The Tightrope: Balancing Career, Motherhood, and Everything In Between
Being a mother is wonderful, hard, and everything in between. Being a working mother is its own brand of chaos. Join hosts Jess Feldt and Daniella Cornue as they discuss the challenges and the triumphs of being a working mom today.
The Tightrope: Balancing Career, Motherhood, and Everything In Between
Navigating the Silent Struggles of Fertility and Finding Resilience in Motherhood
This episode is the most personal we've ever recorded. We often talk about motherhood as if it starts with a baby. Our motherhood journeys actually begin much, much earlier. In this episode, Daniella shares her personal fertility journey, from miscarriage to baby to infertility. Together, we cover all the emotions of fertility challenges, from the weight of decision-making to the rollercoaster that is trying to conceive, all while navigating work and your career at the same time.
It's an unflinching look at the societal insistence on early pregnancy silence and the isolating aftermath of loss, reflecting on how these experiences reshape us. This is not just about the difficult conversations, but also about the courage to continue and the resilience we discover within ourselves.
If you'd like to read more about Dani's story, you can find her article here:
https://www.levillagecowork.com/post/with-a-grateful-heart-a-personal-journey-update
Thanks for listening to The Tightrope! We would greatly appreciate a review and a share if you enjoyed today's episode.
To connect with us further, please reach out to:
Jess Feldt: www.jessfeldtcoaching.com
Daniella Cornue: www.levillagecowork.com
You can also find us on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn!
In this podcast we talk so much about post-pregnancy right and how we show up as mothers when we have our newborns, when we have our toddlers at home, but that journey and its impact on us as women starts so much earlier, from even this idea of wanting to start a family to then pregnancy, and all of that also impacts the way that we show up at work and it's almost taboo to talk about. It is something that so many women in our workplaces are probably going through, but silently.
Daniella Cornue:Hello to all of our exhausted and exhilarated working parents and welcome to the Tightrope, a show about balancing career, motherhood and everything in between.
Jess Feldt:We are your hosts, Daniella Cornue and Jess Feldt, and in today's show we are going to be talking about the mental load of navigating your fertility journey while also navigating your career. Today's podcast episode contains discussions about miscarriage and infertility which may be distressing or triggering for some of our listeners. Listener discretion is advised. If you are sensitive to these topics or currently struggling with them, please take care of yourself. Today's episode is going to be pretty emotional. I think it's very personal for us and for Daniella, for you, as we get into your story. But a little background like why are we talking about this? Usually we talk about things that are all about motherhood and what comes after you have the baby, and we talk about the mental load a lot. But I think something that doesn't get talked about nearly as much as it should, as is just the mental load of of navigating getting pregnant in the fertility journey and the infertility journey that many people navigate.
Daniella Cornue:Well, I think just being pregnant in general right Like motherhood starts months before that baby ever arrives and the toll that it takes on your body and the changes that you go through, like all of that is a part of your motherhood. That is all a part of the same story, and I think adjusting the mindset around when motherhood begins is one of the very first things that we really need to address and talk about is that you know, and it starts right away your, your whole mindset shifts the moment you see that pregnancy test. Like you're like that feeling where you're like oh shit, oh shit, oh my God. You know we're like, oh my God.
Jess Feldt:Like whatever that is.
Daniella Cornue:That is when your motherhood begins, because all of the things that you are doing and all of the decisions that you're making at that point is different.
Jess Feldt:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And even before you get that positive pregnancy test right Once you've made if you've made the intentional decision that, hey, it's time for us to start a family that right, there is when an additional mental load starts coming on your shoulders as you're starting to think through all of these things. How do we plan for this? How do we do this? Is it going to work as we think it's going to work? What if it doesn't work the way that we think it's going to work? And unlike once you've announced that you're pregnant or once the baby has come, a lot of this is silent because we don't tell people often that we're navigating these, these fertility journeys.
Jess Feldt:We don't talk about it, and we specifically really don't talk about it at work, and I think that's a lot of what we're going to be talking about today, when everything we we really discuss here on the podcast is everything at the intersection of career and motherhood, that there is this entire like silent journey that you're navigating while you're also navigating your career that we just don't talk about but very, very much impacts you 100%.
Daniella Cornue:I think it's interesting to me because, of course, I'm processing this a lot internally and you think about your own story, you think about your own thing, you know. What's interesting is that I don't feel like women share their pregnancies until they're confirmed, and so it becomes this like well, of course you wouldn't share anything else, because that's the way that we've kind of set this up for people, right? It kind of makes it, yeah, it kind of makes it confusing, of like how to navigate all of this, because it's like, well, you're told not to share until at least 12 weeks, but what is happening before that point? For sometimes for some families, months and years before that point?
Jess Feldt:Yeah, yeah, and that's what really today, Dani, we're going to be I'm almost going to be interviewing you a bit here. We're going to hear through a couple of your different stories and your adventures in navigating this whole fertility and infertility journey. So why don't do you want to start there, Dani? Like, I'm just giving us a little bit of background. I don't know. You tell me what you want to share.
Daniella Cornue:Well, I think you know me. I'm an open book. I've always been an open book. Um, I will say that we have never um had an easy time getting pregnant. Um, you know, I, Nate and I probably started trying to get pregnant when I turned 30, which I didn't think was that old I still don't think it's that old, you know. I just wasn't really ready to do that. We got married when we were, you know, I was 27. And I wanted to just be married and travel with my husband and appreciate that time with him. And then, yeah, when I turned 30, we were like, okay, and I think that I spent so much time up to that point like not to get pregnant I was like, we're told our entire lives.
Jess Feldt:Here's how to not get pregnant, how to not get pregnant and of course, my mom, it's so easy to do it right. They're like oh, if you have one mistake you're going to get pregnant you're going to get pregnant.
Daniella Cornue:You know I had. I did not know anything about ovulation cycles. I did not know anything about, I really didn't know anything about my body at that point. Genuinely, it baffles me to this day how much we don't share with women about their bodies Totally. And you know again, like my mom is like pretty, like honest and out there, you know like birds and bees styles. But I talked to her about this and she was like I didn't know anything about that stuff because that was not. She was like my mom. I remember my mom was like my grandma. She used the ovulation schedule to not get pregnant because before birth control that was the only way to not get pregnant.
Jess Feldt:Right. What do we call that? Like the rhythm method.
Daniella Cornue:Rhythm method Exactly.
Jess Feldt:Really aware of, like your cycles.
Daniella Cornue:You're really aware, right, there's like basically only a week of the month that you can actually get pregnant. If you are not familiar with this, if we are speaking in another language right now, I encourage you to look this up and learn about it. It's very important. But you know you have different phases during your cycle and there's only a specific phase of your cycle that you are actually releasing eggs and can get pregnant.
Daniella Cornue:I did not know about any of that. I literally was like what I just assumed that you could like if you were young and healthy, like you could get knocked up at any point. And, of course, my mom, who got knocked up at 18 with me, had spent my entire teenage years just being like as soon as she got sexually active, she was like birth control, like we are not even messing with this, like you do what you need to, but like your ass is going on birth control and you will like it and and so I'd been on birth control for like years. Um, and I just that was it. That was like that's. All I understood or knew about. It was that if I forgot my pill, I better be taking a Plan B and like outside of that, like so when we started this journey, it was like I just thought that we were like, let's have fun, it's going to be so sexy and awesome.
Daniella Cornue:And then, you know, three months turns into six months and then you start to get scared, you start to get worried and you start to be like you know, I'm going into the doctor being like hey, like is everything okay? Like I just kind of thought, like you know, and every month you're taking the test and you're pulling it up and it's negative, you know, and that the first few months you can kind of take it in stride, but every single month it starts to settle in a different way and you start to panic a little bit. And I think the care systems are not really very understanding about this kind of stuff, like they're not really built to support women through this. Because I think at that point, when a 30-year-old woman is coming in and saying, hey, what's going on, and everyone's like it's fine, it's fine, just go have fun, and I'm like this is stopped being fun, like a month ago. What do you mean?
Jess Feldt:go have fun, right now we're on calendars and appointments and timing and there's no more like romance or let's do like sexy time around it, it's a science. just it starts to like slow down, right it's.
Daniella Cornue:I don't think we got to science quite yet at that point, because again, I, I still you know, 30 is young, right, like I was, just like I don't know. The doctors say it's fine and we should just keep boning and eventually it'll happen. So we just did and we went on a trip. We ended up in Morocco and during this, at this point, I started to learn about my cycle. I had started to kind of understand like these pieces, like the doctors were finally taking me aside and being like hey, by the way, if you're trying, like you should be trying during this window. And I was like what? And so, and I guess, just did you know about the ovulation stuff? Like, was this just me?
Jess Feldt:, but I think when we had decided to make we're going to try I had all the apps on my phone, like from day one, of like knowing we were going to start trying and then they're like you should be tracking before you're ready. Like knowing we were going to start trying and then they're like you should be tracking before you're ready, you should be tracking. So the app already knows how to predict when you're ovulating. And I, like from day one, had the ovulation sticks to make sure that I was like ovulating at the time that the app said that I was, which is actually how I knew that I ovulated after the app said that I did so. Right, I'm like research-heavy real person.
Daniella Cornue:So when I was like this is so just the most Jess thing I've ever heard in my life. By the way, like I knew and I researched it, I'm like you say what? And I was just like I don't know. I was out there having sex a lot
Jess Feldt:, like yeah no, when it was get we were like no, we're doing this.
Daniella Cornue:It was like no, we're doing this, yeah no, I love that, I, and so it got. It took us a little bit longer to get there and so we knew, like I knew, the week that I was ovulating we were in Morocco and we did this one. We went through the markets of Marrakesh with a tour and he bought me these. I picked out these little slippers. They were like little baby moccasins basically, cause, like the markets in Marrakesh are just beautiful. They're everything's handmade. And the guide asked me he's like are you, are you expecting? And I said no, we're just, we're hoping. And we got home and I was pregnant. It taken us eight months, but we were finally pregnant. Eight months but we were finally pregnant. So now you're pregnant, now we're pregnant and we're over the moon, right, we've been trying for eight months and had been scared that something was wrong and we were pregnant. But we were pregnant and we made it through. You know, I knew basically enough to know that, like we could miscarry the baby at you know any, especially during the first trimester, the odds were high. And of course, at that point you're doing, you are reading all the books and you're doing the statistics, and then you are, you know, kind of all in on all these pieces and I.
Daniella Cornue:We had a family trip to New York which is where Nate's from upstate New York, and it was at like 11 weeks basically, and we were like, well, it's not 12 weeks but it's 11 weeks, so let's go ahead and like tell everybody. So we did, and we had a photo shoot and it was very lovely. And we got home and I started bleeding and we went to the doctor and they couldn't find a heartbeat. They had we had done one of the before we left because I was like I want to make sure that, like everything's okay before we tell our family. I was very nervous and we went in you can go into these places and pay, basically to have an ultrasound and like pictures done. And so we went in and did that and before the trip, everything was fine, everything was great and the tech had said that the baby was small. She was like, oh, you're only like eight weeks. And I was like, no, we're like 11 weeks. She was like she didn't say anything because that's not their job, right, but I but I suspect that you know it just wasn't growing the way it was supposed to. The baby just wasn't growing. So at that point we went in.
Daniella Cornue:You know, like I said, it's just a pretty traumatic experience. Yeah, we called him Rocky. I was convinced it was a boy and I was not expecting to lose him, and so I think that at that point, like your whole world is upside down. It's a level of like earth shattering disappointment that I don't really know how to articulate unless you've gone through it. But I was devastated and I had just started a brand new job.
Daniella Cornue:I just started this job and I was like my third day there, jess, and I'm like waiting out in the bathroom, basically, and it's very physical and incredibly emotional and you are just expected as a woman, to. I was lucky enough, even at that point in my life, to have a network of friends, one friend in particular who I knew had had a miscarriage. She had shared it with me and she came over because I just You're just kind of devastated and you feel really lonely and it's just really hard, and so, yeah, it was, it was really challenging, it was really hard and I didn't feel like I could tell anybody Right. So that was the. That was that.
Jess Feldt:Well, I mean especially. I mean, let alone that being at a new job, right. So you're just meeting people, you don't really have relationships yet, so you also probably did not feel comfortable being like I need time away, right, I think, even if you've been at a role for a while, these, this is something that we don't have protected leave for. This is something where it's really just like soldier on, show up to work, take a sick day if you're lucky enough to have one.
Daniella Cornue:Right.
Jess Feldt:But we don't talk about it, we don't share. I mean, like you mentioned, we have this whole. Don't tell anyone you're pregnant until 12 weeks, because what if you lose it? Which? And it's?
Daniella Cornue:so we don't, so we don't tell what was I supposed to do, be like oh, by the way, thanks for this great new job. Also, I was pregnant, also I lost the baby, like what is the story around that, and so it was just a really complicated thing. And I have, I, I actually I well, this was before I started really writing and sharing. I have this distinct memory though of, like you know, I was in sales, right, and so media sales, like that is a, you know, a little bit of a Mad Men-y still industry, and so you know, I was supposed to go to this. So you know, I was supposed to go to this like meeting conference situation to meet one of my new clients.
Daniella Cornue:And I am kind of pudgy already because I was, I was, we were 11 weeks when we lost the baby and so I was still, I was carrying some of that weight already. My clothes didn't fit right, everything felt weird weight already. And I'm trying to stuff myself into these, you know businessy dresses with heels and lipstick and go into these meetings and I just, you know, at least when you're stuffing yourself into these sites sorts of things, when you're pregnant, it has this like beautiful end part of it, you know when you're, when you miscarry, your body is still changed and every change is a reminder. Every change is a reminder of what you've lost yeah and what you're you know for me.
Daniella Cornue:I felt a lot of what you've lost, yeah, and what you're you know for me. I felt a lot of failure personally, like personal failure around it, and so that was that experience, basically, and I think that at that point I soldiered through. I fell into a really deep depression, probably because I wasn't talking about it and I wasn't telling anybody. I barely talked to my husband about what was going on, yeah, um, and I really isolated in a very unhealthy way and it was just. I was really depressed. I was really depressed.
Jess Feldt:So how long after that experience did you guys end up pregnant with Vivie?
Daniella Cornue:So once we had the miscarriage, we were instructed that we needed to wait until my body kind of reset and I had a regular cycle, and then we were allowed to start trying again, and I think there was part of me that really thought that if I could just have another baby I would feel better. I think there are parts of me that there are parts of that that are, of course, true, not that, anyone , can ever replace the child that I lost. You know, I still I have those shoes. I still I still think about, I still think about it all the time. You carry it with you forever, those types of things they shape you. And so it was another nine months before we got pregnant with Vivie, and at that, that point, I was full on research. I that point that switched, that changed me.
Jess Feldt:That's when you switched into Jess mode.
Daniella Cornue:I went into Jess mode and I went in, I was reading. I mean, I started off with just like understanding why do women miscarry? What is the science behind that? What is it? A vitamin deficiency, deficiency? Is it what it? And, of course, because it's women's body, there's very little information, little to none. We do not know why women lose their babies and if there's anything we can do to change that, even though it's something that affects one in four women, and women are 52% of our population. Yeah, we, yeah. We just don't study it, we just don't do anything about it.
Jess Feldt:We just even to that.
Jess Feldt:Even to that, I was trying to look up statistics before we did today's podcast to talk about how many families are navigating fertility or infertility journeys, and I was seeing a lot of conflicting information.
Jess Feldt:I'm sure it depends on, kind of like, what studies you're looking at and at what point you're considered to be going through like an infertility journey, right? So I'm sure there's a bunch of different factors, but the two main pieces I was seeing is that either one in six or one in eight couples are navigating, you know, fertility journeys at any given point, just naturally trying, you know, as you did the first go around or with interventions in there, um, and that that number is going up as women are waiting longer to start families and not women families are waiting longer to start families. Right, it's a mutual decision, um, for multiple reasons, whether it's career, whether it's feeling more financially stable, whether that's just. You know it took longer until we found our partner and decided we wanted to do this, for many different reasons. Just couples are waiting longer to start families, and so this number is continuing to go up.
Daniella Cornue:Yeah, yeah, I'm not surprised to hear any of that. So again, it's baffling to me that we're having these conversations about the lack of kind of supports that are around these scenarios, considering how many people are going through this. But at this point, yeah, I'm researching, I am well informed, I know what's going on. I start to get into a lot of and I don't think I've ever stopped since that point. I think that was a big thing for me. I was like what else are they not telling me? What else are they not telling me? I got I it, it.
Daniella Cornue:It angers me to this day how much we just don't know and how much we don't share with our young women, with our young women. How did I go through one, I'm sorry, through almost again when we started trying 30 years of my life, so you know, 15 years of being old enough to understand, right, not knowing, not understanding, I don't. It baffles me. And so I became very well read, very well researched, and it still wasn't helping. It didn't. We were still struggling. Something was not clicking, it wasn't lining up, and it was actually Nate's doctor. I remember at first being so irritated that Nate's old man of a doctor came home and was like have you ever heard of basal body temperature?
Jess Feldt:Do you feel body temperature? I do now because our iPhones track it. Like it's kind of crazy. I don't think that's not something I was tracking when we were getting pregnant, but now I'm aware of it because it's something our iPhones can track, which boggles my mind how technology can do that, but yeah.
Daniella Cornue:Well, I was very relieved for it personally at this. You know this most recent round that we we went through, but back then, the iPhones, it wasn't. It's not your iPhone, it's your, your, your watch that tracks it actually and feeds it to your phone. But it's literally like your, it's your, your base temperature of your body and women, our body temperatures increase when our, when we're getting ready to ovulate, release the eggs, and then it drastically like drops off when it's done. So it's like this spike, and so you can really like pinpoint it, not just to like, uh, sometime in this seven days you're gonna maybe ovulate down, to like these three days like you'll see it shift, yeah, and these three days you're going to there's like these are your days that you want to get down, get down whatever song you want in the background of that what I hope, god, I hope no one is having sex to that song.
Daniella Cornue:So those, but it helps, you know. And he was. I again I was like what, what is this male doctor telling me to do with my body? And I was really annoyed about it at first, but then I like researched it and I was like why? And then I was mad on the other side why is this male doctor that is my husband's doctor telling him this information? And nobody is telling me this information? Well, I am struggling to understand why we are not able to get pregnant. And but that's what did it. We did like three months of basal body and on the third try we got it, and now you have a Vivie, and now we have a Vivie, um, and we're very lucky to have a Vivie. I think at that point the impact on my work was. I think the biggest impact was the action, like just the depression and then the miscarriage and all of that. But I nobody knew at work like what was going on in my family life at all.
Jess Feldt:Had you ever considered sharing?
Daniella Cornue:No, not there. No, it was very much like a hustle hard, play hard, you know, work hard all day long, sell a lot of stuff and then get you know, celebrate and be out at the bars afterwards and lots of like you know stuff like that. And then there was like the, those of us that were considered like junior, more junior, like salespeople, because I had switched careers right, I was coming from like a completely different career at that point and I was by far the oldest person in that crew. I was already married. I was not like by far. I guess it was like maybe five or six years in front of everyone else, far enough to be in a different life stage.
Daniella Cornue:Yeah, I was just in a different life stage, and so it was like who is I going to share this with the 23 year old that just graduated college and, you know what, doesn't understand? I barely understood what was going on, right? So I wasn't sure what I would get from that.
Jess Feldt:I think this applies to this situation but I think it applies to really any other situation that people could be going through in their personal life that so many of our work culture say or make us think we can't bring that part of us to work. It's not appropriate to bring that part of us to work. Maybe we don't even want to right, because work can be a nice distraction sometimes in these types of situations but it also has this effect of like making you feel like you're two different people. Right, like this is who I am at work, and everyone thinks I'm super perky all the time and everything's hunky dory and everything's great. And then it's like, okay, well then there's also this part of me that has a real life and things that are going on, but I can't talk about that .
Daniella Cornue:Hmm, yeah, I think that that's very true and very valid. So, yeah, so that was my first kind of round with everything. And then I had Vivie. I was pregnant at work again every day, dressed to the nines heels, eight months pregnant in heels, and a dress on the L platform, drag in my exhausted, nauseous, you know self into the office to like keep doing stuff, you know, and that is a weird place to be in, for sure that was also me, at eight, nine months pregnant, commuting in on the L in heels in heels?
Daniella Cornue:yeah, it's, it's a very. I have pictures like who says I can't do it? Ah, you know, and like just you do it, you just do. But you are carrying so much more. You are carrying so much more in that nine months. You know again the physical. So like all the emotional stuff and then, but like the physical toll that is on your body while you are trying to be the same version of yourself right before you got pregnant. That's the expectation, right, that we just are the same person.
Jess Feldt:Well and trying to, I think, and what I'll share is trying to force it into looking like it is the same person, because I didn't want anyone to think any differently about me and my career, right? Yeah, even if I was tired, even if I was this, even if it was this, I was like, nope, everything's fine, because, I mean, I was very aware of that motherhood penalty, right, and did not want to even put a sliver of doubt into anybody's mind that, oh, maybe I wouldn't come back, or oh, maybe I don't want that opportunity, or oh, maybe she won't be as committed as she was before.
Daniella Cornue:Yep, 100%. Yeah, so you just shuffle through and carry on. You know, puke in the bathroom in the morning and go to work. That's the expectation.
Jess Feldt:Yeah, so now you own your own business.
Daniella Cornue:I do.
Jess Feldt:And you've just had a similar journey that I'll let you share about, but from a different angle, because now you have your own business, even though you're going through a similar journey, so I guess I'll let you share that.
Daniella Cornue:So, yeah, so we, you know, I would encourage you guys, if you listen to this podcast and you're a regular listener to the podcast, head over to tell these stories so that people know that they are not alone, they do not live in a vacuum, they're not screaming into the abyss. So if you are a listener, I would encourage you guys to go read that to get kind of the full story. But I will say here, you know, we decided to start trying to have a second child and again, like you, just you don't think that anything's wrong. You know different versions of me that like never thought that like something was wrong. I was like, well, we had a baby, so clearly we can have a baby, and I think my biggest fear was miscarriage, not not being able to get pregnant. Um, but we couldn't get pregnant. You know, we I never went back on birth control after the birth of Vivi and I should have known that something was maybe amiss at that point.
Daniella Cornue:That was almost six years ago and it never organically happened for us and I just kind of thought, ah, we live really stressful lifestyles, like we are very busy, we're probably missing the timing, like at the time, you know again, it's like three days a month, getting nailed it perfectly. And so we went through the same cycle. We started trying, we started tracking and we leveled it up slowly. You know, it was like first we just kind of started trying and having trying to like organically do it, and then it was like, okay, well, let's get the ovulation tracker going, let's get the pee sticks going, let's get the, you know the, the, let's do our basal body temperature, which I did right off the bat, um, the, a lot of that stuff. But I wasn't sharing it with Nate because he felt a lot of pressure around it and he it made him very uncomfortable. And so I'm doing all this emotional labor alone, um, and not telling anyone about it. You know, know, and every month again, I think that that's like it's this, like like sharp point. Every month it's the same.
Daniella Cornue:You go in and you take your pregnancy test and you wait for those two lines and when they're not there, when they're not there, it's you're, you're just so disappointed. You know when you have to then put away that feeling and get your kids up. You know, if you already have a child and go to work and in my work lead mothers, um, half of my staff is pregnant right now. You know, half of my staff is pregnant right now. You know it's it's a very difficult part of all of it, and so we tried and tried and tried and then finally we decided that we were going to get some outside help.
Daniella Cornue:And we went to a fertility clinic and we started the fertility process and I thought I was trying before, Jess, I was not trying, this is trying and it just you can like level. You're just like leveling it up. You're just adding like you already feel like you're like climbing Mount Everest with like a load of insanity on your back. And then you get it's like getting to, like like you're crawling up this mountain. And then all of a sudden they're like, oh, would you like to carry another person's backpack? And that, like that was IUI for me. They were like, okay, now we're going to put you on all these. So we did IUI, we're going to put you on all these hormones, we're going to do all this stuff.
Daniella Cornue:And then I started gaining weight and you're tired and you're nauseous and you're like putting your body through hell just for the shot at a baby because your chances are not good. You're just praying, so you're just adding emotion, there's an emotional load just adding to it. Now you're adding physical part of it and we did that for several months and it didn't work. Every month, you know the, they're doing these like cervical swabs. I'm at the doctor's office, like every other day. I'm afraid of needles, and I'm doing blood draws, like every other day, and they are shoving this wand into my lady bits. And well, let me jam it this way and look at your, your, your follicle over here. Does that hurt? No, it feels great super comfortable super comfortable.
Daniella Cornue:This is great, you know, and you're squeezing this in between, like meetings and staff and you know all this other stuff yeah, we talked about this, even like when we were just talking about having this episode right that.
Jess Feldt:how could you? Could you imagine how difficult it would be to navigate, having to do all of these appointments and respond as you need to and take the time away in a position where you don't have the flexibility that you currently do as a business owner? Right, where you are expected to show up at work at a certain time every day and trying to navigate all of that with these kind of like day of decisions based on how your body's doing.
Daniella Cornue:Yeah, I, you know, when I went into this process I really like was trying to find peace and gratitude with all of it. And I I think I told you this I said I can't like this is such a like first world rich white person problem Like I can't imagine, like I can't imagine, like trying like you couldn't want it, you could not afford it. I can't imagine like trying like you couldn't one, you could not afford it. The expense around it is insane and every level up you do so like we did IUI. It didn't work. We did several rounds of this Dumping money. You're just bleeding money at that point and I thought that was expensive. And then they were like let's do IVF. And I couldn't. How do people pay for multiple, multiple, multiple? I have friends that are like I don't know six rounds into IVF. I just and it's thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars. So the financial weight that people are carrying and trying to figure out or just putting it on credit cards, that's like I mean at the shot, not the guarantee, right, Just the chance that you might get to have a baby. And then you add the physical aspects of it. You know IVF.
Daniella Cornue:I thought that IUI was a lot, but at least they were pills. IVF is all needles Two shots in the morning, four shots at night. Everybody's a little bit different depending on, like, how their bodies are and what's going on and who their doctor is, but it was just. I had just, my whole stomach was bruised and and that's what you sign up for you know and you put yourself through. I gained. You know and you put yourself through. I gained through the whole part of it. I gained 20 pounds. Physically, it just changes you. It's just so much of a an investment and, of course, I am still running my company through all of this we had several podcasts, through all of this Yep, and I didn't tell anybody. Really. I didn't tell anybody outwardly at that point either, because I didn't want, I wasn't ready for people to be invested, because I didn't want to be too invested in something that could very potentially break my heart. And I think it's the same in both stories. And so we we did that and it didn't work. It didn't work. We did not get pregnant.
Daniella Cornue:We there are so many places to fail with IVF and this is the stuff that, like, people don't really talk about. Is that, like you've got to first, you've got to grow enough follicles, Then you've got to grow enough eggs, Then you've got to get the eggs out of your body and hope that the sperm connects with the egg and embryos are created. Then the embryos have to grow. It's really magic that women get pregnant. Frankly, Now, when you look at all these pieces, we are, women are magic, like I, genuinely I'm like, oh my gosh. And then you have to get the embryo to transfer, then you have to get it to implant, and that every single one of the things that I just said your chances get cut, cut in half, and then you might maybe get the shot at a, but that's only if you don't miscarry. And that is the weight of hope and disappointment that families are carrying around and trying to show up in every other facet of their life, including work, yeah, including work.
Jess Feldt:Yeah, and making so many different life decisions, while also trying to consider, well, how will this impact my career? Right, I can imagine that there are probably women who are going through this journey who maybe, let's say, have another promotion in line or something else and are thinking, well, what if? What if I get pregnant? Well, maybe I, maybe I won't take that job, because what if I get pregnant? And I don't want that extra responsibility right now, while I'm doing this, only for some of those things to be like. Well, we just don't know. So it is really this kind of like silent load that you are carrying while trying to go through all of these different parts of your life. And I think this is really the point in the podcast, when our typical, you know our typical topics we pivot to like what can we do about this?
Daniella Cornue:You asked me at one point. You were like you know how do you recommend people share? And I think that's really personal and I do want to share this with people, you know, and I do want to share this with people, you know. You asked me too. You were like how can people navigate? You know work and be doing all of this stuff, and what do you tell your boss when you're out at doctor's appointments? Like I didn't have to tell anybody because I was, I am the boss. But I didn't know this because it didn't apply to me, but I did read this and find it out. Infertility and related conditions are considered disabilities under the federal ADA and California state law and there are protections against workplace discrimination.
Jess Feldt:I did not know that.
Daniella Cornue:I didn't know that either, and I think it's important that people know that you don't owe anyone anything. If you don't want to share it, you don't have to. It's very personal. You don't have to share anything with your employer except your doctor's note and a list of all your appointments. You don't owe them anything else.
Daniella Cornue:I will say that I think creating a safe support system for yourself is the difference for me between my miscarriage and our infertility and not being able to have another child, which was something which was a dream that I had. You know it's both are deaths of dreams that I had for our family in different ways. But the first time I didn't feel like I had anybody that understood and I didn't have a support system and I really spiraled into a really deep depression that nearly ruined my marriage like really messed up a lot of stuff for a long time. We're still digging out of some of the holes that I dug. And the second time that this happened and I had built such a beautiful support system for myself that felt safe, and so I would say, like my advice if there's any advice in any of this, is is a few fold right one if you are trying to get pregnant or in any realm of any. Be a Jess, don't be a victim. I'm serious, I am dead serious. Be a Jess like know your body, understand your body, understand the options available to your family. Do not let anyone dictate to you what is right for you.
Daniella Cornue:I had a lot of people being like, oh, just wait, don't you need to do. You're so young, you don't need to do that. No, I, I, my plan was to have children at 30. I have another kid at 32 or 33. You know what I mean. Like this was not my plan. I let other people dictate to me what they thought was important. Don't be me. Be in control of your own life, your own destiny. If you are a woman who is 29, 30, however old you are, and you think that there is a shred of a part of you that wants to have children, go freeze your eggs. Go do it. Don't let other people why? Don't let anybody tell you that it's shameful or dumb or irrational. And if you never use them, then great. But you have the opportunity of an option that a lot of us didn't get. So that's my second thing Take control.
Daniella Cornue:And then, thirdly, think about your circle and who you're going to share this with? Are you going to share this with, like your ride or die right the people that are just like your best, closest, most important people? Maybe you're going to share it with your what I would refer to as like an inner circle right, like people that people that are close to you but maybe not that. Are you going to share it with people that are at work, like colleagues maybe just direct interactions with colleagues and really think about it? Don't just brush over it and be like I don't know. I'm just going to like, because when you're emotionally overwhelmed, you have a lot harder time making these decisions and when you're making these choices ask yourself what am I going to get out of sharing with these people? Because you need to be getting something from it.
Daniella Cornue:If sharing with your not in my scenario, I want to be clear but if sharing with your mother-in-law makes it feel pressured and makes you feel shame, then you should not be sharing it with that person. Yeah, don't, don't, you don't have to, you don't owe anything to anybody. But if sharing with your best friend is going to make you feel less alone, if you know that having a witness to this big thing that is happening to you is going to fulfill you. Those are the people that you share it with. That's how you tell.
Jess Feldt:Yeah Well, and I love what you said about making that decision before things get really emotionally heightened. Right, Like I've been using this word a lot, I shared this word with you like emotionally flooded. When we are emotionally flooded, it is almost impossible to make decisions because we just have so many different emotions and each emotion is telling us a different thing. And so having that plan ahead of time so that you feel really clear and grounded in that can be really helpful when you will get emotionally flooded and then you don't have to worry about that.
Daniella Cornue:Right. Creating safe spaces for yourself ahead of time is important when you know you're entering what is going to be really difficult, not impossible. People do this, I did it and I didn't get the happy ending, but I get to choose what that means for myself and my family. Like I, still get a version of a happy ending, it's just different and that is a really powerful place to be. I still have a lot of beautiful, amazing things to be grateful for, and I think that that is a hard place to row yourself to, but you can get there.
Jess Feldt:Dani, thank you for sharing all of this today. Yeah, as we wrap up today, we always end with our everything in between. This is career, motherhood and everything in between. Dani, what's your everything in between today?
Daniella Cornue:I am on a journey to rediscover or not? I guess. Not rediscover, I am on a journey to discover the next version of myself, to create a dream with pieces that I have, and to be excited about the life that I have right now, and so that is the thing that I'm really invested in and working on for myself right now.
Jess Feldt:So just a tiny little thing, not as existential at all.
Daniella Cornue:No, not even a little. That's awesome join us next time as we talk about traveling with your little ones and give you tips to staying sane while you're on the road have you ever heard what they call parenting when you're on vacation, that you're not actually on vacation, it's just extreme parenting. Yeah, I mean, that's definitely true. That's next time, so until then, just put one foot in front of the other. Thanks, guys.
.jpg)
