Latest / The Home of Fertility with Liz Walton & Helen Zee / From Egg-White Clues to LH Surges: Owning Your Fertile Window with Fatima Sampayo of bébé bloom

Transcript

From Egg-White Clues to LH Surges: Owning Your Fertile Window with Fatima Sampayo of bébé bloom · The Home of Fertility with Liz Walton & Helen Zee

0:04
SPEAKER_05: Welcome to the Home of Fertility, a space for real conversation.
0:09
SPEAKER_05: Expert insight about fertility, healing, and creating family.
0:15
SPEAKER_05: I'm Liz Walter.
0:17
SPEAKER_00: And I'm Helen Zay.
0:19
SPEAKER_00: We are two mums who've walked this path and are passionate about supporting you on your journey.
0:25
SPEAKER_00: Emotionally, physically, and spiritually.
0:28
SPEAKER_05: We talk about it all.
0:29
SPEAKER_05: Fertility treatment, holistic support, relationship, mindset, and the emotional hide.
0:38
SPEAKER_00: Because sometimes the missing piece lies in someone else's story, in the quiet wisdom of the body, or in a breakthrough that's finally made for you.
0:49
SPEAKER_05: We are so glad you are here.
0:52
SPEAKER_05: Let's dive in.
0:58
SPEAKER_00: Welcome, listeners, to the Home of Fertility.
1:01
SPEAKER_00: Today I am thrilled to be sitting alongside Fatima Sampeyo from Baby Bloom, where we'll be talking all things ovulation.
1:12
SPEAKER_00: By way of introduction, Fatima is the co-founder of Baby Bloom, a female-led Australian fertility brand on a mission to make fertility care feel clear, compassionate, and accessible.
1:26
SPEAKER_00: Originally from Mexico and now proudly Australian, she is a mother of two, a devoted friend, and a single female embracing life's chapters with joy.
1:40
SPEAKER_00: Welcome, Fatima, to today's conversation.
1:42
SPEAKER_00: I look forward to jumping in with this because I know that we've got quite a few things that we can relate to our audience working on their fertility health and journey.
1:56
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Helen.
1:57
SPEAKER_01: Beautiful introduction.
1:58
SPEAKER_01: You got me that huge smile out.
2:03
SPEAKER_00: So ovulation, we'll get right into it.
2:08
SPEAKER_00: It is just let's go.
2:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, let's go.
2:11
SPEAKER_00: Because whether you're on natural fertility, whether you are trying to conceive or not trying to conceive right now, whether you are in a fertility clinic, a doctor's clinic, we start talking about the menstrual cycle, the length of the menstrual cycle, and the big golden question is when do I ovulate?
2:35
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
2:35
SPEAKER_00: Right.
2:36
SPEAKER_00: This we all look at as a marker, whether we are trying to conceive or whether we are using uh processes of contraception for us not to conceive, which is really important.
2:51
SPEAKER_00: So please tell us why it is important for women to understand their ovulation cycle.
2:58
SPEAKER_01: Well, the most important is I think one you understand your cycle, you mentioned the word cycle, and it's we like we rule ourselves about cycles like digestive cycle, sleeping cycle, my mood cycle, so many energy cycles, life, the life cycle.
3:18
SPEAKER_01: So it's always a cycle, isn't it?
3:20
SPEAKER_01: So when it comes to the fertility cycle or your ovulation cycle, the important to hear to understand is that when you know your hormone, because they're all involving hormones, right?
3:30
SPEAKER_01: When you know your hormone cycles, you get to understand yourself more, not only about your fertility, but you get to understand why you're craving chocolate, right?
3:41
SPEAKER_01: Why are you moody today?
3:43
SPEAKER_01: Like why everything smells horrible, things like that.
3:46
SPEAKER_01: So you get to know yourself more.
3:49
SPEAKER_01: So you're not not only understanding when you are the most fertile days to like have sex to conceive, but it's it goes beyond that.
4:00
SPEAKER_01: It goes to understand yourself.
4:02
SPEAKER_01: Once you really understand yourself, when you read your natural body, most probably you don't even need tests.
4:08
SPEAKER_01: You will be such a the test is an x-ray, it's like a different step to really like confirm the right moment to go and have sex.
4:15
SPEAKER_01: Like, but I think once you really understand your inner cycle, you can talk to yourself in a different way.
4:22
SPEAKER_00: It's about becoming a detective, isn't it?
4:25
SPEAKER_00: And knowing thyself well enough for not just externally something to tell you this is what's happening in your body right now, but our symptoms are a reflection of what's going on internally.
4:40
SPEAKER_00: So what I'm hearing is the more that you get to know yourself, your symptoms through the cycle of your daily living, as well as your, as you said, your moods, your cravings, your sleep wake cycle being the circadian rhythm.
4:58
SPEAKER_00: And then we've got what we call the infradian rhythm, which for women is their menstrual cycle that is, you know, um, let's say the average, you know, 28 to 30, 31 days, some women less, some women more.
5:17
SPEAKER_00: But knowing what your symptoms are around that ovulation time is really important markers, not just for you, for yourself, but also what you can represent to your doctor or your clinician when you're talking to them.
5:34
SPEAKER_00: Is am I hearing that correctly?
5:36
SPEAKER_01: That's right.
5:37
SPEAKER_01: Like I think once you start recognizing, I mean, we can talk here about like fluids if you like that's like a very VQ, like the body temperature, or like when you have like the egg yolk, that means that you're starting to ovulate.
5:49
SPEAKER_00: Um so when we talk about the egg yolk, just for the listeners, so we can so we can tease it out a little bit, we're talking about cervical fluid and the different fluid, the different types of cervical fluid that changes, correct?
6:06
SPEAKER_01: Correct.
6:06
SPEAKER_01: This that's that's another you know, cue from the body.
6:10
SPEAKER_01: Um, but when you're about once you start really putting in attention, a little bit of a detective, you don't need to do this all the time.
6:17
SPEAKER_01: It's just at the beginning when you're really trying to understand yourself, and then you're gonna realize, oh, this time of when you're close to ovulation, you get really horny, you feel more sexy, you have a different type of body discharge, you kind of smell different, you feel like so much attractive.
6:34
SPEAKER_01: Like all these little things that you put together, it's like, ah, I'm ovulating.
6:38
SPEAKER_01: Then you can use the test to know exactly when are you surging to ovulate and know it exactly moment when you want to have sex.
6:45
SPEAKER_01: And we can talk about this in a minute, but why it's so important to have sex at the precise moment, we can talk about that.
6:52
SPEAKER_01: But before we get to that point, is to get to know yourself first.
6:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
6:57
SPEAKER_00: So that's the first step.
6:58
SPEAKER_00: Can we flesh that out?
7:00
SPEAKER_00: Because I get really excited.
7:01
SPEAKER_00: I'm a bit of a geek when it comes to the human body.
7:04
SPEAKER_00: And I'll share with you when I was at university and I was studying, you know, my Bachelor of Science in Human Biology, my first introduction to the human sexual body from a much deeper lens than what we, you know, were taught at high school, which was more like don't have sex, so you don't get STDs and you don't get pregnant.
7:29
SPEAKER_00: Whereas going to do a university course, it's like this is the ins and outs.
7:35
SPEAKER_00: And I remember my professor, so I was 18 at the time, 19, she was well into her 60s.
7:42
SPEAKER_00: So we're talking in the late 1980s, early 1990s, and she's a woman that had snow capped hair, she had a woolen pullover, a woollen tweed skirt, box up to her knees, and Maury Jane shoes.
8:04
SPEAKER_00: And she walks into this lectur theater of 500 people and starts talking to us about sex and exactly what happens to the human body, even how the penis moves direction, how the vagina and the cervix moves direction at the time of penetration.
8:26
SPEAKER_00: And I was in absolute awe.
8:29
SPEAKER_00: I went to every single one of her lectures and I took in so much info.
8:35
SPEAKER_00: So when we come to talk about the ins and outs of the human body, I go into detail.
8:41
SPEAKER_00: So what I'm hearing from you, and what I'd love for us to really explore with the symptoms is my friend, when we talk about the cervical fluid, I teach my clients and I know that cervical fluid is menstrual blood.
9:00
SPEAKER_00: That is one way of a woman knowing it is still fluid that's coming out of the uterus, it's coming from the cervix.
9:10
SPEAKER_00: So menstrual blood is also cervical fluid, right?
9:13
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that marks our period.
9:16
SPEAKER_00: So then when we're in the what we call the follicular phase, which is straight after we menstruate before we ovulate, yeah, fluid changes, right?
9:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
9:28
SPEAKER_00: That's before we get to the egg yolk, which I know you're going to talk about in a minute.
9:33
SPEAKER_00: So what can we expect?
9:35
SPEAKER_00: What do we expect that fluid to look like?
9:39
SPEAKER_00: Because you talked about smell before.
9:41
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
9:41
SPEAKER_00: What would that fluid look like in the follicular phase?
9:44
SPEAKER_00: So after we stop bleeding, before we ovulate.
9:48
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it might be a little bit more creamy in the creamy side.
9:51
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
9:52
SPEAKER_01: Um, sometimes it might be a little bit um darkish, and that's because it still has some um some bloodovers or residuals from from the period.
10:04
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
10:04
SPEAKER_01: So you might see that it might have a little bit of spots or like darkish, but usually it's just cleaning it.
10:10
SPEAKER_01: That's like a more also how often you have sex that might change as well, and it would affect the fluid.
10:17
SPEAKER_01: Because if you're a person that has like a like more regular sex, um, or also your age, it will interfere as well, depending on your age, the but in general, and general speaking, before you get into the into the ovulation phase, it will be more of a creamy, creamy fluid.
10:37
SPEAKER_00: Yep, beautiful.
10:38
SPEAKER_00: And what about when a woman is ovulating?
10:42
SPEAKER_00: What can she expect to see, smell with her cervical fluid?
10:49
SPEAKER_01: So this is I know, you know what, actually.
10:53
SPEAKER_01: I'm glad that we talk so openly about it because in my experience, when I tell people about these, women are like, oh my god, you know, like it's such a common thing.
11:02
SPEAKER_01: And uh, the fluid that you see is more like um egg white.
11:06
SPEAKER_01: So very simple.
11:08
SPEAKER_01: If you have quite if you really have like you want to see how it really looks, it's just an egg white.
11:13
SPEAKER_01: You can just touch it and it's like sticky.
11:16
SPEAKER_01: And we really want this fluid because this fluid helps the pH of the sperm to live longer.
11:23
SPEAKER_01: So it's like a natural look for the for the sperm to live longer in your body, and it's gonna give you more of a chance to conceive.
11:31
SPEAKER_00: Wonderful.
11:32
SPEAKER_00: I say as well, because I know that there's gonna be a lot of our listeners um listening through, you know, um audio as opposed to the visual.
11:44
SPEAKER_00: And so with that stickiness, what it means is that when you pick up that fluid between your two fingers and you start moving those fingers one or two centimeters, that should be stretchy between the two fingers.
11:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like the same consistency of an egg white.
12:01
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
12:02
SPEAKER_01: If you grab an egg white and you just play with it, yeah.
12:04
SPEAKER_01: I mean, in some cases you'll be more sticky than others, it really depends on many things.
12:09
SPEAKER_01: But I'm just talking in general, the texture is more or less the same.
12:13
SPEAKER_01: Um it will feel the same a little bit.
12:17
SPEAKER_01: You can have it from like one day to three days, also depending on the woman.
12:21
SPEAKER_01: But that's like a very big cue that your body is getting prepared to take the sperm and to like prepare you for the ovulation.
12:29
SPEAKER_01: So when you see that, it's a good moment to start testing.
12:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, great.
12:33
SPEAKER_00: We'll mention this.
12:34
SPEAKER_00: I'll I'll flag it here because I know I want to talk about the luteal phase as well, just to finish off the overall changes of the of the um cervical fluid.
12:46
SPEAKER_00: But I know that we're also going to touch on ovulation window, which lasts X amount of time, but sperm can last up to five days in the in a woman's body.
12:57
SPEAKER_00: And so having that sticky fluid, it's actually got an electromagnetic field.
13:02
SPEAKER_00: So it's like two magnets coming together.
13:05
SPEAKER_00: And the purpose of that, I told you I'm a geek, told you I'm a geek.
13:10
SPEAKER_00: The purpose of that stickiness is basically electromagnetic fluid, and so between the sperm and the female um uh electromagnetic field, that acts like a magnet, which means that internally in a woman's body, there is still an opportunity for ovulation to take place for that longer time period.
13:37
SPEAKER_00: It does not happen within moments of having sex per se.
13:44
SPEAKER_00: Right.
13:45
SPEAKER_01: It helps actually really help to preserve the sperm and it helps live longer, yeah.
13:50
SPEAKER_00: And in the lutil phase, my friend, let's tell uh the person listening what they can expect to see when we are after ovulation, a pregnancy hasn't happened, and this is then we start moving towards the next cycle of menstruating.
14:09
SPEAKER_00: What can we on average expect to rece to um see with our cervical fluid?
14:18
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so between getting actually blood as the as your period, like as the fluid of blood, before that you can see as well um some creamy fluid.
14:30
SPEAKER_01: That means when if you see any overs any creamy fluid is your ovulation has passed and your body's preparing for your for your period.
14:40
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I also find I remember with my cycle, I've got a 35-year experience.
14:46
SPEAKER_00: So I'm I'm now postmenopause, but I can say I'm an expert because 35 years and and 13 bleeds a year.
14:58
SPEAKER_01: Um let's get that number straight in.
15:01
SPEAKER_01: 35 years, 13 a year.
15:04
SPEAKER_01: You had 455 periods in your whole life.
15:06
SPEAKER_01: Maybe that's an expert, my darling.
15:08
SPEAKER_00: I'm an expert, right?
15:09
SPEAKER_00: I found that when I was in the luteal phase, um, if I wasn't pregnant, after a while, with a breakdown of that fluid getting ready, it would become sometimes um a bit crackly, like say in the underpants.
15:27
SPEAKER_00: It can crack because there's not a lot of fluid there.
15:30
SPEAKER_00: There's a more dryness before we get our period.
15:34
SPEAKER_00: So it's it is a consistency of clagginess, clag like glue, and that kind of can crack a little bit as well.
15:44
SPEAKER_00: So, and I also find that in my um clinical practice as well when I work with women.
15:50
SPEAKER_00: Beautiful.
15:50
SPEAKER_00: Now, if we are pregnant, what do we expect to um see and experience differently in our ovulation fluid?
16:02
SPEAKER_01: Well, you don't get your period.
16:03
SPEAKER_01: That's the first point.
16:05
SPEAKER_01: Some women might get some spotting and they might confuse it with period, but definitely not.
16:09
SPEAKER_01: That's the important part that I go back to the first question and is like get to know yourself, and you will definitely see it's different.
16:16
SPEAKER_01: Um it's a whole different consistency and clogs and things like that.
16:20
SPEAKER_01: So if you don't get your period, obviously, you know, it's it's time to test.
16:24
SPEAKER_01: There are two types of testing to get you to see whether you're actually pregnant or not.
16:28
SPEAKER_01: One that it's so with pregnancy, with ovulation, there's different hormones involved on it.
16:33
SPEAKER_01: But when you go to pregnancy tests, there is one hormone that is present.
16:38
SPEAKER_01: So if you if that hormone is present, you're pregnant.
16:42
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't matter if it's a little bit, you're pregnant.
16:44
SPEAKER_01: It might be the case in perimenopause or monopause, that it might be present.
16:48
SPEAKER_01: So it's not recommended if you're in a certain age, it's not recommended to do an early detection pregnancy test.
16:55
SPEAKER_01: So you have to wait to the regular that because the regular test is um 25 sensibility, which it means sure the hormone in a 25%.
17:03
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, very technical.
17:06
SPEAKER_01: But what in that the one that is an early detention, it's a sensitivity of 10.
17:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so it reads on your P.
17:12
SPEAKER_01: That's why you have to do it in the morning P because it's very concentrated in the morning P compared to ovulation IDC for talking about HCG, exactly.
17:21
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, right.
17:22
SPEAKER_01: So that's uh HCG is the one that is present in pregnancy.
17:26
SPEAKER_01: So if you have that, you're pregnant.
17:28
SPEAKER_01: I have a lot of people that um, a lot of women that contact me and it's like, oh, the line is very faded.
17:34
SPEAKER_01: I don't think I'm pregnant.
17:35
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, you are as far as that line is there, you are, and if just case just in case a certain age, to just in case to abort anything, just treat yourself as if you're pregnant or deal further.
17:49
SPEAKER_00: I agree, yeah, agree.
17:51
SPEAKER_00: So, my friend, tell me, why do so many people find ovulation testing confusing at first?
18:00
SPEAKER_01: Um okay.
18:03
SPEAKER_01: So, my first what I really think okay, this is gonna sound silly, but I think this is the first mistake people do the most.
18:13
SPEAKER_01: They don't read carefully the instructions.
18:16
SPEAKER_01: That's they don't read in detail the instructions.
18:20
SPEAKER_01: I think we're very used to nowadays to watch 30-second videos and get all our knowledge from 30 seconds.
18:26
SPEAKER_01: And even happens to me the other day that I they sent me a very important email and I didn't read properly, and I answered something I know to do.
18:33
SPEAKER_01: Um, so we are not used to read.
18:35
SPEAKER_01: So I think one of the first steps is read properly.
18:38
SPEAKER_01: We do have videos out there which people don't want to read.
18:41
SPEAKER_01: I have videos, me explaining detail by detail how to do them.
18:45
SPEAKER_01: So also as why it's very difficult is because there's a couple of things involved in it.
18:51
SPEAKER_01: First of all, when it comes to um ovulation, there's different hormones involved.
18:55
SPEAKER_01: So the hormones, the the testing baby bloom, they measure the LH hormone.
19:00
SPEAKER_01: You can say better than I because with my accent, I always say it around.
19:03
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I'll slow it down.
19:04
SPEAKER_00: So so what Flatima has just said that with your testing of baby bloom product, you focus on detecting LH, which is euthanizing hormone.
19:19
SPEAKER_01: Lutherizing hormone, yes.
19:21
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's the one, but then at the same time, in ovulation, there are different hormones that are involved in it.
19:29
SPEAKER_01: So sometimes um women don't search, or sometimes in the whole cycle, they can't see any line into the um fertility test, and they're like, why?
19:39
SPEAKER_01: They say, Well, maybe this month the HLH hormone was not present, or they can search in the Hell H hormone, but they didn't ovulate.
19:48
SPEAKER_01: How can you know that by an ultrasound?
19:51
SPEAKER_00: That is important.
19:52
SPEAKER_00: You can't that that is so important, and women don't realize that even though they get a period, they may not have ovulated in that cycle.
20:04
SPEAKER_01: And also, um you can search in LH hormone, and that doesn't mean that you doesn't mean that you actually release the egg because it's it's a lot more complex of a process.
20:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
20:18
SPEAKER_01: So that LH test that we do, the ovulation test, um, it's in the general speaking, it's a good guidance, but there is many factors involved again that can make your case unique.
20:33
SPEAKER_01: This is the generalized, of course.
20:35
SPEAKER_01: If you you know you have been testing for such a long time and you're not surging, definitely you need to see your GP.
20:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
20:42
SPEAKER_00: And through the testing with baby bloom, people will be able to realize that they might be having a surge and not ovulating.
20:52
SPEAKER_01: Uh no, because the test what it measured is a Hellage hormone.
20:57
SPEAKER_01: Uh luther hormone.
20:59
SPEAKER_01: So in a normal cycle, it should once a um once a hormone is surged, the eggs should be released.
21:08
SPEAKER_01: But there are different factors that are involved again.
21:12
SPEAKER_01: So it may be the case you're not.
21:15
SPEAKER_01: That's why it says that if after a certain time, after a year of not trying, especially if you're tracking constantly, you need to check your um your GP.
21:24
SPEAKER_01: But that not necessarily means that you need to do IBF straight away.
21:29
SPEAKER_01: Because nowadays everything is like, let's jump straight to IBF.
21:32
SPEAKER_01: I think there's a lot of things that can be taking place before jumping into the process of IBF, that it's a whole different world.
21:41
SPEAKER_01: What Bebe Bloom differentiates from other tests out there is that we are semi-quantitative, meaning that it tells you how close you are to search.
21:53
SPEAKER_01: So in our in our packages, you'll see a card, and once you pee, you can measure it with up against the card.
22:00
SPEAKER_01: And once you read like a dark line, it's like two lines.
22:04
SPEAKER_01: One is the dark line that it means that the test was conducted properly, the test line, and then the other one is the ovulation line.
22:10
SPEAKER_01: When that line um reaches the same color as the test line, it means that you are very close to search.
22:17
SPEAKER_01: So you should have been coming six right there.
22:19
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
22:20
SPEAKER_00: And would you also suggest, thank you for that.
22:24
SPEAKER_00: Would you also suggest the um uh a person to also do temperature monitoring to also see whether they have their two peaks of heat rising in the body, which is also an indicator of ovulation?
22:41
SPEAKER_00: Could that also help as well?
22:43
SPEAKER_01: Vasel body temperature tracking is good.
22:47
SPEAKER_01: Um, you do it in the morning usually.
22:50
SPEAKER_01: It's recommended.
22:52
SPEAKER_01: I think anything and everything is recommended in a natural way.
22:55
SPEAKER_01: I would say complement it.
22:57
SPEAKER_01: Because it doesn't it doesn't take you anything to take your temperature.
23:01
SPEAKER_01: The only problem that I see with temperature with the body basal is that a lot of things can affect because the temperature that it changed with ovulation is not like your temperature changed two degrees.
23:13
SPEAKER_01: It's not like suddenly you get a fever.
23:15
SPEAKER_00: 0.05.
23:16
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
23:16
SPEAKER_01: So that 0.05 can be affected by how many layers of clothes you have.
23:21
SPEAKER_01: It can be affected if you're getting sick.
23:24
SPEAKER_00: Even if you get up to go to the toilet during the night, that can actually give you affected an inconclusive reading.
23:31
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
23:31
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
23:31
SPEAKER_01: And also you forget, you really need to put your alarm and a reminder of like, I need to test my vessel temperature.
23:38
SPEAKER_01: So it's easier to go and pee any time of the day and say, Oh, I remember I need to pee.
23:44
SPEAKER_01: Because you don't need to be peeing at this, it's recommended to pee at the same time, but if you go two hours before after, it doesn't really matter.
23:51
SPEAKER_01: It's more accurate to measure a hormone in the body that the basal body temperature.
23:57
SPEAKER_01: I think body basal temperature, it was really good back for our mothers or grandmothers when they're trying not to get pregnant.
24:04
SPEAKER_01: It was a good thing.
24:05
SPEAKER_01: Um, also the battle bus um BBT, which is a basal body temperature method, it'd also be affected by the way you take the temperature.
24:15
SPEAKER_01: Before it was better to do it with the mercury ones, they were a lot more accurate.
24:21
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
24:21
SPEAKER_01: But now a lot of people don't have your mercury temperatures, yeah, thermometers.
24:26
SPEAKER_01: They have the electric wines that are going to your ear, things like that.
24:29
SPEAKER_01: And that's just you can take it one second and change it to the other minute, and it's a whole different temperature.
24:34
SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
24:36
unknown: Okay.
24:36
SPEAKER_01: I don't think it's as precise as you can do it.
24:38
SPEAKER_01: I think you have a lot more chances when you do um the LH that's uh like the normal P test, but you can definitely complement it with butter with BBT.
24:48
SPEAKER_00: You mentioned, thank you.
24:50
SPEAKER_00: You mentioned before about your uh semi-qual quality, quality testing.
24:58
SPEAKER_00: Now, I also know that your product has been TGA tested and approved, and all the listeners that um that uh is listening right now, this is a massive effort for a company that needs to put in a lot of evidence and proven evidence that your product is doing what it's meant to do.
25:23
SPEAKER_00: And I say this, my friends, because I used to be a global pharmaceuticals manager, my career stemmed 18 years, and I used TGA was one of my major um uh customers or collaborators that I needed to work with because we needed to launch products in 78 countries around the world.
25:46
SPEAKER_00: So it actually needed to leave the country, and I also had worked with FDA and every other regulatory authority around the world.
25:53
SPEAKER_00: So I know what it takes to do submissions and pay a good amount of money to be able to prove your product.
26:05
SPEAKER_00: And this is a good thing, everybody.
26:09
SPEAKER_00: I highly suggest that the products that you are looking at getting to support your fertility as well as your health wherever possible, if it can be approved, you know that stringent control and testing has been done and documents have been reviewed by a number of different people to say that this product is going to do what it says.
26:36
SPEAKER_00: Every time you take out Bebe Bloom's ovulation kit and you open that seal pack and you take it out to do what you need to do, you are guaranteed that you're going to get an accurate result of what your body is telling you.
26:54
SPEAKER_00: So, my friend, tell me a little bit about that journey.
26:59
SPEAKER_01: Oh, Helen, it's like a five-year journey.
27:01
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so any product that can that has that is being sold in Australia, it needs to have an ARTG number.
27:10
SPEAKER_01: So it stands for Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods.
27:14
SPEAKER_01: Um, this is obviously obtained by TGA, which is the therapeutic good administration in Australia.
27:19
SPEAKER_01: Before I start on that, you said that you work with all the regulators around the world.
27:23
SPEAKER_01: Which ones are the hardest to get registered?
27:27
SPEAKER_00: It depends.
27:28
SPEAKER_00: Um, that's a very big question, and we need a lot of time to answer that.
27:33
SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna politely move that on because it's a very, very big question.
27:38
SPEAKER_00: And it also depends on, yeah.
27:41
SPEAKER_00: Everything and anything 1800 product lines, like, and we're talking injectable drugs.
27:47
SPEAKER_00: It was a very it was different to listing something as a therapeutic device.
27:53
SPEAKER_00: I actually worked with um products that would go through uh uh hospital lines and will end up in people predominantly through IV drips, so it's slightly different.
28:05
SPEAKER_01: It's whole yeah, totally different then.
28:08
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so our product is an IVD um classification too, I think.
28:12
SPEAKER_01: That doesn't really mean much.
28:14
SPEAKER_01: It's just the same way as COVID tests, it's on the same category as COVID tests.
28:20
SPEAKER_01: Now, when I start applying for it, COVID didn't coving was just starting, right?
28:25
SPEAKER_01: Coving, I applied, I think, in March 2020, so that's exactly when COVID hit.
28:31
SPEAKER_01: Um so why did I decide to apply for it?
28:35
SPEAKER_01: I had like a fertility journey myself.
28:37
SPEAKER_01: I didn't have trouble getting pregnant, but I have a miscarriage of twins, and it was a massive loss for me.
28:43
SPEAKER_01: So I say, from so much pain, something has to come.
28:48
SPEAKER_01: And I say, how can I work around this?
28:52
SPEAKER_01: And I say, my dream is to be a mom.
28:54
SPEAKER_01: I want to help women becoming moms.
28:56
SPEAKER_01: Now, my background is hospitality and finance.
28:59
SPEAKER_01: I have a BBA on finance and hospitality, nothing to do with this.
29:03
SPEAKER_01: But um, I just got I was just my daughter was like four months old, and I didn't want to go back to the finance industry in Australia, always been working in finance, and I didn't want to go back.
29:15
SPEAKER_01: My job was very stressful, and I said, I don't want to go back.
29:18
SPEAKER_01: So I said, I'm gonna put my own business.
29:20
SPEAKER_01: Why not?
29:21
SPEAKER_01: I don't see in the in the pharmacies, I just see it's like clear blue and this very expensive and all these things, and no no.
29:27
SPEAKER_01: I say, well, why don't you do my own brand and I just import them from Australia?
29:33
SPEAKER_01: I thought it was that easy.
29:34
SPEAKER_01: Ignorance is a bless.
29:36
SPEAKER_01: Um, I obviously I read everything, I became an expert before anything on anything, before deciding.
29:43
SPEAKER_01: And I say, Yes, this is what I want to do.
29:45
SPEAKER_01: This is my dream, is helping women become, you know, moms.
29:49
SPEAKER_01: What is like there can be a big better dream than that, and helping women get pregnant, you know.
29:54
SPEAKER_01: I think this is perfect.
29:56
SPEAKER_01: Um and then You know, little by little I started like unclogging and digging on the rabbit hole of what was needed.
30:06
SPEAKER_01: And then it obviously I got a distributor.
30:10
SPEAKER_01: I was in China in the canton fair.
30:12
SPEAKER_01: Um, I got the contacts and I was like, yeah, perfect.
30:16
SPEAKER_01: They're amazing.
30:18
SPEAKER_01: And when I started applying for TGA, they were like, oh, perfect.
30:23
SPEAKER_01: So you need to do an audit before getting a register.
30:27
SPEAKER_01: I wanted to get that as I was just as basic, Helen, as I contact an importer and I say, I want to bring this product.
30:33
SPEAKER_01: Can we bring it?
30:34
SPEAKER_01: And they were like, No, where's your ARTG?
30:37
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, my what?
30:39
SPEAKER_01: It's like, you need to go to the Australian Therapeutic Administration and get an ARTG.
30:44
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, oh, easy, I'll get that tomorrow.
30:48
SPEAKER_01: That took me five years.
30:49
SPEAKER_01: So again, ignorance blessed.
30:53
SPEAKER_01: And I said, Yes, I can push, I can do this.
30:55
SPEAKER_01: Also, I'm a very, like, I'm a very active person.
30:59
SPEAKER_01: Like, I don't take notes very easily.
31:01
SPEAKER_01: Like, if I get something on my mind, I keep pushing and pushing.
31:04
SPEAKER_01: And I just start reading everything and anything on my hands.
31:08
SPEAKER_01: And it got to a point that in the TGA that they were like, so are you gonna pay the audit?
31:13
SPEAKER_01: And it was like, I don't remember, like 15 grand.
31:17
SPEAKER_01: And I didn't have that money.
31:19
SPEAKER_01: But you remember during COVID that you had access to your supra?
31:23
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
31:24
SPEAKER_01: So I took the money out of my supra to pay for the audit.
31:28
SPEAKER_00: Fatima.
31:29
SPEAKER_01: I did that.
31:30
SPEAKER_00: Fatima.
31:32
SPEAKER_01: Because and there was this person in the TGA, his name is Iuan, and he was fantastic.
31:38
SPEAKER_01: And he said, Who are you?
31:41
SPEAKER_01: Because people that apply for these are pharmaceutical people, they're in big companies.
31:46
SPEAKER_01: What's your background?
31:46
SPEAKER_01: And I say, My background is finance.
31:48
SPEAKER_01: And they're like, Are you sure you want to do this?
31:53
SPEAKER_01: And I say, Yes, I want to do it.
31:56
SPEAKER_01: And it's money, and it's from my supra, and somehow I'm gonna get it back.
32:01
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, bless.
32:02
SPEAKER_00: Bless you.
32:04
SPEAKER_00: That is that's what I'm talking about to the the person listening right here.
32:09
SPEAKER_00: It's when you've got passion, when you've got drive, um, these are the stories that, and this is this is the effort and the passion that is goes behind the product that you're trusting to support you on your ovulation and on your fertility journey.
32:28
SPEAKER_00: Um, thank you, my friend.
32:31
SPEAKER_00: Let's debunk some of the common myths around fertility and fertility tracking.
32:37
SPEAKER_00: Can you just give us two or three common myths and um misunderstandings and just speak to those two?
32:46
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think the biggest one of the biggest myths is that your cycle is 14 days.
32:51
SPEAKER_01: We see this a lot in the apps when people are trying to get pregnant.
32:54
SPEAKER_01: Oh, your ovulation happens on at 14 days.
32:58
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
32:58
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
32:59
SPEAKER_01: Um, we were taught since young that your cycle is 28 days period.
33:05
SPEAKER_01: And maybe it is in general when you're like 20, but nowadays we're seeing women trying to get pregnant past 35, and obviously our cycles are all moving around.
33:15
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so that'll be the biggest myth.
33:17
SPEAKER_01: It's uh your cycle is not 28 days, you don't start ovulating in day 14.
33:22
SPEAKER_01: It takes a lot more than an app because also women download apps to follow.
33:30
SPEAKER_01: And to be honest, I'm the kind of woman that I get my period exactly at the same day at the same time.
33:37
SPEAKER_01: But also, I'm a very rare case.
33:39
SPEAKER_01: If you see around and you ask around women, most of them are like, I get it around like 29, next month 30, another day 32.
33:47
SPEAKER_01: So basically, what the app does is just generate a media based off all the information that they have.
33:55
SPEAKER_01: So don't only trust that apps and don't believe in the myth that your cycle is 28 days and make it for granted.
34:02
SPEAKER_00: Or that you are only ovulating on day 13 or day 14.
34:06
SPEAKER_00: I absolutely agree with you because when I do menstrual pulse health checks for my clients, uh, I want to know in detail about the color of their blood, the consistency, even whether they go to the toilet regularly for number twos, like all of this takes place, right?
34:26
SPEAKER_00: And this is all about the symptoms of getting to know your body and the health of your body.
34:32
SPEAKER_00: And with what you were talking about, um, with the 14-day or 13-day, 14-day uh ovulation, if you are a woman whose period comes regularly less than 27 days, potentially your ovulation window might be day nine.
34:52
SPEAKER_00: And so potentially.
34:54
SPEAKER_00: Potentially, yeah, you could be missing out on that um valuable, valuable time.
35:00
SPEAKER_00: Okay, is there another one that you would like a myth that you want to talk about?
35:05
SPEAKER_00: Or shall we move on to another question that I want to ask you before we finish up for today?
35:10
SPEAKER_01: Another myth, very, very fast.
35:12
SPEAKER_01: And I think it's something that we we are not the myth is that fertility has to be kept quiet because you don't know if you're gonna get pregnant, you don't know what's happening.
35:24
SPEAKER_01: So I think that's a big myth.
35:26
SPEAKER_01: It's just, and it shouldn't be like that.
35:29
SPEAKER_01: Again, it's a cycle, it's a cycle of life.
35:31
SPEAKER_01: Your fertility is a cycle of life, like a cycle of sleeping.
35:35
SPEAKER_01: We don't say quiet, well, my cycle of sleeping, let's not talk about it.
35:38
SPEAKER_01: We always talk about uh, oh yeah, I have a deep sleep, I didn't.
35:41
SPEAKER_01: You track it in your phone, all these kind of things.
35:44
SPEAKER_01: So I think this is a myth that is coming out more and more, obviously.
35:47
SPEAKER_01: And you are in this in this industry and me too, so we heard all the time.
35:51
SPEAKER_01: But I think in general, for out there for the whole world, people that live in India that they're more like quiet about things like that.
35:58
SPEAKER_01: Um, we have a big community of Indians in Australia.
36:02
SPEAKER_01: Um, for example, it's just an example, no, how it's kept quiet.
36:06
SPEAKER_00: So we should celebrate it culturally and also upbringing.
36:13
SPEAKER_00: Um you know, we can we can um not talk about our periods, not talk about our symptoms, and then that way we're not gonna realize what is normal and what is not normal.
36:26
SPEAKER_01: That's a myth.
36:27
SPEAKER_01: The whole thing is that we need to celebrate it, um, like a skincare, like wellness products.
36:32
SPEAKER_01: Your fertility is in that same level.
36:35
SPEAKER_00: Yep, great, great.
36:37
SPEAKER_01: And jump jump to the next one, Helen.
36:39
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, because I know I wanted to talk to you about intimacy, because I know that in the fertility journey, what starts off as a uh a couple that are wanting to get pregnant, um there's you know, this is a generalization, but there is sexy time and there is intimacy.
37:01
SPEAKER_00: And when we have got fertility and delayed fertility, and then we it's all interrupted with basil taking our temperature for our basal rate, uh peeing on sticks, and then getting text messages at work to say, come home, now's the time to ovulate, you know.
37:20
SPEAKER_00: Uh, which I've heard clients do.
37:23
SPEAKER_00: And so as an intimacy coach, I get to talk about that and how we don't turn the table around.
37:32
SPEAKER_00: Uh, because in a lot of times it's the male or the other, you know, the other partner that feels like they are being used around that time of ovulation, and it really, really is true.
37:45
SPEAKER_00: So when we talk about the ovulation window and the pressure of getting this ovulation window right, it's not just the woman's body that is under scrutiny, everything goes under a microscope, and the changes in the intimacy that takes place is we need to be really mindful of how we're treating our each other and how we're treating our relationship because very easily we can get off track and it becomes very mechanical, and it we can become quite divorced from our bodies, we can come quite divorced from our partnership when we focus so much on trying to get pregnant in that ovulation window.
38:36
SPEAKER_00: And all I'm leaning into is you've got a beautiful opportunity through tracking your fertility.
38:43
SPEAKER_00: Have fun, make lover meditation, have sex for the sake of having sex, do all the other fun stuff that you want to do in your intimacy, and around that ovulation time, still keep it sexy, but also knowing that you have got an outcome for that sexy time to be able to get pregnant, right?
39:10
SPEAKER_01: I think you put it perfectly, you couldn't say it more accurate.
39:14
SPEAKER_01: You have a mission, and that mission can only be completed in 12 hours.
39:21
SPEAKER_01: The rest of the 27 days to be a loving couple, um, and yeah, have you know, be interesting in a different way.
39:32
SPEAKER_01: The thing is, honestly, I think we are the closest thing to a miracle, humans, we are the closest thing.
39:39
SPEAKER_01: Is you know, the window to get pregnant is so small that you need to take advantage of it.
39:47
SPEAKER_01: And I think as far, and and when you were saying these words, something came to my mind, and it's communication.
39:54
SPEAKER_01: If you feel that you're being used, honestly, you are like, I mean, in a way, you are, and that's okay because you're in a mission to become parents.
40:07
SPEAKER_01: So don't take it personal, don't take personal that they send you a text message saying, like, I want your sperm right now.
40:14
SPEAKER_01: I mean, yeah, but that's how it works.
40:17
SPEAKER_01: But at the same time, you're working on this together.
40:19
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you need to have that communication with your partner, to have these open conversations and say, hey, I didn't like that text, it made me feel used, and then you can say, I'm so sorry.
40:30
SPEAKER_01: I try, I was trying to say it's funny.
40:32
SPEAKER_01: How can I say next time that you don't feel used?
40:35
SPEAKER_01: But at the same time, we do have that mission.
40:37
SPEAKER_00: It's an opportunity for growth in the relationship, isn't it?
40:41
SPEAKER_01: A hundred percent.
40:41
SPEAKER_01: But you need to communicate, Helen, and you need to remember that you're working toward this together, and also sometimes us as women, we forget that we forget that it's a teamwork, yeah.
40:54
SPEAKER_00: Because we can take it, there's there's a lot of people, and I say we collectively, because I identify as a woman as well, and the nurturing role takes over, like yeah, it takes over the for males.
41:08
SPEAKER_00: Predominantly, it's the protector role.
41:11
SPEAKER_00: So they want to protect, they want to make sure that there's safety, security, and predominantly in the in the female essence, and again, I'm speaking heteronormative here because that's how I identify.
41:25
SPEAKER_00: So please, whoever is listening to this, interchange what I'm saying based on the language that you use for yourself.
41:33
SPEAKER_00: But we can take over because we are the nurture nurturers, we are the ones that uh biologically will do that nature, nurture, look over, make sure everything is taken over, all needs are taken care of.
41:51
SPEAKER_00: And we start that and we continue that through our cycle.
41:56
SPEAKER_00: This is what uh we get sharpened to do, right?
42:04
SPEAKER_00: We actually get adapted to do that.
42:06
SPEAKER_00: So what we're saying here is is not a little, it's not a small thing.
42:11
SPEAKER_00: And what Fatima, what you were saying is when you were talking about the part where I said about feeling used, and you said, you know, don't take it personally, but in a way that you are.
42:23
SPEAKER_00: Let's start looking at National Geographic and David Attenborough, and where we talk about the animal kingdom that is ready to procreate, they know sometimes they might do a dance for hours on end.
42:40
SPEAKER_00: There's other birds that go and create these massive, massive nests that are two stories high to go and show the woman or the you know, the female, yeah.
42:50
SPEAKER_00: I should say, that look, I'm the one that should impregnate you.
42:56
SPEAKER_00: And we do forget that as humans, we have got a biological function that is evolutionarily hardwired as well, and then on top of that, we layer the emotions, we layer the mental, we layer the physical as well.
43:14
SPEAKER_01: Communication that's a that's the key point to not feeling because you have the right to feel the way you you feel.
43:22
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, all feelings are welcome, yeah, yeah, but we need to process them, yeah.
43:27
SPEAKER_01: And the way to process them is talking about them.
43:29
SPEAKER_01: So if you feel used, obviously, I didn't want to be dismissive, but I said it's okay to feel that way.
43:35
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, I'm 100%.
43:37
SPEAKER_00: I bought it in for the biological nature of what we're talking about here.
43:42
SPEAKER_00: It's a biological process that we're trying to get right in a certain period and window.
43:49
SPEAKER_00: And animals and trees and pollen, they're not sitting around doing temperature tests.
43:58
SPEAKER_00: They innately know, and they get a hundred percent success rate naturally about when they're gonna conceive and how they're gonna conceive.
44:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, us humans are the ones that are further away and becoming further away because we've lost touch with our biological signs.
44:20
SPEAKER_00: And this is what I'm feeling of a big part of our discussion today is is getting up close and personal with our physical signs.
44:30
SPEAKER_00: Having that diagnostic test is a way that goes to show you outside of your body as evidence what is happening inside your body.
44:41
SPEAKER_00: So you're building on confidence.
44:44
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and just stopping up what you just said, that's at the beginning of the talk that I said when you're close to ovulating, you feel more horny, you feel prettier, you feel sexy.
44:55
SPEAKER_01: You want to go out there and say, Yes, I'm putting the black dress tonight, girl.
44:59
SPEAKER_01: And that is the reason why.
45:00
SPEAKER_01: But going back to the animal kingdom is because it's part of our body saying, Come on, boys, I'm here, you know.
45:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's pheromones, it's estrogen, estrogen that grows everything in the body.
45:13
SPEAKER_00: We feel more social.
45:15
SPEAKER_00: We actually want to go out more, even if we're not with a partner and wanting to procreate.
45:22
SPEAKER_00: That time of ovulation is the time that we actually feel more social.
45:28
SPEAKER_00: Our lips are fuller.
45:30
SPEAKER_00: Did you know that during ovulation your lip shape changes?
45:36
SPEAKER_00: Ever so slightly your eyes, your the distance of your eyes changes to make the female face look like it's not on the hunt and not in the um like I'll use the word dangerous, but it's more more uh uh softer and a lot more attractive together with pheromones.
46:06
SPEAKER_00: You are more open to the male species coming in your direction.
46:12
SPEAKER_01: That's it.
46:13
SPEAKER_01: It's just at the end of the day, we are mammals, so you know we're exactly but we have feelings and we have all these things, and it's important to address them.
46:21
SPEAKER_01: Of course, especially after trying to conceive for such a period of time, then the more feelings are gonna come, the more emotion, and we need to address them.
46:29
SPEAKER_01: Please address them, it's very important.
46:31
SPEAKER_01: Communication, communication, communication, because that's the only way to come through it.
46:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
46:36
SPEAKER_00: Because you say, you know, we're talking about this, and we also know that even when you go to your doctors and your fertility specialists, etc., at the end of the day, they are looking at the biological function of your body, and they're also teaming that up with what they know through procedures as well as um different drugs to try and bring that hormonal cocktail in that perfect um balance for you to be able to get pregnant, right?
47:10
SPEAKER_00: So even when we go to our specialist, they're looking at the biological side of things.
47:15
SPEAKER_00: And this is where a person says, I don't feel whole, I don't feel complete.
47:19
SPEAKER_00: And what I say to that, and I know this is something that we want to talk about, uh, if we can leave our uh something that we can leave our um readers with, our listeners with, is um um one thing that they can do or be mindful of when they are starting the journey and knowing how to track their cycle.
47:49
SPEAKER_00: What would you say?
47:53
SPEAKER_01: What is the one thing that I will leave them?
47:55
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, okay.
47:59
SPEAKER_01: Embrace yourself.
48:00
SPEAKER_01: I think that would be the first step is embrace, embrace yourself, get to know yourself.
48:06
SPEAKER_01: That's part of tracking.
48:07
SPEAKER_01: That's the next step, is just tracking without ovulation test.
48:10
SPEAKER_01: But the first step is yeah, embrace yourself, love that, you know, get to know yourself, get to know the cues, get to know the cycle, your cycle.
48:21
SPEAKER_01: Because your cycle held, well, now it's a little different than mine, but someone 20 is different than mine, just we're different people.
48:30
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it might be some characteristics the same, blah blah blah, but it's gonna have little things that are different, you know.
48:36
SPEAKER_01: Like a lot of people get really hungry when they're gonna get their period.
48:39
SPEAKER_01: I don't, I don't get hungry at all.
48:42
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's very different from other people, um, or other things, you know, get to know yourself, and then once you get a couple of cycles of getting to know yourself, get start tracking your ovulation with a test.
48:55
SPEAKER_00: Right.
48:56
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
48:57
SPEAKER_01: No worries, Colin.
48:59
SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for joining us.
49:01
SPEAKER_00: Uh, lots of juicy content for our uh listener to take in.
49:10
SPEAKER_00: And in the show notes, we'll also have ways where people can reach out, find out more information, and also be able to purchase your product.
49:21
SPEAKER_01: Lovely, lovely.
49:22
SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much.
49:23
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for having me, Helen.
49:24
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for the job that you're doing out there is lovely.
49:28
SPEAKER_01: You are this part of this, the part that I say, the myth about your fertility and how we need to embrace it and being open.
49:34
SPEAKER_01: You do that.
49:36
SPEAKER_01: That's your flag.
49:37
SPEAKER_01: Um, I love what you're doing, the job that you're doing, I admire it.
49:41
SPEAKER_01: And thank you for being part of this community.
49:43
SPEAKER_00: Thank you too, my friend.
49:45
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Kevin.
49:50
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for joining us at the Home of Fertility.
49:53
SPEAKER_00: We hope today's episode brought you clarity, comfort, and connection.
49:59
SPEAKER_05: If this podcast resonated, please share it.
50:03
SPEAKER_05: Leave a review or subscribe.
50:05
SPEAKER_05: This helps us support more people that are on this path.
50:09
SPEAKER_00: And if you'd like to connect or share your story, find us on Instagram and Facebook at Australian Fertility Summit.
50:18
SPEAKER_05: Remember the missing piece might be waiting in a story.
50:22
SPEAKER_05: Your body's wisdom or something new just made for you.
50:27
SPEAKER_05: Take care and we'll see you next time.