Ep. 178: Where IVF Fits Into Your Fertility Journey (And What Needs to Come First)

EPISODE SUMMARY:

I see so many couples rushing into IVF without ever understanding why they can’t conceive. In this episode, I share patient stories, the hidden side effects of IVF, and why it’s so important to address the root cause first. Tune in to learn more.

ABOUT DR. JANE’S PRACTICE:

Dr. Jane is a Naturopathic Doctor and a Natural Fertility Expert. She and her team of expert practitioners help couples navigate infertility for 1+ years, get to the root cause of their struggles, heal, and bring healthy babies home.

After having a family member struggle with infertility and experiencing a miscarriage herself, Dr. Jane realized how little support and education women receive. She is on a mission to change that. Since 2020, she has dedicated her practice to fertility, where she and her practitioners work with couples 1:1, running functional lab work, customizing treatment plans and providing her couples with the support they need to get pregnant, have a stress free pregnancy and a healthy baby.

Learn more about Dr. Jane’s practice: www.drjanelevesque.com/practice

Apply to work with Dr. Jane & her team: www.drjanelevesque.com/application

CHAPTERS:

00:00 Understanding IVF in the Fertility Journey

02:49 The Role of Conventional Medicine vs. Holistic Approaches

05:45 Identifying Root Causes of Infertility

09:05 The Importance of Preconception Care

11:59 Risks and Considerations of IVF

14:53 Navigating the IVF Process Effectively

18:07 Listening to Your Body and Intuition

20:58 The Impact of Lifestyle on Fertility

24:12 The Future of Fertility Treatments

27:01 Final Thoughts on IVF and Fertility

TAKEAWAYS:

IVF should be considered carefully within the fertility journey.

Conventional medicine often overlooks root causes of infertility.

Holistic approaches can address underlying health issues.

Preconception care significantly impacts fertility outcomes.

Listening to your body is crucial in the fertility process.

IVF is not a guaranteed solution for infertility.

Stress and lifestyle factors can greatly affect fertility.

Personalized care is essential for successful fertility treatments.

Understanding the risks of IVF is important for informed decisions.

Trusting your intuition can guide you in your fertility journey.

ABOUT NATURAL FERTILITY:

Pregnancy is a natural process, so if it’s not happening or it’s not sticking, something is missing.  Join Dr. Jane, a naturopathic doctor and a natural fertility expert, every Tuesday at 9am for insightful case studies, expert interviews and practical tips on optimizing your fertility naturally. 

If you’ve struggling with infertility, pregnancy loss, women’s health issues or just want to be proactive and prepare yourself for the next big chapter in your life… this show is for you.

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Individualized care is essential for effective treatment of chronic fertility issues.

Thanks for tuning into another episode of Natural Fatility with Dr. Jane. I of course am Dr. Jane and on today's podcast episode, I was doing some reflection thinking about what do you want to know? What do you need to know in order to get closer to your family goals? And one of the things that has been coming up for me and some of my patients and of course my listeners and viewers on social media is IVF and where does IVF fit into your fertility journey, if at all?

Now I've recorded a couple of different podcasts around this, but this topic keeps coming up. And I think that it's important one to continue to dissect and talk about just like when birth control first came out and everybody said, birth control is totally safe and we don't need to worry about it. And you can just take it forever until you go on HRT. And then now we have, you know, millions of women who are essentially have ruined their hormones, have caused infertility through their

use of birth control or have basically masked symptoms of hormonal imbalances for a really long time that once they come off birth control, of course, that's when their issues are just going to come up again. But now they're depleted, their microbiome has shifted, they've attracted the wrong partner, all of that jazz. I want to keep the conversation going about IVF because I think a lot of you just think that that is going to be my next step. I'm going to try for six months. I'm going to try for a year, depending on how long or how old you are.

That's the recommendation 35 plus, you're go in and you're qualified to do IVF after six months of trying if you're 35 and older. And then if you're younger than 35, you can try for a year. mean, technically you can try for as long as you want to, but as a woman, once you have that desire that kicks in and you wanna have a baby, trying for a year is a really long time. And then signing up for a procedure where you don't actually understand the full complications and implications and...

on your health, on the health of your pregnancy, on the health of the future child, I think to me that's worrisome. And unfortunately, the conventional system, there's a time and place for it, and that's what I wanna talk about. But the conventional system isn't trained in supplements, in nutraceuticals, in the nutrition and diet and lifestyle and how the body actually works and understanding the root cause of why you're not conceiving in the first place. They really are just trying to override

the body's natural issues, if you will, because let's face it, if the body isn't getting pregnant naturally, something is missing. And what the conventional system is trying to do is just override any of those issues that are happening without really identifying them, which is the problem in the first place. They're not identifying why you're not getting pregnant, but they're trying to override them and whether that's a nutrient deficiency and they're trying to put that into the culture of the IVF.

or if it's an immunological issue and they're just essentially trying to suppress your immune system, so then the body just accepts that embryo without the immune system flaring. But again, the root cause is never addressed. So here's what I wanna lay out right from the beginning. I think that there is a time and place for IVF, but a lot of couples are forced into IVF or in sometimes even bullied because of their age and they feel like they're running out of time.

but they're also never really truly understand why pregnancy is not happening in the first place. So I'll tell you a couple that I literally just met a week ago where they have been struggling with infertility. It's unexplained infertility and I'm doing quotations because I don't believe in such a thing as unexplained infertility, but they've been struggling with this unexplained infertility for two years. In the first appointment, like the first fertility strategy session where I'm just meeting them and seeing if we're the right fit, I asked them,

What do you think is preventing you from trying to conceive? Because the doctor has told them, well, it's been two years, you might as well do IVF. And she's sitting over here going, something doesn't feel right. And truthfully, if she waits another one or two years, she's just gonna feel like, okay, fine, I'll do IVF because whatever I'm doing obviously isn't working. So I'm really glad that they're coming to me now because she is open to IVF, but she wants to really understand what's happening.

So if I'm sitting in front of this couple last week and I ask her, what is it that you think is preventing you from trying, from conceiving naturally, just from your perspective? And then I asked her partner next, but she gave me like four or five things where there, was her digestion, her menstrual cycle, the high level of stress, you know, the lack of sleep from the high level of stress because they own the business. She has a feeling deep down that this is probably impacting her fertility.

And of course it is you guys, of course it is. The reason that I want to share this example with you is because I think we as women don't trust our intuition enough. And we think that, well, my doctor said that has nothing to do with it. So it must not be the thing that has to do with it. But if I'm just sitting here and asking her genuinely, what do you think it is? And she lists the three or the four things that I'm like, well, absolutely it does.

When you're stressed, your inflammation is high, your cortisol is elevated, your blood sugar is dysregulated, and your body is in a state of fight or flight. So the last thing it's thinking about is conceiving. If your digestion isn't working well, well, you're not absorbing your nutrients. If you're not pooping on a regular basis, you're not detoxing properly and you're not getting rid of junk. And it's just building up and adding toxic load into your body. So there's exogenous toxins. So toxins coming from the outside in, but there is...

endogenous endotoxins, we call them, that are coming from the inside of the body, because the body is breaking itself down and repairing itself. It needs to break itself down so then we can get rid of whatever it is that it broke down and got rid of. We need to actually get rid of it. whether that's through pooping, through peeing, through sweating, through crying, through breathing, the body has very, very smart mechanisms of getting rid of these toxins. So if you're not pooping on a regular basis, you're just accumulating them.

And that means your nutrients are going to be depleted. Your liver is overloaded. And this list goes on. So everything that she told me, I said, you're absolutely right. Those things are impacting your fertility. Let me ask your male partner now, what does he think might be contributing? And he doesn't even know what his sperm looks like, by the way, he got a test analysis done and then he never looked at it. He was just told that he was normal. And he said the two things are, I am overweight and

I smoke a lot of pot and I said a hundred percent. So pot like smoking weed for a man, I don't care what the sperm analysis says. Even if it said it was all fine, I know right off the bat that that sperm isn't fine. And so if we're dealing with her stress and her egg and inflammation and cortisol and blood sugar dysregulation, her egg quality is already going to be struggling. And now you bring this sperm in that's sluggish, that's toxic, that's...

nutrient depleted, of course, it's going to be very hard for the body to make a baby. And so the recommendation for them, because they've been struggling for two years, she's 35, he's 38, is to go and do IVF. And what I want to let everybody know is that, well, IVF is not going to override the fact that she has inflammation, she has high stress, she is not absorbing her nutrients, and he is smoking pot and also has a lot of inflammation, blood sugar, dysregulation.

Obviously he has high stress. One of my favorite things is when people say, I'm really chill. And then he finishes it off with the fact that I smoke pot every day. And I'm like, so are you really chill or do you smoke pot every day? Cause those are two different things. And that was obviously a big aha moment for him. Point being is that IVF is not going to fix those things. And so I don't know this couple sitting in front of me. I don't know if they're going to need IVF yet or not.

But what I do know is that there's so much work that we could do first and we need to do first in order to optimize the quality of the egg, the quality of the sperm, the environment that the egg is going to grow in. So then we can improve our chances not only of natural conception, but a healthy pregnancy and then a healthy baby and a healthy postpartum recovery for the woman where if she chooses to breastfeed, she can.

and she doesn't go crashing into postpartum depression or any other complications with the thyroid and all the hormones that are dropping and she can actually enjoy motherhood. So that's my big gripe with IVF is that it's not gonna override any of those things that you are currently struggling with. And if you honestly ask yourself, do I have any of these issues that I am quote unquote worried about or my partner, you already know what those are.

you already know this couple was sitting in front of me and they could name it within a minute. And now my job is to actually understand the imbalances that are causing the behaviors. So for example, someone who smokes pot all the time actually tells me that they're quite anxious and they probably have some issues with how they're managing stress. There's neurotransmitters involvement, whether it's not having enough dopamine or serotonin or the GABA receptors.

pleasure or cabonoid receptors are all off. And then of course, that's gonna tie down to the gut. And if there's a lot of infections and inflammation and the food cravings that the person has, and then you add cortisol. So in order for me to just say, well, you need to quit pot, which obviously is the thing that he's gonna have to do. I have to understand why he decided to use pot as a crutch for his behavior. And that is what helps him make a long lasting change because he is...

now aware of his behavior, and then we replenish the body so he doesn't have the need for it. And this is true for you if you have high stress or infections in the gut or you have food cravings or excess weight or you're not sleeping very well. I want to understand what are the symptoms that your body is expressing? What is it telling me about the imbalance in the body? And this is where the testing is coming into play. So where does IVF fit into your journey?

IVF really fits into your journey once you have addressed the issues at hand, and then you're looking at family planning, which I will tell you, it's not as much of a guarantee as people think it is. And I have lots of examples around that. it's depending on how old you are, essentially, and then how many children you wanna have. This is when I am thinking IVF might be a good option.

but it's still not a guarantee. There is nothing really that's a guarantee in this space. So what I try to teach my patients and my women especially is to step into the spiritual journey of this fertility journey because it is so spiritual. You have a soul that you feel that you are ready to meet. And arguably I had this conversation with my mentor, Dr. Leah Hetchman. I just signed up for obstetrics course where

The soul is coming in on day three, after fertilization on day three. And basically that day three to five, the zygote takes over, it downloads the code from the mother and the father from the sperm and the oocyte, and then it goes. Then it is independent of the mother. of course the mother's environment will shape what genes are turning on and off. But in terms of it literally downloads the

The zygote, it's not a blastocyst yet, because blastocyst happens at day five. So the zygote on the day three downloads all the information that it needs and then it starts its replication process. And so obviously the quality of the egg in the sperm is really important in their methylation and the nutrients and the integrity of the DNA is super, super important because it essentially will download and either proceed or not proceed depending on what...

information and download it. So it's very, very fascinating to me that we oversimplify the process and think that, we'll just put things into a petri dish and we'll see what happens. And I do think that there is a lot of new research that's coming out and we still don't really know the full implications of IVF because we need more long-term studies and we don't know, we're seeing now, you know, the population that's trying to conceive now.

I've had patients and couples come to me who said, I'm worried about my own fertility because I'm an IVF baby. And I think that's a legitimate concern. So to me, what I'm trying to figure out when I meet a case like that is why did the person need IVF? That's always my question. And so if you're in this space where you're like, I've been trying to conceive and I'm considering IVF, or maybe you've already done IVF and it hasn't worked.

My question to you is, do you know why you're not able to conceive? And not what your doctor told you, but like you, what do you think is preventing you from trying to conceive? And every time I ask that question, all of my patients have a pretty accurate answer. It's right on the nose. They don't know what supplements they need. We don't know what infections they have in the gut, but they know that they need to address their stress.

or their gut, or their hormones, or their weed addiction, or their alcohol addiction. They know that that is something that's preventing them from trying to conceive. But when you go to the conventional doctor who looks at you as the ovaries, and then there is the sperm, and then we put it in the Petri dish and everything else doesn't matter. Well, that's the clinics that don't tend to be as successful versus the ones that look at the holistic.

person at the holistic, both at the couple and try to understand what is going on for the body. And then let's work with the body in order to be able to help it overcome whatever it is that's missing. So my, my recommendation is to ideally do all the testing and get your health in the best possible. that zygote that downloads the information.

the biggest influence that we as natural fertility experts have is preconception care. Because that's when you're improving the quality of the egg and the genetics within the DNA of the egg and the same for the sperm. So then once the egg and the sperm meets and it goes, the biggest influence we have is preconception care. So if you've already been struggling to conceive, depending on how old you are,

I always say, let's take a break from trying to conceive and let's figure out what's actually missing for the body. And this is where all the functional testing is going to come into play for both partners. And so if you're older, both partners need to be tested vigorously because the male sperm is accumulating more and more DNA damage. And so is the egg and the egg will have zero capacity. We'll have very little capacity to fix the sperm, the older the egg gets. So we need the best quality sperm.

for an egg that's already maturing, if you will. So both partners need to be tested so we can really optimize their health. And then we retest and whether that's retesting a three month mark or five month mark or six month mark, depending on what we found out in the first place. So we can see what's leftover and what do we need to do next? Because my couples that are over 40,

Six months is what I will give them because it usually takes a minimum of three months to clear an infection and sometimes it's longer. And so if they have something like ureoplasma, you need to take the time to clear it and you need to make sure it's out of the system. And you'll see that the quality of the egg improves, then the AMH levels improve and literally everything improves. And this is where the conventional IVF clinic go, no, no, no, she's 40 now. She has to do IVF now because if she goes to 41, that's it.

But I've seen literally my patients go into IVF six months later and their doctors go, what did you do? What happened? The eggs, your AMH. And then some of them, if they're not good and we really tried to then find another clinic, they go, that's a fluke. can't, you well, you just, you have some more eggs, but that's a fluke.

If they don't recognize the ability of the body to heal and they don't even see what's in front of them and they're so pessimistic as soon as they see your age, that's when I just say run in the opposite direction because they are not invested in helping you figure out and helping you get to that, you know, to your family goals. So I think if you're younger, you need to give yourself at least a year. And I'm learning so much and this is why I'm sharing because even my patients that

I've seen it, maybe some of you are listening, even when I saw you a year ago, I think, my God, we should have done this. Because information is evolving and there is new lab tests that are coming out and the benefit of AI, if you will, is that things are rapidly progressing, but that's also very difficult to stay on top of because things are rapidly progressing. So this is why I share this information, because we do need to stay on top as much as we can if we want to.

continue the human population moving forward. And I know that might sound a little bit scary, but the stats that I'm seeing right now, like we need more people having babies and we need them having multiple babies, which means setting up the foundation for success. If you're struggling with your first versus with, you know, your second or your third, there's always multiple pieces to consider. So six months minimum, but maybe a year. And when I say what I would love,

to happen is when the conventional system tells you, try for a year and then come back and do IVF. Instead of say, try for a year, they go, go see a natural fertility expert, go see a naturopathic doctor, go see a functional doctor, get your nutrients figured out, get your gut function improved, get your inflammation down, lose some weight, clear up your skin, get your partner involved in this all at the same time. And then if you did that for a full year, nothing happens, then come in and let's do IVF.

and we're going to really personalize it to you and help us understand by doing all the proper testing, what is it that we need to do from the amount of drugs, the type of drugs, how to time it with your cycle to make sure that IVF turns out, has the best possible outcome, not just for this current pregnancy, but for the health of the pregnancy, the health of the baby and the health of the mom. I wanna talk to you a little bit about the risks with IVF and...

I share them not to scare you because I help women conceive through IVF. But the way that we do it is very different than what most people do it. Meaning when my women are going in to IVF, they have addressed their nutrient deficiencies. They have addressed the infections, most of them anyways. They have addressed a lot of these methylation and all of these other issues like they're sleeping well, their diet is solid.

They just need a little bit of help as opposed to let's keep hammering the body with as many drugs as possible and continue to over stimulate women. I'll share this one more example with you before I go into the studies, but she did an egg retrieval at 30 years old because she wanted to prevent any fertility issues. And the egg retrieval didn't go as well. She was...

overstimulated for sure. And I just found this out after she's 35 now. So it's been five years of, you know, trying to conceive and having all of these issues. But essentially what happened is they overstimulated her and you could see it on the lab work. But of course she didn't know that her estrogen went up to like 7,000 and she's this petite woman that already has some predisposition to endometriosis. Like she probably had some and she does have

toxic load. So when they dumped all of these drugs in her system and her liver wasn't working well and methylation wasn't working well, that estrogen skyrocketed and nobody ever really told her or she just struggled post that egg retrieval. Like she couldn't walk for a week. And then, you know, she wasn't feeling great for however long, but then just forgot about it. But what we noticed was, was her endometrial lining is at like 14 millimeters on day eight.

So we had to rule out cancer because it's like that's hyperplasia, which is horrifying to rule out and wait for those answers. Cause it, of course it takes like two to three weeks to get those answers back. But point being is I was trying to figure out she doesn't have estrogen dominant symptoms. And I was, she doesn't have a heavy cycle. And I'm like, what is going on with her lining? The conventional system was like, just do another IVF cycle, put her on our Alyssa. Let's get that lining thinned. Let's do.

And they were just throwing all of these drugs at her and she was feeling more and more terrible knowing that like something feels off. And even if I do get pregnant, I feel like this pregnancy is just gonna kill me or destroy me at the end of it. So that's not a good feeling to have going into a pregnancy. Okay, that's not a good feeling. That's her own personal, like literally her guide, inner guidance is screaming at her and telling her stop, I don't feel right.

this authority figure over here is just like, nope, we're gonna do it anyways, you want a baby, right? And they use this big emotional piece. It's like, obviously I want a baby, but it's not how I want the baby. So I hope this helps you stand up for yourself and really listen to that inner voice because basically as soon as we met, she actually ended up stopping. She just started that new IVF cycle, but she desperately wanted another opinion. And I said, listen, I can sympathize with you. You feel like crap.

I am not comfortable telling you that, yeah, let's go for it and let's see what happens because you already feel like crap. And the fact that you tried to freeze eggs at 30 and it didn't go well tells me that there's probably some egg quality issues. Turns out they overstimulated her, which is what I think caused the poor egg quality issues. She does have some environmental toxic load like mercury and lead that we are currently starting to chelate, but her endometrial lining, she didn't end up having cancer, which is great.

And essentially what happened as we tracked back all of the data and I just sat down and looked at all of her IVF cycles and egg retrieval. So I think she had a total of five that basically her endometrial lining was getting thicker and thicker and thicker with each cycle. So her body was not able to clear that endometrial lining every time. And it was just getting thicker and thicker and thicker.

And that first trigger was that egg retrieval when she was actually quite young. And the dosage of drugs that they put her on was that of a 40 year old woman. And arguably 40 year old women need a very low dose of drugs as well. Everybody tends to respond much better with a lower dose of drugs when their liver is working well, when their gut is working well, all of that. they just, was an overstimulation. Her estrogen went up to 7,000.

Nobody cleared it for her. She didn't do anything to clear it. She didn't know at the time. And then she had poor methylation and poor liver function and poor gut function. And it's all just sitting there. And the conventional system is like, yeah, just do another round of IVF. And this is where I want to put the brakes and say, that doesn't make sense, you guys. And I'm so glad she came to me. She did feel pressure from her partner because her partner also wants kids. And he's like, if we keep waiting and...

Don't get me wrong, they've done like two years of Lyme and mold detoxing and parasite. And it's like, they're still not anywhere closer. And the problem with that was whoever was doing the Lyme and mold detoxing wasn't specializing in fertility. So they didn't sit down and look at all of her IVF cycles. They didn't look at her endometrial lining. They were just looking at her immune system function, which, you know, don't get me wrong, like, yes, they looked at the guide and all of this stuff, but.

if you are trying to conceive, you should be looking at someone who specializes in fertility because it was the wrong treatment for her. She didn't feel that much better. And God bless her soul. She was so persistent. Like she just believed like she would just do it right. Like any of us, we would just do anything for our babies. She was just head down. Let me keep doing this. Let me keep doing this. And after two years, she was like, something is missing. And it was so.

It's usually after three months of things are not moving, after a month of things are not moving, you're moving in the wrong direction because we have tested, we've tested her methylation, we support it. And I think within two days she messaged me, she's like, my digestion is already moving better. That's crazy. And I was like, yup, that's it. Like, let's see what happens in a couple of weeks. Let's see what happens in it's, you know, her sleep started to deepen within a couple of weeks, her HRV is starting to improve. And this was still like, we didn't even start all the chelation.

So when you understand the complexity of the case, and like I said, they still might need to do IVF and I'll keep you guys updated on all my cases as much as I can, but we need to clean up the environment first. And if the uterus is so inflamed in this thick lining, the conventional system is just gonna say, well, what's happening in the uterus doesn't impact what's happening in the ovaries. And that, if you're like, that doesn't sound right. Exactly, it doesn't sound right. The conventional system very much.

looks at the body as a car, like as a mechanic, that this part is broken, let me fix it and replace it, and this part works over here and replace it, versus, you know, as a holistic practitioner, I look at the body as the garden. And so we have to make sure that the soil is right, and then you're gonna plant the seed and you have to water it, and then there's the sun, and you put all the special fertilizers for special different seeds that's gonna help them grow and flourish more. So.

Yeah, that's a sidetrack, but you know, let me talk to you a little bit about the maternal risk and then the child risk. And like I said, I think we really don't understand everything that's involved in IVF. And I say that because we still need long-term studies. And I also say that not to scare people, but to essentially make sure that we don't forget the basics. When I see people investing $20,000 into an IVF, but they've never done a stool analysis.

and requirement for C-section. We have seen a huge jump in C-sections. That's a whole other conversation, but essentially just there's uterine bleeding, there's increased risk of postpartum hemorrhage, postpartum hospital readmission, a severe increase, significantly increased risk of severe maternal morbidity compared to natural conception. I say this not to scare you.

but to give you the full picture of what you're signing up for when you're signing up for IVF and how we want to approach it to make sure that we minimize these risks as much as possible. There is a, know, the Sanve, I apologize if I'm saying his name incorrectly, high risk of ovarian cancer, the natural conception, the estimates were somewhat high.

somewhat higher in subpopulations with information about BMI and smoking, but the estimates did not change substantially when adjusting for these factors. So a higher risk of ovarian cancer. mean, honestly, a higher risk for all types of cancers. And that's not just for the mom, that's also for the baby. It increased risk for type 1 diabetes for the babies. We're seeing, you know,

So many studies showing issues for the mom and for the baby. And when you sign up for IVF and all of these long documents that most people I think don't really read or try not to read because it's horrifying if you did. What I will say the caveat here is a lot of the studies and long-term studies especially that have been done when IVF first started, we kind of did like really heavy duty doses of drugs where now

you're seeing clinics personalizing IVF and minimizing as many drugs, as little drugs as possible. And so the lower drugs we have, the lower risk we have to the pregnancy and the baby. And then the big question, which we don't really know the answer to yet is, well, is it the IVF that's causing the issue or is it the fact that that natural pregnancy wasn't happening and we have overridden some things that we shouldn't have?

overridden and that's why the issues are there. We don't really know. And what I'll say is I'm never here to judge my patients because if somebody told me I can't have my babies, I would be fighting for them and I would do anything. What I will say is I'm here as a practitioner to provide you with as many options as possible, but I want you to have full informed consent when you're making that decision. And then when we are going to do something, we're going to do it well.

and whether that's making sure that we do all the functional lab testing first, get rid of any infections, support your methylation, support your nutrient analysis. And then if it is time for IVF, we are gonna do our workup ahead of time and make sure we look at the antral follicle count. We look at the endometrial environment. We really take a good look at the sperm again. And then when we are deciding to use IVF, is it IVF?

Or can we just do a time cycle? I've had some really great success with couples just using LetraZol for five days and the clinics are always, and you need a trigger shot and then you need this. it's like, sometimes you don't. Sometimes the body literally needs just the tiniest little bit of a nudge in order to conceive when you have done all the work ahead of time. And so I discuss all of these options with my patients and then we track them properly. if you're going to use...

something like letrozole is a time cycle, not even as an IUI, but just literally time intercourse. You want to look at the ultrasound and see how the follicles are developing and how many follicles are coming up. gives us an idea of the ability for the eggs to recruit the size and the success of that cycle. I've had a patient, she's due in October and she was told, you know, she goes in on day 10 and they're like,

Sorry, you don't have that many follicles, you know, there's only one and it's like 16 millimeters. It's not very good. You know, it's probably not going to work out. And I'm just like, guys, day 10 is like, she ovulates on like day 15, day 16. Let her come back on day 13 or day 14 and let's look. So they said day 13 because usually by 14 they have ovulated. She comes back on day 13 and she has two follicles that are like 25 millimeters.

One was 25, one was like 22 or 23. And they were like, my God, this is such a great, you need to do the shot today. Like, I can't. And I'm like, that was three days that you ruined for her. And I'm so glad, like she just messaged me right after, cause she was really discouraged. And I said, listen, don't listen to them because it's still too early and we know your body. So she was able to shelf that and say, okay, I'm not going to listen based on this one ultrasound. And then she comes back three days later and they're like, this is the best. So just.

know that when somebody knows your case and really understands the intricacies of how your body works, it can be very, very powerful. And, you know, there is that time and place where the body just needs a little bit of a nudge and then all of sudden things are going to go. So that's really my approach. I hope you guys find this helpful because the goal is to help you get to your family goals. Like I said, if somebody told me I couldn't have my children, I would be fighting for them with all of my life.

And I see you fighting for your future babies all of the time. And I praise you and I pray for you because I think that fight is absolutely worth it. But I also think it's really important to make sure that you're not wasting your precious time, energy and resources on the wrong thing. And the way that you are going to figure out if you're moving in the right direction versus in the wrong direction is by being present with yourself and being really

honest with difficult questions that you have to ask yourself. What do I think is really preventing me from conceiving? What is preventing my partner from having healthy sperm? Ask him that question truthfully and honestly. And then when the doctor's sitting in front of you, is this the doctor that's going to help me? Because you might be frustrated just going to a clinic after clinic after clinic. And I've had this one patient where she like

disowned the conventional system because she had such a bad experience. And what happened is anytime she would go to the doctor, she would just be so bitter and so rude and so angry with them that she would never be able to get any help because the doctor would just feel that energy and they don't want to deal with patients that are angry and bitter and resentful. And so they would never help her. And what I told her is like, listen, there's a time and place for the conventional system. So I need you to just sit with the hurt that you've had with the conventional system before.

and I need you to let it go and then put some intentions out there that you are ready to have a practitioner in front of you that's going to help and support you. And so what that looks like is walking into a doctor's office and being very polite, but also having this authority over your body and saying, hey, I've been trying to conceive this. She was eight years into her journey. I've been trying to conceive for eight years and I have all these hormonal issues.

and I finally found a naturopathic doctor that I can work with, but she's not able to help me run X, Y, and Z. Is there any way that you would be open to helping me out on this journey because I am so hopeful that I can have a baby? That is a very different question than walking in and say, I need you to run these tests, or I know you're not gonna be able to do it. So the energy that you walk into the clinic and...

even just putting the intention out of meeting a doctor that will actually listen to her, listen to you, she had a really great outcome. They weren't able to run every test and we knew that. We knew that they weren't gonna be able to run, but we still asked, but she was surprised how much she was able to get. So if something feels fishy, it's because it is. And instead of saying, it's okay, it doesn't matter and shoving that feeling down, I need you to listen to that and say, huh.

What is this feeling? Why something feels off? Why? What information do I need to know? So it helps me feel more aligned. Because again, when I meet with my couples and they tell me all their beautiful goals about their family journey, and then they tell me the horrific stories and I say, when you started on that journey, did you think that this practitioner was going to help you? And they were like, I have no idea. I was just so blinded and I just wanted to meet my baby.

I didn't pay attention to any of the yellow or the red flags. So they knew they just didn't pay attention to those flags because they didn't want to, because that meant that they had to stop and look for another practitioner, which meant more time. And that more time didn't feel like an option. But at the end, now, a year later, two years later, they're still not anywhere close. If anything, they're worse. And the women have all these estrogen symptoms. And so...

paying attention to those signals, to those intuition that you have is so, so important because it's literally guiding you in the right direction and will tell you when you're going in the wrong direction. So whatever feeling you have about something, it is right. Listen to that feeling, follow your heart. And when you do need to do IVF, there is a way to do it where you can minimize all of these risks.

because you have addressed the inflammation, the liver function, the detoxification and all of that stuff. Then you need a lot less drugs. You have the nutrients to support and the body can really help utilize that. And we can see very, we can and we are seeing fantastic outcomes when it's holistic care and holistic picture. And I can't tell you how many of my clients would get pregnant naturally right before they go in for IVF, just because we said we'll make that as a plan.

I'll give you three months to try after we've done all this work. You try three months on your own and if it doesn't work, then we're gonna line up and sure enough, they'll get pregnant because they have a plan and so they're not stressing out. That's it. I know I can ramble some more, but I'm gonna leave it at that. Like I said, if IVF is part of your process, please make sure you fully understand what you're getting into and please, please, please prepare yourself, both you and your partner.

If there's things that you're like, I don't know, I think this matters, it does, you just need to find a practitioner that's going to validate that for you. Thanks so much for tuning in and I'll see you next week.