Resilience and Hope: Erika Fox's Journey Through Infertility and Parenthood

0:00 Hello, today I have with me Erica Fox. Erica is a mom and a former labor and delivery nurse. She is now working as an OR nurse in a fertility center And today she is going to share her fertility and birth journeys with us. Erica, welcome and thank you for joining me. Hi Kelly, thank you for having me. I'm so excited to hear this story. I haven't seen you in person for a while. I know, yeah, I miss all my East Coast friends and you all from the hospital And it's like, yes, I can visit with Kelly for a while. They're going to love hearing this. This is going to be a popular episode. I've enjoyed listening to everyone's stories, but it kind of has this little pang of oh my gosh, I miss everybody.

0:44 Well, we, miss you too. Every time I hear somebody say push it real good, I think of Erica. Did. I'm happy with that Yeah. All right. Well, I'm going to let you go into your story. I am very excited to hear it. Thank you. Well, i can't tell my birth story without also telling the long, long story from trying to conceive. We did struggle with infertility for many years, something that we weren't expecting, of course, we were married for two years and that was kind of in our plan. Okay, we're going to start trying after two years, and I was 30 at the time. No one in our family experienced infertility, so there wasn't a huge reason to for us to worry.

1:25 We thought it was a pretty straightforward path. So this went on for like six months and you start you're wondering and you think it's going to happen right away. And it wasn't. And I was dealing with a disappointment every month of getting that period. So it was like six months in and I did talk to my gynecologist about it and she looked into it, just like with an ultrasound. She said, well, i don't visually see anything. That's going on. That's wrong. We moved from Massachusetts to Virginia in 2017. And when we were living in Massachusetts, i was working night shift. Everything just felt off And I was like, well, maybe if I get off with night shift, i'll really focus on working a day shift job.

2:09 So at least my circadian rhythm is normal, because maybe that's a factor. We didn't have any answers at that point, so I waited a while in Virginia for a day shift job to come about. You know how that can be, so let's see. In late 2017, we kind of got on board with some more testing And it seems like with infertility it's often focused on the woman partner. There's a heavy focus there on what's going on. So I had a test called a HSG, where they look at your fallopian tubes to make sure they're both open, and they found that one side was blocked. So then if you ovulate on one side one month and the other side one month, you're gonna maybe have to wait every other month to try to get pregnant right, better chance, because that's the side that A is gonna be on.

2:57 So we had this information, didn't quite know what to do with it, just kept moving forward, nothing's happening. And then in 2018, they started looking into my husband's medical background and reproductive stuff. So I won't talk about his piece as much because I don't wanna talk about his medical history and all that and I don't think that's fair to him. But in infertility you have two pieces to a puzzle that have to come together And we both just had a little something where we could not get those pieces together and conceive. So the next step in that process was doing IUIs, which is intrauterine insemination.

3:37 It's not super invasive I mean it's more invasive than conceiving in a traditional way But so you take some medication and they insert a catheter with the partner's sperm through your cervix and then you hope to get pregnant. We did three rounds of those. They were not consecutive months, but we didn't have a pregnancy from that. And then in 2019, my husband had a surgery and we thought that would help. So we continued trying and obviously nothing was happening. And then in late 2019, i had a procedure to look inside my uterus and check for polyps so that if we move forward with IVF, would we have a nice clear uterine lining.

4:27 And they did find polyps And that was at the end of 2019. So I had a surgery scheduled to remove them in early 2020. And that was in February. So it's such a roller coaster. It's like you're constantly finding out a new thing that you have to overcome and deal with, and where's the light at the end of the tunnel. So had the surgery and was really excited about that because once that pathway was cleared we could start IVF. They told me I would just have to wait a month or so after surgery to be able to start. And IVF is, if you don't know, it involves a lot of stimulation for a lot of injection medications and taking medications by mouth and monitoring your cycle and hyper stimulating your ovaries so that instead of ovulating one egg, like you would every month, they try to get as many as they can.

5:24 So then they combine your partner's sperm and the egg in a culture in the lab. So did the IVF work. So COVID Yay, so I had the surgery February 2020. In March 2020 called the clinic and said hey, am I still on the books here? And they're like, no, we're shutting everything down. No surprise there, we don't know when we're opening back up. So I kind of just had to call back all summer and they got us in in August And the first round of IVF. This whole process takes about like six weeks because you have to go by your menstrual cycle and you may be on birth control to suppress your cycle and have a more controlled start to everything for when they need you to ovulate.

6:16 And then you start taking the injection medications and you stimulate your ovaries for 10 to 12 days. So it was doing all that driving to the clinic, getting monitored every day, every other day, where they do transvaginal ultrasounds and look at your follicles Super fun. I've had so many transvaginal ultrasounds that it's not even shocking anymore. You just get really used to the not so lovely parts of it. So with that cycle I got to the egg retrieval day, where your ovaries are Nice and juicy, you have those follicles all filled with fluid and your eggs should be in there And you go under light anesthesia.

7:00 So you just get a short nap. They go in with another trans-saginal ultrasound with a needle attached to it and drain each follicle through a catheter and put those in tubes And that's where your eggs will be. So I think I got like 12th that first time. I think eight were mature and so you can only fertilize the mature eggs And ultimately we had three embryos and they were not growing very fast. So you have a little wait time. You know we had to wait the five days and at that point we were doing a fresh transfer and we got to transfer a day where they would put the embryo back into my uterus and found out that the embryo didn't grow very well It was kind of stuck on day four.

7:46 So they transferred it anyway. And you do hear success stories from maybe slower growing embryos, but this was not a success story. So you put a lot of hope into it. You have the two week wait and then they called after my blood test and told me I was not pregnant. So it's very crushing to go through all of that and then not have a successful pregnancy. So we ended up having to do two more cycles with egg retrieval. The second time it was late January of 2021 when we had this cycle And it was the same thing. This time We had a few more embryos but nothing that was getting to that blastocyst stage that they want to see.

8:30 And we got to transfer a day and they said only two embryos made it. They're not really good quality. We wouldn't freeze them. We had to make this decision on the day. We can transfer one embryo or two embryos, so they would just discard the other embryo. So I said you know, i don't, if I had to choose I wouldn't choose a multiple pregnancy because of the high risk. But we did choose to transfer the two embryos. Two week wait again, and that was another failed transfer. It did not result in pregnancy. So we did it a third time and that was in May. All along I was making a lot of changes. You kind of you want to grasp onto any piece of control that you can.

9:11 So you're. You're making changes. I threw out all of our plastics. It was like a crazy person in our Tupperware drawer Like this might have chemicals in it, this might have chemicals in it. My, you know anything I put in my hair dry shampoo. throw that out. I threw out so many products. You know everything unscented. I wasn't wearing perfume, and this is all based on a book. It's it starts with the egg. That for for your egg health. We did a last round and we made a few changes before this third IVF cycle. And this cycle I had more follicles because they stimulated me a little bit more aggressively, just based on what happened in the past cycles, And we ended up with three embryos that were pretty healthy.

9:58 They reached that blastocyst stage and then they grade the embryos and they were like a a, which is good, so that was really hopeful. The problem was with this last cycle my body kind of did something different and we could not do a fresh transfer, meaning we didn't just go in five days after the egg retrieval and transfer those embryos. They had to freeze them, otherwise it could have made me pretty sick with ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome. My ovaries were really big, really swollen and my estrogen was really high. So it's a recipe for not having a lot of success with a fresh transfer.

10:38 So that turned out to be really good because I could recover from the cycle. I could. I could just get back to feeling a little bit more normal before introducing those embryos for the for the transfer. So we did a frozen embryo transfer, but first we moved across the country. So we took two weeks to drive from Virginia to California, all the while I'm taking the medications for the frozen embryo transfer. So wait, how did you get the embryos to where you're going? I didn't. I flew back. So we moved us and our dogs across the country, closed on our house in early July And then a couple weeks later I flew back and I stayed with my in-laws and it takes like 10 days so that they can go in, monitor you and then do the frozen embryo transfer And had that they transferred one embryo and it went well.

11:40 So success Yes, yay, viv has her arms up. She's stretching them up in victory. So I flew back to California and then did everything here, had kind of a hard time getting established with care out here because you don't have an OB until they won't see you until like 10 or 12 weeks at least at this new OB. So I had to find somewhere, someone that would do an ultrasound to get that first six week ultrasound and confirm everything, which is super exciting. So my pregnancy, first trimester it was. It was good, but I had a lot of nausea and pseudoversions really bad.

12:22 I'm such an avid coffee drinker I like just a black kelo coffee in the mornings. The smell of it just sent me to the grain zone. There would be like one piece of paper in the trash can and I would be like David, do you smell that? That smells awful, we need to take the trash out And he's like there's nothing in the trash can. So just everything. I'm smelled everything, but otherwise it was really good. That first trimester. I did have to go to the ER at 18 weeks, which was really not fun. At one of my appointments I had a lot of like clear fluid come out and I told my nurse practitioner that and she said oh my goodness, the next time that happens you need to call us.

13:07 So sure enough, it was like a week later And I was sitting on a chair at work starting an IV and I felt fluid go all the way through my scrub pants. And so I, you know, went to the bathroom, saw it was like clear fluid, no blood, no blood. And I called my OB and they said you need to go to this emergency room to make sure your water didn't break. And I'm like I'm pretty sure I just maybe peed myself a little. So I was worried, but my co-worker is kindly, put me on the OR table and brought out the ultrasound and they said well, before you get shipped off to the ER, let's just make you feel a little bit better.

13:49 And so, sure enough, she was in there doing gymnastics. You could see fluid pockets around her And so that was reassuring. So I did go home and take a shower and then went to the ER and my water had not broken. So I went to the ER because I maybe peed myself. That's a fun story to tell, and you're not alone in that. Many people go to the ER. And one of my best friends. she was like you know, i had a lot of discharge too, so it's like it's just a thing that happens. That's probably it. I feel like, though. so with the girl pregnancy, i feel like that's more of the case. I always thought my water broke when I was pregnant with my daughter, so maybe it's estrogen.

14:31 Yeah, that's a good point, i don't know All right. So then 20 weeks we have the anatomy scan And that's where things got a little bit interesting. I'm feeling better. At that point Everything was looking good with this. They diagnosed a filamentous cord insertion. You know that everyone in the hospital if you see a filamentous cord insertion you gather around and you look at the filamentous cord insertion, where that cord is supposed to be attached nice and securely from the fetus to the placenta, right in the center and in a nice juicy protected site. The filamentous cord insertion is a little bit more precariously placed And it's like the. The vessel is attached inside of the membranes So they don't seem as well protected.

15:17 It can cause baby not to grow as well And you worry about those vessels possibly breaking. It was a lot to digest. So at the anatomy scan they also found that I had a short cervix. There was no funneling but the cervical length was just short. So they brought me in for, i think, four consecutive weeks to monitor my cervical length, make sure it wasn't getting shorter, and ultimately my cervical length didn't change too much, but it was just kind of a thing that was in the back of my mind. I did get carpal tunnel, kelly, i remember you having carpal tunnel, that with Owen. Oh yeah, i couldn't well with both, but I couldn't start IVs for like six months And even it was after I came back I still had numbness on my fingers.

16:02 It was awful. Yeah, i remembered deferring a lot of IVs. My hands just aren't working. I feel like you're just going in blind. Yeah. You know I work with pregnant women. I knew pregnant women, i knew how uncomfortable they were. but you don't know how uncomfortable it is until you're there and you're just so uncomfortable. Yeah, especially. I mean neither one of us are huge people with huge illnesses, So like, where does that baby fit Exactly. And I think just walking up the hill or getting out of bed my husband would say are you okay, just breathing heavy? I'm okay, no distress, just breathing real heavy right now. And then let's see, around 37 weeks I got itchy palms at night.

16:50 There were a couple nights in a row where I was just up scratching, scratching my palms And I knew I had to call my OB and let them know that this might be cholestasis. So they brought me in for labs. They checked liver function and bile acids And those results didn't come back for a week. So I was at a regular OB appointment. It was on a Monday in April. I was 38 weeks and five days And my provider looked over the results And I would look at them because I got them back a little bit sooner. So I peaked at them. Liver function was fine and bile acids were just like barely barely elevated, so I wasn't super concerned.

17:38 But he said you know we're going to bring you in for an induction tonight. I said well, but my bile acids, they're so low And he said well, that was a week ago. Oh, that makes perfect sense. Okay, so I had an induction of labor for cholestasis And he did check my cervix at that appointment And I think it was two to three that morning, so not too shabby, and I felt like I was contracting every two to three minutes on my way to the appointment. I was kind of timing them and they weren't super painful, but there was a regular counter in there And when we, my husband just happened to be off that day, which was really good, so we could clean the house, get the dogs walk, to get everything ready and have an evening induction.

18:20 And he said well, do you want to go home and take a nap and rest? And I said, heck, no, let's go walk the dogs, let's clean the house, let's keep this thing rolling, because I feel some contractions. I could help myself out here by just keeping the ball rolling. So we went in at eight o'clock that evening. Yeah, it was an eight o'clock induction. You have to actually call and make sure they can still take you. Even though you were a medical induction. Yeah, Yeah, you can do that, i can't, which is kind of nice for the hospital, for the hospital And I thought the plan was to insert a servidil and I thought it might be kind of a long process. We had our banks packed.

19:01 I told my husband, like, bring your computer. We might be pretty bored really until things get moving. So we arrived at 8. I had my IV in everything done and ptosis started at 9. So I thought I thought we were going the servidil route, thought I had some time here. But he did check me again. He said you're 390 and minus 2. We're going ptosin. Ok, i wasn't mentally there, you know, but I was. I was showing every two to three minutes on the monitor, so I had some good uterine activity to work with. And this is where my timeline gets. I thought I would remember everything, like clearly, vividly, time everything, but it just kind of goes all over the place for me.

19:47 So she started pit. I was also GBS positive And I had a penicillin allergy listed in my chart, which I don't think is real, but I never got tested. I wish I would have, though. So they gave me thencomycin. They started that shortly after the ptosin, and I just remember feeling like my scalp was on fire. I was itching, scrunching. Yeah, they give you a high dose for the first loading dose of vancomycin And then you get it again, and then another eight hours, so I just felt miserable, and then, once they shut it off, it was better, and then I was just trying to focus on. I wasn't in a ton of pain, but I was feeling stuff, trying to move around the room.

20:30 I got up to the bathroom like 8 million times just because that felt better, and it was around 1 AM. I was getting uncomfortable. So, about four hours on the ptosin, and the doctor came in to check me And I wasn't able to sleep or really be still, and I told my OB I would really like to get an epidural. Probably break my water. Next, i want to get an epidural before you do that. So he checks me and my water breaks. So it was a pretty intense exam, and then my water broke at that point And then it just all hit the fan. I mean clear fluid, thankfully, but just so much pain.

21:11 It was like just in a wave over me And I know that's how mama sounded. So I did ask for the epidural, like, bring that epidural in right away, please, i need it. It felt like forever. It felt like it just took forever And you know how some women they're in so much pain that they're just not hoping while I'm comparably still for the epidural. That's how I felt And I also felt very alone while I was getting my epidural. They didn't have my partner come sit near me. Usually during an epidural or when someone's in terrible pain, you try to give them a word of encouragement Hey, you're doing great, there's a light at the end of the tunnel, or just coaching on breathing.

21:59 That's a really good time to do that And I felt like no one was talking to me. So that was kind of hard And the epidural running and it did relieve some of the pain, most of the pain on the well, all of the pain on the right. But on the left side I had kind of like a weird window, but it was like under my left butt cheek Very weird. So a lot of pain in that area. So I tried to stay comfortable. I'll move around a lot in bed. And when my nurse came in to put my catheter in, she checked me and I was still three. I was like I'm in an awful lot of pain to only be three. And then my mind went to those places like, ok, i see where this is going.

22:42 Maybe my body's not going to respond And I'm going to have a C-section. Ok, that's fine, because I didn't know I don't really know this OB very well. Is he going to tolerate many, many hours on pit without cervical change? So I texted my mom. It's like, hey, mom, i'm still three, i have my epidural, probably going to be a C-section. And so then my mom's in Florida, she's all worried about me And that's what's in her head, so we just keep moving along. Had the peanut ball was going side to side with that At some point. I had my second dose of Vencomycin And it was a smaller dose So it wasn't as severe, with the hair on fire kind of feeling.

23:25 And that pain in the left side was creeping up on me really badly at like 4 or 5 in the morning, and so I called my nurse And I said I think I'm going to need an epidural redose because this left side is just feeling bad. And she said OK, well, let me check you first. She checked me and I was complete. So 10 centimeters, rock and roll. She's like OK, well, you can start pushing, but your provider is back in a C-section, like oh man. So we waited to push. It was after 6 when I could start pushing. So that's where my timeline is kind of jumbled. I knew I was complete for a long time, labored down for a really long time, but I'm not sure how long And then he finished with everything, came in.

24:11 We started pushing a little bit after 6. And I pushed for 40 minutes. I wanted the mirror. They offered the mirror. I love using stuff that I used to use on my patients just to see, because you're always like am I a person who's going to want the mirror? Either people love it or they hate it. No, i do not want to see it. Oh, i forgot something. Before I started pushing I got an epidural redose, so my right leg was complete dead weight And I got some more relief on the left side with that redose, but it was pretty close to pushing So I wasn't sure how that was going to go, but I was really thankful for that relief, used the mirror, pushed for about 40 minutes, i remember toward the end I did hear that D cell really slow down into the 60s And everyone got a little excited.

25:04 I was like I know what I need to do here. We got to have a baby And she was born right before change of shift 6.54. And they put her on my test. I was just sobbing. I remember there was nothing else in the room, i was just going to let it all out Sobbing. It was beautiful. It was beautiful And she wasn't crying a ton. Her apcaras were 8 and 9. But they did leave her there for a while, just stimulated her on my chest. It's some suctioning. I had a second degree tear So he repaired that. I don't remember feeling that. I also didn't feel the ring of fire when I was pushing because I had a really heavy epidural And what I followed when I was pushing was that discomfort under my butt cheek.

25:55 That's how I know it's contracting. I delivered the placenta shortly after. There weren't any big complications And one of my regrets is that. Well, i can't really regret it because I was bonding with my incredible beautiful newborn baby And I didn't think to ask about the Vellinantus cord insertion To this day I do not know. I did save my placenta for a study through UC Davis. In my pregnancy I saw they had this wildfire study because there were pretty bad wildfires like 2021 and last year in California and the surrounding areas, so they wanted to study the effects on pregnancy and birth and babies.

26:40 So I thought that was so cool, wanted to be a part of it. So they came to my house, they drew blood while I was pregnant, took fingernail hair clippings, everything, and then I was instructed to save my placenta and someone would come pick up the placenta, which, like saying it out loud, sounds really wild. I'm the person that I carry my placenta around, and so the placenta was with us for a long time and I really wish that we would have just gone on a little investigative journey with you. Know, hey, hey, husband, grab some gloves, bring that placenta bucket over to me. I need to know some things. But even in the notes it wasn't in.

27:20 It wasn't in the notes from the provider. It said the placenta was normal. So we'll never know. How was your recovery Recovery? So immediately after birth I had a little bit of bleeding and had to get methyrgine. It was really sore but managed with ibuprofen and Tylenol, so nothing crazy. I was really thankful for that. What kind of support do you have at home, Like what? when you came home, how was that? How was your postpartum? My mom was scheduled to fly here from Florida on her due date, so the 13th but she was born on the sted. So we actually had a week just when I stood in night at home, which was really nice to just have us there.

28:01 Otherwise we did not have much support at all. I had a friend, like my first California friend. She brought a meal over the night that we got home from the hospital And I thought that was just the most amazing thing And it was spaghetti and salad And it was the best tasting spaghetti that we didn't have to cook. We didn't have to think about what we were eating or preparing. We ate it for a couple of nights Now. It's just such a really nice gift And it did make me think in the future. You know, you kind of obsess. If you're gonna cook for someone, you want it to be really tasty, and is it something they're gonna like? It doesn't matter.

28:41 You have to let go of that and just know that you're supporting someone in a really neat way, showing up for them just to drop off the meal. Yeah the meals that I got to. It didn't have to be anything fancy, it was just like oh, one thing that I don't have to think about. Exactly, you had mentioned that you weren't sure if you were peeing yourself. Did you have any issues with, like, public floor or anything? like that. No, i felt a lot of heaviness but I did not have urinary incontinence And I did. I thought I would because of that early on. I remember when I was going through all my public floor issues and you were running and I was like don't run. So much you're gonna regret it Yeah. But so I did some public floor physical therapy and there was this lack of mind body connection with my core, like my lower abdomen and my brain, and from the therapy I think at some point I managed to like reconnect that And now when I run I feel like I'm really engaging in my core and it's actually helping my public floor.

29:38 So I think it's one of those things where they say that that's an issue, but maybe it's not as much of an issue as we make it. I definitely wish that they would just send you to a public floor physical therapist, like in your pregnancy, and so you can prevent some of those issues. Yeah, and I've heard to get to that point after you deliver and you have to find all these people and make appointments and you have a newborn, and so I did ask about public floor physical therapy, but I never went, but I was glad that I had some recommendations. I use YouTube videos for postpartum specific trainers. Yeah, like you were saying, just engaging in that mind, body engagement makes such a difference.

30:21 Wow, i've been working out wrong for so many years. Yeah. So when you were pushing I know we teach people to push What was it that like kind of clicked for you? What worked for you Other than like feeling that, feeling the contractions? but was there a time when you're like, oh, this is right, This is how I'm doing it right, Or these are the muscles that I need to pull out? Yeah, that was hard, because I do remember points where I was pushing in my face And I'm like I know that I'm pushing in my face and I have to really switch it up here And I just concentrated. I do think the mirror helped. Yeah, focusing mentally on where you're pushing down below. Okay, So I ask everybody this if you could go back and talk to yourself before this whole fertility journey and the whole process, what do you wish that you could go back and say to Erica, maybe help you through this journey?

31:12 I would tell myself you want to be a mom, you've always wanted to be a mom, you will be, You will be a mom. It's going to be a long road And I mean I would do it all again, but it's going to be okay, you're going to be okay, your baby's going to be okay, and there's just so much anxiety, so much worry that you can focus on And so many dark places you can go in your mind throughout all of it. So, just being able to lighten the load again, like enjoy, enjoy your pregnancy, make sure you celebrate all these little milestones and celebrate openly, cause I was kind of just celebrating to myself because it was too vulnerable, i had too many disappointments going through infertility that I probably didn't fully enjoy my pregnancy And just knowing that it's going to be okay.

32:04 And then I think that it's hard for people to know what they're saying to people that are going through this journey. I've had to like really be conscious of how things are said, because we kind of are cultureized. if that's a word to say, do you have any kids, or those questions that can be kind of triggering, and I've kind of changed it to tell me about your family instead of things that might be triggering. But what are some things that you might tell people Just to kind of, if someone is going through that journey, when they're talking? I love that you're asking tell me about your family, because, like you said, it can be really triggering.

32:45 And we worked in labor and delivery, the fertility capital of the hospital. So every day on the unit you get asked by your patients, by coworkers do you have kids? Oh no, do you want kids? And then you know you start making jokes Well, i'm just gonna adopt a bunch of dogs, and things like that. But you don't know what someone's going through. You don't know if somebody wants to have children. You don't know if somebody can have children. Maybe they had a diagnosis early on in their life that they haven't had to cope with yet, but they will, that they might not be able to have children. So maybe waiting until that's offered, but also trying to understand, because you don't really know when to talk about it.

33:32 When you're going through infertility, you don't know who to talk about it with, who you're safe to talk about it with, with all your feelings surrounding it. But you have to have someone who understands. Did I answer your? question Yeah, i think it's good to know things to say to not make things harder for people. And then you moved someplace when you had your first and didn't know anybody. If you could do anything to kind of help moms recreate the village, what are some things that you would recommend to help new moms during that that? stage. If you do know of someone and just asking what preferences you have, I'm going to make you a meal or bring you groceries What would you like?

34:15 Because I'm the person that's going to say no, don't do that, We can order out. So yeah, just saying you're going to show up for them somehow. The other thing is I wish people knew, when they're in a new situation, how to find other moms, how to find support. That was really hard for me. I felt isolated and lonely for a while. You have this whole other human being that's attached to you all the time, but you still have that longing to be surrounded by supportive people who are maybe going through what you're going through, because maybe your partner doesn't understand, even if they're trying to. So I found a group through my local rec center And it's a play group for the kids.

34:58 It's like art and music not really art because they're too little, But that's a difference to go and sit in the circle with other moms. So if you look for those things early and know where to find them, I think that's really helpful. So I think I'll tell all the new moms about that kind of resource or your local library where you can go and your baby can be around other babies and you can be around other moms And I found a little fitness group called fit for mom and they have a class called stroller strides And you can bring your baby in the stroller and you work out, And that's something I wish I would have found sooner. Yeah, I had no idea that any of those things existed either.

35:39 I mean, I knew they existed, but finding them in the new city was hard because I had a friend that was hooking me up in New York and then we moved. So And not really have family nearby either. right, Were they able to fly out after she was? born. They did for a bit off and on, but it was so. I mean, the move was so overwhelming. I would imagine that you're going through the same thing. Just just feeling like your whole life is just in chaos is rough. Yeah, and wishing you had a relative down the road to Yeah. Oh, did you have any? Well, you said that you felt lonely. Did you have any issues with most part of depression or anxiety that you saw someone for? I didn't And I've had anxiety kind of a basic level for years And I know that it was much worse during COVID.

36:27 I should have had medicine for it Or at least have been in therapy, and I wasn't. And looking back now I can see so clearly I wasn't healthy then And I was going through so much with ideas, plus COVID I wasn't sleeping well. I would wake up in the middle of the night, couldn't go back to sleep and just having all these kind of ruminating thoughts. So I was kind of prepared Okay, this can happen postpartum too, and I knew what to look out for with myself. But I'm surprised how much clarity I had. That's not to say I didn't have anxiety. I remember dropping my in-laws off at the airport with them in the back And she was really crying upset.

37:08 So we stopped at Starbucks And I remember that when I drove away from Starbucks I just kept looking in the rear view mirror. I didn't leave her. I didn't leave her because you have this like terrible fear. So I just kept double checking Is she there? Is she there? Reach back, touch her, is she there? That's the kind of border on normal but could lead to anxiety if you're not functioning well. Did that resolve it at a certain point. I think I still have moments like that. You just picture these worst case scenarios and you're like where did that come from? And a couple months ago I was having sleep disturbances again and just feeling that anxiety creeping in.

37:51 So I reached out to my nurse practitioner at the OB's office and I said this is what's happening. I need a plan in place just in case. So she gave me therapist numbers and she said we can manage your medications if you end up meeting them. And I felt like that mellowed out. So, yeah, i felt the same way kind of with my first, but then with my second started kind of ramping up. Yeah Well, i'm glad that you have a plan in place. I think that everybody needs to just kind of constantly look out for it. I don't think I noticed it as quickly as I should have. But if you're staying up at night thinking about things, maybe it's time to go do something, right? And you just see it. Maybe Okay, I just didn't sleep that well last night, but there's something deeper going on.

38:34 And the other I know you didn't ask this, but I do want to include that something that happened for us was that my husband did not bond with Viv right away, And you see a picture in everyone else's new families of this couple, these partners leaning over the baby and just in this collective awe and the you know mind's blown or baby's here, and that didn't happen for us, And so I think it's so important to normalize that that not that might not be happening to you based on you have two people. If you're raising babies with two people in a partnership and one is like just going through it.

39:17 He was going through it And so it took him months and months And I asked him for permission to even say this because I don't want to like throw him under the bus, but I think it's really important for people to hear that that might be your situation too, where you're not like equally just bonding with the baby. It's really different for the non-births and pure, and it takes some time Like build that attachment and really be fully reaching for your baby. And yeah, I mean, they kind of come out like little bitty aliens. They don't seem human at first And I think that's shocking to everyone. I feel like I feel like my husband had a little bit of an issue with it too And also not really understanding like what needs to be done.

40:01 He, i mean, he tried, he played with her and, you know, try to do fun stuff with her, and they're just there's not much that they can do in return. And so it's like such a delay and like the smiles happen later and the responses happen later, the eye contact happens later. And if you're the one that's like holding them and with them all day and you were the one that was pregnant, so you knew this baby was coming, you felt this baby every day They did it. It's almost like I had this video of my husband when he found out, when I told him I was in labor, and he's just like, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, like totally in shock, and I was like this reaction is not helpful. I'm going to need your support now. It's not time for you to melt down.

40:43 It's almost like, yeah, he didn't realize it was actually going to happen. So I think they need that time to like. Really, i don't know. It's almost like they don't. They're like in shock for the first three months. Yeah, They could probably just compartmentalize Right Happens And then they're like now I need to prepare. Where do I? start. Yes, Yeah, I sent him to daddy boot camp, but it didn't emotionally prepare him. So, yeah, it's rough. I think it's rough for men And that's not the. I mean, we've seen dads at the hospital that act like that, that you're just like you are having a baby And they really just I mean it's. It'd be interesting to see them a year later and see what happens, because I really just think that there's this deer in the headlights so often for such a long time, And then this little thing comes out and they're so little and so fragile and kind of terrifying.

41:33 So it's kind of I feel like it's kind of normal, Yeah, To have dads kind of be like Oh, what is this? It's not a puppy. No, don't come out walking. Well, Erica, was there anything else that you wanted to share that we didn't go over? I think so. Well, thank you so much for sharing everything. I'm sorry we've had so many technical difficulties and adorable difficulties. Making a podcast with a baby here, 13 months old today. Yeah, he's phone obsessed. Hi, buddy, yeah, yes, you are. Congratulations on your podcast. I'm really excited for you And I think you're doing something so important And I know it's hard work. There's so much probably that's happening behind the scenes and editing and lining everything up, thus working plus being a mom.

42:19 This is important stuff, so thanks for making this happen.