Episode 69: #NIAW: An Eggcellent Adventure to Parenthood: Matt and Doree

In honor of this year’s National Infertility Awareness Week (4/19 – 4/25), we’re doing a five-part series that highlights Resolve’s theme of ‘Changing the Conversation’. Over the past two years we’ve had conversations with people still experiencing infertility, people who have reached their end goals, people who’ve dedicated their lives to helping others, and people who are just entering this ever-expanding world of infertility.  

We’re focusing these episodes on change, how our guests have changed since we last visited them, how their priorities have changed, and how their situation has changed. We hope by doing so we can do our small part to help change the conversation and enhance public understanding that infertility needs attention and to ensure others they aren’t alone in this journey.  

Today, we catch up with Matt Mira and Doree Shafrir, hosts of the hit podcast “Matt and Doree’s Eggcellent Adventure”, and guests of ours from season one. When we last spoke, Matt and Doree were in the midst of their family building journey, one that included multiple rounds of IVF and a chemical pregnancy. A lot has changed since then (including the birth of a baby boy!), so we’re checking in to see what’s next for the couple.  

Guests: Matt Mira and Doree Shafrir, hosts of Matt and Doree’s Eggcellent Adventure   

Host: Lissa Kline, LCSW, Vice President, Provider and Member Services, Progyny 

Be sure to check out Matt and Doree’s previous episode – Season 1, Episode 11.   

For more information visit Progyny’s Podcast page, Matt and Doree’s Eggcellent Adventure, and  Progyny’s Education page for more resources on emotional support and awareness.   

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.   

Here are some highlights from this episode:   

Not Accepting Defeat and Changing Course
7:07 – 9:02 

Matt Mira: It sort of was like a, a moment of utter defeat, and a realization that this might never work here. It was costing a lot, it was taking a lot of energy emotionally and physically on Doree’s part because she’s the one getting constantly injected with things 

Doree Shafrir: I think it was also emotionally draining for you. 

Matt Mira: Yes, it absolutely was. We had, what we call in scriptwriting, a “come to Jesus moment”, where we said, what are we actually doing? What do we need to happen here? 

Lissa Kline: That’s a place that I think a lot of people get to at some point, when they’re trying to have a baby. It’s a place that feels like maybe there won’t be a happy ending to the story, where the IVF sometimes thought of as a silver bullet hasn’t worked, and time and money seem to be running out. But they weren’t truly out of options at this point. Not yet. They were coming off of two rounds of IVF that yielded no chromosomally normal embryos. But they had one embryo in storage from an earlier round of IVF. And they had a plan in place to change clinics to a clinic in Colorado, if they needed to try for another egg retrieval. Switching to the Colorado clinic was something that they’re hoping to avoid because they live in California. 

The News They Were Waiting For
12:27 – 16:07 

Lissa Kline: The positive beta with really strong numbers came as something of a surprise to Doree. And she called Matt to share the good news. 

So, the positive beta meant that Doree was pregnant. And as the pregnancy progressed, the couple came to the point where they needed to share the news with their listeners. They’ve built a large and dedicated audience that originally tuned in to listen to their experiences with infertility. And we asked if there was some trepidation that a pregnancy announcement on that kind of show may be difficult for some to hear. 

Matt Mira: We really had to sort of, I mean, not tiptoe around it, but wanted to be sensitive. We know what it’s like to hear the news. You don’t want to begrudge anybody, and you don’t, but you do have a pang of jealousy and annoyance that it worked for someone else. Which is a horrible thing to say. But look, we’re all humans. And we all want that thing.