Setting yourself up NOW for the Family life you want Later

Welcome to my noontime chats with you. I'm Erica Hoke. If you don't know me, I am the infertile mom of 4. That might sound counterintuitive, and it is, but we were told that we would not have any children, could not have kids without donor eggs, and 7 years later without assistance, I gave birth to our Last son. So, um, I am super passionate about a lot of different things, but what I'm talking to you about today is goal setting for your future. What I find with my clients that I talk to is that they get themselves into a position because of doctor's bills and infertility treatments and just, um, the stress, honestly, just the stress of going through the infertility process where they back themselves into a corner and they don't have a lot of choices as to whether or not they want to stay home. Sorry, I'm just going to tell you right now, I've got like a little fuzz on my nose. Okay, I think I got it. So it makes me really— makes my heart hurt for them because they have spent all this, this time, they've gone on this journey, they have invested a lot of money. Now they have the baby of their dreams, they have the family that they've been longing for. And they don't have the choice, um, and I'm talking to you, um, mamas-to-be and, um, people going through the infertility journey. I'm talking to you if you want to stay home with your baby. If you have even the smallest inkling that you want to stay home with your baby, then this might be the video for you. Speaking of which, if you enjoyed this video, you know, hit that subscribe button and hit that like hit the like. Some hearts are always nice, um, as an encouragement, um, so that you can catch my content live next time, Monday, Wednesday, Friday at noon. So that being said, I came, um, you know, during my infertility journey, I had always wanted to be a stay-at-home mom, but let me tell you, I was coming from a corporate, corporate environment, and it was a little It's a little scary to walk away from that identity, that security, that income. And I almost missed my chance. I almost missed my chance to stay home with my kids because we had made some choices where we had upsized our house and we were driving some really nice cars and we had to scale way back, um, after our oldest son was born. And so that I had an opportunity to stay home. And once we started that process, we actually conceived our twins. Um, now remember, if you know my story, I'll just insert a little piece of it for you here. We were told we would need donor eggs, fired from our fertility practice, and 2 months later conceived our twins. All right, so back to the story. So the story is is that a lot of times when you're going through infertility, you're doing a lot of things to make yourself feel good. Um, that might be eating too much, which affects your fertility. It might be drinking too much, which affects your fertility. It might be buying things that you can't afford and creating debt, which in the long run is going to really affect, um, the choices that you have after your baby is born. So I went back to work when my son was 3 months old. I worked for 12 months and then I decided, and just circumstances, that I could not continue working anymore. And so we made some huge lifestyle changes and it gave us some choices as to me being able to stay home. So, all right, so talking about goal setting for your future family. So you want to, you want to try to be as debt-free as possible. So I know that for some people that seems completely unrealistic. I am not a financial coach, but there are a lot of programs out there that utilize financial coaches. And hey, if you want some of my super friends information, go ahead and drop me a message and I'll connect you with some of those people that are really great family financial coaches. So you want to live as debt-free as possible, right? You want to utilize your insurance as much as possible for testing. I just talked to a woman before this call about some testing that she needed to do. And you can actually do a lot of that testing through your OB-GYN, which will be covered by your insurance because not everybody's insurance will cover the testing if you do it through your reproductive endocrinologist. This seems like a no-brainer, but I can't tell you how many people come to me and they're paying out of pocket for that reproductive endocrinologist test that could have gone through their insurance. It will save you money to get a second opinion. That's my second, my second thing. It will, it's gonna save you money to get a second opinion. Again, this might seem a little counterintuitive, But to get a second opinion is to also open yourself up to the possibility that this person, this reproductive— excuse me, this reproductive endocrinologist is not— a lot of people view them as like a savior or God, like they're going to fix everything. They're going to give me my baby. You know, and we'll give you a different perspective as to how different practices operate, what their protocols are and things like that. So as much as we would like to believe that all doctors and all reproductive endocrinologists are altruistic and they're just there to help you as much as possible, again, I talk to many people. As a matter of fact, one of my book authors is someone who experienced this. She comes from the background of being an ultrasound sonographer, and I'll just tell you a bit of her story because this is a good example. She knew when they were doing her— when they, the reproductive endocrinologist, was doing her transfer, that she could see on the screen that her endometrium lining was not thick enough to really be doing the transfer. And when she questioned the doctor, they were dismissive of her. But as a trained sonographer, she was able to tell that. Did they give her money back when the, the IUI did not take? No, they did not. They transferred her, um, on a day where her— it was inhospitable for that transfer. So things like that, getting second opinions, talking to doctors, um, these are really big decisions in your life. And so treat it like you would shop around for anything else. Get second opinions. And in the long run, my point of saying that is, in the long run, it could potentially save you a lot of money because you want a doctor that, one, you vibe with, two, that you are on the same page about things like transfers, IVF, IUI, all the things, testing ahead of time. Um, which is my third point is do your research. Know before you have a procedure done kind of what the standards of the parameter are. Um, the standards of care. Sorry, the standards, standards of care. Just because you're not an ultrasound sonographer does not mean that you can't collaborate with your doctor and say, hey, you know, I see that most women have the most success when your lining is this thick to this thick, so I'm really not willing to transfer if my lining is not that thick. You have the choice to be able to do that. Again, this is gonna save you heartache of going through the process and money in the long run, okay? So we want you to make good choices so that you don't end up with a big pile of debt and a baby, and then you're not able to spend any time with that baby, okay? So I see time and again that IVF is a first-line response to an unexplained infertility. Diagnosis. And when that happens, when I see people that go from unexplained infertility diagnosis to an IVF or an IUI cycle, many, many times over and over again, I see that it does not work. So if you've seen in my other videos, you know that I'm a huge advocate for tapping into your, into your body, paying attention to those cues, Finding out why you're having painful periods, investigating why you're not sleeping well, why you have unexplained weight gain, any of the things that are going on to your body, going on with your body that can be contributing to your overall health is going to contribute to your fertility, infertility journey. So don't just jump. In my case, we, Um, we didn't have a choice with IVF. We were told that IVF was not an option. They could not do an egg retrieval for us because I was already— they couldn't stimulate me because my body was already doing that. I had really low ovarian reserve, so we didn't have any other choice other than to dig into these things. So in order to save yourself money, do a little digging, do a little work on your body, um, figure out, um, or let me help you figure out. That's what I do. I help women kind of pinpoint those areas that are missing, um, in their, in their lives, whether it's lifestyle, whether it's testing that a doctor has overlooked, or things like that. So, um, if you are thinking that you want to stay home with your baby and you want to, um, you know, reduce your debt, and you're looking to kind of lay the pavement for that— pave the way, um, is what I meant to say— pave the way for that. Um, I have an amazing resource for you in Martha Crecci. She's doing a mastermind this weekend. It might just get your wheels turning about how you can either supplement your income or start kind of paving the way for you to create a little nest egg on the side while you work your job and you are going through your infertility process so that you can step into, um, a, a full-time income and have the choice of staying home with your baby that you've, you know, worked so hard and wanted so hard and prayed so hard for. So, all right guys, thank you. I was a little long today. I will see you Friday at noon. Health and blessings to you guys. Bye-bye.