Oversharing - Baby Steps: Navigating The Emotional And Financial Toll Of Recurrent Pregnancy Loss Ft. Lori Vogt Rosone

Episode Date: May 24, 2024

In this sixth episode of Baby Steps Season 2, Lori Vogt Rosone - a midwife and author of the New York Times article, "Please Stay, Baby. Please?" - bravely recounts her personal odyssey through infertility and recurrent pregnancy loss. With candor and vulnerability, Lori sheds light on the emotional toll of fertility struggles, navigating the labyrinth of medical procedures, and the uncertainty of miscarriages. Balancing her role as a midwife with her own fertility journey, Lori offers a unique perspective on the intersection of professional expertise and personal turmoil. Touching on topics such as adenomyosis, egg retrieval, and the financial strain of fertility treatments, Lori advocates for accessible healthcare coverage and compassionate care for all. Through her story, she emphasizes the importance of finding moments of gratitude and resilience amidst the challenges of infertility, offering solace and solidarity to those on similar paths. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/15/style/modern-love-miscarriage-please-stay-baby-please.html Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello and welcome back to Baby Steps. I'm Trudana Abraham. And as always, I'm joined by my big sister, licensed clinical therapist, Dr. Naomi Bernstein. I'm happy to be here. So who do we have this week? This week we have Lori Vote-Rosone, who I reached out to after reading her article in the New York Times Modern Love section where she wrote this like beautiful essay about her experience having multiple miscarriages. And it really, really, really. spoke to me. And we'll put the link to the article in the show notes. But she really had this super just like creative and artistic and like emotional way of putting into words the feeling of multiple losses. And it's such a beautiful essay. I had to reach out to her and get her experience. And also like I guess another layer to this is that Lori is a midwife. So the, to hear the experience of dealing with pregnancy loss while you're caring for, you know, mothers who are having their own babies or in some cases losing them is a very unique and interesting experience.

So I was really interested to speak to her. Wow. That is really, really fascinating. And I think that, you know, we talk sometimes on oversharing about being and triggering situations and this temptation to kind of avoid a situation that might be triggering for you or to say, I can't, you know, I have to take a break for work. This is too much. I can't, you know, keep seeing this thing happen for other people that I want so badly or seeing this, this thing that I'm so afraid of happening for other people right in front of me and being such an

integral part of it. But that is kind of one of the best ways that we deal with trauma is by kind of going through it and facing it head on. So I'm really curious to hear from someone who had the strength to kind of keep pushing through and go through this. And I'm sure that that's probably, I would assume, what made her, A, write an essay that was so touching to you. And I'm sure many, many other people. But, you know, really whatever the feeling and the emotion was behind it that made it so touching probably came from a place of like really leaning in to her grief. Totally. And I mean, like they say that.

I think I forgot whose quote this was, but like take your broken heart and turn it into art. and this article was just, I was so moved by it. And you guys should all read it. It was really great. Another thing that we touched on, which we haven't really touched on before in other episodes is like the financial cost of IVF and some creative ways to pay for it. So Lori said she actually did take a break from, you know, her midwife job. And she took a job.

She said there are certain stores, certain retail stores and companies that include fertility benefits as part of compensation. She said a lot of the times they're like lower pay. but they can include these fertility benefits. So if you're looking in your own time of your life where you're trying to pay for these benefits or need to pay for IVF, which is extremely financially taxing. And it's tough because it's like in addition to the emotional burden of having to even like go through it mentally. It's also coupled with this like huge financial strain for a lot of people whose insurance doesn't cover it or don't have insurance. So I love that part of the discussion.

it was really informative and might help someone out there who's struggling and looking for creative ways to pay for IBF. Lori's whole experience was really enlightening. And I think you guys will get a lot from her, not just as an artist, but in a financial capacity as well. Right. Yeah, that is interesting to think outside the box in terms of how to get this instead of just like, oh, I either have a job that pays for this or I don't. Right. It's really expensive. So if that's something that you need to do, it makes a lot of sense to go specifically hunting for something that's going to give you that benefit. I probably wouldn't have thought of it like that. Right. And for her, I guess it had a two pronged approach of like giving her a little bit of a break from this job, which again is very

linked to what she's going through. Totally. And also, you know, the financial part of it. So I'm glad there's resources out there. And it was really great to hear her story. And again, check out the article and I'll let her get right into it. We'll bring her right in. I am so excited to welcome today's guest. I found Lori through her incredible essay in the modern love section of the New York Times. It was an essay that truly moved me. I'm so excited to have her on this podcast. Please welcome Lori Vote Roseanne. Hi. Thank you so much for coming on. And Lori, you're a nurse midwife certified in Chester Springs, Pennsylvania. So thanks for joining us virtually from there today. And we put your article in the description of the episode.

And you guys, if you haven't read it yet, you should definitely read it before you listen to this episode. I think you can, you'll still enjoy the episode without it, but it's such a great moving essay. And when I read it in the New York Times, it kind of felt, you know, I feel like with fertility stuff and you can probably relate to this, it kind of feels like you're randomly sort of like inspired or sent like a thing. And it kind of, you're not sure if it's the psychological thing of you just seeing something that you're focused on or if it's like the universe sending you a symbol. But I was like having a day and this like popped up on my Facebook news feed. And it was just like the perfect timing to feel like seen and heard. So thank you so much.

I'm really happy to hear that. Yeah. I totally know what you mean. It's like the more that you know about it and the more that you focus about it, which for me is pretty much always and every day, the more that you find out it's really going on all around you, whether that's like infertility or early pregnancy loss or just like all of the myriad difficulties that people who are trying to get pregnant go through. Exactly. So on the show, we really just like to hear women's stories just to get like a full picture of, you know, your personal experience. Would you mind just telling me like your whole fertility journey, like just from the moment that you decide. that you had wanted kids and like take me through the whole process. So I think I've known that I wanted to be a mom since I was like literally 18 months old. My little sister was born.

I thought she was my baby. You know, it was like my mom would come into feeder and I'd be like, bitch, this is mine. Like I'm a mother here. Yeah. And I have. I have. wondered at times whether that is part of like, you know, I know that this makes no sense, but my brain has done a lot of weird things on this fertility journey, which I think is probably relatable. You know, sometimes it feels like the very wanting it so much is like part of what is blocking it from happening. But obviously, you know, there's a million people who will be like, just relax and it will happen and you want to like strangle those people. Right. There's nothing to be done about that. But I have always

known that I wanted to be a mom. It also was like relatively, I think, late to finding love in a way that I'm really glad happened the way that it did because I didn't know anything in my 20s. I was sort of like wild and lost and I am glad that I waited for like a love that feels very, very sacred and steady to me. But when my husband and I got married, I was 34 and we moved our wedding for the pandemic. And before we made that decision, I was like, I will move our wedding if we can start trying now. Yeah. Like, I am not putting this off any longer. I feel like, you know, I've waited until I have a career. I've waited until I found the right person. Like, I'm ready 33 years ago. Since 18 months. Did you feel this sense of like the clock is taking?

I don't think I did yet. You know, I also feel really lucky to be surrounded by other people who had, you know, I think it's a privilege and great to be able to, like, pursue your career and your interests. And so 34 didn't feel that, you know, 34 felt good. This is like, I'm proud of myself and I feel steady and like, this is when to start. The time is now. Ha-ha. Right?

And then you learn that like over and over and over again, you learn that I am not in control of the timing. So we got married in September 21, in June, I think, 21. We may not have really needed to move our wedding for COVID, just the way that COVID went up and down. We were actually sort of in the lull, but we moved it. It was great. We went on our honeymoon before our wedding.

It was magic. I wasn't stressed about getting pregnant yet. And we got pregnant pretty shortly after our wedding. And I was like, bingo, banga, bongo. It's all lining up. I'm a fertility goddess. Look at me. I am woman. Hear me more. Many, many myths that I didn't even realize I carried about, like, you know, who I am and what I'm capable of. And I'm healthy and this is going to work for me. And that was October. We were pregnant until November. And we miscarried. you know, very early on into that pregnancy. And it was, it was really painful. And I tried to write about that in the article, you know, it was early. It was the first one. These are always that I and other people can minimize these experiences. And like, it crushed me. I was in bed. I was in the fetal position. It's, you know, all of the imaginings of like what this child is going to be. Just like,

boom. Right. And without any of the, the not. naivete. I feel like when in subsequent pregnancies, as someone who's had multiple miscarriages, also, I feel like the ones after that, you kind of feel like you're more prepped. And the first one just feels so like you feel a little naive. It's hard to get that feeling of like, I just really thought everything was going to be perfect. Right. That pure unadulterated joy of like positive pregnant, you know, like had the one z that I had bought early and hid from my husband and gave it to him with the positive pregnancy test. And I do feel like, I don't think that the universe like tries to teach us lessons through like pregnancy loss. Like I have tried to dispel that thinking from

myself. Like, you know, what am I doing or what am I not doing? But I do think one of the most powerful things that I keep trying to learn over the last three years of now, you know, going through that same process multiple times is like trying to let go of thinking I know what's going to happen. Right. And I do think I think for every subsequent probably pregnancy, there is this feeling. I'm speaking for myself, but it sounds like you can relate to that of like, okay, like I learned the lessons of the universe.

Like they sent me all these trials and like now like I'm due for like this time. It's going to be this time. And I don't know about you, but like some of those things that like my brain, like I'll just be like, I'll be like walking the dog and it will be like, I know what it is. I know what it is. I'm not good enough at making dinner. And I'm not like a traditional housewife. I'm not good at any of that stuff. I've never been good at any of that stuff. And like, but some voice that like I, that is not mine, that is cultural, that is totally incompetent will be like, if you figure out how to get. meal prep down. Then you're going to get a baby. Well, have you ever, I mean, you've been talking a lot about the universe. So I'm going to, I feel like most women who have gone, or not most, but a lot of women that I've spoken to have read this. Have you read spirit babies? I haven't. Okay. Because I feel like in that book, it's like, it's very woo-woo. It's like a psychic kind of talking to your spirit babies. And then there's always like, there's one block why like the baby hasn't arrived. And it's like because,

you know, it just wants you to stop moving or like it just wants you to, like, you said, like figure out how to make dinner and the baby just doesn't want to be in an environment where like no one knows how to make dinner. So it kind of reminded me of, you know, the different ways people try to make big sense of it in that way and like the things your mind can tell you. I guess I say the universe, like I have a burgeoning spirituality that is very helpful to me. what has been helpful to me is to remember that some of the things I've wanted most in my life would have been very, very bad for me. And some of the things that I didn't want at all have been very useful to me. You know, like getting published, that's a dream come true. That I would never

have been brave enough to like put that article out there if it weren't for the pain of what I'm going through and also feeling like people deserve the space to talk about early loss and to reframe early loss in a way that like acknowledges that early loss is not little loss. It's big loss. And so like, yeah, that there's good stuff in what I don't want and there's bad stuff and what I do want. And so like I can let go a little bit of the insane amount of control that I want to exert over my own life. Like, look, universe, if it's get published or have a baby, I want to be really clear. I want

the baby. And we published the article. It was amazing. I'm really proud of myself and I'm really grateful for like the connections to people, particularly people who are on this journey that that's brought. And we lost the pregnancy. So my bargaining skills are. I'm sorry. I've definitely, again, it's funny, like the relatability of this thing. I feel like the same way, especially about starting this podcast. I'm like, all right, I've given back to the world. Now it will come. And it hasn't yet. So I guess to take you back to after the first loss, and this was in 2022. So 2021 November. And then we got pregnant again. I think that was around March. I was working as a midwife at a hospital. My friend, who is a doctor, offered to draw my, you know, my blood test for me. I wasn't, I think I had made contact with the infertility doctor because I was like, oh, I'm right on the precipice of 35.

If you're 35, they recommend seeking, you know, consult with a fertility doctor if you haven't gotten pregnant. in six months, but we had gotten pregnant. We just hadn't stayed pregnant. So there were all of these you know, unclear parameters. And so she drew my HCG. It came back positive, but it was low. And I was supposed to consult with the fertility doctor, like later that week, I think. And I was like, I'm going to cancel it. We're pregnant. And my very, you know, very, very, very. wonderful obi colleague was like, don't cancel your console. Like, just go to the consult. And I, you know, I think she was basing that on how low the HCG number was. So we kept the console, but it was a very like, I was like, we're here, but, you know, I'm pregnant. Right. Optimistic.

Totally optimistic. And then started bleeding on a shift, which is like, I work, you know, often and frequently enough that pretty much all of these major milestones have I've just been like, you know, midwifing away. And it's like, I think I'm bleeding. I mean, can you talk to me about your job as a midwife? Like, how did you get into that? Like, can you explain, even for me, if I'm being totally honest, the difference in like having a midwife versus using a doctor for a delivery and how you got into that? And just, I mean, obviously, like, It's just so connected to the story, like the idea of what you do. I would love to hear more about that. So I love being a midwife. I became a midwife. So I didn't know what a midwife was. I have always sort of identified as an English person of a writer, a language arts student, you know. And then a friend got pregnant when we were younger, like 17. And she asked me to train as a doula, which is.

like non-medical labor support to help her through her labor. And I think being seen like that was new to me. And I did the doula training. I wasn't able to be her dula for her first birth. But it introduced me to this world where like what I really loved about the dula training was it was just women sitting in a circle telling these stories about like their births and their births and their pregnancies and I was like nine seven somewhere in between 17 and 19 like I wasn't thinking about pregnancy but I did have I think as like most women and girls do like a backlog of health experiences or sexual experiences that I had never talked about and I um recognized that like all around me there were these women who were just dying to talk about their stories and there

was nowhere really to talk about them openly. And I loved that space and I wanted more of that. So eventually I went back to school to be a nurse and then a nurse practitioner. And I knew when I went back to school to be a nurse midwife, which is a nurse practitioner that focuses specifically on OB. Midwives view birth as, you know, like a lot of times when you're in the hospital, you're in the hospital because something is going wrong. When you're in the hospital and labor, you're going into the hospital and your body is doing, you know, with a couple caveats of different things that can do exactly kind of what you asked it to do when you got pregnant, you know, you're having contractions in order to bring you your baby. And the hospital

is set up like culturally to look for risk and mitigate risk and take care of as many people with high risk, you know, things going on as possible and to do that as safely as possible. and that doesn't always serve people who are there, like, healthy and for a healthy reason. And so midwives try to do less or zero intervention. And that's, like, you know, according to what the patient wants, if, like, someone comes in and they're like, look, I want a midwife because I've heard you guys, like, you know, are a little bit more holistic and you listen and you focus on nutrition during pregnancy and all these things. But I'm definitely getting an epidural. It's like, great, great, because overarching, like, what I believe in as a midwife is, like, listening to you and what you want in your body and then trying to help that happen. Okay.

And how early do you get involved in these pregnancies? Like, are you there from their first visit? Yeah, the beginning, like, you establish prenatal care. You can do that. So I think it's, like, 80% of midwives deliver in hospitals just, like, because of the way our health care system and insurance. set up. So people tend to associate midwives with homebirth or birth center birth, but most certified nurse midwives are delivering in hospitals. And so you can choose a practice that has like midwives who work with doctors. You can choose a practice where midwives, you know, I just

stopped working at a birth center that was across the street from a hospital. So it was, it's all midwives in that building. But if you're eight centimeters and you're like, okay, I've done what I can do. I'd like an epidural. You literally, like, go across the street, get you set up. And that's a big deal because it's your hand, you know, you're helping, you're guiding somebody who is having contractions across the street. So that across the street transfer for them feels pretty long, I think. So there's all sorts of different things that you can choose if you want some combination of like hospitals make me feel safe. But, you know, this thing about midwives appeals to me. Got it. Okay. That's, yeah, that's so interesting.

So had you encountered a lot of miscarriages in your midwife experience before this? Like, what did you feel like it was something you were used to seeing? Yes. So I think it's one in five early pregnancies end in miscarriage. And the stats are like, you know, if you look them up, they'll say it's a little less common than that. And that's because they're only counting like people who had an ultrasound. The pregnancy was, you know, it was established medically that the pregnancy was in the uterus. growing, but really, it's really, really a common experience that, you know, you have a miscarriage in your

fertility. I don't like the word journey either. I listen to you on a podcast say that you don't like that word, but fertility journey. So I had, I had counseled women with miscarriages and I think I did a sensitive job and I had no idea how how painful. You know, like as a practitioner, you're looking at things just like, this is a 35-year-old female. It's her second pregnancy, miscarriage at five weeks, da-da-da-da-da, in a way that intentionally separates you a little bit. And I feel like one of the gifts, ha-ha, of going through this strong to call it a gift,

is I do have a different. sense of like who I'm talking to when I'm talking to someone who's like trying to get pregnant and their experience being miscarriage. Right. I'm sure. Yeah, it gives you a totally even even as someone who's a midwife and has seen it before, I feel like it's a whole different level. And I think you talk about that in your in your essay about how like you're never going to really understand someone else's experience as well as as they do. But I'm sure you get a closer understanding than many other people who have, you know, haven't seen all of it. Yeah. It's really different to say to someone, you know, to even when you're just telling someone like, take a tons for heartburn. Like,

if you haven't had heartburn and you haven't taken the tons, it's a different quality to how you're advising somebody than when you're like, no, like really, I've been through this and here's what helped me, you know. Right. Totally. So you have your second loss. And this was like a chemical, it sounds like? We never, yeah, I think it probably was. We weren't being monitored super carefully because we hadn't started with the fertility doctor, but I think that that is likely what happened. So that one passed, and then we spent a year trying.

And I think I still sort of was coming to terms with how to define what we were. was happening. And when I re-established with infertility, they were the ones who pointed out, like, okay, well, now you've met it by even the most conservative definition, which is like, you're 35, you've tried for six months to a year between the two pregnancies, and you haven't gotten pregnant. So this is infertility. And I think there's a real grief and loss that. comes with that, that is also something to think about and acknowledge. Right. Just feeling like, okay, you've now been labeled as someone who this is not going to be easy for. And I think after a first loss, what everyone tells you is like, this happens all the time. You're going to be fine.

Like, good for you. You got pregnant. Like, not everyone gets that. And then I think with the subsequent loss is there there's this feeling of like the more the deeper into it you get the more you're like oh this is going to be like quite difficult and that's a really tough realization and that whole idea of like you know I've heard it called like the pain Olympics like I do it to myself too it's like oh but there are people who try for three years and never even get that positive pregnancy test so like at least you're getting that and it's like just don't just don't just don't do that to yourself because like at the end of the day you know whatever way the pain is divvied out it is painful totally and you know I said the same thing I remember thinking after my first loss

like you know there are some people who have still abortions and like how horrible would that be and like this was not nearly as bad as that I remember my sister saying to me she's like if you play that game then like only one person in the world gets to suffer It's only the person with the worst of the worst of the worst. Like that's not how this works. It's not how pain works. Yeah. It's not a pie.

And me having some doesn't take it from you. Exactly. Yeah. Okay. So then were the doctors giving you any explanation for after the second loss and you were trying again? Like did you get all the infertility workup, as they call it? I got an infertility workup.

The testing was normal, which, you know, is like a thing you want. want to hear most of the time and with infertility, you're like, that gives me nothing to fix. Thank you. I had a doctor, so we switched fertility care basically because I felt like all of, like, I kept talking to people who were sort of organizing the appointments and they'd be like, once you have this set of labs, and I'd be like, but I'd had that set of labs, I felt like the communication wasn't good between the administrative part of the fertility clinic. And for me, I was like, I need to really trust you. I need to really trust that, you know, like, you're not

going to lose my embryos, for instance, if we get there. And while I really, really liked the doctor and I really, really liked the nurse, that step was just making me anxious. So that doctor, when we spoke to him, showed me my, the ultrasound of my uterus and sort of said, like, this here might suggest adenomyosis, which is like the way that he explained it to me is when the, this is what I was nervous about coming on your podcast because I was like, I'm not going to be able to talk about the scientific part as well as I want to be able to talk about it. But essentially the layers of your uterus don't stay in the positions that they're supposed to. And so like the lining where the baby's supposed to implant, it grows a little bit into the

outside of the uterus. Okay. And it can create heavy periods. It can create bad cramping. But I couldn't see what he was talking about, and I just didn't really buy it. And the next doctor that I saw looked at the same images and said, she didn't see it. And the definitive way that you diagnosed ad no is by surgery, laparoscopic surgery, and that would, you know, interfere with us getting pregnant. So we'll never know. Okay. And this is different than like endometriosis. It's like endometriosis except in endometriosis, that endometrium, which is like the layer where the baby implants, the embryo implants, that tissue is completely outside of the uterus instead of growing into the wall of the uterus. I see. Okay. So one doctor says they think you might have this, the other ones, like I don't really see it. And it sounds like you didn't have any of the symptoms that would be associated. associated. It's so annoying because they always say that it's like, they're like, well, the symptoms of this or this, but you could also have no symptoms. So it's like, oh, you could have anything. Yeah. And I don't, I don't know. I just, it just didn't. And maybe it's part of the picture and maybe I'll get there. And I do think there's some element of like, you sort of accept things when you're willing to accept them. And so maybe that will be my experience with that. But for now, I was like, it doesn't really, it doesn't really, it

doesn't change the treatment plan, I'm just going to, like, continue on with this doctor who does not think that I have it. So we did, and we moved on, we started with RMA and King of Pressure, which is Reproductive Medicine Association, I think. Oh, yeah. I see them in New York. And we did an egg retrieval. We didn't retrieve any viable embryos from that egg retrieval. I was still working as a midwife and had some questions about whether sort of like the stress of my job and trying to ask this thing of my body was like too much. A big part of my like journey too has been, you know, I sit in the office with people who are pregnant or people who are seeking midwives also take care of like gynecology, birth control,

STI testing, things like that. And like one of my main messages is like, listen, listen to your body, listen to yourself, listen to your needs, you know? Right. Meanwhile, like, I'm trying to get pregnant. Miscarriage, miscarriage, failed egg retrieval. Then as we're waiting to do the next egg retrieval, I got pregnant again. We miscarried again. And I was like, I'm not listening to my body, you know?

And like, I'm starting to have this sneaking suspicion that, like, I don't believe that my schedule or coffee or any of those other things caused my miscarriage. I don't believe they're causing anybody else's miscarriages. But I did have questions about, like, the amount of stress I was putting on myself while trying to do this process. So, I mean, when you said you had no embryos, was that, like, none to send out to test or none that tested normal? I don't remember exactly because now we have had. So we definitely got, we were able to retrieve eggs, but some small number of them fertilized. None of them made it out of, made it to the blastocyst stage. That's what it was. They, I think, too fertilized, but they didn't grow. Okay. So at this point, are they thinking it's an egg quality issue,

potentially? Not yet. And they still have, so they essentially just said, like, sometimes it happens. And we'll change. the protocol that we put you on in order to retrieve the eggs and we'll try again. Okay. And at that point, too, like after the third, so sort of confusing because the egg retrieval didn't work, we got pregnant again and lost the pregnancy again. And so that's where I was. And I think this is July, what month I ran now? So July 23. And I like, called the person I was on call with, you know, to be a midwife, you work late hours, you keep your phone on you, there's sort of always this feeling of like feast or famine, like this could be a

night where three or four people go into labor or I might sleep through the night, but you sleep with your phone, like right by your ear when you're on call and like wake up every like 15 minutes, 30 minutes, like, do the phone ring? Did I miss anything? Right. And I feel like it's really important for me to sleep well because it's one thing I can control. Like, I can't control how your labor goes or how your birth goes, but I can show up, like, ready to handle whatever happens and try to take care of you as safely as I can and take care of your baby as safely as I can. But after the third miscarriage, I stopped sleeping. So I started like just, I think the emotional stress and the grief, like, I wasn't able to like do what I needed to do in order to be a good midwife, which is sleep on command.

I would imagine this is like a particularly difficult job to have when you're going through this, just being surrounded by births and, and, you know, babies and just women going through something that you really want. Was that like an extra layer of it or because you can remove yourselves? It's weird. I kept thinking that was going to happen and I had questions about whether it was happening on some like really deep level that I was ignoring, you know, in order to get three shifts. But the truth is like when I sat across from somebody else who was like pregnant with and, you know, having their own concerns about like what was going on in their body, usually I stopped.

I stopped thinking about myself, which was. a gift, you know. But I did have questions. Like, I didn't want it to all back up. Like, oh, you have all this grief and you're just, like, ignoring it. And at some point, that is going to come up, you know. Right. And then did they test any of the embryos from the miscarriages or they didn't do that? They didn't do that. I honestly wasn't able to, like, yeah, I wasn't able to bring myself. to collect the tissue and bring it in. Okay. When I realized I was miscarrying the third one, I had this moment.

Paul, my husband, was like, I was home. I started pacing back and forth from, like, the bathroom to the kitchen. And he was like, he didn't know I was miscarrying. I had just, like, started feeling myself, like, bleed heavily. And he was like, what are you doing? And I, like, sat down in the middle of the hallway. And I was like, I think I'm miscarrying. I'm thinking about whether I need to get Tupperware to try to bring it to the doctor.

And he was like, stop. Like, no, just no. Like, you know, what they can. And I am not a high-risk fertility doctor. You know, I'm a low-risk normal pregnancy, healthy, mom-healthy baby. practitioner. But my understanding is that when you bring in that tissue, what they're testing for is chromosomal abnormality. And when they do an egg retrieval and they test your embryos, they test those embryos for chromosomal abnormalities. So didn't see the point. Whether it was or wasn't,

like it was happening. And I just felt like sort of I don't have the strength to do this, to figure out what exactly is going on. And, and like, so yesterday when I was thinking about this interview, I was like, I don't even, so we did end up having a successful. I took time off of work. I called my, the person I was on call with. I was like, I don't think I can do these shifts this way right now while I try to handle that we just miscarried again.

Right. And she was like, great, we'll get your shifts covered. Not great. She didn't say great. She said a lot of nice, wonderful. So, that's a lot of things. And I got home and I was like, I think I'm going to take a break. I think I'm going to stop being a midwife for like, you know, whatever length of time it takes to do the next step of this IVF journey.

And so I did. I worked at tractor supply company because they have IVF benefits. So does Target. So does I think Target Starbucks Oh really? IVF, like what kind of benefits?

Like when I started at tractor supply company which is basically a hardware and feed store like farm feed store Those are my next question. Yeah Apparently not a thing that everyone does you did 10 hours a week

for two full IVF cycles. Oh wow. They have changed it. Now you need to be there a year to get one IVF cycle. But if you join, like, Facebook groups about paying for IVF, they make lists, like beautiful, wonderful humans out there who have been through this, make lists of companies with good IVF insurance. Progeny is a good one. For, like, you know, jobs that, like, I think the tradeoff is jobs that can't necessarily afford or are not paying a high wage will sometimes bring people in by offering really good insurance. So I worked at the hardware store.

We did a cycle. We got three embryos. Probably better hours. Way better hours. And we got three embryos out of that. Oh, wow. Okay. So this was your third retrieval, and you got three.

Second retrieval. We got three healthy embryos. What I tried not to do and did anyway. was tell myself that, like, because I was taking the break, this was going to be the one that would work, right? Like that same bargaining with the universe. Okay, I did what you asked me to do, universe. I'm taking a lot of stress off and I'm focused. I really want this baby. You can tell I really want this baby. Learn to cook. As soon as I get lamb on the table, that's when. Right. We did a frozen embryo transfer. And that is the,

pregnancy that I was, when you reached out, I was pregnant with that pregnancy, which turned out to be ectopic and it ended in March. So a month, it should go. Okay. And they, I mean, I've, I've had an ctopic also from an IVF transfer, which is kind of like, it always feels kind of crazy because you're like, they put it in there. Right. Did you slip? Did you sneeze? Like, why? What happened here, right? Everyone else, you know, it does, it feels like it should be, and I know that there's like a higher chance of an ectopic with an IVF transfer, but I still don't fully understand why, but yeah, that's a whole, I'm sure thing in itself where you get, did you take the, the drug for it? Yes. Methotraxate. So a fun thing happened, which is, so it was, the pregnancy was like,

sort of between my tube and the body of my uterus. And I read a bunch of, and those are, they're difficult to diagnose. It's eventually what they ended up diagnosing me with is a what's called a corneal or like in the horn pregnancy. But I, they weren't sure initially if it might be, so again, this is like high risk, doctor, physician, fertility stuff. But my, understanding is they thought it might be angular, which means it can grow into the body of the uterus or it can continue to grow in the tube. And if it grows into the body of the uterus, it can result in a healthy pregnancy. If it grows in the tube, it can rupture your tube and you can have extreme, you know, morbidity, meaning like bad medical consequences or

mortality, meaning you die. And I kept trying to show my husband these. And I kept trying to show my husband in these articles where like the baby grew into the right space. And he was like, this all starts by saying these are high risk and can result in, you know, your death. I can't read these articles. Right. You're like, no, no, no, like skip that part. Oh, yeah.

No, I'm sure. I mean, I'm sure there's like this weird feeling of like to protect yourself or to protect this pregnancy and you kind of feels like, oh, you know, you kind of like I'll take whatever if it gives me more of a chance to get there. So I totally understand that feeling and like it must be excruciating just like the time that goes by where you don't know because you don't know where to place. Yeah. Where to place the pregnancy in your brain of like, am I excited? And you have that same magical thinking of like maybe if I lie on my right side, maybe if I breathe the pregnancy down.

Maybe if I, you know, none of that worked. Right. So then it moves. So they're just monitoring it. and then they see that it moves into the tube? So they monitored it for long enough to say, I went and got a second opinion because I knew, like, if this is difficult to diagnose and it can be misdiagnosed,

I'm not going to trust anybody. And so I got a second opinion, and that doctor did 3D ultrasound and was able to show me in a way that I could really see on the imaging. She was like, I can't tell you with 100% certainty. I can tell you with 95% certainty. As a person who specializes in sonography, this pregnancy is not going to be good for you and it's not going to be good for the embryo.

And one weird gift of that, you know, was so we had seen this embryo with a heartbeat. And when we went to get the medication to terminate the pregnancy because it wasn't viable and it could kill me. They seem fair. Okay. Yeah. I believe, you know, I believe in the right to terminate pregnancy, period. Right.

But when we went, the sonographer was like, do you want to see the embryo, you know, or do you want me to turn off the screen? And I was like, no, I want to see the embryo. Like, this is my last chance to see it. And when they turned on the screen, I said to Paul, like, I didn't see a heartbeat. And he was like, I thought I saw it, but very faintly. And when they came back in, I was like, is there a heartbeat? And they were like, it is slowing to an abnormal rate. And you can't, there's no coming back from that for an embryo.

So it was passing, which for me was a weird gift because I didn't want to live with that fear that I had ended a pregnancy that I didn't need to end. Totally. Because I mean, I don't know if you did this, but like I, you know, there was a time, I don't really do this anymore, but there's a time when I was on like deep in the Reddit threads. And you can always find like one success story, or maybe a few for any situation. I feel like there's like a few people who have had, you know, the low HCGs and then it turns around or something like that and that feeling of like, am I calling it too soon or like am I making, you know, am I cutting my losses here? I totally can relate. to that. And usually, again, it's like so rare, but you can, if you're online, that's, the population is everyone. Right. You can find somebody who they said, there's no way this is going to work, and it worked. Right. Which is kind of annoying, kind of hopeful, kind of annoying. Totally. Right. So we ended up taking metatrexate, which maybe did when you had your ectopic, which is a shot that they give you to pass the pregnancy. And that's where we are. It is May of

24. We have two frozen embryos and yeah. So are you just, are you going to wait? Is your plan to kind of wait? I think there's a three month period where you're supposed to wait. Yes. And then do the transfer another one. Yeah. So I, I am going back to work, which I'm pretty excited about, although a little nervous about, I'm going back with reduced hours and a different setting. So the stress should be less and like a sort of, miss being a midwife, miss that part of like life where I go in thinking, I'm definitely going to be sad because this person's pregnant and I'm not. And then I completely forget about myself for a little bit. And that job will start in July at the end of July. And maybe we can

try to do a transfer right before us start my job. Right. I'm so sorry. It sounds like you've been through a lot. I don't mean, I don't want to say I get it because everyone's experience. is different, but I get it to the extent that I have a similar experience. Do you want to talk about yours? I don't want to flip the microphone on you, but. Oh, no. I mean, like, I've had a, I've had similar experience. I've had three almost transfers. So, I mean, I got pregnant with a, with a shot of, because I had PCOS to, like, induce ovulation and that worked like the first time. And then I had a loss from that. And then I had like three months of not realizing I had retained tissue.

So that like killed some time. And then I did IVF. Very lucky, very successful with my IVF retrieval. But then done three transfers. The first one had a miscarriage at like between week six and week seven. The second one was ectopic and the third one was chemical. So I've missed. I like to say I've miscarried in all the different ways.

I've got to try them all. Right. Right. But yeah, I think I get what you're, you know, especially that everything in your essay just felt really close to home, even though I have, you know, obviously different but similar experience of like that multiple loss situation. And I highlighted a few parts that really resonated with me. There's part in your essay that you wrote every moment that I'm not ovulating or hoping I'm pregnant can feel like time to just get through, which I definitely related to a lot, especially in that first. In the first couple years, I think I'm about to enter my third year of this. Yeah. And there is that feeling, which can feel like I'm not living in the moment at all. I'm just kind of like passing time to get to that next transfer or that next pregnancy

or like, this is a waste of time because I'm, it didn't happen. And I felt like that really resonated with me. Completely. Yeah. And then like there are sort of, I don't want to say superficial tricks for that, but there, I feel like there's a practice of like I'm trying to notice what is here in my life right now that I have more space for. You know, I'm helping my mom move out of our childhood home.

Like, I stayed up all night talking to my sister while we were doing that. And I was like, if I had a newborn, I would not be up all night talking to my sister or like, you know, trying to notice that there is really good stuff available to me to. today, even if it's not the thing I want. Totally. And I think that's the hardest part is like this feeling of living, trying to live in the moment and be grateful for the life that you do have and feel like lucky and for like your partner and your family and your friends and this free, you know, the thing that they tell you that all the moms tell you, which I believe to be true about, you know, like the time

that they wish they could appreciate in that pre-child year. And I think like, I'm sure you feel this way too of like, if you told me it was going to happen in a year, then yeah, of course, I would like sleep late and like have fun, not a care in the world, go out partying. But it's like that feeling. And then also the feeling of like, I think this is unique to this situation of living in the moment of, okay, well, I could be pregnant for like two weeks out of every month. So can I fully live in the moment feeling of with that feeling of like I'm in this in between state and my body is like not really mine. My body is like here to be prepped for someone else a little bit. Totally. And I was talking to a friend about it like she had a traumatic birth experience and she was saying about like the pressure to be like, oh, but my baby is healthy and I am healthy and the rest of it, you know, doesn't matter.

quote unquote. And that whole trying to soothe yourself by saying, like, here is what I have, even if I don't have this, I think can either, you can either do it like it's a blanket around you, like, oh, I'm sitting on the porch and I'm having my coffee and, you know, there's no welling baby. Or you can do it like a hammer and be like, you have all these things. Like, why are you sad? And like, I'm trying to notice like when I am being kind, when I'm using it to be kind to myself and when I'm just like trying to hammer myself into a state of joyous gratitude, which doesn't work. I mean, you have a way with words. That's like the perfect way to describe it where you're like, is this toxic positivity or like, am I actually grateful? I'm not really

sure if this is like authentic or not. And you capture that so well. And just the feeling of like, You know, when someone tells you, like, it's going to happen for you. And you write this in your thing, you write, no, I actually don't know that that's going to happen for me. It's the scary part. Right. Right. And I think we can get really like, like yesterday when I was feeling nervous about the interview, I reread, like, what quality are my embryos? Like, so that if you asked me that question, I would know the answer because I'm a midwife and I should know these things.

And da-da-da-da-da. And then I was like, remembered. that I literally chose not to know that because, you know, all of it is just me trying to tell myself that I know that I'm going to have a baby. You know, like, what's my HCG number? What's my, you know, try to find somebody on a forum who had that number and it worked? Like, all of these things. Like, it's all, and it's totally human and I can love myself through it and say, like, oh, yeah, it's so beautiful and normal that you want to know the answer. but none of these things tell you the answer.

And so, like, instead of trying to answer the impossible question, can you, like, practice knowing that you don't know what's going to happen? Right, which is the hardest thing of all, I think, is to, like, embrace that and be okay with that. Have you gotten into any sort of, like, spiritual practices or, like, anything that feels a little woo-woo from this? I'm definitely a little woo-woo. I can't help that.

I use these guided meditations on insight timer. A lot of people use headspace. I never, like, figured out how to navigate that properly. But there are, it helps me sleep. And I think it has expanded my ability to be like, to sit in the uncertainty. And like, just breathe to the part of my body that is like, you don't want uncertainty. I want to know what's my due day. how many.

Right. And trying to remember that, like, I just, I did not invent the best things in my life that have come to me. I could not have invented my sister. I could not have invented my husband. I could not have invented the profession of midwifery, which I didn't know about until, you know, I don't know, my mid-20s or something. Like, there's a chance that everything is going to turn out better than my imagination can

make it, you know. Yes, I love that. I guess to offer some words of encouragement, it sounds like you're saying, like, this or something better. Yeah. Yep. Right. And I think that's a great way to look at it. That's very encouraging way to look at it, even if it's not the way that you pictured.

Maybe it'll be better. Who even knows? Right. And somehow trying to do that like a blanket, not a hammer. You know, like. Right. Yes. And also, this sucks.

You know. Right. It sucks to. to grieve, you know, for you, like, three times in three years, not even counting the number of times you hoped maybe you were pregnant or, you know, because every period sort of feels like, or every cycle, even if it's not marked by a period. Even the ones where you didn't have a positive pregnancy test, like sort of feels like a trigger and a letdown and it's your own body, so you can't get out of it. Right. Yeah, it's just the, it's just you and you're.

And I think that's like the isolating experience is that even if you have a partner who's super supportive and like a network of people, it does feel kind of like it's just you in your body like that are in this. Even if like other people are in it psychologically, like just you, you guys in it for like physically. Yeah. There are limits to anybody's. And that's I think another good lesson for like being a midwife and like trying to help other people through their own medical experience. is it's just like you can try to know, but you will never know what it's like for that person, you know? And midwifery is also, I think, like, for me, one of the major tenets is, like, trust your body.

And I don't think I'll ever, I don't think that that phrase will be the same for me after this experience. Like, many, many people cannot take for granted that they can trust their bodies, you know, for a million different reasons, you know, rheumatoid arthritis. or cancer or, you know, a thousand things that have made them look at themselves and say, like, can I trust this body, you know? And when the thing that I want most with my heart and my head, my body is refusing to manifest, it's just more complicated than just trust your body. Right.

And I mean, that's something that you would only know from going through this, I guess, is having that perspective of, like, it's a little more complicated than, than that. Thank you so much for coming on the show. If you have any last minute words of encouragement for anyone listening, I know it's like hard when you're when you're in it. I think just trying to notice like when you're obsessing over like calculating the due date or calculating when you're ovulating or all of those numbers that like trying to notice that like I just want the answer and I want to know that I'm going to have a baby in my arms at the end of this.

Actually, all of these things that I'm trying to figure out on my way to that, don't answer that question. And so, like, because I think it is easy and I have spent portions of the last three years, like, completely unavailable to my life because I was engaging in those calculations. Like, how do I make this happen? What do I eat? What do I do? What do I not do? And if I notice that I just want to know and I can't know, then it sort of breaks that

spell for me a little bit and I can stop trying to calculate my way out of the feeling I'm in and just say like, okay, you're really, I'm really sad today. Like, what do I want to do with that sadness? Right. That's such a good point because I feel like we always try to channel that into something like productive when nothing, like you're totally correct. Like nothing you say or do or think is going to like change whatever the outcome of the situation really is. Right. So, just trying to live in that moment and feel your feelings is really important. Well, thank you so much. I felt seen hearing your story and your modern love article was like one of the best things I had seen written. So if you guys haven't read it, please go look at

it. It's on New York Times. I'm pretty sure you get a number of free articles a month if you are not subscribed. We're going to put it in the body of the description of this, going to put it on the Instagram. And Lori, is there anywhere that people can read more? of your writing? I'm working on a book. I'm working on a book on infertility and the things that have helped me through it. Other than that, I have honestly been extremely shy about sharing my writing until I realized, like, maybe it could help you guys. And so I will, you know, be trying in the next couple of years to create something that I can control creation over, which is writing versus a baby. And look for it.

Yeah. I don't know. Exactly. They say, right, take your broken heart and turn it into art. You've done that so amazingly. And when your book gets published, you share it with me and we'll share it with the whole baby steps over sharing community. Thank you so much. And thank you for doing what you do and, like, creating space for these conversations.

I really enjoy listening to your podcast, and I think it's really important. Thank you so much. And that's it for this episode of Baby Steps. We'll be back next time. Baby Steps is produced by me, Jordana Abraham, and Shannon Sisson. Editing by Jorge Morales Picoe. Guest booking by Ali Friedlander. And be sure to follow at Everything's Fine on Instagram.

Betches.