Jaime Knopman and Rebecca Raphael, OWN YOUR FERTILITY + Lindsay Bartels, IMOGEN IN WAITING
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[0:45]Rebecca Rayfield and Jamie Notman and Lindsey Bartolz.
[0:49]We are sharing an episode basically three ways, although Jamie and Rebecca wrote their
[0:54]book together.
[0:55]All of these are on a certain topic, which is modern reproduction and fertility, which
[1:02]is fascinating and topical, and these ladies, boy, do they knock it out at the park?
[1:08]First step, we have Jamie Notman and Rebecca Rayfield, own your fertility from egg freezing
[1:13]to surrogacy, how to take charge of your body and your future.
[1:16]We recorded this in person in my office in New York.
[1:19]Jamie Notman, MD, is a board-certified reproductive endocrinologist and director of fertility
[1:25]preservation for CCRM Fertility of New York.
[1:28]She's the medical director of Chick Mission, sits on the medical advisory board of co-fertility
[1:33]and is on the advisory panel of the breastees, a community for those affected by breast
[1:37]and reproductive cancers.
[1:39]Dr. Notman is also the author of Own Your Fertility, as I mentioned.
[1:43]Rebecca Rayfield is a good friend of mine who I adore.
[1:47]She is also a contributor to on being Jewish now.
[1:50]Rebecca is a New York-based writer whose most recent collaborations include, obviously,
[1:55]Own Your Fertility, which we're talking about, but she has also done family values
[2:00]for store trust, boundaries, and connection with your child with Dr. Charles Sophie.
[2:05]Fun fact, Rebecca hired me to help her ghost write a book before I even started my
[2:12]podcast.
[2:13]So there you go.
[2:14]After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University's Graduate
[2:18]School of Journalism, she worked as a digital producer.
[2:20]For Dr. Phil, Rachel Ray, and Katie Couric.
[2:24]Lindsey Bartals is the author of Imogen in Waiting, a memoir of Modern Reproduction, and
[2:29]Native Texan, turned Colorado, then California.
[2:32]Lindsey Bartals always pursues bringing the personal into her art.
[2:36]She has a BFA in filmmaking, graduating with honors for her autobiographical documentary,
[2:41]and an MFA in interior architecture, focusing on sustainable design practices.
[2:46]When her first born was a year old, she created a workbook for new parents called
[2:49]your baby manual.
[2:50]Lindsey currently lives in Sydney, Australia, with her husband, their children, and two
[2:54]dogs, where she's working on a novel about motherhood after loss, everyday magic, and
[2:59]belonging.
[3:00]Imogen in Waiting, a memoir of Modern Reproduction, is her debut.
[3:03]Welcome, ladies and gentlemen.
[3:04]Thank you for having us.
[3:06]Why don't you both just share a little bit about yourselves?
[3:09]I've read your bios.
[3:10]I will have read them on the episode, but how are you approach this and just say that?
[3:15]I'm a fertility doctor, I've been doing this now for over 20 years.
[3:19]I like to say that I used to call myself an infertility doctor, and now I call myself
[3:23]a fertility doctor, because most of my days are actually helping couples and women preserve
[3:29]their fertility rather than treat infertility, and this has been like a big shift in the
[3:33]fertility landscape, and so that's where I spend most of my time is helping women
[3:38]sort out, like if I want to freeze eggs, if I want to freeze embryos, what do I want for
[3:42]my future, and how that's to get there?
[3:45]I'm Rebecca Raphael, I am Jamie's co-author, which means that it is her intellectual
[3:50]property and her idea, and we are partners in getting the words into this beautiful book
[3:56]of a book that we're proud of, so thank you for having us.
[3:58]I'm prior to that.
[3:59]I was a TV producer, digital writer, ghostwriter, freelance writer, all kinds of writing
[4:06]editing projects, including having worked with you, so thank you.
[4:10]And you're a contributor to on being Jewish now, which is very exciting, and honestly
[4:15]the biggest booster of other women, probably anybody, and she's like just a great solid
[4:20]history book party, doing this, I do love people, I love good people.
[4:25]My two daughters are like, oh, we're going to meet Rebecca our emergency contact,
[4:28]like you know her for like two years, but they're like, we know she will pick up the
[4:31]book.
[4:32]Oh my gosh, okay, so we start the book with some bad news coming from you.
[4:40]We were going along your life, blah, blah, blah, and then you become unexpectedly divorced
[4:45]and promptly then get breast cancer, I'm so sorry for this, okay, I think with every
[4:51]low comes high, actually, and I always say that I'm a much better doctor after experiencing
[4:56]heartache myself, because I don't think I really knew what it felt to be like kicked
[5:00]off your plan, right?
[5:01]You're like, I'm doing this, I'm doing this, and they're like, oh wait, I'm not doing
[5:05]this.
[5:06]And how do I recover from that?
[5:07]Because a big part of my job is helping people move through the fertility journey, right?
[5:11]To grieve the loss of their own eggs or their partner's sperm and how to get to the end
[5:16]of that.
[5:17]And I don't think I was as good as it at it until I had my own heartache.
[5:20]How did the two of you team up for this project?
[5:23]Yeah, mutual friend introduced us Amanda Waldron were, we never stopped telling her how thankful
[5:28]we are.
[5:29]Jamie wanted to write a book and Amanda said, you have to talk to my friend Rebecca, I took
[5:34]the phone call from a grocery store, because I was like, I'm on another project, and
[5:39]I don't want to write a book about fertility, but I'm happy to talk to your friend.
[5:43]We went on the phone for over an hour, and I then backwardured my other project to
[5:47]prioritize this, because I fell in love with Jamie's passion, confidence, and we pretty
[5:52]quickly got an agent and a deal, and so it really just happened fast and we're forever
[5:58]grateful.
[5:59]So there are a lot of fertility books out there.
[6:02]This, obviously, has so much information, right?
[6:04]This is like really all you need.
[6:05]Yeah.
[6:06]Let's be honest.
[6:07]But if you were to differentiate this from, I'm sure the others that you read and the
[6:11]comps and all the rest, like, what about this book?
[6:15]Who is this book for that those books are not for?
[6:17]We wanted to make it relatable, right?
[6:19]I wanted it to be almost like more like a girlfriend's guide, like a lot of those books
[6:23]have been written by physician or healthcare providers, and it's hard to digest it.
[6:27]You're like, what does she really mean?
[6:29]She's a part of her by people who weren't physicians who had gone through egg freezing
[6:32]or IVF, and so there wasn't a great medical background.
[6:36]So we really wanted to make something that was relatable, and we almost wanted to make
[6:39]like, like a fertility Bible, right?
[6:41]Like it's fertility preservation, it's infertility, and then it ends with how do you get
[6:46]through it to the end?
[6:48]So we wanted to cover all of it, and I think we're, you know, our message with, oh, your
[6:53]fertility is we want young women to know what's going to happen in their bodies, right?
[6:57]Like, I always say, I don't want to see women in their mid 40s saying, why me?
[7:01]I didn't know this was going to happen, and I'm thinking, what do you mean?
[7:04]You didn't know this was going to happen, right?
[7:05]We want to change that so that people know that earlier, and to add on to that, it really
[7:10]is thesis driven.
[7:11]So there may be other books that are just here's what's happening to your body.
[7:15]We certainly cover that, but Jamie is trying to empower women.
[7:18]The message is, I'm not here to tell you what to do.
[7:21]I'm here to tell you how your body works, and that science is advanced so drastically
[7:26]that we now have agency.
[7:28]Everything has changed.
[7:29]So I would say this is for women in their 20s who are not yet thinking about family
[7:34]building but need to, to dedicate the same amount of time that you might treat your career
[7:38]or to saving for a home, to thinking about your family building because it doesn't just
[7:42]happen.
[7:43]I think it's for women in their 30s who are contemplating what their next steps are.
[7:48]And then I think it's also for our generation who are raising daughters, to just think
[7:51]about Jamie has often said that we got sex ed all wrong.
[7:55]And it's not too late to do better for the next generation.
[7:57]We were so worried about teaching kids how not to get pregnant.
[8:01]And that is so important, but that we forgot to explain that it doesn't just happen
[8:06]when you want it.
[8:07]It takes a lot of forethought and sometimes it takes strategy.
[8:10]I was saying my 12-year-old grew an email to the head of the book fair at her school.
[8:16]She didn't tell me she did this.
[8:17]She was a surprise and why my book should be featured in the book fair.
[8:21]And she wrote, I don't know if you know, but you've lost 90% of your eggs by the
[8:25]time you're 32 and you get some very, very hard to get pregnant and my mom can explain
[8:29]why.
[8:30]And I was like, that was so adorable, but like, really, she was like, this is what we need
[8:34]to know so that we can make educated decisions.
[8:37]There's such a rise in fertility.
[8:40]What do you think it is?
[8:43]It's, I mean, I say number one, number two, number three, number four is age, right?
[8:46]We are all having kids at older ages that our moms did.
[8:50]The average age of first birth in the 1970s was like 20.
[8:53]Now it's 30, 31, 32, so it's age.
[8:57]People always ask me, do you think it's environment?
[8:59]And I'm sure there is an environmental component.
[9:02]We just don't know what that is yet.
[9:04]And that doesn't match up to what happens to your eggs as they get older, right?
[9:09]So I think it's primarily age with probably some environmental factors next to him.
[9:14]And there's a chapter dedicated to all the confluence of factors.
[9:18]Sexuality is a big part of it, but now there's so many same sex couples.
[9:20]So obviously in that case, and that just covered quite substantially in the book, what
[9:24]people need to know.
[9:26]And then Jamie calls it, you know, the swipe left culture that everyone wants to optionality.
[9:30]Some people are not settling down aside from working that more women have opportunities
[9:36]in grad school.
[9:37]They have number in med school in law school and that we are now in the workforce in a meaningful
[9:43]meaningful way, but that also sexuality and a million other factors.
[9:47]The family structure has changed, like it's people come in and it's like, maybe I'll
[9:51]do this, maybe I won't.
[9:52]I always, I told Rebecca like once I did a console, the woman egg freezing and she was literally
[9:56]like swiping on the app and I'm like, wait, hello, she's like, yeah, I'm gonna freeze.
[10:00]And I was like, okay, right?
[10:03]But it's more casual.
[10:06]People don't think about it in the same way
[10:08]that I think that you still do.
[10:10]Do you think there is a world in which increasing
[10:13]will be just as inexpensive as going out to dinner?
[10:16]Yeah.
[10:17]Not that that's an expensive eater.
[10:18]But you're like, will it be affordable to more people?
[10:21]Because right now it's still so rudely expensive.
[10:23]Yeah.
[10:24]So accessibility is definitely something
[10:25]that fertility treatment and general struggles with.
[10:28]I will say the biggest shift that I've seen in my career
[10:31]is companies that cover both infertility and fertility
[10:34]treatment.
[10:35]Now one out of five large companies offers it
[10:38]to their female and male employees.
[10:40]And that's a huge game changer.
[10:42]I think as something becomes more mainstream,
[10:45]the costs come down because you learn ways to do it more efficiently.
[10:48]And there's different companies that are exploring.
[10:50]How do we do this without giving as many shots?
[10:52]How do we maybe mature the eggs outside of the body
[10:55]as opposed to inside the body?
[10:56]Like that is growing.
[10:58]But I think definitely coverage.
[11:00]And women have pushed the coverage.
[11:01]Because they'll say to me, I've had patients
[11:03]be like, I did what you said to do.
[11:05]I went to my HR and now it's covered.
[11:07]I'm like, you, that's great for you.
[11:08]So we see this a lot that people will work at places
[11:12]that may not offer it.
[11:13]The women go in collectively and say,
[11:15]you should be offering this and they change it.
[11:17]What do you think are the most important things
[11:19]for young women setting out on their journeys?
[11:22]Or the blank slates that are our daughters, for example.
[11:26]I think what we are trying to say is you plan
[11:29]so many things in your life, right?
[11:31]I see, I take high school seniors every year
[11:33]for an internship, every summer.
[11:34]I have a bunch of college students.
[11:36]And we think about what nature are we gonna have?
[11:38]Where are we gonna live?
[11:39]Who's gonna be our roommate?
[11:40]Like all of that we plan for.
[11:42]But we don't really plan for our fertility
[11:44]and why don't we, right?
[11:46]So I think that should be part of how we plan
[11:49]so that it doesn't get taken away from us.
[11:51]We are driving the decision.
[11:53]So in terms of planning, let's say we buy into this.
[11:56]Yes, you're right.
[11:57]I'm gonna start planning.
[11:59]What should people plan first?
[12:00]Because it's like, now I'm 23, now I'm 25,
[12:04]or is it like I should limit these chemicals?
[12:08]Then I should stop eating sushi,
[12:10]or I should take full of gases.
[12:11]Yeah, no.
[12:12]It's more like I'm gonna go to my OB-GYN
[12:15]or my internist and ask for an AMH level.
[12:17]That's a task that measures your egg quantity.
[12:19]I'm gonna see a fertility doctor
[12:21]and have somebody look at my ovaries in my uterus.
[12:23]I'm gonna sit with that fertility doctor
[12:25]and say, my mom went through menopause at 40.
[12:28]My grandmother had five miscarriages.
[12:31]Like, I'm gonna tell this person
[12:33]or my mom is a brocco carrier.
[12:35]I think I could be too.
[12:37]What do I do with that information?
[12:39]Or, you know, I have endometriosis
[12:41]and I've had horribly painful periods.
[12:44]Does that matter?
[12:44]So just getting a lay of the land and saying,
[12:47]okay, this is your risk for this,
[12:49]this and this happening.
[12:50]What is your plan?
[12:52]I am not an expert, but we have lived and read this book.
[12:54]So I can weigh in a little bit on this.
[12:55]That Jamie has also talks a lot about this notion
[12:58]that how do women not know
[13:01]that what she was saying before?
[13:02]We're born with all the eggs we will ever have.
[13:04]So it is really, and then also it's like,
[13:06]dumming it down.
[13:07]Every time you have a period,
[13:10]what is happening to your body?
[13:11]You need to know these things.
[13:13]And then also in terms of getting granular for women
[13:15]in their 20s or 30s, you're choosing between two jobs.
[13:18]Maybe the job that has better fertility coverage.
[13:21]It's thinking knowing that this won't just happen.
[13:26]So what can I do to put myself
[13:28]in the best possible position to have optionality?
[13:31]What's the biggest mistake people make?
[13:33]Aside from just waiting and dealing with it,
[13:35]when they're finally ready and it's too late?
[13:37]What do you say?
[13:38]I think the biggest myth with fertility we've spoken about
[13:40]this is that the birth control pill is all bad
[13:43]and like everything you would blame everything on the pill.
[13:45]It's so false, right?
[13:47]And there's become this narrative that the pills,
[13:49]what's causing all this infertility,
[13:50]it's not causing infertility.
[13:52]It just masks fertility struggles
[13:54]because that's what it's supposed to do.
[13:56]So I think that's one.
[13:57]And I think number two is that like,
[13:58]it's takes two to tango, right?
[14:00]So a lot of times I'll never even meet the male partner
[14:04]and I know that you guys are doing this together, you know?
[14:06]So I think we have to recognize
[14:08]that there's also male infertility
[14:10]and both people contribute to what's going on.
[14:14]There are so many advances all the time.
[14:17]Like you can take the gender now, right?
[14:21]What you're who you're implanting essentially.
[14:23]And that was my patient before I came here.
[14:25]So you cannot, you know, most any other country,
[14:27]but here, so we see a lot of patients from Canada
[14:30]who will come here to do gender.
[14:32]We call family balancing, gender selection.
[14:34]That's wild.
[14:36]Are you gonna collaborate on another project?
[14:38]We talk.
[14:39]Yeah.
[14:39]I say it's like the marathon, like I don't know.
[14:41]I remember after already my first marathon,
[14:42]I was like, yeah, forget it was horrible.
[14:45]And then like 14 later,
[14:46]I'm like, oh, maybe I'm still in it.
[14:48]I don't know.
[14:48]So I said to Rebecca, I was like, maybe there's another
[14:51]book one day, I don't know.
[14:52]I've always said like I've heard
[14:54]some of the most beautiful stories
[14:55]and I've been a part of that.
[14:57]And I think one thing that people said about the book
[14:59]was they really liked the personal
[15:01]when patients would share their stories.
[15:03]And I'm like, there's so many more.
[15:04]So maybe I love the little boxes.
[15:07]Yeah.
[15:08]Yeah.
[15:08]It's great to get to know people's journeys.
[15:10]Yeah.
[15:11]I mean, ultimately the book will make people feel less alone
[15:14]who have been going through this
[15:15]or struggling with it and harm everybody with information
[15:18]that they suggest that we need.
[15:20]And hopefully we do some really wonderful outcomes.
[15:23]Yeah.
[15:24]And that's all for you.
[15:25]That's very cool.
[15:26]Well, both.
[15:26]It's always I say it's a team.
[15:27]You, sorry.
[15:28]Yeah.
[15:29]We never have done it up ever,
[15:31]never wanted to have it on my own.
[15:32]Did it take a long time?
[15:33]I mean, I know you said it was a couple of years.
[15:35]Like three years maybe from start.
[15:37]No, we wrote it in the course of less than a year.
[15:39]Right.
[15:40]We met in 2022.
[15:41]I can't do that.
[15:42]But it took us like, they asked me.
[15:44]It was a pretty fast turnaround.
[15:46]I thought I would be up late at night,
[15:47]like put my kids to sleep, do all my work,
[15:49]and be like with my computer.
[15:51]And then my kids like team teammates,
[15:54]there was like your mom goes nowhere without her computer.
[15:56]Like we know she's always sitting in the corner.
[15:59]That's true.
[15:59]That was very true.
[16:00]She was very type A.
[16:01]And I'm not so.
[16:02]So she was cracking the web.
[16:04]Yeah.
[16:05]And I thought, yeah.
[16:06]But I took a couple of years maybe long.
[16:08]But I also think like I'm very science oriented.
[16:11]You're more creative.
[16:12]And I think creative, like people work differently.
[16:14]Like I like having a set schedule.
[16:16]I crossed it off.
[16:17]I move on to the next task.
[16:18]Like you were more like, you'll be like,
[16:20]oh, we'll do that in the middle of the night.
[16:21]I'm like, wait, what?
[16:23]And we will not.
[16:23]I do love working late at night.
[16:25]With frozen yogurt.
[16:26]That's like frozen yogurt.
[16:27]If you bring her frozen yogurt,
[16:28]then she'll work.
[16:29]I crank when I, yes, when the house is quiet.
[16:32]And there's frozen yogurt with sprinkles.
[16:34]I am like, I like to lock in.
[16:37]If it's peanut butter, then chocolate sprinkles,
[16:40]and vanilla, then rainbow.
[16:41]Thanks for asking.
[16:42]There's a method.
[16:43]Remember that place in LA, you took us?
[16:44]I was so good.
[16:45]Yeah, it was a big show.
[16:47]It was a tree from the airport.
[16:48]I love that.
[16:49]Is this so there?
[16:50]Yeah, very much.
[16:51]Yes, we got like all these flavors and the toppings.
[16:55]I was like, this is amazing.
[16:57]Well, I will do all that again if we do write another book together.
[17:01]Yeah, this is true.
[17:01]Well, congratulations.
[17:03]Thanks for doing all of the things you do
[17:05]to help families and women and empower everybody.
[17:08]Thanks for having us.
[17:10]Welcome, Lindsay.
[17:11]Thank you so much for coming.
[17:12]I'm totally bugged to talk about
[17:14]imaging and waiting a memoir of modern reproduction.
[17:17]Congratulations.
[17:19]Oh, thank you.
[17:19]Thanks for having me, Zibi.
[17:21]So nice to be here.
[17:23]Yes.
[17:23]It is so nice having you on this side of things.
[17:26]We've known each other now.
[17:27]How long have we been in touch?
[17:29]I don't know, years.
[17:30]Like, yes, this is so cool.
[17:32]This is so cool.
[17:33]How did we first meet each other?
[17:35]Oh my goodness.
[17:36]Well, I probably met you online before you met me.
[17:41]Like, you know, as a follower.
[17:45]I just remember seeing a post about you riding and being a mother
[17:49]and trying to do it all.
[17:50]And I was like, yes, I love this lady
[17:52]and I need her in my life.
[17:54]Oh.
[17:55]And then you published blank
[17:58]and I came on the Zibi verse tour
[18:01]and I saw you in Denver.
[18:02]And that was also so amazing.
[18:05]And then it's just multiplied from there.
[18:08]And I love it.
[18:09]It's amazing.
[18:10]And you come to the book club.
[18:10]I saw your post with Emma Gray,
[18:12]which is one of our authors.
[18:14]And I was like, oh my gosh, you're amazing.
[18:16]Okay.
[18:17]But this is about you and your story.
[18:19]And by the way, I mean, I'm sure you know this,
[18:22]but you are a really great writer.
[18:25]You're a beautiful writer.
[18:27]It's so kind.
[18:28]It's like literary and introspective and beautiful.
[18:34]You had one line early on.
[18:36]Can I just read this one line?
[18:37]It was like a wow early early.
[18:39]You say the sound is jarring.
[18:41]This is when you're having one of your first procedures
[18:44]of many in the book.
[18:46]The sound is jarring, loud.
[18:47]It passes and then I'm done.
[18:49]All this waiting has felt stretched out
[18:51]like endless taffy with uncertainty
[18:54]folding over more uncertainty.
[18:56]I mean, that's just such a beautiful way to say that.
[18:58]Instead of like, the waiting was agony
[19:01]or it was so annoying.
[19:03]I had to wait so long to think of waiting
[19:05]is stretching out like taffy.
[19:07]I don't know.
[19:07]That's just one.
[19:08]One of many great lines.
[19:10]Why don't you tell listeners, oh, back up.
[19:12]What the book is about?
[19:14]Imagine and waiting.
[19:16]I know it's hard to transition from that.
[19:18]I just wanted to quickly note that whenever there's a moment
[19:22]of intensity, it feels like you can be poetic, right?
[19:25]Like in life when it's just it just sticks with you.
[19:29]So that was one of those.
[19:30]But yes, imagine and waiting is the story of myself
[19:35]of being a carrier of the Braca One genetic mutation.
[19:41]And my experience with that as told to my embryo
[19:47]that I know also carries this genetic mutation
[19:50]and happens to me female and whether or not
[19:54]I bring her into being.
[19:55]And I tell her the story of my experience
[19:58]and how I.
[20:00]come to make a decision. It's like so impossible and it took me years to get there and part
[20:07]of writing the book was processing that decision. Wow, many times. While you take us through,
[20:16]you know, happily in your 20s just bop in a long, trying to make your way in the world and then
[20:21]having your life kind of veer off the path when you find out you're a triple negative
[20:26]bracketing. You have a triple negative breast cancer and you immediately have to deal with
[20:32]that. But you're dating someone. You're not married to Mark yet. And do you fertilize your embryos?
[20:39]I mean, these are like crazy modern-day decisions. Whoever would have thought like, hey,
[20:44]guy, I am dating. Like, what if fertilize my egg? Who knows what might happen? We're all like,
[20:52]uh, yeah, exactly. So you guys. And I know you write about this. And then you go on to have
[21:01]many more sort of setbacks, but overcoming and da, da, da, but you have emerged from all of this,
[21:08]like victorious is the wrong word. But you get yourself through everything and you maintain your
[21:14]positive attitude. And as every step back comes, you continue to just like handle it or at least
[21:20]in the book in the way you did in the book, which I was different than real life. But
[21:26]when the first one came, which I feel like is the biggest one, because it was, it just set your
[21:31]life in a different direction. How did you go from this is the life I thought I was living to
[21:38]this one over here? Yeah, such a good question. I think you just, I just had to like narrow focus
[21:45]on the moment. And it's almost like giving birth or any other very intense moment in life, like
[21:52]you kind of have to clear the mechanism and just focus. And it's funny, because now all these
[21:59]years later, I exist, but and I feel like I didn't even go through it unless I sit down and
[22:05]write about it and really remember it's just amazing how resilient we are as humans, isn't it?
[22:11]It's amazing. Yes. So you go through all of the breast cancer treatment. You freeze your
[22:18]embryos. You then have so many other things. You move to Australia at some point in the story. You
[22:27]have two beautiful sons. You get your ovaries. I mean, and you have like your ant passes away.
[22:35]You have so many things. Talk about just when you look back and you say it's like hard to remember
[22:43]like just how do you make sense of the whole thing? I know it's a sort of giant question. It's like
[22:49]it's life, right? Like you can never really know what's coming. And I think if we knew we'd be so
[22:56]overwhelmed and wouldn't be able to function, right? So that's kind of why I keep coming back to
[23:02]the decision of whether or not to bring this embryo into being and having this like
[23:07]playing God pressure because I love my life. And even though I've been through all those things
[23:15]and made it to the other side, I feel like it was so worthwhile. And every time I did, I learned
[23:22]something more about myself and my capacity, what I could handle or who I was as a person or who I
[23:28]wanted to be. And those are just the experiences we have. And I think making sense of it, I'm like,
[23:34]yes, this is what I needed in order to be where I am today. And in a very grounded, appreciative way
[23:42]of what I have and always a reminder, sometimes when the little thing is going to be overwhelming,
[23:49]even after being through all the big things. So to your point of playing God, it is crazy what
[23:55]modern science is able to do. So basically your embryos were tested. You found out which one's,
[24:02]which embryos carried the brocco one gene, which makes you much more likely to have breast cancer
[24:08]ovarian cancer, all that. And you implanted and had the kids, the boys who did not carry the gene.
[24:15]And now you have a third embryo who is a girl with a female embryo with the gene. And the idea
[24:24]that you could say, okay, well, I'm going to prioritize these boys because they don't have the gene.
[24:29]Meanwhile, there are so many people walking around carrying the gene, which may or may not express
[24:34]into cancer. How do we decide who gets to live? And what of the eight million things they can
[24:42]now test for makes someone okay to bring into the world? Can we really eliminate all the stresses of a
[24:52]future child? Is that the goal? I mean, these are giant questions. And I know these are things
[24:57]you're wrestling with. I wish I knew the answers would be. But let me tell you, after having
[25:03]a head cancer, I was feeling very self righteous at having the opportunity not to pass on the
[25:10]gene that brought this cancer in the first place when I was otherwise healthy and young and living
[25:16]my life. And I was like, wow, I would not pass that on if I could help it because that's the only
[25:22]way I know how to prevent it, right? Why aren't insurance companies having people do this and
[25:28]paying for the IVF, right? But then once it got down to the results and you see it on paper,
[25:35]it's a lot harder to feel self righteous and to know because even there could be something else,
[25:42]right? That happens or manifests. And also the biggest thing that I came to terms with was like
[25:50]my parents didn't have this choice. And if they did, I wouldn't be here, right? If they were like,
[25:56]oh, no, we, you know, don't want to have that experience for our child. And Amanda, they feel
[26:03]a lot of guilt for the experiences I've had and not being able to prevent it. And now that I'm a
[26:09]parent, I would feel that too, right? And before I just really had to think about it for me and my
[26:17]experience, and then I couldn't decide. And, you know, what I've been down many times because these
[26:26]aren't very black and white and clear cut decisions. And everybody is unique in what they think
[26:33]and can handle, I think. Well, it's one thing to say, I can handle it if my child got cancer because
[26:40]of this gene that I've fast down. But it's another when we see you with your son who has like a
[26:45]gash in his chin and you're there and he's vomiting and you're like distressed. And it's like the
[26:51]worst, most stressful thing to have a little boy with this big injury. And that's something that
[26:56]was able to be resolved in like one fell swoop. And yet still, you had sort of a PTSD reaction to it.
[27:02]And it was just incredibly traumatic for him for you for everybody involved. And you think
[27:08]multiply that by a zillion. Can you take it or do we just take it? I'm not asking for answers.
[27:15]I mean, I don't know. I'm not turning to you as an expert. I know that we're all as human beings
[27:22]wrestling with these and decisions that I'm sure will get even more specific as time goes on.
[27:27]Like, do we want a child with anxiety? How about blonde hair instead of brown hair? Would you
[27:32]like these eyes? I mean, why do we get to make these choices? And who's to say that eliminating it
[27:38]is good, right? Is for the good of our experience. It's so hard to know. And yeah, the other things
[27:50]I was thinking is even if you if I was like, okay, I'm not going to play God. And I am having this
[27:56]child, which was wanted. What if she then was like, I don't want to have treatments, you know,
[28:05]thanks mom, like you're not in control of me. And because I've also came across those
[28:13]individuals in my experience that weren't fans of Western medicine and wanted to try a different
[28:19]route, even though I very much knew inside me that wasn't the route I wanted to go because I wanted
[28:26]to live. It's just so crazy. It's just crazy. And very hard to navigate. And I think that's part
[28:36]of why wrote the book is that it's not just an easy black and white answer for anyone. And you
[28:44]can't really assume that it's easy for the next person, right, that has embryos on ice and
[28:50]doesn't know whether or not to use them, even just in that simplicity, whether they're healthy or
[28:55]not, you know, or have a gene mutation or what was your sort of quote path to publication? Like,
[29:03]Oh, yes. So when I met you and I'm sure this is not uncommon or is common. Yes, I'm tangling myself
[29:14]up, but I've hitched my story to you. I had written it with the book incubator with Mary Adkins
[29:22]and now Ruby Thorpe is part of it, even put myself out there and wrote this paragraph that I
[29:28]thought was very poetic and beautiful. And Ruby's like, thank you Lindsay for being like the sacrificial
[29:33]limb. What is wrong with this? And there is no detail on no specifics. And it was a great learning
[29:41]experience. And I was edited there. And then I felt really good about my manuscript. This was
[29:47]2024. And after many queries that were very specific and tailored to different agents,
[29:55]I got lots of kind rejections of I don't know how to see this in the market.
[30:00]I heard in that era of the 2024 time that stories of miscarriage and IVF and fertility
[30:12]just weren't in the market, weren't really publishable with a big five.
[30:18]So I started looking at smaller presses and then I set it aside for a while, moved back
[30:26]to Australia, the idea of imaging and maybe personifying the embryo even more came about
[30:33]and around this time the Kickstarter appeared for Third Rail Press to showcase women's
[30:41]stories that are untold and Mary Adkins' book about miscarriage was one of the first
[30:48]ones in the main editor of the press Allie Woodrix book about infant loss and pregnancy
[30:56]with lots of complications and just coming to terms with early child loss was hard but
[31:04]like beautiful and they started this press and I laughed because I submitted models like yes,
[31:10]I felt right in and they're like, yes, three boys in a race so it was just never like a slam dunk
[31:18]but over time the energy would go up and down and revising and luckily it was on the up again
[31:27]and I revised it and then we worked on the structure and including more of my own story and
[31:34]self in there and peeling away a lot of the excess that was important for me and my
[31:40]own experience that not the wider world. Well, whatever happened, the end result is really great
[31:47]and really polished and beautiful and lyrical and it really allows us to go through everything
[31:55]with you. I love learning about your parents and your dad and his wanting a second opinion for you
[32:02]and just this desire to keep helping, keep trying that you never stop being a parent even so that
[32:12]piece of it and your relationship and each son and your friendships, COVID, moving around the world.
[32:21]I mean, you packed a lot into a very slim book and you even included other books that you love
[32:29]like John Green's The Fault in Our Stars and who else was it? Jody Pico's book,
[32:36]um how books have been read like this that be tell me your secrets leave. It is so good.
[32:44]I mean, I have a weird memory. I have just a weird memory. I, you know, I don't know but it was
[32:50]great to see the references and how books move you in the way this book will move others.
[32:55]Talk about your love of books for a sec. I know. I was like, can we get out on books?
[33:00]Yes, love books. But I really feel like later in life they started to be meaningful to me.
[33:07]I think when I was, I mean, obviously there were some very precious picture books when I was younger
[33:13]and a few fun mystical books like which she wants. Did you ever read Phyllis Reynolds Naylor?
[33:18]No. Okay, that was more like young adult before it was young adult. Obviously a wrinkle in time
[33:24]was lovely but the other books I didn't get into. Yeah. So once I was in my 20s when I thought I was
[33:32]like free from the assigned reading at school, even though there was some beautiful assigned reading
[33:38]books, I just love picking up my own books finally having the time to do it. And when I have
[33:45]reskins or I had a lot more time on my hands that I really got into reading then read the help
[33:52]loved it. That's why I enjoyed your podcast last week. Thank you. That was aired or this week last
[33:57]week. Haven't gotten into that one quite as quickly yet. And I appreciated your view and the author's
[34:05]view and her experience. It's just so much fun to hear like from authors now and to know what goes
[34:12]into these books. They come alive in different ways and just feel more real and special.
[34:19]And I'm bringing you some books next week because I can't help myself even though you don't
[34:23]need them. Sure. You know, giving someone the gift of book and having them read it and love it.
[34:30]That's like why I do everything. That is the greatest thing. When you finish a book and you're like,
[34:34]oh my gosh, I wouldn't have read this. And so once I recommended it to me and I just went through
[34:38]this hours-long journey and all my emotions were activated. Like that is amazing. So, okay, so I
[34:45]loved your Edward. Did you love your Edward? Yep. And no. Yes. Hello, beautiful. It was like
[34:51]a horror podcast. It was not. I had an Apollo demo on my podcast to discuss. Okay. I had to go back and
[34:59]find that one. It was so special. Yes. And then of course Amy's book that you published. That one
[35:05]just really got me here. I don't know. So good. Yes. Sure. I know. So yes, that's- Well, I
[35:13]have a great book. Lindsey is going to be people are going to say that about you.
[35:19]Lindsey's book and imaging and waiting and oh my gosh, I feel like it's really going to
[35:24]help and can really kick off this very important and very new news-worthy conversation about choice
[35:31]and natural selection and life as we know it and what is AI going to do? I mean, I just feel like
[35:39]it's so timely and maybe 2024 wasn't the right time for you. But now it is the perfect time for
[35:45]a book like this to come out and so. So beautiful to say thank you. Well, Lindsey, I hate to say this
[35:54]with the risk of sending sort of condescending. But I am so proud of you. I am so proud of you for this
[36:00]book. And I really am just so thrilled, so impressed and can't wait to see it shine.
[36:08]Thank you. Thank you so much, Libby. I love it and I really appreciate it. So thank you so much.
[36:15]Okay. Thanks for coming on. Okay. Thanks for waiting. It's so closely and of course.
[36:20]All the kindness. Okay. Thank you so much. Okay. Bye.
[36:24]Thank you for listening to Totally Booked with Zippy,
[36:27]formerly momstone have time to read books. If you loved the show, tell a friend,
[36:32]leave a review, follow me on Instagram at Zippy Owens and spread the word. Thanks so much.
[36:38]Oh, and bye the books.