122. In this deeply emotional final episode, host Jamie Massey steps onto the other side of the mic to share her full, unvarnished path to becoming a mother over 40. From enduring seven pregnancies and navigating donor egg IVF to delivering her 9.5 lb son, Jamie opens up about the heartbreak, resilience, and miraculous joy that defined her four-year podcasting journey.
On episode 122, in this deeply personal and emotional final episode, the tables turn as guest host Ellie steps into the interviewer’s seat to help podcast host Jamie Massey tell her full journey to motherhood. After four years of sharing the stories of women overcoming fertility struggles, Jamie opens up about the path that brought her own son into the world. From navigating mid-life dating and finding love at 40, to enduring multiple pregnancy losses, an ectopic pregnancy, and a harrowing fertility clinic experience.
Jamie takes listeners through the physical, emotional, and financial decisions that ultimately led her to donor eggs and IVF. She candidly reflects on processing the loss of genetic connection, overcoming severe needle phobias, the anxiety-ridden months of carrying her pregnancy, and her hospital birth experience. Wrapping up four years of podcasting, this farewell interview is a heartfelt exploration of grief, perseverance, maternal identity, and the extraordinary power of finding hope and community through shared stories.
About the Guest Host
Ellie is a speaker, former podcast guest (natural pregnancy at 45), and long-time supporter of the show whose original interview with Jamie aired in early 2023. Known for her intuitive approach, warmth, and firm belief in possibilities, Ellie returns for this special milestone to hold space for Jamie and guide her through reflecting on her final chapter of show host turned story-teller.
Connect with Ellie:
- Instagram: @saffronandindia
- Her Pregnancy Story at 45: Episode 28
Connect with Jamie:
- Instagram: @masseyj_
- Email: jamielear@gmail.com
Key Topics
- Starting the Podcast & Finding Purpose: Shifting from homesteading content to focus on pregnancy over 40 to build hope, community, and proof of possibilities for women trying to conceive.
- Late-Bloom Love & Mid-Life Relationships: Meeting her husband after years of “serial dating” in her 30s, navigating an 8-year break, and navigating fertility discussions when he brought up having children first.
- Pregnancy Loss & Ectopic Experience: Experiencing early miscarriages, an emergency ectopic pregnancy requiring surgery, internal bleeding, and how open family discussions prepared her emotionally to keep moving forward.
- Navigating Fertility Clinics & Medical Red Flags: Moving past a negative, clinical experience at an uncomfortable local clinic to find a husband-and-wife practice that fit her needs.
- Overcoming Needle Phobia & The IVF Process: Overcoming a lifelong fainting history with needles to self-administer IVF injections, facing a low follicle yield (3 follicles, 1 embryo that didn’t develop), and dealing with embryo loss.
- Pivoting to Donor Eggs: Normalizing the emotional shift to donor eggs through podcast interviews, selecting donors through egg banks (frozen vs. fresh, proven donors), balancing physical traits with personal connection, and navigating budget constraints.
- Uterine Ecosystem & Pre-Transfer Diagnostics: Testing for uterine microbiome health (EMMA test, Lactobacillus, probiotics), monitoring thyroid and Vitamin D levels, and the value of tracking specific health numbers over relying on standard “normal” doctor feedback.
- Pregnancy, Anxiety & Physical Milestones: Managing high anxiety during pregnancy, coping with early bleeding caused by a cervical polyp, successfully undergoing a manual external cephalic version (ECV) without an epidural for a breech baby, and trusting intuition on gender before official results.
- Hospital Birth with Midwives & Doula Support: Going 10 days past the due date, navigating prodromal labor, opting for an epidural, pushing through nuchal/hand presentation, and delivering a 9.5 lb baby boy.
- Postpartum Reality & Breastfeeding Challenges: Coping with elastic nipples, full-time pumping schedules, clogged ducts, tongue/lip ties, intrusive thoughts, adjusting to a maternal identity, and relying on peer support from fellow late-life moms.
- Postpartum Pregnancy & Genetic Loss: Experiencing an unexpected natural pregnancy with twins at age 44, coping with loss due to triple trisomy, navigating a final early miscarriage, and agreeing with her husband to end the trying-to-conceive journey.
- Closing the Chapter & Transitioning to Perimenopause: Navigating Hashimoto’s diagnosis, anemia, and perimenopausal shifts, while celebrating four years of podcasting and deciding to close the show to focus on current priorities and family.
Resources & Links
Note: Some of the links below are affiliate links, which means I may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you if you make a purchase. I only recommend products our guests truly love!
Instagram: Follow Over 40 Fabulous and Pregnant
YouTube: Watch Episodes HERE
Recommended Products: It Starts With the Egg by Rebecca Fett & Sunflower Lecitin
Shop More: See ALL products recommended by our guests!
Support the Podcast: Donate to the Podcast
Community: Join the Over 40 Fabulous Facebook Group
Transcript
Jamie: Four years of podcasting, seven pregnancies And I birthed a nine and a half baby. I feel incredibly lucky. this is the last episode. I can’t do it anymore. I need to move on.
Ellie, welcome to the show.
Ellie: Wow, it is fantastic to be back.
Jamie: Yes. We recorded her story back in March of 2023.
Ellie: That’s right.
Jamie: We were talking about it before, in that show, I was trying to conceive at the time, and she said- … “Jamie, we need to record your story whenever you become a mother.”
I was so embarrassed by it, I think. I was like, What if it doesn’t happen? I am sure I deleted it from the recording. I haven’t listened to it, but I thought it would be so good to have Ellie come on the show and help me tell my story.
Ellie: I’m so excited to do this because I always knew when I met you that you were gonna have a baby, and I kept giving you lots of faith in that because I just have feelings and I go with what my gut says, and here we are these number of years later.
Jamie: I love it. Ellie, thank you. I think I’m gonna turn it over to you, to be the host and take it away.
Ellie: That’s fantastic. Thank you, Jamie. So what I really wanna start with is before we dig into your story, perhaps just a little bit of background on the why. Why did you even start the podcast and not just… You could have easily just done research. You could have just, kept quiet, but there was obviously something burning in you to do more.
Jamie: Yeah. That is a great question. I tried to start a podcast in the homesteading world, and I thought I had to get pregnant before I started this podcast. So I started that journey into the homesteading podcast, and I was like, “This doesn’t feel authentic. This isn’t me. This isn’t what I’m passionate about right now.” And I just told my husband, I said, “I’m gonna quit this podcast, and I need to start this .” It’s just, it was something I needed to do to really help me on this journey, and I needed to find more women to help me believe it was possible. And I said, “If I need it, I know a lot of other women need it.”
And I first thought that this was gonna be a podcast for women that were pregnant over 40, but it really turned its head, and it was really for women just like me .. who were starting to conceive and trying to conceive over 40.
Ellie: See that’s fantastic. And I feel that you have gathered tiny little seeds on the way, and then there’s like a red thread. And each of these stories gives, women hope who are trying to conceive, and also just women who have perhaps just conceived more of an understanding on different women’s experience from conception right through to postpartum. But I always believe that it starts way before that. And often for some women, it starts in childhood.
It might be whether they’ve ha- they had thoughts, were they going to be a mother, perhaps that came later on in life. And I wanted to understand, when did you start to have thoughts of so- at some point there was a possibility that you may become a mother one day?
Jamie: Yeah. I think growing up as a kid, I always thought I was gonna be a mother. I loved playing teacher. I loved teaching my- … my little sister. And then, like in my 20s I never had good relationships. I always was attracted to the wrong guy. And so in my 30s, same thing. I never had any of those steady relationships. And I just thought, “You know what? If I won’t get my husband, how can I have a family?”
And I assumed it wasn’t for me. It was something I could never relate to. I was a serial dater in my 30s.
Ellie: Oh. And then how did you find love? Because we all have those ups and downs in relationships, and we have heartbreaks, and we have, the ideas that, we’re not gonna find someone.
And some of us do wanna have experience a baby with someone. Others don’t. But, it’s everyone’s individual journey. How did you meet your, the love of your life, and what was his perceptions?
Because it’s also down to another person if we’re involving them in, the whole relationship of having a child together. How did he feel about this?
Jamie: Yeah. When my husband, we both went to the same college. We were both from the Metroplex area. And I think it was honestly fate. There was two different avenues- … that we were supposed to meet. Fate or whatever you wanna call it kept putting things in my path for us to meet. And so we went-
Ellie: Wow
Jamie: … to the same college. We never met. We moved back to our kind of hometown areas. We didn’t meet until 2006, ‘7, somewhere around there, because we were just a friend of a friend, and him meeting that friend was totally by chance. We would go out to eat together. It was totally casual, just like friends getting together and going out to eat, and I didn’t think anything of it. And my friend from college her baby daddy at… fast-forward through that, was his boss. So there was, like, this two pyramid avenue that was saying, “Jamie, you need to be with him, and you’re gonna be with him whether you meet this way or this way.”
And so we went out to eat a casually every now and then we went to Galveston together, and I even drove to Fort Worth and I was like, “Who would ever move here? This is ridiculous. It’s so- … it is in the middle of nowhere.” And so we went to Galveston together as a group of three people, meeting more people down there, and we just really hit it off. We got back, we went on a first date, and I was like, “Oh, no.” He said some things- … that was just a totally guy thing, and I was like, “Nope, cross off that list.” And we didn’t speak for eight years.
Ellie: Wow. Yeah. You crossed him off, and how did he get back on the list?
Jamie: My girlfriend that I went to college with, she talked about him and, all, just throughout the years, and I ended up moving 10 minutes away from him
Ellie: That was coincidence?
Jamie: A totally coincidence. My dad got sick. He ended up passing away, and it was coincidence that I was closer to him. And then not a year later, I was like, “Why don’t I just call him? There’s no harm in calling him.” And my friend She saw him and she mentioned him, and I was like, “Why don’t I just, why don’t I just call him?”
That was in 2019, and we’ve been together ever since.
Ellie: That’s amazing because you see, I call that a, a sliding door moment because for when you called him, he also had to be in a scenario where he could respond. He could have been married by that stage-
Jamie: Yeah
Ellie: … he could have been starting to date someone. And I feel that if you start to map back your life, you’ll see these different sliding door moments where the right thing, the door opens, and there’s this moment, and you can go in and take that. And obviously here we are today. At what point in the relationship did you feel comfortable to talk about some of those thoughts you had earlier on when you’d been looking after your little sister and you thought about being a mom?
Did you bring that up quite early, or did you want to establish a foundation?
Jamie: Yeah, I feel like I trained myself very early on in the dating world to never talk about kids. And I know a lot of women say I just have to know.” And he brought up kids to me first, which was-
Ellie: Wow
Jamie: the first time in any of my relationships that he brought up kids first. And he said, “Jamie, you’re the first woman I’ve ever dated that I’ve considered having kids with.” I was like, whoa. I think this is real And I knew-
Ellie: It’s a tick box, for sure.
Jamie: Yeah, exactly. And I knew I wanted to have kids, but I was just so scared, and it had never been an option before.
Ellie: Yeah, that is amazing because I think sometimes we maybe don’t bring up things because we are afraid of the other person’s reaction, which could then lead to hurting our own feelings, right? Yeah. So the fact that he wanted to have a family, and he brought it up, would’ve been, a wonderful surprise for you as well to then feel confident enough to then delve in deeper.
Yeah. So I really wanna know more about the, this whole experience from, obviously you had those conversations, and then at a certain point you were like, “Okay let’s put this into action. Let’s try for a baby.” And how did that all play out for you in that, those early stages of trying?
Jamie: Yeah. In general, I am like the rabbit, and my husband is the turtle. Not physically, but like emotions and doing things. I’m like in a hurry always, and my husband is never in a hurry.
Ellie: You sound like me. That’s like me as well. I’m like let’s go.” Yeah.
Jamie: We got… We decided to get married, so let’s just go right now.
And so he did not wanna try to have a baby before we got married. And I honestly said,, “This could take a while. We don’t know.” “Why don’t we tr- start trying before we get married?” And he was like, “Absolutely not.”
Ellie: How long was it till you got married then? Was there a couple of years, or was it quite quick?
Jamie: Yeah. I don’t remember when we got engaged, but we got married in ’21. I was 40. I guess I was four months shy of 40, I think. So we got married that January, and of course we immediately start trying. And my husband had COVID on our wedding day. We had to cancel the wedding.
Ellie: Wow.
Jamie: And I said, “You know what? We’re still getting married.”
Ellie: Yeah. Yeah absolutely. You’re like getting close to 40. You’re thinking about kids. You’re like, “We’re not waiting another year.”
Jamie: Yeah. So we got married that day over Zoom. So it’s ironic-
Ellie: Oh, wow
Jamie: … like that I do all this on Zoom- Yeah … and I got married on Zoom.
Ellie: Yeah.
Jamie: So we did that, and once he started feeling better, honestly, that’s when we started trying. Month after month, I was like, “This is taking forever. Why am I not pregnant yet?” “I’m healthy. Why?” So about the 10 months, I got a positive. I was so amazed. It was like winning the lottery.
It was amazing. I started bleeding after all the excitement sets in. And I said, “You know what? It’s been 10 months,” because it was in October. I said, “It’s been 10 months to get pregnant. That’s not that bad.” Exa-
Ellie: yeah, absolutely.
Jamie: Yeah, less than a year. I’m like, “That’s not that bad. I’ve never tried to get pregnant before. So I was like, “10 months isn’t that bad. I’ll take it.” Then I started bleeding. I was at work, and I was like, “I need to call the doctor immediately. They need to fix this.” And they told me everything on the phone, but there’s nothing they could do. And after I calmed down- I realized that they couldn’t help me. There was nothing they could do. And I just, I look back and think, “Jamie, I’m sorry, but there is nothing that we can do if you’re losing it.” It sucks to hear, but I wish I had that support of honesty in that moment.
Ellie: Yeah, I think it’s a hard moment when as soon as we fall pregnant, we start to go into what I call future thinking. We might start talking about baby names. In fact, we often do that before, right? Yeah. It’s the future thinking. We start planning out the future. So when we have a loss, we don’t just lose that baby, but we lose that whole future and the thoughts that we had You combine all of that and it’s a really hard moment.
Especially when, we think modern-day medicine if something’s going wrong, we go to the doctor and they fix it. And we’re like, “We’re losing. Can you solve it?” … And that’s not possible. So that w- would’ve been really hard. So how did you then move through that to go, “I wanna try again,” or how did it all play out after that moment?
Jamie: I just I remember being just, Okay, let’s just get back on it. Let’s just start again. My mom has had I think six miscarriages, and my younger sister has had a few. And so I was just like, you know what? My mom has always talked about all of her miscarriages because of her thyroid issues. So it prepared me in a way that I think a lot of us aren’t prepared for. So I was able, I think, to move on. That next cycle I was pregnant again.
Ellie: Wow, that soon. Incredible …
Jamie: I know. I really thought, “This is so easy.” I’m like less than to 12 months, and I was like, “This is easy.” And we went in to do our sonogram, and she said she couldn’t find it. It was an ectopic. And we weighed the options of do you do the drug or do you do the, the surgery? And we just thought, less invasive, the better.
We did the drug. Nothing happened, so we did the drug again. I even went to my mom’s house for Christmas, and I told her of my plans. I said, “Mom, I’m pregnant. Obviously it’s not working out right now.” And I told her, I was like, “We might name our future kid my grandfather’s name,” and she just cried. I don’t know my future. But we might do that. And she was just so delighted.
That was on a Saturday, and the next night, I had started getting pain in my side. The doctor, of course, when you have an ectopic, she’s like, “Call immediately if you have any pain.”
And I was like I’m not gonna bother her.” It was midnight on a Sunday when it started. I’m not gonna bother my doctor. I have a doctor’s appointment in the morning. I’m just gonna go then. When she was doing the internal ultrasound, the doctor comes in. It’s hello red flag when the doctor comes in.
And she comes in, and the screen is glowing with all these colors. And she’s like, “Look, see all this, all these colors that are glowing?” She goes, “That is internal bleeding.”
Ellie: Oh, wow.
Jamie: And she goes, “Jamie, your next stop will be the hospital across the street.”
Ellie: Wow.
Jamie: She goes, “I’ve canceled all my appointments for the rest of the day. Let’s get you there, and you’re gonna be next in line.” And I sure was. While I was getting like prepped, I overhear the nurses, she’s like, “Do we need to give her a pregnancy test?” And I’m thinking, i’m like, of course it’s gonna be positive. Duh.
Ellie: Yeah, the hormones will still be in your body.
Jamie: Yeah, definitely. I don’t remember what they did. We did the COVID test, all that was still going on then. Within an hour of her telling me, I was in surgery getting wheeled back.
I know a lot of women like talk about how traumatic their ectopic pregnancies were. It really wasn’t. It… Everything happened so fast, and like I wasn’t expecting it, and it was just like it wasn’t traumatic for me. I don’t have a good reason why but it wasn’t.
Ellie: And did you then feel that you could try again, or were you like, “I’ve gotta go do some research”? What were your feelings after that?
Jamie: I think that’s when I started the podcast. I had kinda talked to a lot of people. My mom had an ectopic, so she has one fallopian tube. I told people, and that’s when I got all these stories of hope that it’s possible. “Don’t give up, Jamie. You can do it with only one fallopian tube.” I think that’s when I started the podcast, and I really looked for hope from other people- … and stories that it was really possible.
Ellie: Yeah. So it’s like I feel that hope is such a, like it’s an ins- a, an essential thing for our hearts, right? If we can hear other people’s struggles and then how they move through that and the outcomes, we’re like, “this is possible.” Knowing that sometimes the impossible is possible is part of that journey, right? So I feel like that would have been an incredible moment to then bring you along.
I know how your pregnancy started, but I want the audience to, to hear more about that journey, because I still feel there was a few more steps before-
Jamie: Oh, yeah …
Ellie: you got your dream. So-
Jamie: Yeah …
Ellie: let’s walk through that.
Jamie: Okay. I was still working with my OB at the time, and I said, I’m thinking Clomid, like we’re g- we’re going do- gonna do some serious stuff, right? And she’s like, “No, Jamie, we’re not doing Clomid. You’re ovulating. No.”
She goes, “You need to talk to a fertility specialist,” and I did. it was the weirdest experience I’ve ever had. We’ve had women on the show go to him, this fertility doctor.
My boss’s wife, they went to this doctor, so he’s very popular in Fort Worth. We get there, and I’m in the waiting room, and she’s like Jamie what are you here for?” I’m like, “What?” This was just-
Ellie: Yeah. Yeah.
Jamie: Yeah.
Ellie: It’s oh, we’re here just for a chat. What do you think?
Jamie: Yeah. Why don’t you know why I’m here?
Ellie: Yeah.
Jamie: I was there to check my fallopian tube to make sure my one fallopian tube was clear.
Ellie: Yeah.
Jamie: I’m like, “Oh my God, this is a red flag, right?” And we’re sitting there. I’m looking up in the air vents, registers, whatever you wanna call them. They are just covered with a layer of dust.
Ellie: Oh.
Jamie: It’s just a small detail, right? You’re just like- yeah. Then we get back there, and they bring us into what appears to be a storage closet.
Ellie: Oh, gosh, that would be…
Jamie: Yeah. There’s boxes lined up along the wall. I’m like, “I have to go to the bathroom.” And my husband goes, “We can leave if you’re ready.”
And I’m like- …
Ellie: I would have thought sterile environment. I know when I’ve been into where they’re gonna do those kind of gynecological checks- Yeah … it’s, it has a clean feeling- … about it, and clinical.
Jamie: Yeah.
Ellie: This was, sounds the opposite.
Jamie: Yeah, very. So we went to the bathroom. We get back in there, we’re waiting for the doctor, and I’m like, “We already paid.”
I’m committed. I’m committed no matter what happens. And he has a really good reputation. And we’re, like, in there, and there’s a coat rack going on over here.
Ellie: Wow.
Jamie: And then the doctor comes in, which is his partner, which is not the doctor I wanted, and he goes, “Well-” “we’re partners, and you can’t always get him.” And I’m like, “Ew.”
Ellie: Oh, no. Yeah.
Jamie: There’s just red flags.
Ellie: Another red flag.
Jamie: Yeah. I go through with it anyway. He comes in with a beanie on, and I’m just like, “What, what universe?” Like-
Ellie: Are we in the right place? I did- So did you run, or did you stay?
Jamie: I stayed. I went through with it.
Ellie: Ah.
Jamie: And, my OB was like, “The procedure is a little uncomfortable.” I don’t know how they manipulate your cervix, and then they put iodine through your fallopian tube, and they can see it on the screen.
It was really excruciating pain. It ended up being clear. We move on, and I was like, we’re never going to that doctor again, ever.”
Ellie: You were just glad it was finished, and you knew the answers.
Jamie: Yeah. We went to a new fertility doctor. It happens to be, like, right down the street from where my dad lived, that passed away. So that was a cool thing that I really got to go to my dad’s house every time I went to the fertility clinic. I don’t think I’ve ever said that before.
Ellie: Yeah, that give you a connection-
Jamie: Yeah
Ellie: … back to your dad, yeah. Maybe he was looking out for you. It’s like another sliding door moment to me.
Jamie: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. So we went to her the… it’s a husband-wife clinic, which is cool also. We do an egg retrieval, and … when it went time to do the injections… Because all this is videos. No one is holding your hand- … going, “This is how you inject these drugs.” You’re watching videos. And I said, “Okay, I’ve heard all these stories of these- … husbands doing injections. Come on, you’re up. It’s time for you.
Ellie: You’re up. Let’s… Yeah.
Jamie: He said, “No.” He said no. Oh. He goes, “Do you want to have a baby that bad? Or do you want to get over your fear of needles?” And I said, “Fine. Fine. Let’s go.” And I did it.
Ellie: Yeah, ’cause you, you just wanted that baby, and I do feel- … that burning thing inside us when we want something- … we’re willing to do things that we wouldn’t do-
Jamie: Yeah …
Ellie: under normal circumstances-
Jamie: Definitely …
Ellie: to get that. Yeah. So I can feel that in you.
Jamie: Yeah. Just to put a perspective on this, when I have gotten my ears pierced two times I have fainted from getting my ears pierced.
Ellie: Wow.
Jamie: I fainted at the dermatologist. I am a fainter. And so getting over this is And just having the mindset of doing it myself, it was huge. It was really big.
Ellie: Oh.
Jamie: So I did. And we did the egg retrieval, and I think I had three follicles. It really sounds terrible because I know everyone that does egg retrievals are like, they have a lot,” and I had three. They ended up- Three, yeah … terrible. They got-
Ellie: Yeah …
Jamie: two. I think they got two. Only one was the biggest size. They said it had to be a minimum size of 18, and I think it might have been 19 or whatever. The other one was too small, but they still took it. That was like, when they made embryos, that was like my first like intro of like- … “OMG, this is tough stuff.”
Because the embryo wasn’t growing very quickly, and she’s like, “But we’ll wait. We’ll let it go till tomorrow.” And she called back and she goes, “No. There’s no embryo.” And so you’re like, that is like another form of loss which a lot of people don’t recognize or talk about. Oh, God, that’s hard.
Ellie: Yeah.
Jamie: So that was like, okay, what do we do now? And by that time I had started, really hearing the donor eggs and starting to be okay with it.
Ellie: From other women?
Jamie: Yeah … I think Sonia was… Her story really made me okay with okay, donor eggs are fine. It’s fine.
Ellie: Cause there’s a bit of a fear, isn’t there if you don’t know people who’ve done it or how it all goes down. We- … I think we create perceptions of things, but it’s not necessarily reality, but it’s our reality at the time. So hearing other people’s story can change our perception. So if Sonia opened that up to you, did you then think, “I’ll try for another egg retrieval?
Jamie: In between the time that we were waiting to talk to the doctor, there’s a day or two from, for that waiting. I told my husband, I said, “She’s gonna suggest donor eggs.” And I’ve always been-
Ellie: Ah, you knew
Jamie: … I’ve… Yeah, I knew. I was prepared- Yeah … for it And I’ve always wanted to adopt too. I wanted to have one of my own and adopt one. When we got on the call, that’s exactly what she suggested. She said, “I’ll support you if you wanna do another egg retrieval.” But she goes, “I recommend donor eggs.”
Ellie: Wow.
Jamie: And like I know a ton of women that would have done an egg retrieval. And in hindsight, I might have at least tried it one time or something, but like doing the egg retrieval was like 20 grand a pop for us.
Ellie: Oh, wow. Yeah. That’s prohibitive, right? I didn’t realize.
Jamie: Yeah.
Ellie: I know it’s different in different countries, but yeah, that, that makes, financially sometimes- … this is the whole thing about fertility. Financially to get pregnant, there’s often these big decisions to make as well.
Jamie: Yeah.
Ellie: So I can see that would influence you. But I think a lot of women still don’t understand surrogate eggs. And m- maybe they haven’t listened to all of your podcasts- … on where women have spoken about that. So I would really love to delve into-
Jamie: Oh, yeah …
Ellie: like the process. Does it do you get to… What details do you know about the eggs and yeah, tell us more about that so women can get better understanding.
Jamie: Yeah. Once we decided she kinda said, “Here are some egg banks,” and very, not much information. And so I started looking, and it’s like online dating. You-
Ellie: Wow. Yeah
Jamie: … you get to know their eye color. There’s pictures. Sometimes there’s pictures of them just adults. Sometimes there’s just baby pictures.
Like it really is a profile, and you get to read why they wanna be a donor. Is it
Ellie: voluntary or paid? What, how is it in the
Jamie: US? It’s paid. It’s paid- It’s paid … through this bank. Yeah. Yeah.
Ellie: Yeah.
Jamie: Through the bank
Ellie: we went to. And it’s American eggs you have to use or you could go anywhere and get donor eggs?
Jamie: I don’t know that for sure. We looked at a lot of egg banks. We decided one, I- Rosie really made me realize because we were talking about it later. She goes, “I really think that I want a proven donor.”
Ellie: Yeah …
Jamie: yeah. You can do- … a proven donor, non-proven. You can also do frozen. You can do fresh cycles, and then you can do a frozen transfer or a fresh transfer. And all that was- Wow.
Ellie: Yeah, I never even knew that there was like…
It’s almost overwhelming to think-
Jamie: Yeah
Ellie: … which path do I pick because it leads to your, your precious child, your precious son. So how-
Jamie: Yeah
Ellie: … tell us about what what did you, what emotionally did you do to make these decisions, like to look into that, that donor? What made you a- attracted to her?
Was it purely data points, or was there something in your gut saying, “I think she’s the one”? Like, how did a decision get made as well?
Jamie: At first I wanted someone to look like me. Blonde hair and blue eyes was important to me. And and then I found this girl, and she played basketball, and she looked like my little sister. She had three eggs. Oh, wow.
We decided on doing the frozen eggs. And so we were gonna buy six, and my husband was like, “Whoa. We are not having six kids.” And I was like- … “Come on. That’s not how it works.” Yeah. I wanted to get more. Yeah. I wanted to get more, but my husband said, “No.” More
Ellie: chances.
Jamie: Exactly. And so at first it, it was like I want me exactly, and then I found this girl. She only had three eggs, looked like a basketball player. I found another girl who I also liked, and she had three eggs. Went back to my doctor and she said, “No. You need six- Oh … from all one donor.” And I was like, “Oh, no.”
Ellie: The same donor.
Jamie: Yes. Yeah.
Ellie: Yeah.
Jamie: One person, one eggs. Yeah. So then we had to re-look again. And I don’t, I didn’t… I think it was blonde… Blue eyes were really important to me- … more than anything, and I think that was just because my husband has blue eyes. I have blue eyes.
Yeah. I did have blonde hair at one time. And so just that alone was important, and not a ton more. School wasn’t that important. I wanted someone who looked pretty and someone that maybe I might be friends with. That sounds really- superficial of me. But it’s true …
Ellie: It w- yeah. It’s what you’re attracted to, right? And I think we all have a natural bias, ’cause we’re, that’s how we’re hardwired for s- for certain things, right?
Jamie: Yeah.
Ellie: And often that is what we identify with- … because of our identity and experiences. But I also wondered for maybe women who don’t understand, is there medical details as well, like the history of- There’s
Jamie: a little bit
Ellie: Yeah. So you can- … you get a little bit of detail on that as well.
Jamie: Yeah. Yeah, you do- Yeah … get a little bit of detail on that. And so we, ’cause me and my husband, we would go through them sometimes, and then other times I would just go through them, and we finally picked one. And I don’t remember.
She might’ve been proven. I don’t remember. And so before we bought the eggs we went to one of my husband’s work functions, and we came home- … and I realized that I was late on my cycle Yeah
Ellie: Wow.
Jamie: I found out I was pregnant.
Ellie: Unexpected …
Jamie: yeah, it was really unexpected. ‘Cause they she suggested that I go on the pill, and I’m like, ” No. No.” We’re gonna keep going. If I get pregnant and have a baby, that’s, a perfect world scenario.”
Ellie: Yeah.
Jamie: So here I am pregnant again, and I am like bing, typing away on the computer- … “We don’t need you. We don’t need these eggs.” “We don’t need a fertility doctor.” And she even said, she goes, “Jamie, we can walk you through your pregnancy.” And I was like, “No, I’ll just go to my OB.” And I lost that one, too. Ugh, that was tough. Wow. That was tough because-
Ellie: That would’ve been very tough. And at what stage, like how long in were you?
Jamie: I think about eight weeks.
Ellie: Yeah,
Jamie: that’s very
Ellie: tough. I think about eight weeks.
Jamie: Yeah. And it was also, like, because I had already started sharing on the podcast, it was also like this is the miracle of hope- that everyone is just gonna love. And it’s-
Ellie: No, I know. Yeah. Because we also then buy, and if we could tell that story, we know how much women would hold onto that. So you you lose the story then too, and the future-
Jamie: Yeah
Ellie: … and the baby all at once.
Jamie: Yeah.
Ellie: Yeah. That’s incredibly hard.
Jamie: It was.
And so here I am, like, biting my tongue, saying, “Hey, I did have a miscarriage. I really need you.” So we had to go look for donor eggs all over again. And the-
Ellie: New donor new women. So you didn’t go back to the old women, have to go-
Jamie: Yeah …
Ellie: looking. Yeah. Searching from day one almost.
Jamie: Yeah.
Ellie: Yeah.
Jamie: Yeah, because the one we tried to go back to, she was not available anymore.
Ellie: Oh, wow. And is there a limit? Do they can only, So there’s a limit, so they can only possibly give so many eggs, and then it’s like they’re cut off from the donor-
Jamie: I don’t know …
Ellie: base? Or how does it- I don’t know … you know?
Jamie: She just didn’t have any frozen ones left. Ah, okay. I’m sure they can do multiple cycles. Cool. Yeah.
Ellie: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So once they’re out, and then you had to start- … back at day zero. And did you stay with the same company or did you think you needed to go further afield when you were looking for the new eggs?
Jamie: Yeah, we did go to other banks. I- to me it was more about the donor than the bank.
Ellie: Yeah.
Jamie: I did need- Yeah … to confirm with the fertility clinic that their thawing methods were compatible with each other. That was really my only credentials with the fertility clinic- … with the eggs. So we went back. I just went back to the egg bank. She kept giving me donors that I’ve already seen, and I’m like- Ah … “I’m not interested in these.”
Ellie: You knew they weren’t the one.
Jamie: So we went back, and she would email me more. And then she emailed me again and she said, “Hey. Here are some donors coming up for a retrieval. Do any of these interest you?” And there she was.
Ellie: She was there.
Jamie: She was there.
Ellie: Tell me about what did you see in her that made you gravitate and go, “Yep that’s my girl”?
Jamie: She was holding a kitten, like by her face. Aw. And she has this really beautiful smile. And I was like, “She is the one.”
I told my husband, I went back to him and I said, “I found her. I know who we’re going to use. You can look at her, but she’s- … she’s who we’re gonna use.”
Ellie: She’s the one. She’s the one.
Jamie: Yeah.
Ellie: She’s the one.
Jamie: Yeah. And she took care of her body. That’s important to me. Yeah,
Ellie: health …
Jamie: yeah, being healthy is important to me.
Ellie: Yeah.
Jamie: So my husband said, “Okay.” And that’s what we did. And of course you’re just like, “This is taking forever.” Like they have to mail them- … in the big tanks and, you know-
Ellie: Wow
Jamie: … all that stuff. So now we get to make embryos again, and I- … I feel like I kinda know, I’m prepared this time a little bit better. So we got six frozen eggs. My husband went to go give his portion, his half, and we made two. We made two embryos.
Ellie: You made two.
Jamie: Yeah. They, I think they were okay grade. I know a lot of people wonder about that. I think they were 4AB- … and 4BA. One, I think mine have been insane. They were 4-something, which is pretty good. I know there’s- Yeah … 6AA is the best, so you can guess that they weren’t amazing. But these are also humans looking at the embryo to make that judgment.
Ellie: So yeah, human judgment. And did you have a choice then to… ‘Cause there were two. Could you have- … p- chosen to have two or- … like at the one time, or do they say you have to have one?
How, what’s the process of that?
Jamie: I was stuck on twins and- … she said, “No, I’m not gonna put two in you.” Oh.
Ellie: Because she just thought it wasn’t, wouldn’t work.
Jamie: Yeah. She said it’s just too much of a risk.
Ellie: The risk.
Jamie: Yeah. So we just did one. I think we just did the better one, I think. There wasn’t a huge difference- … but we just did the better one. And so I just kinda knew. I was like, “This is gonna work. It’s gonna be fine. And then we’ll have one more for one more baby.” That was-
Ellie: Yes …
Jamie: we do this transfer. Yeah.
Ellie: Okay.
Jamie: And we did it, and we had an amazing little date n- date afternoon after that. We went out to eat. We watched movies. It was just a really cute date. I was not gonna wait for the doctor to test my blood. I was
Ellie: peeing on strips. You’d be like me. I’d be testing every day. Yeah. Testing every day. Test waiting for that line. Maybe do five tests in case like four are wrong.
Exactly.
Jamie: There’s a picture that I’ve posted quite a few times of me crying in the mirror. It’s really a positive test, and I think a lot of people assume it’s negative. But it’s positive, and I was just so-
Ellie: Joy.
Jamie: It was. It was really joy. Joy. And being scared, but hey- … these are good embryos. This is the donor’s. So-
Ellie: Different this time.
Jamie: Then we did- … the beta test, and my HCG level was 42, which is not really great at all. I think anything- … under 50, you’re almost, But she, of course, they don’t tell you that. She’s like, “Let’s just wait.” “We want it to double next time.” I see. And I was not hopeful at all. And yeah, the next time- … my next beta was 25.
Ellie: I- yeah it’s interesting that one, because I do remember when I got my blood tests, she said, “Okay, we need to go… You need to go have a scan because mine were low. Now, mine was an unexpected pregnancy, but yeah, it was the same scenario. They go, “It’s low. We think may…” She even said to me in the, the se- in the GP clinic, “I think you’re already losing the baby.”
So there’s a lot of sometimes these, I’m gonna call it science science factual, but then there’s a part of us that sometimes goes, “I don’t quite believe it.” ‘Cause like in my mind at the time I was like, “I don’t believe. I believe I’m gonna stay pregnant.” I wondered how when she’s telling you the science this isn’t great, what did your mi- what did your heart, what did your gut, what did your instinct say?
Jamie: I was gonna lose it. I just-
Ellie: Wow
Jamie: … knew it. I, that’s, and that’s all I knew at the time. I only knew pregnancy loss, and- I was already prepared for, like, all these women I see get- a, a positive pregnancy test, and they think baby. And so at that point, when I see a positive pregnancy test, I never truly think it’s gonna be a baby.
Ellie: Yeah.
Jamie: And-
Ellie: You’re waiting for time then to reveal.
Jamie: Yeah. And it did. I lost it, and- I told her, I said, “Before we, we do the last transfer of our last embryo-
Ellie: Wow
Jamie: … I gotta do something. I gotta do something. What are we gonna do different this time?”
Ellie: What’s different? And,
Jamie: yeah. And she said, “We can do some testing.” She goes, “We can test your bacteria, and we can test for inflammation.” And I was like-
Ellie: Inside you.
Jamie: Yeah. And I was like, “Please, let’s- … just try it,” ’cause I have to do something to ease my mind to know we did something different this time. So we did.
Ellie: Yeah. It’s it’s feel- getting some control back sometimes. What little extra secret sauce can you do to, to… Even if it tips the needle by one tiny bit-
Jamie: Yeah
Ellie: … there’s then more hope in us.
Jamie: Yeah. So we tested for infection. I didn’t have any. We did the EMMA test, which tests for lactobacillus, which I think is so cool, because I really love fermentation. And so lactobacillus is the fermentation bacteria, like, that’s made with, oh my gosh, what is it called? Sauerkraut. So that’s the bacteria. Ah,
Ellie: sauerkraut.
Jamie: Yeah, that’s the bacteria that makes sauerkraut. So it’s really cool to me that we have a whole ecosystem in our uterus and in that area. I think is really fascinating.
Ellie: That is amazing. So did you change diet then, or what did you do to help improve?
Jamie: I didn’t. The, that AMH test showed that I was 1/10 low, below normal, and all she told me was, “Just start taking a probiotic.”
Ellie: Probiotic. Yeah. An oral pro- probiotic.
Jamie: And then my vitamin D levels, that was really good. It was 61.3, and my doctor said that anything over 30 was normal. And I’ve heard some people say that their doctor’s not testing their vitamin D, and I’m like, “Whoa.”
I feel if any- this journey has taught me anything, it’s not only to know what they need to test, it’s also to know what the numbers are.
Not to be- Yeah … neurotic about it, because I can’t tell you what my AMH is or was because, my doctor just goes, “Oh, your labs are normal.” And it’s- …
I think it’s quite common for doctors to just say, “Oh, they’re normal.” And it’s wait, you need to really tell me… And that’s what I’ve truly learned, is we need to know our numbers.
Ellie: Get the data. Get the more data points you have, the more-
Jamie: Yeah
Ellie: … you can work out what’s really going on.
Jamie: Another thing she tested, my thyroid. That was 3.29, and anything between .27 and 4.2 is normal. So I was on the higher side of normal, but… And the only thing I truly did was take a probiotic.
A
Ellie: probiotic. ‘Cause, and the reason I was asking that detail about diet and that is because I know from listening to women they want the detail, right? “What did you eat? What did you do? What was your lifestyle like?”
Everything. Because we’re trying to put the data points together. Now, I know everyone’s experience is different- … but I think it’s always important to, look at that. A- and the fact that you said, “Go get bloods. Go into the detail. Look at that and see if there’s something within there- that you can improve on.” And in your case, a probiotic obviously helped with that. So did you have to then go on a probiotic for a period of time before you tried again or was it pretty, pretty quick, “We’ll just go into it again”?
Jamie: She said, “We can go as soon as you’re ready.” She did not care about waiting. It probably took a few months, and then, you have to build up your lining. My lining ended up being, for the second transfer, a nine millimeters, and she just wanted it to be a six.
Ellie: Okay, so strong.
Jamie: And I had a friend who also did IVF with her own eggs, and her transfer didn’t work either. So it’s you know- Oh … I know we s- we stick to little things in other people’s story. We do. And that just always stuck to me. I was like, she had to do two transfers, I bet I have to do two.
Ellie: Yeah. It’s-
Jamie: Because this is my last one.
Ellie: Yeah. And we’re always hoping that we want those little data points to… I think that gives us reason to keep persisting, and consistency. I remember saying to you, “Be persistent-” … “in life.” And what I’ve always remembered is persistency is one of the key ingredients. Now, whether that’s getting pregnant, whether that’s getting a job, whether that’s starting something new. Whatever it is, relationships, persistency. So you obviously then said yes, and what happened next?
Jamie: Yeah. We had the transfer, and we had a little bit different of a date, I would say. We just did errands. We went to Tractor Supply. Nothing fancy. I said, “I want to do something different. Let’s go home and have a really hearty soup.” That just seemed right. It was in Oc-
Ellie: Healthy.
Jamie: Yeah. It was October 25th, which-
Ellie: Wow …
Jamie: my coworker gave birth on that day. So I was like, “This is wild.” This is-
Ellie: An omen. This is a good omen. Yeah.
Jamie: Exactly. Exactly. And we’re leaving Tractor Supply, and we went to go do a U-turn, and my husband hit that curb so hard, you thought he would’ve just hit a car, because I was spazzing out so much. And I was like, “What if he knocked the embryo?”
Ellie: Yeah. You start to get pa- paranoid. Yeah.
Jamie: So
Ellie: paranoid. Yeah. ‘Cause you want it to be perfect, right? You want the perfect conditions, because it’s been so difficult.
Jamie: Yeah. And I’m like, if it doesn’t work, now we know why, because he popped that curb.
Ellie: Cause the curb. Yeah.
Jamie: Exactly. Fast-forward to day six post-transfer. I am, like, itching, feening- … to take the preg- a pregnancy test. And I am feeling pregnant. I’m just like- … this is a potentially a fifth pregnancy, and I know when I’m pregnant. And I don’t know if that’s because of scar tissue from where my fallopian tube was removed.
But I feel different whenever I’m pregnant. And I was like, “I’m pregnant.” I took a pregnancy test.
Ellie: You knew.
Jamie: Yeah. Yeah. It was very light. Very light. And the next day it was darker. And then on day eight, it was so dark. I was like-
Ellie: Wow …
Jamie: I am pregnant.
Ellie: Pregnant.
Jamie: Yeah. And then I did my beta, and it was 220. And I was like, “Holy cow. These are great numbers.”
Ellie: You’re, like, very pregnant you’re feeling at that point by the science side of it.
Jamie: Yeah, definitely. And then my second beta tripled, 827.
Ellie: Wow.
Jamie: And I did not do any more-
Ellie: Wow.
Jamie: Oh … betas after that.
Ellie: No more, you just went forward.
Jamie: Yeah. But we s- And that’s when at the six-week mark we saw a heartbeat, and it was just- Wow … so magical. Like- … we just keep getting good news. And I’m like- I don’t know what this feels like. We just… More good news? I don’t understand. And then at 10 weeks, we graduated from the clinic, and it was like-
Ellie: Wow.
Jamie: What? We’ve been here for so long. It’s only been a couple years at that point, but it was just like- This is weird. It’s really weird … also really cool and-
Ellie: And a couple of years, but I still feel it starts before that because I still think you had that dream and you hadn’t ha- didn’t have the right relationships, right? So it was bigger than that. Yeah. So this would have been a magical moment to experience-
Jamie: Yeah …
Ellie: that, baby growing inside, and I wanted to find out more about pregnancy and how that was for you and your experiences throughout the pregnancy-
Jamie: Ugh
Ellie: … the different stages.
Jamie: The anxiety was awful. One thing I will say, the day we graduated, it, we, I was 10 weeks along, and I swear I saw a penis.” At two weeks. And she goes no.” Wow. “That’s impossible.” And I said- “But I saw it.” She goes, “No. No, you didn’t. We weren’t even in the position.” And I’m like, “Okay, whatever.”
I think pretty soon after that, we went to do a tour at the birthing center, and it was surreal because here are these younger girls, we’re all doing the tour together and everyone is believing they’re gonna have a baby here. And I’m like, “Y’all are funny.” I drove home by myself, ’cause my husband met me there. I laughed in the car because I was like, “That’s so funny. They actually believe I’m gonna give birth.” I thought it was the funniest thing.
Ellie: I think your brain was catching up with the reality sometimes because of all of the disappointments. And I think- the body knows, but the brain sometimes goes on a different path to get there.
Jamie: Yeah. Yeah. That was a really surreal moment, and just wild. But oh, the anxiety was just off the charts. My number one recommendation is to get rid of pink underwear, red underwear- Oh … anything of the sorts. Don’t even wear them, just throw them away. Whatever. Because w- that’s, yeah, because you’re always just…
Every time I went to the bathroom I just looked. I’m, like, waiting to see blood. And I did.
Ellie: Yeah.
Jamie: I did. It, there was some dry blood at the beginning. My doctor said that’s totally normal. But of course you still freak out.
Ellie: Yeah. And I think for many women, even if they haven’t had problems with conceiving, it’s still one of the things we look out for. Because we are taught through people’s stories that we hear that is one of the most earliest signs that we can physically see-
Jamie: Yeah
Ellie: … of something. Yeah. So there is a kind of feeling, always checking, making sure it’s okay, even that when we can be much further along. Yeah.
Jamie: Yeah. Oh, one piece of that is we had the NIP test done. We decided to do the NIP test just-
Ellie: Yeah
Jamie: to ease our mind of everything, that we had a healthy baby. And with that we found out his sex. And so I came home with pink balloons and blue balloons, ’cause I didn’t know yet. We were gonna look at it together.
Ellie: Yeah.
Jamie: And we opened up the email, and it said, “It’s a boy.”
Ellie: It’s a boy.
Jamie: Yes. And so was I right that I really saw a penis on the 10-week scan? I don’t know. I don’t know. And so my husband is very excited. It’s not that I was disappointed, but I’ve always thought that I was gonna have two girls.
Ellie: Like a girl mom. You thought you’d be a girl mom.
Jamie: Yeah.
Ellie: Yeah.
Jamie: And so that piece that you’re thinking about for, years and years, it just took me a while to get used to that idea. Now I think this is the only way I should be, but it took a while. And so that night we were laying in bed, because we had all these… once I told my mom that I was gonna, I was thinking about naming him my grandfather’s name, that poof- … went out of my mind And so that night we’re laying in bed, and I said, “I really like this name.”
And it was gonna be my mom’s maiden name and my maiden name. And I said, “But I liked it the flip way.” my husband was like, “Yeah I think that’s okay.” He goes, “But I don’t wanna tell anyone. I don’t wanna commit to it. Let’s just try it on for size.”
Ellie: See how we feel about it over some time. Yeah.
Jamie: And I put it on this board so we could see it every day, and-
Ellie: Ah …
Jamie: it never changed. It never changed.
Ellie: It never changed. Yeah. And you used the name before w- what did you refer to when he was in your belly?
Did you was he by his name? Did you call him Peanut? I know different people call, refer to babies as different names. Or it was just him, or how did you-
Jamie: I don’t- …
Ellie: refer to him?
Jamie: It was nothing special. Yeah. I think it was just the baby. We didn’t do-
Ellie: The baby.
Jamie: I think so. Yeah, it was nothing-
Yeah
special about it. And I think I really had a hard time connecting with the baby. And I think, maybe that was in my head.
I also didn’t want to find out the sex. But then- Yeah … knowing that he was a boy, it really kinda helped me bond with him, identify, and be okay with- what was happening really
Ellie: And processing. I think that’s the- Yeah, that’s a good one … it’s a processing ’cause I know when I have two daughters and a son and I automatically thought I was having a girl.
I just had it in my head, “You’re a girl, Mom.” And when I found out it was a son, it just took longer to process. It wasn’t ’cause I was disappointed, it was just ’cause I was like, “What am I gonna do with a boy? I don’t know what to do with boys.” So there is a- always a processing point, and I think with all of the, y- you’ve spoken a lot about the loss on the way in this, this journey.
I still feel like, there is, there’s processing even when you’re pregnant back on the loss still going on- … as well as being pregnant, so some of those fears, anxieties are still living in us, so I get that.
Jamie: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. And telling my mom that name, she just cried again, and it was- it was really cool to, to tell everyone-
Ellie: Yeah
Jamie: … what his name is. I bet.
Ellie: That’s amazing.
Jamie: That was really fun. Yeah.
Ellie: What about the symptoms of the, the pregnancy itself in terms of, cravings or did you get morning sickness? Was it smooth sailing? Tell us about how that went.
Jamie: The first trimester I was so tired. I went to bed- … at 8:00. I was just always tired. And between the anxiety and being so tired- it was horrible. And then y- it, the second trimester, it was like, that was amazing. That was amazing. And not many women talk about this either, but my libido was, like, I was like a 16-year-old. I was like-
Ellie: Yeah. Wow. And you were ready for… Yeah. I
Jamie: was. I was like, “This is fun.” Yeah. It was
Ellie: like- This is fun. Yeah. I think it’s all different experiences. Yeah, definitely.
Jamie: At 19 weeks I was at work, went to the bathroom, and there was blood.
Ellie: Oh.
Jamie: Oh, and I was starting to panic. Already crying. I’m trying not to panic to my husband. I’m
Ellie: And you’re on your own at this point? You weren’t, he wasn’t physically there with you? You were-
Jamie: No. I was at work. I was at work. Oh, work.
Ellie: Yeah.
Jamie: Yeah. So we- she goes, “Go straight to the ER.” And it is nice going to labor and delivery ER because it’s just a lot nicer. It’s, I don’t know if it’s in the US or what, but it, everything was expedited. And- … while I’m being wheelchaired there I could feel him move, and it was like, okay. He’s there. This is gonna be okay.
Ellie: He’s there. Yeah.
Jamie: No matter what- Yeah … it’s gonna be okay. Yeah. And so that really eased my mind. And they start, doing an exam. They do, first she’s like, “First things first, I’m gonna do an ultrasound.” We see him moving, we see his heartbeat, and I’m like- okay, I can breathe. Yeah.
Ellie: Yeah.
Jamie: And then she does a physical exam, and she doesn’t get very far and she’s like, “Jamie, you have a polyp in you and that’s what’s bleeding.” She goes, “I- this is it. I don’t have to go much further.” And I’m like, “Are you kidding me?” That could be the best scenario.
And the funny thing is they wanna teach all the other midwives about this polyp that is bleeding. So she’s like, “Can I take a picture?” My husband’s down there with his phone.
The midwife, they’re all looking at it, and she’s like not to be too open, but has your husband felt it or anything?” And I’m like- … “Whoa.” But yeah, she took a picture. I have a picture of it. I’m like, whoa it is… it’s big. They ended up tying it with a string, and then it eventually- Oh, yeah kinda fell off. ‘
Ellie: Cause of the blood supply. Yeah.
Jamie: Yeah. Yeah. And that’s why they assume it happened, was because of, so much blood flow to that area. And I’m like, wow. More amazing news out of something that could’ve been bad at 19 weeks. ‘Cause I was like, there’s no-
Ellie: that is amazing
Jamie: Oh my gosh, I forgot one, one kind of major thing. He was breech for so long. So long he was breech, and he would not turn, and we did everything possible. I did acupuncture. I did spinning babies.
Ellie: Wow.
Jamie: Everything. I did swimming, everything. And so our last resort was to manually rotate him and so We also did, it’s called, I think, moxibustion. It almost looks like a big, long firecracker. Yeah.
Ellie: And so- It’s it’s Chinese- Yes … where they burn- … that on the… yeah.
Jamie: So me and my husband are doing it. He’s doing it on my pinkies. That’s supposed to be a point to agitate him. Nothing worked. Absolutely nothing.
Our last resort was to physically rotate him, and I heard all these stories of you have to go under anesthesia. You have to- Oh, wow … get an epidural to rotate him.
Ellie: Pain.
Jamie: Yeah.
Ellie: As well.
Jamie: Yeah, because I mean-
Wow
… he goes in there and physically…
Ellie: Yeah. That’s more anxiety I would think as well.
Jamie: Yeah. So I go in there. I have my doula there. She was amazing. And also another thing, you have to go in and be prepared to have a C-section if his heart rate isn’t under control.
Ellie: Yeah.
Jamie: Yeah. So I went in there with headphones. I’m preparing- Ugh … for the worst. There was a different doctor that did it.
He was really funny. He was so sarcastic. It was like this comedy show with my husband and the MFM doctor. He was talking about his girlfriend, his young, and then my husband is coming back, and I’m like, “People- Wow … can this we focused? I don’t want to laugh right now.”
Ellie: Yeah. Wow. Yeah. And it worked?
Jamie: It did. It worked so well. The whole room was amazed. Because I am preparing, I have headphones on, I am jamming out to everything under the sun, Metallica.
Ellie: Yeah.
Jamie: He does it, it happens in 10 seconds. He’s doing a-
Ellie: Oh, wow.
Jamie: Yeah, probably less than that. The, my-
Ellie: I imagined it to be like a 10-minute struggle.
Yes.
Jamie: He goes no epidural, no pain meds-
Ellie: Ah
Jamie: … no nothing So now I’m like freaking out more, and he does it in five seconds. The midwives are in awe.
Ellie: It’s a miracle worker.
Jamie: Yeah. My doula, Emily, is like, “Oh my gosh, ” Everyone was just amazed at how easy that was. I go, “Are you done?” He was like, “Yeah. Do you want it to be worse or longer?” I was like… we stayed there. His heart rate was great. He stayed down.
Ellie: He stayed down.
Jamie: Yeah. It was really amazing at how easy it was.
Ellie: Yeah. That is amazing.
Jamie: Yeah. And third trimester was pretty tough. We thought we were gonna go on vacation. We didn’t. That kinda sucked. I wanted to do a babymoon, but we got scared and canceled it. The third trimester was rough. The anxiety was getting really hard. The guy that sat next to me… It was funny, at work… I worked through the whole thing, and I was in between twins, identical twins, at my office. One sat here and one sat here.
Ellie: Wow.
Jamie: One guy had two kids. The other guy was single. the guy with two kids, she had lost a baby. Her first baby was a stillborn at 40 weeks.
Ellie: Oh, that’s heartbreaking.
Jamie: Heartbreaking. And I’m just like, I’m thinking, how did y’all continue? So we hear these stories, right? But now I have this physical reminder sitting next to me every day. I just start freaking out. I went- … over 40 weeks. I went 10 days over my due date.
So it was a Thursday. I had an appointment the day before, and I am panicking to my husband because I’m just I’m so scared. I’m so scared-” “… that something’s gonna happen. I have got to get him out.” There was a few times-
Ellie: Yeah
Jamie: … where I was like, “I’m ready to go to the hospital right now and have a C-section.”
And my doula was great. She was great. She talked me off the ledge several times. Emily was amazing. She was like, “Janie, that’s not what you want. That’s not your plan.” My plan was to have all natural everything. And so she talked me off the ledge, and at lunchtime I called my husband crying. I said I just want this over with. I want a healthy baby. I can’t do this any longer.”
And the weird thing was, an hour later the midwives called me and they said, “Jamie, we want to induce you. Can you come tomorrow just to check me?”
Ellie: Yeah.
Jamie: And I’m like, “How did you know?” It was just really odd. Less than an hour’s time they call me and say- … I need to go in. They want to induce me. There wasn’t an opening spot till Sunday,
Ellie: What day was it?
Jamie: I cried to my husband on Thursday. Friday I went in for an appointment, and they didn’t have an opening till Sunday.
Ellie: And it’s a long time when you’re- wanting a baby out. An hour is a long time, never mind 48.
Jamie: Yeah. And so we decided to be induced, because it took so long. I really wanted to go into labor naturally. And they were great that they tried to let me get there.
Ellie: Yeah.
Jamie: Sunday morning we were supposed to go into the hospital at 7:00 PM. What I didn’t say, is my husband wanted a hospital birth. I wanted a home birth in a perfect world.
Ellie: Oh, okay.
Jamie: But we met in the middle and just, for all the fear’s sake- a hospital birth with midwives is what we went with.
Ellie: I think in some countries, like in Australia, if you’re induced, you… it’s automatic hospital, so- … did you still have a, did you still have a choice then? You could’ve been induced and go go home and give birth, or- no … and then you just made the…
Jamie: No. Yeah. Yeah.
Ellie: You have to. Yeah. It was like, “Right now we’re staying and, and-” … yeah, you’re… it’s r- ready to go. But you know what? Induction goes a thousand different ways-
Jamie: Yes
Ellie: … every birth. It doesn’t mean It sounds like a thing where you go, “Oh, an hour later the baby will pop out,” but I wanted to hear about-
Jamie: Yeah
Ellie: … the birthing experience for you of what- Yeah what actually really went down.
Jamie: I actually started labor Sunday morning at 4:00 AM, somewhere around there. And I’m like, “Whoa, this is… Maybe things are happening.” Emily’s like, “Do the Miles circuit.” And I’m like, “This is a workout. This is not just trying to move the baby.” You’re practically working out. And- This is
Ellie: a class, …
Jamie: yeah. And so it got time to leave for the hospital, and she’s like, “Jamie, you don’t have to go to the hospital.” And I was like, “But I wanna go to the hospital.” She’s like, “Just think about it. I know you’re supposed to be induced, and you’re supposed to go at 7:00, but you’re in labor, and you don’t have to go if you don’t want to.”
And I was like, “Thank you, but I’m gonna go.” And I did. She called it prodromal labor, I think it’s called, and it’s like pre-pre-labor is what I called it. And we’re driving to the hospital, and I’m like, “Oh my gosh, I don’t think I can do this. I don’t think I can do natural labor.” That’s what I wanted to do. And it was just painful.
I’m probably just setting myself up for failure. We get there, and They started off with I think Cervidil or I think that’s what it is to dilate the cervix, and I did something in my cheek, just like a pill in my cheek to start that process.
I think before the midwife left at like midnight, somewhere around there, i think they started Pitocin.
Ellie: Oh, yeah.
Jamie: And I was like, “No, I’m done. I’m done. I can’t do this.” “This is awful.” And like in walks like McDreamy with the epidural. He was a cutie. I had an epidural, and I slept… I think I slept okay, and the next morning, like the pain intensified.
My husband did not spend the night just because we have animals, and-
Ellie: Yeah
Jamie: … I was like, “Nothing is gonna happen. I don’t really need anybody. I can do this by myself,” except for making the decision. I even called him. I said, “I want to do an epidural.” And he’s like, “Okay.”
The next morning, my doula comes, Emily comes- … my husband comes, and the pain is intensifying. And she’s like, “Jamie, stop pressing the button.” And I’m like, “But people say they don’t feel anything.” Since I already cowered out, is the way I thought about it, I didn’t want to feel any pain.
And it was painful. And in walks this hefty woman, and she got me right. She really helped me with the pain. And so I slept. I, and- Yeah … I think that’s one way I deal with fear is- … I just I passed out, and I just slept.
Ellie: Block, block out. Yeah.
Jamie: Exactly.
Ellie: Block that out.
Jamie: Yeah. Yeah. I slept for hours and hours. And she woke me up, I don’t know, 6:00, around 6:00, and she’s like, “Whoa. Okay. You’re, like, eight centimeters.” No, I was-
Ellie: Wow …
Jamie: I think I was 10 by the time I woke up, and she goes-
Ellie: Amazing … “
Jamie: Let’s get you pushing,” and I was like, “Okay. All right.” And it was it was tough because I could feel it. I don’t understand these women- who are like, “I felt nothing,” because I felt every contraction, and I’m like- … “I can feel it. I’m ready to push.” And they’re like, “Do not push yet.” What I also don’t hear is I fell in love with my husband all over again in that labor.
Ellie: How was he supporting you?
Jamie: Oh, he was so amazing. He was just right there being so cool and going, “You can do it, Jamie.” And he counted, and he was being so amazing. And my doula-
Ellie: That’s amazing …
Jamie: she was also great. She was giving me a washcloth. She had these ski ropes so I could push-
Ellie: Ah
Jamie: … and do that, and she rotated me, and she was doing all these different moves to help him move down. They said, “Do you want a mirror?” And I was like, hindsight, I wish I had the mirror sooner because I think that would’ve helped my progress.
Ellie: You can visualize what’s happening, and I think some of us are quite visual anyway, so- Yeah … being able to go, “Hang on, there is actually something happening.” ‘Cause when someone says, “Oh, you’re so many centimeters,” it doesn’t mean anything if you can’t see it, I feel like-
Jamie: Yeah
Ellie: visually seeing and going, “Oh, okay, there’s progress.”
Jamie: Yeah, I wish I did it a lot sooner and made that a priority. I wish I made- … turning down the lights, I wish I made all of that a priority. Like music-
Ellie: Yeah
Jamie: … a part of me just wants another kid so I can redo that birth how I wanted it.
Ellie: Yeah.
Jamie: That’s silly to say, but it’s also I wish I just, did a lot of things different.
Ellie: Yeah.
Jamie: Not that I regret anything. So I’m pushing for two hours, and I’m just getting tired, and it hurts like hell. It really does.
Ellie: Yeah.
Jamie: And I’m like, “I have an epidural. I don’t think I should feel all this,” but I do. I don’t know what happened, right? I don’t have anything to compare it to. He’s crowning, and he is his head is ready to come out, and she goes, “Stop.” Wow. Stop.” She goes, “Stop pushing.” His hand is coming out at the same time-
Ellie: Oh, wow
Jamie: … as his head. And I’m like, “No, I am not stopping.” So I keep pushing, and I tear because of that.
Ellie: Yeah.
Jamie: And I am so exhausted from just getting his head out.
Ellie: The emotion.
Jamie: I can’t feel anything anymore. I am just in a daze. I can’t push anymore.
Ellie: Yeah.
Jamie: And so I think she kinda really helps him, the midwife really helps him out further, and she puts him on my chest, and I am just like… i’m so out of it. I’m so tired, and I’m just like, “What just happened?” She’s like, “Jamie, hold your baby. Hold your baby.”
Ellie: Aw.
Jamie: And I’m just like, “I wanna see him,” and it was such a surreal moment.
Ellie: Was he crying? Was he silent? Like how was he in that moment?
Jamie: I can barely remember that moment, but I’m pretty sure he was crying. I think he was crying. And my husband cuts the cord, and you see all these other videos about these women not wanting their baby to be touched. I didn’t want him to be touched, and they’re like-
Ellie: Yeah
Jamie: … shaking him, cleaning him, which I didn’t want either. And like in the moment it’s so hard to advocate for yourself in those moments.
Ellie: You’re the most vulnerable, I feel you can pretty much ever be in those- those moments from my experience of having three, there’s this real vulnerability- … where you’re almost more… in hindsight when you think about it, when you’re not having all those emotions and that physical, you go, “I would do this, I’ll do that,” and da, but in that moment there’s such a vulnerability.
Jamie: There really is. I don’t think he was looking very good, and so they cut the cord pretty quickly. Of course, I want delayed cord clamping. I don’t think I got it. My husband does cut the cord, and they kinda rush him away to get him not stable, just to kinda check him I think.
Ellie: Check, check him out.
Jamie: Yeah. My husband goes over there with him, and they bring him back and I’m just like, oh, my gosh. I didn’t feel that like immediate love.
But I’m just like, “I wanna look at him. I wanna see him.” It was such an amazing moment. And like in those moments he’s so alert, and I’m like- … “Oh, my goodness. He’s so awake.” He looks older. Also, when they’re over there weighing him they’re like, ’cause I remember this vividly, they’re like, “He’s nine and a half pounds.” Holy shit, I just birthed a nine and a half baby.
Ellie: Wow. Amazing. Yeah. Amazing.
Jamie: Yeah.
Ellie: And I wanted to go back. When you originally said when you picked the the donor, part of your prerequisite- was, you wanted some familiarity of the blonde hair, the blue eyes. Were you, did you, in that first 24 hours, were you looking for that? I’m curious as to… See, it’s interesting. That all just goes away- Yeah … right in the moment, doesn’t it? Yeah. The things that you think you really would be, “Yeah, I’ve gotta have these,” and then in the moment it’s like, “No, that’s my baby.”
Jamie: Yeah. Yeah. I think in being a first-time mom, I think that played into a lot of my experience, is I wanted to see… he had dark hair. He has really beautiful blue eyes, and I was just like he is great, and he was so alert.
Ellie: He’s perfect.
Jamie: Yeah.
Ellie: Perfect.
Jamie: Yeah. And like- Yeah … ugh, that first night, think my husband went home again. And, ugh I just reek of first mom. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to feed him.
And the ladies were not very nice. The nurses were not very nice. And she just whipped my boob out and did it, and then I was like, “Can I have donor milk?” And she was rude, and she… And my baby is screaming.
Ellie: Oh, yeah, the hunger, f- yeah. Yeah. And your instinct is to absolutely solve it in any possible way-
Jamie: Yeah …
Ellie: in that moment, whether that’s donor milk, whether that was what- whatever’s way when you hear that. ‘Cause I think it’s instinctual. You know you need to feed a baby.
Jamie: Yeah. And she was not very nice either, and I’m like, “I’m sorry, my baby is screaming.” I don’t know how long it takes. And I didn’t know what I was doing breastfeeding. I really wish I started pumping or trying to get colostrum- … a few weeks before.
Ellie: Oh w- Yeah. And then tell me about your experience of after, obviously you’ve given birth, it’s 24 hours.
I wanted to bring that on to the postpartum experience, like the emotions, the coming home, the new mother. It’s like a thousand melting pots of experience at once. Tell, take us through that.
Jamie: Oh, yeah. Yeah, I, the anxiety was really high for me. I think Melody, she talked about having invasive thoughts, and yes. Yes, I did. I would have irrational thoughts. And just trying to figure out and soothe him.
Ellie: Bringing him home, tell us about, you said, it was difficult at first with the feeding and the hospital you didn’t get that, that support. So I’m really curious to when you came home, were you then just like natural, or did you need help to help with the feeding and the soothing? What was your experience with this postpartum?
Jamie: Emily, my doula, really helped with that. She came to the house a couple times, and she got us hooked up with lactation consultants, and maybe that helped. I’m not sure. But I ended up with elastic nipples. No one’s ever talked about that on the show either.
Ellie: I’ve never heard of that.
Jamie: Yeah. It’s exactly how it sounds. The nipple can stretch really far.
Ellie: Wow.
Jamie: And so I put off pumping. I was scared to pump. I didn’t wanna put them together. I didn’t know how to do it. And so I really put it off. And finally, once I did it I didn’t get much milk, and I regret- not starting that sooner. I don’t think he was getting enough milk because it was hard to get the milk out. Because when I would pump, I would have to pump for 45 minutes, and I was not filling up like some women do, right? I’d never do 20 minutes and I’m done. Because of my elastic nipples, we really had to figure it out.
Ellie: Wow.
Jamie: And I would usually have to pump for 45 minutes.
Ellie: Yeah. That’s a physically a lot when you’re trying to do that feed, get baby’s back to sleep. Was there an exhaustion feeling? Like what, how did you cope with all of the body things going on as well, and the hormones all-
Jamie: I don’t know
Ellie: at the same time. It’s like a perfect storm.
Jamie: Yeah, ’cause I didn’t sleep very much. I would get up with him and I would pump for 45 minutes, try and put him back down. I was pumping eight times a day.
Ellie: Wow.
Jamie: And even that, I didn’t know how often to pump. I didn’t realize you were supposed to do it every two hours.
Like it’s not you pump- … wait two hours. No, you pump on the two-hour mark.
Ellie: Okay.
Jamie: No matter how long it takes. And like those little things were like, “Duh, Jamie, you’re just such a rookie at this.”
Ellie: Wow.
Jamie: And then in that process I would get… I can’t think of what it is. I would get knots in my boob. Oh my God, it hurts so bad. I couldn’t get it out, and my husband would n- knead my boob for- … an hour trying to get the rest of the milk out.
Ellie: The rest,
Jamie: yeah. It hurt so bad, which now I know you’re not really supposed to do that, but at the time it was the only answer.
Ellie: Like a relief.
Jamie: Yeah.
Ellie: Did it feel better then? Yeah.
Jamie: After he finished, that’s… I finally got relief. It hurt so bad. Now I know that you use this sunflower lichen or s- whatever that’s called.
Ellie: Wow.
Jamie: Yeah. And it thins out the milk so you won’t get-
Ellie: Ah
Jamie: … the clogged ducts.
Ellie: See, I didn’t even know that. I feel like you could have three, five kids, and you’d still be learning.
Jamie: Yeah. Yeah, totally. Yeah. And that’s from, people telling me. I had to up… I think I took two pills at a time. But once I figured that piece out, it was amazing. I was freezing- … milk at that time. I was getting really extra milk for him. I was putting it in mason jars, like…
Ellie: Wow.
Jamie: I wasn’t in the pitcher stage, but I think for where I was starting so late in the process, I don’t think I started really pumping well until after 12 weeks probably.
It was a hard journey, and then that baby bit me. And,
Ellie: Oh.
Jamie: Yeah. We figured out he had tongue ties and a lip tie.
Ellie: Wow.
Jamie: We got that corrected, but I still think he just wasn’t getting the milk out because of my nipples, the elastic nipples, and I think he struggled, and that’s probably why he bit. I don’t know. But I said- … you bite me one more time, and we are through.
Ellie: Yeah, it’s too hard. Yeah.
Jamie: Yeah. So I became a full-time pumper every two hours.
Ellie: So how long did that go for?
Jamie: My goal was a year. Yeah.
Ellie: Yeah.
Jamie: And one of the most amazing things, Kayla- She was amazing. We connected long before we got pregnant. She lost a baby, came back, and I got pregnant, and she watched me get pregnant. And coincidentally, a few weeks later she got pregnant. She was supposed to have her baby a month before me, a month or two, and it coincided where our babies are, like, less than seven days apart.
Ellie: Wow.
Jamie: What is so amazing is we got to have postpartum together.
Ellie: And it… Talk about different experiences and share ideas and-
Jamie: Yeah …
Ellie: just even listen to someone relatable who’s gone through it.
Jamie: Yeah. 4:00 in the morning, we’re chatting. What- Yeah … all times of the hour we’re chatting, we’re saying, “What helped with this? What do you do with this?” And that was really amazing to my postpartum journey.
Ellie: Yeah. It was. I think it takes the, the village, they say. So everyone talks about, it creates a vil- you need a village sometimes to help you out. So I was wondering in that postpartum who were the, the key people in your life?
And obviously I know your husband was and she was, but did you have other people around you? Was your doula stick around? Like, how did you get through that first year?
Jamie: It was my husband really. He-
Ellie: Yeah
Jamie: … stayed home for two months. Wow, that’s great. I had never even drove for those two months. That was amazing.
Ellie: That’s amazing.
Jamie: Yeah. He, I think, was really my biggest support. And then-
Ellie: Yeah …
Jamie: Kayla really helped with that, and I think a lot of women from the community and the stories- … just really helped me. And going back to the invasive thoughts, like- … when I couldn’t get him to stop crying, we would go outside and I would rock him.
And I thought, “What if a bobcat comes in the backyard and gets to us?” And you just… “What if I- … drop my baby? What if I hit his head on the door frame?” And it’s like, ugh, From what I understand, it’s normal.
Ellie: Yeah. And the anxiety, and I still feel like the body and the mind is catching up with everything.
Jamie: Yeah.
Ellie: No, definitely. And sync- syncing, so syncing together, right? And part of that is that those, yeah, can be-
Jamie: Yeah
Ellie: … those anxious feelings for a lot of women. Yeah. And how did the rest of the year go with just being a m- from that perception of like I wanted to be a mom, now I’m a mom. What were the feelings of now I’m a mom versus I wanna be a mom?
Jamie: I really had a hard time identifying as a mom and sometimes I still do but I really had a hard time with that, just accepting I’m a mom. My husband would call me a mom, and I’m like, “Who are you talking about? Why are you talking about my mom?” It’s just those little things- really were hard to process for me. And, like-
Ellie: I had… I was similar when my when my daughters were young and called me Mom, I used to look at them and think, “Who are you talk…” Like, when they first started to talk. I don’t know why. I know they’re mom naturally, but there was sometimes these little gaps in the mind going, “I’m a mom?”
Jamie: Yeah.
Ellie: Cause for all these years you’re not, and then suddenly you are.
Jamie: Yeah.
Ellie: So there’s two identities. The old one still lives there, and then the new one’s here, and you gotta mesh them.
Jamie: Yeah. Yeah, it was wild. One of the doctors called and said, or nurses, whatever, and she goes are you Carver’s mom?”
And I’m like, “Yes. Yes, I am.” That was a really funny moment.
Ellie: Yeah, that is beautiful. See, and it, the, it does catch up. It, the mind and the it does catch up, but the identity I think does… People think automatically because you hear those stories, oh, you gave birth, and I automatically felt like Mom, but some, for some of us it can take a while to, even though we physically know, there’s a… takes a while to process everything.
Jamie: Yeah. And one thing’s funny is we had a bassinet, and I had a hard time sleeping next to him. I wouldn’t get great sleep when we would try and breastfeed- … to sleep. I just, I wasn’t sleeping well. And then what’s fun is we moved his bassinet into our closet, and that might sound really strange for some people.
But our closet is right in our bathroom, and so he was far enough away that I could get a, a better night’s sleep- but he was close enough to where I could hear him when he cries.
Ellie: Yeah. Yeah.
Jamie: So that really helped. Another thing that helped was my husband would take the morning shift.
He would take, he would get up with him at 7:00 AM.
Ellie: Yeah, wow.
Jamie: And I would get up at 4:00 AM, and then I would also sleep till 10 or 11:00. And getting that four- or five-hour stretch of sleep was amazing to me.
I think it really helped me a lot in the very beginning. Now, it didn’t help my milk, which was really stupid of me, but I was just really naive with that piece of it at the time, but I got good sleep.
Ellie: Yeah. Wow. The other thing I wanted to talk about, because your podcast has always been, I believe, about hope, fears, love, persistence, dreams, and, once you had your son, you still have given back to women, right? You’ve still continued that journey. Do you took some time off, I think, originally from podcasting. But what made you also come back to, to continue that journey?
Jamie: I just really wanted to connect again and start sharing stories, and having that break just really gave me a new life. Yeah. It gave me like this new hope again, and I know I ha- my story wasn’t over.
I was still going through it too. And that can probably lead us to when my baby was turning one. I got a positive pregnancy test And at the six-week mark of being postpartum, they say, “Do you, what do you wanna use for protection?” And you just wanna slap them- because you’re like, “Listen, we had to use donor eggs. There’s no reason we need to use any form of contraceptive.”
And I got a positive pregnancy test. And another thing is my cycle didn’t skip a beat.
Ellie: Wow.
Jamie: I gave birth. I ble- I did bleed for eight weeks or something. It wa- it felt like-
Ellie: Yeah
Jamie: forever.
Ellie: It’s quite- And- … intense bleed to a normal-
Jamie: Yes … bleed as
Ellie: well.
Jamie: Yeah. Yeah. And so I had my normal 28 days. Boom, my cycle is already starting. And like- Wow … these women who get a break while they breastfeed, no, that was not me. That was not me. But here we are with a positive pregnancy test. And let me tell you, that was my plan. We were gonna have an oops baby after Carver.
Ellie: An oops baby. Yeah.
Jamie: Oop-
Ellie: Carver and the oops baby.
Jamie: Yes. And that was just gonna be perfect. And that was the way I wanted it to go, and I was just like, “This is working out.” I wanted to make sure that it was an ectopic pregnancy.
Let’s just get that out of the way. And all these midwives are congratulating me, and I’m like, ” Stop. Let’s just look at the- … ultrasound, make sure everything’s okay first.” And she does it and she goes there’s two babies.” What? I thought my husband was gonna pass out or just leave the room.
Ellie: Wow.
Jamie: He was in shock. I was in shock.
Ellie: Wow.
Jamie: And there was two heartbeats, and I’m like, “But we’ve never seen a heartbeat before with my own eggs.”
Ellie: Yeah.
Jamie: “With my own eggs.”
Ellie: Yeah.
Jamie: And so I was blown away, and Twins. I was like, “What are we gonna do? How are we gonna afford this? Where are they gonna go? How am I gonna carry them?”
Ellie: How am I gonna breastfeed them?
Jamie: All these things were going through my head. Lord knows what my husband was thinking. He was freaking out. Oh, my gosh, I just spent days in utter shock oh, my gosh- … twins. I was gonna go from one to three.
Ellie: Oh my… Yeah.
Jamie: I mean, it wa-
Ellie: It’s a lots of process too.
Jamie: Yes. It was really funny telling my sisters and my mom, “There’s two babies.”
Ellie: Yeah.
Jamie: That was a super joy. And we see the heartbeats. All the midwives are just cheering me on, and I’m like, “Whoa, I have never had a baby with my own eggs. Please stop.” This is pregnancy number six at this point. Please don’t congratulate me. They’re all so happy. It was fun. I felt like a celebrity leaving the midwife’s office.
And sure enough, I start bleeding. And the midwife I don’t know if it was good or terrible. She was like, “Jamie, i don’t think you’re having a miscarriage. I don’t think you’re having a miscarriage.” And it was cool she had a baby at 40. That was really cool. And they’ve watched, they’ve listened to the show, which was really fun, too.
Ellie: Ah.
Jamie: She’s like, “Listen, I don’t think you’re having a miscarriage. There’s three reasons…” I’m like, “I don’t care about these reasons. Show me a heartbeat. Let’s get to it.”
Ellie: Let’s see the facts, yeah.
Jamie: Yeah. Stop talking. Do the ultrasound. And she couldn’t find a heartbeat. And oh, that was so hard. She goes, “Hold on. Let me get another, someone else in here.” And I just looked at my husband.
Ellie: And your heart’s sinking.
Jamie: Yeah. I know. I’m like, “Let’s not play this game. I know it’s not h- I know- it’s not gonna work out.” I have never had a D&C before, and it has always been my personal choice to try to just do it naturally if everything- works out. I’ve tried to always get a sample, but- … I’ve never been successful. And this time I got a sample. I knew what it was. It was like 1:00 in the morning and I saw it, and I was like, “This is it.”
I even woke my husband up, and I’m like, “Here it is.” I was like, “I wanna get it tested. I just-” “for closure, I wanna get it tested.” And we did, and I think the hardest part is knowing that they were two boys Oh, that was so hard.
And this was- … the hardest miscarriage of all of them Because this was the plan. This was how it was supposed to be. And then she told me, she goes, “They had trisomy, triple trisomy,” or-
Ellie: Ah
Jamie: … I don’t, I’m not saying it
Ellie: It’s a ge- genetic disorder which-
Jamie: Yeah …
Ellie: also when the baby’s born causes major issues. They may not be born.
Jamie: Oh. The, they’ll never make it because they had-
Ellie: Yeah … we’re only- They
Jamie: won’t
Ellie: make it. Yeah
Jamie: yeah. We’re supposed to have, what, two copies of DNAs. But they had three full copies. We usually hear- … trisomy 18. I think Down- Yeah, there’s different
Ellie: numbers …
Jamie: but they had- … all of them, so they would’ve-
Ellie: Ah
Jamie: … they were never gonna make it. And from what I unders-
Ellie: That’s terrible
Jamie: … from what I understand is when I went down the rabbit hole of it starts with the egg is the egg starts with four copies, and by the time-
Ellie: Wow
Jamie: it matures it’s supposed to only have one.
Ellie: Yeah.
Jamie: Ugh, that was horrible. And again, I get to blame it on my eggs once again. So here we are, and the next cycle, once I finish, I get a negative test. I have another positive pregnancy test. And I’m like, “Oh my gosh, this is pregnancy number seven.”
‘Cause I had already- … got a negative. I made sure that I got a negative pregnancy test, and then I got a positive pregnancy test again. That was the most I don’t care miscarriage I’ve ever had. ‘Cause I was like, “I know it’s not gonna work out. I don’t wanna get excited.” It ends and it’s over. And my husband says, “I can’t do this anymore and I don’t wanna see you upset anymore.” So I said, “Okay.” That was harder than the miscarriage. And that completes my seven pregnancies that I’ve had.
So now I’m like at this perimenopausal thing. I’m going to the functional doctor. I’ve been diagnosed with Hashimoto’s, which is a thyroid condition. And I’m anemic, so I don’t even think I’m ovulating at this point. My cycle this time was 40 days. And I just have other things that I need to work on.
My hips hurt really bad, and I’m like, my whole goal when I went to her t- for the functional medicine doctor, I wanted to get my hormones balanced because, I feel like if that’s balanced, everything is balanced. And ah, that just has to take a back seat right now. Ugh, perimenopause, more issues. My mom moves in. And I’m just overwhelmed.
Ellie: Yeah. And I get it because I’m 49, and definitely in perimenopause and taking some hormone replacements. I love to say, “Ah, I’m not gonna get perimenopause. I’m not gonna get any symptoms.” But it can be overwhelming as we get older, like all of the responsibilities of, children-
Jamie: Yeah
Ellie: … aging parents, plus then seeing our own health change as well, and trying to do the 10,000 things in a day in itself can be overwhelming. So I really understand, and I think a lot of women who, go on the journey from pregnancy to kids to into that is, is…
Gosh I’m even thinking, Jamie, we need to do a perime- menopause- … podcast.
Jamie: Yeah, we do.
Ellie: Like the stories of that, I think we need that next. But, coming full circle now I wanted to touch on, you are… There’s some major decisions in your life, and I know you’ve spoken to them about on Instagram and so forth of where your journey goes next with this podcast and everything.
But I really… there may be a woman today who hasn’t heard what’s happening, and I wanted you to maybe explain where you are now and what, what’s going on.
Jamie: Oh, this is the last episode.
Ellie: I feel like we’ve got to talk for another two hours.
Jamie: I know.
Ellie: We’re gonna miss it.
Jamie: I know. It has been such an amazing journey. Four years of podcasting, with a break in there.
Ellie: Yeah.
Jamie: It has been amazing. My proudest moment is my consistency and dedication to this. It was-
Ellie: Says a lot about who you are …
Jamie: it’s exactly what I needed when I was trying to conceive. I came back, and I was, like, consistent, every other Monday, and it just, I can’t do it anymore. And there’s a lot of me that is just, I need to move on.
Ellie: You need a break.
Jamie: I need to stop thinking about pregnancy. Because I want another baby, but I have other priorities- that need to be a front seat to me. I need to stop thinking about pregnancy, and almost having it be a little bit of a hope in the back of my mind, because I think about it all the time with this show.
Ellie: Yeah.
Becomes, it becomes an identity when we do something- Yeah … long enough on repeat. And I think, you’ve got a busy little boy, and lots of things going on- … as well. And I think, like we just spoke about in perimenopause, there’s a lot mentally for us to deal with. But- Yeah
Jamie: our first question she says, “Aw, it’ll probably be emotional for you. I hope it goes well and you enjoy it.” Yes. It was very- … emotional. This is a very emotional episode for me. Our next one is, “How did you know when to close the chapter?”
Ellie, did you know when to close the chapter?
Ellie: I think the chapters are always continuing, they’re just different versions.
That’s a good one. Also, like when you, w- when we were talking, I wanted another baby. I haven’t wanted a baby for a little while, I’ve been busy going through perimenopause and, brain just frying. But the, as you’re talking I’m like, “No, I want another baby,” and I wasn’t even thinking about that before two hours ago. So I don’t know. Do we ever close chapters?
Jamie: That’s a good point. Do you ever close it? I don’t… Yeah, I don’t know. I don’t know. I feel like a little bit of that is my husband making it for me. But I always feel like there’s still a possibility.
Ellie: Yeah. Even then I was like, when we were talking, I was like, “I wanna be pregnant again. I wanna be pregnant again.” So I feel like there is this, there’s always a version that in- … of that still lives in you. Even we might cover it up, we’re busy, life keeps moving, but- … I think,
Jamie: yeah.
Ellie: It’s an identity.
Jamie: Exactly. And that’s one reason why I need to stop because just you-
Ellie: Yeah
Jamie: … i’m like, “I need to stop thinking about pregnancy.” O- another one says, “Oh my gosh, Jamie, will be so sad but also totally understand your decision. Really admire you for it.”
Ellie: That’s beautiful.
Jamie: Thank you. Thank you. Our last one did you ever try to use your own eggs before going to donor eggs? She is… I really wish her all the baby dust, ’cause I know she just had an egg retrieval. Did I use my own eggs? Well, technically we did. We had… I had one egg retrieval. One embryo. It didn’t make it.
I really thought, we could do another egg retrieval, but I’m like, That’s not important to me. The baby is more important than trying with my own eggs, because I know it’s gonna be an uphill battle. It’s not probably gonna take just one more egg retrieval to get a baby.
Ellie: It’s time as well.
Jamie: Yeah.
Ellie: It’s clicking and time too. We’re conscious- … we’re in our 40s, that we’re not 20, trying, where we go we’ve got maybe 20 good years of this. We can take a little break and maybe save some more money.” It’s a- … there’s a ti- this is, the, that can create anxiety, the-
Jamie: Yeah
Ellie: knowing that is, the clock-
Jamie: Exactly
Ellie: … is ticking.
Jamie: Yeah. So I was like, “I want a baby. I want the best odds for me to get a baby.”
Ellie: Yeah.
Jamie: And it just w- it became not important to me that he have my own DNA. And to this day, it is not important whatsoever.
Ellie: It should make no- Oh … difference for
Jamie: your love.
Ellie: Beautiful. When I first spoke to you I was pregnant, 45, unexpected. And you were on the journey of becoming pregnant. But I wanted to circle back to that because if you could tell, there’s a woman out there listening to us right now who was you those years ago who is going through her own journey. What advice could you give that woman? What would you like, what would you like to say to her?
Jamie: I would say believe. Believe it’s going to happen. I don’t think these stories are just filled with hope. I think they’re filled with connection to other women who have done it, and they’re also just filled with education of how you want it to shape your journey, and it shapes your opinions of what you want it to look like and what’s possible
Ellie: That’s wonderful.
Jamie: Another thing I would suggest is learn your body. Know your body. One of my favorite episodes is Jodi’s because she knew her body more than anybody else that-
Ellie: Wow
Jamie: I’ve ever interviewed. She knew she was pregnant before a pregnancy test could say it, and she just she went into her birth and she controlled everybody in the room. So-
Ellie: Wow
Jamie: … it’s not just her knowledge of her body, but I know- … it’s her personality too. And I think- … I think that is where a lot of us women generally lack, is knowing our body, knowing our cycle, our numbers, getting tested for thyroid stuff. I think that’s really good for us to do, and we… It’s not in our education.
Ellie: Yeah. Yeah. I know. I think we… you learned so much on the way on this, this journey.
Jamie: Yeah. That’s so true. Maybe one thing I might mention is there’s kinda two stories that pop out into my head of why we should talk more about our stories in the wild. I’ve heard a lot of women say, “Oh, I’m not sharing that we’re trying.” And that gives me so much pause, right? So when I started my journey, we were in an office building. I was working in an office building, and you know you have communal bathrooms with the other suites-
Ellie: Yeah …
Jamie: on the floor. And so this girl, I kept running into her in the bathroom, and I eventually told her my story about getting pregnant. We shared stories. She was pregnant much younger than me. She was a little older than me. And we are still great friends to this day.
Ellie: Yeah.
Jamie: And we- I know … bonded over this.
Ellie: That even makes me think, because you told your me- perimenopause story, which I didn’t know about, that we need to tell those stories as well. Yeah. It’s this is s- the cycle of life stories, right?
Jamie: Exactly, yeah. And then another time, swim lessons with my baby, we’ve been doing swim lessons with him since he was three months old, which it’s been really a great experience. And there was a little boy that we kinda talk to sometimes, and he was graduating into the new class.
And she said, “Hey, I want your number so we can hang out and our little boys can play together.” I said, “Sure.” I wish I asked for her number first. She asked for mine. We went over to her house one day, and we were walking to go see her new house. And we were talking, and I was like, “Do you think you’ll have another baby?” And she’s like, “Yes.” And I was like, “Yeah, I don’t know. We have an IVF baby.” And she said, “So do we. He is also an IVF baby.”
And I said, “Yeah. It took us a while. We had a really hard time, so we ended up using donor eggs.” And she goes, “So did we.” And so it’s not only I truly believe in sharing these stories with the internet and other women who are trying, it’s like sharing it with other women in the wild is like- I feel forever
Ellie: bonded. Being vulnerable and bold.
Jamie: Yeah.
Ellie: Vulnerable and bold. Because we often like masking what’s really going on, right? Yeah. So opening up a little, and then you never know what other story you’re gonna hear, and then there’s that relatable feelings,
Jamie: yeah.
Ellie: And then that helps you with your own personal feelings, so I love that. Yeah. In the wild.
Jamie: Yeah. She goes, she went home and cried to her husband, and I’m like, “Yes, so did I.”
Ellie: Yeah.
Jamie: Because it was such a beautiful moment. Who knew that I could find someone… Oh, and then later on she goes, “I had my baby over 42.” And I’m like, “What? You’re over 40 and you did donor eggs just like me?” Yeah. Oh, it was really cool. So it’s like share stories, even in the wild.
Ellie: Share stories-
Jamie: Yeah …
Ellie: in the wild. I love that.
So I feel like you learnt, but I don’t know if you really realize how much you’ve given to everyone else, and it’s making me feel emotional as well.
But I wanted to really thank you because you’ll never know how much hope, how much seeds of all the stories you gave to all those women. They’re all out there. Those stories are out there for all those women to hear. And your dedication, your persistence, your consistency, your beautiful way that you’ve handled all of these women and their stories is wonderful.
It says so much about who you are, and I’m sure all of us just wanna say thank you from the bottom of our hearts for believing in yourself, and then bringing out the stories of everyone else’s belief and journeys. So thank you.
Jamie: Yeah. I’m so honored that I have walked with so many women on their path to babies, and I know they are not finished with their story.
Once I came out with the story that I’m going to end the show, I had so many people telling me how much it’s helped them, and it just w- a part of me says I shouldn’t stop. I need to go for them. But I’m so honored I got to be with them for that time, and I’m-
Ellie: Yeah …
Jamie: I’m just so honored that so many women have listened and have overcome it and have babies, and I’m just- so happy to do it.
Ellie: Thank you. And is there anything else you I’ve missed? Is there anything else you wanna finally say for your story?
Jamie: I don’t think so. I feel so lucky. I feel incredibly lucky. Even though I’ve had seven pregnancies, one baby, I feel incredibly lucky. And I hope every woman gets to feel that way, too.
Ellie: Thank you, Jamie. Your story and what you’ve done is… There’s really no words, and I know that whatever’s next, you’re still gonna be bringing joy into your world, bringing hopes and your dreams.
Jamie: And Ellie, thank you so much for helping me share my story.
Ellie: Oh, it was an honor, absolute honor. Thank you.