The Unplanned Podcast with Matt & Abby
Rachael & Tom on Rejecting Birth Control, PCOS & Losing my Parents
Wed, 01 Jan 2025
Rachael and Tom share their journey of overcoming PCOS through alternative healing, welcoming their second child, and navigating profound loss, including the tragic death of a young family member. They also discuss naming their daughters, experiencing pregnancy rage, and why they’ve opened their home to feed hundreds of college students each week. This episode is sponsored by Rocket Money. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions by going to https://RocketMoney.com/unplanned Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What challenges did Rachael face during pregnancy?
I dealt with pregnancy rage this time around. Anything that anyone almost did at that point gave me the egg. I might have had that.
Your bodies, it's truly amazing, are never the same two days in a row. Whether you're on a 28, 32, 34-day cycle, throughout that time, your body's asking for different things. My father died four years ago, and this is coming up on one year. They taught me great love, and my kids aren't going to feel it.
A lot of women think it's really cool to miss their cycle. I felt that way. And then the time came where I did have to worry about it and it flipped my world upside down.
This past week, we had the opportunity to sit down with Rachel and Tom Sullivan, who at one point thought they weren't going to be able to have kids. After missing multiple periods in a row, Rachel was diagnosed with PCOS. But what her and Tom discovered is they were able to help heal her body through nutrition.
Since then, her and her husband Tom have gone on to have two beautiful babies, but while their family's been growing, Tom lost both his parents. In today's episode, we talk about PCOS, pregnancy rage, and how sometimes even men can struggle with postpartum depression. Welcome back to the Unplanned Podcast, people. We have two very special guests today, Rachel and Tom Sullivan.
Can we just give it up?
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Chapter 2: How did Rachael and Tom navigate the loss of family?
Can we just give it up? Matt looked at the camera and freaked me out when I was like, should I look this way or this way? But now I'm seeing what's going on. I love it.
Thank you for being here. You have a beautiful family. Right before this, you guys were feeding kids, reading your children books. I can tell you're in the thick of the newborn stage, but then you also have a toddler. How are you guys surviving right now?
Are we surviving? No. Yeah, you travel with them. One day at a time. Yeah, traveling.
That was her seventh flight.
Yeah. She's a travel. I was a flight attendant. So I got to make sure she's getting her miles in there. You know what I mean?
Yeah. I would say we're three months in with Rosie. We have the two and a half year old. You guys know how this goes. I think we are rediscovering ourselves, our love for each other, our new love for Rosie, right? Yeah.
Yeah, no, 100%.
You guys get it.
Oh, totally. Dude, we were out the other side.
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Chapter 3: What is PCOS and how did it affect Rachael's fertility?
It put me in a truly mental tough spot. Because I was like, my little girl, you're feeling it. And you don't know why. And you're trying to process a lot of emotions. And there was a good two months there where it really destroyed me.
It was tough. Yeah, you had a bit of a...
Well, and you were taking care of baby.
I think what was, what did we, um, like postpartum depression? It's like one in eight males can have it, which like I didn't know was a thing. Neither of us knew it was a thing. Um, and Tom had mentioned on his like Instagram story. He's like, it's been a really tough for me going through all the things.
And, um, so many women were like, my husband is dealing with this and like, it's not talked about ever. Um, and this is like something I wish was more vocalized, um, I didn't know it was a thing either. Wait, this is like the first time I'm hearing that too. Yeah, no, it's like, it's a thing.
Well, you probably felt silly to say anything because it's like, okay, my wife just freaking pushed a baby out of her vagina and here I am complaining.
She has a baby on her boob every three hours, is changing out her pad.
Exactly, exactly.
So then you're just like, Tom, shut up. Like, what am I? But my heart's being torn for my daughter, my two-year-old.
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Chapter 4: How did Rachael and Tom manage postpartum challenges?
We get made fun of for the tents, though.
Oh, people think it's so weird, but it's the best thing ever.
I've seen them. I've never done them. No, they're so good. But then he doesn't think to climb out because he's in a tent. And...
They feel safe and feel like they're at home.
It's the same environment everywhere they go.
Everywhere they go. They're in the same exact environment. So that makes them feel so safe, so comfortable. And we don't have like issues with them like sleeping. We're going to have an issue when we transition though.
Oh, yeah. I'm scared. Obviously, there's a million different techniques. We're big on she slept anywhere we brought her. Yeah. In any position. Yeah.
Yeah.
But now we're paying for some of it. So yeah, it's everything. I think that is the thing of parenting. It's like, can you be respectful for what they do? Yeah. Can you look at what you do? Can we like get better at it? I think that's one of like the beauties of the internet. Like people talk trash social media and some of the things that bring it.
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Chapter 5: What holistic approaches did they use to overcome fertility issues?
We talk about it. We kind of talk. That's a big part of why the second book came. It's not like your 10 girlfriends are going through it at the same time.
Yeah.
And even if you have one or two, like you're not on the same day.
Yeah.
And you can look back and try to recall it. But like you are on an island going through pregnancy a lot of the times. Like if you really think about that, like you can ask people, hey, did you have this? And they're trying to backtrack. And we're writing a book about pregnancy. And she's like calling every friend because she's like, when we started, she wasn't pregnant.
So she actually wrote the book while pregnant, but when she wasn't, she's like, I don't remember week 13.
Yeah. And I also didn't want, like I said, my first experience was so great that I didn't want that to be the only perspective of the book. Yeah.
because i like i did have it really good not that i'm saying i'm thankful for my second pregnancy being different but i really am because it really brought like a whole different perspective to the book like yeah i've had it both ways i've had the beautiful pregnancy where i want to be pregnant again and i've had the rough pregnancy where i was like i could wait five to ten years before i touched that and i guess to your point the reason i brought that up was we had to mentally reflect a lot and it sounds like you actually did that in real time like as you're sitting there saying man are you okay
We've talked about it a lot, actually.
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Chapter 6: How has their parenting journey evolved with two children?
You got to meet her. That's so cool. No, we didn't get to meet her. Because it was COVID. It was Zoom. We were supposed to. Oh, dang. We did get to chat with her. She was so sweet. I never got to embrace her.
Wait, it was a Zoom? She gets to embrace me. No.
I know. She had us back on twice.
You know that we never do.
Yeah, we were on it twice. And each time was a Zoom.
Dang. A rule for our show is we only do in-person interviews. Because I feel like with a Zoom call or something, it's just not the same.
I wish I could have like hugged her. I know. And she's so funny and like, whatever. It's okay.
That's still pretty dope though.
That's cool. Is she back and doing live shows?
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Chapter 7: What role does community play in their lives?
Honestly, I think they know how much, like, me and Rachel have fun. Yeah. And I think they, like, my close friends know how much that's important for me. I don't feel like there was ever, like, teasing, as weird as that sounds.
I don't have a lot of, like, guy, like, as much as, like, I lock a room in sports, like, we don't have a lot of the be tough, but, like, my friends are, like, love your wife friends. That's awesome. So, like, you know, I think it was fun. That's good. It was hard for me to press send on that.
You're like, okay, here we go. We black and white it. It looked artistic.
It was art. It seems like you guys have like really good community though. Like where have you guys tapped into that community and found those friends? Because if, I don't know, just to have like, even people check in on you, right? Like and be like, ah, that's a funny photo. Like it seems like you have good relationships and that's like a sign of a healthy person, like a healthy life.
Like how did you guys find that community?
I mean, I have like the same group of 10 friends since third grade.
I've like my core best friends were also like kindergarten first. And we've all done like we all went to different grades, like high school and college and so on. But I've always stayed close to those like younger ones. I mean, finding friends later on in life, it's hard. Those I feel like those early ones, you go through life together. They see you. They see you through every step of the way.
And so I feel like there's always like a really special bond with those people. But even beyond that, we moved from Chicago to Raleigh and we didn't know anybody out there except for I had a family friend who brought us in and was like, whatever you guys need from us. And, you know, we're here to support you. And like we want to.
welcome you to our community and um they've really taken us in and that's become it's become our core group mike and mike and judy we love you did you meet them because they were your neighbors were they at a certain like club you guys would attend i have my family has a lake house oh yeah we're from did you did your family have a lake house i feel like it's a midwest thing no well i guess family is not chicago yeah i know but
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Chapter 8: How did they turn their experiences into a book?
She did more. Like pyramid.
yeah so we were taking like i was breaking out she was doing push-ups and vice versa so 120 i think it was either 117 or god guys she is so humble she doesn't remember she's ready for the next competition no she is humble though because she'll be like i don't know if i can do like a pull-up right i'm like babe you can do like when she does a pull-up she'll be like like it's like i'm like dude you can do 50 i'm like you are so i don't do shit that's too easy
So anyway.
What were we talking about? He taught me to snowboard together. We snowboard together.
Oh, that's fun. Heels and toes.
Yeah, we played pickleball just like a couple weeks ago together.
Yeah, you're getting better. You're getting better. You're doing great.
But no, not really. Me with a tennis racket is scary.
or a pickleball reggae any of the above no i feel i always say i feel like a giant trying to get a ping pong ball like i just feel so clumsy like since like with the two now do you guys have any like super intentional time i because i we both have discovered our time apart like my one-on-one time with me alone and yeah and her having her time is important yes oh yeah but like have you guys done
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