Transcript

The Conversation Women Are Afraid To Have About EGG FREEZING | Congresswoman Sara Jacobs

From John R. Miles · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 37 min · 6,774 words · 67 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "The Conversation Women Are Afraid To Have About EGG FREEZING | Congresswoman Sara Jacobs", an episode of John R. Miles published January 2, 2026 (37 min, about 6,774 words). It mentions 17 people, works and ideas, including Mattering, TRICARE, All In, Susan Kilrain, Sarah Jacobs.

What this episode is about

Congresswoman Sara Jacobs discusses her personal journey with egg freezing, sharing the challenges of balancing her career in Congress with her desire for motherhood. She emphasizes the societal pressure surrounding women's choices about body image and fertility, advocating for open conversations to empower future generations.

Key takeaways

  • Body neutrality triumphs: Celebrate surviving a culture obsessed with chasing a mythical perfect form.
  • Egg freezing: control over biology, but also a reminder of life's less storybook moments.
  • Women should talk fiercely about fertility—it's more strategy than fairy tale.
  • Empowerment isn't pity; it's about owning choices others might not comprehend.
  • Future generations need a world where body conversations don't dictate self-worth.

Who speaks in this episode?

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 5:00: Sarah Jacobs
  2. – 10:00: Mattering
  3. – 15:00: All In
  4. – 30:00: 911, PanCAN
  5. – 35:00: Mattering, You Matter Luma

Notable quotes from "The Conversation Women Are Afraid To Have About EGG FREEZING | Congresswoman Sara Jacobs"

  • I would like to welcome Congresswoman Sarah Jacobs, a third-term member of Congress representing California's 51st district to Passion Struck. Welcome Sarah. How are you today?
    about Sarah Jacobs · at
  • Because I talk a lot about our need to matter on this podcast and to me agency is often what restores mattering when circumstances feel constraining. Is that kind of how this felt for you?
    about Mattering · at
  • A retired Navy Seal, lives in San Diego, and we were talking about his new book, All-In. Did this choice change how you think about being allin in your own life?
    about All In · at
  • Pancreatic cancer. And as I've talked to members of Congress because I'm active with Pancan, what they've unfortunately told me is because there is such a the research has not…
    about PanCAN · at
  • Yeah. One of the best examples I saw of that was when this was done for people who suffered as a result of 9/11 and the ongoing repercussions from that which my sister was one…
    about 911 · at
  • Mattering verse. And the first phase of this is I've written a children's book called You Matter Luma comes out in February. But I'm trying to attack this when kids are four to…
    about You Matter Luma · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

Books & papers

Companies & orgs

Products & tech

Concepts & topics

Places & events

Full transcript with timestamps

I'll be honest with you, body image, body, weight, food are things that I've struggled with my whole life. And I've worked really hard to get to a place where I feel neutral about food and that I don't have the scarcity mindset and that I love my body the way it is and not am constantly trying to change it. And that's really difficult work. It's work that I have to do every single day. And I hope that as a society we do a better job of not giving the kinds of messages that I received as a young girl to future generations.

Welcome to Passion Struck. Hi, I'm your host John R. Miles. And on the show, we decipher the secrets, tips, and guidance of the world's most inspiring people and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you. Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself. If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays. We have long- form interviews the rest of the week with guests ranging from astronauts to authors, CEOs, creators, innovators scientists military leaders, visionaries, and athletes. Now, let's go out there and become passionruck.

I would like to welcome Congresswoman Sarah Jacobs, a third-term member of Congress representing California's 51st district to Passion Struck. Welcome Sarah. How are you today?

I'm good. Thanks so much for having me. Today we're not talking about your job as a congresswoman. We're not talking about politics at all. We're talking about something personal that you have been going through. Can you take us back to the moment when you realized if I want the option of motherhood, I need to act now. What was happening in your life and work at that time?

So, I got sworn into Congress at 31 years old and realized that I was going to be quite busy getting everything started. And I come from a big family. I always knew I wanted to be a mom, but I knew that it wasn't the right time. And so in my first term in Congress, in my first year in Congress, I froze my ex and made that decision because I wanted to have agency in my life and my timeline and be able to make that decision when was right for me, not just based on my biological clock. And then as I continued serving in Congress, I turned 36 and realized it was still not quite the right time for me. It was time to go back and check on some things. My doctor recommended we do another round of egg freezing to make sure that I had as much optionality as I could give myself. And so this past year, I did two rounds of egg retrieval, froze my eggs, and spoke about it very publicly, which I will say was difficult. It was I like

to say it was an act of radical vulnerability. I did not have talking about my boobs hurting with the New York Times on my bucket list, but that's what happened. But I feel like it's important to be talking about these things because look, as a a 36-y old woman, right? These are the conversations I'm having with all my friends all the time, right? Who's having a baby, who wants to have a baby, who doesn't want to have a baby. And if we're not normalizing those things, if we're not talking about them, we're certainly not going to make good policy about them in the end.

Yeah. I was wondering as you were going through this, what surprised you the most? Was it physical changes in you or emotional?

Well, that's such a good question. I had the most intense food cravings and food noise and I feel like I was going through puberty and menopause at the same time. So like I got terrible acne and my boobs hurt, but then I was also having hot flashes and really weird body temperature control. So I guess I'm not looking forward to that in the future because the hot flashes were really challenging. And then I really wanted frozen yogurt and cinnamon rolls like every night. Man, my wife has recently been craving Cinnabuns and we do it on a rare occasion, but man, we just had one and they are so good.

They're so good. The struggle. The struggle is real. That's right. When you were making this decision, did it feel like you were gaining control or more like you were acknowledging uncertainty?

It felt like I was gaining control. I think a lot of people think about egg freezing and like when I would share this with people, they'd be like, "Oh, I'm so sorry." And I'm like, "Why are you sorry? This is like a very empowering decision where I am taking one of the most important decisions in my life and giving myself more agency about it." And that felt really empowering to me. It didn't feel at all like something that I had to feel bad about or feel sorry about or anything like that.

Yeah. And emotions are something I love to talk about on the podcast. And you just talked about you were giving yourself agency, but I'm wondering, was there any grief alongside that agency? Kind of grief for how complicated this choice had to be?

Yeah. Look, I I every so often think, what could my life be like if id chosen differently, right? Like I am very fortunate. I have the means and ability to choose to stay home with kids if that's what I wanted to do. And there that's the choice that most of the women in my family make. And I think there is some grief about figuring out how to balance all this. And that it's not it doesn't feel the same quite like a fairy tale story, right? Because there's like very practical considerations that I'm thinking about. It's not just I want to have a baby, but like when and how and if and the logistics, right? I fly five hours twice a week to get to my job.

I will also say these are decisions that usually fall on the women to make and so many women are facing these things. But yeah, I'm glad you asked it that way because I think there is some grief just about what different how different my life could be if I'd made different choices.

Yeah, and part of the reason I was asking it that way is I think there's a cultural narrative as I've been studying to prepare for this interview that egg freezing is like something that's sad or a last resort. But you've said it was empowering. Why the difference for you?

For me, it it didn't feel sad at all. Like I was very clear and I do a lot of therapy and I think everyone should. So I had a lot of clarity for myself about like my values which are that it matters a lot to me to serve my community to be to to work hard and it matters a lot to me to be a parent. And I was very clear on the fact that this was not the right time for me to do that, but that it was something that was important for me to keep the option available for the future. And so to me, it was about preserving options and about giving myself as much agency as I could in this decision so that I wasn't ever forced into a corner where I had to do something at a time that wasn't the right time because if I didn't, I wouldn't be able to have this thing that I know I want, which is to become a parent.

Okay? And you've brought up agency a couple of times now. What does agency really mean to you? Is this decision beyond biology or timing? Why is it agency?

I see a lot of my friends who maybe end up with the person they're with when they're 35 because they're worried about not being able to have kids, right? That is a lack of agency. or a lot of friends change their career path or change their jobs, not because they want to, but because it's the only way that they can make a family work. And for me, it's really about being very clear about my values, being very clear about what I want, and then really trying to give myself as much optionality as I can. And like a lot of my life is out of control, out of my control, right? This job is very unpredictable. We get called back at a moment's notice. I've missed friends weddings because I had to be stuck here to vote. I'm back and forth across the country all the time. And so any piece of my life that I feel like I can try and give myself more options or I can try and smooth the noise in the chaos, I try and take. And this was one

of the most important ways of doing that for myself. Yeah. The reason I was asking it is because I talk a lot about our need to matter on this podcast and to me agency is often what restores mattering when circumstances feel constraining. Is is that kind of how this felt for you?

I totally agree with that. And I feel like the times when I feel the most out of control or like the most upset about things is when I'm in what my therapist would call like a crouching position. when it feels like things are happening to me that I don't get a say in. And one of the most important things you need to do is write push through that crouching position. Push through that feeling that you don't get a say in your life and get to a place of agency because we we do get a say in our lives. And like most typ oldest daughters, honor student, right? Like I thought there was a path I had to follow and that if I did all the right things, this I had to do and then you'd get the A+ at the end. But that's not actually how life works. There is no path. And I've worked really hard on trying to get out of this idea of what I should be doing and try and really focus on what do I want to be doing? What is

aligned with my values? What actually feels fulfilling, not what do I think I should be doing because that's what society or whatever told me to do. And I think a lot of women feel that way about having a family, right? There's so much messaging and pressure on women right now to have a family and to do it early, whether that's all all of our social media or messaging. And this was one way that I could break through that noise for myself and try and get out of that crouching position and remind myself that I get a say in this. I don't have to do things the way society says I should.

So, I was recently speaking to one of your constituents, Brent Gleason, who's a retired Navy Seal, lives in San Diego, and we were talking about his new book, All-In. Did this choice change how you think about being allin in your own life?

Look, I think it it was a big sacrifice to make. Like, anyone who's gone through an egg retrieval knows that it's not an easy process. Like, my body went through a lot. I had brain fog and pain and all these other things that come along with it. We were literally in the middle of a committee meeting and I had to run up to my office to give myself shots and run back down, which is not a pleasant experience.

Shots never are. No. And I know that with everything happening in the world right now, I just knew that I couldn't be allin with my job if I was also having a family and a baby right now. And so I knew that to be all in the way I wanted to show up and be present in the way I want to in this moment that our country is in that I needed to make this choice so that I could be all in on my future family when the time is right.

And I want to switch to your job just for a second because you have a demanding job. You've already talked about how you have to fly back and forth all the time. I have friends who were in Congress from Clearwater St. compete to Florida area and they often complain about the travel but

although I will say I have no sympathy for people who live on the eastern time zone

like they do. Yes. But as I understand it, you're giving yourself the injections like you were talking about. There was time period where you're going to daily ultrasounds and you're commuting cross country while representing San Diego. What does it mean for you to legislate while your body is going through something most colleagues never even have to consider?

To me, that was a really important part of it, right? It's no secret that Congress is older and mor and whiter than the average population. And that's part of why I decided to talk about it so publicly and to be so open about it because I knew that there are so many people who are facing these same choices, who are going through these same things, who have way less support than I do and who deserve a Congress who understands what this is and is trying to make it easier for them. And after I talked about this very publicly the first time, I was at a meeting with military families and service members and a young woman who serves in the Navy came up to me and was like, "I read the article about you freezing your eggs and I really wish that's something I could do." And that was the genesis of me working to get Tryare, the military insurance program to cover fertility treatments. And that conversation

wouldn't have happened, that legislation wouldn't have happened if I hadn't myself been living the thing that so many people are living. And look, it's not easy. I've had to give myself shots in the middle of really important things. The brain fog and all of that is real. But I also think to myself, like a lot of women who are going through this are doing it while they have two toddlers at home. If they can do it, I can do it. And this is this too shall pass. and this is a momentary discomfort to get to my ultimate values aligned goal.

I was going to go to the service members next given I'm a veteran but I remember my own time I constantly deploying constantly really under tense circumstances in in my experience having been in Iraq and a few other places I was exposed to to burn pits and chemicals other things that have had a long-term impact on my life but I don't think the general public thinks about all these things and the fact that you know when we serve in the military That's right in the middle of the prime reproductive years of trying to have a family and yet we have all these complications.

What do you think about those tradeoffs that are so quietly demanding of our service men and women and their futures?

We know that military families face higher rates of infertility than the civilian population. One in four military families reports infertility. And it makes sense, right, for all the things you said, right? In your prime reproductive gear is you're far away from your partner. You're being exposed to dangerous things to chemicals. And we know that a lot of military service members are leaving the military because they can't build their family and serve the country the way they want to. And it's a readiness issue, right? It's, you know, right? We train, we put so much money into training these folks. For them to leave at the prime of their career because we're not giving them the support they need is not good for our national security. And I do wish more people understood the real sacrifices were asking not just of the service members but of their whole family. I talked to a woman named Lydia who her

husband served multiple combat deployments. She's an army wife and she has tried 11 rounds of IUI. They've not been successful. Their doctor recommends IVF as the next step, but they can't get Triricare to cover it, even though his service is part of why he's facing infertility challenges. And they've literally considered divorcing so that she can go somewhere else to get the coverage she needs. That's not what we should be asking of people who already like sacrifice so much for us, right? And on this topic of agency, right? Like agency isn't just about the ability of yourself to make a choice. It's about having choices, right? It's about having accessible choices that you can then take agency in your own life to make.

And right now, military families don't have that access to IVF coverage. And so, we are taking away that agency from them.

I know there's a lot of sensitivity even from the veterans I talked to where they say, "Why are we investing so much money in women in service and then they're going to just leave to have children?" It's I'm bringing it up because it's real. I've heard it from a lot of them, but my own experience of this is it's not just the female in this situation who's impacted. Often times the reason you can't get pregnant is also because of this the other side of the equation and they're deployed, they're stressed out, things are happening and it just impacts the family in totality. So this isn't just about female service members, it's about both.

But what are your thoughts on that? because I think we jump to the conclusion that this is focused on one sex and I think it impacts

that's exactly right. In fact, most of the military families I've been talking to, it is the male who's having fertility challenges because of the service related reasons. That's not always the case, but we do know that it's very prevalent that it is the the male who who does have these infertility challenges. But I also think one of the things I find difficult about this conversation maybe is that while I know that it's not the right choice for me to have a child right now and be able to be fully present in my job. I also have a lot of colleagues who have small children and they are incredible at their job and I never want to give off the impression or to make anyone feel like they can't do that. And actually some of my best employees have kids at home. Like mothers are sometimes the best employees, right? They're highly efficient. They're very focused. And so I also don't want to say you can't I

guess I reject the whole premise of that that like when a service member has a kid, they become a less good service member. In many cases, I think they become a much better service member potentially. And so like we want to give people as much agency and choice and accessibility as we can to be able to make those their own choices. And oftentimes those having those choices actually makes them better at their job.

And I just want to make this real for people. Earlier this year, I had a former astronaut named Susan Kioran on the show. And Susan was the second female shuttle pilot, but prior to that, she was the first female F-14 pilot. So, someone who had to invest a lot to break down barriers to get to where she was. her husband uh happens to be a Navy Seal and after she got done with that space flight, they wanted to start a family and she didn't have the option that you're talking about. So, it cost her dearly. She ended up removing herself from NASA at that point so she could start a family because she really didn't have that choice. So, I'm just trying to bring it make this real because you think about the impact and gut-wrenching decision that was from her perspective having a position that is so hard to get harder than becoming a four-star general in in the Marine Corps when you think about becoming an astronaut. And like I

hear these kinds of stories all the time, people who have to give up their military career because they need to get a job in the private sector so that they can get health insurance that will cover these fertility treatments for instance. And look, I don't want to say it's only service members who face these challenges. Obviously, the work of service members is like very unique in a lot of ways. Our prime reproductive years also tend to be like when we are reaching our prime earning potential, product productivity years, right? And a lot of families are facing these same questions, right? Do they continue on this career path they're on or do they deviate to start a family? And how do they do that? And like why does it all happen right at the same time? It feels like your 30s are when it all comes to a head and it's not easy for anyone. And there's like an added layer of it with service members because what they do for

all of us is so incredibly important. Yeah. Well, Sarah, one thing I did want to talk about a little bit is body image because I think it's important especially for young but also all our listeners. And body image to me is something that affects again both men and women. But as I was doing research for this, I understand that there were a number of comments that were made about you and your body during this time and that had to be hard first. What do you think it reveals about how women's bodies or our bodies are treated in public life?

People have been talking about my body since I first ran for Congress. There have been so many comments about my hair, my voice. I literally had someone tell me that I should do a ad in a bikini so that men would want to vote for me. And they meant it quite literally. And as I was going through this egg freezing process, as most women do who go through it, I gained weight and had bloated, distended belly from everything I was going through. And I there were so many comments about my body and can be really hard. Like my job is to be in the public eye and as much as I try and ignore what people say, like it does affect me. And part of what affects me is that I don't want the young women who I know follow me to see those comments and make it think about themselves. And I'll be honest with you, body image, body, weight, food are things that I've struggled with my whole life. And I've worked really hard to get

to a place where I feel neutral about food and that I don't have the scarcity mindset and that I love my body the way it is and not am constantly trying to change it. And that's really difficult work. It's work that I have to do every single day. And I hope that as a society, we do a better job of not giving the kinds of messages that I received as a young girl to future generations. I grew up in the 2000s, the height of skinny, the skinny era where Jessica Simpson was a size six, I think, and all of the tabloids called her fat, right? Like those are not good things for our young girls to be learning. And now it's back, especially with the GLP1s and how a lot more people are maybe more skinny than they would naturally be otherwise. And we're starting to see that like very skinny chic look come back. One of the things I think a lot about being a leader is that a big part of my job is to show people that

leadership can look and sound different than what they're used to, right? That a lot of people in their head have this idea of leadership. That's Spartacus leading the charge and that's a very specific image of who can be a leader and it's not someone who looks like me. But I think leadership is listening. I think leadership can be very different. And part of what I try and do is show that leadership can look and sound different so that we can have more people who look and sound all sorts of ways see themselves as leaders and step up and take agency in the direction of our country. I want to switch directions to creating policy which is something I can't even imagine how difficult that is right now but I read that you wrote we can't make good policy if the colleagues around us don't understand how these things work. What did you mean by that?

I will give you a very concrete example. Right after Roie Wade was overturned, when the Dobs decision came down, I started getting all these texts from my friends and peers asking what they should do about their period tracking apps. And Tik Tok had a whole thing like delete your app. I use a period tracking app. So I was wondering this for myself. And I started looking into it with my team and there's basically no federal protections for this data. And so I started talking about that with my colleagues. But first, I had to explain like yes, we track our periods and then yes, there are apps that help us do that. And here's why protecting that data is so important. And as part of that process, I became the first person in house history to talk about my own period on the house floor. If I hadn't been experiencing that myself as someone with a period tracking app wondering what I should do in this moment change,

I don't think we would have gotten that policy about how we protect that kind of very sensitive data because so many of my colleagues just didn't do that and so didn't even realize it was a problem. And when I think about all of this, something that you were trying to bring to bear, you've been so public about this, which is very difficult given your position, but I want to look at this from a different perspective, which is the cost of abstraction and leadership and what happens when our bodies become statistics instead of realities. Because I think with what you were showing here, you're trying to do the opposite.

Yes. And I just wanted to acknowledge you for that and get your thoughts on how it's changed how other people are looking at this now.

I think that's so crucial. I can't remember who said it. A statistic is a statistic and a story is what changes people. And I I really think that's true. The way we humanize these issues is what really matters. And that's not to say we don't need people like many of my colleagues here. It just means we need more diverse perspectives around the table to make sure that more lived experiences are there when we're making this policy. And like I do think the more we can humanize these issues, the more we can take it out of this policy realm and into these real human realm, the less politicized it becomes and the more we can find common ground and agreement even where we don't think we can. a lot of the folks I work with on IVF is because someone in their family or they themselves have used IVF to get pregnant and that it's that human-lived experience that enables us to work across the aisle to work and build these

coalitions. And I know everyone looks at Washington and thinks that we're just fighting all the time. And like in many cases that is true, but the way that we get out of that battle space is by making these things as human and personal as possible. so that we can relate on a human level and then figure out how we can work together to solve a problem.

I have two related but a little bit different questions I wanted to ask. The first is unfortunately last year my sister graduated from Colombia. She went to the international public affairs program like you did. She died of pancreatic cancer. And as I've talked to members of Congress because I'm active with Pancan, what they've unfortunately told me is because there is such a the research has not been able to penetrate causing causality to improve the chances of people surviving. There's not been a lot of policy conversations about it. So my question is this, and it's not just something like pancreatic cancer. It's like how do we create better policy conversations without requiring millions of people to suffer first? Not just here but in other areas.

Yeah. Oh, that is such a good question because honestly when we have seen progress it's usually been because someone in power has had a personal experience with something. So we were able to get marriage equality because Senator Portman's son came out and he realized it was an issue. And it shouldn't take leaders to have a personal experience with something to want to do things. And I think the way we get to a better policy discussion is by creating new two-way feedback loops between people and their leaders. And actually to me, this is a big piece of agency. Right? This is one of the key things I'm focused on as a leader is that people have lost trust and faith in in leaders in institutions, in policy, in government because they don't feel like we're listening and they don't feel like they get a say in the decisions being made about them. And we have new tools and technologies now that enable

us to actually be able to have these two-way feedback loops and have more people be part of the policymaking process so that we can get more of these lived experiences that we don't have to wait till one of 435 people has experienced something themselves but that we are having this way to hear from and bring in people into this conversation and we can address challenges before millions and millions of people have been hurt.

Yeah. One of the best examples I saw of that was when this was done for people who suffered as a result of 9/11 and the ongoing repercussions from that which my sister was one of them. What do you think it would look like if we designed systems around human lives and not these idealized timelines that happened to us?

So much of our system, right, is not actually designed for what life looks like right now. And one of the things I think a lot about is AI and new technologies. That's something I do a lot of work on. And I actually think one of the things I'm most concerned about in terms of what AI will do is that there will be even more of these decisions made big and small about people's lives. That not only will they have no agency and they will have no recourse. They will have no way of being like seeing visibility into why that decision was made. And I really do worry about what that will mean for how people feel about agency and feel about their sense of belonging. And I think this sense of belonging is so important.

And I really feel we need to build community back up from the ground up that it really is about how do we humanize these issues? How do we convene? How do we build community? It can be as simple as I tell people all the time, they call me, they're like, "I'm so overwhelmed by what's happening in the news." I'm like, "Go to a local trash pickup. Go clean up a park. go volunteer at a neighborhood school and help paint the playground, right? Like those are the things we need to do to build community. And that's what we need to do to build systems that actually encompass all of us as humans and give us ways to have agency in the decisions being made about us, whether that's by nameless, faceless bureaucrats or an AI system or anything else.

Yeah. Well, I am so glad you brought that up, Sarah, because some of what you were just talking about is one of the most important things that I'm concerned about, which is this whole topic of belonging. And when I think of the fact here in America that 40% of our teenagers are feeling constantly sad or hopeless, to me, it comes right back to this issue of feeling like they matter in their lives. And so, I've actually taken on a project. I call it the mattering verse. And the first phase of this is I've written a children's book called You Matter Luma comes out in February. But I'm trying to attack this when kids are four to 10 years old because that's when this whole value system starts breaking down. And the reasons it's breaking down is to what you just described. We have so many adults who don't feel like they matter.

So that's what they're passing down to their kids. It's like the immune response is absent. It's getting worse and worse be because this keeps getting passed down from one generation to the next. Um, and what you said about these ripples of kindness or ripples of mattering to me, that's how you restore it. And it takes each one of us showing up differently in our interpersonal relationships and our communities to change this. So, thank you for bringing that up.

I love that. I'll look forward to getting that book for my niece who turns four in February. But

I'll send you a copy. But no, I think that's exactly right and it's something I take very seriously as a leader. That's why I say that a big part of leadership is actually listening. It's making sure people know that they are seen, they are heard, they matter, and that there is someone here who cares about them.

So, I know we have to wrap this up. I had just a few more questions. The first is, what do you hope women who are listening to this get out of this conversation? What do you want them to learn from this?

I hope women learn that we don't have to be perfect to be successful and actually that the more sort of vulnerable we are actually sometimes the more successful we can be that this idea of chasing perfection actually often gets in our way. And I I know for myself as a young woman and when I talk to other young women, we often feel like, oh, we don't know enough. We haven't done enough homework yet. like we have to have the perfect answer before we can say anything. And it's not true. Like I can tell you, I've been in all the most important rooms. No one has the answer.

And we need as much creativity and ingenuity as we can find right now. And that's only going to happen if people actually speak up and share their voice. And your voice really does matter. And I also want young women to know that you get agency. You get a say in your life. There is no should. There is no path. and I'm working hard to make it so that those options for when you when and if and how you build a family are more accessible, but your worth is so much more than your fertility. And you don't have to feel bad for making different choices than society tells you that you should make.

Okay. And on the other side of this, what would you want male leaders to understand after listening to this? I want male leaders to understand first of all that their experience is only the experience of half the population and that I'm tired of the days of when things that men experience are considered mainstream and things that women experience are considered women's issues, right? Like first of all, fertility isn't just a woman's problem. I've heard leaders on both sides of the aisle who will say things like, "We need to focus more on health care, not on those divisive issues like reproductive healthcare." And I'm like, well, reproductive healthcare, it's my healthcare. I'm a 36-y old woman. That is my health care. And I really hope that my male colleagues, that male leaders really take the time to learn and see that what they're going through is only half of the story. And it is not

just mainstream because it's what they are going through and that these things that women are talking about are not just women's issues. They're things that impact all of us.

Yeah. And sir, one of the reasons I wanted to have you on the show is I think conversations like this can actually shift culture, not just policy. So my final question for you is when you look back on this chapter of your life, what do you think it taught you? We've talked a lot about agency, but also your own sense of worth and what would you want the next generation to internalize from your example? I think for a generation of women leaders, they felt like they had to be perfect and that made them seem guarded and that actually impeded their ability to make true connections with populations. And one of the things I think they like they really thought they had to be silent about personal challenges, right? That any sort of vulnerability was a weakness. And I am so grateful to that generation of women because it has allowed my generation of leaders to be able to be as authentic as we can be and to know that this kind of

radical authenticity, radical vulnerability is our superpower and is what makes us stronger and is what enables us to connect on a different level. And I really hope that the next generation takes that lesson and goes even further. That they are not so worried about being perfect and following this sort of should path, but that they know that actually being their individual self is what matters the most. And the more true they are to that, the more successful they'll be and the better our whole society will be as a result.

Well, Sarah, thank you so much for joining us today on Passion Struck. I know it was a very vulnerable conversation for you and I'm just glad we can get this out into the world.

Thank you. I really enjoyed it.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "The Conversation Women Are Afraid To Have About EGG FREEZING | Congresswoman Sara Jacobs"?

John R. Miles (Host), Sara Jacobs (Guest).

What is "The Conversation Women Are Afraid To Have About EGG FREEZING | Congresswoman Sara Jacobs" about?

Congresswoman Sara Jacobs discusses her personal journey with egg freezing, sharing the challenges of balancing her career in Congress with her desire for motherhood. She emphasizes the societal pressure surrounding women's choices about body image and fertility, advocating for open conversations to empower future generations.

What is mentioned in this John R. Miles episode?

17 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Mattering, TRICARE, All In, Susan Kilrain, Sarah Jacobs, PanCAN. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "The Conversation Women Are Afraid To Have About EGG FREEZING | Congresswoman Sara Jacobs"?

The episode runs 37 min; the transcript is about 6,774 words in 67 timestamped sections.

More from John R. Miles

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated January 24, 2026.