Latest / Becoming Parents Podcast / Corporate Life to Parenting Through Divorce and Fertility Coaching with Sonia Ribas - S7 E91
Transcript
- 0:00Welcome to Becoming Parents podcast.
- 0:02I'm your host Jennifer Campbell, mom of 18 and executive director
- 0:05of the Doula Co-op of Nevada. With more than 15 years in birth
- 0:08work, I've had the privilege of walking beside families through
- 0:11life's transitions. My work centers on connection,
- 0:14community, and amplifying voices that too often go unheard of.
- 0:18These episodes is an honest conversation about the messy,
- 0:21beautiful, and transformative experiences that shape us as
- 0:24parents and as people. I'd like to extend a heartfelt
- 0:27thank you to the incredible guests who show up with and
- 0:30authenticity to share their stories with us.
- 0:32Let's dive right in. Welcome to becoming parents
- 0:35podcast. Today I have Sonia Rebus.
- 0:38How are you doing? I'm doing fantastic, thanks for
- 0:41having me. I love your accent, but that
- 0:43means I have an accent too. So we're equally as sexy with
- 0:47our accents to each other I guess.
- 0:49Absolutely yes. Bring it on accents.
- 0:53I want you to jump in and share your parenting journey with us.
- 0:56OK, so I am a single mom of three kids right now, but my
- 1:02parenting journey started 14 years ago.
- 1:07Yeah, so I have a full teenager now 14 years ago.
- 1:10I have 3 kids who are 1310 and seven.
- 1:16But actually, I like to say my parenting journey actually
- 1:19started before I had kids because I became a fertility
- 1:23coach before having my own kids. So I started parenting and
- 1:28mothering a lot of babies way before my own biological babies.
- 1:33And this happened 16 years ago. So in my previous life, I owned
- 1:39a yoga company and one of my yoga clients called me and said
- 1:44she was from India. So she went back to India and
- 1:46she said I'm back home, I'm back in India.
- 1:49And I went to my OBGYN and she told me I'm never going to be
- 1:52able to have kids and I'm devastated.
- 1:56Can you help me? And I was like, well, no.
- 2:00Pressure. I, you know, like I have an MB
- 2:05AI taught yoga at that time I had a yoga company, but I knew
- 2:09nothing, nothing about fertility.
- 2:12And I said that, and she said, Sonia, you're the only person I
- 2:16trust. So I rolled up my sleeves and I
- 2:20teamed up with my mom, who is a traditional Chinese medicine
- 2:24practitioner in Spain. And we teamed up and we created
- 2:28a holistic program by researching a lot and by putting
- 2:31everything we knew together. So that included nutrition, it
- 2:35included supplements, it included yoga videos,
- 2:39meditations, everything that we could find and that we could
- 2:43find research and, you know, papers backing that it was good
- 2:47for fertility. So she not only did she get
- 2:51pregnant, but her labs improved dramatically.
- 2:54One of the key hormones, AMH, improved a lot, which is very
- 2:57difficult to improve. AMH and her doctor in India.
- 3:02I was so impressed that she started referring people my way.
- 3:06So. Here I am uncertified.
- 3:09You know, like going from helping a friend to helping
- 3:13Indian women get pregnant to the point that obviously I said I
- 3:18need to get certified like this needs to be if this is something
- 3:21I'm going to be doing, which was incredibly beautiful and
- 3:24rewarding to get certified. So I got certified as a health
- 3:27coach and then I got a lot of certificates after through my
- 3:30career in hormones medicine, pregnancy and so on.
- 3:35And then a few, a few years later, then I was myself.
- 3:38I was ready to have kids at that time.
- 3:40I was married and I applied everything that I was preaching.
- 3:45I applied it into myself, which allowed me to be a better
- 3:49fertility coach and also to perfect program.
- 3:53How, how crazy? I mean, just your mom, your
- 3:57mom's background. So as a yoga coach with your
- 4:00mom's background, because let me preface this like I was not
- 4:06raised in a healthy and home and environment.
- 4:09I didn't know how to cook when I left the house.
- 4:11Like I, I just, we didn't, I didn't know any of that.
- 4:13I was not healthy. My mom was obese.
- 4:16And I, when I graduated high school, I was like, think this
- 4:21should look different, but I didn't know what that meant.
- 4:24And I had to kind of struggle through like healthy living and
- 4:27healthy. I knew I didn't want to become
- 4:29like my parents and I knew not to do what they were doing, but
- 4:34I didn't necessarily know what to do.
- 4:37Where was your background in growing up with your mom's
- 4:41Chinese? That's like my dream.
- 4:43That, that was my, that's my dream childhood.
- 4:47Well, my house is funny because my mom is a Chinese medicine
- 4:51practitioner. One of my sisters is an
- 4:53anesthesiologist, which is kind of like the opposite, like
- 4:56Western medicine. She's the kind of person who
- 5:00thinks, oh, maybe I'll get a headache later.
- 5:02So let me get a Tylen, let me take a Tylenol.
- 5:05Now she is that I love her daily, but she is Western
- 5:08medicine all the way, medication all the way.
- 5:11My mom's in the opposite. I and now I'm kind of like in
- 5:15the middle and I have another sister who's a happiness coach.
- 5:17So we are all kind of like different versions and commented
- 5:20from different angles. But growing up, the one thing we
- 5:25all had in common is, you know, I grew up in Barcelona, Spain.
- 5:29That's where my accent is from. And Mediterranean food obviously
- 5:32is what we grew up with. So we knew how to eat, you know,
- 5:38Mediterranean diet, which happens to be the diet that is
- 5:41more researched and supported for fertility, Yes.
- 5:44I mean, for everything, actually, the Mediterranean
- 5:47diet, I think like insert issue here and it's gonna tell you to
- 5:51be on the Mediterranean diet. I remember learning about it and
- 5:55thinking I just need to move to Spain.
- 5:56That's really the the answer is you live in the wrong location
- 6:02because it's amazing. So well, that's fantastic and
- 6:05it's great that it's was kind of all over the place.
- 6:08So in your yoga coaching, though you're already practicing, how
- 6:12much from yoga did you bring into fertility?
- 6:15A lot. A lot, yeah.
- 6:18I brought in the physical layer of yoga, which by the way, in my
- 6:22program there are a lot of yoga videos, 'cause I can't help it.
- 6:26But also, you know, with yoga comes hormonal regulation, with
- 6:30yoga comes energy, you know, clearing energy channels,
- 6:36regulating nervous system, clearing trauma.
- 6:40So there's, you know, like yoga is this all in
- 7:00I mean, they advocate for a vegan diet a lot of the times,
- 7:03which I don't necessarily agree for everyone, but they do teach
- 7:07you, you know, to not eat process like they do teach you
- 7:10some of the framework. So that's also beneficial.
- 7:15I agree with that and I think like as a doula myself, working
- 7:18with women through some fertility, but then
- 7:21predominantly when they're pregnant and I like the high
- 7:24risk. You know, there's a lot going
- 7:26on. And I think I don't think we
- 7:28recognize diet as important. And one of the things that's an
- 7:32issue, if people want to be vegan, that's fine.
- 7:34But there isn't there are issues with that in pregnancy too, that
- 7:39you, if you're going to continue on that path, and I'm not
- 7:42discouraging that, but you, you definitely have to be very on
- 7:45top of certain things within your diet to have the healthiest
- 7:49pregnancy. It's not the easiest, it's not
- 7:52the easiest diet to navigate through pregnancy and and
- 7:57postpartum for sure. So that's fascinating.
- 8:00That is for sure. Yeah, we're actually doing now
- 8:03in my program, we always do challenges with my clients.
- 8:06Now in at this moment, we are doing a protein challenge, which
- 8:10is 120 grams of protein per day. It's not easy.
- 8:14It's not easy that's the problem.
- 8:15It's the lack of in which for us to eat fish and eggs and meat.
- 8:20It's easy. Well, easy.
- 8:22Yeah. So I adapt to the diet that my
- 8:26clients want to have. Some of them are religious
- 8:28reasons, some of them are environmental reasons, whatever
- 8:30reasons. And I'm very respectful of all
- 8:32that. But it is true that when people
- 8:34insist on being vegan, we do need to get very creative in
- 8:37terms of getting protein, B12 and and some nutrients.
- 8:41Yeah, that's amazing. OK, so you're helping people and
- 8:45then you get pregnant. What?
- 8:47It was easy for you to get pregnant.
- 8:49It was easy. Thank God it was easy.
- 8:51'Cause you'd already seen all these people struggling with it.
- 8:54I had already understood that getting pregnant, for your body
- 8:58to say yes to a pregnancy, it's much more than that and that you
- 9:04need to prepare your environment way before you want to have kids
- 9:07so that your body will be receptive to a pregnancy.
- 9:10So that part I had understood very well.
- 9:12So I was very proactive way before being ready in terms of
- 9:15starting to prepare my body. It's so interesting because I
- 9:20got married really young. I was 19.
- 9:23We wanted to have kids. I mean, it sounds so stupid now.
- 9:26Like why didn't somebody slap me and wake me up?
- 9:29But that's fine. I went to infertility because I
- 9:33had a year of no periods or I would hemorrhage or like no
- 9:37miscarriages. So I instantly went into
- 9:39infertility, which was fine 'cause we wanted to have kids.
- 9:42But I did like 7 surgeries and maxed out on Clomid and Provera
- 9:47and I'd have to say having being post menopause now, same thing
- 9:51like we have not caught up. Women's Health is not caught up
- 9:55that back then when I look at it, not that what that doctor
- 9:59was doing was unnecessary. Trying to rule out is there are
- 10:02there things wrong that we can fix what's going on?
- 10:06Why can you not get pregnant? But nothing was ever addressed
- 10:11with diet or exercise or mental health And I didn't have a
- 10:16mental health issue but still. Like I think every woman in in
- 10:19fertility should have a therapist because holy cow is it
- 10:26horrible. And the same thing on the side
- 10:29with menopause. Same thing when I had a
- 10:31hysterectomy, I lost twins at 16 weeks, had a hysterectomy at 33.
- 10:35There was no nothing about supporting yourself through
- 10:39diet, exercise, even just getting a certain amount of sun,
- 10:44like just daylight, like sunshine.
- 10:47So how hard is it for you challenging?
- 10:53What are the challenges with working with medical
- 10:56professionals in the field who are doing the same thing now
- 10:59that they did for me 35 years ago?
- 11:03And how much of A disconnect 'cause I know as a doula,
- 11:06there's a disconnect? Yeah, there is a disconnect.
- 11:11So when couples come to me, typically they've already been
- 11:15heavily traumatized by the fertility industry, namely
- 11:20Western medicine. So the part that's truly
- 11:24heartbreaking is that they've been disempowered to the point
- 11:28that they think they're broken and they think they'll never be
- 11:30able to get pregnant without treatments or at all.
- 11:34And then I take them in and I take them under my wing, and
- 11:38then I help them optimize their fertility from every possible
- 11:41angle. But one of the things that's
- 11:43difficult is to reprogram your brain once you've been so
- 11:48heavily traumatized, right? Because the subconscious part of
- 11:51your brain has stored the idea that getting pregnant is
- 11:55dangerous, that trying to get pregnant is dangerous, and that
- 11:58it's not worth it, and therefore it blocks a pregnancy because it
- 12:02doesn't think you're safe. Yeah.
- 12:05And most women are told that something is wrong with their
- 12:09body when they're not getting pregnant.
- 12:11But what I see over and over again is that the body is
- 12:14actually doing its job. It just doesn't feel safe enough
- 12:17to prioritize pregnancy because of a number of things.
- 12:20And one of those things being the trauma that has, you know,
- 12:24that these people have gone through.
- 12:26So my job is, my program includes therapy actually.
- 12:31To you. My job is to not just get them
- 12:34ready at a physical layer or a hormonal layer, but also
- 12:38mentally and emotionally so that their body can feel safe enough
- 12:44to get pregnant naturally. I remember feeling like less
- 12:50than a woman, you know? Like I, I've broken.
- 12:54Broken is definitely the word because the things that are
- 12:58supposed to be working a certain way just weren't doing what you
- 13:01thought they were going to do. And after the hysterectomy too,
- 13:06that was really hard. So I, I think mental health and
- 13:10our emotions tied to fertility, even not being able to get like
- 13:16even my hysterectomy and I didn't really want to have kids
- 13:19anymore, but that wasn't the point, you know?
- 13:22And so it's, it feels devastating.
- 13:27I, I know that someone recently told me that she's worried that
- 13:31her husband will leave her if she can't get pregnant because
- 13:33he wants kids so badly. And I was like that should not
- 13:36be the basis of a relationship. That's so bad, but I see that.
- 13:41I I do see that. Do you see those threats and
- 13:43those ultimatums? I even have women in my program
- 13:49that do the program in secret, like private, completely
- 13:53privately without their partners knowing so that they can deliver
- 13:59a baby to their their partners and keep them satisfied.
- 14:03But with without without help. Fertility is still very taboo
- 14:08unfortunately. I I call myself a fertility
- 14:10activist because I give voice to a lot of women that can never
- 14:14talk about it with anyone. Actually, 63% of women never
- 14:18talk about this with anyone. Wow.
- 14:23Yeah, which is one of the reasons why one of the big
- 14:27pillars in my program is community.
- 14:30And we do beautiful women's circles twice a week to get
- 14:33together with women who get you where you are, in a very, very
- 14:38safe space where you come as you are.
- 14:41Everything's virtual, so you can be in your PJS and you feel
- 14:46seen. You feel validated, nourished
- 14:48and inspired by women who totally get it because they are
- 14:52in the same season of life. Wow, I love that you had your
- 14:57first baby. Take me through.
- 14:59There's three. There's three babies, Yes, yes.
- 15:04So you want to know my first pregnancy?
- 15:06Yeah, tell them, I mean, take me because you're now your business
- 15:10is also changing along the way too.
- 15:14So that was probably pretty parallel.
- 15:17Yes. So definitely having my babies
- 15:20help me completely optimize my program since I had three babies
- 15:25and I was like, oh, this needs to change.
- 15:26That need to change. We also have a pregnancy program
- 15:29that I perfected along the way. Every pregnancy is so unique.
- 15:34That's something that is very important to remember for people
- 15:37who for women who've lost babies.
- 15:41I was not. I was lucky not to lose a baby.
- 15:44But I want to say this because there's a lot of women that lose
- 15:46babies and I want you to treat every pregnancy as completely
- 15:49unique. Yeah.
- 15:52And to remind yourself, like after a loss, if you get
- 15:55pregnant again, to remind yourself that this is a
- 15:57completely unique pregnancy, completely different baby, and
- 16:00that you are a completely different person.
- 16:04So in my case, every pregnancy was very different.
- 16:08I always say to people, pregnancy feels like if somebody
- 16:11steals your body. And.
- 16:13Other body as a rental for and you don't.
- 16:16Like it as much you don't like. It and you don't know anything
- 16:19about it. Yeah.
- 16:22Yeah. All of a sudden, like the smell
- 16:24of your house disgusts you or like, you know, like there's
- 16:29things that you used to like a lot of a sudden you cannot spend
- 16:31it like smells or, or like certain flavors and things like
- 16:35that, or you look completely different or things that you
- 16:37like to do now you don't like to do them anymore.
- 16:41I remember I used, I mean, I love swimming.
- 16:43I'm a water person. I love swimming.
- 16:45For whatever reason, during my pregnancies, I didn't like
- 16:48swimming at all. And everyone tells you you're
- 16:50supposed to be swimming and I'm like, I don't feel it.
- 16:54So, so it was really different. But I, I really felt very
- 16:59privileged to be pregnant given my job and given how aware I am
- 17:03of what a miracle this is. So even though I was nauseous
- 17:07and even though obviously it was not easy, I always, I never took
- 17:11it for granted. So I was very, very grateful
- 17:14every single minute of my life being pregnant.
- 17:18I loved it once I hit about 20 weeks, but I was violently sick.
- 17:23But I still was grateful because I was one of the people that was
- 17:27told you you might not ever be able to carry a pregnancy to
- 17:30term if you even get pregnant. And I, I did.
- 17:33And so it's hard when like, it feels like somebody gave you
- 17:37this foreign body. They just dropped you into a new
- 17:39body that is terrible and nothing's the same and you're
- 17:43trying to figure it out. One of my pregnancies, I don't
- 17:46really love orange juice and I wanted orange juice, but when I
- 17:51was not pregnant anymore, I don't like it again.
- 17:53And another one, it was spaghetti sauce.
- 17:55It was marinara sauce, but I loved ever since, like I that
- 17:59one I kept with me. So I never liked spaghetti
- 18:02sauce, but in that pregnancy I wanted it and I've loved it ever
- 18:05since. It's so weird.
- 18:07It's so weird. It's really weird.
- 18:10Hormones are so mysterious to me.
- 18:12I find them fascinating and, and creating a life inside you And,
- 18:19and you know, like you could be making a kidney now, you could
- 18:23be making a heart and you're not thinking about it, but it's
- 18:25still happening inside you. I know.
- 18:31It's so great, it's so amazing and I still avoid like the
- 18:35candle aisle in every store. And I haven't been pregnant for
- 18:3722 years and I I still, I'm there's certain things that
- 18:41you're like, Nope, can't ever do that again.
- 18:44You know, it's so it's really and menopause, it flared up
- 18:47again differently in menopause, but it's the same sort of
- 18:51situation and it's hormone based, you know, so you, you had
- 18:56three kids total. How far apart are they in age?
- 18:59They are exactly 2 years and eight months far.
- 19:03Natural child spacing. I don't know how, but they are
- 19:07exactly the same difference. I don't know that's how how it
- 19:13ended up having it. So it's boy, girl, boy.
- 19:16Oh well, you just had it all set up on a chart.
- 19:21And how much has the business changed throughout having like
- 19:26the first one, I imagine it changed a lot, which you've
- 19:28said. And then how much has it
- 19:30continue to change 'cause you meant made a point that every
- 19:32pregnancy is different and every pregnancy is very different.
- 19:36Yes. So before my third baby was born
- 19:42I sold my yoga company so I could focus only on fertility.
- 19:46So up until that point I was doing both and it was
- 19:49exhausting. So at some people was like I
- 19:51need to choose. I have two businesses, 2
- 19:53beautiful projects, I need to let one go.
- 19:56So I sold my yoga company to my competitors and I became a full
- 20:01time fertility and pregnancy coach that allowed me to give a
- 20:08lot more time to my clients. And the business initially was
- 20:12only one on ones, the my my practice.
- 20:15And now it's a hybrid program. As I told you earlier, community
- 20:19is a big part of our program. So we combine one-on-one
- 20:23conversations and meetings with community circles, women's
- 20:28circles. And that's beautiful.
- 20:30That has given me so much joy to not just help them on a
- 20:34one-on-one basis, but also to see them helping each other and
- 20:37to be a facilitator for synergies to happen and
- 20:41friendships to grow. And I know like so many people
- 20:44in my program have stayed friends and they meet up and
- 20:46they go on holidays together and, and they have been Mamas
- 20:50together. So that's been so beautiful to
- 20:53see. And we do meet ups in my house
- 20:55once a year, which is beautiful. So we hug.
- 20:58That's so great. And then I would imagine that
- 21:01that is hard and great for the people that are newer in your
- 21:07program seeing people that have their babies like it would give
- 21:10them a lot of hope and also be a little sad.
- 21:13And I know I want to talk about your program a little segue into
- 21:17that because you have a free fertility solution, three-step
- 21:23process, free online master class.
- 21:27Tell me about that, because I know that's a way.
- 21:30And you also mentioned that some people do this in secret without
- 21:33their husbands knowing, which I, I understand why some of them
- 21:36would want to do that. So I this feels like you can dip
- 21:39your toe. Yes.
- 21:42So the master class that we offer for free is an explanation
- 21:46of my method. OK, so you don't need to work
- 21:50with me in order to follow my method.
- 21:52I'm super happy to share it for everyone who can benefit.
- 21:55So I have the signature three-step program that is
- 21:59called the fertility solution. And the three steps are detox,
- 22:03nourish and flow. So what is this?
- 22:06So in detox we remove what's getting in the way.
- 22:09OK? So that can be inflammation,
- 22:10toxins, hormone disruption, disruptors, chronic stress that
- 22:15the body has adapted to, trauma, things like that.
- 22:18So, and the reason why we do that is because you cannot build
- 22:21a healthy pregnancy on top of chronic stress and inflammation,
- 22:26your body will block it. So we need to remove that.
- 22:29The second step is nourish. So here we rebuild the body.
- 22:34So we we focus on nutrient density, hormone support and
- 22:38regulating the nervous system so that the body actually feels
- 22:41safe again. I am.
- 22:43I have. I'm known for some mantras and
- 22:45safety is one of the mantras. As I said earlier, if the
- 22:49subconscious part of your brain thinks that you are in danger,
- 22:52it will block a pregnancy and it always will.
- 22:55Prioritize your survival before letting you get pregnant.
- 23:00And fertility is not something that you force, is something
- 23:04that you support. And the third step is flow.
- 23:08And that's my favorite. And that's where we personalize
- 23:11everything. Why?
- 23:12Because of the principle of bio individuality, which means
- 23:15everyone's very different. And what works for you might not
- 23:18be what works for your neighbor or what works for your cousin,
- 23:20or what worked for your mom. Every woman's very different,
- 23:24her cycle, her patterns, her history.
- 23:27And fertility only works when you work with your body and your
- 23:31system and not against it. So there's no one-size-fits-all
- 23:36in fertility. And your body has its own
- 23:39blueprint and it's really beautiful to find it and for
- 23:42your body to open up and blossom.
- 23:43And that's when we see miracles happen.
- 23:46So these three-step process with all the details and a lot of
- 23:50case studies are explained in our free master class.
- 23:53You go to thefertilitysolution.com.
- 23:56It's 1/2 an hour video, but totally worth your time.
- 23:59And you don't need to work with me in order to follow this
- 24:01process. So you'll understand the three
- 24:03steps. You can do them on your own.
- 24:04Obviously, if you want help, we're here as well.
- 24:08Wow, that's awesome. And then but working with you
- 24:13has benefits. I just feel like I'm all about
- 24:17the when people want to DIY it right, get that or at least
- 24:22figure it out or feel more comfortable or understand things
- 24:25better. I'm kind of that brain where I
- 24:27things need to make sense to me to do that.
- 24:31But it you lack the support and the individuality because
- 24:35somebody from the outside can see things in a way a through a
- 24:39lens that you don't see them. Yes, yeah, that's absolutely
- 24:44right. I mean, DIY ING your way through
- 24:48fertility, it's OK for some people, but it's, it's not
- 24:52enough for most people. So, you know, like I've welcomed
- 24:57more than 700 babies in my practice.
- 25:00And I would say maybe 20% of these people would maybe could
- 25:05have done that on their own because they were already on the
- 25:08right direction and I just pushed it and maybe accelerated
- 25:11it. But 80% of them did need support
- 25:14and we did great job at supporting them.
- 25:16So you know, life is not made to be done alone.
- 25:21You know, it takes a village for most things in life and
- 25:24fertility is one of them. It's wonderful to accept people
- 25:28and accept help from people who have the expertise and want to
- 25:32support you and will nourish you and hold you every step of the
- 25:35way. I think it's beautiful.
- 25:38I do too. I mean, I totally believe in the
- 25:42same philosophy. And I did foster care and we
- 25:45have a lot of kids. And when one of my kids had a
- 25:48baby, she said how did you do it?
- 25:50And I'm like, I created a village.
- 25:53So whether it's through fertility or your pregnancy or
- 25:57even just as a mom navigating that.
- 26:00And then you and I were both single moms for a while and
- 26:03that's a different thing. And working versus staying home.
- 26:07I I'm sure I would have muddled through, but I did it as well as
- 26:13I did because I created a community and that would it's so
- 26:18important. Community is important in terms
- 26:21of help, but also in terms of your experience.
- 26:24I always say to people I'm here for two things.
- 26:27Obviously I'm here to get you as close as possible to your baby
- 26:31and if these were a lottery, to get you all the lottery tickets
- 26:34so that you can succeed at what you want to succeed, which is
- 26:37becoming apparent. That's one of the reasons why
- 26:39I'm here. The other reason why I'm here is
- 26:41to make this experience human enjoyable, to make it an
- 26:46experience of growth for you and not just a torture and a
- 26:49sacrifice. And at the beginning they don't
- 26:52quite get it, but you know, like within two weeks they're like,
- 26:55Oh my God, I feel so not having to do the thinking and just
- 27:00relaxing into the execution and having someone else do the
- 27:03thinking for me, who's done it so many times, who's, you know,
- 27:06had so many babies and just relax into the execution.
- 27:13You have on your website it says you have a 70% success rate.
- 27:16So can you talk a little bit about that?
- 27:19Because not everyone is going to end up getting pregnant,
- 27:23unfortunately. Yeah, we have a 70 success rate
- 27:27because of a number of things. Number one is we are selective,
- 27:31OK, So to work with us, this is not, you know, everybody comes
- 27:36in and everybody gets served. You know, my attention is
- 27:39limited, My time is limited. I am a single mom of three kids
- 27:42and I give my all to my clients. I roll up my sleeves and I go in
- 27:46the trenches with them, which means that I have a limited
- 27:49number of of clients. And once we get to that number,
- 27:52there's a wait list. That's one thing.
- 27:54And the second thing, sorry about this noise.
- 27:57The second thing is we we are after a very specific profile of
- 28:06couples and of women. Sometimes we work with women
- 28:09alone. I like working with couples as
- 28:11well because men are 50% of the equation and so many times we
- 28:17just ignore the fact that they are 50% of the equation.
- 28:19So my programs inclusive for male as well.
- 28:23And we are after a very specific profile and after a very
- 28:27specific attitude. So to work with me, you don't
- 28:29need to have certain labs or you don't need to pass certain tests
- 28:33or you know, like certain age. But I will test your attitude,
- 28:38your belief. Like do you believe that you are
- 28:41capable of getting pregnant? Mostly natural in some cases IVF
- 28:44where you are needed, but most of the times they're not.
- 28:47Are you coachable? Not everybody's coachable.
- 28:51Some people push back all the time.
- 28:53I cannot work with you if you're pushing back on me all the time,
- 28:56not because of my ego, but because always I cannot help
- 28:59you. And once we see people here for
- 29:03the right reasons, they have the right attitude and and we're
- 29:07going to be a good match to work together.
- 29:09And then we invite them to join our program.
- 29:12Now, once they're in our program, I have heard from other
- 29:17people two things about us 1 is that it's a very comprehensive
- 29:21program. So I leave no stone unturned.
- 29:25That's why success rate is very high because we elevate
- 29:28fertility from every angle. And the second thing that
- 29:32happens is that I am with them all the time.
- 29:35So it's a high, high touch point program.
- 29:39So they have two group meetings a week with me.
- 29:42They have private meetings with me and they have unlimited
- 29:45texting with me. And I will say I am the queen of
- 29:49a voice notes. I love them.
- 29:51You learn Spanish, Yes. So we are in daily communication
- 29:55first. First thing in the morning they
- 29:56send me their hormones and through the day we we talk, we
- 30:01have dialogues, we have back and forth so they feel held and
- 30:05nourished every step of the way. I was the same with my doula
- 30:09clients when I was in private practice.
- 30:11I mean, the interview isn't for you to hire me.
- 30:13It's also for me to hire you. And not everybody's a good fit.
- 30:17And I'd rather have you go to someone that's a good fit then
- 30:20square peg in a round hole 'cause I'm not it for everyone.
- 30:23And I think that that's important for people to
- 30:25remember. And then, yeah, you're limited,
- 30:27Your bandwidth is limited into how much you can do.
- 30:30So my doula clients were the same same way we had childbirth
- 30:35education classes they could come to and you know, one on
- 30:38ones and then unlimited texts. And there is a limit to how much
- 30:42you can take on. Tell me I want to end with like
- 30:47something really happy because that's my thing, not the people
- 30:52who do not get in the program or not the success rate.
- 30:55But I know you have testimonials on your page and that's great.
- 31:00But for you personally, what have been, maybe it's even a
- 31:05common thread in what makes you really 'cause you've been doing
- 31:09this for 17 years now. So what's a common thread in
- 31:14what you see bringing joy? I know the pregnancy.
- 31:18I get that because that's the goal and community is there.
- 31:22Is there anything else or a situation that you just think
- 31:24about when things are tough or why your why that you keep doing
- 31:28this? I myself have enjoyed and I
- 31:34still enjoy being a mom so much. It gives me so much purpose.
- 31:38So it is my passion to help couples and women who have that
- 31:42same vocation to be parents. It is my passion to help them
- 31:47and it is my passion to educate on the fact that fertility is
- 31:51not something you force, it's something that you create
- 31:55conditions for. You create the right conditions
- 31:57for fertility and when those conditions are right, the body
- 32:00knows exactly what to do. So I want to end with an
- 32:04empowering message of you are not broken.
- 32:07You still have like I want to give you hope.
- 32:10And it's about creating the right conditions for you
- 32:13specifically so that your body opens up and says yes to a
- 32:16pregnancy. And it's very possible.
- 32:20Sonya, thank you so much for being on and for what you do.
- 32:24Thank you so much for having me, it's been an absolute pleasure.