Shedding Light on Men’s Fertility Challenges

at the end of the day uncertainty is uncertainty and I do think it is the hardest thing in life at least one of

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them to deal with and to your point I think like peace and Stillness and and happiness I think comes from embracing

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that uncertainty and it requires a deep level of trust and certainty that like if we could let go of that need to

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control and that need to know what the outcome is going to be and when we're going to get that outcome it requires a leap of faith to trust that like

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everything will work out and and that's been a big part of my journey [Music]

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well I'm so excited to welcome our next guest to quiet clock podcast J Kent the co-founder of Dandy and we just had

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Lea's episode drop yesterday it was lovely to have here her too and you and I were corresponding over emails um

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because I'm so excited about what you're doing and I want to be a part of it in any way and promoting it here and as

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we're emailing I was asking if you had guest suggestions and you said well what about having me on I was like oh my God

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amazing because we're always looking for a male perspective you have a very unique Story coming into the fertility

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space as a man so we're definitely want to ask and learn about that um so just

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made perfect sense as we were emailing to have you here so welcome so so excited to have you um and we were

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talking off camera that before we dive into all things Dandy I do want to bring up something we came across while

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preparing for today and having you here is that you used to have your own podcast called search for more yeah

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searching for more search still still alive not as well not as much progress as yours but uh but but well my gosh

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you've been busy the last few years so um I wanted to read something that we found that was from there that I think

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really resonates with a lot of the topics that we talk about on here because we don't just talk about fertility we talk about you know

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bringing down societal timelines and expectations and pressure and sort of of finding authentic self and so when we

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came across your podcast I I listened to a couple episodes it really resonated so I wanted to read this and then have you

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speak to it a little bit because I think it's really really powerful and really important so it says most of us are

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living lives that are pretty disconnected from the truth of who we really are we exist as versions of

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ourselves we believe will sa satisfy the world around us often at the expense of our own happiness we unknowingly show us

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show up as who we think we're supposed to be rather than who we are good news the path to a happier and more vibrant

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life starts with one simple question who were you before the world told you who

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you were supposed to be that's that's the million-dollar question I think that a lot of us probably are not asking

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ourselves and should be um yeah I mean that the podcast that question some of

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the themes we explore in that podcast were um you know I think very much built

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from life experiences that that I've had and um you know like many people I found

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myself at a certain point in my life uh whether it's family career just kind of feeling like I wasn't living the most

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authentic uh version of myself and like there was more to myself to

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explore and I think particularly in the world we live in today right where it's full of distraction social media phones

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TV uh we're living faster lives than ever before I think a lot of people don't slow down to realize that hey the

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version of you that is showing up each day in your family in your relationship and your friends your work yeah maybe

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that's not the truth of who you really were when you came into this world you know it's amazing for you to say that because it resonates so much personally

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because I've been trying to slow down and I I do a lot I'm very busy I have a toddler and I yeah fast-paced so much

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distraction and in the last month I've been more intentional about slowing down and I'm just more in tune like things

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are coming to me thoughts are coming to me that I feel so much more aligned with so I agree with that wholeheartedly and

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I think it is simply the practice sometimes of slowing down yep slowing

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down disconnecting um and becoming present right again we're we're so conditioned

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to be so focused on the external world and that's what a lot of this podcast the premise starts is like we've been

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conditioned from literally the time we're born to focus externally right on all the things happening around us and

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we become unknowingly conditioned to seek validation from people around us from circumstances bosses friends and um

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you know the byproduct of that is I think we were never really taught the value of going within and becoming more

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connected to the truth of what's Happening inside of us so your point about slowing down I mean it's it's really the only way to do it and I think

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in doing so you might start to find a that there's a lot of things happening inside of you that you know maybe you

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weren't aware of and you know what I started to find is that the path to fulfillment and

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satisfaction um really started by you know coming more in touch with some of

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the things happening within you and you start to realize a lot of the things you thought were really important happening around you they not necessarily the

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things that at the end of the day are going to bring you the true fulfillment yeah it's amazing because a lot of things that we do talk about here is

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these mil these like societal Milestones of partnership and Parenthood and we've had so many people on here be like I get

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those things and I'm still feeling this lack or I'm still feeling unfulfilled so I think we have been sold this really uh

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harmful ative that these things will be make us happy these things will make us successful and it creates so much

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anxiety and angst around yeah like the timelines one of the episodes that I listen to I love how you say you know we

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come into this world with a certain presence being energy and then just

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naturally these societal constructs start to mold us and to form us and put us into these boxes and I I think that

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rings so true because there's these boxes that we think we have to check there's these ways we have to be and I'm

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sure you relate to this too as a as a parent of a toddler I watch his curiosity I watch his excitement I watch

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his lack of censorship for his emotions and I'm like I don't ever want to you to

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lose that and I'm like I know this world is going to take all of those things and dull them down yeah it's emotional just

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hearing you speak about that because first of all I I have the same experience with my daughter she's three years old incredibly curious exploratory

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right there's really no sense of self yet right there's just kind of that that

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this this Natural Energy of you know what you come into the world with and

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you know amplifying that energy out into the world you're not yet thinking about validation from others I mean you're starting to develop some of it but

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you're not consciously thinking of it and I think that you know that organic and neate sense of who you come into the

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world as um stays with us right but it's the part of us that I think learns to get buried it's the part that Society

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doesn't really value and you know a big part of this podcast and a big part of a lot of the you know work that I've done

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in in my personal life called spiritual Discovery you know self- exloration whatever you want to call it it stems

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back from that theme like I came into this world as a really curious like energetic child I didn't necessarily fit

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into some of the societ you talk about that in your episode like what it was like for you to be in school where there's like a lot of structure and

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rules and and I didn't necessarily fit into it right and you know we could have a whole conversation around like where

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did those societal constructs come from like are they actually serving us or are they just forms of control and structure

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and um you know they do a lot of damage right unknowingly and you know we could

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we could talk about this for a while but you know we we talk about trauma like with a big tea right and you know some of these really traumatic events but

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there's you know a lot of smaller events that over time can lead to um you know

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traumatic experiences and you know for me a lot of the school system early on

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you know was challenging for me so you speak about like that natural kind of unvarnished energy that you come into

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this world with and I now have the opportunity to look at my three-year-old and I've taken some of my experiences

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and frankly the way that some of my like the natural sense of who I was wasn't necessarily always met by the world with

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love and compassion yeah yeah and that could start to shape like you know the defense mechanisms we develop and the

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sense of false identity of who we need to show up as to protect ourselves to be accepted right but but what happens when

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you have that moment where you say that's not really the truth of who I am right and I think a lot of us are struggling with that sometimes

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unconsciously right it's like you know people there's so many people walking around with anxiety and depression lack

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of fulfillment and we have all these like diagnosis and I'm not taking anything away from medical diagnosis but you know at a certain point I mean we

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have to ask ourselves like who are we showing up as and what is the disconnect that might exist between the truth of who we really are at our core so I think

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you know some of those experiences I think it's a beautiful opportunity to look now back you know being the parent

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and having a child your point I you know I parent her and I really try and give her as much Freedom uh to be herself for

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as long as we can yeah one of the questions I ask my clients a lot which is like a simple question but very

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complex question which I think gets muddled by a lot of things that you're saying is I'll ask them like what do you

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want and they don't know they're so they they're they don't know they don't have

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a a true authentic and that's a lot of the work we do is finding that true authentic answer and I think that's a

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big one is like not only who who do you want to be but what do you actually want

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we've had so many women on here too when we're talking about fertility and egg freezing say I don't even know if I really want to be a mother right and

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beautiful like but that's also sometimes not met with love compassion and acceptance It's like you're and and

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internally they they internalize something is wrong with me because I don't want that yeah it's it's a really

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hard question it's it's like it should be the simplest question but it's such a hard you know question to answer

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because thinking about what you really want again implies first of all you like you you have a sense of like what is

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this truth of self that exists but it also kind of requires you sometimes to detach from a lot of these societal

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standards right that are like so heavily imprinted upon us from a really young age and you know it's we kind of get put

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on this path really early right it's like go to school get good grades get good grades to get into a good college

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get good college so you could you know get a job and make money and have the family and it's like this blueprint that

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we're kind of you know that's laid out for us it's laid out for us and again it's like who's to say that is quote

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unquote the right blueprint I mean that might be the blueprint that leads you to kind of this templatized version of what

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life is supposed to look like I love that templatized yeah but if that was such a great like template for what life

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like you know I don't you know better than me what the statistics are and anxiety depression suicide divorce like

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step back and look at what's going on RIS and rising and Rising there's something off here and now you know it

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freaks me out especially as I think about like my daughter it's like we're living in a world of social media and know media in general and it is just

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such a heavy and frequent bombardment of reinforcement of this idea of what is

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all supposed to look like and by the way starting this podcast sorry the last thing I'll say starting this podcast you

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know it was scary and very vulnerable for me because you know you look around social media and you basically see all

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the good right this is what all the great moment vacations din friends and it's like

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there's so few people that are actually talking about the tough moments right and we're all having them behind closed

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doors vulnerability is not something Society has valued I personally think

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about I think vulnerability is one of the most amazing things that oh I couldn't as a therapist I could not agree more and um and it's interesting

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there's been researched on when I was you know in in previous careers and jobs managing teams I tried to lead with a lot of vulnerability because there's a

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lot of research that's been done that shown you know as a leader if you can lead with vulnerability it's actually

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the quickest way to build trust and connection with others a million per because it signals to other people it's

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okay for you to you're modeling and you're setting the the expectation you're inviting someone to meet you in

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that space and yeah saying that it's okay I'm curious because we have so many women on here obviously we've had the

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pleasure of having a handful of men um but you know what we talk about is women feeling these pressures the societal

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expectations to partner up at a certain time married at a certain time and I'm curious and I'm sure our audience is

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curious like do men feel or are men susceptible to the same sort of pressures or timelines or in a different

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way and and what does that look like I think men are and I think you know not

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to take anything away from the pressures women feel and they're probably a different set of pressures but I think

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most men probably aren't even aware that they're feeling these pressures because whereas in certain and I don't want to

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speak in Broad generalities but in C certain ways um I don't think men have been given

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permission to back to your point create that space and that safety of even

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saying let me check in like with myself my it's not a manly thing right um now I

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I'm Cut From a Different Cloth and I you know I try and get in touch with my feelings and I again I try and lead with

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it be vulnerable but I don't think a lot of men have been given permission to do so and I think that there are a lot of

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men that feel that pressure um I think a lot lot of men are following timelines

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that are perhaps set by you know the woman in the relationship I can tell you

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from firsthand experience at the risk of my my wife divorcing me here but like I know she's felt pressure at times to

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achieve certain Milestones let's just call in our own relationship marriage kids yeah based on timelines that she's

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seeing out in the world around her her friends like you know so I think a lot of the timelines often get set by the

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women and I think a lot of men I know what I myself at times feel um

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maybe a pressure to follow those timelines and you know again I think

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probably a lot of men are feeling that pressure but not necessarily giving them space to step back and say like what

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does this feel like and and how do I you know how do I uh you know tackle some of the things that that I might be feeling

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yeah that's so interesting that you say that and it's making me think of we had filmed this might be back in December we

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had filmed a series of episodes and then I always do like a team outing around the holidays with my team and we were out that night and we met a group of

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guys and were telling them about the podcast and there were in one of the episodes was like all the women do the

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work all the women do the self-work men are doing nothing right and so we're having this conversation he's like we want to we want to we don't know where

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to go we and so I think it really speaks that idea of that permission that it's okay for men to seek the resources to

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seek the help yeah because he was really adamant he's like no we want to like we want to like self-reflect and build

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self-awareness and do the things but so I think there's this misunder so I'm glad you're here to help like you know

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shed some light on this because I think there's some misunderstanding among women especially women frustrated in

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dating that they're doing all like the responsibility is on them to do all the like self-help and understand their

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attachment style and boundaries and they're and they're thinking like men are out there like doing nothing to to

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help themselves yeah and look again a lot of it goes back to societal constructs and what what is being a man

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supposed to look like what is being a woman supposed to look like and women areos to be more in with their now these

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are Concepts I don't agree with but a lot of it goes back to kind of the safety um or permission that Society has

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you know given us and you know even even becoming a parent you know like I said my daughter's three years old but like I

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didn't feel prepared like I knew I was going to be a great dad because I'm I I knew I was filled with love and

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compassion but like stepping into that world of becoming a dad like late stages

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of pregnancy going to the hospital the first time like you know my wife gave gave birth during covid and the nursing

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team was short staffed and I was right in the thick of like her labor process and that was like a beautiful experience

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but like a pretty traumatic experience not traumatic necessarily in a bad way but it's a very intense experience

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watching a human come into this world and we talk so much about like the women's point of view and postpartum and

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I don't take anything away from that it's 100% valid but like I very infrequently have heard anybody talk

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about like how does that impact the new dad and what is like leaving the hospital for the first time like this

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Little Feel Like and it's there's a lot of emotion wrapped up in it and I just can't help but think how many men I mean

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people in general but men are going home just bottling all that emotion up oh

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totally and it's you know look I think men women we all need it but yeah I think there's there's a healthy amount

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of pressure on men and you know I I think um you know creating some safety and some space to connect with that a

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little bit more would would benefit a lot of dads and and relationships and Parenthood you know at large I think

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yeah and I love you know as a therapist I love the word safety and permission I think that's so great I think we all need it I think even you know the women

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that come on here it is a permission too to just move away from this for everyone men and women to move away from the

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societal constructs if they don't align with who you really are was there a moment for you particularly on your

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journey in life where you were like okay this is not it like and it was there pivotal moment that you're like let me

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start doing some of the work let me start like going inward honestly it it

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wasn't it it was more this kind of nagging voice that throughout my life

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honestly from even a young age was like was present right and I you know we

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could go deep into the spiritual side but I you know I firmly believe like we come into this world with a soul I don't necessarily think it's a new soul and I

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think like we there's there's a lot of things that are kind of um you know etched into who we come into this world

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as for me there was always this sense and that's kind of where the title for the podcast searching for more came from

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there's always this sense of like searching for more um the sense that there was more out there for me that I

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wasn't necessarily living the most authentic version of myself so it wasn't like a singular acute moment I think it

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was more this like sense that there was more and I think at times it's very easy

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again to kind of uh you know deflect and andpress that voice and I think for me

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personally I won't speak for others that's where like that was always my greatest source of anxiety and I think we misguiding sometimes attribute the

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anxiety to like well my boss said this or this happened at work or like I'm having this issue in my relationship I

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think so much of the time the anxiety and the stress in life it's not the external things I think it's again those

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things that are coming from within that are trying to surface but we don't necessarily give them the space to surface so for me that was a big one I

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think you know post colle years or when it like really started to like grow louder and louder and become harder to

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ignore yeah I think for me too post colle like you're kind of at the end of the blueprint and then it's like well

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what now or like you were saying earlier like this is the blueprint I remember graduating college and I did to move to

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Europe for a year first and then when I came back I started working in finance because you know should work in finance and I remember walking around the office

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like these cubicles and it was Bland and it was gray and I was just like huh this is what I was supposed to do and that

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for me tooo was kind of this moment of like and maybe it is maybe it is the end of the blueprint where it's like now

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there's you know there's no other step we're told you know I guess marriage and and family or whatever but yeah there

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it's really now the space where you get to think about what do I actually want to do yeah well let me ask you the same

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question because because you you made the pivot right and and and amazing and now you're doing this podcast and you're

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I think you know giving others permission to do the same which I think you know modeling in that way is incredible important um was there a

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pivotal moment for you where you know you said this is it I I've got to I've got to make a change I have to say I

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love when guests ask me questions I love it because I well you made the change so

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you I love I I love that though I appreciate that um I think one of the pivotal moments was that post col job

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where I would walk around that office and I would see it was just there was no life to it it was very um structured and

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I think there was always something inside of me that knew that I didn't kind of conform to those things I kind of always like to do things a little bit

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differently um I didn't know what it was going to be and one of the biggest things for me was having optionality and

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choice in my life so the idea of having only 10 vacation days was like okay I I

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only got 10 days to choose what I want to do so that sparked the Journey of finding what it was I didn't know what

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it was going to be and I just kept trying so I have like three different Masters I went back to school I went to

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school for PR in corporate Communications and I'm like this isn't it and I just kept going until something

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really clicked inside of me and what that was was sitting in my first grad school Pro grad school class for mental

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health counseling and that was it and I kind of just have always you know lived by trying and

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doing and sort of staying aligned with what is me and so that's been many different path changes that's been being

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in school that's been bartending that's been coaching that's been working in an outpatient clinic to starting my own

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practice so I'm someone that can sit still or I don't I don't conform well to the the structure of things so I

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would say that that post colle job sparked something in me but it was a you know I say all the steps to say it

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wasn't overnight you know there's a lot of work that still went into you know me being able to sit here today that's

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amazing I think that the idea that you tried not just like one pivot you tried multiple things I mean I think that's

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another amazing message cuz I you know I think in my own life and I look out at the world I think like you know even

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theide right you think back to college it's like pick you know pick a Focus right pick a degree like pick what you

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what you want your emphasis to be besides the fact it's like ludicrous to tell what a 17 18yearold to like figure

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out essentially like what you want to focus like yourself your career on at an age where you're so young and by the way

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there's such little resource and support to help you make like a thoughtful decision around that but so many people

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I think find that like that's the path I I probably 80% of the people I know at

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least my close friends like they're doing exactly what they chose like and

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not all of them are happy doing it so like good for you by the way takes a lot of courage to try new things yeah I'm

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always encouraging people to kind of move through that fear and take that leap because it is so rewarding and I do remember that that post College job when

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I I started to take that leap I had all of my friends around me in finance and they they were not supportive but I knew

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the support was coming from more of a place of projection like they didn't have sort of the courage to take

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R and a lot of are and not tot well you've also made a lot of

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pivots you were sharing with me off camera kind of your career Journey which leads us to our next most amazing topic

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is your latest pivot with Dandy and yeah I so excited to hear more about that I'm

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so so excited about what you guys are doing and as I said earlier we had Lila on you guys are in filling an incredibly

23:23

big gap that is so needed for women but tell us how you got into the fertility world and what that Journey was like for

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you it's been for you it's still for you still still for me yeah live and breathe it and and certainly not something I

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would have ever told you like my career was going to isn't that like a beautiful thing right like these kind of if you

23:41

let life kind of unfold you're going to find yourselves in like situations you never even imagined 100% right and it's

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all it goes back to creating that space like if if if all the slots in your life are full you know you there's no space

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for anything to come in and so um you know it's I think some of it's about creating space for the universe to bring

23:59

like things your way um but yeah I mean I um my kind of far a into into the

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fertility space was through like a very PE peculiar time I was living with a family member uh during covid who was

24:13

kind of going through the height of her fertility struggles and um had lost a lot of time at the wrong clinics with

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the wrong doctors she didn't have you know good information that was medically credible

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and personalized I'm sure you know Lea spoke to you about a lot of that um and was just kind of embarking upon getting

24:30

up to IVF injections and um I probably represented I don't know the 908 99% of

24:37

the population that like knows nothing about what fertility struggles actually entail despite the fact like one out of

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every five people globally are impacted by you know infertility and uh struggle

24:48

to conceive naturally it's it's it's a huge problem right um I would venture to say it has to be one of the biggest

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Global problems that's getting like least attention um and I kind of got this behind the scenes

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look at what these struggles actually look like mentally physically emotionally um and I was blown away

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right I was blown away at what the experience looked like I was blown away at um how life altering it was and I was

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blown away by the lack of support right I mean it's the year 2024 there's

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companies and brands that exist for everything and anything under the sun and this was like you know an experience

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where you know people that are going through it have more at stake than arguably any other experience they're ever going to go through it is I think

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as someone who's going through it it's it is the most important hardest most

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challenging vulnerable intimate like it's just yeah it is a tremendous experience to have to be navigating yeah

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and and with such little support so the the whole thing just kind of didn't didn't make sense uh to me that that

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that there were so many people impacted the depth of the problem was so deep and yet there was there was so little experience so you know we start to get

25:59

curious and look at the market a little bit more and you know certainly Women's Health at large has gotten a lot of

26:04

intention you know a lot of investment a lot of innovation over the last decade and what we started to see was that like

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the areas that a lot of this investment and Innovation was going to were like these different pockets of women's health so there was a lot that had gone

26:16

into like menstruation and menopause you know at home testing Sexual Health and Wellness but when we looked at this

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pocket of like fertility right like women and couples and people that are trying to conceive

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um there was no consumer brand that existed there was there was really no support system to help them through it

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and it's so wild to think about like I know that to be true but it's just in even to hear you say it's 2024 it's so

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wild to think about didn't make sense right and and there's clinics obviously right so you have about 450 clinics

26:48

across the country their mandate is to get you pregnant right they are they are medical and clinical in nature

26:55

unfortunately um there's a lot of dollars that are starting to control the way that these clinics are run there's a

27:01

lot of private Equity that's come into the space a lot of clinics have Consolidated they're focused on operational efficiencies and

27:08

unfortunately while they're doing their job which is let's try and get as many people pregnant as quickly as possible

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we're not built to provide like the personalized care that you as a human need through this experience yes and

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they're not supposed to be by the way like you know a lot of the clinics that we've spoken to are eyes wide open like that is not that's not our job that's

27:26

not what we're built for interesting like I'm so curious all that you have learned being you know getting Dandy off

27:32

the ground is that is not communicated I think to women and that's I think would

27:38

be extremely helpful if it was and we've talked a lot on here about what can be done we're going to have two doctors on

27:44

tomorrow so I'm so excited we're going to ask amazing um but yeah why is it more

27:50

being done to manage the expectation because I think if you would say to somebody and me I'll just speak personally if someone had said to me

27:56

here is the experience you're not going to really hear much from me after this point the doctor you're going to hear

28:01

from the nurses like I think that would have helped a lot but so many women don't get

28:07

that expectation managed and they want someone to hold their hand through it and then they go through the experience

28:12

and they feel like they're on a conveyor belt yeah it's it's a sad reality I think there's there's probably a few

28:18

reasons I think the proportions of like clinical staff to patients is just way

28:24

out of whack right like we were talking about Hospitality before so like I you know I you know cut my teeth in the

28:30

world of of hospitality and customer experience and you know how many people you need to look after a single you know

28:37

customer Diner in your restaurant and um you know I've kind of carried that ethos

28:42

throughout my whole career of you know how you build experience how you Cur experience how you can move a a person a

28:47

human a customer patient through you know building or improving upon an experience I don't think that's the DNA

28:53

that like exists on the clinical side of you know this kind of issue that talking

28:58

about today so I think the reality is you have a lot of clinicians that are well-intentioned that come from you know

29:03

medical points of view and they're just not um their DNA is not to think about

29:09

experience now what's interesting is you've started to have some Brands like you know kindbody even like spring

29:15

fertility I mean there's companies that are starting to pop up in this space that I think are more focused on how do we take the clinical side of this and

29:21

fuse it with better look better feel better design you know new tools to to improve the experience but I think at

29:27

the end of day the big issue is it's just like it's not it's a whole other lift like really helping someone through

29:33

the depths of this experience the emotional support the mental support the physical support of getting through you

29:39

know IVF injections and all the things that come along with it you know making sure someone's available at the time patients actually need that support is

29:46

another yeah because it could be 9:00 at night when you're trying to do a shot and something goes wrong and you know

29:52

when we've seen that firsthand and I mean you know a big part of you know what Lila probably talked to you about is we built this virtual care platform

29:59

you it was build because we want to emphase to your like how do we build in a way that our nurses are Ava at the on

30:06

demand hours that clinics are not but it's not the easiest thing to find nurses that you know want to work at 8 9

30:11

10 11 o'clock at night across all the different time zones um and it took us about two years to build that yeah but

30:17

now we're you know we're really excited that we're starting to see patients reaching out to us like hey I'm starting

30:23

my injections tonight I need a nurse in an hour they didn't know this morning or yesterday maybe that they were even

30:29

starting their injections or if they did they didn't know that they were going to need support and all of a sudden they find themselves in that very stressful

30:35

again to go back to the word sometimes traumatic moment in the old way it was like I'm going to Google stuff I'm going

30:42

to watch old YouTube videos it's not personalized it's not medically credible and and there's got to be a higher standard of care so you know we're

30:49

really excited to have you know built some solutions that are starting to show up for patients in the moments when they really need it and we're seeing we're

30:56

seeing real impact in the lives of of women that need it in these moments oh again what you're doing is amazing what

31:01

has it been like for you as a man to navigate the fertility space and not only a man but you have you and your

31:07

wife did not struggle with fertility either and you know for me for me personally I think when I first when I

31:12

had my miscarriage like I didn't want to talk to anyone that hadn't been through it so I'm curious how you've navigated

31:18

that not again not only as a man but as someone that hasn't struggled with fertility how have you garnered trust

31:23

how you like what's the experience been for you um it was difficult at first um

31:30

a healthy dose of like impostor syndrome right um there was a lot of nights I asked myself like the question I have

31:36

these words kind of etched in my head like is it okay is it okay that I'm doing this is it okay that I'm a

31:42

co-founder and CEO of a woman's health company for an experience that to your point is so vulnerable so intimate

31:48

generally carried by the woman right males are involved but the burden of it generally physically is mentally

31:55

emotionally is carried by the women I'm a male and to your point I didn't me nor my wife even went through this so I kept

32:00

asking myself the question like is it okay should someone else be building this company should it be a woman should

32:05

it be a woman that's been through this experience and you know I tried to you know

32:12

continually answer that question for myself by saying of course it's okay like you're doing something to bring good into the world this is a problem

32:19

that you know millions of other people for the last you know what 50 years IVF has been around could have solved no one

32:25

has you can't second guess yourself for stepping up to fix a problem that you yourself haven't been a part

32:32

of I don't know how much that moved the needle for me like mentally and emotionally I was still feeling a little

32:37

uneasy about it I think when that shift started to take place was when I started to ask that question of women in our

32:44

community and I started to ask them ooh what did they say like is it okay um it

32:51

was overwhelmingly like met with like it's more than okay you know there's this quote cuz um we writing an article

32:58

recently kind of about this topic and there's this quote that that we found and going through smold emails and one

33:04

of the patients that that's in our community you know wrote to me she said you know the five and six or or sorry

33:10

rather the one in six referring to one out of every six and I think the updated stat is actually now one in five but at

33:15

the time was one out of every six right women are impacted by fertility struggles and she wrote to me she said the one in six need the five and six who

33:23

are not impacted by it to be advocating to be helping to solve this problem if not how else are we ever going to make

33:30

progress and I it was it was an interesting you know thought besides the fact it was heartwarming to hear you

33:36

know it brought me back to really where this all started which is so much of the struggle is happening behind closed

33:41

doors and it's not necessarily something women want to talk about and as long as the problem stays behind closed doors

33:48

it's going to be a problem that stays behind closed doors and so we saw a lot of that on the other side right as we're

33:54

talking to clinics as we're talking to investors like there's just this huge education and knowledge Gap where so

33:59

many people didn't even understand what was actually happening so um it's been an interesting journey and you know

34:06

again I've tried to lean into the vulnerability and not punish myself for at times feeling insecure and you know

34:11

lean into it put it out into the world let the women in your community know that you're struggling with your own set of problems and not to compare problems

34:18

but I'm struggling with you know the vulnerability of it on you know again I think when you put that onto the world I

34:23

think people instantly connect over vulnerability even if they're different experiences and that was you know a

34:28

really kind of informative moment and I think also helped me to build the trust with with a lot of women in the

34:35

community when you share a little bit more of that emotional side of it so um it's been a great journey and by the way

34:41

I'm like incredibly grateful to women like you and you know we have a

34:46

community of about 200 you know patients and over the last few years I've

34:51

probably connected with almost all of them in some shape or I mean yeah I I feel so grateful to be able to like meet

34:58

you know when you're talking about the vulnerability and sharing and people kind of suffering behind closed doors like I'm so grateful for the women that

35:05

will come on here and share their story and I did an episode where I sh shared mine and it was really scary but I got

35:11

amazing feedback so the community are also cultivating is amazing and I'm part of that WhatsApp group and everyone is

35:18

just jumps right in to help or answer questions and just to have that space is tremendous yeah it is I think you know

35:24

again connection is is everything in in in in a world world today where I think human connection is harder I mean I was

35:30

on the way here I was walking over here and you know I was walking to the subway just looking around every single person

35:35

like every person is I'm crossing the street by the way heads down in phones and it's just I mean human connectivity

35:42

it's like it's never been you know more threatened than ever before and it's so

35:48

I think finding ways to to Foster and facilitate that connectivity particularly when there's a vulnerable underlying circumstance like fertility

35:55

struggles is just it's it means the world have you talked to other men going

36:01

through fertility because I think it's really interesting what you said even you know your own experience not being a fertility struggle but what it's like

36:07

for a man to watch the birth what it's like for a man to bring a child home have you talked to more men about what

36:13

their experien is because it it can feel a lot centered around the woman because it's our bodies and um but through your

36:22

experience building danandy have you had conversations with men about their experience I have a lot less I've

36:27

probably you know if I had to put numbers to it I've probably connected with like two 250 female patients over

36:33

the last few years probably less than 10 males wow now I'll tell you the the 10 or so males that I've connected with

36:39

very um very consistent stories and it goes back to what we were talking about

36:45

earlier which is like is there safety is there space or you know is society giving men you know enough permission to

36:54

share their stories and to connect with their own emotions and to work through them um and the very common threat across

37:00

like those 10 or so men was was no and by the way onethird of infertility is

37:06

tied to male Factor infertility right so there's there's men that behind closed doors are dealing with their own like

37:12

really heavy you know feelings of of guilt of Shame of their own traumas I

37:18

mean I can't and I don't think it should be um a masculine but I can't think of

37:23

like many more things that would be right than like a failure to be able to do your part to help your wife and you I

37:32

mean that's got to be incredibly challenging to deal with um and a lot of the men expressed you know whether

37:38

whether it was male Factor infertility or whether they were just watching their Fe their their wife struggle there's a lot of heaviness in it for the m and you

37:44

know I think it's all over the Spectrum even you know I've spoken to men that um

37:50

had a pretty level head but even just watching their wife struggle right talked about how much their

37:55

relationships have changed their sexual relationships have changed you know the constant needing to be an emotional

38:01

resource to your wife and not necessarily having the right sounding boards and the right outlets for the

38:06

male so I think just going back to your point earlier I mean I think overall

38:12

like men need more outlets and as we think about building Dandy we continue to consider ways we can you know expand

38:19

to be a support system not just for females I was going to ask you that if you see that being some I think so we

38:25

need to make a calculated decision early on I mean there's there was a lot we wanted to do we we had to we had to you

38:32

know pick our spots that we want to show up in the world with early on um so you know figuring out the right ways to

38:38

support males wasn't kind of a day one thing but for us I think it it's absolutely on the road mapap because

38:45

even just basic things going back to community I mean you you create a community group right now where where males that are struggling can talk to

38:52

each other and it creates a safe space and you know I was you know recently asked to join like a men's group

38:58

which is nothing other than a safe space for men to connect not fertility related just and you know again when you kind of

39:04

open that up and you give males this opportunity to to emote and to be with their it's like it's like uh the the

39:10

safety valve comes off and it's like yeah they got lots to share there's a lot of internalizing happening I don't

39:17

think I know this and I'm thinking this as you're talking how did you come choose the name Dandy we spend a lot of

39:22

time on it uh I'll try and give you the short version but Dand is short for the dandelion flower which goes through this

39:29

incredible journey of growth and transformation um we were really

39:34

obsessed with not just like building great products and services but we wanted to build a brand that for the first time people struggling through

39:41

this could really feel seen and heard in and so in doing so we wanted to get to kind of the deepest layers of like what

39:47

are women really struggling with right and there's a lot of layers to the struggle i' say injections and the

39:52

physical pain is is a very real but that's more of a surface layer struggle I think we wanted to peel back the layers of

39:58

so we we brought on like an insights team and there was 11 amazing women that

40:03

went really really deep with us to understand the deepest levels and it turned into like a 60-page insights

40:08

report where went really really deep we spent months like with these women going really deep and we wanted to extract

40:14

like what was the most consistent underlying theme and what we found was that underlying it all what it seemed to

40:21

be was the one of the hardest parts of fertility struggles was the uncertainty of outcome and this this yes I don't

40:30

want to say Obsession cuz that makes it sound like it's it's the wrong thing but there is this very heavy emphasis or

40:36

focus on when am I going to get to the point of having this outcome right that

40:41

I'm looking for speaking directly to me right now which couldn't be more valid right but in all these stories we were

40:48

hearing from patients that were sharing like I was sitting back and I was you know hearing these amazing moments of

40:53

resilience of strength of evolution and I didn't think the people sharing

40:59

those moments with us saw that in themselves like women were sharing the most transformational stories and I'm

41:06

like oh my God you're a superhero but it didn't seem like they realize that about themselves and so from a brand

41:12

standpoint what we felt like we had the opportunity to do was like how could we start to shift the narrative a little bit doesn't mean you shouldn't still be

41:19

very focused on the end point of getting pregnant but how could we maybe help you to see that on the journey to get there you are growing and you are becoming

41:25

stronger and sometimes it is those dark tough moments where you know you are

41:31

transforming even sometimes when that growth is happening beneath the surface and so we became very very interested

41:36

with like what can be a good analog to that and we started looking at nature and we started looking at this idea that

41:42

everything at nature kind of grows at its own speed the tree the leaf the flower it's not concerned with the rate

41:48

at which it's growing it just grows oh my God and we fell in love with like the dandelion flower because it goes on this

41:53

amazing journey I thought the dandelion was just like that yellow thought and then I knew that you know

41:59

that like puff that white puff that you blow and I didn't know that was also the dandelion I thought I didn't know that

42:05

either so when we looked into it it it starts as like the yellow flower then it actually contracts and it like it

42:11

completely contracts and then it shows back up as a more mature life form which is that puff ball and then by the way

42:18

each of those little seedlings on the puff ball there seeds that the wind will carry they get carried up to 25 miles I

42:25

know I'm like geeking out around no I'm like my my Jaws dropping I'm like I didn't know any of this those are each little seedlings that will get carried

42:31

up to 25 miles by the wind with no certainty of when they'll reconnect with Earth but when they do wherever they do

42:37

they'll plant new life and the dandelion I like fell in love with it I emailed our bran team I'm like guys this is it

42:43

like this is the most like this is the perfect analog and when you think about the fertility Journey it's it's

42:48

uncertain and it's so hard to surrender to that uncertainty and as a startup founder I feel a lot of that in a

42:55

different way well as you're saying uncertainty I'm think about how that applies to just life in general like and

43:00

that's a lot of what I struggled with through my journey in my 30s being uncertain if I would meet someone being uncertain of I would be a mom and we

43:07

talk a lot about that the struggle to get comfortable with uncertainty but there's so much that we cannot be certain about and the value of

43:15

surrendering to the uncertainty and I I resonated really hard with what you were say saying about what you learned as

43:21

you're trying to come up with the name of um you know wanting that outcome so bad and wanting to know when that out

43:27

out come is going to happen and you know I relate to what you're saying I think it's hard to see in the present moment

43:34

when we're so future Focus like what's the next appointment what's the next phase what's the next and we can't

43:40

sometimes see that until we have the outcome and whether again that's fertility or life like right and I think

43:46

the process in the work is to be in the and to be in the journey and to be in the process and less outcome focused

43:52

that's it I mean I think you hit the nail on the head and and like you said I think that's true of like anything life I mean if you really peel back like the

43:59

layers of the UN you look at like most life struggles like I think a huge part of the time like the underlying issue

44:05

it's uncertainty right it's uncertainty of like pregnancy but it could also be the uncertainty of like the outcome of

44:12

your job or the job you want to get or the relationship you think you want or finances I mean uncertainty and again it

44:19

goes back to like what have we been conditioned to believe from a really young age but I think this idea of certainty which I think certainty versus

44:25

uncertainty actually really even deeper later goes to control right which I'm sure is a therapist control we want all

44:30

theol it's all about control and I'm like that's in my own Journey that's something I've had to work through a lot because as a result of you know my own

44:38

kind of experiences as as a child growing up where I think for a long time I showed up is just this free flowing

44:44

life form that wasn't necessarily always met with love I think the identity that developed for me to protect myself from

44:50

that was control it was like well if the version of me that shows up freely and isn't thinking about a thing isn't

44:56

metant with love maybe that the way that I can protect myself is by starting to control people and things and

45:03

circumstances and in the end of the day that's never like actually going to serve you it may

45:09

give you a false sense of safety so I think like to your point uh whether it's building a startup whether it's

45:14

fertility Journeys and I I'll never compare like I'm not comparing they're all different so I don't want any listeners to ever think you know we're

45:20

comparing experiences but at the end of the day uncertainty is uncertainty and I do think it is the hardest thing in life

45:26

at least one of them to deal with and to your point I think like peace and Stillness and and happiness I think

45:33

comes from embracing that uncertainty and it requires a deep level of trust

45:39

and certainty that like if we could let go of that need to control and that need to know what the outcome is going to be and when we're going to get that outcome

45:47

it requires a leap of faith to trust that like everything will work out and and that's been a big part of my journey

45:52

yeah I I have found that when I can relax into the uncertainty and when I can get really grateful in the present

45:58

moment the things the outcome I am looking for comes to me yeah and it's not easy and you mentioned like grateful

46:04

gratitude I think is one of the one of the best ways and I I was reading something the other day and it talked

46:09

about like basically this like dealing with uncertainty dealing with the hard moments um there's this practice of

46:16

every time you're feeling a moment of like uncertainty stress anxiety Channel gratitude right think about one thing

46:22

and what you can actually start to do is is cuz a lot of this is hardwired a lot of this is like neurogical things that

46:27

have beening our nervous system and it talked about like can you start to rewire not can you you can start to

46:33

rewire and a great practice is taking all those moments of uncertainty and starting to uh really replace them with

46:40

moments of gratitude and and you know starting to fire like new neurological connections that I something great

46:47

happened today in my life right there's something I could focus on so deeply and channel that energy and that emotion of

46:52

it and you start to you know change the way we think it really works and I love that you said that can rewire and as a

46:57

therapist you absolutely can rewire to it but it's like those intentional practices like like we said slowing down

47:04

before we wrap up tell us more about kind of where Dandy is now you guys just launched tell us all the amazing things

47:09

that you're offering yeah we launched three weeks ago three and a half weeks ago so it's it's it's uh it's surreal

47:16

after a few years of building but um yeah we're on the market we at our core we offer two things we offer a line of

47:22

physical products it's called The Dandy IVF care kit uh we spent about two and a half years veloping those with hundreds

47:28

of patients as we mentioned we worked with a couple leading fertility doctors here in New York uh so very much took

47:33

into a lot of consideration the the clinical medical side of what women are going through as they go through IVF and

47:39

this is the first line of products that exists today to incred uh make IVF injections more comfortable more

47:45

intuitive um hopefully less distressing um so those are out in the market and we um we're already getting

47:52

amazing patient feedback which like it makes it all worth it toar we're we're uh positively impacting some IVF

47:59

experiences and then around the physical products we've built a virtual care platform as we've mentioned and the whole idea of virtual care is we want to

48:06

uh show up in the moments where you know patients haven't been able to get support elsewhere whether it be clinics

48:12

that you know aren't really built after hours uh replacing Google Reddit forms you know all the things that have kind

48:18

of been the standard of care uh so we've built a team of registered fertility nurses they off clinical experience

48:24

we've gotten them licensed to provide care in all 50 States they're available kind of across time zones all hours and

48:30

they're here to support you really every step of the journey from those really early stage decisions you know when you

48:35

leave your OB and realize you may need to find a fertility clinic and you know figure out what comes next and we know a

48:42

lot of patients haven't had the right support early on um all the way through navigating the clinic and and IVF

48:48

frankly even into postpartum or or pregnancy and then postpartum um it's very different experience so um yeah we

48:55

exist kind of at the intersection of of products and and and digital care and we have a lot of exciting things we'll be

49:00

launching in the coming months and and hopefully years but uh thetion to is to add some therapists to the pl yes so our

49:07

virtual care today is very very clinical focused again we needed to kind of say this is what we're going to launch with

49:13

day one versus day two but yeah day one we're we're fully focused on kind of the clinical side of it so injections um

49:19

helping patients navigate lab results all the medical things that we know are very difficult and in the pretty near

49:26

future we're going to be scaling that platform to be more integrative you know you're you're in our WhatsApp community

49:32

group one of the biggest things patients are messaging about is does anyone have a good therapist does anyone have a good acupuncturist does anyone have a good

49:38

mind the resources that are like vetted and trusted and they're so fragmented way so we see an opportunity on our care

49:45

platform where we start with nurses and the clinical medical side to Branch into something that's more holistic to support and all these areas of care

49:51

therapy being one of them so I know I was like can I be the therapist I was like I don't have that much time no

49:57

we'll certainly figure out a way well I'm always here to support you guys any way that I can anything I can do you

50:03

know I am so passionate about the space I am so internally grateful for you and to answer your question is this okay it

50:10

is more than okay you are I have chills because you no you just doing an amazing

50:16

incredible thing for people and you are filling a gap that should have been filled a really long time ago so thank

50:21

you so much for what you're doing and thank you for being here and sharing and please like anyway we can help you or

50:27

what anything we we're here to support this journey yeah I think a lot of a lot of synergies and and a lot of the messages uh exist at many layers whether

50:34

it's fertility or life or or a lot of the things you talk about here so thank you for the great work thank you for being a part of our community thank you

50:39

this was a pleasure I love this conversation thank you likewise if you're someone struggling or

50:45

relating to the topics that we're talking about now and you're feeling the anxiety or the stress or the pressure of

50:50

feeling like you're running out of time you're behind and you want some extra support check out my my group therapy

50:57

practice in Midtown Manhattan NYC therapeutic Wellness we have an amazing team of clinicians ready to support you

51:04

in your journey to help you feel more grounded to help you feel more grateful to help you feel like you're just

51:10

exactly where you need to be so check us out at www.nyc therapeutic wellness.com