Latest / Motherhood Uncut / The Fertility Journey with Dr. Nichole Morris | Motherhood Uncut Podcast | Season 5 Episode 11

Transcript

The Fertility Journey with Dr. Nichole Morris | Motherhood Uncut Podcast | Season 5 Episode 11 · Motherhood Uncut

0:00
SPEAKER_03: Hey, it's Kate Kripke and welcome to the Motherhood Uncut podcast.
0:04
SPEAKER_03: Here we are committed to making sure that nobody ever needs to mother alone.
0:09
SPEAKER_03: We bring to you wherever you are the conversations that we need to have to survive and thrive in motherhood, but so often keep silent about.
0:16
SPEAKER_03: The things that make us laugh, cry, celebrate, rage about, and reflect on.
0:21
SPEAKER_03: The things that bring tears of sorrow and tears of joy, confusion and wonder, fear and gratitude.
0:28
SPEAKER_03: We want you to feel good about your mothering and to feel supported along the often clunky adventure of life as a mom.
0:35
SPEAKER_03: In Motherhood Uncut, you can expect eye-opening conversations with experts in parenting, mental health, and women's health, as well as moving and inspiring conversations with moms who are out there paving the way for their children.
0:48
SPEAKER_03: You'll likely agree with some of what you hear and also disagree with some of what you hear.
0:53
SPEAKER_03: All we ask is this that you come with an open mind and boatloads of compassion for yourself and mothers everywhere.
1:00
SPEAKER_03: Pull up a chair, pour yourself a glass of wine or a cup of tea, put on your walking or running shoes, turn up the volume in your car during your commute or the pickup line at school.
1:09
SPEAKER_03: Just show up and mother with us.
1:11
SPEAKER_03: We have got you.
1:20
SPEAKER_03: Today on the podcast, I have the privilege of talking with Dr.
1:25
SPEAKER_03: Nicole Morris, who's both a colleague and a friend.
1:28
SPEAKER_03: Dr.
1:29
SPEAKER_03: Morris has dedicated her career as a naturopathic doctor to supporting women who want to become pregnant naturally.
1:36
SPEAKER_03: And the success rate of her clients is a tribute to her wisdom and expertise.
1:42
SPEAKER_03: As a doctor, she combines ancient and modern healing modalities from around the globe to strategically target the root cause of one's fertility challenges.
1:51
SPEAKER_03: And she supports clients in becoming their most vital selves.
1:56
SPEAKER_03: She's also the mother of two beautiful daughters.
1:59
SPEAKER_03: Today, though, Dr.
2:01
SPEAKER_03: Morris and I are going to dive underneath it all and talk about her own journey through fertility, challenge, grief, self-advocacy, and ultimate fulfillment.
2:10
SPEAKER_03: With truth and vulnerability, she opens up about the pain of wanting a baby desperately and struggling to conceive, the loneliness that comes from feeling so alone in this journey, and the exhausting grit and determination that was required for her to find the answers that she needed to finally become pregnant.
2:29
SPEAKER_03: We dive into the physical, psychological, social, and spiritual journey that she traveled to get to where she is today.
2:35
SPEAKER_03: Our hope through this episode is if you or someone you know is challenged with becoming pregnant, or if you also had a fertility journey that was dark and bumpy, you walk away from this conversation knowing that you are not alone, that you are not broken, and that there is support for you.
2:52
SPEAKER_03: I am so glad you're here today.
2:55
SPEAKER_03: If you're feeling exhausted, burnt out, overwhelmed, or anxious, I want you to take just a moment and ask yourself a hard but very valuable question.
3:05
SPEAKER_03: Have you been tending to your own needs?
3:07
SPEAKER_03: If the answer is no, put your hand on your heart and remember this.
3:11
SPEAKER_03: Of course, you're feeling those things.
3:14
SPEAKER_03: Because when you're moving through life and mothering from a place of depletion, you will feel exhausted and anxious.
3:20
SPEAKER_03: That's just how it works.
3:21
SPEAKER_03: If you aren't feeding your brain with what it needs to stay resilient to stress, you simply won't be resilient to stress.
3:28
SPEAKER_03: Now, if you're a frequent listener of this podcast, then you know that my positioning on this is clear and fierce.
3:34
SPEAKER_03: We simply cannot be good moms if we aren't taking care of ourselves first.
3:39
SPEAKER_03: What do I mean by a good mom?
3:41
SPEAKER_03: What I'm referring to is your capacity to stay steady and patient, to allow for your child to have their valid emotions and to show up as the mom that feels safe for them to come to when they're struggling.
3:53
SPEAKER_03: When you are mothering well, you are responding and not reacting.
3:57
SPEAKER_03: You're setting clear boundaries and holding limits while also remaining curious about what your child is feeling and experiencing.
4:03
SPEAKER_03: And if you're anything like me, like a human, then you simply can't do those things when you haven't rested and slept, when you aren't eating well, when you aren't hydrated, when you aren't breathing full deep breaths, when you aren't moving your body in some capacity, when you're not connecting with friends, and when you aren't taking time to recharge.
4:24
SPEAKER_03: My aligned Mama Reset 21-day wellness challenge is set up to kickstart new habits that will tend to your brain and well-being in service of your kids so that you can respond rather than react, so that you can be patient, think through challenges and find solutions, and stay connected to your kiddo in the process, and of course, so that you can feel better.
4:46
SPEAKER_03: This is my easy-to-access low-cost support option, and it's here for you.
4:50
SPEAKER_03: The link is in the bio.
4:57
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5:04
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5:07
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5:10
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5:23
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5:26
SPEAKER_03: Hi, Nicole.
5:27
SPEAKER_03: Welcome to the Motherhood Uncut Podcast.
5:29
SPEAKER_03: So happy to have you here.
5:31
SPEAKER_03: Thanks for having me, Kate.
5:32
SPEAKER_03: I'm so happy to be here with you.
5:34
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I'm really excited for this topic and this conversation.
5:36
SPEAKER_03: We're going to be talking about fertility, fertility challenges, the journey of fertility and fertility challenges into actually becoming a mom.
5:47
SPEAKER_03: Uh, for our listeners, Nicole, Dr.
5:49
SPEAKER_03: Nicole Morris is a naturopathic doctor and uh doctor who specializes in naturopathic fertility support, which is such an interesting term because I know that a lot of folks who struggle with fertility go to naturopathic doctors and that niche, naturopathic fertility support.
6:11
SPEAKER_03: At some point as we move through a little bit, I want you to help us understand exactly what that means, Nicole.
6:17
SPEAKER_04: Absolutely, yeah.
6:18
SPEAKER_03: But I would love to start by hearing more about you and your story.
6:22
SPEAKER_03: So you've got two kiddos.
6:24
SPEAKER_03: How old are they now?
6:26
SPEAKER_01: Six and eight, almost six and eight.
6:28
SPEAKER_01: Six and eight.
6:34
SPEAKER_01: But but it happened.
6:35
SPEAKER_03: I bet.
6:36
SPEAKER_03: So can you just talk us through that?
6:39
SPEAKER_03: And I I mean, this is like the biggest question.
6:41
SPEAKER_03: I'm like, here, here, let's give us all of it.
6:44
SPEAKER_03: But so I guess what I'm really wanting to know if you could take us way back, is like even before you engaged in fertility treatments, can you talk to us about what that was like for you, what you were going through?
6:59
SPEAKER_03: I know that so many of our listeners have been through similar journeys.
7:03
SPEAKER_03: And I would just love to have you invite us in just a little bit.
7:07
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
7:08
SPEAKER_01: I'll kind of just start at the beginning if if you're okay with that.
7:11
SPEAKER_01: So that's where we start.
7:13
SPEAKER_01: Um, so my husband and I were married when I was just a few days shy of 22.
7:18
SPEAKER_01: So I was super young when we got married.
7:20
SPEAKER_01: A baby.
7:20
SPEAKER_01: And yeah, I was a baby.
7:22
SPEAKER_01: Um, so you wouldn't think at 22 years old you'd have a problem getting pregnant or like difficulty getting pregnant, right?
7:29
SPEAKER_01: So we started trying probably like pretty soon after, within the first few months, I would say absolutely.
7:36
SPEAKER_01: Um, and you know, just never got pregnant and time went on.
7:42
SPEAKER_01: And I started to think to myself, like, okay, this is kind of strange.
7:45
SPEAKER_01: And remember, this was 2011.
7:49
SPEAKER_01: So this was before Instagram was really on the map.
7:52
SPEAKER_01: Before, I mean, we obviously like had the internet and Facebook and things like that, but it was before information was so readily available at our fingertips, right?
8:01
SPEAKER_01: To find everything that you wanted in 10 seconds.
8:03
SPEAKER_01: So um at that point, I for better or for worse, right?
8:06
SPEAKER_01: For better or for worse, yeah.
8:08
SPEAKER_01: So I, you know, sorry to head scratch a little bit, went to my OB and I remember being in there, and I'm a small person.
8:15
SPEAKER_01: I'm five foot and I'm pretty tiny.
8:17
SPEAKER_01: And I just remember them being like, you have to gain weight, you're not gonna get pregnant if you don't gain weight.
8:21
SPEAKER_01: So start drinking insure.
8:23
SPEAKER_01: And insure is nothing but high fructose corn syrup and synthetic nutrients, and nothing anyone should ever drink in any dire situation.
8:32
SPEAKER_01: So that was pretty much the recommendation.
8:35
SPEAKER_01: I remember them doing a little bit of blood work, knowing what I know now.
8:39
SPEAKER_01: I don't remember going on certain days in my cycle.
8:41
SPEAKER_01: So I know that they didn't even do it appropriately at the time.
8:45
SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, we just kind of went about life.
8:49
SPEAKER_01: And at some point they referred me to an IVF clinic.
8:52
SPEAKER_01: And that was um something that my husband and I just had agreed that we were never going to do IUI or IUF for our own like religious moral reasons and just our personal beliefs.
9:03
SPEAKER_01: So I did go there and, you know, we went through the extensive workup, um, had the ultrasounds, had the HSG when they like look to make sure your fallopian tubes are open.
9:12
SPEAKER_01: And of course, like nothing was wrong.
9:13
SPEAKER_01: I was given the blanket diagnosis, unexplained infertility.
9:17
SPEAKER_01: Um, through the course of all of this, I was doing a lot of CrossFit.
9:20
SPEAKER_01: I was eating like really strict paleo.
9:24
SPEAKER_01: Um, so on the outside, I was in the best shape of my life.
9:28
SPEAKER_01: I was super healthy, I was super disciplined in my exercise and how I ate.
9:32
SPEAKER_01: But in hindsight, looking back, I barely had enough to keep myself alive, right?
9:36
SPEAKER_01: I was doing CrossFit five days a week and I was eating no grains.
9:39
SPEAKER_01: Not that you need to eat an enormous amount of carbs or anything, but it just there was no access, right?
9:44
SPEAKER_01: And so um, the whole time that we were trying for this four years, uh, we lived in this cute little house that my husband bought when he was 22 before we were married.
9:55
SPEAKER_01: And um, there was mold in the attic.
9:57
SPEAKER_01: And I would always say, like, there's like black stuff on the roof in the attic, and I really think we need to do something about that.
10:03
SPEAKER_01: And it was above our bedroom.
10:05
SPEAKER_01: And it was just kind of one of those things where whatever, it was in the attic.
10:09
SPEAKER_01: We didn't really know about mold back then, you know, we just kind of brushed it off.
10:13
SPEAKER_01: And um, so at some point in the journey, which I'm not really telling the story right now, I'm noticing as like that it was difficult, but it was an extremely difficult journey, right?
10:23
SPEAKER_01: Like it's so lonely, and you feel all alone.
10:25
SPEAKER_01: And I didn't know anyone else going through infertility, and everybody else at in my life at that age was having babies, right?
10:32
SPEAKER_01: All of my friends, my cousins, my sister-in-law.
10:35
SPEAKER_01: You know, I was starting to have nieces and nephews, and it was brutal, right?
10:41
SPEAKER_01: I felt so alone, and there was that grief.
10:47
SPEAKER_01: Like if you've walked this journey, you know the roller coaster of every month when your period comes, right?
10:52
SPEAKER_01: And um so it was honestly probably the hardest thing that I've ever walked through in my life, and I've walked through a lot of health things in my life to say the least.
11:01
SPEAKER_01: And so at one point, my cousin got married and they got pregnant the night of their wedding.
11:08
SPEAKER_01: And I will never forget um, it's right before Thanksgiving.
11:11
SPEAKER_01: And my dad called me the day of Thanksgiving to give me a heads up because he wanted me to know before I got there, and they told me so that I could be prepared.
11:21
SPEAKER_01: And that was just like my that was like I was done, right?
11:24
SPEAKER_01: That was like my rock bottom.
11:25
SPEAKER_01: Of course, like I'm so happy for them, right?
11:27
SPEAKER_01: You're happy for other people, but you're still grieving yourself and you can be in both places at one time, right?
11:33
SPEAKER_01: This is this is good mental health, you would telescate.
11:36
SPEAKER_03: We're gonna I'm gonna come back to that in a after your story because I think that's such an important part.
11:41
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, go ahead.
11:42
SPEAKER_01: So, anyways, that was just like when I realized, like, wow, like I'm in such a fragile state, at least how it fell at the time, that like other people have to warn, like my dad has to warn me of someone else's joy so that I don't crumble, right?
11:56
SPEAKER_01: And um my whole I can't say my whole life, but like from high school on, I had always desired like there has to be a way you can be a doctor and help people and like actually really help people and not just give them drugs.
12:08
SPEAKER_01: Like I always desired this thing, right?
12:12
SPEAKER_01: But I could never find it.
12:14
SPEAKER_01: And uh in this moment, I had um graduated from undergrad, studied biology and chemistry, had a really good job in sales, was working for another company, got them to pay for my MBA.
12:28
SPEAKER_01: And I was like two months from graduating from my MBA um when all of this kind of happened.
12:33
SPEAKER_01: And I was just Google searching one day, and I finally found naturopathic medicine.
12:37
SPEAKER_01: Like, I don't know why God kept it from me for so many years, but I finally found it and I was like, wow, this is it.
12:44
SPEAKER_01: Like, this is what I want to do.
12:45
SPEAKER_01: And I told my husband in May, I said, we we have to do this.
12:48
SPEAKER_01: Like, this is what I want to do.
12:49
SPEAKER_01: We have to move across the country from Michigan to Oregon, like we have to do this.
12:54
SPEAKER_01: And he was kind of like in a stagnant place with what he was doing, um, job-wise.
12:58
SPEAKER_01: And so he was like, Okay, let's go.
13:00
SPEAKER_01: And we I applied in May, and by December, we moved across the country.
13:06
SPEAKER_01: And um, so you know, we moved out of that cute little house into this whole new life.
13:11
SPEAKER_01: I was like completely moved on from the fertility piece.
13:14
SPEAKER_01: I'm in medical school now, right?
13:15
SPEAKER_01: There's no time for babies.
13:17
SPEAKER_01: And six months later, I was pregnant totally spontaneously.
13:20
SPEAKER_01: We really weren't even trying.
13:22
SPEAKER_01: Um, and that was that.
13:24
SPEAKER_01: So looking back all of these years later, I can say, like, oh, that in that, in that, and identify all of these causes for the quote unquote unexplained infertility that were hidden, if you will, or just conventional medicine, didn't know where to look, wouldn't give me the time of day because I was 22, 23, 24 years old.
13:43
SPEAKER_01: I was too young to have infertility, right?
13:46
SPEAKER_01: Um, that sort of thing.
13:47
SPEAKER_01: So we um had baby number one, and then we had our second 12 days after I graduated from medical school.
13:56
SPEAKER_01: Um, so that is a very long story short.
14:00
SPEAKER_03: Oh, it's amazing.
14:01
SPEAKER_03: I mean, I'm there's so many little places for us to dig in here.
14:06
SPEAKER_03: And I mean, there's I I have to just say a couple of things off the bat.
14:09
SPEAKER_03: I mean, I literally have a little fireworks party inside of my body when I hear women who are like, what I want to do and what's gonna help me thrive is good for everybody.
14:28
SPEAKER_03: And so I'm gonna say what I need and make it happen.
14:31
SPEAKER_03: So even if we, even if someone stops listening right now, I think that part of your journey is incredibly powerful, right?
14:39
SPEAKER_03: That here you are, uh a fairly newly married woman, and you're like, this is what I want, this is what I need.
14:46
SPEAKER_03: You talk to your husband about it and you pick up and move to pursue that.
14:50
SPEAKER_03: Like, that's freaking amazing.
14:52
SPEAKER_03: I also hear this really interesting, um this such an interesting piece in here about the again, the larger concept, but we can feel like we're in such a place of tragedy and trauma.
15:08
SPEAKER_03: And then when we're open to it, something so amazing can come out of it, right?
15:14
SPEAKER_03: That you weren't even considering naturopathic medicine, right?
15:19
SPEAKER_03: And all of a sudden you were opened up to this possibility and opportunity, and quote unquote, look at you now.
15:25
SPEAKER_03: And we'll talk at the end of our conversation about what you're doing now and where people can find you.
15:29
SPEAKER_03: Because I think it's hugely important that people know the work you do.
15:33
SPEAKER_03: But but of course, this started from a place of such hardship, which is that you wanted something so badly and it wasn't working for you at the time.
15:44
SPEAKER_03: So, can you tell us?
15:46
SPEAKER_03: Because I know that there are people out there who feel this, and to your point, you felt lonely.
15:51
SPEAKER_03: No one was talking about it.
15:53
SPEAKER_03: Can you talk to us just a little bit about what that emotional psychological experience was like for you?
15:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
16:01
SPEAKER_01: In in leaning into that, Kate, based on what you say, I want to share like today in this moment, I am so grateful for that journey because I know if I would have had babies two years sooner, I wouldn't have gone to medical school with a two-year-old, right?
16:15
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
16:15
SPEAKER_01: So when we can look back with a different set of eyes than when we're loving it, we can say, like, oh, I can appreciate the journey now and I'm grateful for it, even though it was hell in the trenches, right?
16:26
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
16:27
SPEAKER_01: In getting there.
16:28
SPEAKER_03: So um you asked me to speak about just that or like when you were trying you were trying to become pregnant, you were becoming pregnant.
16:36
SPEAKER_03: I like I would love for you to get person as personal as you're willing to right now with us about that, because you so many people go through that and feel alone, just like you did.
16:47
SPEAKER_03: And I just want to sort of normalize that for people by you letting us know what that experience was like for you.
16:53
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there's there's so much grief in that, right?
16:56
SPEAKER_01: Because not only as women do we have the emotional roller coaster of starting our period every 28 to 30 days thereabouts, it's like a slap in the face or a or a reminder every month, like you you failed again, right?
17:11
SPEAKER_01: Your body didn't do this again.
17:12
SPEAKER_01: You let yourself down, you let your husband down, you let down your parents who want to be grandparents, and on and on and on, right?
17:18
SPEAKER_01: And so, like the guilt builds up and you feel broken.
17:22
SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, as a Christian, I believe like God made my body to reproduce and my body's not doing what God designed it to do.
17:29
SPEAKER_01: Like, what did I do wrong, right?
17:31
SPEAKER_01: Why am I being punished?
17:32
SPEAKER_01: Sort of thing.
17:34
SPEAKER_01: And you know, we know we're not in reality, that's not what's happening, right?
17:39
SPEAKER_01: We're not being punished, you're not letting everyone down.
17:42
SPEAKER_01: Like you aren't broken, but that's how it feels in the moment.
17:45
SPEAKER_01: And I remember so many nights like just sobbing, like on the floor next to my bed in that grief, in that despair of like not knowing what to do, especially I think because I was so young when I was doing that, like in my early 20s.
18:02
SPEAKER_01: I would say most people aren't walking through infertility in their early 20s, right?
18:07
SPEAKER_01: Um, and so struggling to know how to advocate for myself in the medical system, which I wasn't really familiar with.
18:15
SPEAKER_01: Um, so that was another challenge and to be taken seriously and to know what I needed to ask for.
18:21
SPEAKER_01: I didn't have any idea what I needed to ask for, right?
18:23
SPEAKER_01: And then you're like peeing on the LH strips and you're taping them on a piece of paper and you're like looking at them under the light, trying to see like, is that positive or negative?
18:31
SPEAKER_01: I don't really know.
18:31
SPEAKER_01: And then you know, you're like shoving them in a drawer and saving them for six months.
18:35
SPEAKER_01: And so it's just ridiculous, right?
18:37
SPEAKER_01: The technology has changed a little since then, thankfully.
18:40
SPEAKER_01: But so it's it's that despair, but it's also in the same token, you're trying not to be selfish.
18:49
SPEAKER_01: So you're not trying, you're trying not to make it all about yourself.
18:51
SPEAKER_01: So when your friend has a baby shower, you don't want to be selfish and not go.
18:57
SPEAKER_01: So you're like trying to hold yourself together to show up to the baby shower and be happy, and you are happy for them, right?
19:04
SPEAKER_01: Like, are you a little disappointed, maybe a little jealous?
19:06
SPEAKER_01: Like, yeah, like that's real and that's okay.
19:08
SPEAKER_01: And you're not not happy for them.
19:10
SPEAKER_01: It's just like an immense amount of grief and pain inside of your heart because you desire that so bad, right?
19:17
SPEAKER_01: Like, if a woman wants to be a mother, she wants nothing more than to be a mother.
19:22
SPEAKER_01: That's right.
19:23
SPEAKER_01: It's intellectual.
19:24
SPEAKER_03: That's right.
19:25
SPEAKER_03: It's so interesting.
19:27
SPEAKER_03: I mean, you know, for for our listeners, uh Nicole, you and I uh know we're colleagues in a in a a community a collegial community group.
19:38
SPEAKER_03: Um and I have the privilege of coming to speak to your group once a month in the work that you do.
19:46
SPEAKER_03: And one of the things that I'm talking over there a lot about that our listeners have heard me talk about here all the time is the way in which we feel many things at once.
19:56
SPEAKER_03: And you describe this for sure when you were doing your intro, but of course it's palpable right now, right?
20:02
SPEAKER_03: You're a woman, young woman trying to become pregnant, desperately wanting to be a mother, a friend, a sister, a colleague gets pregnant, has a baby shower, and you're invited.
20:13
SPEAKER_03: And you know that you quote unquote should show up for that person because you're in a relationship with them.
20:20
SPEAKER_03: You know that you should and even want to be happy for them, which a part of you is, and that a part of you is grieving so deeply.
20:30
SPEAKER_03: And you know that by being there, it's gonna be like you are gonna be walking on a tape rope the whole time you're there because you're being triggered everywhere you look.
20:36
SPEAKER_03: There's all this baby stuff, and everything you want that you're not getting is available to this person.
20:41
SPEAKER_03: And everyone's happy.
20:43
SPEAKER_03: I mean, I can feel it in my body just talking about it.
20:47
SPEAKER_03: And what we really speak so much about here, and we talk about it in so many different ways with all of our guests is this idea of self-compassion, right?
20:55
SPEAKER_03: Like now we're looking back at this, and you and I, you and I do this with your patients now all the time.
21:00
SPEAKER_03: Of course you feel that way.
21:02
SPEAKER_03: How could you not?
21:03
SPEAKER_03: But in the moment you use the word lonely, it felt lonely for you, huh?
21:09
SPEAKER_03: To be in that place.
21:11
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it feels so lonely.
21:12
SPEAKER_01: And I think that as women, we feel a lot of shame around infertility.
21:17
SPEAKER_01: We've kind of touched on this without using that word, but I think that shame is really the word.
21:23
SPEAKER_01: And do we put that on ourselves?
21:25
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
21:25
SPEAKER_01: There are a lot of women in certain cultures that I work with where the culture puts a lot of shame on them also.
21:31
SPEAKER_01: And so I find that a lot of women are walking this even today, right?
21:36
SPEAKER_01: 10 years later than I walked this journey almost, walking this journey in so much silence and shame and not talking about it.
21:44
SPEAKER_01: And when I was walking through that, one of the most powerful things that I did for myself was to talk about it.
21:52
SPEAKER_01: I processed through writing and I enjoy writing and sharing my story.
21:56
SPEAKER_01: And one night I remember I just got on my computer and I started a blog.
22:00
SPEAKER_01: And I just started writing.
22:01
SPEAKER_01: And it was like I was pulling the vowel off to tell the whole world like this is what it is.
22:07
SPEAKER_01: This is what I'm going through.
22:09
SPEAKER_01: This is my story.
22:10
SPEAKER_01: Right.
22:11
SPEAKER_01: So I wrote this blog and I posted it on my Facebook page, like my personal Facebook page.
22:15
SPEAKER_04: This was when Facebook was 10 years ago.
22:18
SPEAKER_01: This is like when we were on Facebook, right?
22:21
SPEAKER_01: And that was the most liberating, freeing thing that I did for myself in the journey.
22:26
SPEAKER_01: Because it was like I took the mask off, right?
22:30
SPEAKER_01: The mask of shame off or the mask of loneliness off.
22:33
SPEAKER_01: Now everybody knew.
22:34
SPEAKER_01: And I couldn't hide from it anymore because everybody knew.
22:37
SPEAKER_01: But there was so much beauty in everyone also knowing.
22:40
SPEAKER_01: Because if we're suffering in silence alone, no one can support us.
22:44
SPEAKER_01: How does someone know how to support you if they don't know that you need support?
22:48
SPEAKER_01: Right.
22:49
SPEAKER_01: So that support can respond.
22:51
SPEAKER_03: How do people respond to your blog post?
22:56
SPEAKER_01: I would say, ah.
22:57
SPEAKER_01: I don't know, that's the word coming to mind right now.
22:59
SPEAKER_01: Um I enjoy writing and I enjoy writing in a descriptive manner.
23:05
SPEAKER_01: And I think that I was I was able to describe the experience in the pain in like a descriptive way that they could also feel.
23:14
SPEAKER_01: So I think they felt invited in to offer support.
23:19
SPEAKER_01: And that support can be aggravating, right?
23:22
SPEAKER_01: We all know this.
23:22
SPEAKER_01: No one wants whomever saying things like, oh, just don't think about it, or oh, have you tried this supplement?
23:30
SPEAKER_01: When you're like, literally, this is all I think about.
23:32
SPEAKER_01: Like, there's no point telling me not to think about it when I literally think about it 25 hours a day.
23:38
SPEAKER_01: And 24 hours a day, you know, like you're gonna think about it all the time.
23:42
SPEAKER_01: So don't tell me that.
23:43
SPEAKER_01: That kind of support isn't helpful.
23:44
SPEAKER_01: But for me, like as a Christian, like it was my family could pray for me and they could offer support in that way.
23:50
SPEAKER_01: And that was helpful for me.
23:52
SPEAKER_01: I would say, like, I know that I am very blessed with a supportive family, with a family that can mostly respect boundaries and things like that.
24:00
SPEAKER_01: And not everyone has that grace.
24:02
SPEAKER_01: Uh, but I would encourage you, if as a listener, if you're walking through a journey of infertility, to lift the veil of silence to share.
24:15
SPEAKER_03: There's something so interesting about this too, which is, you know, I know a bit more about you than our listeners do, obviously.
24:24
SPEAKER_03: And so I know that you're also beautiful and fierce in what you do in the world.
24:30
SPEAKER_03: You're really good at what you do.
24:31
SPEAKER_03: I didn't know you before a year ago, but I'm imagining you've always been really good at what you do.
24:37
SPEAKER_03: Like you're you right.
24:39
SPEAKER_03: So you you present in this pulled together, I've got this way.
24:47
SPEAKER_03: And here you are, a 22-year-old struggling with infertility.
24:51
SPEAKER_03: So not only are you kind of crumbling inside emotionally and psychologically, but what one would think of when they looked at a 22-year-old was not what was happening within your body.
25:06
SPEAKER_03: Right.
25:07
SPEAKER_03: So here you are, it's so easy for us as women to present a certain way.
25:12
SPEAKER_03: And if we're not taking the veil off, and we're just like, we need something and we're not going to get it, and no one would know.
25:19
SPEAKER_03: So it's sort of a really um, it's palpable.
25:24
SPEAKER_03: I mean, I again, I didn't know you then, but it's this idea of suddenly sitting down to your computer and quote unquote exposing what's really happening for yourself, pulling off the veil, which must have been so terrifying on some level, but also it sounds like liberating on the other.
25:40
SPEAKER_03: It really set the journey you were on off on a whole different tangent once you did that, didn't it?
25:48
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
25:49
SPEAKER_01: And honestly, going back to that moment is what allowed me to be, it's the start of where I am today, right?
25:58
SPEAKER_01: Because it was the start of me talking about something that I held so deeply in my heart and soul because I was living it, right?
26:07
SPEAKER_01: So that set the tone for me to be able to continue on and share as I do today.
26:15
SPEAKER_03: That's really profound.
26:17
SPEAKER_03: So, what happened next?
26:19
SPEAKER_03: You shared this blog post, you started having people support you in all these different ways.
26:24
SPEAKER_03: I don't, I want to put a pin, not a pin, but I want to highlight this idea that what was most helpful for you, it sounds like, was that people, your people who you loved were praying for you and holding well wishes for you.
26:37
SPEAKER_03: There's not a lot of doing in that.
26:39
SPEAKER_03: So we forget that really what we need most is to have people in it with us, feeling with us, holding us in love and light.
26:47
SPEAKER_03: It doesn't have to be that everyone's running around frantically trying to help.
26:53
SPEAKER_03: Exactly, exactly.
26:54
SPEAKER_03: Right.
26:54
SPEAKER_03: There's something really profound at both this as a giver of support and a receiver of support to remember that.
26:59
SPEAKER_03: So, what happens next for you?
27:03
SPEAKER_01: So that was shortly, that was several years in the journey.
27:07
SPEAKER_01: And that was shortly before I discovered neatropathic medical school and decided we were going to go on this great adventure in life.
27:16
SPEAKER_01: Um, but I would say emotionally, I didn't have to explain or hide anymore.
27:23
SPEAKER_01: And when you're young, people just assume, like, oh, she's just not ready to have kids yet.
27:28
SPEAKER_01: They're not ready yet, right?
27:29
SPEAKER_01: That was like some sliver of the piece, but then some sliver was like, well, my family knew, but they didn't know all the ins and outs and all the details, right?
27:37
SPEAKER_01: Or like the extended family would like, you know, people are nosy, they want to know, but they ask in appropriate ways because people are awkward and they don't know what to say, right?
27:47
SPEAKER_01: So we removed like the explanation.
27:49
SPEAKER_01: So it really wasn't long after that.
27:52
SPEAKER_01: I would say it was within probably a year of me writing the blog and posting that and getting that out that we started this transition to our grand adventure to Oregon for medical school.
28:02
SPEAKER_01: So um at that point, I had really just put the thoughts of starting a family aside.
28:10
SPEAKER_01: We took some really big gambles.
28:11
SPEAKER_01: We uh sold our house in Michigan and bought a house in Oregon before my husband even had a job.
28:16
SPEAKER_01: Like it was, I don't even know how they let us do it, honestly.
28:19
SPEAKER_01: But it was like we just had some really big gambles on the line and things like God really just needed to lay the pieces in place, which he explicitly did for us.
28:27
SPEAKER_01: Like it was beautiful.
28:29
SPEAKER_01: Um, so uh I ended up pregnant, and just to give a little glimpse of what that was, um, at my 20-week ultrasound, we actually found out that my daughter had a congenital abnormality.
28:40
SPEAKER_01: So that led us into the next big, uh, probably even bigger medical journey than what we'd already been on.
28:47
SPEAKER_01: Um, so she had a kidney abnormality.
28:49
SPEAKER_01: Long story short, we spent a ton of time in the hospital her first year of life.
28:53
SPEAKER_01: She had two surgeries during that time.
28:55
SPEAKER_01: So all of the things that I've been through, all the way back to childhood, I was also a very sick child.
29:00
SPEAKER_01: And we we won't open all those cans of worms now, but my whole entire life, I've kind of been in the corrupt medical system as a patient until probably seven years ago when there was no more of that.
29:13
SPEAKER_01: But um, so then we we went through this whole experience with her as well.
29:18
SPEAKER_01: Keep in mind this is like my third year of medical school, right?
29:21
SPEAKER_01: So it was just, I was living in this like whirlwind of chaos, trying to figure out how did I actually just get pregnant?
29:28
SPEAKER_01: I have absolutely no idea, right?
29:30
SPEAKER_01: Now I'm pregnant with my miracle baby, and 20 weeks in we find out she has a congenital abnormality.
29:36
SPEAKER_01: So then there's this whole roller coaster of emotion there in going through the conventional medical model.
29:43
SPEAKER_01: Um, in my experience with a child with a congenital abnormality during pregnancy, it's not a pleasant experience, to say the least.
29:51
SPEAKER_01: So then there's that whole layer to that.
29:53
SPEAKER_01: Um, and then we spent tons of time in the hospital and her surgeries and on and on.
29:57
SPEAKER_01: And she's perfectly healthy, beautiful little eight-year-old now.
30:00
SPEAKER_01: So we're good.
30:01
SPEAKER_01: Um, but then shortly after we made through her medical journey, then I was pregnant again for my fourth year of medical school.
30:09
SPEAKER_01: And like I mentioned, had my um second 12 days after we graduated.
30:13
SPEAKER_01: And then I sat for my licensing exams four weeks later.
30:17
SPEAKER_01: It was literally, I still have PCSD from again.
30:22
SPEAKER_00: I have like heart palpitations here.
30:26
SPEAKER_00: I'm a little sweaty every time I go back to the email.
30:29
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, oh my gosh, I don't know how we survive.
30:32
SPEAKER_00: But we did, but you did, but which is also an important thing to pause on for a moment.
30:37
SPEAKER_03: Isn't that amazing?
30:39
SPEAKER_03: Is that amazing how resilient we are?
30:43
SPEAKER_03: Especially when we're, I mean, this thought keeps coming up to me for me.
30:48
SPEAKER_03: It's like the question I have, which you know, I think you're leading us in to know you enough to know the answer, but is what kept you going?
30:59
SPEAKER_03: So you're talking about grief after grief, like challenge after challenge after challenge, grief after grief after grief, right?
31:06
SPEAKER_03: Right.
31:06
SPEAKER_03: There's just all these waves of challenge, even the challenges that come with moving across the country.
31:12
SPEAKER_03: Like, you know, there's grief leaving one place and going to another.
31:16
SPEAKER_03: Like there's just all this challenge.
31:19
SPEAKER_03: And clearly you are a very determined human, right?
31:25
SPEAKER_03: I mean, I think there's so much purpose behind this for you.
31:28
SPEAKER_03: And we know that when we have enough purpose, we will make those things happen regardless of the challenge.
31:35
SPEAKER_03: But I think a lot of people would have stopped back here.
31:40
SPEAKER_03: And so the fact that, and we're fast-forwarding for a moment, but the fact that now you're here where you are and you're helping hundreds of women become pregnant who are child challenged with becoming pregnant.
31:52
SPEAKER_03: I've met some of them, amazing women.
31:55
SPEAKER_03: You've got this healthy eight-year-old.
31:58
SPEAKER_03: You're healthy, you know, you've made it through all the like the only way to get to there to that point is to be willing to keep going.
32:06
SPEAKER_03: But how the heck did you keep going?
32:12
SPEAKER_01: Honestly, I would say like the number one thing is my faith.
32:16
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
32:16
SPEAKER_01: And just knowing like every piece of the puzzle, the Lord has just always put it together, right?
32:23
SPEAKER_01: So, yes, there's challenge after challenge, but I'm able to look at it and say, like, okay, it's his purpose, it's his plan.
32:29
SPEAKER_01: I don't know the answer, but I know I will soon.
32:32
SPEAKER_01: And just having faith in that unknown, in his divine plan uh for not just my life, but mine and my husband together.
32:40
SPEAKER_01: And we've just had so many experiences in life where it's like, okay, if God wants us, it's gonna work out.
32:46
SPEAKER_01: If he doesn't, it doesn't.
32:48
SPEAKER_01: And the pieces always fall to that I can get to the end and say, that was beautiful.
32:52
SPEAKER_01: It worked out just the way that it was supposed to, or God always works it out, right?
32:56
SPEAKER_01: And I mean, don't get me wrong, like those four years were hell that I was in medical school.
33:02
SPEAKER_01: I can imagine like there was a lot of trauma.
33:05
SPEAKER_01: Like I joke when I say there's PTSD, but there's legit PTSD when I think about my licensing exams and taking them four weeks after I had a baby and a top.
33:15
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I mean, as a postpartum specialist, I'm like, oh damn.
33:18
SPEAKER_01: I mean, yeah, that like there was there was no maternity leave.
33:22
SPEAKER_01: Like people have maternity leave.
33:23
SPEAKER_01: I did not have maternity leave.
33:24
SPEAKER_01: Um, I think everyone should have a lot of maternity leave, but that just wasn't my personal experience with where I was in life.
33:30
SPEAKER_01: So, like, that's another grief.
33:31
SPEAKER_01: Like, I think about that sometimes that I literally did not, I never had a maternity leave.
33:36
SPEAKER_01: When I had my first, I was I had her on a Thursday and I was back sitting in a classroom on Monday taking exams.
33:43
SPEAKER_01: Like, I'm not sharing that for pity, but like that was my real life, right?
33:46
SPEAKER_01: So it was also this determination of like, I don't quit.
33:50
SPEAKER_01: So I started, so I'm not gonna quit, even though I got pregnant six months later because God brought me across the country for a reason, right?
33:57
SPEAKER_01: And even looking back on all of my daughter's experiences, I'm such a better practitioner today because I spent a year in the hospital with her, right?
34:05
SPEAKER_01: And I can better serve other mothers.
34:07
SPEAKER_01: I actually just got off a call with another mom whose son has the same diagnosis as my daughter.
34:12
SPEAKER_01: She found me on Instagram from me sharing about her.
34:15
SPEAKER_01: Um, so I wouldn't be able to support her or other parents in advocating for their children at the capacity that I do if I didn't have to advocate for my own children in that capacity.
34:29
SPEAKER_01: Right.
34:29
SPEAKER_01: So every journey, yeah, and every journey gets us like there's a reason I went through everything.
34:35
SPEAKER_01: And part of the reason is yes, it makes me a better mom, but I'm also a better practitioner for all of the people that I serve.
34:41
SPEAKER_03: I think I want to just also reflect um this idea of faith, right?
34:48
SPEAKER_03: And our listeners come from all different faith backgrounds.
34:51
SPEAKER_03: We probably have plenty of people who are atheists and don't believe in God, as well as people who are Christians or Buddhist or Jewish or whatever.
34:59
SPEAKER_03: But here's what we know is that when we can connect with something bigger than ourselves, and when we can open up to the possibility that we're going to be okay.
35:15
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, we have the energy to move through hard things.
35:21
SPEAKER_03: If we don't, if we're not open to that possibility, there's no way we can keep moving, right?
35:27
SPEAKER_03: So I don't care if it's if someone calls it God or Mother Earth or nature or spirit or anything.
35:33
SPEAKER_03: The whole point is that we need to understand, have some, even just a little part of us open to the possibility that there is purpose or meaning behind this thing that we're going through.
35:48
SPEAKER_03: That's really hard to do when we're in the middle of it.
35:51
SPEAKER_03: And I do think people who have a religious faith or a spiritual practice will have an easier time with that, because that concept can be like make no sense if we don't have that.
36:01
SPEAKER_03: The other thing that I think you talked about that I'm sure was part of this, and my my like postpartum mental health provider heart is like, oh gosh, that mom.
36:10
SPEAKER_03: Like that is you also you had your faith, you had your purpose, you had your kind of higher level of support.
36:18
SPEAKER_03: And then you had reached out and told people that you had been so you also had the support and love of people in your community that helped you during that time.
36:27
SPEAKER_03: Is that an accurate statement?
36:29
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
36:29
SPEAKER_01: I I want to touch on what you said really quickly about the faith.
36:33
SPEAKER_01: I think that it's really important to remember that we become what we believe.
36:36
SPEAKER_01: It starts in our mind, right?
36:38
SPEAKER_01: If you are in this state of despair and depression and just really tell yourself all day over and over again that your life is over, like, okay, it is like you're manifesting that, right?
36:50
SPEAKER_01: If you continue to remind yourself, like, I can do this one day at a time.
36:55
SPEAKER_01: I always think of it as like you get your syllabus at the beginning of every semester and you look at it and you're like, there's no possible way I'm gonna get all this done in the next 12 weeks.
37:03
SPEAKER_01: And you do, you get it done.
37:04
SPEAKER_01: You go one day at a time, one assignment at a time, you get it done, right?
37:06
SPEAKER_01: It's the same thing.
37:07
SPEAKER_01: We can apply that same concept of just your thoughts start in your mind.
37:10
SPEAKER_01: You become what you think.
37:12
SPEAKER_01: Um, and then to directly answer your question about the community.
37:17
SPEAKER_01: Yes, I am very blessed to have a very supportive community.
37:21
SPEAKER_01: I had very supportive colleagues in medical school that were so incredibly helpful to me.
37:28
SPEAKER_01: And I also have so much support from our family.
37:31
SPEAKER_01: So my mom came for a month after my babies were born.
37:34
SPEAKER_01: My mother-in-law came for several weeks.
37:36
SPEAKER_01: I understand that not everyone has that, but we are very blessed to have a very supportive family that went above and beyond to help us during that time.
37:44
SPEAKER_01: And that made a really big difference too.
37:46
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I mean, I think what I hear you saying, just so our listeners aren't spiraling off, and is that you can't do what you did without support.
37:55
SPEAKER_03: Like you were blessed to have the support in your family, and there's no way to continue doing those things you were doing without support.
38:05
SPEAKER_03: We need support to do that.
38:08
SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
38:08
SPEAKER_03: Okay, so man, so you take this, you take this exam, you've got these little babies.
38:14
SPEAKER_03: As we uh baby, as we wrap up here, because we're gonna begin to come to a close.
38:19
SPEAKER_03: I'm wondering if you could share with us a little bit about so I'm gonna, I I guess I'm gonna, you're you it's gonna be hard for you not to take your doctor hat off here because I'm gonna ask for the doc.
38:31
SPEAKER_03: But for for you as a woman and mother who went through this fertility journey, you've taken us beautifully through the grief, through the through the hope, through the ultimate grief again when your baby's got this congenital um kidney.
38:49
SPEAKER_03: Is that what you said?
38:49
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
38:51
SPEAKER_03: Um, and then all you know, you're moving through all of this stuff.
38:55
SPEAKER_03: What was important for you to know about or did you learn about yourself in that process?
39:03
SPEAKER_03: Because I want to ask you a little bit about what you learned about what was quote unquote causing your infertility.
39:09
SPEAKER_03: I think that might be helpful for some people to know.
39:12
SPEAKER_03: But I first want to know, like inside of you, as you look back, what you learned about yourself throughout that.
39:19
SPEAKER_01: We can do real hard things.
39:21
SPEAKER_01: And I tell my kids that every day.
39:23
SPEAKER_01: I say, You're mama's girl, and you can do hard things.
39:25
SPEAKER_01: We do hard things.
39:27
SPEAKER_01: Um, I would say that is probably the most thing, the biggest thing.
39:31
SPEAKER_01: And for me, also just my faith grew so much during that period of time.
39:35
SPEAKER_01: I think that also comes with with aging and maturing, also.
39:40
SPEAKER_01: But walking through those hard times, there was there was my only place to lean, essentially, right?
39:46
SPEAKER_01: Um, is on the Lord and my faith beliefs there.
39:50
SPEAKER_01: So that I would say deepened as well.
39:53
SPEAKER_01: Um and I think another thing is that um I'm not broken.
40:02
SPEAKER_01: And for anyone listening that's walking through this journey, you're not broken either.
40:07
SPEAKER_01: Everything isn't meant to happen when we want it, right?
40:10
SPEAKER_01: There's a lot we want right now, but there's a reason that sometimes that we don't get what we want when we want it, and that's okay.
40:18
SPEAKER_01: And we're going to be stronger and better in the end when it happens in the in the right timing, I would say.
40:25
SPEAKER_03: Wow.
40:27
SPEAKER_03: So important.
40:28
SPEAKER_03: All of that is so important.
40:30
SPEAKER_03: I mean, all of it.
40:33
SPEAKER_03: That idea of you realizing that you weren't broken.
40:37
SPEAKER_03: I I think that there is a way.
40:40
SPEAKER_03: It would be hard to not feel broken when you're going through a journey like that.
40:46
SPEAKER_03: And of course, from a mental health perspective, we know that what needs to be addressed when we're struggling with things like depression and anxiety is that belief.
40:58
SPEAKER_03: I mean, it comes to your physical body, I'm just your expertise.
41:03
SPEAKER_03: But when we believe that we're broken and there's something inherently wrong with us, it's real hard to get what we want mentally and emotionally and psychologically.
41:14
SPEAKER_03: Um, so what did you know, in a nutshell?
41:17
SPEAKER_03: Obviously, we could talk for another hour about this, but in a nutshell, what did you learn had been causing your infertility?
41:25
SPEAKER_03: Or your do you call it that at this point?
41:27
SPEAKER_03: Do you still call it that it was infertility?
41:29
SPEAKER_03: What do you call it?
41:30
SPEAKER_01: I mean, technically it would be subfertility, and I like that word more.
41:33
SPEAKER_01: Infertility means like you literally cannot get pregnant.
41:37
SPEAKER_01: Subfertility is like our fertility just needs some support.
41:40
SPEAKER_01: Uh but infertility is the commonly used term.
41:43
SPEAKER_01: So, um, like I mentioned in the beginning, like I was working out a lot and I was eating really strict paleo.
41:48
SPEAKER_01: I had like zero body fat essentially.
41:51
SPEAKER_01: So when you're overworking out and not necessarily undereating, but under eating maybe from a calorie standpoint, uh, your body is just in survival mode.
42:01
SPEAKER_01: And your body is saying, I've got enough for me.
42:03
SPEAKER_01: I don't have enough to grow another human.
42:04
SPEAKER_01: So we're just gonna have to wait on that, right?
42:07
SPEAKER_01: Um, so there's that piece, the mold that I mentioned.
42:11
SPEAKER_01: Um, I think that that had a lot to do with it, honestly, especially since I was pregnant six months after moving out of that house.
42:18
SPEAKER_01: So I think that that had a lot to do with it.
42:20
SPEAKER_01: Um, and I would say, like the women that I work with, a lot of them experience mold toxicity as well.
42:25
SPEAKER_01: Um, so those I think are the biggest pieces for for me.
42:29
SPEAKER_01: And when I moved, I started med school, obviously.
42:32
SPEAKER_01: So I stopped doing CrossFit so much.
42:34
SPEAKER_01: Um, I also moved to Portland, Oregon, and that was in 2014.
42:38
SPEAKER_01: And so I was coming from rural Michigan, where I'd been eating gluten-free and dairy-free, but there weren't as many options of like good things.
42:47
SPEAKER_01: But then I moved to Portland in 2014 when it was like the hop and place to be the food scene, right?
42:52
SPEAKER_01: And there's tons of gluten-free and dairy-free, like everything.
42:55
SPEAKER_01: So then I was just like eating all of the gluten dairy-free treats I can find.
42:59
SPEAKER_01: Because it's been years since I, you know, had access to things like that.
43:03
SPEAKER_01: Um, so I think that that made a big difference too.
43:05
SPEAKER_01: And then lastly, I was taking a lot of uh rhodiola, which is an herb.
43:11
SPEAKER_01: And I started taking rhodiola because my uh academic counselor at the time said it's good for your brain, and you are going to need good memory and blah, blah, blah.
43:24
SPEAKER_01: Well, come to find out it's good for your hormones too, and your adrenals and other things.
43:28
SPEAKER_01: So I think the rhodiola, not saying everyone listening should go and get themselves a bottle of rhodiola.
43:32
SPEAKER_01: You shouldn't have to do that.
43:33
SPEAKER_02: Just so you know, that's what I'm thinking right now.
43:35
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, I think my brain needs some rhodiola.
43:38
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
43:38
SPEAKER_01: So I was taking a lot of rhodiola when I got pregnant now, too.
43:41
SPEAKER_01: And now I know how that influences hormones and things like that.
43:43
SPEAKER_01: So that might have something to do with it as well.
43:45
SPEAKER_03: Oh, wow.
43:46
SPEAKER_01: Amazing.
43:47
SPEAKER_03: So natural nature, naturopathic medicine focuses on what?
43:53
SPEAKER_03: For our listeners that have never heard that term before or they like really have heard it, but they don't really know, like, what is it?
44:00
SPEAKER_03: What so you so you so what uh special uh your specialty is home naturopathic fertility support.
44:10
SPEAKER_03: Like tell us what that even means.
44:11
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
44:12
SPEAKER_01: So naturopathic doctors, we go to four-year medical school, just like your conventional MD or um DO, we learn all the conventional modalities, pharmaceuticals, all the things.
44:24
SPEAKER_01: Uh, but we're also learning we have so many courses on nutrition and homeopathy and herbs and um physmed or manipulation of the body, similar to what chiropractors do.
44:34
SPEAKER_01: There's so many tools in our toolbox that we use as naturopathic doctors.
44:38
SPEAKER_01: Our training or the way that we are taught to think about a case or a client or a patient is very root cause, right?
44:45
SPEAKER_01: So if someone comes in with a symptom, I'm not trying to just get rid of the symptom.
44:49
SPEAKER_01: I'm trying to figure out why they have the symptom in the first place and how do we address that with nutrition, with supplements, with homeopathy, whatever the thing may be, right?
44:58
SPEAKER_01: So it's very much a root cause approach.
45:00
SPEAKER_01: And I would argue that it differs from functional and integrative medicine because in some functional and integrative medicine practices, we still end up symptom treating, but with supplements instead of pharmaceuticals.
45:12
SPEAKER_01: So I'm just thinking very, very root cause.
45:14
SPEAKER_01: And when it comes to naturopaths, um what we can do in licensing is different in different states, it's all state dictated.
45:23
SPEAKER_01: And we learn so many modalities that with naturopaths, you don't really know what you're gonna get until you're with one because you don't know.
45:29
SPEAKER_01: Like this might be a naturopath who does chiropractic type manipulation and that's their thing.
45:34
SPEAKER_01: And this might be a naturopath over here that does um herbs and they have done extra study in botanicals and herbs.
45:41
SPEAKER_01: So um I really encourage people to interview their practitioners before they work with them to make sure that they're a good fit and they're in alignment.
45:49
SPEAKER_01: Um, and when I say that I do naturopathic fertility support, uh, we're trained as PCPs, our primary care physicians.
45:57
SPEAKER_01: So again, we all go on to have different specialties.
46:01
SPEAKER_01: So in my practice now, I focus entirely on supporting couples struggling with infertility that want to get pregnant without IUI, without IBF.
46:09
SPEAKER_01: Um, and I really honestly work with the hardest cases, people that have been trying for eight, 10 years, who've had 22 rounds of IUI, who've been told they need an egg donor, who've been told that their thyroid should be radiated and removed from their body.
46:24
SPEAKER_01: Um, and we successfully help these women to conceive naturally.
46:28
SPEAKER_01: Uh, it's it's not usually a six-week process, right?
46:32
SPEAKER_01: This is a long journey of healing the body, but it can be done.
46:36
SPEAKER_01: Our bodies as women are made to reproduce, right?
46:39
SPEAKER_01: And I think that there are very few situations where our bodies don't actually have that capability.
46:47
SPEAKER_01: I think another thing to consider too when we're talking about IUI and IDF and what that looks like, uh, especially with IDF, not to demonize it, but it's forcing pregnancy in a body that's not wanting to be pregnant.
47:01
SPEAKER_01: So when we're forcing the body to do something that it's not ready for, it's just, it doesn't align with God's design or nature, right?
47:10
SPEAKER_01: Like that doesn't happen to animals, right?
47:12
SPEAKER_01: There's no, I guess actually on farms, maybe it does, but in the wild, right?
47:16
SPEAKER_01: And so I think that we really have to think through that.
47:18
SPEAKER_01: And so if you are out there and you are listening and you are struggling with fertility and you're being told IBF is the only answer, I would really encourage you to consider is that really true?
47:28
SPEAKER_01: Is there a root cause that needs to be addressed?
47:32
SPEAKER_01: Because if we don't address that root cause before pregnancy, I also see women 10, 15 years later, who still have all of those same hormonal issues or adrenal issues or thyroid issues.
47:43
SPEAKER_01: They're just worse because we had maybe multiple pregnancies along the way, stress of raising babies, that that sort of thing.
47:50
SPEAKER_01: So I just really encourage anyone listening to remember like just keep looking for the root cause and find someone who can support you in evaluating and determining the root cause and correcting that.
48:02
SPEAKER_03: So powerful.
48:03
SPEAKER_03: I mean, it's you're in many ways, you're talking about congruence, right?
48:07
SPEAKER_03: We need to make have our body and what's going to happen next in our life be congruent.
48:11
SPEAKER_03: If it's not congruent, we're going to continue to have challenges physically, emotionally, mentally, psychologically, whatnot.
48:18
SPEAKER_03: So, Nicole, we will put all this in the show notes.
48:21
SPEAKER_03: But where, if someone's listening and they're like, I really want to learn more about what it would be like to work with this doctor, where can they find you?
48:30
SPEAKER_03: What would that process look like for them?
48:32
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
48:33
SPEAKER_01: So you can always find me on Instagram.
48:35
SPEAKER_01: My tag is uh dr.nicolemorris.
48:37
SPEAKER_01: Nicole has an H in it, so it's a little tricky, but dr.nicoleis.
48:41
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there you go.
48:42
SPEAKER_01: Uh you can also uh book a call with us on chatdrmorris.com, chat drmorris.com.
48:49
SPEAKER_01: Uh that's a good place to reach us.
48:51
SPEAKER_01: Morris Natural Health is my main website.
48:54
SPEAKER_01: And then uh we also uh or I also own a supplement company, shopdrmorris.com, uh, with very high quality supplements that are all research backed, third-party tested, made right here in the United States.
49:06
SPEAKER_01: Uh, so we have prenatal and a slew of other supplements to support the fertility process as well that people could look into.
49:14
SPEAKER_01: Amazing.
49:15
SPEAKER_03: Do you have any?
49:17
SPEAKER_03: If there is sort of a listener out there who is in the midst of something like this, somewhere along that journey.
49:27
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
49:27
SPEAKER_03: There are any final thoughts or words, or maybe someone knows someone who's going through it, right?
49:32
SPEAKER_03: Because that's that someone listening might be part of someone's support system.
49:36
SPEAKER_03: Like we never know.
49:37
SPEAKER_03: What we haven't said that you think would be important for either that woman, that mom, or that support person to know that would be helpful.
49:46
SPEAKER_01: I think for the the woman going through that is it's not your fault.
49:50
SPEAKER_01: You're not broken.
49:51
SPEAKER_01: It takes two to tango.
49:53
SPEAKER_01: I say that over and over again, right?
49:54
SPEAKER_01: Uh, we didn't talk about men at all in this conversation, but they're 50% of the equation and it's not all on your shoulders.
49:59
SPEAKER_01: It's not your burden to carry alone, right?
50:02
SPEAKER_01: Um, find support in practitioners that that know how to dig and help you get to the root cause.
50:08
SPEAKER_01: And I would say for the support person listening, it can be really awkward to be the support person, right?
50:14
SPEAKER_01: Like we don't know what to say.
50:15
SPEAKER_01: And sometimes when we're in a situation, we'll say just something really inappropriate because we don't know what to say.
50:21
SPEAKER_01: And I think in the fertility situation, it's okay to just listen.
50:24
SPEAKER_01: And it's okay to say, I don't understand because I haven't been through this.
50:28
SPEAKER_01: So I'm not gonna sit here and tell you that I get it, but I'm really sorry you're going through that.
50:33
SPEAKER_01: I'm here to listen, I'm here to support you.
50:36
SPEAKER_01: I will go to doctor's appointments with you if that would be helpful for you.
50:39
SPEAKER_01: If you never want to talk about it ever again, I'm never gonna ask you about it ever again.
50:43
SPEAKER_01: If you want me to, I will, right?
50:45
SPEAKER_01: You don't have to have the answers, you don't have to have the solution as the support person.
50:49
SPEAKER_01: Just be there and let them know you're thinking about them, you're praying for them.
50:54
SPEAKER_01: You don't have you don't have to give them the solution.
50:56
SPEAKER_01: They don't want you to give them the solution.
50:58
SPEAKER_03: So good.
50:59
SPEAKER_03: Nicole, thank you so I actually really, I mean, I I have enjoyed talking with you since that first day in the pool in Arizona last year.
51:10
SPEAKER_03: And I just have really loved and appreciate being let into this side of you, you know, not just the part that sort of is buttoned up and has it all together and who of whom I admire so much at this phase of your practice.
51:23
SPEAKER_03: But I just am grateful that you've shared sort of your heart and your experience today for me.
51:28
SPEAKER_03: I feel like I know you better.
51:30
SPEAKER_03: So thank you.
51:31
SPEAKER_01: Well, I appreciate that, Kate.
51:32
SPEAKER_01: And I appreciate you having me here to share with all of your listeners.
51:35
SPEAKER_01: And I appreciate the way that you love on and support the women in our program that we work, we work with.
51:41
SPEAKER_03: Amazing.
51:42
SPEAKER_03: Thank you, Nicole.
51:43
SPEAKER_03: I know you need to pop, so I'm just gonna let you go and I'll follow an email and all of that stuff.
51:49
SPEAKER_03: But thank you.
51:50
SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
51:51
SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
51:51
SPEAKER_01: No, I really appreciate you having me and this conversation.
51:54
SPEAKER_03: Awesome.
51:55
SPEAKER_01: Bye.
51:56
SPEAKER_01: Bye.
51:59
SPEAKER_03: Okay, if you loved this episode and enjoy this podcast, please just take a moment to subscribe, rate, and review and send it to one mom out there who you think might benefit.
52:11
SPEAKER_03: When you do that, you help to make sure that no woman out there ever feels like they have to mother alone.
52:19
SPEAKER_03: Thank you.