The Revive Project: Turning Medical Trauma into Tools for Change
Meet the founder who is creating resources for both patients and practitioners to transform the healthcare experience.
I learned the hard way that self-advocacy in medicine is critical—and literally can be the difference between life and death. At 30 weeks pregnant, I went to my OBGYN's office complaining of unusual pain.
After a brief examination, I was told it was "just the baby getting bigger" and sent home with a diagnosis of overly anxious, pregnant for the first time, type-A, New Yorker. The doctor wasn't wrong; I was all of those things, but they were not the root cause of this issue.
A few days later, when the stinging pain came back, I dismissed it and laid down until it subsided. The doctor’s voice that said, “it’s just the baby getting bigger” was more powerful than my own intuition. A week later, my uterus ruptured, and my son arrived stillborn. This tragedy, though "one in a million," left me wondering: What if I had trusted my gut and insisted on further testing? What if I had stood my ground and insisted they dig deeper? Could Christopher's death have been averted? It took a lot of strength for me to stop looking back and wondering, "What if."
The doctor’s voice that said, “it’s just the baby getting bigger” was more powerful than my own intuition.
I'm not alone in this experience. Seventy-two percent of women report being medically gaslit, with marginalized groups disproportionately affected. That's why when my friend Christina told me she was starting—The Revive Project, I felt that familiar feeling of "what if" come creeping back.
What if I had the tools to insist upon a deeper level of care when I was pregnant? What if I knew the right questions to ask? What if I was able to navigate that appointment with confidence instead of feeling I must be mistaken about my pain because the doctor knows best?
Whether you're navigating fertility challenges or any healthcare journey, The Revive Project offers what I wish I'd had to guide me many years ago.
The American Journal of Medicine defines medical gaslighting as:
An act that invalidates a patient's genuine clinical concern without proper medical evaluation, because of physician ignorance, implicit bias, or medical paternalism.
They go on to say that…
unlike other forms of gaslighting, the intent of the “gaslighting” medical practitioner is typically not purposeful manipulation of the patient due to a deceitful motive. On the contrary, “gaslighting” in medical contexts is often due to the physician's lack of awareness or understanding of disease entities, preconceived notions about specific clinical presentations, subliminal/unconscious bias toward certain patient populations, or simply arrogance in presuming physician superiority in clinical knowledge and decision-making. Ultimately, most of the undesirable gaslighting behaviors are driven by systemic constructs and biases.
If you (or someone you know) are experiencing a medical issue—particularly infertility—I highly encourage you to explore The Revive Project. Did I mention that everything Christina has put together is absolutely free? Amazing, right?
Below is an exclusive interview with the founder, Christina where she shares the story behind her powerful work.
What is The Revive Project, and why did you start it?
Revive is the resource I needed but couldn't find. Facing a medical journey—especially infertility or complex health challenges—can feel disorienting, isolating, and out of your control. I want to change that.
Through patient-led resources and real-world support, Revive is making healthcare more human, more compassionate, and more empowering—for both patients and practitioners.
Creating resources for others while navigating your ongoing fertility challenges must require tremendous emotional resilience. How do you protect your heart while constantly engaging with a topic that's still raw in your life?
I pace myself. There was a year when I had to step back completely because it all just felt too raw, too close. That time away taught me something I come back to often: I don't need to win an award for resilience. I just need to show up as my authentic self—when and how I can.
Revive began the way so many things do—in the middle of the mess. I didn't create it because I had all the answers; I created it because I didn't. It started as a way to make sense of my own experience and share tools that helped me feel more grounded in the chaos. Some days, I can engage deeply and feel energized by the work; others, I need more space—and I've learned to honor that without guilt.
Protecting my heart means moving at the speed of what I can hold, letting the work be personal without letting it consume me. And knowing that even in the mess, something meaningful can take root—that helps me keep going..
You mention a turning point at an appointment that made you want to start this project. Most people would have made a resolution to handle things differently themselves. You chose to do something to benefit others. Why?
Honestly, I think it started as a way to process what I was going through. This appointment—which, by the way, wasn't with my regular care team but with an outside specialist—left me completely shaken, not just by what was said but by how invisible I felt in the room. And in the days after, I realized something powerful: the anxiety, the second-guessing, the need to be the "perfect patient" just to feel heard—those feelings weren't unique to me, even if my medical history was.
Creating Revive became a way to turn that difficult experience into something meaningful. It helped me channel the frustration and fear into something constructive—not just for myself but for anyone else who's ever felt lost, silenced, or unsure in their medical journey.
It felt like an act of healing but also of solidarity. If I could help even one person feel a little more supported, a little more steady, then the experience wasn't just something that happened to me—it was something I could grow from and build through.
Suppose you could go back and have a conversation with yourself at the beginning of your family-building journey. What would surprise that earlier version of yourself about where you are now?
I think she'd be surprised by how much I've come to trust my gut—and my body. For so long, I bounced from specialist to specialist, waiting for someone to tell me with certainty, "This will work" or "This won't." I was constantly chasing answers, stuck in that cycle of maybe the next thing, maybe the next protocol. It felt never-ending.
I've learned that sometimes, the most powerful thing you can do is pause. Take a step back. Ask yourself not just what's possible but what's right for me? What can I actually handle? That shift—from outsourcing all the answers to tuning into what I needed—was huge.
Learning to set limits, to say enough when something felt like too much, was such a turning point. Not because I gave up hope, but because I finally started to honor my own wisdom. That's what I would want my earlier self to know: you're allowed to set the terms of this journey. That's not giving up—it's taking your power back.
What's been the most validating moment during the development of The Revive Project that confirmed you were creating something truly needed?
When people reach out and tell me, "I didn't even know I needed this—but I did." That's the kind of feedback that stops me in my tracks. It reminds me why I started Revive in the first place: to create something I wished existed in my own journey, and to offer it to others who might be quietly carrying similar struggles.
I'm especially grateful to RMA for seeing the value in this kind of support and choosing to feature Revive booklets in their offices. It's incredibly validating to know that a project born out of personal need is now reaching others in real moments of uncertainty—and helping them feel just a little more grounded and seen.
Creating resources for both patients AND practitioners is relatively uncommon in patient advocacy. What insight made you realize that supporting doctors was just as important as supporting patients?
When I first started building Revive, my focus was entirely on the patient side—because that's where I'd been. I knew what it felt like to sit in a clinic, overwhelmed and unsure, trying to make sense of complicated decisions while carrying fear, frustration, and a whole lot of medical baggage.
But the truth is, no amount of meditation or mindfulness exercises can make up for a provider who makes you feel invisible. And more than 60% of patients report feeling unprepared when making decisions about their care—especially in fertility. On the flip side, when patients feel supported and confident, their outcomes improve. Their stress levels drop. They're not just surviving the process—they're moving through it with more agency.
I was lucky to have a doctor like Dr. Klein at RMA Westchester—collaborative, kind, and genuinely open to working with me. He made space for my questions, my anxiety, and even my Google Docs(!). And those small moments of being seen and heard? They made a huge difference.
That's when it clicked: there are simple, no-cost ways doctors can help patients feel more in control and understood. These are things that take almost no time but can totally shift how care feels. Tools like the PAUSE Approach came out of that realization—something any practitioner can use to help patients feel more at ease and in control in the room.
So, while Revive started with patients, it felt incomplete to stop there. If we want to truly transform the experience, we have to bring providers along, too—giving both sides the tools to meet in the middle.
As you launch The Revive Project, what's your boldest hope for how it might transform the fertility experience for what it will become?
My boldest hope is that Revive becomes more than just a set of tools—it becomes a companion for people navigating fertility and other complex medical journeys. A space that helps them feel a little less alone, a little more grounded, and a lot more empowered.
What I needed at that time wasn't just another brochure or app—it was something that made me feel like I had a say in my care, even when everything around me felt completely out of my hands. I wanted calm in the chaos, clarity in the unknown, and the confidence to ask for what I needed—even when I didn't know exactly what that was.
So my hope is that Revive gives people that. That someone sitting in a waiting room with their heart racing finds a little more stillness. That someone replaying a tough appointment walks away feeling like they're not broken or alone. That someone who feels like they have to perform as the "perfect patient" realizes they don't.
And beyond that, I hope it gently reshapes how we think about support in fertility care and beyond—so that feeling human and being heard becomes the standard, not the exception.
To access Revive’s patient resources, click here.
To access Revive’s practitioner resources, click here.
For a more in-depth look into The Revive Project, listen to Christina’s interview on the Fertility Forward Podcast.
Thanks for being here! See you next Sunday.
Words of the Week
“Behind every lab result and protocol is a person trying to stay grounded through some of the most vulnerable moments of their life.” —Christina from The Revive Project
Photo of the Week
Carolina and I were in Central Park recently, and I told her about four-leaf clovers and how they bring good luck. A man standing nearby overheard us and said if you search a patch of 10 feet by 10 feet, you’ll find at least one four-leaf clover. Statistically, for every 10,000 clovers, one will have a genetic mutation, making it a 4-leaf clover. I guess it’s hard to say if 10 feet by 10 feet contains 10,000 clovers, but it didn’t take us very long to get lucky!
You are going to help so many people Lia. 💕💕💕💕