Katie Bryan 00:00:00  This or something better for the highest good. And so I would write about how badly I wanted a partner and how badly I wanted a family. And I couldn’t imagine that there was something better, something greater to me. That was just it. I just want to be a mom. I just want to be partnered. I just want to have the white picket fence, like, I just want I want what other people seem to have so easily. And it is so incredible to look back and just see, like, this is it. This is the something better for the higher good. I am so happy and so fulfilled. My son is so happy. I mean, I have women tell me this child that I’m holding would not be in my arms if I hadn’t found your community, and I just can’t think of anything better.

Katy Ripp 00:00:39  Hey there, fellow rebels, welcome to #ActuallyICan, the podcast where we say a hearty hell yes to designing life on our own terms. I’m Katy Ripp, a lifestyle coach, business mentor, and serial entrepreneur here to guide you through the wild ride, defying what society expects of us and embracing our authenticity.

Katy Ripp 00:00:57  On this show, we dive deep into taboo topics like death, money, spirituality, entrepreneurship, unapologetic self-care, and personal development, all while swearing and laughing along the way. Expect down and dirty conversations, plenty of humor, and a whole lot of exploration, leaving you feeling empowered to be your truest self. Whether you’re craving a good laugh, seeking unconventional self-care tips, or simply looking for some camaraderie, you’ve come to the right place. We only get this one short life, so buckle up and let’s design yours on our own terms. Ready to dive in? Let’s go. Okay, welcome back to another episode of #ActuallyICan, I am your host, Katy Ripp. And today we are actually diving into a story about resilience and choice and redefining what motherhood can look like. We don’t talk about motherhood a lot on this podcast, so it’s an interesting guest for us. And she is incredible. Katie Brian is a mindset coach, a community facilitator and the inspiring host of the Single Greatest Choice Podcast, by the way.

Katy Ripp 00:02:06  Great name. Thank you. Such a good name for all of it. So she is here to share her journey really from societal expectations of becoming a solo mom, right? Like a thriving solo mom by choice. And she’s built a really amazing community for women navigating solo motherhood by choice. So Katie, welcome to the show. I’m so happy to have you.

Katie Bryan 00:02:29  Thank you. I’m happy to be here. I love doing interviews like this with people that are not familiar with this lifestyle choice. So I’m excited.

Katy Ripp 00:02:37  Yeah, yeah, I am really fascinated by this. And we also, I mean, we’re both Katie’s. So Katie’s of the world rejoice. And we both have sons name Miles. So that’s very exciting. Okay. So your story is so powerful. I just really want you to dive into it. I want you to, like, tell me all about it. Right? Like, just start from the beginning because I really am a believer of like the obstacle is the way, and this couldn’t be truer in your case, I think.

Katy Ripp 00:03:05  Right. Like you just took your story, took your obstacle, and made it not only your purpose, but also a livelihood. Yeah, I’m so thankful you’re here and talking about this. I cannot wait to, like, listen to your actually I can moment, but please just start at the beginning. I’m just going to let you go.

Katie Bryan 00:03:22  Thank you so much, Katie. And just knowing the mission and kind of the message behind your podcast, even as you’re telling my story to me, I’m starting to kind of tear up because it is so true that the obstacle has been the way, and it’s just still daily blows my mind that I’m living the life that I’m living, because this is not what I meant to do with my life. but it’s amazing. It’s far more amazing than anything I could have dreamed up for myself. So super happy with where I landed. But it was a long road to get here, so I’m happy to tell you about it.

Katy Ripp 00:03:50  They always are, right? Like those yellow brick roads are not necessarily just paved with gold.

Katy Ripp 00:03:55  Yeah.

Katie Bryan 00:03:56  So I live in Texas, and I think that’s part of the story because just, you know, traditional kind of southern, the expectation was you get married to a man, preferably while you’re young, you pop out babies before you’re 30. Like, that was just kind of and then career or anything else was just an add on. But of course I was going to get married and have kids like no one asked, do you think you want to get married or do you think you will get married? That was the assumption it was going to happen, right, and I did. I felt like I checked that box, I was on top of things and I got married at 23, which is very young, but at the time seemed it, you know, it made sense. I was graduating from grad school and got married. And, you know, we were so young, we didn’t know what we didn’t know. And after a few years, he just was really struggling with various kind of wishing life looked different.

Katie Bryan 00:04:45  He really wanted to pursue music as a career. He just realized he really wasn’t ready to settle down, which was an inconvenient realization five years into a marriage. But he wanted to like, go kind of so his wild oats and had told me he was not interested in having children, and he wasn’t sure if he was interested in owning a home anymore. And he just kind of wanted to, like, throw it all away. And that was not the life that I was looking for. So we divorced before I was 30, and I think at the time I was a bit relieved because I could see all along how even though I deeply loved this person, like we just weren’t a great match for our goals and our values and things like that. And so I think I just thought from here I get a do over and like marriage 2.0 will be better and like a better fit. And you know, I still have very like kind thoughts towards my first my only husband at this point, but it just wasn’t a match.

Katie Bryan 00:05:35  And so I went on to date and I think I was very hopeful and I even considered I remember looking back like I even considered not changing my name back to my maiden name because I thought, well, in a few years I’ll, I’ll be remarried and then I’ll change my name to that.

Katy Ripp 00:05:47  Oh. So interesting. I have such an interesting philosophy. Or I’m always shocked when people get divorced that they don’t change back their name. I just I mean if I got divorced I would just go back to who I was before but. Right. But there’s so many layers to that part, especially if you have children. Right. Like you want the same last name as your children or whatever that case is. But that part of it is just also fascinating to me. So.

Katie Bryan 00:06:12  And at this time, I’ve been divorced three times as long as I was ever married. I was married for five years. I’ve been divorced for 15 years. So thank goodness, I mean, I eventually I would have changed my name back, but I’m glad I just did it right up front.

Katie Bryan 00:06:22  So anyway, I dated. I was engaged again at a point I think was in my mid 30s, and that just I could see that that was really just me kind of hitting a point where I was really freaking out about being behind and, you know, my fertility and less so I wasn’t really looking at my actual like, fertility numbers at that time. I was pretty naive about all of that. I think at the time I just was like, I’m behind, my friends are married. My friends are, yeah, I need to lock this down. And I ended up dating a man who was much older than me, who already had a child who was seven, who was around the age of a lot of my friends kids. So it was like I got to kind of like, skip this step. Yeah.

Katy Ripp 00:06:59  It also checked a box, right?

Katie Bryan 00:07:01  Yes, yes. But ultimately it just wasn’t the right fit. I mean, we were pretty close to we had sent out Save the Dates.

Katie Bryan 00:07:06  I had a wedding dress and a venue and all of that. And I just was like, you know, I don’t think this is going to last. Like, I just knew that I was going to be lonelier in that relationship than I would be. I just felt like my only hope of feeling like I truly was partnered would be to find a different partner. And I was so I, you know, really loved that man and was hopeful, basically, that I could fix him with my love. But.

Katy Ripp 00:07:28  I mean, I only laugh. I mean, I don’t laugh at you. I hope I’m laughing with you because like, that kind of statement is so common.

Katie Bryan 00:07:36  Right? And so I think I was around 34, 35 at the time that that relationship ended. And I still was extremely hopeful and not even hopeful. But just like certain that my person would, would come along and at this point, dating apps had come out. And, you know, the first time when I got divorced, it was all like Match.com, like online dating was a thing, but it was only desperate people did that.

Katie Bryan 00:07:57  So I didn’t do it the first time around. I was.

Katy Ripp 00:07:59  Like, I mean, I’m also in that generation that like, it’s weird for us, right? Like online dating is the way to do it now. But it was not that way when we were younger. Right? Like it was desperate, right?

Katie Bryan 00:08:13  The first time around, I was like, absolutely not. And so instead I joined every like, run club and volunteer organization, and I was just hustling. And I’m such an introvert, but I was out every night of the week, just like not even necessarily trying to meet men, but trying to meet like girlfriends who might know someone or just like networking my way to a relationship, which was exhausting. And I eventually did end up meeting the guy that I was engaged to that way. But then when I was single again and dating apps were a thing, at first I was a little resistant. Then I gave it a try, and then it was like what everyone was doing.

Katie Bryan 00:08:42  And then it was wild because I would see people on apps that were the same people that I like. Oh, I recognize that guy from the gym. Or that’s a friend of a friend that I know. So it was like the other ways I would have met people. I was also seeing those same exact people on dating apps. Yeah. Anyway, I did a ton of dating. I think at a certain point I, I became so anxious about the timeline and the calculation of like, okay, if this goes well, and then let’s say we date for like six months to a year and then this and that, we move in constantly doing that math. And I kept hitting up against and then I’ll be 40 and 40 was totally freaking me out. So I think my 36 or 30 seventh birthday was when I really started to think I should explore what my fertility actually looks like. And egg freezing was new. Not a lot of people were doing it. It became non experimental in 2012 and I got divorced in 2010.

Katie Bryan 00:09:32  So okay, egg freezing. You know it was around, but it was something that like celebrities were doing or people were doing for medical reasons because they were going through chemotherapy or things like that. It just wasn’t something that an average income Woman. Yeah, it.

Katy Ripp 00:09:45  Wasn’t like an elective, right? Like it was sort of a luxury.

Katie Bryan 00:09:49  LA and New York and places like that, but not in Austin.

Katy Ripp 00:09:51  That’s sort of fascinating. Did you say 2012? It became non experimental. Like, think about how fast we’ve come. Right. Like in 13 years we’ve like completely flipped the script.

Katie Bryan 00:10:04  Yeah. Yeah it’s wild. And so you know it’s still kind of like the dating app thing. It felt like a thing I would do if I were desperate. It just felt like any minute I’m going to meet someone and then I will have like, quote unquote wasted $10,000, which is how much it cost at the time, or maybe more than that. And so I didn’t do it, didn’t do it, didn’t do it.

Katie Bryan 00:10:22  And then eventually I met someone who was amazing and at the same time decided to do an at home fertility test. That was like a I think I saw an ad on Facebook or something. So I bought this little kit where you prick your finger and you mail in this sample. And when I got my results, I was had gone on just a handful of dates with this person, but my results indicated that I was in the average range, but like right at the line of diminished and average. So not even like solidly average fertility for my age. And my age was not great. I think I was 37 at the time.

Katy Ripp 00:10:55  I mean, the way you’re talking about it is like you can’t see my face, but I’m just cringing like, so just another thing we’re fucking scored on.

Katie Bryan 00:11:04  Yes, yes.

Katy Ripp 00:11:05  Not great or great or effort or like, can we just have our eggs? And I’m beautiful.

Katie Bryan 00:11:13  Actually though, that it came out that way because had it been even just like a millimeters closer to the app, like into the average range, I don’t think I would have been as alarmed because I had just met someone and I think I would have kind of ignored it, but instead, this inspired me to go into an actual reproductive endocrinology doctor and get like actual numbers from a doctor versus this at home kit and start exploring egg freezing.

Katie Bryan 00:11:36  And I did decide to do a round of egg freezing while I was in this new relationship, just because I knew, even if I do end up with this person, it’s, you know, we just met, so I need some time. And it felt like a smart thing to do. And I think had it gone like, quote unquote. Well, like, I didn’t know at the time what a good result would be. But my doctor had told me 16 to 20 eggs is what he was hoping for in this retrieval. And I think had that happened, I would have just kind of shelved those eggs and carried on with the relationship. But what ended up happening was I only got seven eggs and my doctor just didn’t do a great job of informing me about what that meant or what my options were, or considering doing a second round or anything like that. And I just freaked out. I mean, to me that meant I’ve waited too long. I’m going to struggle to get pregnant. I’ve got fertility issues, and here I’ve got this lovely man that I’ve been dating for like 2 or 3 months.

Katie Bryan 00:12:26  It was way too early, but I just the best explanation I have is the relationship just imploded because of my own fertility concern. And this guy is so lovely. I mean, we’re still very good friends and he was very supportive through everything, but I just needed to move forward. I knew motherhood was not something that I was willing to not experience, and I really wanted a biological connection to my child and to experience pregnancy, and I just couldn’t wait to see if the relationship I mean, I wanted to be able to wait until the relationship turned out, but I just emotionally couldn’t couldn’t handle it.

Katy Ripp 00:13:00  Like so. That’s a really good point, because one of my questions is you’re talking is obviously you were very solid in wanting children and wanting your own children, which that’s your decision. There’s nothing wrong with that. So at one point, were you so fearful that that was not an option, you were willing to take this path like this non-traditional path and basically fuck all societal expectations? Because again, you’re in Texas, it’s very traditional.

Katy Ripp 00:13:30  Like there must have been opinions around you.

Katie Bryan 00:13:34  I had never, ever considered doing it on my own. Like I think maybe right before I met this last guy that I dated, I think I maybe had kind of experimented with saying, like, I mean, I guess I could just get a sperm donor, but, like, I couldn’t even say it without, like, it was the most ridiculous, saddest, like, worst case scenario thing that I could imagine. Like, I just was certain, like, that’s not going to happen to me.

Katy Ripp 00:13:55  I mean, from my own, you know, I have a very traditional life. So, like, I feel like that’s an existential question, like, am I going to do this? Because certainly it’s an option now, right? Like much more of an option when I got married, you know, 20 years ago. But like, you’re still coming up against all of these societal expectations and sort of the quote unquote, like failure as a woman who’s like, really just like checked all the boxes except this one, which is like depending on who you’re talking to or listening to, is like the only reason we’re on fucking earth, right? Right, right.

Katy Ripp 00:14:33  I mean, obviously I do not believe that, but it is like we are here to procreate. Yes. It’s how the world works, right? Like we have to have women in order to procreate. So. And apparently we don’t need math, all right? I mean, we do amazing things.

Katie Bryan 00:14:49  We can buy on the internet.

Katy Ripp 00:14:51  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I just, I’m fascinated by that part of it because there is so much mental work that must have had to go into that. Right? Like when you’re alone at night, like, can I do this? Do you remember when there was a shift from this is a joke, like, well, I guess I could just buy some sperm to actually, I think I’m going to buy some sperm.

Katie Bryan 00:15:14  Yeah, yeah, I think there was a part of me that always knew I definitely could handle the logistics of solo motherhood and actually thought, like, I think I had always kind of worried about how I would co-parent because I’m a pretty opinionated person.

Katie Bryan 00:15:31  I like to be in control, never been great at a group project, like just really like to do it my way. So, you know, finding a partner, I mean, this is just to be completely blunt about it. It’s like this guy is either going to have to really meet my high standards or just kind of allow me to, like, step aside and let me do it my way. But most men, I just was like, this is going to be rough. Like co-parenting is going to be rough because I’m an educator. I’ve got like early childhood development backgrounds. I know a lot of things about kids, and I just thought, you know, who is this guy that is going to like be a value add to the situation? And not that I don’t think dads are super important. I have a very close relationship with my own dad, but I was honestly concerned about partnering in this particular project. I wanted a life partner. I wanted someone to go out to dinner with.

Katie Bryan 00:16:21  I like, you know, the physical intimacy. I love being in love like all of that. But the parenting piece, it was not hard to let go of imagining doing that particular thing, because I think immediately I was like, oh, this is going to be so much easier in a lot of ways. I think financially I had some major hurdles to get over a lot of it mindset, but some of it like actual numbers, like I just needed to figure out how to make more money.

Katy Ripp 00:16:42  And what were you doing at the time?

Katie Bryan 00:16:43  I’ve been an educator my whole life, and I was a teacher for a long time and a special education teacher, a dyslexia teacher. And then I at this point, I had moved into administration, so I had a bit of a boost, but I was still a public educator. Yeah, yeah, very much so. Part of my story is that I did start this side hustle, which has now grown into the business that I run now. But at first it was just like, oh, I could do this thing that I really enjoy that feels purposeful and make a little bit of extra money.

Katie Bryan 00:17:11  And all of it was going towards my fertility treatment. So we can kind of that’s skipping a little bit ahead. But yeah, like come back to that in a little bit. But essentially I think I knew I could parent alone. I wasn’t sure if I could afford to parent alone, and I was just in deep shame about what I thought people would think, what I thought it meant about me, how I had failed to do this fundamental thing of partnering. So I definitely remember, and I actually wrote this in a journal that like, I would be ready to do it today if no one would find out about it. Like, I just didn’t want.

Katy Ripp 00:17:44  Anybody to cry. Oh, I know, I’m glad you put it out there to the universe, right? Because there is something to be said about, like, if I can just get this out. Yeah, like, if I can get it out into the world and voice it, then you can sort of pick it apart and be like, no, no, actually that’s actually not logical.

Katy Ripp 00:18:04  That’s a, you know, that’s a deep seated belief. Limiting belief.

Katie Bryan 00:18:08  Well, and there’s two different versions of this story. And I just really wanted to be able to control the narrative, because on one hand it’s like, wow, that’s fucking wild. Like that’s so empowering that you feel like confident enough to take this step and that, like, you’re willing to go against societal norms. And that’s what I think when I see other women doing it. But then there’s the story of like, oh, what’s wrong with her? And it took really getting in touch with the thing that I thought that I was most worried that people would think about me, because at first I would say, oh, I’m just worried that people will think like, I can’t get a man. But that wasn’t it because I had always been in relationships, long relationships, pretty healthy relationships with good guys. I just had never found that one right person that I could see spinning, you know, the rest of my life with.

Katie Bryan 00:18:51  And so when I realized the real issue was that I worried people would think, she can’t keep a man like she can bring him in. But like, what is it about her that is just so unlovable that they all leave? Even though a lot of times I was the one doing the breaking up and, you know, it just it was the optics. Like, I just couldn’t handle that people were going to have their own version of my story. And I think if I had like been able to broadcast, hey, this is what’s happening here, I’m actually making this choice from an empowered place. But I didn’t get to do that. I had to just do it and let people think what they were going to think. And I think that was probably the hardest shift for me. I also didn’t know anyone else who had done it. People who were in my age bracket and who I respected and wanted to kind of be like. I did know a couple older women who actually, in the 90s had become silly moms, both of them through adoption.

Katie Bryan 00:19:43  One of someone that I’m related to don’t have a very close relationship with her and would not want to emulate that situation. And then another was a woman that I nanny for when I was in high school and college, and she was a solo mom, and she was an attorney and had adopted both of her kids, but she worked. I basically I felt like in a lot of ways, like, why did she even have kids? Because I’m over here all the time raising them because she’s working so hard to be able to afford them. And this whole lavish lifestyle, like it just didn’t feel great. And so. Yeah. yeah. So I, I don’t know, I didn’t I didn’t have any models.

Katy Ripp 00:20:16  Yeah. I think that there’s so many things that we do in life and I’m sober. I’ve been sober for three years and I felt very much the same. Like, what is this going to say about me then? Also what? Like I wanted to control the narrative. And so I did write.

Katy Ripp 00:20:30  Like I became very vocal about it and very vulnerable and very like. But then I got to control the story. And if you heard it, great. If you didn’t, I didn’t care. Yeah, but at least I could stand in it and be confident that here’s the reasoning. Here it is on a plate. You do with it what you choose. But I’m not going to have this mental chatter anymore of what do you think? And I think once I opened the door for that, it allowed me to open the door for other things that I’ve done that are unconventional, that I’m like, it’s like the gateway drug. Yeah. To allowing you to do a whole bunch of things like this. Right? Like then you go out and I did the same thing, right? Like I started a business around it. I started a podcast around it. I did a lot of things with a partner, and like, I pursued that for a while because it was like my obstacle my way. It sounds like you did that too.

Katy Ripp 00:21:25  Yeah.

Katie Bryan 00:21:26  And I also had the input from a coach that this one line was like worth every single penny that I paid her for all the hours of work we did together, I was in a deep spiral of, well, they’re going to think this and they’re going to say that. And what if they think this and did it? And she just paused and she said, do you think you could let them be wrong about you? Like, oh, yeah, I actually could. And when I realized that the exact people I was worried about judging me, I could rattle off easy a list of judgments I had about those same exact people and the way they were. I was like, oh, of course they’re going to judge me. I’m judging them. We all judge each other. It’s totally fine. Like the people that I really care about who are close enough to me to get the real story, like, those are the people I care about.

Katy Ripp 00:22:10  I always equate it to like, choose the people that you want to sit at the table with you.

Katy Ripp 00:22:14  And we have a running list. I have a running list. Everybody’s got a running list of these people that for whatever reason in your life, they’re the person that every time you post something, every time you write something, every time you do something, they’re the ones in your head judging you. And maybe there’s a list of them. Maybe there’s one person you know, whatever. Very likely they’re not thinking about you at all. Right. But there is that like. But I wouldn’t invite that person to sit at my table, right? Like, I don’t want to have dinner with them. I don’t want to spend my time with them. So I’m letting them take up so much energy. And again, like when you start doing this stuff, when you start pushing back a little bit and getting into the like, let them be wrong about you. I mean, I know there’s this like major push right now. Mel Robbins has her book. Let them just like let them do what they’re going to do.

Katy Ripp 00:23:11  That has nothing to do with you. But this particular situation, like your particular situation is so fundamentally against we’re getting better, right? Like we’re definitely getting better about it, but it’s still very non-traditional, very like, what does it say about me as a actual human being, which is such a judgment.

Katie Bryan 00:23:34  But I don’t I know the listeners can’t see this, but behind me I have I don’t know how many holiday cards. Every single one of these is from a Single Mother by choice.

Katy Ripp 00:23:42  And my God, well, we’re definitely going to show that. Can you show it again?

Katie Bryan 00:23:48  Yeah. My network is getting close to a thousand women who have done this or are doing this or on the path.

Katy Ripp 00:23:54  I mean, you have created the community that you were looking for. Yes. You can’t get much more. The obstacle is the way, right? Like you cannot get much more than that. So tell me about like the actual process. So here you are. You’ve now made the decision.

Katy Ripp 00:24:11  You’ve talked to the doctors. You’ve got seven. What does that scientifically look like?

Katie Bryan 00:24:16  I had the eggs frozen. The relationship kind of imploded. We were still kind of trying to figure out, like, can we? Basically we broke up and then we just continued, like doing all the same things but not killing ourselves a couple because the drawer was still there. It was just like he could see that I had to do something about this, and it just didn’t make sense for us to do anything together. But we were kind of in conversation about like, could he potentially be a donor? And we would kind of like cart before the horse and have legal things in place, but like maybe just start co-parenting and then eventually see if a relationship ended up working and, you know, so all that was going on. So it was very much emotionally out of sorts, which is when I started working with a coach because I had done therapy and I was like, I just feel like therapists are like holding space but not figuring out how to help me figure this out.

Katie Bryan 00:25:02  Yeah. And so I decided to try coaching, and I was familiar. I was listening to podcasts and reading books and stuff, but it was my first time to actually work with a coach. One on one. And things get hazy like several years, you know? But this was 2019. I started trying to conceive in 2019, and I started. So they’re kind of two different ways, fertility treatment wise, that you can try to get pregnant. One is called IUI. It’s intrauterine insemination. It’s essentially like a medical, medically supervised turkey baster situation. They just put the sperm in there at the right time of the month and, you know, see what happens.

Katy Ripp 00:25:31  Love it. Great.

Katie Bryan 00:25:33  So so that obviously is like the least invasive. Most like closest to what would be happening in a you know, couple situation. So it made sense to start there since I didn’t have even though my account was potentially lower than average, there was no other reason to suspect I’m still ovulating every month and you only need one egg.

Katie Bryan 00:25:51  It has nothing to do with like how many you’ve got left in the vault. So that was the recommended way to start. So I chose a donor and every month I would do the IUI at the appropriate time. I was monitoring my ovulation and all of that.

Katy Ripp 00:26:04  Oh like at home.

Katie Bryan 00:26:05  No, I would go into the monthly modulation at home. They’re a little like sticks that you can be on, kind of like pregnancy test. But then I would go in at the appropriate time and it was a medically got it thing. they’re also doing like bloodwork and things to monitor, but it’s pretty minimally invasive and it has about a 20% success rate. So it’s very low. But it does work. And they usually recommend that you try if you don’t have any other like known fertility issues that you try like 3 or 4 rounds, because if it does work, it’s way less expensive than going through IVF.

Katy Ripp 00:26:35  Yeah. So that was my next question. Like financially is this this is a cheaper option to start.

Katie Bryan 00:26:40  It is. And especially if you have a donor who is donating to you, like if you’ve got like a friend or, you know, a lot of times like lesbian couples will have someone in their life who’s being their donor, if that piece is that you’re not paying for that piece, then it is pretty affordable. It’s probably around like 2 to $500 at least it was at the time. I think prices have gone up, but sure. But a vial of sperm is about $1,000 now that. But at the time it was around $1,000, so it wasn’t inexpensive. I mean, I was probably spending 12 to $1500 a month playing this slot machine of, you know, and in my mind, I was like, well, that’s what daycare is going to cost. So we’ll we’ll see how this feels right.

Katy Ripp 00:27:19  Like let’s see how it goes. Then I can just know that I can afford daycare after it works. Right? I mean, that’s a logical way to look at it. I love it, yeah.

Katie Bryan 00:27:28  So, I did get pregnant in the fourth IUD. However, the pregnancy did not last. It was a very early miscarriage, and it was not. I never really experienced the oh, you’re pregnant like it? It was gone before it really started. And it was kind of a helpful experience because I was not excited when I found out that that II worked, I was pretty devastated. Like, I was very, just very confused and like, what have I done? And maybe I jumped the gun. I was still spending a lot of time with this guy, and I was feeling like maybe if I just waited like another month or two and just had a lot of, like emotional angst about it. And I’m very thankful for that experience. I’m thankful that the pregnancy was not viable and that it was a very early loss, because I think it really helped me to clarify that I had more work to do before I was going to be here.

Katy Ripp 00:28:18  Yeah. Do they prepare you for loss?

Katie Bryan 00:28:21  No, no, I had a terrible doctor at the time.

Katie Bryan 00:28:23  He wasn’t. He wasn’t black or anything. He was awful.

Katy Ripp 00:28:25  I’m just, you know, because it’s pretty common. Well, I don’t know, to be honest. But, like, I’ve heard that it can be common that in that kind of situation, loss is more common than it is with the natural birth.

Katie Bryan 00:28:38  I don’t think it’s more highly correlated. I mean, I think the fact that I got pregnant is thanks to the like, carefully timed, like making sure the sperm was in the right place at the right time. Like I might have had a hard time getting pregnant with a partner at the time, unless we were like really like calculating. I think the early loss has to do with my age and being. I believe I was 38 at the time, being 38, you know, some of your eggs are still genetically healthy and others have chromosomal abnormalities just because that’s what happens as we age. So my guess is that egg that ovulated that month was just not a chromosomal healthy egg.

Katy Ripp 00:29:10  And well, and also when you’re in fertility like that, when you’re in like an active fertility like that, it’s more sort of public that it didn’t work versus somebody that’s doing it traditionally at home might not share that. Like, you don’t know that they’re trying. You don’t know that they’re like, this is a sort of a public thing. You I mean, you can hide it, I suppose, but it’s probably just more it doesn’t not necessarily that it happens more. It’s just that we hear about it more maybe.

Katie Bryan 00:29:37  Yeah, yeah. So after that I took some time and I will say if had that pregnancy works out, my due date would have been March of 2020. Give you think about what was going on in the world.

Katy Ripp 00:29:48  If you already had a little angst about it, it might have been a different story.

Katie Bryan 00:29:53  Yes. And I think to, you know, being on partnered in March of 2020, weird things were going on with, I mean, obviously women kept having babies, but in terms of who could be at the hospital with you and who could be in the room, the fact that I didn’t have a partner like, I don’t know what would have been allowed at that time.

Katie Bryan 00:30:09  And then, like, I wouldn’t have been able to have support. I wouldn’t have been able to have friends and family come over, because I wasn’t even seeing my parents at that time in March. Yeah, because we were all like really distanced. So thank goodness that that did not work out. And what happened instead was I took a little bit of time. I did do two more I’s after that loss. It took my body a while to kind of come back to having a regular cycle and all of that. But several months after that loss, that was in the summer of 2019, and I did do a couple more I’s that didn’t work. But the thing that I did that was most helpful during that time was I started working with a coach, and I started my podcast in March of 2020, and at the time, I didn’t know anybody who was going through what I was going through. I didn’t know any other single moms, but I had bought, learned how to podcast course and a mic, and I was planning to start a podcast about dyslexia, which was my professional field.

Katy Ripp 00:31:01  Oh, interesting. Okay.

Katie Bryan 00:31:03  And I, you know, all of a sudden we’re in lockdown, we’re home. I’ve got all this time on my hands. I’m working from home. And I thought, okay, now I’m going to start that podcast. and I just didn’t start it. And I finally realized, oh, it’s because I don’t want to like whatever that urge was to do that. Like, that ship has sailed, but now I have this equipment and this is the thing that I’m going through, and it’s the thing that I’m thinking the most about. And I’m not finding a whole lot of, like, content out there about it. There were no podcasts that I could find about it, so I decided to start a podcast I decided to do. I can’t remember if it was. I think it was ten episodes that I said, like, I’ll do this many, you know, I will suck for the first ten for sure. And so if I quit before I get to ten, it will be because it’s hard and I’m bad at it.

Katie Bryan 00:31:44  But if I do ten and then I, then I don’t want to continue, then that’s where I’ll stop. And I don’t know how many episodes I have now, but I’ve been doing it since 2020, so a lot.

Katy Ripp 00:31:53  Is it weekly?

Katie Bryan 00:31:54  No, no, it’s every other week and then I take breaks. I do it kind of in a season and then I’ll kind of.

Katy Ripp 00:31:58  Sure, yeah.

Katie Bryan 00:31:59  Started the podcast and I started reaching out to other women who I was finding in Facebook groups and on Instagram and different places who were solo moms or who were considering it or pursuing that path. And it’s pretty common for women to start kind of a private Instagram account to document their journey. And, you know, they don’t use their real name or they, you know, it’s kind of an anonymous thing.

Katy Ripp 00:32:21  It’s very similar to sobriety, right? Like my Instagram handle when I first got sober was from vino to vinyasa and nobody I was faceless. Nobody knew it. Right? Like it was. Again, it’s sort of the gateway drug to like, vulnerability.

Katy Ripp 00:32:36  And there’s a ton of community out on Instagram. There is really a ton of it. Yeah.

Katie Bryan 00:32:42  And so that was how I was finding women to be on my podcast. And it was just interesting because I had all of these judgments about myself. So at this point, I was in between. I had stopped trying. Oh, I did another egg retrieval. And so I had the seven eggs, and then I did another retrieval. I got seven that time as well. This was all in December of 2019. And so I had 14 eggs total when they thawed the first seven. Two of them did not survive the thaw, so that gave me 12 eggs total, and I fertilized those eggs. Statistically, we were hoping for maybe one embryo out of that, but really the statistics would say I would get like 0.5 of an embryo out of 12 eggs. So that was not that was not looking good. It was looking like I most likely was going to have to do multiple rounds of IVF to get embryos that were viable.

Katie Bryan 00:33:32  However, in those 12 eggs, I ended up with five viable embryos. And so what I mean by viable embryos is that they develop to the five day mark, which is where most reproductive endocrinologists want them to be at the time that you freeze them. So they keep them developing in the lab until they hit day five. Then they’re able to biopsy them and test the genetics. So we already know these embryos don’t have Down’s syndrome. They don’t have trisomy 18. They don’t have like any of these things that.

Katy Ripp 00:33:57  Really oh, I.

Katie Bryan 00:33:58  Also know the sex of the embryo because that’s part of the DNA that they can test. So I got this news back that I had five chromosomal normal embryos, two were male and three were female, and they were frozen and and at that point, you know, I was 39, maybe 38, I think it was 38 about to turn 39. And those embryos, I mean, there’s no rush.

Katy Ripp 00:34:21  They just stopped growing.

Katie Bryan 00:34:23  So they freeze them. Yeah.

Katie Bryan 00:34:24  They freeze them and they stop growing.

Katy Ripp 00:34:25  And so and then they follow them and they continue to grow.

Katie Bryan 00:34:29  So around day five, six, seven ish is when they need to be back in a uterus because they need to attach to the uterine lining. Yeah, they can stop the growth anywhere from like day one, two, three, 4 or 5. And they like they can freeze it anytime in there and then they can put it back into a uterus. And that’s where it will either implant or not implant.

Katy Ripp 00:34:49  I mean, nobody can see my face right now, but I’m very, very interested in this.

Katie Bryan 00:34:54  For your listeners. Like I’m not a doctor, so you know.

Katy Ripp 00:34:56  No. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Disclaimer we’re not doctors and I don’t even know what I’m talking about. However, it is fascinating. It is.

Katie Bryan 00:35:03  Fascinating. And so these genetically healthy embryos have a roughly a 65% chance of a live birth per embryo.

Katy Ripp 00:35:12  Oh, that’s. I mean, that seems like a really high number, but higher.

Katie Bryan 00:35:15  Yeah, much higher than the slot machine of playing the game. Right? Yeah. And so with five embryos, it was like mathematically certain that one of those was going to lead to a healthy birth. Right. Like probably more than one. But you know, I felt like I had enough to do the thing that I didn’t think was ever, ever, ever going to be a possibility for me, which was take a fucking break. Like, I got to stop trying to get pregnant because, remember, I didn’t want none of this time. Did I want to be pregnant as a solo mom? I just didn’t want to miss the boat. Like I just didn’t want to lose the opportunity. So I felt like I was it was very much like scarcity. Like I should just force myself to be happy with what’s available to me. It did not feel like a choice. And it’s funny because in the intro you mentioned several times, like the word choice and single mother by choice I hated that label and it is what people call us single mothers by choice.

Katie Bryan 00:36:08  SMC is like the acronym that you find online. If you wanted to like hashtag, you know, look for it. But I could not say Single Mother by choice because it did not feel like a choice. I wanted to like single mother by necessity or like forced, you know, cruelty of the universe or whatever, but not by choice. It was not a choice that I would have made had I had any other choices, which, you know, was a very uninspired place to be coming from, felt very true at the time. Now I look back, I’m like, of course I had choices like lower the bar far enough. I could have married a slew of men that I dated at some point. I just didn’t want to, you know.

Katy Ripp 00:36:44  It wasn’t the choice that you wanted, right? But it was a choice, right? Like, it is one of the multiple choices we get.

Katie Bryan 00:36:52  Yes. And one of the things I do with my coaching clients now is walk them through and work with them as they kind of face the grief around what wasn’t on the menu.

Katie Bryan 00:37:04  And I like that way of framing it, because it’s like you can walk into a restaurant and it does not matter how much you wanted the chicken parmesan if they’re out of it. And like, if it’s just it’s not they don’t have it.

Katy Ripp 00:37:16  Yeah.

Katie Bryan 00:37:16  And you can be really sad that but like are going to be hungry or are you going to pick something else. Like there’s there are other delicious things on the menu. And that’s what this felt like to me, was I had to get to a point where I just was like, really honest with I’m not choosing between doing this on my own or doing with this with a partner. Doing it with a partner is not on the menu because I’m pushing up against 40. I know my fertility is not like stellar, and I would be choosing between doing this on my own this way right now, or getting back on the dating apps and swiping like that was the choice. Like hedging my bets and like taking risking missing the boat was the choice I had on the other side.

Katie Bryan 00:37:56  Not doing it with a partner.

Katy Ripp 00:37:57  Right? It’s not that you couldn’t do it at all, right? I mean, that wasn’t the choice. It was whether you do it alone or you do it with a partner that you didn’t necessarily get to choose either. Right? Like you could have chosen a different partner. That would have been not the person that would have been a good match. Right? Like it could have been a really horrible choice. Like, we just don’t know. Except there’s something you said in there about grieving this stuff. Yeah. And very likely you coach on that. Right. Like getting through the grief of this was never really an option for you, whether that’s God or the universe or however you live your life and choose to move through grief when you don’t get something you want, there is a grieving process that if you don’t give your time to feel it, you’ll never get to the other side of what you’re looking for. Yeah. Do you feel like there was a breakthrough? There was some sort of like, I grieved this part of it, and then And I.

Katy Ripp 00:38:58  You know, like to me, I hear that you had five viable embryos. I’m like, well, something had to have shifted. Like the podcast was there. The like something in the universe shifted to manifest five embryos. Like, that’s not a normal response to that. So like something had to have energetically shifted. Do you feel like there was something that you could pinpoint?

Katie Bryan 00:39:25  It was all kind of happening at the same time. I did get the news back about the embryos at the same time as some relationships were really shifting, like friendships, girlfriends. And I’m not sober. I don’t claim that I drink wine, you know, once in a blue moon, but I really, really, really redefined my relationship with alcohol, which meant redefining my relationships, a lot of them. And so I went through, I mean, honestly, it was as hard of a breakup as I’ve ever had with a romantic partner with an entire friend group who I just felt like I just can’t be the person that I want to be in this context.

Katie Bryan 00:40:03  And the draw is too strong to go, like sit and drink and drink and drink and like, gossip and like the vibe was just, I just was kind of outgrowing the situation. And so I think that that was a huge transition and it was partly my decision and it was partly thrust upon me by just some, like ugly things that these women, I mean, you know, and I’m sure you’ve dealt with this as well, where it’s like, if you don’t want to face your own stuff, you can’t be in the room with someone who’s willing and ready to face theirs. And it was a big threat to be redefining. But I realized these girlfriends had been my friends for a decade, and other than being at work, I’ve met some of them at work. And other than being at work, I could not remember a time when we’d been together and not drinking. And I would think about like, oh, we did that fun run that started at 8 a.m. and they’d be like, oh no! But then we had mimosas at brunch after, like, I really could not find a time in a decade that we had spent time together and not drink.

Katie Bryan 00:40:59  And so knowing that that was something that I really wanted to change, like, I just, I had it was a huge loss, but it also was a real breakthrough. And at the same time, I was starting to really dig into personal development and reading a bunch of books and listening to podcasts. And I started working with a coach. So I think the two things that really shifted energetically for me was like understanding that my thoughts were creating my life, not my circumstances. Like that shift of understanding that like, I am the author of all of this and the way that I frame it, whether this is empowering or defeating completely depends on how I’m thinking about it. And I can feel that shift. And even just like my desire to drink, it could be really sad that I was giving up this thing that I had enjoyed for so many years. But like, that wasn’t a helpful way to think about it. Like, a helpful way to think about it was like, I’m outgrowing this thing and I can’t wait to see who I am when I don’t have, because I was never going to.

Katie Bryan 00:41:56  All of the things that I wanted to do, I wasn’t going to do after a glass of wine. Right. Like I wasn’t going to go to the gym. I wasn’t going to write in my journal.

Katy Ripp 00:42:03  Same. Yeah.

Katie Bryan 00:42:05  So that was a really helpful shift. And that didn’t happen all at once. It was a very gradual thing. But it’s just I prayed and I’m not a I’m not a religious person, but I am a spiritual person and I do prayer and journaling are kind of the same to me. I may just be talking to myself, but maybe that’s enough. Like my height.

Katy Ripp 00:42:23  I think it’s something, you know, like some kind of faith in something. Yeah, I mean, I don’t care what it is, really. I think just having some sort of faith.

Katie Bryan 00:42:32  Yeah. But for the longest time, I think my desire was just to not desire alcohol. And it was so fun to get to a point where, like, I’m in Trader Joe’s and I’m not even considering putting a bottle of wine in my cart, not because I can’t have it, but because I genuinely don’t want it.

Katy Ripp 00:42:49  Yeah, for me, that was that was the shift too. And I mean I am blessed with when I am done with something, I am done. I just like whatever bone or muscle that is. I just was born with it like it’s good and bad, by the way, right? Like there’s just not not necessarily things that are good about this. But when I am done with something, I’m done. So when I made that decision, it was just over for me. Like, this doesn’t serve me anymore. I don’t care what people think about it. It’s changed my life fundamentally for the better. That’s it. Right? Like I just decided and now, just like you like that came with some hard choices and hard goodbyes and hard things. But these are the hard things we can do. So yes. Yeah, I can appreciate that. It’s the decision to make it rather than like the forced decision on you. And I didn’t want to get to that place. I wanted the narrative around that.

Katy Ripp 00:43:45  I wanted to be the one, and I could see that eventually I was not going to be the one to make that decision. So yeah. And so that part of it. It is a culmination of a whole bunch of things. Right. Like when I got to that space and then the space beyond I’m at now, it wasn’t like one day I just flipped a switch. Yes. One day I was drinking and one day I wasn’t. But it was 25 years of personal development books, podcasts, like trying to fix myself. Like really digging into what’s wrong here. Like, why don’t I feel aligned? Why don’t I feel good? And then like it all came together and it just happened to be in the span of three years, which is really just a blink of an eye now. So yeah.

Katie Bryan 00:44:31  Yeah, yeah. So I think that the kind of personal development journey that I was on outside of all of the fertility stuff was huge. And then the other piece was starting the podcast.

Katie Bryan 00:44:44  I was just meeting so many women who were so remarkable and so just people that I would love to be friends with in any other context that I was impressed by, you know, their careers and they were funny and they were beautiful and they were like, just had all of these things going for them. And it just became kind of ridiculous to have this thought, like, I finally realized I can’t be the one outlier who’s like a huge loser who wound up in this place. If all of these women are so remarkable, like maybe I am to like, maybe, maybe I was wrong about what this meant about me because I can see it in the other women. I can see how incredibly brave it is to not settle and how hard it is to, because many of these women walked away from marriages, walked away from good enough relationships like, you know, decided not to settle. And I realized there was a whole other kind of subset of this demographic of women who are pushing up against the end of their fertility years, who are single, Who are victims of their circumstance.

Katie Bryan 00:45:49  And they don’t do anything about it. They either do settle for the guy that they’re going to divorce a few years later, and they’re miserable, and they have to deal with custody stuff for the rest of their life, or they miss out. And I just realize we are the women who neither of those were acceptable. We’re not I’m not going to miss out and I’m not going to settle. And so this is what is available to me as the third door. And I just I cannot overemphasize how incredible these women are that I’ve met, like hundreds of them, literally hundreds of them that are the best friends I’ve ever had in my life. The people that most inspire me. There are those people, you know, they say like you’re an average of the five people you spend the most time with. And I like dozens of women that I’m like, I’m only better because I just know you exist. Like, even if we don’t interact that much, like just knowing you’re out there doing your thing like they’re writers, they’re doctors.

Katie Bryan 00:46:41  I mean, just doing incredible things. I’ve read novels by my clients. I’ve, you know, I know who I would call if I needed an attorney. I know, like, just.

Katy Ripp 00:46:50  Like all the resources you get out of this too, right? Right.

Katie Bryan 00:46:54  So, I mean.

Katy Ripp 00:46:55  I’m whole.

Katie Bryan 00:46:55  Career, it’s just about, like, the caliber of the women that I’ve met. And so I had to shift my thinking because it didn’t make sense that I was the one loser in the in this bunch of remarkable women. Right?

Katy Ripp 00:47:06  Yeah. So I’m sitting here holding my breath like, I don’t want to interrupt, but I just, like you must see yourself in that now. Like you must see yourself in that. Because when I look at you, that’s what I see is like a remarkable person that went out and did something so far beyond tradition. Right? Like, I mean, it isn’t so far beyond tradition anymore. I hope you’re not like taking offense to that part of it.

Katy Ripp 00:47:37  It’s just we just don’t get to see this. And then the shame around it keeps it, like Secret. And so you don’t know that women are struggling with it. You don’t know that there’s somebody out there until you find a tribe, until you find a community of people and you’re like, oh my God, you’re just like me. Oh my God, you have the same feelings I do. And this makes me belong because otherwise you don’t belong. And that is a fundamental need of us. And especially as we get into our 40s and 50s, like we need to belong somewhere. And so many of us feel like we don’t belong because we fucking checks all the boxes, and we still don’t feel like we belong.

Katie Bryan 00:48:16  I know for certain that personally, and for the several hundred women who are part of the network that I’m creating, I know that we are more supported and less lonely than we would be in partnership. I know it, I know there are stronger. I know that the communication that we have on a daily basis, and the number of people who would absolutely be there for me at the drop of a hat, it’s different than it would I’ve been coupled.

Katie Bryan 00:48:41  I know what that’s like. And I think about just little things like here in Austin, we don’t get a whole lot of snow, but when we do, the whole city just shuts down. Like the world does not know how to handle snow here. So, we we don’t have water. We don’t have power. Like, it’s just you go to, like, third world conditions. Yeah, it’s really bad. And so when I was pregnant and we had a storm that, like, shut down everything, the number of people who offered to bring me water checked in on me. We’re like, just there for me. I know if I had some dude in my house, he would not be getting water. But he also, like no one would be checking on me either. You know, it’s just like the solo I think reminds people, not in a oh, I feel so sorry for you or oh, you can’t do it yourself. But I think there’s just like a different sense of community because it never all comes from that one partner.

Katie Bryan 00:49:31  Nobody’s partner is meeting all of their needs. No, but we assume that they are, and we don’t check in on people. We don’t want to impose on their family time or we don’t. You know, we just assume that people kind of have what they need, which is usually not the case.

Katy Ripp 00:49:44  I mean, like, I want to be part of, you know, the neighborhood, like it’s amazing. I want to be there. And I have a different collective of women that are all female entrepreneurs. And that is a very isolating place. It’s when you want to do it differently, like you’re doing it right. Like we are all very heart led business owners. We want to be and we are in a patriarchal business society. So when you try to do things differently, which is a little bit less, I don’t know, dramatic, but like it is something like, hey, I’m having this issue. Yeah, I can’t go to my entrepreneur husband because he doesn’t fucking get it.

Katy Ripp 00:50:21  Who gets it out here?

Katie Bryan 00:50:22  Yeah, no. And what you’re doing is amazing.

Katy Ripp 00:50:24  It’s just really finding people who get it. I just, I don’t need you to fix me. I just need you to get it. Yeah.

Katie Bryan 00:50:31  Yes. And it’s been on my I have your, your recurring meeting on my calendar, and I haven’t been able to make it yet, but. Oh, please, I would love to get.

Katy Ripp 00:50:38  Involved because.

Katie Bryan 00:50:39  I had that realization recently that I want the type of community that I’m creating for women on this path, but in entrepreneurship, because I don’t have those business connections. So definitely love what you’re doing, and it is very much the same, I think.

Katy Ripp 00:50:52  And there’s lots of community like it could be in a totally different way, right? Like there’s a health community, a walking community, like whatever that is, whatever struggle you have, finding a community that gets it is so I have met the most amazing people, either in that community or via my podcast, because I get to meet people who actually did something, and that’s all I really like.

Katy Ripp 00:51:18  That’s who I am. So I feel like when you have a connection like that, there is just like it. I have I have met my I have met my own business coach, my own virtual assistant, like through my own podcast. And I’m sure, like you said, you have an attorney at your beck and call because you were connected through this one thing that you have in common. That in one way or another, was cloaked in shame and or secrecy at some point. And when you got it out, like, this is the way, this is what you get out of it. Like this is the reward which nobody can tell you. Yes, I’m sure when you started your business, nobody was going to be able to tell you that you have an entire wall of Christmas cards with kids and moms all over them, right? Like I just keep looking behind you and I’m like, wow, what a testament. So we didn’t really get into like, oh my God, you had a baby.

Katie Bryan 00:52:16  I did, I did have a baby. So I got that news about my embryos. I decided I was going to take a break because I really wasn’t sure that solo motherhood, I think I was pursuing it from a place of just desperation and scarcity through the IUI route. But now, knowing that I had these embryos and it really didn’t matter if I was 40 or 43 or, you know, however old, the success rate was going to be the same. It gave me time and it gave me time to really find some closure in that relationship that had been kind of like dragging along the whole time, because now I could have explored that. Like we could have had time if we wanted or needed that.

Katy Ripp 00:52:49  Can I ask you just one question, Katie? Because you just said something like, now I could take a break because I guess I’ve never really connected that. It’s the egg that’s old, not the person. Yes. Yeah, right. So it’s not like you can’t carry it because you’re older.

Katy Ripp 00:53:06  It’s because the eggs are older. Is that right? So like you basically froze.

Katie Bryan 00:53:12  Yes. And that’s how we hear of celebrities having babies at 50 or 48 or whatever. And it’s because either they’re using exit, they froze at a younger age or donor eggs like no one’s getting pregnant at 50. It’s not happening. That’s not that’s not.

Katy Ripp 00:53:27  A thing so interesting. I have never really made that connection, to be honest with you. Like, I just, I guess I just thought like, oh, God, these people are lucky that they’re, you know, like 55 and they can still get pregnant, but like you basically. So your eggs were only 38 years old. Yeah, but your body was in its 40s. Yes. And that’s fine. Right. Like that’s that’s how we do it. Okay, okay. I’m like, I feel like I learned something really new today. Yeah.

Katie Bryan 00:53:53  So during that time I started my podcast, we did have the Covid lockdowns. All of that was happening in the spring of 2020, and I was just doing a lot of like deep work, you know, as home.

Katie Bryan 00:54:05  I didn’t have anything else going on. It was just kind of like forced reflection. And I really got to a place where I genuinely felt ready. I had really worked through a lot of the shame that I felt and the disappointment around, you know, this is what my life is going to look like. I was also making a ton of online connections because everybody kind of went online. You’re all stuck at home. And so just that culmination of the coaching and the personal development, starting the podcast, starting to build a little bit of a community online, I decided that I was ready to do an embryo transfer in July of 2020. So just, you know, a little bit. We were still in lockdown, but fertility clinics had reopened and I was ready. And so I got to that time go in. It was my first embryo transfer, and it was very different experience than the slot machine of the IUI, because with the IOI, it’s like I couldn’t stop myself from doing it because I was so panicked about my fertility.

Katie Bryan 00:55:00  But I also, every time was so relieved when it didn’t work and like it was just like, I can’t not do anything, but I don’t want to be doing this was kind of how it felt. And so this was very different because I was ready and I got super dressed up that day. I had all my bright red lipstick. I was like, so I was like, I’m going to get my baby, you know? And I just knew it was going to work the first time. And my doctor, I remember she was like, okay, at this point you’re going to go home and you know, obviously like, like, don’t get in a hot tub. Like, here are the guidelines. But like, there’s nothing you’re going to do that’s going to mess this up if it’s going to work. And there’s nothing you can do to make it work. Like at this point, we’re just sitting statistically at that 65% chance. So it’s got a better chance of working than not working.

Katie Bryan 00:55:42  And she’s just all of the stuff. And I’m like, it worked. It’s working I know. Yeah. I just didn’t need to I wasn’t worried, I just knew I already knew it was a boy. I had a name for my son. Like I knew it was going to happen and it did. It worked. And I got to be pregnant while we were still at home in sweatpants, which was lovely. I did a lot of amazing.

Katy Ripp 00:56:01  Yeah, both my kids were born in May, so I had September through May, which was like big sweaters and leggings the entire time. Perfect.

Katie Bryan 00:56:14  Yeah, so it was lovely. I loved being pregnant. I had a really easy, smooth, healthy pregnancy. Never had like a minute of worry through my whole pregnancy. I had a beautiful birth. I it’s funny, I tell my birth story on on my own podcast, but I didn’t know I was in labor. I was past my due date and had eaten some Mexican food and then started like violently throwing up and thought I had food poisoning.

Katie Bryan 00:56:35  And I was like, this is the most inconvenient time for food.

Katy Ripp 00:56:38  To be hurling over a toilet, right?

Katie Bryan 00:56:41  There’s something wrong with your chicken. No, that was labor. So I didn’t know I was in labor for about half the time that I was in labor, because I thought it was gastrointestinal, like I wasn’t experiencing, like, waves. I was just like, massive cramping and throwing up. And no one told me that throwing up could be part of it. So by the time I got to the hospital, it was like, if you can wait to push til the doctor gets here, that’d be great. But if not, I was like, I don’t.

Katy Ripp 00:57:04  Think.

Katie Bryan 00:57:05  So. I had a super fast, unmedicated like beautiful easy delivery. Loved it. Would absolutely like ten out of ten do it again. And so that was it. Like it was great. It was easy. I was immediately in love with my son. It was exactly the way that it was meant to be.

Katie Bryan 00:57:21  Yeah, just loved it.

Katy Ripp 00:57:23  Divine timing.

Katie Bryan 00:57:24  Yes, yes.

Katy Ripp 00:57:25  So like now we’re 4 or 5 years In to parenthood, right?

Katie Bryan 00:57:30  It’s three and a half, so.

Katy Ripp 00:57:32  Oh, three and a half. Okay. Yeah.

Katie Bryan 00:57:34  Yeah, yeah. So I had gone through a coach training, so I started my podcast and also did a coach training while we were in lockdown. And like during kind of before pregnancy and during pregnancy. And so as part of my coach training, I needed to do some practice hours. And so of course I it could be anyone on any topic. But I decided to those same women that I was scouting for the podcast, like those were the women I was going to offer this like free coaching to. And I really, really liked it. And I was doing it all for free. And I think I worked with maybe like 7 or 8 women. And then I was like, you know, I could maybe like, I feel okay about charging because I think, like, I’m actually helping people.

Katie Bryan 00:58:11  I never meant I was going through the training just for my own knowledge, like I never intended to be a coach. Like I just wanted the insider information and it was Covid and I had nothing to do. And it was kind of like my last chance to do this, like deep dive in personal development, because I was about to become a solo mom, and who knew what that was going to look like. So I did this coaching and I had a handful of clients, and I ramped it up a little bit towards the end of my pregnancy because I realized, like, I’m making some extra money and it’s really helping with all of these medical costs that I’m having. And so that was great. And I thought, well, we’ll see after I have the baby, maybe in like 3 or 4 months, maybe I’ll just like one night a week, get a babysitter. And that was cute of me to think that I’d be ready 3 or 4 months after I had the baby.

Katy Ripp 00:58:52  Yeah.

Katie Bryan 00:58:53  Cute.

Katy Ripp 00:58:53  Cute.

Katie Bryan 00:58:54  Yeah. So 15 months later, I decided to come back to it. Meanwhile, I had been doing the podcast throughout that time taking breaks, but like, I had been putting out some episodes of the podcast and because there really was nothing out there on this topic, people were finding my podcast and it was getting traction, even though, you know, I wasn’t I wasn’t super consistent with it. It still was one of the only resources out there. So I was kind of gathering this critical mass of people. So when I put back out there that I was interested in, I mean, I really thought I’d take like 1 or 2, one on one clients one night a week. And the response was just insane. There was no way. I mean, I would have like a two year waiting list, so I couldn’t do one on one, which was terrifying because I’d never considered doing groups. Remember, I didn’t want to be a coach like that was not.

Katy Ripp 00:59:39  That was right, right, right.

Katie Bryan 00:59:40  But I had to figure out how to do groups because it was the only way. And so I started doing group coaching just to meet the demand. And I think I was charging like $20 a person. And, you know, it was just kind of like this little extra side hustle. It paid for the babysitter that I needed the night that I did it, and then like a little bit of extra. But there kept being like more and more people interested in it. And I was getting better and better at it, and I was feeling more and more confident that what I was offering was a value. And I had this realization that while these women were coming for the coaching and for some of them, they weren’t into personal development. They didn’t know anything about coaching. They just were interested in the solo mom topic. So it was like kind of opening up this whole entire world to these women. And I thought, you know, the coaching is really, of course, useful. And I’m trying to provide value.

Katie Bryan 01:00:26  And I think that’s happening. And I could probably log off and go do laundry for an hour and come back in an hour. And all these women would still be on this call because they really want is the connection with one another. Yeah. And it’s like the coaching was like taking up the air space. And they just wanted me to just stop so that they could like, chat. So I realized that that was like a separate offer, that community groups is what I called it, but that we needed to have just the container for bringing together. I do ten women at a time, like coming together, who are all at a similar stage and just talking about the medical stuff, the how are you telling your conservative grandparents part, the what does leave look like at your work, and how do I advocate for myself, and how do I tell my boss, and, you know, all of those types of things, what do you tell your child about being donor conceived, and how do you choose the donor? And all of those topics? They didn’t have anybody that they could talk to about that.

Katie Bryan 01:01:19  And it wasn’t necessarily like coaching that they needed. They just they wanted like crowdsourcing. They wanted discussion and support. Yeah. And so I started doing these community groups in 2022. And that’s where I was like, this is a business. Like, I have to keep doing this because I am so happy. Like I get emotional just thinking about it. Like, I’m so happy for these women that they have this. Like, if I don’t offer it, who will? Like, I have to keep doing this, whether it’s inconvenient, whether I want to or not, like this has to be made available because of the value of connection. At this, like excruciating time, I was literally watching women make that same transition that took me years of like slogging through in a 90 minute call, like they would come to a 90 minute call and leave feeling excited instead of defeated. And coaching was part of it. But these groups didn’t have any coaching. Like I was still doing group coaching on a particular topic, like choosing a donor.

Katie Bryan 01:02:17  And come if you want to talk about that. And it was one off, and you may or may not see the other women on the call. Again, you could exchange info if you wanted to, but these community groups were really where women were experiencing this shift. And with that, we did. I still do six week groups where we come together for six weeks in a row for 90 minutes. But then there’s also a WhatsApp group associated with the community, and that continues on after the six weeks. And so those groups continue. I’m still in them, but I’m not super active because I have like, yeah, now I think, but the groups from 2022 are still they’ll have like a monthly reunion call. They’re still chatting pretty, you know, weekly or so. And these groups have continued to support one another for years into I mean, I have one group where they’re all considering a second child at this point.

Katy Ripp 01:03:02  Yeah. I mean, well, first of all, like my first, my mentor hat on is it’s okay to make money at this, right? Like totally.

Katy Ripp 01:03:10  Yeah. This is heart led coaching at its finest. Yeah.

Katie Bryan 01:03:14  Every single thing I put out, I’m so excited for the person that’s buying it. Like I genuinely feel like you’re going to be so glad you did this for yourself. And that’s kind of my car for myself. Like when I set my pricing, when I decide what I’m offering, it’s always something that I’m like, younger me would have been like, this is life changing.

Katy Ripp 01:03:34  When you connect money to it, right? Like it becomes valuable, it becomes a service, it becomes all these things. In addition, you can always put out free content, right? Like it’s not like nobody like nobody can afford Katie. Right. Like you’re also putting out content on your podcast, on the, on Instagram, that sort of thing. This is for a community, for people. This is the heart lead coaching we’re talking about. This is amazing. I love it so much. Also the like, if we are measured by anything which I don’t love societal measurements.

Katy Ripp 01:04:09  But if you are measured by anything, the success of a group is how long the group stays together after and the fact that you have people that are still together in 2022, for instance, I’ve been in coaching things, I’ve been in seminars, I’ve gone to workshops, I have been in things that I am still very active in that community, or I’ve taken one best friend out of it, or one mentor, or that made it all worth it. It might not be that I’m doing the same thing that I was or needed it for, but I got my best friend out of it. I got my, you know, my business mentor out of it. I got a group of women that I can, like, shoot an email to and be like, hey, can you be like this guinea pig for me? And those come out of things like this that you just don’t know, that you’re you don’t know. You’ll get that until you’re in it. And you and you take the leap.

Katy Ripp 01:05:05  Because it is scary to come into group things you don’t know of. Like everybody’s going to be weird in the group, or you don’t know that you’re not getting the whiny person in the group. It’s like, well, what if this happens? What if this? I mean, like, you just don’t know. But you can leave, right? Like, you can pay the money and you could also leave.

Katie Bryan 01:05:22  You know what’s amazing, Katie, is that I don’t have those women in my groups. I really, really don’t. And I think one of the hardest parts of facilitating groups is managing. When you get like, a Debbie Downer. Someone in the group. Yeah. You know, but I think the reason why is that people find me through my podcast. I’m not super active on social media. I send out emails and then I have my podcast, and I think on my podcast I talk enough about mindset and I think I would probably repel the Debbie Downer. They’re not going to join the group.

Katy Ripp 01:05:53  I don’t have people like that either anymore. Yeah, yeah, I just I just don’t attract people like that anymore. I don’t attract people that I have to, like, cut out anymore. I just, I know who my person is and there’s other people for you if I’m not for you. And unfortunately, in your case, there’s probably not that many people out there. But, I mean, it sounds like the people that are in this kind of situation are also just don’t have that bone, right? Like they’re already coming up against so much. They’ve already made the mindset shift. Yeah. Like that’s a pretty significant mindset shift. I think that’s.

Katie Bryan 01:06:28  True.

Katy Ripp 01:06:29  Yeah. I want you to tell my listeners where they can find you. Give me all the down and dirty. How can people get into this. Like if there are there other resources out there if somebody is. Yeah. Just give me all the things.

Katie Bryan 01:06:45  I would love to kind of tell you like a little bit more about the evolution of.

Katie Bryan 01:06:49  Yeah. Like the things that I offer because everything has kind of come from like I said, you know, I was doing the group coaching and I could see what people really need is just this, like container to connect. And then I was doing that and I had kind of a critical mass. I think it was around the time I had worked with like around 150 women in those groups.

Katy Ripp 01:07:04  That is a crazy amount of women.

Katie Bryan 01:07:06  Yeah, yeah. I mean, it’s about double that now. But at the time I decided to put out just a Google Goal form, like a survey to gather some information about what else women were interested in, like what other things I could offer to the community. And I had a lot of like rating scales and things like that. But I had one open ended question that went to, you know, 150 women. And I think the question was something along the lines of, if I could offer anything else like sky’s the limit. What could the single greatest choice, which is my business offer that would ease this path for you and over and over and over again in person? And they would say, I know it’s not possible, but I’d love to meet women in person.

Katie Bryan 01:07:46  I know, like, it would just be so hard. But what if we could meet in person? And so one of the things that I’ve done just kind of along the way, this was nothing structured. And it’s not like it’s not paid or anything like that is I just was holding in my mind like, okay, this girl lives in San Francisco and so does this girl, and they need to connect or she’s using egg donor and she’s using egg donor and let’s connect them. And so I was constantly trying to connect women, which I think is a huge strength of mine, but it just got too big. And so I created a directory where women can just opt in with their information and go on to the directory, and it’s organized by time zone. So you can go in and just try to find people who live geographically.

Katy Ripp 01:08:21  Yes.

Katie Bryan 01:08:22  But the other thing was I read the results of that survey and I kind of sat with it and I thought, okay, if in person was going to happen, like, I’m not in every city, I can’t do like other than in Austin where I live.

Katie Bryan 01:08:36  Like, I don’t know that I could really do that, but like, how could I do it and where could I do it? And I decided I was going to do retreats. And so.

Katy Ripp 01:08:45  My God. So I got.

Katie Bryan 01:08:48  In a year, I did four retreats in a year. It was wild.

Katy Ripp 01:08:51  Oh my God. Whoa.

Katie Bryan 01:08:53  I also had a full time job, so this was all a side hustle. I had a full time baby toddler.

Katy Ripp 01:08:58  Yeah, yeah. Okay.

Katie Bryan 01:09:00  Yeah, but I’ve done two retreats in Mexico on the beach and then two in Sedona, which is awesome. And there are like, crazy stories to go with all of those. And just like how aligned and the people that I met that were the exact right people at the exact right time to, like, make all of this happen.

Katy Ripp 01:09:14  Of course. Yeah.

Katie Bryan 01:09:15  Pure magic. Like just total magic. And it’s been amazing. My family did tell me I needed to slow my roll on the retreats, because they do not want to take my toddler for a full week every quarter.

Katy Ripp 01:09:26  So yeah, yeah, yeah.

Katie Bryan 01:09:27  So I’m just doing one this year. But this year I’m venturing into family travel. So I’m going to do my first trip where moms are bringing their babies because my retreats have been women who are on the path to solo motherhood and kind of, yeah, most of my clients are women who are thinking about solo motherhood, and those community groups are women who are like on the path but aren’t mothers yet. But now I’m starting to kind of widen the offer to women who are parenting. So we’ll have our first family trip this year. And then the other piece that I opened up just recently in December is I started a membership program. One of the reasons why I thought about doing a membership is that when things hit the news, there are occasionally stories like, I don’t know if you caught the. There was a documentary about the man with a thousand children that was around.

Katy Ripp 01:10:09  Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah.

Katie Bryan 01:10:10  The donor conception is right. And then there are, you know, just news articles and things that come out every once in a while.

Katie Bryan 01:10:16  And I’m in all of these WhatsApp groups, I think I have like 30 something WhatsApp groups of my previous groups. And I would watch every single group posting links to the same article, or I would see someone ask, hey, did anyone’s doctor have you on this specific medical protocol? And that no one in the group would say yes, but I would know that a girl in another group had. Yeah, to answer that question. So I just thought there needs to be a bigger forum for this type of connection. And so I started this monthly membership. And the membership is a private coaching podcast and workbook every month, but it’s also all my group coaching moved into the membership. And then one community building calls. So that is just like you come in, we go into breakout rooms. You just I mean, it’s like coffee with random people who become friends in, you know, the span of time that you have with them. And so maybe you meet your new best friend and maybe you just, like, connect and then, you know, it’s whatever.

Katie Bryan 01:11:09  And. Yeah, but it’s just an opportunity for women to connect with one another. And we also have a buy sell trade area in there. We have a resource library where women are posting, like all of those articles, and it’s crowdsourced. So it’s not just me putting resources like they are putting the resources in.

Katy Ripp 01:11:25  Oh my God, Katie, this is insane. It’s so good.

Katie Bryan 01:11:30  So and it’s I mean, it’s only my second month to do it, but I think it’s going to create the kind of base, consistent salary that I need to fully quit my job because at this point, I in July I went.

Katy Ripp 01:11:41  That was going to be my next question, like, have you not quit your full time job yet?

Katie Bryan 01:11:46  I went to part time in July and it’s been really, really great. But I am just I’m dying to quit fully, but I still get all my health care benefits and everything through that job. So sure, it’s.

Katy Ripp 01:11:55  Yeah, I get it. Yeah. And you’re single like single income.

Katy Ripp 01:11:59  So yeah. Oh my God, I mean, yes. Please come to my group so we can, like, pick your brain about all this. This is amazing. Thank you. I hope you are. I always say this with like, the caveat it’s never meant to be condescending, but, like, I’m so proud of you. Like, I’m just so proud to know people like this that have taken some obstacle and just, like, fucking made it their way. Like just on down the road downrange. We’re going for it. It’s going to be amazing. And it never looked that way. It just really never looked that way until you switched your mindset.

Katie Bryan 01:12:42  Receive that. And I cannot believe this is my life. I can’t believe, I mean, from the women that I’ve met and the friendships that I’ve created and my son, I mean, we haven’t talked about him, but he is amazing and I’m so glad that I don’t ever have to worry about. There are no compromises in the way that I’m parenting him.

Katie Bryan 01:12:59  I don’t ever have to worry about, like, custody and like none of that. And the lifestyle that I’ve created for myself. I’m making more money than I was when I was a school district employee, but also before we I joined this call with you, Katie. I went to the gym and Trader Joe’s this morning on a Friday.

Katy Ripp 01:13:13  I know, I know, right. The freedom. Yeah, the freedom around it. And yes, there are ways to not do it freely, right? Like. Right. I work with a lot of people like, no, no, no, no, entrepreneurship is supposed to be freeing. You’re not supposed to be shackled. Like, how can we get out of that? And so it sounds like you’re doing it right already. Like, amazing. How can people find you? Like, where’s the best place to go? Definitely share your podcast. We’re going to put this all in the show notes. We’ll put all the links in there. But I’m imagining that this is going to resonate with more than one person here.

Katy Ripp 01:13:47  So are you working with people one on one? Are you working only in group coaching? How do people sign up for the membership go?

Katie Bryan 01:13:54  Yeah, it’s super easy. It’s all at single greatest choice. Com and it’ll under services. You’ll see all the different things that I offer. But I have the membership. I do the community groups about every six weeks, and then I do one on one coaching as well. My only retreat for the year is sold out, but I will have family travel coming up probably in August of 2025, so.

Katy Ripp 01:14:14  I love it so much. This is so great!

Katie Bryan 01:14:17  My podcast and Instagram are also single, so it’s all the same.

Katy Ripp 01:14:22  We’re gonna put all that in there. Thank you so much for coming on here. I just really I was so excited to talk to you from a business standpoint because like, you’re fucking rocking it, but also like that actually I can moment. Right. Like that one thing that you were just like, fuck this. Actually, I like, I can totally do this.

Katy Ripp 01:14:42  And I just I’m just so happy to have met you, and I can’t wait to collaborate or do all the things with you. And so I’m really excited to have met you, and I appreciate you coming on here. And we will talk so soon.

Katie Bryan 01:14:54  Yeah. Me too. And I would love to tell you just one more little thing. Yes, please. Without all of the mess of kind of sorting through. I don’t want this to be my life. I can’t believe I ended up here like all of the. I have been a dancer off and on for most of my life, and I picked up, I think it was Gabby Bernstein. I picked up this phrase that I would sometimes sign at the end of my journal entries, and the phrase, is this or something better for the highest good? And so I would write about how badly I wanted a partner and how badly I wanted a family, and then I would sign it. That, and I couldn’t imagine that there was something better, something greater, you know, something that would serve like to me, that was just it.

Katie Bryan 01:15:35  I just want to be a mom. I just want to be partnered. I just want to have the white picket fence, like, I just want I want what other people seem to have so easily. And this is so incredible to look back and just see, like, this is it. This is the something better for the higher good. Like, absolutely. I am so happy and so fulfilled. My son is so happy and there are hundreds of women who I mean, I have women tell me this child that I’m holding would not be in my arms if I hadn’t found your community. And I just can’t think of, like, anything. I mean, like.

Katy Ripp 01:16:04  You’re just making the world a better place. That’s all we hope for.

Katie Bryan 01:16:08  It’s like I’m.

Katy Ripp 01:16:09  Just doing the thing.

Katie Bryan 01:16:11  That I found. And by the way, I found it at 40. Like I found all of this. As I’m turning 40, I’m 43 now. I’m planning to have another kid. I’m planning to, like, blow up the scene with my business, like it is all happening.

Katie Bryan 01:16:25  And it’s going to happen in my 40s and my 50s and my 60s. Like, it’s not too late. You’re not behind.

Katy Ripp 01:16:31  You’re not behind. No, you’re not behind. I’m 46 and I just started this shit too. And I love it. Yeah, it took me a long time to get here. I think we just need to be patient. That’s hard to tell people. So. So thank you so much, Katie. All right. Talk to you soon.

Katie Bryan 01:16:45  Bye.

Katy Ripp 01:16:48  And that’s a wrap on today’s episode. I hope you enjoyed diving deep into the world of living authentically with me. Before you go, don’t forget to connect with me on Instagram. Shoot me a message at Katy Ripp. I’d love to hear your thoughts on today’s episode and connect with you further. And remember, if you want more details on today’s episode or just want to explore more about designing your life unapologetically, head on over to my website at Katy Ripp dot com. There you’ll find all the juicy details and resources you need to keep the inspiration flowing.

Katy Ripp 01:17:17  Lastly, if you’d like to join me on the show, whether it’s to tell about your experience of designing your own life, to share your expertise, or if you’d like to participate in lifestyle coaching live on air, don’t hesitate to reach out. Your story could inspire countless others on their own path to living authentically. Thanks for tuning in. Until next time, keep living boldly designing your life. And remember #ActuallyICan.