Is Stress Contributing to My Recurring Miscarriages? 🦩 Podcast Discovery Call

“When you’re always in flight and fight mode, your body never has time to recover.”

Topics Discussed:

🦩 The contribution of genetics and lifestyle to egg quality.

🦩 Diet and stress changes to make to improve egg quality before IVF.

🦩 Give yourself time to heal from a miscarriage before trying again.

Listen here:  Is Stress Contributing to My Recurring Miscarriages?

If you’re experiencing recurring miscarriages, have you looked at how your overall health might be the cause? Your low egg quality might be due to your lifestyle and your physical and emotional health.

In this episode of the Finding Fertility podcast, we talk about recurring miscarriages and how to improve your health for better embryo quality. I explain how to focus on improving your health for a few months first before trying to conceive after a miscarriage.

Listen in to learn the contribution of genetics, inflammation, and lifestyle to egg quality and the changes you can make to improve. You will also learn the importance of giving yourself proper time and space to heal after a miscarriage before going for an IVF.

“The stress is always going to be there, the how you handle the stress is what impacts your body.”

Episode Highlights:

• [3:06] Recurring miscarriages plus the different tests she has undergone.
• [7:41] How the immune system, thyroid, gut health, and stress issues can lead to recurring miscarriages.
• [18:25] How to be honest with yourself and start making changes to improve your egg quality.
• [20:11] The importance of improving egg quality before going for an IVF round.
• [23:10] The different ways to help you lower your stress levels and inflammation.
• [26:29] The importance of giving yourself proper time and space to heal after a miscarriage.
• [30:59] The benefits of sleep in helping your body to recover and stay healthy.  
• [33:03] How to avoid the stress of trying to conceive after a miscarriage by using protection.

🌺 Download your FREE Guide: Top 3 Steps to Maximise Your Fertility That Your Doctor Isn't Talking About

🦩 Get Steps Closer to Getting & Staying Pregnant with EIGHT FREE DAYS within the Fertility Formula

Full Transcript: 

0:01
Hello beautiful and welcome to finding fertility. I'm your host Monica Cox from finding fertility.co And I created this podcast to help get you to start thinking outside of the box and realise that your infertility might have nothing to do with your lady bits rooted in functional medicine and personal experience. Finding fertility is all about looking at the whole body and finding the root cause of your infertility. Finding fertility does not diagnose, prescribe or treat any issues of infertility. But what we do is take a holistic approach and improve your diet and your lifestyle to get you steps closer to creating your dream family. Just by being here with me listening to this podcast, you're already going down the right path to making your dreams come true. Let's do this together. Happy Friday, all welcome back to another episode of finding fertility. I'm your host Monica Cox. And today we have a podcast discovery call. Now what this means and what this is, is a little insight into what I do for prospective clients that want to get to know me a little bit more and how I help them discover the root cause of their fertility issues. So thank you for those in the community that wanted to come on and share their story and get a little insight into their own journey. There's more information down in the show notes how you can be a part of this. So without further ado, here's today's special guest so I got your form. Thank you for sending that over but why don't you tell me a little bit about your fertility situation right now.

1:51
Right now it's i i had my last cycle I had a miscarriage so I guess I'm just waiting a cycle and we're gonna try again. That's really where I'm at. I don't know I just I don't want to go into IVs because of the cost. And I feel like no one can tell me what's wrong and there's something something's got to be wrong and it's got to be fixable. So it's kind of where I'm at. I'm like dragging my feet everything

2:25
Yeah, so you're dealing with reoccurring miscarriage right? That wasn't your first one.

2:33
No, it wasn't that was my four

2:36
four I'm so sorry for that. Yeah, that's a lot to take on, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. And are you are you on thyroid medication?

2:53
I'm not I got I sent in there's this place where I live and they check like they do a hair mineral analysis so I did that to see like if I had like heavy metals and stuff and everything turned out pretty good. And so I went to go talk to this like guy who doesn't and he looked at my blood levels cuz I did get a thyroid panel from my like general PR doctor because like my fertility clinics, all they would test for with th TSH. So I asked my regular doctor to look into it more and he ran a bunch of stuff in they he told me there he said you are low, low thyroid, like my T four and T three were low. He said but I would have a hard time finding a doctor to take that level low. Like where I'm at.

 3:58
Okay. Did that test have the antibodies? The thyroid antibodies with it? Oh it's it could have I can look real quick. Is that like anti globulin? Maybe? That's That's it? Yeah, I did have that checked. Okay, yep. I have that. It was under one my value was under one. Okay. And

 4:44
was there any of the antibodies? So there's the fire fire globulin antibodies, the TG A B and then there There's the the TPO AB would be another one.

 5:05
Okay, I did get thyroid paradoxus AB? Uh huh. That was under one, two,

5:14
under one, two. Okay. Okay, so that's good to know that, that it doesn't seem and what was your TSH just out of curation? Or curiosity?

5:29
My TSH was 1.67 1.67.

5:35
Okay. I mean, so it's still with fertility, what you want to see is point five to two. So you are within range for that. So you what was your? Did they do the free? Free T four and free T three? Yeah, yeah.

6:00
And what were those ranges? My T four was point six, five, and my T three was 2.6 2.6.

6:11
Okay, they might have been what? What was like, what was it measured in?

6:18
Those were PG slash ml?

6:22
No. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so. So a potential thyroid issue. But it's great that you have had a full thyroid panel, and that there isn't anything necessarily screaming at us that that is like, somewhere to hyper focus on if that makes sense. But oh, looking over the intake form that you sent me. This is like one out of four. I think that like my one to one clients and people who joined the forum formula get. I do see that, you know, the kind of infections seems to be like, kind of on the high side. Is this something like do you deal with ear infections and sinus infections quite often?

7:27
I mean, I just, I feel like I get sick often, like I don't know, like, I can get a cold in the middle of summer. Ahead cold I just, I'm not sure. I feel like I just, I get sick frequently. I feel like

7:46
yeah, that's kind of it's like really weird because a lot of people seeing Queen you're dealing with, like an elevated immune system that you should never get sick. But I was the same way like I had, I was always sick, like, but functioning sick, right? Like you're not like sick in bed all the time. But especially when I lived in the an area in the United Kingdom that was really low level. And the weather would like sock like get socked in or like I had like chronic tonsillitis, even though I had my tonsils removed when I was a kid. And I for me, too, like he would always be in this sinus area. Like, if I'm if I'm run down my throat and my nose and my ears like are the first my first warning sign like oh, I've got a sore throat and now with like, the knowledge that I have, I'm like, okay, that's your body's signs saying that is really worn down. And you need to start like taking a rest. Okay, so when we're dealing with these like, chronic small little issues, is actually like our body's way of saying like, hey, you know, like, this is too much for us. We're already elevated there's already enough you know, like inflammation going on we can't actually support you anymore, so you're just gonna get sick with your stomach issues. I know you put like constipation being kind of an issue what would you how do you feel about your stomach issues like

9:42
it really just depends on the day. Honestly, like sometimes I'm just completely normal and like other days I just feel bloated and I don't go to the bathroom or it's hard to go to the bathroom or just it really depends on the day I feel like

10:06
Yeah. And have you been able to link this to anything you're eating?

10:12
Um, well over the weekend, I had movie theatre popcorn and I think that sent me like, yeah, I don't know why. But I also had something out of the ordinary that I haven't had in a while, which was like just regular corn for dinner. And I don't know if it was that or the pop the movie theatre popcorn but like, I gained like, I was just so inflamed and I weighed like four pounds more for a couple days. Yeah, I don't. My first time feeling that way, though.

10:53
Um, yeah, so corn is one of the top food intolerances that are just like one of the most common ones. movie popcorn is like full of rancid oils as well. And is probably likely GMO like the cheapest crappy corn you can actually buy out there, even though it's probably the most expensive corn in the world to buy. So with movie popcorn or anything that you get, I consider the movies fast food. Like there's nothing healthy in the movie theatre, right? Like you get that like crazy nacho cheese, movie popcorn sodas, and then just like a plethora of like really crappy candy. Yeah. So what it sounds like is that you probably have like low grade gut issues. So just really, like an unhealthy gut microbiome. You might be dealing with some leaky gut as well. With your worry, I am as well with the nervousness and the nail biting. Do you consider yourself like an over thinker? And just kind of like stress about things that maybe you shouldn't be stressed about? Yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah, so unfortunately, that alone can wreak havoc on your gut as well. So say, if you're eating like the perfect diet, or you know, you're staying away from like, a lot of inflammatory foods, just your stress levels alone will cascade into gut issues, it will cascade into thyroid issues. And it will cause inflammation, because you're always at this state of flight or fight, right, you're always your cortisol is always pumping out, it's pumping out, it's pumping out. And so you're never in recovery mode, you're always in like fight mode. And just the Think of like going out for a run, right, there's, you reach a certain point where you have to stop because you're just like exhausted, and you need that time to rest and recover. And then like you can go for a little bit more, depending on how, how you're trained, or how healthy your body is, I don't wanna say healthy, but just like how, like, you know, you how much stamina you have, right? Because everyone's stamina is at a different level. So when you're always in flight, or fight mode, or for the most part, always in flight or fight mode, your body just never has time to recover. And so, with, with fertility issues, unfortunately, you're gonna if you're, I mean, obviously, you need to be pre positioned for this, right? So genetically, you're going to be predisposed to this. And this is why you see really unhealthy people get pregnant all the time, or people who are really similar to you not have issues. It's just the way your genetics are. And the way that you're living your lifestyle is, like, predicts how your genetics perform. And so because you're always or you're living your life, mostly being consistently stressed out. And, I mean, we haven't dived completely into your diet, but let's just say you're on like, just like a normal, typical standard American diet, right? Like you don't even need to be eating fast foods or junk food all the time. Like it could just be occasional things. It's still not enough to be combating the inflammation. You know, it's contributing to the inflammation that's going on. And so that those two combinations alone will raise your inflammation. And if you do have leaky gut, that means that your your immune system will be raised your high natural killer cells or any other kind of system can raise and get wonky. And what happens when you have high inflammation as well is that your egg quality suffers because of it. Because your eggs are a living cell. And they're, they're still a part of your body and they're still going to react to however your body is getting treated. I think a lot of the times are I've been I don't really know why. But for some reason, in our history, it's been, we've been led to believe that our egg quality isn't connected to our health or isn't connected to us.

15:49
And it's just a matter of your age. And then that's it, which still doesn't make any sense because it's still connected to you, right? Like, if they're saying, Well, it's an age thing, well, then surely, if it's connected to your age, surely it should be connected to your cellular health. And for the most part, the reason cellular health goes down is because of age without natural progression. But for a lot of us in this modern world, we're we're unknowingly causing a lot of oxidative stress, we're causing a lot of inflammation, and that's having an impact on our ate quality. So women like you, and this was my story, too. I was super highly stressed out all the time, I was type A always worried about things always on the go, I had to be high achieving. I was on a normal American standard diet, and I had just normal and common health issues. Not the doctors were like, oh, that's IBS? Oh, that's your this, is that right? They weren't enough to be diagnosed or maybe in the hospital. But the way that I was genetically prone, it's, it probably started affecting my fertility when I was like 17, if I'm completely honest. So it is a it's just really important to kind of get honest with yourself and say, Where can I start making improvements? So if you're able to even just right now think of like, what's one thing that you know, isn't serving you and that you can maybe start changing up, okay? And really just start from there of like, Okay, what does my diet look like? Are there foods and certain noticing, and that's great that you noticed it with the movie popcorn? You know, are there foods that I eat that I don't feel good after like I'm either really sluggish or I get a little bit of bloating, or I get cramping. Or for me, it was actually a few days later. So when I didn't know I was intolerant, and I was eating these things like night shades, which included tomatoes and paprika, and healthy foods. Two days later, I would get constipated. So I'd be fine, it'd be normal, be normal, and then all of a sudden, I would have constipation. And then, like a few days later, it would turn into diarrhoea and then I'd be normal, I'd be normal, I'd be normal. So sometimes it's like a delayed reaction. So keeping an awareness of like how you're feeling after you eat, and then obviously keeping awareness of the stress levels, maybe it's the stress that's impacting the constipation, like okay, I had a really stressful day two days ago, and now I'm having difficulty. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah. So with the reoccurring miscarriages depending on obviously you want to do testing to rule out any like real medical issues if there's DNA fragmentation on your husband's and if you have blood clotting issues on your end, there's a few different tests that you know, I'm sure you have investigated or hopefully and if not, like, there's, I don't know if you've connected with them, miscarriage hooked us. They have a really good free download if you sign up to their email that gives you a checklist of things that you can investigate with your doctor. But from like a holistic point of view, which I still believe that women should try to improve to the best of their abilities, even if there are like let's say medical situations that you know, you can't change like if you have a clotting issue, you have a clotting issue you need, you know, using medication to support that with You know, help you. But from an inflammation point of view, which just on this one intake form that I see, I can see that there's definitely room for improvement and room for you to lower that inflammation greatly. And especially before you go to do a round of IVF This is so incredibly important for your aid quality.

20:26
Because what happens a lot of the time is, you know, you get there, you collect the AIDS, you have a good amount of AIDS, and they, the maturity of them, just drops off completely, even if you have like no inflammation, that's just how it works. And so we really want to maximise how many viable embryos you get. Because IVF is, is obviously very costly. It's time consuming, it's physically demanding, and it's emotionally demanding. So you really want to go into that situation, feeling a lot more confident about the health of yourself, and you know, the health of your embryos. Right? Yeah. So it's really important to sometimes just slow down I know, we don't really feel time rich with with our fertility journey. But yeah, especially with a big a big thing like that. It's just really important. Okay, does that make sense? Yeah, yeah. Um, did you have any questions for me?

21:49
Um, I guess what do you suggest?

21:54
Yeah, I mean, it's really finding the cause of the inflammation. I think there's a really, you know, like, obviously, the stress levels, like, what can we do? What are you going to connect with? That is going to help you reduce those stress levels? Are you able to take yourself out of certain situations that are really stressful? If not, what practices can you put into place to deal with that stress, like, so say, your job, for instance, like, if you cannot leave your job? Or if even if you don't want to leave your job, right? Like you love your job, but your job is stressful? Okay, then how are we going to manage that stress when it comes up, because the issue is, the stress is always going to be there. But how you handle the stress is what impacts your body. So if you can handle the stress better, like so if you get into, I mean, there's so many I don't know, like, there's so many different things you can do. And you just have to find one that resonates with you. There's Emotional Freedom tapping, there's meditation, there's like learning how to read correctly. There's journaling. Like obviously, there's punching walls in like hitting things with bats, but that would be like in your private room. But just recognising it, even when you get triggered, and like taking yourself out, like to the bathroom and doing 10 Deep breaths can completely change what your hormones are doing, how your brains reacting, how that cortisol is getting pumped out. So just lowering that. So yeah, definitely figuring out what your stressors are, and finding ways to combat that. With your diet. It's always about finding your inflammatory foods. So I would say with that corn, that's probably one thing that's completely off the table for you. And in finding any other foods that are triggering through the elimination diet, or using a food sensitivity test, and then maximising so a lot of people are like, Okay, I've got rid of my intolerances. But I'm still only eating like 20 foods where we want to see that diversity in your diet really want to maximise that. And that helps with the gut microbiome. Now if you do have leaky gut, then you obviously want to use targeted supplementation, which is different for everyone. But that can really just speed up the process. Right? That's that's when you use supplementation in any situation really is when you lower your inflammation. And you have it at a pretty low point and then you use the supplements to help boost your natural abilities. Where a lot of us in the infertility world we get it wrong, right. Like we're just going to use supplementation because that's going to improve our egg quality that We're on, I'm on a pre needle and all those things where we still have all these high level of inflammation and oxidative stress. And so it just, it actually just becomes a very expensive P. Okay, I would definitely give yourself time to heal. I think you've been through a lot more than society gives us credit for dealing with reoccurring miscarriages, is just Yeah, it's really devastating. I mean, even just having one or two miscarriages, we just, we don't get the proper support we need, we don't realise that we need time to grieve. You know, those were our babies. And so I think it's really important to give yourself the space and the time to, you know, heal from these things. Not sure if you feel like you've been able to do that or had the support to do that. I'm not sure. Yeah. So that would just be another thing to, to look into. And especially just give the part of your body time. Especially moving into an IVF round. Just make sure that Yeah, your body's just had time to recover from that, because it is a it's a bigger thing than most people think it is.

26:37
That right? Yeah. Yeah, no, I

26:39
get it. You know, I am trying to think my first miscarriage. I actually, it was a really weird situation, because it was through a frozen embryo transfer. So it was actually a missed miscarriage. So the heartbeat wasn't discovered at seven weeks. And they asked if I wanted to have a DNC and I declined, because I was not sure why anyone looking up my vagina anymore. But I didn't actually pass the pregnancy for another two weeks. And so when it came on, I actually went into mini labour to pass the sack, which no one warned me about no one, you know, said it was big enough to actually do that. So that was like a, like a 24 hour process in the next day. I was like, Okay, I'm feeling better. I'm just gonna move on with life and went grocery shopping and did all these things. And I ended up in the hospital that night, just due to excess bleeding and really overdoing it. I think I was fine. But obviously, I didn't know like, I didn't have the support. So yeah, just giving your body time to relax and recover and heal. And then taking the time to move into bigger procedures, like IVF IVF is a really big procedure. And I I don't I think people just take it as, as it's not. But a lot I think a lot of people have issues with it because our bodies for the most part, people using IVF who don't necessarily medically needed like their their tubes are blocked or you know, they they need to extract the sperm to actually put it with a you know, we're just dealing with a lot of inflammation, a lot of high anxiety, and then all of a sudden, you're just pumped with a crazy amount of hormones to get your body to overdo what it needs to do. And yeah, it could just be a little bit a lot. Right. But yeah, I mean, that would be my suggestion. At the moment, just give your body time to heal. Really look at your stress levels, really get real with yourself and start finding your food intolerances and okay, and lower that inflammation.

 29:29
Okay. And that's just like true food.

29:32
Yeah, well, food and reducing your stress levels. Absolutely. Okay. Um, you know, look, I mean, I think yeah, I mean, you go to bed at a decent hour, which is great. I know you're up early. But, you know, I know how how do you feel through your sleep because it does say like you're not staying asleep.

29:59
Mm. Um, I feel fine. No, I wake up a couple times, but I fall asleep right away

30:06
pretty easily. Okay. And you know, sleep issues are just connected to everything we just talked about as well. It's kind of like this vicious cycle. But sleep is important because it is when your body detox and repairs itself. So it is, it's not just like a thing we have to do. It's like, literally, your body's like, way to get ready for the next day. Okay, keep going. And our bodies are pretty amazing how, how much they can take how much like, like, like bad things, I guess, you can throw at it. And I think we have to realise that our bodies are always trying to heal and to recover. And if they weren't, like, literally, we would all be dead by now. You know, especially in today's society. But it does get to a point where it's like, I can only do too much like you're not giving me the things that I need to do what I need to do. So now we're going to go into a state of disease. And there's going to be complications now. And sometimes and fertility is one of the first things they let go because we don't need it to survive. Right? So if it's like, I got to choose from your liver, or I got to choose from your ovaries, I'm going to choose your liver, because I need that to be alive where I don't need your I don't need those aches. Right. So, so yeah, um, I do think from just what I've seen, obviously, it's only a little snapshot into what's going on with you. But if you do get the right path for you, which means the correct stress support and getting on the right diet, it can really maximise your chances in the future. And I actually have a client in the online course at the moment dealing with reoccurring miscarriages as well. And one of the things we talked about was, she's not using medical he No, she's not thinking about using medical assistance at the moment. So I, I asked her, just think about using protection for me a few months, while you're trying to improve your health. Because what happens with functional fertility is that, especially when you're kind of on the border of you can get pregnant, but you can't stay pregnant, is that your health will start improving, improving, but you don't know where the line is where your health is going to click into be able to stay pregnant. So I have had clients in the past keep trying to conceive, get pregnant and have a miscarriage unfortunately. And as you know, it's it's not just a like, well, we'll just go for next month, right? Like we need time to heal and recover from this. So if you're able to, and I know it's hard, and I don't blame anyone for not doing it. But if you're like, Okay, I'm going to admit to myself, two months, three months of just focusing on my health and healing the places I need to heal. It could just really, you know, propel your, your, your timeline a little bit more, right, because you're not going to deal with another miscarriage. Okay, and I was gonna say something else, but I lost my train of thought. But that's just something to think about. Because I know it's hard. I know, that's, if Yeah, hard to say to someone, all you want, you know, is that pregnancy right now and you feel like you're not doing anything to achieve that pregnancy if you're not trying, where the fact of the matter is, you're actually really increasing your chances. By just having that break. Oh, what I was gonna say is the stress of trying to conceive

34:38
is so underestimated. You know, like, let's just say you have your regular stressors of your life, that we're not handling well at the moment, and then you add on the stress of infertility is like a double whammy, right? So when you're like, Okay, I don't have to worry about that because I've committed to whatever My timeframe is even if it's just a month, like that stress, just like literally kind of just goes away. And then you're able to focus on being able to handle other things. And, you know, focusing on your diet, like when you change your diet, and you spend a lot more time in the kitchen, so you can be in the kitchen, and you could be listening to podcasts or music or whatever inspires you and you're not overthinking things. And, you know, we talk about bringing joy back into your life because obviously, infertility we get so wrapped up in in that, that we're not doing the things we love anymore. So you're like, Okay, well, I don't have to think about this whole fertility situation. So I'm gonna go out rollerskating or I'm gonna go surfing because I I know I'm not pregnant, or, you know what I mean? So, so that's just something to think of. I know it's hard. Yeah. But, um, so yeah, I hope that's helped a little bit.

 36:03
Yeah. Yeah, thank you.

36:08
But you, I mean, just just following what I'm talking about, like on the podcast, or in the emails, or on my social media, you're already kind of opening the door, that there's a different avenue. And I talked about trusting your intuition. Your intuition has already told you that IVF is there for support, but it's not your it's not going to answer why this is happening. And you've already opened that door. So just follow your intuition and slowly creep in to the the room things and seeing what resonates with you, and, and always meet yourself where you're at. Right, like, you know, even people who are have diagnosis of full blown autoimmune issues, I never suggest going on a full blown autoimmune diet unless they've made changes before because it is so restrictive. So you got to start where you're at. And that's the same with the stress level stuff like you are not going to be this perfect Buddhist monk, meditator and handle every situation perfectly. It's going to take time, and it's just about consistency. Right. I'm glad that this has helped a little. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, it's my pleasure. This is one of my ultimate favourite things to do is just help people see that there are different paths and that their normal and common health issues can be contributing to, you know, the big issue that we're we're hyper focusing on. So, yeah, give yourself time. Give yourself a little bit of grace. You've been through a lot. And, yeah, you know where I'm at. So reach out with any questions or support, and just keep us updated with your journey.

37:56
Okay. Thank you. All right. Thank

37:58
you so much. Bye. Bye. Thank you once again for tuning in to the finding fertility podcast. If you're loving this podcast, please leave us a rating in review and let us know how this podcast is supporting you to get steps closer to creating your dream family. I hope you have a beautiful weekend and we will see you next Friday for another episode of the finding fertility podcast.

Let's Do This Together 💚

Monica

🌺 Download your FREE Guide: Top 3 Steps to Maximise Your Fertility That Your Doctor Isn't Talking About

🦩 Get Steps Closer to Getting & Staying Pregnant with EIGHT FREE DAYS within the Fertility Formula

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Anything written or said about health and diet are my opinions, that I have formed over the years, through trial and error, study, reading, listening and observing. What worked for me may not work for you. I am not a doctor, nutritionist or dietician and all medical advice should be gotten from a qualified professional. Product recommendations are based on what I used during my infertility journey or wish I had.