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Today’s episode isn’t an easy one. We recorded this episode when we were at the end of the third trimester, but shortly after the conversation, we suffered a miscarriage (as you may have heard about). Even though we’re in a different space now, we still absolutely wanted to share this episode with you.
A year and a half after we got married, we got pregnant with our son Jonathan. We were so excited, and publicly shared that we were pregnant with our first baby. Just a week later, we found out that the pregnancy wasn’t viable and we were going to end up losing our baby. Naturally we wanted to find a reason or an explanation, and a way to make sure it wouldn’t ever happen again. But the hard truth is that sometimes it’s just out of your control.
In the first part of this episode, we’ll dig into that first pregnancy experience, including the aftermath, how we dealt with losing Jonathan, and why bunnies have become so important to us.
We’ll then move onto talking with our guests, Deb and Jake from FertilityIQ. Their website helps people find a doctor who will be a good fit based on anonymous reviews. The two of them were fertility patients who got pregnant and had two miscarriages, and felt like no one could give them a straight answer about anything. Ending up with the wrong doctor was a waste of time and money, and they were frustrated with not being able to find the right information.
Deb and Jake decided to do something about both of these problems! They started FertilityIQ to help people find the right doctor and to provide real data to help people make the right decisions. In our conversation, they’ll also talk about their own journey with infertility, including some of the things that they tried. No matter where you are along your fertility journey, this conversation should help you understand that you’re not alone and there are resources out there to help.
Today’s Guests:
FertilityIQ
FertilityIQ on Instagram
FertilityIQ on Facebook
FertilityIQ on Twitter
Deborah Anderson-Bialis on LinkedIn
Jake Anderson-Bialis on LinkedIn
In This Episode:
[01:51] - Jamie and Doug welcome listeners to the episode, joke about a fourth episode anniversary, and mention today’s guests, before talking about their experience with their first pregnancy.
[06:56] - A week after announcing their pregnancy, Jamie and Doug found that it wasn’t viable. They share details of the experience.
[12:22] - Jamie and Doug describe the moment that they learned that their pregnancy wasn’t viable.
[17:08] - We hear about the impact that Jonathan made on Jamie and Doug.
[22:00] - It’s nice to be around positivity, Doug points out.
[23:00] - Jamie introduces today’s guests, Deb and Jake from FertilityIQ, before we hear messages...
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By now you probably know that Jamie is pregnant again! We’re so excited, and want to bring you along on our journey. That’s why today’s episode includes the audio from the exact moment that Doug learned about the pregnancy. We had just gotten back from Disney, and he was feeding Henley. As you’ll hear, his reaction wasn’t as excited as it could have been (and neither was Henley’s), but you get to share in the genuine, real reaction rather than a staged moment.
Today’s amazing guests are the fantastic Erica Eckman from Everything Erica and her husband Dan, a real estate guru. She and I met on social media when she reached out on Instagram, and she’s honestly one of my best friends now. She and her husband are intelligent, down-to-earth, and just lovely people.
If you’ve ever wondered about how Erica and Jamie met, this is the episode for you! You’ll learn that Erica took a chance and reached out, the two featured each other, and the friendship blossomed organically from there. As Erica points out, you never know what might happen if you just say “hi”!
Erica is a fairly new mom, and the four of us will talk about the experiences of birth and parenthood. Of course having children is an amazing blessing, but there are definitely parts of the pregnancy, birth, and parenthood process that’s a struggle. There’s no shame in asking for help or not being able to do it all yourself.
We’ll dig into all sorts of things, including how Erica’s birth process went, whether men look at women’s vaginas differently after watching them give birth, how long the recovery process takes, how much it hurts after birth (including a story involving peeing on a nurse), the issues that can be involved in breastfeeding, and much more.
Today’s Guests:
Erica Eckman on LinkedIn
@everythingerica on Instagram
@dansdadlife on Instagram
Everything Erica
In This Episode:
[01:43] - Jamie and Doug chat about the podcast, and introduce today’s topic: Jamie’s pregnancy announcement to Doug!
[05:32] - We hear the audio from when Jamie announced her pregnancy to Doug right after getting back from Disney.
[10:08] - The reaction wasn’t as enthusiastic as it could have been, but at least it was genuine!
[13:57] - Erica Eckman from Everything Erica and her husband Dan are today’s amazing guests.
[16:57] - Jamie explains who Dan and Erica are for people who aren’t yet familiar with them.
[18:10] - Erica shares the story of how she and Jamie initially met.
[21:14] - Doug brings up the point of people surrounding themselves with people who they admire or look up to.
[23:31] - Did Erica deliver her daughter vaginally or through a C-section?
[28:35] - Since Jamie works in labor and delivery, she was interested in her birth process and even checked her own dilation.
[29:38] - How painful is it after having a baby?! Erica shares a post-birth bathroom story about the pain of even peeing.
[31:50] - Erica and Jamie chat about breastfeeding and Erica’s struggles with it.
[36:02] - Is the common sense of shame over not breastfeeding self-imposed shame, or is it from external sources?
[40:45] - Doug wonders whether there’s a good way to ask new mothers whether t...
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Last week, on our first-ever episode of our new podcast, we shared an exciting announcement. If you didn’t hear it, we won’t keep you in suspense: we’re pregnant!! Doug’s first reaction was concern for our wonderful daughter Henley, but we quickly got super excited.
After a couple stories about intimate moments gone very wrong, we’ll transition into talking about more important (and less, uh, personal) things: our two amazing guests today from our MAFS family! In case you’re not familiar with our story or the acronym, we met and got married on the same day on the first season of the show Married at First Sight.
Our guests, >Ashley Petta and Anthony D’Amico went through the same crazy experience in season 5, and it turned out wonderfully for them too! If you’ve ever doubted the idea of love at first sight, you need to watch their season. They’re still so in love, beautifully happy, and are super pregnant in their new house as we speak.
We’ll chat about the experience of moving while heavily pregnant, which is something we have in common. We’ll also dig into the topic of intimacy while pregnant, including suddenly-larger boobs that are off-limits (ouch!) and having sex while pregnant. We also share the stories of how we respectively revealed our babies’ genders.
You’ll learn that Anthony has special dream-powers, because he figured out his future wife’s first initial and his future baby’s gender through dreams. We then talk about baby names! We always knew we wanted to name our daughter Henley, but we don’t even have a boy’s name picked out. Ashley and Anthony aren’t ready to reveal their unborn daughter’s name yet, but they’ll share a name they aren’t using!
Tune in to hear more about all of this! We’ll also talk about how long house-hunting took for them, whether they have experience with other infants in the family, taking advantage of pregnancy (and nursing), putting swings together, conceiving our babies, and more. Our daughter Henley will even make an appearance!
Links and Resources:
Married at First Sight
Ashley Petta on Instagram
Anthony D’Amico on Instagram
Married at First Sight: Happily Ever After?
Erica Eckman on Instagram
Wifey 101 by Jamie Otis on Amazon
Wifey 101 (autographed copy)
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Doug and Jamie make their surprise announcement!
Jamie says,"Please don't judge me after hearing this".
Jamie is searching for her father.
Changes coming in Jamie's nursing career.
Plans for future episodes.
For full episode notes: https://jamieotis.com/1
Jamie's Book
Wifey 101 by Jamie Otis on Amazon
Wifey 101 (autographed copy)
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