Latest / The Uplifters / EPISODE #44 Accepting life when it isn’t what we imagined

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EPISODE #44 Accepting life when it isn’t what we imagined · The Uplifters

• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: An Uplifter is a compelling leader who tries to breathe life and hope into people around them.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_03: Who listen and care and guide and help.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_02: Whose way of being in the world inspires.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_03: Who uplifts with humor and understanding.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_03: Who leads by example.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_03: Don't judge.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_03: Vulnerable.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_03: Bold.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: Determination.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: Who are here to create a better world.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: Who can learn and teach.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_03: Who encourages you.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_03: Who shines their light to lead other people.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_03: Who uses their best self in order to help others.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_03: I found the life that I liked and I worked toward that.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_02: We are all Uplifters.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_02: Muah!
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_02: Big love.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_03: Welcome to The Uplifters podcast.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_03: I'm Aransas Savas and today I am joined by Leah DeFeo.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_03: Leah is somebody I've known for many years.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_03: We met many years ago when she joined us at Weight Watchers where I was leading innovation and programming as well as our workshops.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_03: and Leah was just this bright light in the room who brought this deep steady wisdom to every conversation and those are the people you want in communities the people who bring others together who make others feel seen and who are open and curious and so she's just been a real gift to me over the years and hearing the way she has shared the story of one big part of her life
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_03: It felt so important for us to share this as a part of our Uplifters community and to look at this aspect of our journey as women.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_03: Leah knew for a long time that she wanted to be a mother.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_03: She ultimately found that through surrogacy after a long and tragic ride, she has since become an advocate for those who are facing challenges during their own family building journeys.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_03: Leah
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you so much for being here and being willing to share this tender journey.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for having me.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: It is a true honor.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I know you say I brought energy to those Weight Watchers meetings, but I went to many meetings before I found yours.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: And it was yours that created the sense of community and openness and accountability to come back every week and be my best self there.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: Glad we met.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_03: Oh my gosh, it's a privilege and I am also so grateful.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_03: So when did you know, Leah, that you wanted to be a mom?
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: Always, always.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: Family has always been incredibly important to me.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I grew up just with a lot of family values.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: Family time is really important.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: And to me, family meant kids.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I always wanted to be a mother.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: I always had a maternal instinct.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: I always wanted to raise a child.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: For a long time, I thought about being a teacher and working with kids.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_03: What did you imagine the journey to motherhood would be?
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: The journey to motherhood began with madly falling in love with a man that would be an amazing partner and an amazing father.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: That was step number one.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: And that, in my mind, would happen a lot sooner than it actually did.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: Same with having children.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: Having children was something I thought would happen when I was a lot younger than it actually happened.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: And again, that's just maybe due to circumstance, right?
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: Career, etc.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I thought it would happen, you know, quite a lot sooner.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: I thought I'd have two children.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: I have two children.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: One is my stepdaughter and one is my biological daughter.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I just thought things might look different.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: And when I first met my now husband, that was thinking about having a stepdaughter was a change for me, one that I absolutely embraced.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: But it didn't mean I didn't want a biological child.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: My stepdaughter had a mother, an amazing mother, a loving mother.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: I was never going to be her mom.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: I was going to be a guardian.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: I was going to be an advocate, a supporter of hers, but I always still wanted a biological child.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I just thought, I thought it would look different in terms of like timing.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_03: How old were you when you met your husband?
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: I met my husband when I was 35, which is considered geriatric in the world of fertility.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't that rude?
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's very rude.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_03: I felt very young at 35.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I did as well.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: But when you speak to your OB, you are categorized as geriatric.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_03: Hearing that, did that start to plant a seed for you that maybe this wouldn't be as easy as the vision in your mind?
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: I had been diagnosed with PCOS a very long time ago, so I had an understanding that becoming pregnant might be more challenging for me, but I thought the challenge would be in getting pregnant and that once I was pregnant, the vision for me was that pregnancy was going to be wonderful.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: It was going to be this beautiful experience.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: I felt that I might have challenges getting pregnant and we did but that wasn't unexpected so it was okay.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: We tried for quite a long time on our own and then the first thing we did was IUI, which is intrauterine insemination, essentially what you know as artificial insemination.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: They
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: Take your partner's sperm and insert it into your uterus at the right time, right by your fallopian tubes to help you get pregnant.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I felt it was going to be smooth sailing from there.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't, but that was my expectation and my hope.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_03: So what happened at that point after that first IUI?
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, it didn't work.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: So the IUI process itself was really not something I was ready for.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: I was working at the time, I worked in an environment that I didn't feel comfortable disclosing that I was going through fertility treatments, which meant that I still had to be at my desk at nine o'clock.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: I really wanted to hide from my boss what was happening.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: And it added a whole nother level of stress.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: Especially right before you're doing the transfer, you're going in for what's called morning monitoring.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: And then you have to wait two weeks to find out if you're pregnant.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember I got that phone call while I was at work.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: And it was so devastating.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: The nurse called and said, it didn't work.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: You're not pregnant.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: I knew it was unlikely that it would work the first time, but I tend to be an optimist and a believer.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I just felt, of course it was going to work the first time.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: And it didn't.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: and it didn't work the second time either.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: It did work the third time.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's how big a role you think stress played.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: I think stress was a really big factor and I think that's a real issue for anyone who's going through infertility.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately, there's a real stigma in society around infertility.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's one of these things that are not really spoken about.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: There's shame often associated with it.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not good enough.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: My body is not good enough.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: There's embarrassment often on the male side.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: So
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: Infertility is just as much a female issue as it is a male issue.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: Especially for men, there's a feeling of embarrassment, like you're not enough of a man if you can't get your partner pregnant.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so in general, in society, we don't talk a lot.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: about these struggles.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: And that causes people to go through it alone.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I felt very alone going through this.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like I said, I didn't want to talk about it at work.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: I had this perception that nobody I knew had any trouble getting pregnant.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: I was the only one.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: Turns out that wasn't true.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: And it's really because people don't talk about it.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're not
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: actively seeking out resources and community, you're not going to know they're there.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: I learned later in the process, there was actually a lot of people and community I could connect with, but I didn't know it in the beginning.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: Women who are going through infertility, the way their body feels is similar to someone who has been diagnosed with a heart condition, with cancer.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's an equivalent amount of stress to another one of those diseases.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_03: My gosh, yeah.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_03: And then that stress, of course, plays into the hormonal releases.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you got pregnant on that third try.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: It was one of the most beautiful, magical moments of my life.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: When that pregnancy test had a second blue line, it was, my heart was so full.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: I was so, so happy.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: It was just the absolute best feeling.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: After trying for so long and having those two failures, having that positive test just was such an incredible feeling.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_03: So tell me about that pregnancy.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: I told my parents, we told my mother-in-law, but you don't tell people right away, right?
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: because so many pregnancies don't take.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, there's a lot of loss in the early weeks of pregnancy.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: For me, it was amazing.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: It was beautiful.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: I loved being pregnant.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: I felt really good.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: I felt very connected to the baby I was carrying in my belly.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: I would read books to the baby.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: I would sing to the baby.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: I was driving a lot in the car at that time.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: I was working and had to commute in a car for work and I would sing along to the radio and would feel the baby moving and that became the most magical is when you started to like feel the baby react to eating different things or if I was like moving and it was just so cool.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: And as a mom who ultimately had her daughter via a surrogate, one of the things I am incredibly grateful for is being able to have experienced being pregnant because a lot of women who have to turn to surrogacy do so because they are unable to carry.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: So I carried our son Christopher until 31 weeks and
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: We had an absolute tragedy happen.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: All of a sudden I had just major pain in my stomach.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: At first I thought I had to use the restroom and I didn't.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember I had a meeting.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: It was a meeting at three o'clock and I texted the guy I was meeting with and I said, I don't feel good.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'm in the bathroom.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: Can you do the meeting without me?
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: And he knew I was 31 weeks pregnant and said, what bathroom?
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'm coming for you.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: I had called my OB in the OB, the OB front desk.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'm in pain.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: I don't feel good.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'm 31 weeks pregnant.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, no one's available to speak to right now.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: We'll call you back.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: So thankfully this guy I worked with called his wife who was a doula and his wife said, get her to the hospital now.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: A woman in pain.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: I don't care what she's telling you, get her to the hospital.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: They could not figure out what was going on with me, but they determined I needed an emergency C-section right then and there.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: It turns out my uterus ruptured, which is incredibly rare, especially at 31 weeks.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: When I woke up, my husband was staring over me and the doctor was staring over me.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: He said, you had a baby boy, but he didn't make it.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't understand what that meant.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: I was just so, I just didn't understand.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: When can I see him?
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: Where is he?
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: I was, it was just, I can't even express how devastating it was and how confused we were.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: I am lucky to have survived that uterine rupture.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: The surgeon absolutely saved my life.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't know anyone who had a stillborn.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't realize there were resources available to us.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so grateful my husband thought to take a picture.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: We have one picture.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: of my son and
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: is something I treasure.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: I absolutely treasure.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't realize how important that was going to be because we didn't have a lot of time with him.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: And the time we had with him, I was on a lot of drugs.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like I was on morphine.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: I was not really myself.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: Being in the hospital, losing a baby, it just, it can't express how unanticipated it is and how challenging it is and how you just don't know what to do.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_03: Nobody's going to prepare for that.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: Nope.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: No one prepared.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's not what you believe the outcome is going to be.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: You don't go into your pregnancy
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: preparing for anything other than, how am I going to give birth?
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: Am I going to have an epidural?
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: Am I going to have a natural birth?
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: Am I going to have a C-section?
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like, those are the things you think about.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: Who's going to cut the umbilical cord?
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: You think about all the beautiful, lovely, am I going to do skin to skin, right?
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: You don't think about, is my baby going to be stillborn and how am I going to navigate that?
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: Do not think about that.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_03: Nor would we want anyone to think of that.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, exactly.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: So in that moment, it was really challenging.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I wish I knew about some of the resources I know about now.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: Then I didn't.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: But now I do.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so part of why I share my story is because I learned later there's an organization called Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: If you have just lost a baby or if you are having a baby and you know that baby's not going to make it, you can call Now I Lay Me Down to sleep.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: They will send a photographer for free to the hospital and they will take beautiful photos of you and your baby that you will treasure and have for a lifetime.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: And we did that later in our journey, but I didn't know about that with Christopher and I wish I had and I wish that hospitals were trained to tell people about it.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, because they are the only ones equipped to prepare for that.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hospitals are where you're getting your information.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: The nurses and doctors you're speaking to, the social workers, they're the people that you get the information for.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: But we had a sense that the hospital we were at had really not experienced something like we had.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: It just wasn't, they weren't prepared for it, unfortunately.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I just, you know, I wish there was literally a sheet of paper they handed us that said, here's some resources for you to look into.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_03: We all need guides.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_03: And we need, we need to know we're not alone and we need to know that people survive the hardest moments of their lives.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: When my uterus ruptured, the doctor saved my uterus so it's inside of me, but it is sewn up and can never carry a baby again.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: So I lost my ability to carry at the same time that I lost my son.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: Two people I'm very close to, both cancer survivors, were unable to carry due to their cancer and they had their families via surrogacy.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: So I called both of them the very next day, explained what happened and said,
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: I need you to tell me how I do this.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: I need to know.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: I need to believe and have hope that there is a way for us to have a healthy child because I can't carry that child anymore.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: And it was those conversations that gave me hope and belief in that moment.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: I needed that.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: I felt horrible as it was, but I feel I would have felt
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: hopeless if I didn't have these people to turn to.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: But because of them, I didn't feel hopeless.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: I felt devastated, but also hopeful that ultimately it was going to work out.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_03: It wasn't the end of your journey of biologic motherhood.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_03: It wasn't the end.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_03: Correct.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_03: What an extraordinary act of presence and courage that you had the wisdom to reach out to them.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, they are people I know very well and that I trust and that were so sad to hear what had happened and they both were happy to do anything they could to help give me that guidance and understanding and what does it look like?
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: What does the timeline look like?
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: How do you do it?
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: How do you find your surrogate?
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know any of that and having them was very helpful.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_03: Well, and that brought purpose to their journeys as well and there's just something so beautifully full circle about that.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm also just so struck by that pregnancy and what it was like for you, Leah.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_03: Listening to the relationship you built with Christopher, just the most beautiful and inspiring and heartbreaking thing.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_03: That you had that full journey of mother love in those 31 weeks.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, and gave him as much love as I possibly could during his lifetime, which was all inside my body.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: That was his lifetime.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_03: How intimate, Christopher's life was very short and what happened next?
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: So I, you know me and I tend to spring into action.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: I tend to be a, let's make a plan and let's figure out how to make this happen.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: We had been trying for so long to start our family that it was, it just felt like a giant step backwards.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know, when I was pregnant I had this app and it said, you know, your baby is the size of a walnut, your baby is the size of an apricot, your baby is the size of a cantaloupe, right?
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so it was like, all right, the baby's gonna arrive then.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: We had this whole plan, we had, you know, and so all of a sudden you're like, wait a minute, we're starting from scratch and we're even starting from
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: a whole different path going forward.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: So it was a month later that we sat across the table from a surrogacy agency.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: It was the surrogacy agency that one of my friends had used.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: She had an incredible experience with them.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: She had referred them, excuse me, to many other people who also had great experience with them.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: And we sat across from them a month later and the surrogacy agency was almost unwilling to take us on.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: Have you processed your loss?
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: Are you sure you're emotionally ready to start this journey again?
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: Because pregnancy after loss can be really challenging.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: If I were to have gotten pregnant again, when people pass the milestones of the losses that they've had previously, it can be very traumatic.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: When you're pregnant, there's some level of control because it's your body, right?
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: Now when someone else is carrying for you, you have to trust this person who is a perfect stranger.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: Before you started this journey, they felt a little bit nervous about, were we going to be ready to engage with somebody on this level?
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: And we really genuinely were.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: I was also fortunate to have an OBGYN who referred us to a grief counselor and the grief counselor specialized in perinatal loss and she really helped us understand how we were feeling and helped us
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: On our journey to Sturgazee, we had her throughout our entire journey.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: We kept working with her even after Carolina arrived because my husband and I processed loss very differently.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: I think, you know, carrying a child and having lost that child, my connection was very different than my husband who was kind of watching my belly grow and knowing the baby was coming.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: And it was just
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: different.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: So having those resources was we took full advantage of them and they were amazing, such amazing professionals.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_03: I'm hearing you each step of the way build up your network of support.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_03: I imagine support is scaffolding in my head because I think it's like the reason they put scaffolding on a building is so that we can build up from where we are safely.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_03: And in a way that we feel like we have the psychological safety to keep moving forward.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_03: And as I hear your story, I feel like I'm just watching the scaffold we built.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: And it's the support from so many different places, Aransas.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: So I had support at home.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: My husband was really supportive.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: Our families were really supportive.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: Our professional, you know, grief counselor, our, the surrogacy agency that we signed on with.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: We had a network that wasn't, we weren't just relying on one type of support.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: We needed this network in order to help us move forward.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: We really did.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: And those friends I spoke of, I talked to them the whole time during this journey as well.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_03: Incredible.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_03: So lead us through that surrogacy journey.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: We were matched with a woman from Kentucky.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: She had been a surrogate before.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so one of the things that the agency said to us was they wanted to match us with somebody with experience because of the intensity of what we had gone through.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: So we were matched with a surrogate who had experience and who was very moved by our story.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: Before we met her, we were nervous that surrogates were just in it for the money.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, were they really going to take care of our baby?
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: Was it really going to be someone that we could trust?
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: And although both of our friends had assured us absolutely
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: They're amazing.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't until we did a Zoom call with her and her husband and there was so much nerves on both sides.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: There was so much anxiety.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: We were so nervous about meeting her and she was the most
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: and is the most wonderful, amazing human.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: She loved being pregnant.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: She loved helping people.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: And it was very clear from our conversation, the driving factor for her was not money.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, she wound up redoing her kitchen with the money that she made.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: The agencies screen surrogates to make sure.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: And that's one of the things about going through an agency.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: is that the agencies, they absolutely make sure that the money the surrogates are getting are not money they need to feed their family, to house their family.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's not money they need to live on.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: That is also what attracts an amazing group of women who are truly in it because they want to give someone else the experience of having a child as they have.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: They've all started their families.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: Our surrogate had two children of her own.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: She considered her family complete.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: and had such a beautiful experience with her first surrogacy and she is and continues to be a part of our family.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: We love her and appreciate her and consider her a real superhero for doing what she did.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: So that pregnancy, first we had to go through IVF.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: So we went through our IVF, which you know is a whole journey in and of itself, created
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: We only had one viable embryo.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: So we created one viable embryo.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: We decided to transfer it and if it worked, it worked.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: And if it doesn't, we were gonna have to keep going through the process.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: And we transferred.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: So our surrogate came to New York for the transfer and we had a beautiful time with them.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: We had so much fun showing them around.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: And she got pregnant.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: right away and it was amazing and she was so conscious of my anxieties and concerns and so aware.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: She made sure to schedule every single doctor's appointment for when I could FaceTime into them so that we could you know be present for every meeting with the doctor and it was wonderful.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: I knew that she was caring for this baby as if
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: It Were Her Own.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: She genuinely was.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: We spoke every week and it was really lovely to get to know her and her family.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: And the pregnancy proceeded really well.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: We went out to Kentucky for the 20-week ultrasound.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: We were there in person.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: Everything was great.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: They showed us around where they were from and it was really nice.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: We met their kids and it was really beautiful.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: I remember they had a local farm that did
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: this like amazing fall festival and we went there and we set up a table and we made crowns.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: So we were like participating in their little festival and everyone knew that we were the intended parents and it was just really beautiful.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: We are really excited and at 27 weeks I'm waiting for one of the regular FaceTime calls, regular appointment, sitting in my office at work and it doesn't come through.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: And the strange thing is, if the doctor was late, I would always get a text from her.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: There was no text update.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: 20 minutes later, no text, no phone call.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: I said, something is wrong.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: Something is wrong.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: 45 minutes later, when the phone rang, and it wasn't our surrogate on the other line.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: It was a doctor.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: They said, you
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: have to come here as soon as possible.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: During this routine visit we discovered an irregular heartbeat and we're not quite sure what's wrong but it seems there's a big growth
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: in the baby's heart and you just you need to be here as soon as possible and we just it just felt very surreal but within three hours we were at the airport and we were on our way when we got there we learned that our daughter had a something called a rhabdomyoma and it usually develops a lot later even after a baby is born
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: but in her case it was very big and it was in the left ventricle of her heart and it was interfering with her blood pumping throughout her body.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: And our carrier was somebody who wanted to do everything naturally.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: And we said, if you are carrying our baby, you can have birth however you want.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: Birthing tub, no drugs, drugs, like whatever works for you.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: And here we are, you know, she's hooked up to a zillion different machines, doing so many different tests.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: When a woman is carrying your child, it is not your decision what medicines they take.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: It is their decision because they are
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: Carrying the child and it's their body.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: We did everything we could we were in the hospital for almost two weeks and During that time we were we even did Reiki sessions and like anything we could do to save our daughter and to have her be born healthy
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: And it got to a point that was so heartbreaking where we knew that this wasn't going to turn around.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: She was not going to live outside of the womb and she started having something called hydrops, which is where fluid starts to build up around the organs and the organs start to fail.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: and it got to a point where it became dangerous for both the baby and the surrogate.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: We did an emergency c-section and again, you know, it was a really hard thing.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: This is our surrogate who wanted a natural birth and now here she is having a c-section.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: Not at all what we had talked about, not at all what we had planned for.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so our surrogate and her husband went into the operating room and my husband and I waited in another room and we waited knowing that we were going to meet our baby and
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: We might be with her for a few minutes, a few hours, maybe a few days if we were lucky, but she wasn't coming home with us.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: She was not going to leave that hospital alive.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: And it was really hard.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: And this time we knew.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: We called now, I lay me down to sleep, and they sent a photographer.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: We have beautiful pictures, and we unfortunately knew some of the things that we had to do because of what we had experienced before.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, so then, now we had lost her name's Avelina, and we had lost Christopher, and now we lost Avelina.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: And we didn't have any more embryos.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: And surrogacy is an absolute fortune, so we didn't have any more money either.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: So we, for a time, just said,
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: We're done.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: I can't do this anymore.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'm broken.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: I am so broken and this isn't going to work.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I just have to embrace our stepdaughter and my husband as my family.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: And you know what?
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_00: Let's look on the bright side.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: We will be empty nesters early in our life.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: We'll be able to travel early.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like there are some wonderful benefits to this.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: and we talked about adoption and to me and I don't know if it's just I had always wanted my own biological child.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if there's some like narcissism in it like I wanted to see myself in a child.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: I felt that adopting a child was not something I wanted to do and so we just decided we were not going to have a kid like this is what it was going to be and that only lasted for a couple of months
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: before I learned that I was at a new job and that job had IVF benefits as well as a surrogacy benefit, which was kind of unheard of.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: And my husband said to me, Leah, you are not yourself.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: If we don't try again, you're 40.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: Time is going to be up and you're not going to be able to do this again.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: I think we need to try one more time.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: And if we try one more time and it doesn't work, we can say we did everything and we tried everything.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'm afraid 10 years from now we're going to look back at this and it's going to have broken us.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like we have to try again.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so we did.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: more IVF, went back to our surrogacy agency, and we tried again.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: We made embryos.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: We were matched with another surrogate.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: This one was in Utah.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: Everything was going wonderfully.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: But at this point, our third pregnancy, I held my breath the whole time.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: It was really challenging.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: And our surrogate was amazing to have put up with my anxieties around, you know, every milestone and every part of that pregnancy.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_03: Incredible.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_03: And now you have Carolina.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: So Carolina was born and we were there for it.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: We, you know, came out to Utah.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, the doctor, you know, said, okay, gave us kind of a sense of timing and we were out there and we were, you know, with her and she was amazing.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it was amazing.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: We were in the delivery room with her when she delivered this baby and it, we just,
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_00: It was, she was, I can't even explain how much of a superhero she was.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: And it was beautiful.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: And we were all there in the hospital together, so excited and so happy to have this healthy, beautiful baby who is now Carolina and is now five years old.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: And again, this surrogate is part of our family.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: Carolina calls her Ellie Mama, and she, you know, has a picture of her in her room holding her from that day she was born.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_03: What an extraordinarily painful but resilient story.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: Keeping on going was really hard many, many times.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: And it really was that support that I had from my husband, from our grief counselor, from the surrogacy agency, from the friends that I had that had been through this before.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: They gave me the belief and the hope that it was going to happen.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: It could happen.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_03: It is so much grounded in support and so no surprise that you've taken this unbelievably difficult journey and say, how do I now translate this into support and meaning?
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_03: And so how have you done that, Leah?
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: I advocate and spend time trying to make others' path easier than mine was.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: It was really hard.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: One of the first things I did was get involved with an organization called resolve.org.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: They're amazing.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: Also if anyone listening is curious about support groups, the first thing I did was advocate for legalizing surrogacy in New York.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I got involved in that and I went to the New York Assembly and I spoke alongside actually Andy Cohen and Michelle Bateau and Reshma Sojani and I told my story, they told their stories.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm now advocating for mandating infertility coverage.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: Infertility is not classified as a disease as it should be and so there are not mandates nationally to cover IVF.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_00: So currently working to make IVF covered in all 50 states.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_02: Amazing.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: There's an organization called Pregnant-ish and they just published a survey that showed that for people struggling with infertility and loss, the number one source of information is social media.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: So searching hashtags like TTC, trying to conceive, but there are many communities that exist online that you can find.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_03: One of the things that I think is so remarkable as you talk about Evelina's journey is how open and public it was.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_03: Hey, Kentucky community.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_03: Hey, New York community.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_03: This is who we are.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_03: This is what we're doing.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_03: And so it's as if by being honest, you let the beauty be born from the pain.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_03: I like that.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_03: Let the beauty be born from the pain.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_03: And that I believe is what you are here to do.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_00: And my, my hope in, you know, this episode and in speaking with you today is that
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: people out there who need to have hope and need to believe that they too can, you know, continue to give them hope to continue on their path.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: There are also many, many people who try for so long and they have to stop.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: It isn't possible for whatever reason, you know, time, age, economics, and
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: Coming to peace with that is really hard too.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: And there are also support groups out there and people out there that can help you accept a life that maybe isn't as you envisioned.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I just say that because in the journey of infertility and loss, it doesn't always have a happy ending.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: I was grateful that ours ultimately did.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_00: There is a reality that sometimes you have to take a different path and there has to be a different journey.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever it is, whatever that is.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, Leah, thank you for your courage.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you for finding the beauty and the power in this story and the potential to make some sense of it.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for having me so much.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_03: Bye.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_03: Being of Service to Others.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_03: I adore you and I'm so grateful for you in my world.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_03: For those of you listening, as Leah said, I hope you will share this episode with those you know who may be struggling in similar ways or who simply may be struggling to find meaning in pain.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_03: I will share in the show notes links to the services that Leah mentioned and you might even hear from some of those organizations on future episodes.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_03: If you need additional support please reach out to me and I will help connect you to Leah.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_03: None of us have to do this life alone and in my bones I believe deeply and truly that we are better together and that we rise higher together.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_03: So let's keep sharing our stories.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_03: Let's keep speaking truth into pain and loss and in doing so find some beauty.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you for listening to The Uplifters podcast.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_03: If you're getting a boost from these episodes, please share them with The Uplifters in your life and then join us in conversation over at theuplifterspodcast.com.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_03: Head over to Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts and like, follow and rate our show.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_03: It'll really help us connect with more Uplifters and it'll ensure you never miss one of these beautiful stories.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_01: Big love.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_01: Painted water sunshine with rosemary and thyme Dwell in the perplexing though you find it vexing Toss a star and huffer, be your own best luffer Relish in a new prime, plant a tree in springtime Dance with idle hindsight, bring the sun to twilight Lift you up
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_02: Lift you up Lift you up Lift you up Lift you up
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_03: It's that little thing you did with your boys.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_02: Right, in the pre-chorus, right?
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_02: I was like... Mommy, stop crying.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_02: You're disturbing the peace.