Informed Pregnancy Podcast · Independent Podcast Network | Informed Pregnancy

Liberté Chan: Before Birth

·51 min·5 clips

Liberté's husband reversed his vasectomy decision after meeting a 70-year-old with an 11-year-old son.

This episode features Liberté Chan, a Los Angeles-based meteorologist and digital creator, discussing her first pregnancy with host Dr. Elliot Berlin. Chan shares her journey to motherhood, which involved IVF and navigating her husband's initial reluctance to have more children. She details her competitive figure skating background, which began at age five and led to a national ranking by her early teens. Chan explains her career path in broadcast journalism, which included overcoming a fear of public speaking and working in small markets like Santa Maria and Palm Springs before securing an on-air role at KTLA in Los Angeles. The conversation covers the profound losses Chan experienced in her 30s, including her stepfather to ALS, her mother to pancreatic cancer, and two close friends within a four-year period. Chan describes freezing 24 eggs at her mother's suggestion before meeting her husband, Luis, on a flight from Paris. She recounts the emotional process of convincing her husband, who had a vasectomy and three adult children, to have a baby, which involved creating five viable embryos and considering donation. After two years of discussion and therapy, her husband agreed to have a child following an encounter with an older father in Argentina. The first embryo transfer in March 2024 failed, but a second transfer in July was successful, leading to her current pregnancy at 37 weeks. Chan plans for a vaginal birth at Cedars-Sinai, where she was born, hoping to labor at home first and use a birth playlist and photos of her parents for inspiration. She intends to avoid an epidural if possible but prioritizes safety for herself and her baby. Dr. Berlin offers reassurance about the common fear of defecating during labor, explaining it's often minimal and professionally managed. He reframes it as a potential benefit for the baby's microbiome development through exposure to maternal bacteria. The tone is intimate and conversational, blending personal narrative with educational insights into fertility, grief, and childbirth preparation. Listeners interested in heartfelt stories of career perseverance, complex family planning, and late-in-life pregnancy will find this episode compelling. Those seeking a strictly clinical or fast-paced discussion of birth may find the personal detours less engaging.

As heard by us

A first pregnancy story shaped by IVF, loss, and the slow approach of birth.

Liberty Chan’s talk with Dr. Elliot Berlin stays centered on a first pregnancy through IVF, but it keeps widening to include the rest of her life: work on air, a digital creator presence, and the family losses that give the story its weight.

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Why you'd press play

If you want an IVF first-pregnancy story that leaves room for grief, family timing, and the road to a baby.

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