Dear Infertility _Season 4_Ep 1_Mallory Weggemann: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

Dear Infertility _Season 4_Ep 1_Mallory Weggemann: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
Hi, I'm Kristyn Hodgdon, an IVF mom, proud fertility advocate, and co-founder of Rescripted. Welcome to Dear (In)fertility, the first-ever podcast that doubles as an advice column for fertility, infertility, and pregnancy loss. This season we're going back to our roots, highlighting personal fertility stories from those who have been there, through IVF, egg freezing, donor conception, surrogacy, and more. Now, let's dive in and work towards ending the stigma around fertility, infertility, and pregnancy loss.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
Hi everyone, and welcome back to Dear (In)fertility. I'm your host, Kristyn, and I'm here today with Mallory Weggemann. Hi, Mallory!

Mallory Weggemann:
Hi, how are you?

Kristyn Hodgdon:
I'm doing well. So for those of you who don't know Mallory, she is a Paralympic gold medalist in swimming, a motivational speaker, co-founder and co-CEO of TFA group and the author of Limitless: The Power of Hope and Resilience to Overcome Circumstance. She and her husband are currently expecting their first child via IVF, congratulations!

Mallory Weggemann:
Thank you so much.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
That's so exciting. I always get so just happy when I, not that I'm not happy for people who get pregnant the old-fashioned way, but there's something just extra special when you know someone's been through a difficult journey and so very happy for you. How far along are you now?

Mallory Weggemann:
So we are 17 weeks, so we are in the second trimester. And you're right, it is, I think that, obviously, however, a little comes into this world is so remarkable. But when you've gone through infertility to get here, I think there's just a different appreciation for the journey and for what it truly takes to create a life. I think my husband and his mind are constantly blown with that of like, wait, hang on, slow down. So all this needs to happen for this to happen? So it's been, it's been really special. And obviously, living in the light that is being able to be in pregnancy while also simultaneously navigating through the reality that a positive pregnancy test and a growing baby don't take infertility out of the equation of what life looks like for you. So I think it's, we learned in the journey, it's the power of simultaneous, and we're learning through our pregnancy, it's the power of simultaneous.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
I just literally got chills after you said that, because I always say that the number one thing I've learned through infertility, IVF, and miscarriage is that two things can be true at once, right? It's like you can be grateful for what you have, but also really sad that, you know, about the circumstances and even in pregnancy, that's true. Like, and I think part of it is that we know too much. In this journey, we're like, we know every single thing that could go wrong. But, you know, it's like this constant balance of hope and fear. And, and I like how you put that, like you're living in the simultaneous, it's so true.

Mallory Weggemann:
Yeah, it is.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
So we will dive into more of the nitty gritty. But can you give us a brief overview of sort of your path to parenthood in your own words before we, we jump into the details?

Mallory Weggemann:
Yeah. So, you know, my husband and I have been navigating through Male Factor infertility for a number of years now. And I say it's a little unique, but I feel like all of our journeys are unique in this, right? Depending on what our circumstances and what brings us into our journey to parenthood. But we, we found out, years ago we actually kind of had a heads up, if you will, due to his medical history and a surgery he had as a child. So we kind of always knew this was possibly part of the equation. And so we were able to do testing right off the bat before we even started trying. And so our journey has kind of been unique, and we knew before we went through that trying period. And so we kind of have some time to come to terms as much as you can with infertility while also knowing that I'm a professional female athlete. And so there's obviously a window you're trying to hit in that, which it's impossible to plan a pregnancy on a good day. And then you throw in fertility in, and it's anyone's guess as to when that kind of comes to fruition. And so we, we navigated through kind of the post-marriage in 2016 and 2017 and finding out our journey to kind of coming to terms, if you will, and creating our plan to say, okay, we're going to. We're going to start IVF after the Tokyo Games and 2020 and then Tokyo is postponed. And well, to many, it's just 365 days, we all know in the life of an infertility journey, 365 days can change treatment protocol entirely, time is always of the essence. And so that was a bit nerve-wracking, and we came home from Tokyo and basically started IVF right away. And so we kind of went through that process at the end of 2021 and through 2022. And, you know, fitting it in with the fact that we're only three years out, now is less than two years out from the Paris 2024 Games, which I hope to continue to compete through. So it's been literally a square peg round hole with all the emotions, a lot of simultaneous, a lot of caring of two things at once. A lot of things that, I would say to anyone who's been in this journey in some way, shape or form, while the circumstances and journey is somewhat unique to each person, I think there's a lot of commonalities and how we've all navigated through to some extent.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
Absolutely. And you spoke about learning about the male factor in fertility and sort of having to come to terms. Can you explain a little bit the motions involved in that and how you and your partner kind of dealt with that at that time?

Mallory Weggemann:
You know, my husband and I, we travel a lot for work and I say this because I'll never forget where we were when we found out the results. And, you know, in modern medicine, everything's in an app on your phone. And so results get kicked into your phone before you even get a chance to get a call from a doctor sometimes. And we had done his testing in 2017. We got married after the Rio Games in 2016, and kind of decided like, let's figure out what our path to parenthood looks like because we were both very excited to become parents at some point. And we were in the Salt Lake City airport traveling for work. We were flying out to LA, we were in the middle of a work tour, were based in Minnesota, traditionally full time, and we're in the gate area, and the results came through on his phone. And of course, curiosity kind of killed the cat in that moment because we couldn't not open them. And basically we were given a number of zero, my husband doesn't have a sperm count. And so in that moment, it was just this realization of like, here we are. And I happen to be a female with a disability, I'm a wheelchair user, I was paralyzed when I was 18 years old. And so in this context, it just meant we got on the plane first. It's really the only reason why I'm saying that. And so we got on the plane first, we were sitting in the second row. We watched the entire aircraft board, and I swear every single person flying out of Salt Lake City that day had a kid with them. And we just sat in our seats that day. And I think both of us just felt like the weight of our hearts just sink and, and we all, I think, to some extent know that feeling if you've been through infertility, and, and where you are or what you're doing or what was that moment where you kind of started putting two and two together and realizing that this is your reality. And, and I think for us, we, for so long, the world made us feel like our battle to parenthood would be because I have a spinal cord injury, which ironically isn't even remotely fact at all. As a woman of the spinal cord injury, we've been told that it wouldn't affect my reproductive system at all, it wouldn't affect my ability to carry or have a child. And if I did have fertility struggles, it would just be, you can be paralyzed and still have other health things, not because of my paralysis. And so when we received that news, I just think we both. There was a lot of processing and a lot of coming to terms with what does that mean? But at the same time, I think immediately maybe because of other things we've been through together, we kind of both, our instinct was like, we'll figure it out. Like there's a lot of heartache. But there was like a very immediate, it's one test, it's not the end. There's a lot of testing still to do. We know the power of medicine. There's a lot of options available, like, let's not go there. We'll figure it out. And so, we kind of went through that emotional phase. And, and for us, we did have some time to do that because we knew what those results and the reality that at the time we were planning for our games in 2020, there wasn't the luxury of time to do both before then. And so we, we kind of had a little bit of space to, to sort out our feelings, emotions, mentally, emotionally prepare as much as you can before kind of diving into what is the journey that is infertility.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
Yeah. And I find sometimes that. If you look at the whole picture, it can be debilitating. Like when you look at the mountain in front of you and all the steps that need to be taken and things that need to happen in order to have a baby in your arms, it's, it's kind of just too much to bear. But when you kind of take that moment in and think, like, what do I need right this second and what's the next best step, that's it's kind of impossible to do it any other way because otherwise you'll just freeze and not be able to go on.

Mallory Weggemann:
Yeah. No, it's a, it is a lot to take in and you do have to find a way to like how do you break it down into small bites versus trying to take it all in at once. Because again, and there's so much like, even now, having been through our infertility journey and being still very much in the midst as we think to our future, even though we're in the middle of trying to enjoy our pregnancy right now with our first little one, we also have the reality of time isn't on our side like for many. And so, you know, what does that look like if we want to be able to have future children, which we would absolutely love. And for a while, frankly, I don't think we ever even thought about it because we just were praying that like, one could be an option for us. And then when we were able to be successful in different steps in the journey, it was like, oh okay, so maybe we could dream of this little one having siblings and being able to experience that and have more than one child that runs around our home and fills our, fills our home with chaos and noise and all the good things of parenthood. And so, you know, it's interesting, but I would say even at this stage, there's still so much we're learning. And I don't I don't know if you ever truly comprehend it all, no matter how long you've been in it, how many different variations of it you've been through, there's always something more that's coming at you.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
Yeah, absolutely. And hindsight's always 2020. So what was sort of the hardest part for you about going through IVF?

Mallory Weggemann:
You know, I think when I look at our infertility journey as a whole, it's kind of segmented into the initial finding out and knowing that infertility was a part of our reality. And, and at that time there was a lot of ignorance on our end because we just didn't know what we didn't know. But then there's also a lot of as we slowly started sharing with people our desire to have a family but try to be a voice of, you know, you get married and everyone's like, when are you going to have kids? And for me, as with my career, we had to factor that in. But we also were hyper aware that it's not just that easy. Like there's so much more that's going to go into having children. And so I think there was the element that that we had to build that tough skin, like many do of the comments from other people. And it kind of implications that come with, oh, you're newlyweds, so when is when is kiddo going to come or do you want kids or are you going to try to have kids after Tokyo as an athlete? People were aware like maybe we were waiting athletically or people assuming that we are going to go through fertility challenges because I'm paralyzed, which is a big misconception towards women with disabilities in general, that's not fact. And so I think it was just all of that. And then eventually, as we started sharing what the truth of our journey would be and that that was due to fertility struggles on my husband's end. Then the comment of like, well, it just takes one. It's like.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
Oh, yes.

Mallory Weggemann:
Yeah, we know that and we know how hard it is to get to one. And generally it doesn't just take one. It takes more than one to get a chance at one. Like it's not, it's not that clean and cut and simple. And so I think that that kind of, that stage was building tolerance that, because there was also so much we still didn't know because we hadn't kind of engrossed in the trenches of this journey yet. And then coming home from Tokyo and ultimately starting the IVF process, I think for that, you know, we obviously did all the testing again to get updated numbers and for some reason we were just hoping and praying that with time his first numbers were basically essentially zero. I think he had like a count of like 20 in his essay, which for a male is you might as well call it zero, but there was some hope. And when we came home in the fall, the next one was literally zero. And that was I think for us, it didn't change what the reality of treatment would be both meant doing a micro test surgery for him. But I think that we just cling on to like the fact that there was something more than zero, even though medically it's, I think, considered both the same. And so that became tough, of going through that first egg retrieval. And like we said, you have to carry two emotions and you're like, you're constantly prepared in the back of your head for these worst case scenarios, but yet you're also trying to hold on to hope. And then you have the world telling you, just don't stress, it'll all be fine. Like that's the magic sauce for infertility. And it's just, you just want to sit there and it just feels like a cruel joke half the time. But yet you also try to enjoy the beauty of it because you have this awareness that this is the very thing that's going to be the way in which you, god willing, bring a child into this world, and you want to enjoy that journey because that's so special. And just like the foundation of how you choose to build your family and oh, it's different and it's hard and it's ugly at times and it's messy and it's filled with fear and pain and all these things. There's also a lot of strength and joy and beauty and love that come through it. And so, I think it was just finding space to hold it all and and not allow other people's perceptions and/or ignorance impact how we moved through the process and how we kind of processed as each step occurred.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
That's so well said. Yeah. The comments from quote unquote, well-meaning friends, family members, even strangers are endless. Yeah, I, I have boy-girl twins from IVF. They just turned four and I get all the time, oh, you have one of each, you're done. Meanwhile, I've been going through IVF for a year and have had two failed transfers, two miscarriages and like, don't want to be done, But, but everyone's like, you should be happy with what you have. And of course, it's that, it's that simultaneous thing, right? It's like, of course, I'm so grateful I have miracle babies that were, I know because it took IVF to create them. But, you know, I have this longing for another and it's just, kind of easier sometimes to not say anything like, like I'm not going to go into that whole thing. They can follow me here if they want to hear it. But, but, but, you know, it's, it's tough because it just feels like even when you are pregnant, like people still say things, or even when you do have kids it's like I've learned a lot through this process to be how to be more empathetic and how to respond to other people's grief and hardship, because it's like people just jump for like the easiest thing to say, but a lot of times people don't want you to make them feel better, it's like they just want you to be there.

Mallory Weggemann:
Validate and acknowledge. And I think we struggle as a society with that. I think, I would say I mean that comments no matter what stage you're at, I feel like so many of us in it know that version of the like, we'll be grateful with what you have or be, you go through egg retrieval and you end up with two genetically viable embryos. We'd be grateful you got embryos from that cycle versus like the pain of, as we all know, like too, becomes a numbers game. Okay, do we need to do another round, because if we're talking failed transfers, right? And so it's like, but every step of the way and I think it's people just don't know what to say and they want, to like your point, they want to make you feel better, so they fill the space. And generally, more often than not, it's always people who haven't been through fertility treatments. And I always, I kind of chuckle when people are like, you know, now that we're pregnant, it's like people assume our fertility journey's over. And I'm like, the irony is, is those comments are all coming from people who have two, three, four children of their own and had the luxury of choosing how big of a family they wanted and didn't have to make these decisions in relation to infertility. And so I think it's just creating space too of finding that really close group. And whether it's you and your partner or you and your partner and a few close family members who truly embrace that journey and can be there for you through each step, who can allow you to celebrate those little wins that feel like little wins because you need to have moments to celebrate along the way because it is a heavy journey, but also can understand in those other moments where society kind of wants to tell you, well, this is the time you should be grateful that, there's still heartache with it. And, you know, I think, now in this stage of being pregnant, it's like the minute we got pregnant, it felt like there was the voices that wanted to say like, well, now you're just like the rest of us, it's just a normal pregnancy. And it's like, yeah, it's, but this does, this need in our, in our world to compare and like, oh, well, now you're just like us. Or it's just like, what quote-unquote is normal, and it's like everybody has a unique journey in this, there is no normal. And it's not about comparing of who had it worse here versus there, and that's how we, that's how we measure up. If it's, if you're allowed to feel pain or not. It's about just having empathy to somebody's circumstance and journey, and understand that those emotions are valid and unique to the journey that they've been on. It doesn't mean that because they're saying that they're struggling, they're saying that they've struggled more than you have.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
Right. And no one talks about how terrifying it is when you finally graduate from your fertility clinic and you have to go to the OB-GYN and be treated like a regular pregnant person.

Mallory Weggemann:
I'm sorry. Say what? Yeah. You're not going to draw my blood every other day? We're not going to go check in on baby every however frequency and do the ultrasounds. Like, we're going to wait four weeks to see a kiddo?

Kristyn Hodgdon:
Yeah, it's, and that's the stuff. And I think a lot of women and couples feel like they can't talk about that part because then they're not grateful or like, they're not, like if they found support in the infertility community, then they can't really complain about those pregnancy fears because they're finally on the other side. But I think everyone sort of has that point where it's like you're, you're most like you're not fully on the other side yet, but but you are. And, and it's like then almost like there's even less support sometimes because you've moved on from, am I making sense?

Mallory Weggemann:
So, you are. I think it's just, it goes into like, just that feeling of there's different stages in the journey. There's a stage of you just found out, there's the stage of, and, and like I said, I think it goes back to for whatever reason, it's easier to rank pain than just provide empathy. And so it's like, and we do it to ourselves. Like I found myself in the process doing it of when I felt worn out. So for my husband and I, we started prepping with our appointments in October of last year, so a year ago. We did our first egg retrieval in, in November. My husband had his micro test, we were given a 40% success rate going into that surgery. And so I was a day out from retrieval and with him in the morning for a surgery and waiting and praying that the surgeon was going to come out and say that they were successful. So tomorrow's retrieval for me would mean we are going to be able to fertilize, god willing, some eggs. And, you know, so it was like all the way up to the to the end with the fresh retrievals for both of us. And we went through that, and, and we were so grateful when it was successful. And thankfully, ignorance was bliss. And we didn't, we just assumed if his surgery was successful, it would mean an embryo at some point along the way, like it was our first go. So we were so ignorant in like some micro testes, none of the eggs end up fertilized from those sperms, even with ICSI. And thank god we didn't know that. I will say like that was something that I'm actually glad we did not know, because it let us hold on to that sliver of hope. But as we went through that, you know, our, our rate kind of dwindled down, we ended up with three blasts. And so when it went off for genetic testing, we were, we were really nervous because it is a numbers game and you don't know what that next attrition rate is going to be, and.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
Was that surprising to you when you initially started IVF? I feel like the attrition rate is something that isn't really spoken about upfront, and then it's, it was a shock.

Mallory Weggemann:
Yeah. Like we kind of knew because our clinic had us do, we had these like online classes that we did that educated us in the process. So we, we kind of knew, but, you don't, I don't think you truly appreciate it until it's your attrition rate, because also, like, we're in a world and this is, I think, where it goes in even once you get within the infertility community, we're measuring ourselves up to other people. You see people post their egg retrieval results and it's like, Oh my God, they got 25 follicles, like what? Or then you maybe got 18, that turned into 12 mature eggs and you're thinking, oh my gosh, if I only have 12 mature eggs, but they had 20 mature eggs. Like what does that mean for where this is going to end for us? Like there's this constant and I think that's like the, the Achilles heel of all of us is we're constantly comparing. And, and that's, I think was something that hit me. But then in that, we're also constantly kind of like her own worst enemy in saying why, why it's not appropriate for us to feel pain. Like in my mind, it's like, okay, we have three blasts and I'm feeling that, but then in my mind I go to the toxic positivity of like, but at least we have three, some people have zero, and it's like we instantly devalue our own emotions before anyone else even does because it's like our weird way of trying to find a silver lining. But yet it also doesn't allow us to just meet ourself in the moment that we're in and honor that. And so I think that's one thing that I learned really quickly of everyone's journey is different. You know, ours was a November retrieval, December results, and we found out we had two, we were like, we probably need to do another retrieval, but we couldn't do another micro testing for my husband. So we did another egg retrieval for me to freeze eggs so that we'd have the luxury of time for when his body was ready for another surgery so we could start prepping me for a transfer versus waiting six months for a transfer. And so, like, you go through that and then it's two months of hormonal treatment for endometriosis and then it's prepping for a transfer and timing that with trials for world championships as an athlete and realizing that some of the meds I need to take for transfer protocol aren't allowed by the World Anti-Doping Association. And so I had to.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
Oh my god.

Mallory Weggemann:
Change some of our protocols so I could compete, so then we could go for our trip.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
Does that's, so you have endometriosis?

Mallory Weggemann:
So I haven't been formally diagnosed via surgery, no. There was a, following my first egg retrieval with the way that my body responded post-retrieval, there was some inklings that kind of with my medical history, which mind you is a little different because I don't have sensation in my lower abdomen due to my spinal cord injury. So there's some things I don't feel at all and there's some things I feel very different than kind of quote unquote, most women. So it's a moving target to try to like pinpoint where things are coming when I have pain and in my reproductive area, if you will. And so post-retrieval, though, there were some things and then we paired it with the way in which I feel things normally. My doctor was kind of she was like, you know, in women with endometriosis, we can see kind of endo flares after retrievals because of all the hormones. And we're wondering if this isn't a sign kind of indicating that you possibly have underlying undiagnosed endometriosis. So again, the conversation is the only way to truly fully diagnose, no questions asked, is surgery. And in that it's like, okay, we have to do surgery, and you have to wait X amount of months before you can start. And in all of this, we were playing with the clock of we were less than three years out from the Paris 2024 games and my professional career, I am an athlete, so we can't really like keep six months here or six months there and know that it might take more than one transfer to become pregnant, or we're going to literally run out of room on the clock to be able to have a pregnancy and be back in time for those games. So we kind of had to make some of our treatment decisions based upon that timeline. So we chose to go ahead with the hormonal treatments, with suspected endometriosis to prep my body as best as we could for transfer.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
Was that Lupron?

Mallory Weggemann:
It was.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
Oh gosh.

Mallory Weggemann:
Lupron treats. Anyone who's done Lupron depot knows how fun, how fun it is.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
Yeah, I, I cried for my entire birthday this year, not realizing that it was the hormonal effects of being on Lupron. I was like, I shouldn't have started it like the day before my birthday.

Mallory Weggemann:
I also think that no woman should have an insight into what menopause is going to be. Like, we don't need, we don't need to have a preview just for funsies, to like, kind of test out the waters. We should just be allowed to be, ignorance is bliss until we get to that stage in life.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
Absolutely agree.

Mallory Weggemann:
It was. I was like.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
So how did. So how did the med side effects, like, affect your training or were you not in hardcore? Were you not in hardcore training season?

Mallory Weggemann:
So I kind of made a little bit of a, I would say, strategic decision from a training standpoint. The way I approach training as we were going through all of this was I wanted to remain active in my athletic career, I wanted to compete at trials for world championships, the goal was to make world championships. Worlds were in June, trials were in April. So we literally planned the transfer or first transfer for right after trials. So had it been successful, I would have raced at Worlds Pregnant. And what I kind of did is I, I altered my goals for the year in terms of I left Tokyo with two golds and a silver. So I was kind of top of the world, if you will, in my events. And I knew realistically what it would take to stay there and also what it would take on my body to go through IVF. And I said, you know, I'm going to tame it down, I'm going to back down a bit. I kind of know like what my operating at 80% capacity as an athlete looks like, I know what I need to do to train to operate at that. And I'm going to go into this season and say I want to stay active as an athlete, but it's not my number one focus. And so I kind of let myself back down a little bit, if you will. We'll also be mindful that during our first round for egg retrieval, I was on book tour and I was traveling and I travel for all of my speaking clients, and so I was also needing to balance with that. I was broadcasting for NBC for the Winter Paralympic Games during my Lupron depot treatment, which was in a studio, are a treat and a half. You know, just little things, like there was a lot I was trying to juggle while going through it. And so I knew if I wanted to be able to do it all and preserve my sanity and enjoy the process as much as possible, I needed to kind of back my slimming down a little bit. So that was kind of the choice I made. And and ultimately, unfortunately, I had to withdraw from world championships. I did make the team in April, but our first transfer in April was not successful and we chose to go straight into a mock transfer cycle. And then I ended up needing to do an operative hysteroscopy. And so to time all of that and not push things purely for worlds and get everything to fall on the natural timeline that it would, it became clear that worlds just needed to go by the wayside and, and I needed to give myself that. I think we, we all need to kind of sometimes have those moments where we say, you know what, right now is the season that I need to give myself a little grace. I don't need to be a hero and everything. And it's okay to whether it's backing down from fertility treatments to follow a dream, totally okay too, or whether it's backing down from something that's been a goal that you're kind of saying, you know what, this is going to get moved to the side because I'm going to put all my energy into my fertility treatments. Either way when you do that, I think is something that we need to say is okay, there's no right or wrong.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
Yeah. And listening to your intuition because I can't tell you what it is, but there have been times over the past year and a half where I'm like, I need to take a break. Like, you know, you just, and then somehow the fog lifts and then maybe you're ready to try again or you're not. But like, sometimes pushing through isn't the best. You know, I, you'll never hear me say, like, never give up. Because sometimes you need to take a step back, re-evaluate, you know, and figure. Because this is, this can be all consuming, it really can.

Mallory Weggemann:
Yeah. And I think that that journey is so different for everybody, right? And you know, some people, so we went, it's six days in May where we weren't on any med protocols. And my husband and I said, to heck with it. We ran away to Maui last minute, like literally ten days before we booked a trip. And we're like, we're going. We are going to sit on a beach, we're going to have pineapple drinks and we are going to make ... where we're doing dinner. And I think for us, like that was our little version of getting a reprieve because we knew when the ultimate timeline, honestly, even if we wanted to take a break like we couldn't without putting us in a position of where we choosing like literally what my career is or a family. And we, we really didn't want to have to be put in that position. And so, you know, but with that, in that journey, there are many times where it's kind of like you should, you should just take a breakm you guys have been going at it for months and it's like, but it's not that simple. Or then you get the side where when people do choose to take the break of like, you should just try one more cycle, like, come on, just one more. And it's like it's so unique to everybody and where they're at mentally and emotionally and physically, what their circumstances are surrounding it, what their professional and personal lives are like. And I think that, again, when we started, we talked about empathy and, and comparison. And I think that's really the biggest thing through and through that this is taught us is just you just have to give yourself permission to do what's good for you and your little family, whatever that family looks like. You just, you and your spouse at the moment. Or maybe it's literally just you because you're choosing to do this as a single parent. And I think that we just have to say like, that's okay. And the outside noise, like you have to question the credibility of the person saying it, like the random person who has no experience with fertility has no merit to tell you what you should or shouldn't do in your fertility journey.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
Absolutely. Why was it important for you to open up publicly about your fertility journey?

Mallory Weggemann:
You know, this is interesting. So my husband's obviously not sitting here with me, but I'm going to give you what he says because this was his decision. I've been really open with my life. I was paralyzed when I was 18 years old, I've been to three Paralympic Games, I'm a speaker, I'm an author. Like basically any version of my back story you want to hear, you can probably find it somewhere. So my my life is kind of literally, no pun intended, been an open book. And when we came through this knowing it was male factor, I'm very aware that just because I've chosen to be public with my life does not mean everybody in my life is choosing to be public with theirs.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
Of course.

Mallory Weggemann:
And so I kind of said to him, I said, you know, I really want you to kind of think about what it is that you want to do in this. Like, do we want to share we're going through IVF? If we choose to share, do we want to share why we're going through IVF or do we want to allow some like ambiguity? And he right off the bat, he said we need to talk about it. And his two reasons why he said that is one, when you research male-factor in fertility, you don't find much. When we did our modules through our clinic, they gave us a lot of information. They didn't give us any information if you're a male coming in with male-factor in fertility about microtestes or testes or any of that, it's, a lot of it is this assumption that infertility purely affects women and only women, and/or there's just such a robust stigma towards men and masculinity being associated with fertility that they're not comfortable talking about it. So there's very little resources.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
Well, and you all had a little bit of a tip off with his medical history, whereas in a lot of cases, you know, it's assumed that the male is fine and fertile and then testing doesn't even happen and everything's okay on the female side. And then, you know, I don't want to say you waste time, but months go by and then the male finally get tested and lo and behold, so.

Mallory Weggemann:
Then let's be honest, I mean, well, I can't imagine what it is for a male to go in and do this like a semen analysis is pretty easy to do. The amount of testing women go through to check every little thing when man can literally just do an essay and it's like so, in all things considered easy and quick to do, it blows my mind that that's not just naturally part of the protocol. Like you test both simultaneous and, and so there was that end of it. And then the other end is since we started dating after my injury, so we started dating four years after I was paralyzed. And when our relationship got more serious, he would unprovoked get people that come up to him and say, I'm so sorry you guys won't be able to have a family. And it's people that assume that because I sit on four wheels that either A, I can't have children because of my paralysis or B, it just they've totally taken out of the equation that somebody in a wheelchair could be a mother. And so it was something that I think really, really bothered him. And he was like, the irony in all of this is we're going to go through infertility and it has nothing to do with your body minus if I do in fact have endometriosis, as we know, that can affect implantation success rates, right? So, but shy of that, prior, we knew nothing about that. And so he was like, and we also need to talk about it because we can't just say we're going through IVF or the world's going to assume we're doing it because the world always assumes it's the female, and in this case they're going to assume it's a female because of the disability. And so that was a big reason. And so I kind of took his lead on that and with that, we chose to share. And I'm so glad we did because I think it's not for everybody, I totally get it. This is not to shame anyone who is privately going through this, behind closed doors. It is a hard journey to navigate through and there's a lot of circumstances as to why people don't feel comfortable sharing with family and friends and they're really valid ones. And but in that, I think the biggest thing that is our hope in all of this is if you choose to share or you choose not to share. Our biggest hope is by sharing our part of our journey that we can in some way, shape or form, at least remove shame because you should not have to go through this. And on top of all the emotions you're carrying, feel shame because of this long perpetuated stigma that's been put around infertility that frankly exists due to people who've never walked this journey themselves. And I think that at the end of the day was the number one reason why we said it's going to be uncomfortable, it's going to be really hard at times, but we need to talk about it because through my sport and my career, we're fortunate where we do have some version of a platform. And the only the only reason why having a platform matters if you choose to do something good with it, so.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
Absolutely, sure. I love that. So last question, since our company name is Rescripted, where we're really trying to rescript the conversation around fertility issues. So what would you rescript about how people think about fertility, infertility, pregnancy loss?

Mallory Weggemann:
You know, I think the irony is my knee jerk, because this is a word my husband and I worked on is removing issue from it. That's the biggest thing that we've worked so hard on because I think that we said it all the time at the beginning, like, oh, we have fertility issues or my husband has fertility issues, and we realize like there's a negative connotation that goes with that. And it's by circumstance, right? And so, like not to say you said it wrong, but it just it's because I'll still say it. My husband will still say it. And we do the like, remember? And I say that because at the end of the day, I think when trying to kind of rescript the conversation, it really comes down to how do we, how do we remove stigma and shame? ... it is a critical condition, a medical condition. I, I have a spinal cord injury, that's a medical condition. I don't need to live my life feeling shameful because the fact that I'm paralyzed any more than my husband should have to live his feelings shameful because he has male infertility. And I think that it's just changing that, that narrative around it of like this is not mean that you are less than as a woman because you have fertility struggles or you're less than as a man and you're not masculine because you don't have a sperm count like it's a medical issue. And there, I said it right there. Like that's how easy it is because we're so used to using that word. And, you know.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
For me, sometimes when I said fertility issues, it was because I was scared to say infertility.

Mallory Weggemann:
Yeah.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
I mean, that was five years ago. But and I've come a long way since then, obviously building a platform based on it. But I was always so scared to say I was infertile. And so I always used the words fertility issues, but it's such a great point. It's like how? And that's why I don't love the word miscarriage either, because it kind of makes you feel like you did something wrong or your body, you know, failed to carry your pregnancy correctly.

Mallory Weggemann:
Yeah, no, it's, I think to that there's so, there's so many things to unpack from it. There's so many conversations embedded within that need to change. It's 2022, it's time, and at the end of the day, it affects one in eight couples. Sometimes one in seven, as in, it's maybe getting more progressive in our world. But everything I've heard is one in eight for the most part. And, you know, I honestly think at the end of the day, it's doing our part to figure out how we remove the stigma and shame associated because that's not by your choice, that's just part of your circumstance and who you are as a person. Same for my husband, same for me and elements of my journey. And I think taking pride in who we are and our identity and not allowing our circumstance to be the thing that gives us a reason to carry shame due to the stigma that's been perpetuated by the ignorance of others, frankly, is what it comes down to so.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
Yeah.

Mallory Weggemann:
I'd say that's my little soapbox and rescripting.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
Amen to that. Well, thank you so much, Mallory. This is so lovely. My heart is full. I feel like we had on a lot of great realities of this journey and, and takeaways for our listeners, so I appreciate you being willing to share and, and joining me.

Mallory Weggemann:
Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
Have a great rest of your day!

Mallory Weggemann:
Thanks. You too.

Kristyn Hodgdon:
Thank you for tuning into this episode of Dear (In)fertility. We hope it left you feeling more educated and empowered about your reproductive and sexual health. Whatever you're currently struggling with, Rescripted is here to hold your hand every step of the way. If you liked today's episode and want to stay up to date on our podcast, don't forget to click subscribe, and to join Rescripted's Free Fertility Support Community, head to Rescripted.com.

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