What Women Aren’t Told About Infertility (with Dr. Jennifer Hintzsche)

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
Hi, I'm Danielle Davies, and you're listening to Roar, a show
that amplifies the voices of women breaking barriers, leading
change and making real impact. Keep listening for bold ideas
and stories that inspire you to find your voice and make some
noise, everybody. I'm Danielle Davies, the host of
Roar. Today's guest refused to accept

(00:26):
a label that millions of women here and quietly carry
infertile. Instead, Doctor Jennifer Hinchey
used her PhD in bioinformatics along with a whole lot of
determination to invent a medical device that not only
helped her conceive her own daughter, but became the first
and only FDA cleared sterile at home insemination kit.

(00:49):
It's called Fertile, and it's won several awards, including
Time Best Inventions of 2024 andInc Top 500 Female Founders.
Since then, Jen's not only changed her own story, she's
changing how we think about fertility, innovation and the
power of women, saying there hasto be a better way.
We're talking about science, stigma, and the courage it takes

(01:12):
to rewrite the narrative for yourself and for millions of
others. Welcome, Jen.
Thank you, that was like the nicest welcome ever.
Oh my God, I try. I try.
I gotta. Do that like as I walk in the
kitchen for my family. 100% I'm actually like considering
offering it as a service like I.Guess you should.

(01:32):
Go to people you know, wherever you are, like an Applebee's, you
walk in I. Walk in and you just have a
microphone and I would be the most confident woman in the
world. If you could, I think we all
need to just hear this all the time.
Like, yeah. Right.
Well, thank you so much for being here.
So Full disclosure, we have met before.
If anybody for the people listening, we met at a fem tech

(01:55):
conference, which I, I highly recommend.
I don't know if you met Jenny Lynn Walding there.
Yes. Yes, Jenny and I like joke all
the time about like, it's Hasbrouck Heights.
Like, who would have known the amazing people you'd meet in
Hasbrouck Heights that. Was such a good.
Conference, yeah. Such a good conference.
So even there you were winning awards.

(02:16):
You were right. You won that.
You won that, yeah. I won the pitch competition,
yeah. Yes.
So let's think. It's back there, yeah.
Well, good. Yeah, that was that was awesome.
So that's where I first heard about what you were doing and
met you. But let's talk about this for
the people who don't know what Fertile is.
But first, we're going to just start at the very beginning
because this is really a key part of your story, not just

(02:36):
what you did, but why and how you did it.
So you've said you refuse to accept infertile as your
diagnosis. Can you walk us through that
moment when, like your, you know, grief, your frustration,
your anger turned into action? And you thought, you know what?
Maybe I'm just going to handle this myself.
Yes, hold on one second. Oh, that moment I can tell you I

(03:05):
was in my husband's truck. We had just left the fertility
clinic. Like it's one of those memories
you can like smell, do you know what I mean?
Like, and we had just spent the day, I was half naked running
around getting poked and proddedand I, I genuinely hop skipped

(03:28):
and jumped into that fertility clinic because I was like, I had
to wait a year to get there. So we had to fail at having sex
to conceive a child for an entire year before we were
allowed to see a fertility clinic.
And so I go in with all of this hope and I'm like, so ready and

(03:49):
like, yes, tell me what's wrong,please.
Like bring everybody in. Does anyone else want to like
open book? And then my husband goes in the
room, does his thing, I'm makinginappropriate jokes.
We sit down with the doctor, he has this huge desk and he's like
everything looks normal. And of all the scenarios in my

(04:14):
head, that wasn't one of them. And for context, at the time I
am a PhD Cancer Research scientist who does personalized
medicine for oncologists. So my day job was finding what

(04:38):
therapies one individual person could try to treat their
individual tumor regardless of the cancer so and like
presenting it to oncologists. So I'm sitting here in a
clinical setting thinking every doctor cares that much, right,
to have like the personalized and a lot of them do.

(05:00):
I'm not doctor hating. And he goes, everything's
normal. So you have unexplained
infertility. And I genuinely laughed.
I laughed. I was like, unexplained means
you just don't give a shit to like explain it.

(05:21):
And he was like, Yep. And he's like, it's really
common. Like 30% of all of our people
that come in here have unexplained infertility.
And I was like, did you, did youthink of just explaining it
though? Can we just no.
OK. And so I, I'm, I'm taking this

(05:45):
in because I laughed inappropriately taking it in.
I, I look at my husband and I'm like, he's just like, OK, no,
whatever. But I'm like, I know too much to
be like, I'm like, no, this isn't, this isn't OK.
So then I'm like, OK, well, whatdo you recommend if you don't

(06:07):
know what's wrong? And I thought he would say,
we're going to try XYZ. He handed me a packet that was
already like sitting next to hisdesk ready to hand out and it
was a loan application. And he said, now that you have
this diagnosis of unexplained infertility in your medical

(06:29):
chart, because I just gave it toyou, all of your insurance from
here on out is cut off. They will not treat unexplained
infertility. It is not legally required.
It is a basically cosmetic. You know it's not life
threatening. I got a question what to?

(06:50):
Ask all the questions. What does unexplained
infertility rule out Like what is explained fertility if 30% of
people you said it's about 30 are at the.
At the fertility clinic, yeah. So.
They've already gone through a year so.
Those other 70, there's some reason they're not able to
conceive that they know of. Is that what you're saying like?
Probably, but I'll tell you thatthere's also like another Gray

(07:14):
area of I don't know, like it's really hard to diagnose
endometriosis. Like they think everyone if
you're slightly overweight, which I was, have PCOS, he goes,
you might have PCOS and I'm going I I don't have any of the
symptoms of PCOS, but like whichhe would have known if he had
looked at all in my chart. But so, but yes, there are

(07:39):
legitimate and don't get me wrong, there are legitimate
conditions where people need it,but like this is one day and you
came up with this. So yeah, there are other like
there's male factor infertility.Ryan's semen could have come
back with low motility or low mobility or.

(07:59):
That were the case, insurance would have covered.
No, no, OK at the time. So this was also 2017, which
there's so much. That was also the first year
that women and minorities were required to be in phase three
clinical trials. That's my fun fact.

(08:20):
Before then, they were not required to be in clinical
trials. Sorry.
What that means to like our general audience.
That means all of the medicine and everything was only tested
on old white men. Until. 2017 when it when we were
like, hey, can you maybe like test these on other people?

(08:40):
Yeah. Didn't we start including women
in medical testing a little bit before that?
Right. It was like yes, but this was
the. First time it was like required
for women and minorities. In phase three like which is
more? Yes, which is like the one where
it's like, is it going to work? Yeah, Awesome.
So you're telling me this happened in 2017?
OK, we can. Start.

(09:01):
The microphone now and just callit a day.
Yeah, I mean. Thank you.
Thank you so much for all. Right.
It was great talking to you now.So unexplained infertility, any
infertility at that time in Illinois, insurance cut off like
you're done because it's not necessary.
It's not medically necessary forme to have a child.

(09:24):
So I look at this and the fact that it was like prepackaged and
just hand it to me and it was yellow.
When I tell you I could smell, Imean like this is seared into my
memory. And he hands it to me and I open
it up to see like financial information of how to afford
fertility treatment. And I was like, you just told me

(09:45):
you do not know what is wrong with me.
You are handing me a packet to pay for a solution, but you
don't know the problem. None of this makes sense.
Like none of it. It like almost snapped me out of
this, like I'm going to get a baby here today.
And like, you know, I'm I go in there, they serve you cucumber

(10:05):
water. It smells like lavender.
There's babies all over the wall.
They warm the stirrups. They like all of these things.
And then I'm like, oh, This is Money.
And if I want to be clear, if they said this is wrong and
here's a treatment, that's a whole different story.
But so we were in. So we leave.

(10:27):
I'm just like I'm I'm angry and quiet, which I am rarely quiet.
So my husband would actually know something's wrong.
So we're driving home from Chicago and we live 2 hours from
Chicago. So we we have this long drive
home and I am. And he's like, OK.
And at this point, like our marriage was on the rocks.

(10:50):
We were newly married, but infertility is one of the
leading causes of divorce for a reason.
Like, and I'm a little bit Taipei.
So it got really unfun trying toconceive for a year and failing
with me as a partner real quick because I was like, I don't have
time for romance. Let's go.

(11:10):
I want this baby to be fair. I've apologized to him since
then, but. You know.
We're in a part. Of this with you so we'll get to
that, but go ahead. Sorry.
I'm smiling because I'm like, I know the end result, OK?
Guys, I know, yes, so we're in, we're in the truck on the way
home and he's trying. He's so nice, takes a special
man. He was like, you know, hey, they

(11:32):
have options, we can try and I go, but they don't know what's
wrong. So he recommended three months
of IUI and then three months of IVF.
And so in my head, I'm just thinking IUI, why do we have to
do IUI? And so, so IUI is when they
would take his sperm, they centrifuge it down into a

(11:53):
pellet. Just all the live ones
essentially make it, it's like afilter.
And instead of us having sex andit going there, they put it into
my uterus. OK.
Oh, did you need a 3D printed model?
Because I have one. Thank you.
I appreciate that. Do you have?
He's an engineer. It won't be this sperm that's

(12:15):
not the right size. OK, but so it goes into the
uterus instead of like natural intercourse, it would be into
the vagina? OK, OK, so it's all the way
there. It's.
All the way inside your uterus. So they take a catheter and I
don't know if you can see there's a tiny hole for those of
you listening. OK, that's your cervix.

(12:36):
So they go through your cervix, put the sperm into the uterus.
And I was like, why do they think that would help?
And essentially the answer is, Idon't know.
We'll put more sperm closer and hope one of them gets there.
So this whole way home, I'm, I'mupset, angry, but I'm thinking
anyway, that set off the chain of the spite reactions where all

(12:59):
of a sudden I was just so pissedoff that this is how things were
being done that the next week I was headed to Korea, Australia
and Italy to give talks about Cancer Research.
OK. I downloaded every paper I could

(13:21):
find on Google Scholar about infertility, idiopathic
infertility which is unexplainedinfertility.
IUII learned there was somethingcalled ICI and on these long
plane rides, I read every possible thing I could and like
tried to figure it out myself. And I'm standing on this stage
in Korea. There's a picture of me where I

(13:43):
am. I wish the world knew that.
Like I'm I'm touted as this expert biologist who was just
told her biology didn't work. And the shell of the woman that
was speaking on that stage. Like it was like, I look at that

(14:04):
and I'm like, I was so broken and already being a woman in
science. If they, if the audience had
known, it would have been like, you know what I mean?
Like it was a so we, I find out anyway, we come home and we were
supposed. We were like, OK, we're going to
start IUI. And I was like, Nope, I've done
all this research. I found out there was ICI and so

(14:30):
your cervix is here. If you put the sperm at the
opening of the cervix, so like 1inch lower than what they were
going to do. And you don't have to process
the sperm, you don't have to wash it.
So if you put it one inch lower,there were papers showing two
different papers that show it had the same live birth rate.
Meaning you hold a baby at the end of the day.

(14:53):
You might get pregnant more withIUI, but you miscarry more.
Got it. Live baby in your arms, which is
what we all want at the end of the day.
Same exact success rate. And I went what the hell?
How? How did it take me having to go
through? Sadly it wasn't that much

(15:15):
research into Women's Health because there isn't that much.
But why did I have to go into Google Scholar to find out that
there was an option called ICI, Inter cervical insemination?
And now you're going to tell me it has the same success rate?
Why the hell did no one offer this to me?
Would they not offer that? No.
Did you do? That exactly so I why didn't no

(15:38):
one offer they were offering it to people who like like
intercourse was painful or like there are very legitimate
reasons, but like the average person walking in No, because
you don't need to process the sperm.
And if you do it right with the right materials at home, they
wouldn't need it. You wouldn't have to pay them.

(16:00):
OK, so it all comes down to money.
Yes, so I was like, well, good thing I work in a Cancer
Research lab. I ordered lab supplies.
At this point, it's important myhusband that you know, my
husband is a mechanical engineer.
And so turns out we didn't know what each other really did.

(16:22):
But now. OK.
I was like, I don't know, he engineers, I don't know what
that means. And he was like bio and the fact
that he could say bioinformaticswas like good job.
And so he's a mechanical engineer and I was like, no, we
just need to get sperm closer tothe egg.

(16:42):
The amount of things he learned about a cervix, he never will
forget, sadly. He's like, I know so much about
cervical mucus. I'm like Attaboy, but I ordered
lab supplies and I was like, look, no one's going to offer
this. We're going to do it our damn
self. So ordered lab supplies.

(17:05):
I was like, he's like, what do Ihave to do?
I'm like, it has to be sterile. It has to be IVF grade plastic
because I don't want an infection and I don't want it to
kill the sperm. And there was literally nothing
on the market that existed that was sterile and that would get
sperm closer to the egg that wassafe for women, safe for sperm,

(17:28):
which again, mind blowing like, because when we're talking like
a generic one milliliter syringe, even if it's sterile,
all of that plastic kills sperm.Like there's so many things that
kill sperm. Lubricants kill sperm, all
lubricants. So like those, those syringes
are lubricated. So wow.

(17:50):
All of the things that like. And so it seems so simple and so
crazy that we now have three utility patents for sterile at
home insemination kits because no one gave a shit.
I had to point out that they were sterile.
It was. Yeah.
But so we tried it ourselves. I was like, hold my beer,
ordered lab supplies. Husband goes in the other room.

(18:13):
He brings back a jar, which is. I give a little pep talk to.
I'm like, we're really sick of infertility, please let this
work because that's how unhingedwe are at this point that I am
creating home medical and. OK, OK.
But you do you actually. But you do manage to find, by

(18:34):
the way, the materials to make the materials I needed.
I ordered them from my my CancerResearch lab and so I we try it
the first month it doesn't work and I told my husband give up
give me 3 months. They said do three months of IUI
said give me 3 months of trying this.
And again I I don't know I must have gave him a bourbon or

(18:57):
something. He agreed to it but it was the
second month in December of 2017that it worked.
And so beginning of January 2018, January 11th, I called him
after peeing on what was probably my 300 thousandth

(19:17):
pregnancy test. And it was like, holy shit, it
worked. And he's like, I'm going to run
off the road. What are you?
Are you serious? And my daughter Lois just turned
7. Oh my God, first of all, that's
so amazingly awesome. But it is literally you.

(19:38):
Just there are so many questionsnow, but first of all, you
basically found the method, created the method because it
did not exist before. So by the way, this is like one
of the common themes when I interview people in war because
it's not all people in health. It's sometimes authors, it's
sometimes running for office. It's sometimes, you know,

(20:00):
reporters, but a lot of times women, especially because there
is so little information about us and because, you know, we're
like so mystical. Yes, once figured these things
out, but a lot of times we end up.
And I'm not excluding men from this.
I don't talk to a lot of men about this, but it seems that
women see a problem and so they go in to fix it.

(20:20):
It's not like you. Were problem solvers, yeah.
You weren't 5 Like when I grow up I want to solve infertility
like you. This is you weren't I always say
I this is never what I wanted todo.
Now, like, who does that like? Well, you know what?
It's a Tuesday at three. I'm a little bored.
I think I'll just invent a medical device and go tell the
world that you know, my husband and I had sex a lot and it never

(20:44):
worked. Exactly.
So that's that's your goal like.Obviously that's not what I set
out to do, but then when it works, holy shit.
And so it worked and and it worked.
But originally it was just for you.
Obviously it. Was just for me and it was an
hilarious dinner party joke. I think my husband hated it.

(21:08):
We would be sitting around and Iwould be like, hey, do you guys
want to hear how we conceived? No one ever said yes, but I
continued anyway. So I just and I was like, hear
me out. Guess what?
There was this process and then my husband just sit there like,
yeah, she's going to tell you anyway because I go.

(21:28):
It's so crazy that no one knows this.
But by the way, I didn't start telling my dinner party joke
until I'm holding my healthy daughter in my arms.
Because also when you've gone through infertility, then it
worked. I took the day off work when I
found out I was pregnant becauseyou feel so fragile.
I'm like, I don't know how to bepregnant.
Can I sit? Like I mean it's like instant

(21:52):
anxiety then. Yeah, because then now you got
to make it through. How am I going to make it
through because I already know Iwas bad at getting this part.
So like now what? You know?
But so I I told the story and then I'm holding a healthy 4
month old and I threw up and my son Zach is 6.

(22:21):
So we didn't need help for him. And it was once we call him
Michael Phelps, he just swam right up there.
I was still. Breastfeeding I had.
Two kids used. The the kit once.
I only use the kit yeah, for. So we call them lowest makers at
first, OK. Lowest makers, I like them.
Wait, but but still the lowest maker is still just in your

(22:43):
house at the just. In my house now, I am the, I am
everything. I was so jealous of the people
are that my husband looks at me and I get pregnant.
I'm like, literally I was breastfeeding.
I hadn't had my period yet. I had sex one time.
And so like I went to the doctorand they're like, how far along

(23:06):
are you? I'm like, I don't know, this one
just came out and I they're like, when was your last period?
I'm like, I don't know, 16 months ago.
Like, so it's basically an elephant.
I was pregnant for two years andso my kids are 380 days apart.
Wow. And Zach was a Zach is my son.

(23:27):
He was 8 weeks early. But we're all here and safe and
healthy now. But six months after that is
when COVID hit. So at this point, I'm out of the
Cancer Research lab. I'm working in corporate because
they'll actually pay you, you instead of academia at this.
Yeah. So I was like, I have kids to
raise. I'm going to get a big girl job.

(23:47):
So I, I work in corporate and I'm climbing the corporate
ladder and I have these two babies that are on me at home.
And I got to the point when theywere like one and two that I was
like, I am working so damn hard for someone else's dream and I'm
burned out and I just want to bring joy into the world.

(24:11):
And so I was having a rough timeout at work.
And I just, I just decided to take a week off.
And I told my husband, if some things don't change on Monday,
I'm just going to quit my job. And he was, he was like, yeah.
And I'm like, OK, but I don't have another job lined up.

(24:32):
And he was like, you've always wanted to start, you know, And
so he would come home every day and he's like, what'd you come
up with? And I was like, OK, jackets for
cats. And he was like, we don't own a
cat. And I was like, OK, no, no shade
out there anyway. But we don't even own a cat.

(24:52):
But, you know, I would come up with all these and then I go,
OK, But the one I really want todo and the one that would be the
most meaningful, you're I don't know if you're going to be OK
with it. And I was like, I want to make
lowest makers. I want to like see if we can
help other people. And he was like, you are going
to sell what on the Internet? But he's like, I think you're
going to get arrested. I don't know.

(25:15):
So I talked him into it when he when I talked him into it, the
joke is like, if you tell me that I can't do something, then
I will. So he genuinely was like, I
don't think you can pull that off.
And I was like. That was the mistake.
There you go. Yeah.
And he knows now, so he'll be like, I bet you won't do the
dishes. And I'm like, Nah, I'm at this

(25:37):
point. And so I've made 200 proof of
concept kits. I ordered supplies, I put up a
website at this time, I'm also going through a lot of therapy
about all the all the traumatic events that have led from
infertility to two babies. And so I made 200 kids.

(26:04):
I put it up on the Internet. I have no idea what I'm doing.
I reach out to like some alumni groups and some friends and like
hey is anyone else trying to conceive?
So the 1st 200 kits sold out in 90 days and there's 34 babies
from those initial. Which is so OK, so it's 200

(26:24):
kits. There's 34 babies.
But hold on, were you calling itLois Maker at the time?
No, So I did come up with the name fertile because I'm like,
what am I going to call? You know, I'm not like a cutesy,
that's just not my vibe. And so I was trying to think and

(26:47):
I was like, OK, what if we spellfertile but we use my PhD?
So like I proved I was fertile but using my PhD and then my
mom's like, no one's going to get it.
And my husband's like no one's going to get it.
And I'm like, but when they get it, you're gonna love it.
You're like but when they do when I but.

(27:09):
When they do, yes. So the DNA on our logo is 'cause
that's what I was doing with bioinformatics, but also you
make new DNA with Fertile. OK, all right.
And by name, first of all, I love it and I love that.
Like, did you by any chance likesend a picture or just, you
know, a kit to that doctor? Oh, the most delicious spite

(27:34):
that has ever existed was the day we got FDA clearance, which
we crowdfunded for. And that was the whole thing.
And I was the day that we got FDA clearance comes out in the
news and that fertility clinic was running Google ads against

(27:58):
the word fertile. And I loved it.
They felt so threatened that they started paying money to run
ads against a word I had made-up.
Wow. From leaving their office, that
is. It was.

(28:18):
I generally was full of so much spiteful joy.
I'm sure you were and I'm sure you still are.
Because yeah, because now we're fertile.
Like the 1st 200 kids got you 34babies.
Got us 34 babies. The second fertile baby.
How much was the? Kit.
By the way, how much was the kitA.
Hundred $199. As opposed to the thousands of
dollars? Yeah, it was $10,000.

(28:40):
Yeah, $10,000 was for three months of IUI.
That was the loan that the doctor handed me.
So I needed 10,000 in cash to pay for three months of IUI so
which at the time was 1/4 of my salary.
You're going to tell me is what?So you now have a kit for
$150.00. 199. Now it's 199, but it was 100

(29:01):
plus still. Oh, sorry, it was yeah, the very
first proof of concept kits under 200.
Dollars and how often can you use that kit?
So it is sterile. So it's single use only.
But you can use it up to six months like you can you can use
a fertile kit one. Sorry, got.

(29:22):
It OK. So yeah, this is like, that's
the fertile package. So it comes with three syringes
and three jars. So you're going to use it on
your three most fertile nights? Got it.
So IUI has like a 20% success rate.
They do that one time in a clinical setting.
This has the same success rate. We're doing it three nights to
cover your entire 24 hours when the egg is actually viable,

(29:46):
which they don't know exactly when your egg.
I say when the egg drops, like amic drop.
But from then on, you have 24 hours.
And so we want to put as much sperm as we can in that 24 hour
window. So you're doing it three times
instead of once in the clinic. And you can do it for up to six

(30:06):
months. So yeah, but for $200?
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(30:49):
Going to make it. Gosh, OK, and and tell me now
like how many fertile kits have sold?
Well, yeah, we had the 1st 200 then.
Well, there was a long pause between them.
OK. You can go into it, it's OK.
I was like, do you want? Well, the second fertile baby

(31:12):
was a stranger on the Internet and our family now vacations
with them. Oh stop.
How much younger than Lois is that baby?
2-3 years. Harper, just Harper, just turned
3. She has a third.
This woman has a third baby. That's that's her.
No, Harper, her daughter is. Three.
OK, OK, got it. Now today.

(31:33):
Got it. They live in Cedar Rapids, IA
and we live in Dixon, IL. It's like 3 hour drive.
So they drove with their newbornto our house and we had dinner.
That changed my entire life. I was like holding this baby and
they were thanking me and I'm like I still get I have chills

(31:57):
and I could almost. I have.
That feeling of joy, I was like,I'm going to chase this feeling
the rest of my life, Like if this like I don't know if this
is what heroin feels like. That's, I don't know, like the

(32:18):
amount of like just gratitude that this that I had for this
couple to like, let me like trust me in such an intimate
process to like see if it would work.
And when it did and Tessa and Kevin and Harper and Ellis is
their their second like yeah, weare we became friends.

(32:43):
It's, it's beautiful and I'm, it's like weirdly attached to so
many of our fertile babies that like, I crochet and my hands are
going to go numb by Christmas because I want to make them all
baby blankets. We when we first sold out of
those 200 kits, we were registered as a Class One

(33:04):
medical device, which is like a Band-Aid.
OK. Because syringe, you know, like
it's low risk. The FDA was like, hey, we think
you're on to something. We love what you're doing, but
you need to get FDA clearance. I don't know what FDA clearance
is. So there there's three classes
of medical devices. So Band-Aid level.

(33:26):
Then apparently insemination kitis right here at #2 it's also
things like diabetes shots, insulin shots, anything that's
kind of like going in you but not staying in you.
OK. And then Level 3 is like, do you
need a new hip or like we're putting in a shunt or something
like, so we're at level 2, little bit of risk because it

(33:51):
didn't exist. So they basically decided that
they were going to make a new product category for medical
devices. Prior to this though, the test
ones you're selling without any.I'm selling them registered with
the FDA as like a Band-Aid, likea Class 1 device.
OK. But the FDA is telling you, you
have to. Go the FDA was like, this is

(34:11):
great, we love innovation, but you need to quit selling unless
you get FDA clearance. But we don't know what we're
going to call you yet. You're going to but like we like
it. And I they literally called my
phone, my cell phone, and I was like, this is the FBI.
And they're like, no, this is the FDA.

(34:33):
And I was like, I paid. I paid my registration.
Because even if you sell anyone who sells a Band-Aid in the US,
you have to register like, OK. And so I did.
So I was like, we're on board. They were like, yeah, but we
think that it might need, you know, stronger regulations,

(34:55):
which I'm like, sure. OK, what do you want me to do?
I had the ignorance that I had blind ignorance is the only
reason we're here today. I'm like sure going to go do a
couple tests I'm a scientist. We'll do run an experiment, I
assume came to find out estimated cost for 3 to 5

(35:15):
million to get FDA clearance. I did not have that laying
around. So I, I was like, is this the
end of, you know, I don't want to get in trouble.
I don't so, you know, I so I, I was.

(35:36):
Already wonder how many people are having innovations that
can't like afford this. So we're stopping innovation
basically and. Exactly because that's where I
was at the point where when the reason I talked Ryan into it is
because I go, why the hell does it take a PhD to go into the
research to figure out that there's something else that
people already knew about? And we're trying and a

(35:58):
mechanical engineer to be able to like help me actually come up
with the device and CAD drawingsand production and all that.
Why does it take us too like howmany people are lucky enough to
know how to go into Google Scholar and you know, have been
trained and written articles in nature, like not many.

(36:20):
How many people are also marriedto a mechanical engineer?
Not many, but like it's simple and the world needs to know.
And so how many people are also coming up with devices that
could help people and again, money.
So like our three utility patents that we got, I had to

(36:41):
list out my CV of like those talks that I mentioned and I was
going to here's where I am a trusted biology expert giving
talks internationally to tell them that sterile sterilizing a
device before you put it inside your vagina is different than a

(37:02):
dildo shaped. I mean like it was insane.
That's how we got the patents isI then had to prove to the
Patent Office that not having bacteria shoved into your vagina
was an important factor. So like no other kit is sterile
and can be sterilized. We are the only ones for the

(37:26):
next 19. And when you said no other kits,
so now there are other kits. There are illegal kits that are
being sold. OK.
But they don't have FDA clearance, so.
They don't have FDA clearance even though they're on the shelf
and Target. They are, they are, they are not

(37:47):
FDA cleared. They are not sterile.
They're actually, I don't know how much you want me to go into
the vaginal microbiome, but it'sactually hurting people's
fertility. But anyway, so we, when I found
out we needed FDA clearance, I then was like, don't have it
laying around. I've helped these 34 families.

(38:10):
I don't know, my dad actually forwarded me.
He goes check out this, there's crowdfunding equity.
You can actually like sell partsof your company to try to get
funding. And I quit my job then took out
$10,000 loan, which was the minimum on this website that you
had to get to get your money back.

(38:32):
And I was like, I'm going to go tell everyone that our business
didn't work, but no one's probably going to do anything.
So here's my 10. So I saved up.
Here's $10,000, which I wouldn'tpay the doctor, but I'm willing
to just quit my job and put in to this like crowdfunding
website. And I always say it was like I

(38:54):
was running down the street naked and going to be like, hey,
everybody, my vagina doesn't work.
And I thought they would all point and laugh.
And they all also got naked. And they were like mine neither.
And 433 people raised $630,000 in five months.

(39:15):
Wow, wow, wow. When I tell you one in five
people are struggling in silence, one in five people are
struggling or have struggled or going to struggle.
And it was not just me. And holy shit, all of these
people are like still, I call them our fertile family.

(39:37):
So they own 4% of my company together.
We paid wasn't 3 to 5 million. We did it with $630,000, got all
the clearance testing, now have three utility patents.
So we got FDA cleared at the endof 23.
We went on the market, we were just on the market when I met

(39:59):
you last year in 24. So we've been on the market now
for about 18 months and there are, we are approaching our
500th fertile baby. Oh my gosh, are you kidding me?
It's insane. Baby. 500 babies.
I don't know how I'm going to hold them all.
I want to send them all Christmas presents.

(40:21):
I'm obsessed with them. I my inbox is like positive
pregnancy tests and like ultrasounds and like hearing so
many different families stories and like, I can't describe it to
you. It is.

(40:42):
I can't even imagine what that must feel like and that, that,
that to have that go from like this absolute negative place for
you where you're being told thispart of me, where you're being
told this information, feeling so vulnerable, so furious also,
but like, but also like, here's your dreams.
You've been you've been working hard at trying to become a mom.

(41:05):
It's not working Instead of I mean, so many people at that
point deflate like so many people are told this information
and are like I don't have options or they take out loans
and they. And to be to be fair, those
people, you know, like I happen to be the right or wrong

(41:28):
depending on person. But like, that was my
wheelhouse. Yeah, you know, But if it wasn't
like my husband, my husband's mechanical engineer and he's
like, I don't know, they said unexplained infertility.
And here's the thing. Because we all, I think, go in
with this blanket white coat, trust that this doctor is going

(41:51):
to tell us, which a lot of them do.
But we all it's gotten so much better.
But we have all need to advocateand understand and ask
questions. And so they would deflate, but
it's not because they didn't want to fight, you know, like my

(42:13):
husband was just like, this sucks.
This is what we have to do. You would.
Right, you're just like this is these are my options as yeah,
you're. Given two options.
And so then people are like freezing their eggs at 25, which
now is way more common. I don't know if I would have
done it, but that's basically IVF.
You're just pumping your body full of hormones and you're

(42:35):
harvesting, which means surgery the eggs out of your body.
And like, it's not just, oh, gonna go freeze my eggs today.
Like a sperm sample. You can just shoot it into a
cup, you know, So there's, there's just we're told so
little and we're given so few options.
And so, yeah, a lot of people gointo debt.

(42:58):
I mean, have hundreds of thousands.
IVF can be $50,000 per month, which is.
Crazy. And that's the thing.
So, so many people are limited because people are limited.
And all of that. Yeah.
And like. And that would have been us,
too, you know, like that word unexplained really changed.

(43:21):
My life well, and I, I mean you're, you're talking about
from $50,000 to like to 200 or maybe you get maybe you get it
for three months 600. I mean, a year's worth is 2400.
Like it's a completely differentfinancial reality for so many
people. Yeah and so my my goal is right

(43:43):
now you before fertile you can be like me you're having sex for
a year, it's not working you're waiting.
I remember I went to the OB 8 months and they were like, you
have to be, you have to fail forfour more months before you can
get help those four months. And so there's the OB, they

(44:04):
refer you to the fertility specialist after a year.
If you're over 35, you can go atsix months.
If you're over 40, you can go atthree months.
But at 32, it felt like at 8 months, I'm like, that's my last
egg. It wasn't, it turned, but you
know, like that's how you feel and I'm broken and I'm ruining
my marriage. And then the next option is

(44:24):
we're handed a loan application and there's nothing in between.
Like what? And so our goal with Fertile is
there is a huge gap in care between what you can do to
conceive at home and what you can do to conceive in a
fertility clinic. And Fertile bridges the gap
between that. So it is like bringing the

(44:46):
fertility clinic into your bedroom a little more private,
just a smidge. It's discreetly delivered, but
you're doing it at home by yourself.
It's as easy to use as a tampon.We say collect, insert,
conceive. We get sperm into the cervical
mucus where it survives and filters and just gets most of

(45:10):
your swimmers halfway through the race and increases your
odds. It's unbelievable.
And I and, and for so many reasons and there's so many ways
I want to go, but I'm trying to keep myself like on top of this
as a story. But I feel like I just have to
say one more time that this is so inexpensive and that you as a
human being and scientist with afamily who've created something

(45:34):
could have been like, this is $600 a pop.
This is $900 when people, it's like weddings, right?
You can buy flowers. Yeah, like if you book a venue
for like a birthday party, it's $5.00, but if it's a wedding
it's 50,000. Exactly.
But, and it's like babies, you know, people get desperate.

(45:54):
It's an emotional need to have ababy.
When you want a baby and you can't have one, there is.
There is no. A lot of feelings.
And I feel like you could easilybe thinking, hey, you know what?
I put a lot of time and energy into this.
I've got a family to raise. And nobody would blame you if

(46:16):
you doubled the price on that oryou tripled the price of it.
Nobody would. And it still wouldn't.
And it's so affordable, it's less than a prom dress.
Yeah, well, my. Prom dress is called now.
It's crazy. I'll know in a few years when
but I I I grew up on a farm in atown of 2000 people in Hinckley

(46:39):
IL. There isn't reproductive
endocrinologist where I live like I'm very country.
I moved to the big city. Now we have a stoplight in a
Walmart and 15,000 people in Dixon but so many people don't
have the ability to take off a day of work.

(46:59):
We took off a day of work just to go there to like do the
testing for the doctor to piss me off to start this like you
have to take work off. You like all of these things
that like people just don't haveaffordable access.
And it's so simple and like it'sso common sense for people to
try it. And my goal was always like

(47:20):
affordable and accessible fertility science delivered to
your door. And that's will continue to be
my goal. Like there's, there's nothing I
want. I want this to be $200 for some
people is it is a lot, but it's not 50,000 so I want it to be

(47:41):
within reach for as many people as possible.
Quick pause to thank all of you for listening.
You may have noticed that Roar sounds a little more polished
this season. That's thanks to my producer
who's responsible for making this third season sound as good
as it does. If you believe in amplifying
women's voices and want to support a teeny tiny creative

(48:01):
team trying to do big, meaningful things,
youcanhelp@buymeacoffee.com/roarpodcast.
Your support truly makes all of this possible.
And now let's get back to the show.
And it might be about, you know you talked briefly about there
are other options available thatare not FDA approved, but.

(48:23):
They're also not sterile. They cannot be sterile so they
are full of bacteria as you are putting them inside your body.
Just I was going. To say, what do you want women
to know about their choices and what makes fertile different
from other insemination options and are there even these other
models that have come out that are not there are three of.
Us that are FDA cleared now, butwe're the only sterilized 1.

(48:45):
OK, so there are other insemination models.
Yes, so there's like there's illegal ones and then there's
three of us that have clearance to sell a medical device in the
US but we are the only ones thatare sterilized and we're longer
and there's lots of reasons but yeah and the.
Sterilization part, as you discovered, was like a really

(49:08):
big part of this. Yes.
Can I nerd out for a minute? Not me.
Please do. Do you want visuals?
Yes. OK, so you know how you have a
gut microbe? Oh, sorry, I don't want to give
it away yet. So you know how you have a gut
microbiome? And so people will take like
probiotics because you want likea healthy gut microbiome.

(49:29):
You you have a microbiome of everything.
Your armpits, your belly button,your vagina.
OK. You have bacteria living all
over inside of you. 10 bacteria for everyone cell that's you.
So inside your vagina. You are born with a microbiome.
So let's say this is your beautiful vagina.
And so you're born with a microbiome that hasn't had

(49:55):
things inserted into it, right? And so as we age, women are one
delaying conception usually, like our first child for most
women now is about the age of 30.
And then we are having multiple partners before we decide to

(50:15):
have children and we are using tampons and menstrual cups and
we are putting devices into there.
And so your microbiome changes with every partner and device
and object. And so this isn't an infection,
this is just different bacteria.So like if you had a one night

(50:39):
stand you regret, it might stillbe living in your vagina.
Great to know. Not not speaking from personal
experience. And so it like you're saying
it's not an infection, it's. Not an infection, it's just
different. It changes.
OK, yes. And so you're inside there, you
have APH. If you alter the pH of your

(51:04):
vaginal microbiome, you are going to kill sperm.
So the only way so all of this if this is the pH friendly
environment now we have made it where if it touches any of the
bacteria in there, you are goingto kill the sperm.
OK. So when sperm naturally only 1%,

(51:27):
where's my other only 1% would ever reach the cervix That's
you're having sex, right? Just one person would normally
get there. So that's just normal.
Normal sex, Anybody. Anybody.
Baby doesn't want to have a baby.
Accidentally had a baby. Accidentally had a baby?
1% of all the sperm is going to actually get you.
Got to be like you got to look around at people and be like

(51:48):
those are some active 1% becausethere's a lot of people out
there. There's a lot of people out
there. Yeah, we do.
Just takes 1. Very active, that 1%.
Each of us were the fastest sperm, we can all say.
That. Yes.
And so instead of 1%, OK, so nowif this whole environment, if

(52:09):
everything it touches is killingsperm, that's even less now.
So instead of 1%, they're dying before they can even swim to get
to the cervix. So you might not have any sperm
actually reaching the cervix, but it's it's nothing you've
done. It's not your fault.
This isn't a shame session. This isn't.
But if you use tampons, if you use menstrual cups like those

(52:33):
all change that environment in the vagina and are killing the
sperm. So fertile is going to it
delivers it at the cervix. So instead of 1%, we're getting
95%. And your cervical mucus is safe
for sperm. It's the best lubricant, the
only lubricant you should use. If it reaches the cervical

(52:55):
mucus, it easily swims into the uterus.
So we are putting a lot more sperm right at the cervical
mucus to give them the entrance.So you go from 1% to 95% over
your three most fertile nights. Your odds just went up
astronomically. Now talk to me about show me the

(53:17):
difference if we've got a non sterile device.
Oh, there. That would have been better.
OK, there's our syringe. Yeah.
OK, so here's our sterile. Device and that's how that's
working they're. Putting it into.
So if you're in. Sterile.
You've now managed to evade. If you're not, so they're not
sterile and they're all shorter,so they're not reaching the
cervix. So you're basically mimicking

(53:38):
sex with those. It's also sex isn't sterile,
neither are these. You're adding to the vaginal
microbiome, you're changing it, you're making it different and
you're just spraying it into thevaginal microbiome, which is
already going to kill the sperm anyway.
So with fertile, we're going farenough up to reach the cervix,

(53:58):
but we're not going into it doesn't hurt, should never be
painful. But at your cervix is cervical
mucus. And so the cervical mucus
essentially once the sperm hit it, they can start swimming.
If you're down here, there is cervical mucus and you're
hitting all of this bacterial filled area and it's just

(54:19):
killing the sperm, so. If you're having some success
with one of these other kinds ofkids that aren't sterile, it's
basically just the same as you had sex and you got lucky.
Exactly. Yeah, I mean, so like it's it's
the exact same which a lot of couples need.
And so if you, you know LGBTQ single mothers by choice, if

(54:40):
that's, you know, there are lotsof ways to build a family.
And so they're good for that. They're good for mimicking sex.
Got it. OK, OK, got it.
We like our predicate device wasthe IUI catheter that the
doctors use. So we are the ones that are
like, we're not mimicking sex. We are mimicking the first line

(55:03):
of fertility treatment they do in the clinic, but we're doing
it at home. Got it.
OK, that's actually very that isa very good explanation.
And I love how you point out if that's what you're trying to do,
mimic sex, because for whatever reasons you just mentioned,
that's great. However, even if you I mean, I
would imagine if you're trying to get pregnant, go for the gold

(55:25):
if you're. I'm biased.
I'll say as a scientist, I'm biased that, you know, I have a
kid from two kids from. But like, they're there is yeah,
we are for people who are struggling to conceive, no
matter what your family looks like, which is different than
someone trying to get sperm intotheir body.

(55:48):
Just for the first time and justgiving it.
OK, OK, All right, thank you forexplaining that.
I like this a lot. And then I, I have a like what's
next for fertile because I feel like you're just on a roll.
And also, did you know this muchabout the cervix before you
started? I love that question.

(56:10):
I knew nothing. I.
Was going to say because I'm like God.
I tell in like all the material.I think it's actually in like
the first e-mail once you buy the kit, I send you like
detailed instructions. I did not know how to track my
cycle. I didn't know when my 24 hour
ovulation window was since I'm biology and computer science.

(56:33):
I tried every. I tried a lot of apps.
I'll say they're different now, but they are all based on a 28
day cycle and only 13% of women have a 28 day cycle.
So they're not predicting your fertile window accurately.
And I tell them upfront I took every single biology class.

(56:54):
You can take all of them. Like I joke.
I went to college for 30 years. I graduated 34th grade.
I knew 0 of this nothing. And I say that so that because
people are like Oh my God, it's my own body.
I feel like an idiot and I'm like no, you are not stupid.
We have not been taught any of this.
Trust me. I took every class and I knew

(57:14):
nothing 0 nada. So the answer is no.
I've learned so much. But also I'm so grateful to our
fertile families because they share so much about different
scenarios and different ways that they're building their
family or or struggles they're facing and how and why fertilize

(57:36):
help them in ways that I haven'tgotten to experience.
And it's so moving. And I just, I'm so grateful that
they trust me in this process, you know, and trust us to, to
help. What?
And and that's, by the way, that's like another really big
part of it, like infertility conception, insemination, like

(57:58):
these are not words that people are talking about, you know,
over coffee at Starbucks loudly,right?
Unless you're me, yeah. Why do you think it's so
important women continue the conversation about things that
feel so intimate? I think for me, I felt so, so

(58:24):
much shame. I can now call it that, but it
was also grief because I was grieving what wasn't there.
Like I, I didn't always know if I wanted to be a mom, but when I
decided I wanted to be a mom, I set a goal and I do it.

(58:45):
But then I'm looking at my husband and I'm like, what if I
can't give you children? What does our life look like?
My entire future had a boy and agirl in it.
For some reason that's what I always wanted and luckily I got
it. I would have taken anything, but
we had three dogs. But like we what would my future

(59:09):
look like? What would the rest like?
If I do, I divorce him so that he can go be a father because
he's going to be a great dad andI want him to be a great dad.
And is that what happiness wouldbe?
Is that like love if I go let him all of these questions and
like you feel like as a woman, you're broken.
And it's so hard to talk about because it's it's so intimate

(59:33):
that literally being like the thing that makes me a woman
biologically, I was made to makeother humans and I cannot do
that. So what am I and what's wrong?
And it's not easy to stop out. It's taken Full disclosure.
It's taken me, you know, a lot of therapy to even be able to

(59:55):
like share my story without justweeping because it's so
difficult and it's so hard. And so I, I praise any women who
like speak up and talk about it because what I found is as soon
as you share. And when I say one in five like.

(01:00:15):
If I talk somewhere and I tell people, like look at the five
closest people to you, one in five will be struggling in
silence. There are lines of people when I
get off stage that are coming tohug me.
And how did you know? And I haven't told anyone.
And we're going through surrogacy.
I did 4 rounds of IVF. Oh my God, I did this.
And these people, I'm watching them as they are going, me too,

(01:00:38):
me too. And all of them are going.
I didn't know that. Like, my friends reached out
when we were crowdfunding. I didn't know they were going
through infertility like. And, and do people even know,
like a lot of times I feel like I hear people saying we've been
trying, you know, we've been trying.
Well, we've been trying, you know, they're, we're just

(01:00:58):
trying. You know, it's been, they've
been trying and maybe they're trying, maybe it's even the
second one. So like sometimes you have one.
Secondary infertility, yeah. Infertility and I feel like that
one will really sneak up on you because you're like, well, I
already had a baby so it can't. I did this once, what's that?
Right, like my body should know,right?
Yeah, this is what happens. And to the experience that they

(01:01:19):
don't even necessarily use the word infertile or even.
Recognize it at first yeah so wealways say trying to like I'm
like use the word and you're in if you're in the trying to
conceive world TTC there's all these acronyms with fertility
that make I don't know why, but I.

(01:01:41):
You aren't actually diagnosed until you go to the fertility
clinic. So we're in this Gray area.
I mean, that's like who we're trying to help is those people
who are like, OK, it's been 6 months.
Shouldn't this have started working by now?
Like, and then you hit eight months and you're like, what?
Clearly something's wrong. You know, I don't think I could

(01:02:02):
have sex any more times a day. Like, you know, we, we all kind
of know the basic birds and beesof how it, how it should happen.
And, and so you, you, and the more you talk about it, or this
was my experience, the more I talked about it, the more people
would ask me. And then if I am at, you know,

(01:02:25):
I'm at work in the cancer clinicand I just found out I got my
period, which means I failed another cycle.
So I go in the bathroom. I have mascara and tampons.
I was like preparing again. I'm not pregnant.
I have to cry. I go.
I go in the bathroom, I cry. I failed again.
Then I have to put my makeup back on, go back out there, do

(01:02:48):
my job. And like, if people were asking
me about it, I couldn't keep up that facade.
Yeah. So it just makes you retreat
because I don't want anyone to ask me about it because I just
went, cried in the bathroom, gotmy shit together.
I can come out here again. But if I tell you and now you

(01:03:09):
know, and you're asking me. Oh, my God.
Did you? Is it cycle day one?
You failed again. I can't handle that.
Like, so then you don't tell people.
So you it, it makes the, it's just a shame spiral where you're
like, when are you going to havekids?
And then you're just like, it got to the point where I was

(01:03:30):
like, do do you really want to know?
But you know, which, to be fair,I ask those questions because
you don't know what you don't know.
And so like, it's the whole process.
I have learned so much about so much.
I'm sure you have, but but one of the things you just mentioned

(01:03:52):
I wanted to come back to, you said, you know, people maybe
don't know they're in that Gray area before they've gone to a
fertility clinic. So let me ask you a question.
To get fertile, do you need to have a referral to a fertility
you? Need to have $199?
That's it. You don't need a prescription.
You can go to fertile.com PHERDAL.
You have to spell it like the weirdo I am.

(01:04:13):
Scroll past the fertility clinics that are paying to be at
the top of that search and make sure you actually go to
fertile.com. And I'll share that, by the way,
in the show notes, but go ahead.You don't need anything.
No anyone. We are.
We are FDA clear for anyone who is trying to conceive or has

(01:04:34):
chosen not to get pregnant through intercourse.
Anything easy to get as a multivitamin?
You. Just you.
Literally can go to fertile.com and you order it and I ship it
to you and it's discreetly shipped.
It's in it almost looks like a shoe box.
It's like covered in white plastic.
I purposely like put a space in the name on the return label.
So it's a little bit, it comes through like on your credit card

(01:04:57):
even as like Fertile Labs instead of so like I'm trying to
make this as discreet and private as possible.
The mailman doesn't know that you'll be inseminating because I
learned quickly I love my logo, but you know, people were like
my 1st 200 kids, they're like, can we package that up a little

(01:05:18):
different? So, yeah, it's greatly delivered
and that's all. Yeah, well, I think.
You're doing everything. It's so funny because you're
like, I want to knit like you want.
You're making, you're making presents.
You're thinking about how best you're really, you're thinking
about how best to serve the people who need fertile right?

(01:05:39):
Like yeah, packaging, affordableprices, hand knitted blankets,
emails. I give customers my cell phone.
I'll be in bed at night, like, yeah, you got problems.
Talk to me like well. What about so?
But you're here in the world of like reproductive of Health
Science. What would you change
systemically if you could changeone thing?

(01:06:02):
Our system approaches women's reproductive health.
Oh God, that's a one. We should maybe look at it.
Think about fertility science for the past 200 years.
How long have women been doctors?
Maybe 1960s more women were getting doctors before then,

(01:06:28):
probably not 5050 until, I don'tknow, nineties, 2000s maybe.
So what fertility science was upuntil then was a bunch of old
white dudes looking at each other's spur.
So we should, you know, maybe just look into Women's Health.

(01:06:50):
There needs to be more research and more funding.
Also, the way we approach it clinically, and I'm not a
clinician, I have a lot of respect for clinicians.
My goal is eventually that, you know, when you go to the OB and
when I went to the OB at 8 months and they were like, you
have to fail four more times. You know that people will know.

(01:07:12):
Oh, you should try fertile first.
Bridge that gap. It might not work for everyone,
but it'll work for some. And then if that doesn't work,
then you go to the fertility clinic.
But it's so much common sense ismissing from women's healthcare.
Like just from like bedside manner of like how we're treated

(01:07:35):
and the gaslighting and then notbeing heard.
We need a lot more like compassion and empathy and
advocacy, I think. I I think you're right, but I'm
glad to know that like, you know, in terms that you're
younger than I am, but like in terms of new generations are

(01:07:56):
going forward or for my daughter, like there's so many
more women involved in the spaceand hopefully I'm not not every
woman's a good woman. We had a little conversation
privately, but like, hopefully the women involved in this space
are going into it with that samekind of in that same headspace
where it's. Like the women who go, who the
women found that I, This is why I love femtech so badass because

(01:08:23):
my story is not unique when you get to know other femtech
founders who are like, this bullshit happened, you know?
And then they're like, yeah. So I just did something about
like. And it's, it's this growing
industry of just problem solversand people who like are

(01:08:44):
compassionate and smart and driven.
And I'm, I love being in the funtech community for that reason,
because just the energy and awareness and passion is, I
mean, you're not going to find that at my husband's mechanical
engineering job, I'll tell you that.
So. Because they talk about femtech

(01:09:04):
as like this growing like in thefinancial world right there, you
know, because obviously femtech needs funding.
So for anybody who doesn't know,femtech is like an umbrella term
for really all Women's Health. It started off as like the
umbrella term for like kind of digital, like tech, health tech,
but now it's really expanded to anything that has to do with
Women's Health. And so it's a growing field in

(01:09:28):
terms of, you know, finances andinvestment.
But really it's like, yes, we need the finances and yes, we
need the investment. And, and, and rightfully so,
right? These are inventions that can
help a lot of people, but the women involved in it, they're,
they're solving problems whetherthey're getting the resources or
the finances or not. Right, I didn't you know, you

(01:09:49):
know what I mean. Tell me I need 5 million, but
we'll get FDA clearance for great than a million, you know.
Figuring it out and it's and it's great to know that there
are so many people in that spacedoing good things.
What is for you? You've been through this
gigantic journey from diagnosis to invention to FDA approval to,
you know, knitting booties. What's the one message you want

(01:10:13):
women listening to take away from your story?
You are the expert of your body.You need to trust that you know
your body best. And so if you are struggling to

(01:10:36):
conceive or you are you know, experiencing panic attacks or
you are having, you know whatever it is that is
happening, if you know somethingis wrong, speak up.
Find your voice because like no pain is normal.
No, you know, there's so much that isn't normal that we as

(01:11:00):
women deal with because what else are you going to do?
So I, I hope people realize thatlike maybe the thing that is
painful or causing you so much shame or makes you know, in my
case, me go cry in the bathroom and then carry mascara with me
to like get back to work like that.

(01:11:22):
You are not alone and it's way more common than you think.
And if you find your voice and you can find your voice, you can
find support and other women that will help you.
And you don't have to do it by yourself.
And thank you so much for comingon here today.
I am so appreciative. I feel like a lot of people are
going to get a lot of value out of this, and I'm going to have

(01:11:44):
all the links to where you can buy Fertile, to where you can
learn more, to where you can seeyour time award picture all on
in the show notes. So thank you so much.
Thank you for the opportunity. It is amazing to be here and get
to roar, so thank you. That was Jennifer Hinchey,
founder of Fertile Proof, that when women create from

(01:12:04):
frustration, we get innovation that actually serves us.
And Speaking of women using their voices to create change,
next week's guest takes that idea to a whole new level.
Renee Nieman went from writing hilarious posts as fake adult
mom to creating Resist Like a Mother, reminding parents that
raising good humans is part of the resistance.
Because as she's realized, and as so many of us are feeling,

(01:12:26):
parenting isn't just personal anymore.
It's political. You don't want to miss this one.

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