Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard - Race to 35: Esther Perel

Episode Date: December 21, 2022

BONUS episode of Race to 35 with Esther Perel. Months after their retrievals, Monica and Liz return to the attic to discuss their feelings surrounding the egg retrieval process with some distance from the experience. Esther Perel joins the women in the attic to talk about ambiguous loss, jealousy/discomfort, and plans for the future.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Do you know that I was part of the founding team of the mental health supports at NYU in the fertility clinic? Oh, my God. Wow. I didn't know that. Because of what I had gone through, because there was absolutely nothing. You know, you're completely dependent on that for a long time if you happen to have a nice nurse. Right. They don't know anything about your personal stuff.

Yeah, we don't. I didn't know we were stumbling into something extra special. I mean, it's 30 years ago. Actually more. It's 35 years ago. But yeah, you don't forget. Yeah. Okay. Well, we're the luckiest girls per use because we have a very special guest today. So this, just to be candid, is a bonus episode. We were not planning on this. When we started the season, we didn't expect that we would need necessarily some bonus episodes post-retrieval. But because of the way it all unfolded, that has left us with some lingering feelings and thoughts. And who better to talk to us through our pain than Esther Perel, our go-to expert. I can't believe we get to have you in the attic as often as we do. It's so special. So I guess the audience at this point knows that

I got two eggs out of the retrieval. Liz got 13 eggs. The bullseye number, quote unquote, is 15 to 20. So both of us were disappointed. And I was like, okay. So I got essentially zero is how I felt and took it. It was such an intense process. And especially because of the way we did this, it was just us two, Kristen and Dax were out of town. Like we were in fertility camp. We did these shots together every night. I gave Liz her shots every night because needles

out for her. And we did this every day. At the very beginning, we talked about our feelings, how they were evolving and the night before shots, how that went. And then we talked to experts and then people with fertility stories for two weeks. So we were inundated in this space. We did do it so publicly, which felt like what I always do, which is make something hard work. That makes it easy. When it's not what you think it's going to be, then you Then you're like, oh, wow. Now I have to share this devastating news. You said I was like disappointed, like you were devastated. That was really hard. And you've bounced back a lot in an incredible way. But yeah, then you're suddenly like not only my devastated,

but then I have to share this result with everybody. And there was a question. I was like, have to share this result with everybody. And there was a question. I was like, maybe I won't. We didn't have to. Our last episode we recorded, we had just had the retrieval. So we knew how many eggs we got, but we didn't know how many were mature yet. So at that point I had six eggs retrieved. Still not great, but along the process it was becoming clear that was going to be ish my number. So six seemed okay. And then Liz had 19 retrieved. So that was like, okay, like we did it. We made it through. And then the next day, both of our doctors called. But you see, if you talk about numbers of eggs, it keeps you in this kind of mathematic equation and you don't have to talk about loss. Whereas what I think happens, if you are in a fertility treatment because you have an awareness that you have had challenges, then you have already begun from a place of loss.

Certain things have not worked and you are opting for the next series of interventions. You are in touch with the longing. You are in touch with what hasn't happened. You are in touch with grief. You are in touch with loss. But when you're trying to retrieve eggs on your own in order to freeze them, you don't start from a place of deficiency. You start from a place of you think I'm going to prevent something. You know, I'm creating a credit account. And so you are not actually as well prepared for the experience of loss. When you say I had nothing because two is nothing, it depends. It's actually not true. It all depends on the quality. But still, it feels like a little death. Some people say I failed, even though somewhere they know it's not

them, but they feel like their body betrayed them, like they didn't deliver. But there is loss. And it's a strange experience of loss and death, because on some level you say of what exactly? And this is where there's an incredible term that was coined, actually, by a colleague of mine, Pauline Boss, way back when. And it was called ambiguous loss. And she specifically used it around miscarriage and around fertility because ambiguous loss is when you can't fully resolve. Because either like in Alzheimer's, for example example your person is still physically there but emotionally or psychologically gone but in miscarriage the person is emotionally there the baby the eggs what you attach to it the story that gets accompanied which means a child but physically

there is nothing and so it is a different kind of mourning. And I think if we're going to make something useful to people who listen to us, it's really to not just stay with numbers and hormones, because there is something very alienating about that language too. Follicles, counts, hormones. I went through the story and I remember thinking there was a way in which the entire medical establishment, this is way back when, but still had a way of never using the word child. Oh, never. It just talked about follicles and sperm counts and eggs qualities and membranes. Can we name this experience?

Because there is a real goal to it and it has a name. And it has a name. And if we name it, then we actually will acknowledge the loss and we will know why we are so disappointed, depressed, sad and why we need to let go of this. Now, when you do it in the natural cycle and women, you know, they count, they get to their days, they start to give their shots, then they do the insemination and then they wait. And then there is a week where you can think about everything you want because nothing's going to happen anyway. And then comes the next count. That appearance is going to come, that appearance is not going to come. If it doesn't work, it's like they're let down, you know. And then you have to wait a month. So then everyone who's gone through this dance gets that rhythm of the period that you prepare, the period of ovulation, the period of waiting, and then the period of resolution. I think that is where I want to put the focus for you is that this is a loss.

And when you say it's weird because there's nobody really there, it is a small death. Yeah. It is a creation that didn't fertilize. And so if it didn't fertilize, it died. And it's symbolic, but it is no less real in your experience. Yeah. It's nice to hear that because I think in the moment, it felt very silly to be so thrown by it. And I really was. We went to like get a breakfast burrito or something, totally benign. Also, and this is with everyone in anything with pregnancy or their bodies we were in so much pain we were so bloated we couldn't even really stand up straight we had just gone through

these procedures surgery yeah yeah am amnesia anesthesia anesthesia and we were really in pain. So then when she called and was like, okay, so I have bad news, kind of from I have bad news, two eggs were mature. I don't remember barely anything else she said. I mean, she was saying stuff, but if we do it again, then X, Y, and Z will try this. And at one point I remember I said, so what does this mean? I couldn't really comprehend it. She was like, well, you're not infertile. She knew I needed to hear that, I think. But I got off and I was like, OK, well, OK, I'll do it again.

It's fine. Right. But you see that you enter a whole mindset now because I can't tell you that it's never going to happen. You've just done it one cycle. So, of course, we need to keep your hopes up. So now we're going to talk about all the other procedures. And I think that before you start talking about all the other procedures,

it's really important to allow oneself to actually sink, to get really down, to realize, shit, you know, it didn't happen. I really wanted this. And to go through that until you get your strength back and you go for that next. What happens sometimes from the well-meaning medical profession is that no sooner have I told you I have bad news that I'm telling you, but I have other, you know, there's so many other things we can try. And it's well-meaning, but it is actually not really what one needs. One needs to just mope or weep. And I'm very happy that we talk about that

because that is the part of the support that isn't talked about. What is talked about more is what are the other things that you can do and don't give up and you just began. And that's all fine. But since you're bringing me, I know that other experience.

And it's also the fact that you didn't have the same results. So here you are, you know, you want to do this together, but now you have a better situation than you. And you want her to succeed. Of course. You feel a little guilty that it worked for you and it didn't work for your friend.

You feel a little jealous and envious that it worked for your friend and not for you. All of these things are there. Even if we try to be mature about it, it's natural that there will be an element of envy and an element of guilt. Because the most beautiful thing would be that we could both be witnesses of each other's fertility. I do want to ask you that because of just the natural way of how it went. We focus so much on me and the sadness, but I do want to hear a little bit about were you just so uncomfortable?

the sadness but I do want to hear a little bit about were you just so uncomfortable well is it hard for you to celebrate when the very person that you're doing it with it's obvious to me I mean not to the full extent but there must be something of that at the very beginning when I told my doctor what I you know I'm making a podcast about this they told me just so you know like don't compare numbers and when you got that phone, I really did have like a moment of how do I help her? I'm the 13 eggs consoling that, you know what I mean? And even again, 13 eggs is still not the number that I want it, right? But I can't complain about this to Monica. Again, we're not here to compare whose loss is bigger. The loss is different and it means something different, right? And I love the term

ambiguous loss because I can relate to it with even dating or a job. Sometimes the thing that you don't get, you experience a bigger loss from it than the thing that you did have and that you lost. The relationship that you imagined in your head, how it would go and how you would feel with this person, when it happens and it doesn't work out it can almost be a bigger loss or again harder to grieve or more complicated to grieve because it never was the thing that you imagined it would be in your head and as you're talking with miscarriage as you're talking about it with egg retrieval it's not a fantasy but it is a story that you've created and then you feel dumb grieving it you're like i'm grieving a story that you've created. And then you feel dumb grieving it. You're like, I'm grieving a thing that never existed.

I mean, you grieve a few things. You grieve the result, but you also grieve an approach to life, right? On some level, when you decide to freeze your eggs, you think, I am in control of my fertility. I'm in control of my life. I'm an emancipated woman who has choices, et cetera. And you try to defy the biological imperative. You really think that science and magic and good luck will prevail on your side. And when this doesn't happen, it does put a lot of women who think of themselves as in charge

in confronting the realities of the things that you don't control. And can I add one more thing to that? Because I also felt for you, Monica. And again, I feel like this happens with dating where you're like, I didn't even really want you. And you're you're rejecting me. You didn't even know if you wanted kids. And by the end of the retrieval, you did. That was a whole part of this for me. Because, you know, you've been on our other show. Like, I'm independent. I don't even know if I want that. I don't even know if I want a partner. I don't even know if I want kids. All defenses. And I did. We just released the first episode. Also, that's another story. Editing this show is tough for me. But I was listening back. First of

all, I'm so pessimistic. I don't even know. It's just insurance. And through those two weeks, I did an episode of Armchair. Dax was out of town. We did a fact check and he told a little story about Delta and I started crying. And he was like, what is that about? Are you worried you're not going to have that? I think at the moment I was just like, I don't know. But then I was like, yeah, I am. I want that. And I had to really come to terms with it. And it was very vulnerable and hard for me to tell myself, you do want this. And I finally got there. I was like, oh my God, finally got there. Then we did the thing. And then it was like, I knew it. I knew it. I knew I shouldn't have let myself feel the thing because it just comes with this pain.

It comes with the pain, but it also comes with the motivation. It comes with clarity. You cannot do this while you remain kind of wishy-washy. It's really too involved. If you ever were wishy-washy on round one, by round two, you definitely know why you're doing this. And even if sometimes you're doing this because you can't stand the fact that it's not happening, it's kind of in the negation of it. The disappointment of it not working is almost bigger than what you think is the joy of it happening. That said, it's okay to be very clear

that you want to have children and to know that when that doesn't happen in the cycles, that you have the grief that comes with the fact that the child hasn't arrived yet. And to think that you can protect yourself from the grief by being wishy-washy over, do I really want it? I'm not sure I really want that. So if it doesn't happen, there's no big loss. It's a real fantasy. It's a fantasy in the domain of fertility because it plays in this idea that you can decide everything. And the fact is, I don't think

we decide everything. And fertility treatment is one of those biological truths that remind us that we don't decide everything. Well, and because when you mentioned control, it's so interesting that you use that word, because I do think a lot of women who enter this experience are very independent, are very hardworking. They have big careers. You know, they've focused on other things for a long time. It's very humbling to realize that no matter how much agency and how much ingenuity you have and how much foresight and how much planning, that there's a piece of this that is in the hands of whatever you want to call it. Who knows what. Nature, nature, God, destiny, chance. It's not you doing. No matter

how much you prepare, this is a very humbling experience, which they don't tell you in the freeze your eggs plot. No. The freeze your eggs plot is a plot of complete control. Yes, that's so true. That does not leave the opening to the vulnerability and the humility of the things that we don't control. And do you have a specific way into this topic? Because our experience is unique to egg freezing, but it's also not that unique in terms of there's so many different ways that women come into fertility. Look, it's a very interesting thing. I am from the generation with the pill and before AIDS. So we had a complete conceptual revolution in our head.

For the first time, we could block procreation and we could separate sex from reproduction. Then we began to separate reproduction from sex. And both of these things gave us an illusion of control that no women have ever known historically or still till today in the vast majority of the world. So we didn't have the egg piece at that moment when I was having children. But I definitely went through my share of fertility treatments. And I remember the phases. It was IUIs. I was in the first, first generations of IVF. And every month you went through that whole thing. And

it was grief. It was a process of mourning. And it was ambiguous because it was invisible because nobody saw anything. It's not like there even was a kid and the kid went. Yes. nobody saw anything. It's not like there even was a kid and the kid went. It's that, you know, these eggs were there and they kind of suddenly vanished. So I was teaching at NYU at the time. There were all these clinics opening up, the first first of all these fertility clinics, and there was zero attention to the psychological experience and to the relational experience. If it's done in a couple, it's the relational experience. And if it's done among two friends who are going through it together,

it's also a relational experience. And if you go through it alone, it's your relationship with all those people who may or may not know anything about it. And it's about all the others who have already had children and whose baby showers you have to attend every time. So it's always relational. And it's about the parents who are putting pressure on you

or the sister that have just had another twins, and et cetera, et cetera. So I think that that piece, that is not the lab story, the counts, that one has never really been given full attention. And it is actually really the one that we live with day in, day out, minute by minute. You become hyper aware of your body, of what it does, of how it's responding.

Are these periods arriving? Have they not arrived? Has it been another day? Am I delusional? Did I really fix the count correct? No, I missed my count. I don't remember anything. It's filled with stories like that. And I wanted to put the focus on the accompaniment around the psychological and emotional part and the relationship part. And for that, it needed to bring mental health people into the medical field of fertility

treatments, which often were people who had kind of a godlike creation. Right. Yeah, definitely. Ego. Yes. They have to in what they're doing. But that's really why we wanted to do this show in the first place, because when we were first looking at egg freezing or when I was, it was all so clinical. The brochures and exactly what you're talking about, counts, follicles. So cold. Very cold. And we wanted to show the version of two real people going through it and what that looked like.

And it is very messy. It's manic. It's quite a series. But I'm glad we did it because that's the reality of it is these ups and downs and these crying spells. Just the raw emotion it's the enormous sense of responsibility yeah it's the fact that even if you are joining each other you each person with herself on some level each with herself is deciding what am i doing with this how far do i want to go why do you freeze eggs and not embryos? Is a question I have.

We've talked about that. You know, with freedom and choice comes responsibility. And it puts a lot of us women face to face with ourselves at a level that is really challenging. It's nice to be able to choose, but it's very awesome, burdensome in that sense to have so much of that choice or to realize the limitation of the choice yeah stay tuned for more if you dare this show is sponsored by better help and our lives are sponsored by yeah by. Gosh, for therapists, life doesn't come with a user manual. So when things aren't working for you, it's okay to feel stuck. You're not alone. And it's amazing when you can find someone who can help you through that difficult period and BetterHelp. There's no better place to really find therapists that are

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off your first month at betterhelp.com slash fertility. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P.com slash fertility. We are supported by Modern Fertility. Now, we're supposed to go to the OBGYN once a year for our annual checkups, but checking in with our fertility isn't usually a thing until we're ready for kids or struggling to get pregnant. But modern fertility was created so that you don't really have to wait to do any of this. It's an easy, affordable way to test your fertility hormones at home with a simple finger prick, mail it in with a prepaid label, and you'll get your personalized results within six business days. I love this so much because these appointments can be stressful. If you have a full life, it could be expensive or

it could take up a lot of your time. And you'll get insights into your hormone levels, your ovarian reserve, which is how many eggs and follicles, which we didn't know going into this process. Yeah. And then you can kind of check with me when I was off the birth control and all, like I can check via this instead of having to go to the doctor and make an appointment. I can. It's so easy. Yeah. And so traditional hormone testing at a fertility clinic can be several hundred dollars. And Modern Fertility tests the same general set of hormones at a fraction of the price. So if you go to modernfertility.com slash race to 35, you'll get 30 bucks off your test.

Right now, Modern Fertility is offering our listeners $30 off the test when you go to modernfertility.com slash race to 35. This is a limited time offer for $30 off. Get $30 off your fertility test when you go to modernfertility.com slash race to 35. modernfertility.com slash race I was talking to Monica about this since we've started posting about the episode. I now have, I don't know what to call these guys, like fertility guys or like egg freezing guys in my comments telling me get married and have kids. Even if I'm literally posting about pizza, maybe it's bots from Russia, but I don't know what that would be for. It doesn't seem very politically motivated, but I do think it's interesting to talk about this, right? So one of the things that women will talk about the most with egg freezing is that it feels very isolating, especially if you're not doing it with a partner, right? And you tend to freeze your eggs because maybe you haven't found a partner.

We know that that's the number one reason women freeze their eggs right now. And so there's this sense that you failed or this sense that no one picked you. I don't know if I've brought this up, but I think there was also an underlying anger for me. The fact that I have to do this makes me frustrated. And then I think there's a societal thing. As women are doing more things on their own, then do men feel even more obsolete? And I don't know, I'm just wondering if you have any thoughts about how all of those emotions are at play in our relationships and particularly, again, for women who are going through this, how to deal

with that sense that you're failing this ideal that your mom maybe was able to reach or that other women around you are able to reach, but you're not able to reach. The romantic ideal of I'm going to find a partner and with that partner, I'm going to have children. So it's different if you decide to freeze your eggs on your own versus if you are going to fertility treatments with a partner. You know, I think that they're parallel stories, but they're not the same. And it's different if you freeze at 22, 23 versus if you're in your middle late 30s. That also is a different story. I don't think there is one way to answer this. I think the notion about I have to take care of myself,

which on the one hand, I'm happy I can do. I have the means. This is very expensive. Let's be honest about this. I can do this. I have the means. I have the know-how. I have the resources. I have my friend who's going through it with me. That is huge. And I shouldn't have had to do this. Why did this happen to me? This notion that the plot didn't go according to how I thought it would be. On the other hand, I did ask to myself on my way here, what would have been the difference for you in freezing eggs versus freezing an embryo? Because when you freeze eggs, you still say, I'm holding on for the partner. Yes. And then I'm thinking, if you freeze the embryo, you know, besides the fact that you have more chances, it's a different decision making.

It says it may not be based on finding a partner, which then again, you may say on the one hand, I have the freedom to be able to have a child on my own without being dependent on a male partner. But I have the burden and the responsibility of having to decide this myself. And then I take this even a step further. And I would say almost half the people do not raise their children with the person they had the child with. Right, it's true, yeah.

So if we really want to take the story, the goal is not, I want to have a child by myself. To have a child on your own doesn't mean that you have a child alone. And that would be dismantling this grip of the romantic ideal that it needs one partner with whom you're going to do this with rather than I will have a child and I will have a community of people around me to raise this child with, including we could be two friends who will live in proximity where we can raise our children together and we will continue to have our love life and find our partners as we go along.

But it won't be the condition because on some level you resent your dependency on having to find a man. You tie it to your future. You will resent them even more if you have forgone having a child because you didn't find Miss Charles, Prince Charles,, you tie it to your future. You will resent them even more if you have foregone having a child because you didn't find Miss Charles, Prince Charles, whatever you call it, Prince Charming, you know, and that plot becomes very twisted. Yes, exactly. You're starting off with so many resentments before you've even started a relationship. Then it really is about fully liberating women to just say,

if you don't find a partner, then have a child and create an alternative situation that allows you to raise this child with lots more support, maybe even than if you had one partner, because then you're completely released of the grip of the nuclear model as well.

I would like to invite women who do the kinds of things that you are doing now in Freezing Your Ex to think even further in that sense, because all you're doing now is buying time. You're not changing the paradigm. Yeah, right. Now, that is not a small thing. But if we really want to free something, then maybe we need to push this a little bit further into a change of the paradigm altogether. Then you're free to meet your partner anytime, but the partner is not your sperm donor. It's such a breakdown of the way we look at parenting and what it means to

be a parent. We explored some of this during the show, but you know, it's like my kids share my genes with my husband's genes and we're all one. And that makes it feel like we're extra connected. I buy into all of that because we even talked about this after we were kind of joking. And Liz was like, season two, we're going to pick out our sperm donors. And I was like, no, I only have two eggs I'm working with here. I can't, I can't quote unquote waste them. That's honestly how I thought of it. I can't waste them with some random sperm just to make sure that they freeze up. Well, it is about redefining family and redefining that a parent is not just there

because of their genetic connection. It is the person who raises you, who takes care of you. That is a parent. And that doesn't necessarily get attached to genes. Plenty of genetic parents, biological parents who are not nearly that present. Exactly, yeah. So I think the main piece for me is to not see freezing eggs only as buying time. It has a bigger meaning than buying time. And it is the meaning that begins

to open up a whole set of new possibilities for women, the same way that contraception opened up a whole set of new possibilities for women of my generation. I mean, that's interesting to think about it that way. When we started this, if you would have said sperm donor, I would have never even identified with that as a decision. Not even like a percent of me would have even considered it. And by the end of it, again, I'm pitching a show where like, let's find sperm donors. And I got to a point, I don't think I told you this, but I was like, should I be freezing embryos? Should I just pick someone? It is a logical next question. It's not a transgressive question. But it feels like a transgression because to your point,

we've expanded and progressed in terms of the technology, but we haven't expanded or progressed when it comes to our perspective. No, because the perspective is a real conceptual break. It's a paradigm shift in the literal sense of the word. And every time, I mean, I remember the very idea of the IVF when for the first time you had a petri dish and that conception actually took place outside. And that was a real mind twist. So we've had these successions of mind twists that are very hard to grasp. And we're in the midst of that. But I do think that what you do opens up that possibility. Do you still, many years later, when you think back of the time when you were in the middle of all those processes, what's the feeling you have? I have different things. I can remember

the cycle, you know, the 28-day cycle, the up, the down, the five years. So I can very instantly, physically remember it. I can remember the feeling of the relationship. The relationship has a kind of a developmental arc. And at some point it makes room for children But nothing fills it because it's not really what you want. So you are constantly aware of this loss, of this thing that isn't happening. I remember that vividly. I remember not allowing myself to think it's happening because God forbid, if it doesn't happen, I will be disappointed. So I would do the same kind of mind tricks that you, Monica, were talking about. Like I didn't allow myself to get too excited. I always thought it didn't work. It didn't work. It didn't work. I have many very, very vivid memories almost 30 years later. So it doesn't go away. And I know that it has helped me understand loads of other women and couples that I have worked with and who've had a range of different experiences because it didn't just happen.

And when it doesn't just happen in the whatever just version, you become acutely aware of the multitude of things that can go wrong. Yes. This thing is a true miracle. It is. It truly is. There's so many things that can make it not happen. You kind of wonder why is it that other people just blow the air and they're pregnant.

And here is other people who are like going through this. It touches on life and death. It touches on why these people and not those people. It touches on what does it mean to have a child? All of that. And it's very foundational. It's at the core of the human experience. I knew I wanted children.

And by the way, when you then have a child, the child is imbued with a meaning, too, because God knows what it took to get that kid. So it's not that it's over once you have the child. You remember what it took to have that child. And you look at that child with that story inside of you. And they begin to think of themselves with that story inside of you. And they begin to think of themselves with that story inside of them once they learn it. So this is intergenerational. This is not just fertility treatment. I've had that thought a few times when I let myself really sit in it. I'll have like sometimes just these waves of like exhaustion and sadness. There's

still a piece of me that's dealing with what happened. And when I had to edit the first episode, it took me like a month to edit what ended up being an hour long episode. I mean, this would normally take me no time at all. And I would start, I would get six minutes in and I was like, I can't do it right now. And I would lie to myself and I'd be like, oh, it's just because it's like it's chaotic and there's a lot more to it than my normal edits. And eventually I was like, no, it's just hard. It's just hard to revisit this. It's hard to hear myself before I knew anything, before I knew any of the way it was going to go, before I let myself feel things. It was just painful. It was really painful. And like the way it was going to go before I let myself feel things.

It was just painful. It was really painful. And like, okay, I got to go through all these emotions again, felt very daunting. But it is a cycle of strength collection after you mourn this and and then you come in kind of the level of acceptance. Yeah. And then at some point you begin to feel that the energy is mounting again about doing it again. And it's a rhythm you feel internally. And then you garner your strengths again. And you prepare yourself. You brace yourself to go through the next cycle.

And then you do this kind of small hopes, medium-sized hope, big-sized hope. And, you know, you can't go the next cycle. And then you do this kind of small hopes, medium-sized hope, big-sized hope. And, you know, you can't go the next day. That's why when the nurse began to give you all the options, you basically were numb. It was too much to take in. You were flooded, overwhelmed, nothing could enter. You needed to first let this thing go before new ideas, new interventions, and all of that can enter. So the story is not over. But it's not just the story of interventions. Yeah. And isn't the last stage of grief meaning?

It was like added later that you make meaning out of the experience. And I feel like for you, it's really, there's a lot that you processed and got out of it. It was a gift. I'm not regretful at all that I did it or that we did it or that we did it in this way. It taught me a lot about what I do really want. And to your point, there's been a few moments where I've let myself think about those two eggs and they're sitting in some freezer. And I'm like, what if my child is one of those two eggs? How special, how special if that yields a life. It feels like magic. I've talked to a few people

who I've told this story to and they're like, yeah, my friend got one egg and that's her kid. So I've had some hopeful stories along the way. And I think, oh, that baby is special. You go back and forth when you hear the magical stories of others. Sometimes you say, me too, could happen to me. And sometimes you say, no, this will never happen to me. And you go back and forth. Yeah, you're right. In fertility land, it's filled with stories of the people who defeated the odds. But there's a whole bunch of other stories and we don't hear about them because the people who didn't make it

don't speak nearly as loud as the people who did. So we have to be very careful. No, that's so true. And in some ways, I mean, of course, I wish there were different outcomes here, but I'm kind of glad that we did this out loud in this way and that people do hear. There's disappointment. There's often disappointment. And honestly, in this case, there was disappointment across the board. Neither of us were super happy with the result,

and one was fairly devastating. And that's the reality of what we're working with here. And like you said, we just don't have the control that we wish we had. I mean, this is just a recurring theme in life that we're having to learn over and over again every day is we don't really have any control. When you think about doing it again and all of that, do you think about the economics of it? Because I think for a lot of people, that is a major part, right? It's huge. I mean, this is not covered. It is not cheap. By most insurances. I mean, this is not covered. It is not cheap. Most insurances.

I mean, we are in the United States of America. Exactly. That was another thing I almost felt guilty about even doing this. We talked about this. We're like, it's so expensive. And a lot of our comments are like that. You're so lucky to be able to even do it. And we know that. And that was when I didn't. I was like, OK, so I basically got zero and I've spent so much money and my body is wrecked and I'm very angry that I gave so much and got so little in that moment and got nothing. It is a mind fuck, but I mean, I will say I'm so lucky that I could do it again and not have to worry too much about the financial element of it. What do they recommend in terms of how much time you have to wait? Okay, so this was a big piece of it for me. I was on birth control up until I started this process.

Which one? I was on Yasmin. And that was a whole thing because when I went in for my consultation, I asked, do I need to get off of this? And she said, I would. And I said, do I have to? Because I really didn't want to because I've had such a roller coaster of an experience getting on and off birth control with my skin. And it has been a horrible, you know, since I was a teenager, ride. And I know what happens when I get off of

this birth control and I did not want to do it. And I really didn't want to do it because I'm preparing myself for the worst. And I'm like, well, this might not even work out. And then my face is going to blow up. And she was like, you don't have to. I would just recommend it because it might affect your count. So I didn't. And then I got off right before, obviously. And now I'm off of it because now I'm understanding the weight of what I really want and what I don't and what I'm willing to sacrifice and what I'm not. That's another gift I got from it.

I want that more than I want this. So I'm off of it and I'm gonna be off of it for at least four months before trying it again so that my body can sort of really clear out. If I do it again, it will probably be the top of next year. What are you thinking about doing? My thinking was, again, this is an insurance policy. But then as I keep dating and not meeting the right person,

I'm like, I'm getting older and older. Maybe this won't just be an insurance policy. Maybe this will be necessary. And I've been thinking about it in terms of, well, if I do it again, I should do embryos. That's a whole conversation. Again, I'm having a lot of conversations with myself. It's also knowing what you want can be a curse in a way. The older I get, the harder it is to date already because I know myself so much more. And now I feel like, again, the gift of this experience, because I started off with the same level of ambivalence about kids to literally having this vision of my future child with me in the surgery room and being brought to tears and having this almost out of body experience.

So now that I know exactly what I want, it's so hard to just be casual and to have fun and to just enjoy people when in the back of my mind, I'm like, are you going to be the person that I want to do this thing with? And maybe then doing sperm donor means I'm taking that pressure off. There's just so much, right? Isn't the whole point of dating to have fun? And then that's how you're going to meet the person by not putting all these expectations on them. But then the clock is ticking. Look, there's not one route to Rome, but I remember thoughts that I had, which was, if I didn't have a partner, what would I do? And I had chosen in my head. And then I had conversations with a couple of gay friends of mine that I knew wanted children.

We're talking 80s, so in a different period, right? Actually, it's more early 90s. And I remember saying, there are other ways. The freedom of knowing that you're not bound by the singular story takes off a tremendous amount of pressure. It's not which one. It's the fact that you know that there isn't just one. Right.

Because at this point, every time you're going to meet somebody, you're going to ask yourself if this is the person that you want to connect with the eggs. And it's not a good option. It's not a good thing for you. It's not a good thing for many times when you meet someone. They feel that, too. And nobody wants to be a sperm bank just like that either. They feel that pressure.

And everything gets contracted. If you instantly meet, I have a clock, I have a clock. Even though I don't have the clock in the way that I would have had it if I hadn't frozen my eggs, you know, now that I know that this is what I want. So I have moved a little bit about this in my head. I think that sometimes you start on your own and then that liberates and it separates the two stories, family making and the love story and romantic partner are no longer just part of the same sequential plot that gives a certain power to the man by the sheer biology that they don't have the same pressure that you have and that then makes you resent them for it, but also

need them for it. And this whole complicated thing. I think that as it is, we should not necessarily raise our kids alone, as in alone with one person. I really think that these days, more than ever, we have to go back because we don't have the other institutions helping us to more communal structures for raising kids. People are alone when they do fertility treatments or when they do egg freezing. They are alone when they're pregnant. They're alone when they give birth. It's too much of this alone, you know, when in fact there are other ways of doing this. So that's my thing to you is that

if you find yourself with that pressure, I need you and I resent the fact that I have to need you and the power that you have over me and I don't want it, but I have to, then you're going to get really stuck. And my thinking with you is how do I bring in an alternative story in here? Any other options that you can have? Because otherwise it's not necessarily going to happen. And that the story that's going to unfold could actually be better than the story that I thought. You will start, you will meet someone, that person enters your life, raises the child with you, you have other kids with that person. The plot is not linear, so that

this is not just a clock system. This is really an emancipatory system. And even with Monica, maybe by the time you do this a second time, who knows? Maybe there'll be someone in your life. I also think that it's just like kind of putting your money where your mouth is. Both of us, especially you, are really smart, hardcore feminists. We own that narrative outward. But it's about our actions really matching those words, I think. And we need to do that. And so to everyone listening and me who did this and sits with the feeling of failure,

what advice can you give for processing that? Failure comes from the notion that I am in charge of this. I can control this. I've got this. And it's just me who can tweak the whole thing. And it's very hard to not fall into the failure trap. It's I'm failing. It's my body's failing. It's my body's betraying me. It's a whole system of negatives like that. And I think if you go through it, but you very quickly begin to realize, no, it's humbling. It's not a failure. It's a humbling experience

that I do everything I can, but there's a piece of it that isn't in my hands and neither in the hands of the doctor for the matter. I roll the dice and there's a piece of it in which there is chance.

Chance and my biology. I mean, it's not just luck. It's whatever is happening at that moment. And I think that that is a gradual progression that you come to. At first, you feel like, oof, I failed. Yeah, there's something wrong with me. I failed to it didn't happen.

Then from it didn't happen to it didn't happen this time. From it didn't happen this time to maybe it will happen next time. I think the whole process is a process of acceptance, step by step, that it's not going to be the big story. I meet, we fall in love,

we make love under the full moon. We have this kid, we decided that child, you know. My second one was conceived on the roofs in Morocco somewhere, and it's like I get the plot. I understand the story, you know. But the story is not just this. The I failed starts with Liz as well.

She has that piece in there too, because we are so programmed to be on this very narrow path of how things should happen, that anything short of that makes us feel that we are the mistake and we are the failure and that is so crippling so you free yourself

moment by moment but it also is a mourning of all the things that will not be this way and if it is not this system then some people later on, it becomes adoption. But you can only think about the next option when you have fully given up on the one before. And the one before was the,

in my 20s, I'm going to find, you know, that's where this one begins. It doesn't begin at the egg freezing. Yeah, you're right. You're right. Yeah, you have to like go over the old story for the new story to begin. Step, step.

So even the egg freezing comes out of an acceptance of the previous option that didn't happen and so we took this option. So it's mourning and regeneration. Mourning and regeneration. So helpful. I knew it would mourning and regeneration. So helpful.

I knew it would be. Like a warm hug. Yeah. Do you have anything else you want to add before we're finished here? I think that what you do, first of all, the fact that you make this a public thing. I think the fact that you chose to do it together, because so many women go through this alone, find themselves at 7 a.m. in the morning at the clinics by themselves.

And on occasion, a warm, kind nurse will ask, how are you doing today or what's happening? But to just cheer each other on is a magnificent decision. I wish many other women would do it like that. The solidarity and then the sharing of the story with other women so that we take women out of secrecy, out of silence, and also give them the option to talk about it to the people they meet. You know, what do you do when you tell your next date, I froze my eggs?

What's that conversation like? Why did I do that? How does that affect you? Et cetera, et cetera. I mean, there's so many other pieces to this, but you can't think about it when you're in the midst of making sure that you've got the count.

The count is so hypnotic. So I cheer you and keep me posted. Okay, thank you. We will. Thanks so much. Okay, so that is a wrap on Race to 35. I want to thank everyone who listened and all the kind words of encouragement and support that people have been sending our way. It really means a lot. And I hope that this process is helpful to some of you moving forward. And I hope you can all remember that we can do hard things. So have a very happy holidays and a happy new year. We might see you again.