Episode 23: Your Periods Shouldn't Be Painful with Nelly Reeves

Small Batch Sound: Hey everyone and welcome back to Confessions of a Slow Cooker. I'm Ashlyn Blue and goodness, I'm really excited about today. ⁓ you know, when you just like click with someone, you immediately feel at ease around them and feel like you can say literally whatever is on your mind and it will be accepted right away. Not because you're necessarily correct or right in whatever you're saying, but just because that person accepts you for who you are. You know, no hesitation w at all. That is Nellie Reeves in a nutshell. Thank you for saying that. ⁓ no, I mean it. And we and I want to tell them how we met. So we were before you do that. I agree with everything you just said. It's reciprocal. ⁓ thank you. ⁓ we were introduced by mutual friend Stephanie Chapman in Nashville. I was on a new kick of saying like yes to things that were good for me to do other than sit around with my rescue puppy Ollie and Sulk because I'd recently gotten divorced and was a wreck in every single way. So when Stephanie asked me to come to a Grammy party at her house, I knew I could safely say yes. ⁓ while I grew up in the music industry, you know, and I had my own sort of music career of sorts. I had been out of that scene for quite a while. I guess it was too painful since it had been sort of a failure of a pursuit. And so during my marriage, my first marriage, I like kind of stopped being around that stuff. And those people. And anyway, everyone at that party was also in the music well, excuse me, the music industry in one way or another. And that included Nellie and her husband, Jason. I will never forget meeting them. They were both wearing the least dressy clothes and trucker hats. Nelly, I can't believe you're not wearing a hat. I wore one. I ⁓ it's okay. I can go get one. Please. Okay. I'm stopping this now and you're going to get one. Wait a minute. She's back. If you can't see her, you should also pause this and get onto YouTube so you can see her. She's back with her hat. And if you can't see mine, it says howdy. ⁓ okay, back we go. I too was not very dressed up. ⁓ so because of them, I felt very, very seen. And then from that day forward, I hung out with Nellie and she introduced me to all of her friends who were all wonderful. It was a bit of a blank slate as none of them knew me during my first marriage. I didn't have to explain myself or my past because they didn't know it and they were just willing to take me as I was at that moment. Nellie's story of fertility was one I learned fairly on, early in our friendship, as she had had already had a surgery or two or more than that, I don't know, and was going to have another to treat her endometriosis. And I'm pretty sure that's the first time I ever really understood how bad it could be for someone. Anyway, I've rambled on and on. She will tell you the whole thing. Hi, Nelly. I'm so thankful for you came to Thank you so much for having me, Ashlyn, and thank you for what you're doing for women, just spreading awareness about the fact that not everyone just looks at a poop and gets pregnant. I didn't know if I was allowed to say the P word. ⁓ you can. ⁓ okay. Well anyway. I think you get what I was trying to say. Yeah. But ⁓ before I dive into endometriosis and, you know, what that is and my journey and kind of how that has affected my life, I just want to reiterate that like when we met, I've I feel like I'm pretty good at making new friends quickly, but you were like the fastest friend I've ever made. You win the award. And the reason is because I think God truly wanted us to be together in this time of our lives, kind of what we were both going through. Yeah. And the thing that was wild was how many parallels we had. Just like our parents were the same age, you know, and they were both like ⁓ had been married the same amount of time. We you know, we both had we're both firstborns, we're both ⁓ We both had the same bus driver. We did. We did. Okay, so that's weird. We don't know who Nelly is. She was ⁓ I mean, if you don't know her at all, you should just get to know her. Anyway, but She was in ⁓ a band called Jane Deer Girls. and I did my own little solo thing in pop music. So we weren't in the same genre. But then when I went on tour with ⁓ new kids and Backstreet Boys in 2011, this our bus driver, my bus driver and all my, you know, my my team's bus driver was talking to us about this girl because I was really sick on the road. And he was saying, ⁓ yeah, I I I used to drive for the Jane Deer girls and this girl. Was he calling you Nelly or Danelle? At that point I was ⁓ Danelle, which is my legal name. And probably half the people in my life still call me Danelle. Yeah. Other other people call me Nelly. I respond to pretty much anything. So Hey you? ⁓ and so he was talking about this girl, Danelle, also known as Nellie, and saying that she had a lot of ⁓ I was having like so many health issues on the road. I had to stop eating ⁓ dairy and wheat because it was a affecting my voice. And I like subsisted on almonds. For the entirety of the tour. And I was yeah, I it was miserable. And he was like, Yeah, I've actually seen this before. And so I didn't know who she was. Obviously, I looked her up while I was on li, you know, like things were just not as online as they are now. It'd be really easy to find you and learn your story now. But back in 2011, that was sort of ⁓ not the way. So I just took his word for it and he was like, I think you'd really like her. ⁓ correct. What was his name again? I'm I'm blanking. I'm actually not gonna say his name and the reason is because he actually got fired from our gig. ⁓ and the reason was because not that we need to go on a tangent, but it's quite a funny story that I think your audience would laugh at. One d one night I woke up at like three in the morning and I literally walked to the front of the bus and I find our bus driver sitting not in the driving seat, but in the passenger seat. Drinking beer while our guitar player was driving our tour bus down the road. Was this guitar player sober? I don't know and I don't want to know, but we're all safe. And anyways, it was hard because I really loved this bus driver. But the and he was actually very supportive and kind to me as I was going through my health journeys. And he saw firsthand a lot of the the incredibly difficult. health issues I was navigating, you know, he had to be the one that like two in the morning, we think Danelle's having appendicitis. Get off the highway, get to the nearest hospital. Like he was that that guy, along with my tour manager Todd, who I'm still extremely close to. And they really helped navigate the more acute, serious in the middle of the night situations, which there were quite a few of those moments. Are you cool with me diving in now and just talking about endometriosis, my journey, how it began and kind of give my little cliff notes version. Absolutely. Okay, cool. The first thing I want to start with is if you take away one thing from this interview, I want it to be periods should not be painful. I didn't know this. So when I was in high school and I was like praying to God that my period wouldn't come on a track meet because I was a pole vaulter and I knew that I wasn't going to be able to fly high if I was literally vomiting in the toilet from pain. You know, I didn't no one ever said to me, periods shouldn't be painful. And I just thought, this is what happens, pain, woman, they go together. This is how God made us. Really bad orchestration. Thank you for that. And I and I accepted it, you know, and I I fig I considered myself to be like a tough person. So I'm like, I why am I I shouldn't complain about this. I should just hold it in because other girls aren't having this pain. So maybe I'm just dramatic, which I am dramatic, let me be clear. But the truth is the best kind of drama. It is it is true. The best kind of dramatic. But the truth is, like, as I got older and my symptoms worsened and I started doing my own research. It was really right before Jane Deer Girls hit the road. I had just gotten my record deal with Warner Brothers. I knew ⁓ that things were gonna get crazy just from what people were telling me, Radio Tour. I didn't know what Radio Tour was, but they'd said you're gonna be in a different city every day. And I was smart enough to blog. It's a slog and I know you get it. You've been there. ⁓ so I, to my credit, did my own research, went to the doctor and I was so excited because I remember thinking, I know what this is. Like, I did all my my internet research and my symptoms were spot on with this thing, this weird disease called endometriosis. I could barely say it at the time, you know. I didn't know what that word meant until I saw it on the internet and my symptoms lined up with like ⁓ extreme abdominal pain, IBS, ⁓ which IBS is arible bowel syndrome. Basically you're running to the shitter all the time. It's it's it's super glamorous. And you know, I actually had many moments on stage where I had to run off and ⁓ gosh. Yeah. So it's okay. But you know, sorry if to the audience members that may have s may have seen me bail on a few shows. I listen now you know why. At least I was just the backup singer. I was just singing harmonies. It wasn't that good big a deal, really. I mean, as long as there's a lead singer, does anybody really care? But you know, so yes, like IBS, ⁓ then my symptoms progressed to things that lined up very similarly to appendicitis, but it wasn't appendicitis. So before my cycle, I would end up just full on vomiting my brains out from the pain and it would radiate down my entire legs, my hips. I couldn't walk. And I felt like the weirdest symptom was my back felt like it was on fire. I've had a lot of painful moments in my life. Like I've I broke my wrist pole vaulting, I had surgery, you know, I've like done some wild things and I didn't even cry when that happened. Like my pain threshold's pretty darn high. And I will tell you that ⁓ out of everything that I've gone through in my life, the the level of pain that comes with endometriosis when you're having a full bone episode is unparalleled to anything I've ever experienced. And I found out later actually that they're now actually verbalizing that endometriosis is one of the most painful diseases in the world. I didn't know this. And there's just now starting to be awareness because of Lena Dunham and all these famous women that have, you know, had to have hysterectomies or their life just turned upside down because of this crazy disease. So I go into the doctor's office and it was a female, which I was stoked about because I thought this is a woman, this is a safe place. She's gonna listen to me, she's gonna hear what I'm saying, and she's gonna help fix this problem, right? And I told her that I'd done my research and then I was pretty sure I had endometriosis and I've probably had it for a long time since you know I was in high school. And without even skipping a beep, this woman literally chuckled under her breath and said, All women have painful periods. And then she said, Even my daughters, I just put ⁓ on birth control and they're fine. You'll be fine. And it was literally like I was like, Well, aren't you gonna examine me? Are shouldn't we do an ultrasound? Can we do like an MR an MRI? No, nothing. Just like here's some pink pills and get out of my office so I can get on to the next. And I left her office and I just balled my eyes out because never in my life have I felt so dismissed. Yeah. By by a woman, by the way. You know, you would expect like No no offense, but being in the music industry, you're gonna understand how this goes. Being in the industry that we're in, it is really common for a man to not listen to a woman or to kind of treat you like you're a little bit crazy, or you're a little bit too much, or you're being dramatic, whatever. Whereas if, you know, a guy was saying the same thing I was saying, they would be heard, they would be taken seriously. So there is definitely that energy in the music industry that I was already used to navigating. Right. But I that's why I felt safe approaching a woman. Yeah. You know, that that was honestly pretty young. She seemed to be like in her forties. She wasn't like an older, jaded, you know, bitter woman. She was beautiful. You had high hopes. I had high hopes. And that's when I learned, ⁓ I've got a long road ahead of me. But I also found myself immediately questioning all of my research. Maybe I am crazy. Maybe I am dramatic. Maybe I am making all this up. And that kind of emotional Trauma when you're going through physical pain. I can't even articulate. It's a mind didn't say it. Didn't say it because my mom doesn't like the F bomb. Okay. I'll just say Marcus did drop one after suggesting, should I? I was like, Yeah, you can. Well, you know what? I'll let your husband be the award winner. I try I've been known to drop the F bomb, but my mom really hates the F bomb and I know she'll probably watch this, so Okay. But we will not do that. Yeah, I'll I'll I'll say shit and damn maybe a few other things, but we'll leave that one. But point being, when you're in physical pain, that causes mental pain, like for real. And then on top of that, when a doctor that, you know, has gone to med school that's a woman that you sat and talked with doesn't even give you the time of day and basically alludes to you making this up and it not even being a real thing. You're thinking those thoughts as you're like actively sick. And that that's a that's its own cycle. And ⁓ I don't think I even realized how traumatizing that was until I got diagnosed many years later and had my first surgery and could kind of exhale not just the physical pain and the physical trauma, but the emotional trauma of believing that I was some kind of fraud and I had made this up, right? Right. So and I just think a lot of people, well. There went my light. Okay. It's fine. We'll keep rolling. You can leave that. ⁓ so the long story short is that then the Jane Deere girls did go out on tour, right? And and radio tour was a bitch. You know how it is. It's very intense. So, like, even a healthy individual who doesn't have a disease is gonna struggle when you're doing a different city every single day, sleeping in hotels, away from what you're used to. Yeah. I mean you can elaborate on that. Sleeping in cars too. Like it's just not comfortable. Physically uncomfortable, it's not glamorous. Nothing really in music is glamorous except for when you're on stage and there are other photos being taken of you or back. You know, whatever. The photos look fine. Everything to and from is just not glamorous at all. And it feels It feels that much harder bec when you're a woman too, because you have to wake up that much earlier to get looking the part. ⁓ and so yeah, I remember so many and also just you're going into office buildings. You're not going on stages, you know, you it's just it's funky. So I ca I I didn't feel great during this time, but it was mostly just exhaustion. It was not endo on Well, yeah. And I mean, the thing is like that's a great example of what I'm talking about. A normal person that that doesn't have endometriosis is already not gonna feel good. Just because you're running a hundred miles an hour, they don't give you time to rest, and your body, most people's bodies have a difficult time keeping up. And that's why a lot of people And I don't know about you. Yeah. If but they like whenever we were in any city, hey, let's fit fourteen things in this day. While we're here for this one purpose, we're also gonna make it worth our while. And that adds up. Sorry, sorry, I didn't mean to remember it now. It's true. It's it's so true. So the long story short of it is we start radio tour. I was signed to Warner Brothers and ⁓ great label. I loved everybody there that I worked with, and a lot of the radio reps saw firsthand what was happening, and it was very concerning. I would have these episodes where like literally the worst of it, of course, happens right as Jason Aldean's tour starts. So like During radio tour, they're seeing me barely keeping up. I didn't know that I was anemic. My color was depleted. I had lost a lot of weight from IBS. Just not being able to keep food in. I remember like John Rich, who is one of my he was my producer and he's like, you know, a big brother to me, and he called me one time and was like, West Texas, that's what he calls me. You need to eat a hamburger. You're losing weight. Eat a hamburger. I'm like, dude. I am eating I eat, it just won't stay. Yeah. Like, what do you do when you're shitting your brains out, dude? Like I mean, I didn't tell him that. Now he's probably gonna watch this and be like, No, I get it. But but I I just so but after he called me, I did I started eating more hamburgers and and I started eating a lot of protein shakes, which did help a little bit just like keeping at least maintaining a certain weight and not continuing to lose. But it was hard. Really hard to keep the weight on. ⁓ and You know, my label could see that I was like just struggling to keep up. So then we land the tour with Jason Aldean, ⁓ right after our single goes top twenty. We had just played Jimmy Kimmel, our album came out, it was like all cylinders are firing on the career side. But that of course is right when my physical health just I mean, Ashley and it just deteriorated. And I remember being so frustrated thinking, I've worked my entire life for this moment. Okay, and and here it is, like it's it's all my dreams are coming true. I always wanted to play live TV, you know? I always wanted to go out on a big tour and play an arena show and get to be an opening act and then someday hopefully be a headliner or whatever and and as those things were happening and going like this, my health was going like that and I mean just plummeted. And the first really bad episode I had was on the tour bus in the middle of the night. ⁓ I started vomiting. We didn't know what was wrong. They go they take me to the ER because they thought I had appendicitis, because I could not stop vomiting. And if you're growing up on a plane, I mean on a plane or a bus. That is like extra. Yeah. By the way It's not the great place to people feel anything other than lovely. By the way, people don't know if you don't know how tour buses work. You're not supposed to go number two on the bus, okay? On a lot of them. Some of them maybe. Yeah. 'Cause I ended up getting food poisoning on the way to a wedding and it was Jamie Johnson's bus that we were taking to this wedding and ⁓ luckily he was like, You're okay You're allowed to poop. ⁓ my gosh. I had to vomit. I was vomiting. I was gonna say like permission to poop. Okay, now please. Yeah, no, it wasn't that. It was it was permission to vomit because I I ate some bad sutures with me. All right, continue. Okay, well in this bus that we were in, it probably wasn't the most high end tour bus because it was our first one. Whatever Warner Brothers could probably find. We weren't Jason Aldean, let's put it like that. So we didn't have our own Prevo. and we were not supposed to go number two and definitely weren't supposed to vomit in it, but whatever. You do what you do, and it's the middle of the night. Couldn't stop vomiting. They get me to a hospital. Mind you, I'm in the middle of like we had left one arena show opening for Jason Aldean and Eric Church. We're on our way to another arena show, right? And so there was like no time to be sick. They they immediately rush me to the hospital. They say it's appendicitis, appendicitis, you can't stop vomiting, her blood count's this, her blood pressure's this. All signs were appendicitis. They run the MRI and Literally they go, Mm, nope, no appendicitis. ⁓ we do see a hemorrhagic cyst on her right ovary. That's it. That's all we can see. We're gonna load her up with a whole bunch of pain medicines, give you a shot in the ass of whatever it was, steroids, I don't know. Cortison. And and we're gonna throw you back on stage and you're gonna play tonight like nothing's wrong. And then we're gonna go to the next city and move on. And there was never time also, mind you, we're in these like podunk hospitals, right? So Yeah. No offense to small town America. I love small town America. But when you're sick and you're really sick, where do they take you? To a big city. Not somewhere that's three hours out in the sticks off of Ohio. I think I went to El Paso once, ⁓ and they gave me a cortisone shot and I think I was in Amarillo actually too at some point and I got a shot. Yeah. And Where's that? My hometown. Yeah, that's where she's from. It was during a show and literally whatever shot they gave, it left an intention in my butt for two years. It like it was the wrong needle or something. ⁓ a concave butt from McCormick. It looked like someone pressed their thumb into my butt. And it stayed that way. Yeah. It was interesting. Anyway, talk about a Talk about a battle scar, Ashlyn. I mean, listen, I got I got a few cortisone shots in the ass. None of them left ⁓ any like concave marks. Or maybe they did, and I just didn't think to keep it. Yeah. So the long story short is that's the first warning sign of like, ⁓ she is really not doing good. And then the IBS started getting worse. And then I don't remember where I was. We were at some festival somewhere. I'm holding my coffee one morning on the bus. And I was just actually reliving this experience the other day with ⁓ my tour manager because Todd is he became like a big brother to me, an angel. He's a literal angel. And the long story short is the way he told the story as we were talking about it, I was holding my coffee. I had just turned around, shut the bus door, was walking back towards it, and then I collapsed. And it I was out cold. Like I don't know how long I was out for, but ⁓ Todd said the paramedics rushed to the bus and ⁓ I woke up however long later and there were like lights all around me, paramedics looking down at me. They're I mean they were doing whatever they could do to make sure I was alive, which I was alive, and I thought I really thought I had died. I didn't die. That's my drama. It was that I had blacked out and So of course then they take me back to the hospital. They're trying to figure out why is this artist not staying coherent? Because what happened was when I blacked out, I woke up, came to, and then I was in and out, in and out of consciousness. And that's not good. And so long story short, come to find out, I because of my endometriosis, which I didn't know I had, I had ⁓ You did though. You knew. I n I knew I hadn't been formally diagnosed, right. I had been dismissed. Intrinsically in my heart, I knew something was wrong and that it was endometriosis. But the long story short is I became anemic. Because when you have endometriosis really bad, so women who are watching this, if you are wondering, do I have endometriosis, please go down the checklist. Are your periods painful? Do you have IBS? Do you vomit when you have your periods? Have you ever blacked out from anemic? Or are your are your iron levels in general just low? Because if you're spending too much blood, your iron levels are going to drop. Okay, you're gonna feel weak, you're gonna feel tired. All of these things are things to look for. And a lot of people don't have all of the symptoms. They might just have one or they might have two, or the kicker, they might have no symptoms, but then they can't get pregnant. And I've had that happen to a friend where she was like, I had no symptoms. I had silent endometriosis. We didn't explore. I didn't know that was a thing. It is. ⁓ with endometriosis, there's stages. One, two, three, four. Each stage doesn't necessarily directly correlate with the level of pain a patient might be experiencing. For example, if you have endometriosis on your kidneys or your bowels, it's gonna be painful. A lot of times, this particular woman who didn't know she had it, it was on her fallopian tubes. That's why she couldn't get pregnant. They did the exploratory surgery surgery, remove the endometriosis, boom, she got pregnant. Okay. It wasn't causing her pain, so she didn't know she had it, but obviously she had something wrong. She couldn't get pregnant. So infertility is also a sign of endometriosis. If you cannot get pregnant, go to the doctor and say, I wanna rule out endometriosis. You know, it's not hard nowadays. There's they're coming up with new tech t technology. You sent me a thing recently, like a saliva test. Yeah. There's even blood tests coming out. There's even ultrasounds now that show certain kinds of inflammation. None of this was available when I got diagnosed, right? Okay, so then fast forward, I started having kidney problems. And people are probably like, kidney problems? What does what does that have to do with your ovarian organs or your uterus, right? A lot, actually, because endometriosis can attach itself to any organ in your body. I mean, pretty much anything your heart, your lungs, your bladder, your uterus, your ovaries, your kidneys, your bowels, you name it, it can go there. And although it won't kill you. It can disrupt your organs and cause you to have to A have surgery to remove it or B sometimes you'll lose an organ. A lot of times people lose ovaries, uteruses, kidneys have even been had to take been taken, appendixes, you name it, like it can be extremely disruptive. And so in my case, the inflammation in my body was so bad from the endometriosis, it was causing constant UTIs and kidney problems and I remember kind of like the grand finale for me putting my foot down with my manager. He was basically like not willing to give me a break. And I understand like canceling a an opening slot on a on a ⁓ arena tour is very expensive. So I was actually not willing to cancel any of those. I did a few of those shows so drugged up from whatever the hospital gave me. I don't remember doing them. Like I I don't remember anything about them. I apparently got on stage, went through the motions, and I got off and fell right back asleep. So but at some point, once my kidneys weren't healing, my doctor in Nashville, who is, I think, your family doctor at Vanderbilt. Yeah. He's amazing. Peach Peach. He basically was like, ⁓ hey, so you've been on the wrong antibiotic for we th Again, small town America, love you, but sometimes doctors aren't the best out there. And they thought I just had a UTI and they were treating me as a UTI and they put me on two different medicines. They were wrong. It was in my kidneys and I had been operating on a full blown kidney infection for three weeks and Dr. Pete was just like, Yeah, so you know, like you need your kidneys to live. Like, you know, like those are I just remember him say and I'm sure he didn't say it exactly like that. But it's like common sense like so you know your kidneys like need to work for you to stay alive and keep doing what you're doing. Maybe you should like talk to your manager about taking just like forty eight hours off. And so I'll never forget I called in my manager. Sorry, can I just say also one of the sorry it's like Dr. Peach is one of the nicest human beings ever. He's not condescending at all. So I know it wasn't like that for but also ⁓ during my tour stuff when I was struggling and needing all this medication or whatever I was also texting Dr. Peach. He was that was one more thing we had in common. Yeah. Yeah. So add it add it to the list of like so many things that you and I strangely have in common, that one being one of them. But Dr. Peach was like a a godsend angel during that time because he would text me when I was out on the road and just really care and took care of me. And ⁓ we can talk more about him later. But the long story short was he reiterated like, you need your kidneys. So I Called my manager and I said, here's the deal. I need 48 hours off. I've never asked to cancel anything, but this is literally just a club show in Iowa. It's not a ⁓ an arena show. I have taken one for the team. I'm very sick. Something is wrong. And he pushed back on it and did not want to cancel it. And all I'm gonna say is that the airport in Nashville, Tennessee, heard me lose my mind and I went off on that man. I was like, I'm done. I'm done being nice. And I went off on him and said, basically if you want a dead artist, this sounds like a great idea. I'm not showing up. I'm taking two days off. You can reschedule it and F U mother trucker. Click. See. See what I did there? I didn't say it. You didn't say it. That was restraint. Restraint. I was coughing for how you how you actually dealt with that. ⁓ I ⁓ I I remember having ⁓ I was in this sorry, this is becoming tour hour. ⁓ but we talk a lot about a lot of things on this show. ⁓ it's kind of evolving anyway. So this is a natural ⁓ you know, detour. ⁓ was going on the Ellen show. the night before I did like a ⁓ a late, late, late night ⁓ at a gay club in West Hollywood. That morning I did something ⁓ like a downtown LA. Like so and we were leaving the day after that. I think I was gonna do the Gracie Awards and then we're gonna leave for a full month on the on this particular New Kids Backstreet Tour in 2011. So schedule was chock full before we left for a full arena tour. and my dancer, one of my dancers, got strep, didn't tell me. So we're doing all our rehearsals for new choreography. for Ellen. Gonna debut the tour choreography on Ellen first. Great idea. ⁓ and so she's sick. We're all around each other for days. And I am ⁓ of course I'm like, I'm gonna get sick. I know I'm gonna get sick right before this tour starts, right before Ellen, right before the Gracie's, whatever. And I'm gonna have strep. And you can dance with strep. You can deal deal with it. You cannot sing with strep. And and it was it was an unforgiving schedule that I was about to hit up head up. Pretty soon. So I go to the doctor in Beverly Hills and I'm like, hey, this is what's going on. He gives me like a horse size pill ⁓ of antibiotics. I don't know if they're like pre antibiotics or whatever, but I was willing to do whatever to not get sick. ⁓ also in that same we ⁓ just popped into my brain, who came in after me was mixteemie, rest in peace. Anyway, but I took it the day of Ellen and I didn't eat enough. I ate like a muffin and I it was a bigger pill than I was you I guess my body was used to. So I'm doubled over, throwing up. ⁓ and if you've ever taken a vitamin and it it did you didn't eat enough or whatever you forgot to eat it all, it is the most annoying pain. And I didn't know what it was though. So I'm like, ⁓ no, I gotta get in a car and I gotta drive to Burbank from West Hollywood and it's someone's Mercedes that was sent to pick me up to go to Ellen and I was like, I'm bringing a bag. with me. And so we're driving, I'm telling the guy, like, hey, just FYI, I I might get sick. I brought a bag. So we get there. I'm curled up 'cause I'm in so much pain. Not in dopein, I'm sure. But just like wrenching pain. I mean, yeah. Ugh. And not knowing that it was the medication at this point. I thought, ⁓ no, this is gonna get worse. And I hate throwing up more than anything else on the planet. And it gives me more anxiety, whatever. So long story short, my manager at the time comes in and he is not happy with me. As if I chose this, as if I wanted to be curled up in a dressing room privately. And he got into, you know, not in my face, because he was a nice guy, usually, but like this was a big deal. And he really like he was doing his job and he really needed me need to do my job. And I get that. But I was like, I'm in my dressing room. I'm not on stage. Would you like me to throw up on the stage or like me like get through it here? You know? And in and that was like a push and pull And I f I I'm like going back there mentally now that you're saying stuff because it's it's such an interesting thing. If you have a regular job that does not require you to go on stage, none of this stuff really matters. You just don't go in. You just you take a day off. You do like you don't have to you don't have to do do all this work sick as a dog or afraid that you're sick as a dog. and and also have no time to recover. I think that's what gave me some of my most the most amounts of anxiety during my twenties was being like, I don't have time to get better. I don't have I I can't afford to get sick because I don't have time to get better. Because I'm not we're not big enough yet to make it to where they can just cancel it and say, Sorry, Rihanna couldn't make it today. You know, like I'll be back soon, guys. It's like, no, they forgot you by the time you get back. And so, ⁓ and not not to to I was I was the artist. I was the only one. You know, no one else could even step up and do it. And so you weren't singing backgrounds. You were singing lead. You know, and that's So anyways, yeah. I get you. And what had happened? What happened during my th my vomiting? I popped a blood vessel in my vocal cord. So that did happen. And nothing fixed it. I had to sing on Ellen. They used my first, like put you know, they do two multiple ⁓ recordings. They used my first one because I w I hadn't pushed it too hard. I was afraid to push it too hard. Because I thought, what if I pop it completely and I can't do my tour or I can't sing at the Gracies? Like I had all these things coming up that I couldn't just like caution to the wind. No and so anyway, this is just a little in behind the scenes of how it feels to live when you're on tour. ⁓ talk about not glamorous. So please go back to where you were. Sorry. I mean, no, no, don't be sorry. I think it's important for people to this is kind of a unique s probably something new for your podcast because you don't you don't talk about touring and all that all on the regular necessarily and I'll talk to sickly people like myself. But I think that it's ⁓ important for people to understand that when artists are out on the road, they are just humans and they're doing their best and every show that they do, they're at least I could say for myself, I gave it my all. I showed up as happy as I could, as joyous as I could, even if I felt like I'd been run over by a freight train. And And I think that For me moving forward in my career now, I definitely would I would advocate for myself more. Yeah. ⁓ just because I definitely didn't put my health first in the Jane Deere Girls. And if I'm being honest, once I ended up in Gone West, which was many years later with my husband, ⁓ my sweet husband and ⁓ Colby Cal and Colby Calais and Justin Young. I I think that because that situation again, so exciting getting to do all these amazingly cool opportunities, again, feeling like, ⁓ how lucky am I? Like I never thought I would get a second shot at being on live T V or doing any of that. And so once again, even though I knew at that point I had endometriosis and could communicate that and advocate for that, I still struggled. to set boundaries for what I needed with my health. And so you know how life is. It's a it's a big game and we're here to learn lessons, right? So you're one of my best friends, I can promise you right now, whatever I do moving forward, I will be advocating for my health first and foremost, because careers come and go, you know, but your health, your body, this is the one body gate God gave you. And it's our job to take care of it, to fuel it, to protect it, to honor it. ⁓ and I definitely haven't done that. I've always put my career first. Back to kind of what ended up happening, I'd canceled those shows. I took a couple of days off. I recovered. My kidneys did start to heal. And then it wasn't until the Jane Deer girls broke up right. Susie decided To quit the band. It was like right as Jason and I were actually getting married in ch February twenty. Not Al Dean, Jason Reeves. Jason Reeves. Yeah. Yeah. No, I'm not married to Jason Al Dean. Okay. Anyway. Need a second. All right. Thanks for taking me out on tour though. I did have a fun tour experience, but I don't think we'd be compatible. And he's married. So no no no rumors need to be spread. No but back to our podcast. So ⁓ where was I? You were saying it was brighter on the time. ⁓ right. You and Jason were getting married or about to get married. What would I do without you? So anyway, Jay ⁓ Susie and I broke up and it was about a month later, after I had just gotten married, that I had a really, really bad episode and I was sent to Vanderbilt. Thank God I went to an actual hospital that's in a big city. And I mean, Vanderbilt's one of the best hospitals in the world. How lucky are we to live in this city where we have access to that, right? And that's that's where I met a doctor by the name of Ted Anderson. And at this point I had a novel of medical history. He looked through it all and he's like, ⁓ anemia, okay, kidney problems, okay, ⁓ appendicitis symptoms, vomiting. with your cycle IBS and he just looks at me and he was like and he's and he knew that I had this persistent hemorrhagic cyst that at this point I had had for well over a year, just growing in size, inhabiting my abdomen, like a little friend that I didn't want in there. And he said, You probably have endometriosis. And I started to bawl because I'm like You're like, dude, I'm like a year and a half ago I sat in Vanderbilt with a lady and I told her what I thought I had and I tried to get Some help before my career got so busy. Yeah. And and she just blew me off, kicked me to the wind, gave me birth control, which by the way, birth control does work for endometriosis for some people. If you have stage two, three, four, probably not. Maybe, probably not. Like I had. Also, too, birth control made me crazy. I was ready to jump off a bridge. The depression and anxiety that it brought on wasn't worth ⁓ whatever health benefits it may have given, which it didn't give me any anyway. But he said, I want to do an MRI. And I said, Thank you. And I just said, Let's do it. So we do the MRI. And this story is kind of wild and weird and is it'll sum everything up how God is working. It's a family story. Yeah. It is. And it kind of sums up how in our life we think One door is closing and our life is over. Like when you went through your divorce, I know you felt like, ⁓ my goodness, my life is over, it's ending. But little did you know this window was gonna open and you're gonna meet your h husband and then you're gonna And by way, I can sort of credit you for that too, because if I had not said yes to Steph to come to her party and then gone to the next one, knowing that you'd be there, Colby would be there, we'd like all these new friends of mine would be there. I would not have met Harmony and Harmony would not have been like our little e harmony. So thank you. Does she know you call her e Harmony? That's so funny. We called her ⁓ before like we got we wanted to like get married before we got married because ⁓ just logistical th things and so I texted her from the plane when we were coming home in two thousand nineteen. our parents had just met, it was great. And so I was like, Hey, can you meet us? We we really need your help with something. And little did she know she was gonna be our witness to get married. ⁓ my gosh. Yeah. So Harmony is one of my favorite people in the world. And she was at that party. And then as fate would have it, I heard she showed a photo to Marcus. A group photo. It was ⁓ she posted on Instagram. That's what it was. Yeah, it was on Instagram and Marcus was like, Who's that? Who's that? And Harmony's like That's my friend. And she's single. And I'm eHarmony. Let me connect you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was a funny story. But well, so I guess Stephanie Chapman could be the first connector. Mm-hmm. Thank you, Stephanie, because that's how we're friends. And then the second would be me. And the third would be Harmony. How cool is that how God works? And they were all people that who I met in this post divorce era. You know, it wasn't it was like a new rush. So yeah, like what you're saying about a feel something feeling like How could this be good? ⁓ to go back to what you're saying. It yeah, it can. It can get better. It can. And I just think that's important for people to remember and to hold on to because this was like the darkest hour for me. I had just gotten married, which was amazing, but I lost my care I lost my career. Yeah. You know, Jane Deere's girls were dead. And I my dog had just died. ⁓ and long story short. I thought, okay, now I'm about to get diagnosed with this disease and that's probably gonna lead to surgery, blah, blah, blah. My life is over. In my brain, that's what I was drawing to. And by the way, and I can also speak to this. I this is so this is this is so classic for for you and me. Me too. ⁓ like in every yeah. Me too. ⁓ me too. Me too. And ⁓ and when you stop, even a a fledgling c career in music, you know, like it it's not a huge it it's really It's really a weird experience because everyone else has this idea of what you have accomplished. Yeah. And to be able to say or have to say, like, yeah, that's not happening anymore. It's like a mix of so many emotions. And so I can understand why you would feel like my life is over because it's like life as you know it was going in one direction and like you said, like your health was going in another. Yay, you're getting married, but you know, whatever. It's it's it's a lot. It It was my identity and I put so much weight into the fact that people knew me as a Jane Deere girl, someone that they had heard, you know, the song Wildflower on the radio and I put way too much stock into that. And so anyway, fast forward to that MRI and this is where it gets trippy. Cool. I ⁓ the lady was really sweet. She, you know, when if you've ever done an MRI before, ⁓ they put you in a tube, they put headphones well At least at Banner Belt. They headphones on you because it's really loud. And you don't have to wear headphones if you don't want to, but I opted in and said, Yes, I'd like to wear headphones. ⁓ and I'm also very claustrophobic. So getting slid like into a tube. I was like, if if music will help me distract me, let's do that. But I didn't tell her what kind of music I wanted in the headphones. I just was like, just put music on. She slides me in, she turns the machine on. It's loud. I'm uncomfortable, my anxiety's out the roof. And it was about I don't know, a few minutes into that MRI that and this is where it gets crazy because your family's part of this, and I don't even know if you know this story. So No, I don't know this story at all. Long long story short, I'm lying in this tube, I can't breathe, my life is over, blah, blah, blah. I'm having this pity party. And all of a sudden, in my headphones, burst off. I need to back up. She put country music on in my headphones and I was pissed because I was like, Why? Why? Like I I just left that. I don't want country music on in my headphones. Like you're torturing listen to music for months or maybe even years in the car. I started listening to radio like talk radio. No, I was just like, You're torturing me. I just got like Dropped from my label, the band is over, and now you're gonna put I'm gonna have to hear all these country artists that I got to know or toured with in my ears. Thanks for the torture. This hour is gonna suck. So anyway, that's where my mind was at too. The pity party was real. And all of a sudden this guitar riff comes on. It's like bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum I'm like, ho what? Holy shit. Ashlyn, that was the first time I ever heard A song that I wrote for Big and Rich called That's Why I Pray that was on the radio. It had just debuted at radio. and guess who produced That's Why I Pray by Big and Rich? That would be Dan Hoff. Dan Hoff, your father, who I didn't even know at that time because I didn't know you. I d I mean I knew of I knew of Dan. I knew of you through our bus driver and stuff. Right. But I started to just bawl. I wanted I wanted to like kick and scream and And jump up and down and celebrate that like ⁓ my gosh, I moved to Nashville to become a songwriter and I fell into the artist thing. Obviously that's happened a few times and it's been a huge blessing in my life. But nothing gives me greater joy than hearing someone sing a song of mine. Like that is the coolest. It's the most rewarding. And it's something I had always wanted to have happen. I never ever thought that it would. And then for one career to and for one career to end. Like literally be over. And then this other career, this songwriting career, take off at the same exact time. It was like a door was slamming shut, and God was saying, You need to stop. You need to be still. You need to take care of yourself and look what can happen. Here's a window. And and while you're in this tube, literally be still. But also if you so Nelly's a phenomenal songwriter. So is Jason, her husband. ⁓ and I am so glad. I mean, like, you guys are me she's in the studio right now if you're watching her. ⁓ are you? Wait, are you in the studio? Actually, no, you're in there upstairs. Jason's up there working. Okay, so you that was the plan. But then when I was looking at it earlier, I was like, God, that looks like your dining room table area. It is. Okay. I pivoted. I pivoted because Jason, I haven't been there in a while. Jason's upstairs working, but yeah, no, so like The long story short of it is, ⁓ a door shut, a window opened, and in that tube, I just cried because I was so grateful that I could have planned it that my artist career was gonna literally die at this moment where it needed to, because that allowed me the time and space to be at Vanderbilt to meet Dr. Anderson and reclaim my health. And at the same time, boom, I started getting songs recorded by other artists. That was the first one, but then Kelly Clarkson recorded a song of mine and and then Sony changed my writer deal to where I could just become like a staff writer and write for other artists, which was such a great joy. And I got to be at home and not have to travel. And the long story short is that that MRI came back and Dr. Anderson said, You have you have got endometriosis and this is bad and we're gonna do a surgery. So we did the surgery a f a few weeks later, he went in and there was a massive cyst that had glued my ⁓ basically my ovary was glued stuck to my pelvic wall. ⁓ yeah. And then I had endometriosis all over my pelvis and other areas, and that's why whenever my period would come, these these ⁓ painful moments that radiated throughout my entire body were caused by that. And that's what caused the vomiting. It's what caused The IBS, the anemia, the kidney problems. And guess what, Ashlyn? When I woke up from that surgery, I remember thinking, like dreading waking up, thinking, ⁓ I'm gonna be in so much pain because surgery's painful. You know what happened? I woke up and it was it relief. I relief. Relief. Even though the surgery was painful and there were like, you know, you gotta like heal. ⁓ huh. Totally. I will tell you that within a month of that surgery. I have never felt that good in my entire life. And I realized I had been carrying that pain since I was sixteen years old. And that I actually didn't know what it was like to feel pain free until that surgery had happened. And ⁓ it's sad. It's sad that it took that long to find someone and it's sad that a woman dismissed me and that it had to be a man. Like I you would think it would be not I'm not trying to be sexist or anything, but No, but that's such a it's such a bummer and and I think it's important to talk about that. Because it's not to say all women are this or all men are that. Like it's literally saying you have this idea when you're going in that you're gonna be heard or seen or listened to or whatever. And and you think it it's a natural thing to think, okay, a woman, especially a woman with daughters, like surely. And so you put a lot of stock into what that person says. And if they come back and if they chuckle under their breath, first of all, big flag, because you should never do that to any patient ever or any human really, you know, when they're talking about something that's r that's clearly affecting their their everyday life. But then also to be like, I got you it this like a not even not even like check to see if their assumptions are right. Cause every single body is different from someone else's body. And I love that you said periods are not supposed to be painful. Yeah. Because if you start with that, you know, pain is also subject ⁓ sub objective? Objective. Subjective. I'm just I'm dyslexic. Don't ask me this. ⁓ I've always struggled with that one. I always go back and forth in my head. it's a relative thing. Like if you have a pain tolerance, a lot of pain for somebody is not a lot of pain for somebody else. And so when you say is it painful, yeah mine are painful too. But I don't know what your painful is because I don't have that. And so I think it's it warrants no matter what happens, if someone comes in and says it's really painful, you gotta figure out what that is. Cause it could be that it's you've got a low pain tolerance and they just need something to help with the pain. Totally. Or it could be an indicator that something else is going on and you've got to figure out what that is. But first and foremost, not assuming that everyone's threshold is the same and also that not everyone's ⁓ body is the same. Cause it's just not. No. It's just not. It's not. And I think for me the physical relief led to mental relief because all of a sudden I realized I wasn't crazy. I was correct. My intuition was right. And you know what I did at that point, Ashlyn? I went back and I I called my manager, who I wasn't working with anymore. And I called a lot of my coworkers that I worked with at Warner Brothers just so they could know like Guys, I n I know this was hard, and I know that you guys maybe thought, ⁓ she just is complaining because she doesn't want to go to do another radio station and before she has to do this arena show or whatever it is. But once they all realized that I had something like physically wrong and I was at risk of like losing my uterus and my ovaries. I mean my literally. Yeah. They they The response I got back from people was overwhelming. And I think people said sorry. Like, sorry we didn't believe you. Sorry we didn't help you. Sorry we didn't give you time off. Sorry, we you know, just and I think this is an important lesson for our industry in general, because yeah, I've heard so many stories where women have had something going on, and even men too. And And because it's a moneymaker to be out there on the road doing what you're doing and you're only making money and your team's only making money, you know, as long as it goes on. If the show goes on. If the train keeps going, that's great. Amazing. But the truth is, you cannot burn the candle at both ends. Like you have to protect your artist's physical health, emotional health, and mental health. It's all connected. And when they're screaming at you, literally ⁓ or even just calmly, which I did in the beginning. I I started I did both. I tried both attempts. You have to really listen and empathize. And I think there's a lot of managers and labels now that are doing a much better job at protecting artists' bodies because they realize this is if the body stops, the artist stops, the train stops, the money stops. This isn't rocket science, guys, you know. Pausing is not the same as stopping. Right. Building building in s ⁓ spaces, building in breaks, building in recovery. ⁓ whether that's like, you know, someone having to go to rehab or just literally like, Hey, I need forty eight hours for my kidneys to reset. Thank you. Yeah. ⁓ all that I mean, Marcus said it on the on our our episode and he was talking about the fertility of of it all. Like the body's not a machine, don't treat it like one. Right. And that is like that should be number one in I love that. management and artist management at Belmont University, which I actually took. ⁓ they didn't mention that, but I think it should be if you're listening out there, professors, the body's not a machine. So if you think of your artist or if you think of your ⁓ your band members or whoever it is that your client as a machine, as a product, you are going to be disappointed because they're not going to act like one. They might be able to at the beginning. I will say I was able to get it done at the beginning. Yeah. Because the exhaustion hadn't set in. Right. And I was able to sing ⁓ every high note, every single day. I warmed up, of course, but like I didn't have any wear and tear. Not like I ultimately did. And then, you know, if you if you pile on for a women for women, just the amount of time you're in here and makeup, that's extra hours in the morning throughout the day. That's not rest. You have to sit there like and be still and not get poked in the eye or whatever. You can't you're not lying down and chilling. ⁓ and then if you you add in all the the the little things in between all the big things, yeah, you're really just not getting any moments off ⁓ at all. And so if you build that over time when you're trying to build a career, I understand time is of the essence. I understand all that. But once the train stops, like you said, that's gonna be a much bigger break that you're gonna have to work in. Like maybe a rehab physical or mental or whatever, it's gonna be a lot worse. It's way better to to build it in on the front end. And also, yeah, like you said, if if you're the type of person who and it's sad that you had to get a diagnosis in order to do this, in order to reach out. But I'm so glad you did reach out to them and tell them. No. Not to say like F you, I did have something, but like, hey, feeling crazy as a woman is not okay. No. And I feel like Like I was so close with a lot of ⁓ the staff members at Warner Brothers and Yeah. I just felt like it was a really important lesson that everybody could kind of learn from. And and in full disclosure, like actually most of the Warner Brothers reps were incredibly supportive. Most of the issues I had with getting support were through management because they were more day to day anyway. Two more things I wanna say 'cause I know this podcast can't go on forever and ever, although we probably could talk all day. Yeah. Well, the first thing I wanna say is and this is not about endometriosis, but I just wanna say your dad with that song with That's Why I Pray, I don't know if I've ever told him this, but the demo, which I could totally send to you and Please you probably need to hear it. Yeah, I would love to. It's a cool demo, but it's it's not it's different. It's not great, okay? Honestly. It's the work takes we we we did it quick. You know what I mean? So I've had many songs recorded and reproduced by different producers, and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. This was one of those moments where with what he did to that song, A, it was so special to me because it my first like outside song that was taken to radio and whatever. But it he turned it into something that I could not have even envisioned. And it sounded, even though John and Big Kenny did not write that song, it was an outside song. It sounded like they wrote it because the production I remember this. And the vocals were so real and the production was so authentically true to what the song was saying. Anyway, so side note, I'm a super fan. I'm really honored that and grateful that he did that and more moreover, that he was part of creating you 'cause you're awesome. ⁓ and and your mom. Let's give your mom a shout out 'cause she's like She's like the mom that like if you if you're having an off moment with your mom, you just call Ashlyn's mom because like she she's she will shoot it straight and she loves everybody and treats your friends like they're her kids and ⁓ it's just really special. You've got amazing parents, but duh, that's why you're amazing. So ⁓ okay, I'll get off the soapbox, the the the huff soap soapbox. ⁓ one one thing I do think that's actually super important. about endometriosis that we didn't know then that we know now. If you think you have endometriosis or you're diagnosed, go freeze your eggs. Like either before or after surgery, consult with your surgeon on which is better with the timing. Your eggs, as you and I know with IVF, they don't stay young forever. And this is what I didn't know. No one told me and actually I don't think the literature was out until way later. But With endometriosis, your eggs are exposed to what's called oxidative inflammation, stress. So it's like having your eggs in a pressure cooker, like your podcast, and literally your eggs are just getting burnt. I don't know how else to explain it, but it's just like stress, stress, stress. ⁓ and so they age quicker. So had I known that endometriosis has this issue of constant inflammation ruining your egg quality. Right. I would have immediately froze my eggs when I was twenty eight when I got diagnosed. Unfortunately, I didn't know that. And I waited until I was like thirty-five, thirty-six, I don't remember, when I di first did my first round of IVF. And I did IVF what? I did three times. And yeah. The reason it didn't work for me is because of egg quality. Every embryo that we got Came back abnormal because just quite honestly, my eggs are cooked. I'm not saying that a miracle couldn't happen. And I did get pregnant one time naturally by fluke deal. And unfortunately the baby got stuck in my tube again, scarring and endometriosis still. You almost that was very bad, by the way. Yeah. I remember hearing about this. I was so scared. Jason texted us and Yeah, that was awful. Y say I'm so thankful. Your doctor was on call, right? So this is again how God works in crazy ways. Well, first off, one more thing you and I have in common. Of course, we got pregnant one week apart. Two friends that have all these things in common. You're going through for your fertility journey, which was very hard with IVF. You were like the only friend I had that understood that. ⁓ I have one other friend too, but she wasn't going through IVF. You and I were like on the same trajectory. The same time. Yeah. At the same time, you got pregnant. And then I remember I didn't tell very many friends that I had gotten pregnant. ⁓ you were like one of the only ones I called. And I said, I remember saying to you, Hey Ashlyn, what would you think about one of your besties being one week behind you? It was And that was like the happiest I don't want to cry, but like that was like the happiest I've ever been in my entire life. ⁓ Just I mean, A, knowing I was pregnant and then B knowing that we were gonna have babies at the same time. And you know, it's okay. It didn't work out that way, but you have your baby and I'm in this beautiful spot where I can have all this extra love to give to be the world's coolest auntie to all of my friends' kids. And I love that You are the coolest. And like I I have the capacity to step in and, you know, help. Our parents when they need help. Like just to be loving and put my love in people's lives in different ways. And and maybe it won't ever be as a parent, maybe it will. I don't know, TBD. But I am grateful that I'm alive because had I not listened to my intuition when I was pregnant and the pain started, if I just would have stayed at home, I was already bleeding internally. And I told my co writers and Jason who were there at the time, I said, I think I'm having an ectopic pregnancy. I texted Dr. Anderson, the same doctor that diagnosed me, and he said, It sounds like it's ectopic, go to the hospital. And had I not listened to my intuition and acted on that, I probably wouldn't be here today. And you know, a lot of women, well, first off, ectopic pregnancies are the leading cause of death in first trimesters. And most of the time it's because women don't know they're pregnant because it happens between six to nine weeks really early, right? You were like tracking like you were so on it, but a lot of people aren't. Who don't if you that's one of the good things about having infertility is that you're just a really, really aware of everything. But if if you're someone who doesn't have infertility stuff, yeah, that that could be like, well, what's wrong here? And I remember Jason was really afraid. Yeah. So I mean I got to the hospital. Freaked me right on out. Yeah, I know. And it was a hard I know he he it was a hard text for him to let you guys know that we were losing the baby because yeah. You were you were pregnant and I'm thinking, I don't want my friend to be like s you know. ⁓ no, no, no. What's that on me? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. But I know, but it's just like I wanted so badly to have babies at the same time. but point being, yeah, I was already bleeding internally by the time I got to the hospital. And Dr. Anderson ended up staying until 10 p.m. He was not the doctor on call that night, but he stayed to be there for me and to do my surgery and to save my life. And ⁓ I guess something I've kind of learned is like. Yeah, life is hard, but God gives you these little angels. Yeah. You just have to open your eyes and choose to see them. Whether it's a a good friend like you that can help walk through that with me and you understood the level of heartbreak I was feeling, because you've been through it. You've lost embryos that were babies. You've lost, you know, you've had negative pregnancy tests for years. You know what it feels like to hear the word no. And to not have a baby. And most of my friends didn't understand what that felt like. And so anyway, my point is just you have to open your eyes and be grateful for the angels that pop up because they're real and they're in real human form. It's not like it's some methodical thing that you can't see. It's your friends, your family, your doctors, the strangers. Yes. The the sheries. The strangers at the the strangers at the the at the hospital that just send you a smile. I mean, you know, like anyway, I I'm really grateful it worked out for you, I have to say, because when my friends have babies, it's like I think a lot of women think, ⁓ but aren't you jealous? No. Here's the thing. First off, what good would that do to be jealous of of of of someone else getting exactly what they deserve, right? Your child it's being around people's babies brings me so much love and joy. If I get just like one little snuggle, that'll buy me a month. You know what mean? Especially from yours. He's so cute. But like my friend Priscilla lives a couple miles down the road, and we've been really active in her three kiddos lives. And being able to pick up those boys from school or go to their birthday parties or just eat pizza and play Nintendo, whatever. That has filled my heart. And so when I tell you like I'm grateful when someone gets pregnant, I'm beyond grateful because that's another gift that we get to have in our life. And since we don't have kids, like every kid that we get to have in our orbit is a huge blessing, you know? And you came to my shower. Of course. You came to my shower and I talked about this with someone else and we can we can wrap up. But I talked about this with another friend who lives here in Colorado. And I didn't have a shower in Colorado because I we that was my coworker. Like literally the person I talk to every day. And she and I also were going through IBF at the same time. And I I don't have as much I don't have any family in here in Colorado. And I I have friends, but like I had my entire life worth in in Nashville. So I decided not to have one here and only have one in Colorado. I mean in Nashville. And ⁓ sh and partially because I didn't want her to have to ha make that decision or hear about it or whatever. And I was never gonna tell her that that was the case, but I did. I shared it with her on the podcast. And ⁓ anyway, I did not expect for you to come. I would have been fine, understood rather, if you had not come, but you did and it was in March and we were due, ⁓ in May. Yeah. You know, you know, your you are originally due in May. And so I was like, what are you doing? I'll put a picture of us at my shower when I was like, Are you smuggling a watermelon? Or well, so here's the thing. Full disclosure, I haven't gone to all of my friends' showers. And what I've kind of learned what I've learned is like it all depends on where my mental state is at at that point in time. And when I can show up and I'm genuinely excited and I want to be there. I'm gonna be there. But if if I'm depressed or if I'm going through something that's like already making life tough and I just feel like I can't genuinely show up and be pumped for whoever, then I'm not gonna go. And I'll give them a gift. Yeah, and I'll give them a gift later and hug them and love them and be so excited when that baby is born. But yeah, no, our babies were due in May. And my mine who we named Mira, Miracle, short for Miracle, our baby was due, oddly enough, on Mother's Day. Yeah. 'Cause you know how it is. You get pregnant and you put it into your little app and then it counts nine months and from the conception date or your last period and it does the math and it tells you, ⁓ your baby's supposed to be due on blah dah da day on Mother's Day I released an acoustic version Baby showers. A song called Baby Showers. And that was the first time I spoke openly about our journey with infertility, which I remember you know, in some ways has been awesome because it's allowed me to help other people that are going through this now. And in other ways it's been terrifying and hard because I feel like when I go out in public now, sometimes people are just wondering like, ⁓ are you pregnant yet? Yeah, right. You know? but it's okay. Like I know that If the if my story has helped one person, just like you doing this podcast, Ashlyn, and you you sharing your story and all these other people's stories, that's scary, but at the same time, if it helps anybody, just one person, it's worth it, you know? Yeah, and if and if you do get good news, whatever that may be, then it people know and they could you know, it's like you gotta share some of the harder stuff sometimes for someone to get excited for you, because if they don't know you've been through something, it's harder to celebrate. But the actual like intensity of how great that news is. And and that news doesn't have to necessarily come as a parent. It can come as something else. But I feel like, you know, I my big my big push for this podcast, and I think I want to expand it a little bit outside of just fertility because I feel like really the crux of this whole thing is to to have radical candor if you're willing. So that someone else can feel not everyone has to share everything all the time. But I feel like the main thing about fertility, because fertility touches us in a lot of ways, whether it ha you know, it happens to us through our partners or ourselves or whatever. But all of these things are so key to feeling normal. Yeah. Like that you're not the only one or you're not the the the the only person out there feeling this way, whether it be good or bad or kind of embarrassing or shameful or ugly, whatever. Yeah. And anyway, that's kind of the whole point of this. And so I'm so glad that you're willing to talk about. All of these things. I'm gonna put baby showers in the show notes because I want everyone to hear it. ⁓ because you have such a sweet voice anyway. And you're such a good songwriter. I mean, you're such the best person ever, and I can't wait to see you next time. This is why you're my best friend. You're my cheerleader. I feel the same way about you. I I don't know. I just our lives ⁓ and by the way, your voice sounds wonderful right now. ⁓ we were trying to get this a month ago and everyone she was like, ⁓ I'm sorry, I've completely lost my voice and I was like, I need like I need I need to hear this voice and it was so bad. You can share that too. Okay. If ⁓ you're wondering what I sound like, I hope this made you laugh. ⁓ my god. It was like a a deathly frog. Not even a frog, a deathbed frog. But another thing I'll I'll tell your audience too, if you think you have endometriosis and you want someone to support you, just DM me. Like I I am childless and I have time to r to respond to you. Unlike my friends who have three or four kids and are chasing them around and changing their diapers. So ⁓ my gosh. And and another thing too, I think people all are all asking me this question and I have not answered it publicly. So I just want to go ahead and put it out there. Okay. What better place? Everyone says Why haven't you adopted? Are you going to adopt? And here is my response. I prayed about it a lot. I took six months to meditate on that. And I feel like adoption is a calling. I really believe in my heart it is one of the most beautiful things you can do to walk into children's lives and to become a parent. At this point in our lives, we do not feel that calling. ⁓ and it has freed us up to again put our love into other places in our community. That's not to say that I couldn't wake up and change my mind. Yeah. Or whatever. But I do feel like it's important because people keep asking. And I would just kind of like people to know it's not so it's not something we're doing right now. And that's okay. ⁓ but I commend the people that do it. And I think that it's one of the most amazing gifts you can give the world. So that's where we're at. For the all the people that have been wondering You have asked. Yes. Well, and that's a great answer. Not like there's a right or a wrong answer there. But that's the honest answer. And like you said, if it's a calling, if you don't feel called, you shouldn't be answering that call. You know? Yeah, out of like feeling the need or pressure or even i perceived or or otherwise. So I'm glad that you're you're in that spot and you're you're thank you. You have to come do your own and that's that's to to try to become a parent in first place. ⁓ a lot of the infertility stuff, it comes with a lot of hard choices that ⁓ you have to just keep on deciding things one thing after the next what are you what route are you gonna take are you gonna go this next step that costs a million bucks are you gonna do the surrogacy route are you gonna do whatever like every single thing unlike getting pregnant on your own on accident or you know trying ⁓ it's just a different world when you have infertility issues. Well and that's another question people have been asking is you should just use a surrogate. And I'm I wanna also go ahead and clarify that. If we could have used a surrogate, we were going to use a surrogate. If we had one embryo, which is what we got on our last IVF round, and I've never said this publicly, we had one. And we had decided we were going to hand that off to someone else that had a healthier body to give us a better shot. Unfortunately the embryo came back abnormal, chromosomally, and it wasn't something that would be viable for any woman to carry. So I have laid my ego down in a sense I was like literally willing to let someone else carry our child. And unfortunately, it just didn't pan out. So that question is now also answered. Thank you for allowing me the space to do that. Of course. Of course. ⁓ I I'm glad that you're able to answer these questions. and I'm I'm l I mean I heard a lot of this in real time. Yeah. And in in subsequent con conversations. But yeah, like People wonder and a lot of people draw their own conclusions and also there's a lot not a lot of education around any of this. You know, like what what IVF takes, what all like so that's kind of the point of this whole show too, is to explain some of those things and and the reasons behind choices that are made or not made for that matter. So thank you for doing that. ⁓ anyway, Nelly, you are wonderful. I love you. Wonderful, wonderful, and I adore you and I miss you. I wish that you could be coming to pick up Archer from school and doing that stuff because ⁓ man, he would just benefit from you on a more daily basis. But ⁓ thank you to everyone listening. Thank you everyone watching. ⁓ we we showed our true friendship here in real time and I'm glad we did. Cause like it would have been weird if we had been like normal ⁓ human beings. But if you know of anyone who who may or may not have painful periods, literally, like they just go off. the the rails every month and you know that they just they've been enduring this for a while. d make sure you tell them it's not normal and also to listen to this episode, share it with them because it may unlock some answers that could change their lives. And I'm I'm really hoping that some young people get sent this because I know we're for 40s now. ⁓ but you know, the earlier the better, like you said. ⁓ the the freezing of the eggs, the getting treated Also the other things hopefully not failing, you know, in the process. And so please share it with people. ⁓ thank you again to Nellie, Danelle, whatever you call her. ⁓ and I can't wait to s physically see you in person and hug your neck. ⁓ and if you see Nellie on the road, if you see her on Instagram, send her a sweet note. She really does put the good out in the world in every way she possibly can. And she has ever since I met her. ⁓ she really was a big part of me getting back to myself. post-divorce and that led me to who I am today. So ⁓ yeah, this is pile on Nelly here. I mean I just here's the thing. That's how like friendship is well, if it's a great friendship like ours, it's this yeah reciprocal thing where you helped me, I helped you, and we help each other, right? Everyone else, I hope you have a great week and I'll see you next week. And until then, I hope you take care. Bye. Love you. Bye.