So many couples get stuck in a cycle of trying to conceive for years without truly understanding what’s causing the fertility struggles in the first place. In this episode, I break down how long it should take you to conceive, what you need to test when you’re struggling and what you need to expect from your treatment (time, energy, money) before you are ready to try to conceive again. Tune in to learn more.

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Key Takeways

5:04 Testing needed after 3-4 months of trying

10:08 Optimal health markers vs. expanding "normal" ranges

15:15 Addressing infections and toxicity for 3-4 months

20:19 Importance of comprehensive testing when struggling

25:24 Shifting energy from trying to conceive to healing

Memorable Quotes

"The expectation of being able to get rid of it very quickly without using drugs is unrealistic. It's just like this bug has been there and it's intertwined almost within your cells."

"When I'm healing somebody, when I'm getting rid of a toxicity, I see people change. I see the way that their face changes. I see the way that their energy and how they show up at work, how they show up for their partner, how they show up within their family."

"Your body is capable of miraculous things. Don't give up on it; reach out to the right practitioners and get the help you deserve."

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The expectation of being able to get rid of it very quickly without using drugs is. I don't want to. Like, it's unrealistic. It's just like this bug has been there and it's intertwined almost within your cells. It's hard for the body to tell, oh, I need to get rid of this, as opposed to, this is just part of me. So I say that because there's an energetic component to everything that we do as practitioners. When I'm healing somebody, when I'm getting rid of a toxicity, I see people change. I see the way that their face changes. I see the way that their energy and how they sh. Show up at work, how they show up for their partner, how they show up within their family. Everything changes because we're literally changing ourselves. 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 the difference between trying to conceive and then fixing an issue that's preventing you from trying to conceive and the timeline that it should take. Here's why I think this podcast is really important, and this topic is really important. I see a lot of women and a lot of couples stuck trying to conceive for years. Like literally a full year, two years, three years. It's been eight years. Like you, you lost count. And the energy that you need to be in and the space that you need to be in physically, mentally, emotionally, even spiritually when you're trying to conceive is very different when we're working towards fixing the issue that's causing us not to be able to conceive. So I'm going to give you some examples. If you have parasites, if you have a bacterial overgrowth or an vaginal infection or any other gut infection, or if you have heavy metals or another environmental toxicity, what you need to do to deal with the infection with the toxicity is very different than trying to conceive. So trying to conceive when you have those things going on is basically saying. Saying that I'm okay with passing on this toxic load, I'm okay with passing on this infection to the next generation or there. And I don't think we truly fully understand what that means. Okay? And that's why we're, quote, unquote, okay with it. What I want to do is hope you shortcut this trying to conceive phase, because in reality, you should be trying to conceive for three to four months at a time. And then if it's not working, we're reassessing and we're looking at what is missing and preventing body from trying to conceive. So if you're healthy and there's no issues for both the male or the female, it will take on average three to four months to conceive. If you have been trying to conceive for longer than that, meaning you're tracking ovulation, you're trying to have sex around the time of ovulation, you are getting negative pregnancy tests, and you're doing that for longer than three to four months. Not only is it exhausting and defeating, but now we're taking energy away from the thing that you really need to focus on, which is figuring out. Out why you can't conceive in the first place. And so I put out a lot of content about this because like I said, I have my kids and I, you know, I went through one miscarriage. And I remember my doctors and my midwives. It was my midwives who told me, you just have to have a couple more miscarriages before they even consider any testing. And I'm like, what are you talking about? There is no, like, this was so painful and so miserable. There's no way I'm going through this two more times before I'm doing any investigation.

And this is what I work with my clients as well. And for some clients, it's really hard. They're just going to keep trying to conceive because they've never been able to conceive, and for them not to try and cause us too much anxiety. Whereas for someone who is struggling with recurring pregnancy loss, the conversation is like, well, do you want to keep having losses or do we want to figure this out if you're having losses? A lot of the times women will go like, I just don't want to have another loss. And I want to figure this out. When we're having a hard time conceiving Usually it's harder for you to stop, quote, unquote, trying to conceive because you don't want to miss your chance. But here's the energy, the space of when. First of all, we need to figure out what's causing the issue. Male factor, female factor, both. What is it? Is it infections? And there's always some kind of an infection. Is it toxicity? And there's always some sort of a toxicity. Then what? The downstream effect of that. What is happening with nutrients, what's happening with methylation, what's happening with detoxification, because you have this infection, because you have this toxicity. So there's always downstream effects. So first we got to figure it out and then we lay out the protocol. And so, you know, for example, every couple is different. But I'm just going to give you an example. So like the first month is all about increasing energy and increasing drainage. Drainage is like how quickly your body can get rid of things. How is your liver moving? How is your gut moving? Is it efficient versus like you're just having diarrhea multiple times a day or you're actually feeling emptied and you don't feel inflamed all the time. We're supporting methylation right off the bat. Methylation is something that I'm going to talk a lot about because nobody is talking about it. And it's such an important biochemical process that happens in the body that literally dictates like DNA repair, tissue repair, energy production, hormone production. It happens in every single cell of the body. So when we're talking about egg quality, sper, DNA fragmentation, we need to be looking at methylation for both partners so then we can support it, because that's going to help with everything that I just mentioned. So we address in that month, one is just like, can we get some of the inflammation down? Can we get the body just moving things a little bit more efficiently through? And then the following three to four months are going to be spent dealing with infections. And so whether it's parasites, it's easter fungal, if it's microbial, so in bacteria and then viral, every person is different in terms of what is showing up and what's the most important thing that we need to address. What is the load of how long has this infection been part of you? We've met, you know, with my practitioners when we're meeting every week, and it's like he has urop plasma, but he doesn't have any symptoms. And it's like he has symptoms, he's depressed, he's not himself. You know, his hormones are out of whack, he has a lot of inflammation. He just doesn't have any, like, sti. STD type symptoms. Like, he doesn't have any rashes anywhere or discharge. Like he doesn't have anything when it comes to the reproductive organ symptoms. But he has symptoms that this bug has now been part of him for God knows how long. So the expectation of being able to get rid of it very quickly without using drugs is. I don't want to. Like, it's unrealistic. It's just like this bug has been there and it's intertwined almost within yourselves. It's hard for the body to tell, oh, I need to get rid of this, as opposed to, this is just part of me. So I say that because there's an energetic component to everything that we do as practitioners. When I'm healing somebody, when I'm getting rid of a toxicity, I see people change. I see the way that their face changes. I see the way that their energy and how they show up at work, how they show up for their partner, how they show up within their family. Everything changes because we're literally changing their cells. It is so profound, you guys. And if you don't feel like you're changing as you're taking things, that means whether you're not doing enough or you're not doing the right stuff or you're doing it in the wrong order, if you're not changing, that means you're working on the wrong thing. So I need to see that transformation in my patients, and I very much do, because I see the testing, I see what's wrong with them. I know them very well from the history standpoint and just as individuals and things that they struggle with and things that they're battling with on a regular basis. And so then when I create a supplement protocol, I'm not just creating pills that they're going to take. I'm thinking about how am I going to shift their energy and how am I going to shift their microbiome in such a way that basically leaves no room but for the transformation. And the reason that I bring the partner on board is, well, if your partner has parasites and he has no idea, and you have parasites and you have an idea because you have so many symptoms about it. If I clean your parasites out, well, you're just getting reinfected every time you have sex, every time you kiss, every time you hug, every time he cooks food for you. So every time you touch, we share the microbiome and I talk a lot about this in, you know, why it's important to bring the partner on board. But essentially it's very difficult to treat one person within the family because even though I can see the infections and the toxic load that she is struggling with, I don't know what the other people in the family are struggling with and where she's potentially getting reinfected on a regular basis. So you need to spend at least three to four months clearing an infection, and then you usually need to spend two to three months optimizing nutrients. Now, I do a little bit of crossover where I start optimizing some nutrients right off the bat because it's going to give the body energy. And just like ubiquinol, ideally you're on that for nice high doses for minimum six months, ideally 12. But not everybody has that kind of time, you know, in terms of their family planning and how old we are and how long we've been struggling for. But ideally, like, if you're not struggling yet, you would be on a good dose of ubiquinol with good digestion and stress management in place for a year before conceiving. Because we know that ubiquinol is so, so, so important for mitochondrial function that's concentrated in the egg. And the higher the quality of the egg is, the more mitochondria that egg has. So supporting mitochondria is the foundation of fertility and mitochondria function highly, is highly dependent on the toxic load and infections and inflammation and all of it. Right. So if I just give you ubiquinol, but you still have a raging infection, it's better than nothing, but it's not treating the whole picture. So struggling to conceive for a couple of months, reach out and get some testing done. If you just need a little bit of testing because you just started trying and you're not really worried about any big health issues, then just do some testing because you're going to be able to see some of the red flags.

And then potentially that testing might tell you that, hey, you need to do some more, you need to do the stool analysis now, or you need to do another infection panel for the vaginal microbiome or in the environmental toxic panel, like something, the blood is just going to show us some really big holes. So if you have vitamin D deficiency or your B12 is out of whack, we generally then know we need to look a little bit deeper. If you've been struggling for a long time, I would be testing everything. It like, again, it just depends on your urgency But I see people who. And one of the case studies from Fertility 101. Like, I can't wait for her for that podcast to go live. It's probably knife now by the time you're listening to it. But she just shared that, like, I just stopped trying to save money because over the eight years that she's been struggling, she saved herself a couple of hundred dollars here and there. But over time, she still spent thousands of dollars, and she hasn't gotten anywhere. And so it's concentrated the spending because you have to invest into lab testing. You just have to do it. Otherwise you're still grasping at straws and you're essentially guessing of what's happening. But once you do that and you have a plan, then everything that you're doing is actually working and getting you closer to the goal. Then it's a lot easier to continue to invest into supplements that. Plus, you know, most of us are already doing that. It's just we're spending money on supplements that aren't really working. So after. It depends what you uncover, but minimum six months, sometimes nine for the couple that I was talking about, they are coming to me early 30s. They really want to do their due diligence. We're doing some heavy metal testing. We're doing provocation tests, the dmsa, and we're looking at the actual true toxic load and creating a space where the body is comfortable enough to get rid of all of this. This stuff, and essentially rebuilding the system, because heavy metals are stored in the bones. And so as the body has to pull that out of the bones, we need to make sure we're replacing it with the right minerals. So then you're literally are rebuilding yourself. And it's crazy, because you could see the way everything changes. How your nervous system function, how you feel about yourself, obviously, how your digestion is, how you show up at work, and the confidence. You feel like a different person because you're now not made up of toxins. You're made up of minerals. You're made up of good, good, sturdy things, and your microbes are happy and healthy instead of, you know, all these pathogens, all this yeast and fungus and parasites and just bacteria that's overriding your system. And you don't feel like yourself. You feel negative or you feel anxious or you. Because that's what your body is made of. And as we get rid of that stuff, all of a sudden you become more optimistic and you feel lighter and you feel loving and kind and all of these wonderful things. And to me, I'M like, that's your true essence. That's who you are. I think as humans, we genuinely are built to love, and we are genuinely good. It's when we have crap in our system that's literally making up our system, whether it's the bugs or the toxins, that's what's running the body. And we have a hard time telling which one's what. If you're feeling really negative, it's like, well, that's probably because you have a lot of gunk and it's hard for you to know who you are. And that's where there's a lot of sadness, because you don't feel like. Like you're being yourself and you're not fulfilled and you can't. Your body can't do the thing that it's designed to do, which of course brings on a lot of trauma and just a lot of grief. And it's a very difficult thing to go through. I'm a big proponent of the body. I know the body is capable of miraculous things. I've seen them. I've experienced them. My family has experienced them. And I hated when people say natural medicine doesn't work. I hate it when people give up on their body. It makes me so sad because it's like, that's your home. That's your home on this planet. And if give up on it now, you know, then, like, what does that mean for the rest of your life? And what does that mean, you know, and how you experience the world? So my hope is that you don't give up on it, and you hear my voice and you reach out to the right practitioners and you get the help that you deserve so then you can experience what it's like to truly be human, if you will, without the toxic load and without the pathogens overriding your system and the human experience and how beautiful it can be. So here's my advice to you. If you're trying for longer than three to four months, which I'm assuming is most of the people who are listening to this podcast, please, please, please get some help, get some testing done. Not Dr. Google, like, get an actual assessment done for both you and your partner. We have, like myself and my practitioners, we work with clients one on one. We have the Fertility 101 membership program. And the membership program is great for those of you who are just kind of dabbling into this and you don't know what to look for, what optimal ranges are. You want to learn all of that information that's in my Fertility 101 program. Of course we do that one on one, but we're diving in one on one. And we're getting, you know, we're like, especially my cases, they're complex. People have been struggling for a long time and we need to figure out and get to the root. And we don't have a lot of time. Time. Right. We don't have a lot of time to spare either because usually patients are older and they've already been struggling for a long time. Complications, failed IVF cycles, you name it. So my advice is to make sure, like, do not just keep trying for years. Because if you uncover the reason why you're not getting pregnant, the energy that you need to step into is, I'm going to fix this. And that's different from, I'm ready to conceive. It's like, you can't ride two horses with one butt. That's the saying in business world. But I think that's true in anything. When we have our split focus on, I'm going to try to conceive versus I'm detoxing and preparing myself. Those are two different things. Those are two different energies. And so if I get you to step into, I'm going to literally revamp myself. I'm going to go through the detox, I'm going to optimize my nutrients, I'm going to fix my relationships. I'm going to get out of a toxic environment. I'm going to do whatever X, Y and Z, the thing that's preventing you from your body from thriving, I'm going to focus on that. And then when you feel ready, and most women, if you ask yourself, like, is your body ready to conceive and to withstand the stress of pregnancy, most women that I talk to go, no, I feel exhausted. I'm so drained. My digestion is a mess. Like, I feel inflamed. Emotionally, you're ready to meet your baby, but physically, if you asked your body if it's ready, you, most women know they're like, no, I'm not ready. And I know I'm not. It's almost just like, really hard to face that truth, you know, because emotionally you're there. And then there's a lot of stuff that regret. And I wish I would have done this. I would have, you know, I'm running out of time. I should just keep trying. It's a very different energy, you guys. It's a very different energy when you're ready to conceive versus when you need to do some work into Detox and to come into that space, the feminine energy, that's more intuitive, that's more calm, that's more peaceful. It's not the same as, okay, I'm gonna go get all the testing done and I'm gonna go and do the detoxing. You can see even the change in my voice and how I talk when I just think about the shift in the energy that needs to happen. And so my advice to you, three to four months, if you're not conceiving, something is missing. And even if you've already been trying, like, I've had this with my patients, I give them three to four months to try while we start to explore other options. So if they're older, we're thinking about, maybe we do a time cycle. Maybe this is a time when we are going to get art on board. So whether it's an IUI or an ivf, it's. You have that plan moving ahead. Like, this is what I'm going to do. And I mean, I'm testing my patients all the time to see the progress. And things that are still, I don't want to say slipping, but just things that are not. They're still not adjusting or moving or there is other stuff that pops up. There's the initial oh, my God, all these things. Then we fix it and there's a big, usually a big improvement. And then there's just stuff that's still sticky and we need to continue to work on it. And whether it's a toxin that's really, you know, that's really tricky, like a heavy metal or it's a pathogen that's been part of you for a really long time, like decades, if not something that you were, quote, unquote, born with. It's learning how to be without it, and that's essentially you learning to be a different person. While we are doing some antimicrobials and antivirals and, you know, antifungals, anti parasitics, all that jazz. So three to four months is what I give. And then the rest of the time you spending, you're doing some testing to figure out what could be the possible reason, whether it's the miscarriage or you're not getting pregnant, and then you're rechecking. And as that might seem long, I recorded a whole podcast on Go Slow to go fast, sometimes taking a month off IVF to figure out a couple of things and to tweak methylation or to do whatever is actually the best thing that you can do, or taking a couple of Months off because it will actually allow you to address the issue and have it be a successful cycle. I think more women are realizing now that, you know, IVF is just gonna work. They're realizing that that's not the case. There's plenty of women who are not getting pregnant with IVF because you haven't fixed the root cause, you haven't fixed the inflammation, you haven't fixed the infection.

The egg quality isn't there because there's blood sugar dysregulation and all this other stuff that's going on. And the embryo quality is in there because, because the man said he was fine, but he actually has high cholesterol and inflammation as well. And so his DNA fragmentation isn't great and it's overwhelming the egg and so the embryo quality isn't there. It's. To me, it's non negotiable to prepare your body for this really big feat and to make sure that we do our due diligence to pass the best genes possible, and we can pass the best genes possible to the next generation if we are at our best health. And so when we are not in good health, that means the genes that are, quote, unquote, bad genes are turned on and the good genes are turned off. And we can absolutely turn that off and turn the good ones on, turn off the bad ones by our environment. And so that environment is, is there an infection? Is there toxic work, Is there toxic load? Are you living in mold? Are you. Whatever it is, that's. As practitioners, that's my job, is to figure out what is in the environment that's causing you to be sick. But like I said before, your body is so smart and it just doesn't do anything without a reason. So the more we can dig and figure out why it's doing what it's doing, including why it's not getting pregnant, and then give it the support that it needs to heal or remove the obstacle, then magical things can happen. So please, ladies, stop trying for years on end. It's so anxious. Like, it's just, it's so time consuming and it just puts you in the wrong space of what the energy that you actually want to be in when you conceive. Instead of being anxious and overwhelmed and gripping on as hard as we can, letting go, being more intuitive, being more connected and feeling at peace, feeling, feeling actually energetic from the inside out, feeling more connected to your partner, to yourself, all of it, that's the shift that we need to make. And then we give ourselves some space and time. To try. So I hope you guys find this helpful. If you ever want to reach out, whether it's to work one on one or be part of the fertility one on one membership, please check us out on Instagram, send us a message and we'll see if we can help. But thanks so much 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 drjanelevesque.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 podcast.com 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.