Innate Wisdom Podcast

What It's About:

Join Loren Sofia, Functional Fertility Coach and owner of Innate Fertility, for a solo episode about her own personal fertility and pregnancy journey.

In this episode, you’ll hear about my:

-Period story
-Journey with binge eating
-Stint with veganism
-Binge exercise disorder
-Experience with amenorrhea
-Adult acne diagnosis
-8 years of hormonal birth control
-Developing subclinical hypothyroidism, autoimmune disease, candida, prediabetes, melasma & more
-Post-birth control syndrome
-2-week-long periods, anovulation, luteal phase defects, low sex hormones
-Healing from birth control & curing lifelong asthma
-Dealing with parasites & inflammation
-Pregnancy loss learnings
-Overcoming food allergies & intolerances
-Specific pregnancy prep strategy
-Pregnancy testing
-Early pregnancy spottingMorning sickness & food aversions
-Ultrasounds, anatomy scans & NIPs, glucose tolerance & iron testing
-Swelling, heartburn, insomnia, nausea, headaches, stretch marks, varicose veins, pelvic girdle pain, round ligament pain, feet growing, pregnancy nose
-PRAWN: Pregnancy-Related Abdominal Neuropathy
-Pregnancy & birth team
-Labor & delivery prep

Transcript:

Loren: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Innate Wisdom Podcast. I'm your host, Lauren Sofia, Functional Fertility Coach and owner of Innate Fertility, and I'm honored to guide you through each episode where we'll cover not just fertility, but how to rediscover the innate wisdom of your body, restore your connection with your physiology, bioenergetics and metabolism, and get back in touch with Mother Nature and ancestral traditions.

Welcome to another episode of the Innate Wisdom Podcast. The very last of season two. Bittersweet. It's been a wonderful season so far, and we've had so many amazing guests to inform you on so many important topics. I really hope you've enjoyed this season. That said, you majorly requested that I do a solo episode about my own fertility and pregnancy journey, and I'm here to give it to you today.

I've had the honor of helping hundreds of women optimize their [00:01:00] fertility to get pregnant and grow healthy and happy families. And like many of my guests, my passion stems from my own personal struggles. And so to give you the best context and information, because you all want the juicy details, I think we should start with my own history before my pregnancy.

And so I'd like to start with the history of my cycle. I got my period at 12 years old on Christmas Eve. I remember it very vividly. And from then on, you know, I had normal ish but heavy ish periods. I would say definitely there was lots of cervical mucus as well, uh, which to a teenager and to somebody that wasn't informed or didn't have anyone that was informed to communicate the information to me.

Was pretty alarming. I would definitely go check out Megan's episode of this season to understand more of the changes that you can go through during puberty.

[00:02:00] And if you're a mother, how to communicate that to your daughter, definitely something that I wish I would have had. It was just kind of like, oh, your periods here.

We're so excited. And now you're a woman, but no really information about how to manage your period, uh, what to expect. And the understanding was you can get pregnant at any time of your cycle, which is absolutely not true. So definitely go check that episode out if you're wanting to learn more about puberty itself.

But, you know, as a young girl and teenager, as I started to go further through puberty and into my teens. You know, I, I would say that I had always had also, and this is not related to fertility, but I think it can definitely play a role in terms of like optimal health and wellness and fertility too. And that was binge eating.

So knowing what I know now I was very malnourished, which makes sense because I was eating the standard American diet. I grew up in a very multicultural family.

[00:03:00] I am the daughter of a first generation, I'm first generation and the daughter of two immigrants, but this family and both sides had really adopted the American way of eating and thought that was the best way.

And so. You know, we did have our cultural food here and there, but I was pretty much eating the standard American diet. My breakfast was cereal, Entenmann's, pastries, and Pop Tarts. My lunch was peanut butter and jelly. My school lunches were burgers, fries, chicken tenders, lasagna, whatever they had, you know, to give you that day.

Dinner was pasta and meatballs, Chinese food, frozen pizza, frozen chicken nuggets, Vienna sausages, mixed in with some Cuban food or Puerto Rican food. And then, you know, Pizza Hut, KFC, that kind of thing. So from the, the outstart, I was very malnourished. And I think this played a role in my binge eating when I was younger.

[00:04:00] And I think that, you know, as I got older too, my lunches. Well, they were very sparse, and they would be, like I said, peanut butter and jelly. Maybe it was zebra cakes from the cafeteria, and french fries. Uh, you know, your parents weren't there to really monitor what you were eating, so it was kind of like, I can get whatever I want, and that's what I wanted, but then I would come home starving.

And then binge eat, or, you know, I'd even be in school. I went to an all girls Catholic school. I would remember being, getting to school and being hungry after having, you know, bowls of cereal, because I thought that eating more cereal would potentially help me not be starving and falling asleep in my chair by 10 AM.

But that did not help, um, either way. You know, I think that, uh, the way that you live and nourish is really important. And. Starting that from a young age is very important to, I was also an athlete and a dancer and I was not getting enough of the micronutrients and the macronutrients that I needed to support the activity level that I was at.

[00:05:00] So, definitely, I feel like could have contributed to my heavy periods and general moodiness PMS for sure before my period came. Moving on through the timeline, I went to college eventually, but before college, I had really started to eat more nutritiously and to focus on whole foods. I, I'm not sure what prompted this, but I felt like, okay, I am an adult now.

That was kind of like, okay, graduated high school. I have this mind frame of, I'm an adult now. I should really learn how to feed myself, especially if I'm going to have to make my own food in my dorm. I started to focus more on whole foods and my binge eating would kind of go away. Uh, but I would binge on fruits versus chips or something like that.

So I would eat fruit until my stomach hurt. And I thought that was okay because it was clean, quote unquote. So I went to college, which, you know, is a very big transition. I went.

[00:06:00] To college away from home, not that I had a very great home life either. It was very dysfunctional, which I also could say that it contributed to a lot of things, uh, as a young girl, but it was definitely a difficult transition, uh, hindsight's 2020.

I didn't realize how difficult it was and what it was going through, but. I did fall very quickly within the first couple of months of being in college into veganism. And this was before it was trendy or really popular or well known. Uh, there were a couple of restaurants where I, in the town I was in, the city I was in, that made it, you know, at least easier to get some of this food, but it was very expensive.

And, um, I thought I was doing this for environment. I thought it was, you know, as an animal lover too, I thought it was more moral. I thought it was cleaner. I know that that is not the case as well now, too. Either way, I lost my period within the first three months of being a vegan, and I lost it for at least a year.

[00:07:00] Uh, and One thing I really noticed while I was a vegan was that I was starving all the time, and I had this insatiable hunger. No amount of food would be able to quell it. I would eat vegetables and eat nut butters and eat seeds and vegan things, tofu, until my stomach hurt and was distended. But I would never be satisfied.

It was just like I was still starving on the inside and my binge eating started again, really back in full force. You know, I would find myself eating half a jar of peanut butter in a sitting very easily. A bag of nuts, you know, where you're serving should be a palm of your hand eating, you know, a huge portion that really should not be eaten and getting the stomach pains.

Suffice to say the vegan diet was not working for me, but this also led to a cycle of guilt and shame. And so what I would do is I would feel guilty for eating all of these, you know, overeating, then the shame, and then I would punish myself. And so I'd punish myself by binge exercising, you know, exercising for two, three hours at a time every single day.

And that definitely did not help my cycle either. I lost a lot of weight, a lot of weight, and while it was like, oh, convenient, my cycle was gone. I didn't have to worry about it. I felt like that was a convenient thing and I was finally, you know, the skinny that I had always dreamed of being as a teenager because of all the societal pressures to be real thin, especially back then.

So I thought it was this positive thing, but I knew that it didn't really work for me and I was literally exhausted. I was getting concerned conversations from my family and I knew that I had to stop the vegan diet intuitively to not just feel better.

[00:09:00] But also to be healthy again, because I was really not healthy.

I was pale. My hair was just brittle again. I didn't have my cycle. I wasn't healing while I was sick all the time. So I knew something had to change. And I think it was the summer that I really started to transition back to slowly vegetarianism and then back to, um, omnivore. So after I did that. My health really changed quite a bit.

I got my cycle back and I felt just so much better. However, I started to develop adult acne really badly, and this was really difficult because your face, you can't hide it. You have to talk to people. My job was very, a very sociable thing. I worked while I was in college as well. And so. I think anyone that has dealt with acne or something like that, you know how demoralizing it can be, especially if it's, you know, persistent and you, you feel like you've tried everything and you can't get a handle on it.

It's just so visible. So this was really. because I, I didn't know what caused it. There really wasn't a lot of research or information available like it is now. This was before social media, I think Tumblr was just starting. So, you know, I looked to the people around me, my friends, and. Uh, my family, uh, the experts like my physician and I was given no other option than the birth control to control it.

You know, my, my roommate at the time, she had been on birth control since she was 15 or 16 for the same thing to control her acne. And I was like, Oh, okay, this could be the thing. I didn't have any qualms about taking medications back then. Not that I wanted to, but I was less inclined to deny medication because I've been on medication for my asthma for a long time.

So I didn't think it was the worst thing in the world. I wasn't super informed on what the birth control did or how it worked. I remember asking the physician who prescribed it to me, you know, will this be a problem in the future? If I ever try to get pregnant, she said, absolutely not. And so. That was definitely interesting.

I do distinctly remember that, but literally everyone else that I knew was on it. Everybody, all the girls in my dorm room. And so I was like, if everyone's on it, it can't be that bad. Right? But, you know, again, hindsight's 2020. I'll share my experience with the birth control pill very shortly. I was on the birth control pill for 8 years.

It was one of the low, While I was on it, I developed different issues, even though it helped with my acne initially. It did help it to go away. I developed a ton of different issues like subclinical hypothyroidism, an autoimmune disease, prediabetes, which, you know, was just so annoying because my physician, I remember him asking me, do you eat a lot of white bread or pasta?

[00:12:00] And I'm like, No, I don't, because I did take some things that I learned from veganism into sort of transitioning out of it. It did teach me how to eat more whole foods. I had started that before college and that really helped me, you know, think about more of what I was eating, the composition of my meals, I had to learn because you know, you, you have to learn how to nourish yourself properly.

If you go vegan, you can't just go vegan without really understanding exactly which micronutrients you are going to be needing to focus on more of the proteins that you're going to need to be combining. So it did teach me about that. And I did have a much better diet when I came off of it. However, you know, my doctor asked me if I He ate a lot of white carbohydrates and it was just like, no, this is not something that I eat often, which was funny because that's all he had for me as far as that recommendation to get control of my pre diabetes.

[00:13:00] Anyway, I also developed candida. I had a white coated tongue all the time. It was really disgusting. Melasma, not necessarily on my face, interestingly enough, but it was on my hands and my forearms and it would really get a lot worse when I was in the sun and I had some really interesting patterns. I would, I wish I had photos from back then, but.

It was just bizarre and a bunch of other issues, but those are the ones that really stand out to me as being the most significant, you know, so I was dealing with all these things and no, my physician did not connect that to the birth control pill that I was taking. It couldn't possibly be related or none of these issues could also possibly be related to each other.

You know, kind of basically gaslit the entire time, uh, even by my dermatologist who, you know, saw the skin issue I was experiencing manifest as part of my autoimmune disease and just saying, you should stress less. And I'm like, okay. That's very easy to say, but not to do, and I don't know that I truly believe that that's the only reason that I have this autoimmune disease.

So regardless, it was starting to feel hopeless in terms of that because I'd never really been that sick of a child, that sick of a teenager, regardless of my poor diet. Actually, let me backtrack because I got shingles when I was eight, so not always peachy when I was younger, for sure. Uh, but to be kind of alone and then get having all these issues, I was like, what's wrong with me?

Is this what getting older looks like? I'm not that old though. I'm in my late teens, early twenties. Is this just what happens? Uh, so it was, you know, really disheartening. And then my acne started to come back as well. So I was, you know, at this point becoming very not suspicious, but doubtful about all the things that I was being told that were good for me, or, you know, okay to take or do things like that.

[00:15:00] I started to really become more inquisitive and I decided that I wanted to get off birth control because I was like, it's not helping me for the reason that I originally started taking it. And I don't want to be on medications anymore. I started to Learn more about medications and I really didn't want to feel burdened by having to take something every single day, especially because I was already taking a steroid inhaler every single day for my asthma and that was burdensome because I would have to carry an emergency inhaler in case of an asthma attack.

So I talked to my doctors, I came off of it, and then I experienced something called post birth control syndrome. And this term Jolene Brighton. It's basically a black box of Anything that can really happen after you come off the birth control pill. If you had been taking the birth control pill for something that you were experiencing before, it's likely that that will come back, maybe 10 times worse.

And that's what happened. So a lot of the issues that I experienced while on the birth control pill persisted coming off of it. Plus, my 10 times worse. I had hair loss for a very long time. I got two week long periods, so my periods, my bleeding was two weeks long, which was just maddening, and I was not ovulating.

Later on, I was having very short luteal phases as well, once I actually had a luteal phase. Because you don't have a luteal phase if you're not ovulating. And then I should mention, I also didn't completely get off birth control, but I went from the pill to the copper IUD, which I eventually got out shortly after too, so.

I didn't even stop cold turkey. Or I feel like it, you know, I, I don't want to this to come off judgmental or anything. So I, I just didn't feel confident in my ability to track my cycle or anything like that. At that time, I was in a committed relationship with my husband who's now husband, but this was the next best thing next to medication.

At that time for me. And so I still didn't feel right, you know, in the copper he comes with his own issues and things like that. But it was very frustrating because all of the issues that I was experiencing, those that I experienced on the birth control pill, and then these new ones and these old ones that came back worse, I was like, what is going on with me?

Can you please help me? And I went to see my general practitioner. I went to see my OBGYN and I went to see my dermatologist and all of them said you can get back on the pill. And then my dermatologist offered me, uh, spironolactone as like the other alternative. Otherwise they had nothing else to offer me.

And this was really frustrating because they were supposed to have answers. And I felt like, you know, I had been sold this idea that the birth control pill wouldn't cause me any issues. So, what's up with that, you know, now I'm dealing with all of these things and it seems like it's only after I've started taking this pill.

[00:18:00] So I knew that I wasn't going to get help where I needed it. And I knew that I had to take things into my own hands and heal myself. So I started making nutrition and lifestyle changes. It took me a while to really understand what that would look like. And, you know, again, there was not a lot of research out there.

No one was talking about this. The only person that I eventually found a few years later was Dr. Jolene Brighton. So this is at the very early stages of like, you know, women talking about this issue. And there being any sort of information whatsoever on this topic. But I did end up making nutrition and lifestyle changes, and I did heal myself along with my lifelong asthma, which I'd been taking a steroid inhaler for, carrying an emergency inhaler, and that itself The asthma part just going away was huge because I felt burdened by it.

My mom also has asthma and, you know, I, I felt like, oh, this is what it's going to be like. I'm just going to have to take my inhaler with me everywhere as an adult and, you know, random wheezing. We'll start one day and I'll just take my inhaler for it if I have to. And I just can never be without this thing that will save my life.

And that was also. Uh, really big for me because it showed me that I could heal in a huge way, but the body has an immense capacity for healing. Something that I thought I would be dealing with for the rest of my life, gone. So I knew that I wanted to help others with this. I thought I had discovered gold and I wanted to pursue a career in wellness because I wanted to help other people and I feel like if I could help somebody not feel the way I was feeling desperate, hopeless, frustrated, you know, that would be my way of contributing to society and making a difference in the world.

[00:20:00] And yeah, so I went back to school and decided to pursue a career in wellness and nutrition and health. So I would say though, too, along this healing journey, I do want to mention I discovered CrossFit, which I still love. However, I loved it too much. I was dealing with super low sex hormones, so my sex hormones were just non existent.

My cortisol also had not recovered from coming off asthma medication. If you're not aware, long term use of asthma medication or corticosteroids can really blunt your adrenal gland's ability to produce corticosteroids, one of which is cortisol, and sometimes permanently. So I still had not recovered from this.

I, again, there, you know, it's something that I wanted to mention because I think we assume that a medication can't have permanent effects on your body, but it can, uh, there's your body has negative feedback loops.

[00:21:00]  It has this whole thermostat built in multiple thermostats for sex hormones and stress hormones and things like that.

And sometimes medications can break the thermostat. So I think that's important to know. And, you know, something like CrossFit requires quite a bit of output and it just wasn't there. I was also still living in a major city, working a very stressful job, grinding, as they say, and living in a very masculine phase as well, a state, masculine state, a masculine environment.

And this is not something that I really became aware of until I left, but it's amazing the impacts that something like that can have, you know, there's the way that you show up, but also your environment can influence you as well. And I think that's important to take into account what you surround yourself with.

So it was just masculinity everywhere, masculine energy everywhere. And this led to burnout, this led to low progesterone, this led to luteal phase defects.

[00:22:00] And eventually, though, I moved to Colorado, my husband and I were newly married and we wanted a change of pace. And during this time, I really felt like I needed to recover.

I definitely had a weakened immune system and was experiencing a lot of inflammation still. I also contracted parasites, which is very common here in the tap water, actually. But also, you know, you can easily contract parasites from pets. And we decided to get a dog too. And I just love my dog. And it's very possible I got parasites from her or, you know, the tap water, even just drinking at a local food spot, you know, any, any water source you don't control.

Possible parasites. So you've gotten to hear about my fertility journey and the chronology of the problems I was dealing with. And if you had asked me during any of this timeframe, if I thought I could get pregnant, I would have said no. Once I did get rid of my parasites and recover my gut, you know, I was feeling really good.

[00:23:00] And I would say feeling really good physically, my husband and I were thinking we were ready to try. And I would say that if we had tried to conceive at any point beforehand, I don't think we would have been able to conceive. And that just goes to show, like, my hormones and my physical being were really, truly just out of line and messed up.

And I'm grateful to have been able to heal myself. But healing is also not linear. It's a journey as well. And so, even though I healed myself from my birth control, you know, there was, living is stressful. Um, you know, you can still experience burnout if you're not aware of your capacity and supply and demand and you can fall back into old patterns.

And I think that's what contributed to a lot of the parasitic infection and inflammation that I was experiencing. However, during this time period, I was also going through a major grieving period too. I was in the process of losing a friend and again, although hindsight's 20, 20, this was someone that I truly regarded as a close friend, even though I would come to later realize the depth of emotional immaturity and narcissism that I was dealing with, which if you've ever dealt with somebody like that.

It really taxes you, especially if you're somebody who has issues trusting in the first place, which it's going to be a whole other topic trauma related podcast. But I think that it really took a really big toll on me. Maybe I took it harder than other people would have. And again, I didn't really realize how much this affected me until a few months later after things finally started to settle down, regardless of everything going on emotionally, we started to try to conceive and we were blessed enough to get pregnant on the first try.

Again, however, emotionally, I was not there and what happened is, and I haven't talked about this before, is that I ended up having a miscarriage and you'll be able to hear more about my experience with miscarriage in the episode coming next season, all about pregnancy loss.

[00:25:00] I go into, you know, what kind of miscarriage I had when I had it.

I think a lot contributed to this loss. You know, it's taken me a long time to process. And if you're somebody who has experienced loss, I think it, you know, you're kind of always still somewhat processing it. So it's kind of with you in some way, but I'm also not a fan of placing any blame on anyone in particular.

It's just this, what I'm about to share is like more of a reflection and it's helpful for my own processing and moving forward. And so I think there was a lot that contributed and I think I was in the midst of grieving, you know, dealing with immense emotional stress, immense emotional stress. Not only that, you know, the loss of a friend, I also have incredibly dysfunctional family life and not brought on by my husband's side, but.

It's, it's amazing how just dealing with that throughout my whole life, but also this just started to rear up again.

[00:26:00] And it was a lot to deal with. I was also very inflamed still. I didn't realize how inflamed until later on. And I was actually about 20 to 30 pounds over my typical set weight, which I didn't realize was from the literal weight of carrying this toxic friendship.

It's amazing how your body responds to this. And I was talking to somebody else recently who is going through something very similar and has also experienced this sort of like weight gain, caring of weight, excess weight because of this person, this toxicity. And it's amazing how your body will just adapt and cope with it.

I was also fearful of the future because this friendship was also wrapped up in more than just my personal life. So, fear of the future is not something that you really want looming over you or burdening you when you're trying to conceive. You want to, it doesn't necessarily have to be set in stone, you don't have to have a five year plan, you don't have to have to know what you want to do.

[00:27:00] In the next few months or years to raise a child. You don't even have to have a plan necessarily, but immense fear of the future can play a role, I think, in pregnancy loss. And this is something that Louise Hay also connects with it too. If you're familiar with her work, it's all about the emotional and physical tying together.

And so I think that there was a lot of fear there, just like inability to see forward. And that really also contributed to the grand storm of things. And this experience taught me a lot in the value of emotional and mental health along. The preconception journey too, and the pregnancy journey, I really have done a lot of work on myself as a result of this, but also taking that experience and really implemented it into my own teachings as well as coaching for my clients too, because it's just amazing how that will show up and it's just helped them so much more too.

[00:28:00] As far as reaching their goals and growing their families. So I really think this is an overlooked aspect. And it's something that I had maybe thought I was good on a quote unquote, perhaps because I really more so was avoiding it. But I think again, it's really important. So that said, after my miscarriage, I developed food sensitivities.

I think the stress of everything just completely caused my immune system to flare up. And remember I had an autoimmune disease kind of flare up while I was in the birth control pill. I had recovered from parasites, which really is an immune system issue as well. Prior and the stress of everything, moving that, all that stuff, inflammation, that's all immune related.

So. I remember eating dates of all things and something, you know, it's something that I had eaten many, many times in the days and months leading up to my pregnancy and breaking out into a rash for the first time and having really itchy lips.

[00:29:00] And I didn't deal with necessarily a long return of my cycle or serious physical recovery from something like a DNC.

I did, you know, have a naturally occurring miscarriage and was able to handle everything naturally. But I did have this new immune and gut issue to contend with yet again. So my husband and I decided to pause our trying to conceive efforts for about a year, more than that. And we use this time to get closer to each other, experience things we had been putting off, like travel.

And I use this time also to really heal from the trauma of both losses, my friendship and my child, more importantly, and also to heal myself because obviously there was a lot of emotional dysregulation, which was contributing to my physical dysregulation, my immune system dysregulation, and I really wanted to heal myself and create resilience going into the next pregnancy.

[00:30:00] But also I knew that, okay, I learned my lesson and I don't want to say that I think there's a better way to say that. But I think, you know, thinking that I can handle more than I can trying to chew off bite off more than I could chew in that 1 sort of timeframe rather than just maybe pausing and allowing things to kind of flow a little more.

I really wanted to give myself that opportunity to tell him, so I didn't want to force anything and it was really, really helpful and I did end up creating a lot of resilience because I have adapted my life to support my fertility in the most holistic way possible. When we were thinking about trying again, I didn't have to change much, you know, I was already eating a fertility supportive diet using my own whole food prenatal approach, optimizing my cycle and my hormone levels.

I had already had a non toxic environment for a long, long time. I really focused on creating a stable mental space. I really focused on.

[00:31:00] Nurturing my femininity, those are the two things I think that I had learned a lot about this year that I took off from trying to conceive. Those were really the things that I worked on, but everything else I would say is like, basically in place.

And so this just goes to show, you know, everyone has different areas that they need to work on more than the other. And, you know, that's why a lot of women will find themselves feeling like, oh, they're doing so much, not even when it comes to fertility, but just healing. They're like, I'm doing everything.

Nothing's working. It's probably because you're not focusing your energy where it should be going and trying to stretch it too thin. So I really tried to focus my energy on the things that I knew I needed to work on. And that's what I did. And I would say maybe one of the other notable things is cutting out alcohol.

I don't drink a lot or often, but I do enjoy the occasional spirit. And I figured out a way to include this in my day to day life without feeling guilty and without it wrecking my hormones or fertility.

[00:32:00]  I also put some extra effort into things that I knew that would help me in terms of avoiding preeclampsia, which is something that my mother had struggled with, with me and my youngest brother, which actually led to him being born two to three months early.

It was a major preemie. She had to have an emergency C section. And I would say, I agree with this and don't agree with this. One of the risk factors for developing a pregnancy complication is whether your mother experienced it previously as well. So I really wanted to focus on this too. You know, I had asthma like her.

I have a stress, uh, resilience like her. And so I really wanted to focus on this. And so I put a lot of things into place that would help me put my best foot forward. You know, I've talked about a lot of the risk factors for preeclampsia, like thyroid health, for example, but there are a lot of other ones.

And, uh, I really focused on making sure that I took some extra care to work on these different areas so that I would have the card stacked in my favor for this pregnancy and not experiencing it.

[00:33:00] So definitely that's kind of like what my preconception looked like again. I had nutrition, I had movement. I had public floor unlock.

It was more so about the mental, honestly, an energetic side of things that I would say. I worked on to prepare for this pregnancy and, you know, I also retested a few things I wanted to check in on. Somebody asked me if I had done any intense detoxing prior, I would consider the gut work that I did for getting rid of the parasites and healing my random food sensitivities that came on as part of.

A detox protocol. I would say that an intense detox protocol is not required of everyone. I think it really depends on who you are and what's going on. But for the most part, I think we should be at minimum supporting our detoxification pathways in a very healthy way to function optimally normally. And that should really be enough.

But if you feel like you have to detox, you know, you see maybe heavy metals on your tests.

[00:34:00] That's a sign that, you know, there could be other things in other areas of opportunity too. So it's not just about detoxing necessarily. And yeah, I think it could be more than that. So by default, you know, having good detoxification pathways in place, this was really helpful because I didn't have to do any, I didn't feel like I had to do any detox before pregnancy.

And I already had cleaned up my environment, if that makes sense. I was already doing a lot of the things that I really would be doing if they weren't in place already. And so, specifically, you know, detox can be really important going into pregnancy because it is related to a lot of pregnancy complications.

Poor detoxification, I mean. Um, and it's something that I do teach all my students, but again, intense detox without any rhyme or reason or knowing exactly why is not something that I would necessarily promote or say that everyone should do. And how did I know what to focus on specifically for myself?

[00:35:00] Again, I live and breathe preconception care, pregnancy prep, prenatal everything, but I have worked with thousands of women and I've developed a method that helps you identify what you need to specifically work on to prepare for pregnancy so that you can understand your fertility gaps, the weaknesses that could interfere with you getting pregnant or prevent you from having a healthy, complication free pregnancy so that you can address them and see.

Stack the cars in your favor for the most abundant fertility, the healthiest pregnancy, and the healthiest possible child without wasting time, energy, or money on things you don't need to be focusing on. And that's really key because I see a lot of women boiling the ocean, throwing spaghetti at a wall and wasting lots of valuable time on things that they really don't need to be focusing on.

And the things that they do, they don't go deep enough. So. I followed this exact same method that I teach the hundreds and hundreds of students that are part of my course. I took my own assessment after my loss and again, about three months before I conceived to check in. That way I knew what I needed to work on and follow the exact steps I outlined in the course.

[00:36:00] I also knew how long it would take me. I did take a lot more time than I actually needed because like I mentioned, we weren't going to try for at least another year and we didn't. When I was ready to get back into pregnancy prep mode, I knew exactly what to do and for how long. So all of this shared said, I knew how to prepare and what to do because my method told me exactly what I needed help with and how to address it.

And honestly, you know, after this, I knew I was ready for a long time to try again, body and mind and spirit versus just the body with my first pregnancy. So, and my husband and I, when we did start trying again, we were blessed again to get pregnant on the first try. And honestly, I don't experience PMS, and I didn't experience any pregnancy symptoms within the two weeks wait.

But something in my gut just told me that I was pregnant. I just knew it, and I could feel it.

[00:37:00] And regardless, I did take a pregnancy test, more so just to have a keepsake, like a physical keepsake that I could look at, than anything. And um, during the two week wait, I really didn't do anything different or crazy, which was another question I received.

You know, if I did anything to increase chances or anything like that, I, you know, I do teach a lot of these things to my students, but by then, you know, all the work I had done leading up to this moment, it was really time to let that shine, which I think is the beauty of preconception and pregnancy prep.

It's just. You do all this work, you, not necessarily all this work, but you put forth really a lot of intention, and that's where the intention can really fall into place and support you and just kind of showcase itself. So because I had this oversight of what my weak points were, and I knew that I took the right amount of time and steps to address them, I felt really confident going into this pregnancy, and that's honestly what I want every woman to feel.

[00:38:00] And now I'm going to shift and move into talking about my pregnancy itself from point A to where I am now, which is at the time of this recording, I'm about a month away from baby being here and I just want to preface everyone's experience is different, but I have really enjoyed my pregnancy. I've loved being pregnant.

I've felt really, really good. And I'm almost a bit sad. It's coming to an end, although I'm so excited to meet my little one. So here we go into some of the additional details of my pregnancy. So I did experience some early pregnancy spotting, which was hard to go through because given my previous loss, my head just went to the worst place possible.

And it just shows that no one is immune to everything. And if you've ever been pregnant after loss, you know what I'm talking about. This is one of the reasons that I chose to have an early ultrasound, which is one of the questions that you had. And this is something that my heart needed.

[00:39:00] I was actually dreading it, but it ended up being so reassuring for me.

And I know for a fact that many other mothers Who have also been through pregnancy after loss feel the same way. Uh, so, you know, I think this just if you are somebody who is not sure about ultrasounds, you know, I think like in this case, the benefits way outweigh the cons. And for me, this was very true and I felt comfortable doing the early ultrasound.

And, you know, the first few weeks of pregnancy were easy around eight weeks, I did experience some mild morning sickness. That was another question. You had literally so many of my students and clients have been able to avoid morning sickness completely with my help. That said, I think there is a level of normalness to experiencing it.

[00:40:00] Not so much as, like, to the point where it diminishes your quality of life, but there are a lot of hormonal and metabolic changes taking place. And for me, no, it definitely wasn't a progesterone deficiency or estrogen dominance. I knew that because I had tested my progesterone and estrogen before getting pregnant and they were all in great shape.

And I would say that mine was a lot more mild and short lived than what I've seen from women outside of my practice and course. So just like what I would do to help any of my clients or students manage her morning sickness, I went through the list of things that I know for a fact can help. And there are quite a few, but honestly, what worked for me the most was the one thing that works for almost all of my clients and students, funnily enough, and that was eating small frequent meals.

Balance meals, I should say too. So your insulin sensitivity and metabolism are so high during this time period, just so high.

[00:41:00] It's like your luteal phase times 100 and you need to tend to it like so and respect it that way too. Doing this by having small, frequent balanced meals was my primary tactic.

And as my primary tactic, I also accompanied that with a few other minor things, like smelling peppermint oil, which was one thing that really worked for me for some reason. I couldn't diffuse it because I have two dogs and peppermint oil is not safe for dogs. I also used acupressure bands, which also helped me too.

So I was able to really avoid feeling Just debilitated during this time period, like a lot of women go through. And I was also able to avoid taking medication, which is something that I wanted to avoid too. And funnily enough, I actually never threw up. It was just a feeling that I had. So again, I do want to preface that I've never been of the mind where like.

[00:42:00] You know, I think enough women experience morning sickness where it is part of the process in a way for a lot of women. But I think where it gets different is if it's really diminishing your life, affecting your mental health. Also, you're being told that it's completely normal and it's just going to pass until after your 12 week mark, which I think every practitioner, I would say conventional practitioner Just has this excuse for a lot of the discomforts of pregnancy and not that morning sickness is a discomfort.

It's it can be really debilitating, but I'll talk about another 1 that I've experienced that would just completely get brushed off. And I don't think that you should get. Brushed off with anything during your pregnancy or anything during your regular life, you know, in general. So, you know, I do want to acknowledge the level of somewhat normalness that this is, but also to acknowledge that there are quite a few things that you can do to prevent it and avoid it and also tend to it while it's happening because.

[00:43:00] It's not a situation where you can't just do nothing. There's so many things that you can do, even if you are experiencing it. And even though I help so many women avoid it, I also help women get through it and stay sane. And I was one of the people that I helped myself this time. So, you know, I just wanted to make sure I covered that too.

During this time too, while I was experiencing morning sickness, I did experience food aversions. Um, my smell, my sense of smell still is just so heightened and it is insane what I can smell. I can smell something across the house. Definitely my food aversions were to seafood, particularly also fragrant foods.

I manage this by getting a lot of nutrient dense foods that I could tolerate like eggs, broths, fruits. I could tolerate steak, I could tolerate ham, and avoiding any sort of like unique seasonings. So I really didn't like the smell of like curry or anything, again, super fragrant.

[00:44:00] So I just avoided those things and I tended to eat colder meals during this time too.

Just because they smell less strong. And so I wanted to also mention that I know food inversions can like hit you like a bus and yeah, it's not fun, but I also was not concerned. So 1 of the biggest questions I get is, oh, my gosh, you know, I'm experiencing morning sickness. I'm so scared that I'm not getting enough nutrition for my baby and.

I was not concerned during this time because I had prepared my body so well. I knew that I had done the work not only to mitigate my chances of experiencing morning sickness as much as possible, but I also knew that I had a healthy uterine lining and that all the work I did to make it plush would pay off in feeding my baby.

Because that's what feeds your baby during the first couple of weeks of your first trimester, actually the majority of your first trimester, while your placenta is being built and created by your body until that takes over. So your baby is uniquely reliant on your uterine lining until your placenta is able to take over and actually provide them with nutrition.

And so I was not worried because I had done so much work to make sure that my uterine lining was plush. I had also done so much work to build up my new stream stores in the event, something like this were to happen, even in the event I didn't experience morning sickness, but I experienced food aversions.

Cause that can also happen. They don't have to happen together. Uh, so. I did that too. And, you know, if I didn't feel like eating the certain foods, I typically would like seafood. For example, I wasn't worried because I had prepared so well, and I had built up those stores. And that's another beautiful thing about preparing for pregnancy.

You can have this peace of mind. So. I was feeling really good and I was still working out too. That was really great for me, especially, you know, while experiencing this nausea, just getting fresh air.

[00:46:00] And again, it was mild, but I'm somebody that I've always said literally always, even in my youngest years, like nausea is the most underrated feeling ever.

There are some things that like other people would rather go through than, you know, they'd rather experience nausea than. Then experience neck pain or something like that, I would rather experience anything else than nausea. So I would say that it's definitely not my favorite feeling, but it was definitely mild and I'm grateful for that for sure.

And again, I was, I was working out. I really enjoy the fresh air. And that really was so great just to be able to be active, um, especially because it was a spring and it was beautiful. And so exactly at 12 weeks, my mild nausea just disappeared. You know, I, I wasn't banking on that because some women do experience nausea throughout their entire pregnancies.

[00:47:00] And I wasn't sure my cousin, she experienced intense nausea throughout her entire pregnancy. Uh, so I was not exactly, you know, banking on that, but I was grateful to have it completely disappear. Although it was also a little bit jarring because. Leading up to, I would say that anything before that, you know, if you are experiencing morning sickness, a complete halt in symptoms at any point, especially during the first trimester, it could be a sign that something's changing and not the best way that said, this was fine.

But, you know, it did just again, pregnancy after loss, I had to take a 2nd and be like, okay. I trust my body. It's doing the things that it's supposed to do. This is the right time for my nausea to go away. And I trust that my baby's safe and sound and everything like that. You know, I think, again, it's really important to acknowledge, like, these are the things you might come up against and the things that I did.

[00:48:00] So I started to incorporate more of the foods that I usually eat, including seafood, and yeah, everything went back to total normal as far as diet after that. Speaking of foods, especially unconventional foods, which you also asked about, throughout my entire pregnancy, I've eaten runny eggs, raw egg. liver, raw liver, raw dairy, soft cheeses, sushi, beef, tartar, deli meat, and even ceviche.

And because not only am I comfortable with the data around these foods, I use a lot of common sense when it comes to sourcing, handling, and storing these foods. And interestingly enough, Like many of my clients and students, I've had no cravings whatsoever during this pregnancy, not one. And I think that it is a testament to how well nourished I was and have been before and during my pregnancy.

I've noticed that the students and clients that really do take time to prepare for pregnancy because

[00:49:00] I want to also mention, like, it's not just about getting pregnant. It's about staying pregnant, having a healthy pregnancy. I know that can be difficult to kind of like. Think about, especially if you're struggling to conceive, but all the preparation, it's not just for getting that positive test.

It's for things like this to feel good and to feel confident that your baby has everything that you need that it needs and to also avoid any pregnancy complications as much as possible. And to have a really good postpartum because that is, it's really difficult to be dealing with so much new load and not have the supply, generally speaking, you know, figuratively speaking, uh, to support that and you want to be there for your child and preparing for pregnancy just allows you to get that leg up.

Uh, to really make sure that you are well prepared, well nourished to handle this new stressor as beautiful as it is and create that resilience so that you can show up the best version of yourself. So I did want to mention that and you know, again, I think the trends that I've noticed in my clients and students, the ones that do prepare really intentionally and eat well also during pregnancy.

Are the ones that don't experience cravings, and I haven't either. Um, so I just thought that was really interesting because, you know, you hear women wanting pickles and ice cream and honestly listen to that because your body's telling you something. It's usually the need for a nutrient, a macro nutrient, a micronutrient.

I will never tell somebody to not think about that craving and to make an intelligent decision to fulfill that craving in the most nourishing way possible. So, just because I didn't experience it too doesn't mean there's anything necessarily wrong with you. Just my body felt like it has, or has felt like it, it has what it needs.

The second trimester, I would say, was great. Honestly, though, as a business owner, it was really difficult for me to slow down and to savor it. Things just have to happen when you have your own business.

[00:51:00] Things wait for no one but you. And I found it really difficult to mother myself as a result and the things that I would tell my clients and students to do in terms of listening to your body and respecting that I ignored a lot of these urges a lot.

And, you know, I was in the midst of revamping my course conscious conception. And I had to really work hard on this and I learned a lot about myself too, but I had to make some sacrifices and I feel like I didn't get to quite enjoy my second trimester as much as I should have. But, you know, I think I will take that information and the way I experienced this time.

For my next pregnancy to prepare in a way that will allow me to experience it the way that I want to, you know, sometimes I'm somebody that bites off a little more than she can chew sometimes. And this was definitely one of those situations, but I knew that I needed to get this resource out to you. Uh, because it was too important to wait until after I delivered.

[00:52:00] So that said, you know, again, big learning experience. And I would say again, no one's perfect. Everyone's, I mean, I'm constantly learning. I think everyone is, no one has it completely figured out. And this is one of those aspects where I could have, uh, definitely improved and we'll do things differently next time.

But, um. Moving on, I did opt into the 20 week anatomy scan. Actually, I do want to backtrack because I did do the NIPS test as well, around 10 weeks, and we decided not to find out the gender. So, the baby Is a surprise and I'm super excited to meet him or her, but, um, we did the NIPS test and that came all back very clear.

But, you know, I think even though I opted in, I know that there's a lot of things wrong with the NIPS test. And if you don't know what that is. There is a podcast episode in season three of the Innate Wisdom podcast.

[00:53:00] Uh, so we have a lot of new episodes coming, which, um, are very exciting where I'll be speaking with my friend Annie, where she kind of goes over the pros and cons of this test, how accurate it is.

You know, I did want to opt in just to see what the experience is. And honestly, I did opt into a lot of things during this pregnancy to just experience it. And that's just something I was comfortable with and wanted to do. So, this was one of them. As a result, you know, we did hide the, the gender from my midwife and myself, by ourselves.

So, the baby is a surprise. I know that one of you was asking about the NIPS test. So, I did opt into that. I, I do want to also mention the 20 week anatomy scan. So, you were asking about that too. This is the one scan my midwife encouraged, and I felt really comfortable doing this, especially because it's our first.

My husband also was really excited to see the baby at some point from the early ultrasound.

[00:54:00] And I personally felt like it would be an opportunity to connect with my baby and my husband along this journey. And again, here, if you've experienced pregnancy after loss, you may feel inclined for moments like this too.

So it was again, another reassuring moment and everything. That we saw looked wonderful, and even though the tech couldn't tell us much, she was really sweet and gave us much more information than I felt you typically get these appointments here in the United States. It's very difficult to get information from the sonographer and because they're not, they can't give health care advice and, you know, saying anything or commenting on anything would be kind of a gray area.

So typically a lot of them will say nothing. Uh, which is a very cold, it makes the appointment very cold, but this one was, she was great. And I really appreciated her. So we did the 20 week anatomy scan, super excited about that. And you know, I think as humans, especially we are so inclined to go to either extreme and we think like there's no flexibility, it must be one way or the other.

What I like to teach my students is to find an approach that works for them and their lifestyle that's sustainable, because that's the only way you're going to be able to uphold anything that you implement. And that's the only way that you're going to want to do anything that you implement. If it doesn't seem realistic or achievable, you're not going to do it.

Especially not on a regular basis. So I typically doing the whole food prenatal that I teach in my course, I just did to take a conventional prenatal while I was traveling and. I didn't think twice about it. It is the perfect solution for that. And so I took one of my preferred prenatal vitamin brands that I teach in my course.

And you know, I was not going to worry about not having access to all my usual foods while I was supposed to be relaxing. I did not want to do that. It would have been counterproductive.

[00:56:00]  And for me, An alternative and more conventional approach worked perfectly for me in this period of time. I got to have an amazing time with my husband and it was just what I needed.

So I just want to mention that because I think, especially in the health and wellness space, we strangle, I love this adjective or sorry, verb. We, we tend to strangle things to death. Like you must do this perfectly a million times over. And, you know, again, extremes. But if you don't allow for flexibility and flow in that, there's a point at which becomes unhealthy to follow certain things.

And so I think making sure that you find an approach that is, and I hope this just anecdote. Helps you with this and sort of painting the picture, but I think it's really important to find an approach that works for you and is sustainable for you and allows you to live your life and do things that you actually want to do.

[00:57:00] Because if I was. completely, I guess, against, uh, taking a conventional prenatal and I knew I couldn't get the right foods in Mexico, then I might've skipped that trip. That's, that's so sad, you know, or I might've been too stressed to enjoy myself, but having these alternatives and being informed around everything and the choices that you make and making those informed decisions.

Can just give you so much more freedom. So, just some food for thought there. I hope that makes sense. And, uh, yeah, so, shortly after was the 28 week mark, I did choose to opt into the gestational diabetes test as well, and iron test, or glucose tolerance test, I should say. Mainly out of curiosity, again.

Instead of doing the glucola, which is that gross neon colored sugary drink that you drink fasted and then take the glucose tolerance test or equivalent, even the natural, you know, equivalence or even the glucose continuous glucose monitoring, all of which were options for me. I chose to consume a meal containing 75 grams of of a variety of carbohydrates and this allowed me to also get protein in as well.

I was taking my test in the afternoon, that's when my appointment was, and I passed both tests, the iron and glucose tolerance tests, with flying colors and I was really happy to see that because I had done so much preparation. Something I didn't mention is that I also prepared with a focus on blood sugar balance.

So one of the things that I intentionally focused on, because I think preparing intentionally for pregnancy doesn't mean doing everything. It means figuring out what your gaps are, what your weaknesses are, and really putting some intention and effort and energy into helping close those gaps and improve your resilience, improve your health, improve your wellness.

[00:59:00] In that specific area, because if you already have certain things down and you do them well, and your body's in great shape in these areas, why would you spend that much more energy focusing on that? Focus on the things that could be weaknesses and Because your weaknesses are what show up during pregnancy.

Your body goes through a huge stress test during pregnancy, and it can unearth weaknesses that you were not aware of. And it can unearth things that you were almost on the cusp. I think anyone who made. Fail the gestational diabetes test may really have a lot of the time some underlying insulin resistance going on and pregnancy just kind of exacerbates that because pregnancy is an insulin resistant state, but all pregnant women are are going to be somewhat more insulin resistant.

So. What causes things to kind of like surpass that normal point, I think it could have a lot to do with just this, like, underlying weakness that just gets exacerbated when pregnancy occurs.

[01:00:00] And, you know, especially if we're not eating the normal foods, things like that, we're not able to eat normally. I think morning sickness as well could potentially affect that too.

But suffice to say, you know, I think it's definitely very interesting for sure. And so blood sugar was an area that I prepared for, because if you remember also, when I was on the birth control pill, I developed prediabetes and also after I had my food sensitivities, I also developed insulin resistance shut up.

And so that preconception work. Taking that time off from trying to conceive, recovering from that, that was also a really big focus for me too. And diabetes also runs on both sides of my family. So again, very, very keen on focusing on blood sugar regulation for this pregnancy. I did a lot to make sure that I was in good shape before getting pregnant.

If you have been following me for a while, you also know how passionate I am about minerals. And in fact, when I first started my Instagram account, one of the things that I talked about the most was iron regulation, copper, the relationship between copper and iron and all these other vitamins and minerals.

This is something that I've helped so many women with. And through to, especially in the third trimester, when things can drop really low iron levels or something I've worked on for a long time, and that I have a lot of experience helping women navigate in that third trimester to, and also preparing to avoid that issue.

Um, it's something that I've been very passionate about for a long time. So I was really happy to see that I passed with flying colors there. And, you know, my second trimester continued to be so great. I still very active, lots of energy. It was a really great time. And the third trimester has been a breeze too.

Honestly, I'm less than a month away from my due dates and I'm 34 years old. I also want to mention that many of you had asked me, how old are you and I'm 34 years old.

[01:02:00] Maybe we can have a different conversation about why I maybe waited until 34 to have a baby and start my family. I think there's a lot that goes into the decision making process, but.

I just also wanted to share that because I know that I'm not alone in starting my family quote unquote later than typically. So, that said, I have experienced no swelling, no heartburn, no insomnia, no nausea, no headaches, no stretch marks, no varicose veins, no pelvic girdle or round ligament pain, my feet are the same size, my nose is the same size.

I've been able to work out, eat what I want, and I feel great. The one thing I have been dealing with really starting in these last few weeks, and more so, I would say, really heightening this past weekend is something called PRON, and it stands for pregnancy related abdominal wall neuropathy. Basically, it's the nerves that stem from your spine and wrap around your pelvic bones and muscles.

[01:03:00] They're getting compressed because we overcompensate and I've done a lot of work to not overcompensate, but regardless, there is some natural overcompensation that just happens automatically when you have a growing belly and this happens in your lower back because you're trying to not. Have your belt, the weight in your belly pull you forward.

Your body will naturally shift its weight backwards. Your pelvis also shifts as well to accommodate for the shape of the baby. Your uterus, you will have more instead of a straight spine, a little lumbar dip there. Your spine adapts to naturally. So there is naturally some overcompensation that occurs.

And there's some compression, but also stretching of the nerves that go around the belly and my nerves are being tugged so much so that it's creating some abdominal neuropathy and they're pretty angry.

[01:04:00] And so, as my pelvic floor physio explains it. If you were to go to your OBGYN or even your midwife and explain what's happening to you, the feeling that you're getting, they would probably say this is generalized round ligament pain.

So you hear a lot of pregnant women struggle with round ligament pain, round ligament pain, oh, wait for the round ligament pain. This is not round ligament pain. No amount of round ligament work helps with this. This is completely nerve related, and I'm so lucky enough to have somebody on my team who is on the cutting edge of this.

And while this is still a very new concept, even in the physical therapy world, You know, she has some things up her sleeve that can actually help versus just saying it'll get better when baby is here and aren't medication related. Because that's really the only option you waited out or you take some medication and I don't want either of those things.

So, we have some solutions that have really worked literally immediately and it's definitely very interesting. I'll be really curious because it's such a new concept. If there's more that I can do to prepare for my next pregnancy next time, I will certainly be working on that, but just thought I'd share that with you in case you're also in the same situation and are like, well, there's no like amount of body work on my round ligaments or doesn't really feel like my pelvic floor.

It feels like basically a burning nerve sensation, but no one understands what it is. It can be really frustrating to not be understood. So, I think that is definitely helpful to know and I wanted to share that. Speaking of my team, I think it'd also be helpful to share about my team. So, I think in pregnancy, even outside of pregnancy, it's really important to surround yourself with people that will support you in the areas that you need the most.

But that will also help you meet your needs and your goals in a way that respects your values versus just providing care and like tolerating your ideas and thoughts, because they may also be treating you as like a nuisance underneath and dismissing them too. I've had the gamut of that, so. You know, to be honest, I don't see any conventional practitioners simply because I have in the past and I never received the quality of care that I want.

So I invest in alternative care and the ideal of care that I provide my clients and students as well. And I'm always much more satisfied because I actually see results versus using the conventional system. And that's a whole other, you know, topic of conversation. Economically, I have saved and prioritized certain things to be able to afford this kind of care versus I totally understand if somebody is just stuck with their health insurance and what their health insurance can provide.

Like, that is very real.

[01:07:00] And that's something I've dealt with as well. So, you know, I think as much as you can go try to surround yourself with people that care, even if it's in the conventional system, because when you need them, you will be able to feel like you can go to them. It's the worst when you feel alone and you can't go to anyone.

So I wanted to mention that and the people. On my team, I would say, you know, from the very beginning before pregnancy, these are just people that I see regularly and have been able to see in my pregnancy. By no means do I see them like on a super regular basis. There's no way I'd be able to, you know, manage that both, uh, on a schedule basis, but also financially.

But the people that I know that I can lean on and I have made part of my team are my traditional Chinese medicine doctor, who I honestly see as my primary care physician and my chiropractor, who's a Gonstead chiropractor, but also, uh, certified in Webster technique. So I've been able to see him during my pregnancy as well.

[01:08:00] And I also see other people, other members of my team also include my pelvic floor physiotherapist, my my abdominal masseuse, who's also a prenatal masseuse. Uh, so I've seen her a handful of times during pregnancy. I just saw her this past week and she really gave me such an amazing prenatal massage.

Find somebody that does actual legitimate prenatal massages, invest in that because it's very, very helpful. And I also have seen a craniosacral therapist. I've shared before I have TMJ from braces when I was a teenager. This is literally the only thing that has helped me TMJ. So I see her and a homeopath here and there for certain things.

I actually have a podcast episode with both my chiropractor, uh, a separate podcast episode. So, uh, I've done one with my chiropractor, Dr. Brady, which you can listen to in season one and my pelvic floor physio, which you can listen to a few episodes back. Her name is Dr. Kelly Samas, and she's amazing.

[01:09:00] So maybe I'll do more podcast episodes with more people from my team.

But, um, these are kind of the, the main people that I see just when I need support. Uh, some I see more regularly than others, but I know that these people really align with my values and they will support me in the way that I want to. And I, I'm so grateful to be able to have people that I can trust like that.

So I also want to mention I have midwives who I've mentioned before on my stories and Instagram. They are actually who my husband and I had chosen for our first pregnancy, and we are so grateful to be working with them again for this one. I get a lot of questions about how I chose them, and I highly recommend listening to the podcast episode from season one with Caitlin Fusco from happy home birth, where we talk about a lot of the questions to ask and things to think about when potentially choosing a midwife and thinking about home birth.

You know, home birth is something that I have wanted to do. I, as you probably by now realize that the conventional medical system is not something that I feel comfortable with at this point in my life anymore.

[01:10:00] So birthing at home, as well as for many other reasons, which Caitlin covers a lot in that episode, but also personal reasons I've wanted to birth at home.

And I'm not saying home birth is better than hospital birth or anything like that. I honestly think you should birth where you feel the safest to be quite honest. So that's what I think. And I personally feel the safest at home. So I chose home birth. I chose these midwives. They respect my goals and values and aside from that, which is like the most important thing, we just had a really energetic flow.

You have to choose somebody to be at your birth. And if you have the options again, this goes back into, do you even have the option to, to have a home birth or insurance be cheaper or something like that? And you can only afford that, but as much as you can choose somebody that will support you and your values and your goals, but also that you have a good flow with.

[01:11:00] Energetic flow, you know, this person is going to be there, or these people are going to be there at the most vulnerable point of your life. You need to feel safe with them. You also want your baby to feel safe with them. You're going to spend time with them, maybe not so much on the conventional side of things, but if you're seeing a midwife, you will spend a lot of time with them.

And I want to be. Really comfortable and safe in the vulnerable state of labor. So you want to make sure the people that you have in your circle have your back, but also that you feel comfortable, as my midwife put it, anyone that you invite to your labor, you want to make sure you feel comfortable pooping in front of them.

That's how personal this will get. So just keep that in mind too. And that's something that my husband and I All of this, my husband and I have felt super confident and comfortable with our midwives. We love them so much. So, uh, you also asked about how I'm preparing for labor and delivery. Literally everything that I've been doing from preconception and throughout my pregnancy has been preparing me for labor.

[01:12:00] All the nutrition work, all of the pelvic floor work, all of the exercise, strength and endurance training, the mental side of things to the mental resilience, the nervous system regulation has been preparing me for pregnancy, but also labor, this preconception work, pregnancy prep work carries into pregnancy and it carries into labor and delivery and postpartum.

All of these things are really important for putting your best foot forward in labor and delivery and helping it go smoother, you know, for example, exercise during pregnancy helps reduce the rate of C section. There's no, you know, if you, if you don't want to have a C section or is that, that's not something that you want to, you want to mitigate the risk of.

Exercising during pregnancy is great for that, you know, so there's so many other benefits. I could have a whole episode dedicated to this, but I think something specifically that I've been doing a couple of things that I've been doing specifically for labor. Are increasing my mobility work, so really making sure I feel like I can get into the positions that I'm going to want to be in labor.

[01:13:00] Focusing even more on pelvic floor breathing the right way, you know, engaging and relaxing your pelvic floor, but also doing pelvic floor pushing breathing. Not, I don't want to mix that up because you're not going to push necessarily, but it's engaging your pelvic floor the right way so that your baby goes the right way, if that makes sense.

There really isn't actually any active pushing involved in that and, um, focusing on increasing blood building nutrients as well to mitigate hemorrhaging. So, which can possibly happen at delivery to hemorrhaging is blood loss. Um, you may hear, you know, I had to get more in transfusion or a blood transfusion because I lost so much blood.

I'm working on really making sure that my body has enough of those blood building nutrients, so that if I do experience blood loss, while first mitigating the risk of that, but also if I do experience blood loss, my body's able to clot blood very quickly and not lose so much.

[01:14:00] As a result, I'm also titrating off any blood thinning supplements, which will be really important.

You just have to know which ones you're on. There's many and I'm adding in herbs to support labor and delivery to, to support the laxity of the ligaments, to support mineral balance, to support the nervous system. And yeah, just getting also extra hydration and extra minerals in too for the event that is labor because It is basically like a marathon.

It is the most athletic event of your body in your life. So, uh, you're going to need a lot of nutrition to support a lot of fuel, a lot of energy. And the number one reason women transfer to the hospital during home birth is exhaustion. I want to mitigate that as much as possible by providing myself with enough of that fuel and sustenance and energy to mitigate that.

Part of preparing for labor has also been taking the happy home birth course and also happy mama, healthy babies, breastfeeding course, just so I can, you know, have, I've taken these courses before, but I'm taking them with my husband actually, and I just want to have his investment and buy in because having your partner on board and understanding the importance of both of these things in these different situations will allow you to achieve more success.

It's literally also proven in the literature. So, you know, I think I want to be successful in home birth and breastfeeding immediately and getting your partner on board and invested in that for you is going to help. So I've been intentionally taking these things with him. I'll put links for that below too.

And then on the baby side of things, my husband and I also took a CPR class to make sure that we feel confident to provide CPR in case anything were to arise after baby's here. We've discussed our co sleeping situation. Uh, there's a really great book called, I think it's actually safe sleep. I'll put a link below.

[01:16:00] Uh, my memory is not working at this very moment, but I'll put a link below for it. And yeah, our nursery is a mess. It's definitely not ready. Uh, but that doesn't matter because the baby will be sleeping with us for the foreseeable future. And so we'll be using it for more of a changing table situation.

But we have a couple of days to get that ready, too. And then, yeah, again, I am over nine months pregnant, and I'm just so excited to enter this new phase of my life. I've helped hundreds and hundreds of women do this. And so a lot of my experiences, I kind of, I think, you know, maybe if this is not as surprising of a podcast episode, you know, there weren't as many surprising tidbits.

It might be. Or it may be because I didn't seem as surprised it's because I've helped so many women go through this. And so a lot of what may be, you know, a first time mom, not as knowledgeable and may have experienced as a surprise. I didn't, but definitely still, I think there was so much to be learned from this experience.

[01:17:00] And I'm just so excited to welcome this new spirit into our lives and to be a wonderful mother and to also continue supporting you guys. Um, but. I'm really excited to experience this for myself. I can't wait to do a follow up episode for my birth story and my postpartum journey so far. I definitely plan on doing that, but yeah, there's just a lot of stuff so far.

I would love your feedback on this episode. If there's any particular topic that you want me to dive. Further into for sure. I'm happy to, um, but I hope that gives you a good overview of my fertility journey. What I've dealt with leading up to pregnancy, any interferences and things that I've, you know, faced and things that I've experienced during my pregnancy as well.

I think there's just so much to share. So I feel like I didn't even scratch the surface, but I hope it was helpful to you regardless. And. I'm always happy to share more and yeah, this is the last episode of this season.

[01:18:00] So I hope you enjoyed it and I hope that if you haven't listened to any of the episodes that I mentioned or are still catching up on season two, that you get to do that.

I'm wishing you a beautiful, beautiful rest of your holiday season and we will see each other in the new year.

Thank you so much for listening to the Innate Wisdom Podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, please leave us a review and share the podcast with someone who you think might benefit. If you're new here, we can't recommend enough that you take advantage of my free resources like the Get Pregnant Yesterday Checklist, Psycholiteracy Guide, Prenatal Primer, and Sperm Booster Manual.

And if you're trying to conceive now or in the near future, I invite you to join my pregnancy prep e course, Conscious Inception. Make sure to follow me on Instagram too, at innate underscore fertility, and consider joining my newsletter to receive exclusive content related to fertility and so much more.

A friendly reminder, the content shared on this podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be a substitute for the advice provided by your doctor or other healthcare professional. It is not intended to be, nor does it constitute healthcare or medical advice.