Meet Our Muse: Krystle

Introducing our Muse this month: Krystle. Krystle is a blogger and lawyer from Toronto. She practiced law for 9 years before taking the leap into full-time blogging. What started out as a fun insta-hobby has now grown into an incredible lifestyle platform where she connects with her audience on so much more than what she originally intended. 

Hi Krystle! Thank you for being our Muse this month — we are so honoured. Could you tell our community a little bit about you. I know you’re a content creator and lawyer! What a combination!

That’s right. I was practicing law without ever thinking that I would become a blogger or content creator. I initially started it as a passion project, a creative outlet, something that I had on the side because I had all of these interests from various points in time in my life. It grew faster than I anticipated and it got to a point when I was spending so much time, that between this and law, it was very demanding and I was so much more interested in this.

I started being approached for campaigns and it started to open my eyes up to the reality that, oh, you can actually make money doing this. And I just decided to go for it. 

I did have certain safeguards in place. So I had started talking to a management company around the same time. And with the combination of the relationships that I had started building I didn't feel like I would ever be unsupported. 

My heart was never really in law. I enjoyed practicing and various elements of the practice, but I didn't like the lifestyle. And I always said that I wasn't gonna look back — but last year I started practicing again and came full circle. The world of social media and online, the demand has increased so much. There are so many campaigns and so much money changing hands, the contracts have become more complex and bigger and more complicated and influencers don't like dealing with that stuff. Agencies don't like dealing with that stuff. So an opportunity came up where a friend of mine owns an agency and she needed someone to review the contracts for their influencers. I was doing corporate commercial law before and I've grown to know the industry quite intimately over the last five years‚ it really is a good fit. So law is my part time thing now, it’s my own practice and I’m a full-time content creator. And social media has grown and evolved in such a way that there are so many different voices. There are platforms for older content creators, it's not just all the same types of voices and points of view that are saturating the industry.

That's so true and important as well. That’s what drew us to you too, I’ve been following for awhile but to see you posting about your fertility journey has been so honest and open. Can you tell me a bit about that?

Yeah, it kind of felt like a little bit of a natural extension for me to be able to start sharing that. I've been sharing all the major things that have been happening in my life since 2017; including quitting my job, getting married, everything. And this originally started when I had an ectopic pregnancy in February of 2020. It was this very traumatic, very sad thing that happened and took a while for me to recover from physically and emotionally. But when I did get to the point where I felt like I was emotionally ready, and had discussion with my husband, because obviously he's a big part of the story too, and when we were both comfortable, I shared it. And that’s just opened up this dialogue — I've never before felt so connected to my community. 

I've had long time followers. I have people who I went to school with and are my friends, people who I've connected with online, and other bloggers. But for the first time, I really felt like I was providing so much more value and truly connecting. 

Even in 2020 people weren't really talking about things like this. So that creates a sense of shame and stigma, embarrassment. People don't know where to go for resources.There wasn't really a lot about it being written online, so the dialogue really needed to start opening up and it wasn't like I intentionally thought that way and I started sharing. 

But when I started sharing I realized just how much of a need there was for it and in turn through sharing how much I was getting back too. It helped that logic side become more informed and then emotionally, it was an additional support, which is so needed during this time.

And I've shared over time how my views have changed as well. Back then, years ago, not thinking that I would ever need IVF, not thinking that IVF would be something that's for me and my family — and things have changed, obviously, so much. 

I'm now on my second round of IVF and I’ve been sharing all of that, and taking my audience through the twists and turns that is fertility. And every time I share other women are like, wow, I had no idea that it involves this much. I had no idea that it's this complex. So yeah, my goal really has to become to empower women, advocate for people, empower them to advocate for themselves to become more informed and educated so that they can save themselves time and not really feel broken down by the system which doesn't work.

It's great that we have all these technologies in place and we're really lucky to live in Canada. But there's so much more work that needs to be done on the system and support.

I'm in the middle of my second round. We did the retrieval back in January and so we're gearing up for a frozen embryo transfer and I just got bad news, unfortunately, that it had to be canceled because we were going be doing it like in a week or so and it just got canceled because I had some abnormal results with a uterine biopsy. 

So of course that’s very disappointing to hear, but at the same time, it's very important to find that out prior to trying to put an embryo back in. It's just about like the seed/soil connection. 

All the stars have to align.

Basically, yeah. You wouldn't believe how much has to come together for us to like to get pregnant. So I'm kind of in limbo right now. Just waiting to find out what the next steps are gonna be. But hopefully we'll be moving towards the frozen embryo transfer within the next month and a half to two months and hoping for a positive result. 

Yes. It sounds like you have incredible strength — which is a big reason you’re our muse. How do you feel when it comes to strength?

Over the years, I feel like the experience has made me tougher and has made me stronger emotionally. So even though I do have these setbacks and disappointments, I feel like I have good supports in place and then the areas that I don't, I'm learning more tools to be able to cope and to be able to navigate it. 

It does take a certain personality type, I think it's not for everybody to go through it and share online. So that can be tough at times. Getting used to the idea of being very vulnerable, laying things out on the table. 

Well there's strength in vulnerability as well and I'm sure you having this platform helps so many people

Yeah, that's the main comment that I get back from people. Oftentimes the kind of DMs I'm getting are like, I don't have anyone. I can’t talk about this, or, my partner doesn't understand, I can't talk to my parents, thank you for sharing this. It's really making me feel like I'm not alone. And I always take the time to talk to people and in DMs and to help. 

So my goal, if anything I've learned, I want to pass on knowledge to other people because I don't want them to have to jump through the multiple hoops I did. Oftentimes we're led down a wrong path or led down a path where it could add time on to things. I spend so much time researching this stuff, honestly, it becomes like a full-time job. And it’s an emotional drain on you as well. Just going down all those different paths and doing all the work. But at the same time, you know, don't overthink it and don't get stressed out. You have to make sure you're getting a good amount of sleep and you're eating well and you're taking care of your body because that's going to ultimately help my body get pregnant and sustain a pregnancy. There’s a lot to think about and keep in perspective.

Wow. You’re incredibly straightforward and positive about it all. 

I definitely have my days but I think now, especially going through it for a second time, I'm kind of used to it. There are a lot of unknowns and things that happen spontaneously and I've gone through a lot so far so I can kind of anticipate different things. I've learned coping mechanisms and tools and I'm currently in a support group for therapy. So I'm trying to gain more and acquire more. 

That's amazing. I know you said you take care of your body, but has your relationship with your body changed over the years?

It has in a good way but also in a bad way. Because of fertility, there becomes a sense of disconnect between you and your body because your body becomes like a science experiment. You're poked so many times and have to get blood drawn all the time, you’re probed all the time because you're constantly getting ultrasounds, injecting yourself with various medications and all the stuff that comes along with that. 

So whether it’s the side effects, headaches, nausea, weight gain, it's very easy for you to feel like you’ve become disconnected from your body because your body just kind of is like a vessel that's trying to achieve a certain purpose.

I’m trying to wrap my head around the idea of connecting back with yourself and trying to make it so that fertility is not all encompassing and it doesn't become like your identity because it's so easy for that to happen. You have to be so in it. But it's really important as well for you to maintain your sense of identity and who you are and connect with interests that you have outside of fertility and work on your relationship with your partner. And have just a healthier overall relationship with your body. That's kind of what I'm trying to focus on lately. 

But I'd say for the three months leading up to IVF, I was really trying to optimize my fertility. So as a result of that I was making sure I was doing my regular to moderate workouts, eating a certain way, keeping hydrated, sleeping well and you know, keeping the stress down and then of course, taking all the supplements. So I feel like I've been treating my body really well — but I want to get back that connection. 

And even like shoots like these, when you're sharing your story with me, but the shoot is completely separate. It's purely about feeling good and feeling good about how you look. I hope you felt that way. 

Yeah, I mean I totally did. And that's, that's pretty much what brought up this recent way of thinking about connection. I haven't really felt like this in a while, you know, and I think credit to the Mary Young team for making me feel so comfortable and it was just nice to feel feminine and like a woman again. 

Oh that’s so beautiful to hear. Any advice for anyone else going through this? 

First step is finding a doctor and like a lot of people don't realize it, but you have this option, you have the choice. I had to find a doctor and clinic and approach that worked for me. 

Know your limits. I'm the type of person, I tend towards overthinking and ruminating and obsessing and going down rabbit holes. So for me it's very important to have limitations on how much time I'm spending on different things; but that's a part of my process because I like all the information and I need to have this information so that I know and I can advocate for myself.

And this is where the next point, which is trust yourself, comes into it. You have to get to that point where you can trust yourself to be able to advocate and if that makes sense completely. You almost have to approach everything with at least a certain level of skepticism. It's not doubt or disrespect because at the end of the day, doctors are humans, and they know what they know and their views are based on the research that they've done and maybe the studies that are currently available. But this is all such a new area and research is constantly being done. And there's a real lack of research in the area as a whole. And as a result, there's gonna be conflicting views on things. So don't just take what one doctor says is gospel truth. There are so many online communities of women who are sharing information and helping each other based on their experience.

I think your ability to see the logic and connect with people is so perfect for the kind of life you’ve created. They really go hand in hand. 

Yeah, it's helped. I think having the law background is the logic. All the critical thinking and the skepticism and whatnot and then also being comfortable like advocating for myself and having to speak up. I think it's also my age too. I'm 39 and I'm turning 40 this year. So I'm not really open to having people push me around or just kind of make me feel like I'm just another number. But every woman regardless of your age, you should make sure that you are a priority.

Krystle is wearing the Cainan Tank and Moana Hip Bikini in Lavender.