Latest / The Cyclical Doula Podcast: Fertility Awareness, Charting Cycles, and Reproductive Health Education / The Rebellion That Changed Her Life: Kourtney Rider on Cycles, Fertility & Finding Answers
Transcript
- emmamma: Hey, welcome back to the Cyclical Doula podcast. I'm so excited to be sitting down with Kourtney today. She a reproductive health professional, FEMM teacher, and someone whose own journey through anovatory and infertility completely reshaped how she understands the body. ⁓ Kourtney brings lived experience and clinical perspective to this conversation today. And I am excited to be talking about all the different things. So thanks so much for being here. Emmamma: hey, just popping in real quick to say sure you're subscribed to the Cyclical Doula podcast on whichever platform you're listening to. ⁓ Thanks so much for being here today on the cyclical doula podcast. If this episode resonated with you, the most powerful thing that you can do is to share it, send it to a friend, text it to your sister, forward it to that group chat. This is how conversations about our bodies start changing, quietly, organically, woman to woman. you are listening and thinking, ⁓ ⁓ want help applying this to my And don't miss upcoming conversations. If this episode is resonating with you, please share it with a friend, rate it and write a review. This is how this movement grows, not through algorithms, but through women talking to women. All right, let's jump back into it. Kourtney: Yeah, thanks so much for having me. I'm excited to share. I'm excited to be here. emmamma: Yeah, I think it's we met in person at a FACTS conference a couple years ago. Honestly, I was trying to think before we started recording, like how long ago it actually was. I think it was like two years ago, but maybe it was more than that. Okay, that totally could be right. three years. ⁓ And it's just so nice to have other people who like are in the profession and be able to like get to know each other a little bit more about. Emmamma: I offer free cycle clarity calls. It's a relaxed conversation over Zoom we talk through your goals, your charting practices, and kind of support that would actually make sense for you. can book one at emmamma.com / free. And if you already, make sure you're following or subscribe to the Cyclical Doula - podcast so that you don't miss future episodes. Kourtney: That's right. Yeah, it's, I think it was 2023. I it was 2023, so about three years. Yeah, that sounds right. emmamma: Again, I'm so excited to chat with you today and talk about all the things that you do. Emmamma: And if you feel called to leave a rating or review, it genuinely helps more women find this work. So thank you. You deserve to understand body. You deserve to feel confident in your reproductive choices. And you ⁓ have to figure it out alone. I'll see you next week. Thanks for being here. Kourtney: Yeah, think truly that conference was the first time that I felt like I was in a room of professionals that were similar to me. So was really nice just getting to connect and have that ease. Like that was a baseline for everyone that we all just knew the same information about fertility or fertility awareness methods. And so it made so many connections so much easier. So I'm just really excited to have found you. I think you're awesome. I love what you're doing. So this is super fun. emmamma: Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you. Yes, same, same, same. All right. Let's start. Let's just start by you telling a little bit more about who you are, whatever you want to share about who you are as a human being. Kourtney: I that I just would want to share I've always been interested in reproductive health since I was a little little kid. I always found it so fascinating and really connected with the fact that I had a mom's body. Like I just thought that was the neatest thing ever that I could have a body that could make babies and really had that fascination from little up and watch all those TV shows about pregnancy and birth and I don't if you remember those like TLC all of the like docu-series yeah it was just those were so fascinating to me like any kind of movies or books that had pregnancy and birth in it so I just from very young was emmamma: Yeah, for sure. Kourtney: thought it was so cool. I it was just the most interesting thing. ⁓ So that kind of was just the fascination of I want to learn a lot about this. And then obviously you grow up, right? Like you go through puberty and you... get married and then you want babies and you kind of go through all these different experiences and I was on birth control for like such a long time. It's about 10 years and so when I came off of birth control in order to have children that's when I really started to learn everything I thought I knew was pretty much wrong and so I really just dove right in because I had so much interest in it in the past. I was like well alright I had gone to school for it I'm sorry my bachelor's degree in public and community health education and really focused on sex ed and took every like health-focused elective I could. So I've just always been a really passionate person in this space in reproductive health because I think it impacts every single part of our lives. So I think I had to sum myself up. Outside of what I do for work work, it's just that I'm a really passionate educator and I think that these topics are things that women need to know about that really vulnerable points in life and I like being a person who's a part of that. emmamma: Yeah, that's amazing. I love that so much. So you talk a lot, or you've shared before on Instagram and like in other places that you've, like you've had this interest from being really little about just like the reproductive system and like bodies in general. And I think like you've even mentioned before, like it was a little bit of like rebellious, like trying to like find it in that way. I also know that you are a parent. So like, Emmamma: Welcome to the Cyclical Doula podcast. I'm Emma, a certified fertility awareness educator, miscarriage doula and the founder of Emmamma emmamma: Do you feel like that's influencing, I know your kids are little, but like, that influence how you're gonna talk to them about their bodies and like their possible future reproductive choices? Kourtney: Yeah, I think it makes a huge impact on how I'm going to speak to my kids about it. I think it gives me such a bonus, honestly, to have so much not only factual knowledge, but then practice having the conversations with so many people. I think that's the part that parents tend to leave out. I think that they think it's the talk or one conversation, and it's really just about teaching them about their bodies from the time that they're little, what's appropriate, what's not, what stays in private, what can we do in public, like just all the different things about body skin. emmamma: Yeah. Kourtney: and then also encouraging healthy and responsible choices as they grow up and helping them understand what changes they're going to experience and how it's normal and then just trying to be a guide. I think my act of rebellion in learning it was because the grownups weren't talking about it or it wasn't appropriate for kids to learn about their bodies because it was considered sexual, which I can understand. I get the fear. ⁓ And as someone who does sex education in schools, Emmamma: This space is for women who want to understand their bodies deeply, not just memorize information, but actually feel confident in interpreting their cycles. Here we talk about ovulation, hormones, cervical mucus, basal body temperature, and all that's messy in between emotional layers that come with being woman. We talk about trying to conceive, avoiding pregnancy ⁓ hormones. Kourtney: I understand why parents might feel uncomfortable with the conversation or how they could feel it might impact a young person's attitude or choice to do something but the reality is we're probably all going to end up sexually active at some point so I think that we also need to just keep that reality in mind and Emmamma: postpartum transitions, pregnancy loss, perimenopause, and everything in between. Because body literacy isn't just about charting. It's about the autonomy. It's about informed consent. It's about not outsourcing your reproductive decisions to guesswork or fear. Each week, you'll hear conversations with women's health professionals, ⁓ workers, ⁓ Kourtney: be the ones to give our kids or equip our kids with appropriate knowledge that we want them to have from our perspective. if you're not going to teach it, somebody else is going to, where they're going to have absolutely no guidance. emmamma: Yeah, I agree completely. But it's so nice to have other people who are in those same spaces and like, especially your experience with like teaching this to in other spaces and teaching sex ed, like that's really helpful to just like hear. And I think that that's something that a lot of times like, it just isn't, it's not talked about. And therefore, like it becomes this taboo topic in general. And that makes it hard for sure. Emmamma: and researchers along with solo episodes where I teach practical skills you can apply to your own cycle right away. if you have ever felt like you should have learned this information sooner, if you have ever felt disconnected from your cycle, emmamma: So tell everybody, you do a lot of different things, but one of the ways that we connected is that you teach a fertility awareness based method called FEM. And so I would love to know what you wanna share. And obviously I know it's a long story, so feel free to share whatever you want to and talk for however long you want about how you got to that place of teaching FEM. Emmamma: If you want to raise the next generation without shame around their bodies, you are in the right place. So grab your tea, open up your notes app, and let's build a cycle confidence together. Kourtney: Yeah. So I like I said, I was always interested in sex ed from a very young age about third grade. It's the first time I remember wanting to research it as a topic. And so I always had known that that's kind of the direction I wanted to take career wise from that age as well. And so when I went to college, I did a bachelor's degree in community and public health ed. And then at that point, that was the first time I'd actually ever learned that there were phases to the cycle was when I was 19, like a sophomore, I think, in college. And I was like, wait a second, I am like the sex educator of all of my friends. I'm the one who tells everyone about all their birth control and period products and all of the things and tries to encourage them and I don't even know what the cycle is. So that was a big moment, I remember. ⁓ And so then I was on birth control at that time. I've on birth control for many, many years. I have been with my now husband. We have been together since we were like 12 and 13 about eighth grade So we had always been very safe Too safe. We've learned maybe because then we ended up starting with infertility for like three years and that's when I took it upon myself to just Combine my passion that I'd always had for the interest of the topic with my lived experience just be like, you know what? I'm gonna share about it. So I just like kind of took to social media and made it a little bit of my lived journal to a degree and was like, hey, this is what I'm going through. And I think nobody knows anything about their bodies until they get off birth control and are trying to figure it out on their own. emmamma: Mm-hmm. Kourtney: So for me, I didn't even want to learn fertility awareness. I didn't want to do FEM to begin with. I actually was like, I don't want to be as involved as cervical mucus. That seems like too much. But I spent like $300 on a FEM tech device that I can't even use now. I could have spent $10 and gone the same thing. It's just a thermometer. ⁓ But that was, I call it like my gateway drug to fertility awareness was Femtec. So like thinking a device is gonna know my body better than myself. ⁓ So I remember buying that device and being like, ⁓ let me see. But then I was so confused because my body wasn't, I was not ovulating. I did not ovulate off of birth control for nine months the first time. I think it was even a breakthrough bleed, honestly. But it took me, after birth control, took me nine months to have my first bleed. And... emmamma: Mm-hmm. Kourtney: the device was not made for that kind of cycle, so nothing was being explained to me, and so I needed to learn a lot really quickly so that I could stop panicking. And I think that's a really common experience, especially with women who are heading into that trying to conceive journey. That panic sets in really fast. That expectation of getting pregnant is so easy. emmamma: Mm-hmm. Kourtney: And then when it doesn't come to fruition right away, it causes so much shame and anxiety and panic for women. So that's then how I deserted. decided to start actually wanting to chart was because I was teaching so many women about their bodies via social media, answering period questions, answering cycle questions, talking about my infertility, talking about their pregnancy stories, journeys, losses, all of those things. And I was like, well, I want to be more legit, you know, to teach the thing that I'm learning that I'm finding so much value in. ⁓ emmamma: God. Kourtney: So. I definitely feel like it is a journey that you don't take by chance. I don't think you accidentally learn about your body. I think usually you have some sort of struggle that jump starts your learning. And that, you know, could be a really great thing, honestly. So it was fertility awareness once I wanted to get certified. It was about 2020. I'm right at the height of COVID. So I had emmamma: Yeah. Kourtney: just gotten my job as a first time finally using my degree sex educator in February of 2020 and then obviously in March of 2020 was when the national shutdown happened in 2020. I was sent home, I was furloughed from my full-time job, I was like so excited to finally be a sex educator. I was hired to do HIV testing in the community and do rapid HIV testing and screenings and education on how to reduce risks of STDs, pregnancy prevention, all that fun stuff and got sent home from it. I was so bummed. I was like, well you know what, I... from home like 20 hours a week might as well do my FEM certification so invested in that process started it I was really overwhelmed by the schooling it was I felt like a really really really smart cycle educator by the time I took that course and it was still very challenging. So it is not for anyone. If anyone has any kind of fertility awareness educator or instructor certification, they have been through it when it comes to getting their charts analyzed and really thinking very critically about what someone's chart says. That was just the coolest experience, but it was very overwhelming to finish that certification at the same time as going through infertility. So helping women get pregnant with charting, when I couldn't even succeed at that myself, was very, very, very challenging. So I took a pause from the schooling and did not graduate with my certification straight through. I didn't finish it right away. And then I got pregnant, first trimester. that'll take the life out of you. definitely needed to keep the pause paused at that time. And then I ended up having a baby at 29 weeks. I had a necrolampic seizure. and had to have an emergency section when she was 29 weeks and two days. So that was then my entry to motherhood and then NICU land we did for 75 days. And then I always say when it comes to like birth trauma and mental health and postpartum in that first round, I don't think I felt clear until about 18 months postpartum. ⁓ The fog was finally starting to lift. then emmamma: Mm-hmm. Kourtney: once I was back in my sex educator role that I was in, I was doing a little more with Title X related work, which is federal reproductive health funded programs. So I was doing more grant related admin work, budgeting, data reporting kind of stuff, which is super fun for me. And I was like, you know what, maybe I should finally finish my certification because that's when I discovered that Title X is supportive of fertility awareness methods. It's one of the eligible contraceptives that we should be educating all people. in the country about when they come in and talk to their doctor about birth control. And I know no one is doing that. So I was like, hey boss, I was getting my fertility awareness certification. Do you think we can use that here at our clinic? And they were like, go for it. So basically started up my own entire service line at our OB-GYN clinic and don't see a lot of people. ⁓ I think I've had about 75 referrals in the two years I've been doing it. ⁓ and couple of the statistics maybe. think most of them come to me wanting to conceive and just don't really have any idea of ovulation, they're using an app, they're frustrated, maybe nobody's even ever looked at their partner and voila, it's a little bit of both, you know, so... There's a lot for people to learn and I've always enjoyed getting to be the person to help kind of break the mystery of reproduction. emmamma: Yeah, that's so good. I love that so much. I feel like there's so many things about your story and I know there's more to it, but that's a good part of it. Did you have anything else you wanted to share before I talk more? Kourtney: I think just with that lived experience I have, I've now been able to, so I had my first baby with assisted, not assisted reproductive technology, but with a napro approach, a napro office. ⁓ So after three months of, I had charted my own way through my own health problems. I discovered hypothyroidism for myself and ovulatory cycles. Took me a good long time to find a doctor who was supportive of what I thought was happening and would appropriately test and treat. But once I found the right doctor, I was pregnant within three months and it was, that was great. That was super exciting. And then with the Eclampsia, that lived experience was getting some really cool opportunities. So I sit on our state's maternal mortality emmamma: Yeah. Kourtney: Review Committee. So we go through every maternal death that happens during or within one year of a pregnancy's end, so in that perinatal period, and review that case for a cause of death, contributing factors, and then our committee writes legislative recommendations to our state to try and get payers or insurance companies or health care systems to... Increase safety for moms and babies that might be in a situation where maternal mortality might be likely. So that's a really interesting table that I enjoy being. emmamma: Yeah, that's like such a whole nother, like it's obviously all related, but it's a whole nother topic and it's such an important thing to be happening. Cause I think that's something that again, like it's not something that we talk about a lot. And like you mentioned, like it's a whole year after birth that they're looking at this and that's like that alone is an important factor for I think a lot of these conversations to be taking place. Kourtney: Yeah, absolutely. think postpartum is really forgotten about and that's really a risky time for so many moms and their families and their support systems just don't even know. emmamma: for sure. Kourtney: what to do. So it's just there's so much education that's needed. And I really think that the way we decrease maternal mortality is to increase reproductive health education. I think if we were teaching young people from the jump, here's how your reproductive system works. Here's how to keep it healthy. Here's how you know if it's not, then we would have healthier pregnancies, healthier offspring, and just ultimately healthier outcomes for most people. That's just... That would be root cause approach for me for maternal public health. emmamma: Yeah, for sure. And I think like you have the background to have that opinion strongly, right? Like you've seen it in a lot of different ways. And I think that's great. think like, yeah, getting to those points where you can really make change versus just kind of hitting, like covering up symptoms in all ranges really allows for change to happen as much as it can at the root, which is really important, especially with mortality and all of those things, especially with reproductive health in general, because it's something that still feels, I feel like taboo in our society and it really shouldn't be. It's just part of our life. And there's, I think there's a good boundary between like education on reproductive health and also like sexual health and then also like sexualizing everything, right? Like those are two very different things there can, and that's Kourtney: different. emmamma: I think that's a hard differentiation for a lot of people to make. Kourtney: especially for a lot of people who don't have any foundational education to even get that differentiation. Yeah, it's all same to them. It's all just sexualized and just that means inappropriate. ⁓ emmamma: Mm-hmm. Yeah, for sure. Yeah! Kourtney: It's not true. You can get reproductive-based cancers. We should talk about it. You would want the cigarettes to have the warning on it, right? So your 18-year-old, when they decide to buy them, can be warned, right? So we should also be, I don't know, put something on condoms about STIs or just some sort of awareness, because they really are on the rise, and people aren't sure of the behaviors that cause it. emmamma: Mm-hmm Yeah. Mmm. Yeah. Yeah. Kourtney: circumstance that they didn't think they even had the power to not be in. But all it would taken was someone having a frank conversation. Someone who's educated saying, well, no, that's not exactly right. Here's what we do know. Here's what we can do. Here's how you can have a healthy sex life for a long time if you so choose. And I think that's just a really big part of life that we're missing. And then that all trickles down into all the other things I think that sex that touches healthy relationships, consent, emmamma: Mm-hmm. Kourtney: Any kind of past trauma communication skills, boundary setting, family planning and future goal setting. It's a really big deal if you have babies before or when you didn't want to, you know, like that's a really big, big thing to go through. So having a plan and then behaving in a way that aligns with your plan is a conversation people don't think through or don't have in emmamma: Hmm Yeah. Kourtney: behind a lot of times and I think that that's a big miss on reproductions. emmamma: Yeah, and I think there's a lot of conversation, and I think we kind of mentioned this earlier too, of just like, if you tell kids all of these things, like they're gonna make the, there's fear around, they're gonna make choices that would either like go against their morals or like go against, or like get them into bad situations to begin with. And I think sometimes we don't give kids enough credit that sometimes when they have all the information that they're like, ⁓ yeah, no, like not right now. Kourtney: They see the gravity. Yeah, I think when they recognize some of the weights of it, or don't, don't, because you don't know what you don't know. That's what I always love is that you just, don't know what you don't know. Ignorance is bliss. You think everything's fine because you don't know any different. And that's how a lot of people go through the world, you know, in existence. And I just think that winging, winging your family planning or your sexual health is really not a good method. So. emmamma: yeah. Yeah, right. Yeah. for a short. Kourtney: Basic education. I like to say that I am like sex ed college level sex ed for grown-ups because that's what I like to do because we just don't have sex ed emmamma: Yeah, right. And I think there's so many layers to that, like you were just mentioning. It's not only physical, what is taking place, and then also what are we looking for for health benefits? And then also how do we physically do family planning? And a lot of people don't always realize that that's both trying to get pregnant and also avoiding pregnancy. and like all of those things. It's all of that accompanist thing versus many of us were taught in sex ed, like use a condom and then, but also like don't have sex because you'll get pregnant because like any day, any time, all the time, forever and ever, which like is not, and then you'll die if like in mean girls, right? Like it's just like, I like, it's one of those things where it's just like, that's obviously like not helpful. Kourtney: time, every time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. emmamma: And there's so much that can be changed about that. But again, when you don't know, you don't know. until we start having these conversations and still until there's people like you who are having these conversations broadly, we just don't know. Yeah. Kourtney: There's so much wrong with that. Yeah. And there's still a lot of folks who don't want folks like me to have a role, have a professional opportunity to even have these conversations with young people. But I'll tell you what, when your teenager has an STI or when your teenager ends up pregnant, you're going to have big feelings about it. So these things are preventable with a good, good, good, good conversationalist on what are these things and how do we make decisions that we can be. emmamma: Yeah. Kourtney: okay with in the long run that align with all of the things you said, right? Our morals, our values, our goals, our health. Do we even know our own health history, right? Like there's so much health literacy missing in the general public. So to get into something so specific as reproductive health is very specialized as well. So I just think there's so much talk that needs to be happening. emmamma: Yeah, that's huge. Kourtney: regarding basics of health, especially in a country where we don't have basic healthcare, we don't have national healthcare coverage. ⁓ People really have no idea how the insurance system works. I think that's another interesting element that I bring is I've worked in the medical system my entire adult career, almost 10 years now, and have a lot of... I get to patients clinically, provide fertility education, and I get to do administrative budget-y type things. So I've seen it from so many angles and there's just no space for you to not understand the medical care system. You will get mowed over. You will get bulldozed down. You will not get any better, in my opinion, because it's too stressful to even engage with. emmamma: Mmm. Kourtney: I think that's the case for a lot of people. They're afraid of the cost. They're afraid of what might come true, what might be true of their health. And I think that a lot of us make decisions based on fear around our health and our bodies. emmamma: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, for sure. You mentioned, you kind of briefly went over it, obviously I know about it, but ⁓ maybe not everybody ⁓ does. You mentioned your experience going to a NAPRO doctor to help ⁓ get a bit more information about what was going on with your body when you were having anavidatory cycles. Is that something that you're willing to share more about, like what that looked like for you, ⁓ or just explain what NAPRO is ⁓ otherwise? Kourtney: Yeah, I would love to. So, NAPRO technology stands for Natural Pro-Creative Technology. It's a branch of OB-GYN or reproductive health where the surgeons are specifically trained under different protocols to do more restorative surgery. more... ⁓ prevention of further adhesions or prevention of further disease for endometriosis excision. I myself did not have endometriosis thankfully, ⁓ but worked with an expert endometriosis excision surgeon. ⁓ Dr. Naomi Whitaker is her name and you can find her on Instagram at naprofertilitysurgeon. She's my doctor, she delivered my last baby and I'm so thankful for her and it was super cool getting to be under her care for my second pregnancy. It was a very full circle moment for me. yeah, like I said, I struggled with infertility, I fell off birth control, I didn't get my periods back for nine months, the first bleed and then nine months again for the second bleed. So there was 18 months of my trying to conceive journey. So I thought where it really was. emmamma: Yeah. Kourtney: all pointless. I mean, it was a lot of fun, but it was definitely something that we look back on like, ⁓ if we had known better, we would have gotten help much sooner. But yeah, struggling for about three years in total. I remember emmamma: Yeah, for sure. Mm-hmm. Kourtney: to a primary care physician for some thyroid health. My husband and I had just moved and needed to reestablish with a primary doctor. And at that point, I had gone into that appointment pretty much prepared for a referral to a reproductive endocrinologist, which is not what I wanted. I had never been someone who was. interested in IVF and it wasn't even from any kind of values perspective. It was so truly from never wanting to give myself shots. I knew from watching so many fertility journeys, I hated needles, I used to pass out getting blood work done. I was like, there's no way I can give myself shots if I can't have babies. Like I can't do IVF. There's just no... emmamma: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Kourtney: So, it's always, I always say you make plans and God laughs, so I'll come back to daily shots. so I was going to a new PCP for thyroid testing and I went into this appointment and I'll never forget. emmamma: Yeah Kourtney: This woman was so dismissive. She barely wanted to talk to me about anything. She had no idea at this point that I was even a fertility educator, a sex educator. It was the first time meeting me. She had no idea who I was, what I did, nothing about me. She said about my thyroid labs, she would probably just run TSH and I was like, can't you run TSH and T3 or reverse T3? And she was like, well, why would I need to do those? And I was like, well, the type of medication I'm on, usually that's the labs we test, because sometimes they talk about wanting to put me on a combination thyroid medication. And she was like, no, that's not what you need. This is sufficient, blah, blah. You'll probably need a high risk pregnancy at some point anyway, because you have a thyroid problem. You'll probably need to see a maternal fuel med. Just have fun. when your cervical mucus is creamy that's the time to do it and I was like sitting there by the head like she's so wrong she's so wrong she's so wrong I told her I'm an ovulatory she told me that that was not possible she said if you're bleeding you're ovulating and I was like wow please please read a book so I left that appointment just now emmamma: Yeah, that's right. Maybe a quick Google search? Kourtney: Even something come on so I was I was very unhappy I remember leaving that appointment sobbing I was like screw it I'm gonna schedule appointment with that doctor that I just found which was her name in Whitaker's office Got into there very quickly compared to how long people wait to get into her now ⁓ emmamma: Their waitlist is so long. Kourtney: years I got it and I think in like three months it was insane so it was all of these things were like again very big Godwinks for me ⁓ she's like 15 minutes from my house that we had just moved to my new sex ed job ⁓ it just all lined up really well so yeah I think I was there the first appointment I went to they were like what do you want to talk about and I was like well I'm pretty sure I'm having inovulatory cycles I'm pretty sure my thyroid is not managed correctly ⁓ emmamma: Mm-hmm. Kourtney: I think I have PCOS and they were like, yeah, that seems pretty accurate. Pretty mild case. We can treat you with this and this. can do, they gave me like three options. So lowest intervention, know, diet, lifestyle, vitamins, healthy habits, right? emmamma: Yeah. Kourtney: Then middle tier was we can offer ovulation induction medication and progesterone, cyclical progesterone to induce bleeding and then try to force you to ovulate so that you kind of try to time your intercourse according to the medication cycle and I was like okay. And then the third option was something called an ovarian wedge resection, is what they at that point had described to me as the closest thing to a cure for PCOS that we have, which is basically your ovary shaped, let's say like an almond, they go away, they cut a wedge pie piece out of it, stitch that ovary back together and that healing, that stitching rejuvenates or re-encourages cells or follicles to grow and mature and that can restore ovulation for women who have had chronic and ovulatory PCOS cycles. ⁓ was not down for surgery. I did put my name on the wait list hopes that I would not need it and I did not. I'm very thankful for that. ⁓ that point, think after my very first visit, was like, well, let's just do like your workup labs ⁓ do watch and weight or lifestyle and vitamins ⁓ we figure out what is going on. ⁓ Well, after a month or two of that, was like, let's do the middle one. Let's ramp this up. Because it had already been so long. And I had asked, I do you think three to six months of ovulation induction meds would be the ticket? And my provider was very positive. She was very hopeful. She was like, from what I can tell in your case at this point, I don't see why that would be unreasonable. She was like, is it to say for sure that could happen? Are you going to be pregnant? I don't know. She was like, but I don't see why you couldn't be. And I was like, oh, OK. And so I had done one. a chlomid cycle with a previous OBGYN ⁓ when I had first gotten off my birth control. I had done one chlomid cycle that did not end up in pregnancy. And then I did, I think I did a second chlomid cycle with napro. I'm gonna have to look back at my notes, you know what, from these appointments. But I know I did three total medicated cycles and one of them for sure was tamoxifen and tamoxifen is the medication that I ended up conceiving my daughter on. yeah, after my first napro technology appointment with their office and feeling the most hurt I'd ever felt in three years of struggling with all the things related to my cycles, I was able to conceive. And then used fertility awareness postpartum and then was able to conceive completely naturally with no intervention for my second pregnancy. And then Dr. Wetterfield was my c-section surgeon for my second baby. So it was a super awesome full circle moment. emmamma: Yeah, that's so good. I love that. ⁓ I'm curious about your opinion about if you think your experience with birth control, obviously like you have PCOS, like that was a, that's an experience for you and a diagnosis or whatever, but do you think your influence of being on birth control changed that timeline of like your body trying to figure stuff out coming off of it before or would you think it was all the other stuff too? Obviously like it's it's kind of hard to know for sure sometimes but Kourtney: So I have a pretty good theory in my mind as to why I think I have had the reproductive health experiences I've had. I have a pretty good theory in my mind as to why I think I have had the reproductive health experiences I've had. emmamma: Yeah. Yeah. Kourtney: I got my first period around age 12 to 13 and I was put on birth control pretty much within the same year as that. just remember my periods being very irregular, very uncomfortable and painful and I would have to skip school and I would get diarrhea and it was bad I got my first period around age 12 to 13 and I was put on birth control pretty much within the same year as that. just remember my periods being very irregular, very uncomfortable and painful and I would have to skip school and I would get diarrhea and it was bad and my mom's were always so bad so it was just like, this is what being a girl is. And it was awful and I remember going to my pediatrician at that time and she was like, you're so young, I really don't want to put you on birth control but you don't really know what else to do. emmamma: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Kourtney: Like I said, my husband and have been together since we were 12 and 13, so I also was at that age of like, crushes and starting to like boys and... did become sexually active as a young person, so there was that element of, ⁓ birth control might not be a bad idea to get used to, you know, going into teenage years. So I was down to use it, and I used yas the very first time. Those were the ⁓ oral contraceptive pills. And I just remember it making me feel crazy. just, that's the word I used. It made me feel like emotionally not myself. And so then you play that game of, which one can you tolerate the best? Which one do you hate the least? emmamma: Yeah. Yeah. Kourtney: and I used yas the very first time. Those the ⁓ oral contraceptive pills. ⁓ And I just remember it making me feel crazy. just, that's the word I used. It made me feel like emotionally not myself. ⁓ And so then you play that game of, which one can you tolerate the best? Which do you hate the least? emmamma: Yeah. Yeah. Kourtney: and you try all of the different methods. So think I've tried over seven different methods. I've had the Nexplanon, I've had the pills, I did the Neuvering, I tried to have an IUD inserted, I had an IUD expelled during my insertion procedure, which is apparently a very rare experience. and you try all of the different methods. So think I've tried over seven different methods. I've had the Nexplanon, I've had the pills, I did the Neuvering, I tried to have an IUD inserted, I had an IUD expelled during my insertion procedure, which is apparently a very rare experience. ⁓ So that was really fun. And yeah, I just tried lots of things and so. emmamma: ⁓ huh. Kourtney: Yeah, knowing what I know now that puberty takes a few years to establish, I obviously think that my cycles maybe would have worked themselves out had I known how to support them back then, but nobody knew how to support them back then. was just contraception was the answer. So I did that all the way through college, and it wasn't until after I got married. knowing what I know now that puberty takes a few years to establish, I obviously think that my cycles maybe would have worked themselves out had I known how to support them back then, emmamma: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. For sure. Kourtney: had decided that we would be comfortable with pregnancy at that point, that it was like, well, okay, well, how soon can I come off of this? How soon should I come off of it? Because I really didn't want to come off and get pregnant right away, which can happen, absolutely, and it's the experience of many people. But I was like, mm, I kind of, you know, don't feel super well. I was having migraines all of the time at that point. I was on the next phenomenon at that point. emmamma: Yeah. Kourtney: I really do feel, this is just me speaking, but I really do feel like had I not come off my next one early, my understanding is that those migraines, especially migraines with aura and consistently being on combination birth control for so long, I really think that my stroke risk was probably super high and not something my physicians were. emmamma: Mm. Kourtney: trying to say to me or were even on their radar ⁓ and knowing that I ended up then with eclampsia in my first pregnancy and then I ended up with a DVT, I had a blood clot after that, I think my risks for stroke were probably really really high. ⁓ emmamma: Yeah, yeah. Kourtney: So yeah, think that the birth control just, I think I just stopped puberty before it finished. You know what I mean? So I think that when I then came off of it, I didn't understand reproductive biology still. And so then I was like, where are my periods? are my ovulations? Why can't I get pregnant? It's like, you're basically going through puberty all over again, which is now what I specialize in and helping other women is the return of fertility. So that's PCOS coming off of birth control cycles, postpartum cycles, or just infertility in general, like trying to get those ovulations back. emmamma: Yeah, yep. Yeah. Yeah. Kourtney: how do we support what needs supported to get ovulation back? And yeah, think my, I always say I'm so grateful for Birth control because I got to plan when to have my children, but I'll probably never use it again if I don't have to. emmamma: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's such a, it's a great perspective to be able to share. And I know that's not everybody's experience. I like, there is a reason that it's out there. So I like, don't want, I know you ⁓ feel similarly as like, it's helpful for certain people in certain seasons of life. So I don't like want to discredit that at all, but it is really, I think it's a good reminder, especially as parents that like putting, your kids on birth control right away is not going to solve any of their problems long term. Like, yeah, it can help with symptoms to like manage to get to another stage that you can get more support or the right people or like all of those things. But I think that's really helpful. And I think like if you're listening to this as somebody who's grown up and like this was your experience and you're stuck in this time of like, I'm not getting pregnant and I don't know what's taking place. Like that might be something to consider of like your body might just Kourtney: Yeah. emmamma: be trying to figure itself back out. And obviously there's all sorts of other situations that you can do to help that. But I think that's really helpful to just kind of hear. Kourtney: you I think that we need to start with approaching the healing elements for basic lifestyle. I think we've all forgotten the basic lifestyle things. Something as simple as walking, something as simple as staying hydrated or getting sunshine. Those are so basic and so many young women and teenage girls are not getting that. And so I think you have all of us as, you know, 30 heading to our 40s moms who are now learning, oh crap, infertility, oh crap, here's what I didn't know. emmamma: Yeah, for sure. Yeah! Kourtney: And then we're having daughters and we're like, I need her to know different. And that's a really big shift for so many people. And we just didn't have that. Our moms didn't have access to the information like we do. They probably didn't have the same kind of community conversations like we do now. emmamma: Mm-hmm. Of course not, Kourtney: I do think that comes from a little bit of our generation being hypersexualized a bit. We're okay having those conversations about these things pretty openly because all of us are not afraid to admit it's just a fact of life. ⁓ So whether it's comfortable or not for everyone, that's one thing. But it's very much real to everyone. think that nobody's doubting that sex ed is important. It's more so just like how? How do we make it important? How do we influence society in a healthful way for emmamma: Alright. Kourtney: word with open conversation. So yeah, think as a mom, whatever your puberty journey was and then whatever your motherhood journey was, no matter what, think at some point you're going to need to know this stuff because you're going to have kids and they're going to have questions and you deserve to understand your own body because you're the one that cares about it more than anybody else ever could. emmamma: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. 100%. No notes. ⁓ I feel like I want to pick your brain a little bit about FEM, a little bit more, you're willing to talk about what you love about FEM, teaching it and seeing how that's establishing with the way that people are turning. Kourtney: Yeah, so FEM stands for Fertility Education and Medical Management. So it's a program that you can use to chart your cycle. It's an objective charting method. And so what FEM does is it utilizes cervical mucus as well as LH testing or at-home urinary testing to determine where you're at in your cycle each day. So you have to track these biomarkers daily. And then you work with an instructor to ensure that your cycle patterns are following within the normal. of a healthy optimal cycle. So one of the things that I love the most about Femme is it's a color code. I don't know what's so good about a color code, I really just, most of myself and most of my clients are all type A ladies. We love things to be organized. We love a system. A chart is just such a lovely place to put so much information about your day-to-day life down that most type A women love this. for me, it's the color code. We only have three, truly only have three. emmamma: You Kourtney: I that makes it very simple to choose from. doesn't get super overwhelming. know that again most people tend to overthink it, but I love that there is just three basic. Is it one two or three? Is it this this or this? ⁓ And then just taking good notes. So that's one thing I really love about them and what I also love is there's a free app. So I know everybody wants a period app these days. Everybody's also getting concerned about data and what's private what's not. So if you use the flows and the clues and the period tracker things, please try to use something different. really love Femme as a free app. You would have to be utilizing the Femme method or some sort of awareness of mucus in your bleeding. The Read Your Body app is also another one of my faves. ⁓ That one is more customizable, but again, it's built for charters by charters. So it is going to very much have that charting lingo. None of these apps are going to predict your next bleed is coming at such and such a time. And that's what I tell people, that's what you want. You don't want something predictive. You want to make sure you're using something that just lets you put in data. It's for you to decide. emmamma: Mm-hmm. Kourtney: what's happening and why and when. emmamma: Yeah. Absolutely. That's so good. I am a huge advocate for the Read Your Body app too. I call it like a paper app on steroids, right? It's just like, you already carry your phone around, you just put it in there and I know the FITMAP is similar. But I, just a little plug for Read Your Body is that they recently like released ⁓ templates, but they also released one, like a template or ⁓ a form of it that's just for period tracking. So if you are listening and you do have Kourtney: Yeah. emmamma: a daughter or you're in a season of life that you like only want to be tracking when you're bleeding, it now like can be set up. So that's really all you see. And that's all you can chart, which I think is like really helpful because sometimes we don't want to see. ⁓ yeah, it's a great, a great starting point. can track your mood and all of those, whatever else you want with all their emojis and stuff. But yeah, 100%. I love that. And I think like, it's so cool to be able to see how all there's there's so many different Kourtney: really great beginner step. Yeah. emmamma: methods and organizations out there that pull from different biomarkers, but they all get to the same root of like, like you, you are just like understanding your body really well with these different biomarkers. And like, here are the tools to make sure that you know how to do this well. And like, here's some other resources about like, things to look at and other health markers and all of that stuff. But I think that's like one of the really like the my favorite part about fertility awareness based methods is that like it's not a right or a wrong method. It's about like which one somebody's gonna use and which one they feel comfortable with. And like you said, like femme has fun colors and like if that's gonna make you use a method well, like then that's the one that somebody should choose. And like that's a hundred percent I'm all for stuff like that. Kourtney: Yeah, you definitely have to choose the thing that you're going to actually practice well. It's the same if you're choosing a hormonal method versus a non-hormonal method or a fertility awareness method. You have to know what your behaviors are like. You have to know if you are someone who can stick to the behavior needed for the effectiveness or efficacy of the method you choose. emmamma: Yeah. Kourtney: All of these things have to be talked about between you and your partners to figure out what makes the most sense for what you're comfortable with. So I definitely feel like with charting there are so many methods and I think people get overwhelmed when they learn that as well. emmamma: Yeah. Kourtney: You know, you just have to try. We all start somewhere. We all start in birth control with one random thing and it might not have worked perfectly the first time. Why do we expect learning how to chart being this perfect thing that we have to know how to do amazingly and 100 % correct? emmamma: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Kourtney: there's wiggle room and there's learning and there's support and I that's what people forget is you have people who want to guide you through it because most of us did it by ourselves. And having that that sounding board, having those extra eyes and that logical brain stepping in when you're probably sitting in your emotional space can be so grounding and so helpful. And it's just education. It's just learning. Like you can't be too hard on yourself. You just have to start somewhere. emmamma: Yep. Yeah. Kourtney: And usually for me, ⁓ whether that's like a period tracking app like using Read Your Body for just the period tracking, I always think everyone should read Taking Charge of Your Fertility. That is just, that is the fertility awareness bible to me. That is like the book that if you just don't know how the women's reproductive system is made, this will help you understand and it will help you understand pretty much every... Fertility awareness method, at the root, like you said, at the root, they all tend to use the same markers of the body. It's just how to write them down or how to categorize them or what term you might use for something. So again, that's all up to the charter themselves. But we all start somewhere. Learning is really all you can do to start. emmamma: Absolutely. So good. What else do you want to share with people ⁓ who are listening? Kourtney: think that... My favorite part about going through all of the experiences you can go through as a woman or someone who becomes a mom. is just the development that comes with that, the character ⁓ ⁓ comes that. ⁓ And I that ⁓ when we these conversations, one of my favorite things to think back on is middle school, when we were all starting to get our periods for the first time, right? ⁓ Girls talk. We talk. in the bathrooms, we're chatting. We're in the locker room, we're chatting. We're at the lunch table, we're talking. We are sharing. ⁓ details of our lives and asking each other questions because we build community that way. Telling stories, sharing vulnerable things, and so I think that when we then go through infertility or pregnancy loss or something really intimate and vulnerable, we tell select women. We have found those who we trust with these very special, hard things. emmamma: Mm. Kourtney: But your story is going to trickle through your circle. And I think that's what I love the most about the fertility awareness community is that matressence journey. that story that follows you is gonna ripple out to some other mama or that mama's gonna connect you to someone who needs you when they needed someone who's been through. Oh, I know someone who went through that. Let me send her a message and then you get to talk to this random stranger from a country over who you maybe never will meet. But they have the same diagnosis you did and you haven't found anyone else yet and that feels really validating. So you are your. emmamma: Yeah. Kourtney: advocate, you're your own biggest health advocate. That's true from puberty, that's true through fertility, that's true through menopause, and that's true for you towards your kids. Like you are the biggest medical advocate and no one can care as much as you do and no one can know your body as well as you can. emmamma: Absolutely, I think so too. It's so good. Where can people find you if they want to connect with you specifically? Kourtney: Yeah, so you can find me, Cycle Coach Kourtney on Instagram. My mom there is at your fertile future and I usually do three group classes a year and love having people come in and just share their experience, matter where you're at. I love working with those ladies working towards their very first baby. That's my ⁓ especially coming off birth control into pregnancy. ⁓ is such a special time and I don't take it lightly to be a part of ⁓ some of these babies at Earthside. So ⁓ you are looking for any kind of cycle knowledge or support at your frontal futures where you can learn. emmamma: Also, well, thanks so much for being here and chatting with me and sharing all your things. I think we could probably talk for days and days and days about this all. But thanks for sharing this hour with me. And appreciate it. And everybody should follow Kourtney and get all of her ⁓ and resources ⁓ her And I'll link that all in the show now. Kourtney: Mm-hmm. Thank you so much. I love chatting with you. Like you said, we could probably chat for days and days and days and a new topic all the time. So I love, I just love sharing the space. Like I said, women talk. So this is exactly what it's about. emmamma: Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, this is absolutely, absolutely. It's been so good. All right, thanks so much. Kourtney: Thank you.