â đ Welcome back to the Her Fertility podcast. Today I am going to break down for you the Her Fertility method so that you have an understanding of how I approach working with somebody's fertility journey.
âWelcome to Her Fertility, the podcast revolutionizing the way women are supported on their fertility journey. I'm your host, Jess Tims, with years of supporting women as a fertility doula, I've seen the emotional pain caused by infertility, including my own struggle with unexplained infertility, and I always knew there had to be a better way to support women with their fertility, health, and healing.
This is the first podcast to combine the principles of spirituality and energy healing with the research-based fertility data to support you in a way you've never seen before. You can stop feeling alone, confused, frustrated, and overwhelmed, and start finding the answers you've been looking for. Because this podcast goes so much deeper than anything you can search for online if you are ready to find a new.
Spiritual perspective for your fertility journey, then press play. We are here to reclaim control, find clarity, and transform the fertility conversation.
âIf you're new to the Her Fertility podcast, welcome and thank you for tuning in to this podcast episode.
My name is Jess, and for the past three years I have been helping women navigate their fertility journey and everybody's journey looks. Different. As we know with infertility, there are endless ways that someone can experience this. So whether you are experiencing unexplained infertility, maybe you have secondary infertility.
You could be using IVF for your journey. Maybe you have PCOS or endometriosis or another fertility disorder. Maybe your partner has male infertility challenges, or you are part of the LGBTQIA plus community, or you're choosing to be a solo parent. Maybe you're considering adoption the. Options for this category are endless.
And I'll share a quick story. I was at this business kind of networking event and you know, I'm sharing what I do with people and this man said, I will never forget this. He was like, well, your services are so niche and it doesn't really help that many people that I don't feel like our businesses could be that aligned and.
I just, I had nothing to say to him. I mean, clearly he didn't understand the, the gravity and the impact that infertility has on so many couples worldwide. Um, and I didn't feel like taking the time to explain to him in that moment, um, the gravity of this situation. But the reality is one in five. People in the United States is experiencing infertility, and what we're seeing specifically in the USA is this movement away from support in our medical system, right?
We have, we have things being taken away, whether that's access to medical care, access to different medical procedures that are directly linked to fertility in various ways. For example, if you experience pregnancy loss, like if you have a miscarriage and you need access to a lifesaving abortion, or you need to have a DNC, first of all, there's nothing light about that situation.
Second of all, you need access to care, like actual physical care, and we are seeing that being stripped away in the United States, and depending on the state that you live in, it changes which. Is tricky, right? Like it's really tricky and we're navigating this landscape together. And so when people make comments like that to me, like, oh, you're just in this niche business.
I'm like you, you clearly don't understand the gravity of this situation. You clearly don't understand that this is impacting at least one of your friends, if not more. Right? If you can think of five people that you know in the United States. At least one of them is experiencing infertility. They're having a problem getting pregnant.
They cannot get pregnant in the amount of time they want to. They cannot stay pregnant. Right? Like there is something happening with their ability to step into parenthood. And when that challenge presents itself, it's not something that. Is just like something you can just brush off, right?
If you're listening to this, then you understand that infertility touches all parts of you. It is not just about your physical body. It's it's about your body, but it's also about this soul calling. That you have to be a mom and like you're not able to get there.
I digress. If you're listening to this, then you already know, right, that this man clearly didn't understand the gravity. So in today's episode, what I wanna give you is the framework that I use when I work with somebody on their fertility journey. So if you are navigating infertility or if you're a practitioner and you're working with somebody, you can apply this framework and see.
Where there might be an opportunity for more answers, more research, more testing, whatever it is, because again, everybody's journey is different, but there are some things that we can dive into to give us more clues on how to get and stay pregnant. So if you've been following along with me for any amount of time, you know that I recently started the Her Fertility support website and page, and I am building a new fertility doula certification.
And the need for this came out of my own need to be able to support women in a more. Well-rounded, comprehensive way. What I found through my original fertility doula certification was that the information available is the same information that you can just Google, right? Like it's information and information is powerful and I do believe in the research and we need that, but there's a other huge component to all of this that.
It's kind of like the large elephant in the room, like when you can't put your finger on the why. Right. And my master's in communication helps me understand why we as human beings want to know that why.
Right, like we are storytellers and we really like our brains, love to understand the story behind the why, and we want to know. But with infertility, that is often not available. There's often times where it's unexplained, right? It's unexplained infertility, or we don't know why the embryo didn't stick, or we don't know why you had a pregnancy loss, and so.
It's really unsettling for our mind, and that is what helped me create the Her Fertility framework. So her HER stands for hormones for the H. Energy for the e and r is research. So hormones, energy, and research, and that is the framework that I use for all of the clients that I work with to help
understand and find areas of opportunity to. Dig in a little bit deeper. So let's talk about hormones first. The H stands for hormones. Hormones is the bucket that I use for all things related to the body. Getting and staying pregnant is largely a biological process. This is something that requires a healthy physical body, right?
Like we can't think our way pregnant. We have to use the body to do that. In fact, we actually have to use two bodies. We need a male and a female, and it's so interesting, my son. Just turned six and he's super into bugs. He like, that's his thing. He loves bugs. We just had a big bug birthday party. And in nature, the way that different bugs specifically reproduce is fascinating.
Did you know that there are species of bugs that are. Female only species, they don't need a male. It's wild. For example, aphids, so like the aphids eating your garden that your ladybugs love to eat when there's plentiful food and like warm enough temperatures. So in the summer in your garden, aphids can just clone themselves.
They can literally reproduce without laying eggs or mating. It is. Fascinating. And I say that because in nature, reproduction looks different for different species, but in humans we need a male and a female. We need eggs and sperm and. We have to use our bodies to do that. And so the hormones bucket of the Her Fertility framework is that piece.
It is the healthy body piece. Of course, it includes the reproductive hormones. We need to understand specifically for women. The dynamics happening with hormones. We need to understand that in order to understand things like assisted reproductive technologies, if we are going to use IUI or IVF or even a medicated cycle, understanding a women's hormone health.
Is the first step, right? Like we need to understand that, in order to effectively apply and assisted reproductive technology. Now we could have an hours long conversation about hormones specifically, and that's not my goal for this podcast. My goal for you is to be able to use this framework on your own journey or for somebody that you're working with if you're a practitioner.
So the first step is to evaluate the body, and there's many ways to do this, but when you're using the hormones lens, you wanna look at cycle health, right? How is the cycle, how, and I I specifically mean the reproductive cycle One, is she having a cycle? Is it regular? Is she having painful periods? What are the different symptoms associated with her cycle, because that can clue us into a lot of information.
To take this one step further, I am a big believer in tracking your fertility signs, so tracking your basal body temperature, tracking your cervical fluid, tracking your cervix position. I teach this all in my Aligned Cycles course. That's totally free. If you haven't checked it out, please do that because it will give you amazing data about your cycle health and your body, and so understanding.
What's going on with our reproductive process for women can help give us data on what might be going on. Now for men, it's pretty simple. Men simply need a semen analysis. A semen analysis will give you all the data that you need about your sperm health. Now the research has improved in the last few years around the analysis itself, and companies can now do things like DNA fragmentation and more in depth discovery.
On sperm health. So step one for the male is to have a semen analysis. Step two might be to ask more detailed questions and get more detailed testing done, especially if you are experiencing pregnancy loss, then we want to look at what is the quality of that sperm more specifically.
Not to say that you know, sperms the only answer, but if you can get more data, get it right. I'm all for the data, so that is the hormones bucket. Hormones and the body also includes things like lifestyle. So when I say lifestyle, that's a big bucket. It can be controversial for some, but what it looks like is
how are you treating your fertile body in your day-to-day life? What are you feeding it nutritionally? What are you feeding the mental mind? What are your sleeping habits like? Are you getting enough sleep so that your hormones can reset at night and feel supported? This is also where we talk a lot about stress because we know through the research that stress has a direct impact on your fertility health, both for male and female.
Um, we also know that infertility can be really stressful, so it's like this weird loop that we're in, but. Regardless of, like if you were to give me on a scale of one to 10 what your stress level is, my goal for you would be, do you have a way to manage that stress? We can't cut off stress in our life. We live in 2025.
You guys, like there is, there's a lot happening, but the key is to have tools to manage the stress to come out of fight and flight, to come down and out. And if you haven't heard me tell this story before, tune in because this is the key, right? When we're talking about the body and the hormone piece of this framework, here's what it boils down to.
The human body is designed to respond to stress in a physiological way. So what I mean by that is. If and when we were running from lions back in the day, our bodies intuitively know to run away from the danger, right? Our heart pumps faster, to give more blood to our muscles. We breathe more oxygen in so that we can run faster away from danger, right?
And our body enters into this fight or flight now. Also named Fight flight freezer, fawn State, because there's a lot more to it. This is a very oversimplified version, but when we are running from danger, the first system to shut down is your reproductive system. Your body knows that when danger is present, it cannot also sustain a pregnant, like get pregnant and sustain life.
Okay. It is the first system to shut down, and that's why knowing the indicators for your fertility health are so essential. Because when we can look at what's happening with our, like our cycle, then we can, it clues us into what might be going on bigger picture with our body. There's a wonderful book called The Fifth Vital Sign.
Um. And she talks all about the period being your fifth vital sign. Okay, so now that we're not running from lions, right, like we are in safe house, house situation and we don't have wildlife attacking us all of the time, we still have stressors, we still have things that kick us into fight and flight all of the time and.
Our reproductive system is still being impacted. Maybe not in the mega way of like life or death, but there is this chronic level of stress that we've very much normalized in our society that's having a lasting impact on our fertility health, and we don't always have, or we don't always use the tools to bring ourselves out of that, to bring ourselves out of fight and flight.
Back into rest and digest, and that's what we need in order to support our hormone health in order to support our fertile bodies. I hope this is making sense for you. So that is the first step of the Her Fertility method hormones. And what I mean by hormones is like the big bucket of your body, right?
The next step of the Her Fertility process is energy, and this is all rooted in quantum physics. So Einstein's amazing work in quantum physics shows us that we are energy bodies. If we remember back to the atoms, the protons, neutrons, and electrons that make up the atoms, that make up our cells, that make up all of the building blocks of physical matter, there are positive, negative.
And neutral charges, right? The building blocks of physical matter are electrical charges. There's also tons of research available to support that in our bodies, the messages from our brain down into the different systems, so through our nervous system, our digestive system, our reproductive system, right?
All of these systems involve energy exchanges. There's energy exchanges happening in our body all of the time. That's internal. What the next level to this is, is how we are interacting with others. So when we're using energy as a framework to inform our fertility health. We cannot ignore the fact that we as human beings exchange energy with each other all of the time in so many different ways,
we are exchanging energy all of the time. And what this looks and feels like is when you enter into a room and you know when someone is mad at you without even talking to them. Yeah, so I have my master's degree in communication and what we know is the majority of our communication is nonverbal. To take that one step further or said another way is we are communicating via energy outputs all of the time.
So, for example, when my husband, my loving, wonderful husband, if you haven't listened to our podcast episode, um. Please do. He's funny and we need to actually record another episode together soon. But, um, convincing him to do that is a little bit of a challenge,
um, but when he comes home from work, I know immediately as he's walking up to the house, whether he's had a good day or a bad day. How do I know that I can feel his vibes? Okay? Like when we talk about vibes, um, I know if he's, you know, not having a good time or if, if he's needing something. And that's all in the way of energy.
And yes, I'm oversimplifying this for the sake of a podcast episode, and there's more that we could talk about. And if you're interested in talking about this more, let me know. Send me a DM on Instagram. @herfertility.support and I would love to dive into this more with you, and when I work with women on their fertility journey specifically, and you can do this for yourself, is we work through their energy and what it looks like and questions you can use for yourself is how does it feel in your body?
Because energy is living in your body. So where, okay, like this is how you would do it. So where in your body do you feel it? What does it feel like if you had to like name qualities, is it a heavy energy? Is it a stuck energy? Is it a stagnant energy? Does it feel spicy and like poppy? Or is it sluggish and dull?
Is it full of weight? Is it light? What color is it? Right? There's all, there's no wrong way to describe the energy in your body. Only you know what it feels like. But the goal is to identify where it's living, and then we have to feel it out of the body. There's no way around it. Emotions have to be felt.
So if you have unexplained infertility like I did, and you feel really frustrated, that was my primary emotion when I was trying to get pregnant. I was so frustrated. Here I am, I have a master's degree, I have a. Amazing career in auditing. I am a certified internal auditor, which if you're not familiar, is an extremely hard certification to get.
And I am making big impact. I work for local government and I'm making really big impact in the world. And I love the work that I'm doing and I'm super in love with my husband. And like I literally was like, all I want is to also become a mom and I can't do that. And I was so frustrated because I felt like.
I, I, I mean, I felt a lot of things. Frustration was the key emotion. So when you are using the Her Fertility framework, and you are in the energy part of this, right? Like you've done step one, you've gone through the hormones, the body, the lifestyle, all of that, and now you're working with your energy and you're feeling it in your body and you feel it first.
Identify where it is. And then name that primary emotion. What do you feel from that energy? Just name it. Unfortunately, in our society, we do a really bad job of educating ourselves on what emotions are, what they feel like. And I'll tell you from my firsthand experience. When I started getting familiar with like emotional wellbeing and emotional health and emotional support, I could like not even name the emotions that I was feeling and that was a big step for me to just name it.
What is it? Is it fear? Is it frustration? Is it anger? Is it despair? Right? Like, what is that emotion? And just name it. There's no wrong way to do this. You just name it. And then you need to have a process to get that out of your body. So this looks different for everyone and when I work with you, we find the best way for you to do this.
Um, but here's some ideas to help get you kickstarted. Some people find it very helpful to write. With pen and paper, writing with pen and paper taps into the right side of your brain. So the emotional side of your brain and being able to get it out on paper can be really therapeutic in a way, right? For some people, this looks like painting.
For some people it looks like being witnessed. So what that means is saying it in a trusted space with someone, and this is why having a fertility doula is really very beneficial for your fertility journey because you have built a relationship with this trusted professional and. They can witness that emotion for you, and there's research to support that.
When we can just share that energy and get it out of our body in a safe, trusted space, that is enough to be a healing process in itself. We also know specifically with women. That the vagus nerve is activated when we are in community or when we're with other women. Um, so finding a support group, um, you are more than welcome.
Please join. I have a fertility support circle that meets once a month on Zoom. It doesn't matter where you live. We meet and that group in itself, meeting in a group, you don't have to say anything. Just showing up is healing in itself. It's so beautiful. It also feels really good to show for other people.
Um, so that's why the fertility support circle is so powerful because it's doing this, it's tapping into your vagus nerve and it's giving you a healing space for, for free. It's a, it's awesome. So this is the bucket of energy. Now if you're listening to me and you're like, wow, that sounds like a lot. It is.
But what my goal for you is, is to be able to start asking some questions, or at least start identifying in your body what's going on. Because in our society, we are trained, I'll say trained. We are trained to repress and suppress this kind of energy.
It is not okay in our culture to. Be sad for a long period of time. It is not okay in our culture to say things that make other people feel uncomfortable. It is not okay in our culture to not be strong and be able to do things on your own. And I'm here to tell you that that culture is what is dri the driving force behind infertility.
Yes, we can point to all of the research and the data on toxins in the environment and, you know, all the things that we're doing to Mother Earth, which is the same things that we're doing to our bodies, but energetically speaking, our, our culture and this driving force that says you have to do this alone.
If you don't, you're weak and your problem is only your problem, and we don't wanna hear about it. Is equally as toxic. And so the Her Fertility method is designed to pull off that layer. And like literally, if you're watching this video, the podcast video, like I just like threw it out the window.
We pull it off, we throw it out the window because your energy, your emotions, what you're feeling are more than welcome here and we have to get in there and excavate that out. So that your body feels okay, your body feels safe enough to reproduce and welcome a baby in. Yeah, I really hope that landed for you.
So the Her Fertility method starts with that physical body, with the hormones, the H hormones. We start with the body. We also use the e energy and energy means. Those energy feelings in the body. You are an energetic being. It also ties in your mind, which is probably a conversation for another podcast. Um, and then we ground it all in research.
There is a lot of misinformation available out there. There's also a lot of like anecdotal information like, oh, well this worked for me, it'll work for you. And while being. Human beings and being creatures that can absolutely identify with others and find comfort in that. It's important to remember that your body is unique and your experiences are unique and what's gonna work for you isn't necessarily what worked for somebody else.
And that's why I find that research is so important because what research tells us is that there is a proven something here. There's a proven something that we have tested here. Is it the answer to everything? Not always, but does it give us a really good direction to move in? Yes. And so the Her Fertility method is grounded down in research and we are always searching for the latest research, um, that can be used to support us.
And the Her Fertility method is designed to acknowledge all of these parts of you, the physical body, the energetic and emotional body, and then ground that all down in the research that we have in both. And I know that we as women are ready for that. We are ready to be acknowledged for our whole selves. We are ready for the research and also the inner wisdom, and we're ready for tools that really cultivate that, and that is what this method is designed to do. So I hope that this framework supports, you know, that it is a framework that I use when working with my amazing clients on getting and staying pregnant.
And it's the framework that I'm using to create a new fertility doula certification. Because the reality is, is that fertility doulas. Hold a beautiful space for people who are navigating infertility, and we need more of this trained and educated and highly qualified support role in infertility because navigating infertility with support makes it easier.
And if you are curious about becoming a fertility doula or you want to learn more about the certification program, please send me a message on Instagram @herfertility.support, and I will answer all of your questions. And if something I said sparked a question for you, or there's a topic that you would love to dive more deeply into on the podcast, please send me a message, let me know.
I clearly love talking about this and I have the pleasure of talking about this with, with clients every day, but I want to hear from you, the listeners of this podcast, and I want to know what would serve you best. So send me a message and I will talk with you there.
âThank you so much for listening to this episode of the Her Fertility Podcast in a sea of big name podcasts. Your support means the world to me. If you enjoyed the show, I would so appreciate your support by leaving a review on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or YouTube, wherever you listen to help me reach as many women as possible.
You can also share this episode with a friend. Sharing the podcast is the best way to help it grow and build a community to support you on your fertility journey. If we aren't already connected, please find me at Her Fertility support on social media or sign up for one of my next fertility courses or offerings at www dot Her Fertility dot support.
