βWelcome back to the Her Fertility Podcast. We are moving right along in the Fertility Journey series and we are digging a deep dive into IVF today. So whether you are trying to decide if you are going to do IVF or you're in your first round of IVF or maybe you're in a subsequent round of IVF, this episode is for you.
Listen through all the way to the end because I'm going to give you some tools that you can use to make this process a lot smoother. If your journey has led you to IVF and you hear nothing else from this episode, I want you to hear this. IVF is a tool that you are choosing to use for your Fertility journey.
That can be a complete reframe for you, but I want you to stand on the fact that IVF is a tool that you are choosing to use for your fertility journey. Why? Because when we can frame it in that way, you are taking your personal power back. You are no longer a victim to this journey that has done, you know, what it's done, that has brought what it's brought.
And instead, you're positioning IVF to be a thing of choice, which brings you back agency, which has you have your personal power again. And so if you were like, "I don't know if I should use IVF, you're trying to decide," or maybe you've never took the time to really think through it. You just had insurance coverage and decided to do it, or maybe you felt like your practitioner didn't give you enough information and you just kind of jumped into it in a hurried way.
Well, let me take a couple steps back and walk you through what IVF is first, and then we're gonna dive more into how you can optimize your chances of it working and make the process not so stressful. Because the reality is, IVF is a completely different process and protocol than you've done before. And when we do new things, the body and the mind can feel caught off guard.
So I'm gonna give you tools to handle that. But first, let's understand what IVF in fact is. So in the last episode, we talked about IUI, which is intrauterine insemination. Now we're talking about IVF, which is in vitro fertilization. And people tend to kind of bucket these in the same assisted reproductive technology bucket, but they are very different procedures.
IVF, is the process where the practitioner is extracting both eggs and sperm. In the female partner, there will be an egg retrieval, and that is its own set of medications to prime the eggs and then procedure to go and retrieve those eggs from the ovaries, in the male partner, the practitioner will extract the sperm and then you have the ingredients to make embryos. Now you have the choice after the egg retrieval to freeze just the eggs or to create embryos and freeze embryos.
And this is a choice that only you can make for you. With freezing eggs only, the female partner has more options later on. The eggs are your eggs. You can use those eggs how you want at any time in the future. If you create embryos
Embryos have multiple cells, so we can test the genetic makeup of embryos and get more data about the quality of the embryos. And this is where you might hear, you know, there's like a scoring system, like you have an, an egg-grade embryo, and this technology is continually getting better, but because the embryos have more cells in them, we can test those cells. Sperm and egg are put together in a laboratory setting to create embryos. Those embryos are given a couple days to develop, and then they can test the quality of the embryos at that point, and then freeze them. It's important to know that we have this kind of social expectation that somebody says they're gonna do IVF, and it's a pretty immediate process. When in reality, it's very much a step by step process. There are multiple steps in IVF, and you might do one of the steps multiple times.
For example, you start with the egg retrieval. We need to get eggs from the female partner or donor eggs from a female donor. And in that process, there might be a need to do multiple egg retrievals. Depending on, you know, the number of eggs retrieved or how the body's responding, there's different factors involved, but there might be a need to do multiple egg retrievals.
So you would be in that step for a longer period of time before you, do the IVF process to conceive. once you've decided whether or not to create embryos, then you move on to the actual IVF process.
Now let's break down that process a little bit. When you create embryos, you will most likely freeze them. Now, some people have questions around like a fresh transfer, and what that means is that the eggs were retrieved, the sperm was retrieved, they were put together in a laboratory setting to create embryos, and without freezing them, those fresh embryos are then put into the uterus.
This is not common practice, because there's a lot of challenges with timing and with the female body's recovery after egg retrieval to then do a pretty quick turnaround for IVF, and so it's not something that is common. It is more common to then create the embryos, freeze them, and do the IVF procedure or transfer at a later date.
If you have questions around your clinic's protocol, you want to get clarity from your reproductive endocrinologist because while IVF itself is a standardized procedure, every clinic, every doctor and every individual really is going to have an individualized protocol.
And that's because there are nuances to all of it. Even in, you know, the doses of the medication or which medications you use, all of it can be tailored to your specific situation, This is definitely a process where you want to lean into your practitioner's recommendations to make sure that you're comfortable with the protocol that they are prescribing.
Now, I know that's a lot, but before we move on to more of this mindset and body part that you have control over, let's finish getting clear on IVF because this is my actual favorite part of the IVF process. So transfer day is the actual day where the embryo is going to be thawed and then put through a tube. It's really cool. Um, and I say it's really cool because there's like a monitor that's monitoring the embryo traveling down the tube and then into your uterus.
So you typically get to see the transfer happen on the monitor and it's just really neat. And so your practitioner will guide that sweet embryo through the cervix and up into your uterus where there's a fluffy uterine lining waiting for it to land like a soft little pillow and that uterine lining is typically supported through medication as well.
Um, again, every protocol is different and then you will usually just hang out for about 15 minutes and then you wait the few days to know whether that embryo implanted or not for conception. so that's the process of IVF in a nutshell. Again, many nuances along the way, but that is what it is.
So it is really a medicated version of what would be happening in nature, but with the help of science and technology, we can do this and it's so cool to me that we have access to this technology. So coming back to how we started, when you can shift your mindset that IVF is a tool that you are choosing to use to support your fertility journey.
Not only do you get the agency back, but then you can really lean in more to the beauty of this technology. Now, having said that, it is a very new process for the body to experience being on medication, going into a doctor's office, having the procedure done, which arguably is in a very intimate space in the body, right?
All of this is new and the body doesn't love new things. And when I say the body, I really mean the subconscious mind doesn't love new things, and it very much braces for threat and hops into survival mode, and this is often why the experience of IVF is so challenging.
And even with the best intentions and the, willpower that this is going to work, the body is programmed to survive. That is how our systems are designed. and when something is new, when something is stressful, then the nervous system, by default, hops into its fight, flight, freeze, or fawn state. And I want to break those down because we say them as if they're one thing, but they really are their own responses to a perceived threat. And even though you want so badly to be pregnant, and even though you're like, yeah, I'm choosing IVF as a tool and, like, let's go, your nervous system might be perceiving IVF as a threat just because it's new.
So let's break these down. Fight looks like you have a visceral resistance to the thing. You might feel defensive, like you're arguing, like your language around why you're doing the procedure feels combative. That's a signal to yourself that you are f- in fight mode.
And it's not because you are an angry, aggressive person, it's just your body's physiological response to this thing that's happening. So if you find yourself being really defensive and feeling tense and like that, how you would feel if you were fighting, that's a signal to you that you are in fight.
Next is flight. So flight looks like avoidance, typically. And it sounds like you not talking about IVF to anyone ever. You don't want to be asked about it, you don't want to talk about it, you just kind of ignore the fact that it's there, you're going through it, but you're like, "And everything else is normal and fine."
That is a flight response. Your body is responding through more of a denial approach than fully accepting and embracing what's happening because it's trying to keep itself safe. The next response is freeze. And this can look different in different people, but it typically feels like you don't breathe.
Like you are just this shallow breath, you're like, you're afraid to move, you're afraid to eat the wrong thing, you're afraid to go on a walk, let alone a run, you're afraid to sleep in the wrong position, like you are just feeling frozen because you're in survival mode. So that is a response. Um, so fight, flight, freeze, and fawn.
Fawn is really that like, woe is me victim mentality, and we can see this all over social media. You can go into any online chat about IVF and you will see the fon response real quick. This is a, this is happening to me. Oh, poor me. I am so, devastated because I can't get pregnant and I have to use IVF.
My doctors are giving up on me because I'm so broken and nothing is working and I don't know what else to do. That is a fond response. That is a very powerless response, but in not taking responsibility and in not finding your power through it, you're keeping yourself from the pain of it, so it is an absolute survival response.
Now I want to be clear, all of this is said in total love and compassion, and those responses are completely human, natural responses, because of the way you are wired as a human being. This is not an attack on you personally, and it's not to say that one is better than the other. These are all just ways that we respond when we are in survival mode.
And when you can start to see the mode that you are in or how your body's responding, and you might be in like multiple of those modes, depending on the situation, then you can recognize that your body is in survival, your nervous system is in its sympathetic state, and you can do something about it. But without awareness, you will stay stuck in survival mode, which is decreasing your chances of IDF actually working in the long run.
When the nervous system is in its sympathetic state, it prioritizes survival. Your heart rate raises, your breath shallows, it's going to prioritize surviving in a very physical way, and it can't, like it literally can't prioritize reproduction or being receptive to anything new because anything new in that state is a threat, and so being receptive to this beautiful technology like IVF isn't possible when you're in survival mode.
Now, I can already hear you saying but what about those people that are always stressed and IVF works for them? If you are thinking that, then you have to do two things. One, you have to stop the comparison game. Comparing your journey to anybody else's journey is arguably a survival strategy, but it's never going to get you anywhere.
And everybody's nervous system thermostat is set at a different level. Everybody operates at different levels, different days bring different things. So just because you are perceiving somebody as being high stressed and seeing that they got pregnant with IVF, it has no comparison to your journey because you're two different humans living two different lives, two different souls on two different missions, and so by just dropping the comparison, it's going to save you a lot of time and energy that would otherwise be wasted.
And you might be like me where I thought that dysregulated nervous systems just looked like really intense external manifestations, like tension headaches, panic attacks, like I didn't have those and I thought, you know, my nervous system is fine.
I'm not having panic attacks. I don't get tension headaches. I don't have migraines. And I was so wrong. My nervous system was responding in a different way, but I was still in survival mode. And so it really becomes about you and learning how are you responding when you're in survival mode. and that brings me to another myth that I want to really dispel for everyone, is there's no perfect.
It's not like you regulate your nervous system and then it stays regulated. We are human beings living life and life is wonderfully dynamic and things happen throughout life that are out of our control and the one constant thing in life is change. And so it is expected and normal and totally human for you to jump in and out of survival mode, regulated mode, you know, sympathetic, parasympathetic, like your nervous system is just responding to life.
And so it doesn't become about being perfect. There is no perfection here. That is a myth. There's no, you know, we find happiness and ride off into the sunset and live happily ever after. That is a myth. This is a constant thing that's happening, but the key is when you're experiencing infertility or using IVF, that you have ways to bring yourself out of survival and into the parasympathetic, and the first step is the awareness that you are in the sympathetic.
So what do you do? What do you do? You're like, "Yeah, Jess, like I'm definitely fight and flight and maybe freeze and fun, right?" Take a deep breath and know that that's totally human. Your body is doing what it was designed to do and that's okay. And there are totally ways to bring yourself out of survival mode, and that is what all of the members inside the Fertility Frequency Collective know.
The Fertility Frequency Collective is the collection of tools, audios, and ways for you, to come out of fight and flight and freeze and fawn, and allow your system to reset. And I encourage all of the members to use it daily in a way that feels good for them, but there's also a complete playlist for IVF.
So you have a specific neurology based audio for egg retrieval and for your transfer day, and it's like, it's so cool. you can use whatever feels good for you at any time of day from anywhere in the collective to intentionally bring yourself out of fight and flight and freeze and fawn and back into your parasympathetic so that your body is more open to receiving this new thing that you are doing with IVF.
And this is where a lot of people think, "Well, I have my therapist or I'm doing yoga or, you know, I don't feel stressed." And while therapy and yoga and just not, you know, feeling stressed are all good things, they're all great, that's all supportive fertility lives in both your body and your mind, and you have to tap into both. So this is a, something that's happening in your body, in like your physical flesh and in your mind.
You have this desire in your mind and arguably in your soul to become a mom. Just focusing on the body, like in yoga or just on the mind in therapy is just one layer of these systems that are interwoven. and it wasn't until I figured this out that it all made sense to me with fertility and why we can, with our best intentions, try all of the things and still feel like nothing's working and still feel like infertility is a struggle, but it doesn't have to be a struggle.
I see it with the members inside the fertility frequency. They are navigating infertility, but they have the tools to support their nervous system and their mind, And they tell me that they feel better, that they feel like, yes, they have infertility, and they know they're gonna be a mom someday, and they're excited for that.
They tell me that having the tools to use when they feel disconnected from themselves, or when that negative thought creeps in that says, "There's something wrong with me, " they can use the audios inside the collection to break that pattern, and they tell me that it feels like a total shift, and that is because it was curated specifically for infertility and designed to support you, whether you are using IVF or IUI, there's a playlist for your two week wait, right?
Like it's specific for this journey, and it can be used in conjunction with all of the other beautiful things you already have going on in your life, and because all of this is wildly expensive, right? Even if you do have the insurance coverage, which I'm a native Californian, and California this year approved IVF coverage in most corporations, not everybody has access to it, but a lot more people do, which is great, but there's still costs associated, and if you don't have the insurance coverage, then there's a bunch of costs associated, and that's why the Fertility Frequency Collective is only $29, because you deserve this level of support, this type of support that was created for you in this moment as you're moving through IVF, not only to help it not be such a struggle, but to help the chances of IVF working.
We have research that shows when you feel supported, you increase your chances of IVF success. It's such a cool study. I'll link it in the show notes here, and it makes sense when our body feels supported, when our nervous system isn't in survival mode, it can be open to this new thing that you're using through IVF.
So whether you are deciding, should I do IVF, maybe you're doing your first round, or maybe you've done it a couple times and you're trying it again, the thing that will support you the most is allowing your nervous system to be in its parasympathetic or rest and digest state as often as possible.
Again, it's not about, you know, going and sitting on top of a mountain in silence like that's not realistic, but it is about bringing yourself intentionally out of survival mode and into rest and digest as often as possible. I am a huge fan of daily.
Like if you could do this daily for yourself, it would be great. It will support you as you move through IVF. And in the next couple episodes, we are gonna wrap up this fertility journey series with some really special topics. We're gonna talk about pregnancy loss, donor gametes, and PCOS and endometriosis.
So I cannot wait to bring you the information on those because we're gonna talk a lot about the energy behind them, and how you can work with that energy to support yourself.
β π When it comes to trying to get pregnant, are you exhausted from doing everything right and still not seeing a positive pregnancy test? Or maybe you've tried assisted technologies like IVF, but for some reason nothing seems to stick. If that's you, I need to tell you something important. The problem isn't your effort, and it's definitely not your willpower.
The problem is that you've been approaching infertility in a way that works against the way your brain and your nervous system were designed. Cycle charting, ovulation predictor kits, timed intercourse, supplement regimens, and yes, IVF all require you to override the natural cues that your brain and your nervous system are sending you.
And when those systems are dysregulated in your body, your body will fight no matter how hard you try. I'm Jess Tims, a certified fertility support practitioner and Reiki master, and for over four years, I've helped hundreds of people uncover the real reason their fertility journey is such a struggle, and more importantly, get to the root of what's keeping them from getting pregnant.
And now I want to help you do the same by finally changing how you approach this journey. This is your invitation to join me in my online masterclass, Come Back to Yourself. Inside the masterclass, we will learn the neuroscience-backed reasons that your body isn't responding even when you feel like you're doing everything right.
We'll learn why the negative thoughts in your mind aren't a lack of positivity, they're a nervous system pattern, and the tricky ways your brain keeps pulling you back into the same cycles even when you're really committed to getting pregnant. And most importantly, we're gonna learn how to break these patterns for good.
This isn't another fertility course. It's about finally understanding why your fertility journey has been so hard and learning to change that relationship at the source. If you're ready to stop that negative spiral loop at 2:00 in the morning, if you want freedom from the energetic weight that you've been carrying silently throughout this journey, then this masterclass is for you.
Over 100 people have already attended, and time and time again, they tell me the same thing. This was the moment that everything finally made sense, the moment when they understood what had been at the root and how to move forward, and I want that for you. Make sure you register and watch the class all the way through.
I can't wait to support you inside. I will see you there.