Couple Things with Shawn and Andrew - 153 | 26 weeks pregnant and competing at the world championships

Episode Date: March 8, 2023

Today we interviewed Mallory Weggemann & Jay Snyder! Mallory and Jay have navigated their own IVF journey and have shared every step with the world as they believe vulnerability is what makes us most connectable. It is their hope that they have played a role in helping reduce the stigma around male infertility, raise more awareness of the conversation of infertility and parenthood as it relates to professional female athletes, and change the perception of what parenthood and the journey looks like for women living with disabilities. It is with great joy that they embark on their greatest journey yet as they prepare to welcome their first child in March of 2023. Mallory has broken eight world records as a paralympic swimmer and by the 2012 Paralympic Games, she held fifteen world records and thirty-four American records. It was an honor to speak with these two and we hope you enjoy this episode! This show is sponsored by Athletic Greens! ▶ Athletic Greens is going to give you a FREE 1-year supply of immune-supporting Vitamin D AND 5 FREE travel packs with your first purchase. All you have to do is visit https://drinkag1.com/couplethings Follow Mallory on Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/malloryweggemann/ Follow Jay on Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/jaysnyder_tfa/ Check out TFA here! ▶ https://www.instagram.com/tfagroup/ Love, Shawn and Andrew Follow My Instagram ▶ http://www.instagram.com/ShawnJohnson Follow My Tik Tok ▶ https://www.tiktok.com/@shawnjohnson Like the Facebook page! ▶ http://www.facebook.com/ShawnJohnson Follow Andrew’s Instagram ▶ http://www.instagram.com/AndrewDEast Andrew’s Tik Tok ▶ https://www.tiktok.com/@andrewdeast?l... Like the Facebook page! ▶ http://www.facebook.com/AndrewDEast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up, everybody? Welcome back to a couple things. We shot an Andrew. A podcast all about couples. And the things they go through. We absolutely loved this interview today with Mallory Wegman and her husband, Jay Snyder. Let me just give some info on Mallory. Go ahead and dive into it, baby.

Yes, multiple gold medals at the Swimming World Championships, 2012 Paralympics, 2016 Paralympics. Legend. 20-20 Paralympics. Legend. Best female athlete with a disability. SB Award winner. Legend. I mean, it goes on and on and on.

She's amazing. She has the most amazing story in her perspective on how the world sees her in her actual reality is really, really powerful. So, Sean mentioned she competed at the Paralympic Games. She tells a story of how that came to be and why she was competing at those certain games, which is a wild story. It's a wild story. I think about it.

I'm like, you have aadirals. Anyway, she'll dive into the details and curious to hear your thoughts listening. But they also talk about how Mallory and Jay met. Yes, which is awesome. They were kind of working together and then the rest unfolded. It's a great story. And they're also pregnant. So we're very excited for them.

Can't wait to see how that story unfolds. And if you want to find out more about Mallory and Jay, we'll link their information down below. They're coming out with a documentary. I know. I will be the first to watch this. it's going to be amazing. Where can we stand in line to have you be the first? You need to be the first one.

Yes. I don't know yet. I will find the answer. Find the line. Yes. Okay. Anyway, thank you Mallory and Jay for joining us.

We had a blast. And we hope you also have a blast as you listen to this episode. Anyway, let's go ahead and roll into this episode with Mallory and Jay. Mallory, Jay. Pleasure to meet you. Thanks for joining us today. Awesome. I'm going to meet you guys.

Thank you for having us. We're excited to be here. Yeah. Have you guys ever done an interview together? We have. We have. We've done a few. This past year more than ever.

Normally he lets me run the show on those. And then this past year, he's joined the party, which has been really fun. Yeah. I'm usually the guy behind the scenes, but now I'm sitting right next to you. Mallory, I was reading through your entire, like, incredible resume. And I have so much respect. But I was wondering, is there? Any chance we crossed Paz in 2008?

Gosh, not in 2008. I think in 2012, going into the 2012 games, we shared a partner. But I don't think would we have ever been at the same event? Maybe P&G. Yep. But I don't know if we were ever at the same event or just on the ambassador team at the same time. So I'm not sure. I was reading through all of your Olympic experience and I was like, wow.

dude yeah it's impressive and here we are j you and i just the only non-olympians in the room here a bunch of schmucks you know yeah former uh former kicker played at syracuse yes let's go special team i did not know that wait where'd you play uh syracuse whoa holy crap whoa hold on that did not come up in our background no it didn't Wow. And then he married a swimmer who knew nothing about football. And so when we were dating, I straight up bought football for dummies. So I could learn the game.

And now full-fledged Viking fans. Oh, yeah. We got it down. And I even got him in the pool. So we're kind of bridging the two worlds. Is he a good swimmer? No. He's probably about how Andrew is on a balance beam.

Hey. What are we doing shot? I will say, early on, I was like, just this will be fun to get a football player in a gymnastics gym. Yeah. I was, I was just like, we have a long, long way to go, man. Yeah. Yeah. It's not natural for his body to do the water thing and probably your body to be in a gymnastics gym versus, like, for Sean, it's her element.

She's been doing it since she was a tyke. For me, it's all I know. Like, you don't want to see me throw a football. Yeah, well, don't cite my sources. here when I say this. But I think specialists, you and I as, you know, kick or long snapper, we're so much more athletic that we didn't even, like, we didn't even need to learn the fundamentals of, like, swimming or balance.

It was just, we were straight to the top of the food chain there. Exactly. Exactly. That's what I call special. Wait, so, Mallory, speaking of swimming, the thing that fascinates me more than anything, I had to reread this probably a hundred times. I was like, wait, what are you, what do you mean? you swam in like a massive world competition at 26 weeks pregnant yeah so I raced in

December at national championships 26 weeks pregnant we didn't know what to expect going in it was kind of like I just wanted to do it to share it with little one because I've been a competitive summer since I was seven like I've always done the sport and then first day out of the bat ended up taking silver and the 50 fly. And I was like, okay, not too bad. And then in true fashion, of course, I did the 200 I am on the last day. Like, I didn't just keep it at 50s. But it was so fun. And it's so cool because, I mean, Paris is next year now. Like, we're in 2023. It's literally next year. And so I think having the moment when Jay's in the stands with Babe and I'm swimming and then to tell little one, whoever they are, like you and Mama did this together at one point when we were

pregnant will be so special so we loved it it was a little crazy i think some people are like wait you know isn't pregnancy the chance you get to like just give your body like a rest you swam butterfly pregnant i did what yes i was going to say wait can i just ask the like the logistics of this does it feel different swimming it's okay so it is kind of it is kind of funny because i did not train starts at all during well i haven't trained starts at all during pregnancy because there's there's no need to. So I'm swimming, I'm staying active, I'm lifting. When we went to Nationals, Jay was on the pool deck in the training day, and I was like,

we should probably have me try a start to figure out how I'm going to get off the starting blocks. So I sit with my knees to my chest. That's how I adapted my start when I was paralyzed, and I rock forward onto my feet. So I'm like in a ball, and I rock forward, and a 26-week baby bump has to fit somewhere in all that ball. and then I throw myself off the starting blocks with my arms and make something that looks like a dive.

So, Jay's on the sideline. She's like, can you record me during practice? I'm sitting here like this looking. I think it looks good. Hearts racing. It looks great, babe. You're doing great. He's like, not looking.

I'm like, do you want to watch? No, no, no, I'm good. So she does the first one, and I'm like, okay, we're good. Everything's good. Everything's fine. We're all good. And it looked just like your normal starts. It's a little slower.

yeah it's a little slower uh but a lot of questions on that yeah you write the water different right you know like you're pregnant your your center of gravity is a little off you i obviously don't have a kick that's making up for any of the back end so we've got my legs that are always dragging and then now we've got my belly that's growing which is normally basically my quote unquote legs if you will that like makes up for that and helps get me through the pool a little bit better so my body position was a little off my uh what's called the fast twitch muscles weren't as fast twitch as they normally are but we were moving but still the fact that you were swimming at all and you got a silver i was like i feel like i would sink to the bottom pregnant i distinctly remember trying to swim

once when i was pregnant and i couldn't do it like i felt like i was literally like doggy paddling try to do the butterfly next time think about i don't know how to do the butterfly period i mean the Physics are pretty interesting, though, because on the negative side of things, you have increased drag, as you're talking about. But then you have increased buoyancy, which probably helps. I mean, it's like, I wonder which outweighs which. I don't know. I would love to hear how you two met. How we met.

Do you want to? You can go ahead. Do you start? And I'll chime out. You want to let me start this one? Yeah, let's go. All right. So, Jay and I met through work.

Jay was actually my brand manager. the bat. So Jay started his own agency years ago and I was his first Paralympic client and we started working together going into the London 2012 games and we both just fell head over heels in love with one another and now, you know, all these years later we own the business together. We're married and we look at that time and I'm like, oh, remember that one time when we would awkwardly do like client dinners and neither of us knew which way to read. it as we realized we were starting to like totally fall in love with each other and it was like not this quick the slow progression of like oh he's cute or oh i'm attracted to her any of that stuff it was like we went from being completely oblivious to the fact that we had a connection yeah right yeah like i think my family had us together before we even realized we were interested in each other because they spent enough time with him in london and then we went from oblivious and To just, like, literally head over heels and love overnight, it felt like.

Oh, it's serendipity at its finest, I would say. We were at the 2011 SB Awards. She was nominated. She ended up winning an SB, and I was in the crowd sitting in front of her parents. Yeah. And I saw, you know, the story comes up, and I was like, what an amazing story. We said, like, a quick hello, congratulate her parents. We never met.

We never met. fast forward a week later for a nevette new york there she is wheeling up on stage it's like who is this you know and next thing you know we start talking start working together we also never met that night though no we connected over email and that was guys that was back before like you could stock on instagram efficiently we didn't have social media to sit and stock each other and i saw you that night i was there with my date at the time and i you and i caught i i a few times that night. It was at a rooftop event out in the city. And I was like, oh, he's cute. And long and short, I was looking for representation at the time. We ended up

getting connected on email. We're emailing. I had no idea who Jay Snyder was, what he looked like, nothing about him. My dad met him first. I signed on as a client. And the whole story ends up with, in like October or November now, he ends up in Minnesota for our first meeting. And my dad's like why don't we meet at the pool now we'll be practicing we can go get lunch after i'm in the middle of my workout and jay comes in and my dad's like jay so good to see you so i'm at the wall and lift my goggles up and i literally said oh shit it's the hot guy from new york i know oh my gosh it's like no no this cannot be happening right now and here we are and uh 11 years later now we're here yeah wait but jay knew all along that it was you you are the only one who didn't make

the connection yet so jay in like full transparency was there any like subconscious i want to like represent her assign her just because i want to get to know her no honestly i think it literally was pure business to start and then you know life happened and we just connected on a level that no i've never connected with anybody else before and life just continued to evolve and happen and it was a couple moments of like oh boy oh boy if we're going to do this this is this is it this is our long term and i think we had several conversations and next thing you know she melted my ice because she used to call me an ice king oh god she's like would you have an emotion would you just like share what you're feeling please and i was like no no no like i'm holding it close to the chest and next thing you

know like the icebergs melted and flowing everywhere now oh gosh he was that's why it's so funny I laugh like when you ask that question because so many people are like so hang on a second you knew who she was but she knew who you were and I'm like nope I can totally vouch for it was all work because that version of Jay was like so singular focused on business he had like you had connection to your personal emotions I'm not going to be that harsh but you were very guarded yes very guarded did that confuse the business relationship once you guys got past that point you know it's interesting. So we chose to keep our relationship private until we got engaged. So we dated just family, friends, a few close colleagues knew, but it was kind of the unspoken. We just didn't lead

with it, which was really special if you think about it, right? There was no pressure of like being on social or what were we, anytime we were together or doing stuff, it was just us. It wasn't anybody from the outside world in it. And for us, for working together, I think since we worked together previously, it wasn't weird to work together now that we were dating. And even now through marriage,

we own the business together. And so when we looped production into TFA group, that became the moment where we merged the business and we both became co-owners. So we worked together not just on, still on my brand capacity, because you're still technically my brand manager. But we still, we work together as well on, on the production side.

And so it's been really unique because it's all we know. Like, that's how we fell in love. And so it's, it's just grown with us. And it's funny when we got engaged and shared publicly, a lot of our work colleagues were like, finally, finally. Okay, like, we knew this all along. Like, this is great. We're excited. We had one person who was like, really?

I had no idea. And I was like, yeah. Yeah, I feel like that might be a little bit of a reflection of your awareness right now. That's a you issue. Yeah. That's fun because, well, I feel like there's a lot of similar events that were pivotal in your relationships as with ours. 2012 Olympics is kind of how Sean and I met too, and then the SBs were special. But Mallory, if you don't mind sharing about your incident because I was listening to your TED talk and I was blown away.

at the, I read initially routine medical procedure, but then when I heard what it was, I was like, wow, really. I mean, those are very routine. So if you wouldn't mind sharing a little bit about what happened in January 2008. Yeah. You know, it's interesting because we're now 15 years, right? Like every year we celebrate the anniversary of my paralysis. And this year, celebrating 15 years, we're being pregnant with our first kiddo, settled in our home. There are so many different emotions for it because, you know, I was 18 years old. I walked in. I was getting an epidural injection for back pain. It was my third and supposed to be kind of my final one of the series. There really wasn't a lot of thought that went into that this could go any different

than how it had. Where I'd go in the morning, I leave in the afternoon, I'm back at class the next day. And obviously, as the story goes, that is not how it went. I was due to complications, literally paralyzed on impact during the epidural. And that's a, it's a tough thing at eight. I mean, it's a tough thing at any age, but it was two months before my 19th birthday. Like, I was, I was just a kid figuring out what life meant. I mean, in this year, when we celebrated, it was so interesting because it's like, there was no version of me, obviously, when it happened, but even in the few years following

that saw this is what my life would be, right? I had no idea I'd go on to become a three-time Paralympian. There was no scope of understanding that that was even something that was possible. Because think about like 2008, we didn't have social the way we have it. We certainly had even less disability representation in society than we have now 15 years later. And we're still fighting for it 15 years later. And so I think there was just such a lack of understanding of what could life with a disability

look like because there really wasn't. a path forward for what it could look like that was obvious to me. So, yeah, it was really interesting, but I think the kind of common denominator that Jay and I always talk about, just as you heard, our love for sport, sport was the thing that pulled me through. I mean, I had been a competitive summer since I was seven years old, and I just happened to get back in the water two and a half months after my injury, not thinking like, oh, I'm going to go to the next Paralympic Games, but thinking, I just need a place to go. you guys probably to some element it's so ingrained in who you are you have a hard day you have a

hard season it's where you want to go it's where you mentally clear your mind it's where you process it's all of those things and so for me getting back in the water the black line was like the thing that connected me to this quote unquote past life which is how it felt at the time while also meeting me in the moment that i was at and kind of leading me into something to my future or whatever that something could have been. How did your relationship change with swimming after the incident? Because I feel like when your passion was swimming in a certain context, and then having to almost relearn a sport in almost being slightly traumatic,

how did you balance relearning and finding a passion for a sport that was a part of your life before? Yeah, because your parents were swimmers too, right? My sisters were swimmers. That's what I've said. So it was very much a family thing, right? So I'm the baby of three girls. And, you know, luckily, Sean, I wasn't like this rock star swimmer before my paralysis. I say that jokingly.

My coach will always correct me. He's like, because my current coach was my high school swim coach. So for Rio and Tokyo now going into Paris, my coach now is who coached me through high school and coached my two older sisters. But the funny thing is, is, you know, people in automatic. automatically assume like, oh, you went on to have this career after your paralysis. You must have been a rock star prior. I mean, I swam varsity all four years. I was captain of the team. I never went to state. I wasn't this nationally ranked swimmer. I wasn't going to, you know, a D1 school on scholarship. Like at the time of my injury, I'd just graduated high school. Eight months prior, I thought

swimming would be something I loved to do recreationally, but I wanted to transfer out of state to KU and study journalism. So I was like, I don't know that I want to walk on. I want to study abroad. So long and short, like when I got back in the water, for me, there was almost this freedom to just explore with the pool again. And like, have fun being curious. There were things that were challenging. They brought me in the pool for pool therapy and I was in the hospital. That was super traumatic because it was so different. I mean, they wheeled me in in a wheelchair. I was in this warm therapy pool of PTs. It was the first time I realized I couldn't feel the water on my legs.

And that like flipped me out. And at that point, I said, I'm never going back to the water because I don't want to replace this place that was like my sanctuary and safe haven with all these negative emotions. And then the 2008 Beijing Paralympic trials happened in Minnesota at the University of Minnesota. We saw it in the newspaper. I went as a spectator. Next thing I knew two days later.

I was back at the U of M and thinking about like maybe if I'm in a pool with a black line, like a true pool, it's different. And it was. I mean, yeah, it was a learning curve. Everything was different. But at the same time, the fundamentals were the same. That black line is the same black line that trails every pool no matter where in the world you go or what in the world you're going through.

And there was so much comfort in the idea that not everything in my life had shifted. there was something I could go to that was still the same constant what year did you two meet in 2012 2012 2011 yeah so fall 2011 yeah how was I mean was there anything unique about the dating process or getting you know each other that was a result of this I don't think so you never really we never really talked about it like I mean you knew my story yeah but in terms of a relationship. It honestly never came. Like it wasn't like we had this moment.

I'm trying to think. I mean, no. We never had a moment where it was like, oh, this feels like something maybe we should talk about. You knew about it more in context of, you knew my story, obviously. You were super supportive. The one thing that you did,

you remember early on when I still wasn't like, I wouldn't wear shorts because I hated how my legs looked so there's like no muscle tone right so I still wouldn't wear shorts you got me in shorts I didn't know how to carry a purse I'm like what is the point of a purse

like what I'm going to set it on my lap and wheel around and you found this like sling back cross-body kind of like saddle bag back when like one of those coach bags back when those were like everyone had the sling back saddle bag you got me wearing a purse and I think some of those things

things where we would talk more about what are the things you want to do, right? What do you want to go back to scuba diving? We went scuba dive in. You carried me into the ocean for the first time. For the first time. That was probably our, that moment, that was the moment that I think for us really hit us. We weren't dating yet. We were in an event down in, down in Florida, the breakers and waters right there and you want to go in? You said, I haven't been in since 2008. Well, let's go. Got on my back and walked right in and went swimming. women. And just it was like, I'm going to marry that. That sounds like I see.

Yeah. Yeah. I think looking back for both of us, it's so funny because we didn't have our aha moment for a few months later. Yeah. I don't know. Guys, I don't know how we didn't know. Like, we are oblivious because we had those moments. And we were just like laughing and having a ball on our work trip, two of us down on the beach.

Like, just completely oblivious to what was going on in front of us. Td Bank knows that running a small business is a journey from startup to growing and managing your business. That's why they have a dedicated small business advice hub on their website to provide tips and insights on business banking to entrepreneurs. No matter the stage of business you're in, visit td.com slash small business advice to find out more or to match with a TD small business banking account manager. kind of a hard question and I don't know how to like navigate this but we've interviewed before we have other friends that we talked to a lot who are kind of like in a similar situation just interdisabled or interable interable interable is what they use which I love and we've talked a lot with them about this lack of a better word horrible stigma that this world decides to like put on

interabled relationships and couples and they're like well this can't be true like people look at it from the outside perspective of oh there must be something there that whatever it might be it's the comments and they're horrible that people try to draw these conclusions to but within your relationship what have you guys had to navigate in in kind of putting off the naysayers and being like look we're no different than anybody else this is actually true love why do you think this world has this perspective and stigma and then how have you guys navigated it? Oh gosh. I wish I had the answer for why. I think there's an element of when we talk about it's hard to become what you don't see. It's also hard to conceptualize what you don't see,

right? So if there's a lack of representation of a very, very large demographic of our society, 15% worldwide is our disability population, if there's a lack of authentic representation, in our world, what that does is it means I don't see a path forward to what's possible, but it also means society at large doesn't see me actively engaged in our world as an individual that contributes to it. So when you see me roll about, you see me now with my husband, you see me pregnant. I mean, Sean, the amount of things since just being pregnant that come our way because I'm a woman in a wheelchair who's pregnant and obviously what type of mother could I be. I mean, people actually say that stuff.

And you're like, it's jarring. But then there's also this realization where there is almost now like this responsibility where the more we can be vocal, the more we can be out, the more we can show that this is actually normal, normal. And this is a part of the way our world works. And I think part of it is people don't see it. And so when they do see it, it's weird to them and they don't understand it because we don't have rom-coms that have interabled relationships as the stars of the rom-com. We don't see that growing up. We don't turn on our TV and watch the storyline of our favorite scripted show that's showcasing something that represents disability or a love story like ours.

But I would say our biggest thing that we've had to navigate is this society. We say it all the time. Yeah. I mean the stairs, the going through the airport holding hands and you could just feel the stairs. Now even more so as you're wheeling about seven months pregnant. Pregnant. And just seeing it. It is, it does get tough at times where it's just, you know, why can't it just, why can't it be normal?

Why can't we just do this without comments? Without comments going to the grocery store of worrying about Mallory's getting a yogurt, somebody's going to say some asinine comment to her and it's going to change the day because of one person's ignorance, an unconscious bias. It's a struggle. We literally talk about it every day. Well, and there's this perception we face, and I've had people say it directly to me, sadly. where they think Jay, and he is in his own way, but not for this reason, is this saint because

he sacrificed his future to be with me. And it's this mind-blowing idea where it's like, literally you just see the four wheels and you assume then all the stigmas and misconceptions that go with disability are true, which generally they're not at all. And you basically make this assumption that not only can contribute to society, but I'm just a burden for the people in my life who love me. And it's so weird. And I think that part of this conversation, though, is when we started going through our infertility journey and we went through IVF, for years, everybody's assumed that I won't be able to have children because I'm in a wheelchair. And then once I got past that barrier, it was that. Did you assume

that? He didn't. No. No. Did you, Mallory? Was there any part of you where it was like, this isn't going to happen? You know, early on, it was the question I was afraid to ask. Yeah. Like the first four or five years after my injury, I just didn't ask because I didn't want to know.

And I was 20, you know, early on. I wasn't at that place. I wasn't sure. And that was tough. But then it was also made harder by in that period. of time. It was 14 months after my paralysis and I was away at college and I was in line at Target and I had a woman look at me as I was playing peek-boo with her daughter in the shopping cart and she said, I'm so sorry. And I said, why? And she said that you won't be able to have children

of your own someday. And I already at least had the wherewithal to know. I don't want to know the answer, but there's a lot of ways you can have a family. And I just said, yeah, but there's a lot of ways that you can build a family. And she said, but no, sweetie, what type of mother could you really be? And it was the first time that I just got blindsided by the complete and utter ignorance that is in our world. And I was like, oh, so it's not just can I physically have, you know, get pregnant, carry a pregnancy and deliver a child. The added layer that exists is this unconscious bias that I as a woman, because women are the nurturers, and because I'm disabled and individuals with disabilities can't nurture themselves, so obviously they can't nurture other people,

therefore go on down the line, how could I be a mother? And it was mind-blowing. And that was something we talked a lot about when we were dating and when we ultimately got engaged. And the reality is, Jay had his own journey with the idea of having children. Yeah. So fast forward, you talk about that ice and how that ice melted, nobody outside of my parents and family knew that there was a high likelihood that I was infertile due to some stuff growing up as a kid. And I live with that. And I held that on because I think that's the ice that was forming over time. And I never, ever shared that with anybody until Mallory came in my life. And for us, we knew the journey early on that it was going to be different. And when we went to the doctors for her and the doctor said,

no, there's going to be no issues with you. It's going to be on my side, so male factor infertility. And I would have for years people coming up to me and say, I'm so sorry, you guys can't have kids, just random strangers. And I'm sitting here going, you have no idea. Like, this has nothing to do with my wife. This has everything to do with me. And so fast forward to our start of our IVF, I said, I absolutely want to be public. We need to get this out there because everybody continues to assume our IVF journey, our infertility journey is due to your paralysis and your spinal cord injury. And that's not the case. And it was kind of like these two stigmas that existed, right? Like men don't talk about infertility. I mean, that's like the most

uncomfortable thing for so many men to sit here and you've, you've point blank said, I don't have a sperm count. And it like makes you see people like in their skin because it's like you're so not used to hearing a man say that. And so there was that where you, I remember when you did the first Google search and you like couldn't find anything that showed stories of other men who had been through this journey. But yet the statistic you find is that 50% of couples going through infertility came to infertility through male factor infertility. And so it's not like it's not common. It's just not talked about. And then the other side of it was we knew that the natural assumption because you just don't know what you don't know. Some of it is complete innocent

ignorance. Not all of it is hurtful ignorance, if that makes sense. Like some of it's you don't know what you don't know until you're exposed to it were perfect examples of that on many conversations. And then some of it is just being a little bit hateful, like what type of mother could you be? I won't give that innocent ignorance. But I think in that where it all comes to head is there were kind of these two conversations we were unpacking. And then on top of of it, me being a female athlete choosing to stay active in my career through IVS. So first of all, the mother side of me wants to go talk to that lady in Target and be like, I'm sorry, what kind of mother are you to your baby right now who's witnessing this?

Just don't approach all ladies in Target and assuming it's that lady. I'm going to go find her because that is, that's very hurtful. And that's, that's ignorant, like you said. I'm curious for you to answer the question, what type of mom do you think you'll be, Valerie? I think I'm going to be, at least I hope I'm going to be a very empathetic mom. I really, I think our number one job as parents is to not just bring our children along into our life, but also live through their eyes, right? Like, it's, you know, people all the time, and Sean, you probably get this to do.

Like, what about gymnastics? Like, everyone, where, baby hasn't even gotten here. It's like, or are they going to be a swimmer? And I'm like, I don't know. I don't know. I mean, would it be so cool if little one decided they want to swim? Of course it would. But at the end of the day, it's not my job to have my kids feel some void of something I wish I had in my past.

It's my job to support them as they grow into their own little person and soon to be someday full-fledged adults. and support them in what their interests are and in what they want to pursue and feel their curiosity and nurture that. And hopefully along the way, that builds them into these little empathetic human beings that that can have this capacity to understand that you don't have to understand to have empathy. Like, it's okay to face things that are different in this world than what you know to be, quote unquote, normal. You can still have empathy for, those circumstances and not fully understand them. And I'm hoping that with that, you know, a fun house. We're corky. Like we're, we're, we're, I always joke, we're dorks. Like,

we're just total dorks. And I think that that'll be fun to bring these kiddos into. And, and ultimately, you know, yeah, hopefully little one has a totally different perspective on things because mom does look a little different than the rest. And they're going to have different experience because of that. But they're also going to, we're doing the math and we're like, March, okay, our due dates in March, depending on when they're born, there's a good chance baby will celebrate their third birthday in Italy for the 2026 Winter Paralympic Games because we go to both summer and winter. We just work winter versus compete in them. So I'm like, yeah, and they're also going to get different experiences like that, which are pretty cool,

pretty cool different experiences have. You alluded earlier jokingly about the client who couldn't have the awareness to recognize you to potentially, you know, budding a romance there. But I think that the term awareness was really interesting. As I was listening to your TED Talks, it struck me, you said multiple times how it's not what happens to you, it's how you respond to what happens to you. And I think that is so profoundly beautiful. Because like even, I mean, I'm talking to Mallory here. And it's not like when the incident that caused your paralysis.

happened, Mallory left. Like, you're still the same Mallory. And I think even though, even though like the adversity or whatever circumstances may have amplified, it provided an opportunity for your response and the true like personality, characteristics and traits to also be amplified, which is like, it's really kind of cool. And it also applies to this lady in Target who's like, I think just like that like that level of awareness where hey we all have these gut reaction instincts right and hey when when you find out

you're paralyzed gosh it's it's probably fine to have that initial reaction be sad sadness and grief or like when i see someone different than me i'm going to have a gut instinct of like curiosity or like oh interest or like to say whatever but how can we layer take a step back and create like a level of awareness to be like, okay, well, oh, let me, let me inject empathy into this situation. And let me, I don't know. I just think that your story is so cool and such a, I think, epitome of that idea that it's not, it's not what happened. Like, you're Mallory.

And Mallory responds to winning a silver versus a gold in a similar way that she responds to, you know, getting parallel. Like, you're going to handle it. you're going to make the best out of it. So it's great. I love that you know sport enough to compare those two. I love that you know sport enough to be like, okay, there might be a little bit of an adjustment in this one just like there's an adjustment over here.

Yeah. Yeah. I have so many thoughts. I could go on tangent and just I respect you guys so much. And you can tell you guys are going to be phenomenal parents. Phenomenal parents. Like I'm so excited for this little baby. because your insight into just the wisdom of being good human beings is what babies need.

You don't need, like, it has nothing to do with your abilities to whatever it is out there to raise a good human. It has to do with your heart. And those babies aren't going to know any different. They're going to see the evil in the world and they're going to see the good in the world. And I'm so excited for you guys. I could start crying because I have babies myself. And I also think it just goes to say I can get on a pedestal right now. But there aren't enough good parents in the world.

And you guys are obviously phenomenal parents. And your baby is so lucky to have you as parents. Anyways, I am curious, though, going back to your IVF journey. I've talked to a lot of couples about IVF journey and just the journey of getting pregnant. and it's so hard, no matter what your situation is. I'm curious how that affected your guys' relationship and how you worked through that. Because unlike what they teach you in high school of like, oh, careful, don't look at each other. You're going to get pregnant.

It really doesn't work that way. No passion. Really difficult. And it can be in a really emotional journey and put a lot of tension on a couple. Yeah. You know, I think what's interesting is we have been through so many different things in our relationship that when we ultimately got to the beginning of our IVF journey, first of all, we knew it was coming, right? We didn't try to get pregnant for 12 months and we had 12 months of built up frustration and sadness of every month that's a negative test. And then we found our way to this.

We have a small window of a doctor telling us, we said, well, should we, can we just try? And he's like, it's nothing. I was like, just maybe. No. And so there was a weekend, and I remember this, we were in California, there was a weekend of like three days of letting it sink in, letting all the emotions out and going, okay, we got to pivot. This is what we're going to do and we're going to go all in. And that's. Well, and mind you, the three days was only possible because we found out years prior that this was our reality. It's just when we came, when I came home from Tokyo and it was like, okay, now we're going to start this. We were hopeful that maybe we could have like a few months of just feeling normal and having some romance and intimacy in this process of like not having it be straight to the IVF and just not have that like just be able to have the normalcy of, hey, like it's that day. And see what happens. And when we had that conversation with Jay's doctor and he was like, you guys can certainly do that.

But I just want to set you up with realistic expectations with Jay's tests. You'll be lucky through IVF to have children. And so that was really tough. And that's when we realized that you were going to have to have your surgery. Yeah. Like I said, going back to Google searching, I had no idea what, you know, the IVF journey was and what that was going to entail. And this was now October 21.

So coming off the high of Tokyo, riding a high, traveling, she's speaking. We're doing a bunch of events. In the meantime, we're doing all these virtual appointments with our doctors of going, okay, here's what the journey entails. That was tough. The first retrieval was tough because you had to have your surgical retrieval. So that was our only chance to get sperm to give us a chance at children. And they gave us a 40% success rate.

But if they were not successful, they would not go back and do it again. You exhaust all options in the first surgery. And so it's your only chance. And they time it with your egg retrieval. And so we're simultaneously like filling my body with hormones every day, knowing that there's this day before I go in for my retrieval, he's going in for his surgery.

We'll find out on that day before mine if we have a chance at biological children. And then regardless of the outcome, I go in the next day for my retrieval. And it was just this like high intensity, like you said, we were traveling. We were in Nashville when I started my stimming. I was on book tour. It's all lined up with your cycle. So you don't really get to like wave a magic eight ball. And the day hit. And my doctor's like, we need you in the clinic tomorrow. We need to do your round of test. And I was like, I'm in Nashville. So I booked a first flight out in the morning. I flew home. I drove to the clinic. I did the testing. I got in the car. I drove back to the airport. Took the next flight out to Nashville. And then we did a date night.

And we sat on YouTube and watched videos for how to do our injections because we had no idea what we were doing. And so I think that while there was definitely some really high intensity moments, and it was tough, I would say the one thing looking back that we did a really good job on, there's more than one thing. But the one thing that I'm going to say for this is we found ways to bring intimacy to it. Right. Like it just feels so medical. and you envision how you're going to have kids and you don't envision it being that. And so every night we had our little routine. We lit our candle.

We had our little roll on essential oils that we did. We would have a moment just the two of us as a couple. We would have this routine before I started doing my injections. And that was like our nightly thing where we slowed down for a moment and honored the fact that every night, however many nights of this it's going to take and however many months of this it's going to take, this is our way that we're going to have kids. It's not just one moment in time. It is every night we come together as a couple and we choose that we're doing this together. And I think that that was, well, it can be really hard. That made it really special.

What was the reaction? Was it a phone call or what? Did you find out in office that you guys, when you went in for your retrieval, that it was like go time and that there was like a good outcome? Yeah. So we found out after my surgery. So it was supposed to be a three-hour surgery. And mine was a little shorter. And so the doctor came in to tell Mallory. He was still out. And the doctor came to tell me. And I was like, I don't want to find out alone. I mean, it was good news. But if it hadn't been like, I don't want to be the one breaking the news to my husband. Can't you break the news to both of us together? Yeah. So she came wheeling in. I'll never forget. I'm eating goldfish. Because they asked me, what do I want when I'm waking up? And

And they're like, you want goldfish or you want something crackers or like ram crackers. I was like, give me the swimmers, I said. And I'm eating the goldfish. And I just stopped and I stared at her trying to like figure out was it. Did it work? And she told me it worked and I lost it. He went from like loopy, you know, post-Sanasia talking about the beautiful flower on the wall and his little swimmers to all of a sudden having like this moment of clarity

of realizing oh and his face just went white and then i shared and we we i mean we just both lost it and then we got the call so this is the week of thanksgiving we got the call the morning of thanksgiving we're home with family she's based and there's there's a photo of her based in the turkey as the doctor calls to take it easy it was the day after my retrieval but i was like no somebody's got to make the brown butter sage mashed potatoes like i don't trust anybody with these and so long and short they call and we found out that we had nine of the eggs that fertilized and it obviously there's like then the attrition and so we ended up with two viable embryos out of that batch but we didn't know even though we were successful they are a little bit more immature when they're removed in that

fashion and so we didn't know if we'd get fertilized eggs or not like that was the whole other barrier we had to get to so that was a really special um Thanksgiving of all days be'll celebrate like we now in fact have a chance at having kids of our own oh my gosh and there's another embryo so it took both of them to get pregnant with this little one we lost one in in april which was pretty tough um so unfortunately that was our last one which is kind of the ongoing conversation again to infertility like what's that journey like and all of that stuff i mean it's a constant simultaneous. Like, well, we're so excited to be pregnant with little one, time isn't necessarily on our side. So what we did was before I got pregnant, we froze eggs. We did another cycle to

freeze eggs. So then he can do another surgery at some point. So there's a high likelihood that we're going to have a two-month-old kiddo and he's going to be going back in for a surgery just so we can try to get a couple more embryos to freeze so we possibly have a chance at another child after Paris. But again, it's so weird because even when you've gone through what he's gone through and it's been successful, it doesn't increase your chance of success the next time. Because with time and age, things can also decrease. And so it's a, it's kind of this weird, bittersweet thing, right? Because like we're so excited about little one, but we don't just get to enjoy little one. Because if we wait until we're ready for a second child, our door will basically almost guaranteed

be closed and so we kind of have to live in both at the same time which is well it's hard you get good at I suppose when you go through hard stuff right like you like Andrew you're talking about you know the adversity I mean it's just we all have hard stuff in life and you just learn how to simultaneously hold both and know that two things can be true at once yeah what I was going to say was it's it's tough you know on the female side there's hormones there's shots there's things potentially that can assist on the male side it's there's nothing and I wish that could change and I hope maybe down the road that could change but you're kind of just the sitting duck to go well I'm 40 now I'm just going to keep getting older there's nothing there's no vitamins there's

nothing that could help our chances other than yeah the habit or you don't correct and you had known for a while that there's a chance you're yeah so at the age of 13 I had a surgery and the doctor came out after and just said, I want to let you know, my mom and dad are there, that there's a high likelihood that you'll be infertile as an adult. This is a 13-year-old. What does that even mean, right? You just remember that and that you hold on to that,

and you do a little research, there's nothing out there. You just always have that in the back of your mind. And then you see in society what men are supposed to bring to the table and you're like, well, I've been told I can't. You know, what does this even mean? And I'd always hold that close. And I remember when we started dating, like I said, you were the first person that I shared with. Yeah.

The first relationship, nobody else knew. And you just looked at me and said, okay, we'll figure it out. Yeah. We got this. Whatever that looks like, whatever form of creating a family, whatever we have to do, we'll figure it out. Yeah. And that's what we've done. Was there a certain moment where you fully realized, like, the implications of,

that's it because you said at 13 you couldn't really comprehend it but was there one moment where I was like okay yeah 20 I think what was it 2017 when we got the actual first test results so we we started kind of going through some testing and they do this semen analysis test and like okay let's just see maybe things changed maybe that doctor was just he didn't know what he was talking about so you go and do the test and then of course you get the email notification you have a test results. And we're on a flight in Salt Lake City boarding the plane. I'm like, oh, I guess we're going to check. So you log in the portal and you check and you're reading and you're looking and just zeros. You just didn't fill the form out, right? No, no, this is not the form. And it just sunk in.

Meanwhile, you have families boarding the plane. And in Salt Lake City, everybody has a kid when they're getting on that plane. Everybody's crying. You're sitting there and you're just stone-faced. I think that was the first time we obviously both did but even like I remember it when we found when we found out you saying like because you didn't know you never like went through additional testing afterwards there was just this conversation yeah and I think that was really the first time where it was like oh no no no this is because prior to that you know it's all hypothetical like if you haven't found you know even for me on my side like you haven't found the person you want to spend your life with you say like oh i think kids are in my future but what does that look like an actuality

until you find the person you want to do this thing called create a family with and um yeah that was a really weird day we literally boarded like two minutes later and we pre-board because it's the easiest way for me to get on planes we were the first ones on the plane we were in like the second row and we watched every person board and it felt like that day every single person on that plane had a kid with them and i just remember us both just sitting like numb in our seats feeling the weight of it all yeah every single one of those families was just showing you your future yeah you have baby now couple more weeks here we are here we are little one moving and grooving yeah yeah so i'm curious you mentioned that sport is the thing that pulled you through mallory and the the older i've

gotten the more i've appreciated sport more like less about the specific whatever activity that you're doing but more zooming out and like just sport being the canvas where so many other things happen like the discipline the the improvement the goals the you know the feedback and and the coaching and whatever just like the excitement um i'm curious jay so you you kind of are really deep in the sport world i know you per you help produce some sport related film what is your like being in that world and telling stories about that what are like what's your perspective on sport and why is it so exciting to you uh sports been a part of my life since i was a kid growing up playing hockey baseball soccer and then going on to walk on at syracuse there's just

something about it as you were mentioned about the the elements the life skills that you learn through sport and some of those leadership components the team components, feedback, but the ability that sport is a common language, right? It's a global language that people can connect with. And through the Paralympic movement from the onset, when I was exposed in 2011 to now, just seeing the impact through that common language of sport that it can connect and unify and people can understand. And so taking kind of the learnings and my passion for sports and taking the passion for business and marketing and all together, you know, film and media has this way to really transcend and change that perspectives and

mindsets. And so when you combine the two, I'm just, you see the impact. And, you know, I know we're hooked, I'm hooked in kind of the storytelling aspect. And it's pretty powerful. We just actually came back on Monday night. We had a big event down in Dallas, Texas, where we put on an exhibition game of Team USA sled hockey program. So they had the men, the national team, development team, and four women come together for an exhibition game in front of 2,000 individuals. And we broadcast to the event, produced the event, produced features, and just seeing the impact that it had on those 2,000 individuals plus whoever turned in, it's powerful. It's shifting the narrative. And we are going to be doing a lot more. And so we've kind of found our, and I found

my why of kind of the history in sports and between sport and entertainment and media. seeing the impact that we can have. Get to Toronto's main venues like Budweiser Stage and the new Roger Stadium with Go Transit. Thanks to Go Transit's special online e-ticket fairs, a $10 one-day weekend pass offers unlimited travel on any weekend day or holiday anywhere along the Go Network. And the weekday group passes offer the same weekday travel flexibility

across the network, starting at $30 for two people and up to $60 for a group of five. Buy your online go pass ahead of the show at Go-Transington. dot com slash tickets when can we get a documentary on your guys's life it's coming it's on for posts seriously it's called watershed it's called watershed we are actually the co-directors and then i'm the writer and tfa group is the production house doing it um and so it is in post production right now there's a little bit of filming that's still happening because we're simultaneously in post-production, but we are covering pieces of the pregnancy journey.

I was going to say, little one. Yeah. Yes. Little one is a big part of it. So it is, it's a feature-length doc. And we are so extremely excited about it. We've been working on it for years. We have a remarkable team.

And it's our story, but it's also the universal story of humanity, right? Like I was saying, we all have hard stuff. It's not just, oh, you know, she's paralyzed. I can't measure up to that. I don't know what that's like. It's like, yeah, but we all have sudden moments of impact. We all have these moments in our lives that come completely out of left field that we are not planning or anticipating that change how we perceive the world around us. And those moments, well, they don't define us. They shape us. They give us perspective. They give us clarity. They maybe even have us force us to step back and kind of question our purpose and our, our being of like why are we doing this thing what are our priorities and so I think what's really neat is within watershed there's this underlying kind of story about just humanity at large and how we evolve as individuals in a society and how we move through this journey and how those watershed moments become a part of our identity rather than a defining factor wow we're excited we're excited I'm excited.

It's our first baby. It's our first baby. It's our first baby. And it's been a really long labor at this point, Sean. So I'm hoping we have a nice, like, kind of place to tie the bow and let the rest of our team continue on while we get ready to literally birth our first childs, our true first child. That's exciting. But yeah, we're super excited. Wow.

Mylar, I'm curious, could you talk about the Paralympic community, what you love about it and the impact? It's had on you. You know, Paralympic sport is, like Jay was saying, right, sports is common language. It unifies. And I think what's really neat about sport is it transcends the field of play. And we see that on and on and on in basically every sport, whether it's in the Olympic movement, the Paralympic movement, whether it's professional league sports, whatever it might be, where we realize that it's a catalyst to have a larger conversation.

And so when you look at the Paralympics, you know, yes, first and foremost, it's elite athletic Right? Like we devote years of our lives to the singular moment, just like our Olympic counterparts do. And you have the intensity that comes with that, but you also realize that what you do on the field of play is about something so much bigger than any singular performance. And I think that that's where the power of it comes in. And for us, in the Paralympic movement specifically, there's values that align, obviously, with our Olympic counterparts and just the games experience and the movement as an entirety. But then on the Paralympic side, there's this added layer of the fact that we are also representative of the 15% of our global population that lives with the disability. We can have this conversation about disability representation and equity and all of those elements of it as athletes on this field of play. And so I think that when you look at Paralympic sport, for me, that's where I get so excited about it because it is. is it's transcending the field of play and having this much needed conversation, not just domestically in the U.S., but globally around how we view disability. And I think there's something so powerful, obviously as somebody who's passionate about sport,

but utilizing sport as the way to literally flip the narrative on its head. It's like, you know, you watch wheelchair rugby. And most of these guys that play wheelchair rugby, they're quads. And they are literally crashing into each other. They've coined it as murder ball. like they're going after one another but yet if you see one of them wheel through the grocery store it's like oh my gosh they probably need help grabbing their line and they're like no i'm about to rip your head off because like that's what's in my DNA and so it's so funny because there's just this this element

where it can show versus tell and completely shift the narrative and perception by utilizing the power and entertainment value that sport carries and and i love that about it and i love that from the beginning because for me personally it did that. I mean, gosh, being exposed to the movement just a few months after my paralysis is probably the thing that saved my life, to be completely honest. I mean, I was just out of the hospital, went to the University of Minnesota pool, didn't even know the Paralympics existed, looked onto the pool deck that night, and realized that there's this whole world out there.

And for me, it was just this element of a path forward, whether I ever became a Paralympian or not of just showcasing what is possible. And I think for so long, society made me feel like living life with a disability was just a consolation prize to the life that could have been versus a version of life that could have been fuller and better than I ever even imagined possible initially. And so I think that's where it's so neat to see how it's played out. And obviously for me now, it's a big part of me. I'm training for what will hopefully become my fourth Paralympic Games.

And, you know, it's a part of the two of us in our personal. life, our business. It's also a part of how our child is going to be raised. But my, my big passion, very similar to what Jay said, is seeing the power it has to transcend the field of play and serve as a catalyst to make substantial change in our society for how we perceive disability. Fun fact, I've never been more humbled in my life. We had the opportunity to play wheelchair rugby. Yes. That is no joke. We were on opposite teams with each other.

I wasn't playing. I didn't get the invite. Oh, you didn't play? At the Invictus games, no, it looked like a blast. It was very humbling, major props. Yeah, it's like any, right? You go and do a different sport or I've jumped in a wheelchair basketball and tried to, like, shoot a hoop. Let's just say all of us as athletes, you're reminded why you have this in your life.

you have because you have these moments where you're like yeah nope that that's not my strength I'm going to go back to the black line where I can do my thing but it is it's a it's so neat to the more that we have I mean programs like Invictus games right like the more programming we have the more exposure we have and the more appreciation we have I think for so long Paralympic athletes were looked at as like if you have a disability and you like sport you go to the Paralympic games and I'm like yeah oh god if only it were that easy like no You have to be an elite athlete to make it to the Paralympic games. And this is not just like, oh, you happen to have a disability.

You like to play whatever sport it is. Then obviously you're going to be on the Paralympic team. And so that's been, I think, great, too, to the conversation of power of media. We're seeing more of what the journey actually takes. And we're realizing it literally is parallel. And it mirrors the journey of any elite athlete. And there's a lot more respect for that now, which is really cool to see. Which one?

There's too many now. Okay. Last question. With a little one almost here. What's given your guys' journey together? What's the one piece of advice you would tell them now? You go first. I always have to come first.

Stop. One piece of advice? So I'll make it a short story. every night since transfer so our transfer was in july we have read to little one a book called you belong here and i think that's the one thing that i would tell our soon to be well our little one soon to be whoever they are i don't know if it's a little girl little boy but i suppose whoever they are is just this idea that you do belong here. Like, you are worthy, and it is not your job to carry other people's insecurities.

It is your job to be the fullest version of yourself. And I think that's something that we could all use to learn and something that we both certainly have learned and something that I hope our child and or if there's more children in the future are able to learn from a very early age, so they don't have to carry that burden. And I'll piggyback off that is the ability to live in the simultaneous. So the ability to live with really hard season, but to find levity and joy and every single day. And whether that's dancing, throwing some music on the kitchen, and we love to dance and just throw on little Spotify and we're dancing, even though that day we've got some really hard news or it's a really stressful period of time, live in the simultaneous because we can do it. you can do it and um that's that's best piece of advice yeah wow i'm a fan of you too and uh couldn't

be more excited for your next couple months here it's a fun ride it's a wild ride and i think you guys will thrive given how you've responded to everything that's happened in in your life uh to date so thank you for joining us and we look forward to staying in touch and seeing how it goes for you Absolutely. Thank you for having us. And hopefully we'll see you down in Nashville at some point. Yeah. I can't wait. We do, I've obviously followed you, Sean, for years and now the two of you and seeing

you guys' journey as a family unit, which is so fun to follow. And I think that it's really fun to see you said we need more good parents in this world. Like, obviously, we only know what we see on social, right? Everybody has their behind-the-scenes story and struggles and all of those things. But it is so fun to see the two of you as parents and to see your littles grow and the type of little humans they're growing into. It's pretty cool. And it's the reminder that we have a generation of people that are working really hard to be the parents we want filled in our world. And you guys are certainly doing that.

So thank you for having us. We've been excited to take. talk to you guys. So this has been awesome. Awesome. Thank you. Well, thank you, guys.