I’ve been following Ali Prato for a long time—so having her on the show was a full circle moment.
Ali is the host of Infertile AF and co-founder of Fertility Rally, and she’s been one of the loudest, realest, and most compassionate voices in the infertility space since 2019. In this episode, she shares her own journey with secondary infertility, miscarriage, and IVF—and how she turned it all into a platform that’s helped thousands of people feel seen.
We also get into:
- Her wild career pivot from Playboy editor to infertility advocate
- The kids’ book series she’s writing to help families talk openly about ART (assisted reproductive technology)
- Why she started the Fertility Rally and what it means to create space for all infertility stories
If you’ve ever felt like you were the only one going through it—you’re not. This one’s personal, and I’m so grateful Ali shared her story with us.
🧡 Want to hear more real stories about infertility?
Check out our Infertility Series we hosted back in April—featuring powerful conversations with women who’ve walked the path of IVF, miscarriage, surrogacy, and more.
#TheKeriCroftShow #InfertileAF #AliPrato #FertilityRally #IVFStories #InfertilityAwareness #PodcastShowNotes #WomenSupportingWomen
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hey there you beautiful badass.
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I'm your host, keri Croft,delivering you stories that get
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Well, welcome to my show.
(01:56):
I'm so glad to have you.
I was just on yours nowTurnabout's fair play.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
I'm so excited to be here.
I loved talking to you, so Ican't wait to talk more.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
I love the name of your pod.
Thank you, I knew I liked youfrom that and then when you,
when you told me the name ofyour book, I'm like she's cool,
what.
What made you like decide tocall it like infertile AF?
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Well, it started out actually before the podcast, I
had a book idea I was going towrite, I wanted to write a
memoir, and this was, you know,seven or eight years ago now,
after I'd gone through myinfertility stuff.
Because when I was goingthrough like the three and a
half to four years of, likerecurrent pregnancy loss and
secondary infertility, I waslike there's no books out there
(02:42):
about this.
I'm a journalist, I'm a writer,you know I've always been
writing stuff and trying toshare stories and I couldn't
find anything.
So originally I was going towrite a book called IVF, af,
like as fuck.
And then when I startedshopping the book around or the
book proposal around, I wasgetting no's like left and right
(03:02):
, and they're like no one'sgoing to buy this, it's not
going to sell, there's no marketfor this.
We already have an infertilitybook coming out, a memoir, and
I'm like one.
You can't do more than one.
So that's when I started thepodcast.
And then I realized that Iwanted to expand it beyond just
IVF, so I called it Infertile AF.
The rest is history.
(03:22):
And you know, it's funny,carrie, in the beginning I had a
couple guests say no, becausethey didn't want to be
associated with like as fuck.
And I was like Okay, don't comeon my show, you're like but we
would not be friends in reallife yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Honestly, come on, like you, you could tell so much
about someone if they can'teven come on a show that has AF.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Like that's too clean for me right, exactly, and then
, um, yeah, so it's.
It's basically, you know, it'sjust kind of expanded beyond
there and haven't really had anissue with it since, although,
again, you know, the podcaststarted in 2019, so people were
like that's going to be playedout soon, but I feel like af is
(04:05):
still in the vernacular likeit's still like in this.
Maybe it's just going to alwaysbe there.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
I hope so well, I also think like just the way you
have.
I mean I think that will neverget old, because it's like it's
the truth.
I mean it's like I'm infertileas fuck it's just the best
whatever it's, so the best it.
So why don't you tell um for my, my community, maybe just
explain a little bit about youand like, what was your journey
(04:32):
like going through infertility?
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Absolutely.
And again, you know, thanks forjust having me on and, you know
, exposing me to a totallydifferent audience, cause I
think it's just so important toshare our stories.
You know I, like I said when Iwas going through my stuff, so
I'll give you the truncatedversion because it can be long
but basically I had my daughterwithout assisted reproductive
(04:55):
technology when I got pregnantwhen I was 34, I had her when I
was 35, you know I had grown upin the era.
So it was probably much likeyou and many people listening
that it was like you can have itall.
You can have your career, youcan have kids whenever you want,
don't worry about thebiological clock.
You know we were looking atHollywood and it was like I
remember Halle Berry had justhad a baby at like 46.
(05:17):
And you know I was like, oh myGod, I've got plenty of time.
So I basically was very careerdriven.
My husband, I, had moved fromChicago, where we grew up, to
New York for my job I wasworking for I was an editor at
Playboy magazine at the time andwhen we got here a lot of my
friends back in Chicago werestarting to have kids, because
(05:37):
it was like late 20s.
You know, we were about to turn30 but we were in a new city,
we didn't know anybody, so we'relike we can't have kids now.
We don't even know how to takethe subway, so that kind of
pushed off our timeline for afamily building and I think that
that is a lot of the reasonthat we, you know, ended up
having problems.
It was just it was age relatedfor me.
So anyway, we had our daughterand then I waited like two and a
(06:02):
half to three years before westarted to try for baby number
two and again thinking I didn'thave a problem, you know, really
getting pregnant with her andhad a fairly uncomplicated
pregnancy and she's healthy.
And then I was totally like therug got pulled out from under me
because I had four miscarriages, you know, back to back over
(06:24):
the course of the next I don'teven know how long couple of
years, and I was like what thehell is going on?
Why am I not able to staypregnant?
And again, you know, I felt soalone.
I didn't know that it wascalled secondary infertility.
You know there weren't thatmany podcasts really talking
(06:44):
about fertility or infertilityat the time.
There weren't, like I said,books.
You know, I set out to write abook and after it was all said
and done and people were like,no, that's, no one wants to read
about that, which blows my mindtoday.
But you know, I just neededsupport.
I'm a very I think you and Italked about this when you were
on my podcast.
(07:05):
You know the way that I solveproblems is by talking through
them and connecting with otherpeople that are going through
similar things and verycommunity focused, and I just
felt so isolated and so alone.
I didn't have any friends whowere going through it at the
same time as me.
I didn't even really know whatIVF was.
Honestly, I thought that.
Remember Octomom.
(07:25):
I thought that IVF was forpeople that wanted to have, like
, multiple babies.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
I really like that.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Yeah, you know, I had a friend of a friend who'd gone
through it and turns out I hadmore people in my life than I
knew but nobody was reallytalking about, you know,
miscarriages and going throughfertility treatments.
So basically I, after thefourth miscarriage, I went and
saw a specialist and he ended upbeing my doctor's, Dr Joshua
(07:54):
Klein.
He was at RMA at the time andnow he's with extend fertility,
which is a really great clinicin New York, and he was like
yeah, this, you know, this is anegg quality issue.
As you get older, your eggquality diminishes.
And I was like what?
No one's ever told me thatbefore I didn't know any of this
.
And so he said you're actuallythe perfect candidate for IVF.
(08:17):
So I actually got very, very,very lucky, because part of the
story is that my husband and Iwere really at odds about doing
treatment.
It's really expensive.
We didn't have fertilitycoverage, so it was all out of
pocket.
You know the price ranges forfor people listening that might
not know it's like one round ofIVF is like around $30,000, you
(08:41):
know all in and that's a lot ofmoney.
But to me at the time I waslike I don't give a shit, Like I
will pay $4 million because Iwant this next kid so badly.
And my husband just wasn'treally on the same page.
He wanted another kid but hesaw the heartache that I'd gone
through and it was, you know,miscarriages and depression and
all this stuff.
You know our marriage wasreally suffering.
(09:04):
So we finally agreed, afterborrowing money from both sets
of our parents, to go through it, because we didn't have the
cash at the time.
We agreed to do one round ofIVF and, long story short, I got
five embryos that were PGTtested, which where they test
the chromosomes and make surethey're normal before they do a
(09:24):
transfer, and then one of theembryos out of the five came
back healthy and so we did theone transfer and it did work,
which I know now.
That was so incredibly luckybecause I have so many friends
in this community and thefertility community and
fertility rally members who havegone through five, six, seven
(09:45):
rounds, you know, of transfersand they didn't work or they did
, but then they lost thepregnancy.
So I got very lucky.
I got pregnant with my son, hada, you know again, fairly
uncomplicated pregnancy and thenand had him.
So, like I said, you know I'mone of those people that's like
did IVF once and it did work,which is hard to kind of.
(10:07):
Now that I know how hard it canbe for some people, there's
like a guilt there.
I'm like, oh my God, you know,like I didn't have it as hard, I
wasn't in it as long, but,using my own advice, it's like
this isn't the pain.
Olympics right, Like we've allthrough our shit.
We've all gone through ourstruggles.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
So we can't compare, Like basically that's what
everybody says to like oh, youcan't compare, it's all it's all
hard.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
It was, yeah, it was so, so hard and I wouldn't wish
it on anybody and my heart wasbroken so many times throughout
that whole process.
I still have PTSD about it.
Um, you know, I interviewpeople all the time and talk to
people all the time and I stillget that feeling, that physical.
I don't know if you do as welllike when you talk about stuff
like that, but I still feel sotraumatized by you know what I
(10:58):
went through like wanting tohave a baby and not being able
to have one is really sad andhard.
And you know you see peoplesuccessfully doing it around you
with no problems and you knowyou're mad at your own body.
And you know you see peoplesuccessfully doing it around you
with no problems and you knowyou're mad at your own body and
you know there's just a lot.
It's very complicated.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
It is.
And then for you to feel sopassionately about it that you
decided to like do an entirepodcast on it.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
You know, I mean to help other people when did?
You start it.
I started the pod in March of2019.
And, you know, the firstepisode was me telling my story,
because I was like, if I'mexpecting people to get like
real and raw, like I have towalk that walk and talk that
talk first.
So the first episode is just meand then this week, you know,
(11:39):
the 335th episode will come out.
So it's been once a week, youknow, for the past six years
plus, and such therapy foreverybody.
I mean for me too.
I mean, it's kind of it's kindof started out selfishly Right
Like I was like I need to getthis out there, and who knows if
I wasn't anybody in this fieldand you know, just like I said,
(12:00):
a journalist and had nobackground in the fertility
community, didn't know anybodyand was just like I'm to relate
to.
So it's it's been reallysuccessful and I'm just so
grateful for everybody who hascome on the show including you,
(12:20):
you know, and who's been willingto be vulnerable and share
their stories, and every singleperson, I swear to you, every
single person has wanted toshare their story to help other
people, which is awesome.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
Yeah, because when you're in it and you really do
feel like you're the only personthat's going through, it.
You really do feel alone.
So when you hear someone else,especially the intricacies of
infertility, like you know PCOS,or secondary infertility, or
egg donor, like there's allthese different rooms within the
house, and so when you findsomeone who has experienced that
(12:53):
same room, you're like, oh wait, like I need to, like you're
like a magnet, you wantinformation and you want to feel
like, oh, we share something.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Completely yes, because there's, like you said,
there's so many different waysthat these routes and these
journeys can go and there's somany different outcomes and
treatment plans and paths, andsometimes you don't walk away
with a baby and sometimes you do, and sometimes you lose a
pregnant.
You know, there's just lots ofroller coasters along the way.
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(15:18):
Do you do like freelancejournalism?
Still, I do.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Yeah, I edit a sports website.
It's so funny.
I mentioned it the other day.
My kid's like you do and I'mlike, yeah, I have for like five
years.
They're like you nevermentioned that.
I'm like, yeah, it's just oneof the many things, it's one of
the many things that mom dipsher toe in children.
Just trying to, you know, getthose bills paid For sure.
Oh yeah, I still do journalism,you know stuff like that on the
(15:44):
side and you know I think thatit's funny to think that.
You know, I was working atPlayboy my first job out of
college and now I'm like in theinfertility world, like what a
weird like trajectory.
But I guess when you break itdown, the gist of it is like
I've always loved to tellpeople's stories and like share
stories, so there's like astorytelling, I guess, through
what was that like?
Speaker 1 (16:05):
working for Playboy?
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Oh my God, it was so fun.
So I started there.
When I was in college I wrote aletter this is so funny.
I wrote a letter, carrie, toHugh Hefner and this is in the
mid nineties.
So I there was no like emailwas just starting.
I wrote a snail mail on like mycomputer, printed it out, put
(16:28):
it in the mail, sent it to thePlayboy mansion in LA and he
read it and they called me onthe landline at my college house
where I lived with like eightother roommates, that's what I'm
talking about Literally, isn'tthat wild.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
It's amazing.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
It is weird to think that it all worked out.
And yeah, they called hisassistant, called me.
I remember my roommate Michelleis with the phone, she's like
Hugh Hefner's assistant's on thephone and I was like holy shit.
And she's like you know, hethgot your letter dear and was
really interested.
And what I basically said washe and I went to the same
college, university of Illinois,and there was a Hugh Hefner
(17:05):
magazine scholarship at myschool in the journalism
department that my professorsawarded to me.
So that was my like.
In was like I won yourscholarship awarded to me.
So that was my like.
In was like I won yourscholarship.
And he was like we'd love tohave you come into the Chicago
office for an interview.
And so I was like, oh my God.
(17:26):
So I went in, interviewed foran internship when I graduated.
I was supposed to be a sixmonth thing on the editorial
staff and then I worked therefor 10 years.
Did you ever go to the mansion?
I did.
Yes, I have All right when youand I have drinks sometime or go
out.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
We I'll tell you my mansion.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
Oh my God, I love really good tea from the mansion
, really good.
Yes, okay, cool, yeah, it wasfun.
It's everything you've heard,like all the debauchery and
stuff.
That is fully true.
And I will say, though, becausepeople are like, did you work
with Heth?
I worked with him pretty closelybecause we did some.
There was like these partypages in the front of the
(18:00):
magazine that was likephotographs from all his parties
, and I worked on that with himand he was great.
I loved him.
He was very respectful to me.
I never felt any type of waylike that.
I, you know, it was like I'veheard people coming out after
the fact who said that you know,not people that worked in the
magazine, but like some of theplaymates and stuff that you
know.
Maybe he wasn't didn't treatthem with respect, but I never,
(18:25):
ever felt that way.
I always felt respected and Ireally liked, I really enjoyed
working with him.
He was a trip.
Um, he yes, a lot of theparties were like it was like
the midsummer night's dream, sothe dress code was like lingerie
or less, so he would be in hislike pajamas with a robe, and
yeah, he usually was that'sreally how he dressed.
(18:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
But so you're.
You're actually writing aseries of books.
Infertility, yes, so.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
I have some.
Thank you so much for bringingthat up.
So I have a couple ofchildren's books.
My second one is actually justcoming out now for pre-order.
The first one was it's calledWork of Art, so it's a play on
like assisted reproductivetechnology and it's the story of
my son hearing me tell someonethat he was an IVF baby on the
(19:15):
playground and then him beinglike what does that mean?
I don't know what that means,and then me explaining to him
the way that he was born.
So it's a really theillustrator I'm working with,
who has signed on for like thewhole series, he's awesome, he's
in Buenos Aires and he's sotalented.
So I think the illustrationshave a lot to do with, um, how
(19:36):
much people really like the book, cause it's very cool looking
and he's just really talented.
So it's um, you know it's thewhole point of the books are to
normalize the conversation againaround.
You know families being builtin so many different ways and
you know kids who were bornthrough ART, ivf, iui, surrogacy
(19:57):
, all the things you knowfeeling normal about it and you
know, like, even though my sonand my daughter came into the
world very differently, like wewanted them both so badly and we
just want to take any stigmaaway that might be out there.
You know, with people thinkingthat ART is like less than or
different, you know it's justit's.
(20:17):
It's all coming from a place oflove, like all these kids have
been created coming from a placeof love.
So the first book work of artis like my family story.
And then the next book it'scalled beautiful bird and it's a
different family building story.
It's about an IUI and it'sabout a sperm donor and an LGBTQ
plus couple and it's just kindof, again, it's just like a
(20:39):
thoroughly modern family story.
So it's been really fun to workon these and they're all true
stories, people that I know whoare in my life.
And then the next one will be adonor egg story and then I'm
going to do a surrogacy story.
So just, you know, trying tocreate again like kind of with
the podcast, just putting stuffout there where people can be
(20:59):
like I can relate to that.
That's me, that's my story.
You know there's not a lot outthere right now, not that
there's no children's books, butyou know I'm just trying to
contribute to the libraries ofpeople you know who, even if
your, your child, didn't comeinto the world that way.
To have that in your libraryand be like this is another way
that like things can happen.
(21:20):
I think it's just all aboutacceptance and, you know, making
it normal.
Yeah, no, I love that.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
I love the whole idea of the book series.
What is your, do you like inyour ideal world?
Would you stop doing editingfor like anything else, and like
be fully immersed in somethingthat has to do with the
infertility world?
And like parlaying your podcast?
Or like what's your vision for?
Speaker 2 (21:46):
that Mostly.
It's like 95% of what I doanyway.
And you know I have FertilityRally too, which is a community
of members all over the country.
So that's kind of like thepodcast, the rally and the books
are like the three parts of thefertility stuff that I'm doing.
I'm actually starting to workon some menopause stuff and
(22:13):
possibly doing a menopausepodcast with a company that I've
been talking to.
So, again, sharing stories,talking to experts, you know all
that stuff.
So I think women's health, likethe women's health space in
general, is you know where Iwill be for the rest of my
career but touching on alldifferent things.
You know that aren't not thatmenopause isn't being talked
about because it really ishaving a moment, but I feel all
(22:33):
different things.
You know that aren't not thatmenopause isn't being talked
about because it really ishaving a moment, but I feel like
, with what we're talking aboutdoing, it would be different
than anything that's out thereright now.
So, again, just sharing stories, blasting stigmas and all that
stuff.
That's great.
Yeah, I love that.
Well, can you tell us a littlemore about the rally?
Yeah, so Fertility Rally is acommunity I co-founded with a
(22:55):
woman named Blair Nelson wholives in Austin and she and I
met through my podcast.
She was one of my early guestsand then we just kept talking
and hit it off as friends andCOVID hit, you know, in 2020, as
everyone remembers, fuckingawful time for so many people
and we were just on Zoom all thetime and we started hosting
(23:17):
these like Zoom support group orlike happy hours, basically,
where we would, you know, we'dmet people in the Instagram
community who were talking aboutfertility and infertility.
So we started hosting thesecalls and like does anybody want
to come and talk about whatthey're going through?
And it just turned into a thingLike.
I remember one call we had like60 people on it.
We were like holy shit, shouldwe like make this a thing?
(23:39):
So we created a membership, youknow, called Fertility Rally,
and basically we still do thesame things.
We have four to five differentsupport groups virtually every
single week.
She and I host one every singleWednesday night and we have
since June of 2020.
We have other hosts who do youknow, different, different
(24:00):
groups throughout the week andsince we launched, we've had
almost 5000 members, you know,kind of come through the doors.
So, again, it's just another wayto like create a space and,
like I said earlier, like it's aselfish to like create a space
and, like I said earlier, likeit's a selfish like these are
all the things I wish I had whenI was in the thick of it, so
like I keep, what else do I wishI would have had?
(24:21):
Oh, a community, oh, books, youknow all this stuff.
So everything I'm creating isjust basically coming from the
place of like, what do I wish I?
Speaker 1 (24:30):
had.
Yeah, but that's the right spot.
Right, Because you're trying toserve the person that you were,
so it's like yeah why, would Inot want to like figure out how
to give the resources.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
That totally yeah.
And also, with the rally we'redoing, we have an IRL event
coming up in Nashville whereit's just a fun bonding weekend.
So we've this will be our fifthone we did one last year in
Austin, we've done them inChicago, we did another one in
Austin and we did one in Jersey,which wasn't like a whole
weekend, it was just like adinner.
But we are just all meetingdown there, you know whoever
(25:03):
wants to come, who's a member,current or former, and spending
the weekend just having fun andbonding.
And so we do stuff like thattoo.
I love that.
It's kind of like a retreat,but there's not like programming
.
We basically just like we havelike a pool day and we have a
nice dinner and we have like adrinks thing and you know it's
just coming like a big girlsweekend yeah, our tagline is
(25:24):
worst club, best members, soit's just a good excuse to get
all these awesome peopletogether from all over the
country who otherwise might notbe in the same room together.
You know what I mean?
Like I look around the rallygroup sometimes and I'm like I
never would have met her, everif it wasn't for infertility,
you know?
Or like the ages are sodifferent and the backgrounds
are so different, but the commonthread is like we've all been
(25:46):
through this trauma of our ownkind.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
Anything else you want to make sure that we let
the community know, let peepsknow about you, before we wrap
Allie.
Other than that, you're justyou know fantastic on so many
levels.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
I want to hang out with you we're going to.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
That's what I want.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
Where are you again?
I'm in Jersey.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
Okay, so you're not that far away.
No, we it out yeah for sure.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
But yeah, I mean, I think the only thing, the only
other thing I would say is justif anybody's listening who is
going through any sort offertility struggles or journeys,
like, please reach out to me.
You know I'm, my DMs are open.
On Instagram you can check outlike a rally support group and
see if you like it before youcommit to anything.
You know the books I'mself-publishing them, so it's
(26:38):
always like word of mouth isgreat.
So if somebody is, you know,checked out work of art or
beautiful bird and likes it,like, spread the word to your
friends.
You know it's.
It's again all just trying tonormalize, you know, all this
stuff and help people feel lessalone.
So if anybody is struggling,like, please know you're not
alone, even if you think thatwhat you're going through is so
(26:58):
different, like there'sdefinitely somebody out there
who's gone through somethingsimilar and I'm happy to connect
people.
You know I love putting peopletogether.
Like, oh, you should talk tothis person and you know, just,
I feel like you know the onething I love and I think I
mentioned this to you before islike what I really love about
you is like you're a girl's girland like you can tell you like
(27:19):
to lift up other women and otherpeople who are doing important
things and worthy things, and Ireally admire that about other
women, like the older I get, themore I'm like does this person
show up?
Like that's such an importantquality to me, so just know that
.
Like I know you show up foryour community and your friends.
(27:40):
Like I try to show up, but likeif people are out there feeling
like they don't have anybodythat shows up, reach out to me.
I love that.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Well, I'm so happy that, for whatever reason, our
paths cross.
I know I was stalking you, me.
We're now, we're friends.
You can't, you can't, you can'tget rid of me.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
I love it.
I can't wait to do I know let'sseriously stay in touch.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
All right, carrie, thank you, I'll talk to you soon
.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
Thank you for having me and I'll talk to you, okay,
ally.
Thank you okay, bye.
Hey there you beautiful badass.
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I'm your host, keri Croft,delivering you stories that get
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Well, welcome to my show.
(01:56):
I'm so glad to have you.
I was just on yours nowTurnabout's fair play.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
I'm so excited to be here.
I loved talking to you, so Ican't wait to talk more.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
I love the name of your pod.
Thank you, I knew I liked youfrom that and then when you,
when you told me the name ofyour book, I'm like she's cool,
what.
What made you like decide tocall it like infertile AF?
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Well, it started out actually before the podcast, I
had a book idea I was going towrite, I wanted to write a
memoir, and this was, you know,seven or eight years ago now,
after I'd gone through myinfertility stuff.
Because when I was goingthrough like the three and a
half to four years of, likerecurrent pregnancy loss and
secondary infertility, I waslike there's no books out there
(02:42):
about this.
I'm a journalist, I'm a writer,you know I've always been
writing stuff and trying toshare stories and I couldn't
find anything.
So originally I was going towrite a book called IVF, af,
like as fuck.
And then when I startedshopping the book around or the
book proposal around, I wasgetting no's like left and right
(03:02):
, and they're like no one'sgoing to buy this, it's not
going to sell, there's no marketfor this.
We already have an infertilitybook coming out, a memoir, and
I'm like one.
You can't do more than one.
So that's when I started thepodcast.
And then I realized that Iwanted to expand it beyond just
IVF, so I called it Infertile AF.
The rest is history.
(03:22):
And you know, it's funny,carrie, in the beginning I had a
couple guests say no, becausethey didn't want to be
associated with like as fuck.
And I was like Okay, don't comeon my show, you're like but we
would not be friends in reallife yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Honestly, come on, like you, you could tell so much
about someone if they can'teven come on a show that has AF.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Like that's too clean for me right, exactly, and then
, um, yeah, so it's.
It's basically, you know, it'sjust kind of expanded beyond
there and haven't really had anissue with it since, although,
again, you know, the podcaststarted in 2019, so people were
like that's going to be playedout soon, but I feel like af is
(04:05):
still in the vernacular likeit's still like in this.
Maybe it's just going to alwaysbe there.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
I hope so well, I also think like just the way you
have.
I mean I think that will neverget old, because it's like it's
the truth.
I mean it's like I'm infertileas fuck it's just the best
whatever it's, so the best it.
So why don't you tell um for my, my community, maybe just
explain a little bit about youand like, what was your journey
(04:32):
like going through infertility?
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Absolutely.
And again, you know, thanks forjust having me on and, you know
, exposing me to a totallydifferent audience, cause I
think it's just so important toshare our stories.
You know I, like I said when Iwas going through my stuff, so
I'll give you the truncatedversion because it can be long
but basically I had my daughterwithout assisted reproductive
(04:55):
technology when I got pregnantwhen I was 34, I had her when I
was 35, you know I had grown upin the era.
So it was probably much likeyou and many people listening
that it was like you can have itall.
You can have your career, youcan have kids whenever you want,
don't worry about thebiological clock.
You know we were looking atHollywood and it was like I
remember Halle Berry had justhad a baby at like 46.
(05:17):
And you know I was like, oh myGod, I've got plenty of time.
So I basically was very careerdriven.
My husband, I, had moved fromChicago, where we grew up, to
New York for my job I wasworking for I was an editor at
Playboy magazine at the time andwhen we got here a lot of my
friends back in Chicago werestarting to have kids, because
(05:37):
it was like late 20s.
You know, we were about to turn30 but we were in a new city,
we didn't know anybody, so we'relike we can't have kids now.
We don't even know how to takethe subway, so that kind of
pushed off our timeline for afamily building and I think that
that is a lot of the reasonthat we, you know, ended up
having problems.
It was just it was age relatedfor me.
So anyway, we had our daughterand then I waited like two and a
(06:02):
half to three years before westarted to try for baby number
two and again thinking I didn'thave a problem, you know, really
getting pregnant with her andhad a fairly uncomplicated
pregnancy and she's healthy.
And then I was totally like therug got pulled out from under me
because I had four miscarriages, you know, back to back over
(06:24):
the course of the next I don'teven know how long couple of
years, and I was like what thehell is going on?
Why am I not able to staypregnant?
And again, you know, I felt soalone.
I didn't know that it wascalled secondary infertility.
You know there weren't thatmany podcasts really talking
(06:44):
about fertility or infertilityat the time.
There weren't, like I said,books.
You know, I set out to write abook and after it was all said
and done and people were like,no, that's, no one wants to read
about that, which blows my mindtoday.
But you know, I just neededsupport.
I'm a very I think you and Italked about this when you were
on my podcast.
(07:05):
You know the way that I solveproblems is by talking through
them and connecting with otherpeople that are going through
similar things and verycommunity focused, and I just
felt so isolated and so alone.
I didn't have any friends whowere going through it at the
same time as me.
I didn't even really know whatIVF was.
Honestly, I thought that.
Remember Octomom.
(07:25):
I thought that IVF was forpeople that wanted to have, like
, multiple babies.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
I really like that.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Yeah, you know, I had a friend of a friend who'd gone
through it and turns out I hadmore people in my life than I
knew but nobody was reallytalking about, you know,
miscarriages and going throughfertility treatments.
So basically I, after thefourth miscarriage, I went and
saw a specialist and he ended upbeing my doctor's, Dr Joshua
(07:54):
Klein.
He was at RMA at the time andnow he's with extend fertility,
which is a really great clinicin New York, and he was like
yeah, this, you know, this is anegg quality issue.
As you get older, your eggquality diminishes.
And I was like what?
No one's ever told me thatbefore I didn't know any of this
.
And so he said you're actuallythe perfect candidate for IVF.
(08:17):
So I actually got very, very,very lucky, because part of the
story is that my husband and Iwere really at odds about doing
treatment.
It's really expensive.
We didn't have fertilitycoverage, so it was all out of
pocket.
You know the price ranges forfor people listening that might
not know it's like one round ofIVF is like around $30,000, you
(08:41):
know all in and that's a lot ofmoney.
But to me at the time I waslike I don't give a shit, Like I
will pay $4 million because Iwant this next kid so badly.
And my husband just wasn'treally on the same page.
He wanted another kid but hesaw the heartache that I'd gone
through and it was, you know,miscarriages and depression and
all this stuff.
You know our marriage wasreally suffering.
(09:04):
So we finally agreed, afterborrowing money from both sets
of our parents, to go through it, because we didn't have the
cash at the time.
We agreed to do one round ofIVF and, long story short, I got
five embryos that were PGTtested, which where they test
the chromosomes and make surethey're normal before they do a
(09:24):
transfer, and then one of theembryos out of the five came
back healthy and so we did theone transfer and it did work,
which I know now.
That was so incredibly luckybecause I have so many friends
in this community and thefertility community and
fertility rally members who havegone through five, six, seven
(09:45):
rounds, you know, of transfersand they didn't work or they did
, but then they lost thepregnancy.
So I got very lucky.
I got pregnant with my son, hada, you know again, fairly
uncomplicated pregnancy and thenand had him.
So, like I said, you know I'mone of those people that's like
did IVF once and it did work,which is hard to kind of.
(10:07):
Now that I know how hard it canbe for some people, there's
like a guilt there.
I'm like, oh my God, you know,like I didn't have it as hard, I
wasn't in it as long, but,using my own advice, it's like
this isn't the pain.
Olympics right, Like we've allthrough our shit.
We've all gone through ourstruggles.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
So we can't compare, Like basically that's what
everybody says to like oh, youcan't compare, it's all it's all
hard.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
It was, yeah, it was so, so hard and I wouldn't wish
it on anybody and my heart wasbroken so many times throughout
that whole process.
I still have PTSD about it.
Um, you know, I interviewpeople all the time and talk to
people all the time and I stillget that feeling, that physical.
I don't know if you do as welllike when you talk about stuff
like that, but I still feel sotraumatized by you know what I
(10:58):
went through like wanting tohave a baby and not being able
to have one is really sad andhard.
And you know you see peoplesuccessfully doing it around you
with no problems and you knowyou're mad at your own body.
And you know you see peoplesuccessfully doing it around you
with no problems and you knowyou're mad at your own body and
you know there's just a lot.
It's very complicated.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
It is.
And then for you to feel sopassionately about it that you
decided to like do an entirepodcast on it.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
You know, I mean to help other people when did?
You start it.
I started the pod in March of2019.
And, you know, the firstepisode was me telling my story,
because I was like, if I'mexpecting people to get like
real and raw, like I have towalk that walk and talk that
talk first.
So the first episode is just meand then this week, you know,
(11:39):
the 335th episode will come out.
So it's been once a week, youknow, for the past six years
plus, and such therapy foreverybody.
I mean for me too.
I mean, it's kind of it's kindof started out selfishly Right
Like I was like I need to getthis out there, and who knows if
I wasn't anybody in this fieldand you know, just like I said,
(12:00):
a journalist and had nobackground in the fertility
community, didn't know anybodyand was just like I'm to relate
to.
So it's it's been reallysuccessful and I'm just so
grateful for everybody who hascome on the show including you,
(12:20):
you know, and who's been willingto be vulnerable and share
their stories, and every singleperson, I swear to you, every
single person has wanted toshare their story to help other
people, which is awesome.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
Yeah, because when you're in it and you really do
feel like you're the only personthat's going through, it.
You really do feel alone.
So when you hear someone else,especially the intricacies of
infertility, like you know PCOS,or secondary infertility, or
egg donor, like there's allthese different rooms within the
house, and so when you findsomeone who has experienced that
(12:53):
same room, you're like, oh wait, like I need to, like you're
like a magnet, you wantinformation and you want to feel
like, oh, we share something.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Completely yes, because there's, like you said,
there's so many different waysthat these routes and these
journeys can go and there's somany different outcomes and
treatment plans and paths, andsometimes you don't walk away
with a baby and sometimes you do, and sometimes you lose a
pregnant.
You know, there's just lots ofroller coasters along the way.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
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(15:18):
Do you do like freelancejournalism?
Still, I do.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Yeah, I edit a sports website.
It's so funny.
I mentioned it the other day.
My kid's like you do and I'mlike, yeah, I have for like five
years.
They're like you nevermentioned that.
I'm like, yeah, it's just oneof the many things, it's one of
the many things that mom dipsher toe in children.
Just trying to, you know, getthose bills paid For sure.
Oh yeah, I still do journalism,you know stuff like that on the
(15:44):
side and you know I think thatit's funny to think that.
You know, I was working atPlayboy my first job out of
college and now I'm like in theinfertility world, like what a
weird like trajectory.
But I guess when you break itdown, the gist of it is like
I've always loved to tellpeople's stories and like share
stories, so there's like astorytelling, I guess, through
what was that like?
Speaker 1 (16:05):
working for Playboy?
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Oh my God, it was so fun.
So I started there.
When I was in college I wrote aletter this is so funny.
I wrote a letter, carrie, toHugh Hefner and this is in the
mid nineties.
So I there was no like emailwas just starting.
I wrote a snail mail on like mycomputer, printed it out, put
(16:28):
it in the mail, sent it to thePlayboy mansion in LA and he
read it and they called me onthe landline at my college house
where I lived with like eightother roommates, that's what I'm
talking about Literally, isn'tthat wild.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
It's amazing.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
It is weird to think that it all worked out.
And yeah, they called hisassistant, called me.
I remember my roommate Michelleis with the phone, she's like
Hugh Hefner's assistant's on thephone and I was like holy shit.
And she's like you know, hethgot your letter dear and was
really interested.
And what I basically said washe and I went to the same
college, university of Illinois,and there was a Hugh Hefner
(17:05):
magazine scholarship at myschool in the journalism
department that my professorsawarded to me.
So that was my like.
In was like I won yourscholarship awarded to me.
So that was my like.
In was like I won yourscholarship.
And he was like we'd love tohave you come into the Chicago
office for an interview.
And so I was like, oh my God.
(17:26):
So I went in, interviewed foran internship when I graduated.
I was supposed to be a sixmonth thing on the editorial
staff and then I worked therefor 10 years.
Did you ever go to the mansion?
I did.
Yes, I have All right when youand I have drinks sometime or go
out.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
We I'll tell you my mansion.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
Oh my God, I love really good tea from the mansion
, really good.
Yes, okay, cool, yeah, it wasfun.
It's everything you've heard,like all the debauchery and
stuff.
That is fully true.
And I will say, though, becausepeople are like, did you work
with Heth?
I worked with him pretty closelybecause we did some.
There was like these partypages in the front of the
(18:00):
magazine that was likephotographs from all his parties
, and I worked on that with himand he was great.
I loved him.
He was very respectful to me.
I never felt any type of waylike that.
I, you know, it was like I'veheard people coming out after
the fact who said that you know,not people that worked in the
magazine, but like some of theplaymates and stuff that you
know.
Maybe he wasn't didn't treatthem with respect, but I never,
(18:25):
ever felt that way.
I always felt respected and Ireally liked, I really enjoyed
working with him.
He was a trip.
Um, he yes, a lot of theparties were like it was like
the midsummer night's dream, sothe dress code was like lingerie
or less, so he would be in hislike pajamas with a robe, and
yeah, he usually was that'sreally how he dressed.
(18:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
But so you're.
You're actually writing aseries of books.
Infertility, yes, so.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
I have some.
Thank you so much for bringingthat up.
So I have a couple ofchildren's books.
My second one is actually justcoming out now for pre-order.
The first one was it's calledWork of Art, so it's a play on
like assisted reproductivetechnology and it's the story of
my son hearing me tell someonethat he was an IVF baby on the
(19:15):
playground and then him beinglike what does that mean?
I don't know what that means,and then me explaining to him
the way that he was born.
So it's a really theillustrator I'm working with,
who has signed on for like thewhole series, he's awesome, he's
in Buenos Aires and he's sotalented.
So I think the illustrationshave a lot to do with, um, how
(19:36):
much people really like the book, cause it's very cool looking
and he's just really talented.
So it's um, you know it's thewhole point of the books are to
normalize the conversation againaround.
You know families being builtin so many different ways and
you know kids who were bornthrough ART, ivf, iui, surrogacy
(19:57):
, all the things you knowfeeling normal about it and you
know, like, even though my sonand my daughter came into the
world very differently, like wewanted them both so badly and we
just want to take any stigmaaway that might be out there.
You know, with people thinkingthat ART is like less than or
different, you know it's justit's.
(20:17):
It's all coming from a place oflove, like all these kids have
been created coming from a placeof love.
So the first book work of artis like my family story.
And then the next book it'scalled beautiful bird and it's a
different family building story.
It's about an IUI and it'sabout a sperm donor and an LGBTQ
plus couple and it's just kindof, again, it's just like a
(20:39):
thoroughly modern family story.
So it's been really fun to workon these and they're all true
stories, people that I know whoare in my life.
And then the next one will be adonor egg story and then I'm
going to do a surrogacy story.
So just, you know, trying tocreate again like kind of with
the podcast, just putting stuffout there where people can be
(20:59):
like I can relate to that.
That's me, that's my story.
You know there's not a lot outthere right now, not that
there's no children's books, butyou know I'm just trying to
contribute to the libraries ofpeople you know who, even if
your, your child, didn't comeinto the world that way.
To have that in your libraryand be like this is another way
that like things can happen.
(21:20):
I think it's just all aboutacceptance and, you know, making
it normal.
Yeah, no, I love that.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
I love the whole idea of the book series.
What is your, do you like inyour ideal world?
Would you stop doing editingfor like anything else, and like
be fully immersed in somethingthat has to do with the
infertility world?
And like parlaying your podcast?
Or like what's your vision for?
Speaker 2 (21:46):
that Mostly.
It's like 95% of what I doanyway.
And you know I have FertilityRally too, which is a community
of members all over the country.
So that's kind of like thepodcast, the rally and the books
are like the three parts of thefertility stuff that I'm doing.
I'm actually starting to workon some menopause stuff and
(22:13):
possibly doing a menopausepodcast with a company that I've
been talking to.
So, again, sharing stories,talking to experts, you know all
that stuff.
So I think women's health, likethe women's health space in
general, is you know where Iwill be for the rest of my
career but touching on alldifferent things.
You know that aren't not thatmenopause isn't being talked
about because it really ishaving a moment, but I feel all
(22:33):
different things.
You know that aren't not thatmenopause isn't being talked
about because it really ishaving a moment, but I feel like
, with what we're talking aboutdoing, it would be different
than anything that's out thereright now.
So, again, just sharing stories, blasting stigmas and all that
stuff.
That's great.
Yeah, I love that.
Well, can you tell us a littlemore about the rally?
Yeah, so Fertility Rally is acommunity I co-founded with a
(22:55):
woman named Blair Nelson wholives in Austin and she and I
met through my podcast.
She was one of my early guestsand then we just kept talking
and hit it off as friends andCOVID hit, you know, in 2020, as
everyone remembers, fuckingawful time for so many people
and we were just on Zoom all thetime and we started hosting
(23:17):
these like Zoom support group orlike happy hours, basically,
where we would, you know, we'dmet people in the Instagram
community who were talking aboutfertility and infertility.
So we started hosting thesecalls and like does anybody want
to come and talk about whatthey're going through?
And it just turned into a thingLike.
I remember one call we had like60 people on it.
We were like holy shit, shouldwe like make this a thing?
(23:39):
So we created a membership, youknow, called Fertility Rally,
and basically we still do thesame things.
We have four to five differentsupport groups virtually every
single week.
She and I host one every singleWednesday night and we have
since June of 2020.
We have other hosts who do youknow, different, different
(24:00):
groups throughout the week andsince we launched, we've had
almost 5000 members, you know,kind of come through the doors.
So, again, it's just another wayto like create a space and,
like I said earlier, like it's aselfish to like create a space
and, like I said earlier, likeit's a selfish like these are
all the things I wish I had whenI was in the thick of it, so
like I keep, what else do I wishI would have had?
(24:21):
Oh, a community, oh, books, youknow all this stuff.
So everything I'm creating isjust basically coming from the
place of like, what do I wish I?
Speaker 1 (24:30):
had.
Yeah, but that's the right spot.
Right, Because you're trying toserve the person that you were,
so it's like yeah why, would Inot want to like figure out how
to give the resources.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
That totally yeah.
And also, with the rally we'redoing, we have an IRL event
coming up in Nashville whereit's just a fun bonding weekend.
So we've this will be our fifthone we did one last year in
Austin, we've done them inChicago, we did another one in
Austin and we did one in Jersey,which wasn't like a whole
weekend, it was just like adinner.
But we are just all meetingdown there, you know whoever
(25:03):
wants to come, who's a member,current or former, and spending
the weekend just having fun andbonding.
And so we do stuff like thattoo.
I love that.
It's kind of like a retreat,but there's not like programming
.
We basically just like we havelike a pool day and we have a
nice dinner and we have like adrinks thing and you know it's
just coming like a big girlsweekend yeah, our tagline is
(25:24):
worst club, best members, soit's just a good excuse to get
all these awesome peopletogether from all over the
country who otherwise might notbe in the same room together.
You know what I mean?
Like I look around the rallygroup sometimes and I'm like I
never would have met her, everif it wasn't for infertility,
you know?
Or like the ages are sodifferent and the backgrounds
are so different, but the commonthread is like we've all been
(25:46):
through this trauma of our ownkind.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
Anything else you want to make sure that we let
the community know, let peepsknow about you, before we wrap
Allie.
Other than that, you're justyou know fantastic on so many
levels.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
I want to hang out with you we're going to.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
That's what I want.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
Where are you again?
I'm in Jersey.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
Okay, so you're not that far away.
No, we it out yeah for sure.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
But yeah, I mean, I think the only thing, the only
other thing I would say is justif anybody's listening who is
going through any sort offertility struggles or journeys,
like, please reach out to me.
You know I'm, my DMs are open.
On Instagram you can check outlike a rally support group and
see if you like it before youcommit to anything.
You know the books I'mself-publishing them, so it's
(26:38):
always like word of mouth isgreat.
So if somebody is, you know,checked out work of art or
beautiful bird and likes it,like, spread the word to your
friends.
You know it's.
It's again all just trying tonormalize, you know, all this
stuff and help people feel lessalone.
So if anybody is struggling,like, please know you're not
alone, even if you think thatwhat you're going through is so
(26:58):
different, like there'sdefinitely somebody out there
who's gone through somethingsimilar and I'm happy to connect
people.
You know I love putting peopletogether.
Like, oh, you should talk tothis person and you know, just,
I feel like you know the onething I love and I think I
mentioned this to you before islike what I really love about
you is like you're a girl's girland like you can tell you like
(27:19):
to lift up other women and otherpeople who are doing important
things and worthy things, and Ireally admire that about other
women, like the older I get, themore I'm like does this person
show up?
Like that's such an importantquality to me, so just know that
.
Like I know you show up foryour community and your friends.
(27:40):
Like I try to show up, but likeif people are out there feeling
like they don't have anybodythat shows up, reach out to me.
I love that.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Well, I'm so happy that, for whatever reason, our
paths cross.
I know I was stalking you, me.
We're now, we're friends.
You can't, you can't, you can'tget rid of me.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
I love it.
I can't wait to do I know let'sseriously stay in touch.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
All right, carrie, thank you, I'll talk to you soon
.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
Thank you for having me and I'll talk to you, okay,
ally.
Thank you okay, bye.
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