In this episode, Amy is joined by Laura, a marketing executive in Toronto, who spent three decades managing a secret that controlled every decision she made. Starting with pre-cervical cancer surgery in her 20s, she had five surgeries in her 30s and 40s to remove polyps and fibroids—all while climbing the corporate ladder and dating as a single woman. She couldn't tell anyone at work for fear of losing promotions, relied on painkillers just to get through the day, and unconsciously kept relationships at arm's length because she wasn't sure she could give a partner biological children. Three years ago, at 47, she made a final decision: a hysterectomy. But not before six months of therapy asking the hard questions—not "can I have a baby at 48?" but "do I want one?" This raw conversation reveals the loneliness of making this choice alone, the shock of leaving the hospital with zero support, and why she decided to speak her truth so other women wouldn't have to suffer the way she did.

Key Components:

• Thirty years of invisible pain: Five surgeries, constant bleeding, unpredictable cycles, painkillers she lost track of—all while maintaining a successful career and the appearance of having it together.
• She unconsciously avoided commitment because she didn't know if she could have kids, and she didn't want to be the woman who couldn't deliver that dream. Every relationship decision was hinged on a health struggle she couldn't even name out loud.
• Making her final decision: Six months of therapy helped her walk through the real questions. Not medical ones—personal ones. By the time she knew her answer was no to motherhood, she made peace with it. But there was still grief, and there was no going back.
• When she posted about her hysterectomy eight weeks post-op, it opened a door. Women started DMing her and she became the support she never had for people who had no one else to talk to.

"I felt alone. I felt like I was the only one who had all of these challenges. Nobody knew the behind the scenes. Nobody knew the personal struggles and the journey."

👉 Click here to join the movement at downthereaware.org

🩲 Subscribe, like, and share to show us you care!

🤘 Podcast produced by Binge-Worthy Studio

For informational and entertainment purposes only — not medical advice. We're here to get loud, not to play doctor.

In this episode of Down There Aware, Amy is joined by Yolanda, who shares her nine-year infertility battle—3 IVFs and 2 IUI's, and not a single pregnancy. No doctor ever told her that egg quality crashes at 35, so she delayed family planning for career and didn't start trying until 37. After three failed cycles at her first clinic, she switched to a second one that discovered she has three rare blood clotting mutations that prevented embryo implantation. She shares about daily blood work and ultrasounds while hiding it from her corporate job, receiving "you're not pregnant" calls at work, losing three 20-year friendships to grief, years of depression, and the complex joy and heartbreak of being a devoted stepmom to two sons while mourning the biological children she'll never have.

Key Components

• The clock was ticking, but no one told her: Yolanda wasn't told that egg quality drops sharply at 35. Had she known, she might have frozen eggs or made different choices—instead, she was given no information.
• Blood work and internal ultrasounds, hormone injections at home, a swollen uterus she couldn't hide, and the devastation of getting told "you're not pregnant" via phone call at work while in high-pressure corporate meetings.
• Her hidden blood clotting disorder: Yolanda discovered she has all three rare genetic mutations affecting blood clotting (Factor V Leiden, Prothrombin, MTHFR)—which affects just 0.04% of the population.
• How her infertility meant profound isolation: She lost three 20-year friendships because they couldn't handle her grief, spent years on depression medication and therapy, and couldn't tell anyone at work for fear of losing promotions.

"Going through infertility is extremely lonely because no one understands. I want to celebrate with you, but I can't come to your baby shower. I can't be around diaper games. It's not that we're selfish—it's trauma. It's a traumatic experience."

Connect with Yolanda at Full Circle Digital and Put The Kettle On

👉 Click here to join the movement at downthereaware.org

🩲 Subscribe, like, and share to show us you care!

🤘 Podcast produced by Binge-Worthy Studio

For informational and entertainment purposes only — not medical advice. We're here to get loud, not to play doctor.

Seanna Thomas, a holistic nutritionist and TV personality on Meal Prep Mondays (CP24), joins Amy to break down the nonsense about women's nutrition in perimenopause. Instead of promising perfection, Seanna teaches practical, moderation-based nutrition—protein, fiber, hydration—without the guilt. She talks about her journey from "buzzkill hockey snack mom" to building a business that fuels busy families, navigating perimenopause while raising three teenagers, and why going easy on yourself is the real game-changer. A refreshingly honest conversation about eating chicken legs AND french fries, supplements that actually matter (magnesium, calcium, omega-3), and why the 30-grams-of-protein-per-meal rule is actually doable without living on cottage cheese.

Key Components:

• The supplement and diet industry bombards us with contradictory advice. Seanna's philosophy is simple: start with one sustainable change, master it, then add another—don't do everything all at once.
• Protein, fiber, and hydration are the holy trinity: Aim for 100 grams of protein a day (roughly 30g per meal - but not necessarily from chicken legs.) Color on your plate = fiber. And drinking water actually matters more than you think.
• Food should be an adventure, not a prison: Processed meats, wine with charcuterie, french fries are all allowed. The goal is moderation and enjoyment, not perfection.
• Practical strategies beat motivation: Make dinner decisions by noon, prep a charcuterie lunch, put out a veggie tray when kids come home, use a whiteboard. Remove decision fatigue from the equation so you actually make good choices.

"Go easy on yourself. We are bombarded with what we should be doing, especially when it comes to what we eat. 'Eat more protein, eat more fiber, don't do cardio, but get 10,000 steps a day'—it can get really confusing. Make one change at a time."

Visit Seanna's website here

👉 Click here to join the movement at downthereaware.org

🩲 Subscribe, like, and share to show us you care!

🤘 Podcast produced by Binge-Worthy Studio

For informational and entertainment purposes only — not medical advice. We're here to get loud, not to play doctor.

In this episode of Down There Aware, Natalie Jeanson joins Amy to share her devastating 10-year journey of being dismissed by doctors despite meticulous self-documentation and persistent advocacy. Natalie opens up about dismissive allergic reactions to birth control, a traumatic IUD insertion, PCOS diagnosis, and the workplace discrimination that comes with invisible chronic pain. She talks about the healthcare system's refusal to listen even when she showed up with detailed symptom logs, why being told "it's just normal" destroyed her confidence, and how imposter syndrome almost kept her silent. A raw conversation about being forced to educate the system about your own body.

Key Components

• How medical gaslighting starts in adolescence: Natalie's symptoms from age 13—heavy periods, cyclical pain outside her period, pain during exercise—were normalized and dismissed as "just how it is," setting the stage for years of suffering in silence.
• Doctors don't listen even when patients do the work for them: Despite meticulously logging every symptom, meal, and activity for months and presenting this evidence to doctors, Natalie was given an IUD instead of answers.
• How Natalie's workplace experience reveals how employers—and the healthcare system—don't acknowledge what they can't see, forcing her to fight for basic accommodations like wearing comfortable pants instead of following restrictive dress codes.
• Overcoming imposter syndrome to speak her truth: Natalie grapples with self-doubt despite being articulate and knowledgeable about her own body, showing how invalidation for years creates a silence many women experience even when desperate to be heard.

"The healthcare system tries to put you in boxes before you get that diagnosis that you need because they need to rule things out. But that process of putting you in boxes for five years just to get a diagnosis means you're suffering for five years with chronic pain."

Connect with Natalie on Instagram:
@natalie.raae
@remmie.collective

👉 Click here to join the movement at downthereaware.org

🩲 Subscribe, like, and share to show us you care!

🤘 Podcast produced by Binge-Worthy Studio

For informational and entertainment purposes only — not medical advice. We're here to get loud, not to play doctor.

Welcome to The Down There Aware Podcast with Amy Milne. In our first episode, Amy opens up about her deeply personal journey through three decades of undiagnosed endometriosis. From speaking up as a rebellious teenager to battling medical gaslighting as a young woman, Amy takes you through the misdiagnoses, the surgeries, the medications, and the moment a female doctor finally believed her. She shares how her tenacity led her to motherhood despite the odds, why she eventually chose a hysterectomy, and why she's now launching the Down There Affair—a radical fundraising walk in underwear—to demand better for women's below-the-belt health care.

Key Components

• How early outspokenness became her superpower: Amy's refusal to be silenced as a teenager, though labeled "difficult," ultimately enabled her to advocate for herself when the medical system failed her.
• The power of one doctor who listened: When Dr. Vicki Davis believed Amy's story instead of dismissing it, everything changed—and led directly to her eventual path to motherhood.
• Why the "kids cures endo" myth is bullshit: Amy challenges the outdated narrative that pregnancy ends endometriosis, sharing her continued pain journey after becoming a mother.
• The Down There Affair as activism: Amy's new fundraising movement and why women's below-the-belt health receives only 7 cents per healthcare dollar while Viagra comes in chewable form.

"For us to demand more and better care, we must put our money where the memes are. We must raise our own money because of the dollars raised in health care today we see about seven cents on the dollar go towards our health concerns. How is there a chewable—not just swallowable but chewable—Viagra, but no cure for endo?"

👉 Click here to join the movement at downthereaware.org

🩲 Subscribe, like, and share to show us you care!

🤘 Podcast produced by Binge-Worthy Studio

For informational and entertainment purposes only — not medical advice. We're here to get loud, not to play doctor.

Here's the thing nobody wants to say out loud: For decades, women have been taught that our pain doesn't matter, that our bodies are too complicated, that we should suffer quietly and be grateful for whatever scraps of medical attention we get. I'm done with that. And if you're listening to this, so are you. 

Hi, I'm Amy Milne, and I know what it's like to be dismissed by doctors who didn't believe my pain was real. But here's the thing: I'm not special. This is happening to millions of women right now. Women being told their pain is in their heads. Women waiting years, sometimes a decade for a diagnosis, women whose careers, relationships and lives are being destroyed while the medical system shrugs and says, "mmm, that's just how periods are." 

That ends here. That ends now. 

Welcome to the Down There Aware podcast, where we're getting loud about women's below the belt health. Every week I dare to bare it all as I sit down in my undies with the people who are changing the game. Doctors and researchers sharing breakthrough insights, fitness coaches with practical strategies for women's health, advocates fighting for change, and real women sharing their stories. The struggles, the victories, the truth about what's really going on below the belt.

We're going to get real, and we're going to get uncomfortable because getting uncomfortable is where change happens. We'll laugh when it's appropriate, we'll rage when it's necessary, and we will never again accept the status quo. 

It's bold, it's honest, and it's the conversation women's health has been waiting for. Whether you're in the middle of your own health battle, supporting someone who is, or you're just ready to join a movement that's making women's health impossible to ignore, this is your space. 

This is the Down There Aware podcast. Show us you care: Subscribe and share. 

We're done with the whispers. It's time to get loud.

👉 Click here to join the movement at downthereaware.org

🩲 Subscribe, like, and share to show us you care!

🤘 Podcast produced by Binge-Worthy Studio

For informational and entertainment purposes only — not medical advice. We're here to get loud, not to play doctor.