Sarah C: Resilience and Redefining Motherhood

“Even when your body feels like it’s betraying you, you are not broken.”

In this powerful episode of Quiet Connection, host Chelsea Myers sits down with Sarah Caminiti, who opens up about her deeply personal six-year journey to parenthood. 

From an early PCOS diagnosis to unexplained infertility, miscarriages, IVF, and the emotional toll of feeling like a “shell” of herself, Sarah shares the raw truth about what it’s like to fight for your family—and yourself.

Sarah talks about:

• The emotional weight of unexplained infertility and long wait windows.
• Navigating miscarriage and pregnancy after loss.
• The pressure of timelines, age gaps, and societal expectations.
• Finding her voice and power—both as a parent and as a professional.
• How grief, stubbornness, and self-compassion shaped the person (and mom) she is today.

Sound Bites

• “Your story is valid. It’s a part of you, but it’s not all of you.”
• “Infertility feels like grief for something you haven’t even lost yet.”
• “I stopped seeing my body as broken—I started seeing it as a tool for the life I wanted.”
• “Our kids will be okay if we’re sad for a while. That doesn’t make us bad parents.”
• “Being loud about our struggles helps others realize they’re not alone.”
• 
  

If you’ve ever questioned your strength in the face of infertility, loss, or postpartum challenges, this conversation is a reminder that your story is valid—and that you are stronger than you think.

Connect with Sarah via LinkedIn.

Connect with us: Instagram, Threads, Facebook, and YouTube @QuietConnectionPodcast | BlueSky @QuietConnectionPod

This episode discusses topics that may be triggering for some individuals. Please check the show notes for more information and be mindful of your own mental health and comfort levels.

Real moms. Real talk. Zero sugarcoating.
Join Odd Moms On Call as we tackle parenting in a world on fire—one hot take, eye roll, and belly laugh at a time. 

Transcript

Chelsea Myers (00:35)
Welcome to Quiet Connection, a podcast dedicated to ending the stigma around postpartum mental health. I'm Chelsea. Today I'm connecting with Sarah, who shares her raw and real journey through motherhood. From unexplained infertility to the emotional weight of the postpartum period, Sarah opens up about the parts of motherhood we don't always talk about. The moments that leave you feeling like a shell of yourself and the quiet, persistent strength

that carries you through. If you've ever questioned your ability to keep going or felt the heaviness of motherhood settle into your bones, this episode is for you. Here's Sarah.

Chelsea Myers (01:16)
Hello, today I'm here with Sarah. Sarah, how are you?

Sarah Caminiti (01:20)
I am so excited to be here. I'm doing great. And, ⁓ thanks for having me.

Chelsea Myers (01:26)
am loving your energy. I am trying to leech some of it through the computer screen. Oh my gosh. Sarah and I have already been talking before we hit record and this is the kind of energy that I need on a Friday morning. And it's almost not Friday morning anymore. we'll just say that it is. We're gonna, we're just gonna say that

Sarah Caminiti (01:48)
We'll just roll with it. Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (01:53)
Sarah, I could go through the wonderful things that you've told me about yourself, but my listeners would be bored to tears with hearing me. I would love it if you could sort of introduce yourself and then talk about who you were before you had kids.

Sarah Caminiti (02:05)
Yeah.

love that way to introduce myself, because there's definitely a version of Sarah pre-kid. There's a version of Sarah when I went through six years of building our family. And then there's a version of Sarah that is drastically different than any Sarah I ever thought that I would meet once my body was back to being my own. And I was able to actually think about me instead of thinking about I need to be a vessel to create.

life.

Chelsea Myers (02:36)
Yeah.

Yeah, that's one way to put it, yeah.

Sarah Caminiti (02:41)
Yeah, yeah, it's when you go through all kinds of which I'll dive into. But when you go through unexpected infertility and the amount of time that it unexpectedly takes, you do have to think about your role very differently in the life creation process, because it's not this thing that happens in the bedroom with your husband. And it's this beautiful, magical story that you can tell.

many women do not have a beautiful story and you have to find ways to kind of break it down in your head of what you're doing, why you're doing it, thinking, like realizing that I am the person, the body that is used to create my wonderful children and that

is the purpose during that time, it was easier for me to think of it as this is this chapter, it's not forever, and now we can enter into this new phase where I can put myself first. So.

Chelsea Myers (03:44)
Mmm.

Sarah Caminiti (03:51)
didn't follow your instructions for an intro, but hi, I'm Sarah Camminiti. I just moved back to Maine, something I swore I would never do with my two kids, but it's the best thing ever. We are in a great town. We have acreage, something I also never thought would be something I would want. I thought I was a city person forever and always. And I've got two wonderful boys, and Theo. Luca's going to be...

two in a couple of weeks and Theo is five. I'm married to an incredible partner, Michael, and we've got two dogs who hopefully don't start barking. But if they do, apologies. It doesn't pierce your ears at all when they start making their noise. But I am in the customer experience space, in the tech space.

Chelsea Myers (04:29)
Ha ha!

totally fine.

Sarah Caminiti (04:44)
And I have been in and around it since my first job at a general store, ⁓ helping customers, you know, it's, start to get that taste. You don't think you'll ever make a career out of it. ⁓ I don't have a college degree and, ⁓ that's okay because nowadays you can build the career that you want to build by understanding your skills and understanding how to use them. and so I've been very

Chelsea Myers (05:00)
Yeah.

Sarah Caminiti (05:12)
fortunate, but also dedicated to building a career that I'm proud of doing the things that I love. So by the time this airs, I'll be a manager of customer support at tail scale, which is a VPN company, which sounds really boring, but it's a big deal in tech and I'm really excited to be joining them. Thank you.

Chelsea Myers (05:33)
Congratulations! That's awesome!

Sarah Caminiti (05:36)
Thank you. I also am a consultant for customer experience, helping startups build their foundation. And I'm a career coach too. So dabble in a lot of things, but it's actually all intertwined because I've built my career helping people be successful. And if I can do that in many different ways, then I think I'm doing something all right. And I have a podcast too. That's how I met you, Chelsea.

Chelsea Myers (05:46)
Yeah?

Mm-hmm.

Yes! Yes!

Sarah Caminiti (06:05)
It was season one was was asked to do it. I had no idea what I was doing. It was called Epical Growth, which I learned is not something that Siri or Alexa or any of those things are able to recognize. So I kept getting sent to baseball podcasts.

Chelsea Myers (06:23)
Whoops.

Sarah Caminiti (06:25)
Sorry,

it's a cool word, but nobody really knows how to say it. And by nobody, I mean robots. And so I had to think about a rebrand and also give myself time to think about what I actually want to talk about. so pivoting into season two, it'll be the career strategist where we talk about ways to figure out how to articulate your value and define your own worth. And I'm really excited to get that ball rolling.

So that's me currently. Me pre-kids, I was someone that did not think that building a family was going to be a process. I was diagnosed with PCOS when I was 18-ish because of lack of consistent periods and incredibly painful periods. Thankfully, I did not suffer through many of...

Chelsea Myers (06:57)
Yeah.

Mm.

Sarah Caminiti (07:23)
the different things that come along with PCOS. But the debilitating periods when they did come was one that stuck around for a long time. I was someone that just liked to enjoy my time out in the world. I was a crafter, still am a crafter, but now I'm a quilter. My husband worked in restaurants before I told him we could never continue.

our life together if you're working until 4 a.m. and I am going to work at nine. So now he just cooks for me. We traveled and we lived in a bunch of different places because we were working remote. And then we decided since we both grew up with welfare, single moms and apartments, that we were not going to start a family until we owned a home, which is very hard to do in New England.

Chelsea Myers (07:55)
Yeah.

Sarah Caminiti (08:19)
And so we moved to Louisville, Kentucky. So we could escape the winter, but it ended up being very cold there and afford our first home that we could then use that equity to bring us back to New England once the time was right. So our son was born in Louisville, Kentucky, and our second son was born in Providence, Rhode Island. And now we're back here in Maine.

Chelsea Myers (08:19)
Yes.

in New England, a fellow New Englander. Yes. It's snowing here in Vermont as well. It was 67 yesterday and today it's 30. Yeah. Welcome to New England. Although, although I wouldn't, I wouldn't want to be anywhere else. So yeah. Yeah. ⁓ that is a lot.

Sarah Caminiti (08:45)
Yes, yes, and it's snowing right now, which is gross.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A fun little welcome present. First day of spring.

Yeah, it is a great place to be.

Chelsea Myers (09:12)
in a nutshell that is so much but that was a beautiful sort of I love how you weaved it all together. It's almost like you know how to do a podcast. Like what? That's so weird. I am too. my god, I'm just winging it every single time. thanks. Thanks. Anyway.

Sarah Caminiti (09:14)
Ha ha ha!

Thank you.

What? Trying to figure it out still. Yeah, you're doing a great job though.

Chelsea Myers (09:40)
This is going to be one of those episodes I can tell. Let's sort of talk about that pre-kids journey, that version of you that had no idea that bringing kids into your life was going to be challenging, it was going to be different. Did you always envision yourself having kids? No. Okay.

Sarah Caminiti (09:58)
Yeah.

No, no, I never wanted kids.

I never wanted kids. My mom remarried when I was 12, no, 10, and I have two half brothers that are 12 and 14 years younger than me. And so I grew up in that stage of my life in a very heavy caretaker role. And that wasn't something that...

Chelsea Myers (10:17)
Mm.

Sarah Caminiti (10:29)
a child is supposed to be doing and made me realize I did that. It wasn't enjoyable. I didn't have any control over any of that. I don't want to welcome that into my life willingly. And then I met my husband. And when I met my husband, I pretty much immediately knew I was going to marry him. And I pretty much immediately knew I wanted to

have a family with him because we could create the family that we would be proud of.

Chelsea Myers (11:05)
Yeah, it's so the the similarities here are a little eerie. I have I have a my parents remit or my father remarried later. I have a stepbrother who's 10 years younger than me and a half sister who's 15 years younger than me. Yeah, very much did not want kids and then met my husband and was like, we need to get married and have baby.

Sarah Caminiti (11:23)
man, yeah, you get it.

my gosh.

Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (11:34)
So

I guess for some people it just takes meeting the right person and having the right circumstances. But like, again, I love that you also like had that goal in mind of breaking cycles too and being open to change, right? Like, cause you're like, no, no, no, absolutely not. And then being able to say like, well, okay, maybe. Yeah.

Sarah Caminiti (11:54)
Yes.

Yeah, yeah,

think it's something that you either, I mean, it's not so black and white, but in many situations where you have a less than ideal upbringing, you either fall into a very sad, sad headspace, or you become obsessive about proving that that does not define you.

Chelsea Myers (12:25)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Caminiti (12:25)
⁓ and I definitely fall into the proving that it does not define me category and I am a planner. I am someone that on paper should not be where I am in life. And I take that very seriously. And so once I met my husband, I started thinking like, I know what not to do. I know so much about what not to do. And that's actually a gift.

Chelsea Myers (12:48)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Sarah Caminiti (12:55)
because

if you see everything perfectly as it should be as a child growing up, you have that idyllic childhood, that's an incredible role model system. But on the other side of things, if you see a lot of stuff that is not okay, you know what those boundaries are very, very clearly because you tried to define them, but you were too young to have that authority to define them.

or really understand how to define them. so figuring out who I was, figuring out my voice in everything came after, really came after my kids were entered into the world. But that piece, that determination, obsession about basically being like, fuck you all. Like, you can't do all of your stuff to make it.

Chelsea Myers (13:45)
Yeah.

Sarah Caminiti (13:50)
so that I don't become the person I know I'm supposed to be. So screw you. I'm gonna do me and I'm gonna blow you guys away.

Chelsea Myers (13:59)
Love that for you. Love that so much. I also love that you mentioned that having your kids sort of amplified that too, and we're going to get into it. But it's just something to note because I think a lot of us, again, like whether it has nothing to do with whether you enjoy being a mother or whether you don't enjoy being a mother or any of those things. Once you bring kids into the world, your perspective on things shift.

Sarah Caminiti (14:01)
Thanks.

Everything

changes.

Chelsea Myers (14:28)
⁓

yeah, and I think, I think we all have a mama bear in us. ⁓ and just, I mean, ⁓ watch out for the ones who, who, ⁓ instigate, who poke the bear because exactly like you said, it's like, fuck you. You're not gonna, you're not gonna define how I do this whole motherhood thing. ⁓ so.

Sarah Caminiti (14:36)
Mm-hmm.

Right, so true.

Chelsea Myers (14:58)
jumping back. So you've met your partner, you've decided this is the path you're going to take, you're going to break cycles, you're going to do it your way, and it's not happening. Yeah, walk me through that a little bit.

Sarah Caminiti (15:09)
Mm-hmm. Happening. No. It is.

It's a sadness that you can't define. It's because you do not have any control. There is nothing you have done wrong. There is nothing you can do to make it better. And it is debilitating to be in this limbo of you are just doing the same thing that's failing.

Chelsea Myers (15:22)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Caminiti (15:39)
over and over over again. And it's often because the doctor tells you you have to before you can get to that next level. And you feel it in your bones that this is not gonna work, but yet you're so hopeful and you're surrounded by friends that get pregnant without any issue. And so I had never seen anything related to struggles with infertility. I had nothing.

Chelsea Myers (15:43)
Mm.

Sarah Caminiti (16:08)
to compare it to, I had no one to ask questions to. Most of my friends who on paper should have probably struggled to get pregnant did not struggle at all. And so then you start thinking about all of the things that you've done that you are the reason why this is happening.

I drank too much. ⁓ you know, I, I smoked pot because I had undiagnosed ADHD and that was the only way I could calm my brain down to go to sleep. That must be the cause. It has to be the cause. And you just start going down these rabbit holes. And when your doctor is just like, our hands are tied. We can't get you in anywhere for a referral because you haven't reached a six month period of failure. And then you call the places once you, once you hit that mark and they're like, we're nine months out.

We're not going to be able to see you at all. And you're thinking like, if everyone knows this is how it goes, why the hell are people being set up to fail? And then now you have to wait a year basically to get anything started. And when you get it started with these places, you then have like a four month period where they're tracking your cycles and they're, you know, you're doing all of the little X-rays and, and

you know, all the stuff to check your systems before they know what they're going to do. So then that's another period of time that waits. And I started researching what actually happens when you conceive a child. And that was one of the most mind blowing realizations of how miraculous it truly is that this happens. And we don't ever talk about it.

Chelsea Myers (17:49)
Yeah!

Sarah Caminiti (17:54)
always you hear about how easy it is to get pregnant, how if you, you know, miss something once you're going to get pregnant and you see the stories of these people that missed their birth control one time or were off by one day and then they got pregnant and that's not really the normal way of things happening. Like you have to have it so perfectly timed and there's no way to know when that time is. Like you can do all the tests

Chelsea Myers (18:22)
Not specifically,

yeah, no.

Sarah Caminiti (18:24)
No, like

you can do the temperature, can do the pee sticks, you can do all of those things, but that does not actually define the window. And then you just, you then have to wait another couple of weeks to know if it worked. So it's just the biggest mind fuck humanly possible to be thinking constantly about conceiving a kid and always getting a negative.

Chelsea Myers (18:42)
Yes.

Sarah Caminiti (18:52)
from it. So it sucked. It totally sucked.

Chelsea Myers (18:56)
Yeah, I mean,

yeah, it fucking sucked. Well, and to go to go from someone who was very adamant in your younger years of like, nope, not having kids, not having kids and then to make that shift. And then you add on top of like,

Sarah Caminiti (19:00)
Yes.

Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (19:15)
Infertility in

and of itself is challenging mentally, physically, it sort of changes how you think about yourself. But then, like you said, I'm so glad you brought it up. These wait windows and these these these huge stretches of time where you're just in limbo and you're like, all I want to do is conceive. And like you said, like how freaking like

I think it was Neil deGrasse Tyson or someone who said, and this is not a direct quote because I have a neuro spicy brain, so don't quote me, but it was just like the amount of things that have to go right for you to exist in this world. Like the human brain can't comprehend. and that, it's exactly like you said, we're taught all growing up, don't have sex, you'll get pregnant. Right. ⁓ and then.

Sarah Caminiti (20:00)
Yes.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (20:12)
And then it's all you're thinking about for years while you're going through this process. Adding on top of that, and again, so I did not experience infertility. So this is all learned from guests and from research, but like when you finally start the process, you're also on

Sarah Caminiti (20:14)
Yep.

Chelsea Myers (20:36)
all of these hormones and all of these different like medications to stimulate your follicles and to do all of these things. I'm assume, well, I don't want to assume. What route did you take? Did you, what did your doctors and you guys decide on?

Sarah Caminiti (20:38)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

So for Theo, for my first kid, did, we ended up conceiving naturally, but it was with a lot of medication and a lot of timing. And I learned that these sorts of things, it's a bell curve. And the first time you do it, it's not going to take. The second time you do it, it's probably not.

Chelsea Myers (21:16)
Mm.

Sarah Caminiti (21:20)
going to take. The third time, that's going to be your best shot. The fourth time, still a good chance, but it's not awesome. And then after that, you have to move on to something else because it's not going to work. And learning that, which I didn't learn until I was on my third one and was like, what are the statistics? I am a data person. I need to understand the facts so that I can gauge where I am in this.

⁓ cause I don't want to waste time being hopeful when this is just around one, basically like the placebo effect to get things into your body. So I was on letresol, ⁓ instead of Clomid because letresol is better for people with PCOS. and then I had the trigger shot and I had, the other shots that you have to take to like really build all the eggs that are there. and it took four tries for Theo.

we were going to be switching to the next phase of considering either IUI, which I didn't want to do because that's basically what we had been doing because everything's on the same schedule. So that would have been a waste of time. Or start the conversation for IVF. then I was going away for a work trip and I was like, there's no way because the timing was not ideal for when I was going to leave.

Chelsea Myers (22:32)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Caminiti (22:46)
good timing was all when I was gone. And so we had one try right before I left and it was just like, just so that we can say that we tried no pressure though. We know this isn't going to work. And then it worked and it was such a wonderful surprise. But, but there is so much fear because you have been, it had been a year and a half that we tried to conceive Theo and

Chelsea Myers (22:56)
You

Mm-hmm.

Sarah Caminiti (23:15)
A year and a half of every single month receiving a negative is horrible to your brain. Horrible. And luckily, I didn't have any pregnancy loss for trying to get pregnant with Theo. And it was a very smooth pregnancy. I ended up having gestational diabetes, but it was that weird one where I was like the baseline for it. So...

Chelsea Myers (23:22)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Caminiti (23:43)
I didn't have any like severe flare ups. I just learned don't eat Jasmine rice. That's like the only thing that's gonna trigger it and otherwise you're totally fine. And then we had Theo and I had huge breasts, huge like double K breasts. I've had a reduction, but they were massive. And I hadn't had a reduction because of breastfeeding.

Chelsea Myers (23:47)
Ha ha!

Sarah Caminiti (24:11)
I had been waiting until I had my kids, was done with that. And then I would be able to do it. And then I found out my nipples are not the right shape to do it. And my breasts are too large to do it really. Like he was like suffocated basically. So he would never latch and he wasn't eating.

Chelsea Myers (24:11)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, my gosh.

Sarah Caminiti (24:34)
⁓ in the beginning because I couldn't get him to latch. And then finally I learned how to pump and I'd exclusively pumped. and I had an oversupply. Thank you, large boobs. but so I got on a pretty good, system there, was able to have a lot of stuff in the freezer and, ⁓ pumped for, I think I pumped for like three months and then was able to keep that going for about five. And this was also during COVID.

Chelsea Myers (24:47)
Ha ha!

Sarah Caminiti (25:04)
Theo was born two weeks before the hospital shut down. And the birth of Theo was, I had an induction because of the gestational diabetes and he was measuring huge, don't ever trust the measurements, he was six pounds. He was a very small baby. Yes, he was a very small baby. They said he was 12. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (25:04)
Wow.

He was only six pounds.

How do you double it by accident? ⁓

my god.

Sarah Caminiti (25:34)
⁓ so he was this little peanut, thankfully for my body, but, I got, I wanted to try not having an epidural because everyone says it's so beautiful when you don't have the epidural and you do it naturally and they wear it like this badge of honor deserve badge of honor, but also you're a masochist because that is the most incredible pain in the entire world. My contractions were, ⁓ on top of each other. So I never had any breaks.

at all. was just continuous contraction for hours. And so I got the epidural, the hospital lost power, and I had such a treat. And then you can't do anything. You're just stuck there. But the epidural didn't work. And so then they just kept pumping.

Chelsea Myers (26:15)
my God.

⁓ no.

Sarah Caminiti (26:32)
It worked on one leg and that was it. And so they kept moving my body everywhere. They kept upping the dose and like I had max meds in me. And then all of a sudden, right when it was time to push, it worked and I didn't feel anything. Thanks Lord. And so, but then I like, because I had probably enough.

Chelsea Myers (26:54)
Wow.

Sarah Caminiti (26:59)
epidural meds in me to like tranquilize a horse. I couldn't walk for like five hours and it all happened within like I came into the hospital at like, you know, 4 a.m. and he was born later on in the afternoon and so it wasn't any long ordeal and all of that was wonderful in the grand scheme of things. I mean it makes for a good story, but it sucked.

Childbirth is not fun. I don't know who you are to have it be a beautiful experience I have a high pain tolerance and that was like someone was ripping my body apart with like horrible antiquated things And so then I thought okay after it was time with Theo We wanted to have another one because we were both only children until

Chelsea Myers (27:28)
Yeah.

Sarah Caminiti (27:56)
the second rounds came around. And so we definitely want to have two kids that are close in age so they can build that relationship and the kid won't be more of an adult than he needs to be. And so we started right when Theo turned one, because we're like, we got to start early. We know there's going to be problems. We know we're going to have to get in with the different spaces. I lost a bunch of weight. I got into the best shape of my life. Like it was like, I'm not taking chances here. I am going to do everything right.

And by that time we had moved to Providence, so I had a new doctor and he was like, ⁓ your tests come back. You are not going to have a single problem to conceive. Everything is going to be the easiest thing in the world. Lies. It was two years until Luca was conceived and I had a chemical pregnancy. I had a miscarriage.

and he had to be conceived with IVF. We had two rounds of IVF. the first one took, which is when the miscarriage happened and, ⁓ and then the chemical pregnancy happened when I was doing the same thing that I did for Theo. And I was a shell of myself. I was drinking too much because it was the only thing that I could think of as like a, well, at least you could still drink after every negative test.

⁓ I was so sad, so sad because the time just continued. And after all the stuff that took a long time and it worked for Theo didn't work for Luca. It was like, well, what, what if this doesn't happen? What if I've just wasted two years of being present with my kid and it will be for nothing? Like.

Chelsea Myers (29:40)
Yeah.

Sarah Caminiti (29:50)
I will have like I'm getting emotional just thinking about it, but it was such a sad guilty period of my life and I'm so thankful that that part's over. But you have to you test yourself in ways that there's not a book for it. There's nothing you can read.

Chelsea Myers (30:05)
Yeah.

Sarah Caminiti (30:17)
There's nothing that you, there's no support system that makes sense because your feelings have to be yours and only yours. And you can't try to have it match the way that someone else is feeling. Because that makes it so that it's no longer just yours. It's now a shared experience. And when it comes to pregnancy, that has to be a singular experience because it's your body. It is your body that's failing you.

Chelsea Myers (30:44)
Yeah.

Sarah Caminiti (30:46)
and there's nothing you can do. There's literally nothing that you can do about it. Your body is just like, fuck you. And

Chelsea Myers (30:57)
And you were

doing everything like you were doing like you said, like you took all of the steps that you you got yourself in the best shape of your life. You were like doing all the

But then you're also, you've also said several times, it's not your fault. And I think that's the conflict for a lot of people is that you're like, well, I can't do this, my body's not made for this, but, and, not but, and it's not your fault.

Sarah Caminiti (31:20)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah. It's that's

Chelsea Myers (31:33)
but it doesn't feel like

that at the time, does it?

Sarah Caminiti (31:36)
Well, it doesn't feel like that at the time because you have no knowledge of what's going on. I have unexplained infertility. Everything checks, every box. Like everything should work the way that it does. And it doesn't. And so I think that's when I really realized like my body is a tool right now. And that was how I was able to make that separation. Like this is a tool.

It's not my body right now. It is my kid's body. And there is nothing that I can do about how this is gonna go. Like nothing. Because my body exists. I did not create my body. It is parts of my body that I have never had any sort of conflict with to interfere with this entire thing.

Chelsea Myers (32:18)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Caminiti (32:31)
I didn't have any trauma there. I hadn't had any surgeries or anything like that. So like on paper, the way that I came out, the way that I am broken, but not my fault. And it doesn't help with the sadness though, especially when all your friends are getting pregnant easily around you and you have to be happy. You have to be present and you are happy and you are present, but it is a happiness that is filled with, am jealousy.

Chelsea Myers (32:44)
Exactly.

No.

Sarah Caminiti (33:01)
It's a happiness that is filled with, I'm not necessarily happy that you're having another kid, great for you, but I am so happy you do not feel this pain. So grateful that you do not feel this pain because it is an unimaginable pain and it is a feeling of loss when you haven't lost anything. It is a feeling of death when you do lose something and it...

Chelsea Myers (33:11)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Caminiti (33:30)
also is just a feeling of waste of time and time is so precious and your kids time is so precious and also the age gap matters like you have to be cognizant of the fact that like if you don't have your kids within a certain period of time together they will be different people for a big chunk of their life when they're getting older it won't matter but in order to have what you pictured

Chelsea Myers (33:51)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Caminiti (33:58)
You need it to happen during a certain period of time and you have no control over it. And everybody else seems to have control over it and you do not have control over it and it fucking sucks. And so got pregnant with Luca and we told no one. Told no one. The people in in Theo's school had no idea. And I mean, I was not a dainty pregnant woman by any means, but.

Chelsea Myers (34:15)
Yeah.

Sarah Caminiti (34:28)
Nope, I just wore baggy things. We didn't put anything on social media. Family knew, but I asked them not to say anything. I never wanted to answer questions about it. I didn't want to talk about it because I thought for sure it was going to go away and we would have to start over. thankfully it didn't. And I also, I do believe when you think about the baby that is created inside of you.

Each one is going to be a different human. And I do truly believe that the right humans were created for us. And doesn't mean that the other ones wouldn't have been great. It doesn't mean that those what ifs wouldn't have been awesome. But I meet my kids and I am so thankful that all of the other tries failed because the result

Chelsea Myers (35:07)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Caminiti (35:24)
of these two boys is so incredible and they are totally different, but they are magic, magic, magnetic, kind, thoughtful, sweet boys that are independent and confident and they understand that I am a parent and I am not a friend and they understand that they will survive without me there. And they see me as a person with a career that goes on business trips that

puts myself first sometimes and that doesn't mean they're not awesome and I don't love them. Like it just means that I love them so much that I want to be the best version of myself for them and I don't know, you know, who would have come out if those miscarriages would have come the way that they were supposed to or, you know, if other things would have worked out differently. So

It does happen the way it's supposed to happen. The pain is pain. no, no one deserves this pain. No one deserves this loneliness. And your kids, your kids will be okay if you are sad for a while. And

Chelsea Myers (36:26)
And it's, and it's, you didn't deserve it. None of, nobody deserves it. No. No.

Sarah Caminiti (36:45)
It's life.

Chelsea Myers (36:46)
Yeah. Well, and it also speaks to your parenting, you and your partner's parenting, because yes, you're right. It's the whole nature versus nurture thing. like, yes, there is a degree of the humans that we that are brought into the world through us. I also believe that I believe that we are given the children that we're supposed to have. And again, that's a personal belief, but

But there's a huge part of that that goes back to you not wanting to repeat cycles and not wanting to parent the way that you were parented. And the reason that you have kids that understand that you are your own person and can still love them is because you've taught them that and you've demonstrated that for them. So, well, yeah, mean, own that power, like own that. And I know.

Sarah Caminiti (37:34)
Thank you. Thank you.

I do like I will say that's not it like the parenting that we have adopted the parenting style, whatever you want to call it. It is something that I am incredibly proud of. And I am so proud of my partner and I's approach to raising kids and our values and the things that we hold so dear and are non-negotiables because it's why I knew

This was the person that I was going to create a family with because I knew this was someone that was going to be an equal with me on this journey. And he's so supportive and he's so caring and he's so on board with any crazy idea I throw out there. And, and he kept telling me to through the whole process, like we can be done. We will be happy with one. And, ⁓ we wanted three. I wanted three desperately.

Chelsea Myers (38:24)
You

⁓ wow. Yeah.

Sarah Caminiti (38:37)
But after, and I'm so grateful because I can't imagine number three, but after Luca's ordeal, so it was six years total for us to make our two babies. And after that was done, he got fixed. was like, nope, we will close this chapter. Thank you, Boston IVF.

Chelsea Myers (38:40)
Neither can I.

No more, not taken. Yeah.

Sarah Caminiti (39:04)
I never want to walk into your establishment ever again. Which is great, because now our family's complete. And once our family was complete and we knew it was complete and it really feels complete, then I was able to think about me. And that has, my life has changed in ways that I can't even process half the time. I've always been a quiet cheerleader. I've always...

been very good at what I do, very skilled at what I do, but I had been taught to just be grateful for the opportunity. I had been taught that everyone's going to figure out that this isn't, you know, that you're not actually good at this. you know, so don't rock the boat. Keep your head down. Just take it. Don't ask for more money. Don't negotiate when you're getting a new job. Don't come in confident.

Chelsea Myers (39:53)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Caminiti (40:03)
kiss the ring over and over and over again and you get fucked over, over and over and over again. And once I was able to get out of the head space of baby making and reflect on where I am in life, I was able to see the impact that I had on all of these fucked up power dynamics that I found myself in. And

Chelsea Myers (40:04)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Caminiti (40:31)
once I realized the role I played in it, because there's going to be horrible people out there. There's gonna be people that take advantage without even realizing it. There's gonna be people that are wolves in sheep's clothing everywhere, and men are going to think less of you almost automatically, unless you come in and show...

you are not going to think less of me. And if you think less of me, I'm gone. This is a non-negotiable. once that switch happened, I started being more vocal about the things that I felt. And then I started...

Chelsea Myers (41:02)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Caminiti (41:20)
getting notoriety. And now I speak at conferences. Now I speak on panels. I've got this podcast. I'm recording another episode for another podcast with an AI founder, like later on this afternoon. Like people want to hear from me. They want to learn from me. And what an incredible thing to have created for myself. And

Chelsea Myers (41:34)
my gosh.

Sarah Caminiti (41:49)
to be able to then trust myself, trust my voice, and know that I was just in spaces that didn't suit me. It has nothing to do with me. It has nothing to do really with the others that are in the situation either. Like everybody's their own person. Like no one's actively trying to put you down. No one's actively trying to get you fired sometimes, but that's fucked up and that's on them. Usually has nothing to do with you.

Chelsea Myers (42:14)
Sometimes.

Sarah Caminiti (42:19)
Humans are humans. They're trying to do their best. Not everyone is gonna work and not everyone's gonna work for a long time. Things can work for a small period of time and then you have to have the confidence to say, this no longer works for me and better yourself by getting into another space. And this isn't just job stuff. This is friends. This is partners. This is family. This is creating boundaries and feeling proud.

to enforce them. And once that started happening, once all of these wonderful things started coming into my life, I realized like I am becoming the person that I want my kids to see. And I don't think any of that could have happened if I didn't have all the sadness for those six years. And I don't think that that could have happened without the shit that I went through in life.

Chelsea Myers (43:02)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Caminiti (43:14)
It all was purposeful because I'm able to connect with others on a very deep level. I'm able to give them space to feel pain. I'm able to celebrate them when they're too afraid to celebrate themselves. And it's all because I was them at some point in my life in some way, or form. And it's okay. You'll be okay. And everything can change so quickly. Like...

starting in February of last year, I just answered a question in the Slack community and that turned into an interview, which turned into an invitation for a panel, which turned into people reaching out to me saying, you're so bold, this is amazing, wanna have coffee chats and all this stuff. I went from having 40 people as my connections on LinkedIn, something I never paid any attention to, to having almost 3000 followers, like in like six month period.

Chelsea Myers (44:05)
Yeah!

Sarah Caminiti (44:07)
I doubled a six figure salary in less than a year because I started fighting for myself. And like it is true if you walk into a space being able to articulate your value, because that's the hardest thing. How do I tell the great things about me in a way that makes sense for the people on the receiving end to understand the greatness of it? And

Chelsea Myers (44:13)
my god.

Sarah Caminiti (44:34)
Usually we pay like we ramble about the wrong things because they're things that we think we should be rambling about but it's Misconstrued or misunderstood and then you've already shot yourself in the foot But figuring out what are your core values? what benefit do they have for a business and How does that make you so unique that they can't pass you up? totally changed me and It's really wild being

Chelsea Myers (44:57)
Yeah.

Sarah Caminiti (45:01)
someone that is so proud to be me when for so long I was so nervous to be me.

Chelsea Myers (45:09)
So listening to that whole thing is a so powerful. Because just on so many different levels, like stepping into your power and stepping into like what what's important to you and, and then translating that into helping other people find that about themselves. But what

kept striking me through everything that you were saying is like how much it mimicked your fertility journey. Right? Yeah, like I was listening to the whole thing and I was with you and I was following you and then every like just every couple of seconds I was like, yeah, like when you started when you first found out that you had unexplained infertility.

Sarah Caminiti (45:46)
Yes. That's really true.

Chelsea Myers (46:01)
And yeah, like when you kept trying and it wasn't working and you decided, no, that's not what I'm getting. Right? Like, and, I, I feel like I almost say this every episode now, but like, I am not a fan of silver linings. I don't like that term. ⁓ I don't, my husband is very much like, but like this came out of that and this can, I'm like, no, I went through shit.

Sarah Caminiti (46:08)
Yep. Yep.

Chelsea Myers (46:30)
And then I got myself to where I am right now. It wasn't like, ⁓ but the happy part should outweigh the, right? Like, no. And that's like what you're saying. Like, what you went through, not only, so like in life and in your fertility journey, you went through shit. And it wasn't your fault. And...

Sarah Caminiti (46:39)
No. No.

Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (46:58)
You didn't deserve it.

and instead of but and you found your power, you found what was important to you, and you made it And you in both senses in terms of bringing your children into the world and in terms of your work experience and what you're doing to help others.

I don't know, I'm just, sitting here like, if there were ever like an example of like manifestation, you're like, no, this is gonna happen. And, and it wasn't, I am not diminishing, I hope that this is clear, like, I don't want to diminish anyone's experience and be like, no, I was confident the whole time and I had my shit together the whole time, like,

No, like you can still want something and believe something so much and also feel really, really, really disappointed and really, really mad and really, really confused.

And neither of those two feelings diminish the other one.

Sarah Caminiti (48:14)
Nope. In fact, I think they work together. Like I think that that was one of the things, because I am someone that I need to make sure my time was purposeful. And I need to find not a silver lining, but a shift. I need to pivot. And it has to be on my terms. If there is something that is going on that's not going the way that it's supposed to, I need to gain control somehow at the end result.

Chelsea Myers (48:30)
Yeah.

Sarah Caminiti (48:43)
because I'm not gonna wallow in it. I'm not going to give myself that space once something is completed to continue to mourn and feel sad and that's it. Like, it's like I can't move forward because all of these bad things happen to me. I am someone that I am still feeling every single feeling of all of the sadness that happened to me, but that is done.

Chelsea Myers (48:56)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Caminiti (49:11)
and that does not mean that good things are not going to come out in the future. That doesn't mean that the sadness I feel cannot be repurposed in different ways. That doesn't mean I'm not gonna be a good mom to Theo during that time. I I quit drinking when I was starting to do the IVF, and neither my husband or I have since because like,

it stopped serving a purpose. Like there was no benefit to it anymore and it was something that just existed and was a crutch to not feel things. And once you start feeling things and surviving those things, realizing often they're not as bad as you made you, you thought that they were in like in terms of survival and coping and.

Chelsea Myers (49:40)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Caminiti (50:04)
you can do it with your own headspace. You don't have to muddy it. Yeah, I think it's also just the stubbornness of me of I don't want any other person to have control over the outcome of my life. So if someone fucks me over, I'm going to take what I've learned. I'm going to take the time I spent there and I'm going to repurpose that.

Chelsea Myers (50:24)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Caminiti (50:33)
so that it is beneficial to me and that is not then time wasted and I'm not thinking, if only I did this, if only I realized this, all of that. It's like, no, that happened for a reason because I needed to learn this. I needed to have the space to think about things this way. So then I can take that and build this. And it's the same thing with my kids. It is, I am not going to let this

prevent this from happening. And if you're listening, can't see I'm moving my hands that aren't even on camera in a very specific way that show two circles and I don't know what those circles mean. But it's fine. Everything's good. But yeah, I'm very stubborn in that regard. And I think that's something too that I'm trying to show my kids when like my five year old has a bad day. We can acknowledge that this was a bad day. We're going to talk about that. This was a bad day.

Chelsea Myers (51:16)
Everything's good.

Sarah Caminiti (51:31)
And we're going to figure out why this was a bad day. Like, what about it made you make the decisions that you obviously don't like that you made because you're having such a visceral reaction to me confronting you about the decisions that you made? And it doesn't mean you're a bad kid. It doesn't mean you are not a thoughtful, kind, wonderful, sweet little boy. It just means that today wasn't great. Period. That's it. And then tomorrow.

Chelsea Myers (51:46)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Sarah Caminiti (52:01)
could be great and it might not be great, but you're a human and we're gonna have good days, we're gonna have bad days. The only thing that I care about as mom and I tell them this all the time is we're talking about this now, we're trying to figure this out now. If tomorrow you end up making the exact same mistake for the exact same reason, your reaction is the exact same thing, then I'm gonna be a little disappointed because we talked this through.

We tried to figure out what was the reason that you thought that this was the best thing to do moving forward. And we came up with some ideas for how we can make adjustments when we found ourselves in this situation. And instead you chose just to do the thing that you already knew wasn't the best thing. That's the only time I'm gonna be bummed. Not gonna be mad, just gonna be bummed and we're gonna talk it through. And then again, tomorrow will be another day and it'll be another chance to do your best.

Chelsea Myers (52:51)
Yeah.

Sarah Caminiti (52:58)
And every version of your best is okay.

Chelsea Myers (53:01)
Yeah. Yeah. That message is so beautiful to be able to pass to your kids. I think a lot of us, I'm going to generalize, but millennials and elder millennials, and we did not have that modeled for us at all. And coming to that realization as adults and then being able to pass that knowledge on to our kids is so powerful.

So I love that. That's one of my catchphrases. I love that. But I do. I love that. I mean, I always say like, that's so beautiful. Or like, I love that. My husband actually had a mug made for me for my birthday with all the things that I say on the podcast over and over and over again. I love that.

Sarah Caminiti (53:35)
That's a good catchphrase.

here I am saying it now. That's so good though. What a good

thoughtful present. That's great.

Chelsea Myers (53:58)
Right. But that's

one of those things. So it doesn't diminish. Like, I still feel it wholeheartedly. Like, I love that. And I feel like it's so powerful. And again, everybody parents differently. And this is a judgment free zone. I think that especially so Sharing your journey with unexplained infertility, sharing your journey just

Sarah Caminiti (54:10)
Thank you. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Chelsea Myers (54:23)
in life and even again, like we didn't get a whole picture, but we got a snapshot. And I think we got enough of a snapshot to understand that you've been through some shit, and you've been through some stuff. And to come out and still be able to say like, I can feel all of those feels, that's fine. That's okay. But I'm not gonna let it stop me from holding hope for the future and finding joy.

for a lot of my listeners, they're in the thick of it. They're in the thick of it and they're looking for connection and it's so hard to ever think that there will be another side. And then if you are on the other side, there's this whole part of you because culturally we are just like, okay, well, move on, move on time to move on now. You don't have to, you don't have to.

Sarah Caminiti (54:55)
Yeah.

No.

Chelsea Myers (55:17)
You don't have to put that in a box and put it away to still move forward. Yeah.

Sarah Caminiti (55:23)
Because doing

that is it's furthering the generational shame that is attached to having anything but a perfect pregnancy and a perfect delivery. And I think that this applies to so many things that women especially do to themselves. We believe that if we are silent about something that doesn't mean anything, like it's fine. Like it's just, that is what you do. You don't need to...

Chelsea Myers (55:38)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Caminiti (55:53)
there will be no benefit to talking about this. But in fact, staying silent is saying that what happened to you and the way that you felt and the way that you felt you needed to be silent was okay. And the reality is if we don't talk about these things, if we don't get angry about these things in a public way or in any way that feels safe to you, we don't like...

Chelsea Myers (55:55)
Right.

Mm-hmm.

Sarah Caminiti (56:19)
let other people know that they aren't alone in all of these horrible feelings that they may have, then we're just allowing more people to feel shit like we did. For what? Yes. For what?

Chelsea Myers (56:30)
and be stuck there and be stuck there. Yeah.

Right. For what? I don't have the answer. don't have the answer. ⁓ how many seasons? Five seasons and hundreds of guests later. And I don't have an answer to that question. But what I can say is that connection is far more beneficial and far more powerful. Being loud.

Sarah Caminiti (56:37)
No.

Chelsea Myers (56:59)
If that feels safe for you, if it doesn't, that's something completely different. But being loud, creating a safe space so that it is okay to talk about these things is going to make it so that people who are going through whatever they're going through, infertility, pregnancy loss, birth trauma, PMADS, whatever it is, they're gonna say, this isn't, it's not just me.

Sarah Caminiti (57:02)
Mm hmm. Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (57:28)
and I don't have to carry this forever. And there's another side. There's another side. So it doesn't define you.

Sarah Caminiti (57:35)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. And it doesn't define you. It doesn't define you.

Chelsea Myers (57:41)
validate always, I will always validate your story. Your story is valid. Your story is important. Your story is a part of you. It is not all of you. And right, like you, you can take it and I've, I'm having deja vu right now. This is so weird, but ⁓

you can take it and you can feel it sometimes, because I'm sure it still happens to you randomly, like when you least expect it. But there are still glimmers and there is still joy and you have learned that you don't have to be small and you don't have to accept what someone says is so in your fertility journey, in your personal life, in your work life. I just think, yeah, see?

Sarah Caminiti (58:05)
Yes.

Chelsea Myers (58:28)
Look, so first I was leeching energy off of you. Now I'm like, now I'm like, taking some power like, yeah, I don't have to be small. I don't have to be quiet. ⁓ I love it. I am gonna round us back around a little bit. But so many of my bullet points we didn't even have to hit because these are my no, these are my favorite episodes. My favorite episodes is when I just get to

Sarah Caminiti (58:38)
Good!

Chelsea Myers (58:56)
or when I just get to like, listen and be present and witness you share your experience. And I feel so

Sarah Caminiti (59:05)
That says a lot

about you though. Sorry to interrupt, but that says a lot about you. provide a safe space and you do that very well. So thank you for giving me that space.

Chelsea Myers (59:13)
well, thank you. Thank you for feeling safe in this space. And thank you for being a part of this community because you, your voice and your story is going to impact someone else and is going to touch someone else. So yeah, I didn't have to do any of my bullet points. Rabbit holes are my favorite. This is I love this so much. So because I could literally talk to you forever.

Sarah Caminiti (59:40)
Same.

Chelsea Myers (59:41)
⁓ I but can't, I am going to bring us home. And I always wrap up on one of two questions. But you've got me stumped, Sarah. Usually, I take the whole episode and I'm like, yeah, this is the one I'm gonna ask. And I'm sitting here and I'm like, neither of these feel neither of these feel worthy of this conversation.

I think I'll go I'll stick with a tried and true. And I think you'll probably give it a spin that that I Yeah, right. so this is one of those if you could go back in time things. If you could go back all the way back, like, you can go as far back as you want your choice. But

Sarah Caminiti (1:00:20)
it.

Chelsea Myers (1:00:36)
you cannot tell yourself anything about your future. You can't give yourself little hints or clues like watch out for so and so or whatever. But you can instill something within yourself to carry you through. I've had guests that it's been a word, I've had guests that it's been a mantra or a prayer or an attribute, not an attribute, but like a

characteristic, can be any of those things. What would you instill within yourself and why?

Sarah Caminiti (1:01:13)
Think the first thing that I would do is I would give myself a hug. I would give myself a really really big long hug and I think it would be something that I tell a lot of people and you are so much stronger than you realize and I think that's it

Chelsea Myers (1:01:35)
Yeah, yeah. And I get the sense that you believe that right now, like that you're at a point in your life where you can believe that.

Sarah Caminiti (1:01:42)
Truly.

Truly, and I see it so much in others, like if I allow people the space to really celebrate themselves, they are able to see that they've already been doing incredible things quietly for so long that it makes those louder ones, those bigger moves, those scarier moves feel so much less scary because if you can realize that you have been taking leaps, giant leaps, brave leaps for a long time,

This is just another, another step. Like that's it. That's all it is.

Chelsea Myers (1:02:21)
love that. There I go again. Well, thank you. Thank you for being patient with me and flexible with me. Thank you. Thank you so much for this conversation. And I just I so appreciate. I appreciate you being part of the Quiet Connection community.

Sarah Caminiti (1:02:29)
Any time was worth it.

You too.

Thank you for having me. I'm so happy to be here. If anyone ever wants to talk, you can find me on LinkedIn, you can Google me and there'll be different things that you can do to reach out to me, which is a weird thing to say, but don't be a stranger, please.

Chelsea Myers (1:02:50)
You

Yes, and everything

will be in Sarah's show notes. So yeah, so you can find her and you can connect with her and you absolutely should. So, and I'll be following along.

Sarah Caminiti (1:02:59)
great.

Chelsea Myers (1:03:08)
Thank you so much, Sarah. Your honesty is a powerful reminder that even in the darkest corners of the journey to motherhood, there is strength. You don't have to carry it all forever. And even when it feels impossible, you are still moving forward, one small resilient step at a time. If Sarah's story resonated with you, share this episode with someone who might need to hear it and check the show notes to find out more.

You can keep up with us on Quiet Connection by following us on Facebook, Instagram, Red Note, YouTube, and threads at Quiet Connection podcast. You can also find us on Blue Sky at Quiet Connection pod. You can help our community grow by leaving us a rating and review on Apple podcasts or Spotify and consider sharing our episodes on social media. Be sure to check out our Patreon or Buy Me a Coffee accounts.

to support our mission and get exclusive access to bonus episodes and more. To share your personal journey, you can contact us through our website at quietconnectionpodcast.com or by email at quietconnectionppmh at gmail.com. Join us next time when another story is told and you realize you are not alone. I see you.