Best of Both Worlds Podcast One Journey to Motherhood with Rebecca Thompson EP 435
Dec 2, 2025
Rebecca Thompson, a family medicine and public health physician and author of Held Together, shares her complicated path to motherhood including pregnancy loss and life-threatening complications. She explains ectopic and molar pregnancies, recovery and hope for fertility after loss. She also discusses how these experiences reshaped her clinical work, writing, and plans to use storytelling in medical training.
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Three Losses That Shaped A Book
- Rebecca Thompson experienced three early pregnancy losses including an ectopic and a molar pregnancy while finishing training.
- Those complications were isolating and prompted her to collect other women's stories and write Held Together to preserve meaning.
Turning Trauma Into Purposeful Practice
- Making meaning doesn't mean accepting a facile reason for suffering but transforming experiences into purposeful action.
- Rebecca reframed her losses into a mission to help others clinically and through storytelling in Held Together.
Ectopic Episode That Nearly Cost Her Life
- Rebecca had an ectopic pregnancy that failed medical management and required urgent surgery with risk of rupture and life-threatening bleeding.
- She emphasizes ectopics are a leading cause of maternal mortality worldwide and can implant in tubes, ovaries, cervix, or abdomen.
