Navigating Career, Relationships, and Fertility on Your Own Terms

and it's something from like a mindfulness perspective that I've tried to be better at because I think there are certain people that are good at like

0:05

enjoying what they have yeah and I struggle with that and I'm I'm always somebody that wants like more and to be

0:12

challenged in a new way and take risks and I've had to be very conscious about like the her and

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[Music]

0:28

now I am so excited to have our next guest Christina um Christina we were connected

0:35

with Christina through a former guest of ours Jen and this is what's been so incredible about doing this podcast because people are so excited about

0:42

sharing their stories and it's like I have a guest on they're like okay I have this friend that's done who's Frozen Rags or I've have this person and you

0:48

have to speak to this person and I just think that anyone that has gone through this there's really this desire to pay

0:55

it forward and share your story and cultivate more conversation and we're going to get into your story of a creasing and you sharing on social media

1:02

and what that response has been like but so happy to have you here welcome and you were just sharing this as your first

1:08

here in person podcast first iners podcast so I'm like give me a little bit of Grace here but I'm very excited to be

1:13

on here and like this conversation is one that definitely needs to be had a lot more so I'm excited to to talk about

1:18

it we're so excited to have you before we get into the egg freezing stuff we were talking a little off camera I want to talk about something you posted on

1:25

Instagram which I think is so important and I think you said it something like this there's this special kind of cognitive distance that

1:32

happens when you approach 30 about where you think you would be or where you thought you would be and you're not but

1:39

not having it other any other way so I'd love for you to I'd love to start there and to speak to that like where you

1:44

thought you would be at 30 why you thought you would be in this place you imagined at 30 yeah I mean I think we

1:51

all kind of as women have this idea that we're going to get married by like 24 like and now you say that's like baby

1:59

baby yeah think about like the person I'd be married to if I was married by 24 I'm like let's not do that um but I had

2:04

that idea my had I'm like I'm going to be married by 25 I'm going to have a kid by 28 and I have a lot of friends that

2:10

got married younger and took a more quote unquote traditional route and that's just not the one that I took I

2:16

think that starting my own business kind of led me in a different direction of like being exposed to so much more and

2:22

living in a larger City and meeting so many different people and having financial success that has really

2:27

changed my life in a lot of ways and the people I've surrounded myself with um and made me a lot more selective too in

2:35

terms of Partners um we'll probably talk about this as well but I you know got sober and all this stuff and that's kind

2:41

of just changed my outlook on dating and relationships and kind of brought myself

2:48

personally to a place where I wasn't necessarily ready to settle down um oh my gosh we talked about readiness last

2:54

episode and the importance of Readiness totally and actually being ready for a relationship so yeah I approach 30 I had

3:00

gotten out of a 5-year relationship at that point and now was that someone at that time you thought you might okay

3:06

yeah and then towards the end it became great guy but just sort of different outlooks on where we wanted to go in life and so that relationship ended and

3:13

I was like huh I thought that was maybe the person that I was going to have that life with and now where am I I need to

3:21

spend the next couple years really like turning Inward and getting to myself and thinking about the timeline and that's

3:26

sort of where I was like I need to actually think about my future and go ahead with a freezing yeah so you had said like some of your friends were

3:32

getting married had gotten married earlier more traditional route you get out of this relationship close to 30 did

3:40

you have any narratives around I mean we call this quiet the clock like being behind or running out a time did any of

3:45

that come up for you yeah it's interesting because I have always felt like in terms of my career that I've

3:50

been ahead but in terms of like relationships and the progression of that that I was behind and I had to

3:56

maybe sacrifice on that a little bit because of all the other things I wanted to do so yeah that was certainly yeah I

4:02

think I think like it's important to talk about normalize cuz I think those narratives definitely come up I mean

4:07

it's why it's the title of this podcast but learning how to reconcile those and kind of just o owning your own timeline

4:13

yeah totally I want to talk about because you already mentioned this but this this untraditional route that you

4:19

took because I think that is so amazing I think it's so brave and courageous when women step out of the traditional

4:25

path or the shoulds or what we should be doing you know I know for me I want to college I had no idea what I wanted to

4:31

do and everyone's like get into Finance like I'm like okay I'll get into finance and that just L me down a road that I didn't want to be on and a lot of like

4:38

figuring out what I want to do to get to where I am as a therapist and now you know having the honor of doing this I

4:43

I'd love to hear about your route and your untraditional route and how you got to where you are now you're very

4:49

successful yeah for sure I can talk about my you want to talk about my journey starting my business all that yeah sure um so after I graduated

4:56

college moved to New York City like all my college friends did we kind of follow each other there together and then I was

5:02

working in marketing I don't think I made it more than a year I think I I think like six months into this job I

5:08

was like I'm really miserable this is very monotonous and even thinking about like people you know like two levels

5:15

above you in corporate you're like do I want their lives realized I didn't so I started um a Blog and Instagram on the

5:22

side focus on travel M started to cut you off but did you take the marketing job was that just like the path you knew

5:28

you like it like the sh the this is what we told we do go to college exactly and then you feel that

5:35

dissonance of like this is actually what I want to be doing so I like started a little side hustle and it was just like

5:40

a fun passion project so didn't expect it to take off didn't expect it to make money and then probably you know a few

5:46

months into that I started growing pretty quickly my audience started growing started getting paid brand deals and all of that and then realized that

5:52

was actually like legitimate path I could take and yeah through all this I

5:57

don't think I ever realized I don't think I had like an endgame in mind you know it just kind of one one foot in

6:03

front of the other so when I saw that income starting to come in from Brand deals and stuff I quit my 9 to5 was that

6:09

scary to do or you were just like I I've always been a big risk taker so I was

6:14

like yeah yeah which is definitely a good strength to have an entrepreneurship for sure I just kind of

6:20

leapt off the clip and Cliff I should say and made it happen one foot in front of the other I think that's so I I I

6:26

share that same like Vibe with you because I don't know like maybe for me fear shows up in other ways but I've

6:32

never just I've I guess what's been bigger for me is like stay the the bigger fear for me is being like

6:38

comfortable or like unhappy or like totally miserable or like that's the

6:43

bigger fear of mine than just like I'm going going to go for the thing and if it doesn't work I'll figure something else out no cuz it's boring it's so

6:50

boring my office when I worked in finance it was like so Bland and I would walk around and it was like this typical

6:57

like cubicle corporate and I'm like oh my God this like everyone's a zombie this is so miserable I'm in like a box

7:04

looking at a computer this is like not yeah why was everybody telling us that this is what we should do totally and

7:11

it's something from like a mindfulness perspective that I've tried to be better at because I think there are certain people that are good at like enjoying

7:16

what they have yes and I struggle with that and I'm I'm always somebody that wants like more and to be challenged in

7:23

a new way and take risks and I've had to be like very conscious about like the Here and Now I think that would you know

7:30

in all of the stuff that we I share on here and I talk about with guest is like the gratitude for what I had like when I

7:37

was going through my journey of you know egg freezing and being 37 and freezing and not knowing if I was going to be a

7:44

mom I I overlooked all the things that I had because I want more and I I agree with same as you I think that shows up

7:51

like there's always something to reach for strive for a goal and while that's good I think there's this other side of

7:57

it it's just like well hey all these amazing amazing things are going on now and and for me when I didn't have

8:02

motherhood or I didn't know if I would I just couldn't see outside of that totally so that's so yeah I think just

8:10

how do you balance balancing both things yeah absolutely and the other thing I everyone finds is that like it's not

8:16

about the end goal once you have the end goal you just keep raising the bar I know moving the goal posts totally but it's fun though cuz you get to enjoy the

8:23

enjoy the journey of building and I think that's always been something I've enjoyed a lot so then once I left my 9

8:29

to5 it was like building this whole business out of working with Brands and building out the more like influencer

8:35

content creator side and then as you know I kind of started transitioning into online education to the business I

8:40

have now which is like fully online courses educational material for graders did anyone have like opinions about you

8:49

leaving this should path this like secure consistent 9 to5 probably

8:54

bi-weekly paycheck to like the leap off the cliff did anyone like have something to say about that yeah when I started I

9:01

hi like everything I was doing for my friends and you know what is funny when you put yourself out there you learn

9:07

very quickly who your friends real friends are yeah um because I think like our natural human tendency is to keep

9:12

everybody sort of at the same level so people will constantly try to pull you down yes and so I had you know I lost a

9:19

lot of friends just kind of realized they weren't saying the nicest things in the world and then I had other friends that were like so excited about what I

9:24

was doing that are still really good friends to this day my family my parents I'm trying to think my mom is much more

9:31

of a risk taker as well so she was very excited about what I was doing my dad was much more like St the job just like

9:38

my dad yes my dad would always be like this is what you have this is the path and I went veered off every which path

9:44

and he was not thrilled by that and whatever because he was that's what he

9:50

taught us like college job totally he would always say my dad would always be like it's not about being

9:55

happy and I'm like oh my God okay and then like fast forward so many years

10:00

later he's like are you just as long as you're happy I'm like I don't know who you are but okay I'm very happy I didn't

10:05

listen to what you told me to do exactly oh my gosh I've had so many moments like my dad like that I'm like actually look

10:11

I'm making money making a good amount of money are you okay I'm good yeah we're going to be fine so yeah I think that's

10:17

so amazing and it's I think sometimes to the projections of like the Friendship stuff is hard because I think too right

10:24

like up until college or even a little bit after college you're kind of on the same path you're kind of in the same

10:31

stage of life and then things start to Veer off like somebody gets a boyfriend or somebody gets engaged and and it's

10:37

it's hard to like maybe hold space for that Envy or that comparison or like

10:42

just because she has this thing doesn't mean like I can't have it at some point or just because you know she's having

10:49

more success right now and I think for some women they do that really well and like can hold space and be supportive

10:55

but for other women they can and I've lost friends I've lost friends over the fertility like freezing relationship

11:01

stuff and so just crazy I know it's hard but it's real yeah and it's an insecurity thing too I think people like

11:07

a lot of my students as well get very bogged down with like hate comments or like yeah you know just people

11:13

criticizing them in general and it's once you realize that like nothing's personal it's all a projection of like

11:19

they're jealous that they don't have the courage to do that themselves MH and you're a threat in some capacity then

11:25

you kind of realize oh it's not actually about me in the end yeah I think that's a a good sort of perspective to have

11:32

because I think it's always going to show up in some way right I think you know we're not always going to have just cheerleaders in our lives or someone is

11:38

going to project on us so like not letting that hold too much space for you or wait and just keep moving forward and

11:44

doing your thing for sure so obviously you're very happy very very happy yes yeah thank God it's crazy when you think

11:51

about like I'm sure you've had many Forks in the road in your life like that where you think about what if ID made a

11:56

different decision than the one that I made like you said earlier like if who I married if I who was I with at 24 if I

12:03

yeah I'd be divorced right now oh for sure be divorced oh my gosh yeah totally totally okay who was I with at 24 at 24

12:10

oh this is totally me this drove my Dad nuts too um so when I was in college I

12:16

was supposed to study abroad my second semester junior year it was the only time I could go cuz I played field hockey in college but that that fall 911

12:24

happened so my dad's like you're not going anywhere I was like and then I graduated college and I followed my

12:29

college boyfriend to Portugal I was like bye dad now I'm going love that so that's who I was with at 24 and that

12:36

definitely wouldn't have have worked out but that's like true to me of like I'm going to just go do like the random

12:41

thing yeah that would have been my long-term X and we would for sure be divorced by now yeah and I I think it's

12:46

just and like we were saying earlier the Readiness like I think about now myself at 24 and what I knew at 34 when I met

12:53

my now partner Rob I'm a different person totally different person I'm like what I want what I know about myself

12:59

what I value and I think really highlighting the value of meeting someone older is important because you

13:06

know as we're talking about like the narratives of you go into 30 like there's so if you let it there's so much

13:12

pressure AB on that and there's so much expectation of like you know for me not having a you meeting around till 34 I'm

13:19

like anent everybody's married everybody has kids yeah but I'm like well I don't think that like I'm in a very healthy

13:25

successful relationship and I don't think that would have been possible at 25 26 27 no way way and you'll probably

13:31

have more success longterm in your relationship than a lot of the people that kind of met earlier that was like one of the biggest reasons why I froze

13:37

my eggs CU I was just like I don't want my fertility to be a factor in who I settle down with because yeah I can find

13:43

a relationship like anybody can be in a bad relationship but I would rather wait longer and like get to know myself and

13:50

um my sobriety and like recovery Journey was definitely a part of this too like I needed that time to myself um to figure

13:58

out who I was to attct the right person and now I feel like I'm finally kind of in that space to attract like the person

14:04

that I really want God that was my story with meeting Rob like two months before meeting him and I did I felt like I fell

14:10

right into the pressures the timelines like I'm never going to meet anybody and right before meeting him I was like I

14:17

came to this place of like gratitude for what I had I was like I'm in a great spot in my career I'm really happy with

14:23

what I'm doing I own this little cute one-bedroom condo like I can come and go as I please I was like really and there

14:30

were moments of that but I really like felt it genuinely truly and like a month later I met Rob I was like damn I wish I

14:36

lived in that space a little bit longer but it it allowed me to and I understood my attachment style and all these things

14:42

and it just allowed me to invite them in yeah that that advice that's like become

14:47

your dream partner I think is the most helpful advice that I've ever received cuz it's like how are you going to

14:53

expect to meet somebody that's confident successful driven kind if you're not

14:58

that person yourself so I feel like taking the time to become that person is what hopefully is allowing me now to

15:05

find that person so yeah well I think yeah I think it's important because then

15:10

we're not really clear on what we want I think we cannot it doesn't allow us to

15:16

maybe see somebody that is actually potentially very good for us I'm sure along my dating Journeys that I

15:22

overlooked many many very wonderful great men totally so who would you okay

15:27

so who is your who is your ideal partner what have you come to understand someone exactly like

15:34

me is that really narcissistic um somebody that is like driven ambitious

15:41

kind self-aware emotionally intelligent curious oh my God that's my favorite

15:46

word curious yeah um open-minded masculine obviously yes

15:52

that's another thing with dating I think as a entrepreneurial woman let's talk about that because that comes up a lot

16:00

yeah so I think for me what I found that's been the most difficult with dating as an entrepreneur

16:06

is not even entrepreneur someone who's successful and just masculine in my day-to-day life is finding somebody that

16:13

can bring that down into like my feminine a little bit more and it takes like a really specific kind of

16:20

personality Vibe healthy masculinity yes yes that's important yeah I was working

16:26

with this woman yeah I think it's hard and there's so many strong ambitious

16:31

successful women whatever that looks like whatever the picture is and it's like then it's almost like how do you

16:36

turn that off especially if it's or dial it down a little bit and I was working with this woman that was like your and

16:42

Rob's masculinity are going head-to-head I'm like yeah it is you know and how to like step out of that and become more

16:49

into the feminine cuz I can become I can very easily

16:54

like become like combat not combative but just like the power struggle you

16:59

know like I want somebody that takes control that makes decisions that like leads the relationship you know because

17:06

my automatic Instinct in like previous relationships is to kind of like spearhead the entire thing I think it

17:11

can be hard to shift out of I think it could be really hard especially like and I I love this quality about ra but

17:17

sometime like we're just different decision makers and he's more like I'm

17:23

like you like more of a risk taker and so he's like more calculated and but I'm like let so like it can be hard and I

17:30

think it's just being aware when that's popping up and if that's helpful or not but I've struggled with that because I'm

17:37

kind of like let's go let's do next goal next thing let's plan the trip book the flight the and he's kind of like let's

17:42

think about it for a minute yeah and I think that's where it's important to like make sure that when you are

17:47

actually ready for that relationship that you've done a decent amount of work on like becoming self-aware of your

17:54

Tendencies and like your attachment style and your history and how your insecurities are going to show up to to

17:59

ruin this relationship so that way you can enter it like I know all of my I know how to communicate it like I can

18:06

like you know go back and forth with you and help you and make it kind of like a team effort yeah I think without it I

18:11

don't think I would have ever like seen Rob clearly no definitely not I want to talk if you don't mind a little bit

18:17

about your sobriety cuz we actually had an amazing guest her episode dropped this week who also got sober and she

18:23

said it getting sober was the moment or the journey that allowed her to get really clear on what she wanted before

18:30

she was like felt like she was checking the boxes and it was like all the shs and the external narratives and she's

18:36

like her sobriety was the first time where she was like well wait what do I actually want like it gave her this

18:42

Clarity on things was that your experience too kind of I think that like

18:47

that like recovery led to that eventually but I think for me it was more that I was using alcohol to like

18:55

the analogy they use is that we all have like little divits in the what are they called potholes right so some people

19:01

fill them with healthy things and like relationships and you know work

19:07

and productive um activities and in the potholes like all of your insecurities

19:13

and your childhood stuff and traumas you've been through and whatever and I used alcohol to fill all of that so it

19:18

was actually helpful at first a lot of like the narrative around addiction is that it's um all bad but it does serve a

19:25

purpose until it doesn't right and removing Al from my life forced me to look at what was in those potholes and

19:32

go through how my like early childhood experiences affected me now what my

19:37

relationship style is like actually looking at my insecurities and for what they were and becoming more confident

19:44

over time so I think in that process it was more

19:50

about finding the confidence and like the trust in myself again that allowed

19:55

me to just become more of like a whole person gosh that's something came up last episode too trust in self yeah yeah

20:02

I think too it's like everyone has their idea of what's going on with somebody or their judgments or like so someone might

20:09

have looked at you before you got sober and said she's so confident or she she's so successful and really internally

20:15

something very different is happening for you totally yeah it was very functional yeah so a lot of people are

20:20

very surprised by by it but like internally I feel like a completely different different person but what it

20:25

is with the self trust I think that I've figured out is that it's the difference between who you want to be and who you

20:32

are being so it's knowing right now I should be making a different decision that I'm currently making and that Gap

20:37

is what erodes your self-confidence so making like aligned decisions with who

20:43

you want to be is how you build that confidence back up again and that's why people like say that sobriety gives them

20:48

confidence is cuz finally they're acting in alignment with who they want to be yeah we talked about that last episode

20:53

too it's just I always would say this in my work with clients is like getting really clear on your values and who you

20:58

want to be and if you're clear on that and you're attached to that you're good right and the moment you're not feeling

21:04

good that's the opportunity look like okay am I am I aligned with my values totally and many times you're not at all

21:09

aligned with your values and so that you can use that cue like if I'm feeling bad or I'm feeling stressed or anxious or

21:15

whatever like look at your values and it's really wild because you know when I've introduced this exercise in

21:21

sessions people will be like well what are values and people will like Google and you know so it's it's a lot of work

21:27

to get to what that is but I think it's so helpful to know it because then you can stay when you stay aligned it you're

21:32

usually you feel good and you're you're in a good spot yeah and having The Bravery to like look at yes all of your

21:39

we had a woman on who wrote the book motherhood on Ice which is so incredible and she used the word brave for women

21:44

that freeze their eggs and I'm like oh my God that is yeah so spot-on absolutely the whole process the whole

21:51

process so maybe this is a good point let's transition well one thing I want to commend you and I said this to you off camera like your vulnerability to

21:57

share about sobriety to share about your egg freezing is so incredible and helpful because people suffer in silence

22:05

people don't talk about things and we need to normalize these Journeys because

22:10

a lot of people go through them and I know when I froze at 37 no was t no one was talking about egg freezing I knew

22:16

one other person and I felt so alone in it so I just want to say I love the vulnerability it's so so incredibly

22:23

powerful and helpful yeah I appreciate that I know I feel like especially with sobriety and Def defitely egg freezing

22:29

it's getting better on egg freezing front but when I first got sober I was like there if I go on YouTube and I'm like searching for sobriety stories it

22:36

was all like six-year-old men that have been sober for like 20 years talking about their experience like there was nobody that looked like me that

22:42

communicated like me that had the childhood that I had that was talking about it so that's part of the reason why I'm so open about it is because like

22:49

when you're struggling with substance abuse it is so freaking isolating that's like the worst part about hiding like you're hiding hiding the lying like all

22:56

of that stuff so that's why I'm honest about it cuz I know it has such a it was so raw like the the reels you did on it

23:05

the videos the highlights I don't even know Instagram that well but it was so raw and like you could just sense your

23:12

all the emotions and like but also the importance to share it it was so so so so great yeah totally um so also very

23:19

open about your egg freezing Journey so um you the first person that we had on

23:24

under 30 that froze under 30 um which I think is so incredible because I know

23:29

for a lot of women and you know the research has shown the average age is like 36.6 I froze at 37 like and for

23:36

some women that's too late so I think it is so incredible that you did it before 30 and I'd love to hear like how what

23:44

inform that decision I know you said a little bit about fertility not informing dating but like how did you learn about egg freezing how did you pick where you

23:51

froze your eggs like what went into your decision process yeah um I think that probably the person who inspired me the

23:57

most was Jen Marilla who you had as a guest cuz I saw her going through the process and understanding her reasoning

24:02

and then also doing research myself I that's there's so many misconceptions about egg freezing one of them is that

24:08

like you wait until you're older but in fact the younger you do it more successful the more successful cuz now I

24:13

have a bunch of 29-year-old eggs you know so learning that it's better to do it e like when you're younger um through

24:20

research and then kind of just the reasoning of like you know what I just want to get this out of the way yeah I have a month off let me just let me just

24:27

do it well I think you know did you get any like comments or messaging around doing

24:35

it so young because I think some people might say well you have all this time you'll probably meet someone you don't

24:40

need to do it you know you're like you don't need to do it at 29 yeah

24:46

um some people again I think it was like why are you doing it so young kind of the the you know preconceived notion

24:53

that people have but I've always thought of it as like an insurance policy I don't the thing I don't plan to use these EG I hope I don't need to I hope

24:59

that you know my kind of timeline that I have in my head ends up working out but in case it doesn't you know I made a

25:07

decision yeah that's the insurance policy because again like all of these like paths were told or way it would go

25:12

or it's like check the boxes College job engagement whatever for so many people doesn't go that way and to have this

25:19

Safeguard against okay I still want it to go that way totally but if it doesn't I'm not in a bad spot I'm not like I

25:26

haven't lost my option for motherhood right cuz you can't lose sense of reality too like I think a lot of the

25:31

comments I got so I was telling you off camera two reals that went super viral reached a ton of people and just like

25:37

the comments that I was getting kind of opened me up to what people believe to be true and a lot of people actually want to ignore the reality of fertility

25:45

and they're like don't put this on my feed this is fearmongering I'm like this is reality that over time your equ

25:51

equality goes down and like also the other thing too is that um I don't know you know 3 years from now maybe I'll be

25:57

like I want to focus more on my career I don't know like where I will be um a few years from now and I might want to wait

26:03

longer so yeah I think the fear mongering is a real thing or fear in general I've worked with so many clients

26:08

that are around the age where it's like let's go get things just go get things checked out and there's so much fear

26:13

about what they might find out that they avoid that and in that avoidance you're just kind of you're putting yourself up

26:19

against potentially against the clock and you might be running out of time yeah that was really terrifying for me

26:25

like going in and not knowing anything about where my fertility was and like doing those tests that's it's terrifying

26:31

because you don't know what you're going to hear and obviously you hope you hear good things but I always think that information is power right so even if

26:38

it's not an ideal result it's like okay now what do I do what's the next step what do we do what do I need to do um so

26:45

yeah the avoidance but we're not fearful people so no here we go in the office for those

26:51

that are and it's and it's real it's so real not invalidating it at all I think it's just always better to face the fear

26:59

and to know yeah yeah yeah I I was so yeah what you said off camera about like just how little people know or

27:06

misunderstand and I think even as women and even when I froze I there was just so much I didn't know there was so much

27:13

I was surprised that I didn't know I think there's such this like educational Gap in our own anatomy and fertility and

27:19

were there things about that surprised you or was there like wow there's so much I don't know about this yeah I

27:26

think one of the biggest things for me personally was I have PCOS and so I was

27:31

concerned that that was going to impact the egg freezing process negatively but it actually helped me because oh yeah

27:37

yeah because I have a lot of follicles so that provided a lot of room for eggs so that actually was really advantageous

27:43

going into this I was really worried about that so that was a great surprise second was that you could stay in birth

27:48

control I didn't realiz that yeah and then also third thirdly for me would be

27:55

um how I had a decently easy time with egg freezing I would say the worst part

28:00

was like the bloating towards the end and then afterwards um I was at risk for the hyper AAR stimulation yeah because

28:08

of PCOS so I felt like crap for like two weeks after but like the shots were so easy were you at all afraid of needles

28:16

or no okay so I was I was I am still very afraid I just hate needles yeah

28:21

fair but I was I was pleasantly surprised with how relatively easy it was I think it was more the build up in

28:28

my mind and then when I started doing it I'm like oh it's really not that bad yep and I recorded it all on Instagram oh

28:34

God so if you look at my highlight there's me for 10 minutes trying to stab myself the first one like messaged you

28:39

during it or something yeah probably probably cuz the first one was hard I was I stood there for 10 minutes I was like I don't know if I'm going to be

28:45

able to do this so I like FaceTime Jen oh I FaceTime Jen and she wouldn't pick up and I'm like I'm on camera like

28:51

sorry I don't if I can swear oh you can swear yeah you can swear so this is all on Instagram stories and it was just the saddest like thing but once you get the

28:58

first one done you realize the needle doesn't hurt at all yeah the worst part was the blood work and the

29:04

um what's it the menure the No No when you actually to go into the office like

29:09

the ultrasound and the blood work that was I think the worst I think two well one of the things I want to say which I

29:15

thought was freaking a couple things your organization of your and what you put on your story first of all your not

29:21

your your note taking and like organization of the medication was like incredible I think you should like teach

29:27

people how to do yeah um that was really impressive but one of the things you said too that there was this like

29:33

lifetime spiral when you got all the medication what was I don't know if you remember saying that you had this whole

29:39

you said in the story that there was like this whole spiral you had when you got the medication did I oh okay yeah it

29:46

was kind of like I was looking at all this medication and being like what am I doing with my life sort of thing yeah I

29:52

think like and realizing that this is something I had to do I think that like you go through so I'm 31 now I just

29:59

turned 31 but you go through this you know your 20s and you're not thinking about this stuff at all you're not

30:04

thinking about like will this person be a good father when you're dating you're not thinking about timelines of your life you're not

30:10

thinking about if I get married now then I'll have kids then and then I think like 2930 for me hit and I was like oh I

30:18

actually have to consider this now I can't be like Reckless anymore so true I think there's these sort of like

30:24

permission or way that like 20s is like you're broke your finging your career you're dating around you're like drunk

30:29

at the all of the things and then it's just so weird that it's like the 30s like create have this expectation of

30:36

like getting it together yeah marriage kids and like well wait I was just like figuring out my career yeah you don't

30:43

you don't think about these things at all and it's like the story for so many women it's like you just don't think you'd end up there you think that the

30:48

story is going to go the way you're told the story's going to go and then it for some women it doesn't yeah and the

30:53

reality too for me was that like yes this is different than the life that I had planned but it's 10 times better that's the thing is if we open up our

31:00

lens and if we get out of like the story we're told or the path we're told like there's so much more beyond that and I

31:07

think what's so hard is that there are yeah there's a lot of fear around taking those risks but like absolutely the

31:13

saying is she's but life is life is on the other side of fear exactly always yeah always yeah it was very emotional I

31:18

cried in the subway for sure on the way back from the emal from the fertility yeah so let's speak to that like the

31:24

range of emotions like you went through personally everybody's journey is different but I always say I think it confronts you in so many ways things

31:31

that maybe you didn't anticipate feeling you feel or don't feel or things come up that you didn't really realize I know

31:37

for me like I felt a range of things yeah I think at first initially I was very overwhelmed by the process and that

31:43

made me feel kind of more of that like life looking life in the eye and feeling overwhelmed and not sad but just

31:50

generally emotional um but I would say actually through the process I felt very powerful like I was like we're so

31:59

powerful as women that we can like create this like magical thing and what we can handle is tremendous what we can

32:05

handle I did it completely by myself I didn't have anybody helping me with shots you didn't I was going to ask you that was just alone yeah yeah I did it

32:11

all alone um it was fine but it also gives you a sense of uh what pregnancy

32:18

would be like too in the sense that like I didn't feel towards the end I didn't feel like my body was mine anymore if

32:24

that makes sense cuz you just feel like you're wearing like a a Leed like inner tube sort of the way I descri um and

32:32

you're just like oh my body's here for like a larger purpose than just me and that was the first time that I felt that

32:38

when I got pregnant with my son um I remember I was walking into the grocery store and I'm like I'm not by myself

32:45

yeah that's weird I like and I wasn't showing I was very newly pregnant and it was just like the weirdest moment I'm

32:51

like and I I think there was a part of me that felt like I was very blessed and grateful to be pregnant but I was just

32:57

weird cuz I was like I'm not by myself and there was a little sadness because I'm like I'm never going to be by myself

33:03

yeah toally but yeah I get that like your body is not yours and it's now meant to build another life or yeah yeah

33:11

totally that was my first sense of that yeah well you'll have it again it's real it comes up it's totally normal so you

33:19

froze at Spring fertility right I've heard amazing amazing things about spring and how how did you choose them

33:24

did you look into other clinics did you it sounds like you do a lot of search no I actually didn't with this with this

33:30

one I like saw I think it was an influencer honestly on Instagram that I trusted from oh what was that podcast

33:36

almost 30 yes yes Lindsay yeah I think it was lindsy did Lindsay fre her eggs

33:41

so we're working with Christa oh you are okay cool she's amazing yeah both of them are awesome and I think it was

33:47

Lindsay I don't know whether she was there for egg freezing or something else okay so that's how you found out how they came in my radar there was also

33:53

kindbody in New York I heard is really good but I went with spring and it was they were incredible like couldn't say

34:00

enough highly recommend them highly recommend them everybody knows about them because I posted about I posted a

34:05

real that that that one had 3 million views and I tagged them in the cap so now a lot of people know how much money

34:12

am I own well no that's okay that's a real question because there are some people

34:19

that you're like can I get reimburse that that egg freezing cycle didn't expect that but some people do um

34:26

Partnerships with the yeah I I don't know there's certain things

34:33

that I know I could get a discount on or get for free and I just didn't feel like going that route with it the other thing

34:38

as well is that you go into it not knowing what your outcome is going to be that is so scary that's what terrifies

34:44

me about and maybe this is my own insecurity but influencers that do Partnerships like that because the

34:50

vulnerability of having to show up and not only like maybe you have a bad outcome and you have to process your own emotion and then share with other people

34:57

that you you know only got three eggs or whatever it is like that that's a lot I didn't know what I was in for to be

35:02

honest so yeah I um I follow this one woman I think this is incredibly Brave I don't think I could have done this but

35:08

she in real time was sharing her Embryo transfer journey and that same idea of

35:15

like then you would have to get on and if it didn't go I mean fortunately it went well for her but I think that's

35:21

yeah so you you maintain some of the control and the ability to choose what you share or don't share for sure and

35:28

everyone has their own boundaries in terms of like public figures and social media but there are certain things even though it wouldn't seem that way looking

35:34

at my page I always try to share from a um a what's it called not a not a wound

35:41

but from a scar right so like I always try to share in a place that like whatever I'm sharing is going to have an

35:47

impact on somebody in some way um there you do that well yeah sometimes it's just like there are certain things I

35:53

think that should be kept private absolutely 100 yeah yeah I'm very new in this space and it's

35:58

like yeah yeah yeah it's late um okay so spring was great I love that I think

36:04

it's so good to just have resources and hear from other people's experiences because some places are good some places

36:10

are not I know women that have had and me personally as well like this convey conveyor belt experience and so did oh

36:17

yeah I heard of anybody have you had guest that have had bad experiences with clinics oh and I had a terrible

36:24

experience oh God I'm sorry so I think that's important like to know and I think you know sometimes it's about

36:30

asking other women like where have you been what's the experience been because it's so vulnerable it's so sensitive like you do want to be in a place where

36:36

you feel heard your questions are answered like your emotions are validated and some places yeah I've had

36:42

plenty of women like I just felt like a number I felt like I was on a conveyor belt yeah no spring was great they were

36:48

really like personalized and super nice yeah yeah so after doing it what did you

36:54

feel besides the bloating and two weeks of not feeling great like emot what did you feel uh I would say after I was

37:00

definitely emotional I think that was probably more hormonal than anything else um but that's actually another

37:06

thing that surprised me I didn't I thought I was going to be like a hormonal emotional mess I was not at all

37:12

oh okay so I was like I was going on dates I was going to up until day eight day eight was when I was like we're

37:18

going to be in bed for a l taking care of ourselves um but yeah I I expected to

37:25

be a lot more emotional afterwards I was hormonally emotional for sure they put me on some medication for the ovarian

37:32

hypers stimulation um after the bloating went away I think I honestly just forgot that I did it I mean I think that's kind

37:38

of the beauty of it right I think the the weighty piece of it is first well for me I will say like the decision and

37:45

getting to the decision and then going through it and then it's done and it's like there's this relief they're in the

37:51

freezer and like you can kind of go on with life totally I was driving here and I was like trying to remember like remind myself of what the egg free

37:57

process was like cuz it's you know it's in the back of my head and it's done and it's you know over with but I think

38:03

that's also like a privilege I had of doing it so young is that I had a pretty easy time with it yeah um and that I

38:09

could take the time off cuz I work for myself so there are all these factors that made the whole thing a lot easier that not a lot of people have so and I

38:15

think easy or not it's I think it's helpful to consider if you want to be preserving the option for motherhood and

38:21

I think women are powerful and amazing and like you can find a way I mean I

38:26

think it's just so expansive in our capacity and all of these things that like if you want it you can we're

38:33

resourceful like we can figure it out yeah absolutely yeah and it seems to be like there's a lot of places that offer

38:39

like payment plans and like financing employers are offering it now which is really cool so we're moving hopefully in

38:46

the right direction of that in terms of because the reality is it's very expensive the reality is like not everybody has access to money like that

38:54

to afford to be able to do this and that's un really unfortunate because a lot of women are in the situation where

39:00

there's fertility issues or their timelines are different and I yeah I feel like it's a it's a it's it's unjust

39:08

that women don't all have the option to do this the pressure of that or the you

39:13

know grief of that um so obviously you shared very openly on social media what were the responses like what did you

39:20

what were the message good and bad I guess I 80% of them were very positive

39:25

um thank you so much for sharing this so empowering Etc um a lot of them were I

39:33

remember one comment in particular was from a man obviously that said that if I if I had married my high school

39:38

boyfriend I wouldn't be in this situation oh come on no I'd be in a very different situation about that obviously

39:45

that did pretty well um and then a lot of it just became clear to me how

39:51

uninformed people were so like this podcast is so important for people to listen to Just a lot of questions of

39:57

like oh does that mean you're having kids alone I'm like that's not what that means uh why would you want to wait until you're 50 to have kids I'm like

40:03

that's also what plan is um just a lot of confusion around the process and oh there's so many misconceptions of why

40:10

women do this and I mentioned earlier the book motherhood and Ice by Marsha inhorn and she in her book talks about

40:16

all these misconceptions and it's we're we're career- driven we want to delay motherhood like all of these things and

40:23

you know her research found that it's a meting Gap like women can't find good

40:29

quality men that's that's research based that's what she found and it's not all these things that people think like all

40:34

these assumptions about why women are freezing their eggs and totally I mean my my journey is a little bit different

40:40

I think it's amazing that you were proactive and did it younger but it's not something I wanted to do it's not

40:46

something that like I wasn't like oo I'm 37 and I'm freezing my eggs like ideally I wouldn't be in this situation but like

40:51

you said the reality like this is my reality so what am I going to do about it right exactly and when I froze too

40:57

even this is two two years ago now 29 um I wasn't in a place to attract the partner for me so that was the reality I

41:04

knew that and so it needed to happen yeah amazing so let's a little bit before we wrap up like you know having

41:11

done this is and you didn't want fertility to be a part of your dating what has it been like to date now that you've frozen your eggs and is the

41:17

pressure off and you're clear on who you are and what you want what that what has that experience like yeah the pressure's

41:22

off that's like the best part about this because I think that when you have that like looming timeline you you try to see

41:28

the person in front of you as like fit them into the box want them to be like oh maybe this red flat could turn green

41:34

if I like and just Overlook and idealize and like I always tell my clients I was like oh my God just like really look at

41:41

who's in front of you like not the version you're contorting them into being yeah that's one of my biggest mistakes historically with dating is

41:47

like thinking that something will change or maybe I misread that or you know whatever it is so approaching it more

41:53

from the perspective of like is this person right in front of me as they are right now M what I'm looking for if not

41:59

the faster you kind of make decisions and you know you know date somebody

42:05

to you know the better it is well yeah and once the pressure is off I think it just gives you Clarity like it takes it

42:11

allows things to evolve as they should it allows you to see the person for you are because the pressure can like Cloud

42:17

so much so much mhm definitely one thing too quickly cuz we were laughing before

42:22

but like so you used to live in New York you less than a year ago moved to LA

42:28

little why you to La a lot of we want women

42:33

tun not for them like what's authentic to them and being able to like unapologetically make a change if

42:39

something's not working for you so it sounds like well share with us like your move yeah so I was in New York for eight

42:45

years after graduating college and I was one of those very annoying people for

42:50

six years that was like New York of nowhere like you if you don't like New York like something's wrong with you you

42:56

know that was very annoying um but then I think kind of in tandem with me getting sober something just started to

43:02

shift a little bit in terms of needing like a little bit more peace in my life oh I love that I'm a very type a uh more

43:10

masculine I would say personality and so being now in an environment on Venice Beach where it's like in contrast to my

43:17

noral operating it just keeps my like nervous system very grounded um you know

43:22

and I've had to incorporate a lot of like spiritual and you know Health practices in general

43:28

to be healthy maintain my sobriety all of that stuff and so la is just a lot more conducive to that especially Venice

43:34

Beach like being on the West Side um so that was part of it and yeah just needing needing more balance and I kind

43:40

of accidentally moved out here I came to visit a friend and within like 3 days I was like yeah I'm not leaving I'm I was

43:48

on Zillow like immediately looking for rentals like R oh my God I have always

43:53

always I mean the ship has I no no I shouldn't say that there might be a time in my life you never know that I always

43:58

wanted to live here and so when I would come out to visit a friend or one of my this ex-boyfriend basketball ex-boyfriend lived out here might

44:05

everyone's like but you're going to come back right like I would get on the plane to come out here and they're coming back right I'm like oh no you know but I

44:11

totally I totally get that it's totally different vibe than New York I love driving too people are more open out

44:18

here it seems everyone's nicer you you feel the shift completely from New York what people have said is that people in

44:23

New York are kind but not nice and people out here are nice but not kind oh

44:29

I have not I found a lot of kind people cuz I think I'm a good judge of character but that I think that could generally be true yeah I love that yeah

44:36

it's very different very different so before we wrap up anything you would share with the audience anything that

44:42

you would say to them to say this is how you can quiet your clock or take the pressure off or just anything else you

44:48

want to share before we wrap up I would say that at the end of the day like it's your it's your life and your journey and

44:56

nobody else's opinion matters and whether that means freezing your eggs or getting married earlier or having kids

45:03

when you're younger whatever that looks like for you whatever is most aligned with the life that you want um try to

45:08

ignore the noise as much as possible and do what feels aligned with you yeah I love that yeah quieting the external

45:15

chatter exactly well thank you so much for being here I I love our shared passion of just wanting to talk more

45:22

about egg freezing and getting more information normalizing this journey I appreciate your vulnerability on

45:27

Instagram it's just I know it's and I hope and I know that it's like helping so many other women so thank you so much

45:33

absolutely thank you so much for having me on of course if you like the episodes that you're hearing and you want to hear more please subscribe to our Channel and

45:40

stay tuned for more incredible stories and tools when I froze my eggs at 37 I

45:45

felt alone I felt unsure I felt confused and uncertain and when you're

45:51

considering such a big decision feeling those ways do not feel good so we we

45:57

have created a step-by-step guide to egg freezing so no one else has to feel that way if you are considering egg freezing

46:04

if you're curious about what the process looks like or what you should be thinking about then this guide is for

46:10

you we were really thoughtful and how we put it together I think it's a great guide I think it's really comprehensive

46:16

and covers a lot of the things to be thinking about to be considering and maybe some things you didn't even

46:21

realize you should be thinking about or considering um the goal is to not let have anyone feel feel alone in this

46:28

journey so if you again if you're thinking about this decision sign up through our website quith clock.com and

46:35

make sure to follow us on Instagram and Tik Tok at by the clock pod this is a very big decision so I don't want anyone

46:41

to feel alone in it so if you're thinking about it grab this guide and you can also DM me with any questions

46:47

I'm here to support you through this decision and this journey

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