This is Infertility is a bi-weekly podcast where we fuse narrative storytelling with experience and science to give you a new perspective on what it’s really like to go through a family building journey. Each episode dives into the emotional, physical, and financial burdens carried by those who experience infertility on their path to parenthood. Be it IVF, IUI, egg freezing, surrogacy, adoption, etc., the path is never the same and it can be long, painful, and lonely. It’s our mission to give those struggling a platform to be heard, a community connection, and an opportunity to raise awareness of the 1 in 6 who, for many reasons, struggle with infertility.
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This is Infertility

Episode 207: From Struggle to Storybook: The Journey Behind Cupcakes Everywhere

When Erin Sarris and her husband first visited a fertility clinic, they were hit with unexpected news: severe male factor infertility and an immediate recommendation to pursue IVF. What followed was a long, winding, and often painful journey filled with setbacks, from failed cycles to loss and emotional isolation.

Now a mother of three and author of Cupcakes Everywhere: One Sweet Tale of Overcoming Infertility, Erin shares how infertility reshaped her view and inspired a metaphorical children’s book that captures the bittersweet reality of struggling to grow a family. This conversation is raw, vulnerable, and ultimately a reminder that even when the path to parenthood is anything but straightforward.

For more information, visit Progyny’s Podcast page and Progyny’s Education page for more resources. Be sure to follow us on Instagram, @ThisisInfertilityPodcast and use the #ThisisInfertility. Have a question, comment, or want to share your story? Email us at thisisinfertility@progyny.com.

Guest: Erin Sarris, Progyny Member
Host: Dan Bulger, Progyny

Watch this episode on YouTube:

Here are some highlights from this episode:  

Reshaping Their View on Family Building
02:02 – 05:21

Erin Sarris: We were like, we should probably actually see what’s going on and go to an actual fertility clinic. My husband had very severe male factor infertility that would require us to go straight to IVF, and so that was a lot to process, because I’d always hope to avoid IVF.

We got five embryos that were edge cases. We got the phone call that none of our embryos were viable and none of them were suitable for transfer, which honestly was a consideration that I hadn’t even taken. I thought that everybody gets a transfer. I was like, I just want to go home. I want to go home for the whole month. And luckily, we both worked remotely at the time, and we could do that. So, we spent the money that we would have spent on the transfer, and we booked a month-long rental in Chicago, and came home to be with our families. And that was so nice and so healing to do.

Feeling Isolated
06:02 – 08:24

Erin Sarris: That spring we moved back to Chicago, and that was when I did another IVF cycle, which went a lot better. This time I got a lot more embryos. So, we did another cycle, and that was a freeze all cycle, and then we transferred, and our first transfer we ever got, you know, 18 months later, whatever it was from starting fertility treatments, we did that in the fall, and that was a blighted ovum, which is a type of miscarriage.

I ended up having a DNC for that pregnancy and thus began my dark phase of just completely like every day felt so unbearable, like I just couldn’t interact with anybody, and I felt very socially awkward. I have two brothers, I’m really close to them, and I called them and I said, I don’t even know how to make small talk with people at Easter when people say, “Hey, Erin, how’s it going? What’s new?” Like, I literally did not know how to answer that question in a casual way without just feeling this like complete shame and like grief over our infertility. I just felt like my brain was broken and my ability to be engaged with the world, and you’ll see a lot of this in the book, like just feeling this sense of otherness and like things come so easily to other people.

Finally Getting Their Cupcakes
08:53 – 12:12

Dan Bulger: They were down to their last two embryos, and this felt like a last chance for the couple.

Erin Sarris: One day, my husband and I were out in the car, and I’m like, you know what’s funny, I haven’t gotten my period in a really long time. And then he was like, Well, how long? And so I, like, went back and kind of like, was thinking about it, and I was like, I think I haven’t gotten a period for like, six or seven weeks. And he was like, what? Oh my gosh, I think I’m pregnant.

I wrote an Instagram post to announce my pregnancy with my son, and I used the metaphor of the special bakery, because I wanted to highlight the different processes that I took to having, you know, all three of the kids, and I just kind of talked about how, imagine if you had to go to this sad, sad bakery to even get a chance at having a cupcake. But everyone else can easily bake their cupcakes at home. That was kind of how the cupcakes metaphor was born. It’s actually maybe more for grown-ups than I even realized when I was writing it. I think that infertility is just something that makes its mark on you.

Dan Bulger

Host

Dan Bulger
Producer at Progyny

Dan has been in the healthcare industry for the past ten plus years as a multimedia content producer. Better known as ‘Video Dan’ he has interviewed numerous doctors, patients and other experts in the world of fertility. He’s also the producer for this podcast, This is Infertility and the producer behind the Progyny YouTube Channel which features interviews with dozens of the nation’s leading fertility specialists. On a personal note Dan’s parents started fostering kids when he was four years old, and he considers himself a proud older brother to over 100 foster children.

Erin Sarris

Guest

Erin Sarris
Progyny Member

Erin Sarris is a writer and digital marketer who lives in Chicago with her family, which includes her husband and their three kids, (two of which were conceived through many rounds of IVF). She is the author of the children’s book, “Cupcakes Everywhere: One Sweet Tale of Overcoming Infertility” and spends a lot of her free time advocating for better access to infertility treatments and championing reproductive autonomy.