Reclaiming Fertility: Getting to the Root Cause! (PLUS - Bonus Questions)

Welcome to the Healthy Sex Podcast where we talk about love, relationships, and sex. And guess what, the relationship we have with others is only as healthy as the relationship we have with ourselves. Conversation centered around our mental, physical, emotional, sexual, and spiritual wellbeing. Now let's podcast. Y'all welcome back to the Healthy Sex Podcast. I have an incredibly special guest with me here in the studio today. Dr. Katie Poole, Doctor of Nursing Practice. Katie, I get that right. You got it right. Awesome. And you are a business owner as well. Katie Poole, wellness. Correct. Correct. Awesome. Thank you so much for being here with us this afternoon. Thanks for having me. You're excited. So excited. So Katie, would you tell the listeners a little bit about you as a practitioner, what you do, what your specialization is, and a little bit about your business, please, ma'am. Yeah, absolutely. So my background is in nursing. So I was a nurse first and then became a nurse practitioner and started a business when I went through my own struggles with infertility and miscarriage. Okay. So I've had a business for a couple years now that now I help other people kind of navigate issues that they're having with infertility or freezing their eggs or going through IVF and help people throughout that entire spectrum during that phase in their life. So that's, yeah, that's my business. Awesome. Yeah. Okay. And where are you located right now? So I see clients online. So I'm based in Chattanooga. However, it seems to be easiest to kind of fit clients in because a lot of my clients are very busy people. So we mainly will meet like Zoom or Google Hangouts video, video conference. Awesome. Beautiful. So you're accessible to many, many. Awesome. Wherever people live, I can help them out. Cool. Okay. Well, so Katie, when I meet with guests who have really cool specializations such as yourself, I always like to play like a like the average listener, right? So like I want, I want the average listener to hear kind of definitions of what it is that we do because I think it's very easy when we get into our specializations to take for granted what people don't know or aren't educated about. So, first, can we just kind of start by identifying or defining what is infertility exactly and kind of some of the ins and outs with that? Is that okay? Sure. So infertility is technically defined as the inability to get pregnant after one year of regular intercourse without any sort of birth control or protection. Okay. And so a lot of times when you do go see your healthcare provider and that you say, hey, I'm struggling to get pregnant, well, even if you've had issues for six months, they may not take that seriously or may not start to work that up because you have not technically been diagnosed as infertile. Okay. So that is kind of a challenge because if you are struggling to conceive as a, you know, mid 30 something person, well, we know that our fertility is going to start declining in our 30s. Okay. And it really starts to plateau and drop off at about 35. So if I have clients that are in that early 30 mid 30 age, I don't want to wait six months to find out that something is wrong, we want to kind of address that on the front end. But technically, that is what is defined as infertility is six or one year of trying to conceive without success. Okay. Okay. Thank you, ma'am. And so my, in my practice over the years, I've had a number of clients and couples that have struggled with infertility. And we're going to get into that in a little bit about how it puts stress on a couple and sex life, et cetera. But would you kind of walk us through what maybe the average patient experiences in the treatment of infertility? And then I would love it if you could expound more on how you take that to much more significant attentive levels than maybe the average practitioner. Sure. Yeah. So often when you're going to see your OBGYN or your family medical provider, depending on where you live and what you have access to, regarding healthcare, if you go in at one year of trying to conceive and you're still not pregnant, most likely what they're going to do is start with running some basic lab work, just checking to see if your thyroid is functioning. It's usually very baseline labs. It's not very extensive. Okay. Depending on how confident your healthcare provider is, they may order some imaging to kind of look and see if your reproductive organs are kind of functioning properly. But most of them are not very comfortable in my experience ordering some of those tests. If you are not getting pregnant, they're often going to go ahead and start a referral for you to go see somebody that does IVF. Okay. So the kind of overlap or the issues that I saw when I was kind of in this world years ago and being a healthcare provider, I thought I'd be far more educated on infertility issues or how to advocate for myself and I just found that I wasn't. So I had some basic lab work done and then they started the referral process for me to go see a provider that did IVF. Okay. So the differences is that being diagnosed with unexplained infertility is really frustrating. It's really challenging because it's like, hey, we don't really see anything wrong, but you know, you're still not getting pregnant. Good luck with everything. Not helpful. And so my approach is different because one, I want to see people kind of as soon as they're starting to have some anxiety because if we can get people to understand what may be contributing to their infertility and understand if they have any sort of underlying conditions that we know may be affecting fertility, we can address that on the front end rather than, hey, we've been trying to conceive for two years. We're still not getting anywhere. We've got an appointment with IVF and now we're freaking out, right? So now our body is in super stress mode because it's going to be more expensive. We don't know what the outcomes are. You start wondering what's my life going to look like? You know, we kind of see our lives being a certain way. Especially if you've found a partner and you think, okay, this is my trajectory to meet these goals and then have a family. And when that doesn't fall into place with your ideal timing, it becomes really stressful. For sure. So I kind of like to work people ideally on the front end and kind of really start better understanding people's menstrual cycles, tracking how to kind of really understand what's going on with your body so that we can kind of understand are there any red flags that tell me, hey, we might have a problem because you have an irregular cycle or because you have really heavy cycles. Being able to kind of understand that at the beginning is really helpful to navigate that during that journey. So I like to approach people and kind of really start to understand what is the lab work show? What is your medical history because a lot of underlying health issues can contribute to infertility? Sure. And that can be why you have diagnosed of unexplained infertility. Well, it's not really unexplained. We know that we've got some abnormal hormones. We know that we've got some autoimmune disorders. We know that we've got some thyroid dysfunction and we can work to change those so that you may not have to go the IVF route. That is my goal for all my clients is to avoid having to go through the stress and the financial pain. And it's just a really excruciating process to go through to kind of pump your body up with these hormones and you don't know what outcomes are going to be. It's not guaranteed that you get a baby with IVF. So really kind of understanding what in their body is going on to then figure out how do we fix that and start working on that when also trying to conceive. Okay. Amazing. Yeah. Okay. So two questions that are sprouting off of that for me first. In the traditional experience for a couple is the onus usually put on the female? Many times we assume that the female is responsible for the infertility. So yes, that is often assumed. And most of the time, well, there's not a most of the time. So it can be up to 50-50% regarding female or male related infertility. Okay. I think the male numbers kind of range between 30 and 45% of cases of infertility are male factor related. Okay. And so that other 50-60% is female related. Okay. So if you're meeting with now do you meet with individuals or couples? Whatever we can see. I love to see couples together and most of the time that's what happens. But I do have sometimes where just one partner wants to come and kind of get consulting. Okay. So let's say I refer a couple to you. And they're trying to get pregnant and they're starting to get stressed out and I say, Hey, I know Dr. Katie Poole. You should go talk to her. They could go from their primary care or their OBGYN and come see you rather than hopping over to the fertility clinic. Is that right? Yeah. Okay. So then tell me Katie or I'd love if you could share with the listeners a little bit about what do you assess for as far as infertility factors for men and women? Like you as a practitioner, what are you looking for that it sounds like is much more thorough and intentional than the average practitioner? Yeah. So it's funny because I often get like, Hey, look, I had this one funky lab. What do you think this means with my infertility? And that is just like such a tiny piece of the puzzle. Okay. Because I'm looking at your for a female. I'm looking at your menstrual history. Kind of do we have any signs that you may be having some underlying hormonal issues or things like endometriosis? We're looking at your entire health history. Like do we have problems with IBS? Do we have some gut issues that can be contributing to infertility problems? That's interesting. Looking at lab work to understand if we have any thyroid dysfunction because the thyroid helps with hormone regulation. And so if we have a thyroid that isn't functioning properly, that can affect fertility. That's kind of like where we start is a really in-depth health assessment to kind of understand. Do you have any previous surgeries that may kind of affect infertility issues? Okay. That's for men and for women. Okay. So it's pretty, it's pretty all-encompassing. I mean, there's not just one thing that we look for. Right. But it's pretty easy to do a semen analysis. It's pretty under easy to understand. Yeah. For men, we can do a semen analysis. It's pretty quick. It's pretty inexpensive. Okay. And it's an easy place to start. Sometimes that's one of the last things that people do. But it's kind of like, "Hey, this is really cheap and easy." And it gives a lot of information right at the beginning. Okay. And so that's a great tool. I love it. And it's non-invasive, right? So a lot of the tools that we have to do for women, a lot of the testing that we do are invasive. You have to be sedated. They're uncomfortable. Yeah. They're expensive. And so it's kind of like, why are we jumping to that when we can get this easy information in a non-invasive procedure? Yeah. So do you tend to want to start with the mail? Because of that. Well, I start. So I guess it's different for every couple. So I'm kind of looking at what both persons health history is. And we're going to kind of be diving into both of those things at the same time. Okay. Because it takes a while for that lab work to come back. It takes a little while for us to be able to kind of start assessing that and getting people on the proper supplementation. So wherever we start seeing red flags, we're going to go chase them down. I love it. Yeah. That's so cool. I am, man, God bless you. I'm so glad you're taking it to another level because I have so many couples and individuals that have been so frustrated with the traditional process. So I just love that you and a handful of other practitioners are trying to take it to the next level and assess for the holistic experience and both mail and female versus while you're not getting pregnant, go get on tons of hormones and IVF. Yeah, just the medical model doesn't look at that. It says, okay, do we have a problem? Let's fix it. And if we don't know what that problem is, well, we're going to send you to IVF rather than kind of looking a little bit deeper. And so I think that oftentimes we can understand what the root causes to the infertility and start to address that. So I kind of take a medical approach, but also a holistic approach, because I really believe in both of the two. And I think that they can work really nicely together. Sometimes we need medication. Sometimes we need prescriptions. Sometimes we need some supplementation to kind of correct some underlying issues. And they can be blended together to get the best outcomes. I love that. Okay, so I'm going to springboard off that. Okay, because I follow your Instagram account, which is loaded y'all with amazing information. Katie pool wellness. Yeah, check it out. You guys need to check it out. So I have seen quick clips about the quality of sperm, quality of eggs. And then my next question along with that was we are seeing an increase infertility in infertility. So I don't know if those are two separate issues, but I'd love to hear a little bit more about what you're seeing as a practitioner about causes of increase in infertility. And then maybe we can talk more about quality of sperm and eggs. Sure. That's kind of fascinating. Yeah, so we are seeing that people are having a more difficult time when trying to get pregnant. And that's because of several things. One, it's because of our age. A lot of times people are choosing to have families later in life. They want to accomplish their goals, meet their partner. And that's good. We want to kind of have a stable foundation before having kids. I think that that's great. However, like I mentioned earlier, our fertility does kind of plateau in our mid 30s. And so we have this window where we're more fertile. And so when we have couples that aren't trying to get pregnant until they're 33, well, they may do fine with the first baby. But then, you know, two, three years down the road, it's like, well, I'm having trouble now. Well, yeah, because you're older and we have less eggs. And so there are a lot of factors that go into that. Okay. Also, we're seeing an increase in autoimmune disorders. We're seeing an increase in inflammation disorders. So more people have PCOS now. More people have endometriosis now. We have a diet that is pretty poor here in the United States. Pretty poor. Yeah, pretty poor. And so a lot of the foods that we eat are really not supporting our fertility system. So to speak, it's a really broad term. Okay. So a lot with diet and toxins. And then for men to like keeping your cell phone right in the front pocket, that heat and the the waves that come out are negatively affecting our sperm production. Okay. Um, car seat, you know, we have heated seats in our cars now. And so with men are having their heated seats on for long periods of time, if you're driving the oil, it's going to warm up those testicles and it's not going to make it conducive to fertility, right? So a lot of these things that you just don't even think about about our modern day and how we could have moved through the world will affect it. And again, we're just not moving as much. So we're not getting that good blood flow to the reproductive organs. Okay. So it's multifactorial. That is fascinating. Yeah. Okay. So it's, I don't know, do you feel like you've already addressed the quality, the things that we people can do to improve quality of sperm and eggs? Yeah. I'd love to. This is just the geeky part of me. I'm very curious to know. Yeah. So the good news is, and that's what I really kind of like to hone in with my clients is that you can change the quality of your eggs. And you can change the quality of your sperm. That's amazing. It's incredible. So it's really good that like if we give our body what we need, it's going to start kind of getting that energy towards the to the sperm and towards the eggs. And so as again, as we get older, our cells aren't going to be reproducing the same, right? So when we are trying to pass on our DNA to something else, to be able to form a baby, it takes a lot of energy for our body to do that. Okay. And if our body is stressed out because we have inflammation issues or we've got underlying problems, your body is going to go repair that first before they're trying to like say, Hey, let me get supersonic eggs. Your body is going to try to fix the issue. And so what we need to do is kind of decrease that inflammation or decrease whatever issues are going on so that we can really provide those eggs what they need regarding nutrition and supplements and all of that. Okay. So they can that they can pass that DNA over. So we can actually reduce the chance of miscarriage. We can reduce the chances of having genetic malformations by really honing in on egg quality. Okay. And so that's really encouraging is that, hey, look, this is fluid, you know, that your fertility is fluid. Yeah. It may be really poor because of certain things that have been going on. But with the proper kind of treatment and the proper kind of addressing those issues, we can flip that. We can really get those eggs to be a higher quality. We can't change the number. We have as many eggs as we're going to have, but we can really improve it. And same with sperm. So we know kind of if men have had a fever, if they've been sick, if they've been in a hot tub, if they've had any sort of trauma, well, that sperm life is about 90 days. And so what happened 90 days ago is going to reflect what's going on now. Right. So yeah, our wealth of information. This is awesome. So again, 90 days ago. About 90 days is the life span of a sperm. And about three to four months is kind of how long it takes that egg to mature. So that's what we want to do is kind of spend those three to four months really focusing on improving egg and sperm quality. And then once we get all of that together, it's like everything just kind of falls into place, the way that it was supposed to if we can kind of get everything working like it's supposed to. Okay. I love that. So I'm thinking holistically. So from my end on as a trauma therapist, I want to mention this and see what you think. Yeah. A lot of times when I have humans that have been living in chronic fighter flight and PTSD, like I call it trauma body. Yeah. Obviously there's a ton of inflammation with that, right. And you and I have talked about the MTHFR mutation, tons of homocysteine inflammation. So oftentimes what I've seen with my clients is when we start healing the brain, healing the trauma, their body can finally enter into rest and digest parasympathetic nervous system. Yeah. No more inflammation. It's calm. Hey, I think I'm ready to have a baby. Right. So a lot of like my really high strong women that come in and they've got a lot of trauma, a lot of control issues. I just can't let go. If they when they start to relax, it's like their body finally says, oh, we're not running from a grizzly bear anymore. Totally. It's okay to conceive. Yeah. Do you think there's any legitimacy to that? Yeah. And I think that, you know, as as a person that did struggle with infertility, hearing somebody tell you to just relax, well, that's never going to work, right? So you've got to get to the root cause. Yeah. You've got to understand, well, why can't I relax? What is going on? Is it justice infertility issue? Or is there something else going on that's making it difficult for me to, you know, quote unquote, just relax. Got it. But yes, absolutely, there is. There's definitely truth to that. But, um, so you're kind of treating the whole person. Oh, yes. That's what I'm hearing is you're not like that's different. The holistic approach is, hey, let's figure out why you're in anxiety brain, why you're so maxed out, why you're always stressed. And then until you deal with that and cope with that and let your body heal and rest, pregnancy is going to be harder. Totally. Oh, and even just like, you know, when we talk about stress, it's like people who are super fit and really exercise and they are doing, they're really pushing their body to the brink. So that's great. If you are, you know, training for something, it can really kind of pull away again because your body's working on repairing. It is working on, um, meeting those other goals that you have, but it's taking away from your ability to conceive because it's stress on the body of inflammation. And so whether that stress is because of trauma or because of work or because, um, you're choosing, yeah, if you're choosing to do that, that can be really great for you and your mental health, but it may not be great for fertility. So kind of really understanding the person in that takes a while, you can't just kind of get all that from an intake form. You kind of really have to get to know the person and what are the hang-ups and that takes a little bit of time sometimes. Can you imagine what it would be like if all of men's and women's sexual health practitioners thought like that? We'd have a very different healthy culture. Yeah, we probably have a lot more babies. Yeah, good for you. Yeah, okay. So Ms. Katie, I'd love to kind of segue into what you see with couples and the struggle that they have when there's infertility going on. What are some common struggles that you see with couples that show up in your office space? So yeah. So, um, a lot of the things that I see is just stress. And many times it's the the female partner that it really feels the need to kind of address everything and take care of it. And sometimes the guys pop in like, I don't really know why we're here, you know? I'm not even sure what's going on, who said anything about infertility? I don't know what's going on. I'm just here. She just told me to show up today. Yeah. So, um, so a lot of times we, you know, see that one partner is really kind of holding all of that space for stress. Like a motion burden. Uh-huh. And it just feels really heavy. And again, that's not great for fertility is because I'm kind of holding all of this. It's stress. I'm tracking my temperature. I'm checking all of these things. I'm monitoring when I'm ovulating. I'm paying on a stick every single morning. It's on a pressure. It's a lot of pressure. And it's a lot to keep up with. I mean, it's a second job. That's what I tell my clients that are going through infertility. Like, this is a whole another job to make the appointments that you're having to make to go get the lab work drawn to, again, pee on the sticks. Yeah. Who's buying the sticks? You know, like going to Walmart and getting these things, it is another job. Um, but stay relaxed while you're doing it. Right. Don't get stressed. I'm not just trying to get stressed. Try to just relax while you're, you know, checking your temperature every single morning. Right. Right. So when that stress happens, I really advocate for a lot of my clients to seek counseling and whether that's with themselves, just individually or as a couple, because the last thing that we want to have during this kind of portion of your life is the two partners moving away from each other. Right. We want to build the relationship to be stronger, no matter what this journey looks like in six months or six years or sixteen years, we still want that couple to be able to find intimacy and not just find intercourse for the, you know, purpose of reproduction because that can just become really stressful and it can strain a relationship. Absolutely. And it kind of takes the fun out of it. Totally. So the stress that I see on that is like, you know, what, the only time that she wants me is when she's ovulating. Yeah. Well, that doesn't feel great for the male partner either, you know? So men think they want that. But the husbands I've worked with once they get into it, they're like, she just, I'm like a sperm donor. Yeah. Like she's like, hurry up. Let's go shoot. Right. And yeah, believe it or not, men actually get tired of that. And when you're doing that for six months or three years, you know, just like every single time it kind of really pulls away from the intimacy and that portion of the relationship. So I see that that's a big struggle because it's not, it's not fun anymore. Yeah. And you're not dating your partner anymore. And so that's another thing that I advocate for is make sure that you're taking the time to get out of the house, date your partner, keep the friendship, keep the love going because this part of the journey can be a challenge. And we know that people's, you know, happiness and quality of their marriage or partnership is going to decline. Right. And so knowing that and having some tools to navigate that, I think, are really helpful. Absolutely. And want to hear your opinion too on things that you see and kind of tips and tools for couples that are navigating infertility kind of ways to not get in that rut. I mean, so it's just inevitable, right? It's just, it's just going to happen. But recognizing it, I think, and saying, Oh, this is what's happening. Let me communicate that with my partner. How do we kind of get over this and make this to not just feel like you're a sperm donor? Like you said, you know, so you're asking me? Yeah. I don't want to hear your opinion or hear about any ideas on or tips from a sex therapist. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I think I was, it's good for all of us to back up and go big picture. What are we? What is our sex supposed to be about? Why do we like sex? What does sex mean to us? What's the purpose of sex? And depending on the person and the couple, there could be 10 different answers. But usually my coaching for people is y'all play is so important. Play. Absolutely. We can't play unless we're relaxed. We can't be creative unless we're relaxed. Playful sex, creative sex, fun sex happens when we're relaxed and we feel safe. Yeah. And then the natural byproduct of that is, oh, and then maybe we get to conceive. But as soon as the brain and the nervous system go into task task task, everything sucks, right? It's a chore. It's a checklist. It's administrative and it's not about connecting with you. It's not about checking in with you. And then all of a sudden, this thing that's supposed to be really intimate and bonding and wonderful and pleasurable and fun and creative, we start to divorce that mindset from it. And we don't want to do that. So I love, I try to be goofy with my clients. I think sex therapy should be fun and playful. So like you're saying, going out on a date, when you're, and I try to remind them, when you're relaxed is when the good stuff happens anyway. That's when your body is ready to conceive anyway. So if we can just kind of make this playful and just trust the process, like as you were saying, use it as an opportunity to grow closer to make it a bonding thing to cocapt in this together. We're in this together versus you versus me. This is your fault. This is my fault. Shame. You know, marriages in general that research used to say marriages can handle crises for about two years. And it could infertility for a lot of couples feels like a crisis. Sure. Yeah. And then, and then the bridge starts to cave. So it could be infertility, financial bankruptcy, losing a home, death of loved one, affairs, whatever. Yeah. But marriages can hang out for about two years and then the bridge collapses. Okay. And sex is supposed to be bonding and keep and keep us as a glue as a couple. So let's protect that part. Right. Let's, let's protect the sexual union as we're navigating this quote crises. Sue Johnson, she did emotional focus therapy. She talks about taking on the dragon together, like thinking of the crisis as the dragon. Yeah. I think it, like, we have to slay the dragon together. Right. Right. Like we're externalizing blame, shame, responsibility, and we're tackling this thing together. Right as a team. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So those are some of the, the mindsets I try to encourage people and remind people to keep. Because again, all of us as Americans are pretty maxed out and stressed anyway. Yeah. I think that's what you're saying earlier. So I think personally, that's a huge part of why infertility and PCOS and insulin resistance and all the things, diet, lifestyle exercise, all of our blogs impacting mental health, physical health, relational health. So, you know, I always try to say sex is supposed to be like a built in medicine cabinet. It's your refuge. It's supposed to be fun. Right. If you can keep that mindset, usually pregnancy becomes a fun byproduct. Right. Absolutely. Yeah. That's a great point too of just thinking, yeah, if you're super stressed, like, you know, I can go play with my kids if I play out like 10 tasks to do. You can't, what my mind is just dissociated from what's in front of me. You can't do that. But another thing that I've seen, you know, talk about your partner's tackling this is letting your partner know, hey, this is stressful to me because they may not even understand that. And then, okay, I see that my partner's stressed, what do I know that they enjoy doing? Do they like to go get better cures with their friends? Can I set this up for them? Do they love to go see a movie with their, you know, mama? What can I set up and kind of arrange for you since you're making these doctors appointments or going to do that? It's kind of forcing what they like to do or ask them, hey, I see that you're stressed. What would make you feel better? Let me give you a couple of choices so you're not responsible for also deciding what to do. You know, it's nice to kind of take the initiative for your partner when you see that they're having a hard time and finding things that they can do that's a date or outside of, you know, two of you together to, you know, reconnect with a friend or just kind of get your mind off stuff and be able to actually relax in that setting. That's a beautiful idea. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, I see you. I know I see what you're recognized what you're going through. Please take care of yourself and I won't encourage you to do that. Yeah, I think you and I talked about this over dinner as well, Katie, when we were talking about this podcast, emotional check-ins, I think are also very helpful, right? So like with my couples, I give them like a five point question format to start with like, how are you doing today? Anything big from your day you want to talk about? Is there anything I need to apologize for? And then I think when it comes to areas like infertility, et cetera, it's just good for people to do a heart check. Like, how's your heart and headspace today? Like, how are you feeling about this? Are you feeling encouraged? You feeling discouraged? Right. Is there anything I can do to be more supportive? I think most of us aren't taught to show up to that. Yeah. So just even a conversational, emotional check-in can really go a long way for people. Absolutely. Now that's great advice. All right, ma'am. I feel like we could talk for three hours. Thank you for this. All right. Let's see, you said we talked a little bit more about saying no, avoiding social media and known triggers. I'd love to talk about those points. Yeah, because a kind of ways to protect yourself when people are dealing with infertilities, kind of like knowing what is really hard for me. I know that when I was having a miscarriage, I was supposed to go to a gender reveal, and I was like, yeah, this is just not, this is not my vibrate. Sorry. No, you don't have to apologize. We can look back now. I've got two healthy kids. It's good, but I just remember being like, yeah, this is just not going to be cool. And so seeing when you are in the throes of infertility and seeing somebody with another pregnancy announcement, and you're like, oh, God, you know, I've been trying to have a kid. And now they're sitting there to kindergarten. This is just really painful. It's in your face. Yeah, all the time. And so, and it's not except like when you, you know, it's like when you get a new car and you're like, man, I never used to see these cars on the road, but now I'm seeing them all the time, right? So like, you just are kind of honing in on that information as it comes in. And so when you hear about like, if a baby shower, it's just too much for you to go to, like, understand that you can say now. And saying, I'm going to set this boundary because I know there's just going to be too painful for me. And kind of communicating that to the person too, because you may say, I'm so happy for you. It's just really difficult for me to kind of show up for you in this space right now. Can't wait to support you later on. And, you know, but you have to kind of learn how to say no because your body can only take on so much. And so if you know that like this experience or this get together is just going to be too challenging for you, learning how to say no can be really helpful. The other thing is just kind of unplugging from social media, right? So we know that it's not great for them into health anyways. Amen. So we are constantly having it kind of thrown at us. And it's just kind of like an extra stab wound and a wound that's already hurting is seeing all of this kind of new baby or baby gender reveal all this stuff. So tuning out, you know, get off Facebook, get off Instagram, tell people, hey, look, you know what, I'm not on here. So if you need me text me, I mean, I think most of your close friends are going to know that anyways. Yeah. But kind of signing off and knowing that this is really not serving my mental health. What can I do? Can I meditate during this time that I'm usually scrolling? Can I get some extra sleep? Can I go for a walk? What are some things that are actually going to improve my mental health rather than, you know, the death scrolling and getting into your head even more than you already are? Girl, that's real. Yep. So just kind of setting those boundaries with yourself, with your friends, with your family and being honest with people. You know, you don't want to lie to people. I don't ever think that that's a good idea either. Right. Because people kind of know. Right. Just being honest and upfront and kind of telling people, you know, if you say something to like this to me, it hurts. If you tell me just to relax, that's just that's not working. It's not great advice. I think you're trying to come from a good place, but I'd appreciate it, you know, if you maybe didn't say those things going forward. Yeah. So setting those boundaries so that you don't, you know, feeling comfortable around certain people or so that you can kind of show up in these situations and not not be worried about who's going to say what? Those are beautiful ideas. Yeah. Thank you, ma'am. Okay. So I just want our listeners to understand big picture a few things. Okay. So if I'm somebody who's interested in conceiving, and I'm not sure about my fertility status. Yeah. Would that would I be an appropriate client for you? Totally. Okay. So would I have to go to my primary care first or can I just show it? Can I reach out to you and say, Hey, I'm thinking what I want to get pregnant? Oh, yeah. We can just yeah, you don't have to reach out to primary care. You can reach out to me. We can say, Hey, I'm interested in getting pregnant. And we can just start with the basic things of like tracking your cycle, understanding what you're looking for, understanding which days are most likely to conceive, getting your body ready and prepared, coming off birth control. Because it does take three months after you discontinue to hormonal birth control for your body to be in a place that you can support pregnancy. And so that's a good time to start paying attention to your body. Love it. And so yeah, it's a great starting place to just a pre-conception kind of visit. And we can kind of, you know, make a package that just focuses on getting your body ready. Okay. And then what to do in that next step. And then if we do have issues, then we can kind of taper it from there if we needed to. Okay. So nobody needs a referral. They can reach out to you directly. Absolutely. They don't have to start with IVF. Correct. Beautiful. Yeah. They don't have to even start with their OBGYN. Nope. They don't. Beautiful. Yeah. Okay. So you're online. Do you ever meet with clients in person? I do. If they're local and they prefer to meet in person, I've definitely done that before because sometimes it just you get a lot more understanding of, you know, and especially people who have been burned by providers in the past. Like, hey, I want to meet this person. Right. Absolutely. I'd love to meet people in person if it works out. Okay. Yeah. Do you ever do physical exams? I don't do physical exams just because it really isn't it's not going to get me any more information than what you're putting in on your paper and kind of me understanding. Yeah. Okay. So I have some some ladies that I've worked with that have talked about their concern about like their fertility and their single. Yeah. Do you ever meet with people who aren't in a relationship who are concerned about their fertility? Yep. Absolutely. Okay. So I've also, um, I had my best friend froze her eggs and that kind of opened my world to understanding egg freezing. Yeah. And so I also help people get their bodies ready to freeze their eggs. Oh, no way. Kind of work on improving egg quality, ideally three to four months before egg freezing, but I also help people choose clinics because not all clinics are created equal. And so you really want to look at the data and understand is it's a good clinic or is it not because the the artificial reproductive technology, um, clinics, it's a newer technology. And so it's not as regulated as you might think. Okay. And so it's you want to understand if you're going to spend that chunk of money and invest that kind of money, you want to make sure you're with that trust trust trustee provider, right? So we kind of go through the data and talk about interview questions while we're also preparing the body and getting increased egg quality. Okay. And then I help them do their shots and make sure they're doing their shots correctly because I've had clients that they screwed up their shots and they lost their entire round. No way. So they weren't able to do that round. They had to wait and spend all the money again. And so we make sure that everybody's going to have the most high quality eggs that they can possibly get with egg freezing too. But yeah, we can talk about just how to improve fertility and then also kind of I should I freeze my eggs or not, you know, what are some of the pros and cons based on my age? Should I, you know, really dive into this a little bit more? So I've absolutely helped people with that too. Okay. I'm totally going to have you on here again. If you'll come back, please. Yeah. Because I would love to do an entire podcast just on that. Oh yeah, egg freezing. Yes. Totally. Yeah. I'm a career woman. I have a lot of career women as clients. Yeah. And we talk about it often like reproduction. Yeah. And so I think there's so much conversation around that if people aren't sure where to start. So I would love to do a round too. Yeah, it's super overwhelming to kind of figure it out and not know what to do or not know what questions to ask. And we want to make sure that you don't have like some raging, you know, inflammation issue going on before again that you're investing that money. So yeah, we'll have to talk again. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. So Katie, anything you all right, Katie, a few bonus questions before we end because what you do is fascinating. Yeah. And there's there are tons of fascinating things we can talk about for a while. First question or if topic, rather, could you speak to the use of testosterone replacements, hormone replacement therapy and sperm production? Yeah. So when men are taking testosterone because they have low testosterone, that will negatively impact their fertility. So when you're providing the body with testosterone externally, then your body slows down, doesn't make as much, which will negatively affect that sperm production. So a lot of clients that do have low tea issues, we need to look at ways to kind of improve those naturally, rather than just being on testosterone shots or gels or cream or whatever people are using. Okay. Thank you, ma'am. Can you freeze sperm? You can. So a lot of times when clients, if they have a reason or like people that are in the military, things like that, they may have to freeze their sperm or if you're undergoing any sort of like treatment that can affect sperm, potentially long term, and that would be a reason to freeze sperm. So you absolutely can. You can do that at your sperm bank and do that here locally. Okay. Yeah. What tell me about the military? You said people in the military. Yeah. So people that are in the military, if their husbands are overseas, overseas for X periods of time, they might do something called IUI, intrauterine, insemination. And so if our timing is not lined up exactly, we're going to put that sperm on ice and be ready to go whatever, whenever the time of ovulation occurs. So yeah, there's a lot of reasons that people might like, can we get that poolside sperm on ice? Happy summer, y'all. There you go. Yeah. Okay. Okay. I love it. Okay. Cancer treatments. So does cancer treatment or if somebody dealing with, yeah, any type of cancer being treated for cancer, how does that impact fertility? Yes. A certain radiation treatments are going to affect how the sperm are created. And then certain like different chemotherapies will also could affect sperm quality. Now, it depends on kind of like your length of time and what types of cancer that we're treating. But it's certainly a conversation to have with your provider of like, hey, is this something that I do need to spree? Go ahead and freeze my sperm for. Okay. THC, weed, Delta 8, etc. How does that impact sperm production? Yeah. All of them are negative for sperm. So what it does is actually makes the sperm kind of high. So they all kind of swim in circles and it actually, yeah, are you for real? Oh my god. They don't go the right place. So it affects their motility. They can't swim straight to fertilize the egg. They all are just kind of like wandering around what to do. And yeah, so that's going to be in your system. I mean, depending on how much and how regular you use it, it's kind of vectors sperm for the next 90 days, right? So oh my gosh. If you're a really habitual user, that can really negatively affect sperm motility. Girl. Okay. This is kind of my own question. So I used to nanny for triplets and twins. Yeah. They were all IVF, all boys. And so we used to talk about why chromosome sperms versus ex chromosome. I don't know if that works. If that's actually legit, please correct me. Yeah. But like the sperm that race it, you know, the sperm that gets to that, that their sprinters are the boys. Yeah. And then the ones that take their time are the females. Oh, I don't know about that. Okay. Yeah. Sure. I had a sex therapy couple colleagues actually. They they timed her ovulation and used different positions according to where she was at in her cycle to try to determine the sex of the baby. Yeah. So that's like in some of the literature based on time of ovulation. You can't yeah, you can sort of manipulate that. I don't know how effective it actually is that there is some books out there about how to try more to have a boy versus how to have a girl on what days you should do that. Okay. I don't know real statistics on the literature. Well, they were able to do it. Yeah. So I was just curious if you see that at all or if you have clients that ask you about that. Well, no, they haven't asked me about that. I think my clients are just desperate for a baby. Yeah. So they're just. Yeah. Yeah. Not at this point. They're not like, oh, well, they're like, what is the most effective way for me to have a baby? So yeah. Thank you for joining me for the bonus round. This is the first podcast where I've had a bonus round. Yeah. But there's just so much fun geeky science and just practical things that I want the listeners to hear about choices and like, you know, a lot of men are using HRT now, hormone replacement therapy, a lot of people are smoking weed using Delta A. Yeah. There's a cell phones, like you said earlier, like all these lifestyle choices that we don't realize are impacting reproduction and fertility. So yeah. Okay. I guess what I'm hearing is there's a lot of hope for patients and clients, individuals and couples that the mainstream traditional approach does not have to be the end all be all. Correct. That there's actually a lot more people can take into consideration. Is that right? That's correct. Okay. So anything you really want the listeners to hear anything you want to kind of wrap us up with that you want them to be aware of and then I'd love for you to share how they can get a hold of you. Yeah. So absolutely. I'm here to help anybody kind of navigate issues because I've seen things that are really like, hey, we just tweak a couple of things, boom, they're pregnant like a couple of months. Wow. I've also had people that's like, hey, we've got some bigger problems and let's really kind of address how to ask the right questions, advocate for yourself and have discussions with your partner of like, what does it look like if we can't have kids? Do we really want to go the IVF route? What does this look for us? So I've also had difficult conversations with people that's like, okay, look, I'm not here just to, you know, take advantage of you. My goal is to really get you on the trajectory to understand what you can do on your own and get you pregnant, but also have realistic conversations of like, hey, this is kind of an issue that we need to go that IVF route. And I don't love telling people that. I mean, my goal is to not do that, but there are some instances where that's just kind of where we're at, whether it's been, you know, both of your tubes are blocked. Well, this is just not going to work. And understanding that at the front end, because a lot of times I hear where people are not very understanding of what their providers are telling them, they'll say, all of this medical jargon, and they're just kind of stuck with it like, well, I don't really know what that means. Like, this doesn't mean, and this is a different language, right? And so kind of having that conversation, so people really can make more educated decisions for themselves, I think, has been really helpful to. Beautiful. Yeah. The best way to reach out to me is you get, well, there's several ways, of course. You can check out my website. It's www.kateytypool.pole.com or you can check me out on Instagram @kateytpoolwellness and reach out to me that way and we can send you an application. And I start everybody with a free consult call. So a free 15, 20 minute consult call to kind of see if we'd be a good match. Yeah. Kind of understand your story and see how I can help. And then we go from there. You are wonderful. Oh, thank you so much for having me. Oh my god. Great. Yes. I'm so thankful to have you in the area as a resource and referral. And I learned a ton of stuff today. Good. I know Clint learned some stuff off live. So I'm helping. So thank you so much for making time to be here. Absolutely. Check her out, y'all. Thanks Katie. Thanks guys. Thank you for listening to the Healthy Sex podcast hosted by Carissa Kay. If you're an Apple user, please leave us a review. And no matter where you're listening to the podcast at, please feel free to share it with your friends. You can find all of our conversations at the Healthy Sex Podcast dot com.