This is the infertility pep talk I needed.

And not just when I was trying to get pregnant.

No, you’re not imagining things. The Cocoon really does come out once a month (at least for now) on the last Tuesday of the month. And yes, you did just receive the April issue.

But when I started making this into an Instagram post I realized it was going to be way too long, so I’m sharing it here where I get to write as much as I want.

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I love–LOVE–Liz Moody, both her podcast and her book. This week I listened to her recent episode with fertility specialist Dr. Aimee Eyvazzadeh and I am bursting with thoughts. And knowing from personal experience how isolating and infuriatingly shame-ridden the infertility experience so often is, I want to share this with as many people as I can.

I’m not interested in getting pregnant now (that ship sailed and sank 10 years ago), but this episode is not just for people who are focused on their fertility.

Nonetheless, I wish I’d heard it when I was 28 or 33 or 35.

My own fertility doctor was considered one of the top specialists in New York City. He was featured in New York Magazine. He was a miracle worker.

And he was a total asshole.

He once told me, his 35-year-old patient, that women are meant to get pregnant at 19.

I wish I’d known Dr Aimee or a kind, compassionate, supportive specialist like her. I wish I’d done what she suggests, which is interview specialists to find the right one for me. Instead I just went to the one recommended by my ob/gyn.

I’m not saying this because I think my fertility outcome would have been different if I’d had a different doctor. I believe with my whole heart and soul and uterus that I am living the childfree life I was meant to have.

I’m saying I wish I’d done things differently because I would have FELT differently about it at the time. Emotionally, it was the worst period of my entire life (yes, worse than learning the truth about my marriage). It was a hell I would not wish on my worst enemy.

And so if I could have been cared for by someone who really cared about me, I think I would have felt differently about the same outcome, which was realizing I didn’t want a baby as badly as I thought I did.

I had other amazing people caring for me (my former partner called them Team Rebekah), but my doctor was not one of them. In spite of my fertility specialist, my fertility journey ended up being a transformative, empowering, healing experience, the beginning of a still-in-progress soul-searching sojourn that included realizing my lifelong dream of going to culinary school, then quitting my job, starting 2 businesses, writing a book, and a lot more.

But to get there I first had to be sneered at by my doctor when I asked him for a copy of my bloodwork to show my acupuncturist.

“Okay, but she’s not going to understand it,” he said.

I wish I’d replied, “Let’s talk about some things YOU don’t understand.”

Instead I mumbled, “Well, I’d still like to have them.”

Oh, tender heart, I want to say to my younger self. You deserve better.

We all do.

I love how committed Dr. Aimee is to destigmatizing infertility and combating the shame that so many people experiencing it feel. And I greatly appreciated her knowledge about what people with endometriosis (like me!) can do to feel better whether they’re trying to get pregnant or not.

If you’re even remotely familiar with my book, it will come as no surprise to you that I especially love the part of the episode where Dr. Aimee talks about identifying your why and using that as your litmus test for decision-making during your fertility journey. That’s exactly what my co-author Meredith and I believe about finding and applying your why as an educator (or anything, really).

So here’s who I’m recommending this episode of the Liz Moody Podcast for:

• people who want to get pregnant (now or someday or maybe or let’s wait and see)

• people who have experienced any kind of past fertility trauma (even if they have kids now)

• people who want to know that compassionate, patient-centered medical care is still possible in the dumpster fire of the American healthcare system

I hope Dr. Aimee starts her own medical school.

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Thank you for reading this special edition of The Cocoon! I’ll see you next month.

Next up: How to lean into lifelong learning this summer

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I live and work in New York City and Miami on the historical and current homelands of the Wappinger and Munsee Lenape, and the Seminole and Miccosukee people, respectively. They called these regions home for many years before Dutch, British, Spanish, and American colonizers arrived and stole from them, desecrated their sacred lands, and attempted to eradicate their existence. And still they endure.