TW: infertility, pregnancy, and loss
“There’s certain cultures where it’s very hush-hush, and it’s very taboo…people feel stigmatized and ashamed when they find themselves not being able to have babies or able to reproduce.”
Fertility struggles are a financial and emotional burden for many families. In this episode of Financial Feminist, Tori dives deep into the topic with Ali Prato, the creator of the podcast “Infertile AF” and founder of the Fertility Rally support community. Together they unpack the emotional, physical, and financial toll that infertility can take on individuals and couples. From the costs associated with infertility treatments, to grappling with the societal pressures surrounding parenthood, this difficult but necessary conversation provides valuable resources and support options for those struggling with infertility.
Here are some infertility stats:
- One in ten women in the US suffer from infertility
- Approximately 10-20% of pregnancies end in miscarriage
- One out of ten women ages 15-44 have received fertility services
- Median per person costs associated with infertility and treatments ranged from $1182 for medications to $24373 and $38015 for IVF and IVF donor groups
- IUI (intrauterine insemination) success rates are 13% for those under 35, and 3-9% for those over 40
- People who use IVF (in vitro fertilization) have approximately a ¼ chance of conceiving a child
The above statistics paint a bleak picture for anyone trying to conceive. Ali is no stranger to the rollercoaster of emotions experienced during that process. She candidly shares her own journey of multiple miscarriages and the toll it took on her mental health and relationship with her partner.
“That’s the fucked up thing about this is that it is one of those things, one of the few things in life where the effort does not equate to the outcome. You can spend hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars going down this road, and like I said, there’s no guarantee. There’s no guarantee that you’re going to walk away with a baby at the end of it, which is really devastating.”
It’s part of the reason why Ali believes it’s so important to have these conversations and break the silence around things like infertility, women’s reproductive health/rights, and believing women’s pain. To destigmatize them and provide the people who are going through it with support and validation.
“I think as women, we’ve been brought up to think, suck it up…I have so many friends that I’ve talked to who had really painful periods all through growing up, and it ended up being diagnosed later as endometriosis or something in that realm…But now I think people talking about it like this, at least people will know and hopefully the generation’s coming after us, that’s not normal. You’re not supposed to bleed for 15 days in a row. You’re not supposed to be unable to get out of bed because your cramps are so bad. That’s a sign that something’s wrong.”
Key takeaways:
- Egg freezing is an option for women who want to delay childbearing and preserve their fertility. It’s seen as a way to take control of reproductive choices, especially for those who haven’t found a partner yet.
- Egg freezing is significantly cheaper than IVF. The cost typically involves an initial retrieval cycle of around $8,000 and annual storage fees of $600-$800.
- The process of egg freezing involves hormone injections to stimulate egg production, followed by a minimally invasive retrieval procedure.
- Benefits of egg freezing include the ability to delay childbearing and potentially increase the chances of pregnancy later in life.
- There are no guarantees with egg freezing. The success rate depends on various factors, and the thawing process is still being refined.
- Insurance coverage for egg freezing is variable, but it’s becoming more available through some employers and fertility clinics.
- Embryo freezing is an alternative option where fertilized eggs are frozen for future implantation.
Episode at-a-glance
≫ 01:03 The emotional and financial costs of IVF and infertility
≫ 02:02 Ali’s personal journey through secondary infertility
≫ 04:55 Understanding IVF, ART, and IUI
≫ 12:28 The emotional rollercoaster of fertility challenges
≫ 16:37 The financial burden of fertility treatments
≫ 22:02 Exploring alternatives and the reality of fertility treatments
≫ 29:25 Breaking the silence on women’s health issues
≫ 44:02 Exploring egg freezing as a fertility option
≫ 52:34 Finding community and resources on the fertility journey
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Meet Ali
Ali Prato is an award-winning journalist and mama-of-two who went through secondary infertility, IUIs, IVF, depression, grief and relationship issues. She is the host of “Infertile AF,” the number one infertility podcast, the co-founder of Fertility Rally and the author of “Work of ART,” a new children’s book about IVF and assisted reproductive technology.
Transcript:
Tori Dunlap:
A trigger warning right off the top for this episode, we are discussing infertility, pregnancy, and loss. So if any of those will be a little difficult to hear, take a pass on this one. We’ll see you next week.
Ali Prato:
But I did all the things. And you’re taught all through growing up if you work really hard at something and you apply yourself and you do the best that you can do, you will achieve success at some point. And like we said before, this isn’t one of those places where that’s always the case. Even if you have the best medical team and the best doctors, there’s so many variables that can factor into getting pregnant and having a healthy pregnancy and having a healthy baby.
Tori Dunlap:
Hi Financial Feminist, welcome back to the show. I’m so excited to see you. If you’re an oldie but a goodie, welcome back, and if you’re new here, hi, my name is Tori. I am a money expert, I’m a New York Times bestselling author. I’m the host of this show, which is the number one money podcast for women in the world. And we are a community of nearly 5 million financial feminists. The millions keep growing, and I’m so humbled and thankful for you all.
Today’s episode is a really, really great one, and it’s one of the most common topic requests we get, which is about IVF, infertility, about the cost of those treatments, both emotional and financial. And so this was just a really, really great episode, very informative. And also for someone who is child-free, there were a lot of things that I didn’t know that I learned.
So if you are someone who is trying to have a child, if is trying to pursue that, if you’re like me and in your late 20s, early 30s, and you are thinking about potentially having children later, but you don’t want to have them right now, and the freezing egg conversation has also come up, this is a really great episode, and a really, really great guest.
So if you’re listening to this on release day or release week, it is National Infertility Awareness Week. Infertility affects 1 in 10 women in the United States, and 9% of men. So we wanted to bring on a guest to talk about infertility, IVF, egg freezing and more.
Ali Prado is an award-winning journalist and mama of two who went through secondary infertility, which we’ll talk about what that means, IUIs, IVF, depression, grief, and relationship issues. She’s the host of Infertile AF, the number one infertility podcast, the co-founder of Fertility Rally, and the author of Work of Art, a new children’s book about IVF and assisted reproductive technology. This episode isn’t just the science talk side. We really drove into the emotional, financial cost of IVF infertility as a whole. And I’m so grateful to Ali as always with our guests who come on and are just so vulnerable and are willing to share and shed light on a topic that often isn’t discussed, and has a lot of taboo. So without further ado, let’s get into it. But first a word from our sponsors. Where are you based?
Ali Prato:
Just outside of Manhattan?
Tori Dunlap:
How long does it take you to get into Manhattan?
Ali Prato:
30 minutes on the train.
Tori Dunlap:
Oh, easy. Okay, cool.
Ali Prato:
Yeah, super quick. I lived in Brooklyn for 18 years and we just moved out to the burbs. It’s been a couple of years now, but I still feel very new to this world.
Tori Dunlap:
Yeah. What neighborhood in Brooklyn?
Ali Prato:
I was in Williamsburg.
Tori Dunlap:
Yeah. Yeah. My business partner and my friend just moved out of Williamsburg for the first time in 10 years, and he’s having… He’s excited, but also an identity crisis of like, oh my gosh.
Ali Prato:
Totally.
Tori Dunlap:
I’m not Williamsburg anymore, what does that mean?
Ali Prato:
Well, everyone’s like, what do you miss? And I’m like, well, there’s nothing cool about the Jersey suburbs. And Brooklyn is pretty much the coolest place ever, so there’s no cool people, but I’ve got two kids now.
Tori Dunlap:
You’re like, I don’t miss the price. Everything else I miss.
Ali Prato:
Yeah, exactly.
Tori Dunlap:
Yeah, I lived in Bed-Stuy for two months, and then I was actually just back in that apartment. I always wanted to live in New York, but didn’t know if I wanted to commit to doing it full-time.
Ali Prato:
Where are you, Tori?
Tori Dunlap:
I’m in Seattle. So the goal is to be bi-coastal eventually, but financially that is, I’ve picked two expensive places to want to be bi-coastal in. So, yeah.
Ali Prato:
It is. Here’s my dog putting her paw on my shoulder.
Tori Dunlap:
Oh, what kind of dog?
Ali Prato:
She’s a rescue. She’s like a mix.
Tori Dunlap:
Hi baby. What’s her name?
Ali Prato:
Her name is Sweet Baby Ray.
Tori Dunlap:
Sweet Baby Ray. She’s not going to be able to hear me because she has no headphones in, but hello.
Ali Prato:
She’s like, uh.
Tori Dunlap:
I love dogs. That’s the other thing is I really want to get my own dog, but that’s a conversation for another time. We’re so excited to have you on the show.
Ali Prato:
Thank you for having me.
Tori Dunlap:
I love that there’s a dog in our mix too, that weirdly just comforts me just knowing she’s half a world away, but I just love it.
Ali Prato:
That’s right.
Tori Dunlap:
Before we launch into questions, I want to level set us with some terms that we’re probably going to talk about in this conversation for people who might not be familiar.
Ali Prato:
Okay.
Tori Dunlap:
So IVF, like ART. Give me the quick and dirty, here’s what these things are, here’s what the difference is, et cetera.
Ali Prato:
So IVF, it stands for in vitro fertilization. So that is part of the world of ART, which stands for assisted reproductive technology. It basically means if you need a medical intervention to help you get pregnant and have a baby, you go down the ART world. IVF is probably one of the most common ways to do it, and that literally means that an egg and a sperm meet up in a Petri dish, form an embryo, and then the embryo is implanted into a uterus, either your own or if you’re using a surrogate, the surrogate’s uterus. So that’s IVF.
And it’s so funny because this morning I actually interviewed somebody for my podcast, Infertile AF, and she’s the first woman who was born through IVF in the US, Elizabeth Carr, and she was born in 1981.
Tori Dunlap:
Wow.
Ali Prato:
So it’s actually not that old of a technology. It’s only 40 something years old. It’s still really new in the world of medicine, but a lot has changed in the past four decades. And we were talking about, God, what’s going to happen in the next four decades? I can only imagine how many things will change and progress because it really is very different now than it was then when she was born.
They call them test tube babies, and it was a very big groundbreaking medical technique. So yeah, that’s IVF and ART. There’s also IUI, which is intrauterine insemination, which is kind of when you use a catheter, I believe, or some sort of something to basically put sperm up into the woman’s uterus. So it’s kind of like, it’s not as in depth as IVF, but it’s another way that people can get pregnant under the assisted reproductive technology umbrella. So those are kind of the basics. But I always say, I’m not a doctor, please take it with a grain. If you have any real questions about this stuff, definitely talk to a medical professional. I mean, I’m in this world, but I definitely get things wrong as well. Because there’s a lot of terms, and there’s a lot of acronyms and things.
Tori Dunlap:
Totally. I was thinking of, if you’ve ever seen Jane the Virgin, that’s what ends up happening to the main character.
Ali Prato:
I actually haven’t seen Jane the Virgin. Should I watch that?
Tori Dunlap:
It’s a great show. I highly recommend Justin Baldoni, who is one of the stars of it, is actually a friend of mine who’s been on the show. But yeah, it’s a great show. Yeah, she is someone who is waiting till marriage to have sex, and she gets accidentally artificially inseminated.
Ali Prato:
Okay, cool. I didn’t know that was the premise of it. All right.
Tori Dunlap:
It’s a great show. It’s streaming on Netflix. It’s like a telenovela, but for American audiences. So it’s really, really fun.
Ali Prato:
After Vanderpump Rules, I’ll put that on my list.
Tori Dunlap:
Perfect. But yeah, that’s what happens to her is what we would define as IUI and yeah, it’s completely accidental. Anyway, great show. You experienced secondary infertility.
Ali Prato:
I did.
Tori Dunlap:
Tell me what this is. Tell me a bit about your journey, and is the fertility space something you were aware of before experiencing this?
Ali Prato:
Yeah, no. Okay.,Yes. So many questions. I’ll take it one by one.
Tori Dunlap:
Sorry, yes.
Ali Prato:
Secondary infertility, I didn’t even know what that was. I’d never heard of it. I actually didn’t even get diagnosed with that ever technically while I was going through it. I didn’t even know that that was what it was called until afterwards. So just to put it in very easy to understand terms, I had my daughter without any sort of medical intervention. I hate to say the word natural, because it makes it seem like anything else is “unnatural.” But I had her unassisted with just good, old-fashioned banging my husband.
So I got pregnant with my daughter, had a fairly uneventful pregnancy with her. I did have her, however, when I gave birth, I was 35. And the reason that that number is notable is because that’s kind of the point in the medical world, in the fertility world where things start to kind of go downhill as a woman egg quality wise and other things.
I didn’t know anything about this, and we talk about this on my show a lot and just in this community in general too, is the lack of education that we all had growing up. You never really learned actually how hard it is to get pregnant. It was always kind of the opposite. It’s very easy to get pregnant. If you don’t use protection, you’re going to get pregnant. Be careful, be careful, be careful. It was almost like a scared straight education that we all got. And a friend of mine the other day was talking about how we’re the banana condom generation, because it seems like everybody who grew up in the 80s, 90s, even early 2000s and had sex education in school, it was just like you learn how to put a condom on a banana and that was kind of it.
So point being when I had my daughter when I was 35, and then we didn’t start to try for baby number two for a couple years after that. So two to three years after that, and then it was like, oh, this isn’t happening. And I had four miscarriages kind of back to back and I was like, what is going on? And I had been looking at Hollywood or just mainstream and thinking, oh, you can have a baby anytime you want. Halle Berry just had a baby and she’s in her 40s, or Janet Jackson, who’s late 40s, early 50s or whatever it was.
I really didn’t know anything about, like I said, egg quality starting to decrease as you got older, that you’re born with all the eggs you’ll ever have, all these things. I didn’t know any of that stuff. So it was all a very rude awakening when I realized that, oh, it’s very different trying to get pregnant when you’re 33, 34 than when you are 38, 39 even. So that’s when I realized that I did have secondary infertility.
So my issue was specific to my egg quality. So I had a healthy egg reserve, I had a lot of eggs, but not a lot of them were healthy. So what was happening, and again, this is layman’s terms, the way that my doctor explained it to me was that the reason I was having miscarriages is because they weren’t healthy, chromosomally normal embryos. So they were unhealthy embryos that I was getting pregnant with, and then my body was rejecting them. So that’s why I had four miscarriages.
That’s when I found myself in this world of, one miscarriage I felt like was very, very common. A lot of friends that I had had had a miscarriage, so I kind of almost thought it was a rite of passage. Two was still like, okay. But then when I had my third and my fourth, I was like, all right, I need to see a doctor. So I went and I found a reproductive endocrinologist who I ended up working with who was my doctor, and he was the one who gave me the workup and did all the tests and told me, you’re actually a perfect candidate for IVF because once you’re pregnant with a healthy embryo, you should be okay, because you’ve already had a healthy pregnancy, and you don’t really have a problem getting pregnant, per se. It’s just we need to find that healthy egg and match it with the sperm. So that’s what we did.
Tori Dunlap:
What was that? If you’re willing to discuss, what was that emotionally for you? I imagine that had to be so challenging. And also I think just in general, I’ve talked to women who, friends of mine or women in our community who have trouble getting pregnant. And even though it’s not my fault, it feels like your fault. So what was going on for you then?
Ali Prato:
It was terrible. I’ve never been so sad and so depressed in my life. Personally for me, it was like when you want to have a baby and you can’t, it is just the saddest thing. I’ve been very vocal about my journey and everything I went through. My husband and I started having problems. We weren’t on the same page after a while because this went on over a handful of years that we were trying to have baby number two, and I wanted to keep going and keep going and keep going, but it’s expensive and it takes a toll on your relationship, and it takes a toll on your body, and hormonally and there’s so many different things that you go through. It was terrible. And at the time, so my son, spoiler alert, I did have a son through IVF. But at the time that I was trying to have him, this is now 10 years ago, and the landscape was very different.
There weren’t a lot of people talking about assisted reproductive technology, IVF. Like I said, in Hollywood it was like, oh my God, she had a baby and she’s older, and nobody was really being forthcoming about what was happening behind the scenes. There weren’t a lot of podcasts. There certainly wasn’t Instagram at the time, so I didn’t have a community. Facebook existed, but I couldn’t find my people. I went on there looking for groups, because I’m a very community-oriented person, and I couldn’t find a Facebook group that I could relate to. I just wanted somebody to talk to.
And like I said, I had friends who had had a miscarriage or maybe two, but there was nobody that was going through what I was going through, which was recurrent pregnancy loss and just complete depression. I mean, I was in a very dark emotional place. So I did start going to therapy. My husband and I, at one point, we were like, are we going to make it? And I was like, I don’t know. We were just at such different mental places in our minds, and it was really hard and really, really dark time.
Tori Dunlap:
One of the previous guests we’ve had, and also a friend of mine, Jenna Kutcher, had a miscarriage journey where it just felt like could not get pregnant, really wanted it. And one of the things that I think, I’ve talked about with her and she shared, but also just in general is it’s like, it’s the loss, but it’s also the hope and then the loss and then the hope and then the loss. So you start getting excited, but then after the first time, it’s almost like, I can’t get excited now. I can’t enjoy that period of time where it’s like, oh my gosh, we get to plan and we get to have this, because you have to hit a certain week threshold. And then, oh, maybe even after that week threshold, something could happen.
So I imagine that that was one of the hardest parts too, was the true, just back and forth, back and forth, and then not being able to get your hopes up. I mean, this is very trivial kind of example, but it’s almost like you’re looking forward to something and you don’t even get the process of looking forward to it because you’re worried that something might happen.
Ali Prato:
Absolutely. We always talk about how infertility robs you of so much. And it does rob you of that joy, that unabashed excitement. And because when you’re going through this, and especially if you have recurrent loss or whatever it may be, you’re used to getting bad news. You’re used to being on the wrong side of the statistics. You’re used to the other shoe dropping. So even every time I would become pregnant, it was always like, I don’t think this one’s going to work out. It was hard, like you said, to get excited about it because it’s scary, and you don’t want to become so vulnerable that you get super excited and then you’re let down again and heartbroken again and devastated again.
Tori Dunlap:
I of course have to ask you, and you mentioned it before, the thing I always think of with IVF or any of these treatments is how goddamn expensive they are. So talk to me about the financial burdens of fertility treatments, and just what somebody’s option is if yes, they can pay for it or if they’re going through multiple rounds or what happens if you can’t, what happens if you can’t afford it?
Ali Prato:
A lot of people can’t, and that’s the sad reality of this is that it is so fucking expensive. And some people have insurance. More people in the last five years since I’ve been in this world and doing the podcast and had Fertility Rally, my community and talking to more people, companies are becoming wiser, and especially the bigger companies, they’re offering fertility coverage. Or people are advocating to get coverage at their place of employment, which is awesome.
So I would say more now than ever, people are being covered by insurance, but that still does not even make a dent in the number of people who aren’t. Personally, we had zero insurance coverage for this, which is just such a shame because when you think about infertility, it’s a diagnosis, it’s not like a choice, you know what I mean? If you do IVF, you’re not doing it because you want to, you’re doing it because you have to. So it’s not like an elective thing for 99.9% of the people. So for us specifically, I’ll be totally forthcoming about the finances. It’s like 30 to $40,000 per round all in, and that includes the meds. So you have to do, for anybody that doesn’t know this world, you have to do, it’s kind of like a cycle.
You take medication leading up to what will be your egg retrieval, so you’re stimulating your body, you’re growing follicles, and so that you can get to a point where the doctor will come in and pull eggs out of your body literally, and you take all these hormones and things to amp up that process. Those meds are most off… For me none of it was covered by insurance. I think it was $5,000 for the meds alone. And funny story, my meds got lost in the mail. And everything is timed. You have to do everything on this timed cycle. There’s a calendar once you start going down the IVF route and it’s like you have to do this, start this med on this date and then do this, and then you do your trigger shot, and then there’s the retrieval, and then there’s the transfer, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
My meds, we paid the $5,000 and then they were delivered and we lived in a condo in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. And I was like, “No, they fucking weren’t. They’re not outside.” And they’re like, “Well, maybe your neighbor picked them up by accident.” And I was like, “This is a huge problem because I need to start these meds tomorrow morning.” And I remember, I’m laughing about it now, but I was having a full-blown panic attack, breathing, had to breathe in a paper bag, like I’m going to faint. I was like, “Oh my God, what do we do? I need to start this medication tomorrow and it’s nowhere to be found.” And I remember literally we went door to door on our street and we lived in a condo, like a walk-up. So we went to every apartment in our building. “Did you get this package? Did you get”… “No.” Everybody said no.
My husband was going on one side of the street and I was going on the other side of the street. Because it’s just like a cardboard box that they left at the front door. And thank God at the very, very last minute, we never found it ourselves, but a guy that lived about a block and a half down rang our doorbell at midnight that night and he’s like, “Does Ali Prado live here? We have a package for you.” And it was the meds, and I jumped into his arms. He was like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.” But I was like, “You don’t understand.”
So that’s one piece of it. It’s just like these meds, it’s crazy. They’re so expensive. Then on top of that, there’s other things that go into it. You get this long sheet, and it’s almost like, my husband equated it to going to a used car dealership or a car dealership because they’re like, “Well, if you want this package, you have to go this route. If you want to add on genetic testing, it’s 5,000 more dollars. If you want to do this, it’s that.” So it’s overwhelming.
And I remember thinking, yeah, of course we want to do genetic testing, which means that once you’ve made embryos, they send them off for testing to make sure that they’re chromosomally normal, which was our problem. So I was like, if we can find a normal embryo and have that transferred, we should be okay. But again, it was $5,000 out of pocket, and I was like, well, we’re only doing this one time, so what’s another five grand? You start to think in those terms, but it’s wild. We actually had to borrow money from both of our parents to do that round. We didn’t have it out of pocket. And unfortunately, like I said, not everybody can do this. There’s a lot of people that can’t even go down the IVF road because they just can’t afford it, and it sucks.
Tori Dunlap:
What are the other financial considerations beyond just the cost of fertility treatments? Are there other things in addition that somebody who hasn’t embarked on this journey might not even think about?
Ali Prato:
Yeah, I mean there’s a lot of things that you can do to kind of supplement treatment, I guess you could say. So acupuncture, over-the-counter stuff. I was so desperate at one point that I was buying all the woo-woo teas, and I remember I went down to Chinatown and bought these herbs that literally tasted like shit, but you’d put them in water and stir them up and I would just choke it down, and things like that that aren’t 100% necessary. But if you’re going through this, you get to a point, a lot of people get to a point where you’re just like, I’ll do whatever it takes. So all that stuff, it really adds up.
Acupuncture, some people do infrared therapy. There’s lots of different things that you can kind of add on. And then actual therapy too. Talking to a therapist as well was one of the big expenses because I did, I had to talk to a therapist to get through what I was going through, otherwise I felt like I was going to go insane.
Tori Dunlap:
I’m a child-free person. I don’t know if I want children. I am trying to ask this question in a way that is not insensitive. Is there a certain moment where this does become a sunk cost fallacy? Where it’s like, I have put so much into this, and if you’ve gone through multiple rounds, you’re like, I just have to keep going, because we’ve come so far. Is that part of the feeling of, we’ve invested so much time and so much money and I want this so badly that I just have to keep going?
Ali Prato:
I think for some people certainly. I mean for us it was like, we had to put a cap on it.
Tori Dunlap:
Right. Well, that’s what I’m thinking is I’m like, of course, I have not had the both biological and emotional urge to have a child, and maybe I never will, but I’m looking at of course, the price of this, the emotional toll not only on you, but on your relationship with probably the most important person in your life, your partner, the hormones back and forth, the swinging, the hope, the despair, the hope, the despair. I don’t know if I was in that. I can imagine part of me just being like, how long are we going to do this for? The other part of me knuckling down and being like, you know what? This has to work.
Ali Prato:
Yeah, I think I’ve definitely talked to people from both sides of that, and there is a child-free after infertility community that’s very strong, full of a lot of really awesome people that have walked away from treatment. I never want to say the word give up or quit or anything like that, because I think that has a negative connotation. So I always say pivoted.
Tori Dunlap:
Right. That’s almost with a question I’m asking, right? Is it does feel like I can’t give up. And it’s like, yeah, but it’s not your fault. It’s not like you are trying something and you give up because you lost at it. And again, I’m putting lost in the biggest air quotes possible. It’s just like it’s not working, and that’s not your fault.
Ali Prato:
Yeah.
Tori Dunlap:
I appreciate you highlighting that.
Ali Prato:
That’s the really like, sorry to keep saying dropping f-bombs, but that’s the fucked up thing about this is that it is one of those things, one of the few things in life where the effort does not equate to the outcome. You can do all the things. You can throw hundreds of thousands of dollars at this and do them correctly and again, correctly in quotes.
I have a very, very good friend who has spent over $500,000 trying to have a baby, and no baby yet. And they’ve done multiple rounds. They’ve gone the surrogacy route, they’ve had a few failed surrogacy experiences. They’ve done all the things. They’ve traveled. Travel actually is another expense that a lot of people incur when they’re going through this because you might be going to a specialist who’s in a different city. You might be going to a reproductive immunologist who is in New York, and you live in Virginia, so you’ve got to travel back and forth.
Or you find a clinic that’s in California, but you’re in Florida and you fly to visit them. That’s another really big expense of this whole thing that people don’t think about. Some people do IVF abroad because it’s cheaper in certain circumstances. Some people get their meds, I have a friend who got her meds from Turkey, the country, and was like, “I don’t know if this is legit, but it’s a fraction of the cost as it is in the states, so I’m going to give it a whirl.” Things like that.
There’s almost like a wild west aspect to it, to a certain degree. You can spend hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars going down this road, and like I said, there’s no guarantee. There’s no guarantee that you’re going to walk away with a baby at the end of it, which is really devastating.
Tori Dunlap:
That’s so hard. I’m sure you’ve heard the podcast, The Retrievals?
Ali Prato:
I have, yes. I actually started listening to it and then I got scared. It’s still real.
Tori Dunlap:
Oh, I imagine it’s pretty fucking triggering.
Ali Prato:
It’s a triggering subject-
Tori Dunlap:
You’ve been through it, especially.
Ali Prato:
… even though, like I said, my son is now eight years old, my IVF son, and I’m in this world every day and talking to people every day. It’s still certain things trigger me, and I started to listen to that and then I was like, I can’t. So I will. I’ll go back to it. Nothing against. I’ve heard it’s wonderful and really well done, but it’s just like, do I want to spend my time on that, or do I want to watch Vanderpump Rules? It’s a little-
Tori Dunlap:
No, truly. So to give context to listeners if they haven’t heard it, it’s this incredible serial New York Times podcast about, I think dozens of women who went to Yale’s fertility clinic, and there was a fertility nurse who was stealing the pain-reducing drugs, or what do you call it, the anesthesia, basically.
So they were getting their egg retrievals done with absolutely no pain meds, like saline. And it was a larger conversation about women’s pain and about the lengths women were willing to go to have a baby because, I put this money and I put this time in. Okay, I’m just, again, going to do this. And that was the other thing I wanted to talk about with this is it’s just the amount of pain that women in general, anything related to healthcare that we are expected to do, whether that is an IUD, the fact that we’re just told take ibuprofen, suck it up, and that women’s pain is not believed. And I think with something like IVF, it’s just like, well, you want a baby so bad, so what are you going to do? I don’t know. Thoughts about that? I think it’s ludicrous.
Ali Prato:
I agree, and I think as women, we’ve been brought up to think, suck it up. I have so many friends that I’ve talked to who had really, really painful periods all through growing up, and it ended up being diagnosed later as endometriosis or something in that realm. But all through growing up it was like, oh, you just have a heavy period, or just take this medicine, or just stay home from school today. Things like that where it was ignored or not validated, and that’s scary.
But now I think people talking about it like this, at least people will know and hopefully the generation’s coming after us, that’s not normal. You’re not supposed to bleed for 15 days in a row. You’re not supposed to be unable to get out of bed because your cramps are so bad. That’s a sign that something’s wrong. And I think for so many decades even, women have been told, oh, just take some Motrin and put a hot water bottle on your stomach. It hasn’t been taken seriously.
Tori Dunlap:
And continue to go out and pick up your kids and present at the board meeting and do everything that you’re supposed to do. Yeah.
Ali Prato:
A hundred percent. Yeah, a hundred percent.
Tori Dunlap:
We were talking about the financial cost, and one thing I wanted to highlight before we move on is we found in our research, which is so obvious, significant discrepancies between women when it came to access to care. From race to income levels, and it seems like fertility treatments, to your point earlier, because they’re so expensive, are really reserved for those who have one, access to facilities and two, the income to cover it. Have you noticed this in your community?
Ali Prato:
Yeah, I think so. You wish that it was more across the board and that everybody had access to-
Tori Dunlap:
Equitable?
Ali Prato:
Yes, absolutely. And it’s not. I’ve talked to a lot of people who have said, this is, oh, IVF, that’s for rich white people, something like that, which isn’t obviously the case, but I get it. I mean, that’s a perception because it is so expensive, and a lot of people don’t have coverage. I feel like that’s a whole nother episode that we could talk about in the black maternal health crisis, and the lack of equitable medical care and all that devastating stuff that’s going on as well. It really sucks.
Tori Dunlap:
And we’ve done a lot of research and discussion on the show of the racial gap between just the care that, I mean everything, the care, the pay, the treatment of women of color compared to white women, and also just the access to good care and the access to even this option we were talking about before. Sometimes this just isn’t even an option because it’s like, I can’t afford it. I don’t either have health insurance, or my health insurance won’t cover it, or my employer won’t pay for it, so this isn’t-
Ali Prato:
Absolutely. And then like we were talking about before too, putting a cap on it. Some people, and this is what we did, we were like, we can only afford one round. If it hadn’t have worked and it wouldn’t have happened with my son, we would be done. And we would’ve just had our daughter and it would’ve been okay, but we had to put a cap on it. We were like, we can’t just keep going and going and going.
Tori Dunlap:
We found in a lot of our research that there’s a lot of morality-based opinions around fertility and reproductive health. We’ve seen this on a large scale with abortion rights, but the stigma is surrounding fertility treatments.
Ali Prato:
It depends on your upbringing, I think, and what people feel is “accepted,” I guess you could say. There’s certain cultures where it’s very, people don’t talk about this. It’s very hush-hush, and it’s very taboo, and as women, you’re supposed to be fertile, and you’re supposed to reproduce. That’s your job. And if you don’t, something’s wrong with you. So people feel stigmatized and ashamed when they find themselves not being able to have babies or able to reproduce. So I think we have a long way to go for this to be widely accepted
Tori Dunlap:
When you were talking about this lack of community, but we know from a research that you’re taking a shot, a fertility shot in the Los Angeles gas station, and you’re seeing other women there. So there’s other things that are going on. This is happening to people, but not discussion about it. I mean more now, of course, than there used to be, but again, it has to be an isolating experience where you’re like, I feel like it’s just me and all of these struggles are happening. But there’s other people out there that’s happening too.
Ali Prato:
Oh, absolutely, totally. And there’s stories of people going into the fertility clinic and wearing a baseball hat and slumping down in their seat, because god forbid you run into somebody that you know, things like that. I think not so much anymore.
Tori Dunlap:
So the shame, is it shame of not being able to get pregnant?
Ali Prato:
I think that some people feel that way. I never felt shame personally, but like I said, I think it depends on your culture and your family life and your upbringing. People do tend to feel broken, like something’s wrong with them, and I think that a lot of that is a societal thing too where, what do you mean you can’t have a baby? Just relax, just go on vacation. You’ll be fine. People don’t understand, I think unless they’re in this world or they know somebody that’s been through it specifically, just how hurtful some of those comments can be.
Tori Dunlap:
Yeah. Well, and I think the other thing you were saying with morality is this, we were talking about before this lack of control. It’s like you can do everything, but still sometimes their circumstances are different and the whole bad things happen to good people, good things happen to bad people, it kind of feels like that. And I think you had spoken about that before and I would love to hear your thoughts of yeah, there becomes this certain level where you’re just like, well, I’m doing everything right and it’s still not working.
Ali Prato:
Yes, absolutely. That was a thing that I had to personally wrap, try to wrap my head around was like, I equated it to studying as hard… This is such a lame example, but studying as hard as you can for a test and still getting an F. But I did all the things. And you’re taught all through growing up, if you work really hard at something and you apply yourself and you do the best that you can do, you will achieve success at some point. And like we said before, this isn’t one of those places where that’s always the case.
Even if you have the best medical team and the best doctors, sometimes the doctors too will be like, we’re human, we’re trying, we don’t know, we don’t know the answer. Because there’s so many variables that can factor into getting pregnant and having a healthy pregnancy and having a healthy baby. That was one of the things that when you said bad things happen to good people, that was one of the things that my therapist and I talked about a lot was, because there is a point where I was like, why is this happening to me? I’m a good person. I volunteer and I vote, and I’m like kind to people, and I lift up other women. And that was just like, you start to feel kind of sorry for yourself, or at least I did. Because I was like, why is this happening to me?
And one of the hardest things that we haven’t touched on yet along the same lines is when you’re trying to have a baby and you see all these other people getting pregnant seemingly very easily, or your friends are getting pregnant and so you’re happy for them, but you’re so sad for yourself. And that’s kind of a mindfuck too because it’s like… My God, I remember I threw a baby shower for one of my best friends while I was going through infertility. And it was, of course I was thrilled for her, but it was so hard to do that. And I went in the bathroom and cried at one point because I was just like, ugh, this sucks.
Tori Dunlap:
Oh, it’s the ultimate version of, yeah, my friend got to do this thing and I really wanted it. It’s the ultimate version of that. She got the promotion and I worked really hard and I didn’t get the promotion-
Ali Prato:
Totally.
Tori Dunlap:
… I have to be happy for her, but also.
Ali Prato:
Or seeing this woman on the subway that seemed so young and had five little kids and was like, I remember she hit one of them, and I mean, it wasn’t full on abuse or anything like that, don’t get me wrong, but it was just like, and I remember thinking, oh my God, can I have one of them? How do you get to have five kids? You start to look at other people and you’re like, it’s not fair. It’s just not fair. And that was going back to what I was saying with the therapist was my therapist was like, you have to understand bad things happen to good people. This isn’t happening because you’re a bad person. But good things happen to bad people too, and it’s like my mom always used to say, life’s not fair, and it’s not.
Tori Dunlap:
Yeah. You were talking about the kind of marital, emotional strain it put, not just on you, but on your relationship with your partner. And the research that we found that just hit me right where it hurt was that 50% of women say that their battle with infertility was the worst thing they’ve ever had to experience, or the worst part of their life. We know that fertility treatment that doesn’t work, couples that go through that are three times more likely to divorce or to end their partnerships.
So I want to first talk about the not so happy part, which is like, can we talk about the strain that is put on couples and put on a relationship during that time? And can we also talk about either personally or in your community, has there been things that have been able to bring couples either closer together, or at least to lessen the strain that they’re feeling?
Ali Prato:
Yeah, so starting with just the strain in general, I can speak from my personal experience it was again, it was just like after a certain point, and it was going on miscarriage after miscarriage, and I was feeling so depressed. And my husband, he is an only child of two only children. And I love only children, nothing against only children. And if we would’ve just had my daughter, like I said, it would’ve been okay. We would’ve been okay.
But I just felt like our family was not complete, and at a certain point we kind of splintered off and he was like, “I’m done. Why are we doing this? We have a terrible sex life. Because that’s another thing, when you’re going through fertility treatments, anything that was the least bit sexy before, out the window.
Tori Dunlap:
It’s not organic or spontaneous.
Ali Prato:
It’s like timed intercourse, it’s like sweat… There’s so much pressure, you’re sweating. It’s not cute. So I can tell a pretty graphic story that I won’t, but I just remember this one time and it was just like, oh my God, that was the worst.
Tori Dunlap:
If you want, you’re welcome to, this is a safe space to do it.
Ali Prato:
Like lack of being able to perform because there’s so much pressure. And I’m like, just go in. But then I was like, oh my God, I’m like the devil.
Tori Dunlap:
Well yeah, this fun thing that’s supposed to bring a couple together, which is finding you attractive and having sex with you, and using it to bond emotionally, is now the most high stakes tightrope walk totally of your entire life.
Ali Prato:
Absolutely.
Tori Dunlap:
Every single time.
Ali Prato:
Absolutely. Stakes are so high, they couldn’t be any higher, and the pressure is intense and it’s just, it’s awful.
Tori Dunlap:
We paid all this money and we have this exact moment.
Ali Prato:
Totally.
Tori Dunlap:
Yeah. Wow.
Ali Prato:
For us, that was one of the points where it was just like, I remember my husband’s like, “Why are we doing this?” And I looked at him and I remember saying, “I wish I didn’t this so badly. I wish I could tell you, okay, we’re done. We’ll stop.” But I couldn’t do it. And I remember thinking, I have to go with my heart and my gut on this one. I’m getting emotional talking about it. It all comes back to the surface. It was such a hard time for us. I was like, I wish I didn’t want this so badly. I wish I could tell you I’m with you, we’re done. But I couldn’t do that, and that was really hard.
I knew I was kind of ruining our relationship by being so focused on this when he wasn’t, and that’s not to say he didn’t want the second baby. It was just like he didn’t have that guttural urge and that like, I’m going to die if we don’t have a second kid feeling that I had. So I think that’s a lot of times the disconnect with couples is the desire and how much will you give, and how far will you go? And it’s hard to be on the same page as somebody. I remember thinking, he was like, “This is so expensive.” And I was like, “How can you put a price on a human life?” And I get it from both sides. I do understand what he was saying. It’s ridiculously expensive, but it was also like, I would’ve paid $14 million if I had it. You know what I mean? So that’s the hard part.
The second part of your question, I don’t know the answer to what can bring help couples get through this. I do know that Fertility Rally community that I co-founded, we do couples groups every once in a while, and that’s always really great to just keep people talking about it and to just see that there’s other couples too that are going through it. I think a lot of this struggle is just feeling alone. So when you realize, oh, we’re not alone, or we’ve got some of the same concerns, it does help you kind of navigate it, even to just know there’s somebody else out there that’s going through a similar situation. So I think communication is huge, but I feel like either this is one of those situations where it can really bring you together or it can really draw you apart, and there’s really no gray area. It’s that intense.
Tori Dunlap:
It’s almost like also raising a kid, right?
Ali Prato:
Right.
Tori Dunlap:
On the flip side, we sometimes see parents, they’re closer together after, and sometimes they’re further apart. Can I talk to you about egg freezing? Can we answer some questions about that?
Ali Prato:
Sure.
Tori Dunlap:
Cool. Okay. On the flip side-
Ali Prato:
Yeah, I don’t know if I’ll be able to… I hope I can answer them all. I’ll try.
Tori Dunlap:
No, I want to highlight that because I think a lot of the times, we’re talking about couples. On the flip side, I have a lot of friends who are either starting to freeze their eggs, thinking about freezing their eggs because most of them have not found somebody to spend the rest of their lives with and to have children with, but they’re like, I want this option later. So maybe talk to me about that process. And that’s another one that I think is expensive, is very physically, emotionally draining. So just maybe talk me through that process and what somebody has to think about before they embark.
Ali Prato:
Yeah. Oh, so many good questions. So egg freezing is just, the basics would be when you go in and you basically go through the protocol, you take the meds that you would be doing leading up to a retrieval, but you’re not going to go any further than that. So the first part of IVF is the egg retrieval. The second part is when you transfer the embryo. So this is everything up to after the retrieval. So basically you’ll go through that, you’ll do the egg retrieval, and then they will literally freeze your eggs.
And you can do this… A lot of people do it now… There’s so many great companies too, speaking of finances, that will cover this now for people, which is awesome. One of the benefits that people will have in a larger workplace sometimes is giving coverage of this, but a lot of people do it now thinking, I don’t know if I’m ever going to use these eggs, but it’s kind of like a good insurance policy to have because as far as I know, and again, fact check me, but they can stay frozen indefinitely.
I think the thawing process can sometimes be a little bit tricky, and they’re still trying to figure that out. And it’s come a long way since it was first invented, and it’s getting better and better and better as new technology is developed and things. But people will go and freeze their eggs and then, like I said, never use them, or maybe they will later in life.
So yeah, I mean, I think that it’s a great option for people to have, and I love the fact that people are doing it more and more and taking matters into their own hands because I think a lot of the infertility stuff, you feel so out of control, and a lot of stuff is not in your control. So anything you can do to maintain that control is always a good thing. And also the younger you are, the healthier your eggs will be. So people might be freezing their eggs in their 20s now and might not use them till later in life, but the theory and the notion and the science behind it is that if you’re younger and you freeze your eggs, it’s better than if you’re an old lady like me now.
Tori Dunlap:
I would love to also talk about the price of that. You mentioned IVF’s 30 to 40-ish. What is the price of trying to freeze your eggs?
Ali Prato:
So it’s significantly cheaper. So basically the process would be like you go in for an assessment and then you meet with a doctor, and talk everything that they did in your workup. And then you do the monitoring where you get hormone injections to stimulate your ovaries, and then you do the retrieval like we talked about, and then they will store the eggs.
Now, like I said before, the notion is that as you age, as a woman ages, the percentage of abnormal eggs increases. So that’s why people are doing it when they’re young and they’re healthy. I mean, prices obviously can range, but take a Manhattan clinic that’s known for their egg freezing, for example. It’s about $8,000 I would say, for the egg freezing cycle. And then the storage, from what I’ve heard, is anywhere between $600 to $800 per year. And then you’ll get the call. Your year’s about to… You still want to keep them? And you have to pay that fee every year.
You can also do embryo freezing, which is making an actual embryo, sperm and egg. But some people will do just eggs. I don’t want to be tied to a certain guy. I want that autonomy or I want to be able to do what I want to do with it. So I think it’s less rare to do embryo freezing if you’re not in a couple, I guess, relationship or a committed relationship. But yeah, that’s kind of the gist with egg freezing, but it’s definitely more affordable. I think insurance sometimes does cover it as well. A lot of places offer financing too, but I think it’s a very cool option. And had I known about it, because again, I really didn’t learn anything about this until later, I probably would’ve done it, just to have that in your back pocket.
Tori Dunlap:
Well, I want to clarify. You said it’s basically the first part. You still have to go and retrieve the eggs, you still have to do your shots, you still have to do all of that. Because I’m literally, my mom, she was like, “I don’t think egg freezing is the same. I don’t think you have to retrieve your eggs.” And I’m like, “No, you 100% do.” So she will be getting a phone call after we’re done recording. Yes, I talked to an expert today. It’s still a retrieval.
Ali Prato:
And the retrieval too, just so you know, it’s very quick. It’s probably 15 or 20 minutes. It’s not a huge thing. And you’re under mild sedation, you’re not totally put under-
Tori Dunlap:
Unless you’re at the Yale clinic. I probably can’t say that-
Ali Prato:
Exactly, speaking of the retrievals. But it’s done vaginally, it’s not like they cut, there’s no stitches. You can go back to work the next day. It’s a very… Some people will even say the retrieval is kind of like anti-climactic, like it’s just like, “Oh, that was it?” But it depends obviously what happens and how many they get, and all that stuff.
Tori Dunlap:
Well, and you’re giving yourself the shots and everything up to that point, right? So it’s, how long is it? Is it weeks? Is it months? How long does that go on for?
Ali Prato:
I think it depends on what the protocol that you’re being given is, which is kind of the monitoring. But I would say it’s anywhere between maybe 8 and 12 days on average.
Tori Dunlap:
Oh, from shots to retrieval?
Ali Prato:
Yeah.
Tori Dunlap:
Oh, shit. Okay. Maybe I’ve just heard… Again, I’ve had friends do it. I think armchair expert, they do a podcast called Synced about it, and so maybe they just did multiple rounds of it. Because I remember.
Ali Prato:
I think, yeah, if you’re talking about Monica from-
Tori Dunlap:
Yeah, and Liz is a friend of mine. And I was like, what? How long are you doing it for?
Ali Prato:
Yeah, I think that was maybe multiple rounds. Some people do back to back rounds to get, you do one round, you do a retrieval, and then you go your next cycle, you do it again. Again, there’s a lot of different routes you can go down, but just for one, yeah, it’s like 8 to 12.
Tori Dunlap:
That’s much more accessible than I thought it was. I thought this [inaudible 00:51:21]. Okay, cool. Now I’m at the point where I’m asking questions for me.
Ali Prato:
Well, keep me posted, let me know.
Tori Dunlap:
I don’t know if I’ll do it. Again, this is a larger conversation of, I don’t know if I want children. I’m also 29, so I have think a couple more years of like-
Ali Prato:
Totally
Tori Dunlap:
Same thing. I’m doing the natural, but then, yeah, everything else seems like an insult to call it not natural. But yeah, I think I have a couple more years of flexibility before things start getting sticky.
Ali Prato:
Definitely. And I always like to say too, I have so much respect for people that are like, you know what? I don’t want to have kids. Because I think that’s a hard decision to make. Societally, it’s just kind of expected. One of my very best friends decided they didn’t want to have kids, and we talk about this a lot. And I’m like, bravo to you for not doing it just because you felt like you should. I think it’s a very amazing thing if that’s the path that you choose to go down as well.
Tori Dunlap:
I have to end us on, I don’t know, I just feel like I’m asking you questions and it’s like, yes, we get a kid out of it, which is what we want, but also there’s so much trauma. So talk to me about the beauty of IVF or talk to me about the beauty of fertility treatments. Of yes, you get the thing at the end ideally, that you really want. I don’t know, end us on a happy note of like, how are these great things that, great options for us? I don’t know. Just give me the rainbows, butterflies, because I don’t want to talk about an hour of how depressing it is.
Ali Prato:
Yeah, no, I mean, it’s obviously, when it happens and it goes the way that you want it to go, it’s amazing. I wrote this book called Work of Art about IVF, and it’s about me telling my son the way that he was born. And that’s the whole theme of the book is, isn’t science fucking amazing? Isn’t medicine cool? You were born in such a cool way, and you were so wanted that we did X, Y, and Z to get you.
And I talk about secondary infertility too, because that’s a tricky subject. Some people think, God, you’re being selfish. You already have a kid. Why are you putting yourself through this? Why are you doing it again? And for me, the way that I try to explain it, and the way I explain it in the book was, I love being my daughter’s mom so much that it made me want to do it again, if that makes any sense.
I wasn’t coming from a place of greed, I was coming from a place of love. Being a mom is my favorite thing. So that’s why I wanted to do it, have the whole experience again, another time all the way through.
So IVF, it’s insanely amazing. I mean, we were talking about at the beginning, I can’t believe it’s only 40 years old. I can’t wait to see what happens in the next couple of decades and what they come up with and what’s invented. But there’s so many people that wouldn’t be on this earth if it wasn’t for IVF, including my son. And it still gets me choked up because I still can’t believe it worked. I can’t believe he’s here. I can’t believe all the things had to line up correctly for it to give us our second kid. And I say that to him every single day, every night, “I still can’t believe you’re here.” And now that he’s older, he always goes, “Mom, I’m always going to be here,” Which is sweet. So yeah. Yeah. Thank God for science and medicine and magic too, because the universe definitely has its part too. It all has to come together, I think. There’s not just one thing, it’s like it’s all those things combined.
Tori Dunlap:
And now that I’m crying, Ali, thank you for being here. Tell us about your podcast. Tell us where people can find more about your work and your community. Where can people go?
Ali Prato:
Oh my God, this flew by, Tori. Thank you so much for having me. People can listen to my podcast, which is on all the platforms. It’s called Infertile AF. Every week there’s a different person’s family-building story, it doesn’t always end with a baby. Some of them are funny, some of them are heartbreaking. My whole thing is just telling diverse family building stories with various endings. I talked to same sex couples, single parents by choice, or solo parents by choice, I should say. And I talk to everybody that wants to talk to me, basically, because I feel like all the stories are important because there’s somebody out there that needs to hear that, so they don’t feel alone.
I also have Fertility Rally, which is a community where we do virtual support groups for anybody that’s going through infertility, and it’s just been a lifeline for me and hundreds of people. It’s the place I wish I had when I was going through it.
And then I have this book too, which is Work of Art, and people can find it on my website, which is infertileafgroup.com. Infertileafgroup.com. It’s self-published, it’s really cute, it’s very sweet, and again, it’s just another resource for people to normalize these conversations, and realize that it’s okay to talk about this stuff. And I’m also on Instagram if people want to reach out to me on Instagram. Infertileafstories is my Instagram, and my DMs are open if anybody has questions or needs anything, I am here. Because I know when you’re in the depths of this, it’s so fucking hard. So I just want to help people who are coming behind me and make it suck less.
Tori Dunlap:
Yeah. Thank you for your service, heart, and your vulnerability. And yeah, just thank you for everything. Appreciate it.
Ali Prato:
Oh my God, I love talking to you.
Tori Dunlap:
Thank you so much to Ali for joining us on this episode. Such a powerful one, and a really good one to share with any friends who are experiencing infertility, pregnancy loss, IVF, the journey of all of that, and we just thank her for being here. You can subscribe to Infertile AF, which is her podcast wherever you’re listening right now. As always, Financial Feminist, thanks for being here. If you haven’t already, subscribe to the show. You can click the plus button or the subscribe button wherever you’re listening right now. It is free for you and it allows you to get new episodes directly to your feed so you don’t have to search Financial Feminist every time you want to listen. I say this often, but this podcast is expensive for us to produce, but free for you to listen, and subscribing is the easiest way to support, so we appreciate it. Thanks as always for being here, we’ll talk to you soon. Bye-bye.
Thank you for listening to Financial Feminist, a Her First 100K podcast. Financial Feminist is hosted by me, Tori Dunlap, produced by Kristen Fields, associate producer Tamisha Grant, Research by Ariel Johnson, audio and video engineering by Alyssa Midcalf, marketing and operations by Karina Patel, Amanda Leffew, Elizabeth McCumber, Masha Bakhmetyeva, Taylor Chou, Kailyn Sprinkle, Sasha Bonnar, Claire Kurronen, Daryl Ann Engman, and Jenelle Riesner.
Promotional Graphics by Mary Stratton, photography by Sarah Wolf, and theme music by Jonah Cohen Sound. A huge thanks to the entire Her First 100K team and community for supporting this show. For more information about Financial Feminist, Her First 100K, our guests and episode show notes, visit financialfeministpodcast.com.
Tori Dunlap
Tori Dunlap is an internationally-recognized money and career expert. After saving $100,000 at age 25, Tori quit her corporate job in marketing and founded Her First $100K to fight financial inequality by giving women actionable resources to better their money. She has helped over one million women negotiate salary, pay off debt, build savings, and invest.
Tori’s work has been featured on Good Morning America, the New York Times, BBC, TIME, PEOPLE, CNN, New York Magazine, Forbes, CNBC, BuzzFeed, and more.
With a dedicated following of almost 250,000 on Instagram and more than 1.6 million on TikTok —and multiple instances of her story going viral—Tori’s unique take on financial advice has made her the go-to voice for ambitious millennial women. CNBC called Tori “the voice of financial confidence for women.”
An honors graduate of the University of Portland, Tori currently lives in Seattle, where she enjoys eating fried chicken, going to barre classes, and attempting to naturally work John Mulaney bits into conversation.
