Latest / The Home of Fertility with Liz Walton & Helen Zee / What Happens When Motherhood Isn't Your Ending? Deep chats with Sarah Roberts

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What Happens When Motherhood Isn't Your Ending? Deep chats with Sarah Roberts · The Home of Fertility with Liz Walton & Helen Zee

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Fertility, health and Coming Back to the Self, an opportunity to go deeper into your journey of life, and all this can encompass with your host, liz Walton.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: This podcast follows the threads of life and the journey of fertility on every level emotional, physical, spiritual and the consciousness we consider our health and what that means in our lives today, and we bring all of this together with coming home to ourselves, the conscious and unconscious journey of life and how we traverse this in the best way possible.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: I am so grateful and humbled.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: You are here.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: Good morning, good morning everybody.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: So I am very, very excited to be here back on the podcast for Fertility, health and Coming Home to self with Liz Walton, and I really enjoy these podcasts because I get to talk to some of the most amazing women on all of their fertility journeys, and fertility is a huge subject.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: So whether we're starting in the middle, in the end or realizing we have to let go which was something I had to do it's a massive subject.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: So I am really, really honoured to welcome a gorgeous woman called Sarah Roberts from the Empty Cradle.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: How are you today, sarah?
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: Oh, I'm doing really well, Liz, and thank you so much for inviting me to be part of your space and for all the work that you do.
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: It's such a blessing to all of us well, that's extremely kind.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: Well, I think the blessing is mutual because you have also been on a massive journey and you know you bring your, your lived experience and blessing and heart and passion as well to support a lot of women and and so thank you for, you know, taking the time out.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Time is so precious these days.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, such an honour hey.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: Likewise both ways.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: So now I'll let all the listeners know a bit about Sarah.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: So her website is called the Empty Cradle and it's theemptycradlecom.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: Her website is beautiful, may I say so.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: I'll just read out a little bit about Sarah.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: And so Sarah's story starts with.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: My personal story includes deeply desiring motherhood, 10 years trying to conceive, including doing IVF, leaving the clinic, struggling to find the appropriate support.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: I so totally understand with that.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: It was devastating, and I knew there must be other women there just like me.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: After years of healing, of growth, I gathered up over 35 years of professional experience as a counsellor, a group worker, community educator and facilitator and founded the Empty Cradle, a healing and supportive space for women transitioning to permanent, involuntary childlessness.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: Wow, you know, I just so honor this.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: So, so honor this.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: The Empty Cradle offers online counseling, groups, courses, groups, courses, programs, resources, the power of a loving community.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: Love this tender, practical, evidence-based services designed to help you heal your heart, feel confident and worthy yes, nurture connections, explore meaning and purpose and completely navigate this identity.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: Reconstruction of existential life, transition from potential mother to thriving as a childless or child-free not by choice woman.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: Wow, that is just.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: There's just so much to unpack, even in about me, isn't it so?
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: What an amazing journey you know this is bringing, you know, bringing purpose to our pain, isn't it so, sarah, I think the best thing is let's hear it from you.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: Tell us, tell me about you, your journey and the work that you do.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: Please.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: Thank you, Liz, and thank you for that beautiful introduction and thank you for all the work that you do.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: It's so precious, it's so you know it's.
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: I know that for many women, fertility treatment, those years trying to conceive, can be a really quite painful time in our lives and sometimes, whether the journey ends with our hopeful children or whether it doesn't end like that that there's.
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: Often women want to move forward and it's really courageous when women like you look back over your shoulder and go.
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: I really want to hold the space for younger women and men and communities coming along behind me.
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: So it's, it's really.
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: It's both rare and really precious.
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: So thank you for what you do it's an honor, an absolute honor.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: Thank you too yeah.
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: So it's really funny, you know, because I I sometimes wonder about where the best place is to start.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: My story, I guess, and I guess in a way it kind of starts with my mother and my grandmothers, and for my mother's generation it was literally the generation where women, you know, once they married and started to have children, there were so many jobs they weren't able to access.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: It was difficult to access education, look, they weren't even able to take out loans and own credit cards.
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: So it's almost to think about, motherhood for them was just the assumption that everybody would become a mother, and almost like a little bit of a burden, and particularly for some women.
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: For some women, motherhood perhaps isn't what they're wanting or it's, you know, it's.
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: They have really mixed feelings about motherhood.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: So my context was and I've got four sisters wow, yeah, there's a few of us and and one brother, um and my context was very much about, um, my mum's generation opening up opportunities, opportunities around education, around work, around travel, also that sense of hey, this traditional model you can't rely on, perhaps a partner and a single income, even if you'd wanted to, that it's not necessarily a safety net.
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: And so really late teens, early 20s, even into my 30s, was very much about getting an education, finding myself, earning a livelihood, all that stuff.
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: And I know that so many women during those years it just feels like you're juggling all these balls right, that so many women during those years it just feels like you're juggling all these balls right.
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: And so in my family context, motherhood kind of wasn't even really mentioned as we didn't really talk about it.
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: And I remember the moment for me when I absolutely knew that I wanted to be a mother.
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: I was.
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: I think I was in my late teens or kind of around 20.
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: And I remember I'd had a contraceptive fail.
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: So it was a situation where basically it had been the possibility of a pregnancy and a pregnancy scare, I guess.
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: And I remember during those two weeks and, as so many women will have experienced, this is the anxiety around oh my God, I feel like I'm too young, I'm not ready, and look, I was really fortunate that it didn't end up being a pregnancy so I didn't have to then make those next decisions of what do I do now.
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: But I remember during that time it was a little bit like the archetype of mother absolutely landed into my life and there was just a part of me that really rose to meet that, and I absolutely knew that.
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: When I then looked forward across the next two decades, I knew that it was really bad timing now, but I just knew that motherhood was this fixed point in my future and I absolutely knew that the whole project of, and for me, the physical experience of, experiencing a pregnancy, breastfeeding, um, and look, I know none of that necessarily goes easily and you know how we can kind of have this imagining in our head around how it might unfold um and so for me it was really important.
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: It was a really important and I didn't necessarily have huge ambitions in terms of work or like other things were a little bit more take it or leave it, but that was one thing that was super important to me and I also kind of carried a sense of the context in which I wanted that to happen.
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: So I wanted that to happen within a really solid relationship.
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: I wanted to kind of feel a bit more stable financially.
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: You know, just some of those things had just been, and when I look back on those decisions and the decisions that I made over those years, many of those decisions are quite maternal decisions, and so I talk very strongly that you can be a woman without children and still make quite maternal decisions.
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: And that part of you that desires motherhood that might be bonding with future children, the part of you that grieves when motherhood perhaps doesn't happen or doesn't happen in the way that you might have hoped, that part of you really is the part of you that is embodying the mother and she's the part that, when it doesn't happen, she's the part that doesn't necessarily get realised in relationship with her own children.
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, necessarily get realized in relationship with her own children.
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: So then what happened for me was that, um, so that was my late teens, and then I kind of lived then through my 20s and it wasn't really until my early 30s that I was in a relationship that just felt really solid and we were ready to to bring children and to create children and to parent them.
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, um, and so around 34, 35, we we started to try for children and, um, completely naively, I just thought, you know, if you're on the pill, it's like a tap to turn it off and then you turn it back on and expect her to be pregnant next month and look, and I was one of those women that had collected some baby things and had a sense of what their names were and had a sense of you know where I wanted to live and ideas around perhaps where I might want to send them to school.
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: And so I'd kind of done some bonding and as I was doing the IVF like you would, you know, you'd literally see your eggs being produced, you'd see the follicles, you'd know that there was a transfer and that was really over a decade where, month by month, there's that little mini grief that happens every month.
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: And I guess during those years it was just this sense of this is going to happen and it just hadn't.
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: During that time really, I just wasn't the possibility of it not happening just was just something that I was so in resistance around and it created a lot of anxiety and stress for me over that time.
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: And look, I do remember you know people have been through the clinics.
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: You can.
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: You can kind of feel a little bit like it's a I don't want to say necessarily cattle yard, but it it can feel like it's a little bit of a you know, it doesn't always feel really personal and it can feel like, you know there's there's quite a high volume of of of patients that are going through the clinics and it can be really tricky and I know for me during those years that it really impacted on my psychological well-being and that's the stress levels.
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: And so I did things, like you know, I stayed in.
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: I stayed in a job that had fairly good maternity leave and I probably would have left earlier.
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: So it was a little bit like it felt a little bit like my life was on hold a bit, because when I went through it would be like, well, hopefully I'll be pregnant in three months time and hopefully in 12 months time I'll actually be parenting.
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: So all of those years my exit strategy was to be a mum and to have children and as it unfolded it just became clear that that wasn't what was happening.
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: And look, I pushed it right through.
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: I was incredibly hopeful through to my mid-40s and so it was about 45 when I did my last ivf cycle and it's I know that it's incredibly personal for women and I know women struggle so much with did I try enough?
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: Maybe I tried too much?
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: Like we can really second guess ourselves so much.
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: Oh, my goodness, exactly right.
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: And that sense of like, our sense of self, can feel like it's just being demolished um, and care for us during those years is just so so important yeah so important yeah, because we forget ourselves.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: We do, we lose ourselves, we get lost in the yeah.
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: I mean yeah, yeah and it's like the part of us that desires motherhood.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: She's in so much pain that she rises up and almost kind of can kind of take over the rest of us and we can lose touch with who else we are, um, and that can be really really hard.
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: It's really hard and there can be a lot of grief in there, even if the process hasn't completely finished.
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: There can be a lot of losses along the way.
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: That can really impact so many losses yeah, right yeah, and the grief, I think oh yes, the grief, yeah, and we do live in a little bit of a culture that's not very literate around grief.
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: There's not necessarily, you know, people might want to step in and tell us that we shouldn't be feeling how we're feeling, or might want to help us to problem solve it, or or maybe it feels quite uncomfortable, so we don't necessarily get good responses around.
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: You know, sometimes what we need to be able to do is just say, hey, this is how it is for me yeah and I don't need to be fixed.
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: I just need to be acknowledged, and, and, and listened to, and, and that we need to be able to offer that to ourselves as well.
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, to create that space and nurture ourselves through it yeah yeah.
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: So what happened for me then is, at about 45, I did my last cycle and we retrieved five eggs, even still at 45.
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: Well done, yeah.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: So two of those went on to be fertilised and what happened was that I realised those two eggs were very slow growing and, of course, they transferred and weren't successful.
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: And look, that was the point at which and I know it's a completely personal decision for women as to the choices they make along the way but the decision for me was that it felt like, with the eggs being slow growing, that it was actually starting to potentially compromise the physical health of my children, and so that was the point that I just went.
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: I'm ready to stop, to lay down, because it can feel a little bit like you're kind of in almost in this struggle, kind of almost like you're really struggling, and I just got to a point of just going.
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: I just need to to walk away, and that was an incredible mix of feelings.
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: So the huge part of it was this sense of relief to not have to go through this month-to-month cycle and look part of it.
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: I think I just went into, I kind of almost went into a bit of a freeze as well, in that it then took me.
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: I still there, was still part of me that was still hopeful after that of a natural conception.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: And it then took me 18 months after my last cycle and a friend of mine sat me down and she said, sweetheart, this isn't going to happen for you, is it?
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: And that was the point at which I said, no, I'm not going to become a mom.
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and at that point I think not just because of my age there was such a such a brokenness and so much impact for me psychologically.
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: At that point I just wasn't ready to explore other pathways to parenting.
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: Um, and there's such limited options really around things like adoption and, um, and you know, going through surrogacy and donor eggs, and it's such a personal decision around what women, how much they've got left in the tank to keep going yeah and what their boundaries are.
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: So so you know, I can really relate when women say is there other things I could have tried?
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: And the answer for me on that one is yes, there's other things I could have tried, but I it just that wasn't right for me at that point in time and I had to.
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: It's like I had to take Sarah at that point in time and wrap her in cotton wool and say, sweetheart, we really need to look after you yeah and so what happened was that that coincided at a time in my life when my father was dying, so I spent six months looking after him, and then we, at the end of that year, we went and walked the Camino de Santiago.
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: So we took three months and walked across Spain.
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: Wow, did you?
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: That's amazing.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: I did it was huge and look naively, I thought I, and walked across Spain Wow did you?
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: That's amazing.
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: I did.
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: It was huge.
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: And look, naively I thought I'll walk across Spain, I'll get to the end of it, it'll all be done, my grief will be finished, I'll come back, I'll have a whole renewed purpose in life and it'll all be sorted out.
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: And I look back on it now and my honest feeling was that it actually felt like basically what happened was I got back and I then I fell into this huge pit of grief and I look back on that time really what that was was that was almost like a full stop at the end of that journey.
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: So the end of that period of my life, that walk was almost a ritual around.
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: It was like this ritual around that this journey is now done and it was kind of like marking the end of that journey and it was also an opportunity to reconnect with my partner and, um, just create some really tender memories for us, I guess.
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: But also, I didn't know.
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: I had no role models.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: I had nobody who I personally could turn to, who'd been through what I'd been through.
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: I reached out to some counselling professionals and psychologists and, look to be fair, they weren't fertility specialists, they were people that general psychologists or general clinicians and what I found was that some of the comments that can be made to us in social spaces that can feel a little bit minimising and a bit like where there can be empathic failure, some of those comments were made to me in the counselling space and, look, I had because of my work background.
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: I kind of sat back and reflected and went, ah, this is because childlessness is actually invisible and it's not talked about.
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: Childlessness is actually invisible and it's not talked about and there isn't good training or awareness for people, um, for mental health professionals, to be able to hold the space for this.
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: And so I guess that's that was what really inspired me then to to move forward with the empty cradle.
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: So I took my previous counselling skills I'd worked with children and young people and worked in drugs and alcohol work.
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: And so I'd yeah, so I'd taken that those professional skills and kind of redirected them in terms of my personal story and experience, found some really great counsellors, so I've got a really lovely counsellor that I've worked with over the years and, yeah, just that's what led to setting up the Empty Cradle.
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: It's kind of that combination of the professional counselling skills plus that, really that knowledge that comes from and the wisdom that comes from the lived experience, so kind of weaving those two together and offering support for women.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: yeah, yeah, well, I love that, um, and how you said, you know it's, it's about almost a renewing.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: I know I felt, you know, I'd had six IVFs, I had to move back to the UK because I was in Australia and you know, realizing then that you know I can't go any forward, we don't have any more money, none of this has worked.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: How do I give up?
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: And then my sister-in-law fell pregnant, first time IVF, which was like a guiding star and also heartbreaking, and I felt like I had to like have this zip from the top of my head all the way down and I had to let her go, yeah, and step out, because her beliefs and thoughts, yeah, weren't going to help me anymore.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: And I remember a friend going, it's like smashing a glass and just let everything fall apart.
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: So I had to literally fall apart.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: So I loved how you said you know you went to the Camino and then you came back and fell apart, and I can so relate to that.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: You know it's like that.
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: There is a death, isn't?
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: yeah.
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: So it's almost like what you're saying is the Liz who lived through those years, the way that she approached that experience, that you needed to almost let her go Like yeah, yeah.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: It's huge, isn't it?
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: It was so huge.
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: You know, it used to be transformative, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's huge, isn't it?
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: It's, it was so huge, you know, it just transformed me.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: So tell me, um, how do women make sense of this?
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: You know this realization.
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: I mean I can share what I did, um, but also you're now really in this and you're really supporting women in this space, and this is where I feel like that that you said I needed to wrap Sarah up in that cotton wool and just love her and support with mental health and support with self love.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: I mean, I had to do so much and, like you, I'd say I had to work on myself for 18 months to really like who am I if I am not a mother?
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: yeah, yeah that's such a that's such a such a big question, isn't it?
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: Because?
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: because what you've almost described there is, it's not just like I couldn't have kids, it's this fundamentally transformative life experience and I'm not saying it's for everybody, that's the thing, but for so many people it can be, particularly if parenthood was a really important part of your identity, was a really important part of what you hope to experience, perhaps throughout the remainder of your life.
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: And so I guess one of the first steps is to, in a way, kind of taking stock and kind of going how am I doing, how is this impacted on me?
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: And, perhaps, as much as possible, finding out about the experience and finding out about how does what are the messages I've received, perhaps, about parenthood?
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: One of the messages perhaps I've received about being childless and really just gently exploring that and potentially finding ways to kind of investigate is that really true for me?
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: So, for example, I have lots of women that I work with who who, for example, might have felt that you know, they might have heard messages like you know you can only know real love if you're a parent, or um, that that childless people can be selfish or that a childless life can be really unfulfilling and that you might be isolated and lonely and it's purposely about going.
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: Ah, what are the messages that are outside of me and what's happening within me that maybe I'm actually carrying some of those messages and I haven't maybe challenged or really investigated that for myself, and so, like we touched on earlier, one of the things I've really seen is that there can be the whole process of the problem solving and the losses and navigating through the stress of that and to really have a sense of how is this impacted upon my sense of self, my sense of worthiness, and to kind of just gently really hold space and learn to do that in a way that's really self-compassionate and that's really loving, and that's that can be really hard when, um, you know, one of the things that happens in fertility treatment can be, sometimes we think that it's always solvable, there's more I can do.
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: If only I did that, sometimes the clinic might send us messages around.
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: You know, if only I tried harder, that I'd be able to make this happen.
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: And I think at the end of the day, yes, we navigate it and do as much as we can, but also, at the end of the day, it's not.
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: Fertility is not something that we have complete control over.
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: And so I remember one of the things that my gynecologist said to me, which was incredibly helpful, and he was an old school um, he'd been doing um IVF for decades, even from close to when it started and he just said to me.
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: He said you know we're going to try our, but we're not in complete control of this, and implicit within that was a sense of it's not your fault if this doesn't work.
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: Because often we will be looking for blame as to whose fault was it.
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: So much, yeah.
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: And so to try and hold a sense of compassion and grace for ourselves and that we are making decisions that are right for us at different points in time, and not to mix up.
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: Sometimes we think that if it was an outcome we didn't want that, it must have been bad decisions.
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: If it was an outcome we didn't want that, it must have been bad decisions.
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: And sometimes we make good decisions and it still is the outcome that we didn't want.
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: So to just be super kind and loving towards ourselves.
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: The second thing that I notice that women can find really helpful can be a lot of women disenfranchise themselves.
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: So, because it's not socially acknowledged, because there's not necessarily good role models, because it's not necessarily spoken about, we don't have good role models around, your heart can be completely broken and you can feel completely decimal and just, and yet it's possible to carry that and learn how to heal, and learn how to process our grief, and we might still, even into the future, carry some grief.
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: But it's also possible within that to connect with ourselves and gently craft a life that's meaningful and and just as worthy.
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and that's so important, so important, so important.
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: How I put it was, you know, I felt life.
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: How could I see life with one hand going hey, I've got a great life for you when all I could see was the other hand going?
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: I wish, I wish, I wish.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: So that's why I felt I had to, you know, peel her off, because the other hand couldn't see the new hand.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, couldn't see there's.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, couldn't see there's a great life.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: You have no idea.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: I remember years ago, whilst I was trying and um, because I I started in oh six I remember seeing a story of a lady.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: She was australian lady, who also had spent years, I think she had pink hair and she also spent years trying to get pregnant and it affected her relationship with her partner and she went off traveling and I can't remember if it was Bali or if it was Vietnam or if it was Thailand, I can't remember.
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: It was somewhere in those beautiful Asian countries and she went to an orphanage and she ended up being part of the orphanage and just loving all of these babies and I remember crying and she was like I now know why I couldn't get pregnant, because I have all of these babies, you know, and that there's always a reason, and I just remember like, oh, that's so lovely and that whole reason.
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: If you don't know what's out there, if you can't, you have to, you don't have to.
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: I know, for me I had to.
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: You know what's the blessing, how can I move forward with this and how can I let go of her?
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: You know my older, my other self, you know and love her and but I need to step away.
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: So you know, I and I wanted, you know, I desperately wanted to be happy, because I knew that's who I was.
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: I wanted to be happy, I wanted to get over this, I wanted to be the best version of myself.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: And how could I be that?
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: So, and that lady taught me a lot.
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: I mean, I never met her or anything, but I remember being interviewed on TV and the whole thing of.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: Now I realize why I couldn't and I've got all these babies.
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: So I was a bit like you know, I love that.
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: That sounds like such a beautiful way that that she was able to make meaning and make sense of that experience right.
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: And one of the things that I that I gently support women is.
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: Sometimes we can have this feeling that there's this kind of free-floating meaning or purpose or things happening for a reason, um, and and for some women that that can be, they can, they can feel a sense of connection and belonging around that.
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: But also for other women it might be.
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: There isn't necessarily a clear reason.
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: That's kind of floating out there and it can sometimes be sense making that might arise from within.
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: You is and it's almost like you described is that when you've got those two parts of you, which is there's the part that's grieving, there's the part that, that the mother part that experiences the loss and heartbreak, and when she's really activated it's like she rises up and takes over the whole of our system.
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: Then there's the other parts of us that actually aren't necessarily dependent upon our parenting status, so our ability to create and once we've nurtured and really cared for and started to process the grief, what happens is that it releases some of our energy and attention to be actually and it's something that rises within us.
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: So, for example, if someone comes up to you and says, oh well, you just need to get over it and find meaning and purpose, it lands really differently than if it's an internal process of I've grieved and now I'm gently ready to perhaps turn my attention to the left and see what else there is that's possible in my life, and so I often suggest for women that to kind of create that sanctuary so that you can listen to your internal voice, and it's really easy within the whole fertility process to kind of almost really lose touch with ourselves and the essence of ourselves absolutely, yeah, we get, we get eaten up, swallowed up, overwhelmed, takes over absolutely, and that's why it's so important to to have relational spaces, and sometimes that that might be with a professional counselor or a therapist having relational spaces where we're able to say this is how it is for me right now, and trusting that our own internal capacity to digest, to integrate our experiences, to make sense of our experiences, and that that can be a really gentle unfolding process.
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: The other thing that I I really offer for women and I and I think this is particularly important where it is a transition to permanent childlessness and where, so, in the same way that when someone moves into being a parent and they've got this baby and they've got all the bits and pieces there's this hunger within them to connect with other parents, to go what do you do when this happens?
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: Or or to to just absorb just the advice and the information and everything they can find on that lived experience of being a parent.
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: And it's almost like you need so many women need that and it's often unavailable around.
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: How do I learn how to be permanently childless?
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: How do I learn to?
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: And it's not like so.
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: People will look into our lives and sometimes have a lot of opinions and comments and you know that, that feeling of when you're within your own life and you're struggling to kind of make sense and process things.
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: Sometimes the unsolicited advice and the problem solving and the opinions of others can kind of land quite harshly.
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: And so I often say to women sometimes it's really helpful to actually connect with other women or other people who are living the same life experience yeah absolutely, and you know it's.
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: this is one of the things that I just find incredibly extraordinary is when, often, women, when they're coming to terms with childlessness, have really absorbed and internalised some of the messages, the social messages around being childless.
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: So it's like they might, for example, wonder what's wrong with other women who don't have kids, what's wrong with me?
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: The most extraordinary thing is when I sit with a group of women in a room, in a group process, and when we share of our experiences and the number of women that will just go oh my God, I thought that was just me and the amount of times that women will go.
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: So what it does is it actually creates this distance between when you don't have a frame of reference around your experience.
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: You kind of go oh, there must be something wrong with me that I'm not over it, or there's something wrong with me that I'm really jealous of.
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: Perhaps you know somebody who I know, who got pregnant really easily, or where I might be feeling this intense anger or or whatever it might be, um, that they're experiencing.
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: And when other women go and actually I went through that too what it allows it allows this space to actually take it from being about me to kind of realising ah, this is really common with this experience and to go, this is part of what this experience is, and then what it actually does is it gives you that distance to then kind of go maybe I'm okay, I am worthy, maybe I am.
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: You know, one of the things I say to women is you are a fully realized adult woman who unfortunately wasn't able to have her own children, yeah, and to become a mother, but you're no less worthy and you're no less capable and you are no less a part of what it means to be, part of the kaleidoscope of what it means to be human yeah and to really just it's a gradual unfolding for women to kind of almost really reclaim their self-worth in a way.
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: And the magic question is, once we land in that place, once we've done that internal healing that you've described, yeah.
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: The question is and what then?
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: And what then?
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: then, yeah, imagine if women who didn't have children really genuinely felt good about themselves imagine what they have capacity to contribute.
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: It's just if one in five women felt a sense of worthiness and that time and space and the skills and the resources and that we collectively have came together, imagine how powerful we could be as a group in terms of what we contribute to our communities, 100, yeah, yeah, so, um, I wanted to then look at grief, you know, um.
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: So what are the?
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: What are the myths of grief?
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: Tell me about grief.
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: I mean, I know I had my grief and just working, you know, I think I just cried forever, but there is.
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: There was that light of the tunnel of just like, okay, it's time Liz, it's time, um, but yeah, tell it, tell, tell me about grief, the myths of grief, um, and your perception and what you've gone through for your life.
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: Look, it's really interesting, isn't it Because I know that you'll really relate to this is that often we talk about love and grief as being the two sides of the coin.
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's a little bit like the key word in terms of understanding grief is loss.
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: We only grieve for something that we have an attachment to or something we have a bond with, or something that we love, and so grief can be obviously a relationship, a person.
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: We really most of our understanding about grief comes from bereavement, where there's been a death of somebody.
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: But there can be losses the whole way along the infertility journey, for example.
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: For me, like I felt this incredible sadness when I had to step through the door of an ivf clinic.
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: It was just like this was not how I'd planned to conceive my children and, of course, the mix of gratitude, the mix of hopefulness, the mix of okay, this is how it is, and so that was a little mini grief that you know, it passed through fairly quickly, but, um, you know it's.
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: The other thing about grief is it's completely individual, it's completely subjective, and so what I might grieve and be attached to it's as subjective as love is, yeah, and so what I am grieving or letting go of is going to be really personal to me and the different aspects of grief are going to be really personal to me.
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: The other thing for us to be really aware of is that in our kind of western kind of modern culture, is that we're not very literate around grief so grief is this thing, that we sometimes think it's this problem to be solved, whereas what it is it's actually like it's something to be held and something to be carried and allowing ourselves to feel those emotions as they come up.
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and sometimes we think that grief is this thing, that you just go into this pit and you come out the other side and then you're completely over it.
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: It's often not the case.
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: Often there can be it's more like a we really call it.
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: It's like an oscillating process between there can be, um, it's more like a we really call it.
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: It's like an oscillating process between there'll be times when we're within the grief and the, the lost space and times when we're in the renewal and the, the restoration space.
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: We're just kind of getting on with our lives, and it's that back and forward movement, um, and when the grief is really, really active, we might be in that really intense grieving space for a period of time and then, as we've processed and start to integrate the loss it's not that it goes away, it's just that we sometimes expand and so we're ready to actually explore perhaps other parts of our lives and other possibilities, and that's such a personal process it is.
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: And it's like I had so many griefs and I like what you said about many griefs, it's like you know that part of me that grew up like I never was a massively child person but you know, you grow up playing with dolls and it's that implantation of society or how we're brought up in.
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: I suppose in my family should I say that parenthood it's something that will happen, yeah, and it's something that will happen, yeah, and it's expected.
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: And I think a part of me through my journey was, you know, that that understanding and expectations, my little, that little child was hurt, you know, and then, and then I also had to grieve for, um, you know, the babies that I would never have the life.
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: I, you know I'll just get married, I'll just get pregnant and so that whole life that didn't happen and I had to grieve for that.
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: I had to grieve because my grandmother wasn't going to be the grandmother and they're like you say, there's all these little griefs that we take on as these burdens and you know that we take on as these burdens and you know, and you know they, I'm, I'm so broken I must be.
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: You know I'm such a burden for you know I can't do this.
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: You know, I can't even give my mother be a grandmother and my you know, my in-laws and just what we seem to put on as like these heavy coats and pain.
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: So it was interesting all the different aspects of my grief which once I really had to look at it was like whoa.
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: I like what you said about the mini griefs.
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: That was kind of it is, all these different mini aspects of ourself, all those little losses, yeah, those little griefs that did have to be held and nurtured, I think is a way of putting it.
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah and that's going to be unique to every individual.
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: And the thing that's interesting is, even in the context, we have all of those external how, how did I internalize that?
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: And then what arises within me?
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: So, for example, you can have women who have grown up in the same context, where it's expected to be a mother and they're really clear I'm child free.
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: This is not what I want, this is not right for me, and so it's actually like what arises within them is actually a rejection of those messages, and what we need to attend to is to be aware of what's happening externally but really focus on what's arising internally.
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: So, for example, I was in a context where we barely didn't talk about parenthood, like it just wasn't something that was on the radar, and yet motherhood arose really strongly within me, and so it's what happens within us in response to that context and as we start to unpack and examine that that can be really helpful.
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: The other thing I say for women around grieving is that we often haven't been taught how to grieve.
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: We often haven't been taught, we might not be very well informed about what grief is, because it's often something that's not spoken about.
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I found it incredibly helpful.
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: I have a mentor that I follow, stephen Jenkinson, and he talks about grief, literacy.
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: So being literate around grief Wow, grief can be like a set of skills that we can learn, that it's teachable right yeah, and so how empowering is that to kind of go oh, I can actually learn what this is about and actually make sense of it for myself, and and part of what I when I'm working with women is I will invite them to, for example, with all their different emotions and thoughts and feelings and everything that comes up, just to imagine themselves like sitting at a banquet table and all the different parts of themselves are just sitting in different chairs around the banquet table, and what we do is instead of what we tend to do is we often shut parts of ourselves down or deny ourselves.
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and what we need to do is almost how do we create dialogue with that part of myself?
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: Because every motion, emotion that we feel actually has a message for us.
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's about feeling and processing and understanding that message for ourselves.
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: And what I talk to women about is that, in a way, it's like the goal is not to get over the loss but to integrate the loss into a whole, more expanded self.
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: So it's really about saying it's about welcoming ourselves into the wholeness of who we are as adult women.
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: And it's about you know, brene Brown talks about this is that when we numb emotions, we can't selectively numb emotions.
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: So if we turn the volume down on sadness, we're turning the volume down on joy, on, you know, all the what we might call the positive emotions, and so what we're trying to kind of do is actually just hold space for those feelings and find a way to actually hold and nurture and tend to ourselves in a really loving, kind and compassionate way.
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: And if and one of the ways to do that is to kind of really understand if I've got this critical inner voice and these underlying beliefs about my sense of worthiness, sometimes there can be really good work that we can do about.
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: Where did that come from?
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: Like when did I learn in my life that my anger wasn't okay?
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that my feelings didn't matter?
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, when did that happen?
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: And there's beautiful techniques and ways now of working with those core beliefs to process those.
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: And I guess the other thing I would mention as well is that there can be a lot of trauma in our experience, a lot of shame, which we've touched on, a lot of grief and also a lot of trauma where our adrenal system gets really activated.
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: And trauma is about not feeling safe, and so how do we create spaces of safety within ourselves, within our lives, within our relationships?
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: Um, and to just work really gently and tenderly with what it is that we're needing yeah as we're processing this experience.
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: yeah, and then what happens is there's this really big internal shift, and one of the things that my mentor, jodie Day, says is that when you're in the thick of grief, it can be incredibly tempting to say because I didn't become a mother, I have to do something really big to make up for it, to compensate for not being a mom.
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: And she will talk about be really careful, about the big decisions and about having to plan too much, because the person you are now is going to be different from the person you are in five years.
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: It's the healing process where you healing process where you.
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: It's a transformative journey and so as you start to evolve and you start to heal and move forward, your priorities might shift a little bit and what's important to you there might be some consistencies, but there also might be some changes, and so just to kind of gently allow imagining what might be possible for you now and what things might look like for you, yeah, yeah.
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: So that's kind of really the approach that I'm often using when I'm working with women.
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: I think, for me, each stage was almost a deep spiritual experience of understanding myself and coming home to myself, which is why I call the the podcast coming home to self, fertility, health, because to me it is all about coming home.
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: I mean, for me, three, three years later, um, I ended up getting pregnant naturally, which was quite a shock, of which I worked on my brain so much that you know I'm, I'm lucky I don't have to get pregnant.
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: You know I can be.
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: The child was actually quite quite huge and you know, even then I was told she wasn't viable, blah, blah, blah, and it was really lucky.
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: But I, but I do feel that and for me, having that understanding of what happens when we let go and finding peace and space of I am whole, I am okay, I can go forth, was, without a doubt, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, without a doubt, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge.
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: So I really honour you that you're holding that space for all these women, women and men.
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: You know it's couples as well, isn't it?
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: You know, of who am I, who?
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: am I now?
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: I think what's so interesting as you say that is I'm imagining that process for you is I'm imagining that process for you.
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: It's almost like you've described that how you showed up during the fertility treatment having to let go, having that three years of that transformative process.
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: I'm actually imagining that that's impacted on then how you showed up as a parent.
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: Possibly, yeah, without a shadow of a doubt.
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it definitely made me a better person.
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah the transformation.
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: Right, it was a huge transformation.
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: And I was was, you know.
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: I remember a friend of mine asking you know, are you happy now, can you do this?
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: And I was like you know what?
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: I'm good, I'm ready, I'm gonna freaking change the world.
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: And this is I.
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: I really can think I'm, I'm okay.
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: I'm okay because it took me a long time, you know, and I did cry, just like I know, yeah.
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: And and then I was like yeah, and so I remember, bizarrely finding out I was, I was a bit like what now?
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: Now you know you're joking with me.
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: I have to recalibrate myself.
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: How do, how do I do that?
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: And I remember being really like so confused, um, just like I don't get this.
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, um, I think what's amazing for me is that and obviously we we have such similarities in our stories and the difference, of course, for me being that that the natural pregnancy and going into being a parent didn't happen for me, and and then I went on quite a different pathway and and obviously so many women.
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: that's not necessarily going to happen, but when I reflect back on the person I am now and the person I was during those years my 30s through to my mid-40s, and that whole process I mean ironically I look back and I think my experience of moving through and coming to terms with childlessness, I absolutely believe that the person I've become would have been a far better mother than if it had just happened yeah, and it's not like um, it's not like there's not still.
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: You know, there's still a part of me that even kind of most days really, there'll be a little thought that can kind of that that rises around.
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: You know the space that it would have been lovely to have had children, that little space in my heart that's still alive within me, yeah, but it's also it's now part of a much bigger whole, yeah, and so really I just kind of I mean it's so weird in that I actually think the experience for me of being childless has made me a human being who would have been a much better parent than if I had, than if I'd become a parent, which you know doesn't make up for it.
• 57:43
  Speaker 2: But it also is a beautiful part of what it means to be me and to be in my life and I'm not in anybody else's life, I'm only in mine, yeah, um, and to really honor that, I think, is really important, so important so important with this.
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: Um, I think this is where it's just a great.
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: What would you, what are some words of advice, some tips, some some love that we can sort of finish with this really sort of deep conversation.
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: You know what could be some things, some words that people can take away as support oh, that's such a beautiful question, liz, and I, um, and I love the way that that every individual will bring forward their own answer in response to that and I guess for me, it probably really is about really where we've landed in this conversation is about deeply honouring the uniqueness of who you are, yeah, and that your story and your experience and your life and your way of being in the world really really matters, yeah, and to take that incredibly seriously, because there has never been and there will never in the future be the unique expression of life that each of us are as individuals.
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: I love it.
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: So to deeply, deeply honour that, and that comes with heartbreak, pain, all of the big stuff, and it comes with the whole of it else.
• 59:40
  Speaker 2: So it's just like what is it that you're needing right now?
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: And to really and if you're really struggling to connect with that, that's okay, but just to gently allow that to unfold and to ask ourselves what is it that I'm needing at this point in my journey, To gently offer that to you, you know.
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: And then there's a wise, expansive, loving core self.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: That is the rock solid foundation of each of us and when we really connect in with her, she knows.
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 2: She knows.
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: Oh, I love that.
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, the self knows.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, oh, breathe into that, I love it.
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: So, sarah, where can people find you?
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: Where is?
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: I know we've got your website, theemptycradlecom, and where else are you?
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: look, the website is really the best place to find me.
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 2: I work online.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 2: I do um in-person weekend workshops.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: I have a co-facilitator that I deliver those workshops with for women coming to terms with with childlessness, uh-huh individual counseling workers, and I also run some group programs.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: So right, yeah, and I just love that opportunity.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 2: So really the best place is through through my website okay, and are you on any socials, any Facebook any?
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 2: But I have to say this is my fertility joke.
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: I'm a little bit of regular it's difficult to have all those hats on.
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: I I do understand.
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 2: I know, I know I pop stuff out there, but I have, you know, a bit of a love-hate relationship around.
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 2: I mean, my absolute thing is I just love being in relationship with women and connecting, so all that additional stuff.
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 2: It's great.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 2: When you can get there, I understand, through the website, and you can find me on facebook and instagram, okay, and it's the empty cradle as well.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: Is that correct?
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah and um, where are your workshops?
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: Where do they mainly tend to be up in um queensland area, or are they?
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 2: different parts.
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 2: I've just finished one in melbourne and are in Sydney.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 2: Okay, so they are around Australia and in southeast Queensland.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 2: So we do travel around Australia and we're open to if there's interest from women in New Zealand potentially offering something there.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: So yeah, and they're just so powerful having women in the room together.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like any lived experience that's that's silenced or disenfranchised.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: When you connect with other women who've been through what you've been through, it's so liberating.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: It's very powerful, I think, when you get women together and you know whether it be for whichever subject, but when you get them together and it's that opportunity to heal yeah, and such a relief, such a relief to go.
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 2: Oh, I'm in a group of women that I'm going to, you know I get to talk about this and I won't have to and I can relate.
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we can really relate and really get it on that really deep level.
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 2: It's beautiful yeah, wonderful.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: And if there was a few words that you would like to leave with for everybody, what would they be?
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: You matter, you matter, you do, you do, you do matter and particularly around your psychological health and well-being really matters.
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we often think of psychological health and well-being really matters.
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we often think of IVF and fertility as being a very physical process.
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 2: It's equally importantly a psychological process and that's really important to tend to that as well.
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah a beautiful, beautiful note to finish off sarah, thank you for this really deep conversation and, um, thank you for today such a pleasure and go well, and for all the, all the people in your community just hoping for you, every blessing and care yeah, you matter.
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: I love matter.
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: So, thank you so much and remember all of those wonderful listening ears here today.
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: Whether you're listening to this now or in the future, you do indeed matter.
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: So put your hand on your heart and breathe into that that you are love.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: You matter.
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: So with that, thank you Sarah, thank you you all of you, amazing people, for being and listening today.
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: May this have been some medicine for you.
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: So, sending love to you all, take care.
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to this episode of Fertility Health and Coming Back to Self.
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to the podcast and consider leaving me a review, which will help me to reach others who may benefit from this information.
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: Feel free to get in contact at LizWaltonorg or via social media at lizwalton underscore fertility coach, and, if you feel called to, I would love you to share this podcast with anyone you think this could be a healing for, as an elixir for the soul.
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: I'll see you next time.