October 30, 2024 • 38 mins
A few years ago, Maya experienced a heartbreaking change in her personal life, while on her way to trying to become a mom. Two days after it happened, she felt the need to process it out loud, like so many of her guests have done on her show. In this episode, Maya asked her producer, Tyler, to interview her about her own “Slight Change of Plans.”
You can follow Maya @DrMayaShankar on Instagram.
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Speaker 1 (00:14):
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Hey, everyone, maya here. I hope you're settling into the
change of seasons. October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month,
and it has me reflecting on an experience that my
husband and I, along with our gestational surrogate Hailey, navigated
a few years ago. Many of you know about my
slight change of plans when I hurt my hand and
(00:42):
had to give up my dream of becoming a concert violinist.
This is another important part of my story, and I
hope that sharing my reflections might bring some comfort if
you've experienced loss of any kind. I appreciate your listening.
(01:08):
Dad jokes that when I was like a five year
old or whatnot, he'd come down to the basement and
I'd be with my little kitchen set. I'd be on
this pretend phone having conversations with my fictitious neighbors about
my rebellious children. I'd be like, Oh, you wouldn't believe it, Karen,
Little Bobby is driving me crazy. First of all, it
(01:30):
says a lot about my assimilation that my child's name
was Bobby, despite the fact I'm Indian and Rob you
might have been more appropriate. But I don't think there's
ever been anything more that mattered to me than eventually
becoming a parent. I mean, it's just it's always been
a guiding force. That's me, Maya Shunker. As you can
(01:53):
probably tell, we're mixing things up on today's episode. Instead
of coming to you as the host, Maya Shunker, cognitive scientist,
I'm coming to you as just me Maya. Recently, I
was on my way to finally becoming a mom, which
had in years in the making. When my husband Jimmy,
and I learned I can't healthily carry a baby. We
(02:14):
explored gestational surrogacy, having someone else carry our baby. This
has involved fertility treatments, freezing our embryos, and finding a
surrogate match. Things were finally coming together these past few
months until we were thrown our own change of plans.
(02:36):
I never intended to share such a deeply personal story,
but then I realized that's kind of what this show
is all about. My guests come here to process their
experiences with change out loud, and I realized I wanted
to do the same. So two days after I got
some terrible news, I asked my producer and friend Tyler Green,
(02:57):
to turn on the mics and interview me. This is
a slight change of plants, a show about who we
are and who we become in the face of a
big change. We started our conversation by talking about Jimmy
(03:24):
and me and our search for a surrogate match when
we moved out to California. That's really when our journey began.
And it's very scary, obviously, right. I mean, to trust
someone so much that you're willing to put your child's
development and well being in their hands is nothing small,
you know, So, I mean, the surrogacy matching process is
(03:51):
so interesting. It feels like you're dating again, Like you're
looking at all these profiles of women who can potentially
carry your baby. And unlike a traditional dating profile, which
is like, you know, I love playing soccer and making dinners,
they're like, you know, here's my dynocological history, and here's
(04:14):
the nature of my three berths that I had with.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
My own children.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
It feels totally nuts to be learning some intimate details
about a person's medical history and to be judging compatibility
based on based on these factors. It's like, hey, how's
your uterine lining? Does it respond well to fertility treatments?
You know?
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Like, that's nuts.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Usually, as I go about the world, I'm focusing on
people's personalities and whether I like them and whether they
like me. And suddenly you're in this world where all
these bizarre metrics matter more than anything else, which is
this person's pregnancy history and their ability to conceive.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
You're like, it's not match dot com anymore, but it
looks almost the same.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
There's all these things exactly.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
But wow, didn't know I needed to know that exactly.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
So we're sifting through all these profiles and we come
across one. Her name's Haley, sorry, okay, and she just
looks perfect.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
She looks perfect.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
She's smiling in her photo with Minnie Mouse ears on
her head. It's a picture with her and her daughter
in like Disney World. I read her profile. She's got
three beautiful children of her own. She's a stay at
home mom. She is incredibly artistic and creative and builds
(05:40):
amazing things in her home. And she's also a social activist.
And I still remember when I looked at her profile.
You know, usually you write a paragraph about yourself at
the end, to just say you know why you're interested
in being a surrogate and what draws you to it,
and you know, this is an opportunity for women to
say why they think they'd be a great surrogate for you.
(06:01):
And she said, I feel so self conscious talking positively
about myself. I've asked my sister instead to share what
why she thinks, you know, I might make a great surrogate.
And it was such a beautiful description of Haley, you know,
generous in such a deep way, so loving, so caring,
(06:23):
and so loyal. And you know, at the time, I
didn't know how much that loyalty trait would matter, but
it did, and so I still remember it was the
middle of my work day and I go into a
conference room and we meet Haley over video, and it
was it was like love at first sight, you know,
that's the best way to describe it. I think we
(06:44):
all felt so bonded to each other.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
I'd always seen it as.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Such a liability, like why can't I carry this baby?
Why can't I carry this baby? And when I met
Haley for the first time ever, I thought, It's okay.
Knowing her and having it be her will make this
We'll make this just as good, even better, because I
(07:10):
had the opportunity to get to know someone like her
and I had never felt that way before. You know,
usually after a video call like that, you give both
sides some time to figure out whether they think it's right.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
I think we just wrote to each other within like a.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Minute, like we're in, the other sides like we're in,
and so we might have been the fastest match that
ever happened.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
I love that. So what happens next?
Speaker 2 (07:34):
We plan to do our embryo transfer in February of
twenty twenty, so she comes out here. And there's also
there's also this like grading system with embryos. They look
at the embryos under a microscope, and so it's like, oh,
this one's a six double A and this one's a
two DD, And you're like, is this predictive of anything?
(07:56):
Like I'm walking down the street being like, is that
person a six double A? Like, what's Obama?
Speaker 3 (08:02):
Six? Triple A? For sure? Probably a seven? Just a seven?
Speaker 2 (08:05):
What's Beyonce? I need to know what Beyonce is? Like
if Beyonce was a like three CB or like a
two d D, that gives hope to embryos everywhere. Okay,
So anyway, we were we chose our best looking embryo
and they were all genetically tested, so we had you know,
we knew that they were chromosomally normal.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
So we choose choose our best one.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
And I remember sitting in the ultrasound room that day
because you know, Kaylee was She's so inclusive throughout the process.
You know, I was like, do you prefer we're out
of the room in the room, like at the end
of the day, this is her body, and she said,
I can't imagine not having you guys in the room.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
So we're in the room. The lights go off and
I see.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
Them take our little girl embryo and implant her, and
I I was overwhelmed by emotion and like, I didn't
even I don't think of myself as that kind of person,
like Jimmy's the one who cries at Disney movies, up
Mulan the Lion King. Like I might get a little,
(09:08):
you know, heary eyed. But I was so surprised, and
I think it was we can cry for lots of reasons,
but I think it was it was a combination of
so many factors. I think one was profound relief that
this moment was finally happening. You know, it had been
years in the making, to just see it happening finally
(09:28):
with like a real human Haley sitting there like that
was overwhelming for me. And then I also just visualized her.
I was like, oh, well, she have thick, curly hair
like me. You know, you just have these images. I
just imagine her with like you know, I kind of
had just a bunch of curls shooting off my head
when I was a kid, and they had There was
no order, it was just randomness everywhere. I was like,
(09:50):
I wonder, she'll have my you know, Shirley Temple spiral curls,
but with like an ethnic twist because they're you know,
kind of it's I have textured hair.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
I have to see those pictures. By the way, I'm
not letting that go.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
I will send them to you and so. And I
just remember holding Jimmy's hands so tightly and it was
a beautiful moment. And you know, we left and obviously
we have nerves and whatnot. And you know the way
that it works, you're supposed to wait until ten days
after to do the formal blood work. That Haley wasn't
(10:21):
going to wait, so she was going to the store
buying pregnancy tests. She proceeds to send us images of
all the pregnancy tests she's been taking over the preceding
days of the line darkening and darkening and darkening, and
it's very positive. And she gets her blood test done
and we're having a.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Baby girl, you know.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
And so we're over the moon and we sign in
buy a video to that first ulture sound and we
see her little heart beating and in the same way
that Haley was perfect to us, that little embryo seemed
freaking perfect to us, too, so cute and like the
nurse said to Haley and us, your little gal's measuring perfectly.
(11:05):
Her heart's beating at a perfect rate. We're good and
so yeah, we felt so relieved, you know. And we
go home and it's so funny how these surrogacy pregnancies work.
You know, you want to be able to control things,
so you end up focusing on really small things like
is her a multi vitamin? Like the best version of
(11:26):
the multi vitamin, you know, Like how much folic acid
is she getting? You know, Like you just start asking
yourself all these really small things. It's a it's like
that Iceberg analogy. You just see the tips. So you
focus on all those things that you think are in
your control, but underneath the surface there's a ton of
stuff that's totally not present to you and is totally
out of your control. And it's about nine thirty at night,
(11:48):
and all of a sudden, we get a text from
Haley and she says, are you guys up? And we
immediately know something's wrong, because, like, why is she texting
us at eleven thirty her time asking you for up?
We call her and she says, I just started bleeding
profusely and I think I maybe miscarrying and I'm not
(12:10):
sure what's happening. And my heart just sank and I
was like, oh my god, how is this possible. We
just saw the baby a few hours ago on the ultrasound,
you know, looking super healthy and happy, and Hayley was
healthy and happy. Like it just felt like a tragedy,
you know, And to go from the highest of highs
to the lowest of lows within a six hour period,
(12:32):
it just felt cruel. Sure enough, she goes in the
next morning for an ultrasound and there's nothing there, you know,
like there was something there the day before, but there's
nothing there today.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
That's what they told us.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
So she had miscarried and I will tell you the
hardest part about a surrogacy journey is that there's a
third person grieving along with you, and that's so excruciating.
It's like, Jimmy and I felt like we could manage
our own pain, but to see someone who was so
(13:11):
loving and only wanted to bring us joy suffering and
in pain and going through the physical trauma of a
miscarriage like bleeding throughout the entire night and horrible cramping
and feeling nauseated and dizzy and all the things. Like,
it's so horrible. It's so horrible to have a third person.
And you know, in our minds, we're thinking, because guilt
(13:34):
is an inevitable feeling on all on all sides, we're
thinking to ourselves like we're the reason Haley had our
first miscarriage, you know, That's what we're thinking. And Haley's
probably thinking why did this happen?
Speaker 1 (13:47):
Like why why?
Speaker 2 (13:47):
Why couldn't I make this work? And we're all having
these irrational thoughts that are not rooted in real things,
because you just want to find an explanation.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
You know, you want to.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
You want to blame someone, and the easiest person to
blame is yourself or like who else am I to
blame the universe? Like I don't you know, so I
just wanted to blame myself.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
For everything.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
And so so that happens, And the reason why it
was so painful, Tyler, is that it happened the day
before we all entered quarantine in California, so we couldn't
even grieve with our close friends and family, like the
very small circle of people we had told about this pregnancy.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
And at this point, where you were you thinking, I'm
sure you had actually many thoughts at this point, like
should we work together with Haley again or somebody else?
Speaker 2 (14:41):
It's a great question. We so desperately wanted to work
with Haley, and we were hoping doctors would tell us
that we could, that it would make sense to Unfortunately,
you know, they said, we have no reason to believe
anything really about this situation, like there's a lot of
miscarriages at six weeks, and we were really concerned at
(15:01):
the time, like, well, Haley be down for this. She
just went through a traumatic experience and one that she
did not you know, you can sign up for this,
but like do you really know what that's going to be? Like,
you know, and so one thing that really touched our
hearts is when she said, I'm in this with you
until the end. I will do this until you become parents.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
And just to catch us up on the timeline, so
this is this is again March of twenty twenty exactly.
And then at some point you make a decision to
try again or you're able to try again.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Yeah, so we all get vaccinated, but we try again,
and so she comes out here and we go through
the whole process again. So this is August of twenty
twenty one. Okay, so it's August twenty twenty one. Haley
flies out here and we just had a wonderful time
because it was in some ways it was as though
(15:58):
no time has passed, right because we felt so close
to her. But in other ways it was as though
so much time had passed, because you could see changes
in the depth of our conversation and just how comfortable
we felt with each other.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
And so we go into the room and.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
I can already feel some of the light you know,
PTSD feelings kicking in because this time when we're doing
the ultrasound, I don't cry to do the transfer, I mean,
you know, the embryo transfer. I'm just I'm holding my
breath more than I did the first time. Like I
feel a little anxious, you know, and you know everyone's like,
(16:34):
just stay positive, stay positive, stay positive.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
So I so we stayed positive.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
And within two weeks we got those darkening line pregnancy tests.
I told her that, you know her, her hormone levels
were super high this time. So I was like, Haley,
you're pregnant AF. So that was our that was our
WhatsApp group name, Haley's Pregnant AF. We'll be right back
(16:59):
to the slight change of plans. When Jimmy and I
found out that Haley was pregnant again, we were ecstatic.
We had transferred one embryo and we felt so fortunate
it had worked. Jimmy and I would go for long
(17:22):
walks together and start imagining what life would be like
with our little Chinese Indian baby, and we named her
like Karina, that's going to be our name. So as
pregnant AF with Karina shunker Lee. And she's pregnant, and
(17:42):
like clockwork, on exactly the same day, Haley gets morning
sickness as she did the first pregnancy. Everything's going super well,
her levels are looking super strong.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
And.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
I just start I just start feeling anxious as the
six week mark approaches, because it feels very irrational and
like there's no reason at all to believe that if
there's a miscarriage, it would happen, you know, at the
six week mark, right like it could happen at seven
and a half weeks, it could happen, you know, twenty weeks.
You just don't know in this process. So I felt
like I was getting irrationally anxious. So I kept trying
(18:16):
to talk myself off, talk myself off the ledge and
be like, there's no reason to believe this would happen.
I'd set up an email address for Karina, and I'd
been sending her emails along the way about the pregnancy,
about Haley. It's like, hey, you know, hey little Karina,
it's mom. You know, here's an update. And I remember
I wrote to her the night before. I said, Hey,
(18:38):
tomorrow is a really big milestone for us, because we
get through it. Like it's one day more, you know,
that next day it's one day more than the last pregnancy,
and I just feel like I'll feel some relief. It's
Tuesday morning. I wake up and I have relief because
I look at my phone, and I'm like, there's no
(19:01):
message from her saying that she bled overnight. And then
she texts us saying, you know, I was a little
scared this morning because I woke up not feeling morning sickness.
She had had other days like that, so it wasn't
immediately alarming. And then at ten thirty am, I get
a message from her and she says, I just had
(19:21):
a gush of blood and my heart sank.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
I was like, you have got to be kidding me.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
How is this happening again, like on exactly the same
day as last time, Like it just it didn't make
any sense, And so we called the doctor and they
they're like, Okay, it could be a miscarriage. However, it
could be another thing. It could be a hematoma. Right,
It could be that there is some blood pooling in
that area and it just needs to get out. Why
don't we have her goat get an ultrasound? And so
(19:49):
even though she's like actively bleeding, she goes to get
this ultrasound and we're expecting the worst. I mean, I'm
an optimist, so of course, until you tell me like, no,
there's nothing there, I'm always going to hope. I'm always
going to hold on to that shred. I think Jimmy
at this point had just given up. He was like, Maya,
all hope is lost. And this incredibly kind doctor is
(20:13):
on the call and he's doing the ultrasound. He's like,
there's your baby, and her heart beat's perfect, it's one
hundred and sixty. She's measuring exactly as she should at
six weeks, and oh my god, there is that hematoma,
Like there is this blood pool, and so that does
explain the bleeding. Like, you guys are good. And I
(20:34):
was just sobbing, like the relief that I felt, Oh
my gosh, there's an explanation and our baby is looking
great and we're going to have this child. And then
he goes over the area again and he goes, oh
my god, there's another one. You guys are having twins,
(20:54):
and that one's also perfect. That one has a beautiful
heartbeat and is measuring great. You guys are having twins.
And Hailey was so happy, and I remember in that
moment I said to her, I said, look, I'm grateful
for one or two. I don't I didn't need to.
I just just wanted one, you know. But what matters
(21:17):
to me most is that it's with you. And so
what I just kept saying, I was like, I wanted
this to be with Haley. I wanted this to be
with Haley, and it's with you, and we get to
do this journey with you. And Jimmy and I take
a walk at this point of the day. We're like,
let's just get some fresh air. And now we're planning
our life with twins. We're thinking to ourselves, if you
need to buy a home, there should be like many bedrooms,
(21:39):
and how are we gonna care for twins? And we
start thinking about a second. You know, Haley had said,
I guess it's time to start thinking of another name.
So we're like, what goes well with Karina, you know,
And we just start brainstorming and we have this walk
and it's just like we're floating on air, you know it.
We can't wait to tell the people who we've told
that she's miscarried to that it's actually the opposite. And
you're not even just getting one, We're getting two. So
(22:04):
I go back home and I text Haley and I say,
you know, I leaded the what to expect act on
my phone this morning when I got the news about
the blood because I didn't want to get my hopes
up and I just wanted it. I wanted to remove
all evidence of that of my phone and I said
maybe I should reinstall it. And her response was, guys,
(22:27):
the thing that I've been bleeding out recently, like, it's
not it's not blood. And she takes a picture of
it and we send it to our doctor and our
doctor calls us. We're like, could this be anything? Could
this be?
Speaker 3 (22:44):
Like?
Speaker 1 (22:45):
What is this?
Speaker 2 (22:48):
You know Jimmy studied biology in college. He's like, my
MAYI that's his nickname for me. He's like, this is
not a blood clot. I'm so sorry. And when the
doctor looked at it, I just remember I heard I
heard the sound in her voice. She's like, you know
you could hear it, Like I knew the answer before
she said it. She goes, I'm just so sorry, guys.
I can't believe this has happened. And it's hard to
(23:15):
describe what that feels like. I wanted to throw up.
I felt totally nauseated and disoriented. I felt so sad
that Haley was suffering. I felt so sad she was
going through this trauma again. And it was confirmed by
a ultrasound that there was nothing there anymore. The next morning,
(23:38):
and the hardest part of this process was learning that
our embryos were actually great, and Haley was great, but
very likely there's some sort of incompatibility between our biologies.
The doctor's best guest right now is that her immune
(23:59):
system sees our embryos as foreign in some way. I
asked my doctor, I said, have you ever seen this before?
And she said no, And I think there's a bizarre
immune response happening here. And what that meant is we
can't work with her anymore. She said to me this morning,
She goes, it is so cruel that a relationship that
(24:21):
is so compatible is biologically incompatible, and you just can't
fight biology.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
What are you going to do?
Speaker 2 (24:29):
You know, the doctors are like, this would probably happen again,
and we can't put you guys through that. You can't
put yourselves through that. You just have to find another surrogate.
And what's again I'm astonishing to us, is like Haley
was willing to try again with us and again and again,
because that's the kind of person she is. And I'm
just overwhelmed still that someone would go through this, go
(24:54):
through this pain, because she's so eager to make us happy.
That's an incredible gift. I've never met anybody like her
in my life. I probably never will.
Speaker 3 (25:04):
Yeah, so i'm hearing you tell this story, I just
want to acknowledge that it is incredibly harrowing and what
you've gone through over the last few days is horrible,
and yeah, I am so sorry.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
You know. I'm also struck by the fact that you
have gone through this experience twice now, and that the
first time that Haley miscarried was back in March of
twenty twenty when COVID was beginning for all of us,
and I just remember that the world was sort of
(25:49):
changing overnight for many of us, and then on top
of that change, you had this other incredible loss, And
I'm curious, what was that experience? Like?
Speaker 2 (26:03):
It was really hard, it's very lonely, it's very iclating.
You feel like people can intellectualize it, but also maybe
not just fully understand the emotions behind it, because I
didn't fully understand the emotions behind it until I went
through it myself. I just didn't. It built my empathy
(26:28):
so much, and the way that I dealt with it,
Tyler was I was like, I have to make something
good out of this, and then it's funny to think back,
I've just forgotten about this until you mentioned it. Like
I thought of this podcast idea called a Slight Change
of Plans, and it was a grief project for me.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
It was my way of.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Trying to find meaning and answers in a situation that
I couldn't find meaning and answers in. And I didn't
know how to navigate the change that was happening in
my life. I didn't know how to navigate miscarriage. I
didn't know how to navigate COVID. I didn't know how
to navigate all the loss that was happening in the world.
I didn't know how to navigate the racial injustice. I
(27:18):
felt completely overwhelmed, and I just thought to myself, I
know that I'm not alone in not knowing how to
navigate this moment. I know that there is a treasure
trove of wisdom out there on how to navigate change,
especially unwanted, unexpected change, and it's just a matter of
(27:38):
finding those stories and learning from them. And that's what
led me to build the show. It came out of
a personal desire to understand how it is that people
navigate change and to learn from them, because you know,
I'm a scientist, write a cognitive scientist. I study how
the mind works, I study change. I know the science,
(28:01):
but the science was falling short for me, and I
felt like I needed to hear people's stories and I
needed to emotionally connect with people.
Speaker 3 (28:09):
It strikes me as I think I knew that, but
I'm just hearing it for the first time, that this
was your grief process, Right, I'm saying that correctly, Like
this was how in a way how you grieved, Right.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Yeah, I don't, and I don't think I really made
the connection fully until this moment where everyone grieves differently,
you know, like I was. I was talking to Michael
Lewis after the tragic passing of his daughter, and he said, Maya,
no one knows shit about grief. Everyone's telling me how
(28:41):
to feel, everyone's telling me what book to read, Everyone's
telling me to do this and see this therapist and
talk about No. I need to create the Michael Lewis
plan how I grieve. And he's so freaking right about that,
Like there is no one size fits all recipe for
how to grieve. There's no one size fits all recipe
for how to change, how to deal with change. And
(29:03):
that's a sobering realization. When you're in the throes of grief,
you just want answers, you want a solution set, and
you can't get it, and so what you do instead
is realize, well, I have to find I have to
create a Maya plan, and I do my best when
I'm active, and I throw myself into passion projects when
(29:24):
I'm in a bad place.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
Like that is.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
Everyone has their own recipe, but for me, that is
how I heal to process out loud, to be open
with people, to throw myselves into creative projects that can
hopefully help people and make people feel stronger.
Speaker 3 (29:39):
So, Maya, we've been talking for the last couple of days,
and it might be too soon to answer this question,
but I'm curious to know what you've learned about yourself
from all of this.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
I learned that I'm really bad at acceptance. I always
want to justify things. I always want to resist the
randomness in our world that I know is just randomness.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
You know I don't.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
I don't have religious or spiritual beliefs that help guide
me through these situations. I do just believe in people
having bad fortunes in life, you know. But I'm b
at acceptance, which means I tap into a very natural
part of my psychology, which is to tell stories, to
try to make sense of this, to try to find
(30:31):
something find something good that can emerge from this experience.
It's one of the reasons i'm talking with you today
because I need something good to come from this. And
if one listener hears this and feels that they're not alone,
then that is a silver lining. I want everyone to
know that my husband and I went through this, because
(30:55):
the more we talk about it, the more we can
support one another. I think what I learned is you
don't as a person. You don't even grew the same
way every time I'm grieving. I don't know yet all
the ways, but I feel like I'm grieving the loss
(31:18):
of these twins differently than I did the loss we
had last year. It feels very different, and in some ways,
in some ways it feels strangely easier because I feel
(31:39):
stronger because I know that I know that I've done
this before and I did make it out the other end,
And maybe that's the hope I can give to listeners
like these experiences can make you stronger. You can learn
how to you can learn what helps you build resilience
(32:02):
in your life along the way, and you can try
to do that.
Speaker 3 (32:07):
What would you say to Haley in this moment.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
That I love her and life works in really interesting ways.
You don't know the kinds of people that you'll meet
and how they'll touch you. So it's a gift. It's
a gift that we got to know her. That's why
I that's why the regret part of my brain has
just kind of turned off, because I'm like, wait, if
(32:32):
we hadn't gone through this experience, we wouldn't have met
this wonderful human being. And like that counts too in life, right,
we should be putting weight on that too, Humans who
come into our lives and enrich our lives. Like life
is not just about achieving a series of outcomes, it's
also letting in and creating space for unexpected, beautiful gifts.
And I think that's how we feel with her.
Speaker 3 (32:55):
I have such a deep appreciation for you sharing this
story today, and I think that in you being so
open it is really going to help a lot of people.
And I just want to give you a chances is
there anything else that you'd like to share?
Speaker 2 (33:13):
I mean, I guess one thing i'd share is I
feel closed off right now about the idea of a
new surrogate entering our lives. So fascinating how these bonds formed,
but it almost feels like a betrayal, like how could
I do this to Haley? Like could how could we
(33:33):
have somebody else? And obviously she was saying like, you
guys deserve a child so much, and you know she
would only ever be so supportive of our next steps.
But instinctively, I'm like, oh, I don't want to get
close to them. I don't want to have my heart
broken again. I want distance, Like I can feel my
(33:54):
protective defense mechanisms kind.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
Of in high alert. And I talked to.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
Our agency, our surrogacy agency folks, and they've been amazing,
And none of them said to me, you know, Maya,
your future surrogate, deserves your most loving self. That had
an impact on me. She does deserve it, and it
(34:24):
wouldn't be right to shield her from the love and
gratitude that I feel. So that means that I just
need to put an effort in hard work to get
to a point where I can open myself up again
before embarking on this journey again, because she deserves to
have all of Jimmy and me and all of our
openness and all of our love.
Speaker 4 (34:46):
And so.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
I guess as I look at next steps, that's my
first next step, before any of the logistics. It is
like figuring out how to feel hopeful and open again.
(35:18):
Join me next week. When I talk to Oscar nominated
actor riz Achmed, we talk about how finally playing a
role based on his own life has changed his understanding
of himself.
Speaker 4 (35:29):
He's the one role I never get to play with
someone like myself. I realized that up until this point
as an actor, I'd become adept to molding masks and
wearing them for other people and representing other people, and
realized that actually the next stage of growth is about
(35:49):
not molding and wearing masks, but taking them off.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
A Slight Change of Plans is creative, written and executive
produced by me Maya Schunker. The best part of this
show is getting to collaborate with my formidable Slight Change family.
This includes Tyler Green, our senior producer, whose unrivaled empathy
and kindness made this episode possible. Jen Guera our senior
(36:22):
editor who brings so much heart and conscientiousness to her
work on the show. Ben Holliday, our sound engineer, Emily Rosstek,
our associate producer, and Neia LaBelle, our executive producer. Louis
Scara wrote our delightful theme song, and Ginger Smith helped
arrange the vocals. A Slight Change of Plans is a
(36:42):
production of Pushkin Industry, so big thanks to everyone there.
I'd like to extend my heartfelt thanks to Haley, my
dear friend, for her openness and having me share our
story with all of you, our fertility clinic for their
compassion and support during our experience, and to Michael Lewis
for his friendship and advice, and of course a very
(37:05):
special thanks to Jimmy Lee. You can follow A Slight
Change of Plans on Instagram at doctor Maya Schunker, and
please remember to subscribe, share and rate the show to
help get the word out.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
See you next week.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
So spoiler alert, Jimmy and I are not chill people
about this sort of thing, right, the health of our
future baby. Like Haley was telling us that she came
home on a Saturday, and unbeknownst to her, her husband
had bought a bunny Oscar. Okay, Now, typically this would
(37:46):
just be like, you know, Haley's my friend. I'm like,
oh my god, that's so much fun. You guys have
a bunny, send me pictures? You know, how did you
decide on the name Oscar? Right, that's a normal conversation.
And instantly Jimmy and I are like, is this a
pregnancy hazard?
Speaker 1 (38:01):
We go down? We go down a rabbit hole, no fun.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
Of doing research on like PubMed and like, are there
any viruses that rabbits carry that can potentially be transmitted
to humans? And I just remember there was this moment
where Jimmy turned over to me and moves his laptop
so I can see what he's looking at. And it's
like he's at like Rabbit Welfare dot co dot UK
looking at health facts and he looked at me and
(38:27):
he's like, I never thought it would come to this.
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Hey, everyone, maya here. I hope you're settling into the
change of seasons. October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month,
and it has me reflecting on an experience that my
husband and I, along with our gestational surrogate Hailey, navigated
a few years ago. Many of you know about my
slight change of plans when I hurt my hand and
(00:42):
had to give up my dream of becoming a concert violinist.
This is another important part of my story, and I
hope that sharing my reflections might bring some comfort if
you've experienced loss of any kind. I appreciate your listening.
(01:08):
Dad jokes that when I was like a five year
old or whatnot, he'd come down to the basement and
I'd be with my little kitchen set. I'd be on
this pretend phone having conversations with my fictitious neighbors about
my rebellious children. I'd be like, Oh, you wouldn't believe it, Karen,
Little Bobby is driving me crazy. First of all, it
(01:30):
says a lot about my assimilation that my child's name
was Bobby, despite the fact I'm Indian and Rob you
might have been more appropriate. But I don't think there's
ever been anything more that mattered to me than eventually
becoming a parent. I mean, it's just it's always been
a guiding force. That's me, Maya Shunker. As you can
(01:53):
probably tell, we're mixing things up on today's episode. Instead
of coming to you as the host, Maya Shunker, cognitive scientist,
I'm coming to you as just me Maya. Recently, I
was on my way to finally becoming a mom, which
had in years in the making. When my husband Jimmy,
and I learned I can't healthily carry a baby. We
(02:14):
explored gestational surrogacy, having someone else carry our baby. This
has involved fertility treatments, freezing our embryos, and finding a
surrogate match. Things were finally coming together these past few
months until we were thrown our own change of plans.
(02:36):
I never intended to share such a deeply personal story,
but then I realized that's kind of what this show
is all about. My guests come here to process their
experiences with change out loud, and I realized I wanted
to do the same. So two days after I got
some terrible news, I asked my producer and friend Tyler Green,
(02:57):
to turn on the mics and interview me. This is
a slight change of plants, a show about who we
are and who we become in the face of a
big change. We started our conversation by talking about Jimmy
(03:24):
and me and our search for a surrogate match when
we moved out to California. That's really when our journey began.
And it's very scary, obviously, right. I mean, to trust
someone so much that you're willing to put your child's
development and well being in their hands is nothing small,
you know, So, I mean, the surrogacy matching process is
(03:51):
so interesting. It feels like you're dating again, Like you're
looking at all these profiles of women who can potentially
carry your baby. And unlike a traditional dating profile, which
is like, you know, I love playing soccer and making dinners,
they're like, you know, here's my dynocological history, and here's
(04:14):
the nature of my three berths that I had with.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
My own children.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
It feels totally nuts to be learning some intimate details
about a person's medical history and to be judging compatibility
based on based on these factors. It's like, hey, how's
your uterine lining? Does it respond well to fertility treatments?
You know?
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Like, that's nuts.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Usually, as I go about the world, I'm focusing on
people's personalities and whether I like them and whether they
like me. And suddenly you're in this world where all
these bizarre metrics matter more than anything else, which is
this person's pregnancy history and their ability to conceive.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
You're like, it's not match dot com anymore, but it
looks almost the same.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
There's all these things exactly.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
But wow, didn't know I needed to know that exactly.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
So we're sifting through all these profiles and we come
across one. Her name's Haley, sorry, okay, and she just
looks perfect.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
She looks perfect.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
She's smiling in her photo with Minnie Mouse ears on
her head. It's a picture with her and her daughter
in like Disney World. I read her profile. She's got
three beautiful children of her own. She's a stay at
home mom. She is incredibly artistic and creative and builds
(05:40):
amazing things in her home. And she's also a social activist.
And I still remember when I looked at her profile.
You know, usually you write a paragraph about yourself at
the end, to just say you know why you're interested
in being a surrogate and what draws you to it,
and you know, this is an opportunity for women to
say why they think they'd be a great surrogate for you.
(06:01):
And she said, I feel so self conscious talking positively
about myself. I've asked my sister instead to share what
why she thinks, you know, I might make a great surrogate.
And it was such a beautiful description of Haley, you know,
generous in such a deep way, so loving, so caring,
(06:23):
and so loyal. And you know, at the time, I
didn't know how much that loyalty trait would matter, but
it did, and so I still remember it was the
middle of my work day and I go into a
conference room and we meet Haley over video, and it
was it was like love at first sight, you know,
that's the best way to describe it. I think we
(06:44):
all felt so bonded to each other.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
I'd always seen it as.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Such a liability, like why can't I carry this baby?
Why can't I carry this baby? And when I met
Haley for the first time ever, I thought, It's okay.
Knowing her and having it be her will make this
We'll make this just as good, even better, because I
(07:10):
had the opportunity to get to know someone like her
and I had never felt that way before. You know,
usually after a video call like that, you give both
sides some time to figure out whether they think it's right.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
I think we just wrote to each other within like a.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Minute, like we're in, the other sides like we're in,
and so we might have been the fastest match that
ever happened.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
I love that. So what happens next?
Speaker 2 (07:34):
We plan to do our embryo transfer in February of
twenty twenty, so she comes out here. And there's also
there's also this like grading system with embryos. They look
at the embryos under a microscope, and so it's like, oh,
this one's a six double A and this one's a
two DD, And you're like, is this predictive of anything?
(07:56):
Like I'm walking down the street being like, is that
person a six double A? Like, what's Obama?
Speaker 3 (08:02):
Six? Triple A? For sure? Probably a seven? Just a seven?
Speaker 2 (08:05):
What's Beyonce? I need to know what Beyonce is? Like
if Beyonce was a like three CB or like a
two d D, that gives hope to embryos everywhere. Okay,
So anyway, we were we chose our best looking embryo
and they were all genetically tested, so we had you know,
we knew that they were chromosomally normal.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
So we choose choose our best one.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
And I remember sitting in the ultrasound room that day
because you know, Kaylee was She's so inclusive throughout the process.
You know, I was like, do you prefer we're out
of the room in the room, like at the end
of the day, this is her body, and she said,
I can't imagine not having you guys in the room.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
So we're in the room. The lights go off and
I see.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
Them take our little girl embryo and implant her, and
I I was overwhelmed by emotion and like, I didn't
even I don't think of myself as that kind of person,
like Jimmy's the one who cries at Disney movies, up
Mulan the Lion King. Like I might get a little,
(09:08):
you know, heary eyed. But I was so surprised, and
I think it was we can cry for lots of reasons,
but I think it was it was a combination of
so many factors. I think one was profound relief that
this moment was finally happening. You know, it had been
years in the making, to just see it happening finally
(09:28):
with like a real human Haley sitting there like that
was overwhelming for me. And then I also just visualized her.
I was like, oh, well, she have thick, curly hair
like me. You know, you just have these images. I
just imagine her with like you know, I kind of
had just a bunch of curls shooting off my head
when I was a kid, and they had There was
no order, it was just randomness everywhere. I was like,
(09:50):
I wonder, she'll have my you know, Shirley Temple spiral curls,
but with like an ethnic twist because they're you know,
kind of it's I have textured hair.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
I have to see those pictures. By the way, I'm
not letting that go.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
I will send them to you and so. And I
just remember holding Jimmy's hands so tightly and it was
a beautiful moment. And you know, we left and obviously
we have nerves and whatnot. And you know the way
that it works, you're supposed to wait until ten days
after to do the formal blood work. That Haley wasn't
(10:21):
going to wait, so she was going to the store
buying pregnancy tests. She proceeds to send us images of
all the pregnancy tests she's been taking over the preceding
days of the line darkening and darkening and darkening, and
it's very positive. And she gets her blood test done
and we're having a.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Baby girl, you know.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
And so we're over the moon and we sign in
buy a video to that first ulture sound and we
see her little heart beating and in the same way
that Haley was perfect to us, that little embryo seemed
freaking perfect to us, too, so cute and like the
nurse said to Haley and us, your little gal's measuring perfectly.
(11:05):
Her heart's beating at a perfect rate. We're good and
so yeah, we felt so relieved, you know. And we
go home and it's so funny how these surrogacy pregnancies work.
You know, you want to be able to control things,
so you end up focusing on really small things like
is her a multi vitamin? Like the best version of
(11:26):
the multi vitamin, you know, Like how much folic acid
is she getting? You know, Like you just start asking
yourself all these really small things. It's a it's like
that Iceberg analogy. You just see the tips. So you
focus on all those things that you think are in
your control, but underneath the surface there's a ton of
stuff that's totally not present to you and is totally
out of your control. And it's about nine thirty at night,
(11:48):
and all of a sudden, we get a text from
Haley and she says, are you guys up? And we
immediately know something's wrong, because, like, why is she texting
us at eleven thirty her time asking you for up?
We call her and she says, I just started bleeding
profusely and I think I maybe miscarrying and I'm not
(12:10):
sure what's happening. And my heart just sank and I
was like, oh my god, how is this possible. We
just saw the baby a few hours ago on the ultrasound,
you know, looking super healthy and happy, and Hayley was
healthy and happy. Like it just felt like a tragedy,
you know, And to go from the highest of highs
to the lowest of lows within a six hour period,
(12:32):
it just felt cruel. Sure enough, she goes in the
next morning for an ultrasound and there's nothing there, you know,
like there was something there the day before, but there's
nothing there today.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
That's what they told us.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
So she had miscarried and I will tell you the
hardest part about a surrogacy journey is that there's a
third person grieving along with you, and that's so excruciating.
It's like, Jimmy and I felt like we could manage
our own pain, but to see someone who was so
(13:11):
loving and only wanted to bring us joy suffering and
in pain and going through the physical trauma of a
miscarriage like bleeding throughout the entire night and horrible cramping
and feeling nauseated and dizzy and all the things. Like,
it's so horrible. It's so horrible to have a third person.
And you know, in our minds, we're thinking, because guilt
(13:34):
is an inevitable feeling on all on all sides, we're
thinking to ourselves like we're the reason Haley had our
first miscarriage, you know, That's what we're thinking. And Haley's
probably thinking why did this happen?
Speaker 1 (13:47):
Like why why?
Speaker 2 (13:47):
Why couldn't I make this work? And we're all having
these irrational thoughts that are not rooted in real things,
because you just want to find an explanation.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
You know, you want to.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
You want to blame someone, and the easiest person to
blame is yourself or like who else am I to
blame the universe? Like I don't you know, so I
just wanted to blame myself.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
For everything.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
And so so that happens, And the reason why it
was so painful, Tyler, is that it happened the day
before we all entered quarantine in California, so we couldn't
even grieve with our close friends and family, like the
very small circle of people we had told about this pregnancy.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
And at this point, where you were you thinking, I'm
sure you had actually many thoughts at this point, like
should we work together with Haley again or somebody else?
Speaker 2 (14:41):
It's a great question. We so desperately wanted to work
with Haley, and we were hoping doctors would tell us
that we could, that it would make sense to Unfortunately,
you know, they said, we have no reason to believe
anything really about this situation, like there's a lot of
miscarriages at six weeks, and we were really concerned at
(15:01):
the time, like, well, Haley be down for this. She
just went through a traumatic experience and one that she
did not you know, you can sign up for this,
but like do you really know what that's going to be? Like,
you know, and so one thing that really touched our
hearts is when she said, I'm in this with you
until the end. I will do this until you become parents.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
And just to catch us up on the timeline, so
this is this is again March of twenty twenty exactly.
And then at some point you make a decision to
try again or you're able to try again.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Yeah, so we all get vaccinated, but we try again,
and so she comes out here and we go through
the whole process again. So this is August of twenty
twenty one. Okay, so it's August twenty twenty one. Haley
flies out here and we just had a wonderful time
because it was in some ways it was as though
(15:58):
no time has passed, right because we felt so close
to her. But in other ways it was as though
so much time had passed, because you could see changes
in the depth of our conversation and just how comfortable
we felt with each other.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
And so we go into the room and.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
I can already feel some of the light you know,
PTSD feelings kicking in because this time when we're doing
the ultrasound, I don't cry to do the transfer, I mean,
you know, the embryo transfer. I'm just I'm holding my
breath more than I did the first time. Like I
feel a little anxious, you know, and you know everyone's like,
(16:34):
just stay positive, stay positive, stay positive.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
So I so we stayed positive.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
And within two weeks we got those darkening line pregnancy tests.
I told her that, you know her, her hormone levels
were super high this time. So I was like, Haley,
you're pregnant AF. So that was our that was our
WhatsApp group name, Haley's Pregnant AF. We'll be right back
(16:59):
to the slight change of plans. When Jimmy and I
found out that Haley was pregnant again, we were ecstatic.
We had transferred one embryo and we felt so fortunate
it had worked. Jimmy and I would go for long
(17:22):
walks together and start imagining what life would be like
with our little Chinese Indian baby, and we named her
like Karina, that's going to be our name. So as
pregnant AF with Karina shunker Lee. And she's pregnant, and
(17:42):
like clockwork, on exactly the same day, Haley gets morning
sickness as she did the first pregnancy. Everything's going super well,
her levels are looking super strong.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
And.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
I just start I just start feeling anxious as the
six week mark approaches, because it feels very irrational and
like there's no reason at all to believe that if
there's a miscarriage, it would happen, you know, at the
six week mark, right like it could happen at seven
and a half weeks, it could happen, you know, twenty weeks.
You just don't know in this process. So I felt
like I was getting irrationally anxious. So I kept trying
(18:16):
to talk myself off, talk myself off the ledge and
be like, there's no reason to believe this would happen.
I'd set up an email address for Karina, and I'd
been sending her emails along the way about the pregnancy,
about Haley. It's like, hey, you know, hey little Karina,
it's mom. You know, here's an update. And I remember
I wrote to her the night before. I said, Hey,
(18:38):
tomorrow is a really big milestone for us, because we
get through it. Like it's one day more, you know,
that next day it's one day more than the last pregnancy,
and I just feel like I'll feel some relief. It's
Tuesday morning. I wake up and I have relief because
I look at my phone, and I'm like, there's no
(19:01):
message from her saying that she bled overnight. And then
she texts us saying, you know, I was a little
scared this morning because I woke up not feeling morning sickness.
She had had other days like that, so it wasn't
immediately alarming. And then at ten thirty am, I get
a message from her and she says, I just had
(19:21):
a gush of blood and my heart sank.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
I was like, you have got to be kidding me.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
How is this happening again, like on exactly the same
day as last time, Like it just it didn't make
any sense, And so we called the doctor and they
they're like, Okay, it could be a miscarriage. However, it
could be another thing. It could be a hematoma. Right,
It could be that there is some blood pooling in
that area and it just needs to get out. Why
don't we have her goat get an ultrasound? And so
(19:49):
even though she's like actively bleeding, she goes to get
this ultrasound and we're expecting the worst. I mean, I'm
an optimist, so of course, until you tell me like, no,
there's nothing there, I'm always going to hope. I'm always
going to hold on to that shred. I think Jimmy
at this point had just given up. He was like, Maya,
all hope is lost. And this incredibly kind doctor is
(20:13):
on the call and he's doing the ultrasound. He's like,
there's your baby, and her heart beat's perfect, it's one
hundred and sixty. She's measuring exactly as she should at
six weeks, and oh my god, there is that hematoma,
Like there is this blood pool, and so that does
explain the bleeding. Like, you guys are good. And I
(20:34):
was just sobbing, like the relief that I felt, Oh
my gosh, there's an explanation and our baby is looking
great and we're going to have this child. And then
he goes over the area again and he goes, oh
my god, there's another one. You guys are having twins,
(20:54):
and that one's also perfect. That one has a beautiful
heartbeat and is measuring great. You guys are having twins.
And Hailey was so happy, and I remember in that
moment I said to her, I said, look, I'm grateful
for one or two. I don't I didn't need to.
I just just wanted one, you know. But what matters
(21:17):
to me most is that it's with you. And so
what I just kept saying, I was like, I wanted
this to be with Haley. I wanted this to be
with Haley, and it's with you, and we get to
do this journey with you. And Jimmy and I take
a walk at this point of the day. We're like,
let's just get some fresh air. And now we're planning
our life with twins. We're thinking to ourselves, if you
need to buy a home, there should be like many bedrooms,
(21:39):
and how are we gonna care for twins? And we
start thinking about a second. You know, Haley had said,
I guess it's time to start thinking of another name.
So we're like, what goes well with Karina, you know,
And we just start brainstorming and we have this walk
and it's just like we're floating on air, you know it.
We can't wait to tell the people who we've told
that she's miscarried to that it's actually the opposite. And
you're not even just getting one, We're getting two. So
(22:04):
I go back home and I text Haley and I say,
you know, I leaded the what to expect act on
my phone this morning when I got the news about
the blood because I didn't want to get my hopes
up and I just wanted it. I wanted to remove
all evidence of that of my phone and I said
maybe I should reinstall it. And her response was, guys,
(22:27):
the thing that I've been bleeding out recently, like, it's
not it's not blood. And she takes a picture of
it and we send it to our doctor and our
doctor calls us. We're like, could this be anything? Could
this be?
Speaker 3 (22:44):
Like?
Speaker 1 (22:45):
What is this?
Speaker 2 (22:48):
You know Jimmy studied biology in college. He's like, my
MAYI that's his nickname for me. He's like, this is
not a blood clot. I'm so sorry. And when the
doctor looked at it, I just remember I heard I
heard the sound in her voice. She's like, you know
you could hear it, Like I knew the answer before
she said it. She goes, I'm just so sorry, guys.
I can't believe this has happened. And it's hard to
(23:15):
describe what that feels like. I wanted to throw up.
I felt totally nauseated and disoriented. I felt so sad
that Haley was suffering. I felt so sad she was
going through this trauma again. And it was confirmed by
a ultrasound that there was nothing there anymore. The next morning,
(23:38):
and the hardest part of this process was learning that
our embryos were actually great, and Haley was great, but
very likely there's some sort of incompatibility between our biologies.
The doctor's best guest right now is that her immune
(23:59):
system sees our embryos as foreign in some way. I
asked my doctor, I said, have you ever seen this before?
And she said no, And I think there's a bizarre
immune response happening here. And what that meant is we
can't work with her anymore. She said to me this morning,
She goes, it is so cruel that a relationship that
(24:21):
is so compatible is biologically incompatible, and you just can't
fight biology.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
What are you going to do?
Speaker 2 (24:29):
You know, the doctors are like, this would probably happen again,
and we can't put you guys through that. You can't
put yourselves through that. You just have to find another surrogate.
And what's again I'm astonishing to us, is like Haley
was willing to try again with us and again and again,
because that's the kind of person she is. And I'm
just overwhelmed still that someone would go through this, go
(24:54):
through this pain, because she's so eager to make us happy.
That's an incredible gift. I've never met anybody like her
in my life. I probably never will.
Speaker 3 (25:04):
Yeah, so i'm hearing you tell this story, I just
want to acknowledge that it is incredibly harrowing and what
you've gone through over the last few days is horrible,
and yeah, I am so sorry.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
You know. I'm also struck by the fact that you
have gone through this experience twice now, and that the
first time that Haley miscarried was back in March of
twenty twenty when COVID was beginning for all of us,
and I just remember that the world was sort of
(25:49):
changing overnight for many of us, and then on top
of that change, you had this other incredible loss, And
I'm curious, what was that experience? Like?
Speaker 2 (26:03):
It was really hard, it's very lonely, it's very iclating.
You feel like people can intellectualize it, but also maybe
not just fully understand the emotions behind it, because I
didn't fully understand the emotions behind it until I went
through it myself. I just didn't. It built my empathy
(26:28):
so much, and the way that I dealt with it,
Tyler was I was like, I have to make something
good out of this, and then it's funny to think back,
I've just forgotten about this until you mentioned it. Like
I thought of this podcast idea called a Slight Change
of Plans, and it was a grief project for me.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
It was my way of.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Trying to find meaning and answers in a situation that
I couldn't find meaning and answers in. And I didn't
know how to navigate the change that was happening in
my life. I didn't know how to navigate miscarriage. I
didn't know how to navigate COVID. I didn't know how
to navigate all the loss that was happening in the world.
I didn't know how to navigate the racial injustice. I
(27:18):
felt completely overwhelmed, and I just thought to myself, I
know that I'm not alone in not knowing how to
navigate this moment. I know that there is a treasure
trove of wisdom out there on how to navigate change,
especially unwanted, unexpected change, and it's just a matter of
(27:38):
finding those stories and learning from them. And that's what
led me to build the show. It came out of
a personal desire to understand how it is that people
navigate change and to learn from them, because you know,
I'm a scientist, write a cognitive scientist. I study how
the mind works, I study change. I know the science,
(28:01):
but the science was falling short for me, and I
felt like I needed to hear people's stories and I
needed to emotionally connect with people.
Speaker 3 (28:09):
It strikes me as I think I knew that, but
I'm just hearing it for the first time, that this
was your grief process, Right, I'm saying that correctly, Like
this was how in a way how you grieved, Right.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Yeah, I don't, and I don't think I really made
the connection fully until this moment where everyone grieves differently,
you know, like I was. I was talking to Michael
Lewis after the tragic passing of his daughter, and he said, Maya,
no one knows shit about grief. Everyone's telling me how
(28:41):
to feel, everyone's telling me what book to read, Everyone's
telling me to do this and see this therapist and
talk about No. I need to create the Michael Lewis
plan how I grieve. And he's so freaking right about that,
Like there is no one size fits all recipe for
how to grieve. There's no one size fits all recipe
for how to change, how to deal with change. And
(29:03):
that's a sobering realization. When you're in the throes of grief,
you just want answers, you want a solution set, and
you can't get it, and so what you do instead
is realize, well, I have to find I have to
create a Maya plan, and I do my best when
I'm active, and I throw myself into passion projects when
(29:24):
I'm in a bad place.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
Like that is.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
Everyone has their own recipe, but for me, that is
how I heal to process out loud, to be open
with people, to throw myselves into creative projects that can
hopefully help people and make people feel stronger.
Speaker 3 (29:39):
So, Maya, we've been talking for the last couple of days,
and it might be too soon to answer this question,
but I'm curious to know what you've learned about yourself
from all of this.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
I learned that I'm really bad at acceptance. I always
want to justify things. I always want to resist the
randomness in our world that I know is just randomness.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
You know I don't.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
I don't have religious or spiritual beliefs that help guide
me through these situations. I do just believe in people
having bad fortunes in life, you know. But I'm b
at acceptance, which means I tap into a very natural
part of my psychology, which is to tell stories, to
try to make sense of this, to try to find
(30:31):
something find something good that can emerge from this experience.
It's one of the reasons i'm talking with you today
because I need something good to come from this. And
if one listener hears this and feels that they're not alone,
then that is a silver lining. I want everyone to
know that my husband and I went through this, because
(30:55):
the more we talk about it, the more we can
support one another. I think what I learned is you
don't as a person. You don't even grew the same
way every time I'm grieving. I don't know yet all
the ways, but I feel like I'm grieving the loss
(31:18):
of these twins differently than I did the loss we
had last year. It feels very different, and in some ways,
in some ways it feels strangely easier because I feel
(31:39):
stronger because I know that I know that I've done
this before and I did make it out the other end,
And maybe that's the hope I can give to listeners
like these experiences can make you stronger. You can learn
how to you can learn what helps you build resilience
(32:02):
in your life along the way, and you can try
to do that.
Speaker 3 (32:07):
What would you say to Haley in this moment.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
That I love her and life works in really interesting ways.
You don't know the kinds of people that you'll meet
and how they'll touch you. So it's a gift. It's
a gift that we got to know her. That's why
I that's why the regret part of my brain has
just kind of turned off, because I'm like, wait, if
(32:32):
we hadn't gone through this experience, we wouldn't have met
this wonderful human being. And like that counts too in life, right,
we should be putting weight on that too, Humans who
come into our lives and enrich our lives. Like life
is not just about achieving a series of outcomes, it's
also letting in and creating space for unexpected, beautiful gifts.
And I think that's how we feel with her.
Speaker 3 (32:55):
I have such a deep appreciation for you sharing this
story today, and I think that in you being so
open it is really going to help a lot of people.
And I just want to give you a chances is
there anything else that you'd like to share?
Speaker 2 (33:13):
I mean, I guess one thing i'd share is I
feel closed off right now about the idea of a
new surrogate entering our lives. So fascinating how these bonds formed,
but it almost feels like a betrayal, like how could
I do this to Haley? Like could how could we
(33:33):
have somebody else? And obviously she was saying like, you
guys deserve a child so much, and you know she
would only ever be so supportive of our next steps.
But instinctively, I'm like, oh, I don't want to get
close to them. I don't want to have my heart
broken again. I want distance, Like I can feel my
(33:54):
protective defense mechanisms kind.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
Of in high alert. And I talked to.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
Our agency, our surrogacy agency folks, and they've been amazing,
And none of them said to me, you know, Maya,
your future surrogate, deserves your most loving self. That had
an impact on me. She does deserve it, and it
(34:24):
wouldn't be right to shield her from the love and
gratitude that I feel. So that means that I just
need to put an effort in hard work to get
to a point where I can open myself up again
before embarking on this journey again, because she deserves to
have all of Jimmy and me and all of our
openness and all of our love.
Speaker 4 (34:46):
And so.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
I guess as I look at next steps, that's my
first next step, before any of the logistics. It is
like figuring out how to feel hopeful and open again.
(35:18):
Join me next week. When I talk to Oscar nominated
actor riz Achmed, we talk about how finally playing a
role based on his own life has changed his understanding
of himself.
Speaker 4 (35:29):
He's the one role I never get to play with
someone like myself. I realized that up until this point
as an actor, I'd become adept to molding masks and
wearing them for other people and representing other people, and
realized that actually the next stage of growth is about
(35:49):
not molding and wearing masks, but taking them off.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
A Slight Change of Plans is creative, written and executive
produced by me Maya Schunker. The best part of this
show is getting to collaborate with my formidable Slight Change family.
This includes Tyler Green, our senior producer, whose unrivaled empathy
and kindness made this episode possible. Jen Guera our senior
(36:22):
editor who brings so much heart and conscientiousness to her
work on the show. Ben Holliday, our sound engineer, Emily Rosstek,
our associate producer, and Neia LaBelle, our executive producer. Louis
Scara wrote our delightful theme song, and Ginger Smith helped
arrange the vocals. A Slight Change of Plans is a
(36:42):
production of Pushkin Industry, so big thanks to everyone there.
I'd like to extend my heartfelt thanks to Haley, my
dear friend, for her openness and having me share our
story with all of you, our fertility clinic for their
compassion and support during our experience, and to Michael Lewis
for his friendship and advice, and of course a very
(37:05):
special thanks to Jimmy Lee. You can follow A Slight
Change of Plans on Instagram at doctor Maya Schunker, and
please remember to subscribe, share and rate the show to
help get the word out.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
See you next week.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
So spoiler alert, Jimmy and I are not chill people
about this sort of thing, right, the health of our
future baby. Like Haley was telling us that she came
home on a Saturday, and unbeknownst to her, her husband
had bought a bunny Oscar. Okay, Now, typically this would
(37:46):
just be like, you know, Haley's my friend. I'm like,
oh my god, that's so much fun. You guys have
a bunny, send me pictures? You know, how did you
decide on the name Oscar? Right, that's a normal conversation.
And instantly Jimmy and I are like, is this a
pregnancy hazard?
Speaker 1 (38:01):
We go down? We go down a rabbit hole, no fun.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
Of doing research on like PubMed and like, are there
any viruses that rabbits carry that can potentially be transmitted
to humans? And I just remember there was this moment
where Jimmy turned over to me and moves his laptop
so I can see what he's looking at. And it's
like he's at like Rabbit Welfare dot co dot UK
looking at health facts and he looked at me and
(38:27):
he's like, I never thought it would come to this.
Host
Dr. Maya Shankar
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