8 Fertility Truths I Wish I Knew Sooner

If you’ve been hanging around here for a while, you know my own health and fertility struggles led me to helping women and couples with theirs.

I spent well over a decade on hormonal birth control (HBC), which I later learned wasn’t only masking symptoms, it was contributing to their root cause.

In my late teens I learned I have Celiac Disease and Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis which at the time I thought explained my symptoms of hair loss, fatigue, all sorts of gut issues, irregular cycles and anxiety.

When I finally came off of HBC I had my work cut out for me to support my fertility. Not only was I extremely depleted (HBC depletes nutrients we need to support fertility), my anxiety got worse, my skin broke out, and my cycle was a mess. 

The conventional medicine approach didn’t offer me anything other than going back on HBC and coming back to pop more pills when I wanted to get pregnant.

I had just graduated with my Master’s in Human Nutrition and from my own research I knew nutrition and lifestyle was a huge part of hormone balance and supporting fertility. My foundation of biology and metabolism from the 8 years of school I’d just finished made it a natural next step to learn how to work with my body to support fertility.

So I continued my education to learn more about the connections between gut health, nutrient status, hormones and fertility. 

With a lot of trial and error, more education and support from a Naturopathic Doctor, Acupuncturist and Prenatal Chiropractor I was able to manage my Hashimoto’s, heal my gut and regulate my cycle. 

And — most importantly — I was able to get pregnant and have a healthy baby, who’s now a very energetic toddler. 

So here are 8 things I wish I’d known sooner!  

#1 Birth Control Is Not The Answer 

There are appropriate times and cases for birth control. BUT — and this is a huge but — it should only be given after there has been a review of other options, side effects and how it actually works. 

Ever heard of informed choice?...

*rolls eyes in disbelief of how conventional medicine can be short-sighted sometime*

I was on some form of birth control for over a decade. 

And I have spent much of my adult life recovering my own health from the side effects of turning off my own hormones and replacing them with synthetic ones for this long. 

The time you spend not cycling will continue to impact your health for your entire life. 

Our cycling hormones support bone health, heart health & brain health into your post-menopausal years.

If I had known the importance of ovulation for health and been given the tools to support my body through full maturation of puberty while using nutrition and lifestyle to decrease symptoms like acne, I may have still used birth control but it wouldn’t have been for over a decade.

Birth control is used as a band aid treatment for countless symptoms without being mindful of where a female is in her stage of development or a conversation about side effects.

Birth control is a group one carcinogen that also increases risk of heart attack. 

But I sure wasn’t given this information at 15 or at any follow-up appointment over the years I was on it.

Birth control has been proven to:

🚫Lower AMH by up to 30%!!

🚫Deplete folate, B12, B6, B2, magnesium, zinc, vitamin C

— the same nutrients we need to support fertility, regular cycles & mood

🚫Increase chance of being prescribed an antidepressant by over 20%

🚫Increase risk of liver tumors

🚫Increase risk of Crohn’s by 300%  (if that doesn’t scream “I cause gut dysfunction” I don’t know what does)

Birth control doesn’t cause infertility but it sure can make it a lot harder for the body to support fertility once you come off of long-term use. 

I’ve seen this pattern in myself and many women that I work with.

When is it okay to start TTC after coming off of hormonal birth control? 

Like usual, it depends.

✨NOTE: it’s technically “okay” right away, but if you are looking to decrease risk of pregnancy complications and improve life-long health of your future tiny human, a little self TLC goes a heck of a long way!

If you’ve been on HBC for a long time, I recommend starting to support your body before coming off HBC to ease the transition & boost nutrients that support egg quality. 

If you are already off, I recommend at least 3-4 months of support before TTC, more if your body is struggling to start making its own hormones again.

After stopping HBC, it can take your body anywhere from 6 months to 2 years to find its natural rhythm again.

There are women that stop HBC and conceive within 3-4 months, but for many there is a period of subfertility or irregularity. 

You might be wondering why it takes so long…..

You don’t ovulate or have a period while on HBC (break through bleeds aren’t periods!) so your body has to restart communication lines, start making hormones like estrogen, LH & FSH. The brain has to re-learn how to talk to the ovaries, sending FSH to stimulate maturation & then LH to trigger ovulation.

Good news: you can support this process, potentially shortening your timeline to restore fertility. 

Here’s what you can do to support your body after HBC

👉🏻Replete nutrients that have been depleted by HBC 

👉🏻Restore gut health with the help of bone broth & fermented foods (HBC messes with the bacterial balance and the intestinal barrier)

👉🏻Eat enough! A nutrient dense diet that includes adequate fat provides ingredients for hormones like estrogen, progesterone & testosterone is necessary for our body to feel safe in order to start ovulating again.

👉🏻Get to the bottom of any health concerns! Functional testing can give you so many answers.

#2 The Crucial Role of Mineral Balance 

Fertility is a very energy intensive process and minerals are essential for how our cells create energy. 

Here are a few important ways mineral balance supports and impacts fertility:

✨Copper and zinc balance heavily influences estrogen and progesterone production

✨Potassium and calcium balance impacts the way your cells use thyroid hormone 

✨Calcium and magnesium balance affects your insulin response (how you manage blood sugar) 

✨Sodium and magnesium balance regulates how you adapt to stress 

All of these factors play an important role in how your body supports fertility.

Balancing your minerals can help your body do its thing and make the difference between:

🔴Relying on progesterone cream 

or 

🟢Supporting your body in producing progesterone

🔴Consistently increasing thyroid medication while still having symptoms 

or

🟢Supporting your body in using thyroid hormone more effectively

🔴Unstable blood sugars, feeling hangry 

or 

🟢Stable energy, mood and blood sugar

🔴Relying on adaptogen supplements 

or

🟢Supporting how your body adapts to stress

Remember: it’s okay to use a mixture of both too 😉

Rule #1: Eat Enough! 

Eating enough and including many nutrient dense foods in your diet is super supportive of mineral balance. 

#3 Hormone Imbalance Is Not The Root Cause Of Your Fertility Challenges

Hormone imbalance is never a root cause of fertility challenges. 

We have to learn why the hormones are imbalanced to find the root cause.

For real. 

Even if you have a diagnosis related to hormone imbalance like PCOS, thyroid disease or endometriosis, this is not your root cause. 

The root cause of hormone imbalance is typically different for you than it is for your friend or sister- even if you have the same diagnosis!!

You are a beautifully unique human!

And learning to work with your body will take you so much further than adapting a protocol based on a diagnosis rather than a root cause.

If you want real results that help you nourish your fertility and have a healthy baby you have to go deeper than high estrogen, low progesterone, high testosterone, low cortisol etc. 

You have to learn why these hormones are imbalanced.

Hormones are little messengers that are eager to deliver a signal via hormone receptors. 

The root cause of imbalanced hormones can be a roadblock in how the hormones are being made, how they are being metabolized, elimination of hormones or how they are communicating.

A few common roadblocks I see in my clients:

🚫Poor gut health

🚫High toxic burden

🚫Lack of nutrients

🚫Stress (in all forms)

🚫Poor sleep

🚫Infection

This is why there is not one diet or supplement protocol that works to optimize fertility for every person.

#4 MDs Won’t Look for The Root Cause 

“If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail”- Abraham Maslow

If your provider isn’t looking at your body and all of its systems as a whole, they aren’t going to find the root cause of your fertility challenges.

I really wish I would have realized this sooner when supporting my fertility. 

That’s one big reason why today I work to try to fill in this massive gap by helping couples learn how to work with their bodies and have a healthy baby.

The hard truth? 

MD’s are trained in medicine. The main tool they use is medicine.

MD’s are very important. Sometimes we need medicine and medicine can even work well in conjunction with a root cause approach when necessary.

However, the rapidly declining fertility rates are not due to a medicine deficiency.

Your beautiful body is designed to reproduce. 

Even when there are challenges. 

So what barriers are getting in the way of how your body is able to support fertility? 

How can we learn how to work with your body so it can better support fertility?

There are many areas that greatly impact fertility that are completely overlooked in a conventional setting largely because our medical system is designed to see each system as separate and not influencing one another. 

But this is not how the body works.

I know finding a provider with the right resources in their tool box isn’t easy…

Trust me — I’ve been there!

 And that’s why I do what I do today! 

I don’t claim to have all of the answers but I will listen, help you investigate and learn with you the best ways to support your body. 

#5 The Value of Sleep 

Sleep plays a very important role in hormone balance and fertility. 

Sleep is a major foundation for fertility and something I am constantly talking about with my clients.

Sleep is a time for our body to rest and repair. 

And when this time is taken away our fertility can suffer. 

Research shows that poor sleep negatively impacts fertility, immune function, hormone balance, mood and appetite.

Our circadian rhythm — which is influenced by light exposure — directs our sleep cycle and regulates our reproductive hormone production. 

Light exposure when we should be sleeping can actually interfere with the communication between our brain and our ovaries, messing with ovulation! 

And poor sleep doesn’t only play a role in regular ovulation, it is also associated with early miscarriage, preterm birth and infertility.

The sweet spot for how much sleep you should be getting each night is 7-8 hours. 

Research shows that women getting less than seven hours of sleep are 15% less likely to get pregnant than women who get 7-8 hours. 

Alternatively, women getting 7-8 hours of sleep are 25% more likely to conceive when compared to women who get 9 hours or more a night.

Sleep is just as important for male fertility! Research shows that late bedtimes and 6 or less hours of sleep impairs sperm health.

And remember! You can’t out-supplement poor sleep! 

You have to put out the work here, I promise you will reap the benefits in so many ways!

Top tips to improve sleep:

🌙Sleep in COMPLETE darkness.

🌙Decrease screen time at night. NO screens for 1-2 hours before bed can be a game changer!

🌙Set a consistent bedtime before 11 pm.

🌙Move your body daily.

🌙Get natural light in the morning

#6 Undereating Is a Huge Stressor

You’re not a toddler. You’re a grown-ass woman! So stop nibbling on food and skimping on food that “will make you fat”. 

You are probably sick of hearing me say “make sure you are eating enough”...

But the goal here is to be gentle to your body and undereating is a huge stressor! 

So how do you know if you are eating enough?

Listening to what your body is telling you is a good start!

And I don’t mean appetite or hunger because — let’s be honest — you have probably been overriding those cues for so long that they aren’t trustworthy anymore. 

Thank you (not), diet culture!

👉🏻If you are skipping breakfast….

👉🏻If you are eating less than 100 grams of protein per day…

👉🏻If you are skimping on carbs….

👉🏻If you experience hair loss, low energy, low body temperature, constipation, low appetite, or troubles staying or falling asleep… 

… you will — most likely — have to eat when you are not hungry. 

This may sound counterintuitive to “listening to your body” but here’s the deal: if you have been under-eating for a period of time your metabolism adjusts and learns to run off of what we give it. This includes learning how to keep blood sugar stable without eating carbs, the favorite fuel of the body.

If you don’t have an appetite and you aren’t feeling hungry it’s most likely because you are running off of cortisol.

Which is definitely not what you want for health! And definitely not for fertility!

Eating more is the goal. And how much to eat can depend on where you are starting, your timeline goal for fertility, and your body specifics! 

One size fits all is never a good approach when it comes to your body and fertility! 

#7 Gut Health Impacts Fertility & Overall Health

How in the world does gut health impact fertility!?

Your body is super smart and prioritizes you before focusing on building a tiny human. 

If resources need to be used somewhere else in the body, your fertility will suffer.

If you are struggling to conceive — with or without medical fertility support —  consider the type of testing you’ve had. Did it take a closer look at your whole body or focused on your reproductive system?

A healthy gut supports fertility in many ways, yet it is typically overlooked in the conventional medicine arena.

Your gut is full of many different strains of bacteria, which impact the reproductive environment in a variety of ways. 

Your gut bacteria plays a big role in hormone balance, immune system function and assisting with digestion and absorption of nutrients… all of which support egg quality and reproductive environment.

Just a few ways gut health impacts fertility:

✨If you aren’t digesting and absorbing nutrients appropriately, they can’t go on to build hormones or support the DNA programming of the maturing egg or sperm.

✨Estrogen balance is regulated by bacteria and an enzyme in your gut. It is also eliminated in your stool so if transit time is too fast or too slow, estrogen balance is thrown off. If you have signs of high estrogen or low progesterone, gut health can be a factor!

✨An estimated 70% of your immune system lives in your gut and is influenced by the bacteria in the gut. Immune function is crucial for healthy inflammation & supporting implantation of an embryo. Also, your immune system will build your future baby's immune system!

👉🏻Fiber and hydration can help move things along, but if you have had irregular BM’s for some time and you are struggling with fertility…..it’s time to investigate further! 

Please note that a probiotic won’t magically fix an underlying imbalance.

Probiotics are good helpers, but it’s important to understand what’s the root cause of your discomfort and challenges. 

So how can you make sense of what's happening in your gut?

I love using GI MAP testing to see what’s going on. The gut is always a great place to start to help you work with your body to support fertility.

#8 Pay Attention to Your Cervical Mucus

Are you tracking your cycle using CM patterns?

Hoo-ha glitter a.k.a cervical mucus (CM) is a very important fertility sign!

I’ve heard a few too many times “my doctor isn’t concerned I don’t have any CM”…..Let’s chat about why it’s important and can help you conceive.

Not only does it alert us to our fertile window, it actually prepares sperm to fertilize an egg once ovulation occurs by:

👉🏻Giving it channels to swim through

👉🏻Keeping it alive for up to 5 days

👉🏻Weeding out the unhealthy spermies

Basically, wet days are fertile and dry days are not. 

Optimal, peak fertile mucus looks like raw egg white and is clear and stretchy. 

Observation of cervical mucus patterns is the best way to time intimacy for conception with ovulation happening on the last day of fertile CM about 80% of the time.

CM patterns can show signs of hormone imbalance and give insight to where additional nutrition or lifestyle changes are necessary. 

Limited or NO mucus can indicate an issue with the cervix, hormone production or other issues.

A few other things that interfere with CM production:

🚫Birth control. When we turn off our hormones, we aren’t fertile so no fertile mucus (no mucus after stopping is typical for a couple of cycles)

🚫Fertility drugs

🚫Nutrition, especially inadequate cholesterol, vitamin A, & B vitamins like folate

🚫Endocrine issues such as thyroid imbalance or HPA axis communication

🚫Antihistamines

TIP: diet + lifestyle should be the main prescriptions, medications (even birth control) will only mask the actual problem.

I hope this loooooooong blog post is going to help you avoid those mistakes that caused me so much frustration and distress earlier in my life! 

There are major gaps in the conventional fertility protocol and my mission is to help fill those gaps. 

So you can become healthier and finally kick back all the roadblocks that are preventing you from having a healthy baby!