Infertile AF: Infertility and Modern Family Building through ART

Today, on the Season Three Premiere, Ali talks to Caroline, who was diagnosed with cervical cancer at the age of 26. Caroline talks about how she was in a race against time to preserve her fertility before she started her cancer treatments, how she was wheeled from one hospital during cancer treatment to another hospital to do her egg retrieval and how the intense pain of her tumor affected her se...

Today, Ali is talking to Kela Smith, creator of the Hormone Puzzle Society, a woman’s health hub for fertility, hormones, and coaching. Kela tells her own infertility story, how she finally had her two sons, and how she works with women who are struggling with infertility and hormone imbalance, coaching them to get pregnant naturally and eliminating their symptoms of hormone imbalance. For more, c...

Jaclyn Misch is a former Miss Michigan who competed on the CBS reality show "Survivor" with her now husband, Jon. Today, she talks to Ali about being born with a very rare condition called MRKH Syndrome, and how it has affected her life and her ability to have children. They discuss her two IVF retrievals, what happened when she started sharing publicly about MRKH, and what happened when t...

This is the first time Ali has interviewed best friends on her show--but she was so smitten by the friendship between Nora and Ani, she couldn't resist. Today, the founders of @modamobofficial and @noranibaby are talking about their rough and respective infertility journeys--including 8 IUIs, 9 IVF treatments, gestational diabetes, awful progesterone injections and bloating, a blood clotting d...

Today, Ali talks to infertility advocate, all around bright light and her dear friend Monica (aka @my_so_called_Ivf ) about IUIs, secondary infertility guilt, vaginas, marriage probs, dealing with stress and depression and what Jared Leto, Gwyneth Paltrow and Oprah have in common. Today’s Sponsor:  www.fertilityrally.com Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https:...

Today, Ali talks to her friend Kim, who she met via Instagram in 2019, right after Kim had given birth to her third child, Meredith Samantha. On her IG page, mera_rula_of__the__sea, Kim chronicled Mera's very short, very sweet life after she was diagnosed in utero with a host of birth defects, including very little brain tissue. Kim tells the story of having her two kids before Meredith, bring...

Paige Dennis is a fashion designer, and an infertility warrior who describes herself as, "If Dolly Parton and Suzanne Sugarbaker had a baby." She's also the breakout star of "DeMarcus Family Rules," the Netflix reality show that chronicles the lives of Rascal Flatts bassist Jay DeMarcus and his beauty queen wife, Allison. Today, Paige tells Ali all about her infertility journey...

Partners-in-biz-and-Claw Ali and Blair Nelson, who started the Fertility Rally membership site on June 1, talk about their latest creation: Fertility Rally Live, taking place virtually on Saturday, October 24th! The event will be a one-day, action-packed infertility celebration, with more than 30+ speakers, exhibitor booths, tons of giveaways and plenty of surprises. Ali and Blair talk about how t...

Victoria Nino, aka  @expectinganything , talks to Ali about her long path to mamahood, beginning with a diagnosis of Stage 3 endometriosis. After medicated IUIs that didn't work, they turned to IVF, but her low egg quality led her to research donor eggs. As she and her husband went down the donor egg path, she explains how they "grieved their genetics," why at one point they maxed out...

Chloe Melas is an entertainment reporter for CNN, and today, she is getting realAF with Ali about her years-long infertility journey. They cover it all, including IUIs that didn’t take, the shock and heartbreak of IVF, a pregnancy “in an unknown location,” getting phone calls from doctors while on double dates, how it all affected her marriage (and her sex life!), and SO MUCH MORE. Today’s ep is s...

Wes, aka Detour to Dad, who's been very vocal about the difficult journey that he and his wife, Amanda have traveled to have a baby—including a diagnosis of "extremely low sperm count" that made him feel "emasculated" and like he'd been punched in the face." Today, Wes tells his story, from when he and Amanda met playing softball, to making the decision to use donor spe...

Today, Ali is talking to artist  Jasmine Katatikarn, a fertility warrior who struggled to have a child for six years. After multiple IUIs and her 2nd IVF, she was told that she had a less than 1% chance of having a baby and to stop trying. However, Jasmine didn’t give up. Jasmine tells Ali about the devastation she went through, how she and her husband had a hard time talking about what they were...

Today, Ali is talking to HGTV Good Bones star and all-around badass Mina Starsiak Hawk about her fertility struggles, including why she skipped IUI and went straight to IVF, how she deals with comments from judgy (and handsy) women, and how she and her husband decided to show everything, including the messy parts, on their TV show. We also get a surprise guest cameo by her husband Steve, who jumps...

Monique Farook is a  an infertility survivor, a former NICU Mom, a wife, and host of the podcast, "Infertility and Me." She and her husband began their journey to parenthood in 2012 when she was 29, and today, she tells Ali all about their long and bumpy road, from her unsuccessful IUI and  uterine and cervical polyps to how she experienced prejudice at the fertility clinic. Monique also t...

Today, Ali is talking to Emily about the ups and downs of her years-long infertility journey, including 7 IUIs (all unsuccessful), "always ending up on the wrong end of the statistics," "a dreadful sex life full of stress and dashed expectations," her five pregnancies, a string of miscarriages, and the night she went to the hospital and her doctor told her, 'You have to abort t...

Today, Ali is talking to Ashley, a single mom by choice, who wanted to share her story to inspire others and shatter any stigmas about choosing to have and raise a child on one's own. Ashley, a successful executive who is raising her now 10-year-old son in Los Angeles, talks about how she felt like a "unicorn" at the fertility clinic, the unique process of of choosing a sperm donor (an...

Michelle Buteau is a brilliant and real AF comedian, actress and host best known for appearing on Netflix's "The Circle" and in the movies "Isn't it Romantic" and "Always be My Maybe." She's also a fierce infertility and surrogacy advocate, who Ali first met in early 2020 when they were both in Albany, NY for Surrogacy Lobby Day. Today, Michelle tells Ali all ab...

Flora Sinha is a Board Certified Internist practicing in Southern California, and today she's talking to Ali about going through secondary infertility. Although she didn't have trouble having her first child, she tried for six months to have her second child before realizing IVF was in her future. Then, after undergoing multiple rounds, she and her husband made the difficult decision to st...

Emilia Bechrakis is a lawyer, a Manhattan mom and a television personality you probably recognize from the Bravo reality show, “ Million Dollar Listing New York, ” where she appears alongside her husband, real estate mogul Ryan Serhant. Today, she talks to Ali about falling in love with Ryan and getting married, and how when they started to try to have a baby, things didn’t exactly work out as pla...

Amy Beckley, who has a PhD in pharmacology and an expertise in hormone signaling, had trouble conceiving for more than three years before turning to IVF to have her son. But when she decided she didn't know if she could handle the physical and emotional challenges of another round of IVF, she began tracking her own hormone levels, suspecting she had a problem with ovulation—causing her to lose...

Andrea Syrtash is a dating and relationship expert, a published author, a television host and an on-air personality. She's also the founder of Pregnantish, an online magazine that helps people navigate the realities of infertility and fertility treatments. Today, she tells Ali all about the eight years and 18 fertility treatments she went through, including getting ghosted by two potential sur...

Mathilde Froustey is a principal dancer at the San Francisco Ballet and one of the best dancers in the world. Born in Bordeaux, France, Mathilde started dancing at the age of 9 and trained at the Marselle National School of Ballet and the Paris Opera Ballet School. Today, even though she says, "In the dance world, infertility is a taboo subject," she comes out to Ali about her personal str...

Today, Ali talks to Nichelle Sublett, Mrs. North Carolina 2018, about the five painful years of infertility she endured—and why she chose to spread awareness about infertility after winning the pageant. Nichelle is finally pregnant with a baby boy, due at the end of August, and here she recalls her "horrible" path, including PCOS, five miscarriages, IVF, considering a surrogate, marital st...

Today, Ali talks to Jennifer "Jay" Palumbo, a stand-up comedian, OG infertility advocate and mom of two, about her long path to parenthood. Included: IVF and how Clomid made her act like The Hulk, the uterine polyp she named "Jackson Polyp," going through couple's counseling and how her pregnancy announcement in 2014 ignited a Twitter war.   Fertility Rally is the all-inclusive...

Josephine Atluri is a meditation teacher and a badass mom of FIVE kids. Today, she talks to Ali about how she always wanted a big family, and how she and her husband built their modern family in many different ways, including international adoption, IVF and surrogacy. She also talks about how, due to a lack of control, she developed the eating disorder bulimia during her infertility journey, and h...