Embracing Alternative Paths to Creating a Family

because unfortunately I think not enough people are thinking about how fertility is a biomarker of Health in a female

0:07

reproductive body right like in a cycling body and it is something that if

0:12

we start preserving our fertility focusing on our fertility eating for our

0:17

fertility nourishing our bodies with our fertility in mind whether it's current or future the sooner we do that the more

0:24

exponential benefit we're going to have so for anyone listening to this who's not ready to have kids yet right this is

0:31

actually a beautiful time to start focusing on your fertility it's never too

0:36

[Music]

0:46

early I am very excited to have our next guest here Stephanie um and we have so

0:52

many questions for her on nutrition fertility hormones I sent her this crazy

0:58

long document because there's just so much we want to know and want to share with our audience so we're going to get to what we can here um but I first want

1:05

to share how we were connected because um one of our previous guests Jackie

1:11

used Stephanie to support who nutrition through her egg freezing Journey so Stephanie thank you so much for joining

1:17

us we're so excited to have you here we have tons of questions um but welcome to quiet the clock thank you Beth I'm so

1:24

excited to be here and yeah I think just the kind of

1:30

women you're featuring the kind of information that we're sharing here is what women kind needs more of and so I

1:36

feel so grateful to be part of it yeah so I always love to start out learning more I mean I know about you and but

1:43

sharing more about your work how you came to your work um with the audience

1:49

yeah absolutely so the long of the short of it is I had been a child who really

1:57

suffered from digestive distress was in and out of doctor's offices from the

2:03

time I was you know old enough to be like my stomach really hurts and I actually only recently found out that

2:10

the doctors ended up saying to my parents she's doing it for attention she's making it up like I have real

2:17

children who need my help she's like because they couldn't figure out what

2:22

was wrong with me and they just kept saying she has IBS and leave us alone oh

2:27

my God what was that like my god well what is it like for you to have learned that information but I I can't imagine

2:33

you know we're both moms now I can't imagine you know going to doctors and I think this is part of the Gap is like

2:38

you put your trust in doctors and there's some really great ones and I think there are some that will say

2:44

things like this to you what was that I can imagine what that was like for your parents Abol I mean well I only found this out a couple years ago my mom said

2:51

to me you know that's what the doctors were telling us because I just remember going in and out of the offices and then

2:56

being like well try this medication and it would make me feel worse or what wouldn't do anything and finally when I

3:03

was about 13 I my aunt had heard of someone like one of her friends had gone

3:09

gluten-free and it like totally changed her life and I'd been tested for celiac but at this time I'm 12 years old I you

3:16

know my life is like calling my mom from the bathroom stall of our bar and bought Mitzvah being like come get me I'm so

3:23

you know miserable yeah that I was just ready to do anything and so I was like okay well let's try it and then back

3:29

then there was like this tiny little gluten-free section at Whole Foods and you know all the gluten-free food like

3:35

you know the pastas and crackers and stuff tasted like cardboard but I was like I'll do anything and I actually

3:41

happened to be a kid who liked to cook which was a blessing oh cool interesting

3:46

I used to when I was like homesick from school I used to watch the Food Network before to and like you know take notes

3:53

in my little thing so I was really into cooking fortunately and that really saved me um but yeah like after 3 months

3:59

of of going gluten-free most of the symptoms I'd been having for almost 13 years went away and so I just became

4:06

very aware of the relationship between food as medicine or food as a catalyst

4:12

for disease in my body and I also realized from a very early age that

4:19

Western medicine was not going to be the thing that like saved me nor was it

4:26

probably what was serving the general population and so fast forward I don't know 5 to

4:35

eight years I went to college and my mom was like you should be a nutritionist and I was like shut up mom you know

4:40

nothing about me you know and I ended up getting a degree in

4:46

conflict resolution lived abroad for a long time and when I came back really had this returning moment of my mom was

4:54

right I probably should do something in health and weal don't you hate that you're like damn it they were right all along uhhuh and really was witnessing

5:03

the relationship of all of my I had this reverse culture shock you know every commercial on TV when I came back to the

5:09

States was for either junk food or a pharmaceutical and no one was putting the two together and so I decided to go

5:15

back to school and get a degree in holistic nutrition and while I was in school I also was realizing I had been

5:23

on the birth control pill and I got off and had this whole oh my God this is what it's like to be in a cyc body and

5:30

had really bad post birth control syndrome and really became enamored by

5:36

just how amazing the female body is and wanted to learn everything I could about

5:41

this cycle I'd always wanted to be a mom and you know had a lot of fears around

5:47

infertility actually because my aunt who I shared a lot of um body stuff with she

5:53

also had really bad stomach problems you know periods whatever had struggled to have both of her kids and ended up

5:59

having them through IVF after you know a decade of trying and so I just really became so interested in learning

6:06

everything I could about this and over time my practice naturally just started to attract more women who were

6:13

interested in the same things and you know the rest's history SE almost a

6:18

decade later helped you know over 50 women have beautiful babies healthy

6:25

pregnancies and hundreds more women feel confident in their fertility confident

6:31

in their bodies and in flow with their hormones yeah and I imagine through your

6:38

work or even your learning just seeing this Gap or this disconnect between like what we've been told or or how little

6:45

we've been told about the connection between nutrition and fertility and I I have to say like I'm learning so much

6:52

now after being a mom after going through egg freezing you know we are going through IVF like I'm learning

6:58

through much so much through doing this work on the podcast so it's incredible that you you know have have this

7:04

information had this journey that made you like really hungry to know more and what's been so amazing a lot of the

7:11

guests that we have on that's doing work like this is born out of their own experience and it's like everyone trying

7:16

to pay it forward and just get more information out there so I would I would be curious you know when are women

7:23

coming to one of the things that caught my ear is like when you were trying to figure out your own health stuff like

Fertility Preservation and Nutrition

7:28

you know when the gluten-free suggestion came to you you're like I'll try anything and I think that's so a lot of

7:34

you know the narrative women might hold if they're having trouble or say they've done a round of egg freezing and they

7:39

haven't gotten the result that they wanted I think there is and I can speak for myself this desire to like what else

7:46

can I do and I've asked questions to other doctors and they'll just say just take your prenatal and that's it there's

7:53

no yeah yeah so can you yeah sort of speak to that in terms of what you see in your work and what what you've

7:58

learned like this like why aren't we know why don't we know more sooner yeah

8:05

well I feel like there's a couple points here that I want to touch on to the first one is you said you know when are

8:10

people coming to me and I love the saying you know the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago but the second

8:17

best time is right now right oh I love that you know to some extent I'm

8:24

so passionate about getting women thinking about their fertility before they want to get pregnant because

8:30

unfortunately I think not enough people are thinking about how fertility is a biomarker of Health in a female

8:37

reproductive body right like in a cycling body and it is something that if

8:42

we start preserving our fertility focusing on our fertility eating for our

8:47

fertility nourishing our bodies with our fertility in mind whether it's current or future the sooner we do that the more

8:54

exponential benefit we're going to have so for anyone listening to this who's not ready to have kids yet right this is

9:01

actually a beautiful time to start focusing on your infertility it's never too early and that said the second best

9:07

time is right now right so no matter where you are on that fertility Journey there's so many things that we can do I

9:13

always think about I had a very special client who had done so many rounds of

9:20

ibf her doctor had told her husband at the last appointment they had before they started working with me that they

9:26

could have bought a private island with the amount of money that they had spent on IVF and they still didn't have a baby

9:33

there was still you know she had never even gone for a transfer they were still on no oh my gosh wow and when I looked

9:42

at her food journal I remember thinking and I think I said to her no one's ever talked to

9:47

you about this and this was I was a little bit early in my practice in terms of working with people who were already

9:53

in the IVF you know journey and so I this was many years ago and so I remember thinking well her doctors must

9:59

be talking to her about her diet and you know things like that and I looked at her food journal and I was in shock and

10:05

I said no one's ever talked to you about this not at all her amh but in the four

10:11

months that we worked together she took time off from IVF her amh more than quadrupled while we were working

10:18

together her next retrieval she was able to go and have you know gr A and B

10:24

embryos where before she was never even you know fertilizing like it was significant change so powerful yeah

10:31

and I think what I what's unfortunate what's beautiful about the fertility world and ibf especially is that there

10:38

are doctors it's kind of like the wild west like they can kind of go wherever they want with things you know and

10:44

there's it's like the research is so new and revolutionary and we're just kind of it's moving at a quicker rate than the rest of medicine which I think gives us

10:52

a lot of opportunity for doctors to be more proactive in the nutrition and

10:58

supplement side but generally speaking you know if you're the average woman who goes to your OBGYN and is like yeah I've been

11:03

trying to get pregnant for a few months they just don't have the training you know my friends who are coming out of

11:11

medical school and residency and have been in you know school for do to be a doctor for over 12 years at this point

11:16

right you know have have had zero nutrition training none and they you

11:26

know will self- admit most of their training is how do we use

11:32

Pharmaceuticals to cover up you know to just like fix the solution you know fix something and

11:38

like provide a solution so when we are dealing with natural matters of the body

11:44

like how do I eat for my fertility or how do I eat for hormone balance or just to have good energy right and you know

11:50

this is something I see postpartum all the time like how do I eat to replenish my my body after having a

11:56

baby they don't have the tools to help us and so fortunately there are other

12:02

people and ways to get this knowledge like and this podcast this is like I think just the benefit of you know I I

12:09

think there's pros and cons to everything and pros and cons social media but that's what's so helpful is that there are people like you doing

12:16

work like you're doing and putting information out there because and I think there is the shift of seeking

12:21

other resources than just medical doctors and there's acupuncture and there's you know nutrition but I think

12:27

without access to that we would just kind of trust our medical doctors and it was it's really interesting I had Marsha

12:33

inhorn on and she wrote a book motherhood on ice and she did a whole research study on women that froze their

12:39

eggs and part of what she included in the book was and I'm going to not remember the stats correctly but similar

12:45

to what you're saying about your friends coming out of medical school and the lack of nutritional training no these

12:51

doctors didn't even feel like it was their responsibility to even bring up egg freezing to women so not they're

12:56

like giving them really like not a lot of information so that's yeah you know it's

13:02

hard to hear but it's helpful to know like we do have to seek other other resources that are obviously very

13:08

helpful the other thing and I I want to so there's so much to talk about I love

13:14

what you said about the being proactive about your fertility because I know a lot of women you know clients friends

13:20

listeners of this podcast are in this precontemplation state of trying to think about do I want to freeze my eggs

13:26

or not and that's a very hard decision because it'si it's financially it's expensive it's a lot on your body

13:32

there's so many emotional narratives around I can't believe I have to do this I'm at this age I know so I love what you were saying too like if someone's in

13:39

that place there's still things that they can do and I'd love for you to share like I think when you can have

13:46

some sense of control over something it's very helpful so I think that's really important to maybe we could speak to that like if you're a woman like on

13:52

the fence about whether or not egg freezing is you for you right now like what can they be doing to start

13:58

preserving fertility through nutrition absolutely and I think this applies to anyone

14:05

who no matter what decision they make whether to do it or not to do it because before you freeze your eggs it's also

14:11

advantageous to make that cycle as you know as fruitful

14:18

as possible possible in all the ways and so you know before anyone you know goes

14:24

on that journey I highly recommend really taking a couple months

14:29

to deeply invest in making those eggs of highest quality possible to give you

14:35

more options later so you know whether it's to preserve it and not freeze your eggs or to I think it's really important

14:42

um so the way that I like to think about it is you know we've all we all can look

14:51

at our population and see how different people age right you can have two women

14:58

that that are 60 and one looks 50 and one looks 75 right yeah what's the

15:06

difference how they ate if they you know spent a lot of time in the Sun how if

15:12

they smoked cigarettes if they you know moisturiz right like there are all of these things yeah what are the habits

15:19

right that like influence the way that our genes Express themselves the way that we age and so the reason we tend to

15:27

see this is kind of generally speaking of course there are more

15:32

um there are exceptions to this and you know I can speak to those a little bit too but generally speaking the reason we

15:39

see fertility rates decline as women get older is due to oxidative stress and

15:47

this influences our eggs our eggs age okay we're born with all the follicules that we're going to have and over time

15:54

they're exposed to oxidative stress and aging just like the rest of us m sperm

15:59

don't really do that they they they they're like made fresh and so which is why even though actually we do see sperm

16:07

quality decline as men get older I think that's likely also due to just other

16:12

oxidative stress that builds up in the body but anyways so one of the most important things we can do is really

16:19

live in a way that promotes antioxidants in the body right so the opposite of

16:25

oxidation which is aging and we've seen in the research things like Resveratrol

16:31

right which actually can produce the opposite effect I just learned about that okay yes wow so Resveratrol is like

16:39

an amazing supplement that you can take I actually had my husband taking Resveratrol and leading up to our

16:44

conception because there's also really a lot of evidence that it supports sperm quality as well um so Resveratrol is a

16:52

really great example eating foods that are super rich in polyphenols and antioxidants this again it just works

16:58

against the aging process and can actually improve the quality of our eggs and so if you are you know thinking okay

17:07

like I don't know if I want to freeze my eggs but I want to you know hopefully conceive in the next several years what

17:13

can I do to really support my egg quality reducing the sources of inflammation in your life right so this

17:19

could be you know potentially from alcohol or other you know

17:24

substances stress just like the way that we interact in the world like oxidative

17:30

stress is also from just stress you know really supporting your body with loads of antioxidants supplementing smartly

17:38

and you know just taking care that's that's specifically for eggs but if we

17:44

were thinking also just about like General fertility taking care of your hormones right and making sure that our

17:49

womb space is a hospitable home when we're

17:55

ready okay lots of questions so can can you give some examples of foods that

18:00

would be considered antioxidants yeah so deeply pigmented Foods so the way that I like you to

18:07

think about this is if you cut open a fruit or vegetable is it colorful all the way through so think about an apple

18:14

beautiful red or green on the outside but you cut it open and it's beige on the inside right but what about a beet

18:21

you cut open a beet and it's just bursting with color so that's deeply pigmented Reds Blues purples those like

18:29

deep um deeply colored foods have more antioxidants the more color the more

18:35

antioxidants so wild blueberries are an amazing source of you know those Rich

18:40

polyphenols which help with egg quality um leafy greens liver which is not

18:45

necessarily A deeply pigmented food but is just so abundant in minerals and it's like a Nature's prenatal it's really

18:53

amazing um and another thing and my fertility framework I talk about

18:59

ancestral Foods so looking at what all around the world different tribal and an

19:07

you know cultures have as their fertility foods for moms postpartum or when they're pregnant or trying to get

19:12

pregnant there's a lot of wisdom there and so we'll find you know oysters egg

19:18

yolks row like salmon row um you know lots of like Rich fatty

19:25

foods avocado is great we really want so just like that yummy ancestral diet you know those

19:31

really oysters are an amazing I think I might have already said that but oysters are amazing I knew that oysters wow yeah

19:38

like go if you need another excuse to go to like oyster happy hour right you know it's they're so rich so rich in yeah and

19:46

all the trace minerals that we're so deficient in in our modern Western diet

19:51

so we really look at like these traditional animal protein rich foods paired with these really bright color F

19:58

vegetables and fruits and the combination of those two really sets us up for a lot of fertility success

20:04

amazing I love that I love those such tangible suggestions like that's why I

20:10

ask specifically those Foods because I think they can be very easy to add into your diet yeah totally it's just getting

20:19

in the habit of it right you know if you're someone who never grew up eating liver it probably sounds super weird to

20:25

you right but go make some pate and like ease your way into it or mix a little bit of liver into your meatloaf or to

20:31

your meatballs or your taco mix and just kind of like work it oh that's a great idea well I I think what I have found

20:38

too is and and share with me if you've seen this too in your work with your clients is

20:43

that when this matters to you when you do want to think about preserving your fertility through egg freezing or if

20:50

you're you know further along in the fertility journey and you're thinking about having a baby like I think you're

20:56

willing to do whatever ever is going to help you what's going to support you and I think that's why it's important to have these type of conversations just to

21:02

arm women with more information and I know for myself you know especially through the egg freezing process there's

21:07

still so much uncertainty and that's why it's a hard decision too because it's this huge investment financially

21:13

emotionally physically and you just don't even know what the outcome is going to be and so you and so if you can

21:18

kind of attach to something that you can actively do to help yourself and again

21:24

you know the outcome can still be uncertain but I think women really want those those pieces of advice and those

21:30

resources of like okay so much of this is out of my control so much of this is uncertain so much this of this is

21:36

emotionally heavy but like I can you know incorporate these Foods or I can add these supplements I I think that's

21:43

so hugely helpful in such a a daunting process absolutely you know we I used to

21:50

always say that you know some of the work that I did helped women take control of their health so they could

21:58

take control of their lives and I think control has a little bit of a negative connotation right and sometimes in

Empowering Women's Health and Fertility

22:04

taking control of our health we have to surrender to the things that we don't have power over but there is something

22:12

really amazing about saying I Am The Sovereign of my body I am the one who is

22:18

making decisions for me they are educated decisions and I'm going into whatever this experience is knowing that

22:25

I'm doing what is in my power to do to support it right and then I and then because I've done that it allows me to

22:33

surrender to what's left you know what what's left that I have zero control

22:38

over yeah and I think there's so much reassurance in that idea well I think that helps the surrender to say I did

22:44

everything that I could do and I made all the choices that I had control over right and I think sometimes without that

22:50

you know maybe you got a you know an outcome that's not totally satisfying and then you beat yourself up should I

22:56

done this should I've done that so I think there's yeah it definitely helps the release of all the other parts that

23:01

are out of your control 100% do you do you find with some of the

23:06

women that you work with are you ever surprised by the Gap of knowledge you have women that come in and like like me

23:12

I'm learning all of this stuff very very newly through the podcast and even some of my own Journey but are you maybe

23:19

you're not surprised anymore by how little people know or what is it like when someone comes to you and and it's

23:24

like I had no idea like my doctor didn't tell me anything about this yeah I think

23:29

at this point I'm desensitized to that a little bit because I've been surprised

23:35

so many times I mean I guess sometimes I am I mean I guess I talk about it you

23:41

know confidentially of course but like with my partner in a way where I'm just like and can you believe that her doctor

23:48

you know that This Woman's doctor said this and he's like yeah I can because we've we've done this so many times um

23:55

but it doesn't mean that it doesn't hurt every time I hear it right I mean I still feel so much pain someone that's

24:01

specifically coming to me in mind right now I had a client who had really terrible fibroids and that was her

24:08

primary struggle with fertility and you know when by the time she had come to me

24:14

she had already had surgeries you know to remove the fibroids and they felt like they maybe didn't get all of them

24:20

and without getting into twoo many details you know when I started looking at her environment you know the thing I

24:26

I don't just work on nutrition uh we really do lifestyle mindset spirituality

24:32

I mean because it's not enough to just eat well right like we have to you could

24:38

have the perfect diet but if we're not managing your stress it's not going to matter you could have the perfect diet but if your home is filled with

24:44

xenoestrogens it's probably not going to work super well so when we started looking around at her you know she was

24:50

using really toxic products in her home on her body and had zero idea that those

24:57

are super connected to fibroids I mean you can just go online and search fragrance fibroids and find articles

25:05

that NBC posted or whoever you know and it's like to me it's it's so obvious and

25:12

I'm maybe paying attention to that kind of stuff in the media when I see it because I'm like oh finally they're talking about it but it is always

25:19

surprising to me when people in today's day and age where information is so abundant if you look for it are

25:28

uneducated about how certain things in their lifestyle might be influencing their fertility for sure yeah and I've

25:33

just started to look at more of that stuff too and it's like you can't unsee it and then you kind of start looking at everything and all the products and

25:40

what's in it and I'm I'm I'm new to all that stuff too I love I love your holistic approach because I I agree with

25:47

that I think it can't just be one one part and all these parts of us impact our journey and our capacity to hold

25:53

space for this journey that can be really hard um how do you work with I guess how how do you work with stress

25:59

and I know mindset can help stress but how do you work with both of those things so for stress I think the

26:04

beautiful and the challenging thing about it is it's really unique to every person right you know there are I don't

26:12

know nine billion people on the planet or something and there are nine billion ways to relieve stress for each person

26:18

we have to work with what tools are already accessible to them what makes

26:24

that you know um because again when I'm working with someone it's typically stress is not the only thing we're

26:29

working on right there are all these different things and I never want to create more stress right by having them

26:36

be like here's my Stress Management plan start over right so we talk through it what are some things that when you're

26:41

having a bad day make you feel better what are some ways that you know when you feel I'll describe different

26:48

feelings in their body depending on what's coming up what would you do to counteract that and I might give them specific tools depending on what's

26:54

coming up a tool that I really love using with clients um for cute Stress Management one thing I do do with every

27:00

client is we talk about the two avenues that we when we're talking about stress

27:05

what we need to think about is acute Stress Management and preventative Stress Management and so acute Stress

27:11

Management is I just went to the post office and they've lost you know my Irreplaceable

27:17

package and they have no idea where it is and then my flight that I'm supposed to go on tomorrow just got reschedule

27:23

you know it's like the days where like everything's going bad and you need to just be like ah right like I have to I I have this super stressful thing happened

27:28

my boss said something to me and I feel like I'm so angry we need to have tools

27:34

to deal with that in the moment to help your body come back to feeling safe right we have this it's natural to have

27:39

a moment of stress but we need to be able to come back down regulate yeah yeah yeah but we also need to have

27:45

preventative Stress Management tools this might be something like a daily meditation practice or oh you know a

27:51

yoga class that I go to twice a week or my partner and I sitting down and having our weekly meeting where we just like

27:57

get every everything out in the open because these preventative Stress Management tools help us expand our

28:02

capacity to deal with the daily stuff and I find a lot of people are

28:09

imbalanced with those either they're like to they have too few you know

28:14

preventative measures and too many acute measures but then they don't work when the prevent you know so we really need to make sure that both of those tool

28:21

boxes have enough in them so that we can you know switch back and forth as needed

28:26

um but it but what those tools are is really going to depend on the person their lifestyle do they work from home

28:31

do they work in an office right you know for people who I had a client who worked in an office and we called it potty

28:37

pranayama when she would like go to the bathroom and do a little bit of breath work because like only place at work

28:43

where she could like have quiet and silence right and so and it was totally appropriate for her to go to the

28:49

bathroom for five minutes but if she was sitting at her desk doing a breathing exercise it'd be kind of weird so it's

28:55

really just working with an individual so if if you're thinking about this and you're like I know my stress is something that I really need to work on

29:01

I would say sit down and think about what are two things from each of those categories preventative and acute that

29:09

you already find yourself leaning towards but maybe you're just not utilizing enough or it's something that

29:14

like you tried a long time ago but you just kind of forgot about and see how you can start incorporating that back in

29:19

your life yeah and I love that preventative that method because that's a lot of the work I do with my clients

29:24

too because sometimes when you are you know activ you can't access those like

29:29

the tools from the acute section um so the preventative is they're both very helpful but I know when sometimes you're

29:35

very activated it's hard to access those and you know I think this is these things are you know there stressors you

29:43

know work life relationships but when you're also thinking about egg freezing or IVF it's like everything feels

29:48

compounded so to build that skill set and I always say you know have your support team before you go through this

29:55

like identify who that is whether that's egg freezing or thinking about egg freezing or you know your own fertility

30:01

Journey if you're doing IVF or just trying to have like have your team in place and I think what I love about the

30:07

way you work is one it's so holistic but it's person- centered you know you're really it sounds like you're really

30:12

tailoring your work to what each individual is bringing and I think often and I don't want to overgeneralize but I

30:19

think sometimes if you're going to Fertility clinic or a doctor it's like you don't often get that like

30:24

personalized experience so whoever it is whether it's someone like you or a friend or whoever therapist like finding

30:31

someone that's really going to hear you listen to you and give you tools that are really aligned with what you can use

30:37

and access absolutely and you know something that came to mind when you were saying that is I've had so many

30:42

clients who come from back from their Fertility clinic appointments with you know a handout that's like these are all

30:47

the supplements you should take right and some of them are really great like

30:53

yes I'm so glad that this Fertility clinic is looking at this new research and seeing that you know these levels of

30:58

CoQ10 are really supportive or whatever it is but again it's like we want to be

31:03

able to customize that so not only are you not just throwing like money down the drain but also that you're getting

31:08

the results that you want and you know this is a bigger conversation around

31:15

medicine insurance companies Etc how do we switch up that system so people can

31:20

get that attention but in the meantime Outsourcing for it is really so supportive of you know your all the

31:27

things on the journey yeah well I yeah I mean when I went through egg freezing like I didn't know this is now five or

31:33

six years ago I didn't know I only knew one other person that went through it I don't think that you know the resources

31:39

have obviously gotten so much better the option for for places to do that have gotten so much better and it was a very

31:45

lonely experience for me and I think it can be for a lot of women and I I love what is happening now in terms of like

Open Conversations About Fertility and Birth Control

31:51

you know these resources that are available this knowledge that is available there that are there are people like Shar sharing their own

31:57

stories or they're doing work born out of their own experiences because I think it's so important to have that as you go

32:04

through this or have somebody that gets it or knows it or you can just feel comfortable asking questions and I think

32:10

you know without that it's very isolating and it's very lonely and I I have to imagine you know some of the

32:15

women that come to you before coming to you maybe have felt that too yeah absolutely I mean and I think

32:23

infertility in general can feel really lonely right whether or not you've decided to freeze your eggs and go

32:30

through you know different fertility treatments and

32:36

I I really think that you know as more and more couples are struggling to

32:42

conceive now it's one and six couples is the number has a fertility issue and you

32:49

know we can't forget that it's not exclusively on the female end right you

32:55

know that male infertility is rising at a wild

33:00

rate there's a researcher I really like her name is Dr Shauna Swan and she's

33:05

looked at the influence of phades and we just liter shelle and I are both shaking

33:11

our head because we literally just watched that the other night it was wild and um the one of the doc I know she's

33:17

done a ton of interviews and things but one of the documentaries we watched was talking about male infertility and this doctor in part of like med school

33:24

brought a sample of her husband's sperm and there well there were like nothing there and they went through all their products and yeah we just watched that

33:31

the other night it's I mean I'm I I'm so grateful for the work she's doing and her by her estimates that by 2050 which

33:39

as old as this makes me feel is not that far away you know yeah in the scheme of human history

33:47

the median at uh sperm count for men in the

33:54

west is going to be zero and that's you know the median is like when we take all

34:00

of the numbers and line them up and what's the one in the middle not adding them up and dividing it so it's basically saying that like one in

34:07

two more than one in two men wouldn't have sperm and you know we're really

34:12

looking at holistically why that is toxins in our environment obesity you

34:17

know different things so I just think that as much as it feels lonely if we

34:24

open our eyes we can see it's this actually like worldwide issue and something we should all be talking about

34:30

thinking about eating for you know like supporting a lot and so for anyone who

34:35

does feel like it's isolating speak out like Le let's get louder about this because I do think

34:42

that we need to in order to support you know moving forward yeah it's really interesting I have connected with

34:48

someone over Instagram who did this kind of podast interviewing you know work and

34:54

talking about a lot about egg freezing I think about 10 years ago and I was like talking to her and it didn't get that M

35:01

much traction and then I was thinking to myself people weren't ready for that conversation she said that she would have to like you know people would not

35:08

be reluctant to be interviewed or people would want it they'll be interviewed but Anon anonymously and it's so important

35:14

to keep cultivating conversation but I just found that so interesting as like it caught no traction and she did a lot

35:19

of an amazing work but she was like yeah people were not ready for this conversation and you know you bring up a

35:26

really good point in terms of like the male infertility because we've been talking about that too we haven't talked about that on here but I think in the

35:33

conversations that we have previously had mostly with women it does feel like this burden of responsibility Falls

35:40

solely on us and particularly in the egg freezing space because we are the ones that have to make those decisions pay

35:46

for those processes like you know hold space for a mentally and emotionally and

35:51

it does feel like a lot of the burden falls on that us but based on you know the this information it's like well men

35:58

should probably be thinking about it too if they want children absolutely and I mean I have a pretty firm policy now any

36:08

client I'm working for with for fertility especially in my private coaching practice their husband has to

36:15

be on board their partner needs to be willing to do the work too because you

36:21

know it takes two to tango in this space and you know the sperm will become the

36:28

placenta which is like responsible for giving nutrients to the baby and you

36:33

know there's there's so when a miscarriage happens I

36:38

think so often the mom blames herself I

36:43

did something wrong was it this was it that and we know that up to 50% of the

36:49

time it can be because of sperm quality and you know abnormalities that can come

36:54

from either side of that DNA and so it's really important to me that all parties

37:00

are on board and does that mean they have to do like every single thing that I say no but I need them to be receptive

37:06

and open if I have suggestions for their diet or supplement or the kind of lifestyle that they're doing I love that

37:13

because not only is it like you know both things are impactful and and play a

37:19

part in the outcome and equation but I think it's just also the women not feeling like it this is only falling on

37:25

me and I'm the only one doing work you know with my nutrition supplements diet

37:30

lifestyle stress like I I love that yeah I love that boundary that that's that's the rule yeah that's the rule that's the

37:38

rule I just have one other question before we wrapped up because you mentioned for yourself like birth control earlier and I think that's been

37:45

a a topic of conversation like should I be on it should I not be on it is it

37:50

helpful is it not and you know we've had some guests on here that have shared like you know they were only on on it

37:56

because their partner wanted them on it so I'd be curious about you know your thoughts on birth

38:02

control yeah um it's it's an interesting topic that I

38:09

have received and I don't care like I have a very uh one of my mantras is what

38:14

other people think of me is none of my op is not my you know it doesn't like it doesn't matter to me like what other

38:19

people's opinion of me doesn't matter um it's none of my business because I have

38:25

been like minorly cancelled over my thoughts about birth control and I think they're misunderstood so I'm just trying

38:32

to really uh careful with my words here so that I'm understood properly I am not anti-

38:41

hormonal birth control I'm very Pro women making informed decisions

38:47

about medications they're putting in their body that said I think almost no

38:53

one I there has not been a single person that I know except one one one one I have like

39:02

one woman that I know who it was the right choice for her and she was fully informed everyone else that I've ever

39:08

talked to has no idea that birth control can have the effect that it could have

39:14

on them and I have seen so many times you know I'm interviewing someone in my

39:20

practice yeah I started the birth control pill when I was 15 and on at 16 I went on anti-depression and anti-anxiety Med

39:27

no one ever talks to them about the correlation I've had people you know it's a type it's a carcinogen it causes

39:33

it can cause cancer there's studies that show um if you take the oral

39:40

contraceptive you are at I want to say the numbers are a little bit fuzzy for me right now Mom brain but I want to say

39:47

it's like 130% increase for developing Crohn's or Colitis with and you know so

39:55

if you have a family history of IBD or if you already are susceptible to like

40:01

so many you know people who have IBS just go on the birth control pill you should not be taking that medication and

40:06

so you know risk of diabetes risk so there are so many Associated risks with

40:13

specifically oral contraception but not exclusively and I feel not enough people

40:18

are informed yeah I yeah yeah I think that's that was so well said because I

40:25

think it's there is so much misinformation and I think that we I'll speak for myself like

40:31

certain things have gone in really misinformed or just blind and not well informed I think that's the value of

40:36

what I'm trying to do now is just yeah yeah I think I think all decisions should be made when well-informed you

40:45

know transparency complete understanding of what you're deciding on so I love I

40:51

love that answer one thing I just really want to say about this too is we have no long-term studies on hormonal birth

40:58

control and now we have a generation of people who have been on this medication

41:03

for 10 15 going on 20 years and there are no studies that look at this Beyond

Informed Birth Control Decision Importance

41:11

several months truly and when I think that I think more people need to know

41:17

that we don't understand the risk I did a I did a podcast on um your

41:22

preconception checklist and one of the things that I talk about in my preconception Tech list is making sure

41:29

that you've been off of hormonal birth control for at least 6 months to a year if not more before you want to conceive

41:36

because some recent I mean there's a lot of reasons why we do that like one you know it can take your body years to

41:42

rebalance even with the natural things that we're bringing in to speed that up um but another reason why I'm so

41:49

passionate about that now is telling everyone I know if you've been on hormonal birth control wait at least six

41:54

months because there's new studies showing a higher rate of cancer in the

42:00

children of people who had recently been off of hormonal birth control without

42:06

like within six months had conceived and we just don't understand the impact of

42:11

this medication on all of our systems and the future of our bodies yeah oh my God but

42:17

no one no one tells you that and I want to share this with you because I'm I'm like oh my God I I got off birth control

42:24

and was pregnant with my son like Weeks Later and no one tells you that no one tells

42:29

you wait wow yeah and this is why this is so important just to you know and

42:36

everyone still has the right to make their own decisions but to just know the information is so important well and you

42:43

know even knowing that information now you can make choices for your you know child that are informed you know maybe

42:50

you're more mindful than the average parent about what kind of water your kid is drinking and what kind kind of snacks

42:56

they're eating and what you know you wash their clothes in and you know all of these things because you have that

43:03

additional data yeah I mean knowledge is power 100% And I I think that you know

43:08

the more that women can be armed with knowledge they know they have you know they can seek out the right resources they can make the right choices they can

43:15

choose the right supplements choose so I think yeah it's so important to be informed and I think what can be hard is

43:21

without you know conversations like these without work that you're doing sometimes we just don't know what to be

43:26

asking or what to be looking for so it's so helpful to have you know spaces where

43:32

people are talking about this because you know first of all it's like you go

43:37

in you're so stressed and you're so nervous and you're so emotionally vulnerable whe whether it's egg freezing

43:44

or IVF it's like I'll speak for myself sometimes I'm not I'm not thoughtful about what I'm asking or I don't or I'm

43:51

just fully trusting like the doctor's going to tell me everything I need to know and because I'm in this vulnerable state I'm not always thinking clearly so

43:58

I think it's helpful in terms of like the knowledge and information and and just seeking out resources where you

44:04

feel comfortable and you feel heard and you feel seen yeah absolutely and just for anyone who's listening to this who's

44:10

like okay well I want to get off my birth control then but I don't want to get you know I'm not in a partnership where I'm ready to get pregnant or

44:16

whatever it is there there are so many other ways and I think that that's just something that there's a lack of

44:21

Education about as well so definitely you know look into fertility awareness method and just how to support your body

44:28

without oral or you know other hormonal contraception yeah well thank you for filling the gaps and putting all this

44:34

information out there before we wrap up can you just tell everybody where they can find you because you have so much

44:40

great knowledge to share thank you for having me Beth it's been so meaningful to have this

44:45

conversation um so yeah come say what's up I'd love to get to know you and be in

44:51

community with you everyone who's here on this podcast so the best way to find me is usually Instagram Stephanie aler

44:58

Wellness I'm sure you know we can I can give my profile to Beth and we can put it in the show notes so you can yes

45:03

it'll all be there yeah sounds good and I have um group programs and private

45:09

coaching options depending on the person and what you need and so also just come

45:14

say hi I love getting to meet people one thing that I think is great about the internet is how interconnected we all

45:20

get to be and I feel so like grateful for my online community and so yeah just

45:27

come say hi yeah awesome well thank you we appreciate having you here and sharing all your knowledge with us and

45:33

let's certainly stay in touch I think there's more work we could do together I look forward to it thanks awesome thank

45:39

you if you like the episodes that you're hearing and you want to hear more please subscribe to our Channel and stay tuned

45:45

for more incredible stories and tools when I froze my eggs at 37 I felt alone

45:51

I felt unsure I felt confused and uncertain and when you were are considering such a big decision feeling

45:57

those ways do not feel good so we have created a step-by-step guide to egg

46:03

freezing so no one else has to feel that way if you are considering egg freezing if you're curious about what the process

46:11

looks like or what you should be thinking about then this guide is for you we were really thoughtful in how we

46:16

put it together I think it's a great guide I think it's really comprehensive and covers a lot of the things to be

46:22

thinking about to be considering and maybe some things you didn't even realiz you should be thinking about or considering um the goal is to not let

46:30

have anyone feel alone in this journey so if you again if you're thinking about this decision sign up through our

Making a Big Decision Guide

46:37

website quith clock.com and make sure to follow us on Instagram and Tik Tok at by the clock pod this is a very big

46:45

decision so I don't want anyone to feel alone in it so if you're thinking about it grab this guide and you can also DM

46:50

me with any questions I'm here to support you through this decision and this journey

‍