0:14

Pushkin.

0:20

Hey, everyone, maya here. I

0:22

hope you're settling into the change of seasons.

0:25

October is Pregnancy and Infant

0:28

Loss Awareness Month, and it has

0:30

me reflecting on an experience that

0:32

my husband and I, along with our gestational

0:35

surrogate Hailey, navigated a few

0:37

years ago. Many of

0:39

you know about my slight change of plans

0:41

when I hurt my hand and had to give up my dream

0:43

of becoming a concert violinist. This

0:46

is another important part of my story,

0:49

and I hope that sharing my reflections

0:51

might bring some comfort if you've experienced

0:53

loss of any kind. I appreciate

0:56

your listening. Dad

1:09

jokes that when I was like a

1:11

five year old or whatnot, he'd come down to the

1:13

basement and I'd be with my little

1:15

kitchen set. I'd be on this pretend phone

1:18

having conversations

1:20

with my fictitious neighbors about

1:22

my rebellious children. I'd

1:24

be like, Oh, you wouldn't believe it, Karen, Little

1:27

Bobby is driving me crazy. First

1:29

of all, it says a lot about my assimilation

1:32

that my child's name was Bobby, despite

1:34

the fact I'm Indian and Rob

1:37

you might have been more appropriate. But I

1:39

don't think there's ever been anything more that

1:41

mattered to me than eventually

1:45

becoming a parent. I mean, it's just it's

1:48

always been a guiding force. That's

1:51

me, Maya Shunker. As you

1:53

can probably tell, we're mixing things up

1:55

on today's episode. Instead

1:57

of coming to you as the host, Maya Shunker,

2:00

cognitive scientist, I'm coming

2:02

to you as just me Maya.

2:05

Recently, I was on my way to finally

2:07

becoming a mom, which had in years in the

2:09

making. When my husband Jimmy,

2:12

and I learned I can't healthily carry a baby.

2:14

We explored gestational surrogacy, having

2:17

someone else carry our baby. This

2:20

has involved fertility treatments, freezing

2:22

our embryos, and finding a surrogate match.

2:27

Things were finally coming together these

2:29

past few months until we

2:31

were thrown our own change of plans.

2:36

I never intended to share such a deeply

2:38

personal story, but then I

2:40

realized that's kind of what this show is all

2:42

about. My guests come here

2:44

to process their experiences with change

2:47

out loud, and I realized I

2:49

wanted to do the same. So two

2:51

days after I got some terrible news, I

2:54

asked my producer and friend Tyler

2:56

Green, to turn on the mics and interview

2:58

me. This

3:04

is a slight change of plants, a show

3:06

about who we are and who we become

3:09

in the face of a big change.

3:21

We started our conversation by talking about

3:23

Jimmy and me and our search for a surrogate

3:25

match when we moved out to California.

3:28

That's really when our journey began. And

3:31

it's very scary, obviously, right. I

3:33

mean, to trust someone so

3:36

much that you're willing to put your

3:38

child's development and well being in their hands

3:42

is nothing small, you know, So,

3:46

I mean, the surrogacy matching

3:49

process is so

3:51

interesting. It feels like you're

3:54

dating again, Like you're looking at all these

3:56

profiles of women

3:59

who can potentially carry your baby. And unlike

4:02

a traditional dating profile, which is like, you

4:04

know, I love playing soccer and making

4:07

dinners, they're like, you know, here's

4:11

my dynocological history, and here's

4:14

the nature of my three berths that I had with.

4:16

My own children.

4:17

It feels totally nuts to be learning

4:20

some intimate details about a person's

4:22

medical history and to be judging

4:25

compatibility based on based

4:27

on these factors. It's like, hey,

4:29

how's your uterine lining? Does it respond

4:32

well to fertility treatments? You know?

4:33

Like, that's nuts.

4:35

Usually, as I go about the world, I'm focusing on people's

4:37

personalities and whether I like them and

4:39

whether they like me. And suddenly

4:42

you're in this world where all these bizarre metrics

4:44

matter more than anything else, which is this person's

4:46

pregnancy history and their ability to conceive.

4:49

You're like, it's not match dot com anymore,

4:51

but it looks almost the same.

4:52

There's all these things exactly.

4:54

But wow, didn't know I needed to know that

4:56

exactly.

4:58

So we're sifting through all these profiles and

5:02

we come across one. Her name's

5:04

Haley, sorry,

5:08

okay, and

5:11

she just looks perfect.

5:14

She looks perfect.

5:18

She's smiling in her photo with Minnie

5:21

Mouse ears on her

5:23

head. It's a picture with her and her daughter in

5:25

like Disney World. I

5:28

read her profile. She's

5:32

got three beautiful children of her own. She's

5:35

a stay at home mom. She is

5:38

incredibly artistic and creative and builds

5:40

amazing things in her home. And

5:43

she's also a social activist. And

5:45

I still remember when I looked at her profile. You

5:47

know, usually you write a paragraph about yourself at

5:50

the end, to just say you know why you're

5:52

interested in being a surrogate and what

5:54

draws you to it, and you

5:56

know, this is an opportunity for women to say

5:59

why they think they'd be a great surrogate for you. And

6:01

she said, I feel so

6:03

self conscious talking positively

6:05

about myself. I've asked my sister instead

6:08

to share what why

6:10

she thinks, you know, I might make a great

6:12

surrogate. And it

6:14

was such a beautiful description of

6:16

Haley, you know, generous

6:19

in such a deep way, so

6:21

loving, so caring, and

6:24

so loyal. And you know, at the time,

6:26

I didn't know how much that loyalty

6:28

trait would matter, but

6:31

it did, and so I still remember it was the middle

6:33

of my work day and I go into a conference

6:35

room and we meet Haley over video,

6:38

and it was it was

6:40

like love at first sight, you know, that's the best way

6:42

to describe it. I think we

6:44

all felt so bonded to each other.

6:48

I'd always seen it as.

6:49

Such a liability, like why can't I carry

6:52

this baby? Why can't I carry this baby? And

6:54

when I met Haley for the first time ever, I

6:57

thought, It's

7:00

okay. Knowing

7:02

her and having it be her will

7:05

make this We'll make this just

7:07

as good, even better,

7:09

because I had the opportunity to get to know someone like

7:11

her and I had never felt that way

7:14

before. You know, usually after

7:16

a video call like that, you give both sides

7:18

some time to figure out whether they think it's right.

7:21

I think we just wrote to each other within like a.

7:23

Minute, like we're in, the other sides like we're in,

7:25

and so we might have been the fastest

7:27

match that ever happened.

7:29

I love that. So

7:32

what happens next?

7:34

We plan to do our embryo transfer

7:37

in February of twenty

7:39

twenty, so she comes out

7:41

here. And there's

7:44

also there's also this like grading

7:46

system with embryos. They look at the embryos under

7:48

a microscope, and so it's like, oh, this one's a

7:51

six double A and this one's a two DD, And

7:54

you're like, is this predictive of anything? Like

7:56

I'm walking down the street being like, is

7:58

that person a six double A? Like, what's

8:01

Obama?

8:02

Six? Triple A? For sure? Probably a seven?

8:04

Just a seven?

8:05

What's Beyonce? I need to know what

8:08

Beyonce is? Like if Beyonce was

8:10

a like three CB or

8:12

like a two d D, that gives hope to embryos

8:14

everywhere. Okay, So anyway,

8:17

we were we chose our best looking

8:19

embryo and they were all genetically tested,

8:21

so we had you know, we knew that they were chromosomally

8:23

normal.

8:24

So we choose choose our best one.

8:25

And I

8:28

remember sitting in the ultrasound room that day because

8:31

you know, Kaylee was She's

8:33

so inclusive throughout the process. You

8:35

know, I was like, do you prefer we're out of the room

8:37

in the room, like at the end of the day, this is her body,

8:40

and she said, I can't imagine not having you guys in

8:43

the room.

8:44

So we're in the room. The lights go off and

8:48

I see.

8:48

Them take our little

8:50

girl embryo and implant

8:53

her, and I I was

8:56

overwhelmed by emotion and

8:58

like, I didn't even I don't think of myself as that kind

9:00

of person, like Jimmy's the one

9:02

who cries at Disney movies, up

9:05

Mulan the Lion King. Like I

9:07

might get a little, you know, heary eyed. But I

9:10

was so surprised, and I think it was we

9:13

can cry for lots of reasons, but I think it

9:16

was it was a combination of so many

9:18

factors. I think one was profound

9:21

relief that this moment was finally happening.

9:23

You know, it had been years

9:25

in the making, to just see it happening

9:28

finally with like a real human Haley

9:30

sitting there like that was overwhelming

9:32

for me. And then I

9:35

also just visualized her. I was like, oh, well, she

9:37

have thick, curly hair like me. You know,

9:39

you just have these images. I just imagine her with

9:41

like you know, I kind of had just

9:43

a bunch of curls shooting off my head when I was a kid,

9:46

and they had There was no order, it was just randomness

9:49

everywhere. I was like, I wonder, she'll have my you know, Shirley

9:51

Temple spiral curls, but

9:55

with like an ethnic twist because they're you know, kind

9:57

of it's I have textured hair.

9:58

I have to see those pictures. By the way, I'm not letting that go.

10:01

I will send them to you and

10:03

so. And I just remember holding

10:05

Jimmy's hands so tightly and

10:09

it was a beautiful moment. And you know, we

10:11

left and obviously we have nerves and whatnot. And

10:15

you know the way that it works, you're supposed

10:17

to wait until ten days after to do the formal blood

10:19

work. That Haley wasn't going to wait,

10:22

so she was going to the store buying

10:24

pregnancy tests. She proceeds

10:26

to send us images of all the pregnancy

10:28

tests she's been taking over the preceding days of the line

10:31

darkening and darkening and darkening, and

10:34

it's very positive. And she gets her

10:36

blood test done and we're

10:39

having a.

10:40

Baby girl, you know.

10:42

And so we're over the moon and

10:45

we sign in buy a video

10:48

to that first ulture sound and

10:50

we see her little heart beating and

10:53

in the same way that Haley was perfect to us, that little

10:55

embryo seemed freaking perfect

10:58

to us, too, so cute and

11:00

like the nurse said to Haley and us, your

11:03

little gal's measuring perfectly. Her heart's

11:05

beating at a perfect rate. We're good and

11:08

so yeah,

11:10

we felt so relieved, you know. And

11:13

we go home and it's so

11:15

funny how these surrogacy pregnancies

11:17

work. You know, you want to be able

11:19

to control things, so you end up focusing on

11:21

really small things like is her a multi

11:24

vitamin? Like the best version

11:26

of the multi vitamin, you know, Like how

11:28

much folic acid is she getting? You know,

11:30

Like you just start asking yourself all these really

11:32

small things. It's a it's

11:35

like that Iceberg analogy. You just see

11:37

the tips. So you focus on all those things that you think are in your

11:39

control, but underneath the surface there's a ton

11:41

of stuff that's totally not

11:44

present to you and is totally out of your control. And

11:47

it's about nine thirty at night, and all of

11:49

a sudden, we get a text from Haley

11:51

and she says, are you guys up? And

11:55

we immediately know something's wrong, because, like,

11:57

why is she texting us at eleven

12:00

thirty her time asking you for up? We

12:03

call her and she says, I

12:05

just started bleeding profusely and I

12:08

think I maybe miscarrying and I'm

12:10

not sure what's happening. And

12:13

my heart just sank and I was like, oh

12:15

my god, how is this possible. We just

12:17

saw the baby a few hours ago on

12:19

the ultrasound, you know, looking super

12:22

healthy and happy, and Hayley

12:24

was healthy and happy. Like it just felt

12:26

like a tragedy, you know, And to go from

12:28

the highest of highs to the lowest of lows

12:30

within a six hour period, it

12:32

just felt cruel. Sure

12:35

enough, she goes in the next morning for an ultrasound

12:37

and there's

12:39

nothing there, you know, like

12:43

there was something there the day before, but there's nothing there

12:45

today.

12:46

That's what they told us.

12:48

So she had

12:50

miscarried and I will

12:52

tell you the hardest part about a surrogacy

12:54

journey is that there's

12:59

a third person grieving along with you, and

13:02

that's so excruciating. It's like, Jimmy

13:05

and I felt like we could manage our own pain, but

13:08

to see someone who

13:11

was so loving and only wanted to

13:13

bring us joy suffering

13:15

and in pain and going through the physical trauma

13:18

of a miscarriage like bleeding

13:20

throughout the entire night and horrible cramping

13:22

and feeling nauseated

13:24

and dizzy and all the things. Like, it's

13:27

so horrible. It's so horrible to have a

13:29

third person. And you know, in our minds, we're

13:31

thinking, because

13:34

guilt is an inevitable feeling on all

13:36

on all sides, we're thinking to ourselves like we're

13:39

the reason Haley had our first miscarriage,

13:42

you know, That's what we're thinking. And Haley's

13:44

probably thinking why did this happen?

13:47

Like why why?

13:47

Why couldn't I make this work? And we're all

13:49

having these irrational thoughts that are not rooted

13:53

in real things, because

13:55

you just want to find an explanation.

13:57

You know, you want to.

13:59

You want to blame someone, and the easiest person

14:02

to blame is yourself or like who

14:04

else am I to blame the universe? Like I don't you

14:06

know, so I just wanted to blame myself.

14:09

For everything.

14:11

And so

14:13

so that happens, And the reason why it was so painful, Tyler,

14:15

is that it happened the day

14:17

before we all entered quarantine in California,

14:21

so we couldn't even grieve with our close

14:24

friends and family, like the very small

14:26

circle of people we had told about this pregnancy.

14:30

And at this point, where you were you thinking,

14:33

I'm sure you had actually many thoughts

14:35

at this point, like should we work

14:37

together with Haley again or somebody

14:40

else?

14:41

It's a great question. We

14:43

so desperately wanted to work with Haley, and

14:46

we were hoping doctors would tell us that we could,

14:49

that it would make sense to Unfortunately, you

14:51

know, they said, we have no

14:53

reason to believe anything really

14:56

about this situation, like there's a lot of miscarriages

14:58

at six weeks, and we were really

15:00

concerned at the time, like, well, Haley be down for

15:03

this. She just went through a traumatic experience

15:06

and one that she did not you

15:08

know, you can sign up

15:10

for this, but like do you really know what that's going to

15:12

be? Like, you know, and so one

15:15

thing that really touched our hearts is when she said, I'm

15:18

in this with you until the end. I

15:21

will do this until you become parents.

15:24

And just to catch us up on the timeline,

15:27

so this is this is again

15:29

March of twenty twenty exactly. And then

15:31

at some point you make a decision to

15:34

try again or you're able to try again.

15:37

Yeah, so we all get vaccinated,

15:41

but we try again, and so she comes out here

15:43

and we go through the whole process again. So

15:46

this is August of twenty

15:49

twenty one. Okay, so

15:51

it's August twenty twenty one. Haley flies out

15:53

here and we just had a wonderful time because it was

15:56

in some ways it was as though no time has passed,

15:59

right because we felt so close to her. But in other ways

16:01

it was as though so much time had passed, because

16:03

you could see changes in the depth of our conversation

16:06

and just how comfortable we felt

16:09

with each other.

16:11

And so we go into the room and.

16:14

I can already feel some of the light you

16:16

know, PTSD feelings kicking in because

16:18

this time when we're doing the ultrasound,

16:21

I don't cry to do the transfer, I mean,

16:23

you know, the embryo transfer. I'm

16:25

just I'm holding my breath

16:27

more than I did the first time. Like I

16:30

feel a little anxious, you know, and

16:33

you know everyone's like, just stay positive, stay positive,

16:35

stay positive.

16:36

So I so we stayed positive.

16:38

And within two weeks we

16:41

got those darkening line pregnancy tests.

16:45

I told her that, you know her, her hormone levels

16:47

were super high this time. So I was like, Haley,

16:49

you're pregnant AF. So that was

16:51

our that was our WhatsApp group name, Haley's

16:53

Pregnant AF. We'll

16:58

be right back to the slight change of plans.

17:11

When Jimmy and I found out that Haley was pregnant

17:14

again, we were ecstatic. We

17:16

had transferred one embryo and we felt so

17:18

fortunate it had worked. Jimmy

17:20

and I would go for long walks together and

17:23

start imagining what life would be like with

17:25

our little Chinese Indian baby, and

17:30

we named her like Karina, that's

17:32

going to be our name. So as pregnant AF with Karina

17:34

shunker Lee. And she's

17:39

pregnant, and like

17:42

clockwork, on exactly the same day, Haley

17:44

gets morning sickness as she did the first pregnancy.

17:47

Everything's going super well, her levels are looking

17:50

super strong.

17:51

And.

17:54

I just start I just start feeling anxious

17:56

as the six week mark approaches, because

18:00

it feels very irrational and like there's no reason

18:02

at all to believe that if there's a miscarriage, it would happen,

18:05

you know, at the six week mark, right like it could

18:07

happen at seven and a half weeks, it could happen, you

18:10

know, twenty weeks. You just don't know in this process.

18:12

So I felt like I was getting irrationally

18:15

anxious. So I kept trying to talk myself

18:17

off, talk myself off the ledge and be like, there's no reason

18:19

to believe this would happen. I'd

18:23

set up an email address for Karina,

18:26

and I'd been sending her emails along the way about

18:28

the pregnancy, about Haley. It's like, hey, you

18:30

know, hey little Karina, it's

18:32

mom. You know, here's an update. And I remember

18:34

I wrote to her the night before. I said, Hey, tomorrow

18:39

is a really big milestone for us,

18:42

because we get through it. Like it's

18:44

one day more, you know, that next day

18:46

it's one day more than the last pregnancy, and

18:49

I just feel like I'll feel some relief. It's

18:53

Tuesday morning. I wake up and

18:57

I have relief because I look at my phone, and I'm

18:59

like, there's no message from

19:01

her saying that she bled overnight. And

19:06

then she texts us saying, you know, I was a little scared

19:08

this morning because I woke up not feeling morning

19:10

sickness. She had had other days

19:12

like that, so it wasn't immediately alarming. And

19:17

then at ten thirty am, I get a message

19:19

from her and she says, I just

19:21

had a gush of blood and

19:23

my heart sank.

19:24

I was like, you have got to be kidding

19:27

me.

19:28

How is this happening again, like on

19:30

exactly the same day as last time,

19:32

Like it just it didn't make any

19:34

sense, And so we called the doctor and they they're

19:38

like, Okay, it could be a miscarriage. However, it

19:40

could be another thing. It could be a hematoma. Right,

19:42

It could be that there is some blood pooling in

19:44

that area and it just needs to get out. Why

19:46

don't we have her goat get an ultrasound? And so

19:49

even though she's like actively bleeding, she goes

19:51

to get this ultrasound and we're

19:56

expecting the worst. I mean, I'm an optimist,

19:58

so of course, until you tell me like,

20:02

no, there's nothing there, I'm always going to hope. I'm

20:04

always going to hold on to that shred. I think Jimmy

20:06

at this point had just given up. He was like, Maya, all

20:08

hope is lost. And this incredibly

20:11

kind doctor is on the call

20:14

and he's doing the

20:16

ultrasound. He's like, there's your baby,

20:19

and her heart beat's perfect, it's one hundred and sixty.

20:21

She's measuring exactly as she should at six

20:24

weeks, and oh my god, there

20:26

is that hematoma, Like there is

20:28

this blood pool, and so that

20:30

does explain the bleeding. Like, you guys are good.

20:33

And I was just sobbing,

20:35

like the relief that I felt, Oh

20:38

my gosh, there's an explanation and

20:40

our baby is looking great and we're

20:42

going to have this child. And then he

20:45

goes over the area again and he goes, oh

20:48

my god, there's another one. You

20:50

guys are having twins, and

20:54

that one's also perfect. That

20:57

one has a beautiful heartbeat and is

20:59

measuring great. You

21:01

guys are having twins. And

21:04

Hailey was so happy, and I remember

21:07

in that moment I said to her, I said, look,

21:09

I'm grateful for one or two. I

21:12

don't I didn't need to. I just just wanted

21:14

one, you know. But what matters

21:17

to me most is that it's with you. And

21:19

so what I just kept saying, I was like, I wanted this to be

21:21

with Haley. I wanted this to be with Haley, and it's with

21:24

you, and we get to do this journey with you. And

21:28

Jimmy and I take a walk at this point of the day. We're

21:30

like, let's just get some fresh air. And now

21:32

we're planning our life with twins. We're

21:34

thinking to ourselves, if you need to buy a home, there

21:36

should be like many bedrooms,

21:39

and how are we gonna care for twins?

21:41

And we start thinking about a second. You know, Haley

21:43

had said, I guess it's time to start thinking of another name.

21:45

So we're like, what goes well with Karina, you know, And we

21:47

just start brainstorming and we

21:49

have this walk and it's just like we're floating on

21:52

air, you know it. We

21:54

can't wait to tell the people who we've told that

21:56

she's miscarried to that it's actually the opposite.

21:58

And you're not even just getting one, We're getting two.

22:02

So I

22:04

go back home and I text Haley

22:07

and I say, you know, I leaded

22:09

the what to expect act on my phone this

22:11

morning when I got the news about the blood because

22:13

I didn't want to get my hopes up and I just wanted it. I

22:16

wanted to remove all evidence of that of my phone and

22:18

I said maybe I should reinstall it. And

22:21

her response was, guys,

22:27

the thing that I've been bleeding out recently,

22:30

like, it's not it's not blood. And

22:36

she takes a picture of it and

22:38

we send it to our doctor and our doctor

22:41

calls us. We're like, could this be anything?

22:43

Could this be?

22:44

Like?

22:45

What is this?

22:48

You know Jimmy studied biology in college. He's like,

22:50

my MAYI that's his nickname for

22:52

me. He's like, this is not a blood clot. I'm so sorry.

22:55

And when the doctor looked at it, I just remember

22:58

I heard I heard the sound in her voice. She's

23:00

like, you know you could hear it, Like

23:02

I knew the answer before she said it. She goes, I'm

23:04

just so sorry, guys. I can't believe

23:06

this has happened. And

23:14

it's hard to describe what that feels like. I wanted

23:16

to throw up. I felt totally

23:19

nauseated and disoriented. I

23:23

felt so sad

23:26

that Haley was suffering. I felt so sad

23:28

she was going through this trauma again. And

23:33

it was confirmed by a ultrasound that there was

23:35

nothing there anymore.

23:37

The next morning, and

23:41

the hardest part of this process was learning that

23:45

our embryos were actually great, and Haley

23:47

was great, but very likely there's

23:50

some sort of incompatibility

23:54

between our biologies. The doctor's best

23:57

guest right now is that her immune

23:59

system sees our embryos as foreign

24:02

in some way. I asked

24:04

my doctor, I said, have you ever seen

24:06

this before? And she said no, And

24:07

I think there's

24:10

a bizarre immune response happening here.

24:14

And what that meant is we can't work with her anymore.

24:17

She said to me this morning, She goes, it is so cruel

24:20

that a relationship that is so compatible

24:22

is biologically incompatible, and

24:26

you just can't fight biology.

24:28

What are you going to do?

24:29

You know, the doctors are like, this

24:32

would probably happen again, and we can't put you

24:34

guys through that. You can't put yourselves through that. You

24:36

just have to find another surrogate.

24:39

And what's again I'm astonishing to us, is

24:41

like Haley was willing to try again

24:43

with us and again and again, because that's

24:45

the kind of person she is. And

24:48

I'm just overwhelmed still that someone

24:51

would go through this, go

24:54

through this pain, because she's so eager

24:56

to make us happy. That's an

24:58

incredible gift. I've never met anybody

25:01

like her in my life. I probably

25:03

never will.

25:04

Yeah, so i'm hearing you tell

25:06

this story, I just want to acknowledge that it

25:10

is incredibly harrowing and

25:13

what you've gone through over the last few days is

25:17

horrible, and yeah,

25:19

I am so sorry.

25:22

Thank you.

25:25

You know. I'm

25:28

also struck by the fact that you

25:31

have gone through this experience

25:33

twice now, and

25:36

that the first time that Haley

25:38

miscarried was back in

25:40

March of twenty twenty when

25:43

COVID was beginning for all of us,

25:45

and I just remember that the

25:47

world was sort of changing overnight

25:50

for many of us, and then on

25:52

top of that change, you had this

25:54

other incredible loss,

25:57

And I'm curious, what

25:59

was that experience? Like?

26:03

It was really hard, it's

26:05

very lonely, it's

26:08

very iclating. You

26:12

feel like people can intellectualize

26:14

it, but also maybe

26:16

not just fully understand the emotions behind it,

26:18

because I didn't fully understand

26:20

the emotions behind it until I went

26:23

through it myself. I

26:25

just didn't. It built

26:28

my empathy so much, and

26:30

the way that I dealt with it, Tyler was I

26:36

was like, I have to make something good out of this, and

26:39

then it's funny to think

26:41

back, I've just forgotten about this until

26:43

you mentioned it. Like I thought

26:45

of this podcast idea called a Slight Change of

26:47

Plans, and it was

26:49

a grief project for me.

26:51

It was my way of.

26:55

Trying to find meaning and answers

26:58

in a situation that I couldn't find meaning and answers

27:00

in. And I didn't

27:03

know how to navigate the change

27:06

that was happening in my life. I didn't know how to navigate

27:09

miscarriage. I didn't know how to navigate COVID.

27:11

I didn't know how to navigate all the loss that was

27:13

happening in the world. I didn't know how to navigate

27:15

the racial injustice. I

27:18

felt completely overwhelmed,

27:20

and I just thought to myself,

27:23

I know that I'm not alone in not knowing

27:25

how to navigate this moment. I

27:28

know that there is a

27:31

treasure trove of wisdom out there on how

27:33

to navigate change, especially unwanted,

27:35

unexpected change, and it's just

27:37

a matter of finding those

27:40

stories and learning from them.

27:43

And that's what led me to build the show. It

27:46

came out of a personal desire

27:48

to understand how it is

27:50

that people navigate change and

27:53

to learn from them, because you know, I'm a scientist,

27:55

write a cognitive scientist. I study how the mind

27:57

works, I study change. I

28:00

know the science, but the science was falling short

28:02

for me, and I felt like I needed

28:04

to hear people's stories and I needed

28:06

to emotionally connect with people.

28:09

It strikes me as I think I knew that, but

28:11

I'm just hearing it for the first time, that

28:14

this was your grief process, Right, I'm

28:17

saying that correctly, Like this was how in a way

28:19

how you grieved, Right.

28:20

Yeah, I don't, and I don't think I really

28:22

made the connection fully until this moment

28:25

where everyone

28:29

grieves differently, you know, like

28:31

I was. I was talking to Michael

28:33

Lewis after the tragic passing of his daughter,

28:36

and he said, Maya, no one knows

28:38

shit about grief. Everyone's

28:40

telling me how to feel, everyone's telling me what book

28:43

to read, Everyone's telling me to do this and see this therapist

28:45

and talk about No. I need to create

28:47

the Michael Lewis plan how I grieve. And

28:50

he's so freaking right about that, Like there

28:53

is no one size fits all recipe

28:56

for how to grieve. There's no one size

28:58

fits all recipe for how to change, how

29:00

to deal with change. And that's

29:03

a sobering realization. When you're in the throes

29:06

of grief, you just want answers, you

29:08

want a solution set, and you can't

29:10

get it, and so what you do instead

29:13

is realize, well,

29:15

I have to find I have to create a Maya plan, and

29:18

I do my best when I'm

29:20

active, and I throw myself

29:22

into passion projects when I'm in

29:24

a bad place.

29:25

Like that is.

29:26

Everyone has their own recipe, but for me, that is

29:28

how I heal to process out loud, to

29:31

be open with people, to throw myselves into

29:33

creative projects that can hopefully help

29:35

people and make people feel stronger.

29:39

So, Maya, we've been talking for

29:41

the last couple of days, and

29:44

it might be too soon to answer

29:46

this question, but I'm curious to know what

29:48

you've learned about yourself from all

29:51

of this.

29:55

I learned that I'm really bad at acceptance. I

29:59

always want to justify things. I

30:01

always want to resist

30:05

the randomness in our world that I know is just

30:07

randomness.

30:08

You know I don't.

30:09

I don't have religious or

30:11

spiritual beliefs that help

30:13

guide me through these situations. I do just

30:15

believe in people

30:17

having bad fortunes in life, you know. But

30:22

I'm b at acceptance, which means I tap into

30:24

a very natural part of my psychology, which

30:26

is to tell stories, to

30:29

try to make sense of this, to try to find

30:31

something find something good that

30:33

can emerge from this experience.

30:35

It's one of the reasons i'm talking with you today because

30:38

I need something good to come from this. And if

30:41

one listener hears this and

30:44

feels that they're not alone,

30:47

then that is a silver lining. I

30:49

want everyone to know that my husband

30:51

and I went through this, because

30:55

the more we talk about it, the more we can support one

30:57

another. I

31:01

think what I learned is you

31:07

don't as a person. You don't even grew the same

31:09

way every time I'm

31:12

grieving. I don't know yet all

31:14

the ways, but I feel

31:16

like I'm grieving the loss of these

31:19

twins differently than I did the

31:22

loss we had last year. It

31:24

feels very different, and

31:31

in some ways, in

31:34

some ways it feels strangely

31:37

easier because I feel stronger

31:40

because I know that I

31:42

know that I've done this before and

31:45

I did make it out the other end, And

31:50

maybe that's the hope I can give to listeners

31:52

like these

31:55

experiences can make you stronger. You

31:57

can learn how to you can

32:00

learn what helps you build resilience in

32:02

your life along the way, and you can try to do

32:04

that.

32:07

What would you say to Haley in this moment.

32:12

That I love her and

32:15

life works in really interesting ways. You

32:17

don't know the kinds of people that you'll meet

32:20

and how they'll touch you. So

32:23

it's a gift. It's a gift that we got to know her.

32:25

That's why I that's why the

32:28

regret part of my brain has just kind of turned

32:30

off, because I'm like, wait, if

32:32

we hadn't gone through this experience, we wouldn't have met this

32:34

wonderful human being. And like that counts

32:37

too in life, right, we should

32:39

be putting weight on that too, Humans

32:42

who come into our lives and enrich our lives. Like

32:44

life is not just about achieving a series

32:46

of outcomes, it's also letting in and creating

32:48

space for unexpected,

32:51

beautiful gifts. And I think that's how

32:53

we feel with her.

32:55

I have such a deep appreciation for you

32:58

sharing this story today, and I

33:00

think that in you being so

33:02

open it is really

33:04

going to help a lot of people. And

33:08

I just want to give you a chances is there anything else

33:10

that you'd like to share?

33:13

I mean, I guess one thing i'd share is I

33:20

feel closed off right now about the

33:22

idea of a new surrogate entering our

33:24

lives. So fascinating

33:27

how these bonds formed, but it almost feels like a betrayal,

33:30

like how could I do this to Haley? Like

33:32

could how could we have somebody else? And

33:36

obviously she was saying like, you guys deserve

33:38

a child so much, and you know she

33:40

would only ever be so

33:42

supportive of our next steps. But

33:46

instinctively, I'm like, oh, I don't want to get close

33:48

to them. I don't want to have

33:50

my heart broken again. I want distance,

33:53

Like I can feel my protective defense

33:55

mechanisms kind.

33:56

Of in high alert. And

33:58

I talked to.

34:01

Our agency, our surrogacy agency

34:03

folks, and they've been amazing, And

34:08

none of them said to me, you know, Maya,

34:10

your future surrogate, deserves

34:15

your most loving self. That

34:18

had an impact on me. She

34:20

does deserve it, and

34:24

it wouldn't be right to shield her

34:26

from the love and gratitude that I feel. So

34:29

that means that I just need to put an effort in hard

34:32

work to get to a point where I can

34:34

open myself up again before

34:36

embarking on this journey again, because

34:40

she deserves to have all of Jimmy and me and

34:44

all of our openness and all of our love.

34:46

And so.

34:48

I guess as I look at next steps, that's my first

34:50

next step, before any of the logistics.

34:52

It is like figuring out how to feel hopeful

34:55

and open again. Join

35:18

me next week. When I talk to Oscar nominated

35:20

actor riz Achmed, we

35:22

talk about how finally playing a role based

35:24

on his own life has changed his understanding

35:27

of himself.

35:29

He's the one role I never get to play with someone like myself.

35:32

I realized that up until

35:35

this point as an actor, I'd become adept

35:37

to molding masks and

35:41

wearing them for other people and

35:44

representing other people, and realized

35:46

that actually the next stage of growth is about

35:49

not molding and wearing masks, but taking them off.

36:02

A Slight Change of Plans is creative, written

36:04

and executive produced by me Maya Schunker.

36:08

The best part of this show is getting

36:10

to collaborate with my formidable Slight

36:12

Change family. This includes

36:14

Tyler Green, our senior producer, whose

36:17

unrivaled empathy and kindness made

36:19

this episode possible. Jen

36:21

Guera our senior editor who brings

36:23

so much heart and conscientiousness

36:25

to her work on the show. Ben

36:27

Holliday, our sound engineer, Emily

36:30

Rosstek, our associate producer, and

36:32

Neia LaBelle, our executive producer. Louis

36:35

Scara wrote our delightful theme song,

36:38

and Ginger Smith helped arrange the vocals.

36:41

A Slight Change of Plans is a production of

36:43

Pushkin Industry, so big thanks to

36:45

everyone there. I'd

36:47

like to extend my heartfelt thanks to Haley,

36:50

my dear friend, for her openness

36:52

and having me share our story with all of you,

36:55

our fertility clinic for their compassion

36:57

and support during our experience, and

36:59

to Michael Lewis for his friendship

37:02

and advice, and of

37:04

course a very special thanks to

37:06

Jimmy Lee. You can

37:08

follow A Slight Change of Plans on Instagram

37:10

at doctor Maya Schunker, and

37:12

please remember to subscribe, share and

37:15

rate the show to help get the word out.

37:17

See you next week.

37:26

So spoiler alert, Jimmy and I are

37:28

not chill people about

37:30

this sort of thing, right, the health of our future baby.

37:33

Like Haley was telling us

37:35

that she

37:38

came home on a Saturday, and unbeknownst to her,

37:41

her husband had bought a bunny Oscar.

37:44

Okay, Now, typically

37:46

this would just be like, you know, Haley's my friend.

37:48

I'm like, oh my god, that's so much fun. You guys

37:50

have a bunny, send me pictures?

37:52

You know, how did you decide on the name Oscar? Right,

37:55

that's a normal conversation. And instantly

37:57

Jimmy and I are like, is this a pregnancy

38:00

hazard?

38:01

We go down? We go down

38:03

a rabbit hole, no fun.

38:05

Of doing research on like PubMed

38:07

and like, are there any viruses that rabbits

38:10

carry that can potentially be transmitted

38:12

to humans? And I just remember there

38:14

was this moment where Jimmy turned over to me

38:17

and moves his laptop

38:20

so I can see what he's looking at. And it's like he's

38:22

at like Rabbit Welfare dot co dot

38:24

UK looking at health facts and he looked at

38:26

me and he's like, I

38:30

never thought it would come to this.