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The Many Ways To Create A Family with Cheri Bergeron · The Trauma Therapist

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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Trauma divers podcast. My name is Guimingferson
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Speaker 1: and I interview incredible people who share the story of
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Speaker 1: how trauma has shaped their lives. And a big thank
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Speaker 1: you for sponsoring today's episode goes to my guest and
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Speaker 1: our sponsors. So five, four, three, two and one, our folks,
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Speaker 1: welcome back to the podcast. Very excited to have as
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Speaker 1: my guest today. Shari Brigeran Shuri.
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Speaker 2: Welcome, Thanks so much, guy, I appreciate it.
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Speaker 1: Shari is an author, blogger, public speaker, trained life coach,
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Speaker 1: and founder of the nonprofit Shari's Choice, guiding women through
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Speaker 1: alternative paths to motherhood. Following a successful career in IT,
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Speaker 1: Shuri now helps single women weigh their options, navigate fertility challenges,
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Speaker 1: and build families on their own terms. Her personal fertility
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Speaker 1: journey included becoming a mother without a partner through IVF
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Speaker 1: treatments and donor conception. She won a landmark Texas family
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Speaker 1: law case that challenged outdated legislation concerning families formed through
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Speaker 1: assisted reproduction. In her memoir Mission Motherhood, Shari shares her
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Speaker 1: experiences with relationships, workplace challenges, and choosing motherhood after forty
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Speaker 1: right seriouth a little bit about you, but to share
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Speaker 1: with the listeners where you're from originally and where you
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Speaker 1: are currently.
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Speaker 2: I've lived a few different places in my life. I
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Speaker 2: grew up in an idyllic setting in Columbus, Ohio, and
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Speaker 2: then my family made a big move to Texas, and
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Speaker 2: I've had kind of a love hate relationship with Texas
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Speaker 2: since then. I moved to cooler climates like the Bay
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Speaker 2: Area while I was pursuing my career, and ultimately ended
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Speaker 2: back here in Austin, Texas.
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Speaker 1: Okay, all right, so how did all this start for you?
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Speaker 2: This journey, this journey, Well, I mean, like so many women,
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Speaker 2: I really believed I could be anything, and so I
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Speaker 2: started my career with great vigor and passion. And I
2:07
Speaker 2: was in a great place to do that. I was
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Speaker 2: in the Silicon Valley, and I really just felt that
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Speaker 2: motherhood would come organically, come naturally by meeting the right person,
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Speaker 2: shouldn't it Exactly That's what we're led to believe, right
2:23
Speaker 2: at least I was. I was very fortunate to live
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Speaker 2: in a traditional household and had a two parent family,
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Speaker 2: and she didn't have any problems getting pregnant in her twenties,
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Speaker 2: and so this is just what I grew up with.
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Speaker 2: But I really did believe from a career perspective, I
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Speaker 2: could do anything and be anything. But I just really
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Speaker 2: felt that the family would come without a lot of effort.
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Speaker 2: It didn't turn out that way. And so for many years,
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Speaker 2: I say, I kind of kissed a lot of frogs.
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Speaker 2: I didn't really find the person that I felt great
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Speaker 2: about having kids with. That was always my litmus to,
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Speaker 2: you know, who is the right person to start a
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Speaker 2: family with, and so I kept kind of having false starts.
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Speaker 2: When it came to that, I kind of I kind
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Speaker 2: of say that it was like going around the monopoly
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Speaker 2: board and getting back to go every single time and
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Speaker 2: starting at square one. And so in my mid thirties
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Speaker 2: I really started to have tremendous pressure that if I'm
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Speaker 2: going to make a family happen, it better happens soon.
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Speaker 2: And so candidly, I picked what I like to call
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Speaker 2: mister Convenient versus you know, Prince convenient versus Prince Charming.
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Speaker 2: And so what happened is then I think, okay, well,
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Speaker 2: now I've got the formula, the babies are just going
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Speaker 2: to come. But they didn't, and so you know, I
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Speaker 2: got married at thirty six, thirty seven, no babies thirty eight,
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Speaker 2: no babies thirty nine, and so at forty I began
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Speaker 2: a journey of IVF and that's really where a lot
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Speaker 2: of the struggle happened. In terms of that is just
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Speaker 2: a process that has a lot of you get your
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Speaker 2: hopes up and you live your life in thirty day increments,
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Speaker 2: so you're very hopeful and then something happens and those
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Speaker 2: dreams are kind of dashed. And so I went through
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Speaker 2: that for seven long years.
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Speaker 1: Hang on a second, So not to mention the expense, right,
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Speaker 1: isn't it?
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Speaker 2: Oh it is a little bit pricey as well? Yes
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Speaker 2: it is. For me, that was sort of secondary and
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Speaker 2: I'm fortunate in that case because that was one benefit
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Speaker 2: of my career was that I had sort of money
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Speaker 2: that I could invest in it. The emotional tool was
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Speaker 2: far worse. But for so many people, yes, the money
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Speaker 2: is kind of a non starter right from the beginning.
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Speaker 1: So back up a second. When you said I chose
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Speaker 1: mister Prince Convenient over Prince Charming, I misinterpreted Prince Convenient
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Speaker 1: as an actual person. I thought that was the IVY
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Speaker 1: AP choice at that point, But it wasn't you, So
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Speaker 1: you chose.
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Speaker 2: I got married?
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Speaker 1: Yeah, so married? Yes, I just admittedly this was not
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Speaker 1: your ideal person. This was just someone I.
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Speaker 2: Would say, driven by a sense of urgency that are
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Speaker 2: which I think a lot of women can relate to.
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Speaker 2: It's like, okay, times running out here. Maybe you've been
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Speaker 2: a little bit. What you thought was selective in your
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Speaker 2: twenties is now picky in your thirties. So let's get
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Speaker 2: the show on the road. And so you know, I
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Speaker 2: married someone who find person not the right person for me,
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Speaker 2: and I think there were a lot of things I
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Speaker 2: would have probably done differently if I wasn't under the
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Speaker 2: pressure of the clock.
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Speaker 1: So talk more, if you will about the process of
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Speaker 1: the ups and downs of the IVF journey.
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Speaker 2: Sure, I think, And since we're talking about trauma, that's
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Speaker 2: one of the big places where really trauma came in.
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Speaker 2: So I had so through IVF you create and and
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Speaker 2: I elected to use an egg donor. So that was
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Speaker 2: kind of the first piece of loss because due to
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Speaker 2: my age, it was determined that it was risky to
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Speaker 2: use my own eggs. The quality would sort of potentially
6:16
Speaker 2: create issues. But I was really pleased to know that
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Speaker 2: there are egg donors as well as sperm donors available.
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Speaker 2: So we found an egg donor and you do that.
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Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, it's a whole different world.
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Speaker 1: Guy.
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Speaker 2: There are such things, and there are even egg donor banks.
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Speaker 2: I had never known about it before, but they do exist.
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Speaker 2: And the interesting thing about that is if you use
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Speaker 2: younger eggs, then the odds of pregnancy even in your
6:43
Speaker 2: forties are like that. If you used a twenty seven
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Speaker 2: year old eggs, your odds of a successful pregnancy are
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Speaker 2: that of a twenty seven year old. So it's amazing, right,
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Speaker 2: Are there.
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Speaker 1: Certain characteristics from these donors that you peruse or read through?
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Speaker 2: Yes, yes you can, and you can even you can
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Speaker 2: see of course, family genetics, you can see essays, you
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Speaker 2: can see pictures from childhood to adulthood. There's all kinds
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Speaker 2: of things like that. So we created these embryos and
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Speaker 2: were successful in getting pregnant, and at the second major sonogram,
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Speaker 2: I think it's right around the six month time, found
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Speaker 2: out that the baby had a very severe case of
7:30
Speaker 2: spinabifida and she would never walk or talk or be
7:35
Speaker 2: able to feed herself. She had very advanced symptoms even
7:40
Speaker 2: at that age, and we still had three months to go,
7:44
Speaker 2: and so I had to make the very difficult decision
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Speaker 2: to do a late stage termination. So that was one
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Speaker 2: very big piece of the trauma that I incurred. And
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Speaker 2: then rather than really trying to heal from that trauma,
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Speaker 2: when you feel the pressure of the clock, it's like, well,
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Speaker 2: let's just go again as soon as I can, and
8:07
Speaker 2: so you kind of just push it down, you push
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Speaker 2: it to the side. And so I got pregnant.
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Speaker 1: Again with different embryos and.
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Speaker 2: Different embryos, but what these were frozen embryos that you know,
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Speaker 2: we had stored, and so I implanted too. And by
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Speaker 2: this time my marriage had kind of crumbled due to
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Speaker 2: the loss and are really our fundamental incompatibility. And so
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Speaker 2: I am a single mother at this point, or you know,
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Speaker 2: undertaking single motherhood carrying twins, and very early they identified
8:48
Speaker 2: that there was an issue with my son, and so
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Speaker 2: I had baby A and baby B. Baby A was
8:56
Speaker 2: my son, baby B and my daughter, and so I
8:59
Speaker 2: entered into a very high risk pregnancy and it was
9:03
Speaker 2: very concerning because there were things we could tell. We
9:08
Speaker 2: didn't know if they were major, if they were minor,
9:11
Speaker 2: but we were constantly navigating them and there was a
9:13
Speaker 2: lot of uncertainty. Well we ended up let's see, we
9:18
Speaker 2: were at about thirty four weeks. We had to do
9:21
Speaker 2: an emergency c section and deliver them both because he
9:24
Speaker 2: was in distress. And what I came to find out
9:28
Speaker 2: was that he had in a genetic condition where his
9:31
Speaker 2: lungs didn't fully develop, and so he lived for nineteen days,
9:36
Speaker 2: and unfortunately I had to watch him suffer for nineteen days.
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Speaker 2: And so that was again. You know, another big part
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Speaker 2: of the trauma. One of my passions for telling this
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Speaker 2: story as difficult it as it is, is that we
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Speaker 2: found out later that the both of these deaths were
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Speaker 2: due to an undiagnosed genetic condition that my ex husband carried,
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Speaker 2: and the fertility clinic did not test him. They did
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Speaker 2: not feel it necessary to test him. So you know,
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Speaker 2: this really could have been prevented.
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Speaker 1: So okay, forgive my ignorance here. So why if these
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Speaker 1: were embryo, I mean you and your these were embryos from.
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Speaker 2: That you got we made, so you and your husband
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Speaker 2: made well with the egg donor and with his firm.
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Speaker 2: And when you go through this fertility stuff, guy, they
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Speaker 2: test the women like almost to the point of absurdity,
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Speaker 2: and in fact, they required him to take a STD test,
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Speaker 2: but not a genetic test. And so you know, this
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Speaker 2: is kind of one of my big passions is to
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Speaker 2: try to reach fertility clinics and talk about testing the
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Speaker 2: man because that was an important piece of information we
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Speaker 2: didn't have.
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Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah, now, Suri, my god. So what happens from there?
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Speaker 2: Well, fortunately my daughter survived, but we had forty days
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Speaker 2: in the NICU because she was very premature, not so
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Speaker 2: premature in gestational age because she wasn't considered all that premature,
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Speaker 2: but she had so many issues, heart issues, lung issues,
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Speaker 2: she wasn't able to feed herself, she had all kinds
11:28
Speaker 2: of developmental delays. They even thought that she might have
11:31
Speaker 2: a genetic condition, and so we had to get her
11:37
Speaker 2: diagnosed and things. Because we had two children that had
11:40
Speaker 2: been impacted, we were living on pins and needles for years.
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Speaker 2: Relative to her. Now, I mean, I'll foreshadow the happy
11:48
Speaker 2: ending here. She's a wonderful, thriving thirteen year old today.
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Speaker 2: But I think when you think about trauma, women who
11:57
Speaker 2: go through these kinds of things, they bare all of
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Speaker 2: this pain, and so that really becomes a big issue.
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Speaker 2: Even if you do get your happy ending the way
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Speaker 2: I did, because how is that buried trauma going to
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Speaker 2: impact you in trying to be the mother that you
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Speaker 2: want to be and that your children deserve. And my
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Speaker 2: breaking point around that was at COVID.
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Speaker 1: Okay, So first of all, thank you for sharing all that.
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Speaker 1: My god, I mean, I can't imagine how did you
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Speaker 1: bury your trauma? What did you do to cover it up?
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Speaker 1: I mean.
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Speaker 2: A lot of deflection. You know, alcohol would be one way.
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Speaker 2: I immersed myself in my in my child, that was
12:53
Speaker 2: another thing. So there were there were good, good distractions
12:57
Speaker 2: and bad distractions. But the truth is that they were
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Speaker 2: all A lot of them were distractions and not for
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Speaker 2: the healthiest reasons. So, you know, I was busy. I
13:07
Speaker 2: had a young daughter that needed a lot of attention,
13:10
Speaker 2: and so that was kind of a good thing. I
13:12
Speaker 2: finally had something constructive to do with my time. In
13:17
Speaker 2: those quieter moments, I would self medicate, for sure, just
13:21
Speaker 2: to try to not have the pain come to the surface.
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Speaker 1: And you were single mom.
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Speaker 2: Single mom living with my mother actually, who had come
13:31
Speaker 2: to live with me. So and then I went on
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Speaker 2: to have another child, a child this time using new embryos,
13:41
Speaker 2: a different egg donor and a anonymous sperm donor, and
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Speaker 2: I had a perfectly healthy son. So I have two
13:49
Speaker 2: glorious children.
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Speaker 1: Wow wow, Okay, let me just remind everyone I was
13:54
Speaker 1: speaking with Shari Brigern. My god, Shari, this is very intense.
14:03
Speaker 1: What happened. It is.
14:06
Speaker 2: Well, So it turns out that I had just concluded
14:11
Speaker 2: a lot of my trauma when COVID hit, and so
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Speaker 2: I had all this buried trauma. This trauma was caring.
14:21
Speaker 2: And then we have a global pandemic when everybody is
14:24
Speaker 2: feeling trauma. Everybody is feeling this sort of loss of
14:29
Speaker 2: freedom and loss of control and things like that. And
14:32
Speaker 2: for me having lost two children and now we're we
14:37
Speaker 2: have this unknown of this mysterious disease that we have
14:40
Speaker 2: no vaccines for, and things like that. I'm living with
14:44
Speaker 2: my seventy seven year old mother, I have what could
14:51
Speaker 2: be considered an immunocompromised child who was a PREMI and
14:55
Speaker 2: I have my other child, and so I started to
15:00
Speaker 2: have panic attacks. I started to envision that this could
15:03
Speaker 2: wipe out the rest of my family. You know, that
15:06
Speaker 2: was a very real possibility to me, and so I
15:11
Speaker 2: was just on the floor. Guy, I couldn't function because
15:16
Speaker 2: I was terrified that the things that I had strived
15:19
Speaker 2: so hard for were going to be taken away from.
15:21
Speaker 1: Me, and so I made So you said you were
15:26
Speaker 1: self medicating. Were you getting help quote quote unquote help
15:33
Speaker 1: or assistance or support from other avenues, from friends or
15:40
Speaker 1: therapists or whomever.
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Speaker 2: Yes, I did have someone who was guiding me that
15:44
Speaker 2: was kind of a therapist, mostly to help me with
15:47
Speaker 2: my daughter because we ended up being in a co
15:51
Speaker 2: parent kind of situation, and so she was guiding me
15:55
Speaker 2: in some of that ways. But sometimes your therapists end
15:58
Speaker 2: up being a bit of a spiritual mentor and things
16:01
Speaker 2: as well. And so she was a person that I
16:04
Speaker 2: was speaking with and she recommended She said, have you
16:08
Speaker 2: ever considered EMDR? And that was a real revelation to
16:14
Speaker 2: me because I'd been through a lot of different kinds
16:17
Speaker 2: of therapy, individual therapy, couples therapy, things like that, but
16:22
Speaker 2: I'd never heard of EMDR before.
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Speaker 1: Okay, And you'd been through other forms of therapy during
16:31
Speaker 1: this whole process or prior to.
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Speaker 2: Or what mostly I had been in some individual therapy
16:39
Speaker 2: in my younger years. I had been in marriage counseling certainly,
16:43
Speaker 2: we'd been trying to work on the marriage. Then we
16:45
Speaker 2: were in sort of co parent therapy trying to figure
16:51
Speaker 2: out how to navigate things. And you know, there's a
16:54
Speaker 2: lot to the story that there's probably not enough time
16:56
Speaker 2: to talk about. But I was familiar with therapeutic methods
17:00
Speaker 2: and with you know, being able to try to have
17:04
Speaker 2: introspection and how to communicate well and express your feelings,
17:10
Speaker 2: and a lot of those kinds of skills I had developed.
17:13
Speaker 2: But somehow I didn't know what to do about all
17:17
Speaker 2: of this stored pain that I had.
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Speaker 1: So you hear about DR what do you do.
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Speaker 2: Well? I sought out an EMDR therapist, And this was
17:29
Speaker 2: of course right in the middle of COVID, so people
17:32
Speaker 2: weren't meeting very much face to face but EMDR and
17:36
Speaker 2: I don't know if your audience is likely familiar with
17:39
Speaker 2: em DR as a therapeutic technique.
17:41
Speaker 1: So we focus on a lot here.
17:45
Speaker 2: Okay, perfect, so you don't need to go into the
17:48
Speaker 2: huge pieces of that. But so it's understood then that
17:52
Speaker 2: it's pretty important to be in close contact with your therapists,
17:55
Speaker 2: and it's harder to do virtually, and so my therapist
18:00
Speaker 2: did a great job of actually making it possible for
18:03
Speaker 2: us to be in person. During COVID we were a
18:06
Speaker 2: distance apart, and we sort of blasted the office with
18:11
Speaker 2: hand sanitizer and things like that. But we were able
18:15
Speaker 2: to work through the process and I had to then
18:19
Speaker 2: relive each of the losses that I had, and what
18:24
Speaker 2: I found was that that really did connect and bring
18:29
Speaker 2: peace to the more base parts of me that were
18:34
Speaker 2: so triggered by trauma. To take the time to integrate
18:39
Speaker 2: kind of the cognitive learnings with the core emotions and
18:44
Speaker 2: trauma feelings that I had was really the only reason
18:49
Speaker 2: that I can sit here and talk about this.
18:50
Speaker 1: Now. How did the book come about? And we're talking
18:55
Speaker 1: about mission Motherhood a memoir.
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Speaker 2: Well, it's a teaching memoir because there are so many
19:02
Speaker 2: things that I wish I had known on this process. Guy,
19:06
Speaker 2: I would say that I walked into it with a
19:08
Speaker 2: lot of ignorance, probably about my fertility, about what the
19:13
Speaker 2: process was like, and my goal is for other women
19:16
Speaker 2: not to have that kind of handicap that I did.
19:22
Speaker 2: I went through one more trauma, which was that this
19:27
Speaker 2: landmark custody battle that you mentioned, my estranged husband at
19:32
Speaker 2: this time sought to become the legal father of the
19:35
Speaker 2: son that I had on my own. Oh my god,
19:41
Speaker 2: I mean it.
19:42
Speaker 1: You know.
19:43
Speaker 2: And the thing is it just at some point it
19:45
Speaker 2: just gets so ridiculous that you almost have to laugh
19:48
Speaker 2: just because it's ludicrous, right.
19:50
Speaker 1: It's too much, too much, it's crazy.
19:53
Speaker 2: It's too much. And so in that moment and so
19:58
Speaker 2: and we had been living apart and so this was
20:01
Speaker 2: he was four. We've been legally separated for seven years
20:05
Speaker 2: at the time, but we were still technically married. And
20:07
Speaker 2: so you can find out information about this at Berger
20:11
Speaker 2: On v. Saunders. You know what happened was I ended
20:14
Speaker 2: up in this custody battle for about seven months. I
20:17
Speaker 2: had to surrender visitation of my son, the son I
20:20
Speaker 2: had solely on my own. And when I was in
20:24
Speaker 2: the middle of all of that, I just cried out
20:28
Speaker 2: to God and I was like, why is all of
20:30
Speaker 2: this happening to me? You know, I've been through so much.
20:33
Speaker 2: Why is this happening? And the answer I got back
20:36
Speaker 2: was You're going through this so that you can help
20:39
Speaker 2: other women achieve their dreams of motherhood.
20:42
Speaker 1: And that was that satisfying to you?
20:46
Speaker 2: Well, you know, it actually was an AHA moment for me.
20:50
Speaker 2: It gave my pain a purpose, and I believed that
20:56
Speaker 2: I would get through these things, come hell or high water,
20:59
Speaker 2: because that's just how I'm wired. That's how i'm you know,
21:02
Speaker 2: that's how God made me. But the idea that I
21:06
Speaker 2: could use this information and help other women and help
21:08
Speaker 2: other babies come into this world, and maybe I could
21:11
Speaker 2: save other women this pain, that was very motivating to me.
21:14
Speaker 2: And so I'm very fortunate I did win that case.
21:18
Speaker 2: My son as he should be, his souling mine. And
21:23
Speaker 2: now that prompted me to write the book, which is
21:26
Speaker 2: kind of a tale of like, hey, don't do this,
21:30
Speaker 2: like make sure that decisions.
21:34
Speaker 1: Was Why was in what ways was this a landmark case?
21:38
Speaker 2: It was a landmark case because a man who is
21:44
Speaker 2: not the biological father shouldn't be able to claim parentage.
21:50
Speaker 2: We were. He had actually filed papers in court saying
21:55
Speaker 2: he was not the father years before, and he's the
21:58
Speaker 2: only person who in the state of Texas who had
22:01
Speaker 2: reversed their position on something like that. For one and two,
22:06
Speaker 2: because I was using an anonymous sperm donor, there was
22:09
Speaker 2: sort of an empty spot that I like to call
22:12
Speaker 2: the daddy box. And so because there was no person
22:16
Speaker 2: to be put in that space gave him the opportunity
22:19
Speaker 2: because if it had been let's say, not an anonymous
22:22
Speaker 2: sperm donor, but somebody who wasn't involved in their lives, well,
22:26
Speaker 2: then he would have had no claim. And that's what
22:30
Speaker 2: makes it landmark, because our laws have not kept up
22:35
Speaker 2: with our science. And so this was really about does
22:40
Speaker 2: a woman have a right when she's legally married to
22:42
Speaker 2: pursue an independent pregnancy And it was argued that I
22:45
Speaker 2: did not have that.
22:48
Speaker 1: You mentioned that at some point you lost custody.
22:51
Speaker 2: I had to surrender visitation. I had certain I didn't
22:56
Speaker 2: lose custody, but I had to surrender visitation of him
23:00
Speaker 2: when he had never gone with my my estranged husband
23:05
Speaker 2: before in all of his years, as he was four
23:09
Speaker 2: at the time. I had to send him on independent
23:12
Speaker 2: visits with him for how long?
23:14
Speaker 1: How long? Uh?
23:16
Speaker 2: For six months? Six seven months?
23:19
Speaker 1: Okay, So the book talk to us a little bit
23:25
Speaker 1: about how the book came about how you got to
23:28
Speaker 1: a point where you're like, Jesus, I need to I
23:30
Speaker 1: need to get this book out there and uh get
23:34
Speaker 1: into you said there were a couple of things. You
23:37
Speaker 1: were a lot of things. The book was based on
23:39
Speaker 1: what you had hoped you knew obviously, we don't want
23:42
Speaker 1: to get into everything, but share with us a couple
23:44
Speaker 1: of a couple of those points.
23:45
Speaker 2: Sure. Yeah, So really the book has written like one
23:49
Speaker 2: girlfriend to another sharing kind of your most intimate secrets.
23:53
Speaker 2: I hold nothing back in the book about my journey,
23:56
Speaker 2: and so from that perspective, it might be a lot
23:59
Speaker 2: for some people because I wanted to give the raw truth.
24:02
Speaker 2: The fact is we need to inform younger women about
24:06
Speaker 2: their fertility realities so that they're truly empowered. People shouldn't
24:11
Speaker 2: be walking around naive thinking that this is just magically
24:14
Speaker 2: going to happen. That's one big thing is to provide
24:16
Speaker 2: that kind of education much earlier for women in their twenties.
24:21
Speaker 2: The other thing is to know that there's many ways
24:23
Speaker 2: to create a family. It's not a one size fits
24:26
Speaker 2: all model. I pursue single motherhood by choice. There's also
24:30
Speaker 2: surrogacy and foster parenting and adoption and all kinds of
24:34
Speaker 2: other paths. So we need to look at this as
24:39
Speaker 2: kind of a broad spectrum of options and not a
24:42
Speaker 2: linear path the way that I believed it was. So
24:45
Speaker 2: I think those are some of the big takeaways. So
24:49
Speaker 2: the book was to share my journey and then Shari's Choice.
24:52
Speaker 2: My nonprofit is really to activate that and share that
24:56
Speaker 2: message with other women. So Sharis's Choice provides education and
25:01
Speaker 2: counseling and community so that other women can navigate their
25:06
Speaker 2: path to motherhood with greater information and confidence.
25:09
Speaker 1: So Shari's Choice, once you shoot us that U r
25:16
Speaker 1: L at this point, Yes.
25:19
Speaker 2: I mean it's Shari like my name, Shari's Choice dot com.
25:23
Speaker 1: Okay, pretty simple. That's c H E R I S
25:28
Speaker 1: Choice dot com. You got it? Okay? And who is
25:35
Speaker 1: that for specifically? Is it for just any mom who's
25:37
Speaker 1: ready to have a kid, or is a mother who's
25:40
Speaker 1: uh pursuing IVF or what?
25:43
Speaker 2: So I have kind of two demographics. I plan to
25:47
Speaker 2: work a lot with universities to educate young women about
25:52
Speaker 2: their fertility options. So there's sort of that twenties, you know,
25:56
Speaker 2: nineteen to twenty nine group, but that feel that their
26:01
Speaker 2: clock's not ticking all that loudly yet that they really
26:04
Speaker 2: understand what their options are and maybe do some proactive planning.
26:08
Speaker 2: And then I also have some workshops for women who
26:11
Speaker 2: are in the place where they're ready to have a
26:14
Speaker 2: child but they don't fit the traditional fairy tale and
26:18
Speaker 2: they need some guidance, and so I would say that
26:21
Speaker 2: that's anywhere from the late twenties into the forties. And
26:25
Speaker 2: so I work with those women as well.
26:28
Speaker 1: And are these workshops in person online both?
26:33
Speaker 2: We're doing both, yes, so, and we're even looking to
26:37
Speaker 2: have a self guided version of it as well, because
26:39
Speaker 2: these topics are really so personal that we think some
26:43
Speaker 2: people would want to consider this more privately. But I
26:48
Speaker 2: think a lot of women it's very helpful to know
26:50
Speaker 2: that they're not alone. IVF and infertility are so isolating, guy,
26:55
Speaker 2: I mean, the pain of it, the shame of it,
27:00
Speaker 2: the feelings of inadequacy are so jarring to a woman's
27:05
Speaker 2: self image that it really is helpful to know that
27:08
Speaker 2: you're not alone in that struggle. And so that's why
27:10
Speaker 2: we also offer group activities.
27:14
Speaker 1: Do you what are the percentage of women who aren't
27:18
Speaker 1: able to have children biologically?
27:23
Speaker 2: I've hurt statistics quote unquote normal way right. Well, I've
27:27
Speaker 2: heard statistics that somewhere between fifteen and twenty percent of
27:31
Speaker 2: the population has struggles with infertility. And in fact, seven
27:36
Speaker 2: out of ten women do not speak with their doctor
27:39
Speaker 2: about fertility. And so this really is an area that
27:43
Speaker 2: is a significant problem that doesn't have enough awareness, And
27:49
Speaker 2: really I think both women and their doctors need to
27:52
Speaker 2: be having this conversation a lot earlier. So again that's
27:55
Speaker 2: a big part of my mission.
27:58
Speaker 1: Is this issue something that is more prevalent here in
28:03
Speaker 1: the States.
28:05
Speaker 2: Oh, you can amazed there are. It's a worldwide world phenomenon.
28:11
Speaker 2: I mean, as women have pursued their careers more, I
28:16
Speaker 2: think this has created more of these challenges. Women have
28:19
Speaker 2: been putting off motherhood for longer, and I think that
28:22
Speaker 2: that triggers these kinds of problems, kinds of challenges. But
28:27
Speaker 2: as I have started this work, I have seen that
28:30
Speaker 2: this is truly a global concern and there are many
28:34
Speaker 2: professionals around the world, fertility clinics as well as fertility
28:38
Speaker 2: coaches and advocates working to help women.
28:43
Speaker 1: All right, Sure, as we wind down here, share with
28:45
Speaker 1: the listeners the best way to contact you, and then
28:49
Speaker 1: we'll kind of wrap it up.
28:50
Speaker 2: Sure. Well, if you're interested in the book to read
28:53
Speaker 2: that journey, it is on Amazon, and you can also
28:56
Speaker 2: go to sharibergeron dot com to get more information about that.
29:00
Speaker 2: I have a blog where I talk a lot about
29:02
Speaker 2: trauma and the various issues here, so if you want
29:05
Speaker 2: to dig into it deeper, that's a good place to go.
29:08
Speaker 2: And then Shari's Choice dot com is the place to
29:12
Speaker 2: find more about the education and the counseling that we're
29:15
Speaker 2: going to be providing.
29:17
Speaker 1: Awesome, and we'll have all that linked up here at
29:19
Speaker 1: the show notes page at the Trauma Therapist Podcast dot com. Sureie,
29:22
Speaker 1: thank you so much for coming on and sharing your journey.
29:27
Speaker 1: I mean, man, it's no, it's tough, but what an
29:33
Speaker 1: inspiration you are. I really appreciate it.
29:36
Speaker 2: Well, I think, guy, that's the thing. You have to
29:38
Speaker 2: take these things and grow from them and find your purpose.
29:41
Speaker 2: And I am blissfully with my two children.
29:44
Speaker 1: Now. Yeah, well that's awesome. Appreciate you. Thank you again.
29:48
Speaker 1: We'll be in touch.
29:49
Speaker 2: Thank you guys.
29:50
Speaker 1: All right,