47. It is Irresponsible Not to Shine and How to Get Out of Your Own Way

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Hi friends welcome to fearless infertility, a podcast for women struggling with a mental anguish that comes with infertility. My name is Jenica. And after suffering in silence for too long, I was able to pull myself out of the dark take control over my mind and create joy during my infertility experience. I’m here to help you do the same sister. Let’s dive into today’s show.

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Hello, my friends and welcome back to fearless infertility podcast episode 47. It is irresponsible of you not to shine. In today’s podcast episode, we are talking about what shine means and how specifically to get out of your own way. So you can live a life that you were meant to live. Let’s get into it.

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Hello, my friends and welcome back to fearless infertility, I’m so glad that you’re here. And you know what I’m also glad about, I will tell you, I am so incredibly grateful for people in this world who figure something out. And they’re like, You know what, that was a little hard for me, I’m going to go ahead and make it easy for the rest of the people on the planet. And I’m going to go ahead and upload a YouTube video for free that they can go ahead and Google and a YouTube video will pop up and they can say, hey, this is how you get the microphone to connect to your iMovie. And they don’t know who I am. They don’t need to do that they do it. Anyway, thank you shout out all the people who have ever done that. I really appreciate you. And I mean, while I was frustrated, I also knew that there was an opportunity for me to Google and look up your video that taught me for free. So thanks, girl. Appreciate you. I wanted to update you guys on my latest infertility update.

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Y’all are so incredible to ask about it. The latest update I think I gave you was I think it was before Halloween. I think it was probably in September. And originally back in June, we I had I always say we I’m like it wasn’t Tyler, I love him. He was there to support me. But he didn’t actually have a surgery. So I feel like I shouldn’t give him the credit, honestly. So I went in for a surgery

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at the Utah Fertility Center, and I got the polyps out of my uterus. No one knows why they grow there. They’re not welcome there. However, they don’t really get the memo. So they show up anyway. And that’s what happened to me. The first time I was trying to conceive was there was polyps in my uterus, which is essentially growths, minor non cancerous. And I had to get them out the first time. So it would be a proper environment for a child to thrive in. And so we did that again in June. And then we were about to start IVF. Again, during the baseline ultrasound, we discovered cysts in my ovaries. And then at that point I had just gotten i Well, I told my IVF coordinator that I was not doing birth control again, because this sister does not appreciate that people I do not thrive on birth control. I don’t know how anyone does honestly if you have like stayed sane and kept relationships in your life also being a total psychopath like I was. So when you deserve a gold medal, I feel like I need to figure out who you are, I will engrave your name on a gold medal and hand it to you because I wasn’t able to do that. I was actually like a total crazy person. And I’m like you were done with that. And so then that prompted me to be like, I’m literally ruining my summer. Summer is awesome in Utah. It really is. It’s beautiful here and lovely. And I was like why am I ruining my summer? So I decided to push it back to the fall. And then I was like, why am I ruining my fall?

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I was like, I love Halloween. And genuinely like I’ve talked about this before. When I used to drive by pumpkin patches my dream come true, has been being able to take my actual children to pumpkin patches. And so I wasn’t gonna give that up with my five year old early five one. So that was a great time. And then a November Thanksgiving. I mean, who doesn’t love Thanksgiving? And then December I’m like, why? So anyway, long story short, we’re getting into the nitty gritty details here. But long story short, I just didn’t really feel like ruining, you know, those beautiful holiday months with my family. So the latest update I gave you guys was that we were pushing back to January. Okay, and real talk here. December rolls around. I’m so excited for just everything that was happening. My sister and her husband drove here from California, she at this time, I think they’re six months old now actually, the time they were five months old. And they’re the cutest little things on the planet. I love them so much. I also love the fact that they were born on the same day as my twins just exactly five years later, which is insane to me. And so anyway, they are here. They’re here for a week. And it’s so fun. And also literally Tyler and I both got PTSD, like legit. I’m not like trying to be funny. I we were just a little scared because all of a sudden it was taking us back to those dark days of what we’d had done. IVF I had gotten preeclampsia in my pregnancy we deliver two months early. literally less than

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week after Tyler got this nasal surgery, so he’s like, not really there with me and supportive like he normally would have because he’s on drugs. He’s actually not even supposed to be at the hospital. He’s supposed to be at home in bed. But you know, his wife was delivering twins. So it was kind of, you know, a little important for him to break that rule. And so we’re just ending in, you know, just I got Epstein Barr Virus after all that because my body was like, I don’t appreciate this, my immune system was like, tapping out. I don’t like talvez. Like, I can’t blame it. Honestly. It really, it really hung in there for as long as it could.

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And then recovering from that, and then just didn’t weren’t twins. All of a sudden, Tyler and I were just taken back to that time when my sister and her husband, were here with our darling, darling girls. And we were like, I don’t know if I want to do that again. I just, it was almost like a looking to the barrel of a gun. You don’t I’m saying? The first time you have an experience. You don’t know what to expect? And honestly, all I kind of think that’s a blessing. Sometimes I really do. I actually am very grateful. I don’t have a crystal ball. Because there’s things that you face in life that you would just be like app. Are you kidding? No, no. And so I’m actually grateful that we don’t know what happens in our future. Because I think that when we take it a day at a time, it’s a lot more manageable. I think we can build up the skill sets that we need to be able to conquer those things. But now I’ve done it before. And now I’m like, so Joe want to do it again, essentially. And Tyler, surprisingly enough, felt the exact same way. And so we’re kind of having a few weeks of panic here, because we’re like, I mean, we’ve planned to do IVF again, but also, do we actually want to put ourselves through that again, do we actually want to stand in front of the barrel of a gun? I mean, doesn’t sound like a smart idea to us.

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So there was a few weeks of pondering and praying and panicking, crying a little bit. This week, we had some tears, we had some snot, we had some heaving, we had all the emotions, and we came to the conclusion. Well, Tyler was like, honestly, I don’t really know if you’re ready, because you are cannot stop crying every time you think about it. And then I started my period the next day, and I feel so much better about everything. I feel so much better about life, everything feels a little lighter now. So honestly, I think it was a lot of processing and deciding what really weighing our odds, right, like really weighing. All right. We’re so happy now with our two kids, genuinely, we’re so grateful. We haven’t a boy, a boy and a girl because it’s so fun to get to experience both. And do be want to step into this pathway, which will be amazing in some ways. And we really, really hard in some ways. And making that decision has been challenging, but we’re going to go ahead and move forward with it. So my latest update is I call the Utah Fertility Center, which is who I go to I love Dr. Russell folk. I will reference his podcast episode I did with him in the show notes. And it was a really good one to listen to. You guys had a bunch of questions about IVF and IUI, and infertility treatments. And it was really fun, really informative podcast episode that I’ll link here in the show notes for you to listen to. And so I called them and I said I’m ready, which was kind of a lie cuz I’m like, Am I ready.

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But we’re going to go ahead and proceed forward. We have five frozen embryos. We had seven after our last egg retrieval, we use two so we had nine total, but we used two and they were Harrison Goldie, and we froze the seven. So back in June, we defrosted them, biopsy them had them sent to a lab to do genetic testing on because the first time I didn’t really feel strongly pulled to do that. But this time I did and I tend to like to go with my gut because I feel like there’s a reason for that. And five of the seven came back normal. So I’m really glad that we did that. Because

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for me, my goal was to prevent miscarriage. I don’t love the way fertility treatments make my body feel there’s a lot of hormones happening. I just don’t think that putting any excess strain on my body is necessary. So I’m glad that we did that. Because have we transferred one of those two that were not genetically sound than we could have resulted in a miscarriage. And so now all we say is we have five embryos, we actually do know the genders and oh my goodness gracious. I don’t know if I I don’t know what we’re gonna do about that. Not gonna lie. I really don’t care if I have a boy or girl. So we’ll see what happens there. But like I said, I started my period a couple days ago. So I have my baseline ultrasound on Tuesday. So if you’re listening to this when the episode drops, on Monday, January 17. Our ultrasound will be the following day in what we’re going to check for is if there are cysts on my ovaries. And then if there are this time, we’ll probably I don’t really know like a nice way to say that’s just pop

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them, drain them, I think is what they call it, and move forward with a frozen embryo transfer. So that’s the latest update, there has been a lot of emotional ups and downs truly, because it has been a big decision whether we want to even do it or not. And then also wrapping my mind around the fact that it will be hard for sure. But then also training myself to give equal airtime to the positive parts of it as well, has been my work that I’ve been working on doing and will continue to work on doing.

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So that’s been lit us up that you guys are the best for asking and for and for just being here with me on that I am right in the middle of this with you. And luckily, I have these really incredible tools that I share with you every week and in my fearless in fertility program. And we’re just going for it. We are human beings that are doing our best. And I honestly feel like we’re killing it. So look in the mirror and give yourself a nice solid wink today because you’re doing it sister.

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All right, tonight, I was doing the dishes. And by the way, how I don’t understand how it’s even humanly possible to have so many dishes from such a small dinner, you know, I’m saying my goal lately is to make a lot of dinner that will last for like three days. So I do minimal dishes after the initial dish bomb in my kitchen. And I mean, this is like total firstworldproblems. But I just I just hate that. I mean, I’m lucky, don’t get me wrong, I am lucky to have food on the table. I am so blessed that I don’t have to worry about where my next meal is coming from. Right. I would take that over any day. But also doing dishes sucks. So to make it suck less what I do is listen to podcasts. Maybe you’re doing that right now. Maybe you’re doing dishes right now. If so, you’re killing it. Good job. You know, when you’re driving some times, and your Apple Music just pulls up, it just pulled up the song. And it was a fantastic song. And I here’s what I do targets Mattamy whenever I find a good song that I love, I listen to it over and over again. And I actually love it so much until I hate it.

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She don’t even I’m just I just listen to it. I know I’m not exaggerating, I probably listen to it at least 10 to 15 times, and I start to memorize it and then and then I kind of start getting sick of it. You know what I’m saying? It kind of takes away some of the magic. So I totally get where he’s coming from when I’m in the car with him. He refuses to let me listen to a song more than once, which I kind of feel like is a little oppressive. But you know, that’s for another podcast episode. So I’m listening to the song and I was thinking it’d be so fun to have a song of the week. And you know what else will be cool too, is if I create a playlist, I just have Apple Music. So if I create a playlist called fearless infertility, and we have all the songs there, yes, girl, now we’re talking. So this week’s song was called Craig by Walker Hayes. And it’s so good. I dare you to listen to it without crying. If you are a follower of Jesus Christ like myself, it is a special story. And I I just love it. So so much. I don’t know how you haven’t heard it until now because it was originally recorded in 2017. So there you go. I’m going to create that for you guys. And I’m going to make it public. So I think you’ll be able to look it up. I will also link it in the show notes and we can just listen together boom GML turn up that volume sister out of the podcast episode, you’re gonna listen to this songs you’re gonna be pumped up and you’re just might cry little, you might shed a few tears and you know what, you’re not alone. The winner of this week’s podcast review on Apple podcasts of the pj’s and socks that I give out every week is Lexi 812. Her title is finding your support system is so important. I have been struggling through my infertility journey for just over a year now. Until I found this podcast, I was struggling in silence with my husband by my side. Most of my family and friends didn’t know what we were going through, I realized that it was time to start talking about it and finding the much needed support system. And I have this podcast to thank for that. I was feeling very numb and having a whirlwind of emotions at the same time. And this podcast made me feel like it was okay to talk about it and cry in front of people and that the way I was feeling was okay, please email me at hello at the slice of sand.com with your size and address, we’ll get that shipped out to you. And you guys, I promise you it is very easy to leave a review on Apple podcasts. And I just appreciate it so much when you do because it helps those of you and those women experiencing infertility, they have no idea that this support system is available to them and who feel very, very alone to be able to discover this podcast and you are doing that. So thank you so much for helping me with that. And go ahead and leave a rating review and I will choose a winner every single Monday. This week’s podcast episode has been on my mind for several weeks now. And I’ve told you guys this before but it’s so fascinating to me that a lot of these podcast episode topics and really

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important conversations that I want to have with you that I think are important for you that will benefit your life happened to me when I am or come to me when I am exercising. And I don’t want by craze right now because we live in a frozen tundra. And just like, honestly get me out of here. But I have been working out consistently at the studio I love to workout it is my friend Emily studio. And when we will be listening to rap songs, and I will be literally gasping for air not being able to breathe. And all of a sudden, I had the best idea for a podcast episode. And that happened to me in this case. And suddenly I had this thought in my mind that said, You are irresponsible, when you are not shining. It is irresponsible of you not to shine. And I was like,

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okay, all right. All right. I’m here for that. And it was so interesting to me, because it was very apparent to me that this was a topic that would be important for us in this community. Because I think that we have a lot of layers of shame, we have a lot of layers of guilt, we have a lot of layers of expectation that we put on ourselves, or that we think other people put on us. And in terms of acting a certain way, being a certain way and infertility in other areas of our lives. And I oftentimes think that as women in general, we play small. And it’s fascinating to me too, because when we think about what actually happens, when that occurs, it’s not what we think is going to happen. It’s not the results that we’re getting right. When we play small. We’re not making other people feel better. When we play small, we’re not making other people be happy. And I think that it’s so fascinating, right? To look at our brains and think that we have these incredible intentions for our lives. And then we see what’s actually occurring. Like, for example, have you ever looked at someone and said, Well, she has all these talents, but she’s just hiding at home, and she’s not doing anything with them. And it’s super motivating for me, because I want to live like that too. No, no, we’re not gonna see that girl cuz she’s not she’s in her house, she’s scared. And she probably has the best of intentions because she wants to be a good human right, she wants to impact other people’s lives in a good way. But I think that we have this strange concept that if we shine, right, and we’ll talk about what that means here in a minute, but if we are too big, if we showcase all of our talents, then we’re going to make other people feel bad, or we’re going to make other people feel uncomfortable. And in reality, the exact opposite is true. Now, I am a religious lady, I love Jesus Christ. And I really am fascinated by gospel discussions and discussions between good and evil, and between God’s plan and Satan’s plan. And I honestly think that one of the biggest lies that our adversary offers to us, and that we believe so consistently, is that hiding our talents will make other people feel better about themselves. And we don’t want to make people jealous. We don’t want to make people feel uncomfortable. So if that seems like a great option, right? And I think it’s ridiculous. I do. I think that for me when I see the truth and who other people are, who other women are, which is daughters of God. And we’ve all been given these incredible talents that we need to use to uplift one another, then I’m able to see it for the truth that it is. And when I see someone else pushing past their fears, one, it’s not about them, right. They’re not making it about them. When someone is shining. When someone is working towards the accomplishments, they feel that they have been called to do in this life. It is not typically because of themselves. It’s in spite of their insecurities, right? They are moving past their insecurities to be able to accomplish the things that they feel that they have been called to do in this life. And I think about all of the really hard things that I have done in my life. I don’t love speaking in public, right? I don’t love. I mean, there’s certain things that it’s like I feel that maybe others would think I’m comfortable doing because they do it often. But I do it because I have a message to share. And I feel selfish, knowing the things that I know keeping those things to myself. It’s not like I’m going out in public and saying, Oh, my goodness, it’s me. I’ve got all the answers because I am a genius. It’s like no, I feel that I have been lucky enough to come across answers that will help women with infertility specifically, and that it would genuinely be selfish of me and irresponsible of me not to share this message where I can. And I look at other women who are living big, bold, full lives. And I think that that’s where that’s coming from to most of the time. And I think that we’ve all heard the cautionary tale right of don’t be too far.

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full of yourself, I don’t think too highly of yourself. And I think we’ve taken it way far in the other direction where we are not giving ourselves enough credit. And we are forgetting who we are. And I’ll tell you exactly who you are, you are a daughter of God, He created you perfectly exactly how he wanted you to be. And I also genuinely believe that He has given us all of the experiences in our lives that we need in order to become more like Jesus Christ. And knowing that we said yes to them. And now that we’re here in this life, we go through experiences that are really, really difficult. And honestly, sometimes it’s really hard to believe that we would have said yes to something that’s difficult, right. But when we think about who created us, and the experiences that we have in our lives, it’s pretty obvious to me that we are capable of experiencing them because of who they will make us become. And I want to talk about specifically how, like I mentioned earlier, but what does shine even mean, right? This does not mean that every human being needs to get on stages, and every human being needs to start podcasts. And every single human being needs to be like the loud person who is really bold all of the time, right? This means that, you know, I think what your talents are, there either might be someone who has an beautiful singer, there might be someone who’s an incredible writer, there might be someone who is very, very compassionate and empathetic, there might be someone who sees things that others don’t see in a way that would benefit people that need their talents. And so I don’t believe that, that shining means that you need to be loud and take stages, I just think that this means that we need to follow through with what we have been called to do, because it’s really not about us. And definitely just hit me like a ton of bricks too, because I think I get in my own way, a lot of the time. And I think a lot of people get in their own way, a lot of the time because we are concerned about what other people will think of us. And it’s normal, right? I’ve talked about in other episodes, what our brains have been designed to do is protect us. And when we are doing things against the grain, different from other people, our brains, signify to us that that is a dangerous place to be right when we were when human beings were first on the planet. When you were away from the pack, when you are away from the rest of the humans, you were genuinely exposed to elements to animals, to lack of resources that would genuinely lead to you dying. And most of us, especially those listening to this podcast, don’t have to worry about our general survival all the time, right, we pretty much know we’re going to be okay in terms of where our next meal is coming from and where we’re going to sleep tonight. And so our brains, however, were designed to protect us. So it’s they still pop up with those objections, when we are in situations that are pulling us away from the crowd. And all of us have been given such unique different talents, which is shocking, honestly, because there are billions of people in the world what we offer something so unique, and different to offer, that we have that thing that makes us feel uncomfortable. And I genuinely think that it’s not about us, right? When we are showing up in the world, ready to offer our talents that only we have. It is in spite of ourselves, right? We are pushing past ourselves, we’re not doing it, because we think we are incredible and amazing. And I hope you do, right. But we’re not typically showing up in that way. We’re typically showing up because we are being brave enough to get over our insecurities.

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And I was thinking about different ways like well, why wouldn’t we shine, right? Why wouldn’t we shine when we know that other people would be benefited by that? And there’s two reasons I think the first is you just simply forgot who you were. And in my late 20s, early 30s, I really started to get less self confident. And I was actually very genuinely confused by this because I thought it was just a middle school thing, right? I thought, Oh, well, I had a rough time in middle school because everyone has a rough time in middle school. I’m gonna go ahead and guess because everyone’s very hormonal. There’s, there’s lots of hormones happening. And it’s not a pretty picture. Okay, people are trying to figure out who they are. There’s lots of cliques. There’s lots of, Okay, do I belong here? Do I not belong there, and it’s a lot of insecurity. So I got past that move on with my life. I felt really, really great. I mean, obviously, ups and downs inside and all sorts of crazy things have happened to me my life. But in general, I felt like I’ve been pretty self confident. And then my early 30s came along and I’ve kind of started to figure out that the self confidence doesn’t just happen after me.

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that’ll school. It’s something that is ongoing. And I really got curious about this. And I think that I just kind of forgot who I was. And I’m a daughter of God. And of course, I’m valuable. Of course, I don’t need to achieve anything to have 100% Worth, of course, I can create anything that I want to because of who created me, and whose DNA I have. So I think that’s one I think we forget who we are. That lack of knowledge inhibits us from really living into our full potential. And the second reason is that we don’t know how we get self confidence, right? We don’t understand that self confidence is a feeling and how I get self confidence is I really simplify it right. I think that most of the time, we’re not typically in danger for our lives in a day to day situation, but we are really scared. And when we kind of simplify it, and realize that the only thing we’re really scared of is a feeling, whether that be fear, whether that be discomfort, whether that be guilt, right, we have felt all of the feelings that we have been able to get through in the past, we have not died, feeling any of the feelings in the past, right. And when we can kind of simplify that and see where those those scared feelings are coming from, we can realize that well, the things that we are scared of are really just feelings. I don’t think typically we’re in a life and death situation. And so we can really simplify and say, Well, I felt those feelings before and I’ve survived. And I can do it again. And will I like it the whole time. No, but I’m capable of doing that. And so we can then move forward through the situations that we are typically scared of. And and knowing that we’re able to do that, that we’ve done it in the past, and that we’re capable of to begin again, really allows us that self confidence to move forward in life and realize we’re capable of anything. This week, I want to challenge you to really think about where you are holding yourself back in your life. I don’t know what this looks like for you. Right. But I think that you do. And I think that asking those questions about where am I holding my own self back, because I’m scared, where am I really kind of making myself smaller or shrinking, to make others feel comfortable. And when we realize that it is not about us, we have been given talents to help other people, and even by shining. And being who you were called to be. It really helps give others the freedom and the capabilities to see that it’s possible for themselves as well. So I want you to figure out in your life this week, and just kind of ponder it and get very curious about where you’re holding yourself back and where you’re not shining to your fullest. And I also wanted to let you guys know that another thought that I’ve had so much recently is because I’m able to see a lot of truth in our trials and experiences. I genuinely believe that women who are experiencing infertility, while we wouldn’t have chosen it intentionally, I don’t think in this life, I think that we probably knew what we were getting ourselves into when we were born. Right. And we chose to come to this earth before we were born. And so when I meet someone with infertility, I literally, I feel like it’s a very sacred space. Because I see you, I see the fact that you said yeah, this is probably one of the hardest things that any human can experience. And that desire to grow a family, and to have a family is the most important thing. And you knew it would be challenging. And you said yes, anyway, I literally feel like I’m like bowing in the presence of royalty. I am in the presence of someone really incredible. And I just really feel grateful to be surrounded by you women, because it’s it’s honestly truly miraculous. The character and of your soul is very, very impressive to me. And I hope you can see yourself like that too. I hope you can really flip that shame switch, that you’re proud of it, that you are someone who is going through one of the hardest things that a human can grow go through, and that you’re strong enough to make it through. And if right now you’re like that’s bullcrap. Jenica, I don’t see that I don’t want that. Just Just lean on my face a little bit. Lean on my belief in you for a little bit until you can gather yourself. And I mean, it’s this reverence that I see

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this experience in because I know what characteristics that it’s building and I know what type of a person would say yes to this. So anyway, I just love you guys. And I had to share that with you as well.

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I love to do monthly classes for you that are completely free. And in them I share a really important concept that I think will help you with something that’s relevant to this time of year that we’re in and I thought

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Okay, well what’s coming up, and it’s Valentine’s Day and it’s the month of love. And I’ve always regardless if I had like a romantic relationship or not, I’ve always loved Valentine’s Day because I just won. I’m not I’m not the type of person that gets mad at the commercialization of it, you know, I’m like, if you can make me a heart, gummy, we’re friends. Okay, I feel fine about that. I will buy your bag of heart candy. And but I also thought to myself, it can be a very hard time of year for relationships, and specifically relationships that are going through infertility. Right. I think infertility is a very difficult experience, it can be very, very taxing on your relationship when you’re both going through something really challenging yourself. And you want to be there to support each other. But you’re also feel like you’re broken yourself. So how are you going to be there for someone else when you feel broken? So I want to let you know that I would love for you to sign up for my free class. It’s called How to keep your relationship strong during infertility. The class is on January 24, at 8pm. And if you can’t make it live, I will send you the recording afterwards. So make sure to register anyway.