The Future of (In)Fertility - and Why It Matters (ft. Author & Expert Andrea Syrtash)

Fertility issues, and infertility itself, are going to be incredibly important to our collective future. Because of that, we thought it important to sit down with Andrea Syrtash. She’s the founder and editor-in-chief of pregnantish, the first media site exclusively dedicated to helping singles, couples & LGBT navigate fertility treatments and infertility. Andrea’s work (she’s a five-time author) is regularly featured on national TV shows including Good Morning America and The Today Show, and in Cosmopolitan, Glamour, and Women's Health magazines. And her upcoming pregnantish podcast debuts soon, so be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher.

This week we cover:

• How fertility is arguably undergoing cooler innovation than any other industry
• Why infertility and fertility treatments are going to become more important in the future
• The stigma associated with fertility issues such as miscarriages - and whether or not those stigmas are going away
• How the companies of tomorrow need to be thinking about fertility issues in order to stay relevant - both as marketers and as employers
• What type of impact can fertility have on a country’s future - taking the example of Japan, which is experiencing its sharpest drop in births in 30s years

Transcript

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Speaker 1 0:00

We had an essay on pregnant Ash from a U S air force Sergeant who had issues with his sperm and he came out quote unquote, I'm pregnant Ash because he needed help and he took a job at Starbucks because he couldn't afford the ridiculously high cost of fertility treatments in his female partner was fine and they had started trying in their 20s and he needed help. He's now expecting in November that article became so popular. I'm pregnant. The New York times picked it up because this is a story that's happening across America and it's not just with women. Hi, I'm Jeremy Goldman and this is future proof.

Speaker 2 0:39

Okay ,

Speaker 3 0:41

so today I'm really excited since I get to introduce you to Andrea ser Tash. She's the founder and editor in chief of pregnant ish . She's also a relationship expert and coach regularly featured on national TV shows. No , some small little MV shows like good morning America and the today show and also in cosmopolitan glamour and women's health magazine. And she's also, since she's a lot of spare time, clearly the author of five popular books, including keys , just not your type and that's a good thing and cheat on your husband with your husband. So she's passionate about helping people live in love authentically. And I think that's been the through line throughout her career. So really excited to get to talk to her today about pregnant dish , uh , and about fertility and relationships and how all of it affects , uh , the workplace and consumer of tomorrow. So , uh, Andrea , welcome to a future-proof . Thank you. It's good to be here. Yes . So first off , um, in addition to anything else that I said, who the hell are you

Speaker 1 1:44

LMI ? Will I play piano? Do you mean career-wise or, yeah, I think you can say like , because I know obviously a lot about your journey to establishing yourself as one of the top experts in your field. But I think, well, here's a fun fact. You may or may not know, I'm actually, I'm Canadian and I'm in the country on the extraordinary ability green card. And my extraordinary ability is I had to prove to the ins that I am in the top 1% of all relationship experts. Now experts have very funny title for, you know, I don't shake someone's hand and say, hi, I'm an expert. What do you do? Um , so I'm actually always confused as to how to introduce my myself and the only reason I got that status by the way, which Trump's wife apparently has as well for her work in modeling. Okay . Um, the, she's on that same, that same green card cause she's, Oh, she's in the top one for extraordinary ,

Speaker 3 2:41

uh , uh , being an a and

Speaker 1 2:43

enabler. Okay , cool . Um, I, I had more to say about that, but I just thought I'd S I'd kind of frame it , um, in terms of this visa. Um, but, but basically , uh, I also struggle with how to introduce myself because I'm a slasher, like so many people in media. So I'm an author, I'm an on air personality. Um, I run now a new website, which you mentioned called pregnant ish . And I'm, I'm an advice columnist and everything connects though to a larger thing. Which is helping people navigate relationships better. So I think that's the best way to introduce me in terms of my work. I'm going to do a better job next. No , you did a great job. So , uh, I mean I , I've been familiar obviously with what you were building , uh, at pregnant dish since , uh , before you and since I think when it was a concept. So what, can you tell our listeners a little bit about pregnant dish and what inspired you to create it in the first place? Sure. So pregnant ish is the first nonmedical site . So the first kind of media site helping singles, couples, LGBT, navigate, getting pregnant with help. So anytime, you know, first come to love, then comes marriage, then comes a baby carriage is an outdated narrative for millions of people in America and around the world. And I was one of those people that didn't fit into that linear story of family making so well . I was on TV and writing books and on book tours and talking about relationships, I realized a major chapter that I didn't think had enough content, good quality, curated content, researched content, lifestyle content around was fertility and infertility. Um, when you're not getting pregnant easily or you need the help, you know, if you're LGBT you may need a sperm or an egg donor or a surrogate. Um, your single freezing eggs. It seems to be the wild, wild West. And when I trademarked back in 2016, we learned there literally wasn't anything like pregnant ish . And as, as someone who had gone through many years at that point trying to have a baby, it , it was something I felt I needed to create. So the backstory, and it's funny in like two minutes, probably 20 seconds to tell you , uh , an eight year journey really quickly is that I was diagnosed at 14 years old with endometriosis, told by a doctor I'd have trouble getting pregnant later when I married my husband, I said, it'll take us a year or two. I now have a nine month old. It took us eight years. So I went through 18 fertility treatments over seven years before moving on to a gestational carrier, which means it was my genetic embryo put into a surrogate who happened to be my amazing first cousin Atlanta, who gave me the greatest gift of all my daughter who was frozen as an embryo. This is futuristic for your future show frozen in time since 2016 so she's both nine months old and three years old. Oh, that's a, so you get to decide when you're going to have the bat mitzvah. We could , we could figure that out later. I love that. So, and I think that this is obviously such a serious topic that , uh, we'd like to kind of bust in with some lightning round of not serious, irreverent , uh , unimportant questions. You ready? Yeah, I'm ready. Okay . So , um, as you stated , uh , you're a Canadian, if you had to stereotype all Canadians and all Americans, what's the number one difference that stands out to you? A Canadian say story a lot. And they say it with that pronunciation. Sorry. So there is, I think there's a great , um, sometimes it's too self-deprecating. Uh , that's why Canadians are so good at comedy, I think. Uh , but Americans generally say I'm here. Even when they're introverted, it seems like Americans are really okay to kind of put themselves forward. And , and, and this is the city. This is the country of dreams, like taking risks, building, building things , um, without being so risk averse. Sometimes Canadians can be kind of scared to do that. Now I'm majorly generalizing and I love both countries just to make that clear. [inaudible] so you're saying, sorry about stereotype . There you go. So I'm very stereotypical and staying on that topic. We're recording this the day after Yom Kippor. Uh, so , uh, this is a good transition. Uh, I think you're one of the nicest people that I know. So what is the meanest thing that you think you've done? So funny? Uh, that's hilarious, Jeremy. I , I don't, I, I'm sure I've done really mean things. I have to think about what, well, I mean I've done like naughty things. Does that count? Where, if that's the best thing that you got? I don't know. I'm like, I haven't kicked a dog recently. I'm just thinking what , what would be cat mean ? Not a cat. Um, boy, I, I don't, I'm sure someone else can call in and tell you what I've done. That's mean. Okay . That's , that's , you know, that she'll, she'll think about it and we'll put it back, put it in the show notes. Not that I don't F up all the time, just to be clear. Um , but I can't think of it right now. You're allowed to curse by the way, but that's okay if you don't want to. Um, so , uh , you've done a lot of media over the years. What well known figure has impressed you the most , uh, tone. Um, Tony, I was about to say, Dan said , that's so funny. I've never met Tony Danza. Um , Tony Bennett, by the way. Tony Danza for real . Real Canadians are more go . That would be, yeah, we know we didn't , not at all. Um, no. I'd say the nicest person I think I've ever met in a green room is Tony Bennet . And the reason I say that is because he's probably one of the biggest, I've been in a lot of green rooms over many years and I've met a lot of celebrities who were not as big as Tony Bennett and he was he and Jeff Daniels, I'll put them in the same category. So Jeff Daniels, they met on the view and Tony, Ben and I met on the today show and both of them asked me why I was on the show. What are you doing? What's your book about? I mean, they were both, I don't know, it felt genuine. I don't know if it was nevertheless a super friendly, curious. Nice. Down to earth people. That's really cool. That's a good, even though there was two people and cheating, but I think that, and speaking of which, I'm given the title of one of your books, do you ever get , ever get tired of people thinking that you're an expert on cheating? Yeah. Well, a lot of times when I'm on television, they'll forget that second part of the title. So they'll say after the break we have the author of how to cheat on your husband. First of all, my book is called cheat on your husband with your husband. It's one title, how to date your spouse is the subtitle. So I don't even know how they can't fit in the second half, but that's probably why it became a hot topic on some shows. That's hilarious. So yeah, I want to kind of go back to that because obviously you're now in the media a lot about relationships and fertility, those two topics. And those are somewhat different topics and yet they have quite a bit of overlap, don't they? Yeah. Well, it's funny because when I launched pregnant Ash, a lot of people wrote to me and said, so you're moving on from the dating sex thing to the fertility thing. And I'd say it's shocking, but fertility and sex are connected. Oh my God. Wait, really? Isn't that amazing? That's so weird. I thought it was just a store . No, it's, it's for some, some lucky people. Sex makes baby. Those people are really, I feel like that's our quote of the week. It's like making a baby the fun way or through what I did. Thousands of fertility shots. It's just funny that one can be such a pleasurable experience and one can be such a painful one, but both can lead to baby. That's true. Often a lot of shots of other kinds of shots and the kind of shots. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. No, you're right. I think that is, there's definitely a lot of overlap and I think you're right to say, of course, that you're still focused on relationships to a large extent. Uh, but you can actually tell me a little bit about , uh , the doctor in the diva because I think that that's something relatively new and interesting for you. Well, I'm, I'm a regular on this new TV show that's distributed by CBS called the doctor and the Divo with Kimberly Locke from American idol season three and dr Steve Salvatore, who some new Yorkers would recognize from WPIX 11, but he's also on CNN and Chuck. Nice. A great comedian. And I are the relationship squad and we answer viewer questions. It's been a ton of fun. I've, I've done a lot of TV over the years, so TVs wackadoodle who knows where it will go. But right now, my first episodes airing as you and I are talking, so I haven't seen it yet, but on that show, I'm literally airing , literally airing right now and I'm, I'm with Chuck , uh , talking about how this bicep your relationship. Oh, that's really cool. And I think that , um, I believe that Chuck has even a performed at a , the club that we happen to record our podcast at and share all the time. He's a really funny guy. I like him a lot. So why do you feel in fertility

Speaker 4 11:54

and fertility treatments are going to become even more important than the future, which I happen to. And I think it's great that you've identified this niche, but why do you think that that is the case?

Speaker 1 12:05

Yeah, thanks. I, you know, I think I would say, and I've again done a lot of media on relationship trends. So through the years I've been asked what's the trend of next year or the future? I will tell you that I think fertility is one of the major trends right now, but it's going to grow and grow and I think marketers will soon catch onto this, which I'm sure we'll talk about at some point. Yeah , I think , um, there are many reasons for it. I mean, one thing that , uh , that reproductive medicine has completely changed the first IVF was just over 40 years ago. So it's, it's still new and innovative and it's still rapidly growing. I work with one company, I'm a spokesperson for our called Cooper genomics, which is the division of Cooper surgical. Cooper genomics has AI for genetically testing embryos. So they realized that they have better result when machines are picking embryos. What is healthy, what is not healthy versus humans? I think they have a 5% higher rate of healthy embryos when a machine picks the embryo to use. So this is wild , uh , future stuff. But also this is a very deep analysis we can have. And I know we don't have all day to talk about it, but there are so many reasons people need to access fertility treatments. So LGBT , uh , in record numbers are starting families, singles in record numbers are freezing their eggs. A lot of fortune 50 companies, Apple, Google, Uber, they are funding ache , freezing. So now you have this as an incentive that single women are pursuing. I heard one statistic that egg freezing went up 400% from the year prior, and that was a couple of years ago , 400%. And so we have singles, a accessing fertility treatments and record numbers, LGBT. And then of course we have heterosexual couples or people like me who , um , my husband and I had medical infertility. Some people have infertility cause they're delaying marriage or month . They're delaying Parenthood. So that there's so many reasons, it's just a growing category.

Speaker 4 14:09

That's another thing that I actually want to ask you about later. And I think also people don't even necessarily think about , uh, how fertility can affect countries on a macro level. Like I was , uh , reading about how Japan's fertility crisis is worsening and data from the first seven months of the year showed the sharpest drop of births in the last 30 years. Right. So what , what kind of impact can fertility even have on a company's future if you want to think that?

Speaker 1 14:35

Well, I , yeah, and I'd love to just pick up from the Japan, cause I'm really glad you mentioned that. I think 5% of all births in Japan today are through IVF and fertility treatments. That's fascinating. And the government is funding it because they have a fertility crisis now in the relationship work I've done. And I shot a documentary with NHK before I knew Jeremy. They followed me for 30 days. It Japanese film crew cause they thought it was Carrie Bradshaw. I'm from sex in the city. So they followed me and it aired all over Japan. And I started getting a lot of letters from single Japanese women and I learned through them that they are delaying marriage and, and motherhood , um, much more than Americans. So , um , there are more single women in Japan than the United States, and that affects fertility and testosterone levels have dropped in men there because when you don't use it, you'll lose it. Men and women, when we don't get it on, you know, we drive testosterone levels drop. Yeah. And I guess the only plus side is a , that's why all the single ladies by Beyonce probably did really well in Japan. But that's not enough of a counteract for, I mean, the serious thing is that this is a , there's a genetic that, you know, in biological component, all the stuff that I know we're kind of trying to override and fight against. And I mean, I think that there's a , almost this contrarian point of view to take here, which is, should we be quote unquote messing with, you know, nature, right. Where , uh, there's a , the not necessarily my point of view obviously, but , um, I , I think we've had a lot of people on this show who we generally talk about innovation being two steps forward and one step back and what are we necessarily losing or is there anything , uh, obviously there are people like you who found out at 14 that they had something that they had to deal with, but in general, should we, you know, I worry about like a , a woman seeing a celeb, you know , who had, who was 55 and we were talking about this a little bit. So yeah, definitely I think, listen, I have many thoughts on that as well. I will say that I've never met someone who's worked hard to become a parent who's not a really damn good parent. So I'd rather have people out there who are fighting to build families than people who are accidentally getting pregnant at 16. Um, that said , uh, age is a very interesting issue with fertility. And the , I'd say the biggest misconception about infertility has to do with age, both on, on both sides. So, let me quickly explain. So there's an idea that age doesn't matter. So when Holly berries on people magazine at 50 holding a baby, she doesn't mention donor eggs or maybe she froze her eggs 15 years ago, we don't know the full story, but when another 48 year old sees that, she may think, Oh, that can happen to me too. Well, no fertility rates rapidly decline in your forties. And I think the oldest person to have a baby with assistance was in her late forties or maybe 50, but it doesn't really go past that. And that was with um, fertility assistance , um, reproductive medicine and oftentimes egg donors. So we don't tell the full story of age on the flip side where we always hear that it's only an age issue. She waited long, she was a career woman. That's why there's infertility. Millions upon millions of us have had the diagnosis, the medical disease of infertility our whole lives since we were , um, you know, since I straight it, just to be blunt. So , um , the CDC, the world health organization recognizes it as a disease. It's a medical issue. If you have blocked tubes, our average reader is around 33 years old. Many of our readers have been trying for years. Uh , we have many readers in their twenties. We also have readers in their forties, but the point is a 30 year old , you know, or when we started trying, I was about that age too. So it shouldn't have been such an issue. Um, if, if it weren't a physical problem in, in my body and my uterus. And so H is very misunderstood in this category in general. I think. Yeah. I , I think that's a very fair point. I think one thing that annoys me is how people think that fertility issues are, you know, a woman's issue and not an issue for , uh, everyone, you know. So what are your thoughts on that and are there any signs that anything's changing on that front? I'm glad you asked that because another major misconception is that it's only a , a woman's issue. It's a rich white woman's issue, which could not be farther from the truth. Um , men almost , uh , over 30% is male factor infertility. So when people aren't getting pregnant or they're miscarrying over 30% is because of the male side. We , we folk, we had an essay on pregnant Ash called from, from a U S um, air force Sergeant named Christian. Great guy who had issues with his Berman . He came out quote unquote, I'm pregnant ish because he needed help and he took a job at Starbucks to fund and you asked about companies before because he couldn't afford the ridiculously high cost of fertility treatments in his partner. His female partner was fine, she was fine and they had started trying in their 20s and he needed help. So Starbucks fund funded that. He's now expecting in November. He actually just wrote me this morning, so we'll probably do a followup article with him. That article became so popular. I'm pregnant. The New York times picked it up because this is a story that's happening across America and it's not just with women. I feel very guilty that the coffee that I'm drinking right now is not from Starbucks cause most of the time it is Starbucks. Yeah. Well , I know I shouldn't say that, but I, you know, I am more of a, yeah, I'm Canadian. So you know, no comment on Tim Horton's. Well , but you know, it's another misconception and you just want to quickly highlight is that it's not just white people. So black women have higher numbers, higher instances of infertility. We interviewed one , um, black woman. We, we've covered many different races on pregnant Ash, but one in particular, and I'll never forget her quote. She said, as a African American woman, I was told, not always told not to get pregnant, not that I may not be able to. So we need to start shifting that narrative too.

Speaker 4 20:55

Yeah, I think it's a, with a lot of these things, there's bad information out there. It's amazing that we think we're so far advanced as a society and , uh, and yet there are things that, you know, some common knowledge that is not, you know, really all that common. So, yeah . Um, so, okay. So let's say someone's listening to this is a little bit on the cynical side and says, what the heck does any of your work have to do with , uh, companies connecting with their consumers? You know, like, does this actually matter to companies who are trying to market to consumers? Uh, eh , you know, or is this a cohort that's, you know, that's very important for brands to connect with for various reasons?

Speaker 1 21:37

Yes. The short answer is yes. Like brands need to pay attention to this audience. It's about one in six today are effected by this somehow. And it's, you know, mommy bloggers are all the rage. I'm now a mom and I've been given more products and things than ever before. Not that mommy bloggers aren't doing great work, but that's like 15 years ago. Today's, you know, baby story 2.0 is this category. You have generally a highly motivated, highly educated person who's pursuing fertility treatments. And those people are underserved, not only with good content, which was my goal at pregnant Ash, to have curated good, well-produced professional content, lifestyle content, but by lifestyle brands to pay attention to them. Because I know, you know, Jeremy with your work as well. What, what brand messages brands care about? Um, serving the community and pain points. Pain points need to be part of the marketing. You have. You have an incredibly high pain point here for people who are spending sometime their life savings , um, to try to create a baby and it's not working. And these people are buying products and services that support them so loyally and somehow they're not. Um, it's, it's just underserved. It's why, why do you see it more

Speaker 4 23:03

a gay people and advertisements? Why do you see a lot of people with , um, you know, a dogs in advertisements? I mean, you as a brand, you need to be showing that you're marketing to somebody who looks like, who feels like a, you know, the, the person on the other side of that relationship. And I think that, yeah, you're, you're right. The one that's what's interesting to me about how , uh, many people fall within this group in one way, shape or form is just the fact that it's , it's a little bit more invisible. Naturally. There's, you know, there's this shame that shouldn't be there. I know that there are people who , uh, you know, each one, every single person who's listening to this probably knows a few people, had miscarriages

Speaker 1 23:46

that they don't know actually have had miscarriages because there's all this shame , uh , that, you know, it's, it's sad and unfortunate that people feel that way. But I mean, hopefully you're seeing some evidence that the stigma associated with these things is it going away at least a little bit? A little bit. It's, it's pregnancy loss awareness month October. Um, and I've done a few media interviews about it and I'm glad that the media has actually paid attention to this topic because it happens to so many people. I think , um, Instagram is a very interesting place. If you put in hashtag fertility , you'll see a lot of people in their twenties and early thirties posting about their IVF, about their pregnancy loss , um, and it's less and less stigmatized by a certain age group then , then I think it was 10 years ago. So social media is a big game changer in this category and there's a lot of community and conversation happening about it. So people, because it can be so isolating otherwise and you know, no , sorry to cut you have , I almost think in some ways it's analogous in a weird way. Okay. But hear me how to the me too movement in the sense that , uh, you know, beforehand it used to be very difficult to find somebody else , uh , you know, who's gone through the same situation as you. But I think now when you organize around a hashtag, you can find somebody else who raises their hand, which then encourages the next person, which then encourages somebody else, you know? So certainly at least the way that social media changes awareness , uh , 100%. Yeah , 100%. I think. Um, it's an amazing, this sounds so weird. It's an amazing time to have a terrible disease. No, it's not at all. So, just to be clear, but what I was gonna say is that if you're going to have a hard vulnerable thing you're going through, it's all also, I know it's your birthday today, Jeremy, and happier , but it's also I think mental health awareness day is a thing . So world mental health day, I just saw that on Facebook, but I mean the point is like this is the time that actually it can be , um , probably comforting to so many people struggling that they can, even if they don't weigh in on social media, even if they don't publicly like it, which happens on pregnant Ash, we have so many tens of thousands of viewers on certain stories that aren't publicly interacted with. Cause someone doesn't necessarily want to, you know, show that in their Facebook feed or whatever. They're still consuming it. And that to me is , is gratifying because it says you were , we're showing them you're not alone. That this is, you know, this is happening. And , uh, when you're, when you're going through a hard time, like a pregnancy loss, you know, I went through years of not being able to sustain a pregnancy. Um, you start to feel freakish. Like I'm a woman, I have an hourglass figure, like, are weren't these hips made for babies? What's happening? You know, this doesn't make sense. And , um , it's definitely the first time somebody has just said, I have an hour. I , and I'm not saying it's, that sounded probably really, I don't mean that as anything, but I have hips and sometimes, you know, hips are hard too . I had to dress. It's just that, Oh no . Yeah, it's a , it's not a bad thing at all. I was just thinking, kind of to paraphrase from anger, man, you may not know this, but I'm kind of a big deal, you know, that kind of thing. But I know the way that you mean that. I mean, I think , um , you know, one thing we were talking about , uh , about connecting with consumers, you know , uh, from, you know, a corporate level , uh, but switching to a company's need to do as employers, you know, how will the companies of tomorrow need to deal with fertility issues in order to stay relevant? You know, as employers, period. Well, it's in their best interest for a million reasons, but it , maybe I'll give you two or three. One is your employee will be so much more loyal to you. I think it's a basic human need to be seen, heard and valued. Acknowledgement is the key to happy relationships, period. So if your employment, if you're , if your manager, if your team doesn't recognize who you are and what you're going through, that's already gonna make the you are and you're not feeling appreciated or acknowledged, that will already create an employee that's not as happy or connected. So that's the first thing. But also the time will be condensed. If you're supporting someone through fertility treatments that might be a finite time that he or she is undergoing that and you could come up with a um, you know, a, a work plan so that they are making up for any lost time from monitoring appointments could just be out there instead of them sneaking around, which so many employees have to do come in late and then be , you know, without being able to talk about what's going on. This is, this is a real problem and resolve, which is the national infertility association did actually great research and I don't have the paper in front of me so I can't really quote it and why it makes companies more money when they invest in this. So there is actually research to substantiate that it will help your bottom line if you help these people. But I don't have it in front of me so I can't really speak to it. That might be another thing we can put in the show notes. I'm all about just referring people to the show notes later on, which , uh, you know, a lot of people are saying, we've got the best show notes , uh , around, well , you know, your podcast will be called show notes, show notes , uh , and that , but , and then having show notes on the show notes. Yeah, that's pretty mad at , uh , chinks . Um , w D C what, why do I still say jinx now that I'm old or at least older than yesterday, you know. Um, so one other

Speaker 4 29:41

thing actually speaking about how age kind of ties into all of this. You know, one thing that struck me is that many women are having kids now at more important , uh , pivotal moments in their career, you know, when they're kind of on their way up, so to speak , uh , which can contribute to some fertility challenges. You know, which makes me think is biology . I guess you could just say as a biology kind of this inherent bias that's going to be built into the workplace no matter what. That's going to kind of help discriminate, I guess you could say , uh, against the woman who are trying to make their way up the corporate ladder.

Speaker 1 30:19

I think the workplace is going to just look different, period. In the future where we have more virtual commuting, we , I mean virtual , um , work, we have , um, alternative. It's because the internet is always on. Email is always on, even if you know that. And I know that every everybody listening knows that that's just the reality. It's no longer in nine to five structure where you check in and you put punched into timecard and, and I think we're all going to adapt to that new world and some people who have babies and you know, they'll make up for it in other ways , uh, when they can . I just think work is going to look different in general. So I,

Speaker 4 31:03

I know that's fair. That's a good answer. But I think [inaudible] listen, honestly, I think this is one thing when we're trying to, we've talked to a lot of people who are , uh, you know, experts and futurists in their own right and very specific areas. And I think sometimes to not have the answer because there are too many variables and you can't really control for that. That's valid. That's a honestly a better answer. I think then people who just say definitively , uh , you know, we're going to have flying cars in two years and they say, and you know this as a media personality, you often say that to then get on TV more and nobody ever checks your wind loss record from a prediction standpoint. Uh, and, and which drives me crazy. But those are people who are just , uh , you know, it's like shock value, right? They're good. Right, exactly. They're good at getting the headline. Um, but bad from , uh , you know , uh, it was just watching baseball last night. They're , they , they have a really low batting average, but every , but maybe they'll hit a few grand slams every now and then and everybody thinks about those grand slams and , and nothing else. Yeah, absolutely. Media, I mean, in general is a, we know everything's clickbait now. Is that my phone? I'm so sorry. Oh, no, that's okay . I mean, it was off. I was off . I just texted her just so that she could say sorry, but it's , um , that's what it was. But

Speaker 1 32:24

you know, it's funny. It was my cousin who carried my , my baby. So how can I not like get back to her right away, but I won't .

Speaker 4 32:31

How do you, since we're talking about her, what do you get somebody after that? I think like a box of chocolates, right? Isn't a box of chocolates. In fact, she's most selfless person.

Speaker 1 32:40

She really didn't want anything, but she was smart enough, emotionally intelligent enough to know that she probably should take off. After she delivered Arielle , she booked a little cruise for her and her daughter. And so we covered that as she didn't ask me to, but I was like, I'm not, you're not going to accept any gift, but I'm going to send you, send you away. And by the way , um , it's nothing like the Handmaid's tale. I th I think it's really important to, most people don't know about surrogacy because only 2000 births a year are via surrogate. So it's a very, very confusing thing for people. And they think it's the Handmaid's tale. But you got through months and months of legal medical , uh , counseling you go through so much before someone can actually carry for you that , uh , you know, it's not just like a , a whim. I'm a few years behind on TV and I think you just ruined Handmaid's tale. It's, yeah . Well , as a Canadian I have , you know, Margaret Atwood is a Canadian icon who wrote this book in the eighties and now it's this great TV series about kind of what's happening in America today. But that's a political discussion. No, it's not that bad here, but you know, you'll watch it and you'll be scared because part of it was like reminds you as well, the fashion office , the bonnets aren't that attractive. But I'm going back to the future cause I, cause I, I think for listeners who tune in for future content that you do so well , um, I think reproductive medicine is the most safe. I think of all like it is so wild black mirror. You wouldn't even believe it. Hopefully not like the dystopian side of it with black mirror. But , um, the stories that I am pitched all the time and I have a podcast coming out with some of these stories, but they are so much stranger than fiction and it's only because of technology today. So like for instance , um , a woman who was in her mid forties wrote me and said, we woke up, well I'm sure they knew this for years, but she and her best friend are single women . They're not, you know, they're heterosexual, they're not together. And they realized they wanted to have a family but they needed, they wanted a biological connection. Neither of them had eggs that were still a viable to use cause they're in their mid to late forties. They both adopted embryos from the same infertile couple who had leftover embryos and now they're having siblings. Did you follow that? So cool. So cool. So talk about modern families . So you have women in their mid to late forties that we'll have genetically linked siblings and they could co raise them as friends. That's like a sitcom pitch, right? I know. All of it is like a sitcom pitch. I, I've interviewed a man on my podcast who , uh, who , uh , donated sperm 33 times and wants to meet his offspring. I interviewed a trans man who was more fertile than his female wife and female born, I should say wife. Um, I interview, I mean it's a woman who donated her uterus. This is like PSI Phi and it is, it is always, and then someone pitched me recently and said, I just divorced my husband. I'd like to donate my embryo to someone. Can you help? I mean, this is like super, super future and we're here now, so just want to make it that I was going to say, I think , um, uh , have you ever seen the movie Gattica yeah. Okay. So I was thinking a lot along those lines is like what can be really more Saifai than creating people in slightly different ways than we used to in the past. Right. Absolutely. And if , if Arielle ever has a sibling, we have, we have a healthy girl in the freezer. That sounds so more of it and weird and freaky and like a crime scene. No. But we have a healthy embryo, female in the freezer. If we ever meet her through a carrier, cause I can't carry to term, we know that , uh , she will actually have been, she's older than my daughter because she was created in 2015 so she's going to have like different tastes in music and stuff basically. Yeah. Yeah. Because that's so true. Uh , I don't think we could possibly leave on a better note than a healthy girl in the freezer. So , um , so crazy . I mean that just sounds, yeah, I'm glad. I'm glad to end on that note. Well, thank you so much, Andrea. Really

Speaker 3 37:04

appreciate you making the time to talk to us about all of this. I think it's a really important , uh , task that you've , uh, kinda championed over the last few years, so thank you for that.

Speaker 5 37:14

Thank you.

Speaker 3 37:19

And thanks again, Andrea, sir . Tash for joining us , uh , this week. Uh , and really fascinating topic. And the honestly, I did not really think about fertility as being such a Saifai , uh , technology rich topic. Uh, so I consider myself schooled , uh, in the process. Um, as always, you can rate and review us on Apple podcasts or wherever you choose to , uh, get your podcasts of choice. Uh , and thanks so much for telling everybody else about this show. Uh, it's really nice to see that our , uh, uh, subscriber base is going up and week after week, and that we're getting some really good questions and some suggestions for people who are going to be on the show over the next few weeks. So we've actually booked a few people just at your recommendation. So take a look in the show notes for how to tweet me , uh, to continually recommend a few people to come on and for topics that we should tackle. Uh , once again, I'm Jeremy Goldman and you've been listening to future

Speaker 6 38:30

[inaudible] .