Messy in the Middle: The Journey of Infertility Podcast

Katrina’s first pregnancy devastatingly ended up being ectopic, resulting in emergent surgery. After 18 months trying to conceive naturally, Katrina and her husband discovered after further testing that his sperm wasn’t optimal. It was a shock to them both, especially when Katrina had blamed herself for so long that they weren’t getting a positive pregnancy test. It was then they decided that IVF...

Jessica Leigh shares the story of her son’s birth and it was nothing like she could have planned or ever imagined. It was found that her cervix was starting to shorten at 28 weeks, then with funneling at 32 weeks. This ultimately resulted in the premature rupture of membranes at 35 weeks. The birth of her son was fast and the story doesn’t end there – what followed was a postpartum hemorrhage, sur...

Liss is a 30 year old woman who shares her long journey of trying to conceive. After trying and not succeeding to fall pregnant naturally over a 2 year time period, she finally sought help from a fertility specialist and at 29 years of age was classified as medically infertile and had no choice but to proceed with IVF. After another 3 years and 5 transfers, she is currently pregnant with her first...

I had a lovely chat with Jen, who is not only a Fertility Coach and founder of Your Pregnancy Haven - but she also has her own story of infertility and the struggles it took to conceive her two children. Jen and her husband tried for many years, with no found explanation to their infertility struggles and it got a point where her sister-in-law offered to be a surrogate for them. This resulted in t...

Ashley is still in her messy middle. She is coming up to the year mark of when she was last pregnant and in that time, has had to come to terms with a diagnosis she never even knew existed. Ashley tried for 7 months to fall pregnant, she wasn’t sure that she was consistently ovulating. After being referred to a fertility specialist to do formal ovulation tracking, she confirmed ovulation, went thr...

Louise is a Fertility Coach who has her own background of struggling to conceive. After years of negative tests and failed IUI and IVF cycles, Louise was told by her fertility specialist to take 6 months off to focus on healing her mental and physical health. As hard as it was for her to “take a break”, that’s exactly what she did. She enlisted the help from acupuncturists, hypnotherapists and ene...

Leticia and her husband did all the right things, even started pre-conception care where her doctor told her that she is young and will fall pregnant in a flash. Yet after 12 months of trying, with no positive pregnancy tests, they decided to enlist the help of a fertility specialist. After the general fertility testing, where nothing showed of concern, Leticia started on letrozole and fell pregna...

In this episode I chat with Samantha – she is the epitome of the quote “You were given this life because you are strong enough to live it”. Samantha’s first pregnancy ended in a tragic second trimester loss at 22 weeks due to placental abruption and due to retained products, she contracted a severe infection that left her in ICU. Samantha’s coping mechanism was to create a plan and start taking ac...

In this episode welcome back episode, I give a brief update on how my current pregnancy is progressing and I provide some helpful tools in how to navigate the surprisingly difficult mental battle of pregnancy after loss. I share some recent revelations and ask the question – should I get a co-host??Thank you all so much for your patience during the break. Hopefully that will be it now until bubs i...

In this episode I speak with Lauren, she takes us on her journey of how she miraculously fell pregnant with her first child and how the struggle truly began when they were wanting to have their second baby. Lauren had an exploratory laparoscopy at 22, where the doctor also performed a D&C and burned the wall of her uterus to stop the heavy and painful periods she was experiencing. Little did s...

In this bonus episode, your host, Jessica Leigh, gives an update on her current suspected miscarriage experience. She describes in detail all the symptoms she was feeling to lead her to having no doubt in her mind that this pregnancy was as good as over. But so far, there isn’t enough evidence to make the official call as her HCG is still rising and an early scan showing only a gestational sac. Th...

In this episode I speak with Shelby, she takes us through her heart wrenching journey of 5 years trying to grow their family. In this time, she was diagnosed with a unicornuate uterus and decided that IVF would give them the best chance of success. After 9 failed cycles, she finally fell pregnant and unfortunately this resulted in a missed miscarriage at 10 weeks. She fell pregnant again the next...

In this episode I speak with Sasha, her first pregnancy was a happy accident with no concerns that would have ever eluded to the struggles that were to come. When trying for a sibling, Sasha suffered a miscarriage at 11 weeks and it is hands down, the most traumatic miscarriage experience I have ever heard. She then went on to lose another pregnancy at 5 weeks and subsequently went on to have an e...

In this episode I speak with Heather, who takes us through her struggles of trying to conceive. She tried for 12 months unsuccessfully when she finally went and consulted with a fertility specialist who discovered she had a blocked tube and rather than going through the process of rectifying the issue, decided IVF would be the path they would take. Unfortunately, she had to go through 5 rounds of...

In this episode, Megan takes us through her completely unexpected and heartbreaking journey of secondary infertility. Megan fell pregnant easily with her first daughter and had a textbook pregnancy, so when things didn’t come so easily the second time around, she almost gave up as positive pregnancy tests brought nothing but pain. Megan endured 4 losses before deciding to see a Fertility Specialis...

The first episode of Messy in the Middle kicks off with the telling of my story. I always thought my first miscarriage was just a little hiccup in the road as I successfully went on to give birth to my son. I never imagined that secondary infertility would become a part of my reality. I walk you through my second miscarriage, how the 3 consecutive loss rule is absolute crap and the subsequent diag...