I’M PREGNANT! Opening Up About My Journey, Part 1 of 2

Catherine A. Wood  00:01

Hello, hello, welcome back to the prosperous Empath cat here. I am so excited to share today’s episode with you all. I have been looking forward to sharing this episode for months now, probably about eight. And my husband and I agreed that after we got over the 12 week home that that’s when we would feel comfortable sharing it on the podcast. So, before we jump in, I just want to offer a little disclaimer, today’s episode could be really hard for some of my listeners to hear and to tune in. Especially if you have been struggling with your own conception journey. I want you all to know that we are pregnant that we’ve been blessed to conceive naturally and to not have had any miscarriages, thank God and follow your own intuition. If it serves you or not to tune into this episode, I think that I would have really appreciated being reminded a little bit more along my own journey that I always had consent, that I could always opt out of conversations and podcasts and books. And gosh, even just answering questions about my own journey that there’s always the opportunity to opt out. Today’s episode is gonna be a lot different than most episodes I’ve recorded so far in the podcast, but I wanted to share a bit of a personal update on our pregnancy journey and, and really how we got here, because it’s been a long journey for us. And something I appreciate about others who have gone before me is their willingness to be authentic, and share about their experiences, the ups and the downs, and the twists and the turns. And the challenges. And we’ve certainly had all of those. And gosh, I am not going to get emotional. But I really wanted to. I really wanted to just be vulnerable with you and share a little bit of what this past year has been like for me because it’s been really challenging. And there’s been so much to celebrate, and so many beautiful things happening in the business and in my personal life and in my family. And getting pregnant has really been the one thing that just wasn’t happening for us. And that has been so hard to sit with and not have answers for and be patient and patients is not my forte when there’s something I really want. I’m sure so many of you can relate to that as ambitious empaths. So I want to share, I want to share all of the details and hopefully, perhaps share some some knowledge that maybe you don’t already know, because there was so much new information that I learned for myself along the journey that I wish I had known sooner. I think it can be so hard to find out some of this just really candid, honest information until you’re on the journey. For one thing, and then many couples don’t don’t share openly about their pregnancy journeys, which I can completely understand. You know, many people in my world have had very traumatizing and painful pregnancy journeys. So I can completely appreciate wanting to guard that information close to their hearts. But for me personally, I have found consistently that talking openly about my experience with coaches, mentors, colleagues, friends and family. It helps me make peace with the unfolding of my journey. And so much more than that. It also supports me in gleaning the lessons learned and gleaning the wisdom, and then sharing it forward. And that is something I am so committed to doing. And it’s a big reason why I launched this podcast. I have so deeply appreciated, those who have come before me, friends, clients, family members, who’ve been so generous with me about their pregnancy journeys and all of the ups and the downs. And so I wanted to do the same and share, share with you with my beautiful community about my own journey and And this is a vulnerable one for me. So I’d certainly appreciate hearing from you. And if there’s anything that you take with you for yourself, message me over on Instagram, send me a voice memo on LinkedIn or Instagram, it’s certainly the quickest way to connect with me these days. And I just love to, to hear to hear from you and connect with you. And if there’s someone in your life who’s also struggling with their own conception journey, feel free to share this episode with them, it’s actually going to be a two part series. So much of this information that I’m going to share are things that I learned through my own personal experience, and through self advocating for myself and through a whole lot of asking really direct and candid questions with friends and colleagues and clients and medical professionals. And something I’ve been grateful for over and over throughout this journey, is just how much work I have done on myself that prepared me to self advocate for myself in the way that I have had to do over the past year on our journey. So if there’s any wisdom, or lessons learned that I can share and perhaps prevent you some of the Gosh, lack of clarity, impatience, misunderstandings, confusion, fear that I’ve experienced, then this podcast and sharing the story will have so been worth it. So let’s just start from the beginning. And I’ll also share that my husband is on the same page with me about me sharing all about my journey and and I so appreciate him for, for being being up for that. It took just about a year for us to conceive, we officially started trying a year ago, February back in February of 2023, which was just a couple of months after we got pregnant or excuse me after we got married and in October of 22. But, you know, if you’ve been here a while, you know that my husband and I have been together almost a decade. So I’ve certainly been dreaming of trying and dreaming of getting pregnant with him for years and years. And if I’m being quite honest, I have always wanted to be a mom, I have wanted to be a mom, gosh, for just about as long as I can remember. So I have certainly been ready. And And this past year was probably that much harder for me, given how ready I felt, and how confused and fearful I’ve felt along the journey with why we weren’t having success. And truth be told, I mistakenly thought we would get pregnant immediately. I mean, of course, that is my ambitious nature at heart to you know, I’m so practiced at when I put my mind to something I follow through and I achieve my goals when they’re super clear. And I have a really clear vision of what I want and the impact it will have, you know, like that. Art of manifesting is something that I have been doing for years and years. And so I did not understand why this was different. And having that expectation that this was going to happen for us immediately. certainly made it so much more challenging for me. I recall one of my best friends and one of my bridesmaids when when I shared with her that we were trying to conceive she said you know cat, it’s probably going to take you about a year I would I would prepare for this taking about a year because that’s what it had taken them and I that was the last thing I wanted to hear that advice was so hard to receive from her. And that’s exactly what it took for us and I know that’s not the case for everyone, but that is certainly what our journey looked like and and I’m also you know, I’ll be 40 when I deliver. So it’s an advanced pregnancy, or advanced age pregnancy. So when we were starting to terrain last winter, a couple months after I had a preconception visit at the Mount Auburn Hospital Center for Women in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which is a very well known hospital in the Boston area, they have a beautiful Women’s Center. And it’s also where one of my best friends gave birth as well as one of my cousins. So I had heard really beautiful experiences from both of them about their journeys, and about how empathic, the midwives and the doctors were there. So I felt really clear that that is also where I wanted to deliver. And I think something I’ve really come to appreciate throughout this journey, as an empath is that working with empathic professionals, whether it’s in business or in health care, is a absolute must for me. And that has become even more clear over the past year of this journey. One of my, one of my former coaches, has this definition for a breakdown, which is how so much of the early months of our conception journey felt for me, she defines a breakdown as one of these three circumstances either an unfulfilled expectation, thwarted intention, or an undelivered communication. Now, it’s likely that you experience more than one of these in areas of life where you’re experiencing breakdowns, but typically, there’s one that is more central, or more front and center. And for me, having this unfulfilled expectation, you know, like, I just had the expectation that we were going to get pregnant immediately, and my heart was set on it. And having that unrealized was so heartbreaking for me, it was really painful. And I was completely self induced, which I don’t, I don’t like admitting, but honestly, it’s the truth. And I think that that is something that so many of my clients, and so many ambitious empaths experiences that when we get really clear about something we want, and we have an expectation around what it looks like that gets goes unfulfilled or not on the timeline that we expect, that can just be really hard, and it can create additional pain and suffering that is completely optional. But it’s a really good, it’s just a really apt description for what that felt like for me in those first six months, nine months of trying. And I’m sure it didn’t help that I had been tracking my period for years, using this app called Kundera, which I really like it predicts the date of your next cycle as well as the peak days for ovulation. One of the early members in the first cohort of my mastermind had recommended this app to me and I had been really just committed ly tracking ever since ever since 2019, to be honest, so I felt so clear about when I was ovulating and how we could maximize our chances. So I just thought it was going to be I thought it was going to be so simple. And I’d also heard this just I don’t know like old wives tale maybe or just common common advice, which turned out to not be true at all that if you just have sex every other day during that five day ovulation window as well as the week before that you’ll maximize your chances of conceiving. And that was just completely not true when we went to the preconception visit after after five months of training. They, they let me know that actually, when you first ovulate the first 4024 to 48 hours after testing positive on an ovulation strip is when you maximize your chances of conception. Now, a good friend had actually encouraged me to buy those ovulation strips you can just buy them over the counter at the pharmacy You essentially pee on a stick and the stick tells you exactly when you’re ovulating. And I don’t think we started using those ovulation strips until maybe eight months of trying, because no one had told me that and I didn’t have access to that information. And I think that that that’s just common experience among people I’ve talked to since trying to conceive, it’s like, oh, I didn’t know that. And if only I had known, and why isn’t this information more readily available? And honestly, I have that experience of frustration, pretty consistently over the past year of like, wow, why? Why isn’t this more publicly available information? Why don’t people just know this more? So I thought that that was just really interesting and frustrating. And one of the reasons why I wanted to share so candidly about my journey, because because I am well researched, and I read a lot of books about things that I’m up to, and goals that I have. And so it’s just kind of wild to me how, you know, seemingly educated I could be and still how much I did not know. During our preconception visit, the midwife had let us know that, given my age of being, I guess I would have been 3039 at the time 38, just on the cusp, that after six months of trying, we could start researching and pursuing alternative approaches to getting pregnant. And I started researching IVF centers in Boston, I reached out to several clients who had, who had supported them through lots of their IVF journeys and got some referrals from clients who were in the healthcare field. And we had a consultation with one of them to explore what the process would be like. And also just get a feel for the practice. And I had a probably the single most painful experience for me and not not physically like more in the emotional sense of painful, just a terrible experience with one of these IVF clinics, I I was really struck by how non empathic, the practitioner was that we met with my husband and I virtually and we were just kind of on this virtual call, and the practitioner wasn’t hearing me and she wasn’t hearing my needs. And I had to self advocate for myself several times to try to get the care that I needed in that appointment. And you know, at this point, like, when I am really clear about what I want, and I’m not getting it, my husband, he just likes to sit back and watch me because he knows he’s in for a show. And honestly, like, I was so grateful for all the years of work that I had done on myself that allowed me to be so candid, and so communicative about what I needed and what I wasn’t receiving. It was just a really terrible, horrific feeling that I haven’t experienced since and we walked out of that Zoom Room and I was like, Okay, that is a super clear sign that this is not the practice for us that we are not meant to be cared for here. And I decided to go back to the hospital to pursue all of the initial testing and screening and bloodwork that we could do at our hospital to to assess whether there were any medical reasons for us having not conceived. It’s typically a more kind of direct path to do that with the IVF clinic where you’re going to we’re going to pursue IVF because some IVF clinics will make you get some of those testing a second time. Unfortunately, the Mount Auburn Hospital has a birthing center but they do not offer IVF at the birthing center but they had let me know that we could do all of the initial screening and bloodwork at Mount Auburn. And I had initially decided well let’s just go You know, the direct route and go with IVF clinics. So I wouldn’t have to do this twice over. But after having that experience, and I also just had this, this felt sense in the back of my mind that, you know, we weren’t going to need IVF. Like, I just kind of, I just kind of felt it. And so it just made me lean back on the hospital and the practitioners that I trusted where I felt cared for, and we ended up doing all of the initial screenings there. Which worked out just fine. But honestly, this was about the time that it was, gosh, late last spring, early summer, and I was really starting to struggle emotionally. I think I was really taken out by how much I wanted this, and how how hard it was to see so many people I loved pregnant or having beautiful families or giving birth. And seemingly, I was kind of consistently seeing more and more people in my world who were expecting or had just just conceived or had just given birth, and it was so hard to want something so deeply. And to not not be getting it and to not understand why we weren’t being successful. And that experience as someone who is so driven and so ambitious, and so practiced, and in like being and doing what it takes to get what they want, it was so hard to give up that control. And clearly, it’s just this perceived sense of control, because clearly I couldn’t control the journey. But I think when we’re, when we’re really attached to something, it makes it so much harder to surrender, and to give up that perceived control. And, you know, this is something I am so practiced in doing in business, because I’ve had a decade of practicing, right, like I’ve had a decade of practicing, seeing something I want to create or having a vision for what’s next in my business or a program I want to launch or a next iteration of the mastermind that I want to create, but then being willing to detach from the results or the timeline of when I get there. So in business that almost has felt natural to practice, but it is an entirely different thing when it comes to your own body. And particularly for someone like me, who places such a high value on their own well being and health, you know, like my mom is a nutritionist, like I have grown up being so conscious and self aware around diets and eating a well balanced meal and prioritizing my physical and mental and spiritual health. And so I just I was super attached to getting pregnant and I, I didn’t see it, because it was an entirely new area of life where I had never gone after a goal like this before. And I was really kind of blindsided by it, which I think is, again, why we all need community and mentors and coaches and support to help us see how we’re blinding ourselves and getting in our own way. So, you know, while we were we were going through a while I was really going through that emotional angst. We we did we did pursue all of the initial bloodwork and the pap smears and the the tests to detect whether there were any maternal issues, and there just weren’t all of the results came back normal. Everything came back with in normal ranges, which is a blessing and a curse, right because it’s a blessing to know that. You know that like my body is healthy and that everything is functioning normally, and at the same time. It was so hard not having a reason or an excuse or a justice. vacation, or an explanation for why this wasn’t happening for us. Eventually, my husband did some of his own testing as well. And all the results came back within the normal limits. So we were really at this place of just feeling at a loss feeling like we were doing what we knew to do, following the advice and recommendations that we were being given. And things just weren’t working out for us. So I’m gonna pause the episode here, and I look forward to coming back next week and sharing the rest of our journey. And before we go, I want to share just a couple of invitations with you. Clearly, in the last couple episodes, I’ve shared that the way in which I am partnering with clients is evolving and changing and I am so excited about it. I’m so excited about our unbounded and our emerge masterminds, the eMERGE mastermind for early entrepreneurs is currently open for registration. If you are at a place of wanting to carve out the powerful next chapter of Empath partnership for you, one that calls you back to your roots of prioritizing community care and reciprocity, over doing things alone and siloed. In your own world. I would love to connect with you if there’s anything this pregnancy journey has told me and taught me it is that we cannot thrive alone. We need community and support and being surrounded by values aligned creators who have similar goals and share similar values and approaches. There is a deep radiant power in you and I would love to help you on locket registration is open through the end of next week, Friday, April 15. And we begin on Wednesday, March 20. So you can hop on over to the shownotes where we will drop the brochure with all of the information and you are welcome to message me over on Instagram. If you have any questions or just want to chit chat more and more about the program I would love to chat with you totally zero obligation and this will be the last cohort of emerge that we launched in 2024. Now if you are a more established entrepreneur and you’re really more interested in our signature unbounded program, which is for established entrepreneurs, we are opening the doors again in April and again I would love to speak with you about unbounded It is a beautiful program of filled with just high level and deeply self aware creators who are just creating beautiful things in their business and doing it in community surrounded with the generosity and support and high level coaching that is included in unbounded will drop it for more information about unbounded in the shownotes as well. Thank you so much for tuning in. And I look forward to coming back next week and sharing the rest of our journey.