111_Liz and Emma
===
Liz: Yep. And so, as you know, the sperm are supposed to get into the egg. Yeah. You're pregnant.

Apparently my eggs are made of titanium. I don't know, but none of Peter sperm could get through. There was just not. So were like, okay, IVF, we're gonna put an ag in a Petri dish and put a little sperm in the dish and then they'll do it that way. And again, my eggs are apparently made out of titanium. So here's the 36.

They've lined them up and low Petri dishes and they're dropping some sperm and to everyone for, you know, 36 dishes with one egg each. And so they call me the next day and they're like, we have to let you know that not a single one of your eggs has Fertilust. So they call me and they give me this terrible news that not a single one has fertilized.

And I am not kidding. When I tell you I was on the floor, weeping like sobbing. Oh, I got a Peter had to go to work. I was home because I'm trying to like recuperate and I'm alone in my house. And I remember him just laying on the floor with the dog crying. And he said, we're going to try to do a rescue exi.

And so what a rescue XCI, and I forget what I C S I stands for, but a rescue XCI is they're like, we're not leaving anything to chance. We are just going to inject Peter sperm into the egg. We're going to help as much as we can because of titanium eggs. So they went to the remaining eggs because some of the eggs they've now, you know, they'd been out in Petri dishes.

They have, you know, they're kind of dying off a little bit. So there's 17. No, I'm sorry. 23. These numbers are coming back to me. There's 23 eggs from the original 36. They inject Peter sperm into each of the 23. They call me the next day. Okay. 17 are hanging on like, okay. All right. Then they call me the next day.

12 or hanging on. Alright. Okay. And then it's to the fifth day and they have 10 and the fifth day is when they're going to put them in the cryo freezer. So if you think about it, these babies, these embryos are five days old when they're frozen five gestational days old. And so at one point in a freezer together, there were 10 embryos.

So Blake and Edgar were at one point together in a cryo freezer. 
===

Monica: Welcome to the Revelation Project Podcast. I'm Monica Rogers, and this podcast is intended to disrupt the trance of unworthiness and to guide women, to remember and reveal the truth of who we are. We say that life is a revelation project and what gets revealed gets healed.

Hello everyone. And welcome to another edition of the Revelation Project Podcast. Today. I have two very, very special guests with me. One of which is my dear friend and business manager, Liz August. The other is. These two women have an incredibly special bond. And what we're about to talk about today is embryo adoption in fertility and healing.

I want to read each of their bios, Liz August. Again, my business manager has helped me produce this podcast. She handles various other tasks in my online business. She's a business and tech strategist, and she leads a virtual support team for entrepreneurs who hate figuring out all of the technology and strategy it takes to have a successful online business.

She's pretty much a miracle worker. She does everything from website design to social media, to scheduling. To online course creation while Liz's business is truly one of my saving graces today, we're seeing the more personal side of her life as she talks to us about something very near and dear to her heart.

Liz lives in Worcester, Massachusetts with her husband, Peter, whom I call Pierre their four year old daughter, Blake and their dog Porter. When she's not being a tech goddess, she's running Netflix marathons while guzzling diet Cokes, despite all of my best attempts to get her to quit doing that. Emma is a former social worker.

Who's taking time to live the mom adventure. She's a runner taro reader and budding artists. She's in a fever of adding flowers, gold, glitter, and moon imagery to any photo she finds, you can find her artwork and musings at you're going to have to pronounce this for me, Emma, @ on made taro right at unmade taro on Instagram, on the Instagram.

That's perfect on the Instagram and the Pinterest. I love that she lives in Pennsylvania with her sweetheart Vince and the adorable baby at Edgar the encourageable Murphy beagle and the cuddly Minerva cat. I am so, so honored to welcome both of you here today. Hey. Hi Liz. Hi emma 

Liz: Oh, hi, thanks for having us.

Monica: Okay. So like, I just want to start with the moon. Can we just start with the moon? It feels so symbolic of this whole thing, right? 

Emma: I mean, I don't think we can avoid it. Yeah. 

Monica: She is here like the full moon, right? Like there's just all of the phases. I think like what the moon really represents for me. And as I was reading that I was getting the chills is just this magnificence of the feminine, you know, and I think oftentimes of what the moon is Cape like is so powerful and capable of even changing all tides, that of pulling and changing the title, the flow basically of the planet earth, which brings me to the energy that.

It takes, I think, to birth new creation into the world. And of course, what we're talking about today is your journey together. The two of you and then your families. And I would love to just kind of start. By giving our audience and our listeners a little bit of background on how this journey began for you.

Liz, maybe let's start with that. And then Emma, let's hear how this journey began for you. And then we can kind of intersect how your journeys kind of came together. At some point. 

Liz: I love that. Thank you. I'm going to try to condense my journey. That could be a whole podcast episode and Emma's too, of course.

So, oh man. So, you know, started out just, we got my husband, Peter and I got married and we wanted a little time to enjoy life together in a married way and travel and do all those things. And then ultimately we're like, okay, it's time. We're going to, we're going to have a baby, let's do this. And you kind of go into it like a, a movie where you're like, okay, well we did all the, we bought the house, we got the dog and we got married and now.

And it just wasn't happening and it was frustrating. And I didn't understand what was going on. So went to the doctor, she's like, I think you're going to want to see an infertility specialist. So, you know, the story really begins where I was at IVF, new England with the great Dr. Glatstein. And after a lot of testing, both for Peter and for myself, they can never really pinpoint exactly why I was in fertile suspected PCOS, which is what a lot of women battle with and polycystic ovarian syndrome.

And it can really take a toll on your infertility, but on paper there just wasn't enough to really say why. And I just kind of think, you know, maybe we just weren't supposed to go the normal route with this. So after three years of. Kind of health really. I mean, waking up at five o'clock in the morning, 4, 5, 6 times a week, going getting dressed, going to an infertility clinic, stripping down vaginal ultrasounds, blood work, needles, injections that your husband has to do because you're terrified.

And he's chasing you around the house with a needle. Um, having, having to leave a Christmas party and go into the men's room with your husband for a moment so that he could inject you. I mean, after three years of that, we ultimately did conceive through IVF in a rescue procedure called an exi. So this is where we kind of get into the science of infertility.

At some point in the journey. I think it was 2015. We ultimately realized that, you know, insemination didn't work timed, intercourse didn't work. Oral medication with timed, intercourse didn't work. You know, you kind of have to go through all of these steps, especially with insurance, with health insurance, making sure that you're going the right route to get everything covered and not have to pay thousands.

And I do mean upon thousands of dollars. I know many women who've had to re mortgage their house to afford these things. 

Monica: I was just going to say, if you don't mind me asking, what is the range like that? What can it cost? 

Liz: Oh lord. So, I mean, we had excellent insurance at the time. My husband and I were both teachers.

So we had a really great insurance plan and I was very lucky to only pay copays for doctor visits, blood work and prescriptions. At one point in the journey, I can tell you that I was like, Um, I just want to go straight to IVF. I'm tired of this. I'm tired of trying all these little things, like, just give me my baby.

And so I called the doctor and he said, can we just like cut to the chase and go to IVF? He's like, yeah, let's do it. So he called it all the medications and I'll never forget this phone call where CVS care mark called me. This is a specialty branch of CVS. And they said, okay, so we're here for payment.

Can we have your card number for, you know, the injection that you'll need for the IVF procedure as like, yeah. Okay. And I'm expecting, you know, $35. That's my copay, maybe a hundred, you know, depending 3,620 something dollars for one injection, one injection, one injection that was going to help my body prepare for the implantation of an embryo.

And it just broke. I was like, this is insanity. So I said, well, how do I get IVF covered? Well, you're going to have to go through insemination and that's going to have to fail. And you kind of go into. Thinking, you always have hope the whole time, like you go in and you're like, this is going to be yet.

It's going to happen. If I just hope hard enough, it's going to happen. And you're like, you make light of it. Like I was laying on the bed knees in the stirrup right legs in the stirrup getting inseminated. And there was a time magazine with Bernie Sanders on the cover, like right above my head and a clear magazine holder.

And it was right around election time and he was running. And my husband's like, we got Bernie looking over, we're going to be great. This is going to work. And then again, that insemination didn't work. So I had to have a failed insemination for insurance to cover IVF. And it was just another heartbreak to have to go through all these hoops that you have to jump just to get that baby that you really, really.

Monica: Yeah. Yeah. And Liz were like, help me orient where Peter is in all of this. Like, as you're continually going through these ups and downs right now, because it really, it sounds like it's a brutal, it's a brutal cycle of lake hope and then dashed hopes and start beginning again and perseverance and decide like, I'm sure there's some level of like, do I really want this, this bad?

Oh 

Liz: God. Yeah. So I remember, you know, I can never speak for Peter. I can never truly share another individual's experience with anything. Right. The most I'm able to really understand is that for him. You know, you're sitting there and the person that you love the most, you can do. Absolutely nothing for them.

There's nothing you can do to make them feel any better in the situation. And I think that that's a lot of what he had to deal with. Um, and then for him personally, I think at some point, I think it was around that drug incident. So I'm on the phone and I'm in a ball crying about this drug, this stupid needle.

And I think he was just like this bullshit, like, what are we doing here? Like, what are we, what have we just adopted? And I was like, look, I have nothing against adoption. I think it is a beautiful thing. And maybe one day, but I, I want to know that I have hit every point in the journey and that it is physical.

Impossible for me to have a baby before I go to adoption. And that's just my desire. That's my need. And I think we were very young in our marriage. We're nine years later now. And I think that if we had the amazing communication that we have now, I think things would have sounded a lot different than, but your experience is only your experience in the moment.

So. We, we joke and we say, you know, part of the IVF and fertility procedure, they should really have like a checkbox, like have you and your spouse gone to couples therapy together because it's like, this is, it's a big thing to injections and pills. He has this wonderful memory of, I took a drug called Clomid, which is one of the popular medications and infertility.

Uh, and it really, it can mess some women up. I mean, hormonally can make some people monsters. And I don't know if you've ever seen the movie Shrek with the gingerbread man and he looks up and he says, you're a monster. So Peter would jokingly call me the CLO monster for Clomid because 

Monica: There was, and I can totally picture him looking at him and saying that like the gingerbread man, you're a CLO monster.

Yeah. And I mean, yeah. And I'm like, yeah, 

Liz: There was on that drug. I was walking up the stairs. He said something funny. I laughed so hard. I had to sit down on the stairs and then I started having a panic attack that I was laughing so hard. Cause I thought in my messed up Clomid mind that I would never stop laughing.

And then I was crying and then I couldn't breathe like this vicious cycle. This is Clomid. This is the CLO monster. Yeah. So yeah. 

Monica: And liz, so I just want to be clear. So what I'm hearing you say too, is that so like hindsight is 2020. And what you're saying is like for couples that are on this journey together, it's like a great thing to think about having different modes of communication that help you kind of see where each other's at throughout through the journey, right?

Like, so a coach, a therapist, somebody who can really just anything, 

Liz: Anyone who can really, I know fabulous couples, coaches, fabulous couples, therapists, own individual coach or therapist, just to really touch in with God. This is what's happening to us and it's knowing each other. Yeah. Just hearing us and being able to say, I'm really pissed off that my stepsister's pregnant right now.

I love you, Katelyn. Um, you know, to be like, God, she's pregnant. Why can't I get pregnant? And they're on their third kid. I just want one. Yeah. You know, these weird vicious thoughts. Like, I don't want to go to this baby shower. Cause I don't feel like being near baby stuff right now. Yeah. You know, these little things where you just you're like, God, I'm a terrible person for feeling like this.

There's gotta be other people that feel like this, but you know, you're kind of alone in this journey. So I think for Peter, it was, I think it's harder for, for men who go through this with partners, because I feel like. You know, this is a woman's journey for the most part, because we're the ones carrying, right.

If you identify as a woman and you're carrying a child, and I think there were a couple moments, he points out, he wrote a blog, but we had this post, this blog for a little while about our journey. And he did write one post where I think he went to the barber and I think it was like this old Italian guy.

And he goes like, yeah. So you guys are going to start having kids soon. Right. And Peter was just kind of smirked and shook his head and was like, yep, we'll get there. You know? Cause like, yeah. How do you talk to the 65 year old Italian barber about infertility? 

Monica: Well, it brings up that lack of sensitivity that we can sometimes have when we're kind of out in the world.

And we just make assumptions about, you know, the. Yeah, I'm just the natural kind of flow of life. And that, that that's not necessarily how it works for everybody. And I think we're also in a great time of what I call revelation. Right. A great time of revelation, where we're starting to really pick up on the social conditioning of how we treat each other in tend to put each other in these silos or boxes or gender roles or societal expectations.

And like it's such a projection that is, is very harmful. I think, to a lot of people, whether that's about weight or pregnancy or having children or motherhood or marriage or all of it. Yeah. 

Liz: It can be, you know, for, for him to go through it and not really have a way to talk about it for. The, the weight thing that you said, you know, my body basically kind of blew up like a balloon with all these drugs that I was just pumping in for three years.

Yeah. And, you know, you'd have friends or family that would be like, maybe if you lost a little bit of weight, you could get pregnant easier. It's like, oh, right. Okay, sure. Yeah. Yeah. I have medical professionals telling me I absolutely can't possibly create a baby by myself, but yes, please tell me about, about losing 10 pounds.

Monica: Oh my goodness. 

Liz: Yeah. So, and you hear about these things when you're, when you're in an infertility community, you, you know, you hear in like Facebook groups or with other women that you might know who are in fertile, you hear all these things about just kind of vicious, vile things. People say that I don't think they realize, or kind of.

Very vicious and vile. Um, and it it's a struggle just for anyone to comprehend the situation until you go through it. Yeah, 

Monica: I bet. I bet. So one thing I want to kind of have in bring into the conversation a little bit later are the medical professionals you've worked with. Cause I know that you have so many kind of fond things to say about that support team and, and also the other adventures that are associated with it.

And I wondered Liz, if you can take us now into the moment of when it yes. Conception. Right. I liked how you used the words. I, you didn't say it, but it was like, that's where that word, it was inconceivable that we could do this. Right. And I just got chills. Cause I think of that word and the potency of that word in this conversation.

Yeah. And then what became possible. So take us to the moment that yeah, 

Liz: So the science of it plays in here at this point because after, you know, all of these drugs and such, I'm now jam packed full of eggs. Right. That's where the human life begins. Right. Is when you have these eggs 

Monica: And how did you become jam packed with these eggs?

So, cause I'm, I'm like, wait, no 

Liz: is crazy. I think like right after Emma, you've been through this so much more recently than I have. But at some point in your cycle, I think it's maybe like right after you get your period or something like that, they give you a whole line of drugs that you. Used to grow as many eggs as possible because we as women, we all produce eggs and we know that every month when we're not pregnant, we release eggs.

And then, you know, you get your period and 

Monica: We're born actually with the amount of eggs that we then, 

Liz: And actually, if you have a girl, if you're pregnant with a girl, then you actually technically have your grandchildren inside of you because she has her eggs and her it's a very weird Russian doll situation.

So let your mind wrap around that one for a second. 

Monica: Oh my goodness. 

Liz: Crazy. Crazy. So, because I had a girl Blake, so my grandchildren were in me at one. Messed up world. It's like 

Monica: With inside of Blake who was inside of you 

Liz: And yes, crazy Russian doll situation. Very, very freaky. Okay. 

Monica: Now, now the medication had you released a number of ex?

Liz: Yeah, so what's, so we all, every month, women who, I, you know, people who identify as women who are menstruating, so we all have these X, the number of them, I think an average amount maybe is like 5, 7, 10. I don't quite really know what a normal situation would be, but when you're doing IVF, you want the best possible chance.

So they make your hormones, the drugs, make your hormones go bonkers. And at one point I had 36 eggs inside of me that, and I could, I swear to God, I could feel them because I'm like, I'm bloated. I'm like walking and it feels like golf balls inside. Those are the eggs that would become the embryos. And so they kind like stuff.

You like an Easter basket. So they pump you full of drugs and you make all these eggs. And then at some point you go in for the quote unquote harvest because you're harvesting by X. So this is the harvest. And so they knock you out general anesthesia and you wake up. They tell you how many they got and they, they were like, lady, you had 36 eggs in there and that's a lot of good work.

Monica: So, so typically they might get like seven, 12. 

Liz: Well, you know, depending on how severe your in fertility is. I mean, some women only they're pretty, there's like two or three. I mean, it's okay. You're terrified. You're scared. You're like, God, what if they don't get any? And I'm like 36. 

Monica: Right? So it was literally like, there was a dam, oh my God. For you and release the cleanliness. It really is the, okay. 

Liz: So, you know, so they have all these eggs. So I'm walking out of there, like a prize pony, like, yes, I've done the thing and you know that they're not all gonna be. Because biology. So you go home and you're kind of nursing yourself because you've, you were jam packed for all the eggs.

So you're home hormones are all bonkers. So I've got blankets on them, you know, down in Gatorades and chicken broth and trying to like revive myself. And every day, the nurse calls you and tells you how many eggs have fertilized, because the other half of the equation Peters half is because we couldn't do insemination.

So insemination is they just, they stick a catheter of semen up a woman and let it do its thing, which is like the natural sperm in, in 

Monica: the area where the eggs would normally get fertilized. Yes, 

Liz: exactly. In the womb. Yep. And so, as you know, the sperm are supposed to get into the egg. Yeah. You're pregnant.

Apparently my eggs are made of titanium. I don't know, but none of Peter sperm could get through. There was just not. So were like, okay, IVF, we're gonna put an ag in a Petri dish and put a little sperm in the dish and then they'll do it that way. And again, my eggs are apparently made out of titanium. So here's the 36.

They've lined them up and low Petri dishes and they're dropping some sperm and to everyone for, you know, 36 dishes with one egg each. And so they call me the next day and they're like, we have to let you know that not a single one of your eggs has Fertilust. So they call me and they give me this terrible news that not a single one has fertilized.

And I am not kidding. When I tell you I was on the floor, weeping like sobbing. Oh, I got a Peter had to go to work. I was home because I'm trying to like recuperate and I'm alone in my house. And I remember him just laying on the floor with the dog crying. And he said, we're going to try to do a rescue exi.

And so what a rescue ECCExiis, and I forget what I C S I stands for, but a rescue XC is they're like, we're not leaving anything to chance. We are just going to inject Peter sperm into the egg. We're going to help as much as we can because of titanium eggs. So they went to the remaining eggs because some of the eggs they've now, you know, they'd been out in Petri dishes.

They have, you know, they're kind of dying off a little bit. So there's 17. No, I'm sorry. 23. These numbers are coming back to me. There's 23 eggs from the original 36. They inject Peter sperm into each of the 23. They call me the next day. Okay. 17 are hanging on like, okay. All right. Then they call me the next day.

12 or hanging on. Alright. Okay. And then it's to the fifth day and they have 10 and the fifth day is when they're going to put them in the cryo freezer. So if you think about it, these babies, these embryos are five days old when they're frozen five gestational days old. And so at one point in a freezer together, there were 10 embryos.

So Blake and Edgar were at one point together in a cryo freezer. 

Monica: Wow. Wow. 

Liz: Which is crazy. Yeah. Crazy. Yeah. So then they wanted my body to rest a little bit and we waited a couple of months. And then January 2nd, 2017, I got to watch them take a catheter and put Blake's embryo. I was nodding like, this is the coolest part.

You watch them in pregnant, you know? So you walk into a medical facility, not pregnant and you leave that office medically pregnant. And what we say in the infertility world is P U P O pregnant until proven. Otherwise 

Monica: I have the chills right now 

Liz: And then a horrible two week wait, where anyone in the infertility world will just shake their head and be like, yep.

That two week wait where you're like, am I pregnant? Am I not pregnant? Am I pregnant? And we're not pregnant. Am I crying? Cause I think I'm pregnant. Or am I crying? Because I think I'm not pregnant. Oh my God. I sneezed. Did I hurt the baby. 

Monica: Okay. And is this part about the attachment to the uterine wall? 

Liz: Yes. Yep. So this, uh, this embryo now is just kind of burrowing into your uterine lining, uh, just making a nice little nest and, uh, latching on, and you're just so in the, again, in the infertility world, we'll say, stick, baby stick, come on, baby stick. And we hope, uh, sticky embryos upon each other. We'll say, oh, best wishes for a sticky embryo.

Monica: So, oh my gosh. I mean, these communities must be your everything huge just in terms of support, because what a journey now I want to, you know, put it out there. Of course that chances are, you could have miscarried. I could have. Blake and then had to go through the artificial or, or then go back to the cryo chamber.

Yeah. 

Emma: I had another baby 

Liz: bring up Emma. Emma can talk to us about that, but okay. We had 10 embryos. Blake was number one. She was thawed from the Cryobank. She was placed inside me and I am very lucky that in my first shot of IVF, I did become pregnant. Okay. And when she was three months old, my husband and I looked at each other and we're like, so more kids, because they're going to start billing us $85 a month to keep these little guys frozen.

And ultimately we were like, Nope, no more kids for us. 

Monica: So you knew Blake was your baby? Yup. And beautiful Blake was born. Yep. And the fertility journey. The infertility journey and then the fertility journey we're complete for us. And here you had nine embryos left and you could have either paid to continue to keep them in the cryo chamber, or what were your options?

Liz: Three options for anyone that has frozen embryos, you discard their chucked. They're gone medical waste. They're donated to science, which what we know about vaccines and fertility studies, everything. Lot of these things are tested on embryos. And then the third choice is to donate them to either an agency or a couple that, you know, that is unable to conceive and they're going to do IVF and their eggs for whatever reason. We're not able to make embryos and they are looking to adopt. 

Monica: Okay. And so you went with that option?

Liz: I did. Yeah. 

Monica: And how, okay. And so, and I can't wait for Emma for us to kind of dive in with Emma and oh my gosh. But, but this part too is like such a piece because like, how did that decision transpire you, I'm sure you had to learn about the options.

Yes. And then really kind of feel into them because what did it feel like to think about discarding these embryos as medical waste? I mean, that just feels so harsh. 

Liz: I'm going to preface this with saying that I want hundred, 110000000% believe in abortion. I believe a woman has a right to choose whatever the hell she wants to do with her body.

And if that is abortion so that she can live the life that she dreams up for herself. Good. Go do it. I can't stress that enough. I will say that this experience did make me think more deeply about where does life begin? And I don't have any answers. No one has any answers. No one can answer this for us.

And you know, and as Emma comes in and we start talking about baby Edgar ideas, like would Edgar have been Edgar? If he was put in my womb, would Blake have been Blake? If she were the third embryo and Emma put Blake in her womb, you know, these are weird, crazy, incredible things to think about, but ultimately I just.

I couldn't think about other women going through this and not having, I mean, I had 36 X and there are women that this just doesn't work for. And I just couldn't think about not having an option and yes, adoption, regular adoption, as we know, adoption is always an option. It just wasn't for me at the time, it wasn't what my soul wanted.

And so throwing them out or donating them to science just didn't seem right for me. And I think, again, I can't speak for Peter, but when we discussed, he was like, no, you're right. Like somebody should have the opportunity. And I think that that was what kind of United the decision. Going further, when you do decide to give up your embryos for adoption, you can do a closed adoption or an open adoption.

And I would say that that is where Peter and I branched off into some separate ways of thought on that. 

Monica: Okay. So will you bring us back to that when it's timeless? 

Liz: I will, yes. 

Monica: Okay, great. So Liz, that thank you for just, you know, really just kind of bringing us through that whole part of the journey. Right.

Because there's so much there that I think is so important for our community of listeners to understand with just a deepening compassion for what women go through, right. To have a child. And so as we kind of navigate now into Emma's story, Again, this is, I've had the, just for our listeners. I've had kind of this really interesting relationship to all of this because I met Liz back in 2017 when she was going through this.

And at the time we were in a coaches training retreat together. And so it was really kind of interesting to just be with Liz through some of this, and then peripherally kind of be a voice for, you know, through Facebook and just knowing you on a, on a superficial level, I would say for a time. 

Liz: Oh, totally. Super. Yeah. If I had at a time at a time. Yeah. 

Monica: And then of course becoming more intimately connected through our business circles and starting to work together and just then watching and hearing about you meeting. Emma and what was happening with the embryos. It was like, what, you know, what is happening right now?

So, Emma welcome. I'm so excited to hear about your part of this. 

Emma: Oh, thank you. And I, you know, I never before and I've gotten to hear Liz counter story. So this is the first coming in. I have heard bits and pieces sort of in writing that to how that process goes, but just fascinating to sit back and hear her story.

Yeah. Okay. Let's do it. Let's do it. So Vince, I get married in 2015 and. In October, 2015, and then October, 2016, we made the decision to adopt from foster care. So we have had discussions with each other side that we don't need. We're not going to try to have children. We've never attempted at this point to have children.

And that we look at agencies where we live and some agencies do emergency placement, foster care for children who need to go to a place immediately. And that's sort of what we all have seen like in movies and what we understand foster care to me, there are also older children in the foster care system who, um, are basically ready to be adopted.

And so there's a different way to go as fast. So that's adopting from foster care as opposed to sort of fostering. We choose to go and work with an agency and 2016. And by October, pretty much, exactly two years, October, 2018, we end that process. We have not had options. And so when I hear Liz's story, like sort of the, you know, the, the darkness, or I think about the taro card of like, you know, the tower falling, it doesn't just fall.

It's like spectacularly falling and it fell three years. The rebel is there and that's sort of where my tower falls and that's sort of like my, my journey and my darkness is I'm a social worker by trade and had worked a lot with kids and families, and then really wanted to do this process is really in his heart to do it.

I have the social background. This is like your dream. We're going to do this together. And for a lot of my life, I think I have fought the current of my soul rather than try to go with it. And I was like, we're just gonna do that again. We're just gonna make this happen. Like I ran into. That's a binder, it's got the tabs.

I'm like going through paperwork with you and all the staff. And like, I am dressed, who's going to like 8 million training, doing it, doing it, doing it and went into it and being like, there's no way that this won't end in adoption and open about the journey with everybody. And it didn't, and there's a lot of different reasons for that.

I think, you know, sort of how people have a lot of interesting opinions about how people get pregnant. People have a lot of interesting opinions about adoption and adoption from foster care and what that looks like. And I remember people being like, why don't, why don't you have a kid yet? Like, there's just so many kids.

Right. And you're just like, well, yes and no, like most truths, it's very complicated. And, and part of that, so part of it is just the system and the bureaucracy that makes it really difficult. And part of it is that as we go through this, as they're trying to be matched and trying to figure it out. What we could really provide for a child with various needs and there's issues with like where kids are in the state and like what's going on legally and all these different things, navigating them.

And as you kind of go through this Vince's vision kind of changes a little bit. And he's like, when we went into this, I was, I really saw us with an older child, like 6, 7, 8. Now that we've like gone through this and it keeps kind of like not working or falling apart. He's like, I'm looking at other people who are having children.

And I'm like, that looks really beautiful. Like I'm seeing siblings have children, friends, and I'm like, maybe that's something that I do want to do. And he's like, but good news. I'm willing to do like emergency fostering. I'm willing to take in little tiny kids. And if they don't stay with us, that's okay.

Like I'm willing to root because part of what I feel. Deeply in my soul is that if you were going to do emergency foster placements and have foster children in your home, you, your role is to root for reunification. Your role is to be a conduit for reunification in some way, shape or form. And you are open entirely.

If that doesn't work out to like taking children into your home and having them be a part of you or finding our forever home. But that is like at the core of who you are. And he was like, I still think I can do that. Cause like, I know I want a younger child, you know, I, I see that for myself now, but I'm willing to do emergency foster placement, willing to grow.

Like let's do it. And my vision going through these two this year and a half, two years is. I'm actually fine with having older children, the more we've gone into this summer, I've been like fine. Some of them were like 14 and I was like, they wouldn't see us as parents, but like, why not? Like I had worked, I had worked at, you know, a home, um, for young mothers who had transitioned out of foster care.

I was like, I could see myself going older. I could not see myself going into emergency foster placements. We'd kind of diverge in the sense of like throughout this journey, I have learned about myself that I am not in a place to be an emergency foster parent, like to be a true foster parents, because what I'm finding in my heart is that I want our family.

I could not root for someone else to have been filed. And part of that was the work that I was doing and this feeling of being with children every day that I couldn't take home, that I couldn't protect, that I really had to have all of these boundaries. And my role was to sort of like keep releasing them.

Into chaos. And I was like, I don't think I could continue. I had a lot of. 

Monica: Oh, wow. I mean, I'm just, I'm just seeing like that picture more deeply. And I I'm relating to, there was this farm stand that I used to go to all the time and this older woman. Was there often with a new emergency placement foster baby in a bucket.

And, and I say like in a bucket, what, when I say that, I mean, I feel like I should be a little bit more clear here for those that don't know that like the baby seat bucket, that's what we call it. Like the baby seat bucket where you know, that she's cradling a new baby or she was holding a new baby. And it was like all colors of the rainbow babies over the years, you know, that I saw her foster in these emergency situations.

And then like, cause I would go to the farm all the time and I could always see by the look on her face, you know, where she was at in the process, like she had just released another one back into, back home. Right. And it, and it breaks your heart every time. I mean, it mean for her. I just thought how strong, but it's not for everybody.

That's a really, that's a really. I couldn't do it is what I'm saying. I don't think I could do it, 

Emma: Not everybody. And it's not for every time and I it's not for every season of your life. And I think at that point in my life, again, sort of this idea of like trying to go against the current of my soul, I had been about a decade in just real traditional case management, primarily working with people impacted by domestic violence and sexual violence.

And I had a lot of pain from those experiences. I had a lot, a lot of pain and. I was really denying that and the sound something like, you know, they're in pain, not you, you don't get to be in pain and if you feel in pain, you're probably a jerk. And so I was on this. And so those things were happening concurrently.

And there's this period between 2016 and 2018, where I am absolutely slamming out in my ability to, to do the social work role. My, my heart is breaking. I can no longer, I'm just the old kitchen I can absorb no more. I have to do something. 

Monica: Uh, I want to, I wanted you to say more about that between 2016 and 2018 kind of being the sponge, right. That can't absorb any more. I want to, I want to kind of ask you to go a little bit more deeper into, like, what is that pain? Is that pain from witnessing how children are treated or how people treat each other? Like, tell me more. 

Emma: That's a great question. I do not have the answer for, I think the first step for me has been to acknowledge that pain even existed and to be like, I think that's kind of where I'm at now is getting just past the place where I can be like, I'm actually in a lot of pain.

Like my life is sort of falling apart. My soul is falling apart. And then I think this season of, uh, figuring out kind of like where, what that means. And I think for me, I don't know. I don't know. And I'm sort of just giving myself a chance to not know, because part of how my brain works is just sort of this constant turning analysis of like, what is right, what is good?

What is reasonable? You know, how do I sit into this? What is the role of the universe and faith and biology. And like that is again, the sociologist in my training with the social worker in my training, it is the ecological training that I have to look at things. And I think for me to sort of be able to move into the sales, like adoption, to move into that and to move into a new life.

I was just, I was like, I just have to acknowledge that the things risk. I don't quite understand it. And don't quite ever seen the words from, I mean, never my goal now is to just let it exist and then to fill my life with things that feel. Really beautiful and really feminine and energy and really peaceful and to just be directed with that.

Monica: Yeah. So what I'm hearing you say is like, you're really just allowing yourself to not need the answer right now, but it, but to acknowledge that there was something about that, the work that you were doing, what you were experiencing, that just was really painful to be 

Emma: with. And I, yeah, and I think because it was happening at the same time that I was trying to adopt from foster care and it was not being successful.

So I had gone into that. So these two things are happening at the same time and they can never be untangled from each other. They made each other so much more painful and so much more complicated. And so their, their connection to each other is so deep and. There was a day when we had done an emergency placement and they were like, do you want to try, like, do you want them to come live with you and try?

And Vince was like, he's like, I'm going to like, I'll try, you know, he's like, I'm here for this. And he's like, but I, I need you to be honest about like what you can and can't do. And this is the part where I might cry, but I was like, I cannot do this. You cannot do this. And making that call and that adoption conference to say, we're not going to be in the matching anymore.

And also at that time, I was like, I'm going to quit my job. And I did busted. I ended both of those things, very fluidly. I was like, I will not. I'm quitting my social work job. I don't know what I'm going to do next. And we're leaving. We signed the paperwork to leave the matching process. And I have a very clear memory of just like feeling so heavy and so empty and laying in bed.

And being like, I feel so heavy in my bones that I think, I think into this, that I'm so heavy with sadness and yet I'm also so empty that I feel like I will just float away and like what a weird thing to see all at the same time to be like, I feel in this bed just so exhausted. I'm just in sobbing all day and everything that I thought was going to be my life with this adoption and my career has ended and I am so happy.

That I will simultaneously think into the earth and be buried forever, but I'm so light and empty that I will also say. And like, yeah, that's how, it's just a very sharp, clear for me. 

Monica: Well, and I'm having this imagery come in of the full moon then going back, it was like, your cup was so full and. And then it's like, it all gets emptied as you create this boundary.

Right. And this, and this revelation really that you are, that you have this moment of clarity, but with the clarity comes a death of some sort. And when I say death, I think of our card that Liz, you know, our Oracle card, because there's this way that like, it's the death of what, of the dream that you thought of what you were wanting so deeply until you didn't.

And then it's like, the emptiness becomes like, for me, like the womb of possibility, again, like what comes next?

Emma: Line of Terrell of like the death, the tower, the star, the moon. And so like, there's this, this kind of small star of hope. Once everything has this ground, it's just like rebel around you and you get up the next morning. And you're just like, uh, there is just this tiny, tiny hope that is around. And, uh, and this is where the choice to come.

This is where the hallmark movie ends and the nighttime line reproductive twist to begin.

I, we were like, oh right, we're going to make a sex baby. We're going to make a baby. And that's going to be so much more fun than what we were doing. Right. Because what we were doing was toast that bureaucratic. And we were like one time he crazy, but not in separating our family in this way, that did not work for us.

We're going to have sex. Until we just start having sex,

But like we had, we were doing that and then like six months later there was like, no baby.

And I was like, that's weird, like rabbits over here. Yeah. Like we are doing the sex. So why is there no baby. I got to the doctor and they're like, we're going to test Vince first. Cause it's just easier. We're going to like, let him have some alone time with like a DVD. It's going to feel very retro, like very vintage.

Monica: That's a whole nother podcast. Love to chat with them. Yeah. Yeah. 

Emma: I was like, people have smartphones. You, he doesn't need your DVD, but thank you. 

Monica: Wow. I just, I hold on, I have to clear my head because I have all kinds of retro imagery come in and I'm like, yeah. Okay. 

Liz: Peter will tell you of the lovely, like goddess poster that was on the wall. This is like a thing for the guys in this journey. Yeah. 

Emma: Lovely. And so this is where Liz and my stories are very different in the sense that they came back and they were like, oh, you can't have babies. If you have no sperm and sperm is essential. Babies. They were like, Vince does not release sperm. It's called like

Wow. So he has from, in his testicles that they, they don't, they're not released and it's very, very rare and people don't really understand why it happens and there's no real, like, easy fix for it. And I talked with him about what I could and couldn't share on this podcast. He's very, very open. He's fine with me sharing this.

Um, so that was tough Vince so I again had this very clear memory of us being on our couch in our living room. Vincent recently lost a family member unexpectedly and it was a very tough time. And the doctor calls and it's just like JK, like you will never have a baby. We couldn't do even like an IVF presentation.

Cause there was like, there's no sperm. So like your. Like you're done with the idea that the two of you will make a baby together and just like feeling that for him so much, just what a tough experience to have just gone through this, really, this really devastating loss. And then to have this other loss kind of piece on it after the loss of like being in the foster to doc for two years.

And just, and I think for me, I can only speak for me, but my, my husband has a very rare form of dwarfism. He's a little person and it's a very rare thing and it's required lots of different surgeries and rehabilitations, and he looks different from everybody in every room he's ever walked into. And that's a lot.

And part of the reason I love him cause he's had all these experiences that would, I would understand if they made him really better. And instead they just made him like the most loving person. He's got the brain of a scientist, the heart of a punk rocker and the soul of a seeker. He's just perfection.

And to see him. Go through this moment where they were like very serious, like very serious. And clearly like, you are like, this is a you and you can't do this. It's another thing in life that your body is just not going to serve you in the way that you would want it to. And you're not going to have this common experience.

So to see someone who's gone on this journey, so open-heartedly, and to just have another moment like that, he's very good at dealing back. Cause it's his journey. So he immediately is like processing. Eddie's the routing and stuff with family. He's like taking good care of himself. Like, and I'm just over here just being like, like, ah, like so upset because that's my inner crack and I just want to protect him from everything.

And I was like, we have to be the only dumb, dumb who've ever failed at like adopting from foster care and then found out that we couldn't have children. We had like, at least we at least could have done it in the correct. When we found out we couldn't have biological children then failed the adopting.

Things like who does it this way? Like we just, 

Monica: I mean, every, not that, but every other thing, you know, I just want you to know you're not alone. Our school of hard knocks. Yep. 

Emma: We are such a dumb dumb. And so that was married in October 15, October 16, we start fostering October 18 weeks, stop fostering. And then there was this kind of this, this year of just healing and just taking a break and just deep, lots of deep breaths.

And I was also, like I said, two things are trying to be healed at once between ending the foster journey and ending make-up work journey as it was. And so I got shot with the social work and. Started dabbling in all kinds of weird stuff, like took a life coaching course. Cause I just wanted to different types of healers because like anything.

And I have again, a profound and deep love of social work and so forth education and the profession, but like anything, it can become dogmatic and it can become something that doesn't serve you if it's only community, if it's your only kind of view of the world. So I just want it to be exposed to people who were doing healing in a lot of different ways and just sort of broadened my understanding of that.

And also I guess just have low key kind of free access to a bunch of dealers. So I really went into that. Um, and my first half-marathon like, just really went through a time of transformation. And then we put all of our cards on the table and we're just looking at international adoption, private infant adoption, going back into adopting from the foster system and looking, and I had a friend I was working with is like, Hey, she's like, I think cousin who adopted embryos.

And I was like, well, throw it on the pile. Like, we'll add it to the chart of options. And so we just kind of were researching all of them. And I were in Galveston visiting my parents. It was at the beach and I was like, we decided we're going to do private incident options. That's we decided that we looked at all of these things.

That's what we're going to do. I was like, I feel like it's not necessarily what I would want, but I feel like it's less predictable one. And I think I'm going to feel like. Dumb dumb again, if I spend some money in time on an embryo adoption and I have no trials, at least in where I'm really likely to end up with a child, which again, isn't necessarily how the system works.

So that was my thinking. And that's what I said. I made a pronouncement, I pronounced it. I came home from Galveston and I was like, okay, I need to adopt some embryos. That's the only thing that my soul will allow me to do because I just, again, I was like, you're making, you're not going. You're not listening to yourself.

You just, how has that been working for you? You just haven't, you constantly don't listen to yourself and you need from this place of like analysis analysis on top analysis paralysis on top of analysis on top of being mean to yourself. What if you just did what you really wanted to do? And you just accepted.

However, the cards fell that like, if you did this and you were, you've been with the child for marriage, with your beautiful husband and enjoyed all of your money and free time, and you know, you did it or did it, and then 10 years from now you went back. I'm like, why don't you just did what you wanted to do and accepted, however it played out.

And so then in October of 2019, exactly a year later, when we had ended, we started the process, we contacted them and started back and had to take back my pronouncements 

Monica: And this organization. I was just going to say, 

Liz: Yeah, I was going to say, we should probably define what snowflake is because we sound like we're just calling our kids snowflakes 

Monica: Special little snowflakes. Tell me 

Liz: as well. They are obviously. It's funny. So nightlight nightlight, Christian adoptions is an adoption agency and you don't have to be a Christian to work with them. I, myself, I'm not a practicing Christian though. I was raised one and they have this sect section something, uh, that is embryo adoption.

And I think it's adorable that they call it snowflake embryo adoption because the baby, the embryos are frozen. And so that's why they call them snowflake. 

Monica: Oh my goodness. Okay. And so Emma, as you, like, what I'm really hearing too, is that this started to become also not only a journey about becoming a mother, but what I'm also hearing about is like you started mothering yourself differently.

You started to learn to love yourself, start to trust yourself, start to listen to yourself. 

Emma: Yeah. And I, I have a very beautiful relationship with my. Mother high-key obsessed with her. And she has had conversations with me about how, like, she started so late in life, she felt like to be able to be like, everyone's feelings, aren't my responsibility.

And like, and that's like, she's like, one thing I hope for you is that you will do that much earlier. So like maybe my mother lake, maybe my grandmother, you know, my mom is staying with maybe my mother, like couldn't really do that. Like maybe she didn't have like a lot of the opportunities to do that. And like found her own way through that.

And then I had more opportunities to do it and I didn't did it later in life. And she was like, and now you're here. I'm like, maybe you can do it earlier in life and then reap the benefits of it. And I kind of feel like. The women on my mother's line. Like, I feel like we are on the certain tours, but it just feels really true that like 

Monica: That it's true.

Emma: We are healing something from a place because there has been a lot of, a lot of the trauma and difficulty in that line that like, we are healing something and coming to the place where we, we can all kind of get like, go with the current of our, our souls. And so, like I said, they're all kind of tangled and together doing what, trying to find jobs that like weren't hurting me, trying to get a lot of different types of fueling, trying to choose a path to motherhood that felt more enjoyable.

They're all kind of in this like sticky. And, um, so yeah, so we did that and by March of 2020, we got an email. I looked at that email today that was like, we have a match. So Vince and I, on our end, we did a lot of the things you do in fostering or with a private adoption. So we had gave them all of our taxes.

We did criminal background checks of various ways, shapes and forms. We had a home study where it's just look, you're looking for a home. We had a marriage assessment, people sent in references about us. We went through an education. Theories about what embryo adoption is and how the science works. And I had a physical, and so we do all of that.

And we create like this letter, which is our profile. And they're like, there is sort of a embryo Yenta, who's like going to show your profile to people with embryos and wow, it's awesome. An embryo matchmaker who knows kind of what you're looking for, whether it's open or closed adoptions, the number of embryos you're looking for, what kinds of things you're looking for in a placing family.

And they also know placing families and what they're looking for and they try to match you. And then the placing family, as I understand, it can kind of look at these profiles and pick somebody. And then we, we got the email. It's like, we have a match. Here are, Liz, Peter. They are considering, you know, giving you their embryos, adopting their embryos to you.

And we got it really late at night. And I was like, well, we can check the email in the morning. It's really late. And I was like, JK, obviously we're going to read this. Obviously like wake up, like, and I was like, obviously wake up and don't go back to sleep for a long time because we have to do this. 

Liz: I love hearing this.

Emma: And that's, and that's how, that's how the, that's how our like true connection began. We felt like we needed to give ourselves like 24 hours to really process it. But we were just like, we don't have any red flags. We feel really good about that. If we feel really connected, like already. We want to do this.

And, and so, yeah, so we accepted that match. And then there's this part that goes through where you start doing an actual legal agreement about how it's going to work and you work on actually shipping the embryos to the clinics that you're going to work with. Our clinic is in Ohio, where in Pennsylvania, because not every clinic will do this process.

Liz: Yes. And our embryos went from Boston to Texas. So then they had to go to you. So I just laugh because I'm like, I'm sure you've anger. You've seen the state, but like you've got everywhere. Wow. 

Emma: It's really, it's really wild. Ohio was there's a Cincinnati, UC health and Cincinnati works with a snowflake program and they looked at the embryos and Dr.

is my doctor. She was like, cause they want to make sure that they feel like they could be successful with the embryos. So they get like a little embryo report and then they'd get a little information about you and your physical to see if they think everything's going to work. And I had a conversation with Dr. Decor and she was like, sometimes these conversations are complicated and she's like, but this one is not great. She's like, let's make babies all day. Like this is great. And yeah. And then we were off to the races. This is where my sort of it's like diet IVs, not in a sense. It is like less difficult, but in the sense that it's less difficult.

So there is, I didn't do an egg retrieval, right. Like, listen, cause I'm not trying to retrieve any eggs. So I did, what's called like a frozen embryo transfer. So there's frozen embryos that they're going to stop, and then they're going to implant them in my uterus. But in order to do that successfully, we have to make my body think that it's like pregnant, that it like did it on its own.

And so I started doing estrogen pills. I start doing progesterone shots. I start doing vaginal depositories of estrogen and progesterone. 

Liz: Don't miss those. 

Emma: They're there doozies and I, so I'm just taking pills, getting shots, goofing up my vagina and going through this too. And then I do ultrasound so that they can see if it looks like my uterus is doing kind of what it needs to do.

And. So in March of 2021 match. And then in August of 2020, I have an actual transfer where I go to Ohio. They saw an embryo, just one and it survives the thaw, right? So like winter came and this one still here and they put that embryo, it's my uterus. I have a two week wait and I go take a blood test and they call and they tell me that I am not pregnant.

So they did not get pregnant. And 

Monica: Because this is the fertilized it's fertilized it's Peter's and Liz's fertilized egg that they put. And that one did not take.

Emma: Yeah. So it is, um, Peter's sperm was ag, it was fertilized. It was frozen. It was thought it was implanted, but it didn't stick. So it didn't, it didn't take.

Which was pretty brutal to come all of this way and to have it again, that feeling of being so heavy and so empty all at the same time, felt very true in the sense that like you, you know, even just the emptiness, I think if you have, have lost a pregnancy or had to transfer, it's not successful, there's this sense that your wound is just empty and you feel empty.

And also just very heavy with the sadness. And I am part of it for me is again, just sort of failing so publicly. And it's weird to think of it as a failure because it's not like, what could I have done differently now? Yeah, it feels, it feels like a failure to a failed at adopting and then to a sale and making a sex baby failed at this process.

And I, and I remember feeling, I mean, it was the hard part for me. The hardest part was telling, like calling my mom and being like, you know, and telling my sister, it didn't work and like all this crying and then just feeling like I'd really let Liz and Peter down, you know, that they had made this embryo and like what, what a gift?

And like, this was their embryo that I, my body had failed them. And that, and knowing again, that that's, that's not, I wasn't not because I was like, they will face that. But just because there's just a part of you that can't help, but feel, 

Monica: I so appreciate you sharing that, Emma, because I think, you know, again, it's, it's like.

There are people that can so relate to this. And it's like, it's not, it's, it's not, you know, hindsight's always 2020, but you can see kind of how it just feels so disappointing and so personal. And it feels like one blow after the next. And like you just, I I'm really just hearing how. Like what a brutal journey. This is for so many, 

Liz: I think it's worth mention. And she did a very good job of explaining this, but like, we get lost in the science of this. She had a miscarriage and I think for women that go through this process, it's very easy to use words like the transfer failed. Um, but this was, I mean, this was her baby that she had inside of her womb that she posts put so much hopes into and to go through those.

And I mean, like, I can't, again, Blake was number one, so I only had to do this once, but I know many women that do this multiple times and every single time they're like, I lost my baby. So it's not just an embryo. It's not just some cells. Like it's, it's a very deep connection, I think. Yes. 

Emma: And I think to Liz's point, and it's a both, and like a lot of things where.

Um, both my parents are scientists as the daughter of scientist, as someone who believes very, very deeply in the right to abortion and believes very, very strongly in research and the research that's done with embryos that I, I don't feel that every sperm is sacred. And I don't feel that we, I can understand people who don't feel that their embryos are human babies, or even if they did that.

They don't have to sacrifice their life and their bodies to make that happen. And so I can feel all of those things and simultaneously because of the journey that I was on and the connection I had, I can feel like I lost a baby in a sensor that I miscarried like a baby. Like, I can still feel that way.

Some of the journey that I've gone on and those things are not in conflict at all. They are, they are a boat and they exist in the same place. And. You know, we made a little package and again, we made a little package where like, we put the picture and they give you a picture of the embryo when they do the transfer and the little cup that it was in.

And I had like a crystal necklace that I wore during that, that process. And I put them in a little box and we wrapped it really beautifully. And, you know, and we just said, goodbye, you know, 

Monica: And I'm also really present. You've got both of you to like, you're talking about your collective babies, you know, it's like, oh, what a trip?

Liz: And I think it's it. Yeah. It's worth mentioning that Emma and I were in contact at this point. And so I knew that they did this first transfer and I knew, I don't know when they told me that it, that it was unsuccessful, but I. I had so much pain for them, for people I don't even really like physically. No.

Yeah. And it's incredible. The amount of pain that I held for them. And again, like not in this, oh, well you've wasted my embryo, my precious little embryo. Like, no, it was like, God, I like this is Tara. This sucks so much. And I wish I could hug you. And I wish I could tell you it's going to be okay. And it's just incredible, like the in, I love that you said this one, cause you said it so beautifully, but it's so hard to be like, well, it was just an embryo and it was just a mess and it was, it wasn't.

It was unsuccessful and no to that, but then also like to have all the hopes and the dreams and the everybody rooting and everybody hoping. And it's so much, 

Monica: I mean, that that's, what's really occurring to me is like, you know, it's like this collective community at this point, right? Who are all kind of intertwined in this energetic con conception and physical conception and how intertwined your lives became and how, you know, Liz just feeling this, you know, deep amount of awe, you know, for.

The gift that you gave and then the stand that you were being for another woman that you hadn't yet really known. Right. So it's just like, wow. 

Liz: And I was in your coaching circle at the time that this was all happening. And I would like update our sisters in the circle and be like, yeah, she's pregnant. Oh my God.

They did the first transfer. Let's hope, let's hope. Let's just send her our love. And then I would update and be like, it didn't work. And you know, let's just hold her in our thoughts. And it's just this incredible. I don't know. 

Emma: I think for me kind of like, there's always this, this day after, right? So the day after you stop off during the day after you quit your job, the day after you sign that you can't have kids a day after your dress doesn't work.

And then that little, that little star comes again. Cause I didn't ha we didn't have to do it again. Right? Like we have these embryos, but like we could have paid a fee. We could have given them, you know, gone back to the agency, found them a new home. So really the place of like, we do not have to do this again.

Do we want to do this again? Are we being called to do this again by our light team, by our guides, by our intuition. And we both felt certainly like, yes, we're going to try this one more time. And like see where we feel after that. And I'm really glad this season was what it was because it carried me into pregnancy.

And now it's a motherhood, spoiler alert. There's happy ending, um, adjusting, like there needs to be so many hands on me at this point. There needs to be so many things. I already had a great therapist, but I was like, I was a part of a coaching circle, like a healing circle. And I was like, I want to work with an actual coach where all she does to support me through this.

I want to have light healing sessions. I want to just, I want my friends and family, like, I want to tell them how to support me. Like I just need, I just want everybody. And that's, that's not my gift. My, my desire in life is usually

normally. I used to say that I don't want to be a drain. I want to be a fountain. I feel like a drain. And like, I'm just draining from people and I'm not being the fountain and I'm not getting, and this was a season where I was like, you're not a drain. You're like a reflecting pond. Right? Like, you're in like, you're as big as the ocean.

Like just let people pour in. And like in 

that process of pouring in whatever is meant to be reflected or created by like this emerging will be created. So like you're not a drain you're reflecting pool. Just like, let your, your, maybe even just like an ocean, let people pour in. 

Monica: And the word that comes up is the allowing 

Emma: Yeah. Allowing, receiving resting. And I'm really, really blessed by that part of getting ready for the next tramper because I really did carry that. Into the pregnancy where I was like, this is an all hands on deck situation. This is like, I don't want to go more than a week without somebody who's only sole purpose is to like, give me energy and to ask how I'm doing and to just like feed my soul.

And I'm going to just like, relax my body. Like I stopped running because I was like running for like garbage now. And it used to feel great and it doesn't it. And I was like, just walk like, and it was like, no, no one cares. Like, no one's going to be hurt if you stop running. But it's just a thing when you start running that you're just like, I have to keep running.

And so doing all of that. And so then we get into October, fall, another transfer to this more, but shots, there's more magical passwords. It's more new pills, different pills. Cause we're doing this again. And we go in, we do the transfer. The day, the day we did the transfer, I was better at sewing my bladder the second time, the first time I was way overshot.

And they were like, you have to pee a little bit in this cup. Cause so part of it being a transfer is that you have to fill your bladder. So it presses on your uterus so that they can get this kind of like smaller sandwich. They can see, imagine my hands pushing a sandwich. And so I was better going their bladder.

We went to a Sonic, it was like true pandemic season. And that was the other part of this. Right? So the pandemic is

safe. Can this happen, everybody at, at a time in which I am this, all I desire is for people to be around me and caring for me. I need to be quarantining. So what does that look like? So it's just like, all of this is woven in and we go to a Sonic, there's only like one kid working there. Cause it's like pure pandemic time.

And like this poor, poor teenage child now, like has my heart in his hands. Cause I'm like, I need to eat fries because there's like this thing within the infertility community, where after you do a transfer, you eat fries. And you can get shirts that talk about it. It's like a whole thing. And I was like, like, seriously, like, is 

Monica: There's all these things like you need French fries, like 

Emma: biological thing. It is like a Lulu sisterhood. Like

you go get fries and this kid hands me tater tots and like, is like, we have to go like, there's no line. This one kid. I can not leave this tonic without fries. I cannot eat these tater tots. I can't even tell you, like, I would, I would burn this Sonic to the ground, like I'm Cassie. So we've made this poor child like make us fries.

And I just like, I'm sending him so much love every time he doesn't even know this. Our story is all about connections. And I think about him and I was like, I have this deep love in my heart for this 15 year old kid who like went back and made me fries, 

Monica: Because you really is. He is how Edgar really happened.

Liz: I mean, honestly, 

Emma: it's like such a special part of the story and I love him deeply. And we go back.

You never know if you're the Sonic drive guy. Yup. 

Monica: Yup. That was profound right there. Never know if you are the Sonic fry guy for somebody else. You guys. 

Liz: Yep. 

Emma: And we go through the two week wait and it's flat. Like Liz was talking to Matt and I was like, I don't feel pregnant. And everyone's like, of course you don't sometimes like most people don't, some people are selling tunes maybe, or, or knowing that, that they're like, I felt pregnant like two weeks, but most people don't, you wouldn't even have, like, you wouldn't even have like Mister period yet necessarily in the science of it all.

So I go in, I get the blood pass and then in the morning I eat more fries. It's like 9:00 AM. And I'm like eating fries after this pregnancy blood test. And then I'm in the shower. I missed the call. I go pick it up. And the voicemail is, you know, this is the nurse from UC Cal system kidney. Please give us a call back.

So I'm like wet in a towel, run downstairs, get Vince to be call. And they're like, you be did it, you're pregnant. And we just were, it's such a beautiful moment. I can't remember. I was naked during it. It's like naked podcast and I got to have, cause you think about these moments want, especially when you there's so much, that's ritualized about pregnancy, that when you're going through any kind of infertility journey or when you're going on a foster journey and you have these moments, you think about them more.

So the moment of like seeing a positive pregnancy test as telling somebody that you're pregnant, I'm having a baby shower or painting or all these things. And like the thing that I wanted. Was to call my sister and half would be the first person, like in our connection to now because she's has two kids.

And I remember those calls and I wanted to call her. So that was like the very next call I called my sister, Rachel. She was about six years old there. And I was like, I'm a tiny bit pregnant. And she checks and like, and it was just like, sometimes in life you get guests, a moment that you've wanted. And it's just, she thought it would be.

And those moments are so rare and so special. And, and that was one of them. And then, and then we were off and then we're in, and that's where we entered the moon card of just the mystery of being pregnant and having a baby. And like, that's where we're at. And Edgar was born in July. So he's five months old.

Liz: And then the story 

Emma: Becomes a whole new story and I.

The movie of infertility, like romance movies always ended a wedding and then real life, the movie starts at the wedding. Cause then you're married to someone and then the infertility world, the movie stops when you get the positive test and then render in real life. It just morphed into this new story of being pregnant and having a baby.

And it just because you get primate, you're not like, well now everything's going to be great. We're never gonna have any complications. So it's just, it was one of those things where it more, it marked from the tower to the star, to the moon. And now I'm just like living in that moon energy and, yeah.

Beautiful. 

Monica: Okay. And so, uh, gosh, what, what agenda? Wow. So, and, and I'm, I'm over here. Like, you know, we're all crying, we're all crying. I'm like wiping my nose with my, you know, Yeah, it's all good. Uh, and so, okay. So well who, okay, so Edgar is born and God is born and, and I remember leaving. Oh my God. I remember Liz.

So now Alexa, Edgar's born and now Liz let's hear from back from you. 

Liz: So I think it's important to note, cause we didn't talk about adoption in like how the, why Emma and I are on this podcast and why we talk to each other and, and know so much about each other. I mean, we didn't know as much as we know now, but we know like we're reading the same smutty Christmas novels.

So, you know, it's, it's fine. But you know, you have a choice to make when you're donating your embryos. And that, that choice is do I want this adoption to be closed and I will never, ever, ever know what happens to any of these embryos. And I just wished them well into the world or do you keep it open? And then.

Organically, you kind of test the waters with the adoptive receiving couple and you try to figure out like, what is this weird relationship that we have? And it's so, and I'm, I don't know how I can't speak for you, but like this whole time I've been tiptoeing. Like you're, you're like walking, like don't say too much, don't scare her away, but, you know, and it also was a huge, this is, this is where Peter and my path diverge where Peter was like, I don't, I don't want to know.

I don't want to see pictures and I don't want updates. And I don't want to think that there's a kid out there that could show up on our doorstep at 18 and be like, why'd you give me away? And he really struggles with these things and I don't. We are very opposite of the spectrum. For me, keeping it open was first and foremost, as a mother of Blake, I wanted her to have options.

I have to watch a lot of TV and you see these terrible movies where you need a leukemia, like you have leukemia and you need a bone marrow transplant. And the best option is a biological sibling. And I was like, like, there'll be out there. Like, how can I close that door for her? Right. Like, it's not about me.

It's about, I have one of this batch of siblings. So how can I make that choice for her? I can control how much Peter sees. Right. I can control how much I see. I can decide. I mean, Emma has an email address that is not my usual email address. And I think it's the same for Emma, that the one I have is a different one.

And so we control how much we get delayed. It's like, okay, I'm taking a break from Instagram. You like, you know, shut down your Instagram account. You get to, to filter that and decide how much is shown. But I, I didn't feel like making this choice for Blake was my choice to make, and then I wanted her to have options.

So that was the first and foremost. And then the other thing too, was like you, I know a lot of people who are adopted and I think no matter how beautiful your adoption story and how quote I'm air quoting well adjusted. Cause I hate the phrase, but like you have some wonderful families that are so United through adoption and then.

The sacred and these kids that are adopted kind of have these moments where they're like, well, where do I come from? Like, what nationality in am I, and what, what illnesses do I need to worry about in the future? And why was I given away? And I just didn't think that that would be a great, you know, again, Emma gets to, to filter as much information to Edgar.

As they deem necessary, but I wanted Edgar to have options and any of the other babies that result from this. So I stalked Emma, um, 

Monica: Liz. Oh my gosh. If I won a thing, anything at all? I just said, 

Liz: yeah, I'll just Google it. It's fine. So I know I did. I Googled, I Googled devil's name. I found her Instagram and I was like, don't scare away.

Don't scare away. And so I just was like, look, I'm going to send one message. And then, then I can't control what happens. Right. So I messaged them and I think I said something like, um, the donor mom and I'm here. And I just, like, I was like, Don't say too much. Don't see, you know, don't be a weirdo, 

Monica: but what was that like?

What was that like to get that message? 

Emma: It's interesting because in our actual adoption, right? So we have a legal adoption and in our legal adoption, we will give them a yearly update to this like secure email account about like what's going on. And that we would let them know when we did any transfers and what happened.

But no, our, my, our hope since, and I had always been that it would grow into something we're very much on the page of, of what was the thing with Edgar. And there certainly is going to look like any number of things. If we had other children, they could look like any other number of things throughout their life.

You may go through phases where he doesn't really care. They go through phases where he cares deeply, or, you know, anything like that. And so I've been really shaped by knowing someone who later in life very recently found out they were the creation of. And then being like, Hey, this is like, you thought your life was lumping.

Now it's different. Now you have these connections to all these other people and wanting, enter a story to not be like that. Not be like, Hey, like everything you thought you knew was real different. And so just wanting to be very honest about like where he comes from. I think a little song to him now about it and like just wanting it from jump to be like the thing.

And I remember this is where the blue comes in. I went to like a healing sessions with, um, Alexandra Mullin when I was very, very, very, very, very proud. And she led me through this thing of like, and this was all brand new to me. I should say that I not like I'm a baby, a fond in the woods spectrum, but I was like, and it gives us a try and.

Yeah, we did this visualization to connect, like guide angels to labber and we're talking. And I was like, I feel like I want Edgar to have this sense that the universe was like for him. I want him to have a lot more ease in like his life. And then I feel like I have had in my soul, I want him to just like, have more of his sort of his, his father's soul in that sense.

And one of this ease and I just, I don't, we're sharing the body and we're sharing the spirit right now. I don't feel like I can teach him that and that, and I was in her pause and she was like, I think that what I meant to tell you is that a girl already knows that and that he's actually here to teach you that

I've never so pregnant. So sweaty I'm crying so much. Like I just, I just have never heard something that felt so true. And I had in this moment, this image. Um, like Edgar having all of these angels that were people I would never know or understand because their lives in Peter's people live in Peter's ancestor.

It wasn't Peter special people who have passed on and that they are with Edgar and Edgar's awareness of that on some level. And when I think about when we were talking about open adoption, again, this sense of like, this is his reality, his reality is being surrounded, you know, genetically like in his, the fiber of who we is, that he has this adoption, that he is connected to all of these people.

It would be the man is nonsense to think that I could control it. Now that doesn't mean it's his mother, that I'm not going to be thoughtful about how we share it and how we talk about it. But to think that I could control. It is a fallacy. And especially in the age of the internet, like if he's as good at like Instagram as Liz is like, he would find it.

Whether you look at it on like a spiritual level of like, these angels are already with him, who, how could I even separate them from him if I wanted to, and the world of connected the way it is, how could I prevent that if I wanted to? So let's just be open and it's so funny, just like. That's just so sweet and so extroverted that like, he was always just like, no more people.

That's like his, his motto, just like, how could we have more people? And like, so he was always just like, well, yeah, of course. Like there would just be more people, more friends and more, more or less. I 

Liz: will say that every update that you guys gave me, like not disclosing names or anything, but I'd be like the adoptive couple.

They are carrying and let's give everybody, you know, let's send out love for this two week. Wait, because this is the hardest part. And I get like 50 comments of people be like, yes, stick baby stick. And so, you know, the you're right. Like he has had around him. So many people since the get go, 

Monica: You all have. I mean, wow.

And then, you know, just, just back to that word, allowing Emma, you know, it's like, which I, I really. I said this in the last episode too, it's such a deeply feminine energy. And when we think about, you know, kind of the mystery of the cosmos and what birth is creation, it's at some level, I mean, you just can't make this shit up because yes, there's the science.

And then there's this whole other soul work and healing and energetic current that carries us all along the same river. And it's such a beautiful image here. And of course we started with the image of the moon and the tides. And so here we are now in the river of allowing and all being in the current of life and just understanding at some deep level that there's.

There's just so we're so supported, you know, we're so supported. 

Emma: I always like, I want to be friendly. Okay. Two things for trying to be set at the same time. Let me try them in order and not at the same time, but when I think about feminine energy, it's such a big thing for me right now, because whether you think about at aspire, water's a gang masculine, feminine, I think within like the social work world and in the world of traditional, like what we think of as Westford healing, it does have a very sort of masculine energy, right?

Because it has to live within a bureaucracy and a medical system and a world that was even though primarily like led and birth by women within a very sort of male bureaucracy and trying, I think I leaned really hard into that energy. I think I brought that energy into the fostering process, and I think I've been trying to release it and to get into more of that, like a feminine, that feminine part of myself.

And like, I feel like the verses and part of that. And so I do think it's, I really see this, this flow for me going into feminine energy and I've been thinking about it a lot. And I also want to be really honest whenever I talk to people about my journey. Like I also not, not a relatively low dose of Zoloft.

Like I Edgar burst a season for me of a spiritual awakening where there's like, there's taro, there's healers. The art that I'm creating, it feels really good. And it's better than the art I created before. And also like legit medicated, like I gave birth to enter. And I was like, I do not have the time and energy that I used to spend on like my mental health.

Let's bring this into the mix and I also go to traditional therapist. And so this sense of. I think sometimes when we talk about this, cause I'm, I'm really trying to talk about the Weebly part of it and, and like vibe into that. But I also want to be honest, but like, again, if you're listening to this and you're just like, I don't know, like I'm meditating and I'm still like really sad that I can't have a baby or like I'm still grudge.

It's like, yeah, like maybe also the law maybe also therapy maybe. And also science that like my editor, like, I appreciate so much the actual doctor, the doctor who implanted a government school for like 400 years and like the respect I have for that. And the nurses who brought enter into the world, the midwife who caught him for the first time, like in house.

And so again, just thinking about when I think about this. Of masking the two feminine teaming and all of the modalities that are in there, I'm in a place where I'm leaning very hard into the feminine energy of that. But I still am like, I want to speak to the other folks out there and just be like, Hey, like I also see you.

And also all of these other things are available. 

Monica: I'm so glad that you brought that up to an and essentially I think no matter where, where we are in our journey, it's like understanding that we will be met where we are and we will, we may not get what we want, but we will get what we need and that there is this, there, all of what you said and all of the difficulties and challenges and it's, I mean, we each are on our own individual journey and at.

At no point can anybody else do it for us? And at no point can anybody else like have the independent revelations that we need to have for our own life? And I always see, like, the way that I look at the revelation project is about revealing. What's been hidden or what's been missing, you know, from our field of consciousness so that we can be in love.

And, and it's the field of love where all things are possible. That is what I like to often point to and reveal or explore or find or create in my conversations. And so when I think about, you know, ultimately what we're all up to it's about. The allowing and for me, the feminine is the wholeness where it all gets to belong.

And with that is the masculine and the integration of the all. And so it's all about, I think each of us no longer denying ourselves, no longer beating ourselves up, loving ourselves, like for real, like, like warts and all. And it's about doing our own project and not doing somebody else's for them. 

Liz: I think you nailed it because, you know, Emma was talking about this spectrum of the Wu and the Zoloft and how both exists.

Right. I mean, yes. And then the other spectrum is like, we have a very Hallmarky story that Emma and I are so connected that I know a very good friend of mine right now is doing an embryo adoption where she's the donor and. You someday. She's like, yes. And some days she's like, oh my God. And both get to exist.

And Peter, you know, he's seen photos of Edgar. He has asked to see them. He doesn't want them all the time. And I am like, when's the next time I'm gonna talk to Emma and see another photo of Edgar. And you know, our everyone's project is different. Every single person's project is different. The project of revelation, the project of life, and, you know, it all gets to belong.

And that doesn't, you know, if someone listening to this is also doing embryo adoption is like, I don't ever want to be in contact with the, with the adoptive family. Like great. Like, don't be just know that you've given an incredible gift and, and don't, don't sweat. It just don't sweat. It. Everybody is so different.

Monica: Everybody has to choose that. The what on their terms looks like. 

Emma: And not everybody gets to have a baby. That's something that really was true. And Jessica, Travis was my coach during this process, like all, all the glitter her way. Cause like you've never had somebody so sweaty and, and crying and peeing like all the time during this process.

And she felt something, I was just like, you know what you're saying? It feels like it's hurting me because not everybody gets to have a baby. And like, I don't know that this will end that way. And she was like, absolutely. Like, let's sit in that moment. Like, let's sit in that moment. And someone listening to this is going to be like in a place where it didn't work or is in the place of like, and that's okay.

And that's okay. And like, it's okay if you kind of hate us when you're listening to this, because you didn't get in your moments and like in five years you're doing a different type of adoption or you are like still trying or you're living your best child-free life. Again, this idea of everything gets to be wrong, but like not at the same time.

And I think as women in particular, we like judge ourselves when we're just like, well, I have my integrated all of this. Why am I not at peace with the full spectrum of the human experience? And it's like, maybe everything gets to belong, but like, not right now. So like what belongs right now is like wherever you're at.

And, and yeah, and that feeling. And I, I want to, whenever I, I, I'm just starting to get to a place where I can think of this as like my story, because my brain has morphed into a story of a baby, but I'm still really close to the Emma who was like, not everybody gets to have a baby and living in that space and in that energy and just like really honoring that.

And so, you know, somebody who's in that space and I just, I feel you. And I see. 

Monica: Yeah, yes, yes. To all of that. Thank you. So one final, well, I mean like, hello, like final question. It's not okay. I'm going to just bullshit on myself. Yeah. But, um, but what, what, I also am wondering, you know, I'm thinking often of the listener here in wondering like, what questions might they have and the question that comes up is, okay, so where are the other embryos now?

And, and, you know, like what happens with those, with those, those possibilities and potential humans? Yes. So the 

Liz: science of it is they're in a Cryobank, probably close to Emma. And I no long Peter and I do not have any guardianship on them whatsoever. We signed those rights over when we signed to Vince and Emma.

So anything that now happens with those embryos is the sole decision of Vincent 

Emma: Abba. Yeah. They're in Ohio, chillum literally and spiritually. And we were getting, cause he just paid for a year of storage. So we were like, well they're ours for another year, but like truly they're ours until we, we, um, now we sit the question of if we wanna, if we want to try again and, and when, and.

That's a very strange question. When you have frozen embryos, it's different than when you're going to try to conceive it. It's an interesting situation. And so I, we are in those tops. I think we are going to sit this summer with the idea of whether or not we want to try again this summer. So this, I guess this spring, we're going to sit with the idea of whether or not we wanna try this summer again, because it's fun.

I'm like laughing because when I have these conversations and he's very much like, well, yeah, we'll do it like now, because you have babies close together, you do that part and then your Dom and then like, we'll give them to another family. And I'm just like, no, I might want some more time.

But then other funny thing about that is he's like, well, well, we'll try again. Hopefully we'll have to. And then like, And I'm like, I don't know, like I'd like to wait and then maybe like the third one might not happen in 40, who knows? And he's just like, what are you talking about? And I was like, let me explain your car.

And so we're, we're, we're kind of like feeling into that. And it's really this vibe of like, anything is possible at this point, we could try another transfer and it could work. And then we have Edgar and I, and I say, we can try. And so it could be one, it could be two. It could be to be, I do not see us before.

Um, and no one knows just because you get pregnant, right. Doesn't mean that you stay pregnant. Doesn't mean that your birth is perfect. Everything is so unknown, but the line I'm going to shorten it is Ben and I are, are looking into, um, when we'd like to try again, There is a chance, I guess, that we would be like, we don't want to try again.

We feel complete, but neither of us have felt that way, um, that we wouldn't at want to try again. And then when we are done trying, cause there are embryos that Silicon vests and we're done, then he would become like the lizard, Peter. Right. We would become placing parents instead of receiving. And we would go back to snowflake adoption and they would help us match the embryos with another family who was trying to conceive.

And this 

Liz: talks about family and then we'll do another pod. 

Emma: This is where it lives really. The, the mother of dragons. Cause this is the image that I really have of like my

very much that like Vince and I have two to three kids and we give the embryos to another family. They have this natural mint to say they would like to have maybe there's one more family after then. Cause keep in mind, there's like six embryos now. And so one day I like to think that we would all be at like one of those pavilions in the park, like next to like the beach or something like maybe new England and like we're, you know, at one of these pavilions and there's three or four families, there's like, all these kids ranging widely in age.

It's like all of these kids and we're all just like. Chilling like barbecuing being together, sharing stories, and then you get the sense that like Liz and Peter will just be sitting like on a bench

Monica: Peter blindfolded. 

Liz: And I'll be very kind 

Emma: like Peter will lead us in some sort of like drum circle, moon ritual, some sort of like thing. And like we'll, you know, but they all just like, kind of be on this side, like sitting in the bench together. I'm looking at all of that and just being like, look at these families that need made, look at them all, like, look at all of these kids, look at all of these families and it'll be.

Wild. And then he knew about it further. And like those kids, some of them will have connections to each other. And then like when we're all really old or gun, like they will all need, they will all be in this connection. And so it's, that's like, that's my vision. That's like what I see in my heart, it's just this billion with these three or four different families connected and was Peter looking at us and just seeing that.

Look at the families that we made 

Liz: And Emma and I are sharing dreams, just so we're very clear because I have literally, this is the vision, and I think it's helpful to know to the listeners, because I don't know Monica when you pressed record on this, but this is the first time Emma and I are talking in the same space.

We have only communicated via email and Instagram message. So. We keep finding these incredible connections of similarities and likes and just vibe. And you know, now I'm like, oh, Emma and I are just sharing dreams. It's fine. This is normal. And you know, like I, but I see the pavilion, I see it all. And you know, just the idea of the legacy and it's so like mind boggling because Blake is four and Edgar is five months.

So by the time Vince and Emma maybe get to the second or third or fourth family, you know, Blake's going to be maybe like in our twenties, she could be 50 and have little siblings that at one point they were all frozen together because. Edgar and Blake, if you think about it, we're frozen on the same day and 2017, an Edgar wasn't born until 20 20 and 

Monica: 2017.

The mind's messed up. Cool. It's so cool. It boggles the mind and it's like, it's just, I CA I think this show wins in terms of the amount of times that I have had full body chills over 

Liz: what are we on episode 100 something. So 

Monica: it's good. It's fine. I am I brag episode. This'll be, this'll be, I have recorded 115 episodes.

Emma: Well, and you think about this moment and you can't see this when you're in it. So like, you can't see that when you're on the floor holding the dog sobbing. Cause they're like, there's no. There is none.

And like, you can't see this moment. And for me, because I seen so much darkness and I've seen the most negative of like, what if possible? And so the questions of life I've been in positions constantly have asked me what's possible in these horrible realities, but there is this light side of it, of like this moment where you're just sobbing holding the dog, none of the, none of the crack and release, like stop.

And then you come forward and there's the pavilion and the person who told you, like, maybe if you lost 10 pounds, you'd have a baby and you're crying on the floor with the dog and you want to go back to that person and be like, not only did I not lose, but like

maybe kids and like they're all full siblings that they're all new, different families. And like, so if you're sitting in this moment of just absolutely. 

Liz: Darkness and you're on the kitchen floor and you're holding the door and you're crying so hard because you've been trying for three years and it's just not working when you're going to the baby showers and you're crying in the bathroom.

And,

Emma: and like when I quit my job and quit the adoption process and was in that bed so heavy and so light to know that in a couple of years, time, I would be giving birth to someone who was made in frozen by someone else. It was like years before I could never have even known that that was a possibility, like I could never have even imagined.

I'd never heard of it. So again, you said it at the top, like for those who don't even know what's possible, like in that darkest moment, you don't even know what's possible and all this.

Liz: You might be Dan, Dan, my nurse, who would call me and be like, it's okay, we're going to just do this again. Who like gave me the biggest hug. I mean, you have these nurses, these doctors, these fry guys. I had a doula. Yeah. 

There's so many parts of the story. 

Monica: I mean, it really does take a village. 

Liz: We have a very big one.

Monica: It's very, it's very big village. And then you both have spoken often of the support networks. Right? So whether it was getting yourself the support you need with coaches or therapy or pharmaceuticals or. Or all at the same time or a Facebook group, right. There's so much support out there. And, and this allowing, you know, that continues to come in to these conversations, you know, I guess what I'll say on that too, is just like allowing yourself to believe, allowing yourself to love yourself through this, allowing yourself to, you know, just get your spirit back, you know, if that's what needs to happen, allowing yourself to take a break, allowing a miracle to show up.

There's just, there's, there's all this allowing and allowing ourselves to be angry, allowing ourselves to be, to feel. To feel all the things, right. So, I mean, you guys like my gosh, I just I'm, I'm like in a state of complete awe I, I had no idea how, just, just how intricate this tapestry is and how many intersecting stories and how much everybody had to go through, you know, in order to make this story possible.

Right. It's like what, uh, what an incredible journey. 

Liz: And for some levity, I like to tell Peter, you know, we've just really set the kids up. Great. Because Blake and Edgar are going to be like in that the icebreaker activity at the new job, and they're going to be like, Edgar's going to be like, I have five siblings.

I've never met them. And they all live separately from me and people. What the hell is he talking about? Yeah. What are you talking about? And then the story, I mean, it's great. 

Monica: Oh my gosh. Well, if there was ever a statement for more to be revealed, this would be at, so we'll see at the pavilion. 

Emma: Right. So, yeah.

Monica: Well, and I want to thank you both. Just thank you for everything. Like thank you for this story. Thank you for everything that you went through, you know, thank you for gracing us with this incredible opportunity to be with both of you, for you both to kind of get a chance to be with each other for the first time on the show.

Like how cool is that 

Liz: Just putting we're saying yes, Emma, because originally I was just going to be with Monica on this podcast talking about it, but I'm so thrilled. You joined us. Yeah, 

Emma: Absolutely. Yeah. 

Monica: And so I don't know if there's anything else that you ladies want to say, or if you feel complete. 

Liz: I am complete.

Monica: Yeah. Well, okay. So there's so many resources that I'll be sure to put. In the show notes and including if you want to follow Liz, if you want to know more, I'll have links, whatever Emma wants to share all in the show notes. And until next time more to be revealed,

we hope you enjoyed this episode. For more information, please visit us@jointherevelation.com and be sure to download our free gift, subscribe to our mailing list or leave us a review on iTunes. We thank you for your generous listening and as always more to be revealed.