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A brilliant physician, Dr. Kate always knew she wanted a big family. As time dragged on, with repeated rounds of IUI and IVF “failing,” along with her numbers getting “worse,” she knew she had to do something different. Learn how this courageous woman overcame analysis paralysis, scary statistics, and her Saboteur of being “too greedy,” to make the seemingly impossible, possible.
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 help 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 76, Dr. Kate found herself and beat the odds. Hey, loves. I am so excited to be here with you this week as we are blessed with another one of my ladies Generously sharing her fertility success story. I gotta tell you I love Coaching physicians and nurses which sounds possibly a little insane because at first blush you think from the outside They wouldn’t put any value in all this mindset stuff.
But here’s the deal the truly brilliant ones Get it because they work in medicine day in and day out. They see the limits of it. And they also see the everyday miracles where people who quote unquote, shouldn’t survive or shouldn’t heal do. They understand medicine and science are part of it. Not all of it.
They also understand that medicine and science are evolving. They aren’t just fixed in stone. Just remember back to some of the physicians and nurses you’ve heard here, and the physician and nurse clients I refer to in my book. Like Dr. Bernie Siegel, MD, world renowned. Dr. Melissa, Dr. Rose, Dr. Lucy. Remember, she beat single digit odds in an FSH of over a hundred.
There’s also Dr. Hannah, who dealt with repeated failures. Nurse Kate, Dr. Kiltz, perhaps the world’s coolest RE. And now you’re going to hear from Dr. Kate. It’s not just that these people are super smart. They get the bigger picture. They have a respect for their profession and they are not confined by it.
What’s crazy to me is that these are not the skeptics. It’s primarily lay people who don’t know shit about medicine who worship at its altar. Any medical professional worth their salt. We’ll tell you numbers are one thing, what plays out in real life is another. The good news is this reality is trickling down and the smartest women on this journey are getting their mindset in the game.
Can you see why I’m so excited you’re going to hear from Dr. Kate? I want to get this pounded into your beautiful skull. Dr. Kate is a trained physician. She had big dreams for a big family, and when she and her husband decided to start their family, it quickly became obvious they needed some help. Later, when they wanted to expand their family, things weren’t exactly happening as they had hoped.
Their IUI and IVF treatments were failing. And Dr. Kate started obsessing over the literature, and she was terrified because, as she puts it, her numbers kept getting worse. Then a woman she met in a physician support group recommended me. And as you’ll hear, the rest is history. You will hear how Dr. Kate learned how to look beyond the numbers and statistics, get in touch with her deepest desires and how after burning through a bunch of embryos, she applied what I taught her and changed the trajectory of her fertility journey.
Here’s my conversation with Dr. Kate. Okay, Dr. Kate, I am So excited to have you on the podcast, all I can barely stand all of that. So, so why don’t you start us off my love and tell us a little bit about how you found yourself on this journey? Hi, well, thank you so much for asking me to be part of this. I would say that everything for me with my journey started about.
Five years ago, when my husband and I, we finally had decided that it was the quote unquote, like right time to have a baby I had been, you know, or we had been postponing things for quite a while because of my training, I was in medical school and then residency. And, you know, I was trying to focus on my career and then.
As soon as residency was over, we said, okay, you know, now’s the time we’re still young, everything should still be quote unquote easy. Like everybody has told us it would be. And then we tried on our own for about a year or so. And it was, you know, it was heartbreaking because every month it was somebody else, you know, one of our other friends or a family member.
You know, somebody getting pregnant and we went and saw a specialist cause I was, you know, I was trying to figure out, you know, what could it be if we find an answer, that’ll be great. Then we can just tackle it. And then our first workup with the fertility specialist, we were told we had unexplained infertility.
So we were given a lot of different options, which were really overwhelming at the time. Amen. But we just kind of went with what this first doctor had recommended and it actually, we were able to have our son at that time, our first son and who was, uh, a miracle boy and we thought, wow, okay, well, we still had to go through some things, but you know, that was okay.
Like we could do that again. So when my son turned. About just before he turned one, we said, let’s try again, you know, let’s do it on our own again and see what happens. And another year went by, didn’t get pregnant again. And so we thought, okay, we’ll just go back. And we went back to the same doctor and he said, well, it was not so hard for you.
Last time. Don’t worry, you’re still young. You can, you know, this will work for you again. And we did multiple rounds of IUIs and then we moved on to IVF and each round was almost more disappointing than the last one. You know, the numbers started to get worse almost exponentially. You know, we had, my numbers got worse when we started doing IVF, we weren’t getting many embryos and.
It was hard because I had this kind of false sense of people telling me that it wouldn’t be hard and it wouldn’t be a big deal. And each struggle and each obstacle we came into, I just felt more defeated. And it was through that, that then I had this support group of other women physicians who, and one of them recommended you to me.
And that’s kind of where I found, I kind of refound myself was through working with you and. Being able to sit with my own thoughts and really figure out what would be best for me and to not get so defeated and to have hope in, in my future again, because it had at that point been about two years of going through everything again.
Wow. What’s interesting to me, and I think what so many women are going to be inspired by is like, so here you are with all this medical training and you have your first miracle son with. Like, you know, you, you had to go through some things. You had to jump through some hoops and, and pay attention to it.
And he came and it’s amazing. But then you’re in this situation where not only do you want another baby, which, you know, it’s super easy for people to say, well, I mean, just be happy with one, right? Like, did you ever struggle with that? I didn’t at first each month that we did not get pregnant. I did. I think that was one of, you know, My biggest saboteur, so to speak, was that I thought, you know, I didn’t have that concept of abundance.
I thought more about, well, I already got so lucky to have one. Why should I be greedy? You know, I shouldn’t be asking for another baby. I shouldn’t be, you know, kind of challenging, you know, the powers that be, so to speak. And that was definitely a big block that I had, I think too. You know, even though I didn’t feel like that originally, I always had this vision of, you know, being able to have a big family.
I didn’t have a big family growing up. I always wanted to create that. And that took a lot of work to kind of get through. Definitely. And isn’t that, isn’t it funny because like you at some point had to find the answer to that question, like, why shouldn’t I just be happy with one? Like, what was your answer to that question is basically the way I’ll say that because it would have been really easy for you to just say, yeah, you know what?
One is enough. I’m greedy. I’m going to move on. Like, what kept you moving forward? Why did you keep saying yes for the second baby? I feel like I just was meant to have more kids and to, you know, I wanted to create a home and a world where. I had these, you know, these kids that got to, you know, I got to teach and help grow and turn into independent people.
And it was something that I just couldn’t let go of. And I didn’t want to let go of that. You know, we would have this family that felt complete to us. And there were still some times where we said, if we hit a certain point, you know, there might be a point in our future where I say. You know, this is not something that I want to do.
Like maybe there’s a point where I say, okay, this is enough and I’m at peace with that, but I think in general, I just felt like the, you know, the world is our oyster, you know, we can have all of these things, you know, I don’t have to. Just say, well, I got so lucky that I have a good husband and a, and a good family and a job and all of these things I’m allowed to want more and, and that’s okay and it’s not greedy, you know, it’s just wanting to.
We’re just wanting to grow our family, you know, there’s nothing wrong with that. I think that was the big part. And so, so what was it? Because you know, going back to what I started saying about, you know, your training, like it’s, it would have been really easy for you to get really scared because you’ve got the background in medicine, you know, quote unquote numbers, you know, the statistics.
When you’re seeing round after round not turn out exactly the way you want and your numbers as you said, we’re getting worse What at that point? Really gave you The notion that hey, I gotta look elsewhere. I gotta be looking at other things Yeah, well, I would say there’s kind of two parts to that that it makes me think of I I definitely think my background gave me what I would call analysis paralysis I I was You know, obsessed to the, almost to, to researching, I felt like, okay, I have the knowledge, let me understand things for myself so that I don’t have doctors dictating what happens to my body and what happens to our future.
And the issue with that though, was that I researched so much that I was not really present with my family at the time. You know, as soon as I would get home from work. I’d have a new article that I wanted to read about that would present me with new statistics and give us new information or new things to try.
And I would ask colleagues and friends about You know, what do you think of this? Have you been through this? What is happening with your patients? And what I found was that you could find an argument for every single option. You know, everybody had a success story with a, B, C, D or E, you know, and everybody had a story where there was not success with those exact same things.
You know, we’re all different. Um, and our journey is all different. And, you know, it was really hard for me to make any decisions at that point. I kind of got to. This period where I just couldn’t do anything, you know, we went and saw three different doctors and all of them had different opinions and all of them were very certain of their, you know, recommendation.
And it just, my husband and I, we got like paralyzed. We just were like, well, what do we do? And we just didn’t do anything for a little bit because we didn’t know what to do next. So I think that a big part of moving forward for me was, you know, as those numbers got worse, as I got, you know, a million different recommendations was, I just finally decided to say, I’ve learned enough, I’m educated.
Now I have to really look inward and figure out, you know, what do I want to do? And my husband was part of that, but I also did. Something where I said, you know, I actually don’t want to talk about it with anybody for a little bit. I want to just kind of sit and reflect and figure out what do I want to do?
And what do I feel like is right for me? And, and I just, I did a lot of journaling and reflecting and work with you to get through a lot of my blocks. And I think once I got through a lot of those blocks, there was just this, this spark that all of a sudden I said, this is the choice, you know, This can work, this is the way we’re going to go.
And it was against most of the doctor’s recommendations. My husband, who’s normally very level headed and kind of says, everything’s going to be okay, it’ll work. Even he was worried, you know, he said, the doctor said, no, that’s not what we’re supposed to do. And, and I just said, you know what? I just feel it.
I’m finding peace with myself again. You know, I’m not. Thinking about all of the, what ifs, I can’t control all of these things. All I can control is how I feel in this moment and, you know, and where we’re supposed to be. And one of the things that I think I was at peace with was that, okay, this is what we’re going to do.
And even if something doesn’t work, it’s not a failure. It just means I’ve learned something else and really looking at it differently like that, that each part of the journey was about. Not a failure, but just learning something that was going to get me to that baby in the end. And so I think once I kind of reframed that I was able to move forward and make that decision and not think so much about the numbers, you know, because the numbers don’t mean everything.
And as a clinician, that’s really hard to get past, but, but I think that was, that was definitely where that breakthrough came from. Wow. Well, and so, okay, so let’s take a couple steps back because, you know, that must have been as a clinician to have another physician tell you, Hey, you got to talk to this pink and blue haired lady.
I mean, what was that like for you? I mean, you are a person that, you know, clearly you went through medical school, you can do math and science. You know, it might’ve been really easy for you to just blow off this other piece of the puzzle as just voodoo. Like, what was it that, that really spoke to you and said, yeah, you got to check this out.
You know, this group of women that became part of my community, you know, these other women positions, you know, so many of them were so inspiring for different reasons for what they had gone through, you know, everyone’s own journeys. And this, this one woman really just resonated with me. She, you know, and she said, Listen, like I’ve seen what you’ve been writing, what you’ve been struggling with, Roseanne will help you.
Like, believe me, just believe me. And I, you know, and then I just said, all right, I listened to your podcasts and it didn’t scare you immediate. No. My husband was like, wow, you know, the swearing. What about the swearing? I’m like, that’s not the point, Dan, you know, we go. You know, we’re listen to what I’m learning, you know, like, and this is what I need.
I need somebody, somebody to like snap me out of my, you know, kind of buy the book, you know, like walk the straight line, like listen to this, listen to that, you know, follow the rules, everything will work out. I need somebody to snap me out of that and help me refine myself again. I mean, from podcast one, it was, it was immediate and I listened to a lot because they were just helping me in general.
But as soon as I listened to the first one, I just felt this is, this is really going to help me. I listened to and from work. I would listen before I went to bed. I would re listen to them. And pretty quickly I just said, okay, I have to contact you. This is gonna, this is really going to help me. That’s interesting.
You know, the, it’s always funny to me cause the husbands are always a little suspicious at first. And then they’re like, you know, I get emails, I get, thank you. Thank you for giving me my wife back. You know, or, you know, I can’t believe the change, all kinds of crazy stuff. Yeah. And he definitely, he definitely got there and it was, you know, it’s funny as we, You know, there are still things that happen that I saw that I kind of re reference back to some of the work we did and, you know, and as I grow on that, I’m like, wow, I handled that a lot better than I would have before because of the work that we did, you know, and I think a big part of that was also how we’re all on our own journey and that includes our partners, you know, like we don’t always have to be on the exact same page and.
Absolutely. Absolutely. There was, I read about, you know, after some of the things that we did and kind of breaking off of that too, I read about how we think we have these manuals, you know, for everybody in our lives, especially our partners or husbands, whoever that is, but they didn’t read the manual, you know, it’s not like I can say, you know, why didn’t you read the manual and do this for me?
Right. You know, trying to find, you know, to say it’s okay that we’re not. Always on the exact same page, as long as we’re communicating about it, about it and finding each other, you know, and supporting each other. And we really were able to do a lot of that after going through this. Cause infertility is such a challenge on couples and it was great to be able to strengthen our relationship.
I mean, we’ve been together for almost 20 years now, and I love that. It feels even better now than it felt before, you know, like we just even have this deeper connection than we ever had because of how we were able to work through. And, you know, and tackle a lot of these things together and him being open about that.
Yeah. That’s incredible. I mean, that’s the thing that I hear a lot too, is like, you know, when, once a woman, you know, learns how to do this and she learns how to build that mindset, the ripple effect that you create. I mean, I mean, you’re basically saying exactly that, like it impacts your relationship. It undoubtedly impacts your work.
It impacts the way you mother and the way you will mother more than one. Yeah. And it’s, it changes you. So what do you think were some of the biggest changes that you saw in yourself? Because they happen quickly, right? I push y’all, I push you guys like over the course of that period of time that we work together.
Like, what did you start seeing? Gosh, I feel like there were a lot of things. I would say some of the immediate things and that I’m still able to utilize is I, I, I Found ways to trust myself again and the decisions that I was making. I think that self doubt is really tough on a lot of people. And I felt like that was a big one for me and finding that confidence again in my decisions and.
It being okay to not always be, you know, a hundred percent correct about things either, you know, cause we can’t control every outcome and being okay with that, you know, so being confident with a decision and being able to move forward with that without criticizing myself, if something didn’t go perfectly.
And I could apply that to our infertility journey, but I can apply that to so many other things too. You know, I don’t. And that’s part of medicine. It’s like, I want to be right for everything with that. And that’s something that can be science, but when it comes to, you know, conversations and relationships and, and things outside of science and medicine, you know, it’s okay to trust myself and not judge myself for decisions that I make and, and choices about how I want to proceed in my life, you know, cause.
everybody’s going to have a judgment about something. You know, you can’t please everybody. So I have to make sure that I’m being true to myself. And that was, that was really big, right? Well, and I mean, what you’re talking about is moving from a place of being indecisive to being Quite decisive which is really important on this journey, right?
I mean and it’s a skill that you actually had to learn because I mean think about I mean I felt this way in the law, you know, probably, you know to a lesser degree than you probably feel in medicine because you’re you know People’s lives are immediately in the balance when it comes to your work Is that you know as professionals were trained to like hey, we need all to have all the answers People come to us for the answer.
So we have to have an answer and we better be right, right? It’s just this incredible pressure that we put on ourselves. But when you’re talking about is the kind of steady handed confidence that says, I’m going to make a choice here and I’m cool with my choice may not always work out, but I know that I have it within me to meet whatever challenge comes next.
Exactly. Yeah. And I think it is. It’s hard to separate the profession from the personal, you know, of what we are able to give to people, you know, in our professional lives. And then for some reason we can’t give ourselves grace in our personal lives, you know, and, and I think that’s something that’s so hard for so many of us is to, you know, also have just grace and compassion for ourselves as we go through things.
Because it is, it’s really hard and it’s a struggle and we’re allowed to, you know, feel sad and, but so much of that journey is about kind of picking yourself up again and trusting in that journey. And I think that’s the other thing was, you know, refinding hope again. One of the big things that I gained from this was not letting the past dictate the future.
You know, so often we say, well, this didn’t work, so why would it work this time, or. You know, this didn’t work for, you know, anybody else in my, you know, statistic group, you know, my age or my numbers. So why would it work for me? You know, it’s so much of that, that negativity. And I think being able to say that, you know, one does not define the other.
You know, we, we are not just a statistic, you know, we are people and things can work out and finding that faith and that hope and it’s very powerful again. And that’s something that you lose so much of with this journey because it’s. You know, it’s just, it’s beating you down time and time again. So really working on getting through that.
Wow. Wow. And so, okay, so you, you’re learning all these skills and you’re seeing these changes and you know, you’re, you’re diving deep into this stuff. What was going on in the background for you? Were you continuing treatment? Like what was, you know, how did, did you have a circumstance where you could apply all this?
Yeah. So the, you know, kind of, it was right when we started doing work together, I would say within a couple of weeks of the modules and I had been given the choice, I, I had kind of been sitting after I had met with a couple of different doctors, you know, as the numbers got worse, I had a doctor tell me, okay, you probably have endometriosis.
And that’s part of what could be going on. And I had a, a biopsy that was suspicious for it, but it was not what we call the gold standard. You know, it was not, it’s a, it’s a new science basically. And I was given a couple options where one was, you know, a pill, one was an injection and one was surgery.
Those were kind of the three options that I was given to. Treat suspected endometriosis, and they all had different, you know, different side effect profiles, different risks. And this was part of when I was in that analysis paralysis. And we, we took a pause and I started doing my work with you. And as we were doing that, I kind of, you know, this was the point where I said, okay, I need to just look at what I want to do.
I. Had gone through one more IVF retrieval while we were thinking about it. I had been given the option of all of those different things. And I said, well, I can’t make, I don’t feel confident about any of the options or any of, you know, my choices really, so we did one more IVF retrieval. To hope that we would get, you know, at least one embryo cause the round before when they had suggested this was when I was my really disappointing round where I had been doing all of the other things, you know, eating well, taking all the supplements, meditating, exercising, gluten free, I tried all these different things and then I did my round and we started with good numbers.
And for those who go through IVF, you kind of know that day one, day three, day five, those phone calls that either just have so much control over your emotions. And we got our day three call and it was great. You know, we had like seven embryos that looked fantastic. And then we were so excited. We said, wow, this will finally be the last round of IVF.
We’re going to get a couple embryos. And then the day five call came and none of them survived. And I just thought, you’ve got to be kidding me. I mean, everybody said, you know, everybody told me, every doctor said, you won’t have an issue with embryos. You won’t have an issue. You won’t have an issue. And when that happened, that’s when they started to suggest, okay, well then you must have endometriosis because there’s no other reason that you would go from having no problems to all of these problems when you’re, you know, healthy otherwise.
And my repeat workup was all fine. They gave us those options. I said, let’s just do one more round while I’m deciding what to do, because each round I consider and each embryo you consider like a snowflake. And I just tried to think they’re all different. Her baby just wasn’t that month, you know? So let’s just try one more time and see if we get one embryo.
So we, and we did, so we did one more round and we got one embryo. And I thought, okay, now at least we have that and we can make some decisions. And that’s when we started doing our work. And that’s when I just said, this is what I want to do. I want to do one more transfer. You know, I’ve been taking good care of myself and now I’m like physically, and now I’m taking good care of my mind and I have that hope back, you know, so I just want to do this and this is where my husband kind of said, no, the doctors, they were going to lose an embryo.
And I said, no, I just feel it. Like I, I just feel it in my bones and we did the transfer and that’s the one that worked. Isn’t that amazing? It was. And I, we actually had one of the doctors said. I promise you don’t do this. You know, this won’t work. He’s like an expert, you know, the expert. We searched him out.
We had waited six months to get in to see him. And he said, but sometimes I’m wrong. So if for some reason this works, you call me and let me know. So I can remember this. Oh my gosh. We haven’t called him yet, but I want, I want the baby to be here and be like, look, look who wouldn’t be here. If I had listened.
You know, if I hadn’t tested myself. Okay, wait a second. So, let’s put this into some perspective. So, you go from suspected endometriosis, like exclamation points, like red lights flashing, buzzers going off, like holy shit, numbers are getting worse, you do a retrieval, you had seven embryos on, you know, day three, and then day five, no, not one of them survived.
And then you decide to do another retrieval. You’ve got one lone embryo. You start doing this work. You start feeling better. You’re taking good care of yourself and you’re presented with the option of moving forward with that transfer and you decide to trust yourself despite an expert you waited six months to see telling you, yeah, probably won’t happen, but all of this.
To trusting yourself and it worked. Yeah, and when we saw that expert, it was, I think it was two or three days before the plan transfer. So talk about like really putting some doubt back into your head. You know, I was already on the protocol to be ready for the transfer and he said, cancel it, cancel it immediately.
This is incredible, Kate. Like, this is really incredible because I see this all the time, like, I see women who are, you know, and, and not, you know, not all of them are physicians. I mean, you’re a physician, you know, the numbers, you, you know, your colleagues and to have somebody say, no, this isn’t, you know, this isn’t going to work.
I, you know, cancel this. And you being able to stand up and say, no, I feel this in my bones. I’m doing this. Like, who were you at that point? Like, I know, I was transformed. I mean, what was going through your mind at that point? Because every bit of your training, every bit of the fear and saboteurs could have totally derailed you.
I think part of it was getting rid of, um, this concern of timeline, you know, of feeling like it has to work this time, you know, like, or I have to. You know, I have to treat this suspected endometriosis right now, because if I don’t, we’ll never have a baby or, you know, I kind of, I feel like it was just about saying, trust myself, just, you know, move forward because even, you know, even if something doesn’t work, you know, then, then I can reevaluate and see what’s right for me again.
You know, I can keep reevaluating, you know, what I want to do. And it’s okay if that changes, you know, it might be. You know, it was different a year ago than it was today, and it could be different another month from now, you know, each cycle or each month, you know, you’re, if you’re constantly, you know, doing the work on yourself and figuring out what’s right for you, I feel like we’re always evolving, you know, and, and our, you know, what we want can change and that’s okay.
And I think just being at peace with that part too, that this is what I want today. This is what I trust today. But I will give myself grace and if this does not work, it’s okay for me to change what that next step might be, you know, and I don’t have to think about, Oh, well, that doctor told me I shouldn’t have done this or, you know, like have any regret about things.
Just, just really focusing on how I feel in this moment and being okay with that. And not, you know, and not criticizing myself for how I feel. Wow. I mean, and you made this change fast. Like, you made this change fast. And I remember like being on the zoom call with you and like, you’re so cute. Like I remember, you know, you’d be in your little, you know, your little lab coat and I’d see ya.
And like, it was just amazing. Cause you really threw yourself into this work. Like you weren’t playing games. Like you jumped in with both feet. Definitely. And I think we had a call the day of the transfer Transcribed And that’s when I was able to, to say, well, I just had a doctor tell me not to go, but I feel good about it.
Like I feel good about going and it’s hard, you know, it’s like I am a doctor and people don’t always agree with my opinion and that’s okay. You know, there are some things that are, you know, here, you need to do this. You know, you’re, you’re having a heart attack, you need a stent, you know, I mean, there are some things that you just say you need to do this right now, but.
In the infertility world, a lot is uncertain and we don’t, you know, what works for some people doesn’t work for others and vice versa. And I think that it’s important to know that a lot of things are just recommendations and it’s important for us to. educate ourselves so we can make the right choices for ourselves, but not end up too far down the line in that analysis paralysis either, like I was at first.
Right, right. Well, and, and to remember that physicians are human. Right. I mean, this is exactly, yeah, I mean, it’s the exact thing where, you know, I’m sure you always hear me shouting about this, but you know, you’re going to have 10 people tell you one thing, another tell 10, have you, you know, hear another opinion.
You got to be the one mofo in the room that knows the direction she’s headed. And when you had your last transfer, so that’s where you were. Exactly. Cause yeah, I mean, if everybody’s opinion was correct. Then we would all be getting pregnant in one month, you know, it would be, you know, if it was as black and white as that, the same thing as, you know, not everybody will, you know, we’ll get judgment from one person, but that’s just one person’s opinion.
You know, if everybody’s opinion was correct, then everybody would have that same judgment, you know? So I think just realizing that about this field. And knowing that it’s so, you know, we want, of course our doctor’s recommendations, that’s what helps kind of guide us a lot of us to, you know, these, these beautiful miracle babies, but it’s not end all be all, you know, it’s, it’s about finding that balance.
Yeah. And I mean, talk about miracle baby, like you had one embryo sister, you had one embryo, you trust yourself and bam. It’s crazy. I mean, like, it, it just also speaks to this, you know, how we wrap our, our heads around an axle about numbers. Like, if I don’t have 50 embryos, you know, like, you know, my chances are so low and it’s like, I see this all the time in women who really get this piece of the puzzle.
They really get their mind on board. The number doesn’t matter. You had one , you had seven babies. You just need, yeah, you just need one. And it’s, um. You know, it’s funny now because my, my husband and I will even talk about things, you know, once in a while, we’ll talk about the future and me and I, you know, will we have more kids won’t we?
And even now he is like, anything could happen. You know, that’s it. It’s not this like, well, we’d have to go through IVF or we’d have to do this. You know, we get to sit and say anything can happen. We don’t, we don’t know. We don’t know what. The future holds and that’s okay. We’re so happy and grateful right now.
And we have this restored hope again of all kinds of things. Wow. Wow. I mean, this is just like, you’re really demonstrating the ripple effect that this can have in one’s life. It’s, you know, you’re able to model this for your husband. You’re going to be able to model this for your son and for baby number two.
So why don’t you tell us, like, I mean, cause obviously, I mean, it’s pretty obvious, like you’re pregnant, like how far along are you now? Uh, 29 weeks. Wow. Yeah. So very, it’s just very exciting. I mean, we had, you know, a lot of disbelief almost for, for several weeks. Wow. Is this real? Is this. This is actually happening and, you know, and then right at the time where we would start to tell people, then a pandemic hits and we, you know, we go, okay, what’s real.
What’s not real. Do we even recognize our world right now? Like I bet, I bet. Well, and is there, I mean, is there a better time to have these skills, the skills that you learn than being pregnant during a fricking pandemic? Right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it is. Definitely, definitely something that I am grateful for how we got here, because there has never been really a more stressful time of, you know, because infertility fears don’t go away as most of us know when we just get that positive pregnancy test.
You know, we have to keep kind of doing the work and having that, that trust and hope and belief and enjoying, you know, every single moment and being really present with the pregnancy in that moment and being able to apply that during, during COVID has been invaluable because it’s been very stressful.
You may lose a lot of support. The hospital is stressful. The, you know. Everyone around us is stressed and, and I’m still trying to make sure that I’m not too stressed about the pregnancy, you know, and, and conquering and, you know, letting myself feel my fears, but not let them overtake me either. Right. So, yeah.
So there was a lot to apply these past few months and probably for the next several months moving forward. Right. Right. Well, and so, so tell us, I mean, like, what would you, I mean, from your unique perspective, like, what would you want the you before you had this piece of the puzzle and before, you know, this second baby came, like, what would you want to tell yourself?
What would you want to tell other women who are struggling right now? Like, what would you want them to know about how important this piece of the puzzle is? I think it would be that doing the mindset work is something that is so invaluable. You know, it is, you know, it’s something that you can utilize for this part of your journey, but for everything moving forward.
And like you said, being able to instill that on your family, on, you know, these future kids, it’s something that is priceless. And I feel like that everything’s meant to be the way it’s meant to be. It’s really hard in the moment of infertility struggles to feel that way. But I do feel like things work out and you get, you know, part of your journey.
Part of what you learn is what you get to apply to your life moving forward. And you just get to become the best version of yourself. And that is something that is so important to be able to teach our kids. And I think that before all of this, I was in a very comfortable place with our life. You know, it was, I’ve worked hard.
I, I have a good job. I love my husband. You know, we have all of these things to be grateful for, but remembering that I can still always continue to be the best version of myself and grow. And that journey doesn’t stop just because things are good. You know, things can always. You know, the abundance factor again, you know, there can always be more, we can always gain more, we can always do more, we can help more people, you know, there’s, there’s always more that we can do to make the world better.
And part of that is learning these skills to then create the next generation, you know, and make our children better and teach them these skills. And I’m so excited for that with, you know, with getting to. Raise, uh, you know, two wonderful young men. Like I can’t wait to see who they turn into because of what I’ve learned.
Oh my gosh. That totally brings tears to my eyes. Cause I’m like, our boys are, you know, so close in age and like. And I just think of, I mean, it’s such a unique thing. Like, I mean, this is why, like, I honestly believe this journey is a gift. And I know some, somebody’s probably going to throw their phone when they, when they hear me say that, but it literally gives us the pivot point in our lives.
We can either keep going in the same tired direction that we’ve always gone in, or we can reach for something greater and. This journey is, is an opportunity for us to grow and also decide who we’re going to be. Yeah, because it’s something where you just gain completely different perspective on the world and on life and on relationships.
I mean, you never really, unless, unless you have challenges and everyone has different challenges that make them look at things differently at times, but. There is something about the infertility journey that I feel like makes you look at everything because it is so encompassing. I mean, it just, you know, it devours us, you know, I mean, all we want are to have these kids and to be moms and, and it’s, you know, and it can be very isolating, but it is something that can also be very eye opening and give you the opportunity to look at so many different.
Aspects of your life and relationships with family members, spouses, you know, kids present and kids future, and even jobs. I mean, there, there was a lot I figured out about what I wanted career wise and relationships and, you know, in my job and how to have boundaries and, you know, and be able to apply a lot of these things to so many different aspects of my life that.
I would have never even explored before. Isn’t it crazy what can happen in eight weeks, love? I mean, it’s, it’s like, I’m like, Hey, I struggle, you know, with all this insanity for nearly a decade. Like, let me just show you the way over the course of eight weeks. Yeah. And I think what’s so valuable about it too, is that by doing this and doing those eight weeks.
It gives you that, you know, that drive and that excitement to do more for yourself, you know, like it doesn’t stop at eight weeks, you know, you get to, like, I have this new found excitement of, you know, educating myself about myself, you know, and figuring out things that I want for my future and how I want to create even a better future for myself and my family and, and the people around me, you know, it’s.
You know, I’ll have my parents even we’ll get in some kind of conversation about something and I’ll be like, well, let’s look at it this way. You know, like have you looked at, you know, I just was reading or remember when I was doing my coaching and I learned this, Oh my gosh. You know, who are you? Okay.
Like, yeah. And so, um, you know, so it just, I think that there’s, there’s something that’s really exciting about. Feeling like you can do anything again and learning about yourself, growing, just creating, you know, the best life that you can create. And we all get a little stagnant sometimes and we get a little stuck.
And this really jumpstarted a lot for me again. And it’s now been, you know, several months of kind of doing that work and, and being excited again and being hopeful. And it’s not every day. I mean, I still have like everybody, there’s still some days, right. You know, get in my little slump, but I let myself feel that and then I let that motivate me for what’s next.
Yeah. Now, you know what to do with it. Like you, you don’t have to live there, you, you make space for it and you know exactly what to do with it. Yeah. And that’s probably a really good thing for everyone to know too, is like, we’re allowed to feel sad and frustrated, but that does not drive our life. You know, that gets to take a backseat.
Get to the back of the bus, right? Oh my gosh. Well, Kate, thank you so much for sharing your story and being such an inspiration because I think it’s beautiful that women are gonna have the opportunity to hear a very real and very heartfelt story from, you know, a woman who could have easily, like, just given up, could have let the statistics scare the hell out of her, and, and totally subordinated her, her own feeling to what everyone else was telling her, and Your story is a story of triumph and a, and a story of a woman who’s like, I know what my hell.
Yes is They not say it that way, you know, you know You but you know what it is and you were willing to take that leap and and you’ve demonstrated The power that a woman has when she trusts herself. Thank you for that. Oh, well, thank you for everything and for You know, really helping with this journey and I’m, I’m happy to share it.
I think that every time I heard, you know, another woman’s story on your podcast, there’s always a piece of it that. I could take that really helped me. And so there’s something so powerful about that hope. So thanks for providing that for so many people. Oh, it’s my pleasure, babe. Hey loves. Wasn’t it? Dr.
Kate, just fantastic. Don’t you want to just shrink her down into a tiny little doll and carry her around because she’s so fucking awesome. Well, here’s what you need to know. You don’t have to be a medical professional to be smart on this journey. Do what Dr. Kate did and refuse to be a statistic. What you think and believe is the foundation for your success on this journey.
Think about where you could be 12 months from now if you finally made your mind work for you. My fearlessly fertile method program is for women who intend to get pregnant in the next 12 months and say, hell yes, to covering their bases, mind and body. So you don’t have to look back on this time with regret.
Dr. Kate sure isn’t. If you want to learn what I taught her, this is your chance. I work with women who are committed to success. To apply for your interview for this revolutionary program, go to my website, www.FromMaybeToBaby.com and apply for an interview with me there. My methodology has helped women around the world make their mom dreams come true.
Their results speak for themselves. If you don’t have a mindset for success on this journey, you’ve got a gaping hole in your strategy, love. Let’s fix that shit and set you up for success. Till next time, change your mindset, change your results. Love this episode of the Fearlessly Fertile Podcast?
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