Latest / The Home of Fertility with Liz Walton & Helen Zee / When Your Body Has Other Plans, Miracles Still Happen

Transcript

When Your Body Has Other Plans, Miracles Still Happen · The Home of Fertility with Liz Walton & Helen Zee

• 0:04
  Liz Walton: Welcome to the home of fertility, a space for real conversations and expert insights about fertility, healing and creating family.
• 0:14
  Liz Walton: I'm Liz Walton.
• 0:17
  Helen Zee: And I'm Helen Z.
• 0:18
  Helen Zee: We are two mums who've walked this path and are passionate about supporting you on your journey emotionally, physically and spiritually.
• 0:28
  Liz Walton: We talk about it all fertility treatments, holistic support, relationships, mindset and the emotional highs and lows.
• 0:38
  Helen Zee: Because sometimes the missing piece lies in someone else's story, in the quiet wisdom of the body or in a breakthrough that's finally made for you we are so glad you are here.
• 0:52
  Liz Walton: Let's dive in.
• 1:02
  Helen Zee: Welcome beautiful friends and listeners to today's episode of the Home of Fertility.
• 1:07
  Helen Zee: I am in joy speaking with Julia Macken, who I have met recently, who wanted to reach out and share her story, and what an incredible story it is that we are going to explore.
• 1:24
  Helen Zee: Julia is full of gems.
• 1:31
  Helen Zee: Speaking to her just before we started as well, more aha moments that were happening between the two of us and, by way of a warm introduction and a big thank you.
• 1:40
  Helen Zee: Julia Makin owns a digital marketing agency.
• 1:49
  Helen Zee: She is a mama to a beautiful girl and will also get to acknowledge this other beautiful boy.
• 1:57
  Helen Zee: That was a brief part of your life, which we'll talk about in her story Fur baby, mama to three animals and married to a wonderful man.
• 2:09
  Helen Zee: So welcome, julia.
• 2:11
  Helen Zee: It's an absolute delight that you have reached out and said yes to sharing your story, which is so important for us here at the Australian Fertility Summit and the upcoming Melbourne Fertility Expo, where we're wanting people to share their stories and experiences so we can give that big group hug and know that the village does exist when these things can go a little bit pear-shaped, and what it takes to stay on course and what I shared earlier with what you've been through that becomes the threads that create the tapestry where your family get to lean on for support for such a long time to come.
• 3:06
  Helen Zee: You've got a legacy, my friend, welcome.
• 3:10
  Julia Macken: Thank you so much for having me.
• 3:11
  Julia Macken: It's an honour to be here.
• 3:13
  Helen Zee: Yeah, great.
• 3:14
  Helen Zee: Now, when I was listening to you and sharing your story, you were talking about the thing that was that aha moment which we hear a lot of people say is that you know, growing up and thinking that if a guy looks at you, or being told that, you know we're trying to scare you into a contraceptive mode of fear of not having sex because even if a guy looks at you, you're going to get pregnant, and so that is such a I grew up in that vintage as well where parents scaring you that's number one contraception.
• 3:56
  Helen Zee: You know, stay away, you're going to get pregnant and it can happen so easily.
• 4:00
  Helen Zee: And so when you are in that time of your life where you do want to try and it's not happening, and you are starting to go down that rabbit hole of Dr Google, before you start sitting in front of the professionals and trying to figure out what is going on and unravelling the mystery of your body and your fertility cycle.
• 4:27
  Helen Zee: So let's talk about the beginning of your fertility journey, my friend.
• 4:34
  Julia Macken: Yeah, so to your point, Helen.
• 4:36
  Julia Macken: I went to a private school that very much taught you the fact that if a guy looked at you you'd fall pregnant.
• 4:43
  Julia Macken: So that was always the expectation that it will happen when it's meant to happen, or happen relatively easily.
• 4:48
  Julia Macken: Unfortunately, that wasn't the case for me and I was diagnosed with unexplained fertility, which actually, for those who have had that diagnosis as well, it actually sucks because you don't have any reason for it.
• 5:04
  Julia Macken: Now I don't want to come for a place of ego, but I'm very much the person that if you set your mind to something, you achieve it.
• 5:13
  Julia Macken: So to be told that we needed to do IBF to achieve the outcome of having a baby was a really, I guess, sour pill to swallow, because I really thought, and I believe, in mind over matter, affirmations, manifestations, et cetera, so getting our head around that was an interesting journey and I remember going to the clinic for our first visit to the IVF centre and I remember them explaining the process and it was basically just, you know, like this huge roadmap and I honestly walked away from that very positive and I'm still very from that very positive and I'm still very positive about IVF and I always will be because we got our baby through IVF, I walked away from it.
• 5:50
  Julia Macken: I'm like, oh, we'll be one and done, it'll work.
• 5:52
  Julia Macken: The first transfer, easy, done, won't have to worry about it.
• 5:55
  Julia Macken: And yeah, and that was the.
• 5:58
  Julia Macken: I guess the challenging thing about it is what.
• 6:00
  Julia Macken: You go into IVF and what ends up happening throughout the whole journey completely transforms who you are, from the beginning to the end and also in the middle.
• 6:10
  Helen Zee: Yeah, yeah, and I hear that as well and you know, witness that as well.
• 6:16
  Helen Zee: When we feel that our body is not going to, you know, the word I'm going to use is fail us, because there are people that unfortunately say my body is broken.
• 6:28
  Helen Zee: And that's when I lean in and say actually, your body is not broken, your body is giving you the messages as signals that there is something going on.
• 6:42
  Helen Zee: And what can you do?
• 6:44
  Helen Zee: Where can you get assistance and medical assistance?
• 6:47
  Helen Zee: And we're also.
• 6:48
  Helen Zee: What can you do for yourself?
• 6:51
  Helen Zee: And I know that when I was reading what you sent through and what we're going to talk about, that you also went into health and fitness and really started turning things around for yourself, because you've had quite a journey with it and I know that we're going to tap on that very, very soon.
• 7:10
  Helen Zee: But I also want to reiterate for the person listening that, the experience of going in, as you said, and seeing that roadmap and putting your heart and soul into it, that you're wanting it to work with the minimalist amount of mental and physical anguish, because that's really what we want for ourselves.
• 7:39
  Helen Zee: Yeah, and I know, for yourself, my friend, when you started on the journey, you did get pregnant.
• 7:47
  Julia Macken: Yes, yes, so we were, and we were very lucky and I thought, oh my goodness, it's worked for us.
• 7:51
  Julia Macken: First go.
• 7:52
  Julia Macken: It's interesting when it does happen for first go and I still think you know the fact that work first go is a blessing.
• 8:02
  Julia Macken: And I do want to say to people who have had it happen first go and I have friends who that's happened to please don't feel any guilt, please don't feel like your journey was any less because it happened the first go.
• 8:13
  Julia Macken: You know, take that blessing and congratulate and pat yourself and give yourself the biggest hug, because I've never felt any guilt or any anger or anything for anyone else who's had that success.
• 8:28
  Julia Macken: The other thing I also wanted to say is, if you're people who have fallen pregnant naturally first time and then want a baby second time, it doesn't work and you have to go through IVF, please don't feel any guilt that it's worked for you beforehand.
• 8:41
  Julia Macken: You know everyone's journey is really personal and we have to keep you know in mind that whenever we are going through this journey, don't judge Just because it looks like they've got everything doesn't mean they do so.
• 8:52
  Julia Macken: I just wanted to mention that.
• 8:54
  Julia Macken: But then, going back to my journey, so, yes, we, it happened on the 31st of October was when we had the transfer and I was very lucky and very successful that it happened first go, as I mentioned.
• 9:08
  Julia Macken: Unfortunately for us it wasn't going to be a smooth journey and I remember it was New Year's Eve.
• 9:15
  Julia Macken: We got a phone call from we did the non-invasive test pregnancy test and our embryo and probably I'm sounding a bit technical here but for those who are on the journey will know about it.
• 9:27
  Julia Macken: We did PGT testing and it was a normal PGTA embryo tested embryo.
• 9:32
  Julia Macken: Unfortunately, sometimes what happens with PGT testing, as you can imagine, an embryo is microscopic and very, very small.
• 9:40
  Julia Macken: The part that they tested was the outer layer and the outer layer was genetically normal but unfortunately the internal layer wasn't.
• 9:48
  Julia Macken: But anyway, we got this phone call on New Year's Eve.
• 9:51
  Julia Macken: I was away from my husband at the time with his family and told there's an issue with the test result.
• 9:56
  Julia Macken: However, because it's Christmas, new Year's et cetera, there's nothing you can basically do about it.
• 10:03
  Julia Macken: Enjoy being pregnant and you know we'll deal with it later.
• 10:06
  Julia Macken: It wasn't as crass as that, but that's basically you know their point.
• 10:10
  Julia Macken: It was over in a five minute conversation.
• 10:13
  Julia Macken: Our whole world dropped in that second and I've never felt such pain and disappointment and disillusion in a five-minute conversation.
• 10:24
  Julia Macken: However, me being who I am, thought this is all BS.
• 10:28
  Julia Macken: You know, researched it, everything like this.
• 10:31
  Julia Macken: You know, I was confident like no, no, no, this is going to work out.
• 10:34
  Julia Macken: It's going to work out.
• 10:39
  Julia Macken: And we had about three weeks of limbo from there because we had to wait for further testing through an amnio, which is not the nicest experience and, of course, course, you have to wait for certain sizes, certain phases, to occur before you can have that again.
• 10:51
  Julia Macken: When we got the result from the amnio, it wasn't.
• 10:54
  Julia Macken: It wasn't good and again, for some reason, these phone calls like to happen at not an ideal situation for anyone who's done IVF and going through all that.
• 11:02
  Julia Macken: You know you're always sitting by the phone for the result and it's always when you walk away that the phone will ring.
• 11:08
  Julia Macken: So I had the phone with me and as soon as the person spoke, you know it was the counsellor and I knew straight away this is not going to be good news and unfortunately, our amnio result confirmed what the dip test result and basically what ended up happening was that our baby thomas wasn't, uh, going to be fit for life, um, and unfortunately we lost him on valentine's day in 2022.
• 11:35
  Julia Macken: What I think is really uh.
• 11:37
  Julia Macken: I suppose the spiritual side of me tries to wrap my head around.
• 11:42
  Julia Macken: That is, I was never a big person about valentine, like you know, hallmark sort of thing, but now every Valentine's Day my husband and I actually take stock of the moment and go about our love and it actually gives us a moment of time to go.
• 11:58
  Julia Macken: Okay, let's stop the mad rush, let's do this, let's do something nice to kind of celebrate the day and our shared love.
• 12:05
  Helen Zee: And then the other thing that I love is that it's like a moment, because Thomas was a living soul, yeah, living inside of you as a result of both of you.
• 12:20
  Helen Zee: And yeah.
• 12:23
  Julia Macken: And I considering Layla's older, older brother when she's old enough to get wrap her head around it.
• 12:28
  Julia Macken: We have um, the, the funeral parlor that looked after him.
• 12:33
  Julia Macken: Um took footprints and a handprint, so we've got that on and I've always been very open about the loss.
• 12:40
  Julia Macken: I know some people can be triggering, confronting, and I apologize for anyone I might have triggered, but the more you speak about them, the more other people actually spoke about their loss.
• 12:51
  Julia Macken: And again, loss, like IVF, doesn't matter if you lost a baby lost, you know, a baby at 18 weeks, 12 weeks, 10 weeks, six weeks, doesn't matter.
• 13:00
  Julia Macken: Loss is a loss loss.
• 13:03
  Helen Zee: I agree with you and my friend tapping on that, with the loss, first of all, for anyone that is listening.
• 13:12
  Helen Zee: If this is affecting you in any way, please reach out.
• 13:16
  Helen Zee: You can reach out to us here or please reach out to a support network, and I know that there are amazing support networks around.
• 13:23
  Helen Zee: One that we know is um works with uh and help support people through pregnancy loss, uh, miscarriages, stillborns it's um, and you know precious souls is uh pink elephants, and so I'm hoping that, julia, you got the support that you needed.
• 13:49
  Julia Macken: Yeah, in hindsight, I was too proud is the wrong word, but, too, I don't need that support.
• 13:59
  Julia Macken: I've got to get on it, and I wish I had read about Pink Elephant and I had wished in hindsight that I had taken that service up.
• 14:11
  Julia Macken: I didn't.
• 14:11
  Julia Macken: What ended up happening was I became a clean freak.
• 14:14
  Julia Macken: For some reason, I decided that everything had to be clean and tidy, and the one thing I'll say about the loss of Thomas was the fact that I realised how much my husband, graham, wanted a baby as much as I did, and that really, um, surprised me, um, and in anything like I see, the loss of Thomas.
• 14:35
  Julia Macken: It was either going to make or break us and for a little bit, a little bit, um, we did go, I would say, kind of in the opposite direction.
• 14:43
  Julia Macken: He coped in a different way, I coped in a different way, and then we realized, without any, you know, major incident or anything like that, realized that that's what was happening and we brought it, um, you know, brought ourselves back together.
• 14:55
  Julia Macken: The one thing that we always did, and I really encourage with people of IVF, is, if you do have it and I'm not going to use the word fail if you have a setback, do something nice to commemorate the setback.
• 15:08
  Julia Macken: So the thing that we always did and I used to always laugh with our IVF specialists, you know, before the last one I was like we can't afford any more holidays or we bought, you know, our dog Roxy, which connects us to our inner child and our cat and stuff was we tried to turn that negative into a positive, get yourself out of the environment, because sometimes a change in environment can be so empowering.
• 15:30
  Julia Macken: And that's what we sort of did with Thomas.
• 15:32
  Julia Macken: It was like we've got to stop, let's just take a break, reconnect together, um, and then that's what really changed and transformed us and led to our, I guess, physical, emotional sort of well-being and healing journey yeah, beautiful, you touch on such goodness there.
• 15:51
  Helen Zee: I mean, the celebrating those moments is is so important because it is so easy to just keep projecting into the future that we don't take stock of what we have done.
• 16:05
  Helen Zee: The resources that do get pulled together to be able to get to that point.
• 16:11
  Helen Zee: Originally, during the week, I actually interviewed someone else that was sharing their stories and they said something similar about celebrating the wins but also turning the losses into some kind of celebration.
• 16:25
  Helen Zee: They went on 14 holidays in one year.
• 16:30
  Julia Macken: We weren't that many, but we were getting up there, yeah.
• 16:34
  Helen Zee: Literally what they said.
• 16:35
  Helen Zee: It's like even the setbacks.
• 16:37
  Helen Zee: We turned it into a marked experience that there were 14 getaways in one year.
• 16:42
  Helen Zee: I'm like wow.
• 16:43
  Helen Zee: The other thing that you touched on that I'd like to just explore on where you said about it either makes you or breaks you, because I know that you've got a beautiful message to share with the person listening today as well, through the journey and you know what happens with our partners you know males predominantly.
• 17:08
  Helen Zee: The main essence instinctively that they have is to be a protector.
• 17:13
  Helen Zee: Yeah, and when they see a loss of a child and experience that loss that has happened through their loved one and their partner, it is a double whammy for them and the essence is I couldn't protect my wife and I couldn't protect this child and I've got goosebumps, yeah.
• 17:36
  Julia Macken: so do I.
• 17:37
  Helen Zee: This is my body, this is the truth points, the truth bumps that come out and it is like they go into the cave.
• 17:44
  Helen Zee: Sure, that's the you know modern day.
• 17:48
  Helen Zee: We call it the man shed.
• 17:49
  Helen Zee: Modern day, we call it like going out and what have you.
• 17:53
  Helen Zee: Modern day, we call it like going out and what have you.
• 17:56
  Helen Zee: But it is that time that men also need, because it's like that instinctive protector needs to go and take stock of what's happened, so then they can come back and represent themselves.
• 18:10
  Helen Zee: I'm here, I'm here, I'm here, I'm in front of you.
• 18:22
  Helen Zee: I'm here, I'm here, I'm, I'm here, I'm in front of you, I'm here and you also.
• 18:24
  Helen Zee: In the way that women, uh, reflect in the nurturing role, it doesn't surprise me that.
• 18:28
  Helen Zee: You know you came to clean others.
• 18:31
  Helen Zee: Come cook over cooking, over giving, over nurturing, because that natural element is like I am a nurturer.
• 18:40
  Helen Zee: I'm at the stage of my life where I want to nourish, I want to nurture, I want to give, I want to grow, I want to expand.
• 18:48
  Helen Zee: So you find yourself in a woman's body wanting to do that, because that's your way of recalibrating back into your centre, my friend.
• 18:59
  Julia Macken: And I totally agree with that because I think with IVF, a lot of the journey is focused on the female and I know no ideas because we're the ones having the injections, we're this and that, but it impacts the partner so much and there were moments, because of the you know so many different types of injections, where I was horrible because you're getting this influx of hormones, you're trying to, and I at the time, you know, working full time, you can't I'm going to use the word psycho.
• 19:27
  Julia Macken: Hopefully wasn't that bad.
• 19:28
  Julia Macken: You can't go psycho at your colleagues at work, so I'd come home exhausted do the injection.
• 19:33
  Julia Macken: Who do you end up attacking?
• 19:35
  Julia Macken: Unfortunately, you end up attacking the person you love the most and that's um, and and I really and I had seen that a lot um on the IVF Facebook pages.
• 19:44
  Julia Macken: You know my partner doesn't understand blah, blah, blah and I'm like they do.
• 19:48
  Julia Macken: They're just processing it in a in a totally different, different way, and they feel every injection that you are taking.
• 19:55
  Helen Zee: That's power, 100%.
• 19:56
  Helen Zee: My friend Julia, I'm a relationship and intimacy practitioner, so I and in the fertility space I work with couples.
• 20:05
  Helen Zee: With what you're sharing, it's exactly that Like.
• 20:09
  Helen Zee: They'll come in and they'll say our relationship is being tested, our intimacy is being tested.
• 20:15
  Helen Zee: And one thing that we come to realize time and time again when people are going through IVF is, even though the female and one of the partners is getting the injections, it is affecting whoever is giving that injection, whether you are injecting yourself or whether your partner is injecting you.
• 20:38
  Helen Zee: They are also affected by this, absolutely, absolutely.
• 20:45
  Helen Zee: To the listeners I did say that we'll be having some amazing conversations and such beautiful wisdom coming through these sharings, because we've all what you experience is not in vain.
• 20:58
  Helen Zee: What you have experienced and Thomas being a part of your growing body together with your husband like this is part of the legacy.
• 21:11
  Helen Zee: Nothing is in vain.
• 21:13
  Helen Zee: You have learnt so much and even after the loss of Thomas, you found the light again and this is something that you shared with me that there was a calibration.
• 21:27
  Helen Zee: You prioritised your health and your fitness and your wellbeing and your fur babies and finding that light again.
• 21:35
  Helen Zee: Please share with us how the miracle of I think, you can give it away.
• 21:45
  Julia Macken: I describe IVF as like when you're going through IVF, your life is on hold, but life still keeps going.
• 21:50
  Julia Macken: So you're kind of like in the Sims game on fast forward, but you pause at the same time and you live day in, day out.
• 21:57
  Julia Macken: So much in the future of going.
• 21:59
  Julia Macken: I can't go away on this date because what happens if my transfer is going to be on that day?
• 22:03
  Julia Macken: Oh, I can't have this because of that, and you basically end up just so focused on that.
• 22:10
  Julia Macken: Um with with us, I realised a lot of what I suppose was stopping us, so to speak, was a lot to do with fear.
• 22:21
  Julia Macken: So I was every time so with Layla, it took five more transfers and three more SIM cycles to get to Layla, and I know every transfer that we went to post Thomas, I would freeze up, I'd lock up, it was just and I'd race back to work after the transfer because for me, work was my, I guess, my safety net of not being able to not having to deal with it be distracted.
• 22:48
  Julia Macken: Then I don't know what happened was, all of a sudden, I was like this is not.
• 22:52
  Julia Macken: This is not a life of the way that I want to live, and it's also a life that I want to raise a child in, and I also honestly believe that losing Thomas has made me a better mum, because I appreciate now that life doesn't go to plan.
• 23:08
  Julia Macken: I appreciate that there are moments, like with Layla this week, where her molars are coming through, and I can tell you, everything that I want planned to do on my list has not happened and I think maybe if I had fallen pregnant with Thomas, I would have loved him as a mum as you know, earthbound mum, absolutely but I don't think I would have appreciated that and maybe I would have been a little bit more frustrated.
• 23:30
  Julia Macken: When you want something really badly and it doesn't happen, you, you realize what's really important.
• 23:34
  Julia Macken: So what ended up happening was I was like okay, let's focus on, you know, the meditation, the mindfulness, the health and the fitness.
• 23:44
  Julia Macken: The one thing I also really cut out was we used to love soft drink.
• 23:48
  Julia Macken: We cut out the Coca-Cola, all those sort of things, and ate more from a.
• 23:53
  Julia Macken: I wouldn't say I was always a junk food person, but definitely thought more about the, the fuel in your body and the food, food that you put in, um, and that made a difference.
• 24:03
  Julia Macken: And then, when we got closer to the end of um, trying for leila, we actually had a talk about when are we going to stop?
• 24:12
  Julia Macken: Like, are we going to keep going?
• 24:13
  Julia Macken: When is that point?
• 24:14
  Julia Macken: Because the thing with ibf, they don't tell you and you know, they can't tell you, they can't about.
• 24:18
  Julia Macken: When are we going to stop?
• 24:18
  Julia Macken: Like, are we going to keep going?
• 24:19
  Julia Macken: When is that point?
• 24:20
  Julia Macken: Because the thing with IVF, they don't tell you and they can't tell you, they can't say, look, it's going to take you 10 transfers to get there, you don't know.
• 24:25
  Julia Macken: And with transfer number five we actually had a chemical miscarriage.
• 24:30
  Julia Macken: So we were, you know, saw the lines going and then fade and then we thought, bug, bugger it, let's just go all in and do this, go back to back cycle and give it and give it a go.
• 24:41
  Julia Macken: And this time what we did differently was before we went for the transfer, we had a week in a way it happened to coincide with um.
• 24:48
  Julia Macken: The long weekend, the November long weekend, we went to me tongue, we took, we took the dog and the Roxy and our two cats, the fur babies, away, went to the hot springs, we had a good break.
• 25:00
  Julia Macken: And then on the Monday before the cup Tuesday was the actual transfer.
• 25:06
  Julia Macken: In the afternoon we came back, relaxed, at peace, my husband said, and he's never said that before the other transfers.
• 25:13
  Julia Macken: He just looked at the embryo, you know, when they showed their thing he said this is our baby.
• 25:17
  Julia Macken: And I was like, wow, this is, that's huge.
• 25:20
  Julia Macken: Had the transfer instead of.
• 25:23
  Julia Macken: Because I had that day off, I didn't race back to work.
• 25:26
  Julia Macken: I actually watched Paddington Bear.
• 25:28
  Julia Macken: I watched that movie.
• 25:31
  Julia Macken: I laughed, I cried.
• 25:32
  Julia Macken: All that pent up emotion that I had held on, even watched that movie, I laughed, I cried.
• 25:36
  Julia Macken: All that pent up emotion that I had held on, even though I'd done the health and the wellbeing and looking after herself, came out during watching Paddington Bear.
• 25:41
  Julia Macken: The next day I woke up and I was like I'm going to watch the second Paddington Bear movie.
• 25:45
  Julia Macken: I'm going to take it really slow, I'm going to be, I'm going to, I guess, nurture and nourish my body and act like I was pregnant and did that.
• 25:57
  Julia Macken: And then from there started to slow down more and more and we were really lucky that, for whatever reason I don't know whether, why or how, but we were blessed that that was the embryo that took Little Layla was.
• 26:10
  Julia Macken: It was a low, rising HCG.
• 26:11
  Julia Macken: So this is the other thing.
• 26:12
  Julia Macken: They don't tell you with IVf that you know you're so focused on getting pregnant and then they don't tell you all these things that happen after the pregnancy.
• 26:20
  Julia Macken: So getting blood tests every second day to make sure it was rising, and and so much about ibf is against the norm.
• 26:27
  Julia Macken: So you know they want a hcg level above this and then they want a hcg level above that because that's the average.
• 26:33
  Julia Macken: But you know people don't tell you that your body's everybody's different.
• 26:37
  Julia Macken: And yes, it needs to double, but it can start from a lower base and you know that's different from, I guess, falling pregnant in your more natural sense, because you don't have all that documentation along the way.
• 26:48
  Helen Zee: Absolutely.
• 26:49
  Helen Zee: Yeah, I absolutely.
• 26:50
  Helen Zee: And the thing is I also like, like, even when you're going through this you know medical procedures they try not to get you looking overwhelmed because you're not at that stage yet.
• 27:05
  Helen Zee: It's like, oh, now I'm learning something new about my body.
• 27:08
  Helen Zee: Oh, my gosh, I didn't realize that this was going to be a decision that I needed to make at this time point and it's very incremental.
• 27:17
  Helen Zee: So we don't get into that, that stage of overwhelm.
• 27:21
  Helen Zee: My friend, I feel like you've got a degree, you know, part degree in your reproductive health as a, as a um.
• 27:32
  Helen Zee: You know, with what you have, uh, experienced and know that you know, I know that.
• 27:35
  Helen Zee: You know with what you have experienced and know that you know, I know that you said, I heard you saying I don't know how it happened, but it did and why it happened, why this one was so different.
• 27:46
  Helen Zee: Doing five cycles, you know, is one thing, but also the health and well-being choices that you made to be able to bring your body into a new state of receivership.
• 28:06
  Helen Zee: That is all the work that you did right, because we, when we look at our reproductive health and this, this is again something what a lot of people don't know about from the mother, the placenta, the umbilical cord, to form with the baby.
• 28:23
  Helen Zee: So the health of your uterine lining is really important, and the health of the uterine lining.
• 29:00
  Helen Zee: And we just don't make this stuff up because we want to pump you with supplements or we want to get you eating broccoli and good fats et cetera.
• 29:08
  Helen Zee: It's human body.
• 29:10
  Helen Zee: It takes about four months for us to bring that egg into I'm losing my words to mature the egg out of that follicle and that uterine lining.
• 29:31
  Helen Zee: That is taking place.
• 29:34
  Helen Zee: If you are malnourished, you could be eating a bucket load of food, but when we start looking at a food diary we can see how malnourished you are.
• 29:43
  Helen Zee: So you've got the volume but you don't have the quality.
• 29:46
  Helen Zee: And then, if you're looking at Chinese medicine, they'll look at is the uterus damp, cold?
• 29:53
  Helen Zee: What is the interaction between the kidneys and the reproductive space?
• 29:57
  Helen Zee: If you've got endocrine disorders, if you've got PCOS, if you've got excessive estrogen, all these things play havoc.
• 30:08
  Helen Zee: So when you're also using natural medicine, which is food, sleep, wake cycle, exercise, starting to bring on and ping in the longevity of the health that you then get to pass on to the genetics of your baby as well.
• 30:30
  Helen Zee: So it wasn't just chance.
• 30:33
  Helen Zee: What you did was prescriptive and it got to your beautiful daughter, layla.
• 30:40
  Julia Macken: And I think that's just a really interesting point, what you mentioned about your period and menstrual cycle, because when you're trying to fall pregnant and your period comes, well, periods in Western society are always seen as a negative regardless.
• 30:53
  Julia Macken: As soon as you get your first period, it's like oh no, like this is.
• 30:55
  Julia Macken: You know, this is your life.
• 30:57
  Julia Macken: Now You're going to be moody, you're going to be this and that and actually, if you think about it from what it used to be like, celebration is the wrong word because you know it's not always great.
• 31:12
  Julia Macken: But if you read about your cycles and you read then other parts of your cycle, when I know I've got full, high energy, that's what I guess.
• 31:19
  Julia Macken: What I'm trying to say is, I start to listen to my body and go I have high energy.
• 31:22
  Julia Macken: Today, I'm going to do the high impact exercise.
• 31:24
  Julia Macken: The next time you know a period comes, I don't feel like high impact, I'll do Pilates or do yoga.
• 31:29
  Julia Macken: I'll do something a bit different and not push myself to fall into a certain like expectation or boundary.
• 31:35
  Julia Macken: And I think with particularly women, yes, it might be, it's disappointing, this is not the cycle that worked, but celebrate the fact the period has come, because there's other people who would be, who are wanting just the period to come because they don't have regular periods.
• 31:49
  Helen Zee: Absolutely, yeah, absolutely, celebrate, absolutely.
• 31:54
  Helen Zee: Like we were having a conversation with another doctor, we were talking about PCOS and we were saying the exact same thing.
• 32:04
  Helen Zee: Like your regular cycles, where you'll only have two, four or six periods a year, when you do get your medical treatment and you start getting your periods once a month like that is massive.
• 32:20
  Helen Zee: That means that your ovulation is kicked in.
• 32:22
  Helen Zee: This is where we start from, because without ovulation, you can't even have a successful IVF cycle, right, let alone, naturally, what's going to happen in the body?
• 32:35
  Helen Zee: My friend, you've got some lovely advice to share with our listeners.
• 32:41
  Helen Zee: I know that.
• 32:42
  Helen Zee: What is it like?
• 32:46
  Helen Zee: What would you like to share with the person listening today that is going through IVF treatment?
• 32:54
  Helen Zee: Don't feel any guilt.
• 32:55
  Helen Zee: That is going through.
• 32:56
  Julia Macken: IVF treatment.
• 32:56
  Julia Macken: Don't feel any guilt.
• 32:57
  Julia Macken: It doesn't and it doesn't matter because, as I was saying earlier, it works for you the first go.
• 33:02
  Julia Macken: It doesn't work for you until the sixth or tenth go.
• 33:06
  Julia Macken: You decide that you've had enough and you no longer want to proceed with the fertility journey.
• 33:10
  Julia Macken: It's okay Like it's.
• 33:13
  Julia Macken: Every person's journey is so individual that you know, don't compare yourself to someone else.
• 33:21
  Julia Macken: The other thing is and it's one thing that I could do and go back in time I wish I wasn't so focused on as I was saying before, I must do this by 6pm for it to work.
• 33:35
  Julia Macken: I wish I had enjoyed the journey a lot more and embraced it as an important chapter so that my cats just won't pass.
• 33:43
  Julia Macken: Important chapter of my journey and my life, because I had learned so much about myself that I wouldn't have known now that I wouldn't it's made me a better person.
• 33:55
  Julia Macken: I've known now that I wouldn't it's made me a better person.
• 33:59
  Julia Macken: I have so much more empathy for people than I had previously because, as I said earlier, I was always very fortunate that if I wanted something, it would happen.
• 34:03
  Julia Macken: To realize that that's not everyone's journey gave me a level of empathy and I'm a kinder person.
• 34:09
  Julia Macken: I also feel that I'm a better mum for those reasons.
• 34:12
  Julia Macken: So what I want to try and say, I guess, is no one's journey is exactly the same.
• 34:18
  Julia Macken: What you decide to do is right for you.
• 34:21
  Julia Macken: If you want to share it and talk to people about it, great.
• 34:24
  Julia Macken: If you want to keep it inside yourself, do.
• 34:27
  Julia Macken: And then for other people who are supporting people on this journey, come from a place of love and kindness.
• 34:34
  Julia Macken: Understand there are times when they're not going to be happy.
• 34:37
  Julia Macken: They're not going to be positive.
• 34:39
  Julia Macken: You know they are going through this difficult journey at times.
• 34:44
  Julia Macken: And my last point to say is, if you're on this journey and you are struggling, you know you might have friends who have had babies and this and that, and you're having trouble being around those people.
• 34:55
  Julia Macken: What I found was the best way of managing those situations is be open and honest.
• 35:00
  Julia Macken: Most people accept and understand if you're being open and honest.
• 35:03
  Julia Macken: If you pull away and don't explain why, that can hurt other people, because people want to see you succeed and want to see you happy.
• 35:12
  Julia Macken: So I yeah I really can't stress it enough you will succeed in this journey, whatever outcome you get, if you stay open with your communication.
• 35:23
  Helen Zee: Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.
• 35:24
  Helen Zee: And a question from me to you in doing your journey and knowing about the Australian Fertility Summit and namely the Melbourne Fertility Expo that is coming up, would you have benefited from knowing that you could walk through the aisles, cherry pick by speaking to people.
• 35:50
  Helen Zee: I'm not putting words into your mouth.
• 35:52
  Helen Zee: I'm just also wanting just to finalise by saying would it have been helpful to have, instead of the Dr Google and going down a rabbit hole, to have a village of practitioners and lived experiences in the one room for you to be able to tap into?
• 36:14
  Julia Macken: Absolutely.
• 36:14
  Julia Macken: So we started IVF during COVID.
• 36:16
  Julia Macken: As I know, there was a lot of people that started during COVID, so there was an influx of the Facebook groups, the Reddit groups that came on about IVF.
• 36:25
  Julia Macken: Now we know, when people are online, they're generally speaking because they're over the moon, happy, or they're in a you know, they tend to be two personalities or they're in a really bad, dark space.
• 36:34
  Julia Macken: So you've got a lot of polarising reviews of people saying this is great, do this, do this, don't do that.
• 36:40
  Julia Macken: It didn't work for me.
• 36:41
  Julia Macken: But to have a safe space where you could go and, you know, meet the exhibitors, talk to different people, also see people in the flesh.
• 36:50
  Julia Macken: So you know, because of COVID, like you know, yes, I connected with some people online, but you didn't really know anything about them.
• 37:00
  Julia Macken: People portray a certain you know story online as well, and to have that would be really empowering to also know that you're not alone.
• 37:07
  Julia Macken: Because I remember when I was going through the transfers and you'd be sitting in the waiting room my partner and I and you'd be like oh, there's other normal looking people and you know that are going through this too.
• 37:19
  Julia Macken: It's not just us like, and that was really empowering.
• 37:22
  Julia Macken: There was tall people, there were short people, there was blondes, there was you know, um, and I found that really helpful to know it's not just us, and I think that's what a lot of the power and a lot of the positiveness would come from an event like the Fertility Summit.
• 37:48
  Helen Zee: Oh, the village just keeps growing that mycelium.
• 37:52
  Helen Zee: You know that connectivity in what you have experienced is in someone else's story as well.
• 38:01
  Helen Zee: Julia, thank you so much for coming and saying hello and having such a frank conversation and sharing so openly and honestly with myself and also our community.
• 38:16
  Helen Zee: I'm very, very grateful.
• 38:18
  Helen Zee: I wish you and your beautiful family all the blessings and the goodness that comes with yeah, you being a mama.
• 38:31
  Julia Macken: It's still a word, that still, when people call me a mom, and I'm like, oh my goodness, I am a mum and that's a badge of honour.
• 38:37
  Julia Macken: And if I could just end on one point, I just wanted to just say one other thing about IVF, because there's a bit of a misconception about if it's IVF.
• 38:49
  Julia Macken: It's not a natural process.
• 38:50
  Julia Macken: It is a natural process, and I get really upset about people who say it's not natural.
• 38:56
  Julia Macken: Everything about it is natural.
• 38:58
  Julia Macken: Again, however, you give birth is still natural, whether it's C-section or vaginal as well, and I just wanted to stress that, because that was one thing that I struggled with as well, like feeling like you're unnatural, you know.
• 39:10
  Julia Macken: And I just wanted to stress, and I just wanted to also say best of luck to all the future mamas and and daddas, and for the fertility summit coming up as well hallelujah, my friend.
• 39:20
  Helen Zee: Brilliant see.
• 39:22
  Helen Zee: This is how the conversation sparked this beautiful stuff.
• 39:25
  Helen Zee: Thank you, thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart, thank you thank you thanks for joining us at the home of fertility.
• 39:38
  Liz Walton: We hope today's episode brought you clarity, comfort and connection if this podcast resonated, please share it, leave a review or subscribe.
• 39:49
  Liz Walton: This helps us support more people that are on this path.
• 39:54
  Helen Zee: And if you'd like to connect or share your story, find us on Instagram and Facebook.
• 39:59
  Helen Zee: At Australian Fertility Summit.
• 40:03
  Liz Walton: Remember, the missing piece might be waiting in a story, your body's wisdom or something new just made for you.
• 40:11
  Liz Walton: Take care and we'll see you next time.