In this episode of the Twiniversity Podcast, Nat talks with Connie Rutherford — a Wall Street–turned–tech mom, author of Searching for Tadpoles, and a solo mom by choice raising twin girls she was told she had almost no odds of having. Connie walks through the whole road: freezing her eggs at 38, choosing a sperm donor in secret from her traditional family, three IUIs, a failed transfer, and a fresh cycle at 40 where she skipped genetic testing, transferred two embryos at less than 1% odds, and got both.
From there it is a twin pregnancy in a boiler-room career, a 17-hour flight home from Taiwan in a face mask as COVID hit, and a book written almost entirely while pregnant. It is a funny, unfiltered, deeply reassuring conversation about building the family you want without waiting for anyone else to show up.
CONNECT WITH CONNIE 📖
Grab her book, Searching for Tadpoles — her full solo-motherhood and fertility journey, written the way she wished someone had written it for her.
Website: https://www.connierutherford.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/searchingfortadpoles
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@searchingfortadpoles
Email: searchingfortadpoles@gmail.com
A QUICK SHOUTOUT 📣
This series is brought to you by CordBlood.com — and since July is Cord Blood Awareness Month, there's no better time to talk about it. Your babies' umbilical cord blood is a one-time source of precious newborn stem cells, and once the cord is cut, it's usually thrown away. Banking it lets you collect and preserve those cells right at birth — and with twins, that's two once-in-a-lifetime chances you only get on delivery day. 👉 https://cordblood.com Use code DUO2 for special twin-family pricing. 💙
This episode's break is brought to you by the Twiniversity Virtual Twins Meeting — the exact community Nat invites Nicole into. Meet Nat and Lauren, bring them your biggest twin-life challenge of the month (parent preference absolutely counts), and remember you are never doing this alone. 👇
https://twiniversity.mykajabi.com/offers/MKse3EVR/checkout
EPISODE THEMES 📝
⦿ Freezing your eggs at 38 as an insurance policy — and why it is okay to shop clinics
⦿ The wake-up call: a stage four diagnosis and the fear her kids would never meet their grandfather
⦿ Choosing a donor when the pool is small — ethnicity, CMV status, and the letter about his dad
⦿ Three IUIs, a hybrid cycle, and four embryos that came back abnormal
⦿ The PGS question: are we throwing away embryos that would have self-corrected?
⦿ Going old school at 40 — morphology, ranking, and “it only takes one”
⦿ Transferring two at less than 1% odds and getting both
⦿ Being pregnant with twins in a high-pressure, male-dominated career
⦿ A pandemic pregnancy, a 17-hour flight, and a face mask she never took off
⦿ Writing Searching for Tadpoles — 95% while pregnant, the last 5% over five years
GIVEAWAYS 💰
🎉 YOU’RE INVITED: Need more support? Join us each month for our Twiniversity Virtual Meeting. Meet Nat and Lauren and bring them your biggest twin life challenges each month of the year. For dates and more details visit:
https://twiniversity.mykajabi.com/offers/MKse3EVR/checkout
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Expecting twins? Twiniversity has you COVERED with online classes! ⬇️
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Twins After Singletons: https://twiniversity.mykajabi.com/offers/hegrd8Ez/checkout
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