Latest / Becoming Parents Podcast / Infertility, Pregnancy Loss, Therapist Teaching Love and Infertility with Dr. Clay Brigance - S7 E92

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Infertility, Pregnancy Loss, Therapist Teaching Love and Infertility with Dr. Clay Brigance - S7 E92 · Becoming Parents Podcast

• 0:00
  Welcome to Becoming Parents podcast.
• 0:02
  I'm your host Jennifer Campbell, mom of 18 and executive director
• 0:05
  of the Doula Co-op of Nevada. With more than 15 years in birth
• 0:08
  work, I've had the privilege of walking beside families through
• 0:11
  life's transitions. My work centers on connection,
• 0:14
  community, and amplifying voices that too often go unheard.
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  Each of these episodes is an honest conversation about the
• 0:20
  messy, beautiful, and transformative experiences that
• 0:23
  shape us as parents and as people.
• 0:25
  I'd like to extend a heartfelt thank you to the incredible
• 0:28
  guests who show up with and authenticity to share their
• 0:31
  stories with us. Let's dive right in.
• 0:34
  Welcome to becoming parents. Today I have with me Doctor Clay
• 0:38
  Brigant. How are you doing, Sir?
• 0:40
  I'm doing great, Jennifer, doing great.
• 0:42
  How are you? I'm doing great.
• 0:44
  It's like summertime and sunshiny.
• 0:46
  I'm in Reno, NV I don't know where you are.
• 0:49
  Yeah, yeah. Saint Louis soap, same thing.
• 0:52
  Yeah, I mean, I I don't like winter, I don't like cold, I
• 0:56
  don't like snow. I tolerate it and then like I
• 1:00
  don't have sad or anything. My husband and I just had a
• 1:02
  conversation about that. But I but I'm just like, I'm not
• 1:06
  the best version of myself. And now I'm like, if there if I
• 1:09
  lived in the days of sun gods, I would be so down with that.
• 1:12
  Like I would be on board with the God of the sun Anyway, so
• 1:18
  I'm come to. Saint Louis, it gets really
• 1:20
  cold. Yeah, I know, I know.
• 1:22
  I'm originally from New England. We don't like this.
• 1:24
  We don't. I'm not coming to visit you in
• 1:26
  the winter. That's fair, That's fair.
• 1:30
  You're a doctor and I want to, like, shout that out.
• 1:34
  I'm very proud of the work you're doing.
• 1:36
  So I want to preface our podcast by talking about that 'cause
• 1:39
  it's not on your little name tag, and I want to jump in and
• 1:43
  share your parenting journey with us.
• 1:45
  Yeah, yeah. Thanks, Jennifer.
• 1:49
  Gosh, you know, before we started recording, you had said
• 1:52
  like, man, let's start from the beginning and like really how
• 1:55
  much you love going through people's story and everything.
• 1:59
  And I resonate that with so much.
• 2:00
  And I'm feeling right now in this moment where probably a lot
• 2:03
  of your guests are feeling of like, well, gosh, you know, it's
• 2:06
  so complicated and intricate. And, and I think that my wife
• 2:11
  and I, we've been telling our stories so much that we kind of
• 2:18
  know a rhythm, you know? So you know, it really, I think
• 2:22
  that my story goes all the way back to when I was a kid and how
• 2:27
  looking. So I grew up, I grew up in
• 2:30
  Kentucky. I grew up in Western Kentucky,
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  Muhlenberg County, little tiny, tiny place in Western Kentucky.
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  And my dad was Superman and just self-made man, you know,
• 2:46
  business owner, he's an entrepreneur.
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  He, you know, invest in properties, he was a
• 2:52
  construction worker, all all these things.
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  And he's 6 foot 3 and he's got big hands, big, big guy.
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  And, and you know, I grew up to be 5 foot 8 and 120 lbs soaking
• 3:01
  wet. So like, you know, I, I started
• 3:05
  to compare myself and, and, and I thought, man, that's the kind
• 3:09
  of masculinity I want to have this strong, silent, but, you
• 3:14
  know, nose to the grindstone providing for his family, but
• 3:17
  you know, having a family. So even from when I was a kid,
• 3:23
  Jennifer, I knew that I wanted to be a dad and, and so I shaped
• 3:28
  my career around that. So I wanted to go into mental
• 3:31
  health. So I went into school
• 3:33
  psychology, which is where you do like assessments for kids in
• 3:36
  the public schools to see if they have special needs or any
• 3:40
  type of diagnosis that they would need treatment for her.
• 3:45
  So, but I wanted to do that Jennifer, because I wanted
• 3:50
  summers off, I wanted a pension, I wanted predictability, I
• 3:53
  wanted that ability to be a dad. So whenever my wife and I
• 3:57
  started struggling with infertility in 2017, that really
• 4:04
  all unravelled. And it was this spiral for me
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  of, well, then who am I as a man?
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  Who am I as, as a husband if I can't provide my wife a child,
• 4:17
  if I can't have a child myself? And I can remember talking to my
• 4:21
  therapist at the time, my brother's older than me, which
• 4:24
  by the way, Jennifer, my brother, I hope he's listening
• 4:27
  to that. He doesn't really listen to
• 4:28
  podcast, but I hope he's listening to this some way
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  somehow. He's an incredible man, but he
• 4:34
  also looks a lot like my dad and built like my dad.
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  And so I, I had this image, Jennifer, that he, well, he's
• 4:41
  the, the more masculine one. Maybe he's the one that's meant
• 4:43
  to carry on our legacy, our family name and not me.
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  So it was the spiral of shame that I went into.
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  And like I said on another podcast recently, Jennifer is
• 4:54
  like this, like unraveling of who I am and, and who I thought
• 5:00
  I was. And also that got built back up
• 5:04
  again. And so I had to find what my
• 5:06
  masculinity means for me and, and what I bring to the table
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  and know that I'm not going to be a, a blue collar guy that,
• 5:13
  you know, is maybe more traditional in that sense, but
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  I've got my own ways of being masculine.
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  And, and so we went through IVF. So we went through all the
• 5:22
  treatments and everything and, and eventually through a lot of
• 5:27
  loss and pain and waiting, we got Jonah, our first born.
• 5:32
  So Jonah was born in 2019. And, and I knew, I knew then
• 5:37
  Jennifer, that I wanted to go back to school to be, to get a
• 5:44
  PhD so that I can figure out this why, why, why were my wife
• 5:49
  and I so much more in love now after infertility than we had
• 5:53
  ever been? Why was our marriage?
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  Better. Yeah, so I was like, it's and
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  this was a part of my whole like reconstruction, I think like how
• 6:04
  can I figure out this why, what were what were my wife and I
• 6:08
  doing that brought us together? And what are the things that
• 6:11
  couples do that drive them apart during this process and then
• 6:15
  give it back to the world like you you're talking about, you
• 6:18
  talk to a lot of entrepreneurs that like to give back.
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  And I think that was my my moment.
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  And so, yeah. And so that's when I went back
• 6:27
  to school and I got a PhD in counseling and started producing
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  research. And I've got a book coming out
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  published by the. American.
• 6:35
  Yeah. Yes, yes.
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  Yeah, yeah. So that's it's due on Sunday.
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  So you know, no panic, but pleasure.
• 6:44
  Everybody. Yeah, no pressure.
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  But yeah, the final version is going back to APA on Sunday.
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  So that's going to be the guide book for how do we as therapist
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  guide couples through this, through this process of of you
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  know, how infertility can maybe steal your dream of becoming a
• 7:00
  parent, but it doesn't have to steal your relationship, so.
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  Cow. So I went through infertility.
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  Oh wow, it's. Really fascinating I guess.
• 7:09
  So I went through about 10 months of all the day surgeries.
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  You know, like flush your tubes take, right?
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  And I was maxed out on 250 milligrams of Clomid and I was
• 7:22
  maxed out on Provera. And I hit the point where the
• 7:26
  infertility doctor said IVF is next.
• 7:30
  And I said Nope. Now, I was also 20 and I had
• 7:35
  started this, you know, I mean, I had my first daughter when I
• 7:38
  was 21. I was married at 19.
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  Crazy, crazy stuff. Wouldn't recommend to most
• 7:43
  people, but just so young, just really, really.
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  But it was the plan to get pregnant.
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  And after a year of nothing, no policies, no miscarriages,
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  nothing. You know, I went into
• 7:54
  infertility. We wanted to have kids.
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  So I knew that wasn't my path and I'm glad I did.
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  And for for couples who continue on through IVFI mean bless you
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  because I just was done. I was tapped, tapped out and in
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  weaning me off of the medication and doing my blood work.
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  He was this little Asian guy. I'm I'm like almost 59.
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  So we're twins. And this little Asian guy comes
• 8:22
  in who is super quiet and introverted and he hugged me and
• 8:27
  it was very not characteristic. And he said, well, your blood
• 8:31
  work, I don't know how this happened, but you're pregnant
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  off of the cycle that we forced your body on.
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  Wow. I don't know if you'll ever get
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  pregnant again. And I knew I would never walk
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  into a fertility specialist's office again.
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  I bring this up for a specific reason I'll get to.
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  And he said expect to have a really rough pregnancy and you
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  have a higher rate of miscarriage.
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  It's so fascinating because they don't know so much about all of
• 9:04
  Women's Health and hormones, but there were things that were said
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  to me where I was like where did that come from?
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  But think I'm thankful that it did because I was.
• 9:13
  I was able to get pregnant 7 times.
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  I lost 3 pregnancies, 4 babies and three pregnancies and the
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  last one was twins at 16 weeks and a hysterectomy at 33.
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  So definitely my body ran the gamut, but I delivered four
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  times and when I had that hysterectomy, the doctor was
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  like, I don't know how you got pregnant and maintained
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  pregnancies. I don't know what he saw to make
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  him say that to me, but I felt very blessed that I had had
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  those four and I had very rough pregnancies.
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  Miscarriages weren't as challenging because he said that
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  to me. He said you have a higher rate
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  of miscarriage. So like in my mind, but here's
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  the question from somebody going through infertility, why did he
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  not assign a therapist to couples going through it?
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  Because holy how when you walk in that door, starting this
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  process already feeling like you mentioned shame, fear, guilt,
• 10:04
  failure, like you know that your body doesn't function.
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  I got to have my hysterectomy and I'm like, what about me
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  makes me a woman? I don't have I I don't have it
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  uterus or cervix. And I had recommendation.
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  Nothing female about me is real. It's gone, you know, like, and
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  that was later at 33. So I started this at 20.
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  So you're talking about years of feeling inadequate.
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  And why do they not? I mean, I know you can't answer
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  that. It's rhetorical, but you went
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  through this process enough to completely change the trajectory
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  of your job. And then what happens?
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  Like you said, we had our first baby in 2019.
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  We're the lucky ones. We're the ones that have the
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  positive, like no matter what you've gone through, we had the
• 10:55
  positive result. I and so it's challenging for me
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  to look at people. There are infertility doulas,
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  which I never got into, but I did get into adoption, surrogacy
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  and bereavement because those were very painful for me and I
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  wanted to help people. You went in a different
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  direction because of that. I think every couple going
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  through infertility, you do not realize how much of a train
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  wreck it is, how hard it is physically and emotionally, how
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  much it. I mean, just being on Clomid, I
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  felt like somebody had taken over my body or dropped me.
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  Like I felt like a psycho and I had no control.
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  And I'd slam a cabinet door and then be like, Oh my gosh, I'm so
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  sorry. Like I, I don't even understand
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  who I am anymore. There are all these crazy things
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  that you go through and I didn't even do the shots in the in
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  vitro. The the path that you guys took.
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  You kept going, right. And that marriage did end in
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  divorce. And was it because of that?
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  Well, that was at least a big drop in the bucket.
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  Was it the only thing? Probably not.
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  But were we prepared, especially at our at our age, Are people
• 12:07
  prepared going through this regardless of age?
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  They're not. So, I mean, so many stories like
• 12:15
  that, right? Of people who just like, yeah, I
• 12:17
  had my first daughter and by the time she was a year old, I was a
• 12:20
  single mom. That was not the plan, right?
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  So I, I really, really want you to dive in.
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  I think maybe touch on how therapy could have or did help
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  'cause you mentioned you had a therapist during the infertility
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  process. Like how vital that is.
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  And then how in the world did you guys have a better
• 12:41
  relationship? Because like how nothing in that
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  situation made anything in my life better except that I got a
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  child in the end, right? Oh yeah, yeah, there's a lot to
• 12:54
  unpack. There a lot to unpack there,
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  right? Yeah.
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  No, I don't know. That's good.
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  I'm. Derailing.
• 13:00
  I am, I am here for it. I'm here for it, Jennifer for
• 13:02
  sure. So yeah, I think I'll start with
• 13:08
  talking about therapy, therapy during infertility.
• 13:13
  But also, you know, I think a lot of your listeners too are,
• 13:17
  are parents and their, and their navigating the journey of
• 13:20
  parenthood and, and, and, and all of that too.
• 13:23
  And, you know, it's very adjacent to the infertility
• 13:26
  experience. I think, I think that people
• 13:29
  should have a therapist for for the infertility experience and
• 13:33
  also when they become a parent for the first time, because that
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  changes everything. You go from being completely,
• 13:40
  you know, independent to to now being having somebody dependent
• 13:44
  on you and also you love them and you're feeling and
• 13:48
  experiencing this love and also expectations for yourself and
• 13:53
  that are not always helpful. We haven't even touched that.
• 13:55
  And then like and then you become a parent.
• 13:58
  Yep. Yeah, exactly.
• 14:00
  Exactly. So yeah, I actually, I started
• 14:05
  therapy with with somebody new, a gentleman who's just an
• 14:08
  incredible guy and he and his wife are going through IVF and
• 14:12
  he said I need somebody to process this with.
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  He said, but also if this works, if we have a baby, I'm going to
• 14:17
  need somebody to help me with that.
• 14:20
  So. Basically just get one and keep
• 14:22
  them for. And a secret, too, Jennifer, is
• 14:26
  that every therapist has a therapist, you know?
• 14:30
  But, you know, because, yeah, what does it say about how we
• 14:34
  see our work if we don't access it too, you know, for ourselves?
• 14:39
  But going back to your your question, you know, should
• 14:42
  should somebody be there to walk with you through that, through
• 14:45
  the infertility experience? 100%.
• 14:48
  And I think that more and more fertility clinics are coming on
• 14:52
  board to the idea that mental health is having a huge impact
• 14:56
  on people's lives as they navigate be trying to become a
• 14:59
  parent. On my podcast Love and
• 15:01
  Infertility, my wife and I interviewed our fertility Dr.
• 15:06
  and I'm really excited for that episode that's coming out in a
• 15:08
  couple of weeks. But she is incredible and she
• 15:12
  talks about how people are just now.
• 15:14
  This is 2026, Jennifer, and like O BS and fertility doctors are
• 15:18
  just now coming on board to oh, wow.
• 15:21
  Like this is a holistic impact, you know that infertility is
• 15:25
  having on somebody. You know it.
• 15:26
  And it's not just having a baby. There's all these other it's not
• 15:31
  just like for me, it wasn't just having Jonah and Isaac are two
• 15:34
  boys, but it was about me becoming a father and my wife
• 15:37
  becoming a mother and and these identity shifts that we desire
• 15:44
  for ourselves, but also maybe don't get in the way that we
• 15:47
  think will happen. So yeah, 100%.
• 15:51
  I think that I think that on if, if that's something that people
• 15:55
  want to access, then I wish it could be more available for
• 15:58
  folks. Me too and I just think the
• 16:00
  suggestion like no one even suggested that, you know that
• 16:07
  because like, I don't know what this medication is going to do.
• 16:10
  I don't know how these days surgeries, the IVF or the shots
• 16:14
  are like all. I don't know how it's going to
• 16:16
  impact me physically, first of all, which is huge.
• 16:19
  And then emotionally I, I'm not. There's nothing that prepares
• 16:24
  you. You're just kind of like a cog
• 16:26
  in the wheel. You know, you're just, you're
• 16:27
  just like, here I am. Put me on the conveyor belt of
• 16:30
  standard of care of the things that I need to do to check the
• 16:33
  boxes. Not even factoring in how you
• 16:38
  feel going into infertility and then how you feel going through
• 16:43
  it. And then, yeah.
• 16:44
  I mean, how dare you ever struggle being a parent when it
• 16:48
  took you so much to become one? Yeah, yeah.
• 16:53
  That's why postpartum anxiety and postpartum depression is so
• 16:56
  common when we go through infertility and we have a baby.
• 16:59
  I went through that. That postpartum anxiety was so
• 17:02
  'cause I thought that, oh, I don't have a right to, to be
• 17:06
  anxious or I don't have a right to be sad that I haven't slept
• 17:09
  in two days or, or whatever. You know, I don't have a right
• 17:12
  to complain. It's like my my grandmother used
• 17:14
  to say, don't pray for, pray for rain.
• 17:17
  What's that? Don't pray for patients.
• 17:20
  Yeah, you're. A child.
• 17:22
  That's what my grandmother said. Yeah, yeah.
• 17:24
  Don't pray for. Rain, yeah.
• 17:26
  But yeah, don't pray for rain and complain about the mud,
• 17:30
  yeah. I mean, kind of, but still.
• 17:33
  I mean, toddlers are little terrorists.
• 17:35
  They are, They are. And it's so hard, yeah.
• 17:39
  And that's why that that postpartum depression and
• 17:42
  anxiety is so common is because we stuff it down and then we
• 17:44
  don't have the ability to process it.
• 17:46
  And so it yeah. And, and through it all, just to
• 17:49
  circle all the way back to your question of how do couples come
• 17:52
  together through that? My research, I've studied about
• 17:56
  1000 couples going through this, served hundreds in therapy.
• 18:00
  And I have found that there are four things, four things that
• 18:05
  really determine whether or not couples get on board together or
• 18:09
  or jump ship through that process.
• 18:11
  The first one is what we call mindful attunement.
• 18:14
  So attunement, Jennifer is just feeling like my partner gets me
• 18:20
  and gets my internal world and cares for me and I get them and
• 18:24
  know them and, and their hopes and dreams and fears and and all
• 18:27
  of that. The mindful piece is all about
• 18:29
  slowing down, slowing down and hearing your emotions,
• 18:35
  validating them, showing care without being reactive, without
• 18:37
  being defensive. You know, it's interesting that
• 18:41
  one of the best predictors of connection through infertility.
• 18:43
  I did a study two years ago and one of the best predictors in
• 18:47
  this sample size was humility. So just setting my ego aside and
• 18:53
  not being defensive and showing care and showing giving olive
• 18:56
  branches back and forth because you never, you never have
• 19:00
  connection with your partner. When you're right, you know,
• 19:06
  the, the temptation to want to be right is, is there, but
• 19:11
  whenever we lose together, that's when we can have a, a
• 19:15
  mindful attunement back and forth.
• 19:17
  The second thing is navigating the conflict that comes out, the
• 19:21
  decisional conflict of do we do adoption?
• 19:24
  Do we not do adoption? Do we, how do we pay for
• 19:26
  treatment? Who do we tell?
• 19:28
  Who do we not tell? All of these really just
• 19:33
  difficult decisions. And you know, so many couples
• 19:35
  that I serve in therapy have decision fatigue because it's
• 19:37
  just one thing after another. And a part of that is navigating
• 19:42
  your heightened conflict when you had mentioned, like you had
• 19:46
  slammed a cabinet door and you were like, who is this person?
• 19:49
  You know, we changed so much through that process.
• 19:52
  And so just being able to take our conflict and turning it from
• 19:56
  A10 down to a six. The third one is uncovering what
• 20:03
  are our dreams for parenthood and why are they there and doing
• 20:08
  it together. Why do you want to become a mom?
• 20:11
  Where does that come from for you?
• 20:13
  Here's why I want to be a dad and here's here's my thoughts
• 20:17
  around that. Here are my values or my
• 20:18
  passions or or whatever. Because really a good couple of
• 20:22
  connection is about taking what the hell is that and turning it
• 20:25
  into, hey, what's that? What's behind that for you?
• 20:31
  If I were to see you slam that cabinet door instead of saying,
• 20:33
  whoa, what the hell, what are you doing?
• 20:35
  It's hey, what's what's going on?
• 20:37
  What's going on? And then you could say, well, I
• 20:39
  feel like I'm about to crawl out of my body, you know?
• 20:43
  And then the last one, Jennifer's just, you got to keep
• 20:46
  the bedroom alive. You got to keep good sex.
• 20:49
  So hard. I mean, I remember basal body
• 20:52
  temperature every morning and my my little piece of paper that
• 20:56
  was on my night stand and have sex every other day and the
• 21:00
  thing that was like dessert in the relationship, right?
• 21:02
  The best part, the only this person and I are experiencing
• 21:08
  regardless how great you have friends outside of this
• 21:11
  relationship like this is this intimacy is what makes it
• 21:14
  really, really separate from all other relationships.
• 21:18
  One of the things and having that feel like a chore, you
• 21:23
  know, like I and I remember feeling that way like we need to
• 21:27
  have sex today because it's an every other day thing.
• 21:30
  We don't want your sperm count too low or too high.
• 21:33
  And we need to be consistent. And I need to write it down on
• 21:35
  my freaking chart. And there was nothing fun.
• 21:39
  I mean, it was the most fun 'cause we met in college when
• 21:42
  things were always fun and married.
• 21:44
  And you know, like it was a big part of our relationship, the
• 21:48
  sexual part of it. And when it became a chore like
• 21:51
  that is the the worst feeling that like this best, most fun
• 21:56
  part of your relationship is now a chore that you have to check
• 21:59
  off this box. So I agree with, I agree with
• 22:03
  all of that. And I don't think we're I don't
• 22:06
  think couples are like I was not introspective.
• 22:09
  I'm guessing other people are not like what am I feeling when
• 22:13
  I slam that cabinet door? I don't maybe have control over
• 22:16
  the hormones that are massively flooding my body and at least
• 22:21
  vocalize it. It was literally like I I was
• 22:25
  need crawling out of my skin. Like I just felt like someone
• 22:28
  had put my personality in a foreign body and I didn't really
• 22:31
  like the body that much. It was terrible.
• 22:34
  I didn't like it. All of those things.
• 22:38
  I mean, the battle is because there are all these physical,
• 22:42
  like legitimately physical things happening to a woman's
• 22:45
  body and as a side result are creating some of the emotional
• 22:50
  parts of it. Just hormones in general, that
• 22:53
  flooding of hormones. And then the those feelings of
• 22:58
  fear and guilt and shame and that were there before that are
• 23:01
  still there. That you have that I have that
• 23:04
  we're not talking about that we're not even putting a name in
• 23:07
  a face to, you know, we're not even recognizing that this is
• 23:11
  this is playing in the background constantly.
• 23:16
  So hard for these couples, so hard to to go through.
• 23:20
  So I love that you did the study and that you're that you realize
• 23:24
  I'm surprised by humility and I don't know why I'm surprised by
• 23:27
  that. I like, I don't know what you
• 23:29
  were going to say, didn't even know you were going to say it,
• 23:32
  but I, but I also found myself surprised, like really?
• 23:36
  And the first thought I had was that's it.
• 23:38
  That's like, that's what we're missing.
• 23:41
  Like I now it has a face and a name.
• 23:44
  Oh, well, I can work on that. I can work on those
• 23:48
  conversations, right? So how, what, what are some of
• 23:52
  the top things that come up with you and your personal experience
• 23:56
  and with other couples? Because there's got to be like
• 24:00
  constant threads happening. Sex, I'm sure, is one of them.
• 24:03
  We've right, it's a chore. Yeah, I think another one,
• 24:10
  another big 1 is when we just have different ways of seeing
• 24:16
  how emotions play out. You know, they when I'm working
• 24:20
  with with a husband and a wife that are just struggling to get
• 24:24
  pregnant, you know, it's not, this is not Clay trying to be
• 24:32
  stereotypical. This is just what I see in the
• 24:34
  therapy space that that the wife is very emotive and expressive
• 24:37
  with her emotions and husband is just stoic and stone faced and
• 24:43
  she is like, what are you feeling?
• 24:45
  You know, I just want to know what you're feeling.
• 24:46
  I feel so distant from you. And he's like, I just want to be
• 24:51
  here to support you. And this is this what my
• 24:55
  research shows is what we called well intended chivalry, which is
• 24:58
  where men push down their own emotions and their own wishes,
• 25:03
  hopes, everything so that they can quote UN quote, be there for
• 25:08
  my wife to lift up her needs and her emotions.
• 25:11
  And a lot of men feel like that they don't have a right to speak
• 25:16
  up because it's not, you know, they're not enduring the, the
• 25:19
  shots and the, the, the medications.
• 25:21
  And so they feel like it's almost like a way of like
• 25:25
  punishing themselves, like they'll just like push down
• 25:27
  their own emotions. But also they don't want to be a
• 25:30
  burden to their wives, which is ironic because their wives are
• 25:35
  like, no, this is not a burden. This is a way for me to feel
• 25:37
  connected to you. And so it's this talking, not
• 25:41
  talking, but almost like living past each other, You know, that
• 25:48
  I see, I see quite a bit. So one of the first things that
• 25:50
  I do, Jennifer, is, is help couples just start talking about
• 25:54
  what they're feeling and being able to be mindful about it.
• 25:58
  Being able to hold 22 realities, 2 truths at the same time.
• 26:03
  Your hope doesn't have to rule out my fear.
• 26:05
  My fear doesn't have to extinguish your hope.
• 26:08
  We can be curious about it and that's when we can start to help
• 26:12
  each other to feel seen. That's very different from being
• 26:16
  seen or being heard. Having this subjective
• 26:19
  experience that I am being listened to and I am being cared
• 26:23
  about, I think that is a huge, huge dynamic that I see quite a
• 26:30
  bit. And then once we do that, then
• 26:33
  it's like no matter what comes your way, we can handle it, you
• 26:36
  know, in our relationship. It would have been a relief to
• 26:41
  have heard the male perspective. I love having men on the podcast
• 26:45
  because I feel like that perspective is 1.
• 26:50
  Just not heard very often. And two can be different than we
• 26:55
  they expect it to be or more intense than it we anticipate.
• 27:00
  And I would have felt less alone in my emotion if I had had that,
• 27:09
  if I had, if you had said to me, this is how I'm feeling going
• 27:13
  through. So I get the stoic.
• 27:14
  It's like your dad or your older brother, right, right.
• 27:16
  I'm like they want a caveman it and and we kind of I mean we put
• 27:23
  a lot of I think men and women put a lot of pressure on those
• 27:26
  ideal ideals of what masculinity means.
• 27:29
  And yes, she is going through it and all of those things, but you
• 27:32
  it's very isolating infertility, miscarriage loss, like those
• 27:38
  things are can be very isolating for a woman and immediately
• 27:43
  emotional. There's a stat I, I'd love for
• 27:46
  your feedback on this. When a woman experienced A
• 27:49
  miscarriage, like immediately, not only does she have the
• 27:52
  physical hormones and all that stuff, but like immediately she
• 27:56
  feels the loss and the shame, the regret and all of that.
• 28:00
  Men on average don't feel that for about 18 months.
• 28:03
  And I think that's because they allow it.
• 28:05
  They don't allow that to happen. OK, so like, yeah, right.
• 28:09
  We're talking about the same situation.
• 28:11
  So it isn't that you are not feeling those things, it's that
• 28:17
  you are holding them off so until you have a safe chance to
• 28:21
  do it. And why can't we create that now
• 28:23
  in the same moment? Right, right.
• 28:26
  And that's one of the biggest things that my wife Marjorie and
• 28:29
  I did that that I that I noticed was a big turning point whenever
• 28:34
  I stopped trying to rescue her out of her pain and instead just
• 28:40
  validated it. I called it, you know, like
• 28:42
  holding wet soap like I was, I was trying to like, grab, you
• 28:46
  know, her emotions, like, don't feel that, you know, that's
• 28:48
  horrible. Like, you know, here's my love
• 28:50
  of my life, the love of my life, like crying and sobbing and, and
• 28:54
  having panic attacks. And I'm.
• 28:55
  And I'm just desperate to try to save her from that, but I can't.
• 28:59
  The best thing that I can do is hold the soap gently and just
• 29:03
  validate it and say, you know what?
• 29:04
  This sucks. And gosh, I'm feeling pretty
• 29:07
  overwhelmed too. And I'm here for you.
• 29:09
  And I love you. Yeah.
• 29:12
  Fix it. I like to fix it.
• 29:14
  I'm a fixer. I like to fix.
• 29:15
  It yeah, that's fair. That's fair.
• 29:18
  And sometimes you just can't. You just have to be, you just
• 29:21
  have to, you know, there's no way past it but through or that
• 29:27
  sort of thing. And it's going to be hard, you
• 29:30
  know? So I love that through your
• 29:34
  therapy model, you're allowing people to also just accept that
• 29:39
  they're experiencing it, whatever it is.
• 29:44
  I don't think often we give ourselves or each other
• 29:47
  permission. And you're doing that for men
• 29:49
  specifically too. Like just being told like, hey,
• 29:55
  it's OK to feel this way. I understand why.
• 29:59
  And you should and you can. And there is, there's the,
• 30:03
  there's getting through it too, because we don't, we don't give
• 30:07
  ourselves permission. No, you know it.
• 30:13
  And there's so much shame behind that.
• 30:16
  There's so much shame and and being for men at least, there's
• 30:19
  a lot of weakness. Yeah.
• 30:23
  You know, the, the, the little boy that's quote UN quote overly
• 30:27
  emotive is the boy that gets picked on.
• 30:29
  And that's how masculinity works, you know, and a lot of
• 30:33
  times and when men get together in groups that when they first
• 30:36
  get to know each other, there's like a jockeying for power.
• 30:39
  Like there's like a we try to one up each other who's.
• 30:42
  The Alpha Man stories, Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
• 30:44
  You know, just little subtle things.
• 30:47
  But just recognizing that, that, that that dynamic is there can
• 30:50
  be really powerful for men. You know, whenever I realize
• 30:53
  that, you know, whatever I'm feeling doesn't determine my
• 30:57
  worth to my wife, it's actually outside of that.
• 31:02
  That was pretty powerful. But that took a lot of therapy
• 31:04
  work. That took a lot of
• 31:05
  introspection. And you know, there are a lot of
• 31:10
  guys that are willingly coming to therapy now, though that are
• 31:15
  what I'm saying willingly. I'm not saying like we.
• 31:18
  Tried them by the hair previously but now.
• 31:21
  Right. But yeah, I see a lot of guys
• 31:23
  who are recognizing that something's not right and I need
• 31:27
  to talk about it. And I think it's a beautiful
• 31:29
  thing just being able to talk about it.
• 31:32
  Like you mentioned, Jennifer, you're a problem solver.
• 31:33
  And that's so fair. My wife is too, which is great.
• 31:38
  You know. And before we get to the problem
• 31:42
  solving in our couple relationships, it's good to know
• 31:46
  the why. Why do you feel like that this
• 31:49
  problem exists? Why do you have this position on
• 31:52
  this problem, etcetera, etcetera.
• 31:54
  That could really help our connection.
• 31:57
  So yeah. I think, I mean, it's incredible
• 32:01
  because this is fertility rates are going up, so infertility is
• 32:08
  more common. I think it's also some things
• 32:11
  even if they're not more common, they're more spoken about.
• 32:14
  So I think there's a combination happening.
• 32:16
  But definitely infertility rates have gone up, people becoming
• 32:21
  parents at older ages. I think it's also on the rise,
• 32:24
  which I mean, I'm 55, so when I was 2021, I was in that Gen.
• 32:31
  X where a lot of us had kids young.
• 32:33
  It was not uncommon. I definitely was not the
• 32:37
  youngest among people I graduated or went to college
• 32:40
  with. And it wasn't like unplanned and
• 32:43
  shocking and unwanted. You know, it was very different
• 32:47
  back then. And now I'm seeing people go
• 32:50
  older and older. And so that can contribute to
• 32:55
  fertility rates as well. You guys got pregnant and had
• 32:59
  your first baby. So tell me about your IVF
• 33:01
  experience. And then you have a second son.
• 33:04
  So I want to know how that, I mean, I know how that happened,
• 33:07
  but like, did you have to go back to IVF?
• 33:08
  Because so many people, the second they start the adoption
• 33:11
  process, the second they decide not to do something, they're
• 33:16
  pregnant, right? That whole, well, do we
• 33:18
  emotionally finally relax enough that our bodies felt safe and
• 33:21
  could get pregnant? I, I don't know.
• 33:25
  Or that once you have a pregnancy, like for me, I got, I
• 33:28
  did not have a problem getting pregnant after that first one.
• 33:31
  My body was like, oh, I don't know what to do.
• 33:34
  Now we've got this, we can, we can do it on our own.
• 33:38
  So tell me about your experience with IVF.
• 33:41
  Yeah, yeah. So both of our boys are IVF
• 33:45
  babies, Jonah and Isaac. And they're, they're six and
• 33:48
  three now. And they're just, they're the
• 33:50
  best boys. They're so they're so great.
• 33:53
  And they're stinkers, really. They're truly stinkers at this
• 33:58
  age, but they're so great. And yeah, so we actually went
• 34:02
  through male factory infertility.
• 34:05
  So I grew up in Kentucky, a lot of pesticides, you know, in, in
• 34:11
  rural Kentucky, which is, you know, part of the reason why
• 34:15
  also, you know, I'm very confident that, you know, diet
• 34:20
  was a part of that. And you know, there's other
• 34:22
  others, all kinds of factors that research is coming out and,
• 34:25
  and telling us about our our reproductive health.
• 34:29
  But I remember Jennifer, whenever they, they being the
• 34:34
  nurses came into our exam room and they were just going to run,
• 34:38
  run my sperm analysis one more time.
• 34:40
  And my wife had been in test after test after test and it was
• 34:43
  just assumed that she was the quote UN quote problem.
• 34:47
  And so whatever then always. Yeah, 100%.
• 34:51
  Yeah. So whenever the nurses just
• 34:54
  swung open the door and they were like, oh, it looks like
• 34:56
  it's male factor infertility. Who knew?
• 34:58
  You know. Yeah.
• 35:00
  And it was like, like, they were telling me who won, who won the
• 35:03
  baseball game today or something, you know?
• 35:06
  And they were like, you guys are going to have to go through IVFI
• 35:08
  can remember the striped shirt that my wife was wearing, the
• 35:12
  little K cups over here. I remember the smell of the
• 35:14
  room. I remember the arrangement of
• 35:16
  the room. I remember everything because it
• 35:19
  was like, it's like, oh, my gosh, this is my fault.
• 35:23
  And whenever we were walking out to the car, I was looking down
• 35:29
  at the ground and my wife was like, are you OK?
• 35:31
  And I was like, don't look at me.
• 35:32
  Don't look at me. I was and I was just overwhelmed
• 35:38
  with Shane. So we we work through that.
• 35:44
  I work through that. All the things that we have
• 35:46
  talked about so far in this episode, you know, processing
• 35:49
  those emotions and, and just naming them out loud.
• 35:53
  And we did we did eventually get pregnant with Jonah, had Jonah,
• 36:01
  and then we had Isaac three years later, another transfer.
• 36:05
  And after that transfer something so or excuse me, after
• 36:10
  Isaac was born, something wasn't quite right.
• 36:12
  Marjorie kept bleeding and she kept she was like something's
• 36:15
  not right. And she had an emergency
• 36:19
  hysterectomy about two weeks after Isaac was born.
• 36:24
  And she's, you know, it's it just really moved me.
• 36:28
  Jennifer, when you talked about how you didn't feel like, you
• 36:32
  know, feminine enough, like you've lost a part of your
• 36:34
  womanhood. And Marjorie, my wife is she's
• 36:36
  expressed the same thing that she feels like a part of her
• 36:39
  womanhood is gone. And so that was a grieving
• 36:44
  process too. So it's just this roller coaster
• 36:46
  of this hope and anxiety and shame and now grief and now joy
• 36:50
  and, and it's, and yeah, it was just a roller coaster through
• 36:57
  that. I went through a lot of
• 36:58
  postpartum anxiety. My wife went through postpartum
• 37:01
  depression. And we, we talked through that.
• 37:05
  We, we dialogued about that and and and now we have a first
• 37:10
  grader. So it's it moves fast.
• 37:14
  It moves fast. I mean, my oldest daughter's 34,
• 37:16
  I, I'm not even 34, so I'm not sure how that happened, but.
• 37:20
  Yeah, for sure, right. There I don't understand.
• 37:24
  Crazy. Wow, So that was that was it for
• 37:28
  you guys as far as unless you did some sort of surrogacy, did
• 37:32
  she keep her ovaries? Yes.
• 37:35
  Yeah, I did too. I, I, I know it's like a random
• 37:38
  side question. It makes a big difference for
• 37:40
  the women going through a history.
• 37:42
  It does. So I'm always like, so hard,
• 37:47
  holy cow, so hard and so blessed too.
• 37:57
  Yeah. And I, and I think that what I
• 37:59
  really want your listeners to hear is that we were, we were
• 38:05
  blessed, yes, because we were able to have children.
• 38:08
  And also I think we're blessed because our marriage survived
• 38:11
  and thrived. And it, infertility takes away
• 38:18
  so much. It takes away, it can take away
• 38:21
  your dream of becoming apparent. It can take away your present
• 38:25
  living. It can take away your finances.
• 38:30
  It can take away your other relationships.
• 38:32
  And but it doesn't have to steal that intimate partnership that
• 38:37
  you have with your spouse. So it's but you know, like, like
• 38:43
  you, like you had mentioned Jennifer, you and your
• 38:45
  ex-husband, there were things going on before and that's, you
• 38:49
  know, like you said that that was a infertility was a drop in
• 38:52
  the bucket. But there were other things
• 38:53
  going on. And I see that a lot with
• 38:54
  couples too. But there's it's not just
• 38:57
  infertility. There's other maybe
• 38:59
  communication issues there. Yeah.
• 39:03
  And I think it's easy to not. And This is why I think it's so
• 39:07
  important. I like so strongly believe that
• 39:10
  you should have a therapist because you feel like your
• 39:13
  relationship is on track generally.
• 39:16
  I mean, when we went in, in fertility, we might have been
• 39:18
  young, but we, you know, we had had time together, we had a plan
• 39:22
  together. We had a great relationship at
• 39:26
  the time. So you think I don't, I feel
• 39:29
  like infertility, that process and it's usually long, a long
• 39:34
  process. I mean, I went, it was 10 months
• 39:36
  was a lot of medication. You know, it's not like you go
• 39:39
  to the doctor and the next month you're pregnant.
• 39:41
  That's not usually what happens. It's really drawn out and
• 39:44
  emotional or IVF fails or things, right.
• 39:49
  So the pregnancy loss is really high.
• 39:53
  I just, I feel like I always say alcohol and money, but I'll I'll
• 39:58
  add infertility into this. They don't change you, they
• 40:01
  expose you. I.
• 40:03
  Like that? Right, because when people are
• 40:05
  like, well, I hit her because I had alcohol.
• 40:08
  You know what, I've been real drunk and never wanted to hit
• 40:10
  anybody. That's you.
• 40:12
  That's part of who you are that you don't allow to come out.
• 40:16
  It's money and alcohol. But also like really stressful
• 40:20
  situations like infertility, I don't think they do change you.
• 40:24
  I'm not minimizing or putting bring this into like one bucket.
• 40:28
  This is the answer. But what it what they, they
• 40:31
  definitely expose what's wrong with your relationship in other
• 40:35
  areas. Because if your communication is
• 40:37
  not great, if your marriage is not as strong, if there are
• 40:39
  things that you haven't worked through, even if you didn't
• 40:42
  recognize you needed to, let me tell you, something like
• 40:45
  infertility is going to bring that stuff up to the surface,
• 40:48
  bubbling in ways that you do not expect.
• 40:52
  And so when I say that there were other issues, yes, there
• 40:55
  were. I wouldn't have known that.
• 40:57
  I don't know how long we would have stayed married if I'd
• 40:59
  gotten pregnant naturally or we hadn't decided, you know, to to
• 41:05
  do infertility at that. If we had been like, you know
• 41:07
  what, we're going to wait five years.
• 41:08
  Our marriage isn't at this. We're we're young, our marriage
• 41:11
  isn't ready. Would it have?
• 41:14
  It would have been significantly different, but had we not worked
• 41:16
  through that, it would have revealed it.
• 41:18
  Infertility reveals the things in your marriage that aren't
• 41:22
  going well because it there's no place to hide when you're that
• 41:25
  raw, when there's much going on. So I think there are just
• 41:29
  certain things in life that expose who you are.
• 41:32
  They reveal who you are or what's happening in ways that
• 41:36
  otherwise wouldn't have happened.
• 41:38
  I. Like that?
• 41:39
  Yeah, that really makes sense. And and too, it's kind of like
• 41:43
  it's like it's the X-ray, right? It doesn't have to mean like if
• 41:48
  you get a broken bone, you don't have to chop, chop the arm off,
• 41:50
  you know, it's OK. So IVF, miscarriage, perinatal
• 41:56
  loss reveals this in our relationship.
• 41:59
  What are we going to do about? It and then what right there
• 42:02
  isn't an and then what you, you are, you can't, you're not going
• 42:07
  to work through that. Right, right.
• 42:10
  And here is where the where the humility piece comes into.
• 42:12
  Play OK, I I'm good. I'm glad you're circling.
• 42:15
  Yes. Yeah, yeah.
• 42:16
  Because if we, you have to say, my wife and I are looking at
• 42:22
  this metaphorical X-ray of our relationship.
• 42:26
  We take a look at it. Now we're just both of us are
• 42:29
  looking at it. We're seeing it for what it is.
• 42:31
  And then I look at her and I'm just like, look at all the
• 42:33
  things you got to change, man. You know, then, and that's not
• 42:38
  going to put us in a good place. But if we look at this and, and,
• 42:41
  and I say, whoa, this is what I'm bringing to the relationship
• 42:45
  to really make it unhealthy. I'm committed to working on
• 42:48
  that, you know, full stop. And because what that's going to
• 42:53
  do is that's going to endless, you know, somebody's a
• 42:56
  narcissist, you know, but usually it's going to be an
• 42:59
  olive branch to to your partner just to say the same.
• 43:02
  We have to lose to win together. That's why whenever I end a
• 43:08
  sessions, especially a really heated session with couples, I
• 43:12
  invite them to say, OK, and I'll turn and look at each other and
• 43:16
  tell your partner what you want to work on this week based on
• 43:19
  what you heard. And don't leave this room until
• 43:24
  your partner feels like you get it.
• 43:27
  So I think that's the humility piece, I think, yeah.
• 43:33
  Wow, I'm glad that you brought that back around.
• 43:36
  Tell me I want to end on some success because you've done a
• 43:40
  lot of research and statistics. Throw us something that feels
• 43:45
  really good in this heavy conversation.
• 43:48
  Yeah, absolutely. Here's something I I, I have
• 43:53
  only So I've been doing this work for a while, and this is
• 43:56
  not me Tooting on my horn. This is because I've had the
• 43:59
  privilege of working with the best couples in the world.
• 44:02
  I've been doing this for years now.
• 44:03
  I've only seen three divorces and which is incredible.
• 44:08
  Here's the good news. This is the good news.
• 44:11
  I want to, I want to give you Jennifer.
• 44:13
  I think there's a cultural shift in our country about taking our
• 44:21
  relationships very seriously early, you know, and because I,
• 44:27
  I'm, I'm seeing more and more couples that are maybe just
• 44:31
  diagnosed with infertility or just had a miscarriage like a
• 44:35
  few weeks before and they're like, hey, we're, I think we're
• 44:38
  doing OK right now, but man, this was a hard thing and we
• 44:41
  need to talk about it, you know? So I think that's happening more
• 44:46
  and more and, and that just that's only helpful, you know,
• 44:52
  So, yeah. And and two, if another thing, I
• 44:59
  think it's really, really important to to recognize that
• 45:04
  infertility reveals, which by the way, I'm going to steal that
• 45:07
  Jennifer, I'm I'm going to I'm going to quote you.
• 45:09
  I'm going to quote you. I hope it's OK.
• 45:12
  But it, it reveals things about your intimate relationship, but
• 45:17
  also about the relationships with your friends and with your
• 45:21
  with your family. Because there are folks that
• 45:24
  that I shared my infertility journey with other guys and I
• 45:27
  did not feel cared for. I didn't feel like it was like,
• 45:33
  you know, if I if it can I be a little bit vulgar?
• 45:36
  OK, so one of one of my psych professors at Murray State down
• 45:40
  in Kentucky, he would say, you know, whenever assignments are
• 45:45
  getting close to the due date, he would say getting down to the
• 45:47
  nut cutting. So yeah, he was a he was a
• 45:50
  farmer too. So yeah, when it when it gets
• 45:54
  down to the nut cutting, you know, it's like who's going to
• 45:57
  stay with you and who is not going to be able to provide that
• 46:00
  for you. So I was able to discern that.
• 46:03
  And through that, I gained some incredibly deep friendships with
• 46:08
  some other guys feeling like that they have my back and, and
• 46:14
  we just, we have an incredibly deep friendship.
• 46:16
  So, and my hope and my prayer for your listeners, if they're
• 46:19
  going through this is if they find those people and, and yeah,
• 46:25
  and I hope that they're out there for everybody, truly.
• 46:28
  I. Thank you so much for being on.
• 46:30
  I appreciate you. I love your.
• 46:33
  Absolutely. I appreciate you, Jennifer.
• 46:34
  Thanks for having me.