She's Back with More of What Every Woman Needs: Hope, Hormones and Getting Pregnant with Aimee Raupp

8 Apr 2026 · 1 h 35 min · 38 chapters

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In short

Hope, hormones, and getting pregnant—especially in the 40s—through a “mindset + mitochondria + whole-body” fertility approach. Covers reproductive immunology/recurrent pregnancy loss, IVF prep timing, sperm health, nutrition/labs, circadian/Chinese medicine lifestyle, and the role of GLP-1s for insulin resistance and inflammation.

Guest

Aimee Raupp. She’s an acupuncturist/herbalist with biology/chemistry background, 21 years in fertility-focused practice, and author of Yes, You Can Get Pregnant (new edition includes an IVF chapter). She also discusses reproductive immunology and recurrent pregnancy loss based on her clinic work.

Key claims

  1. Egg quality declines with age, but it’s a slope, not a cliff; women don’t “run out” of eggs (even in menopause, around a thousand eggs left is cited).
  2. Mindset isn’t “just be positive”; grief/fears are valid, but reframe + smart action + information.
  3. Recurrent pregnancy loss often involves immunologic/uterine factors (e.g., inflammation, microbiome, structural issues), not only egg quality.
  4. Mitochondria/oxidative stress drive fertility outcomes; sperm oxidative stress/DNA fragmentation matters too.
  5. IVF should be prepped: folliculogenesis starts ~100 days (about 3 months) before eggs are recruited.
  6. GLP-1s may help fertility by improving insulin sensitivity, inflammation, and immune signaling (not just weight loss).

Notable examples

  • Raupp reframes a mid-40s patient’s fears about high FSH and age.
  • Personal story: she gave birth just before 41, later conceived at 45 and miscarried; she attributes miscarriage to male factor.
  • Example of a woman with three miscarriages after a live birth; Raupp suggests immunologic/uterine evaluation (including hysteroscopy) rather than “mindset fixes.”
  • IVF sperm claim: WHO semen analysis uses the lowest 5% of men as “acceptable”; DNA fragmentation testing can reveal oxidative stress despite “normal” semen analysis.

Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.

Chapters

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Celebrating Positive Mindsets

0:15 to 0:54

Discover the importance of maintaining a positive mental state, especially for women.

“And I'm really excited to see you for your new book.”

Understanding Egg Quality Myths

0:54 to 3:39

Understand the realities of egg quality and fertility as women age.

“I was in the clinic yesterday, which I only go in like once a month now.”

Navigating Miscarriages and Hope

3:39 to 7:03

Explore the emotional challenges of miscarriage and the importance of hope.

“You know, I gave birth, I think, the day before my 41st birthday is what I did.”

The Role of Mitochondria in Pregnancy

7:03 to 11:18

Learn how mitochondrial function impacts fertility and pregnancy outcomes.

“Let's do everything we can so that we don't have another loss or we know whatever we can learn to maximize outcomes.”

Integrating Eastern and Western Health Approaches

11:18 to 14:02

Examine the holistic perspective of Chinese medicine combined with Western practices.

“So for women, there is a lot of pressure on that.”

Understanding Autoimmune Conditions and Their Impact

14:02 to 14:59

Learn about the link between autoimmune conditions and fertility issues.

“I wasn't diagnosed until after I gave birth to Carmela.”

Introducing the Note to Self Podcast

18:36 to 19:10

Hear about the themes and discussions in the Note to Self podcast.

“Note to Self is a space to embrace your unique qualities, get grounded, and ultimately have honest conversation.”

Protocols for Women Trying to Conceive

19:21 to 24:19

Explore key protocols and lab tests that can aid women trying to conceive.

“Like what's kind of like our holy grail of protocol?”

The Importance of Nourishment in Reproductive Health

24:21 to 26:08

Learn how nourishment affects fertility and overall well-being.

“what's going on in social media and like, well, she's doing all the things and she just got pregnant.”

Protein and Its Role in Fertility

26:08 to 28:00

Understand the significance of protein intake for women trying to conceive.

“I'm going to make sure to have that with my fish or my chicken for dinner today.”
Show all 38 chapters

Nutrition and Fitness Before Pregnancy

28:00 to 29:16

Learn about the importance of nutrition and mindset in preparing for pregnancy.

“And before I work out, I do that with a shot of espresso and I put collagen and the, what are the aminos that I take?”

Impact of Processed Foods on Fertility

29:16 to 30:44

Understand how the rise in ultra-processed foods relates to infertility rates.

“But in the 80s, you know how much ultra processed food we ate?”

Preparing for IVF: The Importance of Body Prep

30:44 to 31:59

Hear why prepping your body before IVF can significantly impact egg quality.

“You know, it's like, my husband is like, we'll walk in here.”

Understanding Sperm Health in IVF

31:59 to 34:38

Discover the overlooked significance of sperm health in the IVF process.

“So in the new edition of Yes, You Can Get Pregnant, because I didn't have it in the first edition.”

Navigating Genetic Risks in IVF

34:38 to 36:55

Learn about genetic risks and the role of IVF in managing them for future pregnancies.

“But I don't get people accidentally getting pregnant after IVF all the time.”

Managing Insulin and Hormones for Fertility

41:27 to 42:00

Understand how insulin management can affect fertility and hormone regulation.

“Like if you can prevent these crazy insulin spikes, if you can get your insulin under control, and obviously that's such a PCOS thing.”

Understanding PCOS and Ovulation

42:00 to 43:40

Learn about the challenges of ovulation and hormone balance in women with PCOS.

“By the way, I never had, sorry to overshare, I never had mucus when I was ovulating in my fucking life until after I had Carmella and I got my PCOS under control.”

The Role of GLP-1 in Fertility

43:40 to 46:00

Discover how GLP-1 medications are used beyond weight loss, impacting fertility.

“so technically, right, everybody thinks about it for weight loss.”

GLP-1 and Inflammation Connection

46:00 to 47:40

Explore the link between GLP-1 medications and reducing inflammation in fertility issues.

“If you're doing it and you're losing 30 pounds in a month, that's not that the body, that's a lot.”

Emerging Treatments in Fertility

47:40 to 49:40

Learn about novel treatments like mitochondrial replacement therapy and stem cell treatments for fertility.

“Obviously, a lot of them are suffering in pain as well, but not everyone is.”

Integrating Modern Medicine with Holistic Approaches

49:40 to 51:50

Understand how combining modern medical practices with holistic approaches can benefit fertility.

“But you know, when I do things like, I love NAD and when I started taking NMM and doing NAD, me, like all of a sudden I was like, wow, like I feel incredible.”

Daily Supplements for Fertility

51:50 to 56:00

Get to know essential daily supplements that support women's fertility health.

“You know, he's women are in menopause and their ovaries are coming back online.”

Nutritional Supplements for Fertility

56:00 to 57:20

Explore essential supplements and dietary components that support fertility.

“Designs for Health is one of my favorites.”

Importance of Fiber and Detoxification

57:20 to 59:10

Learn about the role of fiber in detoxification and its impact on fertility.

“So they're really good anti-inflammatories.”

Navigating Fertility Challenges and Miscarriages

1:02:50 to 1:07:20

Discuss the emotional and medical approaches to dealing with miscarriages.

“to be a standard snack that lives in your purse just like me.”

Understanding Birth Control and Conception

1:07:20 to 1:10:00

Gain insights on managing birth control and preparing for pregnancy.

“Amy, thank you so much for taking the time and coming to the podcast.”

Understanding Nutritional Support for Fertility

1:10:00 to 1:11:06

Explore the role of organ meats and supplements in enhancing fertility.

“I was like, oh, man, I bet that happened.”

The Importance of Cycle Tracking and Fertility Awareness

1:11:06 to 1:13:12

Learn about tracking cycles and understanding fertility awareness methods.

“You know, follow Lisa Hendrickson, Jack.”

Navigating Infertility and Seeking Medical Help

1:13:12 to 1:15:45

Discuss the importance of medical evaluations and tests when facing infertility.

“just choose, choose it for you to like meeting the lifestyle and the choices.”

Understanding Perimenopause and Its Effects on Fertility

1:15:45 to 1:18:04

Gain insights into how perimenopause impacts fertility and hormone balance.

“Like it's like the wave of the future, you know, for sure.”

The Role of Iron and Parasites in Fertility Health

1:18:04 to 1:20:26

Examine how iron levels and parasites can affect fertility outcomes.

“Like, we, the hormones, it's a fragile state.”

Managing Autoimmune Conditions and Fertility

1:20:26 to 1:24:00

Learn about the relationship between autoimmune conditions like Hashimoto's and fertility.

“we know there's it's like an it's like gasoline on a fire you know so super inflammatory i also have been running stool tests on patients for probably five years at this point.”

Autoimmune Conditions and Diet

1:24:00 to 1:25:40

Discussion on managing autoimmune conditions like Hashimoto's through diet.

“I mean, it's just, and then non-celiac gluten intolerance, but Hashis, I do usually approach it of like, I do think you have to treat gluten, dairy, and soy like an allergy.”

Histamines and Their Impact on Pregnancy

1:25:40 to 1:27:16

Exploration of histamine responses and their effects on fertility and pregnancy.

“is another one of my favorites for any of my autoimmune girls.”

Managing Histamine Responses

1:27:16 to 1:28:46

Strategies for managing histamine levels and their effects on health.

“I always say to my girls, like, you know, those super cubes.”

Understanding Chemical Pregnancies

1:28:46 to 1:30:39

Insights into causes of chemical pregnancies and factors affecting fertility.

“Is that like the BPC-157, the glow peptide?”

Heavy Periods and Hormonal Health

1:30:39 to 1:32:45

Discussion on heavy periods, menstruation health, and possible hormonal issues.

“But you could try also adding a baby aspirin in your luteal phase.”

Aimee's Clinics and Resources

1:32:45 to 1:34:09

Information on Aimee's clinic, resources, and upcoming book.

“a few days, maybe only take it for 10 days and let you'll face it all 14.”
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Transcript

Automatic transcript. May contain errors.

0:00The following podcast is a Dear Media production.

0:15I'm so honored to have you on. And I'm really excited to see you for your new book. Thank you. I cannot tell you enough. I don't know if you see me every time I tag you, but anytime I do a Q &A and somebody says like, Do you have any recommendations of like anyone to follow? I'm always like, just following. Just doing. Because the overarching theme, your through line is so positive. It's just such a mind shift, which is one of your pillars, right? And telling everybody how to get our asses back to being in, you know, a positive mental state. So thank you for that, because it really, I think it just brings such levity to something that so many women are struggling with right now.

1:03Yeah. Yeah. I think it's so important. I was in the clinic yesterday, which I only go in like once a month now. And I had she's a fellow acupuncturist, too. It's I always find the clinician so flattering when they seek me out for like getting pregnant and she's in her mid 40s. but she was spinning and and I just said well what you know I reframed some of her thoughts it was something like afraid to get pregnant but then also afraid to have a baby in the winter and I you know and then am I getting too old like my FSH was really high you know all these things and I just kind of gently reframed her she just kept saying thank you for the reframe thank you for the reframe and I was like well I always just think that you know even when they give us these stats of like, you know, well, your eggs are bad, right?

1:47And unfounded stats, by the way. But when we look at the real data, we know, okay, women, yes, egg quality declines as we get older. There's, you know, more chromosomal abnormalities, but we're actually don't run out of eggs. Like that is such a big piece of misinformation. We decline our egg pool each month, but we actually still have like a thousand eggs left even in menopause, FYI. But women, even up until there was one big piece of research, and I talk about it a lot, and it's in the book and all the things, but they look at 20 ,000 eggs, not embryos, so eggs only, unfertilized eggs of women undergoing IVF, and they did a study on their chromosomes.

2:23And so as we would assume, the younger the woman, the less chromosomal operations or abnormalities, but it's not a cliff the way they make it seem like over 35 or even over 40, there's this like, oh, just drop off and everything goes bad. It's it's a slope like this yeah but even women in their early 40s and into like up to 44 the study went to still about 35 to 40 percent of their eggs were chromosomally normal now to think about that so okay so 60 are bad okay so more bad than good yeah but the substantial lot of eggs that are still normal 40 you know if we're looking at how like one even two kids like many people are pregnant.

3:03I mean, I'm turned 40 in November and would like to get pregnant after I turn 40 because I don't want to be into or newly postpartum on my 40th birthday. I just, I deserve that for myself. I want to ring that in drunk and naked on a beach with my children. You know, I'm like excited, but everybody keeps saying like, Oh my God, aren't you so worried? And it was my only fear is that I would have goddamn twins. Because that becomes more common. Because that can happen. And you'll figure it out if you did, though. Yeah, I mean, I had my son. You know, I gave birth, I think, the day before my 41st birthday is what I did.

3:45And then got pregnant again at 45. I miscarried that, which was sad and hard. But I wasn't trying to get pregnant. And I got pregnant at 45. And also, that's like perimenopause. And I miscarried due to a male factor issue, not a female factor. So I always like to point that not to throw my husband on the bus. He's older than me. And but I'd like to point out that like my eggs were actually doing what they need to do, you know. So I mean, gosh, you know me. I've been doing this for 21 years. I don't have fear around women getting pregnant in their 40s. The oldest women for me to date, 48 with their own eggs, you know, and I have a handful of them.

4:22I have like a dozen 47-year-olds and then 46, 45, 44, like that's just, that just, it happens. Everyone's different though. We all age differently. Right. So it's like, I also like to lead with that of like, but we could also have a 35-year-old who's less, less healthier than a 45-year-old, you know? And, and there's ways, like, I think we've learned so much too about how to pass the body and to age better, maintain mitochondria. It's all about mitochondria. It's not about chronology. It's just not, you know, so for you and, you know, for, for Leah, I think I know enough about your lifestyle to say you're doing so much and you're doing all the right things that you'll be fine.

5:03You'll get pregnant. And we've talked about this before, by the way, like, you know, like the little bad girl things we do every once in a while, like that allows me to live with ease and not have this idea that like, I have to do this because I want to get pregnant so I have to be really healthy because that's so counterintuitive and I keep thinking to myself and listen I hate saying this because I don't I think there you know even yesterday I was talking to one of my friends who said three miscarriages after a health care birth baby gay birth who's now had three miscarriages the third miscarriage look at her uterus look at the uterus third miscarriage was in her second trimester baby I know she just like casually told me this yesterday over text message.

5:46And I just thought like, and I keep hearing stories like this from so many friends. And so, you know, to say to someone like her, well, you just need to change your mindset. It is the worst thing you can fucking say. But I, I, I do have this bubble around me and I think it's also, it's having a special needs child and all of that, where I'm just like, I can't let the anxiety in. But that's like life to me, right? Like I don't want to fear getting cancer or something happening to my husband or like all the, or a war or whatever. Like, I'm just like, it's hope and faith to me, just like a straight, you know.

6:18And with that, though, like, of course, smart action. And of course, using, you know what I mean? Making educated decisions. I'm all about like inspired action. But when I see three miscarriages, I mean, right away, I'm definitely not saying like, you need to think more positively. Never, never, never, never. More like, I like to remind people, though, like, even in that context of the three losses and that deep grief or even having a child with special needs, like there's those fears. Those are legitimately real fears. But does that mean you're done? You know, and most women always say, no, no, no, I'm definitely not done.

6:56I'm not giving up. Okay, so like, let's work within the context of that. I'm not saying you need to be sunshine and rainbows right now. So let's collect more information. Let's do everything we can so that we don't have another loss or we know whatever we can learn to maximize outcomes. The first thing I think about with three losses in a row, I mean, it's something immunological going on and something probably in her uterus probably has nothing to do with her egg quality, even though they'll blame it on that. So you can tell her that. And the book, my new book, I go deep on reproductive immunology and recurrent pregnancy loss because it's just, I see the complicated cases.

7:27So I'm dealing with this stuff all day long. This is what I see. Let's give an overarching, we have lots of different categories here. So, you know, we have mindset, which... I do think it's important, you know, and I tell this all the time. And again, it's just like I can give context and talk about it because I don't want to undermine anybody's feeling. But when I was trying with Carmella with me over a year, I had some car salesman of an IVF doctor tell me my numbers are horrible. I'm never going to get pregnant naturally. literally so I gave myself some time off to collect myself before I entered into the IVF journey and the first month that we had sex not trying for a baby is when she came which I was like oh my god and then even top of that he tried to tell me like well you're gonna miscarry that baby because your numbers are so horrible and I have two children so asshole.

8:25So by the way, all the time, all the time. So mindset, which you talk about, which is so important. Okay. What do you think is kind of like the second pillar here? I love how you talk about mitochondria because, you know, when we do blood work on my daughter, it's, she has no mitochondrial function, which is hard. And, and, you know, I mean, I, I have a lot of thoughts about that though, too. And I'm sure, I'm sure you've dug into it. She's on red light every day, but I'm like, I know that. Stem cells, I wonder about stem cells, microbiome, like, I know you've had, anyway, we can talk about this offline, but I have thoughts like there's those fecal transplants.

9:01Have you heard about that? And yes, I have. And I'm kind of like totally down for that too, because I just, I'm like, I don't think her microbiome has any sort of function. Well, that's, I mean, it's all connected, right? You know, so it's like, obviously inflammation of the powerhouses, the cells, like there, and there's, there's people doing there's doing these mitochondrial transplants, like there's stuff happening, which, but I think stem cells, like that's what I think about for, for that. When you say there's no mitochondria, but I, I think about that, like in, in aging women or, or really it's not even age.

9:31I want to take that out of the equation. Women with too much oxidative stress and the damage has been done to their mitochondrial, you know, mitochondria and their mitochondrial function. And they're basically just cellularly so much older than they should be. And that's what's compromising egg quality. That's what's compromising fertility outcomes. And then also we have to throw in the men. Oxidative stress in sperm is like from when I wrote the first edition of Yes, You Can Get Pregnant till now, which is about 11 years apart. The amount of research, I mean, just more that we know about sperm health and the DNA fragmentation, which is oxidative stress in the sperm and or mitochondrial function there, it is playing a major role in fertility outcomes.

10:12But to think about mitochondria, basically like, does my body have enough energy to do this big job? Because having a baby is the biggest job there is, you know, and of course, I think mindset and, you know, and nervous system work and circadian rhythm, all of that. I mean, also the research is so solid there now too. That impacts things because that impacts almost other inflammatory pathways if we're not taking care of that. But I don't think you have to be like positive and hopeful all the time. Like I was saying, It's just more the reframe. And like, really, I think I always like to say being honest with yourself, you know, like, like unpacking that from a very honest perspective.

10:49But then when we look at like cellular function and almost like cellular age, that's, I think, where the real possibility lies, because we can improve those things and we can undo past damage. And I do also think like the egg itself, the egg cell, you know, that makes the embryo and the baby has hundreds of thousands of mitochondria, right? It is literally, it requires so much energy to do this job. So for women, there is a lot of pressure on that. You know, I would even think with your daughter, there's ways to increase mitochondrial function, you know? And I think that's where, like, that's so cool.

11:28All the biohacking, all the cutting edge science that's happening. Yeah, I spend every day like I'll like re-upload her blood. I mean, we have a functional medicine doctor. So the way that you approach fertility and infertility is exactly the way I'm doing with her. Western medicine, functional medicine, mind-body work and Chinese medicine. Yeah, I mean, that's it. You have to have the whole picture. You have to have the whole picture. Because what I love is like the container of Chinese medicine, which is, you know, like I have biology and chemistry degrees and stuff like that. I spent some time in Western medicine schooling and then became an acupuncturist and herbalist.

12:07And then I went back and now like functional medicine and all those things. But what I always love is Chinese medicine just kind of has this like capsule. It just has always said this for thousands of years. Like women who live in accordance with the Tao, which is like the Tao, the Qing, should be able to conceive easily until the age of 49. They have a very specific number too, which is very fascinating. But it talks about like, in accordance with the Tao means like, okay, guess what? Minimizing blue light at night, right? More red light, living, you know, in accordance with the seasons, eating with the seasons, prioritizing joy, prioritizing healthy relationships, aligning with like your nutrition and your movement and your activity, right?

12:54So that has been, it's centuries old, thousands of years old. We've been saying the same thing. Now what's cool is we know enough about epigenetics now. Now we know more about like mitochondrial function. We know about oxidative stress. And there's research now, blue light at night. Yeah. Guess what? Lowers antropoccal count, increases FSH. Solid research. It's right there. I'm just picturing myself laying in bed, looking at TikTok before I go to sleep. Just wear your blue light glasses, put the red light on your screen. And you know what I mean? Like, I got the amber light bulbs throughout the house.

13:28Like, at night, that's the only stuff that's on. There's ways we can do it. And you have to spend time in nature every day. Like, some people, right, don't leave the house. Like, over here, especially in the wintertime, you know, or even me, sometimes it's hard to get out for 10 minutes. But so Chinese medicine has always looked at it as very holistic. Western medicine, you know, still for the most part, unfortunately, just thinks about a woman's age, her AMH, NRA. FSH. And that's about all they look at. Maybe some docs are looking at TSH and vitamin D now, but that's about it. Nothing else. Maybe they're diagnosing PCOS, which I know was, right?

14:02That was part of your picture. Yeah, absolutely. Oh my God. I wasn't diagnosed until after I gave birth to Carmela. Which is an autoimmune condition and no one looks deeper. No one looks at it. And then autoimmune is linked to inflammation, insulin resistance, resistance, right? You know, microbiome imbalances, I mean, which just, and the amount of endocrine disrupting chemicals, I mean, that's really the trigger for the uprise of everything because it's triggering autoimmunity and inflammation. Western always looks at it in such this tiny scope. It's really useful. IVF is amazing. And I'm a big fan of it in the right context and for the right person and the right protocols and all the things.

14:40Functional medicine is amazing. I think it's really bridging the integrative gap. But yeah, you have to, I think you have to look at it from all the angles. And it's not just like a below the belt or a period problem thing. You know, it's just not.

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18:34Hi everyone. I'm Peyton Sarton, host of the Note to Self podcast. Note to Self is a space to embrace your unique qualities, get grounded, and ultimately have honest conversation. No topic is off limits. I began doing social media seven years ago, and since then I've started a clothing line and this podcast. Note to Self is a place where people from every stage of life can come for advice, new perspectives, and to feel a little less alone. Whether I'm recording by myself or bringing along a friend, we will explore topics ranging from relationships and mental wellness to social media and entrepreneurship.

19:06Tune in to Note to Self every week for the sisterly advice you didn't know you needed and raw conversations you've always wanted.

19:21so when you talk about increasing mitochondrial function helping with you know reducing inflammation in the body insulin resistance which again are things that are so common with pcos which so many women have all that what are things because i want to i what i i'm hoping that women get out of this podcast is the ability to take home action items and to have more informed conversations with their doctors push for things. Right. So in terms of, you know, day to day things or overarching things, you know, if I, and we can purchase from two ways, but, you know, let's say I'm trying to conceive or I have been trying and I've had some miscarriages, you know, what are some things that we need to be doing?

20:07Like what's kind of like our holy grail of protocol? I usually will look at lab work initially, right? That's probably where I'll start. So, you know, a complete thyroid panel, vitamin D, really important. I'm looking at metabolic factors like insulin and leptin, fasting, glucose. I'm looking at homocysteine, CRP. So I'm looking for the flags, right, in the labs that might tell me there's some inflammation or something going on, maybe a positive ANA, you know, is there some autoimmunity? So that's like more of that, like kind of Western side, you know, I'm probably also recommending like, again, if we use your friend as an example, three miscarriages after live birth, I'm a huge fan of a hysteroscopy, which is, it's a test that they go inside your uterus and they look with a camera and see if they're diagnostic or operative.

21:00Is there anything structural going on? Microbiome issues in the uterus is a huge leading cause of miscarriages. Chinese medicine though, like, of course, I'm always having that head on too. I'm doing a full system intake. How's your poop? How's your sleep? How's your stress levels? How's your joy? How's your sex life? How's your libido? You know, vaginal dryness, like what's your period look like? Are you seeing cervical mucus, right? So we take kind of all of that and then piece it together. So I guess action items for the listeners, I would like, has anyone done a deep dive on your labs? I think that's a huge piece.

21:34Vitamin D is directly correlated to implantation, low implantation rates. Like if vitamin D is lower than a 30, you have, I think it's like a 30 % less likelihood of implanting. Just vitamin D. Because it's not a vitamin, it's a hormone, right? It's literally a precursor to steroid hormones. Like, so vitamin D is telling us a lot. Leptin is another very popular hormone people are talking about now. I consider that like qi in Chinese medicine. It's your energy, it's your reserves. Leptin's low. your body's like I don't I don't have the energy for this I can't make a baby this is too much pressure I gotta just get by you know and same thing left in an insulin when they're low concerning and then usually a lot of the girls in that category they're over exercising they're under eating they're exercising fasted they're skipping their carbs maybe they're doing keto I remember the stuff that like you were doing way back in the day oh my god that just yeah i was like my body was like so we are fighting against we're like at war every day like we can't make a baby no so so we're kind of taking all that and like chinese medicine i what i have always loved about it is i can gather that i can pretty much guess what her labs are going to look like by the intake do you know what i mean because i'm gonna see like is there skin conditions eczema, psoriasis, definitely tells me some sort of inflammation in the body.

22:57What is her stool like? That tells me a lot about how she's digesting, how she's absorbing. What is her period like? If it's super light, if it's super heavy, clotty, painful, cramping, you know, inflammation versus iron deficiency, maybe she's anemic, right? And, you know, so then you can kind of put people in the categories of like, are they deficient? Are they excess? Are they stuck? So, you know, So I think baseline things is really thinking about nourishment, you know, and I always say like, I like to use the word nourishment. And of course, I think everybody thinks about nutrition and that's a huge part of it.

23:31But also, how are you nourishing yourself on a daily basis? What are you doing from your sleep to your relationships to what lights you up every day? And life is busy and full and, you know, but I always think about like how much of you are you giving away to everyone else versus keeping for yourself so you have the resources to go and do this. It's reproduction is really about, you know, and this is hard to say to some people, but it's it's really about the body feeling safe. And I don't mean we're not living in a war zone because people in war zones get pregnant. Of course they do. But it's more about the reserves.

24:08And I think like we know this more now with genetics and epigenetics, some people just have a greater capacity for stress resilience than others. And so kind of knowing your limits is really important. And a lot of people don't know, you know, they just kind of compare themselves to maybe what's going on in social media and like, well, she's doing all the things and she just got pregnant. So why can't I do all the things? And it's like, well, everybody's different and you're struggling, you know, so we have to then step back and, you know, take a beat and really look at everything. I think about you all the time when I like, I call them now like Pia plates, but when I first started following you so many years ago, you would always put together these examples of like what your breakfast looked like.

24:50and it's like become the foundation of how I eat for the last like eight years where it's just like, like from you, it's like now I have bone broth every morning, my eggs, put a little bit of sauerkraut on something. And I love always, it's like, you know, it can seem overwhelming, but when you talk about nourishment in terms of Chinese medicine and like seasonality, it's like, it's not that hard if you just buy what's at the farmer's market. You know, it's like, if you, you know, that's your vegetable with your protein. Go to a farmer's market, just see what's co-sealing or what's available, what's growing right now.

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25:25A lot of squashes in the winter, dark leafy greens. You know, it's just, and not everybody has access to a farmer's market. I understand that. But I think if you're listening to this podcast. But it's not hard to do like a quick chat GPT. What are the seasonal vegetables for me where I live in this region? Like it's pretty straightforward. And listen, it's also, you know, another thing I always say, perfection doesn't equal pregnancy. So it's not like all the time that you have to nail this and you can't have like sweet potatoes in the summer. Do you know what I mean? I'm not saying that. Oh, no.

25:54You totally... It's a light, more fun thing if I'm meal prepping for the week and I'm thinking to myself like, well, how do I want to shop right now? Because then if you get obsessed with it, then we've lost the plot again, right? So it's just kind of like, oh, great. Like, I know that this isn't seasoned. I'm going to make sure to have that with my fish or my chicken for dinner today. It makes it kind of like a fun, easy thing. You talk a lot about protein, which I love. So ideally, how much protein are we eating? Yeah, protein. I mean, it's a building block, the amino acids, right? So that's the other thing too, of like, the world has moved to like, okay, you need X, Y, and Z amino acids.

26:35Obviously, we like creatine or alpha-lipoic acid, carnitine all of these things protein is the building block of those amino acids not every food is a complete protein with all the amino acids but to think about that like protein first yes super important quality protein nutrient dense protein good quality protein typically has good quality fat and we think about that as like the building block of the i always think about the egg it's the building block and i would also say of the sperm most you know i look at food diaries all day long. You know, every one of my clients keeps food diaries for me.

27:13And especially when they first come to start working with me or my team. And most women who have been on the journey, who are following like a plan and they're eating clean, they're eating well, they are getting like 40 grams of protein a day, maybe. And they're skipping. They're not eating breakfast until after their workout. Or they're still kind of, even though I feel like it's everywhere now that intermittent fasting is bad BAD for fragility. They're still kind of sort of doing it. And, you know, a couple tweaks like that, like, okay, now put some collagen in your coffee or, you know, like, you know what I've been doing that more in the podcast you just listened to.

27:52I make my own oat milk. I just blend oats, cold water. I rinse them first so the oats don't get slimy. Put it in that bag. And before I work out, I do that with a shot of espresso and I put collagen and the, what are the aminos that I take? And I put vanilla perfect aminos. Yeah. And I have a carb to fuel me. Delicious. Exactly. Delicious. Because I work out at six, so I can't eat a big, you know, and I was trying to like have my bone broth before and then I'm like burping bone broth. And I was like, and then I come home and I have like more carbs and more protein afterwards. And I just, in my head, I'm like, but it's scary because, you know, I think most of us have this like skinny mentality in our head, right?

28:38Like we're going to get fat if we eat carbs and we're going to, and then we're going to get fat when we get pregnant. I mean, I can't tell you how many DMs I get. They're mostly around how did you get pregnant when it was hard with Carmela? And I'm scared of getting pregnant because I'm going to get fat. How am I able to list weight? It's sad. So, I mean, I try to always have, because it is, that's a conversation and I have women, they'll complain to me like, well, now I've put on like three pounds, you know, since doing the thing. And I'm like, well, your body needs it, you know, but look at your periods are better.

29:09You're always like, I'm getting weight before this happens. And that's right. It just like, I think you just have to own it on some level. Not everybody gains weight, but we're literally talking a couple pounds, you know, we're not talking a 10 pounds, you know, and for some people, to be honest, eating more makes them lose weight, you know, and so especially because if you fill your plate with good quality protein, good quality veg, good quality, you know, you're literally, you've eliminated another interesting step to just throw in here is like, okay, infertility rates in like the, I think the 60s, 70s, 80s, one in 12 were affected.

29:51Currently we're at one in six. Get this. But in the 80s, you know how much ultra processed food we ate? Only about 10 % of our diet was ultra processed foods. You know how much we are consuming now? 57 % of our diet is ultra processed foods. And even like us, you know what I mean? Like we're clean and then privy to all the information. And I suppose I would say the were privileged on some level, but like we can still be consuming some pretty good processed gluten-free shit. When I eat like beef sticks, I'm like, am I eating like a processed? Well, I think you really have to look at ingredients.

30:24You really have to dial it in. You really have to know like what else are they adding? And so still, I mean, there's still good, you know, like good fertility-friendly packaged foods that could fall into an ultra-process category. So reading labels, looking at the additives, the colorings, the oils they're using. We've just been in a household. It's an ingredient household. You know, it's like, my husband is like, we'll walk in here. I'll be like, there's no snacks. And I'm like, make something. This is a household. Apple and cheese. That's what I like. Apple and nut butter. Yeah, absolutely. I eat snack.

30:57The last eight years, especially with him, because, you know, now obviously we're, we're both on this November's far away, but it's close. And I think to myself, okay, so from now until November, like it's just about nourishing myself and getting myself in the best place possible. What do you say? I'm really excited for you to answer this because I get really sad when I hear of friends who are about to do an egg retrieval or, you know, just to store their eggs because they're single or to have a baby and the doctor has not prepped them at all, like has not had them prep their body. And any, and I don't want to overstep any time, but whenever I hear about this, I'm always like, can you push this back like three months?

31:42Cause it takes three months to get your age quality up. Like, can you take your supplements and drink your bone broth and do acupuncture and visualize a yummy, warm blue? Like it's because you're investing so much money on IVF. It's so hard for so many people to not have that pre-prep seems crazy to me. Yeah. So in the new edition of Yes, You Can Get Pregnant, because I didn't have it in the first edition. I have an entire chapter on IVF. And I talk about the prep time, exactly that, like the process of folliculogenesis. So that's the creation of the eggs that are, that, you know, maybe you're going to ovulate this month.

32:18They started getting recruited a hundred days ago, so about three months. And it's about that recruitment time. It's about the environment in your body impacts their health. So if there's inflammation or nutrient depletions or, you know, imbalanced microbiome, too many pesticides, you know, all of these things gonna impact mitochondrial function, gonna impact egg quality. And so the prep work is really important. And I would also say, like, I have a lot of women that come to me and they're already doing IVF and maybe they're prepping for another cycle. So sometimes, you know, I always try to meet my patients where they're at, but maybe I have a month or two, but that alone can also make a difference.

32:58So not to like, maybe derail the whole plan of like, okay, I can't end these for three months, but like, what about six weeks? Like, can you give me six weeks? It could make a big difference. And your partner too, if you're doing IVF, the sperm health is just so completely overlooked. Like the current semen analysis, and if nobody knows this, you have to hear this. The WHO semen analysis parameters are based on the lower 5 % of all men tested. So meaning like the lowest 5 % parameters are what they consider acceptable ranges. What? Is that crazy pants? And it's only getting worse. Every decade, this is getting worse and worse.

33:39So we're accepting lower and lower limits of sperm, basically. So you have to look at like what I like to call functional ranges, which I mean, you know, dramatically different, like some of the parameters, like total modal sperm count, you know, we should have like 100 million or more. And they're like, oh, you know, 60 to 80 is acceptable. And no one's really doing these. There's new tests, it's called DNA fragmentation test. And it looks, because you can have a normal semen analysis according to the WHO standards, but even according to some functional standards, and you have a high level of oxidative stress in the sperm.

34:12And so, you know, we want that below a 15%. The lower, the better. None of those sperm, you know, they're just going to, they're not going to help make healthy embryos. And the sperm we also know is involved in miscarriage. It's involved in the development of the placenta, right? So thinking about all of these things in preparing for if you're going to do IVF, but a lot of times too, when we step back and we prep, we're doing IVF. I mean, could be, you know, falling pregnant naturally because you're doing all the things that your body needed. But I don't get people accidentally getting pregnant after IVF all the time.

34:48Well, I mean, I would I would guesstimate to say 60 percent of people who do IVF don't need it, you know. Wow. I think it's super useful and brilliant, you know, and some of my older women, like maybe they're having a hard time catching ovulation. Maybe their cycles are irregular. That's it's useful. You know, the right clinic will collect that one or two eggs that they have that they're generating in that cycle, which is a lot lower than, you know, probably someone even at 40. But it can be really useful in a lot of situations, you know, but it's sold as a guarantee and it's far from that. Yeah, I lost my mind when I found out that you could still have an autistic child after doing IVF.

35:31I was like, yeah, because they can't test. no but carmella is is from a genetic mutation it is so but still then you could probe you could there's these called these probes if you do ivf then you're going to do genetic testing and then you create a probe for that specific gene and then you can deselect basically you can find because i have girls with like their caries of cerebral palsy or ms or things like that and so we know that information, that's where IVF is brilliant, honestly, you know, brilliant. Yeah. And we were carriers of her mutation, which is the SCN2A mutation that I obviously would have done IVF a second time.

36:13And she has a 50 % chance of giving it to her children. So, you know, God willing, she has children. Yeah. She'll have to do IVF because we're really lucky she has it on the lower end of the spectrum. but a CN2A can be, you know, at least it's a wheelchair round and they will never talk. And so we live in gratitude for that all the time. But I always think, you know, when you, and I don't blame myself or whatever, but when I think about age quality and no, God did this, you know, this is God. We also have to like, a lot of the time, I was like, this is like God stuff. So we have to leave room for God stuff.

36:53But I think too now - Magic, you call it magic, yeah. About making sure that my egg quality is as high as possible to like, again, like prevent something like that from happening. Not that I would prevent my daughter, but like, you know, she's born into a family that has the means and resources to do everything they can to help her. Most kids aren't that lucky. That's right. That's right. That's right. I mean, and it's a beautiful way to look at it. I commend you for that. But I do think, you know, there are we are carriers of certain things and we can't always diet our way around that, you know.

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41:27We were talking a second ago offline about this, about GLP ones, because things that you just mentioned, like, you know, insulin, which I can't tell you how many times when I, when I do my like health deep dives on Instagram, I'll hear a certain doctor say like insulin is the number one killer. Like if you can prevent these crazy insulin spikes, if you can get your insulin under control, and obviously that's such a PCOS thing. And it really wasn't until I got my insulin, you know, I started wearing a monitor and started working with my functional medicine doctor and got on track. By the way, I never had, sorry to overshare, I never had mucus when I was ovulating in my fucking life until after I had Carmella and I got my PCOS under control.

42:14Yeah. I know what I'm ovulating. And my body's - You weren't recruiting like in a way that like PCOS is just, it's so much congestion on that ovary. You can't really get that dominant one. And that's why you don't always ovulate. And that's also why, you know, then PCOS girls present very estrogen dominant. It's really just because they're progesterone deficient. It's not necessarily. I take progesterone the second two weeks of my cycle. Yeah. And then that should help. Man, that'll help. That'll help. Okay. Talk to me about what GLP-1s can do, because the miracles I am hearing from people that are getting pregnant after IVF, after trying everything.

42:49I even had a friend who, you know, we always associate GLP-1s with just the weight loss, But I have a friend who's trying to get pregnant for a long time and sees this amazing doctor who microdosed her on a GLP and she got pregnant for the first time in 10 years. Yeah. Because so I actually was just and I was telling you this like brain dumping earlier today about it because I was in the clinic yesterday. I actually was like texting a friend on my train home. And I said, you know, I saw 12 patients today and six of them are on GLP ones, more for fertility related reasons, not not weight loss. and I'm fully supportive.

43:26Like literally I was like, and then I felt like I have to like dump this. And because as a holistic practitioner, you would assume, no, I'm going to say supplements. I'm going to say diet. I'm going to say herbs. I will still say all of that. But what the GLP-1 is doing, so technically, right, everybody thinks about it for weight loss. It's really helping with insulin resistance and inflammation and thereby immune signaling. And so most people going on the GLP-1s, you know, hopefully they're getting tested and we know that they full on have insulin resistance. You know, we would assume because of if they're significantly overweight, but not always is everyone, but from a fertility perspective.

44:09So there's this piece of like we've known, like I was saying before, since 2012, at least that one of the bigger research papers came out that most women dealing with unexplained infertility, but even explained infertility like PCOS or endometriosis, which are the two leading causes, have some sort of autoimmune link, right? And then look at insulin resistance, typically linked to autoimmune. PCOS is an autoimmune condition. Endometriosis is not technically, but acts and looks like one and responds well when you treat it like that. They all have the same things in common. Insulin, lack of insulin sensitivity, I'll call it, rather than fogalone insulin resistance, like problems with the immune system and inflammation.

44:49And that's exactly what the GLP-1 is working on at a deeper level. And what I'm seeing and what I'm advising, like I'm full-on advising this with clients, you know, obviously not every fertility doctor out there is using them, but more and more are. And seeing the reasoning for it is you don't need that, like you could probably start at that starting dose and then never leave that or even micro dose. We're not doing it for weight loss. I think that for some, it's a fun added side effect, I suppose, is what I would say. We're really doing it to reduce inflammation and improve efficiency in the body.

45:24It's optimizing mitochondrial function because it's actually helping the cells get what they need now from your already balanced diet, right? Because how many times I see women, one of the conversations I had last night, she's like, Amy, I eat exactly how you tell me to eat. I do all the things. I do all the right movement, all the things. And I'm just getting heavier and heavier. here she's in her mid-40s which is also like so a lot of the women i'm dealing with are perimenopausal i see the glp1 playing a significant role here because it's helping with the insulin sensitivity and and basically from i would say from a chinese medicine perspective or maybe a functional medicine it's helping with nutrient absorption so you're not going to like throw the diet out the window and just take the glp1 and then go get pregnant you're still going to do all the things but guess what now your body's actually going to be able to use it you know fascinating so fascinating so i'm so shocked that this isn't spoken about i think they're it's so funny that the media loves to harp on like all the dangers of a glp1 and i think there are real dangers like i think though if you're not eating a protein-rich diet if you're not moving your body and doing weights right so to me it's like it fits in nicely with the lifestyle plan that we already set up.

46:41If you're doing it and you're losing 30 pounds in a month, that's not that the body, that's a lot. That's like bone density and muscle. Yeah. That's shocking. That's not safe for pregnancy. Do you know what I mean? Like meaning the body's not feeling safe. It's like literally getting completely wiped out. I think you can do it intelligently and you can be checking blood markers like insulin, like leptin, like A1C, H-O-M-A. But what I see, and I wasn't the one pushing it in the beginning. Girls were coming to me and my doctor put me on Zempic or Zepbound. And I'm watching their inflammatory markers just come down.

47:19I'm watching their insulin resistance come down. And they're doing all the things that I want them to do because they're thinking about egg quality. You know what I mean? They're preparing. We're doing all the things. But I guess I would say we're getting there faster and more efficiently. And that there's a lot of the endometriosis doctors out there talking about how much the GLP-1s are helping with inflammation because that's what endo is, a systemic inflammatory condition. It's impacting egg quality. It's impacting implantation. Obviously, a lot of them are suffering in pain as well, but not everyone is.

47:49But there's a strong immune system piece. There's a strong insulin resistance piece and there's a strong inflammatory piece. And the GLP-1 is treating all of that. incredible you don't need a lot that's what i would say i would yeah i would play the really close friend of mine is a big like goes to like biohacking conferences and does all this and she went to one last year and she was shocked by how much they were talking about what it does for fertility just a microdose you know she's like this is not obviously like a full-blown but this is like a little and it just seems like yeah if it can reduce them you know we can help those things because at some point we are up against an environmental war, right?

48:34It's a hard battle. And that's where it's like, this is where it can be miraculous. And I agree of like the micro dosing, like we're talking like, like say it was, is it Zephbound or Trisephbound, I always say it wrong. The starting dose is 2.5. We're talking like 1.25 every like three to four weeks. So you're not going to get the side effects of like decreased appetite or nausea, you know, I mean, some still do, but, but likely you're not, you're, you're more just, you know, it's almost, I would just look at it as like, it's a peptide that is FDA approved and is having some really interesting, amazing benefits.

49:11I just met with a guy who only does peptides and we're considering getting Carmella on some peptides. They can't hurt you. And when I started doing things, by the way, I always forget that I want to tell you about fatty 15 is an incredible supplement that helps with mitochondrial function and they just made gummies. So I give those to her. I love that. But, you know, she gets a B12 injection every three days anyway. So I'm like, I'm used to injecting her, you know, I just pinch her butt. I distract her. She doesn't even know. But you know, when I do things like, I love NAD and when I started taking NMM and doing NAD, me, like all of a sudden I was like, wow, like I feel incredible.

49:56And I just feel like I'm in a good mood and I feel like I could take over the world and I just have so much energy. I'm usually just exhausted and so tired. And right away, I thought to myself, like, I have to do this for Carmilla. Like, because when you look at her blood, she has no cellular turnover. And I look at her face and you can see she has like dark circles, but you can see that she's just tired. Like, you know, her body's not functioning how it's fucking supposed to. So in my head, I'm like, well, if we see what the lack, what the symptoms are, you know, of the mitochondrial function and her, you know, synapses, I communicate all these things.

50:30I was like, we have, this seems like a peptide situation, you know, and stem cells and other things. Of course, we, you know, she eats really plain. She takes lucavorin because you can see that she has no ability to absorb folate, like all these things. And so, yeah, I'm just, I'm excited for, to be alive during this time to see all the interesting things that we can do for our body. Well, and that's, I mean, I think about that too, from a fertility perspective, right? Like having been in this space for so long, like it's, I do, I do, you know, and I know there'll be like backlash in the sense of like a more natural person talking about this, but like, of course I see the benefits of lifestyle and, and all the things that are in our control that are non-medications.

51:11But, but also like if you had come to me years ago when you were trying for Carmela, you know, know, I probably would have been like, we should try metformin. It's going to help. It's going to help regulate things. You know, I think integration is where it's at. And it's, it's, you can do it in a way that's really smart and safe, educated, you know? And, and so I agree. It's like seeing all of these new technologies. I mean, also in the book, I have a whole new chapter on ovarian rejuvenation and stem cells. I did it with Dr. Murphy. He's a reproductive endocrinologist that this is all focus is so cool.

51:45I mean, he's doing stem cell treatments in the Bahamas because they're not legal here in the US or FDA approved. You know, he's women are in menopause and their ovaries are coming back online. Like literally they're starting to like recruit follicles again from stem cell injections into the ovaries. Wow. They're doing it in Spain there. You know, it's like there's Abu Dhabi, there's clinics popping up everywhere. Women are traveling now to the world feels small with social media. So people are traveling. They're doing these mitochondrial transplants. So they're literally, you don't need donor eggs.

52:16You still have to buy a donor egg, right? You take her mitochondria and you put it in your older egg, take out yours. So now you have the mitochondria of a 25-year-old in your biology. I've never heard of that. That's unbelievable. MRT, Mitochondrial Replacement Therapy. It's going to be like, you know, it'll be the new way of doing donor, basically, because you're still going to need that young mitochondria, right? You still have to borrow that from somewhere. Maybe at some point they'll be able to be created in a lab. But I agree with you. Like, I feel so lucky to be living at this time. And I think it's cool.

52:50I mean, like everything, I think the GLP-1s will be abused and wrongfully prescribed and just mimic another, you know, sort of dysmorphia or eating disorder type of figure. The funniest TikTok yesterday about this. Where this girl is in medical school and she had AI give her a test. And one of the questions on the test was, you have a patient and she is clinically thin, not anywhere near being OB. She says she wants a GLP so she can get to her goal weight for her wedding. What do you do? And she filmed it and she's sitting there going, oh, and like all the comments were so funny. It was like girl code.

53:34Like it was like, and it was like, we have more important questions. Like how far away? Like, you know, has she fit the dress yet? Does the dress fit? And I was like, I love that this has become like such a cultural phenomenon. It feels easy. It feels easy for people. But when I have patients ask me about it, you know, because I think there still is this, you know, maybe shame around it. You know, there's the stigma. I like to just talk about like exactly what we talked about. Like, I think you could do a lower dose. I think we should look at markers first and then look at them again. We should be able to decide then when you can stop.

54:06And I mean, that is a concern of like going off. What is that? What happens when you go off? I know. Yeah. What are some things that all of our girls listening to this should be doing on a daily basis? And I especially would love to get into like supplements. Yeah. Supplements on a daily basis. I mean, I always say like my core four, this is how I look at it. Something with good quality methylfolate. So that could be a prenatal. That could also just be straight up methylfolate. You know, depending on the person, at least 1 ,000 to 1 ,600 MCGs. Just depends on MTHFR mutations, other things going on.

54:47A good quality choline. There's a lot of prenatals out there that have both, so you could do that. Then a good quality fish oil. I'm still forever... That was really low. This lab really low. Oh, yeah. I'm still a huge fan of cod liver oil over any other fish oil because of the vitamin A and D that's naturally occurring in it. Okay. but you want you want like 2 000 milligrams of a good quality is there a brand that you left for so for regular fish so like so i'll do green pastures cod liver oil it is fermented i have to be careful with some of my histamine girls or autoimmune girls rosita cod liver oil is not fermented that's a good one and then yeah i i'm still a thorn girl i know they were purchased but they still have their formulations the same right now and i do their thorn super super epa two to three per day.

55:36Not the Super EPA Pro that has an additional oil in there that I don't like, just the Super EPA. There's great companies out there like Theralogix, Designs for Health, you know, there's still some really good ones. And then a good quality probiotic. And I kind of like to alternate like a gut health probiotic with then a vaginal health probiotic because there's so much more that we know about the uterine microbiome and how that's impacting fertility and implantation. Designs for Health is one of my favorites. They have a Talk to me about all this is like on a monthly basis or a daily basis. Daily basis.

56:09Yeah, daily. Every day we'll do. You can do both. But there's very specific strains for the uterus. Exactly. And the vaginal area. Lactobacillus is all it wants down there. And the gut wants a whole different variety of strains. So you can alternate. Vitamin D if you need it. And then if we're talking about egg quality, which most of us are, you know, some sort of powerful antioxidant. I'm a huge fan of the NMNs. I'm a huge fan of, obviously, CoQ10 is probably one of the most researched. NAC, glutathione. But I don't think, and I talk about this in the book too, like you can stack them. By that, I mean like you can alternate.

56:46I don't think you need like four antioxidants every single day. I think it's a lot. It could be a roll into the system. You always have to think about food first. Like you should, your plate should be full of antioxidants too, right? So, but that's kind of where I sit supplement wise. But those are the good basics. And then obviously it's individualized depending on that. Like, is she PCOS or insulin resistance? Do we need my own inositol? Is she endometriosis? Do we need more NAC? How old is she? How young is she? You know, that kind of stuff. Autoimmunity. I love low-dust naltrexone for any of my autoimmune girls.

57:18Not technically a supplement, but kind of, sort of. I love serrapeptases. Those are like proteolytic enzymes. So they're really good anti-inflammatories. Cooking with turmeric, you know, So things like that to really make sure, like I always say like your lifestyle should be anti-inflammatory though. So that's where we're kind of already fighting it and minimizing our exposures. And then the supplements are secondary to that to really support. How much protein do you have? You can't help a poor diet or a poor mindset. That's another thing I like to say. Oh, what much protein do you think we should be getting?

57:52Again, it's individualized, but I like to say between 80 and 100 when I'm generally speaking, 80 to 100 grams of protein a day, six to eight servings vegetables. And then, yeah, you need carbs. A lot of your veggies have carbs, but I also like to say a sweet potato and an avocado every day. Yeah, I've been adding a lot of sweet potato, regular potatoes. I've been adding a lot of beans to my diet. Yeah, beans are great. If you can digest them, they're so great. Fiber is another piece that's just not talked about enough. I mean, avocado is a great source of fiber. Chia seeds, great source of fiber.

58:29and there's so many in the book. I have like a whole fiber cheat sheet, but you should be aiming for like 25 grams of fiber today. That really helps with, talk about like helping with insulin resistance, but like detoxification, getting out what you don't need and keeping what you do. And fiber, I think is so under-recognized in the space of fertility because everybody's thinking about like what, you know, adding, adding, adding. We're not thinking about like, well, you have to really support the detox pathways though because otherwise we're just gummed up with inflammation, right?

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1:03:02for any of our girls who are you know feeling lost having these you know having one or multiple I mean I've obviously had miscarriages but you know what should at what point you know so many of these doctors are just going to say like, oh, keep trying or, you know, it's your egg quality or this or that, you know, what should we really be? What's like the next step? I'm special. I need more testing, you know, so like the deeper dive on the blood work, like we were talking, the, you know, if I had someone to like leave their doctor at this point and go find somebody who's going to, yeah, this is the time where it's like, we need like somebody needs.

1:03:46I always just say you need a second opinion. You need at least one other person that maybe is going to tell you something different because it is enough and it's enough of like statistically it's impossible that three miscarriages are all egg quality it's impossible maybe maybe one most likely one maybe two definitely not all three you know and so have they looked at sperm have they looked at your uterus have they run blood work on you what's your thyroid doing what's your progesterone doing and then then there is like diving deeper into immunology you know there's there's a lot that we can look at.

1:04:18There's a lot we can treat naturally too with, with all of the changes. Cause it's like, like you said it earlier, like it's a constant assault from our environment, like just constant. And so, and we see that endocrine disrupting chemicals are a huge trigger to the immune system. So a lot of the things that we're going to, that I recommend to everyone across the board are going to help that person. But I also, you know, having been there myself too, I just think one miscarriage is one miscarriage too many, you know? So I, I am, I'm pretty Western in my pushing of like, these are the tests. You know, I'm a big fan of, there's tests called Pregmune, it's a reproductive immunology panel, Fertilocyst, the uterine microbiome company, they also have a good panel.

1:04:59We're looking at things like natural killer cells and cytokines and, you know, it's big. I cover it in detail in the book and I kind of give you a whole map of what to do with miscarriages or even repeat implantation failure. That's another big one where I think a lot of these girls are just not implanting and why? So I always say it's like fertility is not just about the egg. And maybe it starts with the egg, but I'm not even really buying that. It's egg, it's sperm, it's uterus, and it's immune system. And most people don't look at uterus or immune system. I know. I never hear people talking about that when it comes to it, ever.

1:05:34Just to close the circle, and it was some joy, my best friend who now hosts miscarriage grief circles around this had three miscarriages and now has a multiplying year old. I said this to a client last night. I might cry telling this story. It is, you know, I think an eight year journey. She herself is a physician. Her husband's a physician. And as I tell you, they looked like under every freaking rock, you know. And we did some really good work together and we looked at the immunology piece because it was this thing of like, but why have you never once been pregnant? Like no IVF transfers ever worked.

1:06:08You've never gotten pregnant naturally. She can make embryos in a lab. Anyway, she is now currently 12 weeks pregnant, healthily, and she has a surrogate pregnant 20 weeks with a 45-year-old day three untested embryo. And so I said to her last night, I said, because I hadn't seen her. Wait, how old? She's 40. No, the 45-year-old untested embryo. So the surrogate is like in her 30s, but we transferred in. a 45-year-old untested day three embryo, which in the world of fertility, like most doctors would like laugh at that. And they'd be like, that'll never make a baby. That'll never make a baby. And she was so validated because she was like, that's, she's like, that's your baby.

1:06:54That's, that's the equality diet. That's the, you know, that's, and she did some ovarian PRP and things like that. But I said to her last night, I said, now, you know, now, you know why I get to be hopeful because it's like cases like yours. Like it's like, yeah, it was it perseverance and a lot of resources and energy, but she did it. And I don't know, that's where I'll always remain in my hopeful corner that it's figureoutable. I do believe it's figureoutable. Amy, thank you so much for taking the time and coming to the podcast. I'm such a fan of yours. We are all, we see so emotional. I'm so sad for everybody that like, well, because you hear so many stories.

1:07:35So I mean, I see it all the time where these girls are like, I'm scared to even try. like what do I do like I'm you know and and I can't believe that it's just gone and now there's this whole trend of people saying that it's irresponsible to have children I'm just like we are a little bit and we just need to be you know hear more positivity and more solutions from people like you that's it and and there are solutions and I do also like I don't know I would just say I don't believe that there's anything that's unexplained and I and I do believe yeah you just to have that calling and that desire.

1:08:09Like, you know, these children want to come through. And so it's just getting into the right alignment to receive them. We got so many questions. I was like, we need to spend time on this. It makes me sad because everyone's so lost. I know, it breaks my heart. So one of the biggest questions is always around birth control. Yeah. It was two of the same questions. One of them being, is there anything you suggest for somebody who is going off birth control, who wants to be pregnant, who's been on birth control for a really long time. I think the plan is to get off it like at least three to six months before you want to start to try to conceive and focus on, you know, rebuilding, repleting from the nutrient deficiencies that the pill causes, which is usually all your B vitamins, your zinc, your selenium, vitamin D.

1:09:05I would also strongly urge, do not check your ovarian reserve markers when you first go off the pill because they are going to be in the tank. And because the ovaries, it can take six to nine months for the ovaries to restore their normal ovulation function after going off the pill. So I would still though, like, you know, probably follow like the basic framework of what I have laid out in the book or just like the basic framework of like a nutrient intense diet, going on toxic with all the things like doing all that. And that'll help your body get back on track. You really want to support the liver and its detox pathways.

1:09:40So I love, you know, the cruciferous vegetables, broccoli sprouts, dandelion greens, turmeric, ginger, garlic, lemon, all that kind of stuff. Do you ever suggest, I feel like I heard this from you years ago, like beef liver supplement? Totally. I love liver. I recommend it a lot. Yeah. I realized, I think when you said supplements and I said my core four, I think I forgot organ meats yesterday. You did. You did. And I and it hit me, too. I was like, oh, man, I bet that happened. OK, there's no. You are. Yes. Organ meats. Is that the way everybody should just be taking? I consider it like nature's be complex.

1:10:17So, yeah, I'm into it. I'm also into like all the organs now. Like if you want to work on your ovaries, take some ovary. I love that female enhancement blend by Ancestral. I also have a supplement line now. We have Reduva eggs, which is really good for egg quality. And it has ovary and liver in there. And then it has like NEC and CoQ10 and like all the good stuff that the eggs love. It's like a multi for the eggs. What do you recommend for birth control in between kids? I mean... We're a pull-out method over here. Yeah, I'm a pull-outer. Yeah, I would say pull-out. No, I just think it's, you know, because then you also like, but do it in a smart way, like really track your cycle.

1:10:58Know when you're most fertile. Like it's such a great way for you to understand your cycle before you start trying. Right. Yeah. The fertility awareness method is great. It's smart. You know, follow Lisa Hendrickson, Jack. She's brilliant. I remember my mom explaining that to me when I was thinking, all the husbands, whenever I was trying to get pregnant, they were like, do you know that sometimes they cannot even get pregnant? like we're never like and now for the first time we're like we're trying to get these people pregnant i've been avoiding this my whole life it was so funny idiot okay someone said and we got a few of these that they've been on birth control for 16 years went off of it haven't gotten period in a year and a half i mean again i'd be looking at like nutrient depletions you know i'd be doing all the things i say to do but i mean you should get a full workup i can also So share in the notes, like it's in the book, but to like, I have my fertility lab test panel, you know, that covers everything, like your whole thyroid, the vitamin D, your homocysteine, CRP, all of that to like really get an assessment of what's going on.

1:12:02Acupuncture, like I know I'm an acupuncturist, but like hands down, best thing to help restore a cycle. Acupuncture, Chinese herbs, casserole packs, like all the nervous system. Also like after the pill too, to help with liver detox, do it over the liver is another great way. I love this because I we've obviously talked so much about it on the podcast, but I I feel like this is a good way to tell me how to chill the fuck out and trust that I'll get pregnant at 37. And, you know, that was the title of my first book, right? But I sold the book as it being entitled Chill the Fuck Out and Choose Health Now.

1:12:35And I remember the publishers back then were like, we could never publish that. Not everybody. I'm like, I was so ahead of the curve. How do I chill the fuck out? I mean, it's hard. I'm going to be honest, you want it and it's hard, you know? So like, you know, Bea, you were in it, like it's hard. You just, I think this is where I get spiritual too of like, listen, this is also a child deciding to come through into, you know, your family, your home and, and they have their own timeline. So like the best thing you can do is just be prepared to receive when they're ready. And I know that sounds like hokey, but to me, it's like, that's all you can do.

1:13:11And then also just choose, choose it for you to like meeting the lifestyle and the choices. It's like, I'm going to do this for me, for my health, for my vitality. I flipped it for me with Carlo. I was like, I'm just going to get really yummy. I'm just going to eat all the yummy things. I'm like, my body's so yummy. All my supplements. I just felt like I just pictured myself as like, almost like this, like greasy because I have such good fats. I was just like, I'm a, I'm like a lubed up shiny vessel. Uh-huh. And like, and like have fun with that too. Of like, I always would say, I always tell my girls like, like when you're going through your day and like enjoying it, like say to them, like, look how fun it is down here.

1:13:51Come and join me. You know, like come and join. Like when you're like, cuddling and I don't know, it's just like trust. It's hard, but trust. I mean, obviously be educated and, and, you know, I think get the proper work up if it's taking too long, but trust. The stress kind of like, oh, I have to take this supplement. Oh, I have to do this where you're like, oh, I get to take this thing. That's going to make me feel so good. Yeah, think about your hair. Think about your skin. Think about your nails. Think about your sex drive. Like, think about like all of that. And just like, like I call it in, in yes, you can get pregnant, like your self-love health mission versus I have to do these things for baby, which is hard.

1:14:25Next steps for two years of unexplained infertility has been cleared an ultrasound to normal. I mean, so many questions. What are your labs? Have you looked at labs? Have you looked at insulin resistance? Have you looked at inflammatory markers? Have you ruled out autoimmune diseases? Have you ruled out endometriosis? Has your uterus been looked at beyond an ultrasound, like a hysteroscopy? Yeah, hysteroscopy is different than like a saline auto, which is kind of like the uterine ultrasound. Hysteroscopy, you know, most times you're going under anesthesia and it's an operation, but really it's a camera up into your uterus.

1:14:58And then they take a biopsy, they make sure there's no infections, they'll look for any structural issues. But like two years not getting pregnant, like to me, I'm like, okay, why? why are either egg and sperm not meeting or why are they not implanting? So that's about like, either there's a structural blockage, you know, I'm assuming she did an HSG if she had an ultrasound, so her tubes are probably open. Semen analysis, like, did they do a DNA fragmentation? Is it a basic semen analysis? What's it comparison to like a functional level, which I break down in the book, I compare the WHO standards of what like functional semen analysis should look like.

1:15:30And then I would, I would just do all the things to like maximize health, but I'd probably also, you know, you know, I was going to say like get a 3D sauna. They're like popping up. There's one, there's one woman in LA and we have a guy here in New York. It can see if there's adenomyosis in the uterus. It can see if there's endometriosis. Like it's like the wave of the future, you know, for sure. But yeah, there's, there's something going on. And so it requires deeper investigation. So like, are your cycles regular? Are you seeing cervical mucus? Like there's so much more. I would basically, again, drive you to the book and do that like that.

1:16:04That's pillar number two, where it's like those four sections where we're getting back to nature, doing the diet, the lifestyle, endocrine disrupting chemicals, the mindset stuff. I would like focus on that and then get some deeper investigative labs at minimum. When, this is a question for you, you know, because when you start to feel all these challenges and it's taking forever and then you're like, oh, I think I need to do like IVF or a fertility doctor next. when someone is choosing this like next step doctor, because it's clearly not working just with their OB, what should they look for to make sure that they're not going to have the same experience that like I had where I went to essentially like a car salesman for Ebbia?

1:16:44I started a recommended practitioner's page on my website. And like, I literally have collected names like from all my girls that have good experiences and like adding them. So we could share that in the show notes. Just remind me and I'll give it to you. ask your friends. I also always say like, try to approach those meetings less like, and I think you could probably relate, like less like this is like a desperate moment for you and more like an interview process of like, are you the right fit for me? So I understand, like, I always tell my girls, like walk in and dress the elephant in the room.

1:17:18I understand my age. I understand my odds. Like I understand where I'm at. I'm just trying to see if we're the right fit. you know, this is what I'm thinking. I'm not ready for IVF. What about IUI? Like, you know, how do you approach this? You know, who's the oldest woman you've helped get pregnant? You know, interview them, honestly. How does perimenopause impact fertility and find a conclusion? I mean, I think that's half my job, especially with women in their 40s, is I'm basically maximizing fertility or maximizing hormones through perimenopause. You know, in perimenopause, first of all, I always like to remind everyone, it's about a 10-year period.

1:17:53it's not like you wake up tomorrow and your periods are gone and that's it you're done so and where periods start to get abnormal but even in an abnormal time frame you know a lot of women are still ovulating at least six months out of the year but a lot are ovulating 10 to 11 months out of the year so it's really about catching ovulation knowing continuing to know your cycle and continue to do all the things to support your cycle I think the big things that happen in our 40s is like, we just can't get away with it the same way we could anymore. Like, you can't skip on your sleep. You cannot fast.

1:18:28You cannot overexercise. Like, we, the hormones, it's a fragile state. It's a fragile time. Like one of my girls, we were just talking yesterday and, you know, she's got a lot of stress running a household and doing all the things. She has a staff of her household and it's a lot. But she wants a third child and she's in her mid late forties. And it's like, you know, she has to, I almost think she has to make choices because she's spread too thin. And I'm like, fertility is not a priority for your body right now. So you have to tell it. It's a priority. You literally have to make it the priority.

1:19:00We like did math. I was like, okay, what's a mother's helper? Like for eight hours a month. Like literally, that's what I was doing. We were like sitting there. That was our coaching call. So she could present it to her husband and like, this is what I need. Cause this is my priority. I think you have to be strategic. I do. I love that. I totally think it's doable. Yeah. It's funny. And that's where we go back to our microdosing GLP-1 conversation that we had in the podcast. Yeah. Every one of my girls above the age of 45, I shouldn't say everyone, but like I will guess by the end of 2026, most all of them will be microdosing GLP-1s to maximize fertility outcomes.

1:19:35And that could probably just help with perimenopause in general, right? 100%. Yeah. They do it. It changed the game. Yeah. Changed the game. It's like every woman that's like a little bit older than me is like, gain this weight from perimenopause, doing this from perimenopause. It's like I have, I like, I had to wear the CGM and I could just basically eat like beef and broccoli without spiking. It was like miserable. And I just was getting bigger. And I mean, whatever. And, but my metabolic markers were off. Like that was the thing for me. And then it was, you know, I did a very educated way. Like we talked and yeah, big fan.

1:20:08do parasites affect driving low iron information which like and then can impact fertility was this question so do you think like i'll say low iron for sure impacts fertility outcomes high iron to excess iron you really got to pay attention to the iron and ferritin piece iron when it's high we know there's it's like an it's like gasoline on a fire you know so super inflammatory i also have been running stool tests on patients for probably five years at this point. And we're talking, you know, hundreds of patients, I would say, or at least 200, 300. I think we see parasites 5 % of the time. You know, I know there's like talk out there about this parasite killing your fertility so much and then take oregano oil and do all these like harsh antimicrobials, which, by the way, dry you out really could impact your estrogen in a negative way, especially if you're in your like mid to late forties.

1:21:06I'm so cautious with them because they're so drying. I'm an herbalist too, right? So it's like, I'm always thinking about that. Like I want to keep you kind of what you were saying with Carla, like I want you juicy, like juicy, juicy, juicy. So test, don't guess, don't do some parasite cleanse just because someone told you they think you have a parasite. You go and you get the test and you know for sure. H. pylori is a serious issue and that will cause iron deficiency anemia. We see that in so many of our cases and we are constantly treating it and it changes the game like that I take seriously the microbiome I take very seriously but these this parasite conversation it's just it's a lot for me that is very good to know does Adderall affect fertility and and this person is saying like kind of within the context of like spiking cortisol yeah I can't you know it's like we have a lot of girls that come and they're long-term Adderall users for the right reasons.

1:22:03They have ADHD and they need it. And I get that. We try to cut back. We do. Because also the goal is you really shouldn't be on it in pregnancy. So I try to approach it like that. Like what is it going to look like when we do get pregnant? It's hard to just cold turkey it. So what are, you know, and I always say like, I mean, I have ADHD for certain, like, so totally get it and I'm not minimizing it, but there's so many factors that come into play. Like what's your sleep like? How much are you eating? How much are you moving? Like nutrient deficiencies. What can we do to actually help with, you know, regulating your nervous system, getting you to have more focus?

1:22:42And, you know, so I think it's a symptom of a bigger problem. And there's a lot of correlation between ADHD and endometriosis, like very strong. I forget what the percentage is, but high. Wow. You know, creatine has helped me with my ADHD. Yeah, I agree. Significantly. Yeah. And magnesium. I mean, it's like my jam. Like I love it. I cannot skip meals. I cannot. I just cannot. Yeah. What kind of magnesium do you taste? I do glycinate, but then I also do the magnesium oil that I make and it's like dead sea salt, you know, in distilled water. So I spray my abdomen like 10 sprays and then I take like I put it on my feet.

1:23:22You can put it on your feet. I find it makes my feet dry and itchy and I don't like that. Yeah, great. I do it to Carmela too. Yeah, I spray my son every night for bed. Yeah, it's okay for them for night time. This is someone I know. Oh, it makes me so sad. Thyroid support, causing inflammation, affecting fertility, without meds, Hashimoto's. These questions are jumbled because they can't say a lot. But this goes back to you just talking about the importance of managing an autoimmune. Yeah, and Hashimoto's, I think it's like upwards of 30 % of women with unexplained infertility have Hashis. And then like others have celiac.

1:24:02I mean, it's just, and then non-celiac gluten intolerance, but Hashis, I do usually approach it of like, I do think you have to treat gluten, dairy, and soy like an allergy. That's my truth about Hashis. It's hard to hear. It's hard to say. I feel bad saying it. But if I had Hashis, I wouldn't like hearing that. In autoimmune feeds inflammation, I think this is where you look at the microbiome pretty deeply. You do also like Chinese medicine or just Amy medicine, you also have to look at that emotional inflammation piece of like, where are you attacking you? I talk about that a lot in body belief of just like this kind of core self-love piece is important, but it's manageable.

1:24:41And I would also love, I always love to point out, like I've had girls with antibodies in like the thousands and they have healthy pregnancies, like it's doable. You might want to look into though, are there any immunological reasons that are preventing pregnancy or causing miscarriage? And that's where like, and I talk about that a lot in the book, but that's like a reproductive immunology workout. There's also a protocol. It's been around for a long time. It's called the antihistamine protocol. It was started by a doctor, Schoolcraft, CCRM in Colorado, the original CCRM. And it's like taking the baby aspirin, antihistamine like a Zyrtec and like a Pepsid.

1:25:18And it's, and sometimes a steroid depending on immune markers, you have to get that prescribed, but you don't take it all cycle long. You only take it in the two week wait or upon a positive pregnancy test. A lot of doctors use it as like their first line of defense in, and Schoolcraft would use it for his Hashimoto girls. And that's where I first was like, you know, found out about it and probably 15 years ago. Low dose naltrexone is another one of my favorites for any of my autoimmune girls. That helps a lot. And you got to work on the nervous system piece. You know, it's hard. How do you know if you're having a histamine response?

1:25:54I mean, you know, kind of like obvious symptoms, sneezing, itchy, you know, runny eyes. Like, but also I always think about like rashes. Like it's one of my questions in my intake. Like, do you get like random rashes? Or if girls have had repeat losses, I'll ask them always, Did you get like flu-like symptoms or a rash or hives when you were first pregnant? And the amount of times that they're like, I did. And I brought up to my doctor and they said it was, it's like, no, that's an immune reaction. You are clearly having like maybe mast cell activation syndrome, histamines. Histamines are a big problem.

1:26:29And I think, you know, there's like a SIBO overlap. Like it gets all complicated, but yeah, you know, you're sneezy, itchy, irritated. I have a whole section. Yeah, I put it in this book. It was in my book, Egg Quality Diet, where I talk about histamines. You've got to watch like your fermented foods. Your proteins have to be like frozen. You cook, you eat what you are going to eat for that meal. You freeze the rest. You do not eat leftovers. Leftovers are the worst for histamines. And there's some good products out there too, like Seeking Health has like a histamine probiotic. It's hard to avoid.

1:27:00You can't avoid their in everything, but you can minimize and you can work and you have to support like your DAO enzyme. It's a little complicated. But the ferments, I find when I'm full fermented foods, it makes a huge difference. And most people are eating ferments because they want for the good bacteria. And bone broth has a lot of histones in there. Yeah. So same thing. I always say to my girls, like, you know, those super cubes. I love those. They're like these long, like big, they look like a big ice cube tray, but they're silicon. You make your broth, you pour it into those and you pop them out and they have like eight ounce, four ounce ones.

1:27:31So your broth just has to be fresh made and you make it fast. You make it like the instant pot. You do like a slow cook, like a two hour bone broth instead of that long cook one. The long cook has a lot of histamines. The slow cook, you leave out onions and garlic and then you let it cool to room temperature and freeze what you're not going to eat. And you thaw for the one you're eating that day and everything else is frozen. It's the only way to manage the histamines with the broth. And then some people just straight up can't do it. I know. I was wondering if I drink too much bone broth and I was wondering if it was affecting me.

1:28:00And then I did have a, I had to go to the emergency room. I had a horrible histamine response to the glow peptide I was taking. I know I'm the only one that's hurt. I mean, nobody else's, but I got, my dog bit me. And so, you know, I had this big fat scar on my nose. And then I kept seeing everyone taking the glow peptide. And I was like, oh, I should take it to help me heal. And every time I would inject, but I was stacking with like NAD. And every time I would inject, I was like, oh, maybe this is just an NAD reaction. Because you know, the NAD can make it burn. My hands were itchy. And then I started getting hibes.

1:28:33And then I had a pain in my stomach that had me collapsing on the floor because the histamines can go into your, my doctor told me that it can go into like your GI tract. It looks like your biggest hole. So I couldn't stand up. My mom had to call 911. Is that like the BPC-157, the glow peptide? What is it? Yeah. Yeah. My doctor said the copper in there can really help like a negative. Oh, yeah. I could see that. I could see that. So that's the same thing too with some girls with organ meats because if they have like a copper sensitivity, you'll see that in organ meats. too because they're high in copper.

1:29:04You should be careful with that. You'll see a histamine response. I had one girl, yeah, she gets like migraines the second she takes an orgymine and it's like, it's a histamine thing. Like at some point, she probably will be able to take it. We have to like work on lowering, you know, there's, again, it's like a symptom. It's not a, you know, like there's a, there's a deeper cause to it. Okay. Last one. Is there, this is like so complicated because I know this is good. It's not just one quick answer, but it says, you know, possible reasons for multiple chemical pregnancies. I mean, I would think about sperm health.

1:29:36I would think about uterine health. I would rule out chronic endometritis, which is the uterine lining infection, not endometriosis, chronic endometritis. So that requires an endometrial biopsy. I would rule out clotting factors. I have a whole miscarriage panel. I talk about it in the book too, but you could just go to like amyrock.com slash miscarriage and there's a whole panel in there. Yeah. And then you want to think about too, of course, egg quality, which I'm sure is probably the primary focus for this person at this point in time. But, you know, I think about insulin resistance in a case like this too.

1:30:08You see a lot of multiple chemicals and polycystic style girls, because it's like, I always think about it, like there's so many eggs trying to grow on the ovary and mature and it like they take the nutrients from each other, you know, they're kind of like competing. So they're not all, they're not getting all the goods, you know? And so then that egg is the one that implants. It just doesn't, it's like mitochondrial collapse. It just doesn't have the energy to sustain it. But multiple chemicals, yeah, requires, I think, like a uterine inspection. Again, I would do like the full panel, just rule out everything.

1:30:43But you could try also adding a baby aspirin in your luteal phase. It might make all the difference. It's in blood and helps with implantation. It can be, yeah. Wow, that's incredible. I want to squeeze in one last one because this pertains to me and all of my girlfriends. Heavy, heavy, like a, so very quick period, very heavy two days with clotting.

1:31:10Yeah, so I mean, I go Chinese lesson first on that because it's just my training. Like a two-day bleed, like if there's a little light on day one and then two and three are heavy and then a little bit on day four, that's kind of normal. Like, you know, that's a pretty good flow. The clotting and almost like the gushing piece, that's the part that's like, okay, there's some sort of either heat or stagnation. I am gushing, but like tampon and bleeding through my jeans crazy. So, I mean, again, as an acupuncturist herbalist, to me, like the first place I'd go, and I can do this for you, is get on some Chinese herbs to regulate that.

1:31:50You know, I love some of my classic formulas for invigorating blood flow, castor oil packs. You know, I would probably even think about things like my abdominal massage or rego massage, which really helps.

1:32:03Aimee Raupp:You really got to warm the uterus and then think about why is the stagnation there? And then bigger picture. Yeah, I think about things like endometriosis or adenomyosis. But again, like it doesn't mean that we have to go and have a laparoscopic surgery for endo or something like that. just more like the diagnosis sometimes helps. Sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it makes us crazy, but off and on. But now I feel like all my girlfriends my age are having the same thing where they're having. Yeah. So it's some sort of, you know, heavy drop off in the hormones, you know? And so for you too, it's like, I know you're taking the progesterone.

1:32:37You would consider that too of like, when you stop that progesterone, that might cause the lining to just shed very quickly. Whereas you might want to maybe then if you're not trying to conceive, maybe you stop it a few days, maybe only take it for 10 days and let you'll face it all 14. See if that makes a difference. Cause you know, and then, you know, we look at things like estrogen dominance. I would do stuff like to help support the liver detox pathways. Like I was saying about the cruciferous vegetables, ginger, turmeric. Yeah. I mean, I always go to Chinese herbs for this though. Like Like Taohong Suutong is like my favorite formula for this.

1:33:11It usually works. Cool. You know. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You're welcome. You're welcome. Thank you so much. Thank you. I'm going to link so much of this because the fact that you have so many recommended doctors and I didn't realize you have like a miscarriage tab, like, oh my God. Unbelievable. No, a lot has changed. You know, the busier I get, the more I see. And I love creating little PDFs. It's just easy. You know, I'm just like, go to the miscarriage panel. Do that. Download it. told you doctor so yeah email me and i'll send you all the links and then are you in new york i do i have a clinic in the city still i just go in once a month though now now i live in connecticut well when it would be weston connecticut right near westport it's beautiful though it's country like i look out like i don't see another house you know i love that i don't share walls with anybody anymore my vision board is connecticut connecticut congratulations on the book thank you when does it come out march 28th amazing i'm like pre-order right now So you should have it.

1:34:10I sent it to you. I just sent it late. So I think you'll get it in like a day or two. Yeah, I will look to the PDF, obviously. Okay, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

1:34:24And that, ladies and gentlemen, concludes this week's episode of Everything is the Best. I hope you enjoyed it. Please rate, review, subscribe, all that stuff. Maybe leave a comment. Go ahead and follow me on Instagram at Pia Barancini. and I hope you have a fabulous, fabulous rest of your day. Love you. Ciao.

1:34:51Aimee Raupp:Please note that this episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services. Individuals on the show may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to in this episode.

From the publisher

Aimee Raupp is a women's health and fertility expert, licensed acupuncturist, and bestselling author of Yes, You Can Get Pregnant and she is one of my all-time favorite guests to have on this show. Every time I talk to Aimee I leave feeling like I can take on the world, and this conversation was no different.

In a moment when one in six women worldwide are dealing with fertility challenges, a number that has only grown, having the right information in your corner is everything. Aimee's whole philosophy is about shifting the narrative: from infertility-focused to fertility-focused, and from doubt to belief in your body's innate power to heal and conceive. She covers everything from egg quality and hormones to the emotional and psychological components of fertility that most providers completely overlook.

This is the episode to send to anyone in their TTC journey who feels dismissed, overwhelmed, or like time is running out. Aimee is the breath of fresh air and the confidence boost we all need. Follow her, you will not regret it.


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