Bite Your Tongue: The Podcast
Did you ever expect being the parent of an adult child would be so difficult? Introducing "Bite Your Tongue," a look at exploring that next chapter in parenting: building healthy relationships with adult children. From money and finance to relationships and sibling rivalry, we cover it all. Even when to bite your tongue! Join your hosts Denise Gorant and Kirsten Heckendorf as they bring together experts, parents and even young adults to discuss this next phase of parenting. We will chat, have some fun and learn about ourselves and our kids along the way! RSSVERIFY
Bite Your Tongue: The Podcast
Season 3 Episode 78 : Changing Landscape of Pregnancy: What Parents Need to Know
We delve into the world of pregnancy and fertility challenges that our young adult children are facing. With couples taking longer to marry or start families, this has become a significant issue for young adults, and as parents, it’s crucial for us to understand the landscape. A listener reached out to request an exploration of this topic, so we invited Elizabeth King, a Certified Life Coach specializing in Fertility, Miscarriage, and New Mom Support, to join us. Elizabeth, a proud IVF warrior and mother of three children born after age 40, brings invaluable insights and experience to the conversation.
We discuss:
- Options for Young Couples: Our guest highlights that while the expenses can be significant, many companies offer partial coverage, and there are also grants and resources available. You can find more information and resources here.
- Miscarriage and Infertility: We dive into the emotional and psychological impacts of miscarriage and infertility. We also discuss how we can be supportive.
- Finding Trustworthy Care
- Advances in Science.
A big thank you to Connie Gorant Fisher, our audio engineer, for making this episode possible. We love hearing from you! Share your thoughts with us at biteyourtongue@gmail.com and follow us on Facebook and Instagram.
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The Mayo Clinic in 2013 did a study that people that are going through fertility is the same as a stress level as a cancer patient. That's a huge statement because most people think I can handle this on my own. I spoke to a woman this morning. She's been trying since 2016 and she's like I really thought that we could do this on our own. She can barely hold a sentence together because she's so devastated. She's just crushed because she just can't take one more loss and one more disappointment. I think everybody feels in most things in life I got this, I can do this right, and with fertility it's not something that we've grown up hearing about really something that we've grown up hearing about really.
Speaker 2:Hello everyone, welcome to Bite your Tongue. The podcast I'm.
Speaker 3:Denise and I'm Kirsten, and we hope you will join us as we explore the ins and outs of building healthy relationships with our adult children.
Speaker 2:Together, we'll speak with experts, share heartfelt stories and get timely advice addressing topics that matter most to you.
Speaker 3:Get ready to dive deep and learn to build and nurture deep connections with our adult children and, of course, when, to bite our tongues. So let's get started.
Speaker 2:Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Bite your Tongue, the podcast. I'm Denise and I'm here with my co-host, kirsten Heckendorf. We're moving along. We're always trying to think of some great episode topics and we'd really like to encourage everyone. If you have an idea, reach out to us. Just email us at biteyourtonguepodcast at gmailcom. You can also go to our website at biteyourtonguepodcastcom and from there you can email us, or you can send us a verbal message by just going to the little microphone in the right-hand corner and send us a message. The reason I bring this up is today we're answering a listener question. Kirsten's going to tell you a little bit more about it. It's not exactly about advice for building healthy relationships with our adult kids. It's about understanding and being knowledgeable about things going on in their life. In fact, the guest says she's so happy we're talking about this because it's a topic that parents and their adult kids, and even some couples, don't even talk about. So, kirsten, take it from here.
Speaker 3:Thank you, denise. This is a really important topic. We're hearing more and more about infertility issues, young women wanting to freeze their eggs at various ages for all sorts of reasons, as well as with people having miscarriages. How do we support our kids? How do we have enough information to be supportive? What do we say? What shouldn't we say? And opening up this conversation, I think, is hugely important. It is a different world than when you and I were having kids, so the conversation needs to shift as well.
Speaker 3:We've been hearing a lot of talk about the birth rate in general being down. What is the reason behind that? Is this fertility issues? Is this by choice? Are there more miscarriages? Does it make a difference if you have your eggs frozen or not? I just don't even understand the landscape, although I am hearing more and more about it. Today, we're welcoming Elizabeth King. She is a certified life coach who helps women and couples navigate fertility and miscarriage. She also calls herself a proud IVF warrior, having had three kids over the age of 40. So welcome, elizabeth. Thank you. Is there anything that we've missed about your journey that you would like to share before we get started, and can you share your journey and why you decided to specialize in this specific area of life coaching.
Speaker 1:Yes. So to answer your first part of the question, I think there's a lot of aspects of my journey that kind of intertwine, so we'll probably touch on some of those throughout. The started 27 years ago I guess, when I was 19, when my older sister was diagnosed with a rare cervical cancer and had to do a radical hysterectomy. So that was my first intro into I didn't know what a cervix was. I didn't know how that worked with our eggs and ovaries and all these things and, being one of four girls, our first initial thought was we'll just have a baby for her, and hence the education then began and continued until today for women's advocacy, women's wellness and all the things.
Speaker 2:So why do you call yourself a proud IVF?
Speaker 1:warrior. I went into fertility on my own at age 36. And actually I should back up. At age 30, I had gotten divorced and went to the fertility doctor who we met when my sister was sick years before. I had worked with other women around me that were older at the time and said I'm getting my FSH tested and all these other things that I didn't really know what they meant. But they said I would recommend getting your eggs frozen at this point. I was 30 at the time and I'm 48 now, so it was a long time ago. The doctor said technology is not that great. Come back later when you hopefully find a man. So at 36, I went back still no man and said okay, can I freeze my eggs now? And he said yes, the technology has just changed and I think it's time we do this. So I went through the IVF process on my own at age 36, being single, and came out with 11 eggs frozen. From that point went back on to running my business and traveling the world and doing all the things, but did feel a sense of at least I had an insurance policy of some sort. Back then. They really didn't tell you the full extent of what it meant when you wanted to go back to use those eggs. And that's part of my big mission now is to educate young women to know what does that mean, what's going to happen later when you want those eggs and what is the expectation to have?
Speaker 1:So, fast forward, I ended up meeting my husband at 39 and a half. I had a fibroid surgery. That fibroid surgery then led me to getting pregnant naturally with my first son. But we were seeing a reproductive endocrinologist, which is a fertility specialist because of not being able to get pregnant with the fibroids Yet again another thing that my regular OB had said everything's fine, fibroids are common, it's normal, they're small and no need to worry. Well, at 39, I knew I wanted to be using my uterus at this point. So I thought let me go check with this fertility doctor again. So I knocked on his door again and said can you check this? And he said they're small, but they're in the lining. Your embryo will not implant because of where they are. I saw a gynecological oncologist who specializes in this to be careful that we weren't getting any scar tissue or anything else. Then we were able to get pregnant naturally at 41 after that first surgery, et cetera, et cetera. The story continues, but I had my last, third son, just before I was 44.
Speaker 3:Wow.
Speaker 1:Well, we're going to go deep into this. Yeah, there's a lot in between.
Speaker 2:We're going to go deep into this, but let's first start with an overview. Remember that our audience is parents of adult children. From that perspective, what is some of the information they need to know about the changing climate of pregnancies? Let's talk about men and women, and most young adults now, everyone we've talked to are not getting married till their thirties. Right, We've raised our daughters to get careers to be doctors, to be lawyers, to be nurses, to be teachers, and they're pushing ahead for their career and all of a sudden, they turn around. They're 37, 38 years old and they think wait, a minute, I wanted to have a family. So what do we need to understand as parents of this generation?
Speaker 1:That wasn't far off from my story either. I still do have my own business and was doing all of that, and it wasn't for these people that I worked with that were encouraging me to kind of at the water cooler, so to speak, to say to do this, I wouldn't have had the foresight to do that. I wasn't burning yearning for children at that point either. It was more of like I have my 401k, I have my eggs frozen. I don't have a man.
Speaker 2:Check the more of like. I have my 401k, I have my eggs frozen. Don't have a man check the box and move on. I'm not sure you would have frozen your eggs had it not been for your sister's experience. I'm hearing more of it now, but usually not till they're like 35. Are they thinking about freezing their eggs?
Speaker 1:I think none of us really assume that we're going to be in that situation over 35. And we've all heard, no matter how old you are, the 35 number, at least when I was growing up again I'm 48 now it was if you're having a baby over 35, it's probably going to have Down Syndrome or something. It was this big situation of God forbid, you're past that age, you're not going to have a healthy baby. That's something that people ask me on a daily basis. Well, you have three kids, but are they healthy? And yes, they are all very healthy.
Speaker 1:So I think that there's this new conversation with the younger generation now, I would say from 22 to 40, really, of they're having a drink together and they're asking each other have you thought about freezing your eggs? Have you done it yet? What was it like? How much did it cost? How many eggs did you get? How many times did you do it? All these things, because that really is a kind of marker right now for this younger generation of women to say I've done this. It takes the pressure off me trying to find a man on the apps all day and I can build my career and do all these things with having an idea that I might have again this sort of insurance policy for me when I do want to go back to do that.
Speaker 2:I love it. I think it's great. It is great. So let's take us through. I'm a 35-year-old woman. I've decided I want to freeze my eggs. Now. Some of the more progressive companies are covering the cost of this Right. The majority are not. Are covering the cost of this. The majority are not. So I want to know the ballpark upfront costs, storage costs, how many visits, what it takes, what the percentage of eggs you'll typically get, and does it really work when you're 44?
Speaker 1:The nitty gritty let's dig in, get to it. Okay, yes, okay. I love all these details because this is what is important for people to know that they assume it's an easy process. That being said, it's not always as bad as people also think, too right. They think if I'm going to do this or I'm going through IVF, it's going to be this big issue. What the process is, it's basically you go to see a fertility doctor, a reproductive endocrinologist. They take a look and do a vaginal ultrasound to see how many follicles you have on both sides of your ovaries. That will determine kind of what type of candidate you would be. So let's say you're a 30 year old person but you don't have a lot of follicles. That might mean your AMH is pretty low for your age.
Speaker 2:It's AMH.
Speaker 1:AMH. It's a hormone that indicates how many eggs you have. So you might not have a lot of eggs, but your quality is okay. Ideally you want to have enough at that age. 30 is still considered pretty young and there's no standard of 10 is good or whatnot. Another misconception I'll add in here is people with PCOS. There's a lot of women with PCOS. If you do have PCOS and you're freezing your eggs or going through IVF, you're a great candidate because you get a whole lot of eggs. You can get up to 40%.
Speaker 2:I have no idea what PCOS is either.
Speaker 3:Do you know what it is? Yeah, it's polycystic ovarian syndrome.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, it's actually a metabolic disorder. That's very, very common, but one of the side effects could be fertility issues. I mentioned that just because a lot of people get the diagnosis and they think they're not going to have kids. So essentially, what you're doing when you're going to retrieve or harvest your eggs is you're injecting hormones to your body. It's really not as terrible as it sounds. I always say if I can do it on my own, anybody can do it. Really, what you're doing is signaling to those follicles in your body. We want to bring all the follicles up this month, whereas normally your body would naturally have follicles grow and then one mature egg would come basically up to be fertilized. We're saying we want more than one to come up to grow In this period of 10 days to 12 days. Usually you're taking these injections and your ovaries are starting to grow and your abdominal area is getting heavier, and that's the idea. We want those ovaries to start to get mature to the point where they're going to be able to be extracted. I'll use myself as an example.
Speaker 1:I had 13 eggs that were mature, that were able to be retrieved or harvested out. 11 of those were able to be frozen. So once they take those 13 out. They take a look at them and say are these all good and healthy looking and fine to be frozen? 11 of those were, so you send those away. You pay a monthly storage fee. It's usually around $600 every six months.
Speaker 2:Oh, every six months Okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it depends on what the clinic is. They also can store sperm. So if you're having any sort of male factor issue that you know of, if you're, I want a mom of three boys, so to me that's very near and dear to my heart If you have something that goes on for a health issue, they can also freeze sperm for the same type of way. Storage costs are essentially the same. So once you're ready to use those eggs now this is different. What I say to somebody who is going into doing this now, especially if you're at 35 plus and you're just going to freeze eggs now I would recommend now the numbers aren't so different as they were back then, but I would recommend doing, if you had 10 eggs, fertilizing two of those eggs and fertilizing those.
Speaker 1:I know sounds crazy, but with a sperm donor, and the reason that I say that is because I've seen hundreds of women who get to that point that they finally find their guy at age 42, let's say, or 40, and the eggs that they have aren't able to be fertilized because once they thaw, an egg doesn't thaw as well as a embryo. So if you think of the consistency of an egg, it's mainly water. I should say Mostly, mainly, is what I was trying to get at Versus. An embryo combines with another type of protein substance, so it's a little bit more condensed, for lack of a better term. So when it's thawing the success rate of thawing is a little bit better than it is of an egg. So if I were to do it again, I probably would have said let's just have two embryos as well, just in case all else failed. Then at least we would have something that had my genetic makeup there versus not. Have you had clients that have?
Speaker 2:done that I have. How does the then future possible husband react? I guess all that has to be talked about upfront before they decide to get married and such right.
Speaker 1:Yes, this one client I'm thinking of right now she did this on her own met. The guy later went through three or four rounds of IVF with the new guy hoping that they could get one. They couldn't get a healthy fertilized embryo, so she had this one baby girl embryo that she had in the old state that she lived in prior to meeting this guy and he was very, very happy to be a dad to this embryo that she was able to get, I just got chills.
Speaker 3:I know it's remarkable. It's amazing what our science is on all of this. It's amazing.
Speaker 2:First of all, you were lucky. It sounds to me that you had 13 and 11 took. Let's say you have 13 and three take. Do you go back again and try again? Do you try a couple times to get as many as you can, or is it typically one one and done?
Speaker 1:Most women have a number in their head of whatever it is that they wanted. I didn't know anything about this at that time so I was like, okay, thanks, bye. You know, it sounds good to me. I didn't know the attrition and understand all of that either at that point. But most people yes, if they got three, they probably would do another round. The only thing that I would caution against doing another round right back to back is our eggs go through an egg wave cycle.
Speaker 1:Most OBs or fertility doctors don't really say that we have the ability to affect change to our eggs.
Speaker 1:We're born with our eggs. They are in our mother's womb when we are fetuses but, just like any other cell in our body, we can affect change to that, depending on our stress level, what supplements we're taking, what our environment is, et cetera. So every 120 to 150 days our eggs are affected by what we've been doing. So if I've been taking supplements that help my fertility, I want to make sure that I'm taking those in a window 120 to 150 days prior to my egg retrieval. So if I have an egg retrieval and it doesn't go so well, I don't want to do mine right back to back. I want to wait 120 days at least, so I can try to do everything good again, so to speak, if I missed it that first time, and just see, does the next batch come up better after 120 to 150 days? It may or may not, it just depends. But knowing what our body goes through and that the eggs are affected by what we do in that timeframe, I certainly would do that if it were me.
Speaker 2:How much does it cost Each time you go about? How much? What's the total? We know that storage is about $100 a month approximately. These are all ballpark figures. We get that.
Speaker 1:Right. So a lot of clinics are doing deals, so to speak, now, because it is becoming so popular. There's chains that are coming across the country that are doing this. My big thing.
Speaker 1:When you're doing egg retrieval or any of this, you want to make sure that the lab is good, so you want to ask the statistics for their labs that they use. Not only is it what the statistics are for the lab in general, but what is it for the person my age doing this? Right, because I don't want to know all the 20-year-olds that are coming through the door, or all the 30-year-olds, for that matter. If I'm 37 doing this, what is your statistics for that? So you want to ask what the stats are on the lab, and you can also find those online, but they're generally very open to sharing that with you, just like anything other major health-wise that you're doing. You don't necessarily want to look for the deal in doing this, because this is going to be something that's stored long-term and you want to make sure that they know what they're doing. They've been doing this a long time and it's your egg they give you later.
Speaker 2:All these television shows. It's a little scary, but anyway go ahead.
Speaker 1:Trust me, there's always that question of like how do I know for sure?
Speaker 1:They are coming up with a lot of new regulations to make sure that, even more so than before, that everything's cross-referenced. Anyway, back to your cost. It can range from anywhere from $10,000 to $15,000 just for the egg freezing. If you're getting them sent out as embryos for testing, then they usually will say we'll test five embryos for $2,500,. Let's say, now, if you're somebody that has 20 to 40 eggs retrieved and you're getting a lot of embryos, has 20 to 40 eggs retrieved and you're getting a lot of embryos, that could be pretty costly. I've had people that have had 40 eggs retrieved and 30 eggs fertilized and only one has come back normal. What do you mean by come back normal? They take parts of the cells out of the embryo to test and send it to a genetic testing to see are all the chromosomes okay.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay, they can do that that early on.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, wow, wow. And a lot of people think that when they say we're testing the embryos, that the embryos are getting sent away, they're not. They take very, very microscopic pinches essentially from the embryos and send those bits of cells out. So your embryo actually stays at the clinic and the cells go to get tested. Because some people have been talking about well, I don't want my embryos being sent across the country. They're not.
Speaker 2:Let me just ask you a question. When you say 10 to 15,000, if you go back for a second time, that's another 10 to 15,000? Correct? Then when you get to the point so you've met your fellow or woman.
Speaker 1:How much then is the IVF procedure Now that going through IVF, which it would be the transfer at that point? So you go through the thawing, making sure the eggs and or embryos thaw well, and that's where you really fall into a lot of attrition. So again, I'll use myself as an example. I had the 11 frozen a lot of attrition. So again, I'll use myself as an example. I had the 11 frozen.
Speaker 1:When we went to go thaw out those 11 eggs, eight did not make the thaw, so I only had three eggs that were available to actually fertilize with my husband's sperm. Of those three, they did not make it to blast, and what that means is you want to keep them dividing for five to six days and it's called to blastocysts so that you know that it's going to be viable. We didn't even make it to that. So of my 11 eggs, I had nothing to show for that. It wasn't insurance at all, it was not. That's why I want people to understand how every step of this process works, so you can anticipate that. I remember hearing that news. I was in line at the DMV and it was like a kick to my gut, like what do you mean? None of them are available. I've been.
Speaker 2:I mean-.
Speaker 3:Pounding on this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yes.
Speaker 3:And spends a lot of money.
Speaker 2:Wow, my guess is it's going to get better and better, but I always thought so. If they have this whole egg freezing technique and really our eggs are probably the best at about 18, 17, why aren't we all just getting them frozen at 17? You could do that, and who knows if they're going to be 30 years later, if they're going to even be okay.
Speaker 1:The benefit if you're doing it at 18, you probably would get again 40 eggs at that point, so your chances of the attrition would be better. I do think that the technology is going to continue to get better and better, but at the end of the day, when you are thawing out a cell that's mainly made of water, you do take that risk that it's not going to thaw the way that we want it to, so to speak. And it's interesting, you see, a lot of clinics will show the timeline of an embryo that you can see that and it's fascinating to watch it and how it divides and how it grows and what's happening. It really makes a lot of sense when, visually, you can see. Okay, I understand now why that didn't thaw, because it is mainly water. I guess from a scientific perspective, I say, at least didn't thaw because it is mainly water. I guess from a scientific perspective, I say, at least if you had one embryo frozen, the thawing of that is slightly better because of the consistency of what an embryo versus an egg is.
Speaker 2:So let's go to the cost of the IVF. And then I have another question about your embryos and eggs.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so the cost of the IVF is a little bit, or the transfer portion of IVF is a little bit different. So at that point you have your embryos, you have it tested.
Speaker 2:When you say you have your embryos, is it the place where you went to have them frozen? And then they transfer them to wherever you're going to have them inserted by another doctor.
Speaker 1:So when I say transfer, meaning transferred inside of your uterus, oh okay, I'm transferred to another clinic. No, but you can transfer to another clinic. I'm glad you brought that up because a lot of people think well, my embryo is in California and now I live in New York and I can't do this or Wyoming you can. It happens every day actually across the world. They package them up in a special casing and send them away. If you do move or you do want to change doctors, it's totally fine. In fact I advocate that all the time because people feel that they're obligated to stay where they were at and you don't need to do that.
Speaker 1:Once you decide where you guys are going to land, which doctor you want to do this with, you have what's called an embryo transfer, where they would then transfer that embryo into your uterus, that portion of it. It's pretty simple. You do much less medication going into it. But basically what you're trying to do is match your cycle to when you would naturally get pregnant and get your uterine lining thick enough, usually to an eight millimeter minimum, so that the embryo can implant there. It's a lot less invasive than it is for the actual retrieval itself. It's more of just lay back on the table.
Speaker 2:You're doing all a little bit of the work, but you have to give yourself those shots. Yeah, not as much.
Speaker 1:The worst shot of the embryo transfer itself is sometimes you have to take a progesterone shot, those PIO injections that's what you see on TV or online. That's the pretty big needle. That's not the best, but there's a lot of tips and tricks out there that you can work yourself around how to do it well and all of that. So again, don't get nervous about that. If you're listening and or doing the retrieval, a lot of people say, oh, I'm going to gain weight, I'm going to do this, I don't want all the hormones in my body. Our bodies are amazing.
Speaker 1:Not everybody gains weight. I didn't gain weight from doing my round. I think a lot of people don't. It just depends on what else is going on in your life. You can also do very gentle detoxes after to get those additional hormones out of your body after. But you definitely wanna work with somebody who can walk you through that, because already your body's in a shock of you basically telling it to switch on to produce all these eggs. You wanna be super gentle with coming off of any of those hormones and what you're trying to push out of your body after.
Speaker 2:Okay, it's a simple procedure, but how much does it cost?
Speaker 1:It's about yeah, it can run anywhere from, again, 10 to 25,000, depending on 10 to 25,000.
Speaker 2:So if they do it once and it fails, you're back again. That's why they say sometimes people spend up to a hundred thousand dollars trying to conceive a child this way. Okay, so now I have sort of a sensitive question. I'm thinking about these frozen eggs, I'm thinking about these frozen embryos and I'm thinking about our political climate today. What are we doing with these things? Now, we don't have any rights to these either. What's the story on that?
Speaker 1:Oh, it's a tough, tough, sensitive situation. Ultimately, the situations that have come up in Alabama and in California recently are really sad for the families that had to go through that. My personal opinion is, because we've had some dysregulation with some of the clinics doesn't mean that everybody else has to suffer from that, because the amazingness of IVF and the technology that we have right now is helping millions of people every single day. Whether you're in a same-sex marriage or whatever you are. The people that are not able to have children. There's one in six of couples in our country. That's a lot of people.
Speaker 1:Traditionally the embryos that if somebody had 10 embryos that they weren't using, for example, they could make a choice to donate those embryos. There's also something called embryo adoption. So you go through the same legal situation as you would. You would have an attorney, you would write up the paperwork and whatever. There's a lot of people that cannot make an egg or have sperm issues, and so they go this route. If we're to go away from saying that people are not able to do that, then really I don't know To say that these embryos are people that's a stretch to me and that these doctors are committing murder.
Speaker 1:I personally don't agree with that and I am all about. I don't think that abortion should be used as birth control and all of those things, but I also think that we need to understand fully what this means. I think the people that are making the decisions again just my opinion are not fully educated on what every detail of this means. They're not blanket statements. They're an and or situation in most cases. I think, if you're talking to a doctor or you're in an area where you feel not super supported in planning your family, there's a lot of clinics and a lot of doctors that are willing to help you and find areas that can help you, and or talk to a coach or something.
Speaker 1:And back to your comments and questions about the cost. There are so many grant programs now. There are so many loan programs that are just for fertility. They did not used to exist before. Do not give up hope. There's a lot of companies like Amazon and Starbucks. You only have 20 hours a week to get full fertility benefits, so there's a lot of women that are actually working two jobs just to get this happening and then quit that. There's a lot of ways to figure out how to do it, but don't give up hope if that's where, when we finish the interview, would you mind emailing me some of the sites that people can go to for these grants?
Speaker 2:It might be helpful to share on our listener notes. At the end I want to get to why you think it's important to have a coach, a fertility coach, because this is something I had never heard of before. I'd like to know what some of the benefits are, but I also want to make sure we've covered everything with egg freezing.
Speaker 1:Are there any other questions people might have In some states? If you do come across having health issues that are making you concerned about your egg fertility for future, there are states now it's happening very quickly where they are approving your egg freezing as part of your medical care. So ask your doctor if you have anything going on. I would certainly raise your hand and say I'm a little bit uncomfortable of how this might affect my fertility later. If I have to take a certain medication, whether that's for autoimmune disease or anything like that, it's definitely worth asking the question in your state.
Speaker 3:My question is actually more on the infertility side. Are you seeing that the infertility numbers have gone up recently, because one in six is significant.
Speaker 1:Yes, I bought a t-shirt, I think in 2020, that was one in eight and now it is one in six. What's going on? That situation where there was a pandemic that happened and not quite reported, probably the way that it should but there's going to be, and has been, a lot of decline since then based on other things that had been happening around that same timeframe with women's health. I think that that, unfortunately, is going to continue to show some side effects down the road, also continue to show some side effects down the road, also not necessarily with infertility, but, to your point earlier, because of the way that the world is. A lot of this younger generation is saying I don't want to bring a child into this world right now, in the way that this is or it's too expensive, and so they're kind of like I don't even know if I want to have kids, because how am I ever going to afford to have a house when I can't even afford to rent a one bedroom place somewhere? There's a lot of different aspects from that way, but really, the amount of stress that we have, the miscarriage rate the list goes on and on, unfortunately, as to why that number has gone from eight to six in such a short time, and it's worldwide. When you look at the numbers from even 50 years ago too, it's astonishing, especially with men too. Just all the things that have gone on and the amount, really the amount of stress that we're under, which fertility is the same as a stress level as a cancer patient. That's a huge statement, because most people think I can handle this on my own.
Speaker 1:I spoke to a woman this morning. She's been trying since 2016. And she's like I really thought that we could do this on our own. She can barely hold a sentence together because she's so devastated, she's just crushed, because she's just can't take one more loss and one more disappointment. And I think everybody feels in most things in life. I got this, I can do this right, and with fertility it's not something that we've grown up hearing about. Really, you might know one far distant aunt that never had children, but you're not really sure why she didn't or what the deal was or whatever.
Speaker 1:But miscarriages and not able to conceive was never really talked about, nor was it as common, because we lived a different lifestyle back then. It was as for better or worse men went out to work, women were home doing home ec classes in high school and learning how to be wives and do all that sort of stuff. Now we're kind of doing all the things and switched on all the time, so our nervous system is accelerated in fight or flight most of the time now, versus our body knowing okay, this is what I'm meant to do. I'm naturally meant to be doing this or that. The birth control pill. A lot of doctors if you have cramps, if you have acne, whatever, they give you the birth control pill as kind of a fix-all for everything and say there's no long-term effects. The long-term effect is basically you're shutting off a natural system to your body saying don't function the way you're meant to function and then expecting it to function when you want to go off of it.
Speaker 2:How about IUDs? Does that affect anything? Are IUDs as impactful as the pill?
Speaker 1:Now they have a lot of options that are not containing hormones or as many hormones. People will say it's a low dose hormone birth control. Again, my opinion is it's still stopping what we want our body to do. I would rather you be educated on what is cervical mucus, how do you know when you're ovulating, what's happening. Like basically going back to old school where they would say you're either Catholic or you're Mormon if you have 18 kids or whatever.
Speaker 1:Right, because you weren't on birth control, but really understanding your body and understanding your cycle, and that's a whole another conversation that young people are having about understanding their cycle and what that means, because your body functions at different ways within that cycle and there's four, four points to the menstrual cycle and in some points you want you're super productive and you have way more energy and you should be working out harder and doing all the things. Other times it slows down and you technically should be in that flow of your monthly cycle in order to help get a better result when you are trying to conceive. So there's a lot of different reasons but yes, unfortunately the fertility rates are not going away anytime soon, as you're saying this about the coaching.
Speaker 2:it's making me realize that, as I'm speaking to you, you're so knowledgeable and doctors don't always have the time to sit and talk with you the way you are about all of these things. You go to the doctor and the doctor says well, why don't you try this ovulation predictor test or this or that? They aren't as invested as you seem to be in helping someone either overcome whatever it is they're facing, or what are things they can do? What are their options? Now I could see this as very, very valuable because the stress that so many women and couples I don't want to keep saying women, because I have a couple of men questions as well. One is I don't know if this is hearsay. I just heard this at a party, so I don't know if it's true or not. The older the sperm of the man, the more chance there is for autism. Is that true?
Speaker 1:There's not a direct link yet for that. They do know now, though, that over 40, the men's sperm also declines, so we used to think oh, you know who was it? Lots of men, actually.
Speaker 2:Well, Mick Jagger was like 82. Mick Jagger, they're all having them.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, so we have this false sense that the sperm never ages and then actually, over 40, the sperm quality starts to decline, just like any cell. But with sperm it's about a 61-day cycle there. If somebody's been in the hot tubs a lot or doing something they shouldn't be doing, if they're a guy and they want to actually get themselves back on track and do all the right things, you need to wait around 61 to 65 days and you'll get that new batch of sperm that's coming up that's healthier. Interesting In most cases, that's if you don't have anything genetic or something else going on. So how?
Speaker 2:about. There's a hair loss drug called, and I'm not going to pronounce this right. Go ahead. You probably know Finasteride or something.
Speaker 1:I don't know that one, but I do know that there is something that, and an acne drug actually I think that has the same underlying situation that can cause male infertility.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's what I've heard too. I never know whether it's true or not. Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 1:I think if they're putting a warning label on it telling you that, then there probably is some truth to it. I don't know anyone specifically that has had that, but I do know that there are several medications that can interfere with fertility, which is why if you're on medications, it's always important to talk to your doctor to ask if there's any interference whether it's male or female factor in fertility.
Speaker 2:As a counselor, I want to talk a little bit about miscarriage, because this has just happened around me neighbors, friends, cousins. What's the best way for us, as parents, to show support and be empathetic? Someone said to me the other day that she said to her daughter oh, don't worry, you'll have another one. A daughter just said mom, do you not read anything online? That's like the worst thing you should say to me. Let's talk about what we should say.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and she's right. But I also say to those of us that are having losses, to give the people around us that space and grace, because they mean it with love. And I think that's the first and foremost thing to understand about both sides in this situation is it's difficult, it is a death. You are grieving it just like any other death. The issue is we don't often know the reason why, which is for most people that are living walking around. If Uncle Bob dies from a heart attack, we can make sense of that. We know what that means. We have the understanding of that.
Speaker 1:In most cases with miscarriage they're like it's not your fault, they usher you out the back door, Don't worry, Hopefully you'll get pregnant again soon, and none of that feels good to hear in that moment. Everybody's different. I guess to start with is to understand each person that's having the loss is gonna be different. I would say to give those people the space and just let them know I'm here for you when you wanna talk, If you don't wanna talk and you just wanna hug, or if I can drop some food off for you. I just want you to know that I'm here for you. Things like well, at least you got pregnant, Hopefully you'll get pregnant again, those sorts of things. They're not helpful. They don't want to hear that at that time. All they can really focus on is I wanted that pregnancy.
Speaker 1:And the sensitive thing around miscarriage loss is there's very few other traumas that you go through that you need to go back to the scene of that death. Essentially right With a miscarriage, you're going back to where you saw the heartbeat and then where maybe you didn't see the heartbeat, to the same exact location. You're laying down in a vulnerable position. You have an ultrasound most likely a vaginal ultrasound inside of you ultrasound most likely a vaginal ultrasound inside of you, and it's a very traumatic situation to know.
Speaker 1:In one moment you are having the story of your life where you know when your baby's going to be born and you're talking about what car you're going to drive and imagining the car seat in the back and what stroller you're going to buy and all the things. To the next moment, that story is ripped from you. So giving the people around you that are going through this just the space to come to you and letting them know that you are available for them when you need and or, depending on the severity, If you start to see signs in the people around you that they are isolating themselves for longer than a few days, I would say, and or having other signs of really deep depression. I'm also a bereavement doula. There's a lot of different people out there that can help to really know at different times of different losses whether it's a stillborn or a late-term loss. There are different ways to deal with those sorts of losses as well, on top of the early-term losses.
Speaker 2:All losses are hard and it really doesn't matter what week you are. So the person who loses their baby at 10 weeks people go well, it was only 10 weeks. Or someone that loses it at 15, oh well, that's traumatic. Either one is a huge deal to that family and the way that you described it, they see the heartbeat and they imagine the child's life already A hundred percent.
Speaker 1:The two pink lines that say you're pregnant yeah, that's exactly right, I can't even imagine.
Speaker 2:Oh gosh, okay, okay.
Speaker 1:And I think there's a lot of.
Speaker 1:I was talking to my sister this week about people tell you well, if you get to eight weeks or you see a heartbeat, you're in the clear, or the first trimester.
Speaker 1:Unfortunately, now with social media as well, a lot of people know that's not always the case and so they come back to pregnancy with this post-traumatic stress because they feel like when I was at eight weeks last time, or 10 or whatever your marker is, you just have full anxiety and you're not able to really enjoy that pregnancy as you should. If you've experienced a loss before, so being very sensitive to the people around you who have gone through loss that are pregnant again, it's not always this happy, joyous experience. They're going to the bathroom wiping for blood. Every time they go to the bathroom thinking, oh my gosh, is this, is something going on, is something gonna happen? Every cramp, every movement and whatever. And that's another place where a coach can be really helpful to bounce those ideas off and just get that reassurance that everything's okay. Or maybe you do need to go in to get checked out about something. If you're ever unsure, I always say call your OB. And if you have an OB, that isn't really supportive of the post-anxiety find a new one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're right. I also heard a situation where someone I knew's daughter had a miscarry and then weeks later the person called me and said, oh, she's feels a little bit relieved because they sent the I don't know material or whatever off and they found that this baby wasn't, it was genetically de Chromosome for office Chromosome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it did what it was supposed to do and that actually made the mom and dad feel a little better that their body did what it was supposed to do. Have they been able to do that for a long time? Am I just out of the loop?
Speaker 1:They can do that. How that happens, though, is only if you're having a DNC, which is you go and that's what she had. Yeah, okay, yeah. So you have a miscarriage, you go to your doctor, and then they schedule what's called a DNC, and that basically where they. They put you under and they take the tissue out of your uterus, and then they can test that tissue and send it away to see what. What was going on. Was it genetically abnormal? Was there a chromosome issue? And a lot of times, it will come back that it, but there's sometimes where it doesn't Anything.
Speaker 1:Over two miscarriages, they can do what's called a recurring loss panel.
Speaker 1:You don't always get an answer from that, but I always tell people do it anyway, right, in hopes that maybe you will, because maybe that'll be the answer.
Speaker 1:Maybe your body's having an issue with clotting blood or something, or maybe, when you, your embryo is trying to implant, it thinks that it is a blood clot, and it attacks it. So there's a lot of different things that can come up in those panels, but oftentimes they come back that everything's normal, but at least you can eliminate those things that are on that test. But, yes, it's pretty common, if you have a miscarriage that you can have the DNC and get that tested. Some people choose not to get it tested. If you miscarry at home unfortunately in the toilet or something like that then obviously you're not going to be able to test it. Sometimes people go and try to retrieve it from the toilet and things to take it back to their doctor's offices. You have to have a certain amount of margin of tissue for them to be able to test, so that's not always the case that you're able to do that, so not every miscarriage.
Speaker 2:they have to have a DNC afterwards.
Speaker 1:No, there's also a pill that you could take, so people some people don't want to do the surgery so there's a pill you can take that basically helps you to pass it at home, and some people say it's super easy. Some people say it's very, very painful. Again, doctors don't really tell you what to be prepared for. With that, I always give worst case scenario, just so you know what to expect. And if it's better than that, hooray. But if it's not, at least you know this is all normal and this is what could be happening.
Speaker 3:What strikes me about some of this is that doctors really are not telling their patients a lot of the stuff that you're sharing, whether it's with miscarriages or the egg retrieval, infertility, they're not telling us enough. And is that just another symptom of women's healthcare in general, or is it a time factor? I mean, what the heck? That's just wrong.
Speaker 1:It is. It's hard, hard and it's frustrating to me because I hear either they're in and out in 10 minutes from the doctor's offices or they just don't mention any of these things, and unless we prime them with the questions going in and then they'll open that conversation, I would say, as a whole, I love MD doctors. I'm not somebody that's like oh, we only see naturopaths, or we only see that. I think there's a reason that they go to medical school, and nurses too, for that matter, like they know amazing information, and everybody, though, has their specialty, and that's why I say a reproductive endocrinologist, a fertility doctor, has their specialty, and that's why I say a reproductive endocrinologist, a fertility doctor, don't be afraid to go there. That is the specialty doctor for fertility. So if you're trying to get pregnant, I would say, go to the fertility doctor rather than an OB. The OB is amazing, but they study a different specialty than fertility specifically. Right, so you'll want to go to the OB once you're good and ready to go, at your eight to 12 week point in pregnancy, but before that, you really want to talk to somebody who. That's what they specialize in, day in, day out, and I think some people have this idea. Well, I can't go to a fertility doctor because that means I'm going to do IVF or they're going to say I have to go down this road. No, you just want to get the lay of the land by a specialty doctor. Right, I'm not going to go to an orthopedic doctor to have them look at something that's not related to that Same thing here. And I think people think, oh well, I'm going to the OB and they cover all of this. They really don't. That's not their area of specialty. So, keeping that in mind, that everybody studies in a specific area. So, keeping that in mind, that everybody studies in a specific area, Now I think that there's this new generation of doctors coming up that is really more connected to their patients.
Speaker 1:They realize that the patients are coming in, are very well educated, whether they're self-educating online, like we didn't have previously, or from their friends and family. They're having these conversations more openly than they used to. So I say to the doctors that I work with be prepared, because most of these people are friends and family. They're having these conversations more openly than they used to. So I say to the doctors that I work with be prepared, because most of these people are coming in with their list of questions and they're going to want to know some good answers.
Speaker 1:I do think that there's a shift coming in, that the thing is they don't study supplements in med school. They don't study chinese medicine in med school. They study, study very specific things. Even the fertility doctors. They want their statistics to be good. What they are good at is taking the sperm and the egg and putting that together and getting you pregnant. From that perspective.
Speaker 1:Now, if they're being asked about supplements and this and that they're not really going to say because they don't spend their time looking at the statistics and what's happening around supplementation with fertility, they just want to know can they do X, y and Z? Like my own doctor, for example, I wanted to do a round of IUI, which, for layman's terms, is like the turkey baster, right, and he said the stats of me getting you pregnant are too low. On that I don't do that. He's like I can get the sperm up there, but I can't guarantee it's going to meet the egg. If I have them in a dish, I can guarantee it's going to be fertilized. From that perspective, he was watching out for not only me too, in a sense, but he was like we're much more likely to have an embryo coming out of IVF rather than IUI, so think of where they're coming from too.
Speaker 2:I guess is when you're visiting these doctors Before we wrap up because we're getting time here, but you keep mentioning supplements. Are there three or four supplements that you would recommend for people trying to conceive?
Speaker 1:Yes, and a lot of these are same for men too, and a lot of them are going to be your basic. My top three really are the basic vitamin C. Vitamin D is super, super key to fertility. So my thing that I tell people right when they come in the door check your vitamin D and your thyroid, make sure that those two are where they need to be. Mainly for women, thyroid's less likely of an issue for men. So vitamin D, vitamin C, coq10 for both men and women is really really helpful for egg quality and sperm quality, and then zinc. We're basically treating our cells our sperm and eggs, as cells, so these things really are like the antioxidants and building up the quality of these.
Speaker 1:There's a whole laundry list of supplements for fertility online that you can find NAC, alpha-phytochloric acid. I'm getting a tongue twister. There are so many. You wanna know and work with somebody who can say look at your blood work and say you don't need this, you do need this, you need to up that, you need to take that away. B vitamin, for example, some people can't metabolize that, so it should be folate or vice versa. So there's certain things that you definitely want to be.
Speaker 1:Most people come to me and they're over supplementing If your body doesn't need it. It's working harder to metabolize something it doesn't need. Get to the basics and figure out what you need. If you're doing an egg retrieval, it's important to keep the cell growth of your eggs healthy. If you're just doing a transfer because you have frozen eggs from years ago, you don't need the CoQ10 because you already have your eggs already done. It really depends on where you're at in your journey. There is definitely a lot of supplements out there on the market and you have to be careful because it's a big industry right now. So if you're in the aisle at CVS, you see a ton of supplements that are called prenatal vitamins.
Speaker 1:Right right Prenatal vitamin alone is not enough. You definitely need to have more than that, and that's where you would work with somebody to see what are the right levels for me to get. That's actually going to get me where I need to be to conceive a healthy baby. Not only do we want to conceive, but we want to keep that baby healthy.
Speaker 2:We always ask our guests to leave us with two things we want our listeners to remember. So we're going to ask you that in a minute, but before we get to that, is there anything we didn't cover here that you think?
Speaker 1:parents of adult children need to know about what their kids might be going through. I think just the numbers of the reality of it. One in six couples are going through fertility. One in four that we know of is going through a loss. So, whether it's your own children or your children's friends, somebody is dealing with it. So having those open conversations to know that if they go down this road it's common they don't have to feel like they're alone in this and find somebody to talk to who's gone through it, to find that hope I think that was the biggest thing for me. I wanted to know that somebody went through this and went on to have children that were healthy and fine. It doesn't mean just because you've had one loss or you're struggling, that you're not going to have the full family that you want to have.
Speaker 2:Now we want to ask for your two takeaways. Is there anything in addition to that you want to add? From everything we've talked about? What do you want our listeners to really remember?
Speaker 1:I think, to get in tune with your body, to really know your cycle and know your body and advocate for yourself every step of the way, regardless of whether you're trying to have a baby now or 10 years from now. No, everything that's going on with your body. Like I mentioned earlier the cervical mucus I know it's a weird thing to talk about, but that is a really top indicator for your cycle. I'd rather know 10 years earlier than I'm trying to get pregnant that there's some sort of problem. And if you're on the pill, figure out what is my plan going to be when I'm off.
Speaker 1:We're always so concerned with eating organic food, but yet we're stopping our body's regular systems in some sense. The menstrual cycle whether we're young or older, even after we stop having a menstrual cycle is a sixth vital sign of our body. It tells us the health of our body. So it's really really important to get in tune with that. That's probably my number one takeaway from that. And then, for the guys that have girls, be open to having those conversations.
Speaker 1:This is just a normal part of being a human female and male and having those conversations early rather than later and understanding okay, that's just normal and this is what we go through, and the more I learn, the more I'm educated, the more we can come together and support each other. If we ever go down this road, or if we have friends going down this road, we can understand what's happening, because you mentioned briefly earlier that it's difficult on couples. It really is, but you're not alone. Having sex on a time cycle when you're ovulating, everybody gets stressed about it. You're not the only one, and you will get to the other side, I think is the other thing. When you're in it, it feels like it's forever, but I promise you you will get to the other side.
Speaker 2:Don't you want to add get a coach if you're stressed out?
Speaker 1:Well, of course, get a coach if you're stressed out about it. Yeah, don't underestimate having a coach. Harvard actually did a study on cognitive behavioral therapy during fertility and you're 55% more likely to conceive if you're doing some sort of work during that time. I think that's very true.
Speaker 3:I wish I had had it. I had. I wish that I had had somebody to help me through that, because people would say to you well, just calm down, you just need to de-stress you, just like, really that's not helping me.
Speaker 1:Right, and then you're stressed about being stressed right.
Speaker 2:Well, I saw my first therapist ever when I was pregnant, because the responsibility that I felt for this baby just took over my life and I needed someone. Too bad you weren't around. I went to someone who wasn't really trained, but she did a great job. Anyway, Elizabeth, thank you so much. I learned so much. I don't know about you, Kirsten.
Speaker 3:I did too. It was really really great Very special.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm so honored to be here and I'm so grateful that you guys are teaching your adult children and educating your peers around this, because it's almost a lost generation, I feel, age of people not talking about it, so I'm really excited that we had this conversation today. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Well, that's a wrap. I found that so interesting and I apologize to anyone listening if I sounded really stupid that I didn't know very much about this, and I think, as Kirsten said at the beginning, it's an entirely different landscape, and boy was she full of information.
Speaker 3:It was a great episode. I learned so much and I've been through some of this stuff. So, even having been through some of it, I learned a lot and things have changed. And technology and science, I mean it's amazing. Quite honestly, I thought that some of the statistics she shared were shocking and a little scary, but we're armed with the tools we need. Maybe we can make some differences and shift those numbers.
Speaker 2:Well, and that's what I loved about it. There's more people to talk to, not always just your OBGYN, not always just the fertility doctor, but having a coach like that to really walk you through what questions you should be asking can be very, very helpful. I hope everyone else enjoyed it as much as we did, and I'm going to encourage all of you again to visit our website at biteyourtonguepodcastcom. Please donate a little bit of money for us For $5, you can buy us a virtual cup of coffee or become a sustaining member for only $60 a year, thanks to Connie Gort Fisher, our audio engineer. Maybe in this case we shouldn't be biting our tongues. We should be really having this conversation with our kids. But in most cases, kirsten, what do we have to do? Sometimes you just have to bite your tongue.
