Claiming Our Space & What's the deal with Fertility?

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the Blindian Brown Girls podcast. That's right. We claimed our name if you didn't know. We're the Blindian Brown Girls.

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We started with that idea, but we were just testing it out for a little while, which is why you never heard us say welcome to the Blindian Brown Girls podcast.

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But

here we are. Claiming our space in the podcast world.

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It's a very exciting

day.

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So we

were just discussing, you know, what we're going to talk about today, because we come on here sometimes and we're just ready to chat. I think that's like the most organic and natural way that people interact with each other. So I was saying, Tomatma, that I am so curious about her work. And I think it's something that's super helpful for everybody to hear about, whether you are struggling with fertility or not struggling with fertility, if you plan to be a parent or if you even are a parent. Just some of the layers of, you know, it's not just, I'm sure, the fertility portion itself. I'm sure you see so much more nuance with the relationships and the individuals. And so I'm curious, one, how, you know, we talked a little bit earlier on in one of our earlier episodes about how you sort of naturally found your way into this space. But I'd love to go a little bit deeper and learn more from you about your experience yourself and how you moved into this space, claimed it, and how you help people. And, you know, what are some of the things that you see? So

wherever you want to start, tell me. Tell me all. So we touched on it early on. I kind of came into it because of my own story and my own, like, questions around if I was with the right guy and did I really want to get pregnant with him? And like following my intuition, which tends to come up in our podcast a lot.

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So I ended up, and actually we didn't, maybe the piece that I didn't touch on was I was simultaneously in these like business coaching programs that like literally this teacher, like every time you go on stage, she's like, "Find your niche. Claim your niche." And I'm like, "Ahh!"

And I like twirled my eyes, right? Because at

that time I was a woman's health doctor. I did everything. And literally, like, the irony is that I had never seen a fertility person in my life.

That is amazing.

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So I was like four or five years into my career and never worked with a fertility person. Lots of hormone imbalance, lots of like PCOS and in each of these, like everything surrounding fertility, but no one specifically that was like taking you home to get pregnant.

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So it was a little bit like, "What?" And then every time he would say niche, fertility would like pop into my head uncontrollably. Amazing. It wasn't like an intentional like, "Oh, I'm thinking of that fertility." It was just like fertility.

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Wow. And I was like,

"Oh my God, this cannot be real." Or who's A, who the freak am I?

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I'm not even doing

this.

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But I knew that I was doing so much research in it that I had a lot of ideas. And I had a lot of actually like, I didn't highlight at the fact that women has been strategically and systematically lied to for most of our lives.

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And I don't know if you know this, experienced this, but our women's health education in school is pretty nominal.

Yeah, I can't even remember. Like honestly what they told us. And like

even medical school taught us that fertility dropped off of the cliff at 35.(...) I traced that myth. It is, in my mind, it is completely a myth. That's amazing.

I traced it back

all the way to the: 1800

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. Oh my goodness. So: 1800

And is like the lifeline to our future.

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Exactly. Like this is our future. Women's fertility is the future of this planet. Exactly. Okay. That is... Wow. I don't even like, I don't even have words right now. Right. So this was my experience as I was going through all the research. I was like, "What the hell? What the hell? What the f..." Like I just couldn't stop being in this like what the fuck mode for a long number of months. And then I just started telling women about it. And they were like, "What the fuck? Like why are we not talking?"

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And so like because of this crucial foundation, like that is the myth that all of the fertility world is founded on. So we think of it as a pyramid and the foundation is whack.

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I don't know if I remember. This is not science.(...) Yet everything you do, you claim is science.(...) Then I'm sorry. Oh wow.(...) Yeah. Right. So there's... What are you building on? Freeze your egg.(...) Your fertility drops off of a cliff at 35. Freeze your egg. Your fertility drops off of a cliff at 35. You can't get pregnant. Go to the IVF clinic. Like everything that we are telling women to do is based on this myth.(...) And doctors are getting worse.

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I've talked to women that are like 32.(...) There was a woman, I am thinking of a woman, 32. She had been through nine IVF cycles. At 32? At 32. She started at 30. So in that two year period, she's been through nine cycles at three different IVF clinics. Oh my god. And like I'm talking to her, my heart is breaking because it's only 32. And like what was that doing to her body and just her like belief in what was possible for her? Exactly. So all of that, like she's telling me her whole story.(...) And I'm literally like weeping. Right? Because like every doctor that she had been through, too, in those two, three years, had told her it was her age.

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And? At 32? At 32.

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Yeah, like at 30 because she started at 30. So like, wow.(...) At 30, she did her first IVF cycle and then two years to doing those nine cycles at three different clinics. She had talked to maybe like 10,(...) 12 different doctors. And literally every single one said, oh, it's your age. It's your egg quality.

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And the reason I was weeping is because she's telling me the stats. This woman like had memorized every single thing because she's talked to so many doctors. Yeah. And she's so invested in it. In this cycle, we retrieved this many eggs, this many turned to embryos, this many turned to day five embryos. So she like had the whole map.(...) And I'm looking at I was writing all of it down and I'm like looking at the graph and I'm like, literally, every time they introduce the sperm, the numbers just take like your every like, she didn't get any embryos out of it. And I'm like, it's the sperm.

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Wow. It's the sperm. It's not you. It's not your age. It's not your hormones. Wow. And she was like, what? And then she starts crying. She's like, literally no one has ever tested the sperm. Oh my. What?

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She's like, one doctor, what? What? Tested the sperm, said it was normal. And that was it.

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I'm looking at his sperm. And I'm like, they look okay. But did they do a DNA fragmentation test? Did they do other tests on this man? Because there is no way your hormones are optimal and they're retrieving plenty of eggs. They were getting like 20 eggs in each cycle. So no, it's not your freaking age. Okay. Give me some context because I don't know. Like, is that a lot? Is that a little? Oh, okay. Like, I have no idea. It sounds amazing.(...) Okay. That sounds very favorable. Yeah. And for her age, it's really good. But then they would end with like two or three embryos, which is like problematic. Right. Okay. Okay. Out of 20, we want to get at least 10 of them turned into embryos. That's a good ratio. Okay. When it's less than half, I'm thinking something's wrong there. Gotcha.

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Okay. So after analyzing her whole case, I was like, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm very convinced that it's the sperm. You need to talk one doctor into doing DNA fragmentation or just before it yourself. Right. And she wrote me back a month later and she was like, you're completely right. The DNA fragmentation is so beyond anything that they expected. Wow. And thank you so much.(...) Wow.(...) So it's like, it blows my mind that we think it's okay to tell women that it's their age when we know there are plenty of women that get pregnant over 35. Oh my God. I have completely normal healthy pregnancy. Yes.(...) But it's like, because this myth is so prevalent and so entrenched in everything that fertility doctors do, it's default to age when they can't figure out the life. But the problem is, who's looking at all of the pieces?(...) Who's looking at not only the physical, but the emotional pieces?(...) How stressed out is this woman? How stressed out is this couple? Is this man living a healthy life? Do they have a healthy relationship? Which are all factors in whether or not they're going to get pregnant. There was another couple that had the guy was super resentful to the woman. This is probably like seven or eight years ago now.(...) And luckily, like I used to do a pregnancy on Saturdays. Yes. Yep. And they're coming in on a Saturday morning. So I was like, Okay, I'll be done in an hour or two.(...) This couple was in my office for seven hours. What? Seven hours. We did not stop. I just like, sat there and held space because they were completely having it out. He was like, in front of you. Yeah. Like, he was resentful. He was getting pregnant. He was like, I wanted to have I want to have three kids. I wanted to start five years ago. We've been married for 12 years or something like that. It was her fault. So yeah, so he was like, super upset about it. And I was like, Okay,(...) y'all are gonna need to figure out if you're staying together before we support for totally. Absolutely. Oh my god.

Can we just take a small mini break to talk about the fact that we're not going to have a family.

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Yeah. And I think there is this no, luckily, like not too many couples have come in that way.

Most of them are like, happily in love and like, they're trying to work through this and figure it out.

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Child to like be the expression of their love and all that. But this couple, she wasn't trying to save her marriage necessarily. She's like, I'm really clear on who I am. I didn't want kids. I didn't want kids back then. Sorry.

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Like,(...) I don't feel apologetic about it. She was like really strong in her sense. And I was like, Yeah, go you but also I understand his resentment. Yeah, but you know, that's something that they should have figured out before coming to the table in front of you, right? Because if he had a relationship with her, he would have a relationship with her. Yeah,

but you know, that's something that they should have figured out before coming to the table in front of you, right? Because if he has all this past resentment, and she's still unsure whether this is where she I mean, that's a huge burden to place on somebody who doesn't want that for themselves. I mean, a child is like a lifelong commitment and a different way like the man could go, but the kids can be there.

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Totally. So

that's like such unfair pressure put on her as well, which I imagine was part of the problem.

Yeah, it was a lot of the

problem and a lot of the conversation and she had a whole baggage of fear around childbirth.(...)

So

I do like some funky stuff. And we chase that fear all the way back to like three lifetimes ago or something where she actually died of child birth. Oh, wow. She was like, feeling that fear.(...) She's eating her spirit.

I understand it. I understand it. I believe in

that as well. Oh my god.

Okay, hold on. I need to know more about that. Because yeah, that's got to be, you know, for me, I'm like, Oh, yeah, that makes sense.

But like, I understanding that for many, I'm like, I'm not going to be able to do that.

For many people, this is beyond their scope of belief, their scope of what they've been exposed to. Like, so how did she receive that?

She, well,(...) I was like, Listen, I know your background, I know your religion.(...) So the way that I phrased it wasn't even like a past lifetime, it was more like, you energetically are resonating with the,(...) all of the women that have died in childbirth. There are so many of us that have died in childbirth. Right. That have died in childbirth, right? So it wasn't a unique experience, especially if we think about like 200 years ago, like, that was a common thing.(...) So which

is blows my mind, which hold on just real quick. I just want to say, like, yeah, you know, 200 years ago, but child, I think we also minimize what the woman's body does. And what we are the fact that we have an entire human growing inside of us that we then put out into the world, like, can we just take a moment and just appreciate what our bodies do? It's incredible. It's incredible. I think

the first time I learned about the development of embryo, embryo conception, embryo,(...) to like, full on human being that's going to be born, like, that journey is incredible. Yes.

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Incredible. And all of the things that, and I'm not even gonna put it out here, but there are a lot of things that can go wrong. Along that path.(...) And I just was like, in tears that there are so many children on this planet.(...) So the fact that we as a human species have survived for this long, and that we are procreating

continuously, some of us more than others in India. For

example, but but to believe it or not, like, there are some myths around that, like, India,

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black women,(...) black men.(...) There is a belief system that we are uber fertile. Oh,(...)

that that the fertility is different, like our level of fertility.

Yeah. There's actually, what did I read about this? There is a study that showed that doctors responded differently to black women coming in and saying that they were struggling with fertility than white women. I can understand that.

And of course, there's a completely understand that bias in women's health in general.(...) But there's this belief of like, oh, no, you'll be fine. You're okay.(...) It's all good.

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And similarly, like we think, oh, India is like super fertile. And I'm curious, I'm gonna look this up now. I'm curious if fertility rates are dropping off in India. My sense is, yes.

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Probably. Yeah. So even though we do have, like, an overpopulation problem in India, the numbers are,

are, yeah, yeah, I'm not sure, like, for me, that my perspective on that has anything to do with fertility more than we already are an overpopulated nation who then is procreating even if you have one, you're at a high level of fertility. Yeah. But yeah, I didn't, I never thought of it from that perspective, but it makes so much sense that you would say that there is a perception that I think just in general, that black people are super fertile and they procreate like without being able to do that.

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And, you know, it goes along with the bias and the stereotype that, you know, there's a lot of children, you know, seeds spun out here in the world, which I completely admit is not true people. But interesting because I think what we see is that we have a lot of people who are like, oh, I'm not sure what they're talking about.

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Right. Yeah. So I think it's something that we just, I don't know the??? How do you say I think you know best fits in this problem. Yeah. Right. How do youait that emotion that you're trying to benefit from the likesovias dad into the cold universally. Same thing with I think mental health and seeking support. People very much have this idea that that's for white people.

That's not for us.

Right. And I think the other part of it is like a lot of the services are unaffordable by color. Absolutely. So if you're spending 20 to 30 thousand per IVF cycle,(...) most clinics publish their success rates based on six consecutive cycles.(...)

So

wow, 20

to 180 thousand dollars that you

are getting ready to put in. What are you even saying right now?

Yeah.

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That's how much money people are dropping?

Yes.

On IVF?(...) All right. So what's another way? Because clearly you do it a different way and have had a lot of success doing it like that. So just talk to me a little bit about your process. What does that look like and what makes it vastly different, of course. And as somebody who is very sort of conscious of their own wellness and mental, physical, emotional, all of the things, I know how much of that contributes as a factor to not...and listen, you can get pregnant naturally,(...) and still those factors can affect the growth and development of your baby as well. So just like what is the process? How is it so vastly different and why is that important?

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Yeah. Let's talk about it. So the first thing I'll say is that the IVF approach is basically like, let's take your egg, let's take its sperm, put it together,

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reinsert it, plant the embryo all as well. The way they get the egg is a lot of hormones.(...) And the way they put the embryo back requires many hormones to continue because it's an unnatural way to...

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The body doesn't make 20 eggs in one cycle. It will develop or it will start to develop, but there's usually like a week in, the body's already picked the clean molecule. So then it will put all of its energy into that one molecule instead of supporting 20 to zero.

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Instead of IVF, which is basically like,(...) you have 20 follicles that are like ready to go, we want all of them to develop fully and we want to take all of those out of your body so that we can get... It's the number thing. So if we can get 20 eggs, then we have 20 chances that one of those eggs is going to fertilize into a healthy embryo.

Okay. So many questions. Even just on that. Go for it. Let's

do it.

Because, okay. So, okay.(...) It doesn't sound super basic.

I love it. I love it. I love it because I don't know what the question

is. Yeah. I'm like fascinated by this. So in a natural pregnancy, if I was to get pregnant naturally, so I'm ovulating.

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My body is producing...(...) It's releasing one. Okay. That's the natural body's process. Okay. Now I go to get IVF because I have not been able to naturally get pregnant. I go and now there's 20 follicles, you call them. Okay. Those are eggs.

They're basically eggs that are still

like... Like pre-egg. Pre-egg.(...) Okay. So there's like 20 pre-egg, like follicles. And now those are all getting implanted in...

No, no, no, no, no. Okay, no. They're implanting all of them. Okay. So instead of the body saying, "Hey, we're choosing this follicle to become the clean egg, the clean follicle."

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The doctor that's manipulating your body is saying, "We're gonna give you enough hormones to grow all of

them." Okay, okay. So now my body is into like egg producing overdrive. Yeah. Yes? Yeah.

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Now I'm,(...) you know, not to,

(...)

I'm not saying this to offend anybody, but like now I'm,

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my body is overproducing essentially, unnaturally. Overproducing eggs.(...) And what is that doing to my body? Because that feels very strenuous even just to think about. Like if I'm already going through what I'm going through with one egg every month.

(...)

(Laughs) Right? The

development of 20.

Yeah, like. It's a lot of

energy, right? So I think a lot of people are like,(...) are discounting the fact that this process in and of itself is a burden to say the least, right? Yeah. If you need an exorbitant amount of hormones that they're pushing into you. But you also need an exorbitant amount of nutrients.

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You need extra, like an overabundance of energy that you're gonna get good follicles out of this, right? So what a lot of people don't plan for is

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how are you supporting your body during that time,

right? What are you doing differently? They're not taking time

off. They're not like, I'm gonna like lay on a couch and chill and spend all of my energy. Just letting these. They'll go.(...) They're still working, still doing their life.

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Probably eating the same, probably. Yeah, the same arguments with the partner, the same running after, right, okay.

And simultaneously like pushing their body to the edge. Even further. Yeah. Okay. So, and you won't see it in one cycle because your body can probably handle one retrieval. The retrieval is the part where all the 20 are developed. Uh-huh.

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And then they go in and pluck them.

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Dude. (Laughs) Then they needle up

and they're like, "Boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, let's get them all."

And they then take them out of your body.

Yeah.

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Okay, like, you know, I have a general idea. I am a grown woman in the world, but I've never really thought so deeply about it. And you know, obviously I'm very fortunate and privileged to have not had to think about that, but okay. So now they're taking all of those 20 that they have implanted. Are they only taking what's viable or are they taking everything out?

They just have to take everything out.

They have to take everything out because nothing can be in there.

There's always gonna be, let's say there's gonna be a percentage that didn't really develop. Okay. Even with the hormones. Okay. So they have a cutoff. It's 18 millimeters. So the follicles have to be at or above that size for them to pluck the follicles. Got it. And if it hasn't grown to that size, it remains and your body just naturally sort of expels it? Yeah. Okay. It doesn't even expel it. They just kind of like dissipate. Okay. It disappears. Okay.

The body is fascinating. Which is what our body is doing every

single day.(...) Anyway. Okay.(...)

Cause is our body like,

what the fuck?

(...)

(Laughing) A lot, dude.(...) Is our body saying that? Like, cause

it feels like, you know, if I just was to attach like a third arm over here to my shoulder, my shoulder would be like, what in the world? Like this is extra weight. This is extra burden. Not quite sure what to do with this. Like.

Yeah. Yeah. I

feel like it's a lot. Granted I have not been through it personally,(...) but I feel like it's a huge burden. Okay. All right. And it's very depleting. So women come out of this and honestly, like I feel like if they are going to go through this process, take a freaking break. Right. Don't go from retrieval to transfer a week later. Like that's just, your body's not recreating enough to do that. To do that. Okay.

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Okay. But yes, I agree. It's a lot. I think it's a very masculine approach. It's like, how do I control your hormones? How do I control more of these eggs to grow? And how do I get them all? Like the overachiever hustle culture applied to,

Body.

(...) Okay. So once they're retrieved, right? So now they've been retrieved, whatever has grown to 18 millimeters. And then what?(...)

So they're retrieved, then they go onto the next step. So at that point, the man has already donated his firm.

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They have hopefully vials full of the firm and they will basically put each egg in its own kitchen dish.

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That contributes to the sperm.

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And then the sperm go and do their thing. So they'll put more than one sperm in each dish. So still to a certain extent, we want that survival of the fittest. Okay. The sperm should,

The strongest sperm of the ones that they put in there.

And there's a bypass. So like that's the ideal. If you're gonna do this option, ideally the sperm, one of the sperm is strong enough to like fertilize the egg. Okay. But if not, meaning we already know like the motility is low or morphology is low. Then there's a bypass for it, which is called ICSI.

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Intracytoplasmic blah, blah, blah. (Laughing) And it's basically like going and inject the sperm into the egg. So let me go right through that protective layer that the egg has. So the egg has this, this is the fascinating part. The egg has a shell around it that a sperm has to like navigate to and through to fertilize the egg. That's the protective layer around the egg. So this

is the part that has like, It can't just be anybody.

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(Laughing) I'm free. Yeah, hell yeah. As she should be.(...)

Do you deserve to be free? Right, exactly.(...) So yeah, so theoretically,

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the sperm don't need to do that much work. Like there's an egg and there's hundreds of sperm. Hopefully one of them will find the egg and fertilize it.(...) Okay. And then let's say they got 20 for the sake of like easy math. They got 20 follicles.(...) They,(...) on average, maybe 10 fertilized, like 50% ish. When more than 10, like when more than 50% fertilized, that's really great.(...) So like we've supported people through the IVF cycle process. And there are people that have been through a cycle after cycle, work with us. And then they go on to do another IVF round after.

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And what we, but they'll come back with is like, oh, like out of 20, 18 of them fertilized. Like hell

yeah. Wow.

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That's what we're talking about. Okay. So if you're gonna do the process, how do you optimize each step of the process? Gotcha.

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Cause like why waste your money if you haven't optimized?

(...) Absolutely, absolutely. So you're supporting people through that process as well. If that's what they're choosing to take. Yeah. Okay.

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Most people don't need to, most people don't want to,(...) but we have a lot of high achieving women that are like, screw that, I don't have time to wait. Like I don't have time to wait for the natural pregnancy to happen. I just wanna be pregnant and be done with it. Got it. Like, okay, well we've optimized your hormones, we've optimized your nutrients. We've done all of the things that we can do before they even walk into the clinic. And then through that cycle process, like how do we make sure that we get the best outcome? Best case scenario. So, yeah. Got it, okay. So that's an option. It's not,(...) we can't control it as much because-- Of course.

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Part of the process is literally out of your hands, yeah. Yeah,

but we find that majority of people will do better through the cycles and ideally we want them only going through one cycle. So we're cutting that time down, which most people don't understand, right? They're like, oh, this clinic has amazing success rate, which is like, that's 30%.

(...)

Wow.

(...)

And they're like, oh, it's good. And it's based on six IVF cycles. So 30% based on six cycles is-- That's a terrible, yeah.

(...) That's a shit show. Terrible, that's right. I mean, you would never choose that for any other, like, but it's how they're marketing it, right? It's how they're selling it to you. And clinic can

do the success rate. So I've seen clinics that say, oh, we have a 99% success rate. They've completely skewed the results with like, let's pull out anybody that has this criteria that didn't actually--

And they're not telling you that, right? So

they have

to publish the real rates to the CDC. Everything else that they do, they can do whatever.

That's

incredibly

problematic.

Yeah.

And the CDC reports that data anonymously. Oh

my God. So you can never really find out. Like if you're a layperson, right? If you're just the person on the client end of things, right? You're not invested in like the medical portion of it, right? Like if you're just trying to get pregnant. And our brains default to best case scenarios, right? Our brain wants to always, you know. Yeah, you know, or that 99%, I'm gonna focus on that. I'm not gonna ask any questions because that gives me hope, right? Especially people who are struggling or challenged or, you know, in some cases, I'm sure you see desperation even, right? So like the further along, I think the pathway, the journey you've gone and the spectrum you are in terms of desire, like to have the baby. Because, you know, I'm sure there are people like you mentioned before who are like going through the process and they're like, okay, if it works, it works, if it's not, it's okay. And likely they probably have better success rates, right? Cause they're a little bit less attached to the outcome.(...) Whereas people are really invested in this. So I feel like they're gonna just hang on to the hope that any, you know, positive sort of stat gives

them.

Yeah,

to that point, like I talked to a woman last week, 42, she has early ovarian failure. Basically like her body doesn't have that many eggs left. So I looked at her hormones and like, I was like, there's no way, like we're not gonna work with you unless we're working with you to optimize your health and body, but we're not gonna work with you with any intention of getting pregnant because you have zero eggs. Like you maybe have an egg or two.(...) So if there are no eggs, you would think, like we tell people upfront, like, I'm sorry, there's nothing for us to do here. But, and that's the conversation I had with her much nicer.

Yeah.(...) But she's

been through four idea cycles. And nobody has told her that? So tell me why they went through four idea cycle

(...)

knowing that there are no eggs.

That's horrible.

(...)

If you push the body, sometimes it will produce, but none of them are actually turning into

everything. I was just gonna say like, and I'm sure those are not the most viable quality eggs. So the

fact that there are clinics and doctors out there doing this kind of stuff, it makes me think like, you spent $80,000 on four cycles of IVF, pushing your body beyond the edge,(...) going through all the shit you went through, with like maybe a 1% chance of

success. Oh my God, that's so painful. So heartbreaking. Yeah.

And like, so much of this world, I call it the fertility industrial complex. It's literally like, how can we make more money? Yeah. Right? And they don't care that women are going through these cycles because they don't care that they're spending money out of pocket, this is not insurance driven.

(...)

So it really, like it behooves people to think about things

(...)

outside of that box,(...) like clinic box.

(...)

Yeah, I think the problem I think, you know, is that so many of us are taught to believe everything that we hear from a doctor, right? Like it's a doctor, we have to listen,(...) forgetting that doctors are people, doctors are trained differently, doctors have different belief systems, doctors have different life experiences, doctors have different sense of ethics and morals and you know, different motivations also. So, you know, not taking away anything from all the great doctors, but there's a lot of not so great doctors out there who don't have the best intentions or may just not be as well versed or well researched or well, you know, experienced in certain areas.

To a certain extent,

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I always try to give people the benefits down. So I'm like, maybe this couple was like, we wanna do it anyway. And there are people that will say that, right? We're gonna try, right. And in that case, I'm like,

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I told her to her face, I was like, you need an egg donor, there's no way around this, you need to get an egg donor. And she's like, I know, we're thinking about it, but we don't have any like South Asian donors.

(...)

I'm like,(...) I wouldn't sweat it.

(...)

Get whoever,(...) like whatever feels okay for you, do that. Because the genetics is so different. Anyway, that's all I'm gonna say then. But like the South Asian piece or a lot of like

(...)

people of color are trying to find their same race, their same genetic makeup kind of, because in some way that feels like it's gonna be better. The reality is 98%(...) of our genes are the same between the two of us and we're not related.(...)

Wow.

(...)

So there's like,

So it's gonna be okay. Tiny little percentage

that's different and most of what a child looks like and is fundamentally like, energetically, emotionally, physically,(...) mentally is gonna be based on what happens in the womb.

(...)

So once people understand that, then like egg donation is not. It doesn't feel so scary and out of people's scope. Like not POC, not South Asian, not African, whatever. Like you don't need it to be that much. Wow, that's, wow. I'm like learning so much. Okay, so. So they retrieve the eggs. Let's say they fertilized into what we call an embryo and then they will grade the embryos. So then they have grade AA, AB, BB, all the way down. Mm-hmm.(...) So they'll try to implant the best grade embryo first.(...) And these days I feel like most clinics are doing one, maybe two embryos at a time.

(...)

More money for them. I think there are some women that I'm like, there's no way, like are,

(...)

I'm lucky that one of the clinics that we refer to a lot is kind of out of the box sometimes. So we had this like 44, 45 year old

(...)

who got 24 eggs or 21, something like that. Eggs retrieved 18 of them for life. Wow. And they were like, let's implant eight. And this is a solo mom by choice. She was like, no, let's not.

(...)

Wow.

(...)

They were like, you're 44. Like most of these are not gonna take.

(...)

And what if they do? She was really freaked out. So they, I think they ended up agreeing on like three or four and one took.

(...)

So it's like, I don't know what happened to all of those embryos, but I remember getting a call from her clinic and they were like, what did you do to her? Like, how do we have a 44 year old with 18 grade embryos and all of them are great.

That's amazing. I don't know. You're like, I did my job. I did what I do. I've been doing this for two years. I don't know. Yeah, so clearly what you do works. Yes.(...) So, okay. So now I understand a little bit more of the process of like what IVF looks like. Now tell me what you do. Say I'm now like a couple. I'm in a couple who's not going that route and I come to you, I'm having trouble getting pregnant or we're having trouble getting pregnant.(...) What happens?

So, so far what we've talked about is literally at the level of the ovaries and the sperm. And that's it. Like that's all fertility focuses on. Right. But we have a whole body. Oh yeah, we do. That influences what's happening at the ovaries and pescals, right? So most of the time we're ignoring. Fertility world kind of ignores everything else. All the rest of it. They're like, we just know which hormones to manipulate to get the egg to do what we need to do.

(...)

Our approach is the exact opposite.(...) That's the holistic fertility doctor.

(...)

Got it. We're like, well, there are at least 40 things that can be happening in your body. They're influencing what's happening in your ovaries or testes.(...) So let's figure out what those things are. Let's suppose you have toxins and you're like an overload of toxins or you have a crappy diet or you're super stressed out and have been stressed for years.

(...)

All of those things are impacting your fertility. So the first thing is like being able to assess and understand like, here's the big picture vision of what this couple is going through as a couple.(...) What are the emotional factors? What is their home life? Do they have mold in their house? Right, yeah. Like even environmental factors, I'm sure, yeah. Environmental factors, yeah.(...) So we wanna like do a deep dive on the assessment piece and really figure out why have you as a couple not been able to get pregnant? And it's no one's fault,(...) but both of you are contributing to these outcomes. So both of you are responsible for taking charge of shifting the outcome. Yeah,

yeah, that's amazing. That actually is like so similar to my work, right? Because often we look at the pain, which for you is like not getting pregnant, but we don't look at all of the things that are, the factors that are contributing to that thing, right? So it's like, okay, but there are so many different things going on with you two as individuals that are contributing to this conflict or the disconnection or whatever is happening between the two of you, let's address those things and then we can fix this. So it sounds like a similar process. It's like, I think, again, we forget that there are, and I think our society doesn't emphasize a lot of this other stuff, right? When it comes to wellness. Like now we're talking about it more, but we're still not talking about it, especially as it relates to fertility.(...)

I don't think we're talking about it enough.

We're not talking about it enough. We just

started talking about it. It's

really common to be like, oh, I have a headache.(...)

Where's the pill? Right, grab the medicine, right.

(...)

Or like, I've had people come in and be like, oh, we're supernatural.(...) And then you like dive in and you're like, wait, you're on painkillers.

(...)

(Laughing) Yeah.

(...)

Like, what is that

for? They're like, oh, you know, like my shoulder hurts all the time, so I just think that.

Yeah, it's just routine and they don't realize.

But it's a sign that what impact does that have on everything else? On everything else, yeah. Because while we're an integrated human,

(...)

everything affects everything else. Right. And it's kind of hard because it can feel like, oh, that's so overwhelming. That's so big. Like there's so many things that I have to think about all the time. But the reality is your liver congestion or too many toxins that are clogging up your liver, connected to your inflammation, connected to your fertility, that's not a big thing. Like the things that are gonna support your fertility are also supposed to support the other two things.

Yeah, and your whole body is gonna be better and benefit if you address those things. Yeah, I think, you know, looking at things holistically is a piece that the Western world has been missing for a very long time, that the Eastern world has gotten a lot more right. We've gotten a lot of things wrong too, but that piece, I think understanding the integration of all of it and how, you know, mind, body, spirit, like the connection and how, you know, even things like stress, like we hear, oh, you know, if you're stressed out, it won't happen. And then there's that joke, right? Like, as soon as you stop thinking about it, then, you know, you're gonna get pregnant or whatever. Go on vacation, that's gonna get you pregnant. Right, it's like if you hate each other and you go on vacation.

(...)

I won't go on vacation. And if you go on vacation and drink like 40, like of those, like, what do they have at those, all inclusive, those nasty, like sugary nastiness, Bahamamalas or whatever, that nasty stuff they make,(...) that's not gonna help you change anything, right?(...) And yeah, I think we'd like to band-aid our problems with easy solutions. And sometimes it does take a little bit more work.

Like, to be fair, like maybe sometimes that work. There are, I've met women that are like, oh, I tried for, I did so many rounds of IVF, I finally gave up and then we got home.

(...)

And like, yeah, those stories happen.(...) But are you willing to rely on that? Is that something that you're okay with? And if you are, great, don't come see me.

Right, exactly, then you've got it figured out and you don't, yeah. And let's see what else. Well, yeah, you see what else relaxing gets you in your life too, right? But I think even in that, like, thought,

(...)

also like, okay, well, let's not then negate, well, what did it take for you to relax, right? What things changed in your life? Maybe you let go of some things. Maybe you moved out of over wall. Maybe you left the shitty job. Like, we forget to factor in all of the actual elements that have contributed to that thing. Yeah, and then we just end up and say, well, I relax. Well, what did relaxing look like? What did that mean? Like, what does that actually mean? Clearly something changed, right? Yeah,

and

like, it is those like, deeper changes. You talked about the job that someone hates, right? Like, I have a client who asked me, should I quit this job that I hate? I'm like, dude, I am not

responsible for making these decisions.(...) If you

and your husband decide that you can quit this job, go for it. Like, I support you. But there are so many people that have been like, ready.

(...)

Oh, all it's gonna take is quitting my job? Great, I'll do it. And then they're worse off, because they're like, now I don't have the--

The income, the yeah, all the things, yeah. The routine, the yeah. I feel isolated.(...)

That was supporting you in some way. So quitting your job isn't magically gonna get you pregnant.(...) But if your job means that you have a better mental balance

(...)

and you feel good about that and you have other things that

you're passionate about that you want to do, great.(...) Or you go and get a job that you actually do like and that does support you. Yeah, yeah. So okay, so I come to you. We're looking at my, yeah, everything holistically, myself, my partner.(...) And we're optimizing our bodies and our minds for the process. Yeah,(...) so then I imagine that takes a different amount of time for depending on each individual's-- I

think it's shorter, because you've heard me say, it takes about, in a year, you can do three to five cycles on average in a year. Damn, that's still a lot. It's a lot. And to put your body through that one year time,(...) there's a diminishing return on investment. The more cycles you go through--

Well, your body, I'm sure-- The more your body is not performing. I can only imagine when your body's probably exhausted and you just keep putting this foreign sort of cycle. I don't even know how else to describe it, like a foreign process that your body doesn't naturally understand. Like you're forcing your body to understand this thing, right? Yeah, so I can imagine that.

So that's about a year's worth of time. Most of the time you're doing like maybe two or three a year. Like it's still, we're talking about the expense of that, like the thing for this out of pocket. Can't even imagine.

(...)

So like you're not gonna go through that many cycles in a year. Most people are not planning for that many cycles, right? They just get kind of shoved into it. So like, oh, this vision I have, I walk into the clinic, I walk out with a baby. Pretty much, yeah. But what people don't realize often is that the walking out with a baby is like three, four, five, six years into the process. It's not like, oh, I like walked in and walked out.

Yeah, it's like you chose a baby off the shelf. Like there's no factory

manufacturing babies. It's like, it's a process. And for a lot of people, it's such a long journey. So people in their minds have created this idea of like, oh, IVF is faster.

(...)

It's not. If you look at the average amount of time a woman spends in an IVF center, it's two to three years. Damn. So compared to that, we're four to six months.

That's nothing.

And we've like, in the process of it, transformed your life, transformed your health, got you off of the fence on diabetes, blood sugar, inflammation,(...) gut issues, like essentially all

of the-- All of the shit that you were sitting in before. 30 to

35, 40 years creating. We've reversed all of it. And now you're in a different place to go and get pregnant. And we've optimized your pregnancy outcomes. So we have in the 12, 13 years that I've been due only fertility, we've had five pregnancy losses.

(...)

Wow.

So.

(...)

That's incredible. Yeah.(...) Because the average is one in three women experience pregnancy loss.

And that's even just by natural means, right? Natural, wow.(...) So that means that these bodies are fully opt-- Like they are at their healthiest, most optimal to perform in any capacity. And this just happens to be about making a baby, but yeah, wow. That's incredible. So you literally, it's a life transformation. It's like a holistic health

transformation. Yeah, it's

definitely like, that's what we know that their bodies are going through. The hope is that they'll stick with it. Right.

(...)

Post pregnancy, post, now we have the baby. Our

goal isn't like, hey, we got you pregnant. Our goal is you had a healthy baby and you transformed your life so that you guys can have a healthy family for the rest of

your life. Yeah. And hopefully just even more awareness and mindfulness about optimizing yourself so you could be there for your baby, right? Because I think a lot of people, especially people who are struggling, again, I don't know this from personal experience, but the goal is having the baby. Or getting

pregnant. Or getting pregnant. Oh, I got a positive pregnancy test. Yeah, like I got the pregnancy test and then it moves to, okay, having the baby, going to full term, especially if people have experienced loss and so on. Okay, now I have the baby. People forget that that's the very beginning. Like that's when it now starts. Now what you do with that baby, right? Like you gotta be present and healthy and around for that baby, right? And the baby needs to be present and healthy and around too. So, you know, I see what you're describing to me is like just a lifestyle overall,(...) right? And just a necessary one, especially for anybody and especially those people who are struggling with something as sensitive as fertility, like, you know, recognizing that

it is in their best interest to continue.

(...)

And I would imagine if they see how well it worked for them that they would want

to. That way they keep going. Yeah. When they keep going, don't-- Don't default back. You're like, oh no.

Now I have, it's like when people lose the weight, right? Then they get to their goal weight or whatever. And then they're like, oh well, I could just eat that shit again and I could just grab that snack again. And then like, okay, then slowly it starts creeping back. No, it's the consistency.

(...)

And it's human nature. Yeah, of course it is.(...) We're gonna want to go back to our--

(...)

Our default. Everybody is like, oh, but that's my one thing.

(...)

It's my only one thing. Yeah, it's only the,

and my only other one thing and my only other one thing, yeah. And we make up stories in our minds as we do about so many different things. We can have a whole nother episode on all the stories people make up in their minds about the relationships that they're in. Oh yeah, oh yeah. Because like, oh my God.

(...)

Oh, oh. (Laughs) Lots of stories around that. But yeah, like I would imagine that you just kind of make up all the reasons why you can't, right? You can't give this up or you can't do this thing. But then I guess the desire to have achieved that ultimate goal has to trump that. Yeah,

and usually like fertility is great in that sense because the motivation is so strong(...) that people will most of the time take action. Every now and then we have people that are like, nope, I'm not gonna take that action. I had this one guy who was,

(...)

like, you know, you, of course, ate a cup. Like, probably the worst that I've ever seen.

(...)

I could just tell from looking at him, my teammate who met him, she's like, I don't know, he's got like a weird dark cloud or something on him. Oh. And we were basically like, yeah, that's not a good situation. We did a bunch of blood work that we normally do.(...) He came back with six different diseases. Oh my goodness. Like actually diseases(...) off of just our blood tests. That he wasn't aware of? A deep dive, no, not a lot. What?(...) And then we like go and explain all of this to him. He had diabetes, hypertension,(...) hypercholesterolemia, liver dysfunction.(...) I can't remember what else. How old was this guy? He looked like 38. What? Yeah, it's South Asian man. Oh, oh God. And like so sad, so sad.

(...)

So we're explaining all of this to him. And I was like, okay, this is gonna require some massive changes. We know that there is a lifestyle that you've been accustomed to that has brought you to this point. We're gonna have to change some things.

(...)

And he was like, I will quit smoking pot, but that's it.

(...)

I was like, your diet is shit. You drink like loads of alcohol every day.

The pot might be the best thing in my life. So cigarettes.

(...)

I was like, the pot, probably. You had the cleanest of all those things. He's wearing all of the other things to make me better off.

(...)

That is wild.

So he, like two hours later of him being like, absolutely not, absolutely not, not doing that, not doing that. I was like, put your wife on the call, please.(...) And I was like, listen, I'm sorry. I know you really wanna have a child. She was like 32.

(...)

I know you really wanna have a child.

(...)

And I know that you have,(...) you're married to this man,(...) but the reality is not looking good.

(...)

Like he is on the path very close to the end of life. Like I don't know how to think about it, but this man is about to die. Wow. Like there's no way. And I'm your doctor. Like I'm not taking responsibility. For this, yeah. Especially when he's telling me to my face and you hear it in all of these things.

(...)

I was like, especially when he's telling me to my face that he's not willing to make any changes. He will not eat vegetables. Like that's not a negotiable.

(...)

(Laughing) In my world, you gotta eat vegetables.

Oh my God, how old are you? Like eight?(...) And I'm telling

you, like you have all of these uses. Like this is not even-- So there's not even a desire then. You're headed down that path. No, you have--

You're like already there.

(...)

And like there's just no way. Wow. And he's like, but my sperm are fine.

(...)

Wow.(...) There's no way in hell you should be reproducing.

(...)

Oh my goodness. And I was like, you're fired. And this woman's like weeping because I like shoot, I'm her last hope. She's like, I've already done the IVF thing. It's not

working. Oh my God, how devastating.(...) I'm

like, this man is like the wrong one.

Oh my God, that's gotta be so hard for her.

Yeah, and I was like, my best advice for you is

(...)

it's time to move on.

I'm like, yeah, find another man to have

a baby with shit. Literally time to move on.

Well, she might be moving on sooner than she had realized if he kept it up.

If he probably kept it up, like I haven't talked to them since. I was like, here's a full refund. I don't want any of your money because I do not want this hanging over my head. Yeah,

especially if you've told them what it is, right?

(...)

There's like, this is not my job. That's

like, if you have some kind of moral compass and are conscious, whatever, conscientious, conscious, whatever, you know the word that I'm trying to say.(...) How could you take that on, right? Knowing that you've laid it out, what needs to happen. You know that if these changes are made that there is some hope. He probably just obviously didn't want the baby enough. Like that wasn't motivation enough. Who knows what the situation of their marriage or their relationship

was. In their, like their,

(...)

I don't know if they immigrate, they definitely immigrated here together. They maybe like had an arranged marriage.

(...)

So it wasn't like a great situation. Yes, overall. She was like dependent on him to a certain extent.

And probably scared to say, to assert herself and advocate for what they need as a couple, right? That's something that I see in my couples often is, usually it's the female partner, if it's a heterosexual couple, almost always. It's the woman who doesn't know how to self advocate or advocate for the relationship, right? And is always sort of defaulting to his desire or his schedule or his need or his demand or whatever it is. And you just start to minimize yourself. But when you're in a situation like that, when you're financially dependent or, you know, where you.

Yeah, and I don't know the full

extent of that.(...) That's

rough, man. Wow.

That's a rough one. Yeah.

For sure. That was the worst that I've ever seen. Most people are like ready. They're like, "Oh, we want to do all the work."

Yeah, yeah. So what I'm hearing from you is that, essentially, you will shut it down if it's not something. I think the right thing to do. I've had couples come who are,

(...)

there's other things that they have to work out first, whether it's, you know, there's scenarios where the infidelity, one partner won't stop. You know what I mean? I can't support you as a couple, if there are

outside distraction. Yeah, if you want to keep doing it. Or, you know, in couples

therapy, for example, sometimes they will deal with addiction or things like that. I don't deal with those things. As a coach, I think that is beyond, like that is something that you need to go get treated for, and then you come back to me and we deal with this, and I will tell you that. Like, I'm not gonna be, we cannot do the work. If you're just gonna go out and get blasted tonight, and then you're gonna have the same conflict, and it's gonna be the same story. There's no progress in that. So that's great that you're willing to tell people what it is, because it's for their own benefit. It's hard to hear, but, and

hard to say, I'm sure, sometimes.

I will sacrifice our reviews for it, right? People will leave shit reviews because-- They're mad at what you said. I'm sorry, I can't really help you. I'm not the best fit. Yeah. And then we have a negative review. Yeah. And we're like, really? Yeah. I was in integrity enough to tell you that I don't want your money. Stop wasting your money. Yeah. And because it doesn't align with your needs or getting hooked,(...) you want a bad mouthful. Yeah. Okay, that's cool.

And then you're gonna grasp onto the 99% success rate because it sounds good, and you have to do less work. You're right. Right, but you actually-- It doesn't apply to you. It doesn't apply to you, and you have to do more work, so let's get our facts straight before we even-- But yeah, that just goes back to, yeah, sort of the human condition and what people want to, we will convince ourselves of what we want to convince ourselves of 100% of the time.

And that's where I feel bad for IVF to make sometimes, because I do feel like some of them want to be in integrity, but they're like, oh, but if I don't do this--

It's hard in the industry, right? Yeah.(...)

Yeah, like, they're gonna bad mouth me, it's gonna be bad. So, for E, some doctors will just cave, and be like, okay, fine.

Yeah, it's up to you, right,

exactly. You wanna do another cycle? Let's do another cycle. Right.

(...)

Instead of being like, no, this is a bad, that would be bad medical advice, right? Yeah.(...) Just don't make any sense. So, yeah, that's just life. Yeah, wow.

Well, I have learned a ton about all things.

I need all of your questions, by the way. I have to say, because I want to have conversations where I'm not only talking to other doctors, right?(...) (Laughing) People that already know about mortality, it's a different conversation,

right? I'm sure, it's a totally different conversation. And I think most of us don't know about the process.(...) You just see it on TV, or in a documentary, or something like that, and you have a perception of what it is, but you don't really know what all it entails. And I think for those of us who don't struggle with fertility, or have not had to think about it in that way,(...) we don't really understand what people are going through and all of the different factors. Because, listen, there are people who conceive naturally who are not in their best health, who are not taking care of themselves holistically. And so then, we assume that that's okay. Right.

Right? But why can that heroin addict get pregnant?

Oh my God, dude, I wonder that same thing, okay? I do wonder that same thing.(...) I remember when I was pregnant with Asaya,

(...)

now like almost 13 years ago, it sounds crazy to say that, but I would be walking home from the train after work, and every day, there would be a woman, I think she was either homeless or living in some sort of shelter, but she would be sitting on the sidewalk, very pregnant, chain-smoking cigarettes.(...) And I would walk by her every day, and it would kill me, kill me slowly on the inside. And then I was just devastated for her, I was devastated

for the baby, the baby who

has no control over their circumstances, their environment, and the toxins that his mother is. But then I'm devastated for her, because she doesn't, clearly doesn't know better or can't do better or doesn't have resource or doesn't want to, which that in itself is a sad story if she doesn't want to do better for the baby. And I was like, it just used to kill me. Knowing that I had friends who had miscarried, I had friends who had difficulty getting pregnant, I had friends who have lost children, and I'm just looking at this woman every day, and it sticks with me because literally it was every day. We were pregnant at the same time, and as my belly is growing, her belly is growing, and I'm just watching her every day walking home, sitting there by herself just chain-smoking cigarettes. And I think about what happened to her, what happened to that baby.

(...)

Meanwhile,(...) I'm over here just taking it for granted in a way, but I would never-- You love those. But I'm not. But I'm not. But I'm not having to, I don't have to deal with those circumstances, right? And I know better, and I'm more resourced internally and externally to do better. And so yeah, it does make you wonder, how do some people just, no matter what they're doing to their body, addicts and miserable people and bad people, badly-intentioned people, getting pregnant while these lovely folks out here just wanna have a baby. It just, you know, yeah.

Yeah, I wish I had an answer. I wish I knew. Yeah, it's one of those things.

Yeah, it's one of those things. We have so many questions about those things.

Like the way that I've reasoned it, and this is more of a spiritual, woo-woo belief system, but my thought is that the spirits that become our children choose us for whatever reason.(...) Maybe it's karmic connection, maybe it's just like,(...) this is gonna be a really hard life and it's gonna teach me the lessons that I would use. I agree with you, yeah. I have no idea. I don't know why, but I can say that there are spirits, like as spirit, there's not a filter on like, oh, this is bad and good and, you know. Agree, yeah. It's just a lesson.

Yeah, I honestly believe very similarly to you in that way where I think there are certain lessons and tasks and experiences that those spirits need to have in order to progress and become the next iteration, next version, and yeah, sometimes I think that is a difficult life for whatever reason. I mean, I think that's the only way for me personally, and it sounds like you too, to contextualize it because otherwise it feels so out of sense, right? Like it just feels like how can it be? It just doesn't feel like the natural sort of balance of the world, but it is the natural balance of the world at the same time, right? Like that bad has to exist for the good to exist as well. So yeah, and I think even for the people who are going through it, I think

there's a lesson and a

learning. Exactly, that's exactly what I was gonna say is like, there's that,(...) I see it a lot, and I'm working on the book on it, is really like the,(...) so many of the women that we work with are high achieving, type A, control freak. Yeah, yeah. And the shift that is needed in order to quote unquote relax is really this like deeper level shift of like,

(...)

what I call the feminine, like re-embracing the feminine. And I think that that is a call that a lot of women are awakening to.

Absolutely, I think that's a great topic for another episode because I think, you know, especially as many women of color and especially coming from immigrant families,

(...)

I think that feminine part of us is nurtured out of us to a large extent, but also expected of us at

the same time. It's like a weird dichotomy where we're brought up with like, oh girls don't do that.

Yeah, and as a girl, you should be this way, but you should also be

high achieving and

a CEO by 25, like yeah, whatever it is. So yeah, I think that understanding how to navigate that can be very confusing for many of us and contributes I'm sure to some of this experience with fertility and health and otherwise too. Well, this has been fascinating as usual. I'm like, I learned so much. Thank you so much for like schooling me on all the things. And now I have, of course, I have so much better of an understanding of the process. And I have a friend going through the process right now and now I have a better understanding even of what she's going through and just what the industry is about in general, because again, I think everything we learn is gonna be beneficial for us, right? Whether we can help somebody or just for our own knowledge and just even, I feel so much more grateful even just in having had this conversation for my own experience. I have more gratitude for being able to have conceived naturally and not had to go through, I've had my own set of challenges in other areas. Let's not get it twisted, but that wasn't one of them.

So I feel like a lot of times people have, women have the tendency to look at other women and be like, but she's not pregnant, so eat it. Blah, blah, blah, like why is it so hard for me? But the reality is like, they're gonna have their struggle. Their own other stuff, yep. It's just like we as human spirits did not choose that specific struggle. We chose different struggles.(...) We are all struggling.

We're all struggling out here.(...) We are all struggling out here, but we're all also all trying to make sense of it all, right? And what we can't control so much of those things. So the more we try to control it, I think the more it slips out of our grasp as well, right? We just have to be okay with having to learn hard lessons sometimes, as hard as they are. Amen. Yeah,

all right. All right, awesome, thanks you guys. I hope you enjoyed this session, this podcast.

This episode. This episode. This time with us hanging and chatting and learning about all things fertility and holistic fertility. Thank you so much again for like,

(Music)