“For all of my life, I’ve been told not to get people pregnant,” a 32-year old man shared with me about his journey starting a family.

All he’d heard since he was a teenager with raging hormones and a book on his lap was “that if I even thought about a girl, I’d probably get her pregnant.” It was a significant mental shift, he said, to focus on intentionally trying to getting pregnant with his partner. “Plus, I had no idea that getting pregnant was so hard! The books and warnings all make it sound like it happens instantly.”

But for many people, getting pregnant is not easy. Miscarriages are incredibly common, affecting as many as one in five pregnancies, and struggling with infertility is something that as many as one in five couples may deal with in their lifetime. Yet despite how prevalent it is, it’s not commonly discussed, and it runs counter to much of the sex education that most teenagers and young adults get.

Most advice about contraception and family planning (if there’s any quality sex education to be had) is focused on preventing pregnancy. People are often left in the dark about how common infertility is, how hard it can be for some people to get pregnant, and how common and normal miscarriages and losses are. When we don’t talk openly about the challenges of fertility, we leave so many people alone in their journey.

That’s why on the Startup Parent Podcast, a show where I spend time interviewing people in detail about family and career, people share the full spectrum of journeys in becoming parents—from whether or not they wanted to have children, to how long it took, to infertility that lasted years, to all the losses and griefs that can happen. Below, we’ve put together a playlist of six stories from folks who have lived through miscarriage, pregnancy loss, infertility, and more.

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Infertility, miscarriage, & loss: six Startup Parent stories

For many people, the journey can include frequent miscarriages, undiagnosed or unexplained infertility, overwhelming costs and emotional struggles, facing the dilemma of pursuing huge work projects in the face of the unknown, or grappling with lifelong biological challenges that affect their ability to have families they thought they’d have.

These are stories of people who have dealt with infertility in various ways, and the emotional, psychological, and career impacts that these journeys have on their lives. Here at Startup Parent, one of our missions is to tell the truth about what becoming a parent actually entails, which includes the whole story and not skipping over the hard parts to race to a shiny, packaged happy ending.

Here’s a playlist of six stories from real people about what it was like for them. While several of them were able to have children, some of them stopped having children after the incredible difficulties they faced. Others didn’t know if they’d ever leave the ongoing limbo of infertility. Some faced challenging losses. Plus, the world will say that having a kid is the cherry on top—but the truth is more likely that even if someone does eventually have children, the losses are still profound.

Along the way, you’ll hear what it was like to realize that their family narrative would change, the decisions they each made, and what it was like to deal with how helpless and out-of-control it can all feel.

This playlist is for everyone going through fertility struggles. You are not alone.

Infertility, Miscarriage, & Loss: Six Startup Parent Stories

In this collection, graphic novelist Lucy Knisley talks about how the medical establishment ignored nearly all of her concerns, and what it took to finally discover she had a heart-shaped uterus that made pregnancy phenomenally difficult. Reina Pomeroy tells her story of unexplained infertility, and how it took 3.5 years to conceive a second child. Journalist Katherine Goldstein explains the implications of the dominant cultural stories of what pregnancy “should” look like, and how that affects people who don’t fit into the “at least you have a kid” narrative.

Tracy Candido and Karina Mangu-Ward, who describe themselves very driven folks with Type A personalities, shared their struggle to get pregnant and how it affected the way they showed up. I also invited “Anne,” an anonymous guest, to share the invisible weight of infertility and going through the world unseen by others. She talks about the emotional weight, and how the unknown affected her work drive, her ambitions, and her ability to plan for the future.

Pregnancy losses also include babies that are stillborn—the death or loss of a baby before or during delivery. Christine McAlister shared her story of losing a child to stillbirth, and how it led her to create a foundation in Maeve’s honor. Stillbirth affects about 1 in 175 births in the United States, and it is even higher for Black women and people in poverty.

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EPISODE DETAILS

The Invisible Emotional Weight of Infertility

After seeing the doctor for preliminary tests, “Anne” (an anonymous guest) learned that she wasn’t ovulating. She was diagnosed with unexplained infertility. At the moment in time we recorded this episode, she finds herself stuck between hope and full mourning. She is always carrying the invisible emotional weight that comes with not knowing what the future holds. Episode #026 with Anne (Anonymous).

Unexplained Infertility and Letting Go of Control

Tracy Candido and Karina Mangu-Ward are both very driven women with Type A personalities who bring intention to everything they do. So when they were struggling to get pregnant and came to realize that Tracy had unexplained infertility, the couple had to develop new skills around patience and asking for help. In Karina’s words, they had to loosen their grip on what they could manage and control and be ‘at peace in the chaos.’ They also share their unique perspective on 50/50 parenting and what they’ve designed in their household. Episode #032 with Tracy Candido and Karina Mangu-Ward.

If You Work Hard Enough You Can Do Anything, Except Get Pregnant

What happens when the medical establishment ignores your concerns, complaints and symptoms? Lucy Knisley had doctors telling her everything was normal, but her experience of trying to concieve was riddled with losses. Finally, she was diagnosed with a collapsed uterus, making implantation difficult to impossible. After a surgery, she was able to conceive, but the resulting pregnancy and birth were so challenging, she and her partner ultimately decided one kid was all they wanted to have: it was too risky to try for more. Episode #118 with Lucy Knisley.

Unexplained Secondary Infertility: When It Took 3.5 Years For The Second Kid After An Easy First

“[Unexplained] infertility is an emotional journey, like just not knowing and the doctor saying, ‘We don’t know what’s wrong with you essentially. You look healthy. Your husband looks healthy. Everything looks fine, but we don’t know why nothing is happening for you… I felt like my body had betrayed me, and the first around, it went so smooth that I was like, ‘Why can’t I get this done again? Why can’t my body naturally conceive?’” Episode #114 with Reina Pomeroy.

The Myths of Miscarriage: Katherine Goldstein on Mother’s Rage and The Lean In Fallacy

What happens when you get pregnant as you are trying to launch a podcast about bias in the workplace against mothers? Journalist Katherine Goldstein shares how the dominant cultural story of what pregnancy should look like sweeps stories about miscarriage and fertility trauma under the rug. “As long as you have a kid,” is the rushed, important part, as though that’s the only part of the journey worth looking at. Episode #115 with Katherine Goldstein.

Rainbow Babies and Pregnancy Loss: 1 in 100

Though stillbirth is fairly common (impacting about 1 in 100 pregnancies in the US) it is a painful topic of conversation. But Christine McAlister likes talking about Maeve, the daughter she lost, to keep her memory alive. In fact, Maeve inspired Christine’s business, Life with Passion. We need to talk about the hard things, because life is a hard thing, and pregnancy is all about life. Christine shares how she moved forward despite a devastating pregnancy loss, and what it looked like to try again. She also shares the story of her thriving business and how she built it. Episode #090 with Christine McAlister.

FERTILITY NOTES

Fertility is a much larger challenge, for individuals trying to start families, and also for society at large. Here are some key facts:

Infertility is generally defined as the inability to get pregnant (conceive) after one year or longer of unprotected sex.
In the United States, according to the CDC, “among heterosexual women aged 15 to 49 years with no prior births, about 1 in 5 are unable to get pregnancy after one year of trying (infertility). In addition, about 1 in 4 women in this group have difficulty getting pregnant or carrying a pregnancy to term (impaired fecundity).”
Men aged 40 years or older are more likely to report difficulty in conceiving. Infertility in men can be caused by hormonal disorders, genetic disorders, medical conditions, trauma to the testes, and more.
Both men and women’s fertility declines with age.“Women younger than 30 have about a 20% change of getting pregnancy each month,” but “by age 40, the change of pregnancy is about 5% each month.” For men older than 40, it takes longer for partners to conceive—around two years for men over 45 (compared to around five months
About 9% of men and about 11% of women in the United States struggle with infertility, according to data from the CDC in a study conducted from 1982-2010.

In addition, there is some cause for concern about population-wide declines in fertility. In Western countries, fertility is declining in males by about 1% per year and miscarriages in females are increasing by about 1% per year. This may seem like a small amount, but it “adds up to more than 10 percent per decade and more than 50 percent over 50 years,” according to Shanna Swan and Stacey Colino in a 2021 article in Scientific American. They describe the link between reproductive health and hormone-altering chemicals, as well as what it means for our future collective fertility.

There’s so much more to the conversation on infertility, loss, and reproductive health, but for now: please know that this is not your fault, and you are not alone.

— Sarah Peck
CEO & Founder
Startup Parent

THE STARTUP PARENT PODCAST

The Startup Parent podcast focuses on people at the intersection of business building and starting a family—so if you’re leading an organization, running a business, or figuring out entrepreneurship with family or kids as well, then join us. Listen to The Startup Parent Podcast on Apple ★ Spotify ★ Google ★ Overcast ★ Stitcher ★ Castbox or find another podcast player and the RSS feed here.

It's Not That Easy to Get Pregnant