In this episode, I'm going to talk about the stress of ovulation, which if you've been trying to get pregnant, whether that be with your first, second or further children, you may well really identify with this and see this as being an issue.
So my first question for you is, do you know when you ovulate, have you always known when you ovulate, are you still unsure or have you recently found out that it's not at all when you thought it was.
I often talk about how, what we're taught in school. Isn't actually relevant to what we need to know when it comes to trying to get pregnant. We often have this idea that we all ovulate on day 14 in the holy grail of 28 day cycle. But actually, even if you had a 28 day cycle, it's not guaranteed that you would ovulate on day 14.
I know some people have been informed from a medical professional that they will ovulate 14 days after their period starts. And other people have been told that they will ovulate 14 days before their period starts. None of which is a guarantee, none of which is true for all.
I have worked with some clients over the years where the only issue in their fertility journey was that they weren't completely sure when they were ovulating. Often it's that they were ovulating a lot later than they thought. So it was when working together quite a quick win for many. And sometimes it can be as simple as that, but we know it's not, we know, as I've said many times that there are many, many factors involved. And we also know that we are not looking for further information when we're going through the doctors necessarily.
OVULATION SIGNS
So do you know your signs of ovulation? Now, this is something I discussed earlier in the podcast in episode six. So that's worth the listen, if you haven't already listened to that one where I talk about ovulation signs.
So naturally, when you ovulate, think about us as animals, not as logical overthinking at times, humans, but as animals, your body tells you it's time to reproduce. So your libido will be increased and you will have changing cervical mucus that will change over this fertility window. The type of mucus varies as we get nearer to ovulation, it's very choosy early on as to which sperm it let through. And the nearer to ovulation, as I've talked about in the episode six, it's going to let anything through at this point. So it is important to know what that mucus means and what it demonstrates.
STRESS AND OVULATION
We know that stress, anxiety, worry, fear affects ovulation. It's a very natural process in the body. It's a fantastic process to keep you safe because ultimately the first job of your body is for you to stay alive. It's second job is for you to have sustenance for you to continue. So to stay alive in the moment of danger and then to stay healthy and alive. And it's third job, and this is a hierarchy is procreation. So unless those other two are in place, as I've talked about before, procreation is going to come very, very low down on the list. So at times when your body feels you are in imminent danger in the past, this would be with predators. And I talk about tigers a lot, and Tiger Taming is something I work with my clients. It's a way to address this stress, worry, anxiety, and fear, and bring your body back into balance and help your fertility.
So, when you are faced with a tiger, then your body, your hypothalamus, pituitary, adrenal access is working to ensure that everything is put into staying alive. And when everything is put into staying alive, then other aspects are switched down or switched off and ovulation can be one of these. Okay? So it could be that ovulation comes later, or it could be that you don't ovulate at all, as well as that, what we also know is not only can, and I hate using the word stress, but, but when your emotional health is, is, is unbalanced. When there is fear and worry and anxiety in place, it will affect ovulation, but equally ovulation can in fact be the cause of the stress, the worry and the fear. So it's in effect of, um, working with this to try and get the balance. Now, as you know, I hope you know that I will never tell you to just relax.
Relaxing can be really, really difficult. So, when we look at your tigers, and again, I've talked about this many times before, but I'm going to talk specifically about your ovulation tigers and your tigers are your thoughts, your fears, and your worries. So what are the thoughts that are running through your head around the time of ovulation? What are those thoughts? What, what ifs do you have?
What if I'm not ovulating?
What if I don't get pregnant this month?
I may never get pregnant.
How do I know that this is the right time?
How do I know that I'm ovulating?
What if it's me?
What if your partner isn't going to be around during the magic window and
WHAT IS YOUR MAGIC WINDOW?
What is the time you have put aside, or you have in your mind that is your magic window. And I hope your answer will be the period of seven days before ovulation.
So that's what I work with, with my clients. And we look at that in different stages in order to maximize your chances of getting pregnant, because remember the egg lives for up to 24 hours. The sperm lives for three to five days can be up to seven. And I've repeated this time and time again. I know, but if you think about that, the design of the body is that the sperm needs to be there, ready. It needs to be there ready and waiting for when that egg is released. If you wait for ovulation, you may well miss. Also, if this is the first time you've had sex in a while at ovulation, you could be some quite dodgy sperm. That's not a medical term, but you know what I mean.
There could be some dodgy sperm in that ejaculate at that point, the other thing is, what are you doing to analyse when you are ovulating? Are you using your body signs? Have you used ovulation predictor sticks before, or perhaps temperature charting?. And if you know that you're very regular and you know, when you ovulate, are you still peeing on ovation sticks around this time? Or do you have irregular periods now, or maybe even you have absent periods? I have clients who have a cycle every 28 days who aren't ovulating. So you can have anovulatory cycles and there are many things that cause this, that we can look into that we can start to learn more about. But if you are peeing on ovulation sticks every month, this in itself can cause a stress.
This in a sense can cause that anxiety and switch down those natural signs of ovulation and maybe even be switching down ovulation itself, also ovulation predictor sticks. aren't always accurate. So if you have polycystic ovary syndrome, particularly you will have quite regular hormone surges potentially that don't lead to ovulation.
So what can you do?
What can you do to support yourself at this time to know more about ovulation and to get in a better head space for it? So rather than reading everything and sending yourself crazy with your Google searches, I would suggest that you choose some, just a few sites that you find useful to support your fertility journey.
You could work with somebody like myself to support you. Of course, when you are looking on the internet, when you are looking at social media, and I've mentioned this phrase before, don't just look at what Jane did, because the factors affecting Jane might be very different to the factors affecting you and also going to be a bit controversial, but this is my message, don't just believe what your doctor is telling you.
I'm sorry, but your family doctor is not a fertility expert. And when you go to the fertility clinic, what you are really looking at there are assisted methods of conception. So if you really want to get a handle on ovulation, then it's important that you truly know and understand what is going on personally for you with ovulation, that you understand your body's signs. Now I've talked about ovulation pain before in an episode, ovulation pain is not a positive sign, always of ovulation. So don't think, oh, I get pain. So that's really good. So I know when I ovulate, we need to look a little bit further into that, especially. So when you understand your body and know the signs, you can develop a sense of trust in your body.
And when you have a sense of trust that can in effect, start, start to support the reduction of the fear and the worry and anxiety, and the more understanding, and the more sound information with an action plan that you have, the more in control you can feel because let's face it. We don't feel in control of this at all. You can of course use ovulation predictor kits, but it's important to know when to use them. And it's important to identify what stress they in themselves are causing for you.
So when I'm working with clients, we monitor the cycle. And I say, we, because I ask my clients to gather the data and I analyze the data because looking at that data and trying to analyze what it means can send you into anxiety, worry, stress, and fear. So whether you are doing your basal body temperature, and it's important to know the right way to do it, first thing in the morning, as soon as you wake, before you do anything else at all.
And I encourage my clients to chart this on an app called fertility friend, it can be a bit overwhelming for you as an individual, but it gives me an incredible amount of detail about all parts of the cycle, not just ovation. We can see slow rises in ovulation. We can see a strength of ovulation and that's really, really key as well. And also the magical Luteal phase. If you are using a fertility analyser, such as MIRA then you can see there, your oestrogen and your luteinising hormone to give you that picture of ovulation, but what you can also do now with their additional wands that they have is that you can measure the progesterone as well. And that's really, really powerful. And don't forget that progesterone production starts after you ovulate. So if you've had a blood test to look at your progesterone and the progesterone is low, if it's super low, that might mean you're not ovulating, or if it's low, it might mean that the ovulation isn't very strong.
So there's lots that progesterone can tell us as well. It's also really, really important to look at the wider aspects affecting fertility. Remember your egg is a cell. So your cellular health is really key when it comes to nutrition and also oxidative stress can have an effect on your cellular health oxidative stress that is in the body as a result of emotional stress, as well as physical stress on the body.
So it's key to look at some key deficiencies that might be affecting your cellular health as well. And of course the pelvic health itself. So is there sufficient space in your pelvis in episode nine, I chatted with Claire Mockridge about, does your womb have enough room? You know, is it trying to do its job from behind a wardrobe in effect? So what is the pelvic space like? What's been affecting that particular area. What might be impacting ovulation? Have your reproductive organs got enough room in there? Is it been affected by endometriosis or possibly any adhesions or scarring? And also if you've had a previous child and you're trying to get pregnant again, there might be effects from your previous pregnancy and birth that could be having an impact as well. And we also know that ovulation and when you ovulate changes, it's not always the same as it was. It does change throughout your life cycle
So there is potentially a lot, you don't know, but there is a lot you can know. So if you want to get more answers, if you want to get the answers or even find the right questions, so you can get the answers, then I can help with that.
So if that's something you want to reach out, get in touch, can get me on socials at fertility, rewire or kat@fertilityrewire.com or book an insight call.
I hope that there is sufficient information here in this podcast. And in the podcast episodes, I've mentioned episode six and episode nine, that might give you more information and might arm you with the information to get the answers that you need, and to be able to interpret those answers as well.
If you haven't heard already. I have a group program: as well as working one to one with anybody experiencing fertility issues. I have a group program that where I'm working with people who are trying to get pregnant again. So trying to extend their family and the specifics involved in that.
And then also, just before I go, if you have these tigers that need taming, if you have an ovation tiger, a timing tiger, a getting pregnant tiger, a worry, you know, these tigers that are there. I do have a tiger Taming program, which is a four week online program. and if you want more information about that, then again, reach out and I’ll point you in the r
People who are trying to lose weight may say, "I'll do anything to lose weight, but I won't do that. I won't necessarily stop eating those foods, etc." And sometimes people will say, "I will do anything to get pregnant." And then people may suggest things. You may look into things. I may suggest things and they'll say, "But no, I won't do that."
Now, have you said that? That's what I want to uncover in this episode.
"I'm not doing that."
Have you said "Well I'm not doing that." And before you get cross with me, there are many reasons why you might not do that and it may be a very good reason why you're not doing that.
Maybe you have tried everything. Do you have examples of things you've tried, because you will just do anything, of course you will. This thing that you want, that you crave, that you desire that just isn't happening and often you don't know why it's not happening. And the physical effects and the emotional effects and the relationship effects of all of this are huge. Absolutely huge.
Have you tried anything or are things suggested and you think, "Well, will that work?" Or are you looking at things and maybe you've mentioned them to your GP, or you've mentioned them to the Fertility Doctor, or mentioned them to a partner or a friend. And they've said, "Well, there's no evidence that works."
When I've said you might see something on social media and that actually what Jane did to get pregnant, what Jane and Steve did to get pregnant, isn't necessarily going to work for you and there might be a lot of other variables involved. So when you want to either start or extend your family between six to 12 months of waiting for tests is a long time.
And I've spoken to this before about how you wait all that time to get these tests, these magic tests that are going to give you the answers and you don't always get any answers at all. You often get a diagnosis of unexplained, which isn't a diagnosis, is it? Because a diagnosis is telling you what's wrong?
Now I have said numerous times already that the purpose of the limited testing that is done at a baseline level is only to direct you to which assisted fertility method is recommended.
It is not looking deep into things, and I encourage you as always to be a fertility detective. Now, in order to be a fertility detective, of course, you have to know where to look, what tests to do, what investigations to take upon yourself and what then to do about them.
And that's where I come in. And that's how I help clients that I work with. So six to 12 months is a very long time. And then at the end of it, you're not necessarily getting what you thought you were going to get. And people will often say when they start trying, "We're just going to see how it goes. We're going to be quite relaxed about it. And we're perhaps going to give it six months. Or we're going to give it a year because I know that the evidence says on average it can take up to a year to get pregnant."
hope and planning
Each month there is hope and planning and each month the emotions increase. Your relationship might be affected and you are on project baby. In fact, many areas of your life may be affected by this, this search for answers, this search for solutions, spending time on the internet, spending time on social media. And often, it's a secret pain. I've talked about this before as well. It's not something that we always share openly, especially if you are trying to extend your family, as I talked about in the last episode. There's a guilt there as well, that this isn't necessarily something you're going to be very open about, especially in social media circles.
If you had been told, if you had been told sooner what would increase your chances of getting pregnant, what actually you may have been able to look into to see very early on what is limiting you. If you had been given the education in health ed that you should have been given, apart from being told that getting pregnant is really easy and if you do get pregnant, it will ruin your life. If you had been told about those nuances, about the signs of ovulation, about the importance of that differentiation in your cycle, between the phases, how hard is your body working to ovulate and how strong is luteal phase.
Progesterone blood tests
How likely is it that you are laying down enough of a healthy lining in the first phase that is strengthened in the second phase to actually support a pregnancy? So if you had been told early on to perhaps do some home testing, to see where we are at. And I'm not talking about ovulation predictor sticks. I'm talking about monitoring, different ways of monitoring Oestrogen and luteinising hormone. And progesterone.
Progesterone blood tests are done at seven days post ovulation to see if you have ovulated full stop. Progesterone is so important in that luteal phase. So important in that luteal phase, to be able to actually support a pregnancy, to support implantation, to maintain a pregnancy, that it should be being tested later in the cycle as well. And you can do that at home. There are different ways you can do that at home. I've gone off on a tangent now, haven't I?
You can do a home blood test. So with my clients here in the UK, we will use a company called MediChecks generally, and I have a discount code with them that you can get, which is FERTILITYREWIRE, all one word. The Mira Fertility Analyzer, which is very popular in the USA and is available here and growing in popularity in the UK and is an invaluable piece of kit.
The MIRA Analyzer and the information that gives them and me in order for me to support and interpret is invaluable. And what is incredible, is that they now have the ability with using the MAX wands to test your progesterone. So you can do that with MIRA daily. You can do that with a home blood test here in the UK. It's £39 before the 20% discount, and of course similar options are available worldwide. And with The Mirror Analyze again, code FERTILITYREWIRE, and you get £25 or $20 off that.
If you want to know anything more about those, just drop me a line, kat@fertilityrewire.com. And I can point you in the right direction there.
If you had been told that sooner, you may not be where you are now, that is one aspect, only one aspect and I know that. The other aspect as well, if you have been told more about sperm health, if you had understood more about taking a step back in three to four months before you even think of trying for a baby, because here's the thing, I’ve aid it before, I do say that a lot, don't I? “I said it before.”
step back and think about having a healthy child
When you are trying to get pregnant, we need to take a step back and think about having a healthy child. Having a healthy child, not just getting pregnant, getting pregnant with a healthy child that will go to full term, that will be healthy. That's what you really should, I'm going to use the word should here, I hate the word should ordinarily, but I’m going with it here because that's what we need to do.
We need to step back and look at that. So the information that I'm giving you here in the podcast, I really, really hope that's helping you. What is difficult of course, is you are already massively into that journey. And if you've had your tests here in the UK, you are already heading down the assisted fertility route anyway. But you can stop at those tests and say, "What more can I do actually? What more could I do?" Because chances are, there are steps you can take also to improve your chances of IVF working or Clomid being effective or IUI for example. So what could be affecting it?
It's important that you know what could be affecting your fertility and from a reliable source. And how you can find out sooner and save this pain, absolute pain that you are going through. So if we think about testing, "Yeah, I will do anything to get pregnant." Then test, please, please, please test and do not just accept the limited test that your general practitioner or family doctor is suggesting. There are ways to get further testing and further detective work, without having to pay for the fertility consultation.
There's a lot you can do, and it doesn't have to be expensive. I've talked about Mira Fertility Analyser. There are home sperm tests available, and that's something I'm hoping to...
additional testing can be a game changer
I've talked about that luteal phase, and I cannot honestly stress enough for you, how important that is and how incredibly overlooked that is. So just to remind you, the luteal phase is from ovulation to the end of your cycle, and you want that to be over 10 days, ideally 12 days and over. The length of the luteal phase is affected by your progesterone, your progesterone levels. Your progesterone levels are affected by cortisol in the body.
So if you are experiencing stress, it's a very clever mechanism in the body, that if you are producing adrenaline and cortisol specifically, your progesterone production is lowered. A very clever safety mechanism. Why would you be getting pregnant if your life is in danger from tigers all around you? So the emotional aspects and not just relaxing, the emotional aspects are huge. So when looking at, "I would do anything to get pregnant," let's look into those emotional aspects and support that.
And I do that. I think I've mentioned it before, obviously about ‘tiger taming’. That we can tame these tigers. We can use recognised practices and support very simply to just start to reduce those tigers, because your tigers, those things that cause you stress, those things that make you feel not in control can be anything from a slight level of stress and lots of worry, through to levels of anxiety. And you might not think you have anxiety as such. You're not having panic attacks perhaps, but when you start to look deeper into it, some people are just running on that level the whole time. And that can massively affects your progesterone, massively affect testosterone as well both in females and males, massively affect sperm, sperm production.
I have seen sperm results change dramatically when the male has really changed the level of stress and anxiety. And I don't necessarily mean change the stressful situations. It's just putting into place ways to tame those tigers. To recognise those tigers and not make their impact so huge. So we also need to think about the quality of the egg and the sperm. Each of those is so important.
nutrition is important
Reducing the effects of oxidative stress on those cells. They are cells, they have a life cycle, they renew. We can make changes to the quality of the egg and the sperm. And that is so important when it comes to the DNA within each, that becomes the DNA of your future child. So focus, it's not about getting pregnant. Let's shift it to it's about having a child. We look at it in stages, don't we? We get pregnant and then we worry about staying pregnant. And then we worry about the health of the baby.
But let's take a step back and think about that. So in terms of, "I'll do anything," let's think about what you can do to improve the health of a future baby. Now, I know that it's difficult to jump ahead to the baby point, because we don't like to get ahead of ourselves. We don't like to tempt fate. We do see things in stages and there's lots of work that we can do on that, that isn't about getting your hopes up, that just provides more of a balance for that.
So in terms of when you are trying to get pregnant, generally, what we're focusing on is getting the egg and a sperm together and getting them together at the right time. I've talked about that a lot before. That's really key. The quality of the egg and sperm is key. What's really important is the lining of the uterus is going to be able to support them. And so we need enough progesterone and they can be at very, very basic levels.
So one of the things that I am really passionate about at the moment, and it's something that I'm coming across with quite a few clients at the moment, is how we can get some progesterone support. Now, we can make great changes to the cycle through the work that I'm doing with clients when we're looking at self-treatment and practices that we undertake to support the progesterone, to bring that hormonal balance into play. But sometimes it's a question of would supplemental progesterone support this further?
Now you get progesterone pessaries when you are on IVF. And because obviously we're overtaking the body's normal system. And this is another thing. Once we get into the hands, when we're in the IVF clinic. Now, again, I am not against IVF, please don't think that for one second. I think it's very warranted, but I think we go too soon with it. I think straight away, we go too soon with it, because you can't guarantee a success of IVF. You're still looking at the quality of the egg and the sperm. There are still issues around that as well, about pelvic health and so on.
We can't bypass that in this process, but there is a need in some situations I feel, when in, and I hate the word, the term natural conception, but that is generally what we categorize it as, unassisted conception if you like. There is a place for progesterone support there. And if you are undertaking your own fertility analysis, you can see that this is needed, you can see these levels. And I've worked hard with quite a few clients to get the right ... to support them, to get the right language and message to their doctor, to be able to get progesterone support.
It's not happening on the NHS here in the UK, but it has happened in other ways. So it's not as expensive as a full fertility treatment cycle, but there are ways around it. I'm rambling a little bit there, aren't I? So as you know, progesterone and sperm are kind of the huge, huge things that I will repeatedly, repeatedly, repeatedly talk about, because they are massively overlooked. So if you are saying to yourself, "I will do anything to get pregnant," please look further into progesterone and sperm. And if you want any help in that, or any more guidance that isn't on the podcast, then get in touch, please.
"I will do anything to get pregnant, but I won't do that."
Why are we not doing that? Maybe it's absolute common sense that you are thinking, "Well, just because it worked for them, doesn't mean it will work for me." And you then look into it further. It may be that you think, "Well, what's the point? We've been doing this for so long. Haven't been drinking. We haven't been going in the hot tub. We haven't been going out as much. We've massively changed our diet. We're not eating anything that's particularly exciting. So what else can I do? Why would I add something else to that?"
But also what's happening in that rhetoric in your mind there, is the stress and the emotion that is caused by this constant search for what can I do? And the lack of support, let's be honest, to advise you of what you can do, leaves you in a horrible, horrible place, horrible, horrible place. And levels of tension are high.
Go back to what I said about cortisol. So we're making that worse, which is why when I started off working in fertility, it was as a fertility reflexologist and I did some very, very detailed training, all around aspects of fertility. And then I did fertility massage and again, deeper, deeper levels of training and understanding infertility. And it was during these face to face physical therapies and advising clients about tests, about interpreting results with them, about pointing them in the direction of nutritional support. I'm not a nutritionist, but work with affiliates to support them in that direction.
And there's just something stopping people from making the change sometime. For some people it's almost like there's a promise of IVF at the end for some, not for all, but somethings stopping them. And that's when I started to work much more deeply in both the physical and the emotional aspects of fertility, and became a hypnotherapist and mindset coach and worked with mindfulness as well. And so I'm bringing little bits from those aspects to be able to support people.
And that's when you see a much bigger picture, a much more holistic approach to a person, in terms of that, really. I feel like I just gave you my CV then. And then the thirst for the scientific knowledge, which has always been there for me and working with the medical profession, I've spoken with Cheryl Homer on this, who's an andrologist, spoken to IVF clinicians and a couple of interviews with reproductive specialists on here. It's really important that you have all of the information and that it's applied to you. But my biggest hope for you, "I will do anything to get pregnant," is you need a roadmap.
You need to know where to look. You need to know how to interpret the results you are finding when you look, and you need to be able to identify appropriate steps to take and get the support you need. Okay. So I've gone off at various tangents there just for a change.