Can you have it all? I hear that question constantly from the women I coach. Balancing career and motherhood is the question so many ambitious women carry around silently for years. When do I have the baby? What happens to my career if I do? What if I never feel ready? I sat down with Dr. Natalie Crawford, a fertility doctor and the host of the As a Woman podcast, and we went deep on all of it. Ambition. Identity. The fertility timeline. And how to walk through it without losing yourself.
This conversation was personal for me, because I was living my own version of it while writing my book. So let me share what I told Natalie. I think it will land for you too.
The Chess Game You Are Playing in Your Head
Did you ever watch The Queen’s Gambit? There is a scene where she lies in bed playing chess on the ceiling of her mind. That is exactly what high-achieving women do with the fertility timeline. We move the pieces around all night. If I put in the job application now, I can get a year in the role, and then I will get pregnant at this time. If I get pregnant on this stage, then everything lines up. Mental gymnastics, on repeat.
I did the same thing. My husband and I were trying to time our baby around my book launch. I did not want to get pregnant until after the book came out. I literally said I wanted to launch the baby after I launched the book.
Here is what all that strategizing actually creates: anxiety and stress. Not clarity. What I had to get to, and what my clients have to get to, is putting the mental chess game aside.
There is no perfect time and timeline. But things tend to work out when you’re in the present moment tackling them one thing at a time.
The Plot Twist I Could Never Have Planned
My husband pushed back on my perfect plan. He said we cannot let something outside of us, like a publisher, determine when we start our family. I resisted that. Hard. This book mattered to me.
We ended up having the baby. And then my book got delayed.
My son is 14 months old now. My book comes out in May. That was the most divine timing, and I could never have controlled any of it myself. Years ago, a delayed book launch would have felt earth shattering to me. Now I can see it for what it was. Good thing I was not waiting.
What If You Never Feel Ready? Trust the 51 Percent
Here is my honest confession. I never felt ready. Even before I got pregnant, I never felt ready. My husband was like, I am ready, let us do it. And I was waiting for a white light moment to strike me, where I would just know that now is the time.
It never came.
So here is what I recommend to my clients. Ask yourself: do you want to have kids? Is the answer 51 percent yes versus 49 percent no? Then trust the 51 percent answer.
Sometimes a decision is not a whole yes. Sometimes there is no lightning bolt. But when you learn to trust your decision-making with just that 1 percent nudging you one way, that is really empowering. And it works for every big decision, not just this one.
When Hard Work Stops Equaling Success
Natalie sees this in her fertility practice, and I see it in my coaching practice. High-achieving women are used to achieving the things we plan for. Hard work equals success. So why is it not happening here?
If you are used to control at work, you know exactly what to do to get the A on the test and exactly what to do to get promoted. But that formula does not work 100 percent of the time when it comes to fertility and family planning. And when the plan stops working, the thoughts that come up sound like this. If I fail at this, then I am a failure. My body is failing me. I am what I produce, so the outcome of my family planning must be a reflection of me.
I had a client with PCOS who wanted to start a family, but she was too scared to find out what it would mean for her fertility. In her mind, no news was better than bad news, because if I fail, I am a failure.
Natalie shared something sobering from the medical side. She said infertility has been shown to be as stressful as getting a cancer diagnosis, and that as a fertility doctor her advice is that more data sooner is always better. She also told me what she tells her patients: she cannot always control the outcome, but together they control the journey. Your mindset. How you care for yourself. Knowing you made the best decisions you could along the way.
Those failure beliefs are not facts. They are the success wound talking, the pain that comes from mistaking success for self-worth.
Get Out of the Results Business
A mentor once said something to me that I have never forgotten.
We’re not in the results business, we’re in the show up and do the work business.
You cannot control whether the test is positive this month. You cannot control the publisher, the promotion committee, or your timeline. But look at everything you can control. I can control my habits. I can control working in a way that creates space to actually go to the doctor and get checked out. I can control my mindset. I can control how I regulate my nervous system and how I respond to emotions and setbacks.
That last one matters, especially for women. We were raised to be perfect and we are very good at school, because school has rules. Play the game, you win. But that is not the same skill as resilience to setbacks. Resilience is something you cultivate, and it is something you can control.
And here is the deeper truth. The day the pregnancy test is positive, the day you land the deal, the day the book hits shelves: those are all future-focused objectives. And whenever we’re in the future, we’re in anxiety.
My mantra through my own success wound healing and fertility journey was simple. I am right here. I am doing everything that I can today. And my head can hit the pillow without the obsession.
Protect Your Energy While You Wait
One more tool, because the waiting seasons are where you need it most. If you feel resentment anywhere in your life, that is a signal you need a boundary. Resentment is actually not part of the anger family of emotions. It is part of the envy family. It tells you what you are not allowing yourself to have that you actually want.
I felt resentful toward my husband when he said he wanted a baby. Not because he was wrong, but because I was envious of the freedom and expansion he felt around it, and I did not have that yet.
There are three types of boundaries you can use. An emotional boundary: I need ten days before I can talk about the next round again. A time boundary: I need this time and space to heal, and then we will come back to this conversation. An energetic boundary: I am not getting on the phone with the person who will ask ten times how the fertility journey is going.
You are allowed all three.
You Can Have a Full Life. Just Not a Guaranteed Timeline.
So can you have it all? I believe you can have ambition, identity, and a family you love. What you cannot have is a guarantee that it will all unfold on your spreadsheet’s schedule. Put down the mental chessboard. Trust the 51 percent. Do what you can do today, and let your head hit the pillow without the obsession.
If this stirred something in you, this is exactly why I wrote my book, Healing the Success Wound, for every woman who has it all on paper but feels empty on the inside.
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