A quick note before we get into the episode, Oversharing is a podcast for entertainment purposes only.

It is not a medical podcast and does not constitute medical or psychological advice.

Always seek the advice of your physician or mental health professional.

Welcome back to Baby Steps and I am so excited to have Professor Emily Oster back on for another episode. Welcome back.

Thank you. So in our first episode of the season, we talked about everything to know if you're just starting to try to conceive.

We dispelled a lot of TikTok myths. We went through all the lifestyle stuff. And I think we did a pretty comprehensive job

of breaking down what we need to focus on. No one is watching TikTok anymore. So I think we did our job.

Exactly. Everyone is the lead to TikTok. We've saved the world. I think there's conventional advice

for like trying to get pregnant. And then sometimes things get more complicated. And if you're

someone like me, you can be like, okay, like I did all those things and like things aren't working. And then sometimes things get more complicated. And if you're someone like me, you can be like,

okay, like I did all those things and like things aren't working. And like now, where do I go?

Because there's so much out there that's just about like people who have seemingly normal,

straightforward cycles. And I don't seem to be one of them. Yeah. And that's why I loved,

you know, you were on last year when your book, The Unexpected came out, which is out now in paperback. Yeah. If you haven't read it yet and you're listening to this episode and you were one of the people like me, it's definitely a great place to start in terms of pregnancy complications. Yes. Yeah. So in that book, we really talked through pregnancy complications, what to understand about them, and then how to approach those conversations with your doctor, which I think is like such an important part of what happens when things don't go like you expect. And then you're like faced with, okay, well, now my experience is not the like middle of the road typical thing. How do I have the best experience that I can given the medical issues I'm facing? And I think a big question, I think for those of us with more

complicated experiences, is like how do I use the data to help me when I seem to be like

in the statistical minority of a lot of the data? Yeah. And I think that's really tough.

And some of it is sort of taking, you know, what are the pieces of the data that might be relevant? But then also more than that saying, like, what are the questions I want to ask my doctor? Like, what are the things I need to understand to move forward? You know, I feel like so many of those conversations and we try to work through this and the unexpected are about like, why did this happen to me?

Right.

As opposed to what can I do to make it happen differently next time. Exactly. And I think that's where like the data comes in because you can't, the data can't really change the past. But like it can probably give you more knowledge to work with going forward to try to figure out the best route for you personally. Exactly. I also want to talk about

the fertility trying to conceive it vertical that you have, which goes into pet pregnancy complications.

You can ask PD, the AI chat bot questions about maybe less common, straightforward fertility

questions. So I think that's such a great resource for someone who's, again, looking on TikTok for

...