The Keri Croft Show
The Keri Croft Show
The Worst Club, Best Members: Inside the Infertility Conversation with Ali Prato from Infertile AF
I’ve been following Ali Prato for a long time—so having her on the show was a full circle moment.
Ali is the host of Infertile AF and co-founder of Fertility Rally, and she’s been one of the loudest, realest, and most compassionate voices in the infertility space since 2019. In this episode, she shares her own journey with secondary infertility, miscarriage, and IVF—and how she turned it all into a platform that’s helped thousands of people feel seen.
We also get into:
- Her wild career pivot from Playboy editor to infertility advocate
- The kids’ book series she’s writing to help families talk openly about ART (assisted reproductive technology)
- Why she started the Fertility Rally and what it means to create space for all infertility stories
If you’ve ever felt like you were the only one going through it—you’re not. This one’s personal, and I’m so grateful Ali shared her story with us.
🧡 Want to hear more real stories about infertility?
Check out our Infertility Series we hosted back in April—featuring powerful conversations with women who’ve walked the path of IVF, miscarriage, surrogacy, and more.
#TheKeriCroftShow #InfertileAF #AliPrato #FertilityRally #IVFStories #InfertilityAwareness #PodcastShowNotes #WomenSupportingWomen
Hey there you beautiful badass. Welcome to the Keri Croft Show. I'm your host, keri Croft, delivering you stories that get you pumped up and feeling like the unstoppable savage that you are. So grab your coffee, put on your game face and let's do this thing, baby. Face and let's do this thing, baby.
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Speaker 2:I'm so excited to be here. I loved talking to you, so I can't wait to talk more.
Speaker 1:I love the name of your pod. Thank you, I knew I liked you from that and then when you, when you told me the name of your book, I'm like she's cool, what. What made you like decide to call it like infertile AF?
Speaker 2:Well, it started out actually before the podcast, I had a book idea I was going to write, I wanted to write a memoir, and this was, you know, seven or eight years ago now, after I'd gone through my infertility stuff. Because when I was going through like the three and a half to four years of, like recurrent pregnancy loss and secondary infertility, I was like there's no books out there about this. I'm a journalist, I'm a writer, you know I've always been writing stuff and trying to share stories and I couldn't find anything. So originally I was going to write a book called IVF, af, like as fuck. And then when I started shopping the book around or the book proposal around, I was getting no's like left and right, and they're like no one's going to buy this, it's not going to sell, there's no market for this.
Speaker 2:We already have an infertility book coming out, a memoir, and I'm like one. You can't do more than one. So that's when I started the podcast. And then I realized that I wanted to expand it beyond just IVF, so I called it Infertile AF. The rest is history. And you know, it's funny, carrie, in the beginning I had a couple guests say no, because they didn't want to be associated with like as fuck. And I was like Okay, don't come on my show, you're like but we would not be friends in real life yeah.
Speaker 1:Honestly, come on, like you, you could tell so much about someone if they can't even come on a show that has AF.
Speaker 2:Like that's too clean for me right, exactly, and then, um, yeah, so it's. It's basically, you know, it's just kind of expanded beyond there and haven't really had an issue with it since, although, again, you know, the podcast started in 2019, so people were like that's going to be played out soon, but I feel like af is still in the vernacular like it's still like in this. Maybe it's just going to always be there.
Speaker 1:I hope so well, I also think like just the way you have. I mean I think that will never get old, because it's like it's the truth. I mean it's like I'm infertile as fuck it's just the best whatever it's, so the best it. So why don't you tell um for my, my community, maybe just explain a little bit about you and like, what was your journey like going through infertility?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. And again, you know, thanks for just having me on and, you know, exposing me to a totally different audience, cause I think it's just so important to share our stories. You know I, like I said when I was going through my stuff, so I'll give you the truncated version because it can be long but basically I had my daughter without assisted reproductive technology when I got pregnant when I was 34, I had her when I was 35, you know I had grown up in the era. So it was probably much like you and many people listening that it was like you can have it all. You can have your career, you can have kids whenever you want, don't worry about the biological clock. You know we were looking at Hollywood and it was like I remember Halle Berry had just had a baby at like 46. And you know I was like, oh my God, I've got plenty of time. So I basically was very career driven.
Speaker 2:My husband, I, had moved from Chicago, where we grew up, to New York for my job I was working for I was an editor at Playboy magazine at the time and when we got here a lot of my friends back in Chicago were starting to have kids, because it was like late 20s. You know, we were about to turn 30 but we were in a new city, we didn't know anybody, so we're like we can't have kids now. We don't even know how to take the subway, so that kind of pushed off our timeline for a family building and I think that that is a lot of the reason that we, you know, ended up having problems. It was just it was age related for me. So anyway, we had our daughter and then I waited like two and a half to three years before we started to try for baby number two and again thinking I didn't have a problem, you know, really getting pregnant with her and had a fairly uncomplicated pregnancy and she's healthy.
Speaker 2:And then I was totally like the rug got pulled out from under me because I had four miscarriages, you know, back to back over the course of the next I don't even know how long couple of years, and I was like what the hell is going on? Why am I not able to stay pregnant? And again, you know, I felt so alone. I didn't know that it was called secondary infertility. You know there weren't that many podcasts really talking about fertility or infertility at the time. There weren't, like I said, books. You know, I set out to write a book and after it was all said and done and people were like, no, that's, no one wants to read about that, which blows my mind today.
Speaker 2:But you know, I just needed support. I'm a very I think you and I talked about this when you were on my podcast. You know the way that I solve problems is by talking through them and connecting with other people that are going through similar things and very community focused, and I just felt so isolated and so alone. I didn't have any friends who were going through it at the same time as me. I didn't even really know what IVF was. Honestly, I thought that. Remember Octomom. I thought that IVF was for people that wanted to have, like, multiple babies.
Speaker 1:I really like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, I had a friend of a friend who'd gone through it and turns out I had more people in my life than I knew but nobody was really talking about, you know, miscarriages and going through fertility treatments. So basically I, after the fourth miscarriage, I went and saw a specialist and he ended up being my doctor's, Dr Joshua Klein. He was at RMA at the time and now he's with extend fertility, which is a really great clinic in New York, and he was like yeah, this, you know, this is an egg quality issue. As you get older, your egg quality diminishes. And I was like what? No one's ever told me that before I didn't know any of this. And so he said you're actually the perfect candidate for IVF.
Speaker 2:So I actually got very, very, very lucky, because part of the story is that my husband and I were really at odds about doing treatment. It's really expensive. We didn't have fertility coverage, so it was all out of pocket. You know the price ranges for for people listening that might not know it's like one round of IVF is like around $30,000, you know all in and that's a lot of money. But to me at the time I was like I don't give a shit, Like I will pay $4 million because I want this next kid so badly. And my husband just wasn't really on the same page. He wanted another kid but he saw the heartache that I'd gone through and it was, you know, miscarriages and depression and all this stuff. You know our marriage was really suffering.
Speaker 2:So we finally agreed, after borrowing money from both sets of our parents, to go through it, because we didn't have the cash at the time. We agreed to do one round of IVF and, long story short, I got five embryos that were PGT tested, which where they test the chromosomes and make sure they're normal before they do a transfer, and then one of the embryos out of the five came back healthy and so we did the one transfer and it did work, which I know now. That was so incredibly lucky because I have so many friends in this community and the fertility community and fertility rally members who have gone through five, six, seven rounds, you know, of transfers and they didn't work or they did, but then they lost the pregnancy. So I got very lucky. I got pregnant with my son, had a, you know again, fairly uncomplicated pregnancy and then and had him.
Speaker 2:So, like I said, you know I'm one of those people that's like did IVF once and it did work, which is hard to kind of. Now that I know how hard it can be for some people, there's like a guilt there. I'm like, oh my God, you know, like I didn't have it as hard, I wasn't in it as long, but, using my own advice, it's like this isn't the pain. Olympics right, Like we've all through our shit. We've all gone through our struggles.
Speaker 1:So we can't compare, Like basically that's what everybody says to like oh, you can't compare, it's all it's all hard.
Speaker 2:It was, yeah, it was so, so hard and I wouldn't wish it on anybody and my heart was broken so many times throughout that whole process. I still have PTSD about it. Um, you know, I interview people all the time and talk to people all the time and I still get that feeling, that physical. I don't know if you do as well like when you talk about stuff like that, but I still feel so traumatized by you know what I went through like wanting to have a baby and not being able to have one is really sad and hard. And you know you see people successfully doing it around you with no problems and you know you're mad at your own body. And you know you see people successfully doing it around you with no problems and you know you're mad at your own body and you know there's just a lot. It's very complicated.
Speaker 1:It is. And then for you to feel so passionately about it that you decided to like do an entire podcast on it.
Speaker 2:You know, I mean to help other people when did? You start it. I started the pod in March of 2019. And, you know, the first episode was me telling my story, because I was like, if I'm expecting people to get like real and raw, like I have to walk that walk and talk that talk first. So the first episode is just me and then this week, you know, the 335th episode will come out. So it's been once a week, you know, for the past six years plus, and such therapy for everybody.
Speaker 2:I mean for me too. I mean, it's kind of it's kind of started out selfishly Right Like I was like I need to get this out there, and who knows if I wasn't anybody in this field and you know, just like I said, a journalist and had no background in the fertility community, didn't know anybody and was just like I'm to relate to. So it's it's been really successful and I'm just so grateful for everybody who has come on the show including you, you know, and who's been willing to be vulnerable and share their stories, and every single person, I swear to you, every single person has wanted to share their story to help other people, which is awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because when you're in it and you really do feel like you're the only person that's going through, it. You really do feel alone. So when you hear someone else, especially the intricacies of infertility, like you know PCOS, or secondary infertility, or egg donor, like there's all these different rooms within the house, and so when you find someone who has experienced that same room, you're like, oh wait, like I need to, like you're like a magnet, you want information and you want to feel like, oh, we share something.
Speaker 2:Completely yes, because there's, like you said, there's so many different ways that these routes and these journeys can go and there's so many different outcomes and treatment plans and paths, and sometimes you don't walk away with a baby and sometimes you do, and sometimes you lose a pregnant. You know, there's just lots of roller coasters along the way.
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Speaker 2:Yeah, I edit a sports website. It's so funny. I mentioned it the other day. My kid's like you do and I'm like, yeah, I have for like five years. They're like you never mentioned that. I'm like, yeah, it's just one of the many things, it's one of the many things that mom dips her toe in children.
Speaker 2:Just trying to, you know, get those bills paid For sure. Oh yeah, I still do journalism, you know stuff like that on the side and you know I think that it's funny to think that. You know, I was working at Playboy my first job out of college and now I'm like in the infertility world, like what a weird like trajectory. But I guess when you break it down, the gist of it is like I've always loved to tell people's stories and like share stories, so there's like a storytelling, I guess, through what was that like?
Speaker 1:working for Playboy?
Speaker 2:Oh my God, it was so fun. So I started there. When I was in college I wrote a letter this is so funny. I wrote a letter, carrie, to Hugh Hefner and this is in the mid nineties. So I there was no like email was just starting. I wrote a snail mail on like my computer, printed it out, put it in the mail, sent it to the Playboy mansion in LA and he read it and they called me on the landline at my college house where I lived with like eight other roommates, that's what I'm talking about Literally, isn't that wild.
Speaker 1:It's amazing.
Speaker 2:It is weird to think that it all worked out. And yeah, they called his assistant, called me. I remember my roommate Michelle is with the phone, she's like Hugh Hefner's assistant's on the phone and I was like holy shit. And she's like you know, heth got your letter dear and was really interested. And what I basically said was he and I went to the same college, university of Illinois, and there was a Hugh Hefner magazine scholarship at my school in the journalism department that my professors awarded to me. So that was my like. In was like I won your scholarship awarded to me. So that was my like. In was like I won your scholarship.
Speaker 2:And he was like we'd love to have you come into the Chicago office for an interview. And so I was like, oh my God. So I went in, interviewed for an internship when I graduated. I was supposed to be a six month thing on the editorial staff and then I worked there for 10 years. Did you ever go to the mansion? I did. Yes, I have All right when you and I have drinks sometime or go out.
Speaker 1:We I'll tell you my mansion.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, I love really good tea from the mansion, really good. Yes, okay, cool, yeah, it was fun. It's everything you've heard, like all the debauchery and stuff. That is fully true. And I will say, though, because people are like, did you work with Heth?
Speaker 2:I worked with him pretty closely because we did some. There was like these party pages in the front of the magazine that was like photographs from all his parties, and I worked on that with him and he was great. I loved him. He was very respectful to me. I never felt any type of way like that. I, you know, it was like I've heard people coming out after the fact who said that you know, not people that worked in the magazine, but like some of the playmates and stuff that you know. Maybe he wasn't didn't treat them with respect, but I never, ever felt that way. I always felt respected and I really liked, I really enjoyed working with him. He was a trip. Um, he yes, a lot of the parties were like it was like the midsummer night's dream, so the dress code was like lingerie or less, so he would be in his like pajamas with a robe, and yeah, he usually was that's really how he dressed.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But so you're. You're actually writing a series of books. Infertility, yes, so.
Speaker 2:I have some. Thank you so much for bringing that up. So I have a couple of children's books. My second one is actually just coming out now for pre-order. The first one was it's called Work of Art, so it's a play on like assisted reproductive technology and it's the story of my son hearing me tell someone that he was an IVF baby on the playground and then him being like what does that mean? I don't know what that means, and then me explaining to him the way that he was born. So it's a really the illustrator I'm working with, who has signed on for like the whole series, he's awesome, he's in Buenos Aires and he's so talented. So I think the illustrations have a lot to do with, um, how much people really like the book, cause it's very cool looking and he's just really talented.
Speaker 2:So it's um, you know it's the whole point of the books are to normalize the conversation again around. You know families being built in so many different ways and you know kids who were born through ART, ivf, iui, surrogacy, all the things you know feeling normal about it and you know, like, even though my son and my daughter came into the world very differently, like we wanted them both so badly and we just want to take any stigma away that might be out there. You know, with people thinking that ART is like less than or different, you know it's just it's. It's all coming from a place of love, like all these kids have been created coming from a place of love. So the first book work of art is like my family story. And then the next book it's called beautiful bird and it's a different family building story. It's about an IUI and it's about a sperm donor and an LGBTQ plus couple and it's just kind of, again, it's just like a thoroughly modern family story.
Speaker 2:So it's been really fun to work on these and they're all true stories, people that I know who are in my life. And then the next one will be a donor egg story and then I'm going to do a surrogacy story. So just, you know, trying to create again like kind of with the podcast, just putting stuff out there where people can be like I can relate to that. That's me, that's my story. You know there's not a lot out there right now, not that there's no children's books, but you know I'm just trying to contribute to the libraries of people you know who, even if your, your child, didn't come into the world that way. To have that in your library and be like this is another way that like things can happen. I think it's just all about acceptance and, you know, making it normal. Yeah, no, I love that.
Speaker 1:I love the whole idea of the book series. What is your, do you like in your ideal world? Would you stop doing editing for like anything else, and like be fully immersed in something that has to do with the infertility world? And like parlaying your podcast? Or like what's your vision for?
Speaker 2:that Mostly. It's like 95% of what I do anyway. And you know I have Fertility Rally too, which is a community of members all over the country. So that's kind of like the podcast, the rally and the books are like the three parts of the fertility stuff that I'm doing. I'm actually starting to work on some menopause stuff and possibly doing a menopause podcast with a company that I've been talking to. So, again, sharing stories, talking to experts, you know all that stuff. So I think women's health, like the women's health space in general, is you know where I will be for the rest of my career but touching on all different things. You know that aren't not that menopause isn't being talked about because it really is having a moment, but I feel all different things. You know that aren't not that menopause isn't being talked about because it really is having a moment, but I feel like, with what we're talking about doing, it would be different than anything that's out there right now. So, again, just sharing stories, blasting stigmas and all that stuff. That's great. Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 2:Well, can you tell us a little more about the rally? Yeah, so Fertility Rally is a community I co-founded with a woman named Blair Nelson who lives in Austin and she and I met through my podcast. She was one of my early guests and then we just kept talking and hit it off as friends and COVID hit, you know, in 2020, as everyone remembers, fucking awful time for so many people and we were just on Zoom all the time and we started hosting these like Zoom support group or like happy hours, basically, where we would, you know, we'd met people in the Instagram community who were talking about fertility and infertility. So we started hosting these calls and like does anybody want to come and talk about what they're going through? And it just turned into a thing Like. I remember one call we had like 60 people on it. We were like holy shit, should we like make this a thing? So we created a membership, you know, called Fertility Rally, and basically we still do the same things. We have four to five different support groups virtually every single week. She and I host one every single Wednesday night and we have since June of 2020. We have other hosts who do you know, different, different groups throughout the week and since we launched, we've had almost 5000 members, you know, kind of come through the doors.
Speaker 2:So, again, it's just another way to like create a space and, like I said earlier, like it's a selfish to like create a space and, like I said earlier, like it's a selfish like these are all the things I wish I had when I was in the thick of it, so like I keep, what else do I wish I would have had? Oh, a community, oh, books, you know all this stuff. So everything I'm creating is just basically coming from the place of like, what do I wish I?
Speaker 1:had. Yeah, but that's the right spot. Right, Because you're trying to serve the person that you were, so it's like yeah why, would I not want to like figure out how to give the resources.
Speaker 2:That totally yeah. And also, with the rally we're doing, we have an IRL event coming up in Nashville where it's just a fun bonding weekend. So we've this will be our fifth one we did one last year in Austin, we've done them in Chicago, we did another one in Austin and we did one in Jersey, which wasn't like a whole weekend, it was just like a dinner. But we are just all meeting down there, you know whoever wants to come, who's a member, current or former, and spending the weekend just having fun and bonding. And so we do stuff like that too. I love that. It's kind of like a retreat, but there's not like programming.
Speaker 2:We basically just like we have like a pool day and we have a nice dinner and we have like a drinks thing and you know it's just coming like a big girls weekend yeah, our tagline is worst club, best members, so it's just a good excuse to get all these awesome people together from all over the country who otherwise might not be in the same room together. You know what I mean? Like I look around the rally group sometimes and I'm like I never would have met her, ever if it wasn't for infertility, you know? Or like the ages are so different and the backgrounds are so different, but the common thread is like we've all been through this trauma of our own kind.
Speaker 1:Anything else you want to make sure that we let the community know, let peeps know about you, before we wrap Allie. Other than that, you're just you know fantastic on so many levels.
Speaker 2:I want to hang out with you we're going to.
Speaker 1:That's what I want.
Speaker 2:Where are you again? I'm in Jersey.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you're not that far away. No, we it out yeah for sure.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I mean, I think the only thing, the only other thing I would say is just if anybody's listening who is going through any sort of fertility struggles or journeys, like, please reach out to me. You know I'm, my DMs are open. On Instagram you can check out like a rally support group and see if you like it before you commit to anything. You know the books I'm self-publishing them, so it's always like word of mouth is great. So if somebody is, you know, checked out work of art or beautiful bird and likes it, like, spread the word to your friends. You know it's.
Speaker 2:It's again all just trying to normalize, you know, all this stuff and help people feel less alone.
Speaker 2:So if anybody is struggling, like, please know you're not alone, even if you think that what you're going through is so different, like there's definitely somebody out there who's gone through something similar and I'm happy to connect people. You know I love putting people together. Like, oh, you should talk to this person and you know, just, I feel like you know the one thing I love and I think I mentioned this to you before is like what I really love about you is like you're a girl's girl and like you can tell you like to lift up other women and other people who are doing important things and worthy things, and I really admire that about other women, like the older I get, the more I'm like does this person show up? Like that's such an important quality to me, so just know that. Like I know you show up for your community and your friends. Like I try to show up, but like if people are out there feeling like they don't have anybody that shows up, reach out to me. I love that.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm so happy that, for whatever reason, our paths cross. I know I was stalking you, me. We're now, we're friends. You can't, you can't, you can't get rid of me.
Speaker 2:I love it. I can't wait to do I know let's seriously stay in touch.
Speaker 1:All right, carrie, thank you, I'll talk to you soon.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me and I'll talk to you, okay, ally. Thank you okay, bye.
