know, will say that they can

treat endometriosis and something important to know. Just like I said in my introduction,

I'm a nurse anesthetist. So I sit on the other side of the drapes and I watch surgery every single

day. And so I've seen this firsthand that a lot of OBGYNs that are not specially trained in endometriosis

will just take cottery and they'll like cotterize or ablate the little lesions.

And I think that helps to some extent, but that's absolutely not

going to give you the best results. It's not the most comprehensive.

And I think most OBGYNs, well, I know, are not trained to find all endometriosis lesions.

So there are experts out there. Nancy's Nook is a really good resource.

If you have endometriosis and you're looking for more information on

surgeons that are qualified. That's a Facebook group that you can get into. And then also,

my surgeon ended up being a napro surgeon, which is natural procreative technology. And these surgeons

are also specially trained in many surgical techniques. They really, really like to look at

the root cause of issues and get down to the root cause versus just prescribing medications like

many other doctors do. So that's what I appreciate more and why I ended up going with a NAPRO surgeon.

And yes, they're also very, very qualified. They use specialized techniques called Pelveoplasti,

which is essentially, they describe it as like plastic surgery in your abdomen to also help

decrease the risk of like scar tissue and adhesions and stuff like that, because that can be a

after anometriosis excision.

- Yeah, absolutely.

So there's people listening to this

that are going through IVF,

don't wanna go through IVF,

all the different routes.

NAPRO, I know from the experience

of the few people that providers that I've dealt with

have been not really pro IVF.

So did she know that you were doing that?

Was she giving you any pushback about that?

Was that an issue at all or?

- She did and she's so incredibly supportive.

just and she actually it was interesting. We've talked a little bit like post surgery and post

pregnancy. She messaged my surgeon, messaged me at seven o'clock one night a couple months ago,

just wondering how I was doing. She's the salt of the earth. I'm happy that if anybody wants to

you know get in touch with me and I can give you her details but and I told her you know we were

pregnant and she wanted updates and things like that and I had talked to her about our protocol

that we went through for our transfer this last time was also a modified natural transfer,

which is less medication and I think really also contributed to our success and she was

interested in learning more about that. So absolutely no pushback at all.

That's awesome. Okay.

Yeah, very supportive.

Cool. So over the last five and a half years, like you said, for you, what do you think has

has been the biggest struggle or hurdle

to balance this infertility journey

with everything else going on in life?

- For me, I'm an Enneagram III, I'm an achiever.

I am very just like, figure it out, get it done.

And for me, it's been the hardest thing

that I have no control over this, right?

And it took me a really long time to wrap my mind around that.

I think particularly in the first probably year,

I think it took for me to like be public

about what we were going through.

And I think in that time, it really did consume me

because I didn't have anybody else that understood it

and that I could go to and talk to about it.

And also I just, I wasn't utilizing all the resources

out there because I wasn't connecting with people.

And so it really did overwhelm and consume my life.

And it took me a long time to realize like,

hey, this timeline is probably out of my control,

but I'm telling you when I did,

it was so freeing because, you know,

I mean, even to some extent through it all,

you know, you have to plan your life

around treatments a little bit.

But I got to the point where I was just like,

I am so miserable, nothing brings me joy anymore.

Like I have to find those things that bring me joy

and get back into traveling

and getting away and being able to like, you know,

I'm not gonna say like go on vacation and relax

and you'll get pregnant, no.

But our mental health is important

and if that brings joy, like that's something

that you need to continue to prioritize during this.

So it was definitely like a learning process along the way.

I was really fortunate to work with a therapist

who has had her own infertility and lost her any

and this is kind of a second career for her.

So that's her focus now.

And she really helped me work through a lot of that

and get to the point where I was able to find joy,

stop beating myself up, you know,

and find some sense of balance through it all.

- Yeah, there was a lot of gyms in there.

So I think that one of the things

that kind of made me think about is the fact

that you were talking about in that first year

where you really held everything close.

Sometimes I think that even if we're not like

telling ourselves this, maybe subconsciously we're thinking like,

if I don't talk about it, if I don't share about it, like,

it's not going to be this thing that consumes me.

And ironically it does.

And then opening them up.

I don't know when you started sharing on your Instagram, but like having

people to talk to about it, to rate, relate to about it, to go to your

therapist and talk to about it actually helps you to feel less consumed.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

I mean, if we don't process our feelings, you know, like our

body holds on to that. And that affects us in our day to day. It also probably I dare

to say affects our fertility, you know, we have all these tumultuous feelings inside

all this grief, this anger, this resentment, like that's not doing our body any favors,

right? Like, that's not the environment that a baby wants to grow in, right? So it can

be so hard. And I don't want to dismiss anybody that's, you know, in that stage that they're

just not ready to talk about it because I know even once I was ready to talk about it for years

I couldn't without like breaking into tears, you know, and it was so triggering and there were

Events that I had to say no to and just things that I had to protect my heart from

But being open about it finding the people that can relate and just people like my therapist to help

me work through these emotions has been life-changing. For sure. Yeah. One of the things, so I host

locally a monthly support group and one of the things I've noticed there is you will see women

at different stages of that journey, right? Like the ones who like, I tell people, you don't have

to talk, like you can come and just sit and listen. That's totally fine. So like the ones who are not

really ready to share a bunch. The ones who like are starting to and are just still like so angry

that this is what they've been dealt and I don't you know that's I've been there for a while. So

angry and like everything every thought about the process the treatment the everything is just

anger coming out and like let it come out. And then the ones who have gotten to that place where

it's like I'll just share anything I don't care I'm able to get through it without like you said

breaking down in tears every single time I talk about it. That just takes time and for some people

they may never get to that point and that's okay. Yeah, absolutely. So you talked about

vacations. I think that was really the thing that made me reach out to you is you from the outside

you look like you're always having fun. So that's good. That's good. For you, you said vacations,

what have been the main things that you've like prioritized to like enjoy along the way?

You know, I think I really had to just like take an inventory of like what what brings

me joy or maybe maybe I was in the place where like nothing brought me joy but like what used

to bring me joy, you know, and light me up. And for me, the big things have always been,

I do love traveling. We were talking before we started recording but have been living in a small

town, you know, and just Minnesota, there's it's beautiful here in the summer, but you know,

winters get long. And that's another thing to actually season old oppression is a real thing.

And the winters really long and dark. And so it's always been really helpful for me to be able to

escape that. So, you know, I, my husband and I like to travel and take at least one trip during

the winter. I usually get to take another continuing education trip every year for my anesthesia

business and I do not miss that opportunity like I go. I am on that and then I also have a business

that allows me to do more traveling and really has also been a space of joy for me and purpose

through this journey. So my business is it's with the company called Tew and Grace and it was founded

by a husband and wife who have their own 14-year fertility journey and they learned a lot about

the daily chemicals and things that were exposed to that affect our hormones. And there was just

really a gap in the industry for products that are not only actually clean because we know people

can throw that clean or, you know, a green leaf on something and call it clean, but it's really

not regulated at all. So there was a gap for products that like you could trust and they're

not only clean, but they're also safe for your hormones and beneficial for your hormones. And so

Obviously, when I heard about this company right away, I was like, well, this is something

that really resonates with me and is something that I'm really interested in.

And it has been such a huge blessing for me as well, just because then not only do I have

resources in my life for things that I put in my body and on my skin and use around my house

that I know are safe and I can trust.

And it's just one less thing that I have to worry about.

but I get to help other people do that as well. And having such a big infertility community,

it's been really a joy for me to be able to teach other people these things that I had no clue about

when I started my infertility journey. And frankly, I rolled my eyes at because, you know,

I'd have people be like, Well, you know, that skincare that you're using, I had a friend and

she stopped using it. And then she got pregnant and I'm just like rolling my eyes. But you know,

really my light bulb moment was when I realized like I'm putting on these tiny estrogen patches

for IVF right and then it dramatically changes my estrogen levels like how much more is the seven

layers of products that I'm putting on my face every day and my body you know how much more is

that affecting me and so that was kind of my light bulb moment and I think everybody needs to come

to that at their own time because like you said there's a lot of anger and resentment on this

journey and a lot of self-blame. And that's a really, it's a difficult thing to navigate

and get past, you know, to get to a point where we're not blaming ourselves for what's

happening. But also, we're taking back the power to make choices that can positively

impact not only our fertility, but our health in general.

I think that's key.

I talk about often, you know, you talked about how this is something similar,

processing emotions and how important that is and how that can help control how you feel in a day.

Right.

And that can be taken in two ways.

That can be taken in, oh, it's my fault that I feel like shit, or that can be taken in, oh, I have the power to, you know, control how I show up.

And some days that's going to be that I choose to feel like shit and that's okay.

But some days I get to choose, like I get to find the things that I'm going to enjoy

and taking it in that more empowering way rather than like be yourself downway.

And the same thing happens for changing products and exposures to things and all of that stuff.

The more you know, the more you grow, right?

You can't do it before you know about it.

Yeah, absolutely.

I think that's probably like the resounding theme of this episode is that, you know, I got to a point in my journey with all of the things with

finding life balance with the products that I use with whatever

that I realized that there's so much out of my control,

but then there's also things that I can control

and taking back the power makes me feel so much more better

and more empowered, you know,

and able to handle what the day throws at me.

- Yeah, absolutely.

And for you, you know,

you have a couple of different things that you are working in,

not dabbling and working in.

So how did kind of getting through like managing your work,

your career, all of that show up as far as infertility goes?

'Cause you, I don't know,

I don't know exactly what all you do.

Are you in with C-sections and things like that?

- Yes, yeah, I am.

So when I first started my infertility journey,

I was not doing any OB anesthesia.

And during 2020 in kind of the middle of infertility

COVID and all the things, we moved and I started a new job and there have been, there was good

and bad things about that job. I actually am no longer there as of last week, but it has definitely

been a balance in anesthesia, especially in a small practice that I was in. It was very difficult

to schedule, you know, my appointments and things like that. At one point, there was only two of us

in our department. So if I was gone, I needed to find somebody to cover me. And I lived

two and a half hours from my clinic. So, in that one way, you know, so it was a struggle

at times. And also, I took a lot of call, which can really take a toll on your body,

just like being up in the middle of the night in your regular hours and things like that.

But as far as, you know, being at work, I would say most of the time I did a fair amount

of OB and most of the time I did okay with it.

There were moments when it was definitely triggering,

especially after I had my miscarriage, things like losses

and things like that.

Of course, like dealing with a fetal demise

is always just terrible for everybody involved,

especially the patient, obviously, I'm very delicate,

but there's also situations where you have those moms

that are on drugs and this is their seventh baby

and they keep getting taken away.

And like those things I think were the hardest for me

to deal with when I'm like, hey, I'm established professional with a loving marriage and a

happy home like we could really take good care of a baby and here we are.

So there are just some things that we'll never understand.

And I think I'm getting to the point where I can say that I'm not angry at my infertility

journey anymore because I can see how much I've grown as a person and that was just a

personal choice that I made too at some point in this.

I was like, Hey, life can happen to me or it can happen for me.

So like I'm here in this season and I can be angry and resentful and bitter and whatever,

but I can also use it as an opportunity to grow as a person and to develop me into the person

that I want to be when I am a mom someday, you know,

that's beautiful.

Yeah, I would think about when I was waiting, you know, for that baby in my arms, I would think about

do I want to show up that day feeling so like broken down and beaten down and upset of however

the last handful of years has gone and like just, you know, angry? Or do I want to find some way to

enjoy what I can about these few years until whenever this baby shows up in my arms.

So I feel like a real person, right? I still feel like I have part of me there. I haven't lost myself in the process.

Yeah, absolutely. You know, one of the things that I've done for a lot of years is a gratitude practice.

And I try to start every day with writing down at least three things that I'm grateful for.

And I think that also helps really just shift my mindset. But like you said, there are still good things about this season.

And sometimes I look at my husband even now that I'm pregnant and I'm like, man, we really

like our routines and we really like our sleep at night.

Like, are we sure this is what we want?

And of course, that's what we want.

But you know, there is still perks to like being childless.

And I think, you know, you can spend the time, like you said, being angry and resentful and

bitter or you can try to just enjoy what you can and take it for what it is.

And I think the important thing is if you're like getting angry as we're saying that that means like

You still need to hold on to the fact that you can let yourself be angry for a while like that's okay

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. We've all been there right like that is definitely how this starts and it's a process

But also I want people to know that there's hope that you're not you're you don't have to be stuck in that place

And you won't be stuck in that place forever if you don't want to be

Yeah, I don't know if this if this if you connect with this, but I always think about I

Think when we start an infertility journey, we think I'll be happy. I'll be fulfilled when I

Get there and I think man

What a shame to not just decide to be that now however that shows up, you know

However, you can do that so that you can still be that way when the baby shows up. Yeah, absolutely

I think that's been a big thing for me

on my journey and I think

Part of that is you know how people say like they've learned things from their parents like how they don't want to be or previously

Relationships, you know, you don't want and I think part of connecting with other people online

And this is not to like put anybody else down

but I've seen other people be so anxious and

Wound up through this whole journey and they get to the other side of it

And then they're still completely an anxious mess like they can't enjoy pregnancy at all and I'm not saying there's not hard moments

I've had my anxious moments too, you know, but

that they're just a nervous wreck and then all these still mental health issues and and

having a baby, I think anybody that's on the other side of it will say that it doesn't

erase infertility, you know, it doesn't erase the trauma of what you've gone through. And

so either you can deal with that trauma as it comes during infertility, or you can hold

on to it, and it's going to follow you. And then you have to deal with it later or just

kind of live a miserable existence, you know?

- Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

So as far as like advice you would give

for someone who is like, I want to do that.

Like I wanna find some things

to kind of pour myself into that I can enjoy.

What tips would you give?

Even if it's like little logistical tips

or ideas for them to brainstorm

what they might enjoy to pour themselves into,

what would you say?

- Yeah, so first of all,

I think having a therapist that specializes in fertility,

and I know not everybody's that lucky,

has really helped me to come up with some of these ideas.

And I think if you can find a person that you connect with,

whether they are specialized in fertility or not,

I think that can make a big difference.

But also in your day to day,

you know, little things like my gratitude practice,

or even journaling.

I know sometimes we have a lot of thoughts and feelings

that get stuck inside of us,

And a lot of times I'll admit, I don't want to sit down

and take the time to journal all my feelings out,

but it can be so cathartic and such a release

to just get what you're feeling out on paper.

And a lot of times I think things will come up

and ideas will come up that you didn't even recognize.

So I put the pen to paper,

start by writing a couple of things you're grateful for

if you can't even think of one,

'cause believe me, I've had those days too

where I'm just like, everything is awful.

You know, just start by journaling what's going on,

how you're feeling, and I think that can just provide

a relief for you and a little bit of a weight

off your shoulders to get those feelings out.

Another thing that's actually been helpful for me,

which kind of seems unrelated

and maybe a little bit woo-woo is yoga.

restorative yoga, especially like stretching out your hips.

First of all, as a society, we sit a lot

and so we need to stretch our hips,

but that's also where we hold on to a lot of emotion.

There's a program out there called Fertile Hope Yoga

and I have done it off and on throughout the years.

I will be the first to admit

I'm not super consistent with it, but when I do it,

I love it and I'm like, I should do this more often.

And they even have a small yoga session called

dealing with difficult emotions or something like that.

and you can just feel the release just by like moving your body.

So that's another thing I would say,

even if it's not yoga,

like move your body in a way that's meaningful to you

and helps you feel better not as like a,

this is punishment for my body I'm working out

because I'm so mad at what it can't do

or the extra weight or whatever, you know?

But I think moving your body, writing,

and yeah, just spending time thinking

about what brings you joy.

If you need to go back and look through your Instagram feed

and like find moments when you were happy for ideas,

maybe that's something you do too.

- That's great.

I always joke about I did quite a bit of yoga

leading up to my first.

And once you have one, it's hard to get to,

I was going to classes, so it's hard to get to classes.

Leading out to my first and through my pregnancy,

I was doing yoga.

And so many times they would be like,

are you gonna come to the like power blah blah blah?

Or they're like, no, I'm gonna stay with the Zen class.

- Yeah, definitely Zen yoga.

- And I loved it, loved it.

So I like that idea.

What do you think are some ways

that you have been able to kind of incorporate

finding the joy, the things to look forward to,

but doing that with your partner?

Because that can be, you know, for some people,

this journey can actually bring people really close together

in their relationships.

And for others, it can be a big struggle.

So what has that, how has that shown up for you?

- Oh, that's a good question.

So one thing, you know, I think my husband and I

had a pretty good base to go off of, you know,

when we started this, you're so right,

it can bring you closer together, close,

or further apart, but we haven't had this so much

since like the middle of the pandemic,

but we used to go to like a small group with our church

and just have other couple friends, like people that,

faith is really important to us.

people that would pray with us and that we could stay connected to and would also, you know, just

also other Christian couples, you know. I think that's been a helpful thing.

Something else that we started when we got married was every year for our anniversary,

we would go away for a weekend to a different bed and breakfast. And, you know, that can look

different for everybody. And then that changed a little bit again in COVID times too, and when

when we bought our lake place, but that's actually--

- That sounds so nice.

- Yeah, we're actually going this weekend.

So we haven't done it in a couple of years

and we're actually going this week

in our anniversaries in a couple of weeks.

And so especially we just, for the context for everybody

that doesn't know me in real life right now,

we just moved and I'm going through a job change

and there's been a lot of change right now.

We just, we really need that time away to reconnect

and that's something that we're prioritizing now

and play on to continue prioritizing into parenthood too.

So we're going away this weekend

and whatever that looks like for you.

You know, it doesn't have to look the same,

but just I think being intentional in spending time together

and getting out of your normal routines.

'Cause I know for us, even like at the end of the day,

a lot of times we just plop on the couch

and, you know, cuddle with the animals

and turn on Netflix or sporting event or whatever.

And I think just like being intentional

to get out of those routines sometimes

and spend barely focused time on each other

has been helpful.

Like some nights we'll just be like,

let's play a game or something different just to reconnect.

- I like those ideas.

I always joke the one main one that we've done

over the last couple of years is we,

three years ago, four years ago,

I don't know, they start to blur together.

We got season tickets to the bank holds games.

- That's awesome.

- And we go, you know, the whole season to every single game.

We even, the past couple of years,

We've picked up a couple like we've gone to Buffalo

or different places and gone to games.

And I know some people are like, I hate football.

Okay, not your thing, pick something else,

but like we love it.

It's just like this thing, the two of us go,

we absolutely love it.

So that's, even if it's just like for a day,

like a little time like that can be great.

- Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, whatever like a little intentional day night

looks like to you.

I mean, we are not fortunate enough to have season tickets,

but I have a friend that has season tickets

through the Vikings.

And once a year, we also get tickets from her and go.

So that's another little thing that we do, I guess,

to the football family here.

- So as we start to close up,

is there any other like being that you can think of

that you wish somebody would have said to you

maybe five years ago?

Knowing like the headspace you were in then,

because there's some great pieces of advice,

I think that are said to people all the time,

but like they're not ready to hear that

piece of advice yet. So is there something you could like put yourself back into those

shoes that would have been beneficial to hear then?

I think probably just be gentle with yourself. Like this is uncharted territory and it's

emotional and it's heavy and it's all new. I mean, even as a medical professional, you

know, like I wasn't well versed in infertility, there's a lot to learn, you know, and, and

can be a lot of pressure to, especially as like a personality that I have to do everything

perfectly or to know all the things and and at the end of the day really all that pressure

just creates more stress on your body and does more harm than good. So be gentle with yourself,

tap into your resources, like connect with other people that are going through this.

Even if you're not ready to open up in your regular life, a lot of people do open up, you know, like a separate Instagram account

to connect with other people in the infertility community.

And I think that makes a world of a difference.

Yeah, I say this often, but I just want to remind people, I think even if you do like a faceless Instagram account, you can get so much

amazing support and hear helpful stories and get to know people in a way that I don't think

that the Facebook groups does.

Yeah.

I think there's a lot of fear on the Facebook groups.

They can be useful for things, right?

Like you can go find providers, get recommendations and stuff.

But when those were like constantly coming up on my Facebook feed, those could really stress

me out.

So I have to hide them and just go to them when I want to go to them.

But Instagram has been a totally different place for me for connecting with people.

Yeah.

And also I think sometimes you want separation from it too, right?

Like you're on Instagram, you know, like that's the community you're going to get,

at least for me.

And, you know, on Facebook it's a little bit different.

And so I think that's maybe another piece of advice that I would give people too is

like, know that it's okay to have boundaries, you know, with other people, with yourself.

Like if you need to put it down.

something that I haven't mentioned in all of this, but something else that really was

helpful to me on my journey was taking breaks.

And yeah, that probably contributed to our journey being five and a half years long,

but it also really, really helped my mental health and my physical health, you know, have

breaks from treatments and all the things.

Yeah, absolutely very important.

And I think sometimes people are really afraid to do that.

they pushed through and they maybe shouldn't have.

So I appreciate you reminding people.

It's okay to take breaks.

- Yeah, absolutely.

And having said that, I also need to mention,

I was privileged to have PCOS and not have issues

with like diminished ovarian reserve.

Of course, that's kind of a different situation

and heart goes out to those people, but.

- Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely.

Well, I really appreciate you coming on.

I know you will inspire some people

to hopefully find some fun

in the next couple months of their journey.

And yeah, just feel,

I just want to make the process feel a little lighter, right?

It's not to like pretend that it's all happy

and there's nothing wrong,

but just feel less miserable,

is what I say all the time.

So I appreciate you coming on.

I hope you get to enjoy your weekend away.

- Thank you.

We're really looking forward to it.

We need separation from the moving boxes.

- Yes, yes, absolutely.

And good luck on the next what?

like a couple months and this bundle of joy coming.

- Another 20 weeks, we're about halfway.

- Wow, perfect.

Okay, well thank you so much

and everyone I will talk to you all next week.

- Hey there, Inspired Mama.

If you enjoyed this show,

I want to invite you to leave a review

in your podcast player.

This helps to share the message

with so many more women just like you.

Also, if you know of another hopeful mama

on her path to motherhood,

Please share this episode with her.

I would love to get this into the ears of anyone

who needs to hear it.

If you are ready to step this work up

and not only learn these tools, but to apply them

to your unique story, head to the link in the show notes

to apply for a free consult call.

I would be honored to help you.

[Music]