April 29, 2020 • 29 mins
Kelly talks to Wall Street Journal financial journalist, Julia Carpenter, about the costs women look at with egg freezing. Julia gives some loop holes and ways to cuts the costs. She also talks about why women are thinking about this at a younger age, including women in their twenties.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is Kelly Henderson, and you are listening to the
Velvet Edge podcast. Last week, on the podcast, I talked
to Whitney Bischoff from over egg Freezing, and we talked
about women's fertility and the egg freezing process in general.
What we didn't talk about was the financial aspect of
this process, and I've gotten a ton of questions from
you guys about the cost before, during, and after egg freezing.
(00:21):
I called financial journalists for the Wall Street Journal, Julia Carpenter,
who has written some really great pieces addressing this topic.
We talked through all of the cost you will be
looking at if you do decide to freeze your eggs,
and also the loopholes that Julia has found for cutting cost.
She also told me, as a twenty eight year old,
why she and her friends are already starting the fertility
conversation and what kind of saving they are doing to
(00:43):
cover all their options. Here's our conversation. Okay, so you
obviously cover personal finances for the Wall Street Journal, which
I'm sure has revolved a lot around this coronavirus pandemic lately. Right, totally, Yeah,
it's pretty much all we're writing about. Writing out can
imagine it's just seems like it's changing every day too,
so I'm sure there's a lot of updates to give.
(01:04):
But I initially found you because of an article you
wrote for the Journal about the economics of freezing your eggs,
and like we were talking about before, I've gone through
the process of freezing my eggs, and I've talked a
lot on this podcast about the medical aspect and just
kind of what your body goes through, but what I
haven't really addressed is the cost, and that's a huge
(01:27):
part of this whole process. Yeah. Yeah, I think this
piece was so important to me for that exact reason.
It's a piece that I actually have been pitching for
a couple years and that I wanted to do as
soon as I started at the Journal, so I talked
as my editor about it right away. I had actually
pitched it in my job interview because it is something
(01:48):
that I spent so much time talking about with my
friends and with my family, But there didn't seem to
be any answers out there about how to prepare financially
for this. Yeah, there were a lot. Yeah, so much discussion,
and you obviously know this from your personal experience, but
so much discussion about the kind of medical preparedness and
(02:08):
the personal preparedness, but very little about the financial preparedness.
And to me, those three things, both in my life
and then also in the life of my friends who
are considering this, those three things touch all aligne in
order a good experience, and so I really wanted to
explore that and to dive a bit deeper into that
and to think about this from kind of a personal
(02:30):
finance angle but also like individual wallet angle. Well, and also,
like we were talking about before, you're you just turned
twenty nine, so you're a lot younger than I am,
and the fact that you guys are already talking about
this was so fascinating to me and exciting. So what
has it? What does that look like amongst your friend group? Yeah? Yeah,
so I think I think I definitely run with a
(02:52):
group of probably like type A Tracy Flick overachievers to
be part of it. You know, two of my best
friends we always joke that are our conversations always revolve
around goal setting, whether it be you know, what are
your summer goals? Like are you going to get really
into journaling? Are you gonna before in this personal project?
(03:13):
Are you gonna like make some headway on this. He
had like a whole New Year's party specifically around each other.
It's like nerdy, but it's totally who I am, and
I think who who I tend to gravitate to. But
also I'm a queer woman and I'm in a relationship
with another woman, and I have a girlfriend of six years.
So it's something that I've talked about a lot because
(03:36):
it's kind of the reality is of how I would
start a family. You know, it's not gonna be and
I addressed this in the piece of it, but so
many of my heterospectual friends, you know, there's there's this
question in their mind of like, well, maybe I'll meet
somebody or maybe I'll be ready at this kind of
future date and I'll have a baby, uh or that way.
And for me, it's something that I have to think
(03:57):
about kind of on the front end. You know, I'm
not going to have I'm not going to conceive a
baby in the way that my mom can see me.
I'm not going to conceive a baby in the way
that many of my friends will can see. There's I
have to think about freezing my eggs to act, to
think about a joction and fostering and pred of all
these other avenues that that fires some planning on the
front end. So it's kind of critical if that corn deals.
(04:18):
Sometimes I think that it's it's just off in my
natural inclination as well as like the direction of my
life just as a queer woman. But it's so, you know,
I know so many people who they are juggling all
these different saving saving schools already, whether it be paying
down their debt or saving for our house. And for
many of the women I know, especially unpartnered women or
(04:41):
or women who you know, have always wanted to start
their families, but you know, maybe haven't found the right
way to do it, or haven't found the right person
to to partner with and do it with. They're already
thinking about this because they're making that negotiation in their minds.
You know, they're thinking, does this money I have that
I would put into my savings account. Does this money
I have go to a house? Does it go to
a John Clement? Does it go to eliminating my student debt?
(05:04):
Does it go to breathing me up? Does it? And
especially with freezing your heads, as you know, you know,
the timing is kind of everything. So I think for
a lot of women I speak with, that's the most
urgent of all these goals because they think, well, I
don't have to own a house right now, but I
do have to think about my body, and I have
to think about when I'm gonna want to be a
mom and whom I'm gonna want to to do this absolutely,
(05:28):
and that's something that I I wish it would have
been on my radar a lot earlier. And like you mentioned,
you know, the buying the house, the if you have
student debt paying that off, or I think as a
heterosexual woman, unfortunately a lot of women are like, well,
I'll just wait till I get married and we'll figure
this out, and like a lot of your financial goals
are tied to that. Especially. I mean, I'm from the South,
(05:49):
so a lot of us are taught at a really
young age that you just don't really think about that
stuff until you find the guy you're going to settle
down with, you know. So I think it's honestly, I
think it's a great thing that these conversations are starting
to happen so much earlier. Totally totally, and I'm actually
I grew up in Georgia. I grew up in Sudana
(06:09):
and that was something they think definitely, you know, from
a cultural perspective, wasn't talked about as much for me, um,
And I really identify with what you said about so
much of so much of my life. I was thinking, okay,
well that's all post marriage exactly, doing this about that
other part of my life. And I think for a
lot of women my age, we're coming kind of coming up.
(06:30):
I'm threaty, coming up on these huge milestones and thinking, Okay,
well that hasn't happened, whether I chose not part to
happen or you know, it's just not happened. So like
what do I do now? How do I prepare for that? Right? So,
what are the conversations amongst your friend group as far
as like the actual saving for this? I mean, is
it something that you start to prioritize and start to
(06:51):
think about, like maybe I need to start putting this
much away um, or I need to start a separate
savings account for this, or how are these conversations going right? Right? Well?
Something I found out in the piece that was super
illuminating to me but also made complete sense given the
conversations I've had with other ways is that the vast
majority of women are paying for this with their personal savings.
(07:13):
So I think we should this conversation about how this
benefit and that more companies everything it affordable. And I'm
looking enough to work at a company that that does
offer some money for this, but it's still a huge
cost that a lot of women are relying on their
personal savings for. So if you're thinking about something that's
going to cost thousands of dollars, and some of the
(07:34):
data I found for my piece estimates that women will
spend around fifteen thousand dollars freezing their ads in total,
you know, it's keep kind of a huge life changing
some of the money that's something that now. So I've
spoken with women who've already started setting aside some money
that I fit for this. I've spoken with women who
already kind of talked with their family or other people
(07:55):
about you know, maybe the money that the parents would
offer for a downteen it goes to business shud or
you know. I spoke with one company who are actually
they're offering what they call grand babylons where it had
shows grandparents are actually another family members as well, not
just grandparents are actually helping funds um fertility costs, so
that then you're working with your family, you know, your
(08:19):
extended family or or your parents directly in order to
fund starting your family this way. Yeah, I actually loved
some of the tips you gave. I do want to
get into that later, but you mentioned the cost, and
from my experience, um, the first round, it is around
fifteen thousand dollars. For me, the first round did not
work and so I had to rebuy some of the
(08:40):
shots that I had already used from the last round,
so it was another two thousand dollars. So this starts
to get very expensive the more it happens. And you know,
like I said earlier m. Thirty seven, and so for me,
it was probably always going to be more than one round.
And that's kind of the deal with this. That's so
interesting because someone maybe your age, would be physically in
(09:05):
a better place to do this process because our eggs,
you have more eggs, your eggs are better quality. But financially,
like a twenty eight year old usually is not set
up to spend this much of a lump sum completely. No,
I mean what you decide. I think it's kind of
the most important point and that's the thing I kept
talking about with my editor but also with people as
(09:27):
I was reporting, is that this this money is so
elusive for so many younger women, and that's so damning
for their chances because you're, you're more successful the younger
you are. You know, you're you're able to squeeze more eggs,
You're able to like kind of chime it out more more,
(09:47):
um with with more ideas for your career and with
like kind of more advantages for how you wanted to
structure your life. But it's it's money that until you
reach a certain step in your career, certain stuff in
your wife just doesn't exist for many of its the
time to say it, or you're not that requires it yet.
(10:09):
Um So, I mean, the one thing that was really
illuminating for me though in the piece is I know
you said you that's the age. And one of the
studies that I looked at it said that it was
kind of the game changer for so many women that
women who had frozen there as before turning twenty seven
at or sorry thirty seven at thirty seven, that was
then the biggest differential when it came to their chances
(10:31):
of getting pregnant, but women at thirty seven who hadn't
frozen there as we're really at a at a much
greater disadvantage when it came to getting pregnant. So it's
kind of like there's all these junctures along the way.
But I think for a lot of women is just
completely opafe and like super mysterious. And then until you
start thinking about it, it's often that you look up
and you're like, Okay, wait, crap, now I have two
(10:52):
years as apposed to ten years exactly. I mean, I
think I talked about this a lot, and I talked
about this on another podcast with a nurse nurse from
my egg freezing process. But my gynecologist when I turned
thirty five was like, Okay, what are your plans for pregnancy? Like,
are you in a relationship? What are you looking at here?
Because immediately when you turn thirty five, that is the
(11:12):
conversation that starts. It's like, I mean, they call it
a geriatric pregnancy after that, which is just absurd because
you know, I'm feeling like great about life at that
age and so to think that my body is not
going to be able to physically do these things is crazy.
But it is true, and I think that that is
the reality that women do need to start facing and
(11:33):
and really looking at, which is why this conversation is
so important to me. But luckily we have all these
options now. Yeah, And I think especially for for me,
as I was recording this story, I was realizing more
and more that all of the ads in my Instagram
feed or for fertility companies or you know all podcast
(11:54):
it's like, there's way more people in this space than
ever before. Exectually simultaneously be like really helpful that you
have all these different options. But for a lot of
women too, it's really intimidating because they well, you know,
which is which is the first step that I should
be taking, you know, should I do the fertility test,
like should I order this at home a test? Should
(12:17):
I go to the doctor? Should I go to one
of these clinics? Should I buy a membership for long
these pnics? It can get really overwhelming really quickly. Absolutely,
So let's talk a little bit about that, because, um,
you know you do mention also in your article that
some insurances do cover this, like you mentioned earlier to
your company has a policy in place that they help
financially with this, right yeah, so we we have as
(12:41):
part of our benefits package, we have a partnership of
this company called Progeny. I think it's UM. It's pretty
common for a lot of major employers like mine to
offer some sort of assistance or at least just getting
more and more common. The way project works is that
they bundle fertility treatments into what they call smart cycles,
So you can activate different smart cycles for different fertility treatments.
(13:04):
So some women I work with have access that for
I d S and some then I have worked with,
access that ford for example, it's freezing. It's something I
was really curious about. So I started a conversation with
them about that to kind of understand what a smart
cycle wouldn't pale in terms of uh, egg freezing or
you know how that applies. But so the kind of
the issue for me was that for each of these cycles,
(13:26):
my employer would cover eighty percent of that cost. And so,
like I said, that could be you know, spart freezing
or like uh, embryo transfer, like all these different all
of these different treatments. UM. But then that still leaves
me with my coinsurance costs, which is in many cases
still thousands of dollars or you know points, maybe the
(13:47):
first round doesn't work for me and so I need
to do another round. So it's it's still very helpful.
I'm definitely grateful that my company offered us up, but
it's definitely not kind of a carte blanche to then,
you know, go head first into this world and like
kegles the truthments that they offer, right, I guess every
little bit counts, but yes, it's still something you have
to plan for. Let's talk about two. If you mentioned,
(14:11):
you know, getting the fertility test, and I've noticed in
your article there was a lot of different options of
the at home fertility tests that I had, I was
not aware of even I always tell people I think
that information, like knowledge is power for sure in this situation.
So know what you're dealing with, because you might be fine,
Like you might have a completely different situation than you
(14:32):
know I had or anyone else my age might have.
But if you don't know, you can't act. So tell
me a little bit about the things you learned about
the at home stuff. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think
the thing that has been a game changer for so
many women is that those fertility tests once cost hundreds
of dollars and they were really inaccessible, and now there's
(14:53):
so much more accessible. You can take them at many
clinics like kind Body is one of the clinics that
I went and visited, and they offer for just three
hundred bucks um. There's home kits from places like Modern Fertility,
which I'm sure a lot of your listeners have seen
because they have a ton of Instagram ads and are
in are really visible in that space that's less than
two hundred dollars um. But I'm kind of a two
(15:16):
minds of the test, I think because after researching this piece,
I was really impressed to how affordable so many of
those tests were, and it definitely seemed like an easy
first step. And and I think, you know, I mentioned
my my friends that I do my goal setting with,
you know, those like other nerdy friends. That was actually
one of my goals for the beginning of the year.
(15:37):
I was writing this piece and I said, Okay, I
need to just get fertility tested. You know, I keep
talking about it, I'm writing this piece. It's on my
mind all the time. I need to just do it.
And they were like, yeah, do it, you know, we
support you, you know, great. Cool, And then as I
was talking with more and more experts for this piece,
I don't know. I feel like it depends on who
you are and what stages the process you're in. You know.
(15:58):
I spoke with one expert. He said, I think that
you're going to take the test, and you're going to
spend that money on the test, and then you're gonna
come away with two options. You're either going to say,
oh wow, you know, my E reserve is really low,
I should freeze my asaps, or you're gonna come away
and say, oh wow, I am doing really great and
my AG preserve is really high, so I should freeze
(16:19):
my ad asaps. You know. It's kind of winning you
in that seame direction regardless. Um, and I know I
also took with a ton of experts and and this
is kind of up for debate, I think in in
that community. But I spoke with experts who said, you know,
some of those testbook flads, like some of them can't
give you results that are is true to your actual
reserve as it actually is. So I think I love
(16:41):
two minds about it. Part of me thinks it's a
really great step for women who are curious about this.
It's a really low lift way. Uh, Like I said,
very affordable way for them to learn more about this
world and to take it a bit more seriously if
this is something they're already considering. But for somebody like
me who's kind of at the very beginning of the process,
I think I walked away thinking, you know what, like
I taking that trust, just gonna kind of confirm with
(17:03):
that expert said, you know that I'm gonna do it
or I'm gonna do it. So I'm hoil I'm ready
to do it until I'm kind of at that juncture.
It doesn't make sense for me to do right now.
That makes a lot of sense actually, and you're at
an age where you have that luxury to you know,
like you can wait a couple of years until you're
actually ready to go through the process. Totally. I'm really
fortunate in that regard that I, you know, I'm not
(17:25):
working on its tide of a time frame I think
is a lot of other women are. Yeah, you also mentioned,
um this was something I had never even heard of.
A company called Carrot, which is a debit card for
women that helps pay for fertility procedures. Is that true?
I know, I know Carrott is a huge player in
the space. I've been having conversations with them, I think
since two thousand seventeen or so article I wrote, and
(17:50):
I've just watched them get bigger and bigger. The debit
card is their latest innovation, and what it does is
for the for the companies they work with. Carrot actually
sends you a debit card with the benefit preloaded on.
So before with a lot of people men and women,
UM and non binary folks to reusing Carrot, they would
go through the procedure and then get reimbursed on the
(18:13):
back end. But now that they have the debit card,
you don't even have to do that. It's kind of crazy. Wow, Okay,
and then you, I mean, yeah, I didn't see. I
didn't know about any of these things. I was just
suffering through the cost myself, which you know, maybe that's fine,
but it would have been it would have been a
really good thing to educate myself on. Also, you mentioned
the grand Baby Plan, so that's through Future Family. Is
(18:35):
that the company? Yeah? Yeah, There's there's so many different
players in this space, Like you mentioned herret Modern Patility
Proact me, Like, there's so many of them. Future Family
is the one that offers the grand baby plan, And
that's the plan I mentioned earlier where family members and
you know, even potential grandparents like your own parents, they
can partner with you to form some kind of loan
(18:56):
or like financial assistant plan, so then they actually are
helping you cover the cost. That's great, Okay, So tell
me where you stand with your decision. I mean, I know,
like you said, you're not fully ready to make this commitment,
but as a twenty or twenty nine. I keep calling
you twenty eight because you were when you were at
the article. Um, but you know, something you talked about
(19:17):
was the cost of a maybe, and like I want
to get into that, but I want to know where
your head is right now in this process. Yeah, I
mean turning twenty nine was definitely kind of a uh.
I feel like it's almost even more than thirty with
like a mouse sounds for me, because thirty for me
is kind of and I think for many women too,
(19:37):
it's kind of this team marcation where things are really
serious and you know those from your personal experience. Like
in the course of reporting this piece, I looked at
so many scary sharks and so many like really intimidating
graphics about you know, when when makes sense and like
when your pregnancy is most likely to be successful. So
I think some more I kind of dove into this,
(20:00):
though it made me think, like all right, I really
need to back up and think about how I wanted
to start my family and like how I want to
do this, and like what my girlfriend thinks about this,
because she's my partner too, She's my life partner, and
so I need to talk to her as well, because
me freezing my eggs going through this process, like spending
this money, that's something that's going to affect her too,
(20:22):
you know, that's something that's the decision for her as well,
and like who we would want to carry if a
big decision, Like the more and more I got into
this world, the more I realized, like, this is not
a flippant decision. This is not saying yeah, and you
obviously know that too from having actually gone through with it.
Like I think I was realizing, like not even are
the medicinal stake so high and the process is so intense,
(20:43):
but like the financial stake, girls are really high, you know,
like fifteen dollars is a huge life altering some of money.
I said that at the beginning, but it's so real
and so thinking about what that means to me, how
I should prepare for it, you know, how I could
actually set my life up to make that happen. That
requires way more thinking. And so I kind of got
through this this space where I all right, it's not
(21:06):
as dire right now as it will be in like
three years. So I need to take this time to
really mole on my options, Like I need to take
this time to think, do I want to do this?
If so, how do I prepare for it? Do I
want to instead, like think way more seriously about adoption?
If so, how do I prepare for that? When do
I even want to be a mom? Like? There are
all these questions that I felt like I was weirdly
(21:28):
thinking of. Ed breezing is a way to postpone all
those questions and all of those answers, And it's not
it's like an avenue toward all of those things. Yeah,
it was kind of laughing because you are speaking exactly
what happened to me. It is so true, so true. Yeah,
I think I think so many women too, And you know,
I was speaking with so many of my friends who
(21:49):
have been pregnant or who you know have gone through
this or talking with them, and I was realizing more
and more like we just need to be talking about
this so much more because I realize like how many
women around me had confronted this or had confronted these questions,
and you know, going into this blind it was just
never going to be my chile because since I told you,
(22:11):
I'm like a Tracy flip over. But you know, I
I really felt so empowered kind of researching this because
it was, you know, really important for me to write
a comprehensive article and a good article that could help
other people, but it was also really important for me,
I think, to confront a lot of these questions and
to think way more seriously about who I am and
what I want from it well, and those questions, I mean,
(22:34):
you know that is the hard part because then this
day and age, a lot of us are really chasing
our careers first, and then we want to think about family,
and luckily we have these options to where those things
can all be possible. But it's like you said, you
really have to ask yourself the hard questions, like how
do I want to have a family, What if I
(22:54):
am in a relationship, what if I'm not in a relationship,
what does that look like? Or you know, for your situation,
what does that look like? And is adoption of more
feasible option? Absolutely? Absolutely? And you know, even thinking about
that more, I realized that my company also has financial
assistance for adoption, also has financial assistance for fraga. See,
(23:18):
there's a whole world that you know, not all employers
and and maybe now and it's really very time fewer employers,
but a lot of employers are providing assistance for these things.
And and it's up to so many women I know
to actually ask those questions. And it can feel really intimidating,
it can feel really overwhelming, like I was overwhelmed with
so many different points throughout this process. But then I
(23:38):
walked away from it feeling way less intimidated because I
felt like I at least had kind of the information
I needed to map out what I wanted to do exactly.
And you're doing at a time where you don't have
to make a decision like you know, when I was
doing it, I was like, I need to do this now,
like I have to make this decision now. It which
is a whole another added pressure and something that you
kind of don't want to be going through you don't
(24:00):
want any added pressure if you are putting your body
through the hormones or any sort of any sort of
physical thing like that. Absolutely. Absolutely. You talked to you
um a doctor, Dr Steiner, and she said, it is
it is really hard in your twenties to know where
you're going to be, right, so how do you how
(24:20):
what would you say to other twenty year olds that
might be listening, like is it just to start educating yourself?
Totally totally and Dr Steiner was she was so um
so eliminating to talk to me because when she said that,
it kind of unlocked this thing for me because she worked,
you know, she she's such an expert, such a pre
(24:44):
eminent um fertility specialists, and talking with her, I realized, like, Okay,
if she is she thinking that this is individual then
it's not just me. You know, if she thinks because
she's so individualized decisions for personal it's so different for
some many women, Like it doesn't just mean then I'm
you know, I'm going through this alone, or that I'm
(25:04):
like the only person who's asking these questions. It means
that this is something that she's seeing again and again
from other people who want really specific answers or you know,
advice tailor to their lives. And the way that we
can do that is to do it ourselves, you know,
to actually read all of the material out there, to
like kind of survey the options, to think really critically
(25:24):
about them, and to and to think too about kind
of where all those different pieces of your life will align,
you know, like taking some of it, some of the
pressure off one part of your life doesn't take the
pressure off the rest of your list, and kind of
deciding which one you're going to juggle at which time.
I think it's like the way bigger question here, absolutely,
And I think like this is in my mind, the
(25:45):
best conversation for all women to be having amongst your
friend groups, with your sisters, with your mom, even just
because we have so many more options now and nobody
seems to be talking about it for some reason still,
and I'm just like, educate yourself, like you even educated
me with all of these companies that are helping financially.
So it's just like, let's just start talking about it
(26:07):
at least and get all the information out there so
that we can all make informed, empowered decisions. Yeah, I
think that there's there's this one problem where the space
feels really, really, really crowded right now. So if you
even just google you know and Freezing, or if you
google like one of these companies names, you've got just
bombarded with all of this India. And I wanted to
(26:30):
train you with like stitch through some of that, because
I feel like you are bombarding all at this info
and so you back away from it or you start
waiting into it, and then you realize, wait, actually, like
this is way Murphy again. I thought like, yes, there's
all of these sources out there. Yes, there's all of
these companies out there, but like it's hard to kind
of decide what works for you or what feels right
(26:50):
for you. And that's where I think you're so right
and recommending that people talk to other women and talk
to other families. You know. I had a really dear friend, UM,
and you know, he's actually he's one of my former bosses,
but he and his family are our neighbors and they're
such a good friends of our family. And I am
so grateful to him, UM for reaching out to me
after a publish this Kieth, And all he said was,
(27:12):
you know, any time you want to talk to me
and Brandy and got this jo you can And I thought,
you know, like, I really appreciate that. You know, this
is a straight man with two kids, and she still
looks like, hey, like, anytime you want to talk about this,
we can talk about it. You know, it's not off
limits in our friendship. And I really appreciated that totally.
The more I've talked about it, the more conversation has
(27:35):
just come naturally to me from someone saying I've been
through that too. You know, you mentioned you're not alone,
none of us are. It's just for some reason, a
lot of people don't talk about it. I didn't even
realize how many friends I had that had gone through
the egg reason process because they just hadn't talked about it.
So the more we put it out there, I think
there's nothing bad that can come from that. I'm going
(27:55):
to link your article in the description of this podcast,
so you guys go check out Julia's are cool with
all of this information. It has all the companies we
talked about, and even more just information about what this
process looks like, the costs and all of that. Where
else can people find you? Julian um I bombed pretty
much all social media. Carper, say that one more time.
(28:19):
I think you cut out. Oh yeah, I'm on pretty
much all social media at at Julia see Carpenter, just
use my middle initials and yeah, I write for the
journal and you can find me just at w dot
com and search re maining. Actually, when I was researching
this conversation, I went deep on your Twitter. It's very entertaining.
(28:41):
So you guys go check out julius Twitter. She's very
funny and you're always linking funny articles and other memes
you see, especially right now, I mean coronavirus memes. Are
I feel like people are thriving? Yes, yes, what's getting
me through? Yeah, it's actually the same for me. Um.
You guys, go check out Julia. Thank you so much
for being here. I really appreciate this conversation and just
(29:03):
all you sharing all your information with us. Thank you.
I really appreciate you talking about this topic and I'm
until appreciative of your time and as the conversation. Thank
you guys for listening. This is Kelly Henderson and you've
been listening to the Velvet's Edge podcast. I truly believe
that every one of us has a little Velvet and
a little Edge, so it's so important to remember that
(29:25):
to be strong, you must be soft too. Thank you
so much for sharing in those stories with me. You
can follow velvet's Edge on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, as
well as velvet's Edge dot com. If you haven't yet,
go to Apple Podcast and subscribe, rate and review this podcast.
Join me every Wednesday for more conversations on lifestyle, beauty,
(29:46):
and relationships. Thanks for listening.
This is Kelly Henderson, and you are listening to the
Velvet Edge podcast. Last week, on the podcast, I talked
to Whitney Bischoff from over egg Freezing, and we talked
about women's fertility and the egg freezing process in general.
What we didn't talk about was the financial aspect of
this process, and I've gotten a ton of questions from
you guys about the cost before, during, and after egg freezing.
(00:21):
I called financial journalists for the Wall Street Journal, Julia Carpenter,
who has written some really great pieces addressing this topic.
We talked through all of the cost you will be
looking at if you do decide to freeze your eggs,
and also the loopholes that Julia has found for cutting cost.
She also told me, as a twenty eight year old,
why she and her friends are already starting the fertility
conversation and what kind of saving they are doing to
(00:43):
cover all their options. Here's our conversation. Okay, so you
obviously cover personal finances for the Wall Street Journal, which
I'm sure has revolved a lot around this coronavirus pandemic lately. Right, totally, Yeah,
it's pretty much all we're writing about. Writing out can
imagine it's just seems like it's changing every day too,
so I'm sure there's a lot of updates to give.
(01:04):
But I initially found you because of an article you
wrote for the Journal about the economics of freezing your eggs,
and like we were talking about before, I've gone through
the process of freezing my eggs, and I've talked a
lot on this podcast about the medical aspect and just
kind of what your body goes through, but what I
haven't really addressed is the cost, and that's a huge
(01:27):
part of this whole process. Yeah. Yeah, I think this
piece was so important to me for that exact reason.
It's a piece that I actually have been pitching for
a couple years and that I wanted to do as
soon as I started at the Journal, so I talked
as my editor about it right away. I had actually
pitched it in my job interview because it is something
(01:48):
that I spent so much time talking about with my
friends and with my family, But there didn't seem to
be any answers out there about how to prepare financially
for this. Yeah, there were a lot. Yeah, so much discussion,
and you obviously know this from your personal experience, but
so much discussion about the kind of medical preparedness and
(02:08):
the personal preparedness, but very little about the financial preparedness.
And to me, those three things, both in my life
and then also in the life of my friends who
are considering this, those three things touch all aligne in
order a good experience, and so I really wanted to
explore that and to dive a bit deeper into that
and to think about this from kind of a personal
(02:30):
finance angle but also like individual wallet angle. Well, and also,
like we were talking about before, you're you just turned
twenty nine, so you're a lot younger than I am,
and the fact that you guys are already talking about
this was so fascinating to me and exciting. So what
has it? What does that look like amongst your friend group? Yeah? Yeah,
so I think I think I definitely run with a
(02:52):
group of probably like type A Tracy Flick overachievers to
be part of it. You know, two of my best
friends we always joke that are our conversations always revolve
around goal setting, whether it be you know, what are
your summer goals? Like are you going to get really
into journaling? Are you gonna before in this personal project?
(03:13):
Are you gonna like make some headway on this. He
had like a whole New Year's party specifically around each other.
It's like nerdy, but it's totally who I am, and
I think who who I tend to gravitate to. But
also I'm a queer woman and I'm in a relationship
with another woman, and I have a girlfriend of six years.
So it's something that I've talked about a lot because
(03:36):
it's kind of the reality is of how I would
start a family. You know, it's not gonna be and
I addressed this in the piece of it, but so
many of my heterospectual friends, you know, there's there's this
question in their mind of like, well, maybe I'll meet
somebody or maybe I'll be ready at this kind of
future date and I'll have a baby, uh or that way.
And for me, it's something that I have to think
(03:57):
about kind of on the front end. You know, I'm
not going to have I'm not going to conceive a
baby in the way that my mom can see me.
I'm not going to conceive a baby in the way
that many of my friends will can see. There's I
have to think about freezing my eggs to act, to
think about a joction and fostering and pred of all
these other avenues that that fires some planning on the
front end. So it's kind of critical if that corn deals.
(04:18):
Sometimes I think that it's it's just off in my
natural inclination as well as like the direction of my
life just as a queer woman. But it's so, you know,
I know so many people who they are juggling all
these different saving saving schools already, whether it be paying
down their debt or saving for our house. And for
many of the women I know, especially unpartnered women or
(04:41):
or women who you know, have always wanted to start
their families, but you know, maybe haven't found the right
way to do it, or haven't found the right person
to to partner with and do it with. They're already
thinking about this because they're making that negotiation in their minds.
You know, they're thinking, does this money I have that
I would put into my savings account. Does this money
I have go to a house? Does it go to
a John Clement? Does it go to eliminating my student debt?
(05:04):
Does it go to breathing me up? Does it? And
especially with freezing your heads, as you know, you know,
the timing is kind of everything. So I think for
a lot of women I speak with, that's the most
urgent of all these goals because they think, well, I
don't have to own a house right now, but I
do have to think about my body, and I have
to think about when I'm gonna want to be a
mom and whom I'm gonna want to to do this absolutely,
(05:28):
and that's something that I I wish it would have
been on my radar a lot earlier. And like you mentioned,
you know, the buying the house, the if you have
student debt paying that off, or I think as a
heterosexual woman, unfortunately a lot of women are like, well,
I'll just wait till I get married and we'll figure
this out, and like a lot of your financial goals
are tied to that. Especially. I mean, I'm from the South,
(05:49):
so a lot of us are taught at a really
young age that you just don't really think about that
stuff until you find the guy you're going to settle
down with, you know. So I think it's honestly, I
think it's a great thing that these conversations are starting
to happen so much earlier. Totally totally, and I'm actually
I grew up in Georgia. I grew up in Sudana
(06:09):
and that was something they think definitely, you know, from
a cultural perspective, wasn't talked about as much for me, um,
And I really identify with what you said about so
much of so much of my life. I was thinking, okay,
well that's all post marriage exactly, doing this about that
other part of my life. And I think for a
lot of women my age, we're coming kind of coming up.
(06:30):
I'm threaty, coming up on these huge milestones and thinking, Okay,
well that hasn't happened, whether I chose not part to
happen or you know, it's just not happened. So like
what do I do now? How do I prepare for that? Right? So,
what are the conversations amongst your friend group as far
as like the actual saving for this? I mean, is
it something that you start to prioritize and start to
(06:51):
think about, like maybe I need to start putting this
much away um, or I need to start a separate
savings account for this, or how are these conversations going right? Right? Well?
Something I found out in the piece that was super
illuminating to me but also made complete sense given the
conversations I've had with other ways is that the vast
majority of women are paying for this with their personal savings.
(07:13):
So I think we should this conversation about how this
benefit and that more companies everything it affordable. And I'm
looking enough to work at a company that that does
offer some money for this, but it's still a huge
cost that a lot of women are relying on their
personal savings for. So if you're thinking about something that's
going to cost thousands of dollars, and some of the
(07:34):
data I found for my piece estimates that women will
spend around fifteen thousand dollars freezing their ads in total,
you know, it's keep kind of a huge life changing
some of the money that's something that now. So I've
spoken with women who've already started setting aside some money
that I fit for this. I've spoken with women who
already kind of talked with their family or other people
(07:55):
about you know, maybe the money that the parents would
offer for a downteen it goes to business shud or
you know. I spoke with one company who are actually
they're offering what they call grand babylons where it had
shows grandparents are actually another family members as well, not
just grandparents are actually helping funds um fertility costs, so
that then you're working with your family, you know, your
(08:19):
extended family or or your parents directly in order to
fund starting your family this way. Yeah, I actually loved
some of the tips you gave. I do want to
get into that later, but you mentioned the cost, and
from my experience, um, the first round, it is around
fifteen thousand dollars. For me, the first round did not
work and so I had to rebuy some of the
(08:40):
shots that I had already used from the last round,
so it was another two thousand dollars. So this starts
to get very expensive the more it happens. And you know,
like I said earlier m. Thirty seven, and so for me,
it was probably always going to be more than one round.
And that's kind of the deal with this. That's so
interesting because someone maybe your age, would be physically in
(09:05):
a better place to do this process because our eggs,
you have more eggs, your eggs are better quality. But financially,
like a twenty eight year old usually is not set
up to spend this much of a lump sum completely. No,
I mean what you decide. I think it's kind of
the most important point and that's the thing I kept
talking about with my editor but also with people as
(09:27):
I was reporting, is that this this money is so
elusive for so many younger women, and that's so damning
for their chances because you're, you're more successful the younger
you are. You know, you're you're able to squeeze more eggs,
You're able to like kind of chime it out more more,
(09:47):
um with with more ideas for your career and with
like kind of more advantages for how you wanted to
structure your life. But it's it's money that until you
reach a certain step in your career, certain stuff in
your wife just doesn't exist for many of its the
time to say it, or you're not that requires it yet.
(10:09):
Um So, I mean, the one thing that was really
illuminating for me though in the piece is I know
you said you that's the age. And one of the
studies that I looked at it said that it was
kind of the game changer for so many women that
women who had frozen there as before turning twenty seven
at or sorry thirty seven at thirty seven, that was
then the biggest differential when it came to their chances
(10:31):
of getting pregnant, but women at thirty seven who hadn't
frozen there as we're really at a at a much
greater disadvantage when it came to getting pregnant. So it's
kind of like there's all these junctures along the way.
But I think for a lot of women is just
completely opafe and like super mysterious. And then until you
start thinking about it, it's often that you look up
and you're like, Okay, wait, crap, now I have two
(10:52):
years as apposed to ten years exactly. I mean, I
think I talked about this a lot, and I talked
about this on another podcast with a nurse nurse from
my egg freezing process. But my gynecologist when I turned
thirty five was like, Okay, what are your plans for pregnancy? Like,
are you in a relationship? What are you looking at here?
Because immediately when you turn thirty five, that is the
(11:12):
conversation that starts. It's like, I mean, they call it
a geriatric pregnancy after that, which is just absurd because
you know, I'm feeling like great about life at that
age and so to think that my body is not
going to be able to physically do these things is crazy.
But it is true, and I think that that is
the reality that women do need to start facing and
(11:33):
and really looking at, which is why this conversation is
so important to me. But luckily we have all these
options now. Yeah, And I think especially for for me,
as I was recording this story, I was realizing more
and more that all of the ads in my Instagram
feed or for fertility companies or you know all podcast
(11:54):
it's like, there's way more people in this space than
ever before. Exectually simultaneously be like really helpful that you
have all these different options. But for a lot of
women too, it's really intimidating because they well, you know,
which is which is the first step that I should
be taking, you know, should I do the fertility test,
like should I order this at home a test? Should
(12:17):
I go to the doctor? Should I go to one
of these clinics? Should I buy a membership for long
these pnics? It can get really overwhelming really quickly. Absolutely,
So let's talk a little bit about that, because, um,
you know you do mention also in your article that
some insurances do cover this, like you mentioned earlier to
your company has a policy in place that they help
financially with this, right yeah, so we we have as
(12:41):
part of our benefits package, we have a partnership of
this company called Progeny. I think it's UM. It's pretty
common for a lot of major employers like mine to
offer some sort of assistance or at least just getting
more and more common. The way project works is that
they bundle fertility treatments into what they call smart cycles,
So you can activate different smart cycles for different fertility treatments.
(13:04):
So some women I work with have access that for
I d S and some then I have worked with,
access that ford for example, it's freezing. It's something I
was really curious about. So I started a conversation with
them about that to kind of understand what a smart
cycle wouldn't pale in terms of uh, egg freezing or
you know how that applies. But so the kind of
the issue for me was that for each of these cycles,
(13:26):
my employer would cover eighty percent of that cost. And so,
like I said, that could be you know, spart freezing
or like uh, embryo transfer, like all these different all
of these different treatments. UM. But then that still leaves
me with my coinsurance costs, which is in many cases
still thousands of dollars or you know points, maybe the
(13:47):
first round doesn't work for me and so I need
to do another round. So it's it's still very helpful.
I'm definitely grateful that my company offered us up, but
it's definitely not kind of a carte blanche to then,
you know, go head first into this world and like
kegles the truthments that they offer, right, I guess every
little bit counts, but yes, it's still something you have
to plan for. Let's talk about two. If you mentioned,
(14:11):
you know, getting the fertility test, and I've noticed in
your article there was a lot of different options of
the at home fertility tests that I had, I was
not aware of even I always tell people I think
that information, like knowledge is power for sure in this situation.
So know what you're dealing with, because you might be fine,
Like you might have a completely different situation than you
(14:32):
know I had or anyone else my age might have.
But if you don't know, you can't act. So tell
me a little bit about the things you learned about
the at home stuff. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think
the thing that has been a game changer for so
many women is that those fertility tests once cost hundreds
of dollars and they were really inaccessible, and now there's
(14:53):
so much more accessible. You can take them at many
clinics like kind Body is one of the clinics that
I went and visited, and they offer for just three
hundred bucks um. There's home kits from places like Modern Fertility,
which I'm sure a lot of your listeners have seen
because they have a ton of Instagram ads and are
in are really visible in that space that's less than
two hundred dollars um. But I'm kind of a two
(15:16):
minds of the test, I think because after researching this piece,
I was really impressed to how affordable so many of
those tests were, and it definitely seemed like an easy
first step. And and I think, you know, I mentioned
my my friends that I do my goal setting with,
you know, those like other nerdy friends. That was actually
one of my goals for the beginning of the year.
(15:37):
I was writing this piece and I said, Okay, I
need to just get fertility tested. You know, I keep
talking about it, I'm writing this piece. It's on my
mind all the time. I need to just do it.
And they were like, yeah, do it, you know, we
support you, you know, great. Cool, And then as I
was talking with more and more experts for this piece,
I don't know. I feel like it depends on who
you are and what stages the process you're in. You know.
(15:58):
I spoke with one expert. He said, I think that
you're going to take the test, and you're going to
spend that money on the test, and then you're gonna
come away with two options. You're either going to say,
oh wow, you know, my E reserve is really low,
I should freeze my asaps, or you're gonna come away
and say, oh wow, I am doing really great and
my AG preserve is really high, so I should freeze
(16:19):
my ad asaps. You know. It's kind of winning you
in that seame direction regardless. Um, and I know I
also took with a ton of experts and and this
is kind of up for debate, I think in in
that community. But I spoke with experts who said, you know,
some of those testbook flads, like some of them can't
give you results that are is true to your actual
reserve as it actually is. So I think I love
(16:41):
two minds about it. Part of me thinks it's a
really great step for women who are curious about this.
It's a really low lift way. Uh, Like I said,
very affordable way for them to learn more about this
world and to take it a bit more seriously if
this is something they're already considering. But for somebody like
me who's kind of at the very beginning of the process,
I think I walked away thinking, you know what, like
I taking that trust, just gonna kind of confirm with
(17:03):
that expert said, you know that I'm gonna do it
or I'm gonna do it. So I'm hoil I'm ready
to do it until I'm kind of at that juncture.
It doesn't make sense for me to do right now.
That makes a lot of sense actually, and you're at
an age where you have that luxury to you know,
like you can wait a couple of years until you're
actually ready to go through the process. Totally. I'm really
fortunate in that regard that I, you know, I'm not
(17:25):
working on its tide of a time frame I think
is a lot of other women are. Yeah, you also mentioned,
um this was something I had never even heard of.
A company called Carrot, which is a debit card for
women that helps pay for fertility procedures. Is that true?
I know, I know Carrott is a huge player in
the space. I've been having conversations with them, I think
since two thousand seventeen or so article I wrote, and
(17:50):
I've just watched them get bigger and bigger. The debit
card is their latest innovation, and what it does is
for the for the companies they work with. Carrot actually
sends you a debit card with the benefit preloaded on.
So before with a lot of people men and women,
UM and non binary folks to reusing Carrot, they would
go through the procedure and then get reimbursed on the
(18:13):
back end. But now that they have the debit card,
you don't even have to do that. It's kind of crazy. Wow, Okay,
and then you, I mean, yeah, I didn't see. I
didn't know about any of these things. I was just
suffering through the cost myself, which you know, maybe that's fine,
but it would have been it would have been a
really good thing to educate myself on. Also, you mentioned
the grand Baby Plan, so that's through Future Family. Is
(18:35):
that the company? Yeah? Yeah, There's there's so many different
players in this space, Like you mentioned herret Modern Patility
Proact me, Like, there's so many of them. Future Family
is the one that offers the grand baby plan, And
that's the plan I mentioned earlier where family members and
you know, even potential grandparents like your own parents, they
can partner with you to form some kind of loan
(18:56):
or like financial assistant plan, so then they actually are
helping you cover the cost. That's great, Okay, So tell
me where you stand with your decision. I mean, I know,
like you said, you're not fully ready to make this commitment,
but as a twenty or twenty nine. I keep calling
you twenty eight because you were when you were at
the article. Um, but you know, something you talked about
(19:17):
was the cost of a maybe, and like I want
to get into that, but I want to know where
your head is right now in this process. Yeah, I
mean turning twenty nine was definitely kind of a uh.
I feel like it's almost even more than thirty with
like a mouse sounds for me, because thirty for me
is kind of and I think for many women too,
(19:37):
it's kind of this team marcation where things are really
serious and you know those from your personal experience. Like
in the course of reporting this piece, I looked at
so many scary sharks and so many like really intimidating
graphics about you know, when when makes sense and like
when your pregnancy is most likely to be successful. So
I think some more I kind of dove into this,
(20:00):
though it made me think, like all right, I really
need to back up and think about how I wanted
to start my family and like how I want to
do this, and like what my girlfriend thinks about this,
because she's my partner too, She's my life partner, and
so I need to talk to her as well, because
me freezing my eggs going through this process, like spending
this money, that's something that's going to affect her too,
(20:22):
you know, that's something that's the decision for her as well,
and like who we would want to carry if a
big decision, Like the more and more I got into
this world, the more I realized, like, this is not
a flippant decision. This is not saying yeah, and you
obviously know that too from having actually gone through with it.
Like I think I was realizing, like not even are
the medicinal stake so high and the process is so intense,
(20:43):
but like the financial stake, girls are really high, you know,
like fifteen dollars is a huge life altering some of money.
I said that at the beginning, but it's so real
and so thinking about what that means to me, how
I should prepare for it, you know, how I could
actually set my life up to make that happen. That
requires way more thinking. And so I kind of got
through this this space where I all right, it's not
(21:06):
as dire right now as it will be in like
three years. So I need to take this time to
really mole on my options, Like I need to take
this time to think, do I want to do this?
If so, how do I prepare for it? Do I
want to instead, like think way more seriously about adoption?
If so, how do I prepare for that? When do
I even want to be a mom? Like? There are
all these questions that I felt like I was weirdly
(21:28):
thinking of. Ed breezing is a way to postpone all
those questions and all of those answers, And it's not
it's like an avenue toward all of those things. Yeah,
it was kind of laughing because you are speaking exactly
what happened to me. It is so true, so true. Yeah,
I think I think so many women too, And you know,
I was speaking with so many of my friends who
(21:49):
have been pregnant or who you know have gone through
this or talking with them, and I was realizing more
and more like we just need to be talking about
this so much more because I realize like how many
women around me had confronted this or had confronted these questions,
and you know, going into this blind it was just
never going to be my chile because since I told you,
(22:11):
I'm like a Tracy flip over. But you know, I
I really felt so empowered kind of researching this because
it was, you know, really important for me to write
a comprehensive article and a good article that could help
other people, but it was also really important for me,
I think, to confront a lot of these questions and
to think way more seriously about who I am and
what I want from it well, and those questions, I mean,
(22:34):
you know that is the hard part because then this
day and age, a lot of us are really chasing
our careers first, and then we want to think about family,
and luckily we have these options to where those things
can all be possible. But it's like you said, you
really have to ask yourself the hard questions, like how
do I want to have a family, What if I
(22:54):
am in a relationship, what if I'm not in a relationship,
what does that look like? Or you know, for your situation,
what does that look like? And is adoption of more
feasible option? Absolutely? Absolutely? And you know, even thinking about
that more, I realized that my company also has financial
assistance for adoption, also has financial assistance for fraga. See,
(23:18):
there's a whole world that you know, not all employers
and and maybe now and it's really very time fewer employers,
but a lot of employers are providing assistance for these things.
And and it's up to so many women I know
to actually ask those questions. And it can feel really intimidating,
it can feel really overwhelming, like I was overwhelmed with
so many different points throughout this process. But then I
(23:38):
walked away from it feeling way less intimidated because I
felt like I at least had kind of the information
I needed to map out what I wanted to do exactly.
And you're doing at a time where you don't have
to make a decision like you know, when I was
doing it, I was like, I need to do this now,
like I have to make this decision now. It which
is a whole another added pressure and something that you
kind of don't want to be going through you don't
(24:00):
want any added pressure if you are putting your body
through the hormones or any sort of any sort of
physical thing like that. Absolutely. Absolutely. You talked to you
um a doctor, Dr Steiner, and she said, it is
it is really hard in your twenties to know where
you're going to be, right, so how do you how
(24:20):
what would you say to other twenty year olds that
might be listening, like is it just to start educating yourself?
Totally totally and Dr Steiner was she was so um
so eliminating to talk to me because when she said that,
it kind of unlocked this thing for me because she worked,
you know, she she's such an expert, such a pre
(24:44):
eminent um fertility specialists, and talking with her, I realized, like, Okay,
if she is she thinking that this is individual then
it's not just me. You know, if she thinks because
she's so individualized decisions for personal it's so different for
some many women, Like it doesn't just mean then I'm
you know, I'm going through this alone, or that I'm
(25:04):
like the only person who's asking these questions. It means
that this is something that she's seeing again and again
from other people who want really specific answers or you know,
advice tailor to their lives. And the way that we
can do that is to do it ourselves, you know,
to actually read all of the material out there, to
like kind of survey the options, to think really critically
(25:24):
about them, and to and to think too about kind
of where all those different pieces of your life will align,
you know, like taking some of it, some of the
pressure off one part of your life doesn't take the
pressure off the rest of your list, and kind of
deciding which one you're going to juggle at which time.
I think it's like the way bigger question here, absolutely,
And I think like this is in my mind, the
(25:45):
best conversation for all women to be having amongst your
friend groups, with your sisters, with your mom, even just
because we have so many more options now and nobody
seems to be talking about it for some reason still,
and I'm just like, educate yourself, like you even educated
me with all of these companies that are helping financially.
So it's just like, let's just start talking about it
(26:07):
at least and get all the information out there so
that we can all make informed, empowered decisions. Yeah, I
think that there's there's this one problem where the space
feels really, really, really crowded right now. So if you
even just google you know and Freezing, or if you
google like one of these companies names, you've got just
bombarded with all of this India. And I wanted to
(26:30):
train you with like stitch through some of that, because
I feel like you are bombarding all at this info
and so you back away from it or you start
waiting into it, and then you realize, wait, actually, like
this is way Murphy again. I thought like, yes, there's
all of these sources out there. Yes, there's all of
these companies out there, but like it's hard to kind
of decide what works for you or what feels right
(26:50):
for you. And that's where I think you're so right
and recommending that people talk to other women and talk
to other families. You know. I had a really dear friend, UM,
and you know, he's actually he's one of my former bosses,
but he and his family are our neighbors and they're
such a good friends of our family. And I am
so grateful to him, UM for reaching out to me
after a publish this Kieth, And all he said was,
(27:12):
you know, any time you want to talk to me
and Brandy and got this jo you can And I thought,
you know, like, I really appreciate that. You know, this
is a straight man with two kids, and she still
looks like, hey, like, anytime you want to talk about this,
we can talk about it. You know, it's not off
limits in our friendship. And I really appreciated that totally.
The more I've talked about it, the more conversation has
(27:35):
just come naturally to me from someone saying I've been
through that too. You know, you mentioned you're not alone,
none of us are. It's just for some reason, a
lot of people don't talk about it. I didn't even
realize how many friends I had that had gone through
the egg reason process because they just hadn't talked about it.
So the more we put it out there, I think
there's nothing bad that can come from that. I'm going
(27:55):
to link your article in the description of this podcast,
so you guys go check out Julia's are cool with
all of this information. It has all the companies we
talked about, and even more just information about what this
process looks like, the costs and all of that. Where
else can people find you? Julian um I bombed pretty
much all social media. Carper, say that one more time.
(28:19):
I think you cut out. Oh yeah, I'm on pretty
much all social media at at Julia see Carpenter, just
use my middle initials and yeah, I write for the
journal and you can find me just at w dot
com and search re maining. Actually, when I was researching
this conversation, I went deep on your Twitter. It's very entertaining.
(28:41):
So you guys go check out julius Twitter. She's very
funny and you're always linking funny articles and other memes
you see, especially right now, I mean coronavirus memes. Are
I feel like people are thriving? Yes, yes, what's getting
me through? Yeah, it's actually the same for me. Um.
You guys, go check out Julia. Thank you so much
for being here. I really appreciate this conversation and just
(29:03):
all you sharing all your information with us. Thank you.
I really appreciate you talking about this topic and I'm
until appreciative of your time and as the conversation. Thank
you guys for listening. This is Kelly Henderson and you've
been listening to the Velvet's Edge podcast. I truly believe
that every one of us has a little Velvet and
a little Edge, so it's so important to remember that
(29:25):
to be strong, you must be soft too. Thank you
so much for sharing in those stories with me. You
can follow velvet's Edge on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, as
well as velvet's Edge dot com. If you haven't yet,
go to Apple Podcast and subscribe, rate and review this podcast.
Join me every Wednesday for more conversations on lifestyle, beauty,
(29:46):
and relationships. Thanks for listening.
Host
Kelly Henderson
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