Rebecca Zamolo

speaker

153 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard May 2025 last heard May 2025

Rebecca Zamolo’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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The Unplanned Podcast with Matt & Abby · Why I chose surrogacy w/ Rebecca Zamolo · 7 May 2025 podcast

The reason I chose IVF was because I had been sick for a long time. I had ulcerative colitis for eight years. So my 20s, I spent most of it in a hospital at least once a month for three or four days. And And I do think that's why I have a lot of energy now is because I had to fake being healthy for so long. I would be trying to be myself and then I would go home and have to take a three-hour nap.

And just like fighting to be normal, what my normal was. I was a college athlete to go from that to just like trying to function every day was very different for me. So when I wanted to get pregnant, I was finally ready. We had waited because I'd been so sick for so long. I never traveled. I never did what normal people did.

I never got to eat at a restaurant that I could enjoy because I'd be so stressed. if there was no bathroom nearby, if someone went in it and there was, I'd be stressed the whole time because I would have to go instantly.

So it was just like, I got my life back and I, you know, finally we got to take a trip to New York or, you know, go to a restaurant and actually have a meal and all these like things that everyone took for granted, I didn't get to do. And so we waited because it was like, I was doing all these things for the first time. And so by the time we wanted kids,

The doctor had said it would be much harder because I don't have a colon, but we didn't realize it would be that much harder. And we chose IVF because I wanted to make sure that it was monitored the entire time. Like I wasn't someone that could just show up at, you know, a six week appointment and be like, hey, how's it going? Just checking in. It's like I really...

felt like I needed that monitoring because my case is a lot different than most women's.

You can get it at any point. It's an autoimmune disease. Essentially, your body attacks the good and the bad. It can't know the difference. So if I ate something, it would just... the inflammation there would just cause me to lose like everything. I couldn't hold things in. There's different versions of that, but it's inflammation of the colon. So I had at least 13 colonoscopies.

At least, at least. I think I had way more, but I became an expert at colonoscopies. So if you ever need tips, I can help you.

The colite, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you're asleep, so hopefully you don't wake up. But I did wake up one time. No. Yeah. You woke up during a colonoscopy. Yeah, and you look around, and they were like, oh, no. And then I just remember them putting a mask back on me to put me back to sleep.

He didn't want to see it. Yeah. Really?

Anytime you're under anesthesia, you're so vulnerable. It's so crazy. And I know hacks for anesthesia, too. You have to... Because you go under anesthesia, you aren't getting... blood is not flowing to all the parts of your body, right? So a lot of women, and this is very similar after pregnancy, is at first you're fine, but then all of a sudden your hair will start to break and all of that.

Because for my surgeries, a lot of times they were like six hours. Imagine... like how, depending on how often you are under anesthesia, it, you're not, body's not getting the nutrients. So now whatever I, whenever I do something like that, um, or if I have to go under for any reason, IVF, I get acupuncture and that helps blood flow start back again. And so I had no hair loss on either pregnancy.

And that was all because of, as soon as like a day later, a day or two later, I was like getting acupuncture, getting everything going again. Because if you think about pregnancy, your body's getting all of these nutrients, right? Like your hair looks great, your skin looks great. And you're like, this is awesome. And then one day, you get none of it anymore, right?

So it's like, it doesn't happen the next day, but then two or three months later, women are like, oh, my hair's breaking, all of this. It doesn't happen overnight, but if you can get blood flow and keep it going in those areas, it's less likely that you're gonna have all of those things happening, postpartum, hair loss, like all of that. But you don't like needles, right?

But acupuncture doesn't bother you? I've done, I had to, I mean, I don't love it. When they poke me, I don't love it, but I love what it did. And I think that's one of the biggest reasons I was able to stay pregnant along with like the supplements I took. So I think when you're trying to be a mom and you struggle for so long, for me it was over two years, you'll do anything.

And so for me, as much as I still can't look when I get an IV, I can't look at the needle in, but like the acupuncture needles are very small. I don't know.

subconsciously i was able to like differentiate those needles from the other needles and you know if you want to be a mom bad enough you know all of a sudden needles aren't as scary as they used to be it's incredible what mothers will do for their children right it's amazing yeah when you woke up during the colonoscopy was that painful i'm still stuck on that yeah were you drugged up enough that you didn't feel yeah you're just like in

In a dream, like, you're just, like, it feels like a sci-fi movie. Oh, gosh. You know, when you see everyone and, like, you're drugged up, so you're like, huh? And they're like, no. I just remember, like, no. And then, like, putting a mask on, and I was like, huh? Oh, my gosh.

That makes a lot of sense.

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