Episode 78: Transcript

You are listening to episode 78 of the Path to Motherhood podcast.

Welcome to the Path to Motherhood podcast.

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

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.

(upbeat music) Hello and welcome to another episode of the Path to Motherhood podcast.

I'm so excited to have you here with me.

I am bringing another guest on the podcast for you guys today.

I have Amber with us today and she is someone I've run into from Instagram.

She lives on Instagram and Facebook.

I will put her links in the show notes.

She's a female, 38 years old, married, who has been trying to conceive in some way since about 2014 and has really gone through a lot over the last nine years.

And she comes on today to share with us about her story, but also what we really spend time focusing on is talking about what it's like to maybe make the decision that you're going to stop trying to conceive.

So if you're in the social media world with fertility, I see a lot of times this is referred to childless not by choice.

As in, you know, we tried and we would love to be parents, but it didn't happen for us.

I think the story is so important to share because I think it's important to acknowledge that not every story ends with a baby.

Not every IVF journey, fertility journey ends with a baby.

Now, you get to create what the end of your story is.

you could to create the life that you want to live.

And that's what Amber is sharing about.

But I do think we need more of those stories to help women who have to make that decision, feel less alone.

So I'm grateful for her coming on.

I will let her introduce herself here in a moment.

And I hope you enjoy this episode.

Hello everybody and welcome back to the Path to Motherhood podcast.

I'm super excited to have a guest with me today.

I have Amber with me and I really think that it's so awesome when I get to have guests that are willing to come on and share their story just because we all have crazy different journeys and outcomes on this thing that is infertility and loss.

And I think it's important to share those stories because it makes you feel a little bit less alone if you're somewhere in that process.

So Amber, thank you for being here.

Amber Holt Thanks for having me.

Amber Holt Of course, of course.

So I did do like a little bit of an introduction when we started the podcast, but I would love for you to just introduce yourself to kick us off.

Amber Holt My name is Amber Holt.

I've been around the infertility world now for over nine years, I've been formally more in it for about seven years.

And yeah, I have a pretty, I mean, not a great following, but I think it's good for me.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So you, you have been on Instagram sharing your story.

Have you been doing that the whole time or when did you start, you think that part of sharing your story on Instagram.

So it actually first started with YouTube back in, I think it was maybe 2016, 2017.

It would have been late 2016 or 2017 around that time period.

When we got our formal infertility diagnosis and we were told basically, you don't really have much of a chance of conceiving naturally.

and IVF is really your only true option of success.

And I use air quotes there for having a child biologically, anyways.

So that's when I kind of kicked it off on YouTube a little bit with just kind of sharing the process of mentally, financially, whatever, getting ready for IVF because it took a long time for us to save and plan and get to that point because we have a number of other things going against us that would complicate it and make it even more costly than it already was.

So yeah, and then from there, somebody mentioned something about Instagram.

I already had an Instagram account and so I just kind of pivoted it and started sharing my story on there as well.

And that's how the majority of the people that follow me, how they found me.

So, okay.

Okay.

Yeah.

That's where I found you was on Instagram.

So and there's a like a handful of different ways on social media that people connect on this journey.

Like there's just, you know, the groups on Facebook and there's the YouTube and Instagram.

I have always felt that like for me, I don't know if you ever relate to this.

Facebook groups were almost like a lot of times more not helpful, too much bad news, too much bad story shared, like a lot of just fear constantly and not anything that like felt uplifting.

So I've enjoyed being on Instagram more than in those Facebook groups, but I don't know about you.

Yeah, I definitely have a presence a little bit.

I use those terms very passively.

I'm not like an influenced her by any means.

So I have a little bit of a presence on Facebook as well.

Like, I have an infertility and beyond page, which was my original Instagram handle.

That was for people, primarily family and some like extended friends that don't really have Instagram to be able to keep up with our journey and how things were going.

And then I would post a bit to my personal Facebook page on there and then I was definitely in those like TTC groups when you before the infertility diagnosis and then um yeah that was those were some of my first friends were in those groups and so they were really helpful for me as far as like helping me to kind of find my way through the initial diagnosis and what this means and what IVF means and all of that stuff by hearing other people's stories and what they were going through.

So kind of gave me a little bit more of a balanced perspective of what to expect, you know.

Yeah, that's good.

That's good.

So obviously, I had a plan and we discussed kind of a plan of what we want to talk about and that's really kind of what you've been through, decision-wise and life-transition-wise in the last, like, I don't know, nine, 12 months.

But before we do that, I think it would be helpful to share just a little bit about your background.

So listeners understand what brought you to the last year before we dive into that.

Oh, okay.

And I know it's a can of worms that we could spend multiple episodes about it.

It really is.

I will do my absolute best to keep it concise.

It's kind of hard.

I'll just throw it out there because I want to give the bullet point version that I'm always open.

My inbox is, my DMs are always open for anybody to message and ask me questions.

I'm more than happy to share more details of my story because knowledge is power, as they say, you know.

I've learned so much from other people that it's only right to do the same.

But yeah, so we got married in fall of 2014 immediately started trying to conceive because I was 29 and my husband was 32.

And you know, we did things the typical way with the temping, charting, cervical mucus, all that stuff.

And it just wasn't happening.

And so about a year, because I'm a researcher, that's my coping skill.

So I'm researching Google lane, like, you know, how long should it take to have a baby.

How long till birth control gets out of your system.

You know, all this stuff.

And everything I was reading said, you need to give it a year.

Well, it was about nine months, And I was due for a checkup with my doctor anyways.

So I just kind of mentioned like, hey, you know, we've been trying and it hasn't really happened.

She did some preliminary blood work, you know, like vitamin D stuff like that.

Everything came back pretty normal.

So she was like, Oh, just give it more time.

And so we did another like, I don't know, six months or so.

And then I went in and I was like, Okay, it's definitely been over the year mark now.

So I went to my gynecologist and she, I'm a plus size gal.

And she was also a plus size gal.

But in spite of that, she looks at me and she said, "You just need to lose weight.

" And I was like, "Well, you're pregnant and you're fat too.

" Clearly that's not the only thing happening here.

But anyway, so she did some very basic testing, Testing like not much different than what my primary care doctor did everything again comes back normal they ordered a semen analysis for my husband and They screwed it up and so they ended up just doing a like post vasectomy And they so they were like well we can confirm he has sperm, but that's all we can tell you You're like great.

Thanks.

Okay.

That's a good start So anyways, there was just some issues with doctors and things we go through we end up getting to that two-year mark and I'm like, okay something is wrong here because we're now double the time that they say to give it and So I had it was kind of serendipitous that I ended up meeting somebody as I was approaching that time period who had also gone through IVF and had a tremendous amount of difficulties getting pregnant.

Like she'd had multiple miscarriages, just like back to back to back.

And so she had just started the IVF process with an RE in the area and really had great experience with him.

And she was like, you know, you should make an appointment.

So I did.

And he did some testing.

And one of the first things he said he wanted to test for, because he was very knowledgeable about insurance.

(laughs) And he was like, we need to test for this first.

So insurance will cover this.

He did an HSG and checked, you know, where they put the dye into check your fallopian tubes and stuff.

And he told me right then that day, which was actually two years to the day of trying to conceive that I had that appointment.

He said, you have blocked tubes.

One of them's completely 100% blocked.

There's nothing getting through.

The other one has a little bit trickling through.

But due to that, you're extremely high risk for an ectopic pregnancy if you did conceive naturally.

But really your best shot of success is going through IVF because we could open them, but there's no guarantee it would work.

And then a couple of months later, my husband ended up having some genetic testing done because his father found out that he had two genetic mutations.

One of them is FAP, and it stands for familial adenomatis polyposis.

And so it's a very complex disease, but basically it's genetic and it's incredibly high risk for cancer and anywhere in the digestive tract.

So we always knew about that one, but then we found out they also have the breast cancer too.

answer to its BRCA2 mutation.

And yeah, so they basically told us, Hey, if you guys end up going through IVF, which they didn't know about our infertility, but they said, going through IVF and doing genetic testing is your best way to protect your future children from having these mutations.

So at that point, we just spent the next couple years saving, planning, doing everything.

And then in May 2019, we finally started IVF and we started with a very well known clinic in New York because they're affordable, but the quality was severely lacking.

And so I had to learn a lot while I was with them and basically had to be my own doctor.

I feel like we all become that through this process.

Right.

I mean, you learn so much.

And so yeah, I had a couple of screwed up cycles due to lack of proper monitoring.

And then we finally get a couple of good embryos after the genetic testing and everything.

And transfer the first one, it resulted in a chemical pregnancy.

The second one, we transferred two at the same time and found out both of them actually took, but one stopped growing immediately.

So when they did the first ultrasound, there was a blighted ovum, and then there was another embryo that was showing what they called debris.

So it was like the very, very beginnings of a baby starting to form inside of it, but it never got much further than that.

So then we miscarried.

And these terms, like the call things, like that are so like serious emotional losses, this blighted thing or this right debris or chemical like, yeah, I know those terms feel heavy terms.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And meanwhile, you're going through the ringer emotionally and they're like, "Oh, well, it's just a spontaneous abortion.

" You know, it's just, it's a lot of process for sure.

But anyways, so we threw out this process of transfers.

We were doing things to try and figure out what was happening with my body.

So we were doing, between the first and the second one, we did a laparoscopy and hystereoscopy to check for endow and surprise I had it.

So my laparoscopy ended up turning into an emergency bowel surgery because they punctured my intestine and I had to be in the hospital for four days recovering.

Then I was like back in the hospital a couple months later.

So it's just like a whole snowball effect.

But anyways, after our second transfer, we were out of embryos and we're 100% like, okay, we can't keep doing this, the expense is just adding up.

So we were going to walk away.

And then I ended up getting this incredible curveball where we found out my husband's insurance was going to start covering IVF the following year.

So that's huge.

And so we ended up transferring to a local clinic, did a couple of cycles there and had more losses.

And so fast forward to January of 2023, we did our first transfer with that new clinic and did a really aggressive protocol like prepping for the endo and all of that stuff, one of our two perfectly healthy embryos.

It takes, and then we go in for the first ultrasound and discover that the embryo actually splits.

And so we had two embryos in there and we keep going, everything's going great.

Or so it seems.

We graduated from the clinic at eight weeks.

I'm on the mountain top because I'm like, "This is it, we finally did it.

" And I go in for my first OB appointment with the OB.

I've had this whole time.

She's incredible.

And she just like breaks down and starts like, and I'm breaking down and she's just holding me and she's just like, there's one of them already had passed away.

And the other one, the heartbeat was actively dwindling as she's doing the ultrasound.

So she said like, this baby is probably gonna pass as well.

So we went in for an emergency ultrasound with our IVF clinic the following morning and she confirmed right there.

Yeah, you've lost both babies.

And so that was just gut wrenching.

I mean, having had losses before is one thing, but that was that one hit in a way that none of the other things had hit.

It really like took the rug underneath from me.

It was, yeah.

And so then we had one embryo left.

We go through the DNC of those two babies.

And then we start prepping and planning for the next one.

We finally do that transfer in July of last year.

And that one was a whole crazy ride because throughout the whole time after transferred, they're like, well, my betas were super low, but they were doubling and then they stopped doubling and then they started doubling again.

So it's just like this.

What is happening here.

I'm telling me this baby is not viable.

It's probably a chemical pregnancy, or not a chemical pregnancy, a ectopic pregnancy.

So they were trying to push this medication on me to terminate the chemical, or not chemical, but ectopic pregnancy that they thought it was.

And so let's just give it a couple more days.

What's a couple more days at this point.

Like as long as I'm not having pain or whatever.

So then a couple more days goes by, my numbers doubled again.

They bring me in for an ultrasound and yeah, there's a baby in there and it's in the right place.

And not a topic.

Yeah, it's not an ectopic.

And then it like was growing and then we saw a heartbeat.

And so again, it seemed like everything was going terrific.

And then we went in for eight weeks scan and she said, yeah, there's no more heartbeat.

And that was our last embryo, our last healthy one anyways.

And so we were going into that last transfer saying like, regardless what happens, we're done with IVF after this because the prepping for the transfers with the Lupron was just so hard on my body and just hard on me in every way really.

then dealing with the losses and all of that.

It's just, it was getting to be too much.

So we were just like, yeah, this is gonna be the end of our IVF road regardless and hopefully it ends on a great note.

Like that would be a wonderful, but even if it doesn't, like trying to prepare myself for that.

So, so then yeah, when it didn't, unfortunately that informed our decision that it was, it was done.

And it's walking away from something even better from something you've invested so much time, money, resources, everything into for so long is incredibly, incredibly freaking difficult for sure.

I can't imagine.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

So being here now, I guess, you know, when I even reached out to you, there's this whole community that considers themselves this, they word it childless, not by choice.

Do you, do you identify as being part of that kind of community.

That's kind of tricky.

I would say yes and no because I am also in some groups on Facebook for that community as well.

And in those groups, oh my God, girl, it is bleak sometimes.

Like, it just feels so hopeless.

You're just reading through these posts after posts of everybody complaining.

And you know, rightfully so, I don't want to minimize that this shit is hard.

And it's a grief that needs grieving, a loss that needs grieving.

So it's 100% understandable.

But they're just talking about everything that's lacking in their lives and how hopeless it is since they don't have children.

And so I guess I don't identify with that aspect of it of the hopelessness.

And if I can't be a mother, then I'm settling for some shit life and I just gotta make the best of a bad situation.

I don't really feel like that's me.

But the Instagram version where it's more, I would say a little bit more balanced in their perspective of like, yes, this is hard.

And yes, I'm grieving and there's a lot that I'm missing out on.

But there's also some, dare I say, like blessing in this and some positives that could come from a life that you didn't plan for or want necessarily.

You know what I'm saying.

Yeah.

And I think that that aspect that you're talking about is the thing I've always hated about the Facebook groups is that it's a place for people to go when they're at their worst and like what they're feeling and what they're expressing.

It's totally reasonable.

Like nothing is wrong with those feelings.

It's just there's none of the other side of it.

It's like only the negativity side.

That's why I've always had to like, I don't know, I unsubscribe from all of those, so I have to go into those groups to see that content versus it showing up on a daily basis.

But I would think, this is not my story, right.

This is not what's happened to my journey, but I would think that I would want to be in a place where yes, this is a loss of the life that I thought I was gonna have, and I'm gonna grieve that for life.

like it's never gonna go away.

- Yeah.

- But what I have, I wanna make the best of what I have.

- Yes, for sure.

I think that's where I'm at is, you know, anybody who's ever watched through any kind of death or loss, like a divorce or anything like that, you're familiar with the aspect of grief.

And it is such a process.

Because if you've walked through any kind of grief like that, that impacts a lot of different areas of your life.

You know that it's like, there are some days where you feel okay, and it's not so heavy, it's not so prevalent.

And then there are days where you feel like you have to just, it takes everything in you to like pull yourself up by your bootstrap, so to speak, and keep trucking through it because it just feels so hard and heavy and sad, you know.

And then there's a whole range in between there, you know.

So yeah, I think it's definitely like that for me.

- Yeah, absolutely.

So one of the things I really wanted to talk about, 'cause it's something that I get asked about is like, almost the question of like, okay, but when do you know it's time to call it or like make the decision.

So I guess where I'd wanna start is for you, when did thoughts about like, there may be an end of our road with this trying actively part of our journey coming.

When did that start showing up in your thoughts or like discussions with your husband.

- Honestly, it was probably closer to the beginning even of our idea process of actively going through it because of being so plugged into the community.

You see such a wide variety of experiences if you're willing to, I should say some people kind of don't want to see that for the like mute turn a blind eye, which I totally get sometimes you just need optimism.

But, but yeah, it's all pretty wide range.

And so, I'm going to like kind of plug for a couple of people that have been helpful for me.

So like Blooming with Care is an Instagram handle.

She ended up having to choose the childless, not by choice journey.

And then, uh, Justine Frokel, I cannot speak Frokel.

Her last name is really hard for me to say.

It's okay.

Frokel.

Um, she had an experience where they did like Serga C2.

And even that didn't work for them.

And so she's been living the childless, not by choice journey for several years now.

Um, and so getting to see that this was an option, like not that I wanted it to be an option necessarily, but that this is a scenario that does sometimes play out.

Kind of, I think, helped me to have that in my mind.

as in like realistic expectations.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I can relate to that when I started the IVF process of like, wanting to look to all versions of potential outcomes.

And I would like come back to my husband and be like, listen, like there is the people who like go and they do one transfer and they're just magically pregnant and they're so happy.

And they're like, IVF was easy.

Yeah.

I'm like, but that's not everyone's story.

That's a rare subset of people.

Um, and he tended to be on the like, okay, but we don't need to think about the negative ones, but that was me.

Like I needed to like know about those potential outcomes almost to be willing to go through the process.

Yeah.

I think it's, you know, you, when you're going through this, you're hoping and praying that that's not going to be you.

Like you, you're like maybe we'll be that miraculous couple that goes through it one time, one retrieval, one transfer and out done.

There's a baby.

We're good.

And then we got six on ice.

Right.

Right.

And one of my first infertility buddies that I made locally, that was her story and God, I hate her.

Right.

I love her, but I hate her at the same time because I like that wasn't our story.

But yeah.

the women I feel for honestly are the women who have heard that story and are expecting that story and then are blindsided when it's not what happens because that is its own version of grief to like have gone into such a stressful emotional process and not realize that the outcome could be no baby.

Oh yeah, for sure.

And I think that's a common misconception with the outside world, those people that are not experiencing infertility or needing for various reasons to go through art.

It's like that's their thinking about it, is that IVF equals a baby.

So easy, simple.

Right.

So yeah, for sure.

It's definitely not the case for us.

And I think another thing about it is that we had our very first egg retrieval that was scheduled tentatively and was supposed to be on my birthday in 2019.

And because of the mismanagement of my cycle up to that point and me asking questions because my infertility buddies on Instagram were like, Hey, girl, your estrogen looks kind of weird for your follicle.

I'm like, Oh, so then I start researching and start asking my providers about this.

And yeah, lo and behold, I was on way too low of dosage for stems.

And so my body was growing follicles, but they were not like ripening.

They were they I could have gone and gotten my egg retrieval and maybe had nothing mature eggs that would have been mature at that rate, you know, and so they cancelled my cycle Two days before the retrieval and man that so that was when it hit for me like This shit is gonna be a lot harder than I thought it was gonna be and That there really are no guarantees in this process And also, like, I've got to watch my own back because at the end of the day, it's me on the line, you know.

Absolutely.

This journey, if nothing else, this journey absolutely teaches you to have to be an advocate for yourself.

Yes, absolutely.

Absolutely.

So being that the thought of like, should we keep going.

Should we be doing continuing this process started even at the beginning of like the IVF process.

I guess how did you guys go about making what you felt was like a final decision at the time of this next transfer is our last one.

I think it was just for me.

I was after going through the Lupron.

So I had to do the Lupron for like three and a half months the first time and another like three months the second time.

And everybody knows about like mood swings, hot flashes, the faux menopause that you're going through.

But the things that they don't tell you or thing I should say that was a huge thing for me is the tremendous amount of bone pain it can cause and joint pain because of the estrogen being deprived from your body that that impacts your body's absorption of calcium and yada and it can affect bone density.

And so a byproduct of that even with taking tons of calcium every day and vitamin D every day was that my bone, like inside the actual bones, would just ache constantly.

And so I felt like I was in pain, like I would say maybe 80% of my waking time, I was just in pain to various degrees.

And so that really took a toll on me.

And that mixed with the other things that I went through in this process of that emergency bowel surgery, knowing that I have endo, knowing like learning through autoimmune testing, that I have antifospholipid syndrome, which is a blood clotting disorder, which comes with a whole host of risks for pregnancy.

And so it just felt like every new transfer we were doing, I was finding out more bad things about my health.

And it was starting to make me question.

Was IVF exacerbating, you know, what was there.

Was it causing it.

I don't know.

You know, I mean, I don't know all the research on that sort of thing.

They say it doesn't cause those things, but it just definitely brought them all to the surface.

That's for sure.

And so I think just because of all these terrible things that just kept happening through the process, we were just experiencing loss after loss after loss after loss and not really seeing any wins not really seeing any victories and any wins that we did have are very short lived and so it just got to the point where it's like increasingly more difficult for me to think that even if we did finally figure out what was causing the issue and we did achieve pregnancy and it was a sustainable pregnancy that got me through nine months, my thought went to what else is going to happen to my body as a byproduct of this process and the pregnancy.

And maybe I get to all of this and I have a stillbirth, maybe I get through all of this and I have a stroke during pregnancy because of the blood clotting disorder.

I mean, these things are actual scenarios that do happen.

the idea of going through all of this alongside my husband and my family who's also going through it with us and everybody who loves and cares about us and putting everybody through this just for its end in either the baby dying or me dying.

I couldn't with clear conscience keep going this route because the goal isn't just to have a baby.

Maybe for some people it is.

It's to be a mother.

And so if you take me out of the equation, that doesn't happen.

If you take the baby out of the equation, that doesn't happen.

You know, like, yes, you're still a mother without an Earthside baby.

I still think I'm a mother, but I wanna actively raise my child, you know.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

It.

.

.

Highlights so much just the fact that When you're in the journey, it's like just to get to the next step and the next step is just one step in this huge huge process.

Like you said, you don't know what's gonna happen nine months from now, a year from now, five years from now, and it's commendable to be, I guess, just prioritizing, hey, me, my health, my life with my husband and my family, like that's what's important to me.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So the roller coaster of the last transfer was this summer, so this past summer.

So we're like, what, six, seven months out from that.

are you doing.

Oh, I'm doing okay.

I loaded question.

Yeah.

I mean, like I said earlier, some days are better than others, right.

But I think what at first happened, oh, don't stone me for this.

But the loss of the dream of being a mom and raising of family was what I was grieving more than the loss of that last pregnancy.

So that last pregnancy was definitely eclipsed by this end of IVF.

We're definitely not having a biological child.

And then my husband and I throughout the process, um, I cannot stress enough the importance of communication with your partner.

And so we would do frequent check-ins like at every step, step and stage of the process of like, what happens if scenario A happens, if scenario B happens, you know, that sort of thing.

So we had already explored, you know, that we definitely knew embryo adoption, sperm donor, egg donor, any of those things were out for us.

And so that, and we already knew we didn't want to do like a private agency adoption type of scenario either because that's also not any more of a guarantee than IVF is.

So that really just left us with fostering and foster to that.

So we kind of verbally explored that after the last and neither of us really felt super convinced that that was what was a good next step for us.

And my husband grew up in a family that fostered kids.

So he has a personal experience of kind of informed him being a little bit more closed off to it than I was.

So at that point, it was like, okay, well, I'm just never going to be able to raise kids.

And that was a really bleak thought, but so yeah, grieving that was definitely difficult, and especially as it got closer to the holidays, girl, the holidays are tough.

But yeah, I think I'm definitely like starting to turn the corner in my grief, where I'm feeling a balance of being able to see both the positives and also acknowledge the losses at the same time for facing this childless, not my choice future, you know.

Yeah, you brought up a topic that I was thinking about.

And it's one of those questions everybody on their journey hears at some point of like the standard, why don't you just adopt a question that comes up in people's journey of, And so sometimes I hesitate to even bring it up when I'm talking to people because it's not that I'm suggesting it, but I just know that that is what we get asked all the time.

And it's just a reminder that like, that's no easier, cheaper, quick of a solution than anything else that we're attempting through IVF or any other version of this journey, fostering the same thing.

And I don't I don't know why they get like downplayed as this like easy simple solution and like why wouldn't you just do that.

Well, everything's easy when it's not you going through it, right.

Right.

Yeah, that's true That's true That's true because most of people they're saying just quote quote just Adopt as if it's something very easy and smooth and without any problems or hiccups Right are likely people that have never experienced it or even know somebody - Related to it.

- Intimately if that's experienced it.

- Right, right.

And I think that's, you know, commendable to like look at something and reflect on like, is that right for us, for our family.

Is that something that we think would be, you know, a journey that we would wanna go through the whole fostering process.

actually speaking as someone who I have family members who foster.

And like you said, like he's seen the good and the bad of it and I've seen the good and the bad of it and it's a whole, not there can of worms, a whole decision, completely separate from the trying to conceive stuff.

So it makes sense that it gets considered, but there's not one obvious answer ever.

I think the important thing is that a lot of people don't necessarily see your village until you're on the other side of it is that there is no path to parenthood and no version of parenthood that is easy life you know it's complicated it's messy it's hard and even even the mothers who went through infertility and would have cut off their right arm to have a kid.

They just wanted children that bad, you know, and I know a few of them and they had a some of them had a very hard IVF, some of them had an easier IVF and the consensus across the board is that even once you become a mom after going through all of this, it's not like you just walk into Oz and suddenly everything's happy go lucky once you have a child, there's still days where you're like, oh my god, I can't stand these kids.

Get them away from me kind of thing.

But when you're on the side of not having that and wanting it more than anything, it's so hard to challenge that fantasy of what motherhood could and should be because it is, yeah, it's just really, it's hard to really, even though you may know in your head, like, yes, it's not all easy, bracy, to actually allow yourself to believe that, no, it's just going to be different challenges.

It's not going to be easier.

It's just going to be different.

Which I think also helps me with this whole childless not by choice thing is like, This is just a different version of hard.

Like instead of it being the easy life of being a mom, and that's the dream and the fantasy and everything perfect and wonderful that I wanted for my life, and included being a mother.

And now I've got this leftover stuff that I didn't want.

You know, it's like, no, those two things are both hard.

They both have their challenges.

It's just that they also have their beauty.

And so like, they're still beauty in this path.

I just got to some some days work a little harder to find.

(laughs) - Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, I think that's such a good reminder.

I think that the question I was gonna lead into next, you might be like, Sarah, that's what I just said.

But what I was thinking of kind of like shifting to, kind of closing things out with is, for women, for couples, for whoever, going through this journey who are like potentially making that decision to end the process, what advice would you give them as they're kind of navigating making that decision.

- 1,000% get a therapist.

And if the first one doesn't work out, it's not a good fit, go for the second one.

- Okay.

- And then the third and the fourth and keep going till you find someone that gets you and that you get, you know, where there's that connection.

So that being the most important piece.

Secondly, I would say really lean into your support network, your family, your friends, the people that are good for your mental health.

And I add that caveat because not all family and friends are good for your mental health.

- Yeah.

- You know, so a third piece of that is having good boundaries.

I've had to, I mean, it's really sad, but I've had to go no contact with some of my family members.

And I've had friendships even come to an end because they were unhealthy.

And when you're hurting and you are normally a giver, because there's a lot of people, I think that, you know, kind of fall into that category.

where you suddenly now need to be the recipient of love and care and intention.

And when that's not being reciprocated, uh, you can get drained very easily.

And so you need people that are pouring love and effort and energy into you when you're going through this period.

And you've got to be willing to be humble enough to receive it, which is really hard for me, be vulnerable enough.

I guess that's more of the word I'm looking for because that's really hard when somebody asks how you're doing to say, I'm shit.

Right.

Instead of just like, oh, it's fine.

Oh, that's a super fine word.

Yeah.

I know.

But just to be honest and say, you know, like, I'm really struggling today, or I'm just, I'm not doing my best today.

Like, you know, you don't have to give them the whole sob story, but just being honest with where you're at will give people the opportunity to show up for you and the ways that you actually need them to.

And those things like just investing in yourself, investing in your mental health and your support system, those are the things that will get you through this journey, whether it results in a child or it doesn't.

Those are the things that you will need once you get through it.

- Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Yeah, I appreciate that reminder.

A couple things.

One, is it, I always joke that finding your support person, your therapist, your whoever, it is like blind dating.

Like please do not give up because the first one sucks.

It just isn't maybe the right fit for you and that's totally fine.

Keep going, it's so worth it.

And then the other thing it made me think about too was maybe you can relate to this.

This is what I've experienced.

Being on this journey, everything is about like medicalizedness and fixing yourself and promoting, you know, do this protocol, do this diet, do this lifestyle change, do this crazy expensive workup and it's just going to heal everything.

And I think if we could just give more focus to like how do I take care of myself through this journey.

Like that to me is just so much more important.

Yeah, that was a huge wake up call I had in light of walking away from all of this was I suddenly have all this time on my hands that I didn't have before.

And so that leaves room for me to really take a hard look at what's working in my life, what's not working in my life.

And one of the things like the very bad conclusion I came to is how I had really neglected my body, my spirit in pursuit of having a child for these last few years.

But it was like, all of this like physical punishment, basically, my body was enduring, and I wasn't actively doing the things to really love and care for my body well.

And I think that was something that when I had that realization of like, oh, wow, I'm really good at dissociating from my body and not realizing when I'm in pain and there's something that needs to happen here or change, you know.

And so just those little things like that, when you're left with just you, because like at the end of the day, it's just you, even if you have kids, they will get married or whatever.

They'll grow up, they'll move out, they'll die someday.

And if you're still alive, it'll just be you.

So like you've got to really put that effort into taking care of yourself and learning how to live with you.

Because then if you do have kids, you'll be a much better mom.

And if you don't, then you still win because now the you that you're stuck with is a better version.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Yeah, that's a good reminder.

Well, not to get all like self-healthy, but no, absolutely.

I just think that that's so imperative that something that people lose sight of even my mom friends, they lose sight of that.

of that.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

And it's easy to do, right.

When you have so much stress and grief and things that you're processing and going through to lose sight of that, or mothering and distracted by that and to lose sight of it.

But like you said, it doesn't matter.

Like if you're not there present, taking care of yourself, what's the point of everything else.

Right.

One last thing that I would like to kind of just mention because I feel like for the other people I talk to that are in the same realm that I'm in, like a common thing that they struggle with is like not just being childless but like what to do with the fact that everybody else seems to have a kid and you're the only one that doesn't.

And so yeah, I just, I think the way that I've handled that is like I briefly touched on about having good boundaries.

So like communicating to your friends and your people that have kids like what your limitations are.

Like My sister, she and I have had to have numerous frank conversations about like, I love your kids.

I'm here for your kids.

And but like also there's the expectation between us of if I'm having a day where I'm struggling with this, like just being able to communicate with her like, Hey, today's not the day to hear about your daughter getting on your nerves or like whatever.

You know, and also not feeling guilty or feeling bad about having to create some space and some distance between those people until you get to a place where you can better tolerate being in those areas.

Yeah.

Whether our kids and stuff.

Yeah, I think that's, that's absolutely fair.

Totally fair.

I think some of those boundary setting skills and like strategies are things we have to build even on the journey, you know, as we feel like people are passing us around us.

And then I can only imagine it's to the next degree going on to this step of the process for you.

Yeah.

like I said, it's thought that it's always easy, you know, but and then what has helped me is finding kids that I like for me, I have a niece and an F.

U.

and they live close to me.

So I pour my love that I would have poured into my children, into them.

I spoil them, I take them to the park, you know, and I do those things.

So that gives me a little bit of that, like serotonin or whatever that I would have had with my own children that I'm kind of deprived of, but at the same time, by doing that, when they start getting a little bratty as kids sometimes do, like then it's like, oh, gosh, you know, I don't have to deal with this.

And that helps you see some of the positives too.

So just, just for fun.

I love that.

It's like donating or not donating but like borrowing the great parts of being around kids and being like I don't have to deal with the rest.

Yeah.

I like that.

I just get to be the fun aunt and I don't have to deal with the consequences of spoiling them.

I love that.

Well, I really, really appreciate you coming on.

I will make sure in the show notes that your information is in there so that if people want to reach out, like you said, connect, ask questions more about your story, they can do that.

And again, just thank you for joining.

And I really just am, I don't know, I guess just it's been like an honor to be able to follow your story through social media and just see what you've gone through.

I really appreciate you sharing your story.

I know it's not easy to do that every day.

So thank you.

Well, thank you.

I, you know, appreciate this opportunity to share a little bit of my experience and connect with other people that are, you know, on similar roads and yeah, it's, I just hope that it's helpful for somebody who's in a similar situation, maybe entertaining the possibility of like having to walk away without a child.

Like, I just want to applaud that bravery to even entertain that idea of life being very different than what you always planned or expected.

That takes a lot of courage and resiliency.

And so yeah, I just hope that I can inspire in some way somebody else.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

I totally agree.

Well, thank you very much.

Thank you to everyone listening.

we will be back next week with an episode and I will talk to you soon.

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