Love is Blind, Baby #2 & Postpartum Depression w/ Zack & Bliss

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible, financial geniuses, monetary magicians. These are things that people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds. Visit Progressive.com to see what you can save. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations. We have the shortest engagement in Love is Blind history. No way! I think we met on a Tuesday and I proposed on a Friday. Zach and Bliss are best known from Netflix's Love is Blind. A social experiment where singles date, fall in love, and get engaged without ever seeing each other. I was really acting from a place of fear. I had this deep connection with someone I still had never met. And there were real obstacles that we were going to have to confront. After forming a deep connection with Bliss in the pods, Zach proposed to another woman first. Only to realize that he made the wrong choice. If there's any karmic justice for him dumping me on TV, then he got it at the honeymoon. And then there we go. We're good. When I gave birth, it was like deep, dark depression. Holding my daughter. Thinking about how her life would be if she didn't have me. Like I truly say that like she saved me throughout that process. Now married with a beautiful two-year-old daughter and another baby on the way. Zach and Bliss join us to talk about heartbreak, postpartum depression, and what really happens when the cameras stop rolling. With our story, I really felt like they did a great job of telling it. And I was, I was quite frankly really shocked. Because we, you know, we don't get to see it until it airs. We see it with the rest of the world. It's so scary. I did not think they would show so much of my experience. Because you have to remember there's like five, six different couples. We had six, six different couples. Yeah, six different couples. And so I'm thinking like you're just going to see. And honestly, you barely, you only get to see a small amount. But so much of my story and her story really got to me. It really got shown. And I thought they did a really good job of telling it as well as they could with the short amount of time they had. When you meet somebody new and they ask the classic question, how did you meet? How do you describe how you met? You know, it's so. Yeah, it's weird. We just will be like, oh, yeah, like we met. Like Zach used to say before we were like allowed to like talk about it. Oh, because there was a period of time where you like over a year. Yeah, it was like around a year. And some people have to wait like a year and a half. Luckily, we only had to wait a year. Yeah, a year and a half is a long time. It's like you were at a wedding and his friends asking him like or some random person you knew from college was like, oh, how did you guys meet? He was like in an experiment. And he was like, no, like, how did you actually meet? He's like, yeah, in an experiment. Because love is mine is technically an experiment. That's kind of how they want you to like think about it when you're watching it, too. It's like a social experiment. And it was the guy thought you were like totally being like a jerk and like not answering the question. But now we actually just kind of say like, oh, yeah, like we got married, you know, and love is fine. People are like, what? Like, that's real. And we I always think about how like our children are going to have like the most interesting, crazy story to like tell about how we met. Seriously, how does that even come about? Like you end up on a reality dating experiment show. Like, how does that come about? For me, I got a voicemail and like I'm the type of person who has probably like 45. Like, I'm listening to voicemails like I never listen to my voicemails. My phone's always on. Do not disturb. But I like randomly listen to the voicemail and they're like, oh, we're doing like a documentary in Seattle. And I was like, oh, whatever, like a documentary. OK. And, you know, there's so many scams and things out there. So like, what do I know? But I randomly called it back and like, oh, have you heard of love is blind? And I was like, oh, yeah, I have. They're like, oh, we're like casting. Like, where'd you get my information? Like, who submitted me for this? And it's still a mystery to this day. I have no idea. They scouted you. Like, I literally don't know. You don't have any guesses. Like, there's no family friends. I asked them. I'm like, who submitted me? You know, and they were like, oh, well, we can't say. I'm like, what do you mean you can't say? This is about me. This is like my information. You know, they're like, oh, well, like some people get it from like hair salons and like hair salons. So I like asked my hair stylist, did you submit me? She was like, no. So I still don't know. Oh, I hate that type of thing. Isn't that weird? I know. You'll always be in your head. And I asked my family and my friends and they're like, no. And I'm like, okay, they couldn't have just like gotten my phone number like randomly. Like someone had to give it to them. So it's still a mystery. You would think they'd want to fess up right now. Yeah. It's been a success story. They want to take credit. Exactly. You may need to re-ask everyone now, but it's been like four years. We were so close to not going on the show. Both of us. Both of us. It's actually pretty wild. Yeah. What happened. For me, it was my sister that had nominated me for The Bachelorette. Really? Yeah. And so they had gotten the information through that. I guess they kind of share information. I don't know. The Bachelorette had passed. But apparently Love is Blind was interested. And I didn't know what Love is Blind was. I had no idea. It just came out during COVID. And that is right around when they reached out to me. So apparently it had become this big thing and I didn't know. I had never watched reality TV. And they called me and I was at a point in my life where, you know, things were going well with my career. And I really was just trying to find my person. I knew I wanted to have a wife. I knew I wanted to have a family. And that was really my top priority at that point. So I thought, well, I was either going to move to Austin, Texas, or I was going to move to Seattle because I was in central Washington. And the dating was pretty rough. You know, people say dating in Seattle is rough, but you try dating in Wenatchee, Washington. Say that one more time. Wenatchee. Wenatchee, yeah. Wenatchee, Washington. Wenatchee. That sounds cute. It is actually really beautiful. I think it's like 40,000. Wait, that's like Abby's small town. She's from Quincy, Illinois. Oh, yeah. There's actually a town called Quincy that's like. In Washington, yeah. Yeah, it's really near. But it's beautiful. I automatically like it. But yeah, so the people who reached out to me didn't know that I lived in central Washington. They thought I was in Seattle. So they're like, so is Wenatchee pretty close to Seattle? And I was like, well, it's like a two-hour drive if that's close. Oh, Midwesterners, that's close. That is right around the corner. Yeah. So I didn't hear from them for like three months. And then apparently. It's actually such a long process. You go like months without hearing anything from them in like the casting process. But I really like genuinely thought that they were just like, oh, this dude's not. I'm like, oh, this dude's not. it was it was pretty funny for me but i think for you if you were to be embarrassed maybe that's the time you were i don't know you never get embarrassed but there were quite a few moments that i was embarrassed uh i'm just thankful not all of it made the cut what what did it what did it make the cut that you're like oh glad that stayed off well you only see me sing once you sing multiple times oh i sing the bliss the entire time we're in the pods i serenaded her like every day you know we couldn't have music and so i was like what am i gonna do without music this whole time and i make made a joke to my family that they're just gonna make the guy sing to me in the pods and he definitely delivered on that yeah yeah i was actually told and this is my thought um because it was copyrighted music right that it was wasn't going to make the cut right because they're like oh yeah you know if you're gonna play any music or sing a thing you know just don't make it copyrighted so i thought okay you know that it's not gonna be in there um and uh i i remember talking with someone about it and they had told me that they're that me singing was not going to end up on the cut maybe they were trying to just like make you not scared or like when we watched it literally oh my god i was just like no no no i mean yeah i i knew there was a chance that was gonna get in there but um yeah that was that was a embarrassing moment would you be willing to serenade us right now i feel like his voice has gotten better because he sings with our daughter all the time wait that's so sweet what do you sing to your daughter hey jude hey jude is there like a certain like a like a way you sing it to her that's like specific like in a lullaby form you know um no i just like she she has she has memorized um about 50 songs and i picked this up it was it was wild i i remember now she's kind of gotten more into improv-ing it used to be she would just sing them exactly how they are but now she'll change characters and she has fun like playing around with the songs but at around eight months i uh i noticed that she was repeating the last word of every sentence when i would sing her songs to bed and then i started to pause and i realized she wasn't just mimicking me she had memorized the words and then i started to like pause longer and then fill it in and she will be able to do like every other word she can sing music by zach bryant she can sing uh the beetle the beetle hey jude is her favorite for some reason she loves hey dude right now the abcs are also the abcs she'll say erx and i can't correct her you know you don't correct these cute little things that they do because you want it to last forever so sweet she sings hey dude she'll say hey dude she'll say when skies are great not gray when she sings you're my sunshine it's literally the best how old is she now she just turned two oh yeah she's wild and crazy but so fun oh they're like your second one's more gonna be more wild i'm like really yeah everyone you know we're in for it if that's the case what was it like there's probably not many people in the world that like watch footage of them on a honeymoon with somebody else on like netflix you know it's like watching that how did you like talk through that i'm guessing probably some like frustration probably came up yeah watching that back you know honestly that's i'm really grateful for that time period we had in between getting married and then it airing like we were able to talk through literally everything like he told me everything that happened i told him everything that happened i really feel like we were able to work through that like really well beforehand i know there's other franchises where they like will have a really quick turnaround i think like the bachelor has a really quick turnaround and i'm like in a way that's good but a way not because you don't able you're not able to settle into your marriage and settle into things like work things out you know which i'm again really grateful for you're not in the spotlight during that time no one knows so i think you know one thing about zach he's a really honest person and i really trusted him which is why i was like felt confident enough to say yes at the altar even after everything we went through yeah um and so i just i knew i you know it wasn't there was no really surprises i mean obviously like seeing it visually is a different thing but i wasn't like surprised by anything because he was so honest and honestly like it was such like a it was just so cringy like the way he was treated was so terrible that it was just so like hard to watch from like a person that i love like being treated that way rather than like a place of like anger you know yeah or like jealousy yeah yeah yeah it was really i don't know and it's honestly like if there's any karmic justice for him dumping me on tv then he got it at the honeymoon and then there we go we're good we're even now okay well you know that was honestly i i felt like uh jonah and the whale uh when i was in mexico because when we were in the pods i i there were so many signs that bliss was the person that i was supposed to be with and maybe it wasn't clear to me in that moment like that i should take that that leap but i i was really acting from a place of fear um and i had i and some of this i think maybe was subconscious and some of it was conscious but with bliss i was very afraid that we wouldn't work out i had this deep connection with someone i still had never met um in person and there were things that we had discussed some of which you don't see um that were real obstacles that we were going to have to confront one that doesn't really get explored deeply was that i have allergy induced asthma um to animals and she has uh had a dog and a cat now we have two dogs and a cat um but i mean it it was bad it was really bad and i didn't know if we were and they're like my babies at that point you know like i was like these are my children and oh my gosh like what the heck is happening here and when i told her about that the response was not very good i was like why is this happening to me i was like we'll get through it i was like uh and like honestly it had come out earlier in our date and i was like it's because you date for like nine or ten days which seems so short but it's so weird when you're in it it feels so different but i might have not even like continued on dating him you know because like those are my babies yeah and yeah so there were things from my past that were kind of bringing fears up um and then i didn't really think that i was going to be accepted by her family um based on what she had told me about her family and my own experience experiences i'd made some preconceptions about what you have to though you know like you're talking to someone through a wall and and i think the the level of connection that we had i was i was really afraid um that i was going to break her heart and that she was going to break my heart and that i didn't know how long that it would take to get over that and a lot of people don't understand that everybody's dating everybody mm-hmm right like and i think when the when love is blind first came out people thought like oh this person's a player and they're like because you just see it for the first time and you're like why is this person only showing certain dates they can't show everything got it got it you start out dating 15 people i mean maybe that's a prerequisite for anyone who hasn't watched the show yeah um you start out dating 15 people on the first day you cut that in half uh and then progressively as it goes along for about 14 days you cut it down and down and down until you're about you're either down to two people or three people and then you can go all the way till the very end uh dating that many people and now it's been around long enough people kind of understand um but it's kind of hard to understand how you can fall in love with multiple people um that quickly or even fall in love with anyone that quickly um and the reality is is like the people who've made that show they've made that show and they've made that show and they've made they are experts in in love and and connection and psychology and they if you if you follow the process the way it's designed um they've already hand-picked people who are compatible and likely more than more people than are you know hopefully right because love triangles are good television right oh gosh and so you're you're you're facilitating environment they say it's like two to three like you're compatible super compatible with like two to three people because you answer like so many questions like a ridiculous amount of questions and personality tests and all of these things as the process of getting casted yeah and then you're being vulnerable about things that um are very intimate that you've probably never shared with anyone or uh if you're doing the process the way it's intended or very few people um you're having really really intimate vulnerable conversations and in fact when i realized that i almost left on the first day um because i i don't know i hadn't really contemplated it like yes i was looking for my wife uh but i didn't think about having to open up about my vulnerabilities about my fears uh in front of the entire world you know things um like losing my mother uh i i mean i had had friends close friends that i had never talked to you know we we about that and we'd been friends for five years never came up um the show really helped me actually become a lot more vulnerable as a person and and changed me in that way but going in i i i was like okay if if you want to find your person you have to be vulnerable here this is you you've got to do it and uh i decided that i was going to do that um sorry that kind of got a little bit of no you're good i'm glad you brought up vulnerability because i've i noticed watching you on the show and seeing you talk about that and talk about your mom and talk about like even even just like this the silly jokes you made when you when you like opened up by saying yeah i'm a stripper like just to kind of like see how how people would react like i guess my question for you is do you think embracing that vulnerability was was the right like are you glad that you did that because you can't really ever take any of that back you've you've opened yourself up in a really big way to so many people and like you said before you weren't even telling your own friends about these these deep things so how how has being vulnerable changed you as as a man and as a person yeah i you know i think about it a lot vulnerability is is the key to connection um and if you're looking for love you you can't get there without being vulnerable because you have to show your true self yeah and until you've shown your true self you're never going to have real love um and that means showing your fears showing the things that you feel inadequate about those are the things that really connect people um and so like i don't have any regrets about about opening up and being vulnerable um and i think like we need more vulnerability in the world um and i think that's really real strength you know when you meet someone who's able to show you their weaknesses that's someone who's strong that's good so interesting because like as someone who knows you just kind of post or during the experience and like post it like i think you're you're very quick to be vulnerable with people now i feel like it's not something you really struggle with anymore and i think your family like his family had never met a girlfriend before like it was a totally i think like a total 180 that they saw from you at least from going from someone who was kind of more closed off to things to someone who was like very open very quickly with people i was very private about my dating life yeah like did not talk to any family about it unless it was someone who was very serious thank you to kiwi co for sponsoring this portion of today's episode you guys summer is fast approaching in fact we're already here and we need to find activities and ways to do things to keep our boys entertained while still learning things that don't involve screens that's why we're huge fans of kiwi co if you haven't heard of kiwi co before it's learning toys for kids delivered right to your doorstep we have actually started using kiwi co when we first had our first child so we have been using their products for years they also are great at encouraging kids to get outside and explore and with the summer adventure series kids receive six hands-on project kits with enriching and fun activities kiwi co crates offer a range of topics for each age with some summer adventure kits featuring playing with bubbles exploring the stars or building things i remember the first kiwi co crate we ever got was those color contrasting cards those black and white contrast cards and now we have gone through so many different stages where now we're actually using like a lighted board with shapes and getting into building and like little kids physics it's really really neat to see their learning bloom through kiwi co build the best summer ever with kiwi co get ten dollars off on your summer adventure series at kiwico.com slash summer promo code unplanned that's ten dollars off your summer adventure at k-i-w-i-c-o dot com slash summer promo code unplanned yeah see for me like sometimes i have foot and mouth syndrome where i just like i just start talking and i'm like why the frick did i say that i have that but i think you're right though i do think vulnerability is strength and i do think i i think the only true that's that's the that's how you make the realest connection is through that vulnerability the other factor though here is having an entire audience watching you date and get engaged and get married and then or actually i'm sorry i got ahead of myself date get engaged call off the engagement then get engaged again like see them get married and there was an article that came out recently which kind of kind of shocked me uh just in like a couple days ago apparently there have been eight divorces i guess from the love is blind franchise and you guys are one of the one of the you know few couples that it worked and you know you have baby number two on the way like so many good things are happening i wanted to ask why do you think so many divorces have happened from the love is blind franchise it's my my perspective i'll let you share yours first you know i feel like divorce and like relationships ending happens like even in the real world outside of television and outside of experiences experiments like this i think is it still 50 50 i'm not sure if it's still 50 50 but if it is i mean that's kind of somewhat of a reflection of what you see just through love is blind obviously when you get married so quickly it's difficult to cover everything it's difficult to cover exactly how you plan to raise children you might have a really big differences there that could potentially cause you know a marriage to end um there's just it's just so much so quick and i also think that the pressure of being in the public i can definitely add to that like i kind of spoke earlier about how you have that time period in between of creating a really strong foundation and sometimes that you know maybe that doesn't happen all the way like obviously we don't have like complete deep insights into why everyone got divorced and what exactly happened there but my kind of take on it is there when you watch people fall in love it's like very romanticized and there's these really high expectations of oh my gosh this is going to last forever this is like my favorite couple this is going to all you know it's going to be forever and ever and in reality like they're still human and there's still that kind of like 50 50 chance maybe of it ending in divorce that's kind of my take on it can i give you my take on why i think you guys have worked out tell me so we uh so actually wow what i want to hear it no i'm so interested this is just my like outside opinion but i'm also i'm interested okay so we actually we're friends with lauren and ari from the bachelor franchise oh yeah they live here that's right and yeah and so like they're they're awesome they're such a sweet couple and it's funny we've we've watched their season two we watched their season after we like we're friends with them so it was like a really weird yeah let's never admit this and then the next time he sees him he's like i had to tell you because i have foot and mouth syndrome like i can't help myself i tell them that and it was weird because yeah we like saw ari kiss like other women on the show anyway but like i think and same thing with the bachelor franchise there's been so many couples that didn't work out but i think why they worked out was because they kind of broke the script of the show like oh this is very similar to our story he ended up choosing the girl that he turned down and that's exactly what you did you kind of broke the spell of like the exactly tv experiment thing totally and so it made a choice for you exactly so you you guys chose like you chose completely on your own outside of the reality tv side of it because you didn't really do the stereotypical cookie cutter method how the show how it was supposed to be i think that's why it's working so well honestly like we've talked about that and like i think even maybe zach says for him so i don't want to speak for you babe but like he feels like he had to go through that in order to actually be ready to say yes at the altar like he had to like lose me he had to like say yes at the altar and he had to like say yes at the altar and he had to like say yes at the altar and he had to like say yes at the altar and he had to like say yes at the altar and he had to like go through that experience of like this is what my world would be like without her like i actually really want to be with her yeah and um we went through something really real you know like that you're right doesn't happen in those worlds you're like in a literally a whirlwind romance like if you didn't break up who know you're in limerence there's like the oxytocin is going crazy like you're literally like high on love and you get married in that state rather than like going through trials and like tribulations and things and we actually went through something really serious like we broke up like he broke my heart you know and then yeah we got back to so honestly i think that's a great theory i really do yeah i'll tell you when when we broke up i knew immediately i had up i i i knew i had made a mistake he's working on saying the f word around she was like i want some water the other day i was like oh my gosh oh my gosh your two-year-old said that yeah yeah i'm like she said on the plane like really loud she's really good she's really good with her words yeah yeah and she'll just say it's not going away i've tried i've tried to extinguish it i'll be like what the duck what the duck and she goes what the and she does it with intonations like what the we're like oh you're like daddy beautiful that's hilarious yeah that's hilarious i think that's funny actually yeah it is our kid all right what what is griffin saying no he just said it one time he said freaking he said and i i'm so i'm such a preschool teacher i'm like i don't like the way that sounds oh he said he said something about he's like that was freaking awesome abby's a better person than me i do say freaking awesome and it's like i say that too but i don't know just their little kid voice i was like your baby voice stop that it's wrong their little innocent baby voices so we're trying to correct that she's like i just have to add that it's like you know that's how i grew up as a kid and it's ingrained into me, so it's not going anywhere. Working on it. Wait, no, I thought we were working on it. I'm working on it. I'm working on it. I actually remember as a kid, you know, this is kind of dark, but like my mom and my stepdad arguing, and my cousin and I, we were in Las Vegas actually, and we counted how many times they said the F word, and we were like 186. Yeah, just counting it down. That's awful. Yeah, but so after. Did that F you up, like growing up with hearing your mom and your stepdad argue all the time on top of everything else? I saw a lot of messed up stuff as a kid. I mean, like a lot of domestic violence, a lot of, you know, like having to call the cops to make sure like my mom or, you know, whoever she was with didn't end up injured or, you know. Like, yeah, yeah, I saw a lot of stuff. Wow. Oh, my gosh. But anyways, when I broke. I'm really sorry to hear that. Yeah. It's okay. I guess how does that affect you now in the role as like a parent, like figure? Like what. Now that you're in charge, like of your household and how like you guys interact and how you model a family unit for your daughter and your soon-to-be son, like how does that, how has that influenced you? Yeah, well, I mean, I think that it's really, on the positive side, it's really important that we model how to show love in front of our daughter. And we're very intentional about that. Her face lights up when she sees me kiss Bliss. Like it is just the biggest cheesy grin. So I'll just come into the kitchen and just give Bliss all these kisses. And my daughter is just like. And then we'll go give her kisses. But modeling love, you know, like the obvious is like no domestic violence. Like we don't have any issues with that. But I just, I also think like the use of violence in conflict is a coward's method, right? Like if you have to use violence or aggression to solve a conflict, it's because you are either not intelligent enough to use your words or strong enough to walk away. Like I just, I don't think there's any excuse. I think it's made you really intentional too as a parent. Like you're. Really like from what, just like observing you with her, like you're very intentional, like you said about showing love and like making sure that she feels safe. And so like I, we have very different childhood experiences. Like my parents had a pretty intense divorce, which impacted me pretty heavily, but I did not witness even a millionth of the things that you did. And I feel like you're a little bit more aware, you know, about like purposeful in a lot of ways than I am in cruelty. And so I think it's really motivating like a really positive, safe environment for her. She definitely knows that she's loved and she's surrounded with so much love. And that's truthfully the thing that I, the only thing I think that matters. And I think there's so much guilt that parents deal with about, you know, not being able to, I know my mother did, not being able to provide me with the things that she thought that I needed or, you know, me experiencing the things that I did. But I remember telling her, at one point, like, mom, I'm okay. Like it worked out. And yeah, you weren't able to do everything perfectly, but like I felt loved, you know, and your love was all I really needed. And I just think like, that's what makes the world's best parent. And it's not a comparison. It's not like, oh, this parent's better than that. If you love your kids with all your heart, like you're the world's best parent because it's going to drive you, right? Like if you truly love your kids, like it's going to drive you to become a better person and to do the best you can to provide for them, to sacrifice for them. And I know it does me. And I also, the other thing that I've realized as a parent is that what I want for my daughter, like I think about the person I want her to be. And the, the best way that I can help her become that person is to become that person myself. Yeah. Snapping for that. Yeah, that's awesome. That's really good. That's good stuff. I know that from like learning about your story, that a lot of your childhood and some of the challenges you went through with your mom is what motivated your career choice later in life. Like, are you still a practicing lawyer? Yeah. Yeah. No way. Yeah. I do personal injury litigation now. Okay. So, but you, that, that motivated criminal defense, right? Was what like kind of motivated by your childhood. I think, I think there was always something about me that gravitated towards criminal defense. Like in the fifth grade, I remember arguing with my teacher, I believe her name was Ms. Jamison. And there was, sorry, Ms. Jamison. She had told this boy that he was going to get, he was, he was going to lose his recess unless he gave this girl Lacey back her, her glasses, like her reading glasses. And he's like, I didn't take her reading glasses. And I remember arguing with the teacher, like what evidence do you have? I literally got up and argued with the teacher. What evidence do you have that he took the glasses? And she said, well, he's done it before. And I got, I almost lost my recess because I was sitting there. I was like, what do you mean? Because he's done it before. That's not evidence. That doesn't establish that he's the, how do you know? How do you know that she didn't lose her glasses? Right. And ultimately she did lose her glasses and they got his recess back. And Ms. Jamison apologized to me. But, but it's, I, I mean, my, my personality has always gravitated towards that. I justice, I believe. Yeah. I believe in due process. And if we, as a society are going to take away, the life or Liberty of others that we had better be sure beyond any reasonable doubt that they actually did what they're accused of doing, because if we're not really sure, or we make a mistake, then the people who make the decision to take that life and Liberty are just as bad. Right? Like you've put someone in a cage for a year of their life, their entire life, one day of their life. So I, I think that burden really weighed on me for a long time. Um, and I was very thankful while I was doing criminal defense. I was able to help a lot of people. Yeah. That's just a side thing that really interests me ever since. Yeah. Well, cause Abby's mom was actually going to school. She went, your mom went to college to go into criminal justice, right? Yeah. She's a criminal justice major. But honestly, what really sparked it for me was reading just mercy. Yes. Like, did you ever read that? I was telling you guys, that's the book Abby read to me, the entirety of the book in the car. Cause I was like, you have to read it. Cause I was like, you have to read this book. I need to read it. But it got me just so interested in, I mean, that he is a criminal defense lawyer. He started a foundation too, but, um, the equal justice initiative, you've heard of EJI, but anyway, that, and I, obviously, you know, so much more about that area, but that is an area that like, I feel very interested in. So I think it's really cool that you like, you chose that area of law and the realm of law. Like what is like the, I, I'm sure that there's a realm of like, okay, this is the moneymaker. This is the one where you're like kind of, slaving away. Like what, where does criminal justice lie in that? Well, what I would say is like in any field of law, you can make a decent amount of money. Um, but also I would also say if you want to make money, law is not really the place to go. Um, it's just not the amount of time and effort it takes to get a law degree, to get licensed. Um, there's just much easier and more effective ways to like make money. Um, but if you want to make money, you really care about justice and you really care about helping people. I think law is a great profession. Um, but yeah, I, I don't know. Cause you see like there's divorce lawyers who that I'd say the safest actually probably field of law is family law. Uh, and there's a lot of money in that it is probably the most dangerous field of law, like substantially more dangerous than criminal law. Um, you wouldn't think that like, because most people when they are losing the person they've, fallen in love with or they're losing their children, um, mentally, that is the worst state of mind that you could ever be in. Um, and so it is, yeah, it's a, it's a very difficult field of law. There's a lot of very few lawyers who really even want to go into that field of law. Are you saying dangerous as in spouses, like killing the spouse or spouses like taking their own life? Lawyers being killed by their clients. Yeah. What lawyers? They didn't get them the custody of the child. I didn't know that lawyers get killed by their, clients does happen it does happen scary is that so you have to you have to worry about that too you're trying to make the world a better place you're like ah hopefully no one tries to kill me today yeah let's cut that part just in case there's any clients watching thank you to the aspca for sponsoring this portion of today's episode we have a furry friend in our household for the first time in our marriage she's part of our family now i just love the excitement of when you come home and maybe no one else is home for whatever reason but if your dog is there they are just so happy to see you and it just puts such a big smile on my face and that's why we wanted to give a quick message from today's sponsor the aspca pet health insurance program have you ever found yourself urgently googling things like is this normal for dogs or do i need to call the vet right now you're not alone we've been there we've experienced things like bee stings with our dog and those moments of panic come with pet ownership and they're exactly why aspca pet health insurance exists when you enroll in an aspca pet health insurance plan you could get a 25 amazon gift card it's a little treat for you while you're doing something great for your pet the program offers customizable accident and illness plans making it easier to get your pet the care that they may need to explore coverage visit aspca pet insurance.com unplanned that's aspca pet insurance.com unplanned eligibility restrictions apply visit aspca pet insurance.com for more info this is a paid advertisement insurance is underwritten by either independence american insurance company or united states fire insurance company and produced by ptz insurance agency limited the aspca is not an insurer and is not engaged in the business of insurance but no yeah it is it does have the highest uh homicide rate last time i checked like for public defenders like because you did some public defending contracts but you weren't like technically a public defender but that's is that probably the one that's like more on you make less money and it's more work or is it i mean yeah i mean obviously if you're working on a on a public defense contract you're not making a lot of money i think you have so many clients who do public defense are the most committed to justice and it's funny to me that there's this negative connotation about people who do public defense because there's a real misconception a lot of people don't understand that if you're in a municipality um the city itself is tasked with the criminal defense budget and typically most small municipalities will subcontract to private lawyers so for example where we uh lived in winanche uh the local municipality has subcontracted with our law firm and then our law firm had subcontracted with other lawyers in the area so our law firm would manage the public defense contract and then would have private lawyers who would take a portion of that so like they'd take on 100 cases or 50 cases during the year um but there's this perception that public defense lawyers are somehow the most committed to justice and i think that's a really uh not as talented as private defense and i will tell you that is not true i've seen some tremendously talented public defenders out there uh and the opposite in the private defense where people feel like they're getting more because they're paying for it right uh but actually most public defenders are in trial every you know every month or yeah so it makes them really good they're working they're doing it yeah and this is like if anyone out there is in a situation where they are looking for a uh a lawyer in the space of criminal defense or personal injury the number one skill that you need to make sure your lawyer has is the ability to go to trial and win um that is what determines the outcome like at its core a lot of criminal defense is like a high stakes poker game and the the the cards are what is going to happen when we get in front of a jury will it be not guilty will be guilty and there's all these variables that you're trying to use to determine the probability of that um the facts on the case the motions for suppression that one side may do over the other um whether certain protocols were followed but all of those are building up in litigation until you get to that trial and um the way that i was always able to get my clients the best outcome is being willing to go to trial and i like i thought when you think of what i'm talking about i'm talking about the fact that lawyers are like oh everyone goes to trial like that's what lawyers do but apparently it's a very small percentage that actually go to trial and actually are good at it so it's definitely something i learned most lawyers have never gone to trial which is crazy that that makes me like when you describe the law as like a high stakes poker game that kind of makes me uncomfortable because of the fact that it's people's life yeah like and literally sometimes it's literally their life are they gonna get the death penalty right going into this this second pregnancy because you're you're you're about to give up and you're like oh my god i'm gonna die i'm gonna die birth here in like a couple weeks literally hopefully not now hopefully he stays in there until we get home and not on the plane yes it's coming up so quick with yeah with that birth like being being fast approaching what are like your your fears your worries like anything that didn't really go according to plan with the first pregnancy and postpartum experience that you're like oh i need to figure out a new way to navigate that yeah i feel like so much like the birth itself is so intense it was i was in labor for 42 hours i was overdue i was almost 42 weeks which is where they're like we have to induce you like and i got every intervention except a c-section and i was like i wanted to go like no epidural and like oh you know like home birth vibes and it did not go that way um and my my body would not dilate past four centimeters for 28 hours and they broke my water still wouldn't dilate i had a doula um and she was helpful in a lot of ways but there was a point where she was like i don't even know what to say about this and i in general i feel like i'm a kind of a anxious person which i didn't really realize that about myself until we got married and we kind of were my mirror in a lot of ways but i was just so tense about it i was so scared my mom when i was 15 my mom had my little sister and i was in the delivery room and she literally almost died they had she was bleeding out they had to start cutting her open while she was still awake in order to remove her uterus in time to save her and i was in the room while she was just gushing blood and it's like convulsing and so i feel like i carried this trauma with me and i still kind of have that trauma with me going into my birth and so i think i was just so as much as i tried to be calm i just wasn't and i don't know if that's why my body wouldn't progress or if it's just this is my body's first time doing it and it doesn't know what's going on yeah um so it was really really scary for me and i remember kind of like anxiously reminding the doctors because each time every time a doctor would come in i think they rotated like every six hours or something and i would like tell them that my mom had this experience because like i didn't want to die through giving birth yeah and it was it was really scary um this time around i feel a little bit better about that but my mom also had three two births prior to that that were totally normal and okay and then the third birth was the one that was so intense and where she literally almost lost her life and had to get almost all of her blood um through replaced through a blood transfusion it was really scary so are you saying they basically started a hysterectomy during yeah like while she was awake like they did the whole thing while she was so they were she they were able to like get her out in time before it was completely done but she remembers literally being cut open they were shooting her with novocaine as they were cutting and her doctor came to her um i'm gonna get emotional but the day after and we're still really close with her because she literally saved my mom's life and like was crying to her like i saved you like you were i had 20 minutes to get your uterus out or you were just gone and i remember like when they kicked us out of the room and took her off to the or um like looking at my baby sister and like my mom is someone who i admire and just love so much and to like think that like she would possibly like never know her it was really hard and scary so birth carries a lot of like scary things you know and i think in our country the birth or the the maternal death rate is really high compared to a lot of other countries that are on the same level technologically and medical and science wise as us so it's a scary thing um i think postpartum depression was really bad for me with my daughter and um it's weird because i i was so happy when i was pregnant with her like i felt like any sort of depression i ever had or anxiety was gone and like you even would comment on that like how i seemed so happy um it's like the pregnancy hormones like fixed my depression and then when i gave birth it was like hard and fat like really quickly like deep dark depression and i really struggled with breastfeeding she lost a ton of weight and i had to supplement with formula and i had to get a lactation specialist which is honestly something i like recommend to anyone who's a first-time mom that hasn't nursed before that really helped us um but the lack of sleep like it's going through having a child it's kind of like a real shock to your whole life it really like your whole life completely changes and it's obviously like such the great blessing ever but it was postpartum depression was really really really hard for me and I'm very scared of that happening again to be honest like um I think I've struggled with a little bit of um do they call it prenatal depression or I don't know what what they technically call it but like kind of like some depression during my pregnancy has kind of flared up a little bit here and there so I and it's one of those things where it's like I felt like I really prepared the first time around for it like I talked to my doula about postpartum depression and I was like this is our plan but can you I don't know as much as you have a plan for something like sometimes it doesn't work out that way so I'm a little apprehensive about that and also having a toddler like I can't go that deep into it again because she needs me to be functional you know as well as my newborn so yeah how did you how did you find your your way out of that I mean to be in a what feels like a deep dark pit that you're trapped in and you can't get out of and you can't see the light at the end of the tunnel yeah what was something that you found to be helpful for getting getting you back honestly like holding my daughter like seeing her like thinking about her life and how her life would be if she didn't have me and how that literally motivated motivated me to like be here for her and just honestly like my love for her that like she saved me throughout that process um my we had a lot of help from my mom we were so grateful she lived with us for about a year and that really helped me um I think I got into a place where I wasn't doing like any self-care at all and just like going on walks like exercise has always been something that's really helped me kind of get out of my head and so even just going on walks was really helpful for me and just time really truly time and talking to other women that had experience it as well and actually I ended up taking medication for a while I'm just remembering that but yeah I took medication too and I think that actually helped me as much as I'm like I want to do things very naturally and that wasn't something that I ever wanted to do I feel like I needed to at the point that I was at yeah and I'm sure you opening up about your experience too with struggling postpartum and um even choosing to take medicine like that and that is giving so many moms that are listening like that freedom to get that help afterwards because like you said you can go into postpartum knowing that this is something that can happen but until you're in it and you're experiencing it doesn't really it doesn't take that it doesn't have that same weight you know and so I think that's honestly that's really candid of you to share like yeah I'm still I've been through this again and I'm apprehensive about doing it again but here you guys are you chose to have another baby and um it is such a blessing and like really exciting this time you're having a boy so how does that feel it feels honestly like weird honestly I'm like we know how to do a girl and maybe they're not that different I don't know but it's it's definitely we have to think thing about things a little differently you know like I keep being like I have a boy in here like there's a boy that's so weird like but it's also like obviously 50 50 chance that it would be a boy it's so weird because like obviously yes and you're like yeah they can be it's a kid like it's yeah it can't be that different but for us like the thought of having like a boy another I was like well yeah that's that makes it a little easier and I'm like why you know not really but like in my head I was like oh well okay that'll be a little bit this is a little easier like we know how to do this yeah but um yeah every kid still brings their own unique totally like you know their quirks and everything so um do you intend and you you said that you had struggled a little bit with breastfeeding before that was I feel like that's something that what really was shocking from us like especially me I was just like oh this is natural and it is but then there's sometimes there's like what is what this just feels like the most unnatural literally and it hurts so bad so do you intend on trying that again I do yeah yeah you know something that my lactation specialist like told me that really kind of stuck with me is like just kind of like our day and age you don't really see breastfeeding as much you're not like seeing it like as you would maybe like 200 years 300 years ago in like a village or whatever where everything's just all out in the open like there's not that cultural aspect of like oh I'm passing this down to you all this knowledge down to you of how to do it because like you said it's natural but it's also like feels so unnatural I also feel like our generation was mostly formula yeah I was a formula yeah I do I think I was breastfed maybe like two I think my mom was like what in the heck that's a good point though because especially like in in our western culture it kind of feels like something that you have to hide yeah like you know especially with just the the coverings and everything like it's it's it's funny to me I don't know I feel like by the third that's something I'm gonna give up oh yeah but we were out open oh wow we were just too hot yeah we were just in Hawaii and you know there's a lot more of like embracing of the the eastern cultures out there and a lot more like crunchy moms yeah it was open nursing yeah strawberry patch like picking strawberries for their kids and they're just moms like out like breastfeeding and we were just like that like really threw us off and I'm like it's so natural like it's so like why is it that we have to be all like oh yeah because then yeah the moms have no idea what the freak to do when it comes to breastfeeding yeah those are babies just get so sweaty under there I remember taking our kids out from under there and there's like they're like red faced like we need more now I don't want to eat when I'm hot no literally when I'm hot I'm like no please I'm over stimulated as it is like yeah and so I feel like that was also part of our kids frustration they're like what is it all this too hot thank you to rocket money for sponsoring this portion of today's episode I don't know about you but as a parent to toddlers we've had so many moments where our kids just grab the tv remote and start pressing buttons and they buy subscriptions without our permission and they don't even realize they're doing it so that's why we had our permission they have no idea they're just playing a game with a remote that's why I'm a huge fan of rocket money which tracks your subscriptions and has the ability to cancel within the app with a few taps saving users over 880 million dollars in canceled subscriptions you can set budgets and goals get personalized insights and regular reports you also receive real-time alerts for large transactions upcoming bills refunds and low balances I'm a huge fan also of how easy rocket money makes it to track your money and track your spending I mean by far though the ease to cancel subscription is unmatched really can't recommend rocket money enough rocket money is a personal finance app that has a lot of features that you can use to help you find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions monitors your spending and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings let rocket money help you reach your financial goals faster join rocketmoney.com slash unplanned that's rocketmoney.com slash unplanned rocketmoney.com slash unplanned I think the funniest thing to me though is just the freaking the like the the body transformation that like you women go through yeah like seeing seeing abby just like freaking I I just I felt bad for at one point because I'm like that is a watermelon like I'm like that that cannot feel okay I'm like I'm not gonna be able to do that I'm not gonna be able to do that I'm not gonna be able to no you know it doesn't it doesn't you you ladies really go through it for our kids oh my gosh well I I breastfed until I was like what three or four months pregnant um which was crazy and so I feel like my body never even got a chance to go back to like normal not even that it would ever be what it was before bless my old body I didn't know what I had honestly but um it just went straight into it you know like straight into like like my sister was like what size bra are you and I was like I don't even know I've been like in nursing bras since like I gave birth two years ago like I literally don't even know it's such a weird thing that was wild I also went from breastfeeding to pregnancy and then I had a big gap and that's when I was like oh oh things are different and it is wild and it's one of those things where I I don't know how you feel also I feel like my feelings on this fluctuate a lot it's a lot easier to have like body freedom when you're pregnant I feel like you're like yeah it is what it is like we're growing a baby what do you expect of it but then sometimes like there's days where you're like especially for me it was like postpartum I was like wow like when you say bless your old body I was like Matt hide every picture of me before I had children delete them all but then like now I'm like hang on to them for dear life we'll never see that again I feel like there's just a certain like aspect now where I've been like you know years into having kids obviously still new to being a mom where I'm just like it is what it is like this is just such a like it's just your life gets put into such a perspective when you have children where you're like you know am I really just so worried I don't fit in those jeans anymore or am I so worried that I don't know things are hanging lower than they ever should but like it's like there's just a certain thing where you're like that is such a small price to pay for this gift but then it's also valid to like struggle with it yeah you know yeah I don't matter and then I'm like uh it kind of like does like I was actually thinking the other day like my you know like I'm just like wearing something super tight and it's like my belly's out and it's like when I give birth I'm totally not I'm like will I even feel comfortable doing that I'm gonna like want to wear baggy things but it's also like I also need to honor my body you know and what it just did and like because of my daughter I feel like it's made me be yeah I don't want her to ever feel that way you know I want her to always be proud of her body in every state especially after she gives birth and I want her to always be proud of her body in every state especially after she gives birth like your body just like literally created a human being like there shouldn't be any shame around how your body looks after that and so i'm trying to be a good example for her now that's good now that you've you know done reality tv you guys both have you know large social media followings do you feel any pressure to you know like like yeah do you feel that pressure as an influencer to make everything look perfect or how do you balance that that struggle of being real while you're battling postpartum depression but also wanting to protect yourself at the same time how do you how do you navigate all of that it's so hard i i feel like zach and i kind of have always i feel like been really authentic online i think just as people do you not agree no i agree okay i think like as people it's really hard especially at our ages like it's hard for us to like put up like a facade or a front like i just don't have any energy for that that's also not what i want to cultivate in our society for the sake of like children that are growing up right now like for things to be yeah perfect for things to be you know perfectly orchestrated or whatever i think people that do follow us and know us and love our story um i think they gravitate towards us because we're very real about that like if you look at our pictures we're not like overly like polished by any means um and i i did you know when i was ready i feel like you have to be ready to open up like sometimes there's things that happen in your life in the moment you're not ready to share that you know and you take time to process that yourself and then there's a time where okay i'm ready to share that and like through my experience with postpartum depression while i was like really deep in it i wasn't sharing a lot of anything i wasn't talking about it because i wasn't in a like a ready to yeah and then when i was i was ready to share and i think that's what you have to do you have to protect that protection of yourself of that period of time where you're mourning or you're going through something that's sacred you do that for you and then when you feel right about it you share that i think that's where you find that balance or where i feel like we found that balance yeah and to add on to that i i also don't think that we really were given like a a cut that made us look like this perfect couple you know like i think you clearly saw that we have flaws you saw bliss and i argue on the show you saw a lot of like we don't want you to seem as mean as you can be but but you see us you see us argue you see us have conflict um and that's all part of being in a natural relationship and i think it is an interesting dynamic right because um you don't necessarily share all of your conflicts and i think people get this perception that they're the couples that they're comparing themselves to don't have conflicts and like that is a healthy marriage i i if you're not having some conflicts um then one party is not communicating yeah and and then that i i really think is is like a relationship is more likely to fall apart if there are no conflicts than if there are healthy conflicts that are regularly happening yeah um but sharing that on uh you know on social media obviously we're not out there like today and i bliss and i debated about how close i need to be to our daughter when she's running around arms is that is that a conflict you guys had like how just the other day how much of a helicopter parent should we be yeah i'm so intense about it like we were at the we were in vegas at the this convention for children brands and stuff and she was just running and there's people with suitcases and big things and like i'm like you need to be within arm's reach you know like you need like swoop her up out of the way of like this cart running her over or like this you know like i definitely think i'm probably made him a worse helicopter parent like he was naturally helicoptery and i'm like yeah but this is our first right so we'll see he might just good luck oh yeah you guys are gonna get so much more lax like we were just at the airport with both our boys after disneyland and they had a full-on lightsaber battle at the airport and they were within arm's reach during a lightsaber run which is actually at that was dangerous for us brought them to a section where i was like okay they're not gonna hit anybody they were like off the main path where people are like trying to walk and get to their gate but um yeah so people could like at least see when they're if they were trying to like walk you know near that area they knew okay there's a two and three year old having a very intense jedi warrior battle i was like don't worry i was like their dad is right there they're they're like i just felt like i was like this is a little crazy yeah yeah no headshots though we've had no headshots the other person has a weapon rules there you go both people have to have weapons yeah yeah there's just you establish rules you never thought you'd make yeah yeah no that'd be so fun that dynamic is really sweet me and my brother i'm older and then i have a younger brother and he'll already have another mom like i just feel like with a like they just have that natural instinct i don't know i'm like you're just little my it's her husband my brother how many years are you guys apart oh yeah that'll be there yeah i'm like he's a baby he's a little infant that i must take care of she's very nurturing what do you wish your parents would have done differently with the two of you or something they did well i was gonna ask yeah like are you guys done it too then i don't you know it's weird i feel like this weird pressure to like when i got pregnant with him i was like okay am i gonna have a third of me i've like it's been like this daily question it's dangerous for me if i have a third in a way because twins run in my family i'm a twin you could be getting for his cousin just found out she's having triplets she's a one-year-old so she's gonna have four under two bless her i know it's honestly i'm shook i'm scared but also yay but also oh my god i'm scared i'm not it's not even happening to me um so we have to like be prepared for multiple especially because i'll be older like i'm 36 i'm like the like does anyone want even on my radar of like consideration so that would be a real shock so because they run so hard on both sides of our family twins multiples like it's something like okay like if we want a third like we might accidentally have like four i do think growing up in a family with one girl and one boy the dynamic is really it is really great it's very even it makes a lot of sense and i feel like you can be really really close yeah and so like our family is like extremely tight-knit and um like my parents it was really like me and my mom paired up and my brother and my dad paired up like i always give the example like sometimes we would me and my mom go out to dinner ourselves and they would go to a different restaurant and we would go to a different restaurant like buffalo bowings panera like that would happen often and so like we really are like i'm like my mom's buddy yeah my dad's buddy that insane like to answer your question i do think that like maybe some more like mother daughter or mother yeah mom dad father like that is where you have to be a little bit more intentional because i do feel like you do split off in that way a little bit and that type of family but i do think like we were like researching like just for fun obviously like there's so many other factors that we have to be a little bit more intentional about because that influence like family satisfaction happiness yeah but like there's a really high correlation of like one girl one boy families being like one of the highest like oh really high wasn't that true we looked this up together i what i can't remember it was probably something i'd like i looked up with like chad spitzer you did and it's like i honestly feel like there's a lot more things that have a higher no when i found i was like i was like babe we gotta cap it at four because i was like the more kids you keep having after a four year old you're like oh my god i'm like i'm like i'm like it's just like less time for your spouse less time for your spouse yeah and which i mean honestly every kid you have is going to be uh another person you're adding to the picture so you're not going to have as much intentional time of just the two of you yeah but uh apparently though the more kids you have the more purpose you have in your life but maybe not as much the longer you live right i think the more kids you have like oh that's true too yes yes like having kids being around uh grandchildren makes them live a lot longer too yeah yeah yeah anyway all that to say i think that even if i'm not a mom i'm not a mom i'm not a mom like this is the end like one girl one boy i think that's a i love i love the way my family was set up that's so sweet like i kind of feel like sad like is this the last time i'm pregnant you know like there's that weird thing where it's like but it's also i don't know we'll see yeah i think it's good to not have that pressure like yeah i'll decide i'll see how it is with him and you know we'll go from there i guess okay we do have some rapid fired quick rapid fired questions our audience submitted for you guys so i think this will be kind of fun um the great at rapid fire we'll try because he has long answers elaborate long-winded answers okay first question this is from a girl named chelsea hayden she said where did you come up with your daughter's name zach loves alliterations his last name is goitowski or our last name is goitowski and um he he loved the name goliath and we're like oh gosh i'm not gonna do goliath that's just before we even started having kids i'm like goliath is not on the table for me like i'm sorry i love you um so we talked about different g names and someone had told him like oh what about the name galileo like when he was randomly talking about kid names and he was like i really like that and then he told me the name and i was like honestly like i love that for a boy or a girl like we love what galileo stands for um you know like kind of going against the grain of what you know what he believed scientifically to be true or observed and like what people were telling him to believe and getting in standing up for the right thing or standing up for the Refresh my memory, was this him like fighting against the cat? catholic church yeah about the sun the sun being the center of the universe they're like no the earth is and he went to jail for it and that's crazy yeah crazy right that's cool and it's also like galilee which is his last name is like the birthplace of um jesus like spiritually it just kind of lined up with us and i'm like honestly like i kind of love when like a little girl has like a boy name i just think it's so cute or an androgynous name or whatever so we decided on galileo before we even got pregnant we did be our first kid we had the name picked out before we knew before she even existed we stuck with it and i don't want all the kids to be g's i don't think but we our first could be an alliteration he could get that we we actually filmed a little video for her before like the day we decided because she was not unplanned none of our babies have been unplanned they were all planned it was it was like we got a video and we recorded it for her saying like hey today is the day that we you my she's like i want to watch this gross like oh cool great i know you just did it and uh happy birthday i'm gonna give it to her on her 18th birthday that's dope though i have a similar like video that i need to show our kids one day it's like abby and i like we're skating at a roller skating alley like place it's like a roller rink oh yeah this is before we got married and it's like babe what do you have to say to our future kids and she's like hi kids go to bed like whatever that's kind of fun i think that's cool we need to do that more that's cool do you guys we also did it on our we made a video like that on our wedding night we did yeah we wrote like we recorded a message to our future selves on our wedding night but that's sweet i like that so baby boy is named well with him it's a little bit different we didn't like have like a name like oh we're stuck at morn's gonna be this one so it's kind of up in the air and i don't know i want to like see him you know right yeah and with your daughter and your daughter can say it and she knows but they're with your daughter though isn't there like the part in uh bohemian rhapsody that's like galilee yeah everyone thank you to zocdoc for sponsoring this portion of today's episode raise your hand if you've been putting off a doctor's appointment that is me i need to get my adhd medicine refilled i've been putting that off and i shouldn't be because it's so so easy with zocdoc you guys if you haven't heard of zocdoc it's a free app and website that helps you find and book high quality in-network doctors so you can find someone you love we're talking about booking in-network appointments with more than 150 000 providers across all 50 states they have so many specialties too seriously whether you're looking for dermatology dentistry primary care eye care or any one of the other 200 plus specialties offered on zocdoc you can easily search by specialty or symptom to build the care team that's right for you i think a primary thing i want to highlight to a zocdoc is that they will find providers that accept your insurance that alone is such a great service because it can be so confusing to try to find a provider for oh you're neat you've been experiencing knee problems well where do i even go with that and then who's going to take my insurance it's not going to cost me an arm and a leg and all these x y and z they really make that a seamless experience i can't recommend them enough for that i use zocdoc and you should too stop putting off those doctor's appointments and go to zocdoc.com slash unplanned to find and instantly book a doctor you love today that's zocdoc.com slash unplanned zocdoc.com slash unplanned thank zocdoc for sponsoring this episode of zocdoc.com slash unplanned. this message next question we have is do you have any regrets from your time on love is blind well this is not gonna be a rapid fire i'll tell you that uh i mean there were some things that uh yeah i i regretted but one was not i i think that what happened with bliss and i and you know i was kind of getting at this and then we got sidetracked yeah um i i think really needed to happen because it was when i broke up with bliss in the pods that i knew i had made a mistake and i like in my head i was like you gotta run in there you gotta tell you change your mind you gotta go tell the producers you gotta ask them to bring her back and i was like you made your choice you gotta live with it and i remember going to mexico and being there and i remember going to mexico and being there and i remember going to mexico and being there and i remember going to mexico and like just thinking like even if it didn't work even if it hadn't worked out she was always the person that you should have failed with like that was and she gave me this court's heart uh that i still have today that i keep with me um and every time i look at it it just made me feel a little bit better even though i was in this really really dark place things were really bad in mexico it was like a lot of stuff you didn't see um and i was really sad that i'd gone through all of this you know for not to work out to end up with being kind of played uh a little bit i was like all right you know and i i she gave me this book and we talked about this um red rising and i was reading it the whole time that i was in mexico and every time i would read a chapter i would just think about her and how much we had in common and and like so it's like a yes or no baby i well no it's just it's complicated for me i would say no i don't i think everything had to happen as it was like in order for us to like get where we are now yeah and so when i met her in in person um and i just felt that connection immediately like from the second she walked in the door i was like uh-oh i think that might be my wife yeah and it was all of that that brought me to that point of of being able to um just know when we got to the altar that there were no questions because i'd already felt all that pain and all that all of that desire before we had even met and then when i when the chemistry was there it just clicked and i don't know if i could have known with so much certainty if i hadn't said no initially what was the timeline from getting back together to getting married we have the shortest engagement in love is blind history um two weeks i think it was like it was like 15 days no way from getting engaged i proposed to her in three days so like we met we went at the restaurant then it was like three days three or four days four days later four days later you proposed to me i think we met on a tuesday and i proposed on a friday yeah actually how would you feel if you're you're if galileo one day meets somebody and is married to them within 15 days or 16 days whatever it puts us in an awkward situation well it does in a way but also like the process in which we went through like you're literally doing nothing but talking for hours on end you're not engaging in any activities you're just like sitting talking the bonding the level of connection the things you uncover that happens during that time is so different like it's basically going on like 30 dates right like in the time period because that's all you're doing is talking sometimes for five or six hours at a time so i would ask her like did you go did you guys like go through the process also like i think our goal with parenting is like obviously unless it's something dangerous or like unhealthy like we want to like unconditionally support her yeah and so we might be like apprehensive and we'd obviously like need to meet the person but like we're going to support our daughter yeah no matter what i mean i think the goal is you know we've got at least 16 more years uh got some time and the goal is to raise her to be a wise woman who makes um decisions with both her mind and her heart um and i you know i i would support my daughter uh if if she actually came to me and said i believe this is the person that i want to spend the rest of my life with i would trust her and this whole time timeline from you know starting the show you have the 10 days of dating everybody and then getting to each other and then you get engaged go on a honeymoon coffee engaged and then you get engaged and then you get engaged and then you get engaged then meet up then get engaged and get married this entire timeline did that happen within like was it was it a month it was i think it was two weeks well no like the whole process the entire process from start to finish so march is when we went into the pods and our anniversary just happened on may 9th so it was yeah like little less than two months so it's two weeks in the pods four four or five days in mexico okay and then uh from when bliss and i met it was uh three days to the engagement and then two weeks holy cow it was really quick that's that's really fast yeah that's more like a month honestly yeah yeah especially because as we were apart for that yeah or in a half or whatever and i remember from the show your dad was pretty apprehensive about not just the process but specifically i feel like it was geared towards you what's your relationship with your father and like now we're good yeah yeah we um we went fishing uh no way you gotta go fishing you gotta go fishing you gotta go fishing you gotta go fishing i didn't catch anything uh you got really sunburned i caught a sunburn did you catch anything yeah he caught a lot of fish i remember he was like asking about fishing and stuff and i was like i don't know if that's his interest yeah i grew up in alaska and my dad's a very outdoorsy person so if we're in the zombie apocalypse she's catching all the fish that's true that's true i got you baby have you ever considered moving to alaska to raise your family there you know i would love to have like a cabin there like the summers are just so amazing there and i want to expose our children to that kind of side of life and a little bit of a slower life and living off the land and so i think our goal would be to have like a home there one day probably not permanently year-round like it's like so dark there during the winter it just would not be fun in that way but we definitely need to go on a family trip to alaska that's so gorgeous you guys it's like nothing you've no mountains you've ever seen like here it's so worth it northern lights the northern lights did you guys get to see the northern lights like this uh was it two years ago i didn't doesn't feel like i've never seen them oh have you seen the northern light so when galileo was born when we announced her birth actually that night the northern lights and they're never where we live in seattle area they never are there they just randomly were there it was crazy i came and i woke up bliss and i was like leave me alone i'm trying to sleep i've already seen them was my answer because i grew up but i'm glad i got i was like no baby you have to come out here this is unlike anything i've ever seen the entire sky it's so gorgeous was lit up in all of these weird green yeah the green purple colors i mean it felt like a i like a movie it was yeah they're they are something else do you guys ski i like to snowboard okay so go like for like a snowboarding trip in the winter um and go to a like an area like more northern maybe somewhere in canada maybe oh yeah you could go to canada you could go somewhere in alaska um there's so many places and you'll very likely see them okay yeah i need to do that it's totally worth it next question is what is one thing that was not aired that you wish was shown oh for me i think it's like the depth of our connection like there's so much like they've gotten kind of better about showing what happens in the pods like that's truly where all the interesting things happen um i think our connection they did did their best i think to show it but it was so much more like there's something else going on here like from the universe or god or like there's something else going on here that's like there's so many things that we have in common there's so many synchronicities between us there's so many intense like emotional moments that we have because it doesn't you barely see what happened with the owls oh well like the owl like a owl like a snowy owl or just owls in general has kind of been like my like symbol with things like okay like this is like i'm a pretty spiritual person like this is my sign from god or the universe or whatever i'm like on the right track yeah and um i remember when i was like i was thinking about breaking up with my ex and i was driving down the road and i saw like a huge dead barn owl in the road in front of me like super obvious like i was like okay like this is i need i knew that i needed to but it kind of helped me be like okay yeah this is happening and on the first day because you obviously can't see the person i was like oh what are you wearing you know and he was like oh i have like an owl like you said i was wearing like a suit or something and i had like have like an owl what is it tie clip and i was like no you don't and he was like why would i lie about that because like for me i was like this is crazy and i like when i heard his voice for the first time when he said my name is zach like i just like knew he was my person and then that on top of it like made me freak out even more so i kind of wish they showed the more like magical moments that happened in the pods between us to like really show the depth of our connection like how much i loved him and why i kind of even like gave him even the opportunity of coming back after what happened and i was like oh my god i'm so sorry i'm so sorry i'm so sorry was because we had that such deep connection and so many magical things happened in the pods did they give you permission just to talk for as long as you want to talk no oh they'll cut you off mid-sentence and boy did they with him he would be like in a long monologue they don't i think that's part of like what make you know like they want to cultivate an environment of like um wanting that person right so they'll like just cut you off they'll give you a warning like you have five minutes left or something and then it's like a lot of times he would be he would be the one in the middle of a sentence you can leave though if you want like you don't want to have a date with that person anymore you can just leave and but yeah i i agree i think that some of our connections in the pods and what we connected on you don't get to see that and part of it is just it's tv and they have a very short amount of time and they have to be concise and i think every couple says that that they wish they showed more and we were we were lucky like i said to get as much of our relationship shown as it was um but yeah the i i really felt like there were signs that were being given to me that she was the person and like i felt like that before i broke up with her like i felt like i was getting those signs and that's why i kind of compared it to jonah and the whale but aren't they giving you guys alcohol though like is any part of this i wasn't drinking you weren't drinking i'm not a big drinker like i'll drink i i'm a lightweight just like genetically i think so like i just i wanted to also be in like a community of people and i think that's what i'm trying to do i'm trying to be in a clear state you know and like it was there if you wanted it but every like water was in my golden goblet or like a bubbly water or something sparkling water i did drink at the bachelor party though oh really and i drank a lot in mexico oh my god that yeah feeling the weight and the stress oh my god that is horrible stress reducer okay another user submitted question from moomad 17 i love everybody says would you recommend love is blind to other people so i'm assuming like a friend is like being recruited or whatever scouted yeah they've been they've received a random voicemail and like do you recommend the experience honestly yeah i think that if you are actually looking for love i think it's a really beautiful opportunity to fall in love with someone with for the right reasons right like obviously physical attraction is important and that's an work but when do you ever get to say that you get to like actually just like like meet someone and learn someone for who they are on the inside that's such a cool opportunity and if you're going to take it seriously we talked about a lot about vulnerability like you've got to be vulnerable you've got to really go into this taking it seriously and i absolutely would yeah i would say if you are looking to actually get married yeah i would highly recommend it if you're not if you're thinking like oh this is going to make my life better it's probably not probably not probably not right it's gonna make your daily life probably harder the only way it is going to make your life better well i mean i think you'll grow if you if you're serious about it you you will grow as a person like genuinely if listen i hadn't worked out i think i would have been a much better person as a result but everything else that comes along with it like the attention like the ridicule that people get i you know i don't unless you're gonna take it seriously yeah do not do not do it unless you're seriously trying to get married and i think there there have been people who have gone on for clout uh yeah as the seasons have developed and uh i don't even know if i'd use that word i'd just say uh that they're that they're doing it because of the allure of being on television or of you know doing that and it doesn't go well it doesn't go well you know it just it doesn't and i i i really think if love is blind wasn't televised like it was just like a dating service i think be very successful yeah oh you do i do wait maybe that should be maybe somebody should start that as like a company yeah seriously the creator could i really i because i i think the systems there and everything that they have is founded in solid scientific research they give you questions to ask each day that help delve deep into like about finances and like various things that help you uncover like meaningful things that you can connect on and see if you're aligned so that's so cool the problem the problem that you really encounter with it is now you don't know if the person on the other side is being honest yeah right or if they're coming in with other motives and because of that like i've seen so many seasons you guys where but for someone trying to play games trying to win uh a couple didn't get together that would have likely or but for it being televised like uh i don't want i'm not gonna go don't give any yeah i won't go into names but there are couples that are together now that didn't match because they weren't a they weren't ready to get vulnerable on television about certain things and so they didn't get together but i'm telling you every season there's at least one couple that ends up together later but for the the television portion of it so yeah i i think it would be uh it's a huge opportunity i remember in junior high you could pay at valentine's day like three dollars to have the matchmaker quiz oh yeah i bet this would do really great in junior highs too maybe like they'd be like my love oh my god did you guys do that that's so cute never did that this is reminding me i was like why do i feel like i've taken some love quiz before yeah that's so cute yeah but obviously way more science going into yeah um this one says if you met it's by k hubers oh six if you met in the real world do you think you would have gotten together yeah i think it would have taken us a lot longer to get where we are obviously because it's like a forced like deep connection so quick but yeah i do we talk about this not in our not in our 20s actually yeah we met in the time where we were probably meant to get to to be we debate about this about i think just knowing my personality and the type uh of women that i normally gravitated towards i think i really would have gravitated towards her i don't know if she would have gravitated towards her i don't know if she would have gravitated towards her i don't know if she would be there's probably a certain obviously your foundational qualities but i think i was a lot like less um tolerant about certain things and a lot more easily annoyed I feel like I would have just been like you're annoying or something I don't know we definitely were in our 30s which may have worked I just think I was in such a different mental space in my 20s that I don't know if it would have worked but he's like we would have had 10 kids if we met in our 20s I'm like 10 I don't think that I don't think we would have 10 kids but sweet yeah it's sweet you believe in us no matter how old we were is named Abby Elizabeth Howard what I'm just so curious what is something about the process of love is blind because so many people know love is blind as a show now and there's a lot of I mean it has created so much buzz like what is something about the process as people that have gone through it seen the whole thing through that people wouldn't guess based off watching the show like as a viewer I'm gonna really think about that okay okay for me I think it's like and we kind of touched on this a little bit but just like how much time you really are spending talking to these other people because to you as a viewer it may seem like oh my gosh all of a sudden they're saying I love you like this is like their second or third date like what is going on here like this is totally crazy this makes absolute zero sense yeah but if you know the time that goes into it like literally like I don't know at the end of it maybe it's like 80 hours plus of straight just talking um it really adds to like okay I actually can get like how these people would fall in love and honestly like you there's no way that like all of you could be shown on through the show just the amount of time they have like every side of you and these people are human and I think it's so easy to like ostracize someone or villainize someone or like put so much hate on someone when you don't have the full picture of who they are I think that's just in general for reality TV but okay so there's there's two things and this is kind of playing off of what Bliss was saying I think the first one this is something I realize and you guys have probably experienced this too um reality TV and and celebrity culture in general is a an act of catharsis for most people they're either living a fantasy that they like they wish that they could experience through that person or they're taking out their aggression that they can't express in their normal life on a fictional character and it it feels cathartic to do so and that is something we've seen with all of reality TV where with social media it's been taken to a totally new level but we see it couldn't ever you know every season of love is blind you see it with The Bachelor um but it's it's becoming harder and harder to get people to go on these shows uh because of it's become a ritual to to shame the people who are being shown on this for how long you know uh years yeah for like a single moment that could be taken out of context and may have been their very worst moment and we we were really cautious about this when the show came out um really tried to talk to people about um forgiving the people that were on the show and not judging them and understanding that like for many people they were pushed to the brink and you saw their very worst yeah but this person is is better than that and they can grow yeah um and I remember from our season that was one thing uh that you didn't that got cut so there was a line that like everybody has quoted me on and it wasn't cut like from the show is live we were the only live reunion um so we were able to say everything and there was no cut no way but the the clip of it everybody's forgotten the last part of what I said so I confronted my ex on the on the um at the reunion and I tried to keep it very short and sweet um which was just and the best way I could do it without going to all the details and the messed up things that had happened was just saying you you came in on this show to get famous and that has been blown up people have seen that um but it's been taken out of context because there's a butt behind that um and the butt was but I I know that you can become a better person and I know uh and anyone out there who who wants to judge you like don't um and I'm not quoting myself verbatim here but that that was immediately after I I said that which is don't don't judge this person you know you saw them at their worst um they can grow and they can become more um and for what you know that that doesn't make a catchy clip it doesn't everyone's like yeah you came in this to be famous not yeah you came this to be famous but this was you at your worst and that you're a good person and that you can become better um that was kind of left out kind of like a behind the scenes thing that I think is people think people think we like live in the pods or like we live in that Lounge and we actually have our own rooms that they get to go back to in a hotel oh I would have thought that yeah like you kind of make it seem like you kind of live there but thankfully you you have your own and that really facilitates the connect I was gonna say I really liked how you just said right there how even even your ex who you know you know you had you had that moment that was Clips and everything I love how you said that you wanted better for her and you I feel like you're a good guy and I feel like you want to see good in the world and I also I I think that like it's so it's so funny that the book that I've been reading Red Rising which you read while you were on your honeymoon and in which that's the book that Bliss recommended that you read Red Rising I love how like the main character in that book is also embodying that like view of the world of okay there's all these bad people that I want to see change and I want to see be better versions of themselves and that's like a constant theme throughout the Red Rising series of these you know these gold characters who are at the highest point of the cast system are you know technically like the bad guys are the villains in the book but Daryl the main character is wanting to see them change yeah so I don't know I thought that was kind of cool kind of just wanted a nerd out there for a little bit I feel like you're a little bit nerdy too oh very nerdy I would say a lot of it yeah we're both a lot of it what are some nerdy things that people wouldn't expect about you guys like is there some are you guys playing Dungeons and Dragons like every night he wants me to so bad and like do you guys ever want to play together let's do it I've never played I'm down we'll do it we'll do it online I'm okay I've actually never gotten to play D&D but I really want to I'm big into storytelling I love like the idea of it okay that's cool yeah we're pretty nerdy I think like the amount of like accents we do and like just quirky funny like little sayings we do with our daughter and like all the singing maybe people would think the singing is something we do after what they saw on the show but we do a lot of singing we're really into reading we like create random weird stories with our daughter we've talked about like creating and writing books together and different things like we're pretty yeah we're pretty like normal nerds I would say I think the most appropriate question to end on comes from kylan_vug okay is love truly blind so I'll start oh okay I guarantee I'm not the first person to ask you that question no but it's such a good one I think it is I and I think the problem is the words that we use okay in the English language we use love to describe a very broad scope of emotions um and I think other languages have more precise ways of defining love right so would we talk about the romantic love um we're talking about like arrows have you familiar with the Roman yeah so eros agape and philia and there's there's another word for love too but I won't go into it but um the love that we have for our friends the romantic love that we have for another person and that unconditional love that you have for for a child right agape unconditional love there's I believe and agape is probably the most important that's what really we're all seeking right um um that romantic love matters too and I think when people think is love blind they're thinking is the the romantic feeling like obviously what drives uh a romantic connection there there's a physical component to it there's a visual component to it um but there's also a mental and a psychological component to it and I don't think you can weigh one over the other I think that they both matter but love certainly can be blind and I think the experience of going through love is blind um really opened me up to love uh in ways that I didn't realize it would and I feel like and there was one question actually I I remember um this is kind of you know like there was a question when I was going through all of the there's like a hundred questions they ask you before you go on the show and you answer each one and it's it it said do you think love is blind and I was kind of like my my initial response was I you know I don't know like I don't know if it is or isn't I don't think so um and the next question was have you ever been in love and I was like yes and it said would you still love that person if they were in a different body and I was like yeah And that was where I was like, like and then i kind of changed my answer i was like yeah i think love can be blind and i think about bliss like if if tomorrow i woke up and bliss like changed bodies and she was in something happened to me like an accident yeah yeah but like freaky friday you know like my love for you made my dad change bodies right see like i'm i'm cool with like you're you're giving a really good point i feel like i disagree but i love i love like you said that so well but then i feel like from my standpoint it's like i'm loving the the change that abby's experiencing as the person that i chose to love you know like i think it's fun to like get to love the version of her now a decade later that we like she's pregnant with uh our third boy and like we're so excited for that but yeah tell me tell me tell me more like you're you're saying even if she like looked completely different yeah that would be i i think that our connection and what we've gone through i think what we've gone through yeah i mean i think even just in the pods like i can genuinely i think we both can genuinely say that we loved each other before we saw each other like we loved who the each person was and you know not to say that like it wouldn't have mattered at all physically what he looked like maybe it would have and maybe it was just luck that i liked the way he looked right but i think that you can there was it's kind of weird to say this but there's actually like a sexual connection like a physical chemistry that i had with him without seeing him and so like i was attracted to him even though i couldn't physically see him so it's weird it's it's really weird to explain and and maybe hard to understand like if you haven't gone through that but it's you know what i'm saying like you you yeah like there's like a there's literally like a physical reaction like physical attraction happening without seeing him so that's cool yeah it's weird you see it you see it the moment when we meet for the first time like after everything that's happened we just like just clicked i was trying to be really like mad she was but even with her trying to like i could read through that like i could see that that was yeah chemistry that was there in the pods just was there as well physically like in person it's really weird now you're making me wish i could have experienced this with abby because our version our version of this was just like in high school staying up till five years old and i was like oh my god i'm so sorry i'm so sorry i'm so like we would fall asleep together on the phone and talk all night long do you think love is blind abby don't ask don't put me on the spot like this his argument was very compelling that was really good honestly you're making me like he's a lawyer he's so good i can't argue with him i came ready to debate you and then like as i was talking i'm like gosh i don't know i i mean i think that it's interesting hearing like even both of you you're saying it like it was like the experiences that you had together but it's so crazy because you guys had such a short amount of experiences before you had felt like love so i yeah i don't know i think ultimately i believe that love is a choice and so therefore it can be blind yeah yeah i believe in the choice part too yeah i think the commitment is huge and and like that's such a critical part of love is like committing to another person getting rid of the like i i think one thing that really holds back people from finding their person is this commoditization of dating treating dating like it's a purchase right treating you know treating it like like people have these lists like they're buying a car right yeah and they're really not focused on expecting perfection when they're not no one is perfect like you're not perfect why would you expect other people to be perfect like the questions they're asking you it sounds like on that survey are very different than the questions dating apps are asking where they're like yep what is your height preference what is your income reference like things like that whereas like that was very different and it feels like you know as a franchise like what they're doing is very intentional and science and data backed it is yeah something i want to share before i forget the creator um i don't know how we're doing on time but i i want to share this the creator of the show um he's clearly very brilliant and he's created a lot of various dating shows but his idea behind love is blind is that when you're in bed at night and the lights are off and you're just talking that's kind of where that came from that whole idea of like connecting it's like when you're laying in bed at night with the lights off like that's that where a lot of like deep connection can happen and that's where the foundation of this is like you know when we're 90 years old you know you know wrinkly maybe or whatever and we're laying in bed together the lights are off we're not physically seeing each other but like we're still each other we're still connecting with who each person is your guards are down yeah it's easier to be vulnerable so that that's hey i'm so i'm convinced i'm i'm convinced too zach bliss thank you so much for coming on our show thank you for sharing your story and again congratulations great great redemptive birth and postpartum thank you we're happy for you guys too it's little little boys are so cute i can't wait oh it's the best and where's the make sure they really love their moms like a lot so where do you where are you guys most active where's the best place for people to connect with you guys um instagram probably is our most active place yeah we have we had a podcast that we were doing things on for a while um which was uh blind love um yeah it's actually called blind love let's go but we we might bring it back we might we'll see about it it's just the time that goes into it you know and being parents anyway but thanks so much for having us of course thank you guys you guys are so cool and we're really happy for your next little bundle Thank you.