Husband & Wife Q&A: Pregnancy Nutrition, His Experience & Do We Know The Gender?
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This is the Pursuit of Wellness podcast, and I'm your host, Mari Llewellyn. Nice studio. We're dusting it off. Thanks. You just dusted it off. You just did an episode. I know. How does it feel to see me at the office? I've had a cloud of anxiety that I didn't really know why I had it.

Well, I knew you were anxious for your day. A little bit. It's like first day of school. Yeah, you just had summer break. Yeah. So what was announced on episode one? That I'm pregnant. And I told the story. Oh. The HCG story. That was crazy. Yeah, crazy. It was like I was remembering it.

Like going through it and saying it all out loud. I was like, wow, that was really the worst thing ever. Like if you guys haven't listened to my episode titled I'm pregnant, go back and listen because I think it would give a lot of context as to what we're talking about. But yeah, they know I've been gone for two months. I've essentially kind of been like a hermit. No social media. I was like watching YouTube shorts. Yeah.

I had no idea what was going on in the world. Greg was like filling me in kind of. I loved it. I mean, for context, obviously, like the biggest one of the biggest blessings in my life has been being able to have a career with my wife as Bloom has turned into this Megalodon of a beast. It has become much more than just Mari and I running Bloom, of course, or at least operating Bloom. And yeah.

It has been nice to experience a slightly traditional relationship in the sense of having separate responsibilities. I don't know. It's been a nice two months. It's been a nice two months, like seeing you just happy and content at home, which I think is a huge reason for the success of this pregnancy thus far. I know. It's been really nice. And I kind of always knew I'd want to take a break at a certain point. But it is kind of crazy because if you think about it,

Since 2017, I don't think I've taken one significant break like this ever. You've taken off more than three days. No.

At least, especially like not like literally deleting social media and your connection to the world. I mean, I remember like you didn't even know like the Met Gala was happening. I didn't know the Met Gala was happening. I didn't know the Pope died. Yeah, big news. Like I didn't know. Yeah, you just assume everyone kind of knows. And then I would listen to a podcast for a date and be like, oh my God, you didn't tell me it was the Met Gala. That's so funny. Like it was really crazy how disconnected I was actually. It was, the saddest part was like if I saw a really funny meme.

I didn't even want to show Mari because I didn't want to like give you that hit and break your sobriety. I wasn't interested.

Honestly. No, you weren't. I've read so many books. I didn't mention that on the episode. I've read, all I've been doing is reading. No, you explained it really well. Like explaining like the experience of a Kindle versus a book. Oh yeah. I wasn't even aware that I was like almost done with the book. I think I read like four books in the past two months. It's almost like as we're watching a series of TV shows and you don't even know you're on the last episode and then it's just

over one day because you don't feel like the book getting thinner and thinner. Yeah. And then you just go, okay, next one. You only like run to Barnes and Nobles and get another book. But it was also really nice being in like, because I'm reading the Queen of Shadows series, the girls who get to get it. And being in like a fantasy world,

was really nice because I feel like now I'm in a good place, but a lot of our journey was very anxiety provoking. We were super stressed. Social media at its core is like, compare yourself to everyone else. And I'm fully on this algorithm of like IVF girls and fertility girls, which I love. And perfect pregnancy girls. Well, yeah, that's everywhere. Like I was just saying on my solo episode, how there's- Our whole town is pregnant.

No, I didn't say that, actually. But, like, yeah, our whole neighborhood is pregnant. It's crazy. Where you live in, like, the stroller capital of the world. Yeah. We're all, like, very similar to me, like, just weeks and months apart from me, which is amazing. It's such a blessing. But there's all this, like, discourse on the internet right now about, you know, the clip I'm talking about. Well, it creates, like, this wild...

mental game where even if you see people in your community who are having the amazing experience of life, of fertility and procreation, something that you would normally just love and love to see and it's a beautiful thing, you just by nature have this sense of jealousy and why not me and

I don't want to say negative thoughts towards other people's magic. No, it's not that. It's just when you're in that really fragile time before a transfer or after a transfer, I would see a girl say, this is my third transfer. And I'm like, oh man, do I have to go through this three times? You automatically just apply other people's experiences to your own. And I didn't want to go into it with this fear mindset.

Or anxiety. Like I wanted to be as calm as possible. And I knew to do that, I would have to not look at other people's stuff. Have you explained to the podcast what your actual retrieval experience was? Yes. Like Mari does not respond well to anesthesia. Yeah.

Passed out, like crawling on the floor. Told them everything. Pretty, pretty dirty experience. No, I have a whole episode on it. So the idea of potentially needing to do that again was horrifying with the weeks of recovery that that required. No, I literally said to the doctor, I can never do an egg retrieval again. Which supposedly was a very unique experience, but does not mean that we wanted to do it again. Most painful experience of my life. Speaking of fantasy world from your book, I have a theory around IVF. So we had several embryos.

They're ranked. Let's just say they're ranked. Good, good, good, fair, fair, fair, fair, fair. And you can like, you can quite literally choose. You could choose which gender and which ranking you want to do. We didn't choose our gender. I just want to say that. Like we went into it not knowing the gender. I told them to not tell me. Yeah, we didn't know until two weeks ago. We didn't know until two weeks ago. But we picked, I knew I had, I'm just going to say it. We had two of the same gender and one that was different. And we picked the better grade gender.

of the two that were the same. Does that make sense? Like we had three embryos that got through genetic testing. I've never said that, but I feel like now that I'm out of it, I can say it. Yeah. And we were, we were lack of a better word, satisfied with that result. Both genders were represented. Two of them are the same gender. One of them are a different one. And we picked one of the two that were the same. And we picked the good, good grade, like the best grade. And the other two are frozen at basically three weeks of development.

Yeah. Which is mind blowing. Like Mari could wait a decade and we can implant one of these frozen in time, three week old embryos. No, I told them about how they handed me the picture that like the day of the transfer, I think was the craziest day of my life. Oh yeah. We have a photo of these frozen embryos. Yeah. On the fridge. Insane. It was the, watching myself get impregnated was the craziest experience of my life. I was in the room. I was, I think we were both just like, oh my God.

crazy it was crazy i mean it was in a full it was in a full like you know like i've never been in one of these rooms other than being in legitimate so i guess it is legitimate surgery

You're in an operating room. Really scary. You're in a full stainless steel, scary operating room. And yeah, I'm just watching on the screen. And I guess you're watching on the screen as they impregnate Mari. Crazy. Everyone was like, how did Greg find out? And I was like, there was no secrets here. No surprises. I mean, obviously, I don't have anything to compare it to. But I still feel like it was a super magical. We left a lot of things up to chance. We didn't play God on too many factors here. We were still full of surprises and delight and

You know, I told the story of how we found out with that phone call, like on the walk. That was nuts. What was your experience of that? We didn't know when they were going to call us. So, so much of this whole IVF journey has just been like this crazy waiting game of blood tests. Then you wait five days for the results. Um,

Um, embryo tests, then you wait five days for the results, embryo retrieval and like how healthy, how many do you get and then how many actually like survive out of the retrieval waiting five days for the results. So we've been like, just, we were just used to this holding our breath can barely even focus on anything else waiting game experience. And so this was kind of the climax of the whole weight. Yeah. Um, combined. Yeah.

And so, yeah, we were just on a walk trying to distract ourselves. Yeah. And we received the phone call and they told us it was successful, which was amazing. But that, again, we kind of thought we were out of the woods. Yeah.

So then 48 hours later, we received a call that there's a 1% chance that it's actually going to make it because Mari's HCG was dropping. Yeah. And so, you know, obviously I'm on chat GPT. We're reading every forum. Mari's, I mean, rightfully so freaking out. But I was like, all right, if the doctor said 1%.

That's all Mari's ever needed to do anything. So Mari's like, we're like barefoot on the ground running to an acupuncturist trying every holistic and science forward method. We're like Mari's shining herself with red light trying to like bring warmth and blood flow to the whole area. No, I have a distinct memory of

sobbing crying in front of the red light we're chugging we're chugging like this super bone broth oh my god i forgot about that it was so we were doing everything on the sun and then the next day we went in and the hdg started to skyrocket insane and i was literally taking chinese herbs one of them was made from donkey yeah it's literally called ass hide it's called arse hide and i didn't know what it was and then i looked it up and i wish i hadn't i took that for like months

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Let's hop into questions because I received more questions than I think I've ever received in my life. Can the doggies sense you're pregnant yet? Congratulations. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. They are not showing any sign of that. I don't agree. You're crazy. Arnold spent some time sniffing my uterus the other day.

But he also just fully jumped on my stomach. Yeah, you probably had like some mayonnaise from a sandwich on your tummy. Oh, great. Thanks. He is not being gentle with Mari at all. He's more cuddly with me lately. I already want to cover Mari in bubble wrap and this dog does not make me have any comfort. It is not okay. No, guys, I got really nervous because in the first couple weeks he like fully jumped on my stomach and I was like, are you for real? Arnold thinks they were trampolines. Yeah.

Yeah. Lulu, I think, has no idea yet. So no, I would say no. I'd be curious. I feel like if any animal were to recognize it, it'd be Mari's horse. I feel like horses just like have that sense. No, I know. But you didn't really have that experience? I haven't seen your horse in forever. I went to see him and he...

Was sweet, but he really just wanted treats. So maybe when the baby's bigger. Does it feel real? My first embryo transfer just stuck and it doesn't feel real yet. That's like a big thing I've struggled with. Is it not feeling real? We'll be watching the scan and the baby's doing a backflip in her stomach.

And I'm like, you feel this, right? And you're like, no, I have no idea this is going on. It's crazy. Like every time we do an ultrasound, it's like watching a movie. They said in three weeks you'll start to feel it though, huh? I can't wait. That'll be crazy. So if you feel it, can I...

Yeah, like you could put your hand on. Yeah, you could feel it. That's nuts. I'm also freaking out like we're going to Colorado soon. And like Mars is going to be at altitude. And I'm just like concerned about all of these changes in environment. Not that I love her being in 110 degree weather in Texas right now. Greg's been a bit paranoid guys. But the doctor said that pregnant women have more red blood cells. He said we have more hemoglobin. But which is I think that is the same thing. And so you will adapt to lower oxygen faster. He

He said that, but then my doula, I haven't even told him I got a doula. My doula was like, it would be better if you drove to like acclimate. You don't want to have a shocking experience of any sort, whether it's like cold water, hot water, change in altitude. But I don't know. I mean, doesn't a plane kind of have a slow change in altitude anyway? I don't know, babe. I don't know. I don't know. I'm driving. Mari's flying with Arnold.

I think so. We'll see. Yeah, that's the plan as of right now. We're going to Aspen for a month. I don't know if I said that because it's so hot here. I mean, right now it's not. It's like raining. But it's been so hot and I've been so uncomfortable because I'm internally so hot. Yeah, we love Colorado. I mean, obviously we lived there for a while. Yeah, we lived in Boulder for a year if you didn't know. How has your relationship evolved throughout the pregnancy so far? I felt like during IVF and the HCG scare-

We like really came together as a team. Like I think anytime we've gone through something really hard or stressful, we always are like better. Do you know what I mean? Like I think you and me are really good at dealing with like hard things together. It removes like every sense of outside noise. It makes you realize what matters and what doesn't. And so like any problem.

that was popping up in our jobs or the neighborhood or something was broken in the house. It doesn't matter. I didn't give a fuck. Yeah. And that things that like used to like really trigger me. I've never in my life heard you say that you didn't care about work until this moment.

And it was for a fleeting moment. He was like, it's so weird. I don't even care about my job right now. And I've never heard you say that. And it was just that one day or a couple of days. And for whatever it's worth, I think it's making me better at my job. Sometimes you care about something so much that you don't actually do your best work on it. And it's almost like being a helicopter parent.

Yeah. But if you care so much and you apply that care into your actions. Yeah. That like you end up actually doing a net negative to the scenario of what your goal is. And-

So I feel like that, like most of the things around my life, like the friendships and, and, and work and whatever it may be outside of us has actually benefited from me kind of having like this reset of what I care about. But back to our relationship. Yeah. I think it's been really special. It's been very special. I think it brings out in people the way I think in men, especially supporting their pregnant partner, like how they show care.

So Greg is kind of an Italian mother, I would say. He's very obsessed and not in a toxic way, very obsessed with everything I eat. Very. And obviously we're both very passionate about nutrition, but like Greg is the one making me eat fish eggs.

And like, I would eat them anyway, probably, but you're definitely making sure I eat the fish eggs and like salmon once a week. Overall healthy fats. He like, oh yeah, he's obsessed with me putting olive oil on things. He's obsessed with me putting chia seeds. Avocado. Obsessed with me using collagen every day. I actually didn't really care that much, no matter how many podcasts I listened to until I saw how fast this thing was growing. And now I'm realizing every meal is literally resulting in growth. Yeah.

So you are built, you're building it with whatever we feed you. I think I told Greg one week, oh, I checked my what to expect app where it tells you the size of the fruit. And I'm like, it said this week, the baby's growing muscles, something in Greg, just like click, something changed. Like his bodybuilder, like demon eyes woke up and he was like, you need to eat protein. And he just got really crazy. So I think the way that you show me care is like through food. Yeah.

Yeah. You always have been like that. Yeah. You really have like and you really worry if I'm eating something bad like. I don't know maybe it's because I just think of food all the time too. I know I think you're kind of a weirdo but I also think it's an interesting time because I'm not necessarily like fully bumping yet.

Oh, also, when we first did the transfer, it's not like Mari has had a normal pregnancy up until very recently. So, like, Mari couldn't weightlift. Mari couldn't pick up the dog to put the dog into the car. Mari, I mean, it was, it was, it was. We were terrified of doing it. Yeah, like, I don't know what we were, we couldn't, like, even have intercourse for a while. Like, a lot, a lot of things couldn't go on. Yeah. So, you were in, like, a fragile state for two months. Couldn't swim. Yeah.

Couldn't drink cold things. Yeah.

But keep in mind, like, this is all very conservative, like IVF stuff. Like, there's probably women pregnant listening being like, oh. No, no, it's not. It's not traditional. The first 10 weeks are not a traditional pregnancy. Yeah. You're wanting this thing to quite literally stick, I guess. But I was going to say it's weird because for the guy, like, your life really hasn't changed at all. Like, you come to work, you work out, you do all the same things. You don't feel the symptoms that I feel. Like, the only time you really are aware of is when you're looking at the ultrasound. Yeah.

you know? Yeah. And I think because I have not had bad symptoms, like I've had a very, like, I think my biggest symptom has been anxiety, like just how anxious I've been, but I'm definitely tired. Um,

but I haven't thrown up. Like my symptoms are super mild. I think because of that, you almost like forget sometimes. I mean, you're always anxious though. Okay. So exactly. Also, I only keep saying thing because I don't want to say the gender, by the way. I know. But you know what I mean? Like I think for the guy, it's like a little more difficult to wrap your head around. Every day having some nausea or food aversion is like tough to understand. But you realize I don't have it even that bad. Like the fact that I can still eat meat and fish eggs is crazy.

You know, I just feel blessed I can eat anything. There's girls who like literally lose weight. It seems it's great. I mean, you were pretty exhausted there, babe, for like eight weeks. I'm pretty tired right now. Yeah. I mean, Mario has never taken naps in our whole life. I took some naps. You were taking some good naps. Some like two hour ones. Oh,

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God, there's so many questions. Just people saying they've never been so happy for someone I've never met before. Yeah, we've been like literally trying for this for two years. We appreciate everyone's congratulations so much. Some people are asking why did we need to do IVF and did we ever find out the reason? No, everything checked out. My sperm checked out, Mari's eggs and everything checked out. I think the only thing I could really...

point of finger at was my PCOS and the fact that I had so many follicles and perhaps the egg wasn't actually able to release itself. That, I mean, we were both like probably abnormally stressed for a long period of time, which is one of the reasons you took off from work for a while. I don't know, stress seems to be a cause of so many modern day issues. So we don't really know. And I think we don't really spend a lot of time dwelling on it. You know, we just kind of like put our heads down and got through it.

No, I mean, even though there's like so much science, obviously, that we've been able to benefit from, the amount of unknown that the best doctors in the world even still have has been shocking. Yeah. So... No, you feel pretty out of control. It's crazy. Body image question. Are you struggling with the idea of gaining for pregnancy and baby? I mean...

Yeah. You weren't struggling until they told you your weight. Obviously I look different, right? Like I was pretty skinny when I started IVF and then IVF itself makes you gain weight because of all the hormones you're starving. And then getting pregnant, your boobs get grow. Like everything's just growing. I don't know. I have good days and bad days with it. Like

This morning working out, I was like, oh my God, it looks like I have a little bit of a bump happening and I get really excited about it. And I've waited so long. Like I truly don't care. Like that's just not front of mind, but it has surprised me kind of how much it like, I think cause I'm also hormonal and I'm just like, I cry a lot now.

I feel like it has sort of like taken me aback because all my clothes in my closet were for like someone who's like lean and had small boobs and like wanted to show off my stomach all the time. And I literally feel like I have nothing to wear. I think, you know, and I tell you all the time, you look incredible. Everyone says Mari's glowing. You look, you're very beautiful pregnant woman. Thanks. Obviously if you're putting on clothes from six months ago, they don't fit. And that probably is a, is a head trip. Yeah. Like,

None of my bras fit like nothing. You'll wear it in nine months. I know. And it's, it is just weird. Like, I guess, I don't know. I think being in a bubble kind of helps, but now that I'm back on social media and people are like, I'm on camera and people are taking photos of me. It's like a kind of a shock to the system.

And then they made me get on the scale, which I don't like to do. That was weird. I was surprised they even told you your weight. They should have asked you. Next time, I'm telling them not to tell me. Well, there's no fucking point to know the number, I guess. Well, in pregnancy, you want to know. Well, they could tell you, hey, this is a concern. I know. I don't know. They don't even tell you the actual number. It just kind of floored me. But you're still strong. Like in the gym, you're still able to. No, I know. You kept a decent amount of muscle. I think that's made me feel a lot better. It's working out. But it is a bit of a weird transition. Yeah.

You just don't look the same. And it takes a minute to catch up, especially when you're in the awkward phase of like before you have a bump and you're like, I just kind of look a bit fat. I was driving to work yesterday and there was a car that said like a pregnant woman on board instead of baby on board. Cute. I was like, oh, I should put that little magnet on your car. Yeah, you should get that for me. I feel like I smell my tuna sandwich. Do you?

No, but that's all right. Oh yeah. Her smells been out of control. I smell it. She's, she's the fantastic five over here. Yeah. Honestly, sometimes Greg reeks to me and I, I feel like the person who smells the most though is me. I'm like, I smell disgusting.

You don't. But then everyone else is like, you don't smell. And I'm like, no, I really smell. I think I just like come up with things. Or like we, we, we, Mara's been avoiding the construction site at our new headquarters, obviously, just because like there's dust and fumes and no need for Mara to be in there. But like what she did go for the first time before we realized that you were just like noticing all these crazy smells that no one else was smelling. I was like, something's bad in the fridge. Or Arnold smelled like throw up that one day to me. I think he threw up that day. Would you guys recommend going through IVF? My husband and I have been trying for three years. You go first.

IVF is like such a privilege to be able to do because it's so expensive and I feel really lucky we got to go through it. It is, I think, equally the hardest thing and the coolest thing I've ever been through because I felt very involved in the process. And like I learned so much, you know, like it was kind of wild and I felt very like,

involved in myself getting pregnant it's weird yeah it gave you it gave you a feeling or element of of control yeah i only know from our journey what it feels like but i think we had a pretty good experience i almost wish we did it sooner like that's how good the experience has been i know but it happened when it's supposed to yeah and i loved our ivf clinic i love dr mogadon yeah what is the baby's room vibe gonna be

I feel like you don't even know. So currently I wake up well before Mari wakes up. And that's kind of like been the case for years. You wake up an hour before me. So I don't in the morning, I don't use our closet or our bathroom just because we have a bedroom right next to our bed, our master bedroom. So you wouldn't fit in the closet. I took up the whole thing. And so I've just used this random guest room as my closet and my bathroom, especially in the morning to not wake up Mari.

That room is being taken from me. That room is the nursery because it's closest to our bedroom. That room is becoming the nursery. So the vibes. You have to get out. How do you explain the vibes without saying any colors, obviously? I'm like, how do I describe what I want without giving away the gender? There will be color obvious stripes. Okay, ready? Stripes. I would say it's giving traditional colors.

but fun, natural materials, natural materials. Actually, I really want to bring the founder of branch basics on the show because she has all the good baby recs. She sent me a crib.

from europe that uses no formaldehyde or whatever like none of the toxins because you know throw a big jasper air filter in the room for sure uh blackout curtains for sure a lot of like you know a lot of these like fire repellents and stuff i've already like ordered things on etsy like this doesn't give it away but like cute little diy farm animals nice you know i can't wait for the bookshelf love a bookshelf can't wait to read books yeah

I'm like big on reading. I love reading books. Do you have a rocking chair? A glider, yeah. Do you know what a glider is? Is that just like a futuristic? It's like a breastfeeding chair that like has an ottoman and like you lean back. It's like a whole thing. Gotcha. You'll sit in it too though. Okay. Where's Lulu? Lulu's thriving. Seriously, the fact that they're still asking this is so crazy. Lulu's thriving. I posted her the other day. I think she's like 11-ish. No, she's 11 in August. 11? So she's about to be 11. She does not enjoy this heat. No.

No. So she'll probably go to grandma's for maybe a month or two or three or whatever. She's summering in the Hamptons. She's summering at grandma's when she's in Long Island. Yeah. And she loves it over there. So. Yeah. It's just too much. First trimester and keeping good eating habits. Did we let the pregnancy cravings win? I feel like I've had a really good balance of both. Like my breakfast is always the same. It's always the toast, the eggs, the fruit.

I have my one matcha. My lunch is really where I let whatever I want take over. Like I'll order a sandwich or one time I got quesadillas or like, it's not always like that though. I've been really into my smoothies. I have a smoothie every day that I make at home, which I posted on my story with like banana, strawberry, apple,

Bloom collagen, organic whole milk, gross fat. Yeah, we're keeping the dairy up there. Calcium's important. I eat cheese pretty much every day. You eat some good yogurt every day. Yes. All full fat. Dinner, we're cooking. Like-

We've been eating more pasta. Like I'm a little more lenient, I guess, but I always get my nutrients in. It's always a protein source. Yeah. Things I'm like avoiding. I mean, raw fish. Well, you're not drinking alcohol. Of course. You're not drinking coffee. No. You're not drinking Bloom Energy drinks. Yeah, but everyone has their own approach. You know what I mean? Yeah. You're just saying what you're doing. You and me tend to be a little bit more paranoid because of what we've been through. I think some people are really chill, you know? Yeah, but we know they aren't.

And we're also just obsessed with nutrition and stuff. I really think the things you eat have a huge impact on the embryo and the fetus growth, you know, and the development. And if they don't, it's worth a try. But I have never in my life received more unsolicited advice than I have pregnant, honestly. I'm sure. I haven't even been on social media and I haven't even like posted yet. Or I've just started. And my unsolicited advice has been like IRL.

It's really interesting. Like, I feel like the second someone finds out you're pregnant, they feel like they can tell you what to do, what not to do, what to eat. It's bizarre. And I think a lot of people's beliefs come from, like, something someone told them.

10 years ago. Family heirloom. That they like never looked in. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. What does a family heirloom mean? Like a family tradition that like they heard from their grandparent. Well, no, like doctors just say like, you can't do this. You can't do this. But they all say different things. So this book, Expecting Better, like tells you the statistics on like how likely it is you'd get. You're more likely to get sick from lettuce.

than you are from deli meat. But like no one talks about that. Or people project their own experiences. Like it's just, I don't know. It's been kind of a wild experience. And I know a lot of it comes from care and I love and appreciate that when you're hormonally, you're kind of like. You've never really loved unsolicited advice. No, I haven't. I think because I've received so much of it that I'm just like, get out of my face. And I've done fine. Like I figured out everything on my own and I'm fine. Is he all right? Will you do IVF for your future babies? Yes.

Well, they say that, you know, fertility rates are through the roof after not only a pregnancy, but after IVF. So we'll see how it goes. But in theory, we have two beautiful embryos. Yeah. I think I'll do another IVF experience. I mean... Unless, you know, something happened before that. I just...

The fact that they're already tested gives you peace of mind. Why not? You know? Yeah. Even though they made me do the Natera test anyway. Yeah, we just switched from the IVF doctor to just a normal OBGYN. What was the biggest lesson you learned getting rid of social media? How much other people are using it. Crazy. Like the world literally is dependent on social media. Like when I'm telling you I did not know any information-

About anything. Like, I was completely in the dark. That's your news. Like, I didn't know what my friends were doing. I didn't know what was going on in the world. Like, nothing. But the world kept on spinning. I think also how quiet my mind was. I just, like, had... I felt, like, pretty, like...

Other than obviously like my main priority was the pregnancy and stuff. But once we got through that scary time, I felt like my mind was just really like quiet. And I was kind of like, sometimes I found myself being like, I don't really know what to think about. Was it nice? Yeah. I felt really like flatline kind of. It has been funny to see people still participate in social media, even just in social gatherings while like you're off and I don't really participate how you do. So like seeing people...

want to share what they're doing live time has just seemed like this like you're able to watch the world from the outside in and yeah realize like hey this this this might be an unhealthy habit for our age or whatever it may be yeah it's like a weird phenomenon but now i'm back into it and i'm like kind of wanting to share it's weird though because now i'm like a little bit more i think i used to share very freely and i didn't really think anything through and now i'm kind of like

I just like second guess everything. I don't know. Is this something you want out in the world? Kind of. Like it's like my first time ever having like true privacy. Does creating content out of this ruin the experience for like the real?

life that I'm having. I guess. Yeah. I mean, we obviously always had like this weird intervention with, or this weird experience with social media. Like for example, when I proposed to Mari, just going back years, like do I set up a camera on a tripod and try to get this reaction for content? Like you think about these things no matter what you're doing or if you're having it. We didn't, we didn't, you didn't film my engagement. No. And I'm upset that you didn't. Very much intentionally because I was like, I don't want the camera rolling for this special moment. As

special moments present themselves in your real life. It's like you, obviously Mar Mari has created a whole career around creating content from her life. Sometimes you need to draw the line on like, Hey, what's so like, for example, did you do a full PR run announcing that you were pregnant? Well,

Okay, you didn't explain that very well. I got approached by press to have an exclusive moment with announcing my pregnancy and I said no. Right. Because I don't like that. I want to control my narrative. I've been through so much. You don't like monetize this beautiful thing. No, it's so sacred to me and it's such a... I think I feel way more protective of everything than I ever have. Like I used to just...

I mean, I'm so glad I shared my fertility journey. I think that's so important for women to talk about. Like it really creates a sense of community in such a lonely experience. But like I would never, yeah, I don't want to like monetize it or blah. Like we did a photo shoot. We made it really special. It was very personal. We did a photo shoot. Yes. Right. Yes. For our living room framed photos. But we kind of have a unique perspective on things because like-

We've been in the game for a while. We've been in the game for a while and we've had a lot of really cool experiences and opportunities where we have like been in the press and whatever. I don't know. I don't know what I'm trying to say. I just feel different than I ever have. And I saw a lot of people asking like, will you share your kids on the internet? Which is like a big question. And I don't even know if I'm ready to answer it. I get it. I get why you wouldn't want to.

And I very much respect it when I see someone put an emoji over their kid's face. I do too. I think that that's a really cool thing. I see both sides. Like you're so excited you want to share your beautiful kid. I think it's also a really cool thing when you share your beautiful kid. I know. I think both are really cool. There's people who do, like they'll show the back of the head and like,

do motherhood content, but they don't fully show the kid. It's kind of like we've never shown the front of our house. One thing I would never do is make my kid the center of my content. I will never do that. I will never be the person using their kid to monetize. What if they were six years old and they were like, let's make some content mom. They can get a flip cam and a little cute camera that they go make videos of and nothing happens with those videos until they're 18. If they want to post them. What about like 13?

I used to make pretend YouTube videos all the time and nothing happened with them. If at 13. It freaks me out, babe. They were like, I want to try to one, make some money or to make some content. And that's a good, that's now a career in the 2020s. I don't know. I don't think it's, I don't think they're meant to see all that. There's so much like, it's so adult on there. Yeah. These 13 year olds on TikTok. It's so sexual. It's so insane. That's crazy. I don't want that.

I don't know. I don't want them to be on social media. I can't talk about this. I'm getting upset. Like, I just, they can make little pretend videos, you know? We'll develop an app. Yeah, we'll make them an app. That has like fake people posting and commenting. And it's all really like innocent. It's all really just us commenting with different handles. This episode of Pursuit of Wellness is brought to you by Wild Graeme.

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The main way your thinking has shifted now on the journey to having a child. I feel like we've wanted it for so long that like now it's actually happening. I think I think about like their experience of okay next summer like where do we not that I'm going to be such a young baby but like

I think about like, okay, what kind of camps should we do? Like, I want to make sure that they have this experience or that they grow up near their grandparents. Or I don't know, I just think about things like that. Yeah, I think some of our top priorities are just like. School. They're like a healthy but active social life. We just talk about like different things. Education is like a top, frankly, concern for us.

um, you know, we both had odd experiences in, in public education. Um, then like, I wouldn't want to replicate if I had the power to not replicate our exact experience. And I think we're just asking questions more. We're like meeting other parents and we're hearing about other experiences. And it's like kind of crazy. Some of the things that other parents are doing and compelling and I get it. And,

I'd love to learn more on a few things. Yeah, there's like so many more options now. Super interesting. And I just I think I'm thinking about the way I grew up and things I liked and things I didn't like. Like, oh, my God, I had such a like international upbringing. I moved to so many different countries. I heard so many languages like, but we're not going to move country. So how do I replicate that? Like, how do we you know what I mean? Yeah. Am I eating liver now?

Not yet. I wanted to, but Dr. Gabrielle Lyons said you don't show any signs of needing more iron. Yeah. And that's kind of like the main reason you would have the liver. I think I'm nervous of doing anything too extreme. Yeah. You know? Like if everything seems good, like I've heard liver is beneficial, but like-

I don't know. It sounds like a lot for me right now. Yeah, we asked her doctor. That really, like... Who's pro-meat, like, you know, she would have totally told us to. Yeah, kind of hicks me out. They asked about my workouts and have they changed. Yeah, they've changed. Yeah, they're definitely, like, I'm not doing Pilates anymore. It's too much core. And I'm just weightlifting. I mean, weightlifting, I think, is just the queen. I think your doctor said, like, at this point, you can do whatever you want to do. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. I mean, I have so many different doctors we're referring to guys. Like I have my IVF doctor, the regular OBGYN, I have Dr. Gabrielle Lyon, like, and I just, I take everything with a grain of salt and do it my way, you know? And I think with the weights, I took it very slow. I gradually upped them over time. I do things that are not core focused. I've just started barbell squatting again. I do a lot with dumbbells, a lot of lunges, a lot of like shoulders and biceps and stuff.

I need to do more back. Okay. Yeah. Our home gym isn't really set up for some good back. My back is unable to hold up my boobs at this point. So we need to work. Yeah. My little scoliosis forming over here. Okay. Thank you. Greg just thinks my posture is not good. How many kids do we want? What do you think? More than one, but I feel like we're so blessed to have one. So I don't even want to speak on that. Let's see how it goes. Yeah.

I think three. Sure. Yeah. I just don't want to wait too long if we decide to have more. No, I know. But I think the thing I feel is with, because of how obsessed I've been with getting pregnant now for two years and going through IVF, I would love to just take a beat and not think about it for a second. I get it. And like, just enjoy the baby. Of course. How did we find out the gender?

So we didn't know the gender. Most people who do IVF pick out the gender. We could have. We could have. And we were like, no, thank you. I don't know. I mean, I always kind of knew I wanted to do that. So they put in, we picked the embryo based on the grade, but we didn't know the gender. None of the doctors slipped once, which is crazy. Like even doing the ultrasounds, no one said the gender. We found out privately that

And I'm going to post that video at some point. When? Soon. Okay. How shocked were you? Oh, man. You were shocked? Yeah.

I was shocked. I mean, I knew I could tell based on my symptoms and I did every old wives tale test and all of them indicated this gender. Dude, Mari was putting a ring on a string and waving it over her stomach to see how it spun. Maybe everyone does that. The ring she chose was the aura ring. So I was like, that's not a normal magnetic process. This thing has like a, you know, processor inside of it. I peed on baking soda. I did the Chinese calendar. I, what else did I do?

Just everything. I mean, I wonder, I would love to know their guesses based on my symptoms, actually. So maybe I'll let you guys guess. Let me know what you think. Do you have a birthing plan? Not fully yet. I have a doula. I mean, I'm pretty, I'm kind of crazy. I like to do things ahead of time. So I literally got a doula. I found a nanny. I have a pediatrician. Like I have all this stuff lined up.

And I would love to do a vaginal birth. I don't have super strong feelings on an epidural at this point. I just want the baby to be healthy. Like that's all I care about. I would like to give birth vaginally, but if they told me I needed a C-section, I would do that. Yeah, save it first. I think like, yeah, I just don't have like insanely strong feelings. I do about certain things. I think I'm not as like opinionated about it as I expected to be.

Just safety first. Yeah. Let's see what happens. You know, as of right now, my placenta is kind of covering my cervix, but it seems to be moving the right way. So we'll see about that. Did you know you were pregnant on the last episode? No. Like the transfer episode? No, I didn't. I hadn't even done my transfer. That was my peak. This sucks.

Oh my God, I was such a mess. I was like, huh? You were like, I can't even fucking talk about anything. No, I literally was like a mess. Did you implant one or two embryos? I get this all the time. Yeah, I think old school IVF, they would just do two. I guess the thought process was that it would increase the chance of one sticking. Yeah, but you never do that now. Things have changed. Like, oh my gosh, so much in just the last five years. Are you still a firm believer in pomegranate juice and seeds for fertility? Yeah, I did that the whole time and my lining was really thick.

Yeah. I think it like did its job. You got regular compliments on the uterus health. The lining thickness and that helps with implantation. Yeah. Will you be having a home birth? No.

I want to be at a hospital. This was like not an at-home experience from the start, and I don't think it's going to end that way. Yeah. And that's okay. Even though my personality, you'd think that, but I just have been through so much at this point that I'm, I don't know. We're not like total granola heads. Shout out to them. But like, you're pretty open-minded to whatever needs to be done. Sometimes I'm a granola. It depends. Yeah. Depends. Congratulations. Do you have any advice on something you believe helped you succeed with the transfer? Yeah.

I mean, I did so much. To be honest, I don't know if any of it helped. Squashing stress. I think, yeah. I think taking a break really helped. I think the warming foods, no ice water. Like, I think that's a thing, honestly. Avoiding the overall fight or flight that we were intentionally putting into your life, right? Like, the sauna is supposed to be a stressful thing. The ice bath is a stressful thing. Like, work, we would take ourselves to stressful points, right?

We would, you know, push ourselves in adventures in life to stressful points because it was fun and exhilarating and adrenaline. But like that is not the environment for fertility. No. So our world was not really conducive of a fertile state. I didn't travel that much. But you did previous to that. So you stopped traveling. Stopped traveling. Yeah.

Completely stopped traveling. Followed acupuncture twice a week. You're a little stir crazy right now. I am. I'm ready to go. Yeah, you want to get the hell out of Texas. We get on a plane on Saturday. It also sucked because the last month I was on 14 flights. Oh, it was sick. This month I canceled basically all travel, although I'm heading to the airport after this, but. Yeah, my first trimester I was like alone. Yeah, that was a shame. Just kidding. I wasn't alone.

I followed Chinese medicine practices pre-transfer, warming foods, no swimming in cold water, foot soaks, Brazil nuts, pineapple core. Anti-inflammatory lifestyle. Yeah. Good food, lots of water, limited caffeine, no alcohol. I did all the things that people do. I did all of it. Who knows if it helped. French fries afterwards.

Yeah, we found some healthy ones from that Not a Damn Chance burger. Yeah, tallow. Tallow fries. No canola oil. Are we going to do a gender reveal? I did a little one with my friends already. Yeah, that's cute. A little private one. I wasn't even invited, just girls. Just girlies. Yeah. But you and me did a private gender reveal. Are we still doing the progesterone shots? No. No, those stopped like two weeks ago, thank God. Yeah, pretty much through the first, almost through the first trimester. They're not that bad, but...

Greg wasn't great at them. I love you, but you weren't that good at them. Yeah, Mari had a nurse come to the house a couple times when I was... If I was traveling, because I guess you couldn't do it yourself, which makes sense. And they're in the butt. Yeah, they're in the glutes. And a nurse would come over and like...

Maury claims you had fantastic experiences. Couldn't feel it. Literally, when this nurse did my shots, I couldn't feel it. When Greg did it, I was screaming in pain. Yeah. And Greg left bruises all over me. And I still can't be touched on the side of my hip butt area. Yeah, a little scar tissue. It's so sensitive. And if I have to run like across the street or something, it is excruciating. Well, you shouldn't be running across the street.

Okay. If a car, whatever, you know, if I have to move quickly, it's just so painful. Yeah, we got to keep you foam rolling on your glutes. When's the baby due? December. Are we going to launch a Bloom prenatal? It's not even close to the pipeline, actually. I mean, Bloom baby obviously would be a hell of a brand. Any like ending statements? No, we're full of joy, feeling very blessed. Cannot wait. And so proud of you. Oh, I love you.

I'm really tired and I need to eat. Good. Bye. I'm off to the airport. Thank you for joining us on the Pursuit of Wellness podcast. To support this show, please rate and review and share with your loved ones. If you want to be reminded of new episodes, click the subscribe button on your preferred podcast or video player. You can sign up for my newsletter to receive my favorites at marieloellan.com. It will be linked in the show notes.

This podcast is a Pursuit Network production brought to you by Michaela Phillips, Joel Contartese, Davielle Waldner, Jen Lauren, and Mackenzie Mizell. You can also watch the full video of each episode on our YouTube channel at Pursuit of Wellness Podcast. Love you, Power Girls and Power Boys. I will see you next time.

The content of this show is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for individual medical and mental health advice and does not constitute a provider patient relationship. As always, talk to your doctor or health team.