Speaker 1: This is pod Popular Podcast for the People, The Great
Speaker 1: Love Debate. It's the Great Love Debate.
Speaker 2: The Great Love Debate.
Speaker 1: It's a great loved Hi get everyone's Brian Howie. Welcome
Speaker 1: to the Great Love Debate, the world's number one dating
Speaker 1: and relation podcast since twenty fifteen. I am back here
Speaker 1: in the very fine and fancy studios of Pod Popular
Speaker 1: Podcast for the People. I am at the one in
Speaker 1: Boca Ratone, Florida. It's actually nice here in Boca Ratone, Florida.
Speaker 1: It's not always nice today, it's nice. I want to
Speaker 1: get into today something that it's always a little bit
Speaker 1: of a third rail around here. This is the second
Speaker 1: podcast I've done in the last month or so that
Speaker 1: is sort of devoted to a certain demo who listens
Speaker 1: to this show, I think more intently than any other,
Speaker 1: a demo that has I think more challenges when it
Speaker 1: comes to love, dating and relationships than a lot of
Speaker 1: the others. And I know you're probably twenty three listening
Speaker 1: to right now, and you're like, no, the challenges are
Speaker 1: the worst. Twenty three. It's sixty two. You're listening and
Speaker 1: you're like, ah, the man still suck after fifty years
Speaker 1: of dating but the ones who's sort of like ground
Speaker 1: zero for this subject matter because there are a lot
Speaker 1: of questions, concerns, crossroads, all of those things, is sort
Speaker 1: of the women between thirty five and forty five. So
Speaker 1: that sort of age bracket really does have to deal
Speaker 1: with some unique challenges. And so if you are that
Speaker 1: twenty three year old woman listen to this, you're gonna
Speaker 1: get there. And if you're sixty two listening to this,
Speaker 1: you got through it. It's not always the easiest subject
Speaker 1: matter for a boy to jump into, and I get
Speaker 1: in a lot of trouble, But I think sometimes men
Speaker 1: have clarity on some of these issues in a way
Speaker 1: that a lot of women don't because they are a
Speaker 1: little bit distant from it and they can look at
Speaker 1: reality of it. And so I'm going to bring in
Speaker 1: a pro here. We're going to talk about the unique
Speaker 1: challenges that come along with the subject of fertility. And
Speaker 1: she hosts one of the better podcasts I've ever heard
Speaker 1: on the subject matter is really really hard to both
Speaker 1: offer hope and also grounded in realism. You know, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of books, and there's a lot of clinics,
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of people that are sort of selling,
Speaker 1: you know, outliers or they're putting out there a false
Speaker 1: sense of reality. She is the host of the Badass
Speaker 1: Fertility podcast, and like I said, she seems to have
Speaker 1: a handle on this in a way that I have
Speaker 1: not heard anybody talk in a way that resonates with me.
Speaker 1: So I can't imagine that it wouldn't resonate with the
Speaker 1: women and a lot of the men who are listening
Speaker 1: to this. Catherine Regman, how are you hello.
Speaker 2: Good morning, I am wonderful, Thank.
Speaker 1: You, And her shirt says the badass woman in me
Speaker 1: honors the badass woman in you? Do I have badass
Speaker 1: women in me? Do we all have badass women in us?
Speaker 2: We all have a badass feminine side? Absolutely, one hundred percent.
Speaker 1: Obviously. I have always tried to dance around this subject
Speaker 1: matter and a lot of men are you know I
Speaker 1: brought this up. I got a bunch of emails on
Speaker 1: it when I said a couple of weeks ago that
Speaker 1: you know, men in their late thirties early forties who
Speaker 1: might want to have three four kids, they have to
Speaker 1: look at the reality of that age in who they're
Speaker 1: dating if they want to have that, And it's like
Speaker 1: a conversation I can't have, but as a conversation you
Speaker 1: want to have, how do you balance the reality with
Speaker 1: false hope with really giving people options that everything is possible.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's a really really good question, and it brings
Speaker 2: up a lot of the tension in dating, you know.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm forty three now, but I remember when
Speaker 2: I was dating in you know, my early mid thirties,
Speaker 2: there was always like this sort of ah gosh, I
Speaker 2: want to call it a secret stereotype, but maybe not
Speaker 2: so secret. Like if you date a woman and over
Speaker 2: thirty five, oh, you better watch out because she's just
Speaker 2: looking for, you know, a father for her babies. Basically
Speaker 2: like she's ready to go. You know. So I think
Speaker 2: that that stereotype is real, it's out there. The degree
Speaker 2: to which it's true, I think, varies from woman to woman.
Speaker 2: It really depends on a lot of factors. Right, Like
Speaker 2: one of the things I talk about a lot in
Speaker 2: my show is how we are really socialized within our
Speaker 2: culture to think of thirty five as somehow this like
Speaker 2: expiration date type of number. Right, And honestly, I mean,
Speaker 2: there is like growing medical research out there that really
Speaker 2: addresses that that is just false right, It's not true.
Speaker 2: Women can maintain their fertility in a very vital and
Speaker 2: optimal way. They can even improve their fertility actually as
Speaker 2: they age, depending on various choices that they choose to make.
Speaker 2: So this whole idea that like a woman who's thirty
Speaker 2: five has to suddenly be in baby making mode or
Speaker 2: she's going to lose that opportunity is Honestly, it's bullshit.
Speaker 2: It's not true. And so what I would encourage women
Speaker 2: to do is to really continue to be selective and
Speaker 2: discerning not only about you know, the partner that they
Speaker 2: want to choose, but also about how they want to
Speaker 2: enter into their child bearing years because there's a lot
Speaker 2: of choice in that that I think a lot of
Speaker 2: women aren't made aware of.
Speaker 1: Right there, so they can prove them what nutritionally.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, yes, yes, yes, so there's a whole I mean,
Speaker 2: there's a whole like you know, bank of research out
Speaker 2: there and lots of people who specialize in this. And
Speaker 2: I can make some recommendations later, but yes, diet, nutrition, exercise,
Speaker 2: all those types of things one hundred percent factor into fertility.
Speaker 2: One of the things I've talked about on my show,
Speaker 2: and I don't know if this is getting too technical,
Speaker 2: but it takes ninety days for the egg that you're
Speaker 2: going to release to basically like turn into that egg.
Speaker 2: So there's like a ninety day window where actually, if
Speaker 2: you make a really concerted effort in terms of how
Speaker 2: you address certain issues dietary lifestyle habits, you can make
Speaker 2: a huge difference in the quality of egg that you
Speaker 2: produce just ninety days later.
Speaker 1: There are you know, there's a group of women over
Speaker 1: here who are frantically hit thirty four, thirty five, and
Speaker 1: they are frantically, you know, overestimating the doom that they
Speaker 1: believe is coming on in terms of their age. And
Speaker 1: then there's a group of women over here who are
Speaker 1: not dealing with it at all. They're like, I'm in
Speaker 1: good shape, I do pilates, I can deal with this.
Speaker 1: At forty six. You kind of have to bring both
Speaker 1: of those sides back from the edges a little bit.
Speaker 1: There is a reality of it that you statistically, thirty seven,
Speaker 1: probably you can't have seven kids, but maybe, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, everybody's like you can. I don't know. Oh,
Speaker 1: you know, I was a girl who came to one
Speaker 1: of our live shows here and she's like, you know,
Speaker 1: I want to have a big family. I'm a mom
Speaker 1: and you know, I'm thirty six years old, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: I think you gotta get on it, but I can't.
Speaker 1: I'm not allowed to say that out loud as a man.
Speaker 2: I know, I know. And it's so hard because on
Speaker 2: the one hand, like I hear you saying that I
Speaker 2: get this like clenching in my test and the chest,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, oh, that's not really true.
Speaker 1: But how much of it it's not really true?
Speaker 2: Okay, So I'll put this out there and sata. So
Speaker 2: first of all, all right, yeah, there are odds. I
Speaker 2: will say this like, and if you like, there's the statistics,
Speaker 2: and then there's the women who defy the odds all
Speaker 2: the time, right, correct? And I would say that, you know,
Speaker 2: just because there's a lot of medical research out there
Speaker 2: that says one thing, it absolutely does not mean that
Speaker 2: women aren't defying that all the time, right. And that's
Speaker 2: where a lot of my work comes in, which is
Speaker 2: the my body type of connection, because that is what
Speaker 2: really amplifies your odds. And it's also something that like
Speaker 2: we don't have a ton of scientific research data on,
Speaker 2: you know, but there's a lot of anecdotal evidence based
Speaker 2: on the women I work with, based on you know,
Speaker 2: the stories that I hear from lots of different people
Speaker 2: about how we can defy these odds. So if you
Speaker 2: want to take a moment and think about it, When
Speaker 2: my mom, for example, who's in her seventies now, had
Speaker 2: my sister, she was thirty five, right, and that was
Speaker 2: like old at that point in time, Like that was
Speaker 2: like kind of the today's equivalent of forty five. I
Speaker 2: would say, right today, if you want to have a
Speaker 2: child in your early to mid forties, right, women who
Speaker 2: try for one year have a forty to fifty percent
Speaker 2: chance of conceiving in their early to mid forties. Right,
Speaker 2: that's naturally. Naturally, that is one in two women.
Speaker 1: And what is that that's probably not way different at
Speaker 1: twenty eight.
Speaker 2: Now it's not either not necessarily that different. I mean,
Speaker 2: any any like person who's in their sort of optimal fertility, right,
Speaker 2: they will say, and any given month, you have a
Speaker 2: twenty five percent chance of conceiving naturally. So theoretically, if
Speaker 2: someone wants to conceive, it should take them about four months, right,
Speaker 2: And that's why they have the sort of window of
Speaker 2: if you are thirty five or over and you've been
Speaker 2: trying for six months, you should get a work up.
Speaker 2: If you're younger than thirty five and you've been trying
Speaker 2: for a year, you should get a work up. So
Speaker 2: that's where those types of markers are generated from. M H.
Speaker 1: Yeah, do you throw age out of it all together?
Speaker 1: Is there a test that you can do to sort
Speaker 1: of understand your fertility?
Speaker 2: So yes and no. If somebody comes to me and
Speaker 2: they say, all right, I'm forty two years old, I
Speaker 2: don't want to get pregnant, I'm like, yes, like absolutely,
Speaker 2: one hundred percent. We can do this and there are
Speaker 2: a lot of things that we're going to work on.
Speaker 2: So the first thing that I do when a woman
Speaker 2: comes to me, because I focus primarily on like even
Speaker 2: just the women we're talking about right now, right, there
Speaker 2: are women who are listening, and this conversation could feel
Speaker 2: very defeating, right because we're challenging this idea that can
Speaker 2: she or can't you get pregnant? Right? And that is
Speaker 2: a very personal and a very complicated and de question.
Speaker 2: So for the woman who's listening who feels that edge
Speaker 2: of what the fuck is this making me feel better
Speaker 2: or worse? I don't actually know what I do is
Speaker 2: I would start by working on the mindset. I would
Speaker 2: start by working on recognizing the innate potential you have
Speaker 2: within yourself, to follow your intuition, to make choices that
Speaker 2: resonate with you, and to guide be your own best
Speaker 2: guide on your journey to your baby. Because I really
Speaker 2: do believe and I operate from the assumption that every
Speaker 2: woman who wants to have a baby, who feels that
Speaker 2: calling in her heart to become a mom, is meant
Speaker 2: to be a mom. And what actually gets in the
Speaker 2: way is the social messaging and the statistics and all
Speaker 2: the things that are telling you you can't or your
Speaker 2: chances are very slim. Because what that does is it
Speaker 2: becomes a sort of self fulfilling prophecy, and we start
Speaker 2: to believe it, and then we make choices that actually
Speaker 2: are more self defeating. I'm not staying statistics don't matter, right. So,
Speaker 2: if you're forty two and you're going to say to me,
Speaker 2: I want to drink a bottle of wine every night
Speaker 2: and smoke a pack of cigarettes and you know, stay
Speaker 2: up till two am and have six kids, I'm going
Speaker 2: to tell you, well, I think we need to figure
Speaker 2: out which one you want more, you know what I mean,
Speaker 2: because you're not necessarily going to have both. But the
Speaker 2: mindset part is really about learning how to embrace the
Speaker 2: types of choices that are going to benefit the ultimate
Speaker 2: desire that you really have.
Speaker 1: And you bring up the choices and a lot of
Speaker 1: women say, you know, throughout their dating years, I want
Speaker 1: to get married and have kids one sentence, get married
Speaker 1: and have kids. Yeah. Yeah, there's a point where you
Speaker 1: have to decide which of those at a certain age
Speaker 1: is a priority. There are a lot of ways, and
Speaker 1: women are obviously more independent than ever that you can
Speaker 1: have the kid or kids and then circle back to
Speaker 1: the married. And that's perfectly reasonable way to do it
Speaker 1: because a lot of women they go out at you know,
Speaker 1: thirty seven years old, and they go on a date
Speaker 1: and they do the math where they had two years
Speaker 1: on even if we like each other, we get married
Speaker 1: in a year and if it goes really really well,
Speaker 1: and they're they're bailing out of possible relationships that could
Speaker 1: work out because they do have this two years add
Speaker 1: on to every single It's really hard to date that way,
Speaker 1: and it's really hard to conceive that way.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and it's so funny you bring up the timeline,
Speaker 2: because the timeline is like one of the number one
Speaker 2: things that women who I work with come to me
Speaker 2: with and that we try to dismantle and get rid
Speaker 2: of because the timeline is seriously only going to waste
Speaker 2: your time in the sense that exactly what you just said, Like,
Speaker 2: you go on this date with this guy who could
Speaker 2: be amazing, but you're so caught up in your head
Speaker 2: about like how are we going to make this work
Speaker 2: on my timeline that you can like extinguish that fire,
Speaker 2: you know, and then.
Speaker 1: You're pulling the emergency shoe way too quick because you're like,
Speaker 1: I don't have time to work out this icky point
Speaker 1: in our dating that happens in every relationship. Three months
Speaker 1: in it's like, oh, this isn't perfect. Then you're going
Speaker 1: backwards because you're doing math constantly.
Speaker 2: Exactly, And it's the same thing when women are trying
Speaker 2: to conceive, right, except it becomes I mean extremely intense,
Speaker 2: and then it also involves your sex life, right, so
Speaker 2: it's like, Okay, we have to have time sex all
Speaker 2: the time, and then you're like exhausted after that window,
Speaker 2: and then you don't have sex for a couple of weeks.
Speaker 2: And then you have it really intensely and it becomes
Speaker 2: like exhausting. I mean, the impact of infertility on relationships
Speaker 2: is huge. And it's so interesting to me that you
Speaker 2: bring up this timeline issue because I always think of
Speaker 2: it in terms of that fertility world. But you're connecting
Speaker 2: it to the larger timeline of relationships. Yeah, which is fascinating, right.
Speaker 2: It's really really an accurate, insightful point.
Speaker 1: The other side of that, a lot more women are
Speaker 1: freezing their eggs, and we're going to get into that shortly.
Speaker 1: But a lot of women say, oh, it's I'm cool,
Speaker 1: I froze my eggs, and they almost they take their
Speaker 1: foot off the gas in terms of dating. They're like, oh,
Speaker 1: the eggs are frozen. I'm good. That's that'll work out.
Speaker 1: I'll come back to that at forty five, when if
Speaker 1: they have maybe just kept dating naturally. Dating naturally is
Speaker 1: never a never good term. I don't know what that is.
Speaker 1: It might have worked out naturally too, you know, it's
Speaker 1: all I mean, you're not really game plaiming, but you're
Speaker 1: sort of hope playing on all of it. Like you're
Speaker 1: always looking at the perfect scenario and life doesn't give
Speaker 1: you the perfect scenario. You could get married and want
Speaker 1: to have and he can't conceive it, or he's sterile,
Speaker 1: or he's got issues, which is a very underrated part
Speaker 1: of this whole equation. Yes, that a lot of men
Speaker 1: don't test he or they get older, or things are
Speaker 1: they low sperm count. There's a lot of ways to
Speaker 1: go about this. That the burden is unfairly a lot
Speaker 1: on the women. We're gonna get into all this. Like
Speaker 1: I said, we can take a deep dive on this.
Speaker 1: I got to take a quick break. I'm here with
Speaker 1: Catherine Bregman. We are diving into bad ass fertility. She
Speaker 1: is a badass and she can hopefully help you with
Speaker 1: your fertility. And we will be back right after this.
Speaker 1: And we are back. Obviously the technology has improved in
Speaker 1: a lot of ways. Yes, how much can you trust it?
Speaker 1: I know it's a loaded questions. Let's start with the egg.
Speaker 1: Is there an age where where freezing eggs statistically makes
Speaker 1: it harder?
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, that's a really good question. I think that
Speaker 2: when it comes to egg freezing, and this is going
Speaker 2: more into the medical stuff than I would typically go,
Speaker 2: but I can give you kind of a generalization. It's
Speaker 2: gonna sort of it's gonna mirror, you know, the similar
Speaker 2: types of recommendations that you're getting for natural conception, right,
Speaker 2: So anyone's going to tell you the earlier you freeze
Speaker 2: your eggs, the better, right, But it's also going to
Speaker 2: vary a lot from woman to woman. And that's why
Speaker 2: a lot of the statistics and the things that we
Speaker 2: hear about age and numbers are really only like a
Speaker 2: broad sort of outline of the truth for every individual person,
Speaker 2: and not only the truth for every individual person, but
Speaker 2: that truth can change at different phases of her life.
Speaker 2: So generally speaking, yes, of course, the younger the better, right,
Speaker 2: I'm not going to pretend like, oh, all of the
Speaker 2: eggs that you have at forty five are just as
Speaker 2: good as they were when you were twenty five, Like
Speaker 2: that's probably not true, right, it's not it's not true.
Speaker 2: But what is true is that it only takes one
Speaker 2: good egg to get pregnant, and a woman at forty
Speaker 2: five still has tens of thousands of eggs, right, So a.
Speaker 1: Good frozen thirty nine year old egg as viable as
Speaker 1: a natural forty two year old egg.
Speaker 2: I mean that would absolutely one vary from woman to woman.
Speaker 1: I know it's all stats. I know. I know we're
Speaker 1: not trying to be doctor.
Speaker 2: I'm just what numbers. No, I don't well, I think
Speaker 2: you're No.
Speaker 1: I just want there to be some reality in it,
Speaker 1: because you know, the outliers give hope, yes, but the
Speaker 1: outliers sometimes lead to choices because you're like, oh, no,
Speaker 1: I read about in the paper forty seven years old.
Speaker 1: She's so and.
Speaker 2: So right right right, right right.
Speaker 1: So we can't pretend the conversation doesn't matter. But there's
Speaker 1: there needs to be nuanced to the conversation, and there's
Speaker 1: a lot of shades of gray in here that when
Speaker 1: it comes to dating or even if you are in
Speaker 1: a marriage that you're thinking of getting out of and
Speaker 1: you're thirty eight years old and you're like, or a
Speaker 1: relationship and you're like, oh, I want to get out
Speaker 1: of this, but I still want to have kids, so
Speaker 1: maybe I'm going to stick with my idiot husband to
Speaker 1: get one more baby out. It is constantly, you know,
Speaker 1: women have to do this. So is there a reliable
Speaker 1: test that you can how good your eggs are? I
Speaker 1: mean that is that the phrase?
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's there, there are, Yeah, there are reliable tests.
Speaker 2: But what's interesting about that again is that so you
Speaker 2: can go and get a blood test, right, and the
Speaker 2: blood test is going to tell you things like your
Speaker 2: AMH and your f SAH, and your estrogen levels and
Speaker 2: your progesterone levels, and all of those things have ranges
Speaker 2: that are optimal based on the range of age for
Speaker 2: a woman. Right, So there's an ideal range for I'm
Speaker 2: making up the numbers, but say thirty to thirty five,
Speaker 2: and there's an ideal range thirty five to forty. So yes, absolutely,
Speaker 2: Like if you decide to freeze your eggs, if you
Speaker 2: decide to do any sort of assisted reproduction, if it's
Speaker 2: IUI or IVF, they're gonna that's the first thing they're
Speaker 2: gonna do. I mean, if you just go to your
Speaker 2: ob and say I think I want to try and conceive,
Speaker 2: he or she might say, let's do a blood test
Speaker 2: and just make sure that everything's.
Speaker 1: Often a blood test. You don't need to pull out
Speaker 1: a bunch of eggs.
Speaker 2: Oh god, no, no, it's just a blood test. But
Speaker 2: then okay, so that's like step one is the blood test.
Speaker 2: But now I'm going to throw in, you know, the
Speaker 2: other curveball, which is that these blood tests are not
Speaker 2: They're not like because the problem is what I see
Speaker 2: a lot happening with women is they look at the
Speaker 2: blood test as a seal of their fate. Right, So
Speaker 2: they look at it as if to say, well, my
Speaker 2: f SH is low and so now now I have
Speaker 2: to stick with this husband that I don't like because
Speaker 2: my chances of having a baby later are so much
Speaker 2: are lowered. Right, Well, that's not necessarily true, because what's
Speaker 2: interesting about the human body, right, and in particular about women,
Speaker 2: because our hormones fluctuate, you know, in almost like weekly cycles.
Speaker 2: I mean like every month, we're going through all kinds
Speaker 2: of cycles of hormone production, and the levels that are
Speaker 2: found in that one blood test can change. Okay, so
Speaker 2: one month you might be low in this but only
Speaker 2: a little bit, and the next month you might be
Speaker 2: just fine. So like it's a it is a marker, Okay,
Speaker 2: it's a good thing to know. If you get a
Speaker 2: blood test and it says you have heightened AMH. There's
Speaker 2: like again, dietary choices you can make to fix it. Like,
Speaker 2: there's a lot you can do. So blood test is
Speaker 2: not a seal of your fate. It's information that you
Speaker 2: can use.
Speaker 1: It's something absolutely all right, this is a very personal
Speaker 1: subject matter. So I'm going to get in the personal
Speaker 1: side of this. When did you become so interested in this?
Speaker 2: Oh good question.
Speaker 1: Where were you along the line where you're like, I
Speaker 1: need to figure out my own bay.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay. So it's funny that you say that, because
Speaker 2: I would, you know, speaking about the blood test. I
Speaker 2: would use myself as an example of that, because I
Speaker 2: got married when I was thirty six, right, and I remember, like,
Speaker 2: you know, the day I got married, I'm like, all right,
Speaker 2: let's do this. We have to have kids, you know.
Speaker 2: And my husband and I did fall a bit on
Speaker 2: that timeline, like we dated for a year and then
Speaker 2: we moved in together to live together for a year,
Speaker 2: and I remember him saying like, well, if we weren't
Speaker 2: thirty five, like I think I would wait to move
Speaker 2: in together. But because you know where we are, like
Speaker 2: we both wanted to have kids. We were on the
Speaker 2: same page about that, and so he and I decided together, well, like,
Speaker 2: we don't have quote unquote time, right, like we need
Speaker 2: to make this happen. So we did. So we got married.
Speaker 2: We met at thirty four, married by thirty six, start
Speaker 2: trying to have kids and pretty soon into it. Actually, well,
Speaker 2: first I got pregnant within a couple months, but then
Speaker 2: we had a miscarriage, and after that I became That
Speaker 2: sort of prompted me down this whole journey, and it
Speaker 2: actually took three more years before we got pregnant again
Speaker 2: and then had my daughter right before I turned forty.
Speaker 2: So going down this path, you know, I did all
Speaker 2: of it from the assisted reproduction. We did two rounds
Speaker 2: of IVF. They didn't work. I was told by my
Speaker 2: doctors that I should consider donor eggs, which is a
Speaker 2: whole other thing that we could get into. They were
Speaker 2: telling me my eggs were not good. So that's why
Speaker 2: I'm like really passionate about the egg issue because I
Speaker 2: know from personal experience that a lot of this relates
Speaker 2: to chronic inflammation, which is a major issue among people
Speaker 2: in our society, and it really affects reproductive issues. It's
Speaker 2: like a very large number of women who struggle to conceive,
Speaker 2: like forty percent have some sort of inflammation or autoimmune
Speaker 2: issue that's undiagnosed, meaning that modern western medicine isn't going
Speaker 2: to pick up on it. Right. So when I was
Speaker 2: told these things I knew in my heart. I was like,
Speaker 2: I just I couldn't see well with donorags. I think
Speaker 2: it's a beautiful thing. I have worked with women who
Speaker 2: have chosen to do donorags, so I one hundred percent
Speaker 2: support any choice a woman wants to make, but it's
Speaker 2: got to come from her right And for me, it
Speaker 2: was like, no, I want to do everything possible to
Speaker 2: build my mind, my body, and my spirit so that
Speaker 2: I can become the mom I meant to be. And
Speaker 2: then when I started working on Mindset, it inspired me
Speaker 2: to make changes that I didn't feel like I could
Speaker 2: make before. So I started to eat like an anti
Speaker 2: inflammatory diet, which is not what everyone should do, but
Speaker 2: it's what I needed to do. I started to do
Speaker 2: certain types of exercises that were good for balancing my hormones,
Speaker 2: even though I hated them, but I learned how to
Speaker 2: be okay with them. And seriously, within like six months
Speaker 2: of working on Mindset, and literally four months of making
Speaker 2: those changes, I was pregnant naturally after going through a
Speaker 2: year of treatments at an IVF clinic where they were
Speaker 2: telling me it was hopeless.
Speaker 1: You miscarried at thirty seven, Yeah, and you got pregnant
Speaker 1: with your daughter just before forty yep, So what was
Speaker 1: that three years like, because you must have thought during
Speaker 1: that time, I can't the miscarriage has to which is
Speaker 1: you know, statistically miscarriage is perfectly normal.
Speaker 2: Yes it is one in four pregnancies.
Speaker 1: They say, right, but you're going through this, Like was
Speaker 1: that my shot? And then I guess it can't happen.
Speaker 1: That had to be the darkest time because you're in
Speaker 1: your late thirties.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, I mean I was how do.
Speaker 1: You keep the hope going? And how does your husband
Speaker 1: react and all that?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean honestly, that's why I mean it. It
Speaker 2: changed my life, right, And I always say that, like
Speaker 2: it really was the darkest time in my life, and
Speaker 2: it became like my greatest teacher and the thing that
Speaker 2: has inspired so much light in me and that I
Speaker 2: also helped now bring to other people. So you know,
Speaker 2: I always tell people like, as much as you'll hate
Speaker 2: me when I say this, it's actually true. Your fertility journey,
Speaker 2: as I call it, really is a blessing because it
Speaker 2: can inspire so much growth. So for me it was horrible.
Speaker 2: I mean, like my social life strength because everything suddenly
Speaker 2: like started to revolve around trying to get pregnant. So
Speaker 2: every choice I made revolved around that what am I
Speaker 2: going to eat, what am I going to drink? Who
Speaker 2: am I going to socialize with? Because if these people
Speaker 2: have kids and they're going to talk about their kids,
Speaker 2: it's really hard for me, Like do I go to
Speaker 2: a baby shower? Do I not go to a baby shower?
Speaker 2: You know, all of these questions that you don't think
Speaker 2: about until you're trying to have a baby and you
Speaker 2: can't right, and then suddenly it's like your whole life
Speaker 2: starts to be put on hold and this becomes the
Speaker 2: one central focus. And then you can imagine the tension
Speaker 2: and like weight that it places on a marriage.
Speaker 1: I can imagine and the sort of familial and societal
Speaker 1: pressures around you. Oh my god, when you guys gonna
Speaker 1: have oh, oh my god, they're going to be an amazing
Speaker 1: mom and they have no idea what you guys are
Speaker 1: either going through or trying to go through on your
Speaker 1: It's brutal.
Speaker 2: It's horrible. I mean that question like when are you
Speaker 2: going to have kids or do you want to have kids?
Speaker 2: Is like you should be bad?
Speaker 1: Or don't you want to have kids, which is even
Speaker 1: worse with a negative connotation. Yeah, and then a lot
Speaker 1: of things, you know, a little bit of a sidebar.
Speaker 1: A lot of times the women you hear, oh my god,
Speaker 1: you're gonna love being a mom so much as a
Speaker 1: grace thing in the world, they have kids and it
Speaker 1: is absolutely terrible. For two years, none of the fun
Speaker 1: is kicking in, and they're like, what am I doing wrong?
Speaker 1: And all of it is self doubt and this is
Speaker 1: not this is not in the brochure right right, you
Speaker 1: know this, I haven't slept for a decade and all
Speaker 1: of that. And so it's constantly self doubt. And as
Speaker 1: a guy, or if you're the husband or the partner,
Speaker 1: you're trying to understand. But it's still a lot of
Speaker 1: times you're just in this whirlwind by yourself, whether you're
Speaker 1: trying to conceive or actually conceiving. It's rough.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, Why should I know? Ladies, we have
Speaker 2: earned okay, so let them let them pay No, But seriously,
Speaker 2: I think the issue of self doubt, I think is huge, right,
Speaker 2: and and it permeates like every aspect of this whole process,
Speaker 2: from the dating right and the timeline on the dating
Speaker 2: to the trying to conceive and the timeline on that
Speaker 2: to am I a good mom you know, by the
Speaker 2: time you finally have your child. So it's a lot,
Speaker 2: you know, And again I'm gonna keep saying it like
Speaker 2: that is where that mindset peace comes in, because that
Speaker 2: is where you learn how to center and ground yourself
Speaker 2: and find the confidence and clarity to really like believe
Speaker 2: in the choices that you're making. Because we really do
Speaker 2: all have like an inner compass, you know, that can
Speaker 2: guide us to our best self, but we are not
Speaker 2: really encouraged in our culture to connect with it.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: We're very heady, We're very logical, We're very rational, so
Speaker 2: we're constantly like deducing odds, you know, playing the numbers game,
Speaker 2: looking at like the checklist, can I check all the
Speaker 2: boxes to make sure I'm a good mom, And we're
Speaker 2: really tuning out from the information in our heart. Right,
Speaker 2: We're focused more on the head and less on the heart.
Speaker 2: And so what I do is I help women really
Speaker 2: connect more with that internal compass, that internal knowing that
Speaker 2: we all have, so that when they make those choices,
Speaker 2: they can say like, yeah, I am a good mom.
Speaker 2: I am making the best choice about whether or not
Speaker 2: to go on a date with this guy. I am
Speaker 2: making the best choice about what to do with my.
Speaker 1: Eggs and when and when you decided, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna help other women and build this supportive community. Was
Speaker 1: it because I wish I had this then? Or was
Speaker 1: it you know, I went through this and I want
Speaker 1: to share this so like a bit of everything I supposed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really both. Like I remember sitting in the
Speaker 2: IVF clinic right and looking around, and it's it's this
Speaker 2: really weird moment in time where you're in the waiting
Speaker 2: room and you know what everyone else is there for, right,
Speaker 2: because you're only there for one thing. But there's so
Speaker 2: much shame involved in this journey, like you know, and
Speaker 2: if that's why the question of like do you want
Speaker 2: to have kids is such a freaking horrible question. Please
Speaker 2: don't ask people that if they're you know, just stay
Speaker 2: away from it. But it's because they're shame wrapped up
Speaker 2: in the answer. Like there, it's not people don't feel
Speaker 2: comfortable saying I'm struggling to get pregnant. That is not
Speaker 2: something you just bring up at a cocktail party, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean. And it's also so when you're
Speaker 2: at the IVF clinic and you're all sitting there, it's
Speaker 2: like everybody's avoiding eye contact. Everybody's kind of like shamefully
Speaker 2: looking down at their feed and their phones and their
Speaker 2: paperwork or whatever. But like I just sat there thinking
Speaker 2: to myself, like we are all going through the same thing,
Speaker 2: Like where is the sign up sheet for the support group?
Speaker 2: You know, like where is the place where we can
Speaker 2: come together and and understand what each other is going through?
Speaker 2: So I did not have that, and I think that
Speaker 2: it is so important, and that was a huge part
Speaker 2: of what inspired me to start doing what I'm doing.
Speaker 1: And that is the part that is missing from a
Speaker 1: lot of this. A lot of this is so clinical
Speaker 1: and scientific, and you are missing that spiritual and communal
Speaker 1: element of it.
Speaker 2: And there's actually a really interesting study and I cannot
Speaker 2: think of the journal at the moment, but I might
Speaker 2: be able to put it in the show notes. But
Speaker 2: they said that women who participate in support groups or
Speaker 2: get help from coaches or therapists on the fertility journey
Speaker 2: are something like sixty five percent I am not even
Speaker 2: kidding you more likely to conceive than women who do
Speaker 2: not seek out that same type of support.
Speaker 1: So I mean it's huge.
Speaker 2: It's a huge factor because it like I mean, you
Speaker 2: could you could go at that from so many angles,
Speaker 2: Like we don't even have time I think for all
Speaker 2: the angles that you can like unpack that number. But
Speaker 2: it's it doesn't surprise me, you know, I can say that.
Speaker 1: So somebody he wants to work with you, or you
Speaker 1: want to work with somebody, what is the process? What
Speaker 1: is the first thing you do?
Speaker 2: So the first thing that people do is they usually
Speaker 2: reach out to me on my website Badassfertility dot com.
Speaker 2: And on my website there's a little click for a
Speaker 2: discovery call, and they'll click on that, they get my
Speaker 2: calendar and they can hop right on and schedule a
Speaker 2: complimentary thirty minute consultation where we really just talk about
Speaker 2: what's going on with them, where they're at in this journey,
Speaker 2: what they're thinking about, and then we go from there
Speaker 2: to decide if it's a right fit. Typically, women who
Speaker 2: work with me will join my bad Ass Fertility Program,
Speaker 2: and that is an eight week program where we go
Speaker 2: through a lot of the different things that I've been
Speaker 2: talking about. But there's flexibility there too. It's like I
Speaker 2: really customize everything to the individual.
Speaker 1: Are most of the women in relationships? Are they married?
Speaker 1: Or is it?
Speaker 2: You know it? It runs a gamut. I mean, I
Speaker 2: have worked with heterosexual couples who are struggling to conceive.
Speaker 2: I have worked with lesbian couples who want to have
Speaker 2: a baby and who are using IVF. I have worked
Speaker 2: with women who are conceiving on their own. So it
Speaker 2: really runs. I've never worked with two men, but I
Speaker 2: guess that makes sense.
Speaker 1: What can the men do to either be supportive? Ask
Speaker 1: the right questions? What can the men do better on
Speaker 1: this journey?
Speaker 2: Oh that is a good question. Oh what can the
Speaker 2: men do.
Speaker 1: Because you're trying to be supportive but you don't really understand. Okay,
Speaker 1: so she's going through.
Speaker 2: There's two ways to look at that, right. So the
Speaker 2: first one is, you know, I was reading an interesting
Speaker 2: article the other day and it was saying that, you know,
Speaker 2: there's an increasing awareness of the contribution that men make
Speaker 2: to infertility. Right, So the first thing, number one is
Speaker 2: that you've got to make sure that your male partner, right,
Speaker 2: if you're partnered with a man, is getting the equal
Speaker 2: amount of work up right from the doctor as you are.
Speaker 2: Some doctor are like super equitable. Some are surprisingly not. Okay,
Speaker 2: So it is really important to make sure that you
Speaker 2: treat it as a fifty to fifty thing and that
Speaker 2: the men and the women get the same physical work up.
Speaker 1: Are you sure it's not him is a question.
Speaker 2: Probably, it really does not get to I mean you
Speaker 2: would think in this day and age it would, but
Speaker 2: it actually doesn't. Again, like I said, some clinics are
Speaker 2: great about it. Oh there's not so much. So that's
Speaker 2: the first half. But then that's the physical part, right.
Speaker 2: The second part is the emotional part. And what we
Speaker 2: do want to remember every individual is different. So I
Speaker 2: don't want to like generalize or stereotype, but I can say,
Speaker 2: you know it, men and women often process their emotions differently.
Speaker 2: And I saw this come up with my husband and
Speaker 2: myself a lot in our journey, so I can use
Speaker 2: this as an example. I am an emotive person. I
Speaker 2: want to process my feelings. You know, when we had
Speaker 2: an egg retrieval and it was unsuccessful, I wanted to
Speaker 2: like sit on the couch and hold each other all
Speaker 2: day and cry. He bought a hundred bags of mulch
Speaker 2: and wanted to mulch the yard all day for.
Speaker 1: An exercise in fertility is mulching, Yes, multing ex plan
Speaker 1: So I was.
Speaker 2: Like, what are you doing? I just want to sit
Speaker 2: on the couch and cry, you know, And he was like,
Speaker 2: I just need to focus on something else. So one
Speaker 2: of the things that I would say for both partners
Speaker 2: is learning each other's coping mechanisms and making space for
Speaker 2: both right, Because it was fine for me to sit
Speaker 2: on the couch and he could sit with me for
Speaker 2: a little while, but it was also important that I
Speaker 2: let him go do the mulch, you know, and and
Speaker 2: vice versa. So it's really allowed having a willingness to
Speaker 2: acknowledge and you know, honor your partner's needs for coping
Speaker 2: and making space for each others ways, and knowing that
Speaker 2: they're probably different and neither is better or worse than
Speaker 2: the other.
Speaker 1: Yes, so he can he has to read the room.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean he needs to read the room. And
Speaker 2: like one thing too, Like I always say with my husband,
Speaker 2: like he wants to fix everything, and I'm like, don't
Speaker 2: fix it, just just be there for me, right right, Like,
Speaker 2: just be there. So for the men out there, a
Speaker 2: lot of the time, it's a very male tendency. They
Speaker 2: want to fix it. They want to come up with
Speaker 2: solutions to solve the woman they loves problems, and that's
Speaker 2: so beautiful and admirable. But what women actually often want
Speaker 2: is really just to be seen and heard, because we
Speaker 2: are actually capable of solving our own problems.
Speaker 1: Right, practically, really are.
Speaker 2: No, you're not obsolete at all, but not in the latest.
Speaker 2: We need men very much, and we need enlightened men
Speaker 2: in particular.
Speaker 1: So we're all in the uh, we're in the possibilities
Speaker 1: business here. Everything you know, when it comes to love, dating,
Speaker 1: relationship is about possibilities and exploring them. That's what you're about.
Speaker 1: Is there are lots of paths to possible fertility and
Speaker 1: up comes in answers.
Speaker 2: One one hundred percent, one hundred percent, I mean, there
Speaker 2: are so many paths. I mean even just you know,
Speaker 2: I worked with a couple that decided that they didn't
Speaker 2: want to have their own child and they wanted to
Speaker 2: foster a child, and they are now foster parents of
Speaker 2: two beautiful boys, and they couldn't be happier.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: So there's I mean, there's there's fostering, there's adoption, there's
Speaker 2: donor egs, there's natural conception, there's IVF, there's sperm donation,
Speaker 2: there's surrogacy. I mean like, there's so many choices and
Speaker 2: it's almost overwhelming, right, Like, how do I want to go?
Speaker 1: I know a woman who she was told she could
Speaker 1: never have kids. It led to the demise of her marriage,
Speaker 1: and ten years later she went out had a one
Speaker 1: night stand. Now she has a son. I love it.
Speaker 1: There are there aren't as There aren't a whole lot
Speaker 1: of absolutes.
Speaker 2: In this absolutely not.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna let you plug everything in a minute.
Speaker 1: But this is your first time in this podcast. As
Speaker 1: you may or may not know, we play something called
Speaker 1: worst date or first dates, so you have to think
Speaker 1: back to swinging single dating goals and either give us
Speaker 1: the absolute worst date you've ever went on or the
Speaker 1: best date you ever went on your choice.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, Okay, this one is really bad. It's
Speaker 2: so bad. I don't even know that I want to
Speaker 2: share it, but it came to my mind, so I'm
Speaker 2: just gonna say it, all right. So I went on
Speaker 2: this date. It was from match dot com. I was
Speaker 2: probably whoever remembers that that was like two decades agore
Speaker 2: or something, but it was. It was one of the
Speaker 2: earliest dating apps, and I met this guy. He's a musician,
Speaker 2: he went to Juilliard. You know, he's all like the
Speaker 2: sexy artist blah blah thing you know that I thought
Speaker 2: was so hot when I was in my mid twenties.
Speaker 2: And we went on like this was like our second
Speaker 2: or third date. Okay, but I had realized at this
Speaker 2: point it wasn't gonna work, even though he was a Scorpio.
Speaker 2: And I'm very I love the scorpio astrology sign. But finally,
Speaker 2: finally a scorpio. Right, so I thought I loved the
Speaker 2: astrology sign. Anyway, We're on this date and I as
Speaker 2: I'm going to end it right and say this is
Speaker 2: a working. He looks at me and he says, start
Speaker 2: telling me this story about how when he used to
Speaker 2: live in New York City. I lived in Florida at
Speaker 2: the time. He was a heroin addict and he tried
Speaker 2: to commit suicide by like and and and he he
Speaker 2: was only saved because his landlord like happened to come
Speaker 2: by and find him in his apartment. And now I'm
Speaker 2: not trivializing this. So as I'm telling this story, it
Speaker 2: suddenly sounds like I'm making fun of this, but I'm not.
Speaker 2: It's a very serious thing. The issue with the bad
Speaker 2: date part was that he then looked at me and said,
Speaker 2: and I've never felt complete until I met you. And
Speaker 2: I was like, holy shit, get the fuck out of here.
Speaker 2: So I was like, okay, no, no, no, and and
Speaker 2: I kind of ended it and it was rough. So
Speaker 2: I mean that that really is the.
Speaker 1: Damn thrill seeking scorpions, I know.
Speaker 2: But I will say, I know, I really feel like
Speaker 2: the caveat that's ness Sarah here is I would never
Speaker 2: poke fun at anyone who is suffering with addiction. Addiction
Speaker 2: is a very very serious thing, as is mental health.
Speaker 2: But what's equally as important is that we don't succumb
Speaker 2: to people's desires to pull us into their problems, yeah,
Speaker 2: when they have nothing to do with us.
Speaker 1: So all right, you're very wise woman, and I really
Speaker 1: like that. Tell everybody where they can find you work
Speaker 1: with you Andrew.
Speaker 2: Podcast, Thank you so much. So my podcast is bad
Speaker 2: Ass Fertility and you can find it on Apple, Spotify,
Speaker 2: wherever you listen to your shows. It's a weekly show.
Speaker 2: It drops on Tuesdays and we talk about a lot
Speaker 2: of the different types of things that you heard here
Speaker 2: you can go to my website, Badassfertility dot com. There's
Speaker 2: two things on there that are super awesome. I have
Speaker 2: a giveaway which is a really great freebie. It's about
Speaker 2: it's five tips to become a mom faster and with
Speaker 2: less stress. So that's a really good way to kind
Speaker 2: of get in there, get some more concrete information from
Speaker 2: me and start to explore this whole idea. If you
Speaker 2: want to jump past that freebie and just meet with me.
Speaker 2: Like I said earlier, there's also a link at badassfertility
Speaker 2: dot com for my calendar and if you want daily
Speaker 2: hits of inspiration, education and just connection, go to Instagram.
Speaker 2: Badass Fertility is my handle and you will find me
Speaker 2: there as well.
Speaker 1: This was fun.
Speaker 2: This was so fun. Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1: Thank you for coming as far as us. Please like, share, follow,
Speaker 1: and review not just bad Ass Fertility but The Great
Speaker 1: Love Debate. Your reviews still mean a lot in the
Speaker 1: podcasting ecosystem. Shoot us an email Great Lovedebate at gmail
Speaker 1: dot com. If you have any questions, issues, or concerns
Speaker 1: with things that I've said, or you want to get
Speaker 1: in touch with Katherine and you don't want to reach
Speaker 1: out directly. We'll pass it along because, as always at
Speaker 1: the Great Love Debate, we never stop making love. See
Speaker 1: you next time. The Great Love to Beth. It's the
Speaker 1: Great Love Debate.
Speaker 2: The Great Love to be. It's the Great Love to be.