Infertile AF: Infertility and Modern Family Building
In this unfiltered podcast about infertility, journalist and mom-of-two Ali Prato, who went through secondary infertility and IVF herself, talks to women—and some men—about the messy, frustrating, painful, heartbreaking, absurd and sometimes humorous journey to have a baby. Or in some cases, to not have a baby. Each episode tells a different story about family building, getting real about miscarriages, egg freezing, sperm and egg donation, IUIs, endometriosis, male factor infertility, adoption, surrogacy, genetic testing, single parenting by choice, LGBTQ+ fertility, living childless not by choice, depression, relationship issues, money issues, jealousy, PTSD, and so much more. Ali covers all of the outcomes in this safe, non-judgement zone: the happy endings, the soul-crushingly sad ones, and the ones still in limbo.
Episodes
May 23, 2024 • 35 mins
Today Ali talking to her sweet SoulCycle friend Lex Borino, a super successful bridal hair stylist about her recent egg freezing journey. Lex, who is 30 years old, explains why she came to this decision: "Once I turned 30 and realized, 'Ooh, I'm not in a relationship, that's not on the table right now,' I had to look at my options and be like, 'What can I do to be proactive in still being able to have a family without having a part...
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May 16, 2024 • 36 mins
Today's episode features Carly Stockdale, who started Nascency, Everything to know about surrogacy, and whether it’s right for you Carly talks about her egg freezing experience, pregnancy, and why she and her husband decided to use a surrogate for baby number two. She also talks about everything she's doing with Nascency, which provides info on becoming a surrogate and also taking the surrogacy path as an intended parent. For more,...
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Today's episode features a total badass, UFC fighter Katlyn Cerminara. Katlyn talks about getting into fighting as a young girl; thinking she would be pregnant right away when she took out her IUD (very relatable!); and going to a specialist after trying unsuccessfully to get pregnant after three months. She also talks about being told by her doctor "You're so young, everything looks fine" -- and why that pissed her off; doing a ha...
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May 2, 2024 • 38 mins
Today Ali is talking to Modern Mom Probs founder Tara Clark about her unexplained infertility journey. Tara talks about growing up in Catholic school and the "fear-based" sex education she got; her three devastating miscarriages; being diagnosed with fibroids and having a procedure to remove them, and why she and her husband needed to take a mental health break after their losses. She also talks about trying again, doing three IUIs...
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April 24, 2024 • 46 mins
In this week’s special crossover episode, Ali is joined by her friends Abbe Feder (host of The Fertility Chick) and Elizabeth King (host of Creation Innovation podcast) to discuss infertility in pop culture. As infertility becomes more talked about in TV, movies, music and the news, what shows get it right? Where do we still need more support and stories shared? How can we ensure the narrative feels authentic? And when it doesn’t, ...
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April 19, 2024 • 55 mins
"Growing up, I always imagined I'd one day be married with kids" says today's guest, single dad by choice John Yurcisin. "I've dated many smart, interesting, beautiful women. I was engaged once and called it off. I just never found my life partner." And so, John decided to become a dad on his own. On this episode, John shares the entire journey to having his two sons as a solo parent, including being the only heterosexual man in a ...
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April 12, 2024 • 48 mins
"Truthfully, my journey is about 10 years long at this point," says today's guest, Cara DiFalco. Cara grew up in a big, boisterous Italian family in NJ, and she always knew she wanted many children. After getting divorced with no children at 38, she decided she would pursue being a single mom by choice, and today, she tells us her whole story. She talks about how her family embraced that decision; finding a sperm donor, including h...
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It's part two with our friend Bailey, who first shared her story on the pod in 2021. At the time, Bailey talked about having hair loss, night sweats -- finding out her AMH was just 0.1 and she had diminished ovarian reserve. She was told, 'You should be freezing your eggs, like, yesterday.'" Catch up on Bailey's first episode, and then listen to this one to find out where she is today, three years later: No longer going through tre...
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March 27, 2024 • 85 mins
LFG!!!!!! Today's guest is a dear friend of Ali's, Ashely Hingston, aka @rage_against_infertilty. Ashley tells Ali all about having PCOS symptoms as a young woman and going on birth control, how certain doctors don't want to work with someone over a certain BMI; and going through letrozole rage. She talks about meeting her husband, Rob, doing medicated cycles and discovering male factor infertility, and recovering from an eating di...
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March 21, 2024 • 51 mins
It's our Fifth Anniversary Episode! Ali's very special guest today is Elizabeth Carr, the first person born in the U.S. — in 1981 — via in vitro fertilization. "My birth was so widely publicized that my first press conference was at three days old," Elizabeth says. "I didn't get here like everybody else." Elizabeth shares what it's been like to live under media scrutiny since the moment she was born (check out the NOVA documentary ...
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March 14, 2024 • 45 mins
My guest today, Leah McKendrick, is the writer, director and star of the new movie about egg freezing and fertility in your 30s, called "Scrambled." The movie is amazing -- it even got a 94 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, so go check it out on demand and show the Hollywood system that we want even more movies and content around egg freezing, fertility, infertility and more. Today, Leah tells us about her own egg freezing journey, which...
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March 8, 2024 • 75 mins
My guest today, Julie Cohen, is an infertility warrior and advocate, and today, she tells Ali all about her roller coaster of a family building journey, including having her three boys, who are earthside with us today, and also her devastating experience with termination for medical reasons (TFMR), due to an extremely rare condition called Limb Body Wall Complex. Julie is amazing, and she's also the city manager of the Jewish Ferti...
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February 29, 2024 • 46 mins
On today's special bonus episode, Ali is joined by Dr. Sahar Wertheimer, a reproductive endocrinologist and infertility specialist practicing in Los Angeles, and InCircle Fertility founder, fertility coach and infertility warrior Abbe Feder to discuss the implications of the overturning of Roe V. Wade. Among the things they discuss: If life begins at fertilization, what does that mean for embryos, creating embryos, discarding embry...
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February 23, 2024 • 45 mins
Caryn Johnson is the Co-Founder and CEO of BOND, an innovative line of supplements reimagining hormone and reproductive health, inspired by her experience with infertility. In 2017, when trying to start a family, Caryn learned she was autoimmune infertile. Today, Ali and Caryn unpack all of it, including exactly what "autoimmune infertile" means, how she was "pregnant for a few hours;" navigating pregnancy loss; cancelled IVF cycle...
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February 20, 2024 • 48 mins
Kristin Dillensnyder is a certified life coach who specializes in working with women who are consumed by their infertility to help them find their strength and joy again. And she should know--because she's gone through her own infertility journey too. On this episode, Kristin talks to Ali about male factor infertility, IUIs, going through IVF, fresh transfers, frozen transfers, getting pregnant after infertility, having her daughte...
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Stacy Since found out she was conceived via donor sperm at the age of 41, and today, she's talking all about her experience, including why her mom and dad chose to keep it a secret; how Stacy found out she was donor conceived; and what happened when she met up IRL with her bio-dad. She also talks about her own infertility journey, which started with IUI and went on to include 10 egg retrievals. Stacy eventually ended up transferrin...
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February 1, 2024 • 56 mins
Today, Ali is talking to solo mom by choice Julia Karol, Stork'd podcast host, about everything from when she decided to embark on the solo parenting route to where she is today. Julia talks about freezing her eggs, why she prefers the term "solo parent by choice" to "single parent by choice;" the complex, interesting process of choosing a sperm donor; going through IUIs; and what happened when Covid hit and the clinics shut down (...
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January 26, 2024 • 41 mins
Khaled Kteily is the Founder and CEO of Legacy, the largest male fertility clinic in North America. Founded at Harvard, Legacy has raised $45M from some of the world’s best investors: Justin Bieber, DJ Khaled, The Weeknd, and Orlando Bloom, to name a few. Today, Ali is talking to Khaled about his own family building journey, and how an accident with a scalding hot cup of tea in his lap from Starbucks ultimately led him to create Le...
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January 22, 2024 • 37 mins
Dr. Marcy Crouch is a pelvic floor physical therapist, so she helps women prepare for delivery, get through their pregnancies with less pain, and much more. So you can imagine how difficult it was to go through infertility while working with pregnant women. Today on the show, Marcy tells Ali about her own journey, including going through IUIs, moving to the "big guns" of IVF, and her first heartbreaking miscarriage at 11 weeks. She...
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January 9, 2024 • 46 mins
This is such a great episode. It's hard not to fall in love with Bachelor alum Sarah Herron, who has such a huge heart, and who opens up to Ali about her fertility journey, from what she knew (and didn't know) about sex education to where they are today. Sarah talks about meeting her husband and deciding they wanted to build a family together; why she had a feeling she would have fertility issues; being diagnosed with diminished ov...
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