Episode 9: Shona - Resilience, Grief & Childlessness

Shona’s life changed forever at 34 when she was diagnosed with cervical cancer.

What followed was years of chemotherapy, radiation, surgeries, IVF, fertility preservation, grief, depression, healing, and ultimately learning how to rebuild a life that looked completely different from the one she had imagined.

In this deeply vulnerable episode, Shona shares her experience navigating cancer treatment, medical trauma, mental health struggles, childlessness, relationships, identity shifts, and the ongoing process of finding meaning after everything changes.

We also talk about:

•  trusting your body and advocating for yourself 
•  the emotional reality of IVF and fertility loss 
•  childlessness and the societal pressure placed on women 
•  depression, grief, and healing 
•  meditation and spirituality 
•  rebuilding your life after the script is flipped for you
•  learning to stop performing and start living differently 

This conversation is raw, emotional, honest, and incredibly important.

A huge thank you to Shona for taking the mask off and sharing her story so openly 🤍

Intro & outro music: Flip the Script VIP by Ashez (used with permission, and gratitude) 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:15

Welcome back to Flipping the Script with Jim. This episode is a really important one, I feel. I'm sitting down with my friend Shona for a deeply honest conversation about the experience that completely changed the course of her life. At 34, after months of subtle symptoms and multiple trips to the doctor, Shona was diagnosed with cervical cancer. And then what followed after that was years of treatment, surgeries, fertility struggles, grief, rebuilding, and learning how to navigate a life she never expected to be living. We talk about cancer, IVF, childlessness, mental health, identity, relationships, depression, meditation, purpose, and the pressure that society places on women around motherhood and what life is supposed to look like. But more than anything, this conversation is about resilience and it's about learning to listen to your body, about grief that changes shape over time, and about finding beauty meaning in yourself again, even after life flips the script completely. I'm so grateful to Shona for sharing this story so openly. So let's get into it.

SPEAKER_00 1:35

There was that moment that um changed everything for me, and so that was the day that I was diagnosed with cervical cancer. So, as I said, that was ten years ago in July, July 2016. Um, and I think just probably important just to give a little bit of background um into what my life was like leading into that moment. So I had been working in a very stressful corporate job. I probably was burning the candle at both ends. Um I didn't really ever sit still. It was kind of I was single, I was um just having a great time, really. I was working hard, and I think the busyness probably meant that I wasn't super aware of what was happening in my body. There were definitely signs, and I was a little bit aware of those signs, um, and little tiny little things that were changing within my body, but they were kind of really generic symptoms and signs, so I was able to really easily able to just shrug them off and like associate it to be something else. Maybe I was tired, maybe yeah, hadn't slept well, hadn't eaten properly, maybe I would done something weird at the gym. Um it was all those kind of things, you know, like I was on the pill at the time, and maybe maybe I needed to change my pill. So it was all those sort of funny little things that were happening, but in the end, they all painted one big picture, and in the end, I actually had there was one particular symptom that was um occurring, and it became a problem in my life, like it was actually getting in the way of how I was living my life, and I was getting quite worried, I guess, about bleeding or um and being at work. Um, so I think yeah, I was I was going to the doctor basically, and the doctor it took it took me a few attempts, I'll I will say, um, to kind of uncover what was going on because I wasn't actually due for a smear test at the time. Um it was with um it was one and a half years within that three-yearly smear cycle, so I wasn't due for another one for another year and a half. So I think that was why the doctor didn't think to necessarily do that smear test straight away. So it was literally three attempts at going to see the doctor before she suggested um doing that SME test, and from then everything went really quickly. So I got a phone call to say we need you to see a specialist. Basically, your smear test has come back with showing high grade changes. Went to see the specialist for a colposcopy, and um that was a very strange and airy appointment because within that appointment, in fact, the yeah, the appointment itself started by saying um something along the lines of like, Do you know why you're here? And I said, Yeah, I've I had a smear test that had high grade changes, and they said to me, And do you know what that might mean? And I said, Not really, no. And she said to me, uh, it could be this. I can't also remember the detail of that particular thing. I remember she said it could it could mean this or it could mean this or it could be cancer. And I thought, whoa, mmm, okay, because I'd been doing some Googling, you know, as we do Doctor Googled and it had said that could be what it is, but of course you never think that. I was 34, um, I was fit, you know, like I yeah, was living a great life. Um I thought I was healthy and probably wasn't as healthy as I thought. Um, but yeah, so I remember in that moment, I think a couple of tears came and I was like, oh, that's weird, like, because I didn't really think it would be cancer. Um then that then they took me through to the actual appointment itself to do the colposcopy, and they were having trouble doing the colposcopy because I was bleeding too much, and I was at that point I was starting to freak out, and she the doctor was a junior doctor, I think, and she said, I'm just gonna go and get my boss. And I thought, okay, so I'm just lying there literally waiting, legs wide open, um, waiting for them to come back into the room, and I'm thinking, shit, okay, this could be something. Um, the nurse is like coming in and being a bit close now to me and kind of holding my hand and um stroking my arm because I'm starting to be in tears, but yeah, that and then her boss came in and attempted it, and he said the same thing. He said, I'm I'm struggling here because um there's too much blood. Um he said there is something that has broken away, so they were able to get enough of a sample. And he said to me, he said to me, We're gonna do some tests on the sample that we've got. He said, But I think we've got a busy few months ahead of us.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

Really?

SPEAKER_00 6:41

So that's what he said, and I thought, huh. Is he saying what I think he's saying? Of course he couldn't say it because he didn't know for sure until the tests came back, but he knew. They all knew, and probably deep down I knew as well, but I was yeah, uh I mean I was just catching up to what the heck was going on.

SPEAKER_01 7:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:02

Um, and so he was not wrong. We had more than a busy few months, so we had in the end it was a busy couple of years, but um, yeah, so so that was that was the day actually, and then it was another week or two weeks, I think it was before the diagnosis itself came through because you have to wait for all the results to come in. Um so I was waiting and not sleeping. Yeah, I bet.

SPEAKER_01 7:25

What was going on for you in those couple of weeks?

SPEAKER_00 7:28

So I it's a blimmin' whirlwind, really. I was receiving letters, a summary of that appointment that basically said without using the word cancer, but said they'd found a large mass that was I think it might have even said likely to be, I haven't read it for so long, I can't quite remember, but I think it might have said likely to be cancer. And I remember thinking, hey, but he didn't say that to me in that appointment. Like, but now I'm reading this this letter that's basically telling me I've got cancer, but we still have to wait for the results to come in to formalise it. But um I was driving actually, naturally I I the email popped in. I was driving to see my sister and the YKO, and I was like, I can't wait for another hour and a half to friggin' read it. So I I did I opened it on my phone and I was like oh my god. Um and I mean immediately you think the worst. I mean I mean you think everything, you think all all the scenarios. Um, you know, you try not to let your mind wander too far, but it's pretty difficult in those early stages, especially for it not to, because I did not know what I was dealing with. All I knew was that I probably had cancer, but how bad was it? Yeah. Like w and and I'm thinking, God, am I gonna die? Like, am I 34 and I'm gonna die? And it's frickin' unreal. And it took a while to uncover the actual staging, because that's where we needed to get to to un to understand what we were dealing with and what was the process from there. So eventually I was told that it was I actually got incorrectly staged at the f at the start, and then they re-staged, they re-um did I think they must have had more tests or something. And I got this the diagnosis that was stage two. Um stage two, uh verging on stage three, like very close to being stage three. But so so stage two basically meant that it was um still contained to the local site, but it was starting to move outside of the local site, and they could see it was moving towards my rectum. Um, but for now it was where it was, um, which was good news, I guess, but it still meant yeah, I had I had a big road ahead of me. Um so from there basically they gave me my treatment plan, which was going to be chemo radiation, they call it. So it was um the chemo chemotherapy and radiation would run in conjunction with one another, so we'd be doing at the same time, not one and then the other.

SPEAKER_01 9:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:59

So I was doing daily radiation to my pelvis um externally, and then I was also having chemotherapy one of those days of the week. Um so on one day I would literally be hooked up to my to my chemo IV drip, and then I would total myself with my machine down the lift and into the waiting room for the radiation, and then I would wait for my appointment there and yeah, go on to the bed where they would do the radiation, and then I'd take myself back upstairs and finish my my chemotherapy. Along with the days where I would have radiation externally, I would also be doing the brachy therapy. So I would my I'd start my day by going in and having surgery, so I'd be put under general anesthetic and they'd put the rods in and then I would be it would be first thing in the morning and then I would come out and wait in a waiting room essentially like a well, yeah, there was like maybe one or two other people in there with me, um, and I would have to wait all day lying down. This is how they do it in Auckland anyway, and I know it's d done differently in other places, but in Auckland they wait all day for all of the general day radiation people to be done, so the machine needs to be free. And so I would go last at the very end of the day.

SPEAKER_01 11:14

Wow, so you're in there all day?

SPEAKER_00 11:15

All day lying down. No, I think I was on a slight angle up, so it's like I couldn't move basically. They needed to make sure that I was that everything was held in place. And so that was kind of torturous it just in itself. But and the piece of the puzzle that I've actually forgotten um before I even started my treatment was um where because I was single, like I said at the start, um I didn't have any kids, and because obviously it was um a gynecological cancer, where it was and where the treatment site was was all round where my ovaries are and my uterus. So um they were trying to protect my fertility, and so they gave me the option to do a round of IVF, and I easily could have said no, and they could have really tried to deter me from that, but they were really open to giving me that option and letting me make that choice, and so I made the choice to do the IVF. And so we did that before I started my treatment, so I underwent a round of IVF, yeah, which was pretty pretty full on when you're doing it particularly on your own, and um, I've just had a cancer diagnosis, and I'm thinking, what you know, I'm just trying to preserve my fertility here, but I'm injecting myself and I'm it was it was yeah, yeah, it was full on.

SPEAKER_01 12:30

Yeah. And what's going on for you around this time, like mentally, emotionally, spiritually? Because there's a lot going on physically, but I can imagine there's a lot going on in those areas too.

SPEAKER_00 12:45

Yeah, I mean I think God, I kind of wish that I'm as clued up about stuff as I am now, because I think back then I was so unaware. Um and I think because there was so much going on physically, and I was literally at the beck and call of the hospital and of the specialists, and I was just listening to them, taking on their advice, um, and ki almost just doing what I was told. And I was literally going from one appointment to the next, to the next, to the next, to the next, and it just I I don't really I don't think I had a lot of space and time to think about anything else.

SPEAKER_01 13:29

Um other than just the doing.

SPEAKER_00 13:31

The doing, just going through the motions and I mean I was surviving, basically. There was no meditation going on. Uh there was things um that the hospital were offering like counselling um and during treatment, certainly I was getting looked after by Dove Um Hospice, which is such a beautiful charity where I was going and getting oncology massages and I was seeing a counselor there, so and all of that service was free, it was incredible. Um so in fact, I think the counselling I even did are just after my treatment, because when I was in treatment there was just too much going on. Too much going on. And at the very start, I was like, I remember going and the hospital psychologist was coming to see me while I was in one of my many appointments, and and I was actually mentally at that point, I was okay. I was very positive, I was very upbeat, I had um a very positive outlook on the outcome. And I think as well, on reflection, it was because at that point in time I had a plan and I was being proactive within that plan. So I was going to my chemotherapy, I was doing my radiation treatments, I was doing all the things that I was told to do in the hopes that I would be cancer free at the end of it. So I felt randomly, I actually felt really good at that point in time because I I was very much in the process um and I I wasn't stepping outside of it, I was just doing that. I was very focused on that. And I think it wasn't until after that and I popped out the other side that's when the real work kicked in. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:10

The space to think about what was really going on for you.

SPEAKER_00 15:13

Yeah, and to reflect um and to realise that I naively thought once I'm done, oh, I'll be cancer free, life will go back to normal, I'll go back to work, everything will just be exactly the same as it was before.

SPEAKER_01 15:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:31

And nothing was the same. And like I said, that's when the real work kicked in, and that has been unfolding ever since.

SPEAKER_01 15:40

Uh what have you have you got good supports going on around this time?

SPEAKER_00 15:44

Because you said that you're single. Great question. I did, I was very lucky. Um my family were incredible, I had incredible friends, um the hospital. I actually had a really good experience with hospital. I had an amazing oncologist. I had several different oncologists, but my main oncologist who I ended up seeing um, but she was actually in charge of my surgeries as well, which I haven't gotten to yet. Um, but she was actually an Australian woman who was actually only in New Zealand for maybe, I'm not sure if I've got this quite right, but two or three years, and it happened to be the exact amount of time that I was in the system. And she was very um well respected, well and she was sought after, and I somehow magically ended up in her care. And she was a little bit of a boundary pusher and um kind of didn't she really questioned things and stepped outside of the norm, I think, so probably did things that other people wouldn't have, and she always had my best interests at heart. So when I mentioned before about the fertility thing, not every oncologist would have allowed me that time because I was essentially delaying my treatment.

SPEAKER_01 16:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:00

Not every oncologist would have said you can do this if you want to. Okay. She was kind of like would prefer not to, but if you want to, I'll support you.

SPEAKER_01 17:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:11

So I was lucky from that point of view.

SPEAKER_01 17:13

Okay, so you've in the midst of treatment you have had to pause it in order to go down this pathway?

SPEAKER_00 17:21

It was um just prior to treatment starting, so it meant that my um treatment probably was delayed by about a month, which is fairly significant when they're saying we want to get started as soon as possible.

SPEAKER_01 17:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:34

Um so basically what happened was they did the IVF and then did the egg collection, and this is all done, um that was done laparoscopically, so through keyhole surgery. Um, and then I can't remember if it was a week or two weeks later, maybe a week later, I had a ovarian transposition. So that's where they essentially two blood supplies that go to your ovaries, and they cut the minor blood supply and allowed the ovary to be pinned up underneath my rib cage, and the purpose there was to try to get it away from the radiation treatment site. So they would it's incredible. So they said to me, look, and because it was so soon after my IV, since I'd done the injections, my ovaries were around eight centimetres in size each. Normally they're about the size of a walnut, so they were massive. And they said to me, We're gonna attempt this surgery via another keyhole. So bearing in mind it was just a week prior when I'd had the surgery, so they're going in again. I hadn't yet healed. Um, and they said to me, Well, we're gonna try doing it laparoscopically. However, because of the size of your ovaries, we may need to do it at a laparotomy, which is where they'll do a big incision through the midline, which was a major surgery. So this is all before I've even started my cancer treatment. So um I went under just hoping for the best, and it was friggin' scary because you're waking up, well, you're not knowing what you're doing.

SPEAKER_01 19:06

Yeah, you don't know what you're going in for, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:08

Exactly. You can only hope for the best. So anyway, I wake up, I'm getting my wheel, my bed is being pushed into recovery, and they're saying, um, or I'm saying to them, like, what happened? What's what happened, what happened, what happened, tell me what happened. I'm like still completely out of it. And they're like, it was it was successful. So they did it via the laparoscopic um surgery, which is incredible. Um, God knows how she managed that. But she did say to me, we're gonna pin them up there, they may or may not stay there because they are gonna shrink down over time as well. So over time they most likely will, but we can hope that they will stay up there for as long as we need them to be up there, which is the length of time that you're in treatment. They did say to me, however, it's there's a high chance that they will still be hit by the radiation scatter. So that's when it's sort of like your main treatment site is here, but they can't like it's not contained like in your thumb, for example. It's not that easy.

SPEAKER_01 20:03

You don't have like an exclusion zone around it. Yeah. Correct, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:08

It's not in a in a bubble, not in a ball. Um, yeah, so yeah, that's basically what happened there. And then I started my treatment. I finished my treatment, come out the other side, and then I'm like, like, now what? Yeah. Now what am I meant to do? And I'm literally waiting now to see, am I cancer free?

SPEAKER_01 20:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:25

Am I not? Like, what am I meant to do with myself? So that is when it hit. And I was very surprised and I I was shocked actually, and it to all the time I just kind of felt like I was on the back foot. I was always trying to catch up to what was happening because it wasn't where I was, it wasn't what I was expecting to feel or where I was expecting to be. So I was actually in the end what I realised in deep grief at that point in time, and that is when the um counselling service kicked in, and that was incredible. I saw um that counsellor every week, um, maybe even sometimes more than once a week. Yeah, she was she was wonderful, and that was probably the main support that I leaned on in that time, other than obviously my friends who are very invested, my family who were very invested, and it's that conversation basically dominated ev every interaction. So it was at the dinner table, it was, you know, going for a walk with a friend, and because people want to know, and I wanted to talk about it because I was unraveling everything that just happened, you know, it had only been three months or something, you know, what the heck has just happened? And I'm still don't know if I'm cancer free. So I'm out in the world and I'm trying to go back to some sort of normal. I think at that point, I think I had actually that my job was being kept open for me, and I I was absolutely no way I could have gone back to work. Absolutely no way. Um so I was lucky from that point of view. I also was very fortunate that I had income and mortgage protection insurance. And so I was able to put a claim through for that. So I was supported financially.

SPEAKER_01 22:04

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 22:04

Not to my full n income. Yeah. But at a high percentage of it. So that was that was wonderful. So I was literally able just to really focus on myself and what I needed and just trying to carry on really. And then it was around February, they was when the scan was and it came back inconclusive. They were like, it's gonna be another three months before we can do another scan. I'm like, oh my god, like this is just torture. And so I did that three months and then it came back saying uh yeah, it's a bit was a bit strange because they said what they thought they could see was six cancer cells. And they said to me, there's a chance that they might not be cancer cells, but we have to treat it as if it is because we don't know for sure because there's so much that's been stirred up in my system, it's not a hundred percent accurate. But I think I mean obviously there's a specialist they know what they're doing, so they were treating it as if it was cancer, which it probably was, but they were kind of just saying to me, look, we can't say 100% with 100% certainty that it is. But because it most likely is, we'll treat it as such, and the next step for you is we can't do treatment because the treatment didn't work in its entirety, in the way that we needed it to. So the next step is um a hysterectomy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:30

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 23:30

Yeah. Well, in fact, and this is where I was lucky to be in the care of that particular oncologist because they said to me um they have uh these meetings called MDMs, which is like the multidisciplinary meeting where they talk about every individual's case, and um they basically all come to an agreement of what the next step is for that person. And so for me, half the room was split basically, half the room was saying the next step is a hysterectomy, and the other half of the room was saying it's a pelvic accenteration. So a pelvic accenturation is where they would have taken out everything. So a hysterectomy plus my bladder plus my bowel. Wow Yeah. And so then I would be living for the rest of my life with two external bags. So that is literally how close I was to being in that position. So my oncologist started the meeting by drawing all this stuff on like a picture saying this is what a pelvic accenteration is. I don't know why, still to this day not sure why she led with that, because I'm my heart is pounding. And I'd when I'd heard about it, I knew what they were. And she said, But I would prefer to um for us to do the hysterectomy and see. She said it's not a guarantee. If it doesn't work, then we take it to the next step. But let's see. She's treating with caution, so I'm like, I'm with you, lady, let's do that. She's like, What would you like to do? I'm like, that.

SPEAKER_01 24:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:48

I do not why would I do the other? It's so extreme. So yeah, anyway, that happened. Had the hysterectomy, um, kept my ovaries again because the ovaries were still functioning, not as much as they were before, but they were still functioning. And it was again to preserve fertility, to see if those eggs that I had on ice, if they weren't um successful when I got down to you know down the track into that path. Um, if they weren't successful, maybe I could do another round of IVF. So um had my uterus taken out. I'd already had my fallopian tubes taken out when they did the ovarian transposition. Um and then the top two centimetres of my vagina were taken out within that. So it was actually um what do they call it, modified radical hysterectomy.

SPEAKER_01 25:36

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 25:36

Yeah. And it's not that common to keep your ovaries, but because I was young, didn't have children, we opted, and and again, I was given the choice, I opted to keep them um in case I needed them.

SPEAKER_01 25:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:48

And also I didn't want to be in um surgical menopause at that when I was 35, because that would have just happened overnight.

SPEAKER_01 25:55

Yeah. Yeah. Wow, and I bet that this whole new part of the process is bringing up a lot of stuff too.

SPEAKER_00 26:03

Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I mean, because that surgery that happened, this the um the hysterectomy was a year and a month after my diagnosis.

SPEAKER_01 26:16

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 26:16

So it's not that long, really. Like a lot had happened. Yeah. A lot had changed. Um, by that point I had left my job because this I this was just going on for too long and I just needed to focus on myself.

SPEAKER_01 26:29

Yeah. Yeah. And what were you what were you doing around that time, do you think, in order to help yourself get through it all?

SPEAKER_00 26:41

A lot of talking, yeah. Like I mentioned. I was still seeing the counsellor. Um, I was still being supported by Dove, I think it's called Dove House, actually, Dove House. Um, and I was getting other support. Um, there's another charity called Look Good, Feel Better, who they support people going through cancer. It doesn't matter what stage you're at within the process. Um I was able to tap into that service as well. And I started to go on a bit of a spiritual journey.

SPEAKER_01 27:11

Cool. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:13

And so I, bearing in mind this is ten years ago, um, and I had become interested in meditation. And I think in the past I'd kind of like, oh, you know, who are these people that meditate? Like that's a bit strange and it's a bit woo-woo, and um god, am I gonna be one of those people? But I mean the w obviously meditation has been around for a long, long, long, long, long, long time, but it hadn't yet come into the mainstream. So I was kind of on the edge of when it was just maybe creeping in a bit, but I feel like I was still at the more like at the beginning because I didn't know, I didn't have friends who meditated, not that I knew of at least. Um, and so yeah, I ended up doing this meditation course, and I really saw it as a tool to support me and walk alongside me for this new life that I'm now finding myself in, and as I go back to work, and I just needed something that I could lean on that I kind of knew that I could really help myself, I suppose, with that. Like, I didn't need to look outside of myself for that, I could actually go inwards and be there for myself.

SPEAKER_01 28:25

Yeah, yeah, that's beautiful. Because I suppose your life has changed.

SPEAKER_00 28:30

Like, what is the impact been on your life and yes, since you know that 18 months before when you were just doing all the things that you do and then totally flipped the script indeed, indeed, and I mean there's a lot that you can imagine that's happened, so um yeah, so I mean I I did eventually go back to a new job and was in the corporate world, and I was like, this is not right, like I just knew this isn't right for me anymore, and I whether or not I was just in the wrong job, but something and I think that's the beautiful thing about it is I was no longer being that person who'd be like, Oh, I'll just wait and see, oh oh I'll do the right thing by them, you know, like I don't want to be flaky, oh how's it gonna look on my CV? I was just like, nah, this is not right. I mean I waited eight months. I did have there was an element of seeing because I just it I guess it wasn't clear to me straight away. But within eight months is still a feeling, well actually it was probably about five months, which is pretty short space of time, but I just like I said the old me would have hung on for something to change and hoped that it would change, but the new me was like nah, life's too short, I've got to get out of this. And so I resigned from that job. Um I actually went into another job that was more in line with what I used to do previously, but again, that wasn't right. Um, I actually yeah, they had like a restructure, so I was kind of was out from that point of view, which was in the end wonderful, was hard to take at the time because I'm still trying to figure out what the heck I'm doing. But yeah, so I left that job, and within all those two jobs, I was like, okay, what is it that I really want to do? Like I felt like I wanted to support other people because after I'd gone through what I'd gone through, I was like, okay, what is the most important thing to me now? And that was my health. And so I wanted to support other people with their health and I suppose lead them down a path um willing, willingly, they'd be willing, of course, um, but to open their eyes to the to the things that I'd been, you know, my eyes had been opened to. So so that's when I ended up being uh doing my Pilates training. And so at the time I was doing Pilates personally um three times a week and I was loving it. And so, you know, as I do, I go right into it, and then I was like, oh, maybe I could do this as my job, and so I yeah, I did my training, and then within all this time, COVID happened, um, our rental that we were living in. I had actually forgot to mention that I had met someone, um my current partner, just a few oh or maybe only like a couple of months after my treatment had finished. So that's actually a very important piece of the puzzle. So I met Campbell, and in my mind it was like this is like the absolute worst time ever to be meeting someone because I was so much in grief and my body was completely changed, and I thought, oh my god, he's got no idea. How did you meet? We met at a mutual friend's wedding. Cool, yeah, um, and I was not drinking, I was like hanging out with the parents that night. I was like in my safe space hanging out with parents because I was like, I can't, like I just wasn't comfortable. I was not myself. I I was trying to find some safe spaces basically, and that's where I found them on that evening. But anyway, Campbell found me within the parent circle.

SPEAKER_01 31:54

Um his dedication then coming into the lion's den.

unknown 32:00

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 32:01

Um my parents weren't there. Other people's parents, but yes. Um yeah, so that I mean that added another whole element of a fun. Um I had a lot of fun, but it was also like a lot going on. A lot going on. There was so much going on, and I yeah, it was intense. So yeah, but anyway, we Campbell and I were living in Auckland and COVID had happened, our rental that we were living in was being sold, so we started to look outside of Auckland and we found ourselves at an incredible rental in Snails Beach, where we currently live. Um, and when I got into that house, there was this perfect space that I could basically create my studio. So that's I just started working, started teaching Pilates there, teaching in the community. Um and there the movement room was born. The movement room was born. Yeah. Indeed, it was. Yeah. Yeah, it's funny to reflect on on it all, really, like this in kind of one sitting, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:00

Yeah. And then you've got another thread going on in terms of decisions about fertility and things like that.

SPEAKER_00 33:10

Yes, so alongside all of this kind of um do I want to say plodding? I'm not sure if plotting's the right word, but it's like putting one foot in front of the other and making decisions of like what am I gonna do for work? Is this thread of uh yeah, the IVF puzzle, the children piece, um I no longer had a uterus.

SPEAKER_01 33:37

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 33:38

So I, because of my hysterectomy, that was taken out. So I obviously knew I could never carry a baby. So if Campbell and I were wanting to have children, we would need to find a surrogate. And so yeah, the IVF process was in the background, sometimes at the forefront, but very much in the background for many years. And so eventually we decided to thaw my eggs. My beautiful cousin had said to me even before I met Campbell, not long after I'd been diagnosed, she said, I will be, I'd be happy to be your surrogate if you ever need one, which was huge. So I was amazing though, because I always felt like I had that safety net of my cousin. So I was like, okay, perfect, I've got my cousin as my surrogate, I've got these eggs, we'll go through this process and hopefully we'll have a child or children at the end of it. Um little did we know that that process was enormous and you have to go through all sorts of um oh yeah, the ro the road to get to that point of even thawing out my eggs was huge. So we have to go through a process with the hospital in terms of um counselling, group counselling. Wow. We had to be seen by someone from Uranga Tamariki, had to assess us to see if we were fit to be parents, we had to have references from people, we had to see lawyers. Um once we got to that point, it got to the ethics committee. Wow, so that's to get your own eggs. Correct. And once it goes to the ethics committee, they go through all the information and then they decide yes or no. And thankfully they decided yes. Um, these people are fit to be parents and everything's in place and it's all very psychologically sound. Because this is a very interesting thing. When the this is the law currently, I but I don't believe it has changed yet. I think it's due to change, but it hasn't changed yet. When a surrogate gives birth, they are the legal parent. Okay. Their names are on the birth certificate. Okay. My cousin and her husband's name would be on the birth certificate. The biological um parents have to go through the courts to adopt their baby back. Yes. Wow. So you can imagine a lot. Yeah. Yeah, it has to be sound, they have to be sure. And even then, God, even then, it my cousin could still change her mind. She could have, I knew she wouldn't, but she could have chosen to keep that baby.

SPEAKER_01 36:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:16

So there's a lot.

SPEAKER_01 36:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:18

Um, anyway, so we did that. We got we did the thoring. Um, unfortunately, those eggs were not successful. I decided to do another round of IVF against the advice of the hospital because they're saying, Shona, it's it's this the chances are so low because your ovaries are no longer functioning the way they were. Um, even it's a numbers game, you need numbers. Um it however it only takes one. But they were very cautious, and so but I and I kind of knew that I kind of knew the writing was on the wall, but I also didn't want to die wondering. So we decided to go through another round of IVF. It was not successful. We got one egg, um, and that egg was not successful, so we come out the other side going, okay crap, now what? Um yeah, my sister had offered to do a round of IVF with her eggs, we went down that path, that wasn't successful. At this point, my cousin and I were 40, and my sister was 42, and so we were like, that's it, that's the end of the road. And then I started to delve into, or we started to delve into an area that I never thought that I'd be open to, which was external from my family, surrogate and egg donor. And we were chosen on a couple of occasions for people's eggs, but the surrogate piece was very hard to find, and I I think our timing just wasn't quite right. The people that sounded great, because you basically have to, it's like a dating app, like scrolling through a website, you're selling your own salves, so you were like going through like what picture shall we put on there, you know, on the website, oh glasses off, sunglasses on, sunglasses off, you know, don't have a beer anymore, you know, stuff like that. It's just crazy. Um, but yeah, anyway, the surrogates that we thought would be great had just selected someone else, and so we were always just and in the end, and it was also trying to still live your life.

SPEAKER_01 38:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:12

So we were still trying to work, I was building a business, Campbell had a busy job, we lived we'd moved to a different area, so yeah, life was intense. And the upshot is that we came out of that deciding that yeah, it was the end of the road. I mean, I was that that point, 42, I think. Not that my age mattered so much, of course, but it was still you know, the process is so long. Yeah. Even if we'd been successful, we'd still have to go through that process again, go through the ethics schemen and go through all the counselling. So to get to the starting point of trying to have a baby with other people Sounds weird saying that. Um, yeah, that's like a year, maybe. Yeah. Maybe more. And then you start trying, and then that's like a year. And then it's like if you're successful, yeah, then it's like, you know, nine, whatever months to Yeah. But then I'm like, okay, am I gonna be 45 now? When I assuming that we find someone today.

SPEAKER_01 39:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:11

Yeah. So we basically in the end, yeah, realised that that we we were forcing it.

SPEAKER_01 39:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:17

Something that clearly was not meant to be.

SPEAKER_01 39:19

Wow. Yeah. And I bet that's bringing up a lot. Correct.

SPEAKER_00 39:23

Yes. And it still does.

SPEAKER_01 39:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:26

It still does. And getting to the it's not child-free because it's not by choice, it's childless. In a world where society it's just so ingrained in society, there's a belief, it's it's it's the system that women have children. And if you don't, you're different. And why not? What happened? There's something wrong with you. You don't belong, you can't engage, connect, relate, and vice versa. People don't relate to you, to me. Um, I think there's a lot of assumptions. It's difficult.

SPEAKER_01 40:04

Yeah, I bet. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it seems to be a question that people often just go straight in on, don't they?

SPEAKER_00 40:16

Do you have kids? Correct. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, and we've talked about this before, it's like, and I think as well, when like coming to a new area and the job that I was doing was always meeting new people. I was, you know, I was building a business. And so the first question they ask me, like, after hello, is do you have kids?

SPEAKER_01 40:37

It's pretty crazy that it's like the first it's wild.

SPEAKER_00 40:41

And and that's what I was getting for a long time. Was like, Do you have kids? Do you have kids? Do you have kids? And I'd say, like, for some reason I would always be shocked. You'd think I'd be prepared for it. But I think there'd be certain situations that I'd go into knowing that the question's coming, but others I just would be having a conversation. I'm like, just met you. Yeah. Like, why are you asking me that?

SPEAKER_01 41:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:03

I mean, you don't know anything about my life, yeah. Which is why they're asking. Um, because they don't know. Um, but it's like, you know, I mean, I sometimes I had just had the news that my ex hadn't been successful, you know, or we've we've we're trying really hard to get to the next stage of this IVF process. Like, you know, there was a lot going on, and people are asking, do you have kids? And it's like, whoa, like, can we just be a little bit more careful? Yeah. Like, I think generally we all do need to be careful about what we say to people. Yeah. And not even just about this topic, but I'm talking to this topic because this is obviously my own experience. But you know, if some person maybe has just had a miscarriage, maybe their child has just died.

SPEAKER_01 41:50

Yeah, we just don't know what's going on.

SPEAKER_00 41:52

We don't know. And that's why we have to be careful, when we have to be so mindful. And I always think it's interesting because in my experience, and I'm not saying this is a bad thing, it's just what I've noticed is when I'm talking to parents, it is obvious very quickly in the conversation if they are parents, because they'll usually mention a child, or I've got school pickup, or my son, da-da-da, whatever it is, it's obvious. So if someone's not saying that, there's usually a reason why.

SPEAKER_01 42:28

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it is a very good thing for people to think about. I know it has been for myself as well. I'm a lot more mindful of that question or a going into that topic because you just don't know what's going on for somebody.

SPEAKER_00 42:46

Um yeah, and I think yeah, being mindful is where we need to get to, and I think the other thing is to be better at listening, is to listen first.

SPEAKER_01 43:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:01

And I'm saying this reminding myself, because even I'm I mean, I don't get it right all the time either, absolutely not. Um but it's just trying to be a bit better and trying to learn and yeah, like not I guess not kind of jumping in and talking before you know something. And like I said, it's not about being perfect, we're not perfect beings, that's not the expectation. It's just having a bit more awareness.

SPEAKER_01 43:31

Yeah, definitely. And so where are you at with everything now?

SPEAKER_00 43:35

Yeah, so I mean, I think the childlessness, I mean, I'm in f in my forties, um, it's not going away anytime soon. And I think because of the way I got there, because it was part of my cancer journey, it's I mean that cancer is the reason why I'm where I am. And I think the two things don't sit in isolation, the two things are one, and I think that that's challenging and it's quite unique. And yeah, I I do really struggle with certain situations and I will purposely take myself out of certain situations because I don't I need to protect myself and I think I've gotten a bit better and a bit stronger. But if there's certain like if I know I'm having a particularly tender day or tender week um I will I think I pick and choose. Yeah. So I'm careful. Um there's certain other situations where I go oh I just I just want to go anyway and I'll go and it will be hard but I I'm okay with that and I think I think as long and this is why I like to talk about it because we what we don't know and I think part of my journey is about teaching other people and creating awareness in other people and mindfulness in other people and I think when I'm going into a situation I kind of go okay who do I have a safe space within this situation? So I might have a friend that knows my story or I might be able to even say to that friend hey like I'm not feeling great I don't even know if I want to come but I'm gonna come they're like yep that's cool like let's do this together kind of thing so um I can kind of create safety around myself from that point of view. But I keep having these new realisations like initially it was like oh I can't have a baby and I'm never gonna have a baby and then it's like oh man like I'm never gonna have the experience of seeing a child grow and then it's like as I'm getting a little bit older and my friends' kids are getting older and I'm starting to see like teenagers pop up and I'm seeing these amazing relationships that they have with their teenagers. I'm aware that not everyone has amazing relationships with their children but um we can only hope that we would and I'm going okay I'm also not gonna have that bond and then I go I'm not gonna have any bonds with my children's friends like you know I I'm friends with some of my friends' mothers you know we have those and my mum is friends with some of my friends so I'm never gonna have those bonds either and I think yeah the bonds change as we grow and evolve and and and get older to the point of like even looking further into the future like when I'm old I'm not gonna have my daughter or my son to spend time with what does that life look like it's me Campbell but what if he's not there is it just me what does that look like and that I guess and what I'm getting to is it's lonely it can be really frickin' lonely love you my friend thank you for sharing such a vulnerable piece of it all yeah thank you because not only have you been through such a horrible time you've also got this piece of it to go through as well and constantly process and be reminded of and yeah yeah and that's the thing I think it it doesn't it's not always the same and I'm constantly surprised by the things that I guess upset me or um yeah I think it's I'm just trying to think of the right word um the things that confront me. Yeah yeah and when you think you know it all you've had it all and then there's something else.

SPEAKER_01 47:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:54

But I mean isn't that just life you know and in a weird way and I've spoken about this with some of our other friends as well is that I am deeply grateful for the experience that I've had because I know that without it I wouldn't be the person that I am today. Yeah and I'm thankful for that. I could have done without some of the shittiness of it but you know out of adversity comes our biggest growth and our biggest strength and yeah I mean it's not perfect. I'm not living a perfect life and I'm not kind of like selling the story of like oh this huge thing happened and it was hard and I've learned all these lessons and now here I am on top of the world not at all like in between all that there was a depression diagnosis I've had to take a couple of other times out of work or I haven't been able to mentally emotionally work um and I feel like that's really held me back in some ways. I know it's that's had a purpose because it's allowed me to um stop not always actually in an ideal world I would have completely stopped but um personal circumstances didn't quite allow me to but I think I didn't have to keep pushing pushing pushing to the degree that I perhaps was before but I feel like from a career point of view I really feel like it's held me back by like 10 years. And when you're at that age in the age I'm at now like it's it's a significant amount of time and yes I'm running my own business and I'm teaching Pilates and I'm helping people and I've started to do face massage and I'm helping people with that which is amazing but I'm probably not where I wanted to be I guess I'm in exactly where you thought you would be where I thought I would be yeah um but I'm aware that I'm probably exactly where I'm meant to be but damn life damn life yeah at the acceptance stage yet but I feel like I'm the closest I've ever been but I actually don't know if I'll ever get there. I don't know I really don't know that um I'm not sitting here saying to you that I've made it like that I'm there yet like where is even there yeah like I think it it's just it's a path that I'm on and it's one day at a time and you know even my mental health like I still struggle I still have and just very recently some very dark patches and I think in a way that was a bit of a realisation too that learning that that not like you kind of get to a place and then it's all perfect and that we're never gonna have hard days or hard times and I think particularly with mental health and when you've had a massive thing happen in your life um or a massive time in your life that it is kind of always there and it's just having the awareness and the support in place I think as well of like yeah how can I help myself and when you're in the deep dark depths of it and I'm talking in my situation in depression it's very difficult to get yourself out of that because I mean you kind of can't sometimes you feel like you can't so I kind of I make these little agreements with myself or little deals with myself so for a while there my deal was or challenge was take a walk outside every day and some days that was hard. Like that was hard to even get out of bed and it was hard to put my shoes on and it was hard to step outside but I knew as soon as I had stepped outside if I'd made that one first step I was on my way.

SPEAKER_01 51:53

And I now you are you've just shared your story publicly at a big talk. Yes and there's something else in the pipeline.

SPEAKER_00 52:04

Yes yes so I spoke um a month or more ago at a woman's mental health event which there was yeah a large crowd well for me it was anyway about 160 people so um that was a pretty cool place to be able to share my story and again getting into that awareness piece to help teach people about what it's like to be childless at this age and stage of life and particularly as a woman um and the next part of that of I guess yeah sharing my story more publicly more openly here of course but my next thing is I'm embarking on writing a book so I'm starting thank you I'm starting in a couple of weeks actually with a book coach I'm very excited I'm a little bit nervous um I know it's gonna be a massive undertaking but I think it's gonna be a very healing process I think I'm gonna learn a lot about myself and about that world the writing world which I'm so intrigued by and it's something that I actually thought about doing about 10 years ago probably not long after my diagnosis or maybe not long after my treatment had finished I thought I've got to write about this and I sort of said it out loud to a couple of people not really even believing myself that I would actually do it because at that point in time I was not nowhere near doing it. And so the fact that I am literally about to start now is pretty cool. But let's see where that goes but I yeah I'd love to um watch the space watch the space and I would just love to share my journey more and um yeah just be more open with people and and ultimately it's to educate.

SPEAKER_01 53:51

Yeah yeah and thank you thank you for sharing your story your vulnerability because these are the things that people don't know about they don't understand unless you've been in your shoes.

SPEAKER_00 54:08

That's right yeah yeah and I think as well like as a person who is usually on the sunnier side um and presents that way even when I'm not feeling sunny I I can kind of wear that mask. Yeah you know that woman women in particular men probably too but women in particular are too good at doing and I think um it's good to take the mask off and yeah I think it's good to take the mask off.

SPEAKER_01 54:37

Yeah nice thank you for taking the mask off and showing us thank you all of me all of you all of your wonderfulness is there anything else that we might be missing in there that you'd like to share is there anything that comes to mind you think might be helpful for people?

SPEAKER_00 54:56

Well I think a part of my education here is not just about you know my situation or other people who might be in my situation it's very much also about women's health yeah and listening to our bodies and trust yourself.

SPEAKER_01 55:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:13

Yeah and continue on that path until you get the answers that you need.

SPEAKER_01 55:18

Yeah I love that. Yeah such an important piece. Yeah. And I like to end on one last question with my guests and that is what is one of the hardest scripts you've had to flip in this journey of yours?

SPEAKER_00 55:36

Well I think what's interesting for me about flipping the script is that it wasn't by choice. Some of it has been since but that damn script was flipped for me. And to the point I just made about it being flipped for me is the childless piece. The childlessness by far is the most challenging script script to have flipped. But in saying that part of the beauty of that is that I I'm different and I kinda love it and I don't know I think there there is a beauty in standing out and owning it and you know proudly owning it and I feel proud actually now I feel proud that I'm able to do that and I can actually maybe fly a bit of that flag for not only myself but for other women because we're out there there's other women out there who will be experiencing maybe for different reasons they might have got there for in a different way but like we're out there and we often there's a common thread of that challenge even if it was by choice even if it was by choice that is still challenging within our society so yeah I think there comes the challenge with it but there also comes a lot of beauty and it's very powerful.

SPEAKER_01 56:59

Yeah love that love that thank you thank you for chatting with me thank you for sharing your story thank you for having me I love you you're amazing love you thank you and you made it to the end thanks for listening I hope that this episode gave you something to think about or was helpful in some way if there's anything you'd like to share with me that came up out of it or you deeply resonate with I love hearing your feedback so please send through to me on my Instagram account with gem or the flipping with the strip flipping the script one follow along on Spotify or Apple Podcasts if you don't want to miss any episodes I've got another good few coming up enjoy Kakita bringing it up from the underground