When Maria Wang-Faulkner’s first pregnancy ended abruptly in a miscarriage at seven weeks she was in a state of shock. “I had no dedicated care provider at the time because OBGYNs in New York would only see you at eight weeks. It was a shock but above all else, I remember feeling confused, lonely and helpless – a feeling that millions of women around the world feel probably 100 times more acutely, because they’re struggling with multiple miscarriages and infertility treatments and uncertainty,” she says.
After going through this difficult phase, Wang-Faulkner who was working at Google at the time decided to switch gears and address this very personal issue with her venture Fig Health.
“I am and have always been a firm proponent of access to healthcare. It’s not okay that we have the means to diagnose and treat conditions like PCOS and endometriosis and these are not reaching the women who are suffering and will continue to suffer the consequences of being undiagnosed,” says Wang-Faulkner whose venture is now revolutionising outdated practices and offering affordable and accessible women’s health screenings that can be done from the comfort of their homes.
Maria Wang-Faulkner—now a mum of two—spoke exclusively with theAsianparent about her journey as a new mother and how she is helping women become more comfortable to talk about reproductive health screening.
Here’s an excerpt from the interview with Maria Wang-Faulkner, the Co-founder and CEO at Fig Health.
Making Reproductive Health Screening Routine For Every Woman
Image courtesy: Maria Wang-Faulkner
TAP: Do you feel most Singaporean women prefer to talk about reproductive health screening anonymously?
Wang-Faulkner: We do feel that in this region, today, most women do prefer to join a community anonymously. And I personally don’t think there is anything wrong with that. As long as it means women are talking about their personal experiences and are seeking advice and support from others.
I’ve always said that “a problem shared is a problem halved,” and in the space of reproductive health, where there is so much confusion but also so many women going through similar experiences, we can only stand to benefit – and become stronger and wiser – from sharing.
TAP: Is it safe to say that this was the real motivation behind starting Fig Health?
Wang-Faulkner: We quickly noticed that the moment you say ‘reproductive health’, consumers, insurers and investors all had a tendency to think ‘infertility.’ And we started to be pigeon-holed as an offering that goes hand-in-hand with egg freezing and IVF.
So we have to be the ones to reframe the conversation on reproductive health screening and we’re doing that in a few ways.
First, while fertility most often comes up in the context of ‘infertility,’ our goal is for women (and men) to think more proactively about their fertility status, before there is a problem, and to take steps to preserve it (like taking fertility support supplements to improve, and even reverse the decline in, egg quality).
Secondly, there is a presumption that our tests are only for women who are trying to conceive or planning too soon. We have a second goal of helping all women to realise that conditions like PCOS and endometriosis can impact any woman, not just women who want kids. And in fact, today, trying for kids unsuccessfully is the most common path to getting diagnosed and treated for these. So if you don’t want kids, all the more reason to find an alternative way to get yourself screened so you don’t find yourself suffering the symptoms (like severe menstrual cramps) when these are very treatable conditions.
We want all women to realise that reproductive health screening isn’t only relevant when you have babies. We are all walking around with a reproductive system, and whether you realise it or not, it’s already having an impact on your overall health.
Our vision is to make reproductive health screening routine for every woman, regardless of the phase of life that she’s in and regardless of her family planning goals.
TAP: There is a coaching aspect of Fig Health for Singapore woman. How does it work?
Wang-Faulkner: In addition to our women’s health screen and natural supplements, we’re building a “social wellness” platform, where women can track, share and discover wellness activities that help them to achieve their reproductive health goals.
What we’ve heard from our users is that they are looking for a way to keep track of all the things that they’re doing for their bodies, and detect patterns that correlate what they’re doing with how they’re feeling and the severity of their symptoms.
Sharing is optional and can be anonymised but it’s highly encouraged so that members can learn from and be inspired by each other. And as a member, you get access to bite-sized expert insights, expert consults, and member-only benefits with our wellness partners.
TAP: What has been the most significant barrier you’ve faced as a woman entrepreneur?
Wang-Faulkner: I think backing myself hasn’t always come naturally to me. In fact, in the past, with previous companies I started, I’d introduce myself as someone “trying to found a company.” But I’ve come to realise, the moment you choose to dedicate your life to building and realising a vision, you’re a founder, full-stop. No caveats needed.
Juggling Motherhood And A Full-time Career
Image courtesy: Maria Wang-Faulkner
TAP: You’re a busy working mum, like many Singapore mums. What’s a typical day like for you?
Wang-Faulkner: I’m an early-ish riser (hallelujah caffeine) so I can fit in a workout and time with the kids before going to the office. From there, these days, I’m in a tonne of investor meetings because we’re fundraising, and in between, I’m onboarding new team members and building partnerships with reproductive health and wellness experts.
I do a lot that can be summed up as selling our vision and getting others to join us and amplify our ability to deliver on it. So it’s a lot of meeting and connecting with new people, which I love, but I also love doing deep work and will geek out building a financial model or putting on my creative hat with product ideation and design.
Weekends are family time. I don’t get enough of my kids on weekdays and they’re of an age where my absence is increasingly felt, so weekends are our time to play and hang out and build memories together.
This time helps me to feel restored after a long week at work, but I’m also shall-we-say “the opposite of restored” trying to keep up with them (no easy feat!).
We go for bike rides around the island, hang out with grandma, go for a dip in the pool and have the occasional touristy outing. And yes, the common theme in all of that is they’re strapped in, trapped, or distracted at all times.
An Empowered Vision For The Kids’ Future
Image courtesy: Maria Wang-Faulkner
TAP: How do you balance your many roles as a mother, spouse, and a career-woman?
Wang-Faulkner: I’m fortunate to have a very supportive husband who more than does his share in the home. He’s the kind of partner that Sheryl Sandberg advocates for in Lean In where she also says that the single most important career decision that a woman makes is whether she will have a life partner and who that partner is.
And when it comes to time with loved ones, I put an emphasis on the quality of that time. When I’m with the kids or with my husband, we try hard to set an intention around being fully present and engaged with each other.
The fact is that there are no secrets to success. There’s no knowledge that’s only known to the select few; it’s that the select few are willing to pay the price to apply it. For me, it starts and ends with authenticity and compassion – find a passion you’re truly willing to make sacrifices to pursue, be patient with yourself and others, and know that there’s no shame in owning up to the fact that sometimes things aren’t working and a change is needed. Life’s too short to live it being anything but what you are, doing what you love, and with the people you love or have the utmost respect for.
TAP: What kind of future do you envision for your kids?
Wang-Faulkner: I hope that my daughter, from puberty on, can feel complete ownership over what happens to her body and empowered to make informed decisions about it.
I hope she gets to navigate life without feeling judgment from others over whether and when to have children, and can always feel supported to realise her reproductive health screening goals whatever they may be.
And that includes freedom from judgment from me, as much as I want grandchildren one day.
Breaking Barriers And Glass Ceilings
Image courtesy: Maria Wang-Falkner
TAP: What has been the most significant barrier you’ve faced as a woman or as a mother?
Wang-Faulkner: For me personally, it’s been hard wearing many hats – as a mother, a founder, a wife, a friend. The hard part isn’t how many hats or switching between them, it’s that you never really ever get to wear just one hat at a time, as hard as you might try.
Just to share a couple of examples. In becoming a founder and setting out to find a co-founder, I had to work hard to rebut unspoken but very real presumptions that being a mother meant that I would be less committed to my start-up or could devote fewer hours.
In our co-working space, when others bring in a child and that child cries, I kick into ‘mama-bear’ mode and I can’t help but momentarily think ‘is that my child?’ which is the exact opposite of the mode you need to be in during investor negotiations.
Finally, for a while, I was the only parent on our team and, whenever you’re the minority of anything in a workplace, the burden falls on you to educate your teammates on your constraints and to define your own boundaries, because they naturally can’t know what they are.
TAP: Who inspires you, and why?
Wang-Faulkner: My parents inspire me. Now that I’m a parent, I can look back and more fully appreciate the sacrifices they made for me to have a better life than they had. They left behind good careers, friends and family in China, so that I’d have a brighter future growing up in Australia.
In Australia, they had to start from scratch in their late 30s. Dad (a math professor and software engineer) manning a cashier at a news agency and mum (an ophthalmic epidemiologist) cleaning bathroom showrooms as their first jobs in a new country.
And both made the tough decision to spend years apart and away from me, to even make emigrating to Australia possible. Dad went to Australia first when I was 2. And mum had to travel for work, so I went to a boarding school from the ages of 3 to 5.
We weren’t all reunited as a family until I was 5 and a half. Now that my son is the age I was when I went to boarding school, it breaks my heart to imagine being faced with the same choices and to think how hard that must have been for them.
TAP: What do you hope to change for mothers and women in general?
Wang-Faulkner: For some reason I still don’t understand, society at large knowingly or unknowingly passes judgment on women and mothers. This shows up in the presumptions that all women should want kids, in the slogan ‘breast is best,’ in the fact that the mother is always the one the school calls even the father lists his phone number first.
I hope one day we all check our own assumptions and unconscious biases about others and remember that none of us can ever truly know what’s going on for someone else or what they’ve been through. This is why, at Fig Health, we have set an intention to always be inclusive. Our health screen is for all women, no matter what their life stage or what their family planning goals might look like.
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