The Truth About: Fostering to Adopt + Having 4 Kids in 5 Years with @SheisaPaigeTurner | Part I

Well, the time has come. You’ve heard her voice, you’ve heard her hot takes, and now you’re getting the whole story. In this episode, I turn the mic toward  Paige Connell aka @sheisapaigeturner.

We get real real. Paige walks us through the beautiful, messy, emotional tornado that has been her path to motherhood—starting with a teenage AIM love triangle, through pregnancy losses, fostering two toddlers, navigating IVF and surviving a traumatic birth

If you’ve ever wondered how someone goes from "let's not not try" to four kids in five years. (Yes, four kids. In five years. Wild.)—all while staying married, organized, employed and mostly sane—you’re in for a treat. Plus, we talk domestic labor, postpartum absurdities, and more. 

🕒 Timeline Summary:

[1:22] - That time Paige's teenage AIM crush ditched her best friend… and became her husband.
 [6:11] - The “am I hungover or pregnant?” moment that turned into an ectopic pregnancy.
 [11:46] - Fostering toddlers while grieving a pregnancy loss—because why do things the easy way?
 [25:54] - IVF with toddlers during lockdown… nothing to see here, totally normal.
 [33:35] - That time her placenta overstayed its welcome… by several surgeries.
 [41:50] - Choosing a C-section (plus surprise hysterectomy!) with 40 people in the room.
 [50:26] - The unexpected joy of watching your kids turn into tiny weird humans.

🔗 Links & Resources:

• Follow Paige on Instagram: @sheisapaigeturner
• Brigham and Women’s Hospital (Boston) - Website
• Interested in fostering in Massachusetts? Learn more: DCF MA Foster Care

💬 Final Thoughts:
If you’ve ever wanted to hear a woman survive an ectopic pregnancy, foster two kids, endure a pandemic pregnancy, lose a placenta and her uterus—all while staying sarcastic and showing up as the other half of this show—this episode is your moment.

If you laughed, cried, or screamed into a pillow (relatable), don’t forget to rate, review, follow, and share the podcast. We love ya for it.

SUMMARY OF TOPICS WE COVER

• Met husband at age 14, dated at 16, and are going strong 18 years later
• Always planned on having four children, influenced by both coming from larger families
• Began fostering process at age 28, taking nearly a year to become licensed
• Experienced two ectopic pregnancies requiring surgery and removal of both fallopian tubes
• Fostered and later adopted a one-year-old and two-year-old in 2019
• Underwent IVF to conceive two biological daughters
• First birth resulted in severe complications with retained placenta, requiring multiple surgeries
• Second birth required a planned C-section with emergency hysterectomy due to placenta accreta
• Navigated pandemic parenting with daycare closures while working full-time
• Experienced inequitable division of household labor during the pandemic
• Had all four children within five years, with the maximum age gap being 2.5 years

Chapters

• 0:37 Meeting Paige and her family journey
• 5:15 The path to becoming foster parents
• 21:45 Pregnancy loss and IVF journey
• 31:35 Pandemic parenting with young children
• 38:00 First delivery complications
• 44:33 Second birth and C-section experience

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hi, paige, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for being here. You're welcome. Thanks for having me. If you don't know what we do here, no, I'm just kidding I've been really excited to talk to you. I know so many of our listeners know you and know a little bit about your journey, but they might not know all the pieces. So I'm hoping today to dive into your entire story.

Speaker 2: 0:26

Yeah, yeah. No, I'm excited, I um, I share like little bits and pieces um along the way, Um, but yeah, I don't know if I've ever shared my experience of becoming a mother.

Speaker 1: 0:33

Well, you met your husband when you were pretty young, right?

Speaker 2: 0:36

I met my husband when I was like 14, maybe 13. I don't even know how old I was, but he, um, he took my best friend to semi-formal and we took pictures at my house and like in, like the true 2000s style, like after semi, she was like he's not really like aiming me anymore.

Speaker 2: 0:55

Like every time I aim him he's got an away message up and I was like, oh, that's so weird because he's talking to me. And she was like Paige and I was like I don't know, I don't know. And she was like Paige and I was like I don't know, I don't know. We didn't start dating for maybe two years after that, but we were very good friends, like the typical best friend situation, and started dating when we were 16.

Speaker 1: 1:14

Wow, and for those of you listening who don't know what AIM is, it used to be how we chatted people online there might be people. It was the original Facebook Messenger or Snapchat. It just didn't disappear. But yeah, it was dial-up times.

Speaker 2: 1:29

Oh yeah, I remember he and I this is how long ago it was. I got a cell phone and we would talk on the phone, but I didn't have texting. My mom hadn't turned on texting.

Speaker 1: 1:40

It was expensive. I remember you would be charged by the message.

Speaker 2: 1:45

Yeah, I wasn't allowed to text. I remember, remember getting texting when I was like 17 or 18 and being like I got it and it was like the best day of my life, but yeah, so I've been with my husband for a very long time. We've been together at this point for 18 years.

Speaker 1: 1:59

Wow, known each other for 20 then, right Since you met him a couple years before. So you obviously have a big family. You have four kids, um, some people might call that a small family. Um, that we'll have to get into that at some point. But um did you and your husband talk about wanting a big family, or talk about wanting a family ever since you were young?

Speaker 2: 2:24

Yeah, he's one of three, I'm one of four, and four was weirdly always in my head and I think it's just like partially generational. My mom is one of four, my dad is one of four, I'm one of four and so like four is just kind of what I know, right, Like that's just what, that's what I know, that's what my parents knew, and so it was a dynamic I was comfortable with. I also like that with four there's no middle child, which I know that it's fine to be a middle child, but my husband's the middle child and he will tell you that he felt it. He felt like the middle child and the idea of four my sister will tell you she's a middle child but like the idea of four is to me it's like nobody's on their own, you know, like nobody's stranded on an Island in the middle or or feeling any certain way.

Speaker 2: 3:09

Um, that's not always the case, Right, but like that was like I think that's what I thought prior to having kids. I was like, okay, this'll be good. Like everybody's got a buddy, four is good, four fits in a car. Um, you know, uh, those logistical things, yeah, I think I had always said four. I've always said four. I think my husband would have been fine at two once we actually became parents for sure.

Speaker 1: 3:34

He was like this is enough.

Speaker 2: 3:36

Yeah, well, not that it's enough. He has anxiety and I think having kids having anxiety, having ADHD, uh it's, it's just a lot harder for him than it is for me to parent. And obviously, like, the more kids, the more chaos, um. And so I think, looking back, he's like could you imagine if we just had like the two of them? And I'm like, yeah, I mean, that'd be crazy, right, Um, so uh, but we, we moved fast, so, um know, hindsight's 20-20, right.

Speaker 1: 4:06

Yeah, how quickly after getting married did you have kids?

Speaker 2: 4:10

Not quickly, so we didn't get engaged until we'd been together for like 10 years, 9 years, 10 years. We were still very young, though we were 25, I think, when we got engaged, married at 26. So married kind of young-ish 26. So married kind of young-ish, and we didn't start trying to have kids until we were 29. We started exploring becoming parents when we were 28. We started getting licensed to be foster parents, but we didn't start trying to conceive biological children until we were 29. And that is when we became parents. I was 29 and he had just turned 30.

Speaker 1: 4:45

And then you became parents as foster parents, initially right.

Speaker 2: 4:54

Yeah, you know, I had a pregnancy before we became foster parents, but we started that journey first, and so there's a lot of whenever you foster or adopt, oftentimes people assume it's due to the fact you couldn't have biological children, right? There's always that like running narrative. It's like, oh right, there's always that like running narrative. It's like, oh, they adopted and then they just magically got pregnant. How amazing and it right. Like it's this weird thing that people assume if you adopt first and then have biological children.

Speaker 2: 5:14

But Matt and I always knew we wanted to potentially adopt. I will admit that I was naive to the ethical issues of the adoption industry at that time right, I was in my 20s. I didn't fully understand, but I learned about fostering and then adopting through foster care and what that looked like. And when we were 28, we started the process of getting licensed to become foster parents. And it takes a long time. I think it took almost a full year before we became officially licensed as foster parents. We started in like June of 2018 and we officially became foster parents. Well, our kids moved in with us end of June, early July 2019.

Speaker 1: 5:55

So, yeah, a full year, and so you were dealing with a pregnancy loss during that time too, right?

Speaker 2: 6:00

Yeah, so we weren't actively trying, we were doing the whole fun. You know, the first time you're having a kid, like we're going to not not try. You know we're going to not try to not get pregnant, Right, Like so I'm like off my birth control and I'd been off my birth control for a while because I was having like a ton of crazy hormonal acne. I'd been on it for like 10 years and my doctor's like it's not the, it's not the birth control, and I came off and like the acne disappeared, Like I was like okay, I think it's the birth control.

Speaker 2: 6:25

I was gaining a lot of weight and I was like, okay, I am getting off. And I just took myself off birth control. But we started trying-ish, you know, just not using protection, essentially no birth control in January of 2019. And I got pregnant, I think, the first time and, to be honest, we don't even really remember because we weren't keeping track of anything. I was not tracking my ovulation, I wasn't tracking when we were having sex, I wasn't tracking anything Like I'm pretty sure, if I look back, it was a night where we had friends over and we were maybe a little drunk, like I can't remember, like that is like we were really like carefree about it at the time. But we had booked a trip to Napa and the day before I was at a baby shower and I felt awful and I wasn't hungover, but I felt awful, like awful, awful, and I was there with my niece and my sister and I'm like I don't know, maybe I'm just tired, maybe I'm getting sick, whatever. And then, as I was at the baby shower, my sister was like well, do you want a drink? I was like no, I'm just going to have coffee. And then I started thinking. I was like, oh no, I was like maybe, maybe, but no, like, no, that's so fast. Like no, I wouldn't be pregnant.

Speaker 2: 7:29

And then I took a test. It was negative, got to Napa but I still hadn't had my period. And at that point I was like I was a very regular, like I was always really regular when I still didn't have it. I kept taking a test. And the day we landed in Napa, of course I get a test, but it's very, very, very faint, like so faint, like you can barely see it. And I'm like, okay, maybe I'm just very early, the dates wouldn't make sense that I was very early, but like maybe I'm just super early. And so then, like every day of the trip, I'm taking a test and it's getting a little darker, but it's still like crazy faint. And so I started Googling. I'm like why would you have all these faint tests, right? And the first thing that comes up is like you might have an ectopic pregnancy. Because when you have an ectopic pregnancy or you're miscarrying right, like you could be like having a missed miscarriage or something, but with an ectopic pregnancy, because your embryo is in your fallopian tube, your HCG is lower, so it's not as high, um, because of where it is, and, I'm sure, some other medical reasons. But I literally said out loud to my husband I was like what if it's ectopic? And he's like why would you say that? I'm like I don't know. Like I, I don't know. Like we have a great time in Napa.

Speaker 2: 8:44

There was one day where we went to Alcatraz Is that what it is In San Francisco? Yeah, so we went to Alcatraz and when we got off the boat back I had these like crazy sharp pains in my abdomen, like I had to bend over and I was like kneeling on the ground. I was like in so much pain. I'm like what's going on? So then I'm like plantation, right, like they say, you can sometimes feel it. I don't know. I actually think it was probably just my fallopian too, because it turns out it was ectopic. Um, I, it's crazy.

Speaker 2: 9:11

The day, um, we were in March, we were like seven weeks pregnant. I was going to the doctor the next week I woke up in the morning and I was bleeding and I'm like, oh God, okay, I'm, I'm having a miscarriage, like I'm like shoot. And we were so excited, like Matt and I were so excited, and we like bought little t-shirts for the cousins to be like, oh, like big cousin or whatever. We were so excited and I'm like we're having a miscarriage, whatever. And we went to the doctor and they did an ultrasound. You know how it is, the text can't say anything, but they're like taking all these pictures and I'm like, okay, not good, whatever. Um, and it turned.

Speaker 2: 9:50

Oh no, first they made me do blood work. First they made me do blood work to see how far along I was and then, once I got the call, they made me go home. This is what happened. I forgot, I'm forgetting this. They made me go home and I was so stressed, so, like I didn't eat anything. I had like a yogurt or something. We went home and that day was our very last home study to become foster parents. So we went home and the social worker came to our house and toured our house, interviewed Matt and I and it was our very final, final home study before they submitted us to be licensed.

Speaker 2: 10:21

So, like, I went, got blood work I knew I was actively losing the baby, went home, finalized our home study and then got the call that the blood levels were really low and so that I should come back, or like the you know, hcg was really low, that I needed to come back, and then they did the ultrasound and then they told me that you're having an ectopic pregnancy.

Speaker 2: 10:40

And, um, I weirdly knew what that was because a Pilates instructor that I used to go to her classes had had one like two weeks prior and had posted about it on Instagram, and so I had like done a deep dive also because I was worried that I had one. I had done all this deep diving and so I looked at the doctor and was like, okay, well, do I need surgery? And she's like you do. And Matt was like what? And I'm like, yes, I need surgery, it's in my fallopian. And so then I'm like telling him everything and the doctor's like, okay, yeah, you're you. Yes, exactly, go to the ER now. Um, yeah, and that was um, that was our first pregnancy and that was in. That happened in.

Speaker 1: 11:23

March of 2019. Um, yeah, that was March of 2019. And then, and so you got like, so you're going through all of this then you get licensed to be a foster parent and then, how soon after all of this happens, you said June.

Speaker 2: 11:33

So it was weird the way it happened. Um, there's a lot that I don't love about the way that the foster care system handles, like matching children and all the things. But, um, because they have things like which I know they have to but like, yeah, we'll get into that, maybe another day, but anyways, um, we had been presented with a few different kids. Um, like one day we get a call and they're like there's a newborn baby, can you get her? And we're like sure, and then the next day they're like, oh, her, her uncle stepped forward so she's going to the uncle. And I was like, okay, and so it's a little bit like that sometimes, but with I'll mark that because we'll cut that out, because I almost said my son's name, but with our kids and we had made it known that we were going to foster. And so my husband's cousin messaged me on Facebook one day and said, hey, a girl I was friends with from college has been fostering two little kids. She's a medical foster home, so she fosters a lot of kids and the two children that she has are looking for an adoptive family. Their goal they call it their goal right has transitioned from reunification to adoption. Do you want to learn more.

Speaker 2: 12:45

And I was like, yeah, sure, and she put me directly in touch with a foster mom, which is not normal. Normally you're going through caseworkers. You're getting no pictures because they don't want you to get attached to, like the picture or an idea of a child. You're getting this like thick, thick, thick packet of all the information on them, their family, their siblings, their parents, their grandma, like everything. And we kind of did it a different way where, like, we talked directly with the foster parents and then we got our caseworkers involved, and that was in May of 2019 was when we first learned about them. It was like a week before their birthdays, because they both have birthdays in early June. And then we started kind of learning about what it would be like to foster them and they moved into our. We started transitioning. It was like a six-week-long transition to make sure that the kids were comfortable and everything in June and they officially moved in in July with us, july of 2019.

Speaker 1: 13:44

Okay, july, so April you had the, or March you, so it's not that long after and does transitioning look like kind of they're visiting and they're spending the night?

Speaker 2: 13:52

Yeah, yeah, it was like first we would meet them in a playground and play with them, and then we would go to their house and play with them, and then we would they would come visit our house and play with us, and then we took them for a day, and then we took them for a weekend and then, you know, we did a couple of days and, um, eventually they moved in. Um, and it's such an interesting experience because, like, you try to be as thoughtful as you can, right, and really make sure that it's um, that you do as much as you can to protect the kids and their wellbeing. But, like I say this to my husband all the time Our youngest is two right now. She just turned two. She's almost exactly five years younger than our son and I'm like, can you imagine if you just took her out of our house today and put her with a completely different family? I can't imagine doing that to her. I can't imagine what that'd be like for her.

Speaker 2: 14:39

And that's what happened to our, our two older kids. They were he was two, you know and he came to live with us, and how scary and uncertain and, like, how impactful that will be for him forever, um and his sister, but um, yeah, I think about that all the time, um, but yeah, so they moved in with us and it was like a six week process. And then, um, and yeah, I took a maternity leave with them, um, and so I was home with them for two months, kind of getting them as acclimated to me and the house and our family as I could.

Speaker 1: 15:13

And they were one and two when you started fostering right.

Speaker 2: 15:16

They had just turned one and two. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1: 15:19

They were still so young, so you just dove headfirst into this into parenthood.

Speaker 2: 15:24

Yeah, yeah, it's funny because people, when we had our third, um, everybody's like oh, you have two kids. You know what it's like? I'm like I've never had a newborn in my life. I was like I don't know what I'm doing. I was like I had a one-year-old and a two-year-old. I feel good about those ages. I don't know what to do with the baby, like I do, obviously, but like I was. No, this is actually really different for us. We've never done this age.

Speaker 2: 15:45

And I felt like such a bad mom when I look back, because my daughter I remember when she first moved in with us, she was having a week where she just couldn't sleep, she was inconsolable, all these things. And now, six months into being, or a year into being, a mother to my third child, I looked at my husband one day and I was like, oh my God, she was teething and he was like what I was like when she moved in with us and she couldn't sleep at night and she was having, she was teething. And he was like, oh my gosh, she probably was. And I'm like, but we had never had a teething baby, we had never had, we didn't know Like she's one. I thought they were like sleeping through the night, right, and so there was so much we still didn't know about parenting because we skipped that whole first part Right, and so we were getting to know these kids just as much as they were getting to know us.

Speaker 1: 16:36

Wow, that's, that's wild. Yeah, we've talked about this, you and I, offline before, about how you didn't struggle with as much with the newborn phase as you did, as you know, like as toddlerhood, and I wonder too if it's you had done the toddlerhood, but that was the first foray into parenthood, and so it's like, yeah, this is all brand new. I mean, I don't know, I don't know how you feel about that, but yeah, that's wild. What? What sort of discussions did you and your husband have before as you were kind of gearing up to this? I know this is something you and Abby talk a lot about, about, you know, conversations to have care is a difficult thing to do.

Speaker 2: 17:24

If you're going to foster, how many kids will you foster? Will you take a kid who's medically complex, will you not? There's a lot that goes into it. You're doing social worker visits. Our kids were in EI.

Speaker 1: 17:33

We were doing parent visits.

Speaker 2: 17:35

We were doing all these things right. So there's a lot of time that goes into it too, that you don't realize in advance. And then my husband and I actually had to have a lot of conversations about how many kids right, there's so many children in the foster care system that are sibling groups and they don't always get to be together because not everybody has the capacity for multiple children. But also, unfortunately, a lot of people are biased to babies or young children. Or my husband just was like going from zero to two is a lot Paige. I don't know that we're equipped for it, but during foster care, like training in Massachusetts it's called MAP. But like we went through this MAP class, it was like 10 weeks of classes and one week was all about siblings and the importance of keeping siblings together.

Speaker 2: 18:19

And like prior to that, my husband had said like one kid, one kid, that's it. We walked out of that meeting. And like prior to that, my husband had said like one kid, one kid, that's it. Um, we walked out of that meeting. He was like okay, okay, we could do two, we could do two. And I was like I was like okay, um, because I mean it's just, uh, you know, you, you, you see the experience these children go through and you're like I can't. I also can't imagine having not lived with my siblings Right, and what that would have been like. And yeah, there's a lot of different conversations that you need to be having. Are you open to an open adoption? That's something that we have. What are you open to versus not open to? What are you equipped to handle?

Speaker 1: 18:58

Yeah Well, and then you don't. I mean, this is something we talk about too is like you don't know what you don't know, like you don't know what it's going to be like to parent. You don't know what it's going to be like to parent these two children, who are one and two, and they have their. You know the personalities that come out by then. So you don't even know what you don't know.

Speaker 2: 19:16

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 19:16

So so then you adopted them a year later, a year later.

Speaker 2: 19:20

Yes, so they were officially adopted a year later. When we had met them, their parents were already in the process of like signing over their rights before we even came into the picture, which is why they were looking for an adoptive home for them. But what happened was their parents, I think the rights were signed in like October or something, and then normally it's about six months before you can officially adopt. Like there's a process and then a pandemic hit. So it took a little longer than that.

Speaker 2: 19:51

But oftentimes with foster care too, like the ultimate goal of foster care is to reunite families. It's not to have children be adopted ultimately right, but that didn't happen in our kids' case and for some people the fostering process is much longer right, but that didn't happen in our kids' case, and for some people the fostering process is much longer right. Weirdly, our neighbors who lived directly across the street at the time also had a son who was in foster care at the time and they had him from the day he was eight days old when he moved in with them and they didn't adopt him for almost three years. So in the context of like foster care in the adoption world, we had a fairly quick adoption. So it's definitely not the norm. It's not what most people can expect to happen in this situation.

Speaker 1: 20:31

Yeah, and so, yeah, you adopted them during COVID too. So were you homeschooling, or how did that work? Were schools shut down? Were they in daycare?

Speaker 2: 20:38

Yeah, daycare shut down. Yeah, daycare shut down. By that time I was pregnant. So I was like I got pregnant in February, world shut down. In March I was pregnant first trimester two kids at home, working full time, with a husband who's an essential worker, so he worked outside of the house. Um, so those are some trying times. I had been a parent for like six months. I was like, ah it's crazy.

Speaker 1: 21:02

And you were a working parent too, right? Yeah, yeah, I was working from home.

Speaker 2: 21:06

Yeah, I was still working. Things were definitely much slower I mean, as it was for most of us it was much slower than normal, which was what made it possible. But yeah, it was hard. I was working, taking care of the kids and then pregnant at the same time.

Speaker 1: 21:20

How was man? That's a lot. How was your pregnancy like?

Speaker 2: 21:23

on top of all of this, so I had actually had another loss prior to the pregnancy. That actually happened two weeks after the kids moved in, which was like crazy. So I remember I was doing daycare tours for the kids and we were still trying, like trying, not trying. You know, we were doing all that. Um, we were doing daycare tours and I was bleeding and I had just had my period, um, and so I like called my sister and my sister was like Paige, just call the doctor. I was like that's fine. And she's like Paige, call the doctor. Like you just had a big surgery, you just had this thing happen. Call a doctor.

Speaker 2: 22:07

And I had taken pregnancy tests the week prior because I was like I know I'm not pregnant or you know, I wanted to see if we were pregnant. So I had taken pregnancy tests. Everything was negative, whatever. So we're doing these daycare tours, all that, I call my doctor when I get back and I've got the two kids with me and she's like are you sure you're not pregnant? And I was like I just took a test last week. It was negative, I'm not pregnant. And she said, okay, well, I want you to come in for blood work and an ultrasound regardless. And I said okay. So I had to call my husband to come home to get the kids and I said to him I said can you just grab a pregnancy test on your way home, just in case? And he brought it home and I took it and it was positive and I was like and I was like damn it.

Speaker 2: 22:52

I was like I'm losing this baby. And I didn't even know I was pregnant, right, I'm like gosh. So I had had a feeling it was going to happen again. I had said that to my husband a bunch of times. I was like I have a feeling it's going to happen again. I'm nervous.

Speaker 2: 23:06

They didn't know why I had an ectopic pregnancy. I didn't have diagnosed endometriosis, nothing like that. We didn't do further testing on my other two which I now know you could do but I just had a vibe. I just had that gut instinct that I thought it was going to happen again. And so when I got there they said to me my doctor came in and she was like I'm so sorry. And I was like, oh, it's okay, she was one of the ones who did my surgery and actually, funny enough, they did my ultrasound right, and then they send you back into the waiting room and I was next to some woman and she was on the phone with her husband and she was on the phone with her husband and she's like, oh, they're running behind, there's a medical emergency. I guess I was like shit, I think that's me. I was like darn it.

Speaker 2: 23:47

And so when they pulled me back into the room I was like, oh, is it happening again? She's like it is, I'm so sorry. She's like we can talk about trying to save. You can't have kids right Like you'd have to do IVF, there's no possible way you can get pregnant. And I I said I know, I know, but I still. Can you just take it out? I don't know, I don't know. And she's like, well, let's look at the results, let's talk to the radiologist and we'll go from there. And I said okay, and then she came back in and she said you don't actually have a choice, we have to take it out. You got to go to the ER.

Speaker 2: 24:27

And so I went over to the ER and my sister at that point was at the beach and she had like rushed over to the hospital. So it was me and her and my niece. My niece was like two sitting in my bed. My husband was coming with the kids, his mom was coming because she had to take the kids and, yeah, like everybody was at the hospital, I was like, guys, this is crazy and weirdly, this time around I didn't have, I wasn't sad, like it was more like okay, like I didn't even know about this baby. I'm not mourning this baby. I mourned the first child a lot, like the first loss a lot. I was, I was devastated. I was, I was not okay for a while, um, with this one I didn't have that.

Speaker 2: 25:09

With this one I went like right into action mode. Like the next day I remember I jumped right back into mom mode, right, my kids had a doctor's appointment, took my kids to the doctors like did all the things for them. Oh, it wasn't doctors, they had EI coming to evaluate them and that's always such it's hard to schedule those. So I was like kid, kid, early intervention, so like if your kids are struggling with speech or something. And so they had their annual like assessment. And so I didn't even reschedule it, I just like had the kids come. I think Matt's mom was there um to help me and just went about life.

Speaker 2: 25:41

But I started the process of like finding a doctor for IVF. Like that day I was like okay, well, now we know. Like it kind of felt like a relief. I was like now we know we're just going to do IVF Um, not, we're just going to do. But like I was like we're going to do IVF Um, and that process. I started it in, so that happened in mid August. I started the official process for IVF in September. I didn't have my first egg retrieval until December.

Speaker 1: 26:07

Um.

Speaker 2: 26:08

I had a fresh transfer immediately after my egg retrieval which ended up in a missed miscarriage. So I got pregnant but, like very early pregnancy, lost it and then did a frozen embryo transfer in February and became pregnant with my now daughter, which is like again in IVF terms, like I had a pretty good. I had a pretty good experience. I had like 30 eggs. I had like 12 or 13 embryos. I got pregnant on my second transfer and obviously had a successful pregnancy and so like in the scheme of things it could have taken a lot longer and been a lot harder. We were lucky that IVF for us, despite all of our previous losses, ivf was successful because I am weirdly very fertile and my husband is also very fertile. My fallopian tubes just like hate my body, I guess, or I don't know.

Speaker 1: 27:03

Yeah, they weren't working. Yeah, they weren't working. So the first surgery that you had to have, you had to get your, your fallopian tube out, the first one and then you had to do the the other one, yeah. Wow, okay, and so then you did IVF after that. So your kids are what? One and a half and two and a half?

Speaker 2: 27:22

at this point, or are they two and three?

Speaker 1: 27:24

Yeah, they're just a little over two and a half and one and a half, two and a half, that as well. And so then you get pregnant. We're in a pandemic. We're in a pandemic.

Speaker 2: 27:31

We're in a pandemic.

Speaker 1: 27:33

Like you're touring daycares, they're closed and then, wow, that's a lot. Also, your kids are really close in age, all of them. I think you said the max is two years apart.

Speaker 2: 27:44

Two and a half. Yeah, so my two oldest are a year and two days apart, so they are very close in age. And then my next daughter, my third daughter. She is two and a half years younger than my second. And then our fourth is 18 months younger than her, so it's a total of five years between all of them. Four kids, five years.

Speaker 1: 28:05

That is wild, cause you're just like doing everything and you went from like literally zero, cause most people. You take the pregnancy, you kind of warm up and you're used to it. Then you have a newborn they don't really move around a lot and then you kind of work your way up. Um, you talk a lot about this on your page and um equity and you know, in the household and domestic labor and all of that, and I know you have a really equal marriage and a really equal partnership. Um, even though you still do a lot of the childcare or child you know activities. How did kind of that come to be? Because that's like a lot of work. I know your husband's an essential worker. How did you kind of navigate that? Because that's not, that's not easy. You're in the home. You have three kids at that point, right? Um, did it happen then or kind of when did that happen?

Speaker 2: 28:54

My husband and I always had a pretty equitable division of labor, um prior to kids, Um, and then when we had kids, it was still pretty much the same um, because I work and he works, and um, we were both really involved with the kids. And then then the pandemic happened and I think that really shifted the scales, because I was physically at home right Previously, I worked in an office, he worked outside of the home, and so it was really kind of the same Um. Once I started working from home and I was doing the bulk of the childcare, it really started to fall on me, Um, and also things that I didn't mind doing previously started to really pile up, right, so my husband's neurodivergent, he has a harder time with certain things and so I would take them on. I'm like, oh, I'm better at that, right, Like I can do that. But then I somehow was becoming like better at everything and I was like this is too much right, Like I can't do all these things by myself. I wouldn't say I recognized that the division of labor wasn't equitable until probably when I was pregnant with my fourth, which sounds crazy, because by then, yes, we'd made it through the first part of the pandemic. My older two kids were back in daycare. My youngest was home with me for a period of time and then we had an after, like afternoon nanny, so I had some help. Um, and my husband would step in when he got home from work at like three, 30. Right, and so like he was doing that.

Speaker 2: 30:10

But then daycare kept closing because exposures and COVID and whatever, and it always felt to me like it was always my responsibility. And so I was pregnant with my fourth and I think I like woke up one day and I was like what the heck is going on? Why am I doing everything? How come I'm responsible for everything the laundry, the lunches, the cleaning, the groceries? Like I'm doing everything.

Speaker 2: 30:34

I'm exhausted and every single time this school closes it's my job to take cleaning the groceries. Like I'm doing everything. I'm exhausted and every single time this school closes it's my job to take care of the kids. Like there was, I think, a period where there was like 50 out of 60 days they were home, not because they had COVID but because they were getting exposed, and the rules were that they had to stay home for seven days and I had two kids in two classrooms so they'd go back and then the other class would have an exposure and then both kids had to come home and it was like I was like losing my mind at that point. I truly was like I don't know how I'm going to survive this. This is crazy.

Speaker 1: 31:03

And then, well, and then you're pregnant, right, and I know you've mentioned before too the anxiety that comes with pregnancy after loss.

Speaker 2: 31:11

Yeah, I had much more anxiety with my first pregnancy than my second. Like the first one, I like wouldn't let myself believe I was pregnant. I didn't do anything to acknowledge it, really Like there's barely any pictures of me pregnant. I remember talking to my therapist being like I don't want to buy anything, because I remember buying those onesies before you know to announce the pregnancy and then being like, really like I was like, oh, I jinxed us. So I was like I don't want to buy any clothes. She's like Paige, you have to buy clothes for this baby. Like you buy clothes for the baby You're pregnant. Like the baby is healthy right now. And I had a really easy pregnancy. I had a terrible birth but an easy pregnancy. But the day I was supposed to get induced. And then I don't know if a lot of people know this, but just because you have an induction date doesn't mean it's going to happen.

Speaker 1: 31:54

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 31:57

So I was 41 weeks and I was due to be induced and they called me and they're like we're too busy, you can't come in. And I like lost my mind because at that point I was like the longer she's in here, the longer I don't know if she's okay. Like I really was at that point where I was like she could die tomorrow, like I, I like in my brain I was like she could die tomorrow, like and like you know it, it was irrational and crazy anxiety and she was fine. But I remember going in for a non-stress test and I was hysterically crying and the OB was like you're fine, like we'll just do it tomorrow, and I was like I was losing it. But I was like I'm so afraid she's going to die, like I was truly afraid she was going to die. I was like I'm never going to meet her and like this irrational fear that something bad was going to happen to her.

Speaker 2: 32:45

And I unfortunately know, like enough people in my life who've had stillbirths really late in pregnancy and so like I just felt, like I felt all of this during that first pregnancy. I didn't feel that much anxiety around my second pregnancy. I got to enjoy it a little bit more. I got to kind of embrace it a little bit more. Birth was something else, but like the anxiety was really with that first one, because I just didn't believe that I could carry it, I didn't believe that I could make it to the other side of the pregnancy part, the pregnancy part. I was like I just don't, I'm not going to trust it until I see her.

Speaker 1: 33:20

Yeah, did so. Did they do a membrane sweep and then induce you or no?

Speaker 2: 33:27

no, no membrane sweep.

Speaker 1: 33:28

Did you go into labor naturally or did?

Speaker 2: 33:31

they end up inducing. No, they induced me. I like I was nowhere, like I wasn't dilated at all at 41.1. And like people were always like due dates aren't always accurate, but like I did IVF, so it was like a very accurate due date.

Speaker 2: 33:43

Like we knew exactly when I was due, right, or like what 41 weeks looked like for me, cause we knew what day I got pregnant and we knew how long that embryo had been, you know, implanted. And so, yeah, no, I got induced. So I went in at like 5 pm and they start doing like the cervical ripening. I think I got something called Cervidil, I can't remember, but it's like this thing that goes inside of you and there's like a string that hangs out. It's very uncomfortable but it's fine.

Speaker 2: 34:15

And then in the morning I got, I started getting Pitocin and I remember being like four centimeters dilated and being like can I get that Badurl? And the nurses were like, why don't you just wait? And when the doctor came in, I was like, can I get that Badurl? He's like, yeah, you can get it whenever you want. I was like I want, but with Pitocin it's also more painful too. Yeah, that's what everybody tells me. I don't know, but yeah, it was, it was, it was very uncomfortable, but, um, I say I blacked it out. I remember very little.

Speaker 2: 34:41

I remember like it feels like I was like opening my eyes and closing them a lot, like I'm like, oh, this is what's happening, I'm going to close my eyes again. Like like I did not have an easy birth. I gave birth at like a little after 11 pm, you know, got my Pitocin around 8 in the morning, so like within the day, which is not terrible. I have a friend who was induced and it took three days before she had her baby, so like not too long, yeah, but I pushed for four and a half hours, which was a very long time to push, and so I, you know my baby came out and then, you know, I'm hugging her. Whatever we're doing, all that At least like delusional, like at this point I'm like exhausted, I like can barely keep my eyes open. And then the doctors you know they're trying to push on my stomach to get the placenta out and it's not coming out. So the doctor said to me he's like I'm going to have to manually try to get your placenta to come out. So he was like inside of me, like elbow deep, and I had the baby on my chest and I'm screaming, like this is way worse than giving birth, like screaming, writhing, and I remember screaming at somebody like take the baby, I'm going to drop her, take her, take her, I'm going to drop her. Because I was like I was writhing in pain and I obviously couldn't see this or know it. But my husband was like you were like hemorrhaging blood, like there's blood everywhere, oh God. And the doctor who I love this doctor he was like we have to take you to the OR, it's not coming out. We've got to take you to the OR.

Speaker 2: 36:17

So I ended up going to the OR right around midnight or maybe a little before, and they like had to go in and surgically remove my placenta and they said it was like kind of a little bit stuck and it's. You know. I didn't know really what that meant or anything like that. But yeah, and so then I went, they kept me in labor and delivery instead of sending me to maternity just to watch me overnight, like normally they would send you right to mater. I went, they kept me in labor and delivery instead of sending me to maternity just to watch me overnight, like normally they would send you right to maternity, but they kept me. And then the next day you know everything's fine, whatever they check you for blood every couple of hours. You know they're always like oh, how you doing? And they're like just tell us if you feel anything weird.

Speaker 2: 36:58

And there was a point where I was like I don't know, I feel like I'm like gushing a little bit, like I was real low-key. I was like I don't know, I feel like I'm gushing. And this was like probably like 12 hours later and they opened up my like diaper and they're like oh, you're hemorrhaging, like we need to take you. So I had to go back. They did an ultrasound there was. So I had to go back in for surgery the next day and have another surgery to remove my placenta and then, ultimately, I ended up having to go and get two more surgeries after birth. One was like 12 weeks after I gave birth and the other was six months after I gave birth to fully remove the retained placenta that I had. And so, yeah, it was not like the best birth experience. Like I don't really remember those first two days in the hospital because I was like in and out of surgery and like anesthesia and yeah.

Speaker 1: 37:49

And you lost, and you lost a lot of blood too, Like if you're hemorrhaging. You're going to yeah.

Speaker 2: 37:54

Yeah, yeah. They were like you can get a blood transfusion, Like I was right on the borderline. They were like you can get a transfusion, but you don't have to. And I remember saying no, and now, like I wish I had, because, um, I just felt like garbage for like so long, because you know, I didn't have any blood, that's crazy.

Speaker 1: 38:10

I didn't know they give you the option I don't think they're supposed to to be I don't really know. Like I think I was like above the threshold but they could have still given me some, you know, and I didn't take it. Um, so I don't know, like I had blood transfusions and I remember them being like you might have to get a third and I was terrified, but it's really like I mean, it is kind of it is a big deal, but it's like it is a big deal they give to you, but it sounds really scary. Um, and so I don't know that I've met anyone who has had so many.

Speaker 1: 38:44

You've experienced so many different parts of like motherhood and pregnancy and adoption and all of these different things in one person and in five years like that? Yeah, Wait, it wasn't. It hasn't even been five years since you became a parent, has it like you're coming up on it's?

Speaker 2: 38:58

been exactly five years. Yeah, and you've gone through all of this exactly five years, yeah, and you've gone through all of this.

Speaker 1: 39:03

It's been exactly five years, yeah, and your second, um, your second child, that your second biological child? Um, I'm going to mark that one, your second biological child. You had a C-section, right.

Speaker 2: 39:16

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 39:17

So after my first, I had done a lot of research and when I went back to my doctor for, like, my six week check, I said you know, was this an accreta? An accreta, if you're not familiar with it, is kind of when your placenta, like instead of just attaching to your uterine wall, it grows into it or through it. There's like accreta, there's multiple versions of it, like it can grow all the way through to your bladder, like it can attach to your bladder, right. So I asked was this an accreta? And my doctor said probably, but we don't know. Like we didn't do the. You know it's hard to diagnose after, but it could have likely been an accreta. And she said if you choose to have another child, you cannot have it here. So okay, because they're a slightly smaller hospital. So she was like you need to go to Boston. They're a good, but they're like you need to go to Boston. And I was like okay, and you're going to want to see a doctor that specializes in Acreta. Luckily, I go to Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston for IVF and they are the top hospital for, like, higher risk pregnancies. So like I just had my IVF doctor refer me to an MFM who specializes. She's like one of the top doctors for Acreta and so I just went to her and that is um, I had to go to her when I was pregnant. So I did IVF. I got pregnant on my first round, um, so again I'm I'm very fertile, um, in that sense I got pregnant quickly and I had a pretty good pregnancy. I wasn't sick at all with my first. I was a little bit sick with my second but I was also really tired, like I don't know, but I was overall fine. I had a good pregnancy, vastly different. Like with my first, I was super swollen and gained like 55 pounds. With my second I was not swollen at all, only gained like 25 pounds, like really different. Could have sworn she was a boy. I was like it's so different, she has to be a boy. Um, she wasn't Um, and overall really healthy pregnancy. Um, and there's not really.

Speaker 2: 41:10

Some doctors will say they can diagnose necrita before you give birth. A lot will say it's very difficult to do it, um, but there's risk factors, right. So I was at higher risk because I'd already had what they assumed was necrita and so I had a little bit of extra monitoring and we were going to either deliver, depending at like 37 weeks or 39 weeks. I also had a previa with that pregnancy and so if the previa didn't go away, I would have had to deliver at like 36, 37 weeks.

Speaker 2: 41:37

Mine did resolve, which is great, and I had no bleeding from my previa, which is very common, but I did not have bleeding. Did resolve, which is great, and I had no bleeding from my previa, which is very common, but I did not have bleeding. But I did have what's called lakes, which I'd never heard of before, but lakes are pools of blood around your like uterus or like I don't know if it's your lining, but they're like. When you look at the ultrasound, there's like your uterine lining and like on the edge of mine, there was these big dark black spots which were these big pools of blood like all around my uterus. And there's usually no real harm. Like everybody might have one leg or two legs and they sometimes resolve. But when you're an accreta patient, it just notes that there's like a higher risk of bleeding and or an accreta it could, and so I did have those risk factors going in and so I had the option to do another vaginal birth, but I would do it at the hospital and I would be induced at 39 weeks. There'd be a blood transfusion team as well as my team of doctors, in case I needed to have my uterus removed, because that is often what happens with an accreta If you can't remove the placenta, you need to remove the uterus.

Speaker 2: 42:41

I had that option, or I had the option of an option of, like a voluntary C-section, optional hysterectomy or, like you know, potential for hysterectomy not optional, but potential for a hysterectomy. So when I went in I decided on a C-section. I was like I don't want to labor and then go into surgery. Like, if I'm going to go into surgery, I want to just go into surgery. I don't want to do both. Like just like I'd rather. And it felt more controlled to me. I don't know that it was, but it felt more controlled to me. So I opted for the C-section and like beforehand, they're like asking me all those questions like do you?

Speaker 2: 43:14

know why you're here and I had to confirm and they're like yes, and so, because of my risk of hemorrhaging, because of my risk of anacrita, it wasn't just like the team of doctors, like my surgeon, it was also like the blood transfusion team, the anesthesiology team, like it was. There was like 40 people in the room. I'm like hello everyone, and I had a C-section and like I don't know, like sometimes doctors I don't know how you feel, sam, but like sometimes doctors tell you too much. Like my doctor like looked over the sheet and she's like so we just opened you up. You did just lose a liter of blood, not terrible, but you're okay, we're gonna watch it. And I'm like don't tell me that.

Speaker 2: 43:53

like don't tell me I know you're just trying to warn me because they had basically said if you lose like two liters of blood, we need to, we're're going to transfuse. You like in here, like right now, and I'm like okay. So she's like, I know she's trying to communicate, but I'm like panicking, I'm like and um, and that's really kind of those lakes from what I understand. It's like when they cut in right, all those pools of blood, um, take my baby out, she's healthy. You know. They're holding her up to the thing, the sheet.

Speaker 2: 44:22

And then again my doctor just looks over pretty nonchalant. She's like, yeah, so it's not coming out, we're going to have to take the uterus. Is that okay? And she's like okay, I was like okay and I like was fine with it. I was done having kids. I would rather have it out than have any further complications. Like, that's fine. But it was definitely like a really yeah. She like leaned over and she's like, yeah, when I pull it, your uterus is rolling, like it's really stuck. And I was like, okay, just take it out. But at that point, like you know, we were talking about this with someone else. But, like you know, my body's moving. I can feel all the pressure. Everybody's talking around me and I start to kind of like have a panic attack. I'm like I don't like this. So I said to my husband I was like can you take the baby out of here? Cause it kept also being like look at your baby. I'm like I can't look at my baby right now. I'm so stressed I. This is scary, I'm scared.

Speaker 1: 45:10

I couldn't look at mine either. I was like I can't. I need to focus on, like, not passing out.

Speaker 2: 45:26

Yes, I was like, can you knock me out? He's like I cannot. And I was like, can you do something? He's like I can make you very tired. I was like, do that? Do that please? And so, like you know, he made me tired and then, like everything was fine and like, luckily, that pregnancy and that birth was great.

Speaker 2: 45:36

I hated the C-section. I hated being awake in there. I hated having a surgery while I was awake. I was also in there for like an extra hour. You know, having that surgery. Like I really didn't like that. Um, my baby was born very small, which was weird. Um, not weird, but like I had kept asking. I was like I'm way smaller than I was with my last and they're like she's fine. She's fine, and then they're like so ounces, but by the time we left the hospital, she was like 5 pounds 10 ounces. So, like my other baby was 7 pounds 2 ounces and it was fine, she was fine. But you know, I was just like okay, but that, like everything was good. The only bummer was three days to being in the hospital, they retested me for COVID this is 2022 and I had COVID and then my baby had COVID and then, yeah, oh my gosh, did they isolate you, were they still isolating?

Speaker 2: 46:30

people. No, the nurse didn't even I got the lab results on my phone because from doing IVF, I just got the notifications and so I got that lab results and I'm hysterically crying. I'm like she's got COVID. She's like three days old, I have COVID. I'm like losing my mind and the nurse comes in like without any you know extra nothing on and I'm like did you see the lab results? She's like no, what's up? I was like I have COVID. She's like eh, okay, like I think at that point it was 2022. They were just kind of like all right well, I come in.

Speaker 1: 47:08

I'll, I'll do that.

Speaker 2: 47:08

But like nobody had even told her so she didn't even know. So whatever. Um, I had no symptoms, baby had no symptoms, we were both totally fine. Um, but what had happened was my youngest not my youngest my second oldest got exposed to COVID early May. I didn't give birth until end of May and it like ran through the house Like she got it, then my son got it, then my husband got it, but by the time I was giving birth nobody had it.

Speaker 2: 47:27

I got tested going in I was negative. You know we were going in. They tested us Like we came in, we're negative, kids were already negative by that point. By the time we left, I was positive, baby was positive and when we got home, my then 18 month old was positive and I'm like, oh my gosh. Um, so it was really weird. It took like almost 30 days for like the whole family to get it and like at points like we were all negative. So I don't know, it was crazy, but, um, luckily nobody was super sick or anything like that. Uh, but it was definitely not how I had hoped to spend the first few days of um having a newborn baby, that's for sure.

Speaker 1: 48:02

Yeah, isolated. It's funny in California I gave birth, you know, during the summer, peak of 2020, there was no testing. It was just like test before you come in and like it's very strange, but you had to wear your mask the entire time If people were in the room. If they weren't, you didn't have. It was like it's so interesting how it's different in every state.

Speaker 2: 48:23

Yeah, I had to wear a mask with my first and I remember like halfway through pushing it was for like two hours into pushing I realized I didn't have my mask on and I started like apologizing to all the nurses like I'm sorry, I don't know where it went.

Speaker 2: 48:31

I was like I don't even know. I thought I had it on and they're like you have not had it on for like hours, like it's fine, you're fine, like they were. So they were fine, but I'm like I don't even know how I would have been able to breathe at that point. Like I was like barely I don't remember anything. I was like blacked out so I did not know where my mask was. But I remember apologizing profusely and they're like just focus on pushing.

Speaker 1: 48:51

I was like okay, you're like, fine, I will. Yeah, honestly, this is fucking insane Everything you've gone through and you're like so, like matter of fact about it, like there's, like it's like bananas. We're going to definitely continue this conversation and learn more about your journey into the parenthood side of things a little bit more the next time we chat. So thank you so much for sharing all this and tune back in, folks, for the next edition. Yeah, thank you.