Infertile AF: Infertility and Modern Family Building through ART

Today, Ali talks to Stacy, who's in the midst of her infertility story—and who's agreed to be Ali’s first recurring guest, so that everyone can listen along as she goes through it in real time. On this first check-in with Stacy, we find out what’s happened so far, including the birth of her healthy daughter Noa, now 3; the three subsequent miscarriages that rocked her world; secondary infe...

It’s Ali's first guy on the pod: Today, she talks to Danny, a friend from high school, about the heartbreak he and his wife, Stacy, endured while trying to become parents. Danny tells the unfathomably tragic story of losing their newborn daughter when she was just one hour old, how it strengthened them as a couple, how it felt to finally get pregnant again, and how Stacy's diagnosis of cer...

Today, Ali talks to Halina about her long journey to become a mom—including how some major life events shaped her world views. Halina opens up about how being an eyewitness on 9/11 traumatized her, life with PCOS, and years of battling an eating disorder. She describes the pain of losing one twin in utero, as well as a miscarriage that required blood transfusions. Today, the mom-of-two says, “It’s...

Today, Ali talks to Blair, the founder of Fab Fertility, a blog and Instagram account (@fabfertility) that provides resources and aims to empower women. Blair, who’s about to start her second IVF cycle, gets real with Ali about her own roller coaster, including giving herself an injection on a transatlantic flight, the miscarriage that caused her to “lose her shit,” giving up alcohol and going pla...

Ali's guest this week is Leah, an incredible woman whose story has so many twists and turns that it seems like a movie. But it's not. It's her real life. Her journey, which she is still in the midst of, includes blocked fallopian tube surgery, a tragic miscarriage and a diagnosis of Asherman's Syndrome. (Never heard of it? She hadn't either.) Through it all, she says: "Ther...

This week, Ali talks to her friend, Donna, about her years-long quest to become a mother, including doing countless rounds of IVF (she literally lost count), why she chose to keep it a secret from some of her closest family members, and how, even though she didn't end up having a baby after all, she's very happy that she tried. "Never, ever, in a hundred million years did it dawn on me...

This week, Ali talks to Gail, one of her besties, about the years of infertility hell she went through before ultimately adopting her now-five-year-old twin boys, Dylan and Leo. Gail gets personal about how she and her husband, Erik, handled multiple rounds of IVF (including how he once gave Gail a shot in her bum in a bar bathroom), how it felt to hear they had a "zero" percent chance of...

In this episode, Ali talks to Alison, an absolutely magnetic NYC-based doula, who went though years of infertility before making a career out of helping other women before, during and after pregnancy and delivery. Before answering listeners' questions about being a doula, Alison tells her own incredible story, touching on everything from miscarriages to abortion to infertility anger to IUIs an...

In this episode, Ali talks to Kimberly, a single-mother-by-choice who, in her late 30s, wanted to have babies but hadn't found the right partner. Or, as she puts it, "I can't find Mr. Right, and I don't want to settle for Mr. Okay." Kimberly explains how she made the decision to do it on her own, how she navigated the complicated world of donor sperm (hint: it took a massive sp...

In this episode, Ali talks to Jean, a talented actress and comedian (A.P. Bio, Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre) living in Los Angeles, about the years-long infertility roller coaster she and her husband endured. Included: Going through several miscarriages and a handful of failed IVF cycles, discovering the weirdness (and the free food!) of IVF and adoption seminars, why it's so hard going to...

In this debut episode, InfertileAF host Ali Prato - a Brooklyn-based journalist and mom-of-two - talks about the four years of infertility hell she went through to have her second child, Sonny. Ali’s goal with this podcast is to create a community and a safe space for women to tell their stories, and here, she gets more personal than ever about her own journey. With a trademark mix of honesty and...