EPISODE SUMMARY:

In this episode, Dr. Jane Levesque and Dr. Nicole discuss the importance of evaluating fertility practitioners, understanding treatment plans, and trusting one's instincts during the fertility journey. They emphasize the need for patients to ask the right questions, advocate for themselves, and recognize the emotional challenges that come with fertility issues. The conversation also highlights the significance of clinical experience and data in making informed decisions about fertility treatments. 

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

Join to receive Dr. Jane's weekly Fertility Files: https://link.getcmm.com/widget/form/JStvkHpRAamc7VwPMEQE

CHAPTERS:

00:00 Introduction to Fertility Conversations

02:59 Evaluating Fertility Practitioners

06:14 The Importance of Clinical Experience

09:03 Questions to Ask Your Provider

12:12 Understanding Treatment Plans

15:02 Navigating Emotional Challenges

17:45 Trusting Your Instincts

21:02 The Role of Data in Treatment

24:11 Making Informed Decisions

27:02 Conclusion and Call to Action

TAKEAWAYS:

Patients should actively evaluate their fertility practitioners.

Trusting your body is crucial in the fertility journey.

Asking the right questions can lead to better care.

Clinical experience often outweighs academic credentials.

Emotional support is vital during fertility treatments.

Data tracking can provide insights into treatment effectiveness.

It's important to feel safe and supported by your practitioner.

Recognizing and addressing emotional challenges is key.

Patients should not feel pressured to conform to others' expectations.

Your fertility journey should be viewed as a healing 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 the effective treatment of chronic fertility issues.

Thanks for tuning in to another episode of Natural Fertility with Dr. Jane. Of course, I'm Dr. Jane and today I'm joined by another practitioner in my practice, Dr. Nicole. We are going to talk about, what are we gonna talk about, Nicole?

Yes, so I was just sharing with Dr. Jane off screen or off recording here about a conversation I had with a client or potential new client who just onboarded. And as we were going through things, she was asking me interview style questions and I had to just stop and praise her for it because not enough people are doing it where they're asking questions of their providers and they're evaluating who is the provider that I'm sitting across from.

And what is it that they really do have to offer or how can they help me, especially when we've already seen other providers that work in a similar atmosphere or we've only seen conventional providers. And so we're constantly trying to advocate and teach people, whether it's listeners or on our Instagram live, and just teach them the kind of things that need to be asked or need to be considered. And I know Dr. Jane, you often say like when it comes to labs, like the lab that you run is only as good as the practitioner that evaluates it.

Yeah, I think the spin that we really want to give on this podcast is if you are looking for a provider, I think there's kind of a couple of different categories of, you know, people, if you will, in your fertility journey, those of you who are looking to start trying soon. And so you're just in the information gathering phase, you're looking to optimize your diet and looking at changing, you know, your water filtration system out and getting more sunshine and more exercise. And those are all the things that we share, you know, very readily.

through the podcasts, through all the freebies and our social media content. And then there is, we've started trying and nothing is happening, but it hasn't been a year. And essentially I'm waiting for that year, Mark, to see a fertility specialist, which let's be honest, fertility specialists or IVF specialists. And so basically you're in this category where you're trying, you want to avoid IVF, but you don't really have a plan and you're just kind of grasping at straws.

And then there is the next category where you've either already tried IVF and it didn't work. IVF is not an option for you and you don't want to do it. And it's been more than a year. It's been more than, you know, two years, three years. And you're in this place where you're realizing that I probably can't figure this out on my own because if I could have figured it out on my own, I would have already done that. And you are now in this place where you need to find a practitioner. And I think what Dr. Nicole is saying is

A lot of people are just blindly trusting practitioners or they have this ache factor of like, I don't know if I should do this. You literally had a call with somebody the other day who said, I think I just felt pressured to do IVF to like people please. And maybe people pleasing your family, your husband or the authority doctor sitting in front of you. And to me, it's such a like, if

everything inside of you is going, don't do this, but you do it anyways, because you are so worried about the peer pressure or whatever it is people pleasing, then to me, that's a huge red flag. Because as a woman, you have to trust your body and you have to trust that the body is gonna go through this process of, you know, growing your baby and then pushing that baby out and then making milk and feeding that baby and supporting it. And what we're going to dive into is...

You should have some criteria for the kind of patient practitioner you are looking to work with because it's a very intimate journey. It should be, that's how we treat it. And that's kind of what we wanna change in industry is that you're not just closing your eyes blindly and saying, just because this person has a white coat or just because this person has some kind of a degree, I should trust them. There is a series of questions that you should be asking to help you make a decision.

that is a very big decision and whether that's to go through IVF or not, or how many embryos, like, are you gonna do PGT testing or not? What are you gonna do with the embryos that you're not gonna keep? Like, there's some life-changing decisions that you are expected to make very quickly with very little information and that's kind of what we're hoping to change in the industry because it's like, that's a lot to ask for one person, you know, for a couple.

Yeah, absolutely. And I love, you you mentioned the degree portion too. And part of the conversation we had is like, you know, cause she asked, she's like, well, you're a doctor of chiropractic. So how does that equate to being able to help me with what I need in this fertility journey? And like, I love this question. It's such a great question. And what I learned in school gave me the foundation of understanding what makes a human healthy and what makes a healthy nervous system.

But learning, and even there's sprinkles of fertility and pediatrics and everything there, but the bulk of what a practitioner learns isn't from the academics, it's from the practice. It's from being in the field, having the right mentors, reading the right content and just what are they doing outside of it. Or is the person you're working with just going to work to get their paycheck and going home and it's just not a thought after the day ends at 5 p.m.

test.

Yeah, I love that you said, because I want to bring it back to research. I've been thinking about this for a long time, so many. And I posted a Rio about like, hey, raw dairy is overrated. Like you should probably stop drinking it. And people are just going nuts because it's like, I love my raw dairy. Do you have any studies to show? So you can find a study to prove anything. You can show that dairy is beneficial. You can show that it's very inflammatory. There's lots of studies showing between A1 and A2, different types of people, all of this stuff.

you

So where I come in with this is based on clinical experience. So if I've looked at hundreds of stool analysis and people that consume raw dairy tend to have more inflammation in the gut, they tend to have bugs like Listeria or GRD or some other infections that are E. coli that are popping up that wouldn't be there otherwise. Then I have to question that some of that research and some of that studies, because it also depends on who's funding that study and how big was the trial. And there's so many different things.

So as much as it is important to look through the papers and to have the degree that gives us the credibility that says, hey, I went to school and I did these things and I've dedicated, what the weight of what we actually do comes down to our clinical experience and our ability to coach people. And then of course, our ability to stay up to date with all of the research that's coming at us very fast, especially with AI now.

in the fertility space, you know? So if I ask you like, Nicole, and I don't know if you have those, but like, what are some questions that people should be asking their providers right off the bat to help them make a decision if this is the right provider to help them or not?

you

Yeah, one of the, I'll start with one of the questions she asked me yesterday and it was, it was actually her husband who had asked the question and he was like, I'm confident that you can help me, but what makes you confident that you can help her?

And I'm like, this is great. And so we had a good conversation about it and also seeing, you know, is she feeling that same way? And she came back later on with essentially the same question of like, what makes you confident that you can help us? Because we've already seen other practitioners. And so I think that's one of the first and great questions that you can ask when you are interviewing is what makes you so confident or what do you see that maybe other practitioners have missed or that you think you can do different. And so.

We find a lot of times and this is me not like I'm not bashing other practitioners but there are a lot of times where we'll look at labs for someone who's considering working with us and there were just so many clues that were left on the table.

And so it's like, yes, you've done a lot of work and you've probably moved the needle compared to where you were. So they have helped you tremendously, but there was just a lot of things that were missed. some, most of the time I'll say it's because the practitioner wasn't necessarily fertility focused. And so they just don't have those little nuances to piece in. So I think that's.

Or they have very high capacity, right? Like we max out at 30 people and most practitioners, like most of my colleagues, and everybody's different in terms of how they practice, but I have some colleagues who see up eight to 15 patients a day, three to four times a week, five times a week I find is really hard to maintain that.

just boundaries and catching up with administrative work and blah, When I have four or five patients in a day, I'm like, that's a full day for me. And sometimes it's even less because if the initial consultation is two and a half hours, like I had three patients yesterday, but it was almost five hours of calls. So asking questions like that, are they specializing in infertility? And then what is their capacity? How many people do they take on at a time?

Mm-hmm.

because that's really important, I think, in the level of care that you would like to receive. Yeah, that's my.

Absolutely. And I don't think it hurts to ask either as far as like, what is it that they're doing to stay up to date with all the information and know that the information they're providing isn't outdated and it's current. And you know, you may not go ahead and ask like, who are your mentors? But it's essentially that question. And so much so like even recently I had a couple who purchased, they just made a new purchase item and it's like some of these big names that endorse it. And it's like, that's great.

but it's also you have to be careful because those are not the people that you're working with. So they don't know the nuances of who you are and what you're going through, but then also looking into how they do things. So for instance, like one of them, they...

You know, they just started marketing towards fertility, but the business has never been about fertility ever. And it's any person who walks in. it's like, we're going to do this workshop. The workshop is the same workshop that they give for any other condition. And then it's here's our three lines of supplements. And we're just going to stick you into one of these three lines. And then you'll have a coach and that coach will just make sure that you're following the system. And it's like, you're almost putting yourself in the same place as you are with some of the fertility clinics that are IVF.

pushing and so it's like you're just flowing through the system and you're not really being seen or supported or coached through that process.

Yeah, the question that I've had asked before, which I thought was really good, it's like, what do do when you're stuck? And that's essentially, we have mentors, you know, we have mentors, we, like as a clinic, we discuss cases to make sure we don't miss anything. I think that's really important.

I am a big proponent of that. have mentors basically in every single field of my life and whether that's in my personal, mental and emotional, in my health, in my fertility knowledge, in my business, like I just think it's really important and it's something that I value. So that's something that I think a lot of practitioners don't give enough weight to. And I mean like finding a mentor that actually watches you grow and develop versus you're just getting your...

to credits. So like your credits that you need to keep your license up because that's very different going to a conference and connecting with people and definitely you still pick stuff up. But it's when you have a mentor who sees and goes, I need you to research this and I need you to try this in clinic. And then when you come back, you can ask me more questions.

That is what I'm looking for from a mentor. That is what I do with patients. That's what I do with you guys. So I can make sure that you're actually developing and growing versus like here's a piece of information for you. And then, you know, hopefully you guys get it or whatever. And then we'll move on to the next. There is that process and development. So I think that's a really great question to ask. Like, hey, what happens if you're stuck? Whether that's a conventional doctor or a holistic doctor in a conventional.

side, I'm assuming they'll just say, you're going to try at least three rounds before of IVF before we change anything. And then you can decide if you are okay with that, if you are comfortable with that, or if that seems fishy to you. If it was me, I would say I'm not doing anything for three times without changing in because it's, that doesn't make any sense. Like when I had my first miscarriage, I wasn't going to have another miscarriage to get some testing done. I was just going to do the testing because to me that was a lot.

more less invasive and a lot less time consuming than you know just okay I'll have three more miscarriages and what if it takes in three months at least to get pregnant and then I miscarry three months that's like one and a half two years to me that's not worth it you know

Yeah, absolutely. And I think too, some good criteria, just building off of that is like, if you have worked with a practitioner, sit and think about what didn't work with that person.

So for those of you who are on the fence of like, I've worked with someone, it wasn't a great experience. I'm nervous about diving in again. Well, what about it wasn't a great experience? Because then you can bring that to the table and say, these are the things that I know did not work for me. What do you do that's different? Or what, you know, how can you help me make sure that these things don't show up again? And so that can be an important part of kind of interviewing and feeling the practitioner out. And then also how do they make you feel? Like, do they make you feel like they're just writing you off? Right?

Huge.

I had a couple.

And I remember she, she was telling me that she went to her conventional doctor and she asked them a question and they basically were like, we make the orders here. We don't take orders. And I was like, that is your first sign that that practitioner is not on your team and they are not working like they're not working for you. Right. And so that's like, flags should be up. And so if you're feeling that dismissive, you're feeling that shutdown, or you're just not feeling like the energy on the other side of that call is really genuine, then trust that.

intuition, right? If it feels like you're, you know, getting backed into a fear factor corner versus, you know, here's what we can do and here's how we can explore and, you know, and it's like, we won't sugarcoat it. If there's things that are concerning, we're going to tell you what's concerning, but not in the sense of like, you have, you know, there's nowhere else that you can look or your only option is to just be scared. Yes, that's what I'm trying to say. Exactly.

We won't present you with a problem without presenting you with a solution. You might not like the solution, like you might not like the timeline and there might be some difficulty, but I think most people we meet and come across and we say, like three to six months, this is what you're gonna see. And most people we ask to give us six months because it's just gonna take time to shift, even if we go really fast. You know, like if you've had...

uterine lining that has been really thick and there's polyps and damage in the, and I'm just talking from, literally just got off a message with one of my patients and we did three cycles of really great work and she's, she had like five polyps and now she's down to just one or maybe she had four and she's down to one, but it's bigger and the lining is still a little bit thick. The inflammation is down, but there's still something going on. And it's like, well, that was three months of really great work. Maybe we do need to do surgery.

And so now we're going to focus on prepping her for surgery. And then we are also testing the vaginal microbiome. then like there's so many layers that need to be dealt with that I think most people really underestimate. And it's not that you are underestimating it. It's that you're going to doctors who are oversimplifying things and then oversimplifying treatment, meaning, your immune system is out of whack. We're just going to give you some steroids to suppress it. Or we're just, it's your

whatever, like the thyroid is not working, we're just going to give you thyroid. Your blood sugar is dysregulated. We're just going to, you have an infection. I'm just going to give you an antibiotic for five days. And it's like, yeah, but what we know now about infections and how many different types from the parasites to mold to bacterial to viral and where they're sitting in the body and how they express, I think it's so oversimplified to say, hey, just take a amoxicillin for seven days and you're good.

It's like, no, you're not. know, like, no, you're like, it's just, no, you're not. And how do I know that is because I can test it and I can show you that you went from, okay, you had this infection. You did that Moxicillin. We cleared this one, but this one is still over here raging because Moxicillin is not going to do anything for it. And you wiped out all these good bugs and now you're thinking you're good and you're actually not good at all. You wiped out one bug. Of course not one, but however many, but you still have this other layer. So what are you going to do about that?

And so that's kind of my hope is also to educate like there's so much complexity. So minimum, we want to give the body that six month mark, but we're doing something every month to make sure that we're like propelling the body forwards as much as we can, you know, and addressing all the hidden factors that come up.

Exactly. And that right there is the big thing is the hidden factors that come up. So that's a good question to ask as well. It kind of plays into that, you know, what do do when you're stuck? But also like, what do you do when something unexpected comes up? So if we think that, you know, we're going to run this test, we're going to do the same, this is going to be the outcome. And it's like, Ooh, okay, this came up. We weren't expecting that. What do do? Right? Or what's the plan? And it's like, and then also, you know, we had a good conversation once Dr. Jane about

Let's pivot.

When you do like antibiotics or you do a killing cycle, it's like, well, you can't just do that and then be done or not properly support the next step or the afterwards. Cause otherwise you're just going to create more issues in your health and you essentially create like a healing chaos. And so having, you know, what is, what is the plan and how are we going to determine what that plan is? And that's step by step piece. And when you're in a step, you can ask the practitioner like, where's your head at about my next step? What are you thinking? You know, or what is the purpose?

of this place that we're in.

And it doesn't, if you can't ask these questions and have the person that you're working with be open and receptive to kind of helping you. And even if it's like, hey, I don't want you to worry about that right now, because I just don't want you to be anxious. And so I'm going to have you focus here, right? That's still a really good answer. That's not dismissing you. That's telling you like I'm protecting your energy. And so knowing that the person you're working with, like they very much are open to your questions versus like don't challenge my authority by asking me a question.

Thanks.

Yes.

you

Yeah, the ego I think is really important and that is unfortunately something that's really big in the medical space, both holistic or conventional and assessing for that ego, whether it's feeling dismissed or I usually call it the egg factor. You know, we someone answered, you ask a question and someone just like, don't worry, we'll get you pregnant. No, don't worry about that. We'll be able to get you pregnant. No problem. Where that tells me that there's probably some

Mm-hmm.

pieces of information that they're missing or they're not disclosing because that's pretty like just being in the space for five years and being in AtchBath for 10 years now. I just don't think it's that simple, you know, and you never know every time I've been not humbled, not humble, like, look at me, I can figure this out. I have been shown otherwise. And so I very much know that I rather be on the humble side and on the cautious side and

help people walk through instead of saying, no, no, no, there's no problems. You're gonna be able to get pregnant, blah, blah. I can just see this as the problem and I see that this is a big issue and whether that's one of my patients that I'm thinking about, everybody's always looking for one reason why they can't get pregnant. And when that first meeting, we sit down on our fertility strategy session, I'm like, tell me what you think it is. And she goes, well, we don't know, but like I think...

I've been on birth control for 15 years. I've always had painful periods. I had these abdominal surgeries. I always had acne and I've still not been able to get rid of that acne and I'm 35 years old. And I was just like, there you go. Those are all the reasons. And she's like, really? But everyone doesn't seem to think that it matters. And it's like, maybe one of those things doesn't matter, but all those five things added up tells me a lot of stuff. And so I don't know your ability to get pregnant yet, but I know that all of these things are telling me that the body.

Okay.

is really overwhelmed. Just the adhesions in the abdomen, you start to think about blood flow and you start to think about things being able to communicate and move through the digestion properly. And then that means you're not detoxing. That means you're not absorbing nutrients. That means so many other things, know, like toxins and pathogens that are accumulating, let alone the hormonal imbalances that's causing. So it's...

Yeah, there's some really important questions to ask and to assess and to look at how the person is approaching the case and how they make you feel. Like, I love that you said that. Because if you're walking away feeling very small and like defeated after each appointment, like, I failed, I didn't do something. Usually, usually there is some kind of ego involved, I would say.

you

Yeah, I would say aim to feel like A, you feel safe with this person. You feel like they have your back, they have your case, they are looking into it, they are gonna do the work, and if there's something that they don't know, they're gonna try to figure it out for you because they care. I think that's like the ultimate, right? If you're working with someone you feel like you're always driving things and they're doing the bare minimum, also a red flag of like, okay, maybe, like if you're...

Yeah.

You have to remind them of your case every time you see them. Yeah.

Yes, yes. And it's like, you know, at that point, like you might want to seek other areas or other avenues. And it's like, I see that meme sometimes that goes around on social media and it's like, don't mistake your degree for my living with this condition every single day. And I'm like, I love that. And I tell my clients all the time, like you live in your body every single day. I know clinically what things I want to see, but that doesn't mean those are going to be the things that we see or that we feel. And so I don't know what's coming up for you. And I don't know.

what you're feeling until you tell me and you share with me because you are always in it and you notice those nuances. And so it's also respecting that part of just being a human that's not going to be in line with whatever the textbook definition says because we're just not that way. We're too dynamic of beings. And so, yeah.

Yeah, and I think that like that that helps us fit part of the picture. One of the emails that I sent last week, fertility files in my email list was about like the women that are just breaking down on our calls. And I think you've had that call. I just remember when I wrote that email, I literally had like two calls in a row where the woman just cried basically the whole time and not like she just couldn't hold it anymore. You could feel that her nervous system was so, so, so overwhelmed.

That to me tells me that her nervous system is really dysregulated. And so of course she's gonna be inflamed. Of course she's gonna be have pathogens and immune system dysregulation and all of this stuff. But the approach there is like, you're not crazy. So we're gonna validate that. And then my treatment, like our treatment is gonna focus on how can I bring that nervous system down? And we have so many beautiful herbs and supplements and strategies that we can use to literally help the body introduce safety.

Mm-hmm.

and trust again, so then we can actually start to figure out what else is going on. Because of course, this journey is overwhelming. Of course, it's exhausting. Of course, like you're dealing with a lot of fears, especially these couples who've been struggling for, you know, two, three, five years, and they've always wanted to have multiple children. Like it's heartbreaking. Of course, your nervous system is shot. But like you said, sometimes you just feel crazy. You're like, I don't want to say it because I'm always talking about the same thing.

And so if you are talking about the same thing, that is the symptom. And so how is the doctor approaching that? Are they making you feel like you're all crazy or are they going, I think your nervous system is dysregulated. So before I can attack the lime or the mold or anything else, I have to bring that nervous system down and I have to regulate it. And then I can work through the lime and the mold and the heavy metals or whatever it is. And so that's the whole timeline. You know, I can't

you

I'm not going to throw a heavy metal detox at someone who's already panicking. That's not going to work. So understanding the approach from the person and then like you said, making sure that you feel like, what is it? Was it yesterday that I said that on one of our appointments? It's like, at some point, like I'm going to tell you what to do, but at some point you're going to tell me what you need, right? Because then it's like, what is going on for you? What do you think is happening? And then I'll use my little toolbox to pull out.

Yeah.

whether it's a homeopathic or ceremonial great cacao or whatever, to help you move through that next piece, you know?

Yeah, and I think that right there is a big part of it too, is most of the time people are telling you what they need. And it's like, even if they don't necessarily know yet, like you may be talking about the same things over and over, and you may not realize that what you're saying and what you're talking about over and over is actually the things that you need, or they're hinting towards the things that are.

needed and so that's why some of the systems I think just fail women and couples in general is because it doesn't take that part into consideration and so instead it's like no I'm going to tell you this is what you need all the way through and I'm not going to hear what you're telling me or what your body's telling us and you know or your emotions or your spiritual whatever the case may be

Yeah.

We're just gonna override it, right? Like we're just gonna override your hormones. We're just gonna override your system because it's broken anyway. So let me take over and boy, how much ego is in that?

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, and I know I remember getting a message from someone where she almost worked with us and then didn't and then she did something else and then she came back and was like well of course this happened and so I'm just helpless and I sent her a message back and I'm like you're not helpless you just need the right support and that's where she just isn't connecting is like you just

Yeah.

need the right support, the right person to help you and listen to you and guide you. Like you are not, you're not crazy. Like Dr. Jane said, you are not crazy and you are not helpless. You just need to be evaluating the people that you are choosing to put your trust into. And, you know, and like we said, sometimes it's hard with the people pleasing. mean, even coming from like being in a military family, it's, you know, TRICARE covers a lot of things. And so we'll see couples where it's like, they just want to use TRICARE and do IVF because it's

covered, but they know in their gut that that's not the avenue that they need to go and what their body needs. And so then it's like that battle between do I pay for these things or do I just go the people pleasing free trichare? I mean, even with my own birth, I wanted to do a home birth and that was the struggle was trichare would cover all of it if I went in a hospital, but I would not. I just know where my body feels safe and my body doesn't feel safe in a hospital. It feels safe at home. And so that's where I, you know, with my family pan, my mother panicking.

Big decisions, those were big decisions, yeah.

And everyone around me was like up in flames that I wanted to do this thing. And I'm like, this is what we're doing.

I don't, I'm just gonna shut it all off. But I interviewed midwives like crazy to make sure that I had someone who not only was like airy fairy, but if there was any flags, they were taking me to that ER to be on top of it. Mm-hmm, exactly. And so it's the same thing when it comes to who you're working with in your fertility journey is who's gonna help me realize those flags and take action on them quickly and make me feel safe.

You felt safe with them.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I mean, thank you for sharing that story because it's beautiful and my home birth like healed me because I wanted to have that the first time around and you know, I couldn't and I realized that as I was going through it. was like, no, need to go to the hospital. I'm going to need some help. And I didn't really know what that help was going to be.

Yeah.

And there was a lot of fear going into my second birth knowing that like, what if I can't do it again? You know, and, but I did all the work and how do I know if that was enough and all that jazz? But I think the main characteristic there is like, if you trust yourself, if you trust that instinct,

Mm-hmm.

then it's really easy to block out the noise. But when you don't trust it, then you fall to other people's opinions. And again, Nicole, like you had somebody on and my question, like as I watched that call, I was like, what is it like to make decisions based on other people's opinions? What is that like for you? And it's like, that's exhausting.

Mm-hmm.

Like that's exhausting to think about 10 other people, 20 other people before you get to make a decision and then have to defend that decision as opposed to like, no, that's what I'm going to do. It's okay if you disagree. It's totally okay. And this is where if you are raised as a people pleaser or toughen up or this shouldn't, authority is everything, whatever it is, know, whatever your mask or the glasses that you were put on.

that I think like our job as a practitioner is to shift some of those beliefs for people so women can learn to trust themselves because a hundred years ago we had babies in the woods. Now I love modern technology and advancements and all of that jazz. Lots of babies have been saved. Lots of women have been saved because of that. So I'm not saying to go back to that.

Mm-hmm.

but maybe a little bit. Maybe we come back to some of the woman knows when something is stuck or not feeling, not going properly and having an opportunity to heal and then redo it again. And that's the beauty of having multiple children is you get to rewrite that story if it quote unquote didn't work out the first time. And sometimes we can get it right on the first time when you are get it right, obviously, quotations there.

But yeah, ultimate is like, do you know who you are and do you know what you want in this life as an experience for yourself? And then what do you want to bring into this world? And what supports do you need to be able to do that?

Yeah, and you.

Yeah. And are you okay with being an outcast, right? If your community is a little bit different. Like I, yeah, I had a client tell me, you know, she had a dinner with friends and she's like, yeah, I had digestive upset cause I ate some things I shouldn't have ate, but I didn't want to be difficult. And I'm like, okay, that's a, yeah. I'm like, be difficult. You need to be difficult. You need to be okay with being the person who's doing it different because that's, you know,

You're gonna be an outcast right off the bat. I'm an outcast.

Be difficult!

Standing by that is what's going to help you move the needle in this journey versus I'm just going to eat this thing so that I don't discomfort or like, you know, inconvenience anybody else. And then it's like, if you can learn to do that for yourself now.

that amazing mom you are going to be because you are not going to do things that will be detrimental to you or your child just to save the inconvenience of other people. You will be able to stand by what that child needs. So it's like doing the work now, asking the questions of the practitioners now is just going to set you up for the things that you're going to need to do and ask and say and be when that baby is here.

Yeah, 100%. I think the last thing that I would say is picking a practitioner is looking at like the data and the results. So sometimes I think it's difficult, you you watch a testimony and you're like, this resonates for me. So like, yes, I'll go for it. looks like they helped a lot of people. At the end of the day, what matters is the results that you are experiencing. And so I am very like the way that we have, you know, set up.

practice and care is we're looking at data and whether that's lab testing at the beginning or you have an aura ring or you have some kind of piece of information or a mirror tracker, whatever it is, we're looking at data and not obsessively. So we're not, you know, obsessing about little things, but subjectively being able to zoom out and go, okay, I can see that the cycle is really shifting this time, or I can see that your sleep is improving, or I can see that your sleep is tanking or your heart rate is elevating.

while you're going through this protocol. And I find that that's really, really valuable because sometimes getting to the baby is gonna take you a lot longer than you expected. But what are the other parameters? And sometimes the initial, there's quite a big increase initially just because you were really depleted and now you're not. And then we need to work through deeper things and there is usually more testing, more data tracking. But I've had a patient who I was just talking about her earlier with a thicker lining.

She did like lime and mold detoxing for two years and it made like a 10 % improvement. And it's like 10 % improvement in two years is pretty crappy. Like that's not the thing, you know, that's not the root cause. Because if you're working on the thing that's causing the body not to do what you want it to do and whether that's brain fog or a regular menstrual cycle or whatever, some things are obviously gonna take a bit longer to shift. Like the cycle is minimum three months.

that we're gonna see shifts and sometimes it takes a bit longer depending on what, if it's a heavy metal or whatever, but other markers should be improving. So like two years, that's too long for me as a practitioner personally, because I would like, I think I worked on parasites for like nine months before I was like, I'm missing something here. And during the six month mark is I started to look at something else and at nine months I pulled the plug because I was just like, I'm missing something.

Mm-hmm.

It can't be that I still need to do this because I can see that this isn't improving and the data is not improving enough. And so the data is really powerful.

Absolutely. Absolutely. I don't. I think this was very good and I hope that all the listeners, you do find this helpful and it helps guide you in your journey of figuring out, know, who it is or where it is that you need to be and what environment or what person or coach is going to make you feel the safest.

Yeah, do you have anything else to add to that?

Yeah, absolutely. And if it sounds like our approach lines up for you, please fill out an application. And well, like genuinely, we want to help women couples have as many babies as they want to have. We believe that it should be a choice. And if somebody told me I couldn't help my children, I would be fighting for it too. I just really want to, and this is kind of the big mission and vision with company culture is can we do it? Can we

your fertility journey is your healing journey. Can we make it about healing? And I'm not saying that you're not going to need modern technology to support you through that healing, but you should be feeling better. Like when someone is going in for surgery, I'm preparing them to make sure that they get the best out of that surgery so that when they heal, the body really does transform. And that's why I love the modern, you know, technology versus we're just going to keep overriding things with more drugs and suppressing the immune system or whatever. And it's like,

that gives me the ache factor. And so it's like, if that gives you the ache, we just encourage you to listen to that and make that fertility journey a healing journey.

Yeah, yeah, like that. Don't stick with the ick.

those. Thanks Nicole for being here and like I said if you guys are interested to work with one of us please fill out an application form and then we'll take it from there. Thanks again for being here. Bye.

Thank you, bye everyone.