S3E26: Margaux - Balancing Family as a Woman in Medicine

Margaux: It's unavoidable.

McKenna: People think that I'm talking about my son, but I'm really talking about my husband.

Margaux: We'll see where it goes. I sent the outline, but it always deviates usually. So we'll just get started.

Hey, everyone. Welcome to "Bundle Of Hers." Margaux here in the studio. And something I wanted to talk about today was a big part of my identity that I feel is really underrepresented and at times has been very isolating for me. And so it's been very important to talk about it and share my stories and have conversations with my friends.

So real talk, I've been trying to get pregnant for the past six months or cycles, however you want to look at it. And I feel like I've learned so much in these past months. Again, that comes back to the importance of creating community and sharing stories so that when you're going through something that a lot of people aren't talking about, you can build community and support and derive power from that.

So today, I invited two of my awesome friends to talk to me about this story. And part of what I wanted to have this conversation about, not only to share with my friends and get their perspectives on their own journeys in getting pregnant and starting a family in medical school, but also the barriers that I told myself about getting pregnant, which was even before medical school I thought it couldn't be compatible with having a career in medicine and having a family. And then once I was in medical school, there was always a reason that it wasn't a good time, whether that was Step 1 or interviews or clerkships, all these barriers that I kept putting in front of myself.

So I'd like to have your input on what you guys thought, because looking back on it, those barriers weren't really actual barriers. In theory, I could have done it.

So in the studio today, I have my friends, Kylie, who you may remember from the "Mothers in Medicine" episode earlier on, and McKenna. And so these two amazing ladies are actually in the EPAC program, which is an accelerated program into pediatrics. And so they've actually just finished their medical school and they're both officially doctors, so congratulations to both of you on that.

Kylie: Thank you.

Margaux: So now I'd just like to ask both of you to give a little intro about yourself and when you decided to start a family and get pregnant and have your kids respectively. Kylie, do you want to start?

Kylie: Sure. So I had my daughter, Addie, who's now 4, before med school. My husband and I had been married for like eight years at that time and we always knew we wanted to have kids and we were always putting it off, similarly, because I was in school.

And then when it came down to it, we were just like, "How much longer are we going to keep putting this off?" I was in the process of applying to med school, but honestly, I didn't think I was going to get in. In my mind, I was like, "Okay, well, I'll apply and then I won't get in, but it'll be perfect because then I'll have our kid and then we'll reapply next year."

So we started trying and we ended up getting pregnant and getting an interview right around the same time. And then I ended up deferring a year for a few reasons. I had to take an organic chemistry lab still and the professor told me not to take it because I was in my early part of my pregnancy and a lot of the solvents I shouldn't be around. And then also she would have been born in September and school started in August, so that wouldn't have been ideal. So I ended up deferring a year and then having her. She was 11 months when I started school.

In hindsight, I actually wish I would have had all my kids before med school, because I want to have more and now the thought of having another one seems more daunting. If I hadn't had her before, I feel like I would be very similar. It would never feel like a good time. Because right now, I want to have another one and it never feels like a good time. It's like, "I'm about to start residency and I want to get through intern year." It just never feels like I know when to have another one. I don't know. It's very hard.

But I think that having her before med school was a lot more doable than I anticipated, but it definitely creates a lot of extra work. It's something to definitely know that you are going to be dealing with going into, but I think it's definitely doable, and I think if you want kids, don't let people tell you not to do it because you're going to go to med school.

Margaux: What about you, McKenna?

McKenna: So I guess my story when it comes to getting pregnant in medical school is I've been married to my husband since 2015, so the year before I started medical school, and we always wanted kids. And I guess I got a lot of pushback because people were like, "You can just wait until after medical school," because I'm still pretty young. I'm 27 now, but in the scheme of medical school, people were like, "You're so young. You have so much time."

But it's just something we've always wanted, and so I did a lot of research before applying to medical school about when would be a good time. There's not a lot of research out there, and basically it says there's never a good time. I mean, not even research. I mean other people's stories out there it seems like.

And I found this one Instagrammer. She just basically outlined when she got pregnant and I was like, "That seems like a good time." And so, basically since Year 1, I was like, "We're going to try to get pregnant for these couple of months during third-year or right at the beginning of third-year, and if it doesn't work, it doesn't work."

So we did and we ended up getting pregnant, which was really exciting, but I kind of thought it wouldn't happen. I don't know. I was like, "We'll try and if it doesn't happen, then we'll just have to think about it and plan for some other time." But we did get pregnant.

So I was pregnant all of my third year of medical school and during clerkships. And I had my baby . . . I swear this kid had a clock in there and a timer. He knew the exact time to come out because I took my last final and then the next day I went into labor, and so there was a dedicated two weeks that everyone got off, so I had to take less time off, which was really nice. So I had him right at the beginning of fourth-year, like the day basically fourth-year started.

Margaux: That's awesome. So I really appreciate listening to stories. Like you said, McKenna, going out and reading other people's stories was something that I also did too, but there's not enough of it, so that's why I'm really grateful that you guys are both here today to share your stories and sort of encourage me.

Like both of you, I was with my partner, my husband, for many years and we knew that we wanted to have a kid. And in my mind, I don't really know where these influences came from, but there was a time when I thought that I couldn't go to medical school because I wanted a family so much.

And I actually came back to visit Utah, I wasn't living here at the time, and met up with someone I was with in Girl Scouts who was a medical student at the time. Her name is Stephanie Woodward, so shout-out to Stephanie if she's listening. And I asked her. I was like, "I really want to go to medical school, but I also want a family and I don't think I can do it."

And she was like, "Girl, please. One of my classmates has had a baby. There are residents that have a baby. Yeah, it sucks, but you can do it and it shouldn't be the reason that you don't go into medicine." So that was, in my mind, a pivotal time at which I was like, "Okay, I can do this." But still, it never felt right. There's never a good time.

And I think a lot of that is the barriers that we put on ourselves. So when I started medical school, I was like, "I want to have a baby at some point." I even sat down with some of our deans, and they're men, and I don't think they necessarily know the emotional side and how that actually feels to navigate and plan other than the logistics of it, like fourth year is the best time or don't do it because of Step 1.

And that's some pressure I always put on myself too, was like, "I have to put Step 1 first because it's so important." But it's not. Now that I'm in fourth year, I'm like, "I could have done Step 1 just fine probably whether I was pregnant or not." I don't know, but I feel like it's something that is manageable.

And then the next step after that was like, "Oh, no. Clerkships. I have to be on my A-game and working and running around the hospital, and I can't be distracted by being pregnant or by having a child." So then it got pushed into fourth-year.

And then there's the interview process of like, "Oh, if you're pregnant during interviews, you're going to be biased against," or, "It's going to suck to have to travel when you're pregnant."

Then you're left with this very narrow time between starting residency and finishing interviews. And so it's just a huge mess.

And what I'm realizing now is there were so many things I told myself that weren't true that I could have done, but some sort of influence dictated how I told myself what I could and couldn't do.

And I think a lot of that has to do with how there aren't a lot of women talking about their stories. Yes, they're on the blogs more and more now, which is super helpful, but it's hard to find the specific story of, "I had a baby during Step 1," or, "I had a baby in clerkship." So I think it's super helpful to know that it was okay to defer medical school to have a baby and it worked out perfectly, but there is also someone else who has started medical school being pregnant and having a baby in the second month.

Kylie: I think that when you're looking at stuff online, you always kind of think like, "Well, that person did it," but you don't necessarily internalize that as something you could do. I think that more and more we need to think about . . . like, try to put it on us and be like, "I could do it too." Not just, "They did it," and not make it external. Make it more internal. Take these other people's stories and try to apply them to us and make it more real, I guess.

I mean, all of us are awesome and special people, but there's nothing really extraordinary about any of us that's so much different than anybody else that makes us have superhuman powers, that make us capable of doing something that you're not capable of doing too.

I think that sometimes you think, "Well, there must be something special about them that made them able to do that or to overcome that challenge that I don't have or that I can't do." I just think that that's totally false. You can do it too. And if you think that there's some invisible thing that makes them more special or more capable, no, there's not. You could do it too.

I think that it is really common to get . . . I don't know if I want to say they word "bad advice," but advice from people in positions of power that have not actually been through the experience and then that deter you or influence your entire career path. Take that with a grain of salt.

It does feel like that's the end all be all, I think, when you're sitting in the Dean's office and they're like, "Well, you should do this XYZ thing," but they've never been through that thing. They've never had that experience in the same way that you would.

Take that with a grain of salt because I think every female medical student or future medical student is going to have similar conversations, and there will probably be somebody at some point that's going to tell you it's a bad idea. Okay, well, that's their opinion, but there's going to be a million other opinions out there, and ultimately it's your life.

They're going to know you for three years while you're a medical student, four years while you're there, and then you're going to be gone and you're probably never going to see them again, so don't let them make your entire life choices for you.

McKenna: And this conversation is kind of crazy to have with people, and especially we're such planners. You're like, "I have to get pregnant on this day and I am going to deliver my baby this next . . ." I don't know.

Margaux: This month.

McKenna: Yeah. It's just crazy. So when I was a first-year medical student, I was like, "Oh my gosh, I'm going to get pregnant third year, so I have to figure this out." But it's like a secret because you don't know what's going to happen. You could try for a long time or not. Life happens and you just don't know.

I remember reaching out to when I was a first-year . . . I can't remember if she's three or four years older than us, but there was a pregnant fourth-year. Her name was Lana Weber. If you're out there . . . I felt I secretly messaged her on Instagram, like, "Hi, my name's McKenna and I saw you were pregnant. How'd that go?" Super weird. And I remember being like, "I hope no one reads my DMs." I don't know. It feels like such a secret and it's not. Families happen. People want to have families and people have priorities and we should be able to talk about it more and empower everybody.

Margaux: There's something that makes it feel like we have to keep it a secret or be ashamed that we want to be doctors but also be mothers. I don't know. It's just built into our society somehow that we feel like we have to be secretive about it.

And I appreciate that you said that so much because I think that's something that I thought about too. I would talk to Kylie but only in private, like, "I want to have a baby," and be very conscious of who I was having those conversations with.

When I was in the Dean's office, they were like, "Have a baby this month, and then it will be perfect." And they talk about it like it is so mechanical and like you have all the control over it. It doesn't happen that way, as I learned.

And so I would encourage all the listeners, and what I've learned and you've just reinforced too, McKenna, is that don't be afraid to talk about it because the more we all talk about it, the more it becomes normal to have these different ideas and journeys and struggles in medical school surrounding getting pregnant and starting a family.

Something else that you told me too, Kylie, was it's not when I will get pregnant, it's how I'll make it work. And so that too really resonated with me in deciding . . . after the first couple cycles that it didn't work, I was kind of like, "It'll happen. I think it will happen." And then it didn't and I was like, "Okay, well, now it's a priority."

And once I made it a priority, it seemed like everything else was possible. All the things that I was telling myself that couldn't happen about medical school and residency all of a sudden seemed so trivial compared to the journey that I was now starting on.

Once it becomes a priority . . . because if it is part of your identity, you should be proud of that and you should own it. And as medical students, it shouldn't be something that we should have to hide.

The way it was talked to me about was something that could be planned. Like, "Okay, you're going to try to get pregnant this month and then have a baby and deliver in this month, and that will be perfect because your interviews, you'll be early pregnancy," and it was going to be perfect. I front-loaded my schedule so that I would basically have a five-month maternity leave the end of fourth-year and it was going to be awesome.

And two of my friends had gotten pregnant on the first cycle and had healthy pregnancies through, and I was like, "Okay, perfect. It's going to happen." And then it didn't happen and I was like literally, "What the fuck? What happened?"

And it seems so weird because we're brought up in medical school to be very data-driven and think so evidence-based about how and what all the moving components. And so then that consumed my life of diving into the research and cycle charting and collecting data. And each month that it didn't happen, there was this emotional component of feeling like a failure for no reason. All the data is there, but I still felt like my body was defected in some way.

And so that was really hard to navigate, but it kind of gave me a new perspective on when we tell patients something that's very evidence-based, we don't address the emotional part. I was like, "I understand that now." I can't explain why I feel that way, but I do. As teenagers, we are made to seem like you could just get pregnant by someone coughing on you, right? It's so easy.

McKenna: Hot tubs. I never want to go in a hot tub.

Margaux: Exactly.

McKenna: And boys.

Margaux: Yeah. Don't even look at them. You're going to get pregnant.

So we go into it with this idea that we've been avoiding pregnancy most of our lives and putting so much effort into thinking about that, and then all of a sudden you switch your mindset to now wanting to become pregnant, but thinking it's going to be easy because most of your life you've been told how easy it is to get pregnant. And then when it doesn't happen, you're like, "What?"

So I'm just curious, because this is something that I had, two of my friends got pregnant on the first cycle. If you guys don't mind sharing, how long did it take you guys to get pregnant?

McKenna: I got pregnant on my first cycle, and actually a month before we really wanted to try. Technically, my son was due while I was still in clerkships, which was not ideal. And so I was a little bit early.

So it happened really fast for us, but I was obsessive about that stupid . . . not stupid. It's a great app, but it tracks your fertility. I have never opened an app so many times in my life, over and over. I'm just crazy. And just reading on forums, and not evidence-based stuff. You tell people, "You should look at evidence-based things." There are just all these personal stories about people. It's just an obsessive process. It was all-consuming.

I did get pregnant really early, so the thought of extending that level of anxiety sounds really exhausting.

Margaux: No, it totally is, and just cycle tracking. But you can become obsessive about it and I was for a long time, like several months, and it was so hard to balance with my sub-internship. You feel like every time you open the app you're going to learn something new, something profound that will change what you've been doing and then all of a sudden make it better, but the fact is it doesn't. It's a kind of a double-edged sword. It can be very helpful to track your data and know your body very well, but also become very time consuming, especially when it doesn't work.

Kylie: Yeah. So I was tracking cervical fluid and basal body temperature. I had been doing it for several cycles before we started trying, so I kind of knew what my cycles were like and I knew typically when my fertile days were. And then on the cycle that we started trying, I didn't get pregnant in the first cycle. I got pregnant in the second cycle. I actually took a pregnancy test and I didn't think I got pregnant, but I took it too soon and then I took one again a few days later and it was positive. I was like, "Oh my gosh."

I feel like making sure and timing and, "We have to have sex today. I am fertile. This is happening. I know we only have 10 minutes, but come here." So I think that if you're trying for several cycles in a row and your schedules are really busy but you know which days you're fertile . . . and you only have a few fertile days every month. It's not necessarily always really romantic, which I think is something that maybe not everybody always talks about. But other than that, I think the process because I had been tracking was easier than it would have been otherwise, because otherwise, I had no clue.

Margaux: Yeah. Well, what you were saying about how you should keep it romantic is something that they say on all the websites of tips to increasing your fertility, is like, "Don't make sex a chore. Make it romantic." But just from my personal experience, when you're four months into trying and you're on your sub-internships, so I was working 13 hour days on the HEMOC service, and it was my fertile days, I go home and I know I have to have sex. We've been trying for four months, I am exhausted, but we have to do this.

There's no way to really put romanticism in that. Sometimes you've just got to do it and it's not romantic. It's not pretty. It just is what it is. So that part you definitely have to consider too, especially like at different points in medical school. It might make it easier to have that process.

So I think in first and second year you have a lot more time to be mentally and emotionally present and have time to have sex versus a resident's schedule. It's always changing. It just is really hard and then it does feel like you're just coming home and like, "Okay, we've got to have sex," and then go to bed. There's nothing else.

And then the other thing about tracking too that's really difficult, at least on my sub-internship, is the ovulation predictor kit. So basically, another stick that you pee on to detect your LH surge to figure out when you may be ovulating. You're supposed to do it more in the afternoon because that's when the hormone level is higher.

So I would take my ovulation kit at lunch right after rounding and go hide out in the resident bathroom or the call room bathroom, pee on the stick, and then you have to wait 10 minutes to get your results. So I'd be in there charting waiting for my stick hoping nobody would walk in.

And just, again, the secrecy. I didn't want to tell the residents, "Oh, I'm going to be gone for 10 minutes because I have to go pee on a stick." I'm sure I could have, but again, I felt like I couldn't be honest and open about that. And so that was something I felt like I was sneaking around about.

And so always in the back of my mind, I'm like, "Am I tracking perfectly enough? Is my data . . ." There are all these things that build up in your head about the things that you're supposed to be doing and how different work requirements can change that and affect that.

And so it had so many different layers of difficulty when you're like, "Oh, I'm just going to get pregnant." And I feel like there are times that are good and there are times that are not ideal. I guess ideal and less ideal. And starting internship . . .

McKenna: Okay and less okay.

Margaux: Exactly. And for me, I was like, "I don't want to start internship and deliver in that same month," because that's a time when everybody's there to support the new interns and you're learning a lot and getting up to speed. So for me, I was like, "We'll take two months off." For me, I think it's a lot of this narrative that is historical in that women are weak when they're pregnant and women are weak in general, but then when they're pregnant they become even more weak. And so somehow still . . .

Kylie: It's a narrative perpetuated by men. Women, you are not weak. You are so freaking strong. You're so much stronger than any man when you're pregnant. Just saying.

McKenna: But maybe don't tell the guys that, because I really use that card sometimes when you're pregnant laying on the couch. I'm like, "I can't. I'm pregnant. You have to go do this."

Margaux: True. Use it to your benefit. But also, I think the more we talk about how strong you are, how you're just yourself when you're pregnant but now with a little extra human inside of you, you can still do everything and there's no reason the narrative should even exist.

McKenna: It's just all a matter of perception yourself, and everyone has bad days, like when you feel bad, and when I was pregnant, that's what I was thinking. I was like, "I don't feel pregnant. I just feel like maybe I have a couple of tired days in a row," but it's the same. It's just everyone can do it.

Kylie: But I do think a lot of this is the benefit of hindsight. So like McKenna was saying, before going into it, it seems like this period of life where everything is going to be just so different and daunting. "Oh my gosh, all the details and everything has to be perfect." And then after it's like, "Wow, that was really quick and it's already over." It goes by faster and easier than you thought it would.

Again, I think that if you anticipate that complications could happen and you just are okay with whatever potential things, you're like, "Well, if I have to take the time off then it's okay," then you're just okay with it and it's fine.

I always try to think what's the worst thing that could happen and then what is going to be my response to that? If I actually have to take time off, that's okay. That will be what will happen.

McKenna: Also, if you're like efficiency-minded, you can feel like you're always multitasking. That's how I know. I'm like, "I'm at clerkship and growing a person. So what did you do today?"

Margaux: That's an awesome perspective.

Kylie: That's how I feel about breastfeeding. It's like, "I literally kept another human alive with milk that I made. What did you do today?"

Margaux: That's awesome. And then, McKenna, earlier you talked about how your identity sort of changed and you became known as the pregnant medical student. So how has your identity changed now that you guys have had your babies and navigated your careers in medicine? Which you both are obviously successful and already doctors. But now that you have kids, how has your identity changed or what have you been able to keep the same or what have you wanted to change in terms of identity?

Kylie: I definitely felt like my identity changed when I had Addie. There's my mom side and then my other side. They work together and it's like one can't exist without the other. Once you're a parent, you do view the world differently and things take on a different meaning than they did before.

It's sort of like Thestrals in Harry Potter. You know it. You can only see it if you've had that experience. It's sort of like that. So yeah, I think it is a part of my identity. I don't know. It's like a seamless transition. You become a parent and it just becomes part of who you are, but you still always have who you are. It's always there. You don't just magically give birth and then you're a different person. There are just these extra elements to it then after that, I guess.

Margaux: What about you, McKenna?

McKenna: My baby is 6 months right now, so I feel like I'm still trying to figure out what my identity is. I don't know. I feel like I'm kind of an outgoing person. I like to hang out a lot, and I thought I would miss it. And while I was pregnant, I was like, "Girl needs a drink," the whole time I was pregnant. And then after the baby came, I was like, "I cannot wait until I give birth and then I'm going to go out," which is not really how it works because then you have a newborn at home. But also, that feeling like I was missing something kind of went away because now I have this cool friend to hang out with at home that's way cute.

Kylie: It changes too at every stage. When your baby is a newborn, that's a different experience than . . . my daughter is 4 now and I can ask her to go do things. She can put on her own shoes and that's a totally different experience than . . . your baby is in a crib. And so I think that's another part of the conversation too, is that your experience of motherhood and even the way that that intersects with your experience in your career, that changes in multiple stages.

And so I think that it's hard to even compare the experience with a newborn, which is super exhausting, to the experience of where I have a 4-year-old.

Margaux: Yeah. And I think that's important to what you said, McKenna, about finding your identity. Sometimes I feel like people expect you to have all of a sudden put on this mother hat and be that person and there's this sort of checkbox of an identity. But not everybody has to fit into that.

And like you said, Kylie, it's a seamless transition. You get to keep who you were. And you should be able to, but I find me telling myself these narratives of what my identity will be after birth and when I have a child and what that will look like in my career.

And there's something to be said for thinking about the future, but also I think looking back on the conversations we just had about how we talk about barriers and think about how society and the hierarchical system that we're in influences that, it's probably better to kind of just let it be. What will be will be and just stay true to yourself and who you are and who you want to be and not let other people dictate that.

So that's something that I'm trying to do right now because I do a lot of thinking about, A, trying to get pregnant, and, B, what it will be like after, and then, C, starting residency and trying to find what my identity is. But I think part of it is maybe just letting it go with the flow and seeing where it takes me.

McKenna: And people tell you scary stuff. I feel like when you're pregnant and when you're trying to get pregnant, like when you want a baby, they just tell you their horror stories and you're like, "Wow, that was so much." And when you're pregnant . . . like, I had trouble sleeping when I was pregnant and people kept being like, "Oh, just wait until the baby is born. You'll really never sleep." I'm like, "Helpful. Thank you. I'm really tired now."

But they forget to tell you that when your baby wakes up in the middle of the night, you walk into his room and he smiles at you and you're like, "Oh, gosh, this is great." Or when you're pregnant and you can't sleep, you and him have a little party because he's moving around in your belly and you're like, "This is nice."

I don't know. People tell you this bad stuff, or maybe it's just that's what sticks in my mind because they're telling you these bad things. And maybe they told me the good stuff too, but I remember feeling this intense fear, like, "I'm going to be pregnant, it's going to be so hard, and I'm going to have this baby and it's going to be so hard." And it's hard, but there are lots of really wonderful parts about it that I don't think we talk about.

A lot of the anxiety came from just people's plans not happening as they wanted. Even though things were going well, it's like they envisioned it in a certain way and when it didn't happen, it was really upsetting for them. So I just tried to be as open as possible.

Margaux: And like you were saying earlier, McKenna, there's all this fear and people tend to tell you the negative things maybe out of precaution or maybe just that's what sticks the most in their memory. And then I think that's what we stick to, is hearing these negative and fearful things. Then that's how we dictate our stories and our perception of how things are going to go.

I like what you said about trying not to have expectations, because once it deviates, even though it's still going okay . . . and that's something that I am applying now to how getting pregnant is. I had this expectation that it would happen when it was going to happen and how it was going to go and all this time I was going to have, and that didn't happen. That was very stressful emotionally too for me.

Now I'm just approaching it with the mindset of, "Okay, it's going to happen when it's going to happen. I'm going to do what I can do to see somebody about my hormones and maybe we'll have to adopt or maybe we'll have to explore IVF." I don't know, but I don't want to think about it too much. Just let it happen each month as it goes with a proper amount of planning and taking that time to do what I need to do.

And so part of that is thinking, "Well, I have young eggs right now, so maybe I should harvest them, and I have time to do that surgical procedure." And then they're there and they're younger than they would be maybe middle of residency when there's time again to do it.

But there are a lot of different ways to approach getting pregnant that I didn't think to explore or knew were options. And so I really appreciate both of you being here to sort of support me in this journey and hearing your stories and just having this raw, honest conversation about having sex and what it's like when you're trying to get pregnant and all the myths that you're told and how it is to track.

And so I really appreciate this and I hope to all our listeners that you can take away that it is okay to talk about wanting to be pregnant, being pregnant, getting pregnant, all the good, the bad, the ugly. Let's talk about it more so it's more normalized and it can be something we work towards changing in the culture of medicine.

Is there anything else that you guys wanted to add or felt like . . .

Kylie: I think moms are important people in medicine. Being a mom makes you a different medical provider and it's important. Moms are valued.

Margaux: I agree with that.

McKenna: I don't think I have anything else.

Margaux: Thank you both again for being here. I loved talking with you, and thanks also for your support. It's been really helpful to have people to talk about my own journey and my own identities forming around all of this. It can be very emotionally. . . I've spent a lot of time crying. I thought I wasn't going to hold it together, but I did.

Another true story. On my interview, someone asked me . . . this was right before I got my period, so my hormones were a little high. She asked a point of adversity I had faced in medical school, and then I just started crying and I was like, "I can't get pregnant." And it was a psychotherapist, so she was like . . . it felt like a psychologist's office and I just felt safe with her. I started bawling in the middle of my interview and then I was like, "I'm sorry." She's was like, "It's okay."

But I think the more we can be honest about it like that, it's better. And she didn't judge me. I mean, she has experience being a therapist, so I'm sure she was fine. I don't know what she was thinking after. But I think that the more we can create safe spaces to have those conversations and to outlet those emotions, then it'll be better for everybody. So thank you again.

And to all our listeners, I know we talked about only several of the experiences in terms of starting a family. If you're considering adoption or IVF or anything else along the lines, there are definitely a bunch of different narratives that we didn't talk about here today, but we'd love to hear your story on @bundleofhers on Instagram. Keep the conversation going. So thank you for listening and please tune in next week for Bushra's story.

Done. Thank you guys.

Kylie: Thank you.

McKenna: Thank you.