I have so many women message me on a weekly basis feeling like they are running out of time. This is a real concern for many women through this journey, but I want to make sure you don’t make any sloppy decisions. You don’t have a lot of time, but you have more time than you think. Let’s make sure you are intentional with how you prepare yourself for the fertility journey and make decisions based on data not on emotions. Tune in to learn more.

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Key Takeways

6:08 Importance of Thorough Lab Testing

12:15 Misconceptions About IVF

18:21 Strategic Planning for Fertility

Memorable Quotes

"Having a baby will magnify those problems. It will not make them go away."

"We need to slow down, ask the deeper questions, run the tests, and then we can speed up."

“You need to understand what's going on in your body. Ladies, you are the first place that the baby will grow. If you have infections, if you have low energy and nutrient depletions, whether it's your iron and ferritin or vitamin D or B vitamins or CoQ10, not only are you going to suffer, but your baby is going to suffer as well."

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I want you to put your effort into right places. Because when you're putting it into the right places, you will see improvements in your health and therefore your fertility. So anybody struggling with fertility, anybody wanting to have children in the next one to three years, should be running thorough lab testing. You need to understand what's going on in your body. Ladies, you are the first place that the baby will grow. If you have infections, if you have low energy and nutrient dependent depletions, whether it's your iron and ferritin or vitamin D or B vitamins or CoQ10, not only are you going to suffer, but your baby is going to suffer as well. Pregnancy is a natural process. So if it's not happening or if it's not sticking, something is missing. After having a family member go through infertility and experiencing a miscarriage myself, I realized how little support and education women have around infertility. I want to Change that. I'm Dr. Jane Levesque. I'm a naturopathic doctor and a natural fertility expert. Tune in every Tuesday at 9am for insightful case studies, expert interviews, and practical tips on how you can optimize fertility naturally. If you've been struggling with infertility, pregnancy loss, women's health issues, or you just want to be proactive and prepare yourself for the next big chapter in your life, this show is for you. All right, ladies, today I want to talk to you about slowing down so we can speed up. And this episode is inspired by a quote from Warren Buffett, and it goes something like, you cannot have a baby in nine months if you get nine women pregnant. So I have a lot of you messaging me with a huge sense of urgency in some of you, rightfully so. Let's say you're in your 40s and you are afraid that you're going to miss your chance out on having a baby. Maybe you're in your mid-30s, but you always wanted to have multiple children and now you're kind of looking at the timeline and thinking, what the hell, I am not where I want it to be. And now we're scared that, you know, you're not going to be able to have the family of your dreams. So infertility is a very real time constraint that we feel. And what I say is if you feel like you're running out of time, it's because you are. So it's not like an illusion. And so I think when the conventional doctors, or maybe your friends or even your partner family members that just say, oh, don't worry about it, you have time. That's not always true. And I think the older that you get, there's absolutely a very real time crunch, especially if you want to have multiple children, especially if you're in your early 40s. So there is the right amount of time that we want to take to prepare, and then the benefits, the pros and cons of, you know, preparing for longer doesn't weigh out. The, you know, the pros don't outweigh the cons. So I'm going to kind of outline a couple things for you today in hopes that it will help you figure out where you are in your timeline and what your next right step should be. So wherever you are in your fertility journey, and if you've been listening to me for a while, I probably sound like a broken record, but you do not have to wait to struggle to conceive in order to do something about it. My hope is that every single couple takes the time to prepare to for their fertility journey ahead, because we spend years saving up for a house to make sure that we have the right physical structure to have a family, and we spend very little time preparing our bodies. I have women telling me all the time, I got off birth control two months ago, and I'm ready to start trying. I wanted to give my body a break from birth control for two months, but now I should be ready. And so to me, it's like saying, I want to buy a house, and I've been saving for two months. So unless you're a millionaire, you probably cannot buy a house after saving for two months. And so if we use this house analogy for our fertility, then it's not what you do in the last two months, three months, or even a year, it's literally your entire lifetime that will be a reflection of your health and therefore your fertility. Now, I say that those two go hand in hand. There's plenty of people that get pregnant who are unhealthy. That is not what I'm here about. I want to help you build generational health. And so I don't want you to set a low standard for yourself, like, oh, but I've always been overweight, but I've always had thyroid issues, but I've always been tired. But it's okay. I'll just have a baby and all my problems will go away. Literally never happens. Your problems only get magnified when having a baby. They don't disappear. And whether that shows up in your body, in your physical health, whether it's stubborn weight, metabolism, thyroid issues, hormone imbalances, or in mental emotional health, or in your relationships. Having a baby will magnify those problems. It will not make them go away. And so let's use this house analogy. You would never just say on the whim, I'm going to buy a house in two months. You literally probably saved for years, if not decades, to get to this place, to have the physical structure where the baby is going to, you know, where we have the family, the vision? I'm not saying for decade, but can we at least take a fraction of that time and spend it on ourselves, that money, time, energy, so then we can figure out if we are in the actual best possible health to conceive? And what is our fertility journey going to look like? Because your fertility journey is not as mysterious as you guys think it is or as the conventional system has made it out to be. A lot of you are, have been told that we have no idea what's wrong with you. It's unexplained infertility. So just, you know, do ivf. If you do proper functional lab testing, and if you just do a thorough lab assessment, I can guarantee that you will have markers that are off. And I can guarantee it because I have yet to meet anyone who struggles with infertility who is also perfectly healthy. And I know that's really hard to hear, you guys. I know that's a hit to the ego, because I know you put a lot of effort into your health. I'm not discounting the effort. I think the effort is amazing. But if that effort isn't paying off for the results, maybe you're putting your effort into the wrong places and that's why you're frustrated. I don't want you to discount the effort. I want you to put your effort into right places, because when you're putting it into the right places, you will see improvements in your health and therefore your fertility. So anybody struggling with fertility, anybody wanting to have children in the next one to three years should be running thorough lab testing. You need to understand what's going on in your body, ladies. You are the first place that the baby will grow. If you have infections, if you have low energy and nutrient depletions, whether it's your iron and ferritin or vitamin D or B vitamins or CoQ10, not only are you going to suffer, but your baby is going to suffer as well. Because your baby can only pull out as much as you have. And so if you don't have very much, that's the best that they're gonna get. And I Think that if we just spend a little bit of time optimizing those things, we can set ourselves up for success and we can set the next generation up for success. Because I see a lot of people saying, yeah, but this person got pregnant and they didn't do anything, and they're totally fine. And what I say to that is, you have no ide. If they're fine, you have no idea. If that person is going through severe postpartum depression, if she feels disconnected from her baby, if she wasn't able to breastfeed, if that baby has a crazy rash all over her body, you have no idea, because nobody talks about it. I had a patient who went through a pretty traumatic experience, her birth experience, and that spiraled her into PTSD essentially, and a lot of anxiety. She's now four months postpartum. She's coming out of it. She feels much better. It was like the first, you know, two months, probably like six weeks were really, really rough. And I'm glad that she had the support that she needed. But I remember she ended up talking to her girlfriend, like, I am so anxious. I'm so worried about her health because she had clots in her lungs. Like, basically she just had preeclampsia postpartum, that was misdiagnosed. She was sent home. It developed into this whole big thing, and then she's already lost trust in her body. And then breastfeeding and not sleeping, it was a hot mess. But she shared this story with her girlfriend, and her girlfriend had already, like a three year old. And her girlfriend was like, oh, man, I had terrible postpartum depression for the first, like, year. And my patient was like, what? Why didn't you say anything? Like, we were friends. Why didn't you tell me you were going through it? So you guys, you're always looking. It's always looks better from the outside in. Always you thinking that these people have it figured out. And I promise you, nobody does. I promise you, if someone is struggling with infertility, they have health issues. And even if they're not struggling with fertility, there's usually some sort of issues that are coming out. I know that because I'm very situationally aware when it comes to health. And I see people getting sicker and sicker every year. When I first started practicing versus what I'm seeing now. I have patients at 20 years old with premature ovarian insufficiency. That's supposed to be the. The best time to conceive. So there are some alarming things going on in this world, and we need to become aware. Again, I'm not discounting your effort, but I want you to be putting effort in the right things. And I want to make sure that you know exactly what you're doing, why you're doing it, and you're seeing the benefits of that. And so when I say I want you to slow down before you speed up is before you buy another supplement, you start another detox, you do another parasite clients, you slow down and you ask yourself, why am I struggling with the issues that I'm struggling with? Why am I struggling with infertility? Why am I struggling with hormonal imbalances? Why do I have constant high stress? Why is my digestion always upset? Why is my skin breaking out? Why am I carrying an extra 30 pounds on me? Or maybe it's an extra 10 pounds. Ask yourself the why so then you can actually find answers. We want to do the testing. We want to do thorough testing to understand what's going on. I promise you, there's no such thing as a normal test. And I promise you it's worth the investment. I have couples who are very hesitant about investing into lab testing and investing into working with me or investing into supplements. And after they go through and they decide, you know what, I trust this person, I'm going to do it. I've heard her speak about the lab so much, and we're just going to take this risk, if you will, this chance on the other side. They're always so grateful that they did the tests and they wish they would have done it sooner because it gave them answers and then they actually started to feel better almost instantly after they completed the labs. So we need to slow down, ask the deeper questions, run the tests, and then we can speed up. We often think that IVF is going to be the shortcut. It really isn't. It can last the. You know, a cycle is anywhere between, like, three to six months, depending on if you're going to do a frozen transfer versus a fresh transfer, how long you need to do to prep the timing for the clinics and the transfers. And it's not like it's minimum three months, but most couples are actually more like six months or nine months if there's failed transfers, if there's failed retrievers, if, like, anything can go wrong in the cycle where your estrogen is not responding, you're getting overstimulated, or you're not stimulating enough, or you need some time to recover because now there's cysts that are developed, like, there's a lot that can go wrong. And I want you to stop thinking that IVF is a shortcut, because it really isn't. There's no shortcuts in this industry, but there is building a strong foundation, getting solid in your health, feeling good in your body, looking at those blood markers, because we could predict. I look at my job as, like, a detective, and I want to be a really good predictor of what will happen. So if you haven't started trying to conceive yet and you're thinking about it, and maybe you're 30, maybe you're 35, and if you're 40, it's not an option to me. You have to do testing. But because I have women all the time saying, yeah, but I haven't tried yet. Okay, you could try, but the chance of miscarriage at 40, especially if your partner is over 45, is literally like 50 to 60%. It's very high. And so if you try and it takes you three months to get pregnant, and then you miss scary, which is a process that take anywhere between six, eight weeks, 12 weeks, depending on when you miscarry, that's six months, you guys. That's the six months that you had the highest potential chance. Because at 40, at 42, you don't have years. You have months. And so you have to be very intentional with your steps, because it's very possible to get pregnant at that time. But you can't just try and see what happens. I mean, obviously, you can do whatever you want. You guys, I'm just saying, you would never just try and see what happens with literally any other aspect of your life. I don't know why we do that. For fertility. Like, I'll just try to buy this house and see if I like it. No, you would do your due diligence. You would do an inspection. You would make sure there's no mold. You would make sure nothing is broken. Before you stepped a foot in that house and made this huge commitment. Having a child is a really big commitment. It's a lifetime commitment, Right? You can sell your house. You can't really sell your kids. So, please, to me, this is what I'd love to see, and this is how I want to shake up and change the industry. We need to do testing. You need to test. You don't need to struggle. Test. Figure out your health. Figure out your partner's health. The quality of the egg in the sperm will literally set the foundation for the future generation, and it will save you thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars. I used to Do a general practice. I saw a lot of sick kids. Those poor months spend lots of money on their children. And when I would take the history of the pregnancy and the health of the mom when she was pregnant, there was always big issues. She had infections, she had pcos, she had endometriosis, she had metabolic disease, thyroid issues. And everyone just brushed it off. They said it didn't matter. And now she has this kid that has ADHD or OCD or severe behavioral issues or asthma or eczema, you name it. And we're still brushing it off. We're just saying it's normal. At some point we have to stop and say, maybe it's not normal. Right? This is what I was talking about. Situational awareness around our health. So you don't have to wait to struggle. You need to do testing. The older you are, the more aggressive you need to be with testing and the more intentional you need to be with your actions. Because we're not designed to have babies in our 40s. We're designed to have babies in our 20s. And so it's very possible to have babies in our 40s. But it's not something that I would just do on the whim because, like I said, the miscarriage risk is so high. And so if you're waiting to conceive, even for three months, and then let's say that there is a miscarriage, that happens because you have no ide. Right. Like, there might not be, which is fantastic. But again, complications. All of that increases with age. And so if you know what your liver function is, if you know what your kidney function is, if you know your nutrient levels, you can see it and predict how the pregnancy is going to go. You can see if there's a higher risk of miscarriage. You can see if there's a higher risk of developing gestational diabetes or preeclampsia or, you know, go into premature labor, those things are not mysterious. And if you're like everybody else before me did it, or my mom did, and there was no issues, there are issues, you guys. We are the issues. If you look at your health and you have issues, it's because there was nothing that was done before. We live in a very different environment now. And I think it's important to. We don't want to blame ourselves, but it is now our responsibility. So I don't know anybody who doesn't have any issues. And, you know, I'm circles of a lot of, like, health is my circle. And all of us have something that we're Constantly working on. But we're, quote, unquote, healthier than the general population because we spend so much time, energy, and money on our health. But nobody is like perfect health. Nothing ever is going on, because that's not what the body's about. It's about learning and living with it and regulating and knowing when to do something versus when to just rest. Anyways, point being is, don't wait to struggle. Just do the testing, do the health assessment. It is a literal investment into your child's health. And I know it's hard because sometimes people are like, oh, I don't really know if it's worth it. It's 100% worth it. And this is why I share my story. This is why I share my patient's story, because it's not a fluke. So when my patients get compliments from the doctors or osteopaths or cardio chiropractors, they're like, oh, my God, your baby is so healthy. I tell my patients to tell people what they did to have this healthy baby. It's not a fluke that they have these healthy babies that are thriving and have, you know, beautiful bright eyes and can focus and developing faster than the other kids in their classes and in the daycares. It's not a fluke. So I promise you that it's worth it. And if we do that, slow down for a short period of time, you will go faster. Whereas this ivf, and you have no idea. Again, don't get me wrong. Right time, right place, right person. But if you have no idea why you're struggling to conceive, we can get into a lot of trouble where you cause more inflammation, you increase your chance of cancers, you have more oxidative stress, you gain weight, your thyroid goes up. And now it's been two years. And now you spend a, you know, 20, 30, 40, $50,000, and you're still not anywhere close. And maybe insurance covered it. That's great. But at the end of the day, that time has gone by and the body is not in the state where it's optimal for conception. And now you have to do all the work to undo the damage. So there's times to slow down. I'd say give yourself a minimum of three months, but ideally six months, and for some of you, a year. I have some younger couples who are coming in with, you know, poi, premature ovarian insufficiency, and they came in for hormonal imbalances, and they just want to make sure they're optimizing and turns out they have this raging condition that they didn't know about. We have a bit more time. If you're 27, 28, you know, we have time. You have a year to figure it out. You don't need to rush into IVF, but if you're 35, that's a different story. So you still have more time than you think, but you need to be strategic with that time. And I almost tell my patients, like, put your blinders on, because this is the step, and I'm going to tell you what to do, and you just need to do it. And we need to cut out the noise, because the noise is, oh, you should do auf. Oh, my God, you're running out of time. Like, give me six months and you'll be a completely different person. And then we're gonna, you know, talk about what the next step is. And for every couple, it's going to be different. So I hope you guys find this helpful. I know it's not what you want to hear, but hopefully it's what you need to hear and will help you on your fertility journey. Because like I said, Warren Buffett is a smart man. You can't have a baby in nine months. If you get nine women pregnant, certain things are just going to take time. And so you should give yourself a minimum of three months, but ideally six months. And if you can spend a fraction of the time, energy, and money that you have putting money towards a mortgage payment and a physical house structure, we as a society would be in a much better place. I want people to spend more time, energy, and money on themselves, on their health, so then you can go out and do those things. You can always make more money. You can literally buy another house. The amount of time that we have as women to have children is very, very limited in when you look at, you know, the whole lifetime. Most of us do not want to have kids in our early 20s. Some of you will, which is great. That wasn't me. You know, I wasn't ready until I was 30. My sister wasn't ready until she was 37. So there's no right or wrong. But just make sure that you are well equipped for what you are going to do next. Because to me, it's like it's worth every single penny to figure out your own health, your partner's health, clean up a bunch of stuff, because it literally sets the foundation of the health of your future baby. And like I said, I'll continue to share stories about my patients because they have never regretted the investment. It was a big investment for them, but they never regretted it because the payoff is so big. It's just not right away, which is, you know, just like if you look at the financial market, if you put money into the market, you don't expect to see an ROI in two months, but in a decade you'll see a huge roi. So this is kind of the same thing. Obviously, we're going to see some return before that, but the big one is setting the foundation for your kids that, you know, in their health and so they don't struggle with pcos, endometriosis, metabolic issues, all that jazz. The ROI is huge. So like I said, I know it's probably not what you want to hear, but what you need to hear. I hope you take the time to slow down before you speed up. And you are very intentional about what your next right step is because you know it's going to drive you either into the right direction or stall you. So we want to be intentional. Thanks so much you guys for listening and I'll see you next week. Thank you so much for listening. To read the full show notes of this episode, including summary, timestamps, guest quotes, and any resources that were mentioned on the episode, visit Dr. Jane Levesque.com forward slash podcast and if you're getting value from these episodes, I'd love it if you took 2 minutes to share it with a friend. Rate and leave me a review at Rate this podcast.com forward/ Dr. Jane. The reviews will help with the discoverability of the show and who knows, I might share your review on my next episode. Thank you so much for tuning in and let's make your fertility journey your healing journey.