EP73 A Miracle, 5 Years In the Making

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After 5 years, repeated treatment “failures,” multiple surgeries, fibroid tumors, an ectopic pregnancy that almost took her life, and being of “advanced maternal age,” the odds were against Anne-Marie ever becoming the Mom she dreamed of being. Learn how this professional in Ivy League education, leveraged the power of her mindset to beat the odds, rekindle her faith, and receive the miracle baby she knew was meant for her.

Transcript:
Hey gorgeous, if you want success on your fertility journey, you’ve got to have the mindset for it. It’s time to kick fear, negativity, doubt, shame, jealousy, and the whole clown car of low vibe fertility journey BS to the curb. I’m your host, Roseanne Austin, Fertility Mindset Master. Former prosecutor and recovering type A control freak perfectionist, I use the power of mindset to get pregnant naturally and have my baby boy at 43, despite years of fertility treatment failure.

I hope women across the globe beat the odds on their fertility journey, just like I did. Get ready for a quick hit of confidence, joy, feminine badassery, and loads of hell yes for your fertility journey. It’s time to get fearless, baby, fearlessly fertile. Let’s do this. Welcome to the fearlessly fertile podcast, episode 73, a miracle.

five years in the making. My loves, I just cannot wipe the smile off my face right now. I am over the moon, cray cray excited to be sharing today’s episode with you. What you have to know is this amazing woman that you’re going to be hearing From today, literally predicted this episode would happen. And that’s the funny thing about my ladies.

Once they really get it in their souls, that their mind is absolutely without limit, and how they, once they get this skill set in place, and once they learn to think, believe, and take action, like a woman who succeeds on this journey, that they’re not confined by statistics. By their past, what other people think, or anything else, they truly empower themselves to make the seemingly impossible possible.

And that’s really what today’s episode is about. You’re going to hear. From a woman that over the course of five years had challenge after challenge, scary situation after scary situation, and at each step along the way, she had to make a choice. Was she going to be the woman that backed down from this longing in her heart?

Or was she going to be the woman that took a stand for her dreams? And like any intelligent woman on a mission, this Ivy League professional in the arts had to figure out what was missing from her journey. She was doing all the physical things, the treatments, the diets, the lotions, the potions, all of that goodness.

And she finally came to the point where she realized that if she was going to be the woman who succeeded on this journey, she had to start thinking that way. And that is when we met. And I just hope that if you’re in a place today where your journey seems absolutely impossible, it seems like you’ve exhausted All of your opportunities that it’s time to pack it up.

Maybe you should give up on your dreams that listening to Ann Marie’s story will get you to pause and think again, your dreams matter. This desire in your heart to be a mom is there because it was meant for you. I know that may be a lot to take wherever you are at right now, but I want you to listen carefully to this wise, brilliant, funny, real and incredibly generous woman and learn that you can do this mama.

Trust yourself. And here’s my conversation with Ann Marie. Hey loves. I am absolutely thrilled to be introducing you to someone that is wildly, wildly important to me. Someone that inspires me every time I hear her voice. And someone whose story is just going to blow you away. From the moment I had my very first conversation with our guest, Anne Marie, like all of the women that you’ve heard me speak to, I knew that we had a soul connection.

I knew that just being with her and being by her side on her journey was not only going to be exciting for me, it would be part of a bigger picture area of growth. The coolest thing ever about the women that I work with is that these women are seekers. These women, just incredibly intelligent, smart, funny, big hearted.

But one of the things that I always recognize about them is they are open hearted when it comes to learning. And when I spoke with Anne Marie for the first time, that fire, that determination, and that commitment to being the best possible person she could possibly be, It was so obvious. So I’m delighted to be bringing Anne Marie to the podcast today.

And Anne Marie, thank you for being here with us. Thank you so much for having me. I’m so excited to be here. And you know, as you know, I’ve been thinking about this moment and that someday I would be on your podcast. And, you know, I started off this year saying, like, I have this feeling that you and I are going to be having a recorded conversation pretty soon, and here we are.

You predicted this. I did. I remember that conversation. About three months ago. Yeah. No, I totally remember it. And when you said it, I was like, yeah, of course she’s going to be on this podcast. I mean, talk about manifestation. I know. The power of your mind. So, my love, why don’t you tell us. a little bit about how you found yourself on your fertility journey.

Sure. But if you don’t mind, you know where I’d really like to start right now. I’ve listened to every single podcast episode of yours and I’ve paid particular attention to the interviews that you’ve done with your clients who’ve had success or are, or are still on their journey. And you know, when I would listen, I would feel so inspired.

I would learn so much from their experiences, but often, and I just wanna be really honest here, I would ask myself. Am I doing enough? You know, why not me yet? Why, how come it hasn’t been my turn? And I just want to say that for anyone who’s listening, that that’s like a totally normal reaction. And, you know, as I share my story, I hope it’s useful for you and I’m not a superwoman and, you know, I’m no more or less deserving than anyone else.

But here I am and I just want to share how I got to where I am right now. So I love that. I love that you said that. So that, you know, to make this. It’s real. And to make this like, Hey, this is available to everyone. Exactly. Exactly. Yes. So with that backdrop. Yeah. Wow. Talk to us. Tell us how you got on this journey.

Oh my goodness. Well, I’ll start off by saying that my journey has been a five year journey to becoming pregnant. And again, I want to say the number of years, because to be quite honest, Rizan, after my husband and I had been trying for about 18 months, I started to get ashamed of telling people how long we’d been trying.

So I just want to put it out there. Our journey was five years in the making. Yeah. So it started not long after we got married, we met in our kind of early thirties. We got married, I was just like a week shy of my 35th birthday. And, you know, a couple of months later after we like settled into kind of married life, we started trying.

And, you know, nothing happened for a while. And at the six month mark, me being, you know, very type A and already having kind of like read up on this stuff, I knew it was time to consult a doctor just to kind of get a sense of what’s going on. And, you know, we consulted a doctor, they ran the kind of basic test, they said there’s no problems on either side.

You know, it’s only been six months, some people take a bit longer, you know, just go about your business and don’t worry about it. So, just as we were coming close to the year mark, I discovered that I was pregnant, and I was so relieved, and I thought, oh, they were right, and like, no big deal. But, you know, a week later I had a miscarriage, and we were shocked.

and scared. And that was the kind of the beginning of many twists and turns which, um, you know, what brought us to where we are now. So, you know, when I had the miscarriage and we went to a hospital, a doctor basically Looked at me, examined me, looked at my uterus and was like, wow, you’ve got loads of fibroids.

You shouldn’t be trying to get pregnant until you have these removed. Um, you know, it’s unlikely that you’ll become pregnant and if you do, you’re likely to have another Loss again. So, you know, that was really, you know, yeah, so that was sobering to hear but I thought okay Well, at least that explains why it took a while to get pregnant and why you know, we’ve had the Smith’s carriage So, you know, let’s rectify this before moving forward So, a couple of months later, the same doctor actually did the surgery on me.

Let’s just say that he went into the surgery expecting a certain number of fibroids, and actually ended up removing three times as many. Wow! Oh my gosh. Three times as many fibroids. Wow. Okay. Yeah. Three times as many as they were expecting. My poor husband was waiting in the corridor in the hospital and the, you know, the time was going on and on and on and What he had thought, or been told, that might take a, you know, a couple of hours actually took several hours and of course he was just so concerned and so worried.

So, again, that was really sobering, but I actually made a pretty good recovery and we thought, okay, everything’s going to be better from now. So, we continued trying and nothing was happening, nothing was happening. And so in the meantime, we actually moved country. So I made it priority to find a fertility expert in our new home.

And they said, she said the same thing. Yeah. Fibroids. And, you know, actually you need to have more removed. Wow. Okay. Wait, wait, wait, wait. So you had one surgery where the doctor found three times as many fibroids. You move country, go to a new doctor and they want to take out more. Oh yeah, that was really, really shocking to us.

So, and you know, the, so by this time, I’m 37 and the doctor also says, you know what? Time isn’t on your side. You might want to consider IVF. So we were really strategic about it. I did, um, an egg retrieval first and we, you know, made embryos, et cetera, had a bit of a rest. And then I did the surgery because they told me that, you know, the recovery from the surgery is three or four months.

And also just to get on their calendar, we would have had to have wait, I think it was somewhere about three or four months as well. So basically that just wrote off an entire year. And you know, I say it now and looking back, that was okay. That was the right thing to do. But when you’re trying and you really want a baby and you feel like time has passed already to be told that actually you can’t get going for another year, it was just.

devastating, but especially when, when you feel like you’re under the gun already, the idea of like having to wait another year is like an eternity. You may as well say 10 years. No, exactly, exactly. So that was really hard for us to swallow, but we took their advice. You know, my husband all along, he was like, whatever happens, we have to put your health first.

And if they’re saying that it’s not pregnant, it’s not safe for you to be pregnant. Then we have to follow their advice. It’s like it’s a no brainer, you know, so no we did the surgery, you know Sorry a year passed. We did the surgery We were very fortunate with the egg retrieval and the embryos. We actually ended up with six Genetically normal embryos, which I understand is a great number, even for a woman much younger than I was.

So we had this kind of, even though time was passing, we had this kind of sense of calm because we had this kind of bank of embryos in the freezer, essentially. So, Rozanne, this is where it gets really kind of twisty and turny in the ways that we weren’t expecting. So, you know, I recovered from the surgery and, you know, the year had passed, we started the new year, let’s try and do an embryo transfer.

So we do the transfer, everything goes smoothly, but it doesn’t result in a pregnancy. So we’re disappointed, but we say, you know what, that was the first attempt. Our understanding of YPF is you kind of tweak things as you go along. So no big deal. It’s like, you know, we’re going to shed a few tears. We’re going to let a month pass and we’ll try again.

So on to embryo number two. So we do embryo number two and I get pregnant and we’re like, wow, like, Oh my goodness. See, like it was just a matter of time. This is wonderful. And you know, anyone who’s listening has done IVF or read about it. They know that pregnancy is determined through two blood tests that are done two days apart.

So you know, we’ve got the results of the first blood test, you’re pregnant. Everything’s looking great. We were like, oh my god, so excited. Then we go in for the second blood test and they’re like, something’s wrong. Your numbers aren’t rising in the way we would expect, so. That means you’re probably going to have a miscarriage.

So, I know, so, of course, we’re really disappointed. But actually, I didn’t have a miscarriage. It ended up being an ectopic pregnancy. So, as you know, they’re really dangerous. It means that the embryo is growing in your, like, usually outside of your uterus, where it should, where it should be in, kind of, in your fallopian tube or somewhere else.

So they started to suspect this. I was going into the hospital at this point every other day, so they could monitor the situation, and they started to suspect it was an ectopic, and you know, the way that you deal with an ectopic is You actually are injected with this drug, a really strong drug called methotrexate, which in other circumstances is used to treat cancer to essentially end the pregnancy.

So they recommended that to us and I was like, no, like, what if there’s a chance? Please, please. Sorry, I’m getting emotional. Just please let me just wait a few more days, you know, so I begged them to Let me, you know, wait a few more days just in case there was a mistake And they said that given that I live so close to the hospital and I was coming in every other day that they felt comfortable with that.

But if anything changed, like, you know, any bleeding or et cetera, I should let them know. So, you know, a few days later I was having lunch with a colleague. It was kind of like early summer. We’d just left the office. I, you know, I left my jacket on my chair and my laptop open, you know, still on the page that I was working on at the time.

And I just went up the road for lunch with my colleague. And I suddenly just didn’t feel great, and I, you know, went to the, excused myself, went to the restroom, and kind of checked what’s going on, and saw that I was bleeding, and so I knew that this was not good, this was an emergency. So, I mean, when I think back now, I can’t believe it.

I had the, kind of, I don’t know, I was calm enough to call an Uber. And not only did I do that, I walked a block, because the street that I was on was a one way street, and I knew that they would have to go around. I knew they would have to, like, drive around to kind of go in the correct direction of the hospital.

So, I walked a block, I got in the Uber, and I called my husband and told him what was going on, and I took myself to the hospital, essentially, and he met me there. And, you know, they said to me, like, okay, now, like, the pregnancy is ruptured, like, this is extremely dangerous, you can bleed to death, you know?

Mm. And And I still said, are you sure? And I, I know I called my, um, I called my sister in law, who’s a doctor, and just asked her for a second opinion. And we just said, can we have a moment of privacy to think about this? And they were actually banging on the door saying, you don’t have time. And so she said, you know, I’m really sorry, but I think they’re right.

You should, you should do this. You should let them operate on you. So they, you know, they whisked me away to the operating room. And I remember I was, I remember being in there. And, and they’d already started to put me under with the anesthesia, and then someone said, Oh my God, wait, we haven’t put an ID band on her.

Can you confirm your name, your husband’s name and his phone number? They were in such a rush, and that was the last thing I remember. I know. So, you know, I woke up and they were like, you know, we, we were able to confirm that it was an ectopic pregnancy. Unfortunately, the embryo was growing in your tube and we had to remove your fallopian tube and we were just, just devastated.

Like, initially devastated and then, you know, after I have sunk in, just thankful that I was still alive and that my uterus was otherwise intact. So yeah, that was, that was quite something. And, you know, it takes actually a lot of time to recover from an ectopic pregnancy. So again, they were like, you shouldn’t attempt to get pregnant again for a while, and so more time passed.

And it’s funny, you know, I started off this conversation with you saying that ours was a five year journey, but I would say about 18 months of that period was waiting in between various things that had happened. Wow. I mean, it’s incredible because, you know, what I, what is so generous of you right now is you are sharing the very real pain and, and the helplessness that we can feel on this journey because you’re like, Hey, this is something I want.

And just, it was heartbreaking to hear, like, are you sure, are you sure there is no way to save. This baby, are you sure this is what’s required? I mean, I can’t imagine that there’s going to be a dry eye of anybody who’s listening to that, but it’s, it’s very real. And it, it really demonstrates. How committed you were even then to being a mom.

I mean think about what you’ve shared with us already multiple surgeries You know multiple, you know incidents where you you didn’t even realize that you had all these fibroids and they’re just everywhere two pregnancies The loss of a fallopian tube a near death experience basically and but all the while Okay, this is a testament to who you are as an individual because what these ladies don’t know yet is you’re like Your credentials are, like, fucking impressive.

Like, you’re in the arts, in the Ivy League, you know, you’re, you’re the kind of woman, lovably type A, control freaky, professional that I work with, and All of this chaos around you, that in the midst of all of that, you had the steady hand to call yourself an Uber. Other side of the, you know, around the block, you know, walk a block so you could get picked up.

Like, you’re not just somebody that is, you know, willy nilly. You go about your life on purpose. Yeah, yeah. Thank you for saying that. And I think, you know, just hearing you say that and kind of talking a little bit about my credentials. To this day, I never shared with anyone at work what I was going through.

So, you know, I said that that day when I had the surgery, emergency surgery. I left my office, the door opened, my jacket on my chair, the laptop, and I didn’t come back to work for over a week. Like Batman. I know. And that’s the thing we always talk about. I know. And when I returned, I just, you know, kept a zipped lip and went on as if nothing had happened.

Wow. I mean, that’s what we do though, as, as this type of woman that we are, that’s kind of what we do, right? Like, literally, you had a near death experience, went back to work a week fucking later, like, I mean, what? It’s like, what? Like, like, that’s, I mean, it, it’s mind boggling. It’s mind boggling. And that’s not a criticism.

I mean, I, it’s just a reality of how we behave on this journey. Yeah. Yeah, no, it is the reality because, you know, depending on how comfortable people are with sharing what’s going on and, you know, depending on where you live and, you know, how much time you can take off work and all of that kind of stuff, you’re leading a double life.

It’s like, like. Batman, I prefer to say Catwoman. I’ll take Catwoman, yeah. She’s way more fierce in her own way, but so tell us about that because You know, I know that the women listening to this are, you know, we all find ourselves as professionals, as women who dominate in our career and we own our lane and we, we know what we’re good at.

It’s like every other aspect of our life generally falls into line. But there’s this, this quiet darkness that a lot of us live through on this journey that nobody will ever, we could never even begin to explain. To people who are not on it. Yeah, so I guess in my case, I don’t know, in every other area of my life, I’m very open.

Yeah, I’m very open, kind of largely transparent person, happy to talk about myself, about my life experiences. And that’s part of why I’m doing this now, because I did keep silent for so long. And I guess with me, I made a calculation. As things were getting more complex and time was passing, I realized I just didn’t have know how long we would be on this journey.

And so I decided, at least professionally, I wanted to keep that part of me private. Because, you know, I can imagine perhaps mentioning it to my boss, who’s a very caring individual, who’s certainly interested in my well being, both within the workplace and outside. But I just worried that as if time would go by, are you still trying to get pregnant?

Or, you know, or, you know, when we had perhaps, like, pregnancy announcements at work, like, you know, I didn’t want anyone giving me any pitying looks or things like that. And I think, you know, to be quite honest, Pregnant women get discriminated against in the workplace anyway, and also mothers, to be quite honest.

So I didn’t think it made sense for me to share with any colleagues. I was actively trying to get pregnant, especially because I had no idea how long it would take. So that’s the decision I decided to make, and other people might do differently. I was able to do that because Now I’m fortunate enough to live near enough to the clinics that I ended up attending and I say clinics plural we can get to that another later on in this conversation because it took multiple doctors to help us.

But one thing I learned about IVF, and just kind of to quell anyone’s fears who perhaps haven’t started on this journey, is that the majority of the appointments happen very early in the morning. The way IVF clinics work is that they schedule people doing ultrasounds or blood draws. first thing in the morning and then they kind of tend to call you in the afternoon and let you know what the results are and the next steps and people having kind of more, you know, invasive treatments they schedule them in the afternoon.

So actually, Roseanne, I was able to attend all of those kind of meetings. You know, say 7 o’clock, 7. 15 and get to work. And on those days I would be early to work. So your employer’s like, wow, you know, Anne Marie, she’s just so on top of it. Yeah. No, that’s. But yeah. Oh, what’s actually going on. Exactly. And it was funny because I’m not the most punctual of people.

You know, I might. roll into the office 9 9 30, but on those days, I’d be there 8 8 30, really confused. And it was like random days, right? Just really, really random. And then, you know, if I had to do anything more invasive than I would take a day off or a sick day or something like that, but essentially it never got in the way of my job.

And as I was embarking on, you know, once we knew that. You know, IVF was probably going to be the way that we were going to need to get pregnant. I was really worried about how I was going to juggle that with work, but actually it didn’t, it didn’t make a slight bit of difference. In fact, in the five years that we were trying to get pregnant, I actually have, my career just Got went from strength to strength and I found a lot of comfort in Kind of leaning in because it was a distraction to be quite honest when I was at work I didn’t think about it.

It was more when I would go home, but I would start wondering or worrying But at work, you know, I love my job So my focus was just on that and I I ended up doing really well career wise in that last five years Right. Well, you know, what’s interesting is what had to occur in the background is at some point you had to make the conscious decision.

You would have both that you weren’t going to have to choose between the two. You were going to figure out a way to have this career that you loved and that you were going to figure out a way to be a mom. Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, for me, yeah, they, I mean, those are two things that are really important to me, and I didn’t see why I couldn’t have both, especially because, you know, many people, colleagues around me, male and female, are parents too, so why shouldn’t I also have that, even if it, if it was being, you know, quite an effort to get to that point.

I never saw the two things as being incompatible. I was just, you know, with, you know, IVF, it’s really intimidating, to be quite honest, when you first start, and I just wasn’t sure how I would fit it into my schedule, but to be honest, it was fairly straightforward. Right, right. And I think that’s a great point that you’re raising, is that, you know, in the, in essence, you found a way for it to be straightforward.

You were willing to get up early, go to the early appointments. And I mean, it just speaks to our power as women on this journey that we just make a choice. We choose, we choose that we’re going to be available for it all. We don’t have to be, you know, it’s stuck in a binary choice. You get to be the woman who decides she will indeed have it all.

So it sounds like you had a great, you know, at least a foundational mindset for how you were going to go about it, but tell us a little bit about what was going on for you. Internally, with all of this history that was beginning to build and, and the way that your journey had, as you said, started to take these twists and turns.

Yeah. So, I guess a kind of turning point for me was just around the time that you and I met and essentially why I reached out to you. Because, you know, after that ectopic pregnancy, we actually, uh, used two more of our embryos and they didn’t result in pregnancy, so, you know, I mentioned that we started off with six, an incredible number, and then we used four of them in under a year, or about a year.

So I started to think, oh my goodness, this isn’t going the way Or we thought it would, you know, you know, with the six embryos, our doctor was delighted and was like, your chances are really high now, et cetera. And so I suddenly, well, a couple of things happen, um, I would say that around that time, like some, anytime I would meet up with a friend who knew what was going on, who’s, you know, being supportive, well meaning, they would always ask, you know, how’s it going?

And I would just burst into tears, like, uncontrollably, it didn’t matter where we were, we could be in a restaurant, we could be walking down the street, and it was happening more and more frequently. And, you know, sometimes you cry and it’s really cathartic, and you feel better afterwards, but I would never feel better afterwards, and I thought this can’t be right, this isn’t like me.

I’m usually quite a, you know, happy go lucky person. So, that’s when I reached out to you and because I thought, wow, I’ve got two embryos left. This is like a critical time. I’m clearly, I’m not feeling great. I’m not myself. I need help. And you’d been on my radar for quite some time. Um, so I knew about you and I’d kind of check in on you now and again, but I was like, Oh, I know.

That’s not really my thing. That’s too American. Uh, I don’t know. That sounds kind of strange. So I thought, what have I got to lose? Let me call this Roseanne Austin, whoever she is, and have a conversation with her and just see what happens. So, you know, I call you, you and I, and so you called me, obviously, and um, I remember to this day, this conversation, I remember where I was, I remember what we talked about, and the impression that you made of me was that of total lack of any judgment.

Like, I remember telling you, like, I want to be a mom and, you know, now I’m coming up on like my late thirties and I always thought I’d had, have like two kids and I can’t even have one at the moment and, you know, various things like this. And you just listened and said, okay, okay, all right, yeah, okay. So that is, it’s great that you know what you want.

You have an idea in your mind of what you want. That’s like half of the, half of the journey. And it just, it felt so good to speak to someone. And do you know what I realized? Like one of the reasons I think where I would always end up crying when I was talking to friends is because when you’ve been trying for so long and someone’s asking you how you’re going, it’s really hard to stay upbeat and say, yeah, this happened, this happened.

Yeah. I almost died, but I’m still going to have a baby. I know it’s going to work out. So I found myself dwelling on the negative. It feels like. More in inverted commas realistic Mmm, it’s it’s hard to convey to someone you sometimes you see in their face that they Think your chances are very high. And so you at least myself I tended to dwell On the negative, like, yeah, I, I hope it will still work out and, you know, I, you know, this kind of language and you weren’t having any of that.

You know me too well. And that is what I needed at that time. I needed someone who I could talk to, who I could say very. Openly, I still want this and I don’t care that it’s been, I don’t know, three years or whatever have passed by now. And he wouldn’t doubt me or cast any judgment or tell me that I should consider adoption.

Not that anything is wrong with adoption, not at all, but you know what they say, adoption is a calling, not a consolation. Yes. And I wasn’t ready to think about it at that time. And so just being able to speak to you, oh my goodness. It was huge, and so I can’t remember your exact question, like, how I would describe myself, or how I think of myself.

Do you remember that? Yeah! I cringe to say it now, and I would never say anything like this about myself again. But I’m now I’m trying I’m struggling to remember the exact words, which is good. It means I’ve put it. Um, oh, yeah I said to you that I feel like a barren Orphan, you know what? I was referring to was this double whammy that I was dealing with that You know, I lost both of my parents while I was still a teenager.

And so for me Family is so important and wanting to become a mother and have a kind of family unit with my spouse and a child was, for me, a kind of quest to kind of have what I’d lost so early in my own family. Mm hmm. And so, not being able to conceive and also not having any parents was killing me.

And, you know, often in our kind of, let’s say, sisterhood of people who’ve gone through this experience, it’s hard to see sometimes a pregnant woman or, you know, a young family. That never bothered me that much. For me, it was seeing a three generation family. Wow. Wow. I’m going to start crying again just thinking about it.

Look at what happened in, you know, by just even beginning this conversation that we had together was that you had the ability at that point to increase your level of awareness. To really identify, holy shit, I’m carrying around this story, that I am a barren orphan. You’re looking through the lens of being a barren orphan.

Like how’s that working out? Not very well. Right, right. So, so why don’t you tell us like what, you know, what did you start to, to notice about yourself and how did you start to work this out? So I guess you helped me to see that, yes, I lost my parents, like, tragically young, but there’s still so much of them with me.

You know, um, and their legacy lives on in me and you also helped me to see that I have family, you know, I have other family members. I have friends who are like family, like literally friends who are like their sisters to me. I was really fortunate to marry a man whose family I get on incredibly well with.

So I have three sisters through him. And you know, parents through him. Like truly, they treat me like their daughter. And so, you know, I knew that, but because I was so low, I was choosing to focus on what I didn’t have, and you helped me to kind of shift my perspective to see the bigger picture. You know, one of the things that you always ask your clients, and that I’m going to use as a tool for the rest of my life is, Is this actually true?

Such a powerful question. Oh yeah, it’s such a simple yet powerful question. And you know what, another thing is that I actually opened up to my big brother, who I’m incredibly close to, and told him. And he just was so like, you know, yeah, you lost our, we lost our parents. But he’s actually a lot older than me, so he’s been a father figure to me.

And, you know, he, usually he would joke, Oh, don’t call, you don’t call me like a father figure or dad because you’re aging me. I’m not that much older than you, right? But when I told him how I was feeling, he was like, you know what? I am like your dad, essentially. And I’m happy for you to think that you’re not fatherless.

You never were in the first place. Because, you know, I had a mother and father who loved me. And that was just such a, such a, I don’t know, powerful conversation that he and I had. Right, right. Well, and what you’re speaking to love is the ripple effect of doing this kind of work because think about What it was by asking that very simple question.

Is this actually true you opened up an Entirely new set of facts to begin to evaluate your life through right you actually saw that hate Family is rather abundant for me If family is everywhere and I also, you know, can have this great relationship with my parents through my memories and through how they live through me, it’s Wow.

And look at how you’re, you were able to have this conversation with your brother, probably a life changing conversation with your brother. Absolutely. And we’ve always been close, but that moment brought us even closer. Like he’s my, he’s my hero. I absolutely adore him. And I know he’s going to listen to this at some point.

And yeah. Wow. Wow. So, yeah, I mean, so tell us, you know, what else did you notice about yourself? Like, what are some of the other changes? Because, you know, in order for you to keep going on this journey, there’s a lot of things about how you saw yourself, especially with the history that you had, that you had to overcome.

So I think, you know, around the time that I met you, I can’t, now it’s like some of the chronology is kind of blending in. You know, you really helped me to tackle this barren orphan thing that I had going on and the way I, you know, we talked a little bit about the orphan part and the way I tackled the barren part is actually ended up being quite hilarious.

So I joined a kind of, I wouldn’t really call it a support group, but essentially that’s what it is, but for Women going through infertility and to help them manage stress and we ended up nicknaming ourselves rather irreverent irreverently the baronesses Love it. I love it. They shared information with me that I probably would have come to anyway, but faster I think through knowing them.

Yeah. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah, that’s amazing So so tell us like so you’re at this point where? You’re beginning to work on your mindset, you’re beginning to work on the things that are going on in your life, you have the support of other women in your area, and, and now you are in a place where you’re ready to try again.

So tell us about that. There’s this new ish test called the ERA, the Endometrial Receptivity Array Test, which Let’s you know when the optimum time is to do an embryo transfer like that’s specific to you So, you know I go to my doctor with this information and I ask him about the test and he kind of poo poos it saying it’s really new They’ve only, you know, they tested it on a quite a homogenous group of women.

I don’t think it’s for you. So you know what I did? I just upped and left the clinic. I don’t think I would have had the guts to do that if I hadn’t met you, because you were already telling me about the importance of advocating for yourself, and for myself, making my own choices. You know, doctors are experts, but they’re not, they don’t know everything, and that, you know, it’s within my rights to ask questions and push back.

And you know, I pushed back and said, well, you know, I’d like to, you know, try. And he said, no. So we left the clinic. So that was the end of clinic number one. And we took our embryos with us and, uh, clinic number two. So we go there, they accept the embryos. They agree to doing the test, which is great. We realized that we’d been transferring the embryos at the wrong time.

So we transfer the, you know, another embryo it takes, But the pregnancy doesn’t last very long and, you know, I’m sad, but I’m thinking, you know, what there’s that’s a slight improvement here that goes to show that there was something around, you know, the timing of everything. So there we are with one embryo.

I remember having a conversation with you just around this time and my husband and I trying to decide what to do, like whether we should try it. Or basically try to make some more before doing that, just to leave our options open for, for example, surrogacy, which is another thing that doctors have started to raise with us.

Wow. Through your help, your support, conversations with our doctor, my husband, obviously, we decided to take our chance. So we transferred that last embryo a few months before my 40th birthday at this point. And you know, that big number looming over us. And again, it took, but the pregnancy didn’t last past a few days.

So there we are, and this is a year ago, with no embryos, after starting with six. Unbelievable, unbelievable. Yeah, believable, right? I mean, based on all of these things that are occurring. Wow, so you’re really at a crossroads. I literally think that, literally, this time last year, you and I had this frantic conversation via text message.

I was on one side of the U. S., you were on the other. And I’m like, Roseanne, I have hit rock bottom, I have no embryos, I’m turning 40 in a few months, and the second clinic is starting to bring up donor eggs. And again, Donor eggs are amazing. It’s incredible, but it didn’t seem right to me. I thought, how can I go from multiple eggs and producing six normal embryos to them doubting whether I can make any more?

Without even giving me a chance to try. It just, it didn’t seem right to me. And you were great. I think it was late at night and you were still texting me. We were having this conversation back and forth. And basically, you helped embolden me to leave that clinic too. Yes, I mean, but here’s the thing. It’s like, it’s the boldness was already in you.

And sometimes having these provocative conversations, because I see myself more often than not as a bit of a provocateur in that way. Oh yeah, oh yeah, I can attest to that. Yeah, yeah, because you know what you want. It was obvious that you wanted to, like, get out of that. Like, that is not in alignment with you.

That’s not at all what you wanted. You’re certainly not gonna just Take that line down and, and have somebody tell you what your future is going to be. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. I couldn’t have said it better myself. So there we are. We go to the next clinic.

You know, with a trail of paperwork behind us, you know, which already I think might kind of ring alarm bells for a doctor. You show up already with like years worth of medical records and everything. And you know what? This doctor is, I feel a bit like Goldilocks, you know, trying all the different porridges and beds.

This doctor was just right. Oh, I love it. I love it. But that’s the, I mean, that’s the essence of being, you know, you’ve heard me say this before. On this journey, you’re, you know, you’re going to have 10 people telling you one thing, another 10 people telling you another. What that means is, is you have just as much of a chance, if not a way better chance of being right as anyone else.

Absolutely. No, no, you, you, you’re absolutely right. And it’s funny. Like, if you told me at the beginning of the journey, you’re going to go through three different clinics. I would be like, you’re crazy. No way. Like we’re going to give up before then. But it felt like the right thing to do at each step. It was scary.

I don’t, you know, I’m not going to lie, but he was just a different kettle of fish. He looked at this. It’s like, yep, I can help you. Not only do I think I can help you, I have multiple options that I think we can try in your case. You know, I’m not gonna lie, this could be difficult, but I think you have a chance, a real chance here.

You just have to kind of stick with it. And you know what? Within six months of seeing him, we did a retrieval and a transfer, and that’s the baby I’m carrying now. I love it! I love it! So tell us! I mean, well, the cat’s out of the bag now! Yeah. So, let’s Let’s recap this because you’re a woman. I mean, indeed, just like so many of my ladies have had like this twists and all these twists and turns on her journey going from, you know, multiple surgeries, near death experience, losing a tube.

you know, finding out that your uterus was at the time riddled with fibroids. I mean, there were so many roadblocks that probably, I mean, would have, would have thinned out the herd. I mean, a lot of people would have given up at that point. Like I don’t want to spend the money. I don’t want to spend the time.

I don’t want to do this. Tell us what kept the fire going for you. Oh, wow. That’s such a big question. I think if I break it down, it’s multiple things. One, it means so much to me. You know, I made my vision board. I’m looking at it right now. It’s in our bedroom. I knew it was coming. I just didn’t know how. I, I just, I knew it and I knew that once my husband gave me this beautiful card, it says something like, when you’re tired, take a rest, don’t quit.

And so that he gave that to me just after the ectopic actually, now when I think about it, and so, you know, I’ve just told you the story in a kind of very condensed fashion, but there was a lot of downtime. And we would travel, spend time together, see friends. You know, I’ve kind of made it sound like this was everything going on in my life, but no, it wasn’t.

I was, you know, going to work, living my life, spending time with people I care about, so that definitely helped kind of refuel my tank, as it were. Mm hmm. Another thing is that we were really strategic. I haven’t said that much about my husband. We’re like yin and yang. We’re very different, but it works so well together.

And, you know, When it comes to decision making, which we’ve become very good at over the last five years, very good at making some really hard decisions, we both bring different perspectives to the decision making. And so I’m someone who leads with my heart and my gut. He’s someone very rational, who thinks strategically first and then is willing to kind of concede based on the kind of emotional aspect.

So to be quite frank, we’re very fortunate that we live in a place where we have access to fertility services that are covered by insurance. Well, but you had also made the decision. I mean, I really want to highlight this because you weren’t hinging whether or not you were going to be a mom based on whether an insurance company was going to pay for it, right?

Like, cause I want to make sure that that point is made clear because you’re somebody who said, look. You know, I’m going to use what is here and what is offered to me and what I am working for, but by no means am I going to let that be the limitation. No, absolutely not. And again, I remember, I remember a conversation with you via text in the nighttime, and I think I was having a meltdown about money.

And you were like, no, no, no, no, no, you were like, no, no, no, no, no, just stop. If someone really needs to find access to money, there are multiple ways that they can go about this. You’ve always talked about the importance of a side hustle and things like that. And I remember that night sitting down and looking at my savings and my different bank accounts.

And even calling my bank in the middle of the night to ask them to increase my credit. Do you remember this? Yes, I do. And I remember why, because we get into this idea that there is lack and scarcity when that is actually not true. Lack and scarcity is a mindset. It is not an actual set of circumstances because if you want something, you’re going to find a way to get it.

Yeah, no, absolutely, without a doubt. And you know what, just going through this experience has made me think that that applies in other areas of my life as well. So I’ve learned so much from going through this experience and also from you directly as well. Absolutely. So, yeah, I, I managed to pull together money for a cycle in one evening just through looking at various sources of money or, you know, things that I thought I could perhaps draw on.

Right, right. Well, and it’s all abundance. It’s all there. And I think what’s really great about that is. I mean, so many people make so many excuses to not have what they want. It’s other people’s money stories. It’s what other people are going to think. It’s, you know, it’s all of these things that are actually not true.

And when you get that in your head and be like, no, I have abundance. There are ways to do this. It’s just how bad do I want it? Yeah. No, absolutely. Yeah. Again, I couldn’t say it better than that. Absolutely agree with you. Yeah. I mean, that’s, that’s why it’s like, whenever I hear a money excuse, I, I, I roll my eyes lovingly because it’s like, look, it’s absolutely not true.

And are you really going to let X amount of dollars stand between you and the priceless? Really? No, I know. I mean, sell your car for God’s sake. Like there are things that you can like liquidate if you really need the money for something as important as this. Yeah. No, absolutely. Absolutely. So you’re pregnant.

I am. Tell us, tell us about like, you know, that whole, like, you know, how’d you get there, babe? We plan to do a transfer, the, you know, the transfer is going along, I’m not feeling great about it because of one of the meds that they put me on, I just, it’s not that it disagreed with me, but I just had this feeling like I don’t need it, and lo and behold, that transfer gets cancelled because my Uterine lining doesn’t develop enough and I’m devastated, it’s the end of another year, it’s coming up to the, you know, Christmas, um, holiday season.

So of course we take a break, we spend the holidays with our families and then we’re like, okay, it’s another year, well this time another decade, okay, let’s just keep going, you know. Luckily we didn’t, in inverted commas, waste that embryo in a cycle that perhaps, you know, wasn’t to our best interest. So the new year comes, we go back to the clinic, we do this again, and this time I put my foot down and say I’m not taking that drug, I don’t need it, and it doesn’t agree with me, and they say, you know, you know that that means that you’re going to have to do more monitoring, you’re going to have to come in more often, I said fine, at this point I don’t care, I’ll get up at 5am if I have to, yeah, that’s fine, let’s just, let’s just do this, And it works.

The doctor, and this has never happened to me, usually, uh, one of the nurses will call you to give you the pregnancy results. The doctor called me himself. That’s when I knew something is going on. Oh wow. And Rozanne, of all the times to call, I’m at work in a big open plan office, and I say hello, and he’s like, it’s doctor so and so.

And I’m like, Oh, okay. And, you know, he says, it’s good to use. And I say, thank you. That’s wonderful. Thank you for letting me know. And I can hear that he sounds really confused. And I just said, um, I’m currently at work in an open plan office. And he’s like, oh, oh, okay. I get it. I get it. And so, you know, I put the phone down and I’m like, just leave the room, extremely composed.

Go out, leave the building like quite a distance, pull out my cell phone and call my husband and I’m like screaming like, oh my god, you know, he’s a bit more cautious than I am and he’s like, we’ve been here before. You know, the first pregnancy test comes out by this time we’ve been there three times before.

And then he says, you know, let’s just kind of hold your horses. Let’s wait until the second pregnancy test. You know, we go in there to get the blood drawn. We’re really nervous. And then a couple of hours later, I can’t remember what we did to kill time in between, but they called us and say, Yeah, you’re pregnant and everything is looking normal.

Everything is looking good. And, you know, since then we’ve been in, uh, for ultrasounds and things like that, and every time is a bit nerve wracking, I’m not gonna lie, you know, especially after everything that we’ve been through, and so far so good, and I’m in my second trimester. No! Oh my gosh, it’s such, I mean, that’s such a good story, and it’s such a, and it’s so, what I love about it is just the realness of it, about your transformation, your transformation in so many of your relationships.

You know, where you see yourself in the bigger picture. It’s incredible. So why don’t you tell the women listening, like, what are some of the things now that you are on the other side of this, well into your second trimester, what would you want them to know? Well, of course I’m very type A, so I prepared a little list.

You knew the question was coming. Yeah, I knew it was coming and I’ll be, I’ll be brief, but I would say. Number one is don’t be afraid to invest in yourself. So that can mean multiple things. That can mean self care in a way that doesn’t cost anything, but, you know, puts your own wellness and well being first.

That can mean building a bump squad around you. So in my case, that consisted of you, you know, my coach. I had an acupuncturist at various points. I also had like a personal trainer slash nutritionist, you know, don’t be afraid to invest in yourself. Then I would say that, uh, relationships are key and particularly the relationship with your spouse, because, you know, if you’re doing this as part of a couple, this is a shared goal.

And at the end of the day, When you hopefully reach this point of starting a family, or in some cases you don’t, you might consider other options. It’s just you and your partner. This is the foundation, the bedrock of the family that you want to build. So you can’t neglect that relationship. It’s so important.

And, you know, there are other relationships to be mindful of, friends and family. For me personally, that really wavered. There are some friends who I was extremely close to that I became less close to. There were other people who just showed up for me in ways that I didn’t expect. I had random conversations with acquaintances that just blew my mind.

People saying to me, I’ve been through the same thing, and I got through it, you know? So, relationships, I would say, you’re gonna probably make some new friends, people you weren’t expecting to, and other people who you already know may disappoint you. And I would just say, be gentle with them. Be forgiving and just, I don’t know, orient yourself towards the people who can help you in the moment that you’re in right now and you can rebuild some relationships.

Afterwards, without any rancor, that is so good. That is just incredible. And you know, it’s just a delight to hear where you are today because I do remember that first time we talked and like just this, it was incredible. I mean, just as an observer on the outside, the transformation that you have made and what you have created for yourself, how many different You know, there’s so many different ways that you’ve grown over this time.

You know, you’ve had professional developments, you’ve had personal developments, you’ve had skills that you didn’t have before that you now have. I knew you were going to bring that up. Yeah, yeah. Should I confess what you’re talking about? Sure, if you feel like it. Yeah, so I, with your encouragement, and you really, this is like, you’re like, uh uh.

You really put me in my place. So with your encouragement, after decades of putting it off, I finally learned how to drive. Just before my 40th birthday. Isn’t that incredible? Yes, and do you remember I said to you I had a plan to learn over six months and you’re like, what? You could man that in two months.

What are you talking about? Yeah, I’m like, no. Let’s turn decades into days. Like, let’s not spend any more time. Well, but think about it though. But having, look at what you’ve done. Like, by changing your mindset and what you believe about yourself, you have empowered yourself to have all of the things you need for this baby.

You have a great relationship with your husband. Yes. You’ve empowered yourself to speak to your healthcare providers in a way that leaves you in the, in the position of power and in collaboration as opposed to domination. Right? You’re also in a position where you can drive your baby anywhere you want to go.

I know! You’re going to be able to teach this to your child. You’re going to be able to show them and teach them. There is no lack. There is no scarcity. When you’re the person that demands more out of this life, you will find yourself in a place where you’ll look back on this life with no regret. Yeah.

Absolutely. Absolutely. And another thing I’m going to tell them is that their fairy godmother has pink and blue hair. Oh, I can’t wait to see those pictures. I can’t wait. I know. Well, thank you so much for being with us, Anne Marie, and for sharing this inspirational story. From, you know, the, the barren orphan to this woman that is showing up in her life in ways that, I mean, you’re only, you’re only at the very beginning of what you’ve created.

And, you know, it’s going to be incredible to see how this unfolds for you and your beautiful family. So thank you for being with us. Thank you. Thank you so much for letting me be seen and be heard. It’s just, it’s an incredible opportunity for me. It just feels so. cathartic, hence all the tears, but hey, I don’t think anyone is going to be surprised by that.

No, and you know, you’re a pregnant lady, you get to cry, so. Yeah. Part of the package, so thank you so much, and sending you so much love, my darling. Same to you, same to you. Loves wasn’t Anne Marie an absolute inspiration. If her story does not prove and demonstrate without a doubt that absolutely anything is possible on this journey, I don’t know what will.

And look, you too can create an entirely new way of being on your journey. You are the foundation of your journey. What you think, believe, and take action on is literally supporting the results that you want to create. You are the silver bullet, my love. And if you wanna learn what I taught, Anne-Marie, this is your chance.

My fearlessly fertile method program is for women who intend to get pregnant in the next 12 months. If that’s you, go to my website www.FromMaybeToBaby.com and apply for your interview for this revolutionary program. There’s less than six months left in the year my loves, and that’s still plenty of time for you to make a massive impact on your fertility journey.

Let’s do it together because if you don’t have mindset on board, my loves, you got a gaping hole in your strategy. Let’s fix that shit. So you don’t have to look back on this chapter of your life with regret till next time, change your mindset, change your results. Love this episode of the fearlessly fertile podcast.

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