26 weeks pregnant and competing at the World Championships (Mallory Weggemann & Jay Snyder)

what's up everybody welcome back to a couple things we shot an Andrew a podcast all about couples and the things they go through we absolutely loved this interview today with Mallory Wegman and her husband Jay Snyder let me just give some info on Mallory go ahead and dive into it yes multiple gold medals at the swimming world championships 2012 Paralympics 2016 Paralympics Legend 2020 Paralympics Legend best female athlete with a disability SB Award winner Legend I mean it goes on and on and on she's amazing she has the most amazing story in her perspective on how the world sees her in her actual reality is really really powerful so Sean mentioned she competed the paralympic games she tells a story of how that came to be and why she was competing at those certain games which is a wild story it's a wild story I I think about it I'm like you've yeah epidurals anyway she'll give in uh she'll dive into the details and uh Curious to hear your thoughts listening but they also talk about how Mallory and Jay met yes which is awesome they were kind of working together and then the rest unfolded it's a great story uh and they're also pregnant so we're very excited for them can't wait to see how that story unfolds and if you want to find out more about Mallory and Jay we'll link their information down below they're coming out with a documentary I know I will be the first to watch this it's going to be amazing where can we stand in line to have you be the first uh you need to be the first one yes I don't know yet I will find the find the line yes okay anyway thank you Mallory and Jay for joining us we had a blast and we hope you also have a blast as you listen this episode anyway let's go ahead and roll into this episode with Mallory and Jay Mallory J pleasure to meet you thanks for joining us today awesome to meet you guys thank you for having us thanks for having us we're excited to be here yeah have you guys ever done a an interview together have we've done a few this past year more than ever normally he uh he lets me me run the show on those and then this past year he's he's joined at the party which has been really fun yeah I'm usually the guy behind the scenes but now I'm sitting right next to you yeah Mallory I was reading through your entire like incredible resume and I have so much respect but I was wondering is there any chance we cross paths in 2008 gosh not in 2008 I think in 2012 going into the 2012 games we shared a partner but I don't think would we have ever been in the same event maybe PNG yep but I don't know if we were ever at the same event or just on the Ambassador team at the same time so I'm not sure I like was reading through all of your Olympic experience and I was like wow dude yeah it's impressive and he here we are Jay you and I just the only non-olympians in the room here A bunch of Schmucks you know yeah former uh former kicker played at Syracuse yes let's go I did not know that wait where'd you play uh Syracuse whoa holy crap whoa hold on that did not come up in our background no it didn't wow and then he uh then he married a swimmer who knew nothing about football and so when we were dating I straight up bought Football for Dummies so I could learn the game and now full-fledged viking fans that were yeah we got it down and I even got him in the pool so we're we're kind of we're Bridging the Two Worlds is he a good swimmer no um he's probably about how Andrew is on a balance beam hey I will say early on I was like just this will be fun to get a football player on a gymnastics gym yeah I was I was just like we have a long long way to go babe yeah yeah it's not natural for his body to do the water thing and probably your body should be in in a gymnastics gym versus like for Sean it's her element she's been doing it since she was a type for me it's all I know like you don't want to see me throw a football yeah well don't cite my sources here when I say this but I think Specialists you and I as as you know kicker Long Snapper we're we're so much more athletic that we didn't even like we didn't even need to learn the fundamentals of like swimming or balance it was just we were straight to the yeah to the top of the food chain there exactly right exactly yeah so that's why they call it special wait so Mallory speaking of swimming the the thing that fascinates me more than anything I had to reread this probably a hundred times I was like wait what are you what do you mean you swam and like a massive World competition at 26 weeks pregnant yeah so I raced in December at National Championships 26 weeks pregnant we didn't know what to expect going in it was kind of like I just wanted to do it to share it with little one because I've been a competitive swimmer since I was seven like I've always done the sport and then first day out of the bat ended up taking silver in the 50 fly and I was like okay not too bad and then I'm sure excited the 200 I am on the last day like I didn't just keep it at 50s um but it was so fun and it's so cool because I mean Paris is next year now like we're in 2023 it's literally next year and so I think having the moment when Jay's in the stands with babe and I'm swimming and then to tell little one whoever they are like you and Mama did this together at one point when we were pregnant will be so special so we loved it it was a little crazy I think some people are like wait you know isn't pregnancy the chance you get to like just give your body like a rest you swim butterfly pregnant I did what yes I was gonna say wait can I just ask the like the logistics of this does it feel different swimming it okay so it is kind of it is kind of funny because I did not train starts at all during well I haven't trained starts at all during pregnancy because there's there's no need to so I'm swimming and I'm staying active I'm lifting when we went to Nationals Jay was on the pool deck on the training day and I was like we should probably have me try a start to figure out how I'm gonna get off the starting blocks so I sit with my knees to my chest that's how I adapted my my start when I was paralyzed and I rock forward onto my feet so I'm like in a ball and I rock forward and a 26 week baby bump has to fit somewhere in all that ball and then I throw myself off the starting blocks of my arms and make something that looks like a dive so Jay's on the sideline she's like can you record me during during practice I'm sitting here like this looking I think I think it looks good Hearts racing it's great babe you're doing great he's like not like do you want to watch no no I'm everything's good everything's fine we're all good and it looked just like your normal starts it's a little slower yeah you ride the water different right you know like you're pregnant your your center of gravity is a little off you I obviously don't have a kick that's making up for any of the back ends so we've got my legs that are always dragging and then now we've got my belly that's growing which is normally basically my quote-unquote legs if you will that like makes up for that and helps get me through the pool a little bit better so my body position was a little off my uh what's called the fast twitch muscle sport as fast which as they normally are but we were moving but still the fact that you were swimming it all and you got a silver I was like I feel like I would sink to the bottom pregnant I distinctly remember trying to swim once when I was pregnant and I couldn't do it like I felt like I was literally like doggy paddling trying to do the butterfly next time think about it I don't know how to do the butterfly I mean the physics are pretty pretty interesting though because you know on the on the negative side of things you have increased drag as you're talking about but then you have increased buoyancy which probably helps I mean it's like uh I wonder which outweighs which I don't know I would love to hear how you two met how we met do you want to you can go ahead you started I'll try not you want to let me start this one yeah let's go all right uh so Jay and I met through work um today was actually my brand manager off the bat so Jay started his own agency years ago and I was his first paralympic client and we started working together going into the London 2012 games and we both just I fell head over heels in love with one another and now you know all these years later we own the business together we're married and we look at that time and I'm like oh remember that one time when we would awkwardly do like client dinners and neither of us knew which way to read it as we realized we were starting to like totally fall in love with each other and it was like not this quick the slow progression of like oh he's cute or oh I'm attracted to her any of that stuff it was like we went from being completely oblivious to the fact that we had a connection yeah right yep like I think my family had us together before we even realized we were interested in each other because they spent enough time with him in London and then we went from oblivious to just like literally head over heels in love overnight it felt like oh it's Serendipity at its finest I always say we're at the 2011 Espy Awards she was nominated she ended up winning an SB and I was in the crowd sitting in front of her parents yeah and I saw you know the story comes up and I was like wow what an amazing story we said like a quick hello congrats you know I congrat congratulate her parents we never met we never met fast forward a week later we're in a vet New York there she is Wheeling up on stage it's like who is this you know and next thing you know we start talking start working together we also never met that night though no we connected over email and that was guys that was back before like you could stalk on Instagram efficiently yeah like we didn't have social media to sit and stalk each other and I saw you that night I was there with my date at the time and I you and I caught eyes a few times that night it was at a rooftop event out in the city and I was like oh he's cute and long and short I was looking for representation at the time we ended up getting connected on email we're emailing I had no idea who Jay Snyder was what he looked like nothing about him my dad met him first I signed on as a client and the whole story ends up with in like October or November now he ends up in Minnesota for our first meeting and my dad's like why don't we meet at the pool now we'll be practicing we can go get lunch after I'm in the middle of my workout and Jay comes in and my dad's like Jay so good to see you so I'm at the wall and lift my goggles up and I literally said oh [ __ ] it's the hot guy from New York oh my God it looks like no no we have the need right now and here we are later now we're here yeah wait but Jay knew all along that it was you you were the only one who didn't make the connection yet so Jay in like full transparency was there any like subconscious I want to like represent her assign her just because I want to get to know her no honestly I think it literally was pure business to start and then you know life happened and we just connected on a level that no I've never connected with anybody else before and life just continued to evolve and happen and it was a couple moments of like oh boy oh boy if we're gonna do this this is this is it this is our long term and I think we had several conversations and next thing you know she melted my ice because she used to call me an Ice King she's like would you have an emotion would you just like share what you're feeling please and I was like no no no like I got holding it close to the chest and next thing you know like the icebergs melted and flowing everywhere now oh gosh he was that's why it's so funny I laugh like when he asked that question because so many people are like so hang on a second you knew who she was but she didn't know who you were and I'm like nope I I can totally vouch for it was all work because that version of Jay was like so singular focused on business he had like you had connection to your personal emotions I'm not going to be that harsh but you were very guarded yes very guarded yeah did that confuse the business relationship once you guys got past that point you know it's interesting so we chose to keep our relationship private until we got engaged yeah so we dated just family friends a few close colleagues knew but it was kind of the unspoken we just didn't lead with it um which was really special if you think about it right there was no pressure of like being on social or what were we any time we were together or doing stuff it was just us it wasn't anybody from the outside world in it um and for us for working together I think since we worked together previously it wasn't weird to work together now that we were dating and even now through marriage we own the business together and so when we looped production into TFA group that became the moment where we merged the business and we both became co-owners so we worked together not just on still on my brand capacity because you're still technically my brand manager um but we we still we work together as well on on the production side and so it's been really unique because it's all we know like that's how we fell in love and so it's it's just grown with us it's funny when we got engaged and shared publicly a lot of our work colleagues were like finally finally okay like we knew this all along like this is great we're excited we had one person who was like really I had no idea and I was like yeah I feel like that might be a little bit of a reflection of your awareness right yeah that's a you issue yeah that's fun because uh well I feel like there's a lot of similar events that were pivotal in your relationships as with ours 2012 uh Olympics is kind of how Sean and I met too and then the ESPYs were special but uh Mallory if you don't mind sharing about your incident because I was listening to your your Ted Talk and uh I was blown away at the I read initially routine medical procedure but then when I heard what it was I was like wow really I mean those are very routine so if you wouldn't mind sharing a little bit about uh what happened in January 2008. yeah you know it's interesting because we're now at 15 years right like every year we celebrate the anniversary of my paralysis and this year celebrating 15 years while being pregnant with their first kiddo settled in her home there are so many different emotions for it because you know I was 18 years old I walked in I was getting an epidural injection for back pain here's my third and supposed to be kind of my final one of the series there really wasn't a lot of thought that went into that this could go any different than how it had where I'd go in the morning I leave in the afternoon I'm back at class the next day and obviously as The Story Goes that is not how it went um I was due to complications literally paralyzed on impact during the epidural and that's a uh it's a tough thing at eight I mean it's a tough thing at any age but it was two months before my 19th birthday like I was I was just a kid figuring out what life meant I mean in this year when we celebrated it was so interesting because it's like there was no version of me obviously when it happened but even in the few years following that saw this is what my life would be right like I had no idea I'd gone to become a three-time paralympian there was no scope of understanding that that was even something in that was possible because think about like 2008 we didn't have social the way we have it we certainly had even less disability representation in society than we have now 15 years later and we're still fighting for it 15 years later and so I think there was just such a lack of understanding of what could life with a disability look like because there really wasn't a path forward for what it could look like that was obvious to me um so yeah it was it was really interesting but I think the the kind of common denominator that Jay and I always talk about just as you heard our love for sport sport was the thing that pulled me through I mean I had been a competitive swimmer since I was seven years old and I just happened to get back in the water two and a half months after my injury not thinking like oh I'm gonna go to the next paralympic games but thinking I just need a place to go I mean you guys probably to some element it's so ingrained in who you are you have a hard day you have a hard season it's where you want to go it's where you mentally clear your mind it's where you process it's all of those things and so for me getting back in the water the black line was like the thing that connected me to this quote unquote past life which is how it felt at the time while also meeting me in the moment that I was at in kind of leading me into something in my future whatever that something could have been how did your relationship change with swimming after the incident because I feel like when your passion was swimming in a certain context yeah and then having to almost relearn a sport in it almost being slightly traumatic how did you balance relearning and finding a passion for a sport that was a part of your life before yeah because your parents are summers too right my sisters are summers that's what that said so it was very much a family thing right so I'm the baby of three girls um and you know luckily Sean I wasn't like this rock star swimmer before my paralysis I say that jokingly my coach will always correct me he's like because my current coach was my high school swim coach so for Rio and Tokyo now going into Paris my coach now is who coached me through high school and coached my two older sisters but the funny thing is is you know people automatically assume like oh you went on to have this career after your paralysis you must have been a rock star prior I mean I swam Varsity all four years I was Captain the team I never went to State I wasn't this nationally ranked swimmer I wasn't going to you know a D1 school on scholarship like at the time of my injury I just graduated high school eight months prior I thought swimming would be something I loved to do recreationally but I wanted to transfer out of state to KU and study journalism so I was like I don't know that I want to walk on I want to study abroad so long and short like when I got back in the water for me there was almost this freedom to just explore with the pool again and like have fun being curious there were things that were challenging um they brought me in the pool for pool therapy when I was in the hospital and that was super traumatic because it was so different I mean they wheeled me in in a wheelchair I was in this warm therapy pool with pts it was the first time I realized I couldn't feel the water on my legs and that like flipped me out and at that point I said I'm never going back to the water because I don't want to replace this place that was like my sanctuary and hate Safe Haven with all these negative emotions and then the 2008 Beijing paralympic trials happened in Minnesota at the University of Minnesota we saw it in the newspaper I went as a spectator next thing I knew two days later I was back at the U of M and thinking about like maybe if I'm in a pool with a black line like a true pool it's different and and it was I mean yeah it was a learning curve everything was different but at the same time the fundamentals were the same that black line is the same black line that Trails every pool no matter where in the world you go or what in the world you're going through and there was so much comfort in the idea that not everything in my life had shifted there was something I could go to that was still the same constant what year did you two meet in 20 2012 2012. 2011 yeah how was I mean was there anything unique about the dating process or getting to know each other that was a result of this I don't think so you never really we never really talked about it like I mean you knew my story yeah but in terms of a relationship it honestly never came like it wasn't like we had this moment I'm trying to think I mean no we never had a moment where it was like oh this feels like something maybe we should talk about you knew about it more in context of you knew my story obviously um you were super supportive the one thing that you did you remember early on when I still wasn't like I wouldn't wear shorts because I hated how my legs looked there's like no muscle tone right so I still wouldn't wear shorts no you got me in shorts yep I didn't know how to carry a purse I'm like what what is the point of a purse like what I'm gonna set it in my lap and wheel around and you found this like slingback crossbody kind of like saddle bag back when like one of those Coach bags back when those were like everyone had the slingback saddle bag um yeah I think I'm actually wearing a purse yeah and I think some of those things where we we would talk more about what are the things you want to do right well you want to go back to scuba diving I went scuba diving he carried me into the ocean for the first time for the first time that was probably our that moment that was the moment that I think for us really down in Florida at the breakers and water's right there and you want to go in you said I haven't been in since 2008. well let's go got on my back and walked right in and went swimming and just and you're like I'm gonna marry that sounds like back for both of those a few months later yeah I don't know guys I don't know how we didn't know like we are we are oblivious because we have those moments and we were just like laughing and having a ball on our work trip two of us down on the beach like just completely oblivious to what was going on in front of us the sponsor of today's show is athletic greens a brand we quite literally use 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and that's it there's no need for a million different pills to make it easy athletic greens is going to give you a free one-year supply of immune supporting vitamin D and five free travel packs with your first purchase all you have to do is visit athleticgreens.com forward slash Ace fam again that's athleticgreens.com forward slash East fam to take ownership over your health and pick up the ultimate daily nutritional Insurance let's get back to it so Kai kind of a hard question and I I don't know how to like navigate this but we've interviewed before we have other friends that we we talk to a lot who are kind of like in a similar situation just inner disabled are enter able enter able inter-able is what they use which I love and we've talked a lot with them about this lack of a better word horrible stigma that this world decides to like put on inner abled relationships and couples and they're like well this can't be true like people look at it from the outside perspective of oh there must be something there that whatever it might be it's the comments and they're they're horrible that people try to draw these conclusions to but within your relationship what have you guys had to navigate in in kind of putting off the naysayers and being like look we're no different than anybody else this is actually true love why why do you think this world has this perspective and stigma and then how have you guys navigated it oh gosh I wish I had the answer for why I I think there's an element of when we talk about it's hard to become what you don't see it's also hard to conceptualize what you don't see right so if there's a lack of representation of a very very large demographic of our society 15 worldwide is our disability population if there's a lack of authentic representation in our world what that does is it means I don't see a path forward to what's possible but it also means Society at large doesn't see me actively engaged in our world as an as an individual that contributes to it so when you see me roll about you see me now with my husband you see me pregnant I mean Sean the amount of things since just being pregnant that come our way because I'm a woman in a wheelchair who's pregnant and obviously what type of mother could I be I mean people actually say that stuff and you're like it's jarring but then there's also this realization where there is almost now like this responsibility where the more we can be vocal the more we can be out the more we can show that this is actually normal normal and this is a part of the way our world works and I think part of it is people don't see it and so when they do see it it's weird to them and they don't understand it because we don't have rom-coms that have interabled relationships as the stars of the rom-com we don't see that growing up we don't turn on our TV and watch the storyline of our favorite scripted show that's showcasing something that represents disability or a love story like ours um but I would say our biggest thing that we've had to navigate is this Society we say it all the time yeah I mean the stairs the going through the airport holding hands and you could just feel the stairs now even more so as you're Wheeling about seven months pregnant pregnant and just seeing it it is it does get tough at times where it's just you know why can't it just why can't it be normal why can't we just do this without comments without comments going to the grocery store worrying about Mallards getting a yogurt somebody's gonna say some asinine common to her and it's going to change the the day because of one person's ignorance an unconscious bias it's a struggle we talk literally talk about it every day well there's this perception we face and I've had people say it directly to me sadly um where they think Jay and he is in his own way but not for this reason is this saint because he's sacrificed his future to be with me and it's this mind-blowing idea where it's like literally you just see the four wheels and you assume then all the stigmas and misconceptions that go with disability are true which generally they're not at all and you basically make this assumption that not only can it not contribute to society but I'm just a burden for the people in my life who love me and it's so weird and I think that part of this conversation though is when we started going through our infertility journey and we went through IVF um three years everybody's assumed that I won't be able to have children because I'm in a wheelchair and then once I got past that barrier it was did you assume that he didn't no no did you Mallory was there any part of you where there was like this isn't going to happen you know early on it was the I was afraid to ask you first I just didn't ask because I didn't want to know and I was 20 you know early on I wasn't at that place I wasn't sure and and that was tough but then it was also made Harder by in that period of time it was the 14 months after my paralysis and I was away at college and I was in line at Target and I had a woman look at me as I was playing peekaboo with her daughter in the shopping cart and she said I'm so sorry and I said why and she said that you won't be able to have children of your own someday and I already at least had the wherewithal to know I don't want to know the answer but there's a lot of ways you can have a family and I just said yeah but there's a lot of ways that you can build a family and she said but no sweetie what type of mother could you really be and it was the first time that I just got blindsided by the complete and utter ignorances in our world and I was like oh so it's not just can I physically have you know get pregnant carry a pregnancy and deliver a child the added layer that exists is this unconscious bias that I as a woman because women are the nurturers and because I'm disabled and individuals with disabilities can't nurture themselves so obviously they can't nurture other people therefore go on down the line how could I be a mother and it was mind-blowing that was something we talked a lot about when we were dating and when we ultimately got engaged and and the reality is Jay had his own Journey with the idea of having children yeah so fast forward you talk about that ice and how that ice melted nobody outside of my parents and family knew that there was a high likelihood that I was infertile due to some stuff growing up as a kid and I live with that and I held that on because I think that's the ice that was forming over time and I never ever shared that with anybody until Mallory came into my life and for us we knew the journey early on that it was going to be different and when we went to the doctors for her and the doctor said no there's going to be no issues with you it's going to be on my side so male Factor infertility and I would have for years people coming up to me and say I'm so sorry you guys can't have kids just random strangers and I'm sitting here going you have no idea like this has nothing to do with my wife this has everything to do with me and so fast forward to our start of our IVF I said I absolutely want to be public I need we need to get this out there because everybody continues to assume our IVF Journey our infertility Journeys due to your paralysis yeah and your spinal cord injury and that's not the case and it was kind of like these two stigmas that existed right like men don't talk about infertility I mean that's like the most uncomfortable thing for so many men to sit here and you've you've Point Blank said I don't have a sperm count and it like makes you see people like in their skin because it's like you're so not used to hearing a man say that and so there was that where yeah you I remember when you did the first Google search and you like couldn't find anything that showed stories of other men who had been through this journey but yet the statistic you find is that 50 of couples going through infertility came to infertility through male Factor infertility and so it's not like it's not common it's just not talked about and then the other side of it was we knew that the natural assumption because you just don't know what you don't know some of it is complete innocent ignorance not all of it is hurtful ignorance if that makes sense like some of it's you don't know what you don't know until you're exposed to it we're perfect examples of that on many conversations and then some of it is just being a little bit hateful likely what type of mother could you be I won't give that innocent ignorance um but I think in that where where it all comes to head is there were kind of these two conversations we were unpacking and then on top of it me being a female athlete choosing to stay active in my career through IVs so first of all the mother side of me wants to go talk to that lady in Target and be like I'm sorry what kind of mother are you to your baby right now who's witnessing this just don't approach all ladies in Target and assuming it's that ladies I'm gonna go find her because that that is that's very hurtful and that's that's ignorant like you said I'm curious for you to answer the question what type of mom do you think you'll be Mallory I think I'm gonna be at least I hope I'm going to be a very empathetic mom I really I think our number one job as parents is to not just bring our children along into our life but also live through their eyes right like it's you know people all the time and Sean you probably get this too like what about gymnastics like everyone baby hasn't even gotten here it's like oh are they going to be a swimmer and I'm like I don't know I don't know I mean would it be so cool if little one decided they want to swim of course it would but at the end of the day it's not my job to have my kids feel some void of something I wish I had in my past it's my job to support them as they grow into their own little person and soon to be someday full-fledged adult and support them in what their interests are and in what they want to pursue and fuel their curiosity and nurture that and and hopefully along the way that builds them into these little empathetic human beings that that can have this capacity to understand that you don't have to understand to have empathy like it's okay to face things that are different in this world than what you know to be quote-unquote normal you can still have empathy for those circumstances and not fully understand them and I'm I'm hoping that with that you know oh the fun house we're Corky like we we're we're I always joke we're dorks like we're just total dorks and I think that that'll be fun to bring these kiddos into and and ultimately you know yeah hopefully little one has a totally different perspective on things because Mom does look a little different than the rest and they're gonna have different experience because of that but they're also gonna we're doing the math and we're like oh March okay our due dates in March depending on when they're born there's a good chance baby will celebrate their third birthday in Italy for the 2026 Winter paralympic Games because we go to both summer and winter we just work winter versus compete in them so I'm like yeah and they're also going to get a different experiences like that which are pretty pretty cool pretty cool different experiences perhaps you alluded earlier jokingly about the client who couldn't have the awareness to recognize YouTube potentially you know budding a romance there but I think that that term awareness was really interesting as I was listening to your TED Talks it struck me you said multiple times how it's not what happens to you it's how you respond to what happens to you um and I think that is so profoundly beautiful because like even I mean I'm talking to Mallory here and it's not like when the uh incident that caused your paralysis happened Mallory left like it's you're still the same Mallory and I think even though even though like the adversity or whatever circumstances may have Amplified it provided opportunity for your response and the true like personality characteristics and traits to also be Amplified which is like it's really kind of cool and it also applies to this lady in Target who's like I think just that like that level of awareness where hey we all have these gut reaction instincts right and hey when when you find out you're paralyzed gosh it's it's probably fine to have that initial reaction be sad sadness and grief or like when I see someone different than me I'm gonna have a gut instinct of like curiosity or like oh interest or like to say whatever but how can we layer take a step back and create like a level of awareness to be like okay well oh let me let me inject empathy into this situation and let me I don't know I I just think that your story is so cool and such a um I think epitome of of that idea that it's not it's not what happened like you're Mallory and Mallory responds to um winning a silver versus a gold in a similar way that she responds to you know getting parallel like you're gonna handle it and you're gonna make the best out of it so it's great enough to compare those two I love that you know sport enough to be like okay there might be a little bit of an adjustment and this one just like there's an adjustment over here yeah yeah um I have so many thoughts I could go on tangent and just I respect you guys so much and you can tell you guys are gonna be phenomenal parents phenomenal parents like I'm so excited for this little baby because your insight into just the wisdom of being good human beings is what babies need you don't need like it has nothing to do with your abilities to whatever it is out there to raise a good human it has to do with your heart and those babies aren't going to know any difference they're going to see the evil in the world and they're going to see the good in the world and I'm so excited for you guys I could start crying because I'm I have babies myself um and I also think it just goes to say I can get on a pedestal right now but there aren't enough good parents in the world and you guys are obviously phenomenal parents and your baby is so lucky to have you as parents anyways I am curious though going back to your IVF Journey I've talked to a lot of couple about IVF journey and just the Journey of getting pregnant and it's so hard no matter what your situation is I'm curious how that affected your guys's relationship and how you worked through that because unlike what they teach you in high school of like oh careful don't look at each other you're gonna get pregnant really doesn't work that way really difficult and it can be in a really emotional journey and put a lot of tension on a couple you know I think what's interesting is we have been through so many different things in our relationship that when we ultimately got to the beginning of our IVF Journey first of all we knew it was coming right we didn't try to get pregnant for 12 months and we had 12 months of built up frustration and sadness of every month that's a negative test and then we found our way to this we had a small window of a doctor telling us we said well should we can we just try and he's like it's nothing I was like just maybe no and so there was a weekend and I remember this we were in California there was a weekend of like three days of letting it sink in letting all the emotions out and going okay we gotta pivot this is what we're gonna do and we're gonna go all in and that's well and mind you the three days was only possible because we found out years prior that this was our reality it's just when we came when I came home from Tokyo and it was like okay now we're gonna start this we were hopeful that maybe we could have like a few months of just feeling normal and having some romance and Intimacy in this process of like not having a be straight to the IVF and just not have that like just be able to have the normalcy of hey like it's that day and see what happens and when we had that conversation with Jay's doctor and he was like you guys can certainly do that but I just want to set you up with realistic expectations with Jay's Tess you'll be you'll be lucky through IVF to have children and so that was really tough and that's when we realized that you are going to have to have your surgery yeah like I said going back to Google searching I had no idea what you know the IVF Journey was and what that was going to entail and this was now October 21 so coming off the high of Tokyo riding the high traveling she's speaking we're doing a bunch of events in the meantime we're doing all these virtual appointments with our doctors of going okay here's what the journey entails and that was tough the first retrieval was tough because you had to have your surgical retrieval so that was our only chance to get sperm to give us a chance at children and they gave us a 40 success rate but if they were not successful they would not go back and do it again the exhaust all options in the first surgery and so that's your only chance and they time it with your egg retrieval and so we're simultaneously like filling my body with hormones every day knowing that there's this day before I go in for my retrieval he's going in for her surgery we'll find out on that day before mine if we have a chance at biological children and then regardless of the outcome I go in the next day for my retrieval and it was just this like high intensity like you said we were traveling we were in Nashville when I started my stimming I was on book tour it's all lined up with your cycle so you don't really get to like wave a magic eight ball and the day hit and my doctor's like we need you in the clinic tomorrow we need to do your rounded test I was like I'm in Nashville so I booked a first flight out in the morning I flew home I drove to the clinic I did the testing I got in the car I drove back to the airport took the next flight out to Nashville and then we did a date night and we sat on YouTube and watched videos for how to do our injections because we're in a hotel room no idea what we were doing and so I think that well there was definitely some really high intensity moments and it was tough I would say the one thing looking back that we did a really good job on there's more than one thing but the one thing that I'm gonna say for this is we found ways to bring intimacy to it right like it just feels so medical and and you envision how you're going to have kids and you don't Envision it being that and so every night we had our little routine we lit our candle we had our little roll on essential oils that we did we would have a moment just the two of us as a couple we would have this routine before I started doing my injections and that was like our nightly thing where we we slowed down for a moment and and honored the fact that every night however many nights of this it's going to take and however many months of this it's going to take this is our way that we're gonna have kids it's not just one moment in time it is every night we come together as a couple and we choose that we're doing this together and I think that that was while it can be really hard yeah um that made it really special what was the reaction was it a phone call or what did you find out in office that you guys when you went in for your retrieval that it was like go time and that there was like a good outcome yeah so we found out after my surgery so it was about a it's supposed to be a three hour surgery and mine was a little shorter and so the doctor came in to tell Mallory and he was still out and the doctor came to tell me and I was like I don't want to find out alone I mean because it was good news but if it hadn't been like I don't want to be the one breaking the news to my husband can't you break the news to both of us together yeah so she came wheeling in I'll never forget I'm eating goldfish oh my God because they asked me what do I want when I'm waking up and they're like you want goldfish or you want something crackers or like graham crackers I was like give me the swimmers I said and I'm eating I'm eating the Goldfish and I just stopped and I stared at her trying to like figure out was it did it work and she told me it worked and I lost it he went from like loopy you know post anesthesia talking about the beautiful flower on the wall and his Little Swimmers to all of a sudden having like this Moment of clarity of realizing oh and his face just went white and then I shared and we we I mean we just both lost it and then we got the call so this is the week of Thanksgiving we got the call the morning of Thanksgiving we're home with family she's based on there's there's a photo of her based into turkey as the doctor we're supposed to take it easy it was the day after my retrieval but I was like no somebody's gonna make the brown butter stage mashed potatoes I don't trust anybody with these and so long and short they they call and we found out that we had nine of the eggs that fertilized and it obviously there's like then the attrition and so we ended up with two embryos out of that batch but we didn't know even though we were successful they are a little bit more immature when they're removed in that fashion and so we didn't know if we'd get fertilized eggs or not like that was the whole other barrier we had to get to so that was a really special um Thanksgiving of all days we will celebrate like we now in fact have a chance at having kids of Our Own oh my gosh and there's another embryo so it took both of them to get pregnant with this little one we lost one in in April which was pretty tough um so unfortunately that was our last one which is kind of the ongoing conversation again to infertility like what's that Journey like and all of that stuff I mean it's a constant simultaneous like well we're so excited to be pregnant with little one time isn't necessarily on our side so what we did was before I got pregnant we froze eggs we did another cycle to freeze eggs so then he can do another surgery at some point so there's a high likelihood that we're going to have a two-month-old kiddo and he's gonna be going back in for a surgery just so we can try to get a couple more embryos to freeze so we possibly have a chance at another child after Paris um but again it's so weird because even when you've gone through he's gone through and it's been successful it doesn't increase your chance of success the next time because with time and age things can also decrease and so it's a uh it's kind of this weird Bittersweet thing right because like we're so excited about little one but we don't just get to enjoy little one because if we wait till we're ready for a second child our door will basically almost guaranteed be closed and so we kind of have to live in both at the same time which is when it's hard to get good at I suppose when you go through hard stuff right like like Andrew you're talking about you know the adversity I mean it's just we all have hard stuff in life and you just learn how to simultaneously hold both and know that two things can be true at once yeah what I was going to say was it's it's tough you know on the female side there's hormones there's shots there's things potentially that can assist on the male side it's there's nothing and I wish that could change and I hope maybe down the road that could change but you're kind of just a Sitting Duck to go well I'm 40 now I'm just gonna keep getting older there's nothing there's no vitamins there's nothing that could help our chances other than yeah the habit or you don't correct yeah and you had known for a while that there was a chance you're uh yeah the infertile so at the age of 13 I had a surgery and the doctor came out after and just said I want to let you know my mom and dad are there that there's a high likelihood that you'll be infertile as an adult this is a 13 year old what does that even mean right right you just remember that and that you hold on to that and you do a little research there's not nothing out there you just always have that in the back of your mind and then you see in society what men are supposed to bring to the table and you're like well I'm told I can't you know what does this even mean and I'd always hold that close and I remember when we started dating like I said you were the first person that I shared with yeah the first relationship nobody else knew and you just looked at me and said okay we'll figure it out yeah we got this whatever that looks like whatever form of creating a family whatever we have to do we'll figure it out yeah and that's what we've done was there a certain moment where you fully realized like the implications of that's it because you said at 13 you couldn't really apprehend it but was there one moment where I was like okay yeah 20 I think what was it 2017. when we got the actual first test result so we we started kind of going through some testing let me do this semen analysis test and like okay let's just see maybe things change maybe the doctor was just he didn't know what he was talking about so you go and do the test and then of course you get the email notification you have a test result and we're on a flight in Salt Lake City born to plane I'm like oh I guess we're gonna check so you log into Portal and you check and you're reading and you're looking and it's just zeros you just this is it didn't fill the form out right no no this is not the form and it just sunk in meanwhile you have families boarding the plane and Salt Lake City everybody has a kid when they're getting off yeah everybody's crying you're sitting there and you're just just stone-faced I think that was the first time we obviously both did but even like I remember it when we found when we found out you saying like because you didn't know you never like went through additional testing afterwards there was just this conversation and I think that was really the first time where it was like oh no no this is because prior to that you know it's all hypothetical like because you haven't found you know even for me on my side like you haven't found the person you want to spend your life with you say like oh I think kids are in my future but what does that look like in actuality until you find the person you want to do this thing called create a family with and um yeah that was a really really weird day we literally boarded like two minutes later and we pre-board because it's the easiest way for me to get on planes we were the first ones on the plane we're in like the second row and we watched every person born and it felt like that day every single person on that plane had a kid with them and I just remember us both just sitting like numb in our seats feeling the weight of it all yeah yeah every single one of those families was just showing you your future yeah baby now a couple more weeks little one moving and grooving yeah yeah so I'm curious you mentioned that sport is the thing that pulled you through Mallory and the older I've gotten The more I've appreciated sport more like less about the specific whatever activity that you're doing but more zooming out and like just sport being the canvas where so many other things happen like the discipline the the Improvement the goals the you know the feedback and and the coaching and whatever just like the excitement um I'm curious Jay so you you kind of are really deep in the sport world I know you per you helped produce some sport related film what is your like being in that world and telling stories about that what are like what's your perspective on Sport and why is it so uh exciting to you uh Sports been a part of my life since I was a kid growing up playing hockey baseball soccer and then going on to walk on at Syracuse there's just something about it as you were mentioning about the the elements the life skills that you learned through Sport and some of those leadership components the teamwork components the feedback but the ability that sport is a common language right it's a global language that people can connect with and through the paralympic movement from the onset when I was exposed to 2011 to now just seeing the impact through that common language of sport that it can connect and unify and people can understand and so taking kind of the learnings and my passion for sports and taking the passion for business and marketing and all together you know film and media has this way to really transcend and change that perspectives and mindsets and so when you combine the two I'm just you see the impact and yeah you know I know we're hooked I'm hooked and kind of the storytelling aspect and uh it's pretty powerful we just actually came back on Monday night we had a big event down in Dallas Texas where we put on an exhibition game of Team USA sled hockey program so they had the men the national team the development team and four women come together for an exhibition game in front of 2000 individuals and uh we broadcast to the event produced the event produced features just seeing the impact that it had on those 2000 individuals plus whoever turned in is powerful it's Shifting The Narrative and uh we are going to be doing a lot more and so we've kind of found our and I found my why of kind of the history and sports and between Sport and entertainment media uh seeing the impact that we can have when can we get a documentary on your guys's life let's come in yeah seriously oh it's called water shop yes it's called Watershed we are actually the co-directors and then I'm the writer and TFA group is the production house doing it um and so it is in post-production right now there's a little bit of filming that's still happening because we're simultaneously in post-production but we are covering pieces of the pregnancy Journey uh I was gonna say little ones yeah yes yes little one is a big part of it so it is it's a feature-length dock uh and we are so extremely excited about it we've been working on it for years we have a remarkable team um and it's it's our story but it's also the universal story of humanity right like like I was saying we all have hard stuff it's not just oh you know she's paralyzed I can't I can't measure up to that I don't know what that's like it's like yeah but we all have sudden moments of impact we all have these moments in our lives that come completely out of left field that we are not planning or anticipating that change how we perceive the world around us and those moments well they don't Define us they shape us they give us perspective they give us Clarity they maybe even have US forces to step back and kind of question our purpose and our our being of like why are we doing this thing what are our priorities and so I think what's really neat is within Watershed there's this underlying kind of story about just Humanity at large and how we evolve as individuals in a society and how we move through this journey and how those watershed moments become a part of our identity rather than a defining Factor wow we're excited we're excited I'm excited it's our first baby it's our first baby and it's been a really long labor at this point Sean so I'm uh yeah I'm hoping we we have a nice like kind of place to tie the bow and let the rest of our team continue on while when we get ready to literally birth our first child's our true first child so uh that's exciting but yeah we're super excited wow could you talk about the paralympic community uh what you love about it and the impact it's had on you you know paralympic sport is like Jay was saying right Sports this common language it unifies and and I think what's really neat about sport is it transcends the field of play and we see that on and on and on in basically every sport whether it's in the Olympic movement paralympic movement whether it's professional League Sports whatever it might be where we realize that it's this Catalyst to have a larger conversation and so when you look at the Paralympics you know yes first and foremost it's elite athleticism right like we devote years of Our Lives to the singular moment just like our Olympic counterparts do and you have the intensity that comes with that but you also realize that what you do on the field of play is about something so much bigger than any singular performance and I think that that's where the power of it comes in and for us in the paralympic movement specifically there's values that align obviously with with our Olympic counterparts and just the games experience and the movement as an entirety but then on the paralympic side there's this added layer of the fact that we are also represented representative of the 15 of our global population that lives with a disability we can have this conversation about disability representation and equity and and all of those elements of it as athletes on this field of play and so I think that when you look at paralympic sports for me that's where I get so excited about it because it is it's transcending the field of playing having this much needed conversation not just domestically in the US but globally around how we view disability and I think there's something so powerful obviously as somebody who's passionate about sport but utilizing sport as the way to literally flip the narrative on its head it's like you know you watch a wheelchair rugby and and mostly these guys that play wheelchair rugby they're quads and they are literally crashing into each other they've coined it as murder ball like they're going after one another but yet if you see one of them wheel through the grocery store it's like oh my gosh they probably need help grabbing their lime and they're like no I'm about to rip your head off because like that's what's in my DNA and so it's so funny because there's just this this element where it can show versus tell and completely shift The Narrative and perception by utilizing the power and entertainment value that sport carries and and I love that about it and I I love that from the beginning because for me personally it did that I mean gosh being exposed to the movement just a few months after my paralysis is probably the thing that saved my life to be completely honest I mean I was just out of the hospital went to the University of Minnesota pool didn't even know the Paralympics existed looked under the pool deck that night and realized that there's this whole world out there and for me it was just this element of a path forward whether I ever became a paralympian or not of just showcasing what is possible and I think for so long Society made me feel like living life with a disability was just a consolation prize to the life that could have been versus a version of life that could have been Fuller and better than I ever even imagined possible initially and so I think that's where it's so neat to see how it's played out and obviously for me now it's a big part of me I'm training for what will hopefully become my fourth paralympic games and you know it's a part of the two of us in our personal life our business it's also part of how our child is going to be raised um but my my big passion very similar to what Jay said is seen the power it has to transcend the field of play and serve as a catalyst to make substantial change in our society for how we perceive disability fun fact we I've never been more humbled in my life we had the opportunity to play wheelchair rugby that is no joke we're on opposite teams with each other I wasn't playing I didn't get the invite oh you didn't if the Invictus games no it looked like a blaster it was very humbling major props yeah uh there's it's like any right you go and do a different sport or I I've jumped in a wheelchair basketball and tried to like shoot a hoop let's just say all of us as athletes yeah you're reminded why you have this that you have because these moments where you're like yeah nope that that's not my strength I'm gonna go back to the black line where I can do my thing but it is I'd say uh it's so neat to the more that we have I mean programs like Invictus games right like the more programming we have the more exposure we have and the more appreciation we have I think for so long paralympic athletes were looked at as like if you have a disability and you like sport you go to the paralympic games and I'm like yeah oh God if only or that easy like no you you have to be an elite athlete to make it to the paralympic games and this is not just like oh you happen to have a disability you like to play whatever sport it is then obviously you're gonna be on the paralympic team um and so that's been I think great too to the conversation of power of media we're seeing more of what the journey actually takes and we're realizing it literally is parallel and it mirrors the Journey of any late athlete and and there's a lot more respect for that now which is really cool to see which one there's too many now um okay last question with a little one almost here what's given your guys's journey together what's the one piece of advice you would tell them now you go first how do I always have to come first one piece of advice so I'll make it a short story um every night since transfer so our transfer was in July we have read to little one a book called you belong here and I think that the one thing that I would tell are soon to be well our little one soon to be whoever they are I don't know if it's a little girl little boy but I suppose whoever they are is just this idea that you do belong here like you are worthy and it is not your job to carry other people's insecurities it is your job to be the fullest version of yourself and I think that's something that we could all use to learn and something that we both certainly have learned and something that I hope are child and or if there's more children in the future are able to learn from a very early age so they don't have to carry that burden and I'll piggyback off that is the ability to live in the simultaneous so the ability to live with a really hard season but to find levity and joy and every single day and whether that's dancing throwing some music on in the kitchen and we love to dance and just throw on a little Spotify and we're dancing even though that day we've got some really hard news or it's a really stressful period of time living the simultaneous because we can do it you can do it and um that's I think that's the best piece of advice yeah wow I'm a fan of you too and uh couldn't be more excited for your next couple months here it's a fun ride it's a wild ride and I think you guys will Thrive given how you've responded to everything that's happened in your life uh to date so thank you for joining us and we look forward to staying in touch and seeing how it goes for you absolutely thank you thank you for having us and hopefully we'll see you down in Nashville at some point yeah that's good I can't wait yeah yeah we uh we do I've obviously followed you Sean for years and now the two of you and seeing you guys's Journey as a family unit which is so fun to follow and I think that it's really fun to see you said we need more good parents in this world like obviously we only know what we see on social right every everybody has their behind the scenes story and struggles and all of those things but it is so fun to see the two of you as parents and to see your Littles grow and the type of little humans they're growing into it's it's pretty cool and it's the reminder that we have a generation of people that are working really hard to be the parents we want filled in our world and uh you guys are certainly doing that so thank you for having us it's uh we've been excited to talk to you guys so this has been awesome oh thank you well thank you guys