Emily Merrell  00:04

Welcome to the sixth degree Podcast, the podcast where we grill our guests about the things that make them tick, and find out how human connection plays a role in their life. I’m your host, Emily Merrell. I’m your host, Emily. And today I’m so excited. This is a long time coming to have my friend Stephanie Arnold, she is an author and a speaker. Stephanie, welcome to the show.

Stephanie Arnold  00:30

Thank you so much. It’s so nice to see you and hear from you again.

Emily Merrell  00:34

I know it’s it’s fun. I love how an intro and intros are always kind of like a blind date for me, where you’re like, Well, you know, I could, we could have five minutes of our time change, you know, add a little wisdom. And that’s it or like, be a part of our lives in a bigger way and thinking about it. You’ve been a part of my life now for several years and different iterations. You’re moving. We’ve seen a lot of evolution of both of us. So I really,

01:03

I mean, I remember talking the first time with you, and it was like, we’re talking about kids and marriage and everything. And you’re like, Yeah, okay, fine. And then then, you know, just watching you transform, and move and marriage and home and baby and, and balancing it now. You know, that’s, that’s the thing where we women have an issue. It’s like you have your career and it’s go have a go, and then I’ll send it false. Right? And you’re like, What do I do in my skin now? Like, oh, I’m just a mom. Now I’ve got a you know, I’ve got an independent, I’ve got somebody who’s, who I’ve got to prioritize. And then that usually is a rough battle for a lot of them. Seems like you are conquering it. So modulations

Emily Merrell  01:47

I, my son calls both me and my husband, mom. And he used to say data. And then my my husband went away for a guy’s trip in November. And guys, this we’re recording this in March of 2023. And he has not said dad essence, it is exclusively mom. So I believe I say that because I feel like I have an extra set of moms around me and inclusive of my husband and my my sister who lives across the street and my best friend and my mom, but my son is like, man, ma’am,

02:23

to everyone. Your husband’s never gone away again. He’s literally like,

Emily Merrell  02:28

I’m dead dad. I’m Papa. Papi, like anything. Just stop calling me mom. So yeah, I feel like I hit the jackpot on a very hands on man who helps out? Thank you for saying that. So, Stephanie, we have like 30 minutes to cover a lot of things. But we’re going to talk about the time you know, that casual time that you died?

02:56

Yeah, like

Emily Merrell  02:57

you went to the mall, and then you died. And then we’re going to talk about your nail. No, I’m just kidding. But before we talk about you died, I think we should start at the beginning of the story. And I love the Once Upon a Time of someone’s life. Like that this is gonna get more but

03:15

the interviews that you do where someone’s had a near death experience, you’re like, Okay, you transfer from one position to another.

Emily Merrell  03:20

Yeah. This is like not not very, very common for me truthfully. But let’s start at the beginning because I love the story of how you met your husband, and I want to start there.

03:30

Sure. So I was a TV producer, I produce a lot of reality shows that your audience probably knows I worked. I ran a division for Entomol, which is known for Extreme Makeover, Home Edition Deal or No Deal. All of those shows, and I was living in LA and you know, the show that Patti Stanger developed, which was a Millionaire Matchmaker was launching. And she went to University of Miami, which is my alma mater, and a friend of mine was starting to produce her show, the show had never aired, and I sent an email to her. Like, if you ever find a nice Jewish guy, I’d be open. And she’s like, she sent it back. She’s like, it’s so nice to meet you. And we connected. We had our juris geography moment. And then she was like, absolutely. And I’d say six days after sending that email, she sent me an email saying Jonathan Arnold will be calling. And that was it. And for the first time in my life, I didn’t Google anyone I didn’t look up what I did. There was just, you’ll know as you listen to the story, that intuition has really guided my life. And so I wanted to treat this differently for some reason than any other meeting or blind date or relationship, whatever have you. So I didn’t Google I sent the name to one of my best friends and she She did all the Googling and she did up, but I didn’t want to see any photos. And Patti doesn’t send photos for the die. She sends girl photos. And when she sends the photo up the girl to the guy, and Jonathan calls me, and we stayed on the phone for about 45 minutes, and we both hung up the phone saying, Could this be for the rest of our lives? It was just a weird thing. And two days later, five days later, I think it was we had our first date. And in that moment, I was like, this is for the rest of my life. And six months later, we were married.

Emily Merrell  05:39

And so you guys are in LA, you’re this hotshot producer. Patti literally changes your life in a six month window. What happens next?

05:48

Here, so he,

05:51

you know, he lives in Chicago? He’s a PhD economist from University of Chicago, and there’s no way in heck, I would have ever met somebody in that vertical where I was working in a completely different creative one. So he’s like, how do you feel about Chicago? I’m like, oh, Miami girl, I say no. In San Tan you I’m like, and then I’m living in LA Chicago was not part of the plan. I don’t do you know, your warm weather. And, but you know, you you relocate for love. So I relocated Chicago, that’s pretty much where my career stopped, overhead announced that she was calling it quits. And that’s where her studio was. And it really wasn’t, it’s Chicago is not known for their, their production. So at least at that time. And so we decided to start producing children. And he had a child from a previous relationship. And so I was stepmom. And they and our first daughter was born a couple of years later, after three rounds of IVF. And we had no issue no problems, no complications, and that was great. And then the round seven of IVF, Jonathan had to took a job as the chief economist for the New York Attorney General’s Office. So we relocated to New York. And during that time, I got pregnant with Jacob. And so everything was fine.

07:19

Until it wasn’t.

Emily Merrell  07:21

So you had three rounds of IVF. And then you got pregnant naturally with Jacob? No.

07:27

So Jacob was around seven, by the F. So when I was pregnant, yeah, so I had a couple of miscarriages in between. And then, um, you know, with IVF, you want to have an insurance policy. And I was getting older, I was 40 years old when I was pregnant when I got pregnant with Jacob. But I needed a backup embryo just in case because the attrition rate of losing the embryos was very high with older eggs, and whatever the process is. And so I had one female embryo that was healthy in storage. And then when we did IVF, again, there were two embryos that came out of that one was a girl with a boy. And so the other one that was frozen was a girl. And so we decided to go with the boy, and everything was fine. And we were splitting our time between New York and Chicago. And then at the 20 week ultrasound, as you all know, now they you know, that’s the big ultrasound where they see the spine, the heart that the fingers toes, and at that moment, I was diagnosed with the placenta previa, which is quite common. And so I had it too. Okay, so So, so one in 200 risk is basically where the placenta is laying on top of this or top of the cervix. And so if, you know, as the belly grows, as the uterus grows, it should move out of the way. You know, the big risks that you’re risking, is you might need a C section, right? If it doesn’t move out the way, and I had a C section with ADINA, but because she was too big, so it wasn’t, it wasn’t an unknown thing. But something sat in me in that moment, where I looked at Jonathan, and I said, I’ve got a bad feeling. And he was like, Honey, you know, what are you talking about? You’re getting great prenatal care, you’re in two different hospitals at NYU, and Northwestern. You know, it’s we don’t know too much about it, but we’ll find out, it’s fine. It’s fine, fine. And I said, Look, I am special in the category of my blood type O negative, which is only 7% of this population. So I don’t want to be special in any other category.

09:38

And

09:40

so it just it had this ominous feeling. You know, when I when I had this news, like hit me, and like I said before, I’m intuitive, but like, this is something like this wasn’t the fear of, of pregnancy or like normal pregnancy fears. This was something else. So what does one do when they’re freaked out over? And they they become Dr. Google. So

10:02

Google every so so it showed,

10:04

you know, so online, it was like placenta previa, the risks, no big deal, the doctors like Don’t lift anything heavy, you know, just relax. And then it says, you know, some complications could lead if that happens, you might need to be on bed rest, if it’s a lot of blood might be a hospital bed. Whereas if the placenta sometimes can emerge into the uterus, which is called the placenta accreta, if that happens, you could bleed more. You might need a hysterectomy. If that happens, you could hemorrhage and then you and the baby could die.

Emily Merrell  10:40

And it’s so so Okay, so just to pause you there, you have placenta previa, which most doctors literally wave away, like they went in, they’re like, you know, you’ve got placenta free via but 30 weeks, we’re gonna scan you again, most likely, it will have moved, no biggie. But you get this news and something just like, terrible creeps into you not just,

11:02

it was the hair on the back of my neck. I mean, I the way that I try and explain it to people is that

11:08

you, it’s a knowing you, you know,

11:11

something is going to you have a bad feeling about you might not know or be able to pinpoint what that is. It’s like when you meet somebody, and you shake their hand, you’re like, I gotta back

11:21

yours.

11:22

Like, I’m gonna slip somebody chains.

11:25

Or you’re about to date somewhere like this is not gonna be good. And then Yuri read it later. That that that feeling that everyone has, but it was it was a foreboding, it was a feeling of doom. And so when I read all of the cascade of events to the nth degree, I saw it was that knowing that I saw everything happen, and I was like, this is going to happen, the only differences the baby’s gonna survive.

Emily Merrell  11:54

I’m here, you didn’t think you’re gonna survive at all. Like,

11:58

I’m gonna hemorrhage I’m gonna. hysterectomy. Baby’s gonna be fine. I’ll be down the outbreak.

Emily Merrell  12:03

awesome shirt. Jonathan loved this part of you. And I love

12:06

100% Like, you know, so So Jonathan’s was an Air Force pilot. So he’s very much about gauges, data, information, statistics. So of course, he takes the computers like what you are afraid that is less than a half a half a half percent chance of happening, you are getting your prenatal care, you are being listened to the bottom, whatever, you’re getting diagnostics, there’s nothing indicating you’re going to have an accreta there’s nothing indicating that that you’re going to hemorrhage or need a hysterectomy. Like why are you thinking about this. And so I’m so ultimately, like, I understood where his mindset was. And his defense now, because I couldn’t think about it. Then when I wrote a book called 37 seconds. And what I explained in his, you know, I was very angry for a long time, because he wasn’t listening to me. But what I’ve come to understand later is that he was in his own way, he just didn’t, didn’t his tools for calming me down and making me less anxious. The data was not indicating for him that there was a problem. If the data was saying something else, he would have jumped on everybody and said, You need to listen. But there was nothing to do because there was no data indicating any problem. So so I knew where he stood. Now, I needed to tell everybody else, right. So I told doctors and nurses, I’m like, I’m going to hemorrhage you’re going to need extra blood. I need a hysterectomy. Who’s gonna give me hysterectomy want to give birth? Like I was a crazy batshit crazy person, everybody who talked to me friends, family, we’re like, why are you saying this? You know, and so, I was like, I I mean, it was it was really because at one point I you know, I asked a friend of a friend who you know, was a resident gynecological oncologist. And he said, Stephanie, it’s never going to happen. And I said a couple of tumor me what happens in the event, I give birth under an emergent situation. And I need a hysterectomy. He’s like, Well, your OB wouldn’t do it. So they transfer your maternal fetal medicine, but you don’t want an MFM to do it. You want a guy not to do it because if a guy in gynecological oncologist has more experience with higher risk reproductive organs, and you are 20% of your blood supplies go into your uterus during the time that is high risk. So I made an appointment with the head of gynaec at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. I sat down with him I will firstly the waiting room and Jonathan is with me and these women are in the waiting room with no hair on their heads IVs in their arms, and they are suffering from reproductive organ cancer and here I am a seven month healthy pregnant woman going in to meet with this doctor and my husband says I’m embarrassed to be here. Oh,

14:53

and you can imagine right kills

Emily Merrell  14:54

Yeah, I can’t imagine he’s like, I don’t even want to acknowledge that. You’re freaking insane. person

15:02

I, to his credit, he went with me to all these meetings, but at the same time, I mean, it may be in the back of his mind, what he said is he thought maybe there was something wrong with the baby, because I was going off the deep end. And he had never seen me like this. And so I’m in a in me. And I said to him, I said, is it? I understand what you’re saying, but everybody’s telling me, you know, I’m on an open road, you know, and they see a clear highway and I see an 18 Wheeler headed straight for me, and no one can see it. So maybe this doctor has heard of a patient who’s had this foreboding and has, maybe there’s a tumor, maybe there’s something going on that I don’t know, but maybe there’s a more less invasive, but more testing they can do that’s not going to harm the baby or myself to maybe figure out what’s going on. And that was what I was thinking. And so I’m sitting here, and you have to understand, this is a no nonsense Doctor asking why and how I even got this appointment, because there’s no diagnosis of Epicenter Krita you know, and so he’s like, Sarno, how can I help you? And I was like,

16:08

like psychiatry is over there.

16:12

To the residents taking notes on like, Okay, so my placenta previa is going to turn into an accreta, I’m going to hemorrhage you’re gonna have to give me a hysterectomy. And I just, you see me in ICU, you’re my doctor. So let’s just do this. And my husband said it was very mafia, like, I see you, you see.

16:31

And so he’s like, Have you been on the internet? And I was like,

16:36

Yes, I have, but this is going to happen. And so, um, so he’s like, why don’t we get an MRI. And if the MRI is positive, we’re gonna create our schedule myself or your, you know, at 37 weeks to, to, to do that perform a hysterectomy if there is an accreta. And I felt better because I had something more to do. And but then the MRI came back negative. And it’s like, you should feel better. I said, I feel worse, because I’m running out of people to tell the story too. So then everything goes on and on. I post on Facebook. If anybody has my blood type, I’m going to need it. I was I broke up by letters. I sent out goodbye letters. And then I go in 36 weeks to the day Jonathan’s in New York, I’m in Chicago. He’s giving a speech at this this bar. Association’s whatever. And I bleed all over the kitchen floor. And I’m like, today’s the day. And of course, today’s day because he’s in New York and and I guess the hospital they triage me and, and I’m Skype chatting with him. And I’m like, please love this child. Oh, this is my goodbye. Like, you’ve made me the happiest woman in the world. You know, and people say, you know, if you were my patient, I, you know, I would have listened to you. I said, I said what I would say I said they said I would have halted the surgery said yet but this baby was coming out no matter what. So it’s not like this is an elective surgery where you have foreboding where you’re saying, You know what, let’s wait, let’s reschedule it like that. The D Day was my due date. And that was my delivery day. And so the fear was quite palpable. The truck is getting closer and closer to me. Everybody else is thinking I’m crazy. And no one can feel or sense what I feel. I kiss my daughter who’s two at the time, 100 times because I’m convinced this the last time I’m going to see her and being wheeled down to the operating room. My doctor said Stephanie, I know you know, you’re nervous cuz Jonathan’s not here. I’m here to take care of you. And I said, there’s something wrong, you need to put me on a general anesthesia. And she’s like, I’m not going to do that, because that’ll put the baby to sleep. I know you’re nervous because Jonathan’s on here and I’m being wheeled closer and closer to VR. And as they open the door, they are acutely aware that this is the room that’s going to give life to my son

19:06

and take mine.

19:09

And they prepare me and they put us you know the curtain in front of her C section. And I deliver a healthy happy baby

19:17

and seconds later. Okay,

Emily Merrell  19:22

if listeners if you’re listening to this, I hope you’re in a place where you can like experience the chills that I am feeling right now. So you knew so you started bleeding in your kitchen just to recap what happened you started bleeding kind of randomly. It wasn’t your due date. Did you have a scheduled C section

19:38

scheduled C section at 37 weeks because of the previous so 36

Emily Merrell  19:42

weeks now that you’re a week early you’re like oh my god I’m not frickin expecting it well, you’re expecting it all but not expect why

19:50

I didn’t know the time like I tell people I’m like an intuitive I can see things but I don’t I don’t know time and space. But I knew the day that I delivered him would be the my D

Emily Merrell  19:58

Day would be that day and You knew you were gonna have to get a C section. Either way, so you go in, and how long was it before like you’ve delivered the baby and then you flatlined. seconds, seconds. So baby’s coming out and you’re you’re dead,

20:13

baby comes out, they deliver the placenta and the students, the placenta came

20:17

out flatline. And so what happened? So I have a very

20:23

rare pregnancy complication called an amniotic fluid embolism. And it’s a one in 40,000 risk where amniotic cells get into the mother’s bloodstream. And if you happen to be allergic to it, your body goes into somewhat of an anaphylactic shock. So the first part of it is you go into cardiac arrest, and you flatline. And then if you’re lucky enough with 40%, are lucky enough to get resuscitated. That’s when your body goes into full DIC, which is your body’s inability to clot, blood, anesthesiologist, you use the acronym that’s called like to seminary and something coagulation. But they call it death is coming. And it is, worst case scenario. And they are and so they, they get me back up, they infused your body has like 20 units of blood. And I was given 60 units of blood and blood product to keep me alive, and of own negative blood. So that’s, you know, to be if I gave birth at home, and this happened, I wouldn’t have survived because you need a ton of blood to stay above.

Emily Merrell  21:31

And today prepare the OH negative beforehand, because here’s the

21:34

thing. So I predicted a lot of things I had ended up like in the last few weeks of my pregnancy, I had a consultation with anesthesia. And usually, and I tell this to everybody out there before having surgery, you have the right to call up and have a consultation with anesthesia. Anesthesia will explain to you find calm your fears. This is where you in the case of a pregnant woman, this is where you’ll recover. This is what the epidural will do. This is how your C section will like they just start talking through. What I did not know is that anesthesiologist are really the people who keep you alive. They are you think your doctor is the one that’s because they’re the quarterback. That anesthesiologist is responsible for you staying alive and caring and staying alive. And so so she has consult with me and i She explains all this stuff. And I say okay, well what happens the event, and I go through my whole list and then I and she said she had never heard a patient speak so clearly about what was going to happen had sought out specialists and had had a baby before had a C section before and without one phone call. The one thing I didn’t predict because I didn’t think she was listening. She flagged my file on incorporate extra blood in a crash cart, the operating room. That’s insane. And that is why I’m alive today.

Emily Merrell  22:53

And she was also the chances that she was on the day that you were there is also such like a fluke experience, right? Does

23:00

she to this day and we have spoken at her hospital before and now she’s head of OB anesthesia at a big hospital. And you know, she said to her the intuition part wasn’t flagging the file for her the intuition part was she was putting records in and files on the computer when my flag was called. And she was like what am I doing here? I need to be in the ER and there was an attending anesthesiologist so for her she didn’t she needed to be there. And so when she walked into the ER she told the anesthesiologist before I flatlined, she’s like I got a bad feeling about

23:35

this. She helped her intuition as well.

Emily Merrell  23:38

She does so 37 seconds. You’re You’re

23:43

so time Yeah, I flatline for 37 seconds they resuscitate me, they get me back and they stabilize me. They put a soccer ball inside to stabilize blood. They transfer the ICU, and I’m on life support. And Jonathan shows.

23:58

Oh, he’s probably like, I am so sorry.

24:02

You know, the beautiful thing about an Air Force pilot and an anesthesiologist. They think quite similarly. He was not emotional. He said, What do we need to do get her the next hour day, whatever it is. And by the way, if she needs a hysterectomy, this is the doctor we met with. And they said they took note of it. They thought it was odd that we met with one and then they said, well, she’s stable now. But you know, we don’t know whether she survived another surgery right now. So we’re, you know, and I think we’re okay that we stabilize blood. And then Seven hours later, the bells and whistles go off. I’m still hemorrhaging and they call in the gynec that I met with two months before to perform the hysterectomy. They did the pathology on the uterus. And there was an accreta that had started to form but when the MRI was taken,

24:53

it was not detectable.

Emily Merrell  24:55

So when you came to I hope you like looked the guy in the eye and you did

25:00

I’m like, yeah, so, you know, we’re Jewish, as I said, and so we have a baby boy, on day eight, we’re supposed to have a circumcision. And so on day seven, I get confused whether day six or seven, they have to take I was on a medically induced coma. And so, at this point, my kidneys have failed, I’m on dialysis, I had a heart attack blood transfusions, I you know, I was so Adamic that I was wheeled everywhere. But at one point, you know, when they they activate you to see where you are mentally because you can’t guarantee where you are, you know, neurologically, and the very first thing I did was see my swollen belly, you know, when you’re a deep like, you’re still they were fluid and look down and like, Am I still fucking pregnant?

25:48

And ladies and gentlemen,

25:50

at that point, my husband was like, I think she’s gonna be okay. She knows where she is. She’s kind of saying, you know, it was almost like, it’s the weirdest thing because I spoke to an anesthesiologist about it. Like, sometimes when you go into anesthesia is the way you come out of it. So obviously, I always fear and, and so it was like, it was a pause button. And when I came out of it, it was like, press play and continue. And I went through all the hospitals in all different departments saying, I told you so. And they were like, all of them wanted to know, how is it that you knew, and you know, the doctors to this day are like, they don’t have a medical explanation for it. They just they said, I think you need to go spiritual on this one. And that’s what I ended up doing.

Emily Merrell  26:36

And so, back to the 37 seconds that you were dead, did it? Do you have any memories during that time?

26:45

You know, I do after I did this research. So we have done a lot of talk shows and talking a lot about intuition and you know, listening to your voice. And then at some point, I decided I was going to write a book. And I wanted to, I was on Steve Harvey Show. And Steve said, Did you see the lights? And I said, I don’t know, man, that gave me a lot of drugs. A lot of lights. I thought that that was irresponsible of me. I was like, I wasn’t afraid to say that was just one life to live. And that’s it. But if there was a way to find out, could I find out and traditional therapy was not helping getting me out at the PTSD. I was like, yeah, they were like, How can I help you? And I was like, first tell me how it is. I knew everything beforehand. And they’re like, Well, let’s not worry about that right now. Let’s just worry about getting you out the trauma. And I said, See that I have a problem with that because one asshole doctor said, self self fulfilling prophecy said, So you believe that my mind had caused my organs to combine hemorrhage and need the hysterectomy and everything. And he’s like, Why didn’t say I believed it. It’s just the only thing I come up with. And I was like, Well, that’s an asshole thing. Say, I’m thinking I manifested my own death. And I could have taken myself away from my children. And I am wrapped with that for a very long time. And I couldn’t function and premonitions kept coming for other things. I was feeling other people’s pain and life and death situations. And I was like, like, shut everybody. Yeah, let I want to get off this ride on. So I ended up doing regression therapy that uses hypnotherapy to take you back into those moments. And usually it’s used like, you know, if you’ve had trauma, you go back into these moments as an observer. So it’s not as painful as it was a moment of impact. But maybe you’re calmer under meditative state to see everything that’s there. And I wasn’t so optimistic that that would that would reveal any great thing. But I most certainly didn’t expect to get what I got out of it. And, and she finally got me after 30 hours to go back into the alarm. And when I was there, I was like, definitely the observers coming in. And then there were 370 It was definitely on the the the gurney being operated on, and then spirit stuff. And so when people say, you know, do you see the light on like, I saw my spirit flash at the moment of flatline, but if I was in the eyes of my spirit, maybe I would have seen that tunnel of light, but, but that’s what I saw. And then I saw everything that happened in the or like, the details of where people were standing what they were doing what my daughter was doing in the labor and delivery room with our nanny and what my husband was wearing when he got off the plane, you know, and then I saw hundreds of spirits and I saw, you know, we’re doing one talk show in the house was like, um, you know, so, you know, Psychology Today, we’ll talk about how I, you know, of course, when people have near death experiences, they want their loved ones near there to help but it’s all a figment of your imagination is okay, let’s put a pin in that. Let’s say I didn’t see them, which I did see the ones. It’s the ones that I did, who had messages for the people I do know they included my best friend whose son died And he heard her brother died when he was seven, had some specifics around the death that she didn’t know. And I, and I didn’t know her at this time, and I explained the room and what that looked like in the bedroom. And then I also saw my husband’s father who passed away way before I met him. And he had a message. And those kinds of things were like, they were very difficult to, to counter because I would have never known these things. And then, because I videotaped, I mean, because I’m a TV producer. All of my hypnotherapy, but I also didn’t want somebody tampering with my mind. I’ve never been hypnotized. And what happens if they tell me like, Okay, well, every time you say, Hello, you’re gonna talk like a chicken. And you know what, I have evidence, videotaped that and because I videotaped all of that. I took it back to the doctors who were present, because, of course, Jonathan was like, it’s quite graphic. And he doesn’t wanna see his wife and pain. And you see me convulsing, and you see me gagging. And you see, like, I was reliving that moment of flatline. And when I took the tapes back to the doctors who were present, you know, first of all, Jonathan said, How do you know this isn’t a recalled episode of Grey’s Anatomy? And I said, Okay, it’s an asshole thing to say, again, feel like you know, whatever. So no sex for you. Yeah. And then I said, Okay, it’s a fair point, right? I’ve been under a lot of medical care, I’ve been in a coma, I’m mentally not there. Maybe I made this up. Maybe I did. Flee, you know, a TV show with my reality. So I go to the therapist, and you know, what I’m telling you is true. And she says, sometimes the only validation we get is the patient feels better, and you feel better.

31:42

That’s not good enough for me. I have witnesses.

31:46

So I took the tapes to back to the doctors and the doctors, like, I didn’t go to medical school, because you shouldn’t be there. Like you’re it’s accurate down to where we’re saying what we’re doing. And we’re on a Netflix series called Surviving death. And in episode one, my doctor is there and she’s like, there is no way she would know anything. She was not there. And, you know, and the things that they said they were doing and so that was all the validation I needed that consciousness exists outside of the body. And so it’s it’s been a long journey, but it’s it’s one that has caught not fraught with

32:26

some of the roads right. In Stephanie,

Emily Merrell  32:29

you went through something that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. But I think my favorite thing about your story is you have this moment where you’re on these TV shows where people are making you into like the next Virgin Mary or something or like making you into a, into a religious symbol. And yet your message is, listen to your effing intuition. And, and that’s so powerful, because I’m sure it could be easy to also get caught up in creating the Colts or like,

32:56

but the interesting thing is like, I don’t care whether you want to believe it’s, which will experience or or that we’re hardwired this way, I just want you to listen to it. There have been times in everybody’s life, listening to this podcast, you yourself, me, myself, who we’ve had moments, intuitive moments, and we’ve gone against it. And then like, I knew it, I knew it. I knew not to invest in that I knew not to take this job. I knew not to get into this relationship. I knew how to ski that last run. i You just know. And all I’m saying is that, whatever you believe, whether you believe in God, universe, your spiritual connectivity consciousness, are hardwire. I believe we are all wired for this, I just believe some people listen to it more than others. And when you do listen to it, and you practice listening, and they can be little things somebody calls you. And I bet that this is this person. And when you’re right More times than not, it’s like it’s fine tuning your intuitive self. And then you’re like, Okay, you know, what, then where it counts, especially like, I’m sure there might be you as a mother that you’re like, I’m not going to do this today with my child. I don’t want him walking there. Now, that could just be all of this synapses, from your experiences of reading stories where ever it is. But today is the day that you are going to not go left. When you always go back. You don’t know why you don’t need validation that if you went left, that a car spun out of control. And at this point, nothing happened. I’m just saying so who cares. So you have to go five minutes out of your way, but your gut is telling you not to do it, then do that.

Emily Merrell  34:37

Yeah, it’s it’s such a great reminder. And I think for our listeners, too, this is something this is a piece of homework for you all, just to kind of take inventory and start listening and jotting down when you are feeling these intuitive pings and see how they add up to one another. And Stephanie, I think, I mean, I met you before I was pregnant. So you were in my brain pretty much by entire pregnant.

35:01

Sorry. No, but you know, people are like, do I get your book, you know, for my pregnant granddad like, I will tell you that it’s gonna shy away from my stories extreme for sure. But what it is is a reminder. So. So here’s the thing. So what if you’re histrionic? So what if you’re in a rush? So what is driving your doctors? batshit crazy. So what is your husband is like, you’re off the deep end, I would rather you get your voice out and them saying she was crazy. And then you send flowers and candy later say, Okay, I will never have another baby again. Or I was crazy. I’m sorry. Then the Keep your mouth shut? Yeah. Right and be dead. Right? Like, I

Emily Merrell  35:43

think, I think that’s a woman thing too. Like, I think we’re told to like, sit down, listen to the doctors, they know everything. They’re the experts. They don’t question anything. And I definitely even during my pregnancy, there were so many false leads on things where I just started just becoming very distressful of everything I tell you this stuff anyway. So at the 10 week, Mark, they said, they found that Jackson had an extra finger. And they like put me to a genetic counselor. And you know, we’re going down like our family history and what this means. And then I went to and got another ultrasound with a like more specialized OB, no extra finger. And then I got my NoIP, my nipt back. And it said that he had an extra chromosome and that he was going to have Kleinfelder syndrome and like I should schedule my termination. Now if I want to terminate, literally nothing I learned, like, literally, I was having a boy that I had tested that he had an extra chromosome, and that my next steps were to wait for two weeks and get an amnio. And then it was a false positive. But no one told me that false positives occur. So the moral of the story whether you and I had a wonderful delivery and everything.

36:50

Did your gut tell you when you were getting all this devastating news faqeer the people like

Emily Merrell  36:56

truthfully, and that I just never want it was I kind of felt like I went into teacher mode where Whenever someone’s pregnant, and you probably feel the same way here. Like I want to be there for people to be able to spin out and have these questions because no one was there for me. And my gut was telling me this conference that you hold. Yeah, right series just

37:20

just forgot. Just transitioning here. Yeah,

Emily Merrell  37:22

yeah. And then, you know, with the, what is it the gluten tat or the? What is it called? The Diabetes? The Diabetes? That was like gluten intolerance? Yeah, the diabetes test,

37:35

the glucose test? Gestational? Yeah,

Emily Merrell  37:37

I failed the first one. And then they made me do it again. And that was my first time that I was like, but what if I don’t write, and they’re like, but you’re gonna like, ruin your baby and didn’t and there’s so much fear mongering. So it’s funny thinking of both sides of this where your your doctors were so flippant, and mine were like, so fear mongering.

37:58

But neither were right. No, and that’s, that’s the

38:01

thing. And I, you know, you know, one of the things I do talk about is like, you know, they, it took a doctor who didn’t know me, who was using her own intuition, because my doctors, what they were missing was, I had a baby with them before. I am an ironic, histrionic person. I am somebody who’s really calm and under high pressure job at a TV producing with live, like I can handle myself, this was different. And for, you know, they have lots of they delivered 12,000 babies a year at Northwestern. So it was like, Oh, you’re perfect, you’re healthy, you’re pregnant, you do your prenatal care, when you’ve got this, this is just maybe a bump in the road, maybe there’s too much testosterone for the baby boy, like they was just there, their DNA goes to, let’s just calm the patient out, everything’s fine. But they were missing the big flag of this is not typical behavior of Stephanie. And that should have been enough for them to be like, let’s, let’s do something else. Maybe there’s instead of me seeking it out. And you know, Jonathan says to Maltais like, well, you believe in predetermination. He’s like, Well, what happens to your free will? And I said, it was always free. It was my expiration date is my expiration date, whatever that is, but it’s up to my free will. I believe they’re on two different paths. It’s up to my free will to have spoken up because how well I survived was due to my free level. There are you know, and that is the difference. So maybe I would have always survived but if I didn’t speak up, maybe I wouldn’t be one at Northwestern has had 10 FES amniotic fluid embolisms and their entire history at the time of mine, six did not make it and the other three are in permanent vegetative states. First, who survived a full blown AFP at their hospital. And the question is, is like, you know, when they set it on, on when they were on the doctors on the talk show, they said, you know, she was in a teaching hospital. We were prepared, but she prepared us. And so that was is the lesson here? It’s like what would have happened and that was also the fear and the PTSD. The feeling of oh my god, if I didn’t say anything, where would I be?

40:09

Yeah, you would have been done. Right? Or I wouldn’t.

40:14

And so I That’s the stuff that kind of freaks me out. So it helps to talk about it to help educate people about it. Because then that is my lesson and that is my mission in life. It’s like, you know, yes. Is there an afterlife? Yes. Is there a consciousness outside the body? Yes. Can you do we change from a solid to a gas? Yes. You know, like all of this that is not the near death experience was life altering, but that’s not where I focus my I don’t believe it. That’s my my mission and like, my mission in life is to bridge this gap between science and spirit and help would be, especially with health and life. Moments of of listening to it, because it can not only help your life, you can say that.

40:57

Oh,

Emily Merrell  40:58

Stephanie, This is so frustrating because I want to talk to you for like seven more hours. There’s

41:03

other Yeah, we haven’t even covered the bodybuilding. So I

Emily Merrell  41:05

know. The bodybuilding those two guys. Basically, the TLDR is go watch her documentary on Netflix. It’s the first episode. I was watching it with my husband as like, I know her I know her. It felt so, so cool. I’ve sent it to so many people, and also your book, but staff how else can people find out more about you and learn more about your narrative?

41:30

Yeah. While I’m on. I’m trying to cut back on social. You know, I started at Tik Tok, and then I was like, I can’t keep up with it. But Steph Arnold 37 Is my Instagram I’m on Facebook. I’m on Tik Tok. I do respond, um, you know, to the emails, because nine times out of 10 the males are coming from very stressed people have life and death intuitive moments. But Stephanie aren’t all.net they can learn more about where to find me more about the speaking that I do. And the other shows that we’ve been on and and I’m going to launch podcasts when that happens. I’ll make it public. But yeah.

Emily Merrell  42:12

Well, Stephanie, before we leave, I’ve got six fast questions for you. So we’ll we’ll squeeze them in very quickly. So tell us an unknown fun fact about you. Is this um, I used to figure roller skates. That’s a great fun fact. And I’m going to Google stalk that afterwards. Who would be a dream person to be connected with?

42:42

Um That is a very good question. Um,

42:52

I don’t know. I feel like I’m living my dream being connected to my soulmate. So everybody else is like, it’s just crazy.

Emily Merrell  43:02

And and you’ve also been on like, most talk shows that most people want to be on so there’s that.

43:07

I’ve worked in that world for so long. So dream a dream person. I

43:11

mean, no, okay. All right. Barry Manilow? Okay.

43:18

We joked about it because I was I was in love with Barry mental and Andy Gibb growing up, but uh, Barry Manilow specifically. So Jonathan takes me to one of his concerts. And you know, He’s much older now. And he’s, we’re standing up here, whatever. And, and John and I were joking. He was like, I was like, That’s my hall pass. Yeah. Like he’s like, I write so he’s like, gladly no problem. Why is every basic use gap in his bedroom? And then he comes out with the article like he finally admits it, and I’m like, I don’t care. I don’t believe it.

43:52

I still love him. I will change. Yeah. What show are you watching?

43:59

Um,

44:00

so I like documentaries. I was I just finished that. That Malaysian five the MH 370 I’m like, like, why would anybody looking at where that woman found the debris in the in the ocean and why are they looking over here? Who’s covering up and? But no, I love documentaries. Yeah, I just introduced Jonathan to the Spanish or the Mexican Like Water for Chocolate. Oh.

44:30

Good one. Yes, of course.

44:31

You never saw him. I was like, you have to watch this. And so I love that but I love you there are certain movies that are on replay to me that like our favorite movie is Princess Bride Oh of us. And and we watch the Hot Tub Time Machine all the time. Like yeah, so. Yeah, totally. Allison, I’m in Woodstock, Illinois, which is where they film Groundhog’s Day. So we watch Groundhog Day too.

Emily Merrell  44:58

That’s amazing. Yeah, it feels apropos What book are you reading? Or do you recommend? It could be personal or business?

45:06

Yeah.

45:09

So which book did i just i Why, like, like, I have books that I read for just fun beach, you know, books that are that are guilty pleasures like the Liam Moriarty books. Now she she writes just like writing. But there is a book called anti fragile by Nassim Taleb. And it’s a fascinating there is no word in the English language. If I give you the word, fragile, what is the opposite of fret. And so if you think about that, he created the word anti fragile. And it was really a power plant. And it goes with our theme of what we’re talking about. What he says is that there are things like you take a little bit of poison every day, in order to defend yourself from being poisoned, you lift weights, to make your body stronger, but you’re breaking down muscle in order to build it up. So you are creating something from a fragile state. Like if you’re weak, or if you were take poison, and you would die. But you are, or you’re weaker, because you have no muscle, but then you build it, trauma, what he says you’re growing through what you go through. In the case of of all of our traumas, if you look back to the moment and the impact and how it devastated you, and then coming out through it and being triumphant over it, or becoming the warrior, or like me taking ownership of my body and doing bodybuilding and like whatever it is, um, I would not be the person I am today without having gone through that. And anti fragile. Oh, I love

Emily Merrell  46:58

that. I’m gonna read that one. Also, I got a little taste of Princess Bride references in that one but the poison Yes, exactly. What is your favorite emoji?

47:11

Ah, he’s eyes just

47:15

are the emojis like

47:19

tell me you’re Jeff.

47:23

Menopause. I’m like, Alright, let’s let’s go.

47:27

Here gets like monthly that was not meant for my area sent me

47:30

that. No, you know, I use I use a lot of the double heart emojis like when, you know, given take the growth of the hearts. But it’s old school emojis. My kids are like, that is so 2000 Ah, that’s nice.

Emily Merrell  47:44

Like, I am not a Gen Z. Thank you so much for joining me. And then my final question for you is Who gave you permission or inspired you to do the thing you wanted to do with your life?

47:56

Oh um, me? Well, yeah,

48:07

I think that you have you have people who influence you on you watch what they’re doing. Like you’ve you’ve watched the Oprah’s of the world. You watch your parents go through things UI. They’re all these elements. But ultimately, it’s up to you to take that first step. And so my husband is is there like I wrote an article for Johns Hopkins and for me to write an article in a medical journal that’s read by doctors about intuition or foreboding and there are some spiritual tones. He gave me permission even though I am not the PhD from the University of Chicago. He is an I am the graduate of suntan knew that he was like, you can do this and help. So he inspired me to keep going. But at the end of the day, it’s all of us taking that step to say, Okay, I’m going to do this so you get influenced by, by elements. But it’s up to

49:01

you. Up to

Emily Merrell  49:02

you. Well, Stephanie, thank you so much for being a guest on today’s show. It was so wonderful to have hockey through your story. hear your story. Hopefully it inspired others the way it always inspires me. Thank you. Yay. And then listeners if you like today’s show, make sure to follow Stephanie. Give us five stars on Apple, and we’ll see you the next time on the sixth degree with Emily Merrell. Have a wonderful day.