We are nearing 100 episodes of the So Now What Podcast. When I tell you that I never could have imagined that my first podcast, where I bravely told my story for the first time, would end up here.

Almost two years later coming to you  almost every week with a new episode and the amount of downloads we've had and the connections that I have made with so many of you that started out listening to the podcast and maybe stumbled upon it on your own. Maybe you were referred by a friend to listen to the podcast, but whatever it is.

I'm asking a huge favor to help me in preparation for the 100th episode of the Sonaweb podcast. Would you rate and review the podcast? I will put a link to that in the show notes so you can just click on the link and go and just give my podcast a rating and if you would just share how this podcast has impacted your journey through fertility treatments and what you get out of the podcast every week. I would so appreciate it because the more readings and reviews we have, the more women like us will find this community and know that they are not alone during this journey. So I thank you so much for helping me prepare for the 100th episode of the podcast.

Now this week, I'm going to talk about something that comes up pretty often. And my thrive after infertility coaching and the mastermind and my one on one coaching. And that is feeling triggered by places that you visit. Maybe it could be going to a doctor's appointment. Maybe you feel triggers in places that you never anticipated that you would feel.

 It could be in the parking lot going to the doctor, maybe it could be in your office. If you used to have to go do your shots and you were at work, you might feel this uneasiness in this trigger there. Maybe it's the pharmacy. Maybe you go pick up a prescription if you're like me, I have migraines and I go pick up my prescription and there's times when I remember waiting in line.

For countless hours to get a prescription filled that maybe they didn't have there and then I had to go to another pharmacy. There was even 1 time. I had to drive over an hour to the headquarters of I can't remember if it was CBS or Walgreens because they didn't have the medication I needed. At the pharmacy, and so there are oftentimes where you might walk into a place and not be expectant of feeling triggered by being in that place.

 If you haven't done paper thinking in a while, maybe take some time to notice. Where those places are for you, and when you feel something coming up for you when you walk into your OBGYN's office for an unrelated visit, write that stuff down. Where are you, what's coming up for you, the things that just, they seem really heavy and you think that something is wrong with you, that you are still somehow jolted by those locations.

And I want to talk about how normal that is this week. I think that we think something is wrong with us. If we somehow have this emotion wave that comes over us when we're sitting in a parking garage.  Think about how many times we drove into that parking garage for a reason related to our fertility journey and the anxiety that sometimes might have entered that parking garage with you because you knew you had to go to a monitoring appointment or you knew you had an ultrasound or you knew you had a transfer.

There are so many things that get sparked in us when we return to these hollows and these hallways where we once had so much connection to our journey of motherhood. So if we allow ourselves to  normalize it and say, you know what? It makes sense. Like, of course I'm feeling anxiousness when I'm sitting in the waiting room of a place where I used to sit waiting 

to see my doctor and talk about how well things were coming along or when my transfer was going to be. There are so many things that you're not expecting. And can we allow ourselves to experience them? Without judgment? If you're like many of the students that I work with, you might think, what is wrong with me?

This might be the conversation that you have. I can't believe that all this time later, I'm sitting here tearing up waiting and sitting in this chair. What is wrong with me? I'm broken. I'm never going to get over this. You might be thinking that this feeling of stuckness to these locations has to be representational of who you are for the rest of your life.

 What if you just considered that this is part of your process? What if maybe every time you walk into your local pharmacy, you have a memory of a flashback and that's okay, but you also take time to recognize. Where you are today after that flashback, where you were then and where you are now.

If you can start to note where those places are, then you can start to have those inter dialogues with yourself and say, okay, I one time felt this, but I'm now on the road to feeling like this when I'm standing here in line. And where are you today? While you're in that line, where are you today when you're pulling in and getting the ticket out of the ticket booth at the parking garage?

How has your life changed? Because I think it's so common and  the students that I work with, they're really feeling like they always have to be feeling that way when they drive in that parking garage. Or they don't feel that way, and if they do feel that way, they're not healed.

You're watching me on YouTube. You can see my air quotes. So if you don't feel affected by it, you're healed. But if you feel still some sort of emotion around it, you feel like you're so behind the eight ball, and that you just haven't made enough progress in your life. But what if those things coexist?

And you recall and remember the woman that you were back then, and you recall the effort that you gave to hold it all together. And the fact that you did all those things and you're still here today, like how fricking amazing is that, that you are somebody who is now doing the things that you are doing after having

experienced the things that you felt when you were sitting in that surrounding, or you were in that waiting room, or you were in that hallway.  It happened to me recently. I revisited the place. I was. When I got the call from  my doctor telling me that my last frozen embryo, my really only frozen embryo at that clinic had been chromosomally tested and it came back with trisomy 16 and on a voicemail, he told me in full disclosure, he's like, you can stop and listen to this message later, but if you want to hear some results of your testing, please continue listening.

So it wasn't like they left it without warning me. But when he left me that news, I just was in the state of limbo. I was hundreds of miles away from home. I was in Minnesota. I was at a work event around people that very few knew what I was going through because I kept my fertility journey such a secret.

And here I got the worst news I ever thought or never thought or prayed I'd never get, get delivered to me. And I happened to be in that same room where I stood just minutes after receiving and listening to that voice message. And I found myself getting emotional, but I also found myself. Stopping to say, look at where you are now, look at the work that you have put in yourself.

Look at how you've changed. Look at how you've grown. And that's no different for you. You have changed. This journey has changed you and you have grown and you have been so powerful to really continue to commit to yourself, to listen to podcasts like this. Is not for someone who doesn't work on themselves and somebody who doesn't strive to have a life that feels better than it did when you were sitting in that experience years ago, or months ago, depending on where you are.

So, can you be proud of who you are for the fact that. You're desiring more for yourself, even if nothing feels like it has physically changed, but just having that desire is something worth celebrating. So I want to recognize that you don't have to always. Avoid, you might be avoiding going certain places and that's fine.

Do it on your own time. You may never find your time to revisit that place, but know that you don't have to avoid visiting that place because you aren't strong enough to handle it. You are absolutely so much more in control. And powerful than you might give yourself credit for. And I know it because your ears are here with me today, or your, if you're watching on YouTube, your eyes are with me today and you wouldn't be here if you weren't somebody who's investing in a future that feels so much better and so much lighter than it did all those months and years and days ago.

So I'll leave you with that. And one last request for you to please rate and review the podcast. Help me celebrate my hundredth podcast with as many years and as many eyes as possible. And know that no matter how hard it seems, your life has so much in store for you than you ever imagined possible.

So have a beautiful week. I love you. And remember, it's never too late to discover your meaning. I'll talk to you next week.