“You’re old, you’ll probably miscarry”: What’s really causing infertility? With Liberty Mills

0:00Hello, I'm Fern Cotton and this is Happy Place, the show that supports you through rough moments in life. Today I'm chatting to Liberty Mills I know that when I went through my fertility journey I didn't tell anyone until I was 24 weeks Because, oh you're old, you're probably miscarrying And so I had that in my head I couldn't even celebrate when I got the pregnancy test Oh, well you know, better not get too excited Change your mindset It's not, this is it Even though I was told this is it I had to tell myself no there's a possibility it's not it. I'm excited about today's chat what I want to say before I even get into this is if you're not on a fertility journey you might have already decided you don't want kids or you've got kids and you're fine with it I really urge you to listen to this chat because it goes way beyond fertility this chat goes into lots of different subjects that I'll talk about more properly in a moment but certainly about you know the toxins in our house and how we can clean up our act there and just feel generally better.

1:06But the bit that always really obviously piques my interest is when we're looking at mental health. And we talk a lot in this chat about negative self-talk. And if you're anything like me, and I know many of you are, you will have a lot of negative chat in your noodle. I talk to myself like utter shit a lot of the time. And I know I do it and I hate it. Even though I've been doing this podcast for seven years and I've written a load of books on it, I still do it all the time. and I know that it really messes up my day sometimes. It can completely change the mood and tone of a day and all of these things are fixable.

1:41You know, certainly when it comes to negative self-talk, we've got so much more autonomy over all of it than we think we have. So this chat got me thinking a lot about that and I'm going to do one of the exercises that Liberty, who I talked to today, suggests. I'm going to do it within the next hour. When I get home, I'm getting out a notepad and I'm writing this shit down because this is something that I think stops all of us in our tracks. So as I said, if you're not bothered about hearing about the fertility stuff, do stick around because it is bloody interesting, especially if you've got a negative little chatty voice in your head like me.

2:19So let's get on to talking about liberty. So at the age of 43, she was told she had a 0.7 % chance of having another baby with her own eggs and that was with the assistance of IVF but she and her partner decided to continue their fertility journey with the help of integrative medicine and after a lifestyle overhaul she conceived her daughter naturally and gave birth two weeks before her 45th birthday. Now Liberty works as a certified integrative health and nutrition coach, which means she helps create bespoke programs for anyone hoping to conceive. And her new book, 360 Fertility, shares loads of her brilliant knowledge.

3:02So a couple of things that we talk about. One of the big ones is accusatory language around fertility, which we dive into. I mean, some of the language is shocking. It's outrageous. The shame attached to infertility and it all feeling like your fault. And when I say that, I'm talking specifically to the females listening to this episode. We also chat about the lifestyle changes that we can all make, most of us can make. Also communicating with your partner if you've got one and you're on this journey with your partner and a lot about the power of journaling and letter writing and that sits in and outside of the fertility chat too.

3:41Hi this is Nox from the Popcast with Nox and Jamie and maybe like us at the Popcast you also know people who have been smokers or vapors And Zen is the one product it seems like everyone is talking about. Because there are many good reasons to make a change to Zen nicotine pouches. Reasons like Zen nicotine pouches are still America's number one choice for smoke-free, hands-free nicotine satisfaction. And you can choose between 10 varieties, each variety available in either 3 or 6 milligrams. Check out zen.com slash find to find Zen at a store near you. Warning, this product contains nicotine.

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5:49Right, to liberty in just a sec. But first, have you got your tickets for the Happy Place Festival? I hope you have. We're going to be at Gunnersbury Park on July the 12th and 13th and Tatton Park on August the 30th and 31st. Are you a fan of Vogue Williams? I am. I think she's bloody brilliant. She'll be doing a live podcast with me at the festival. Millie McIntosh is going to be there too. So is Gemma Atkinson, as is Jordan Stevens, who I adore. So many brilliant people. And as well as hearing those amazing talks, there is so much you can properly get involved with. There's breath work, there's yoga, there's spoken word to listen to and some really great shopping.

6:29Or just get yourself some delicious food and have a little chill on a beanbag in the sun divine. Keep an eye on our socials too, by the way, because we're going to be announcing the workshops you can sign up to very soon. But you can only sign up to the workshops if you've got your ticket. So why don't you do it just now? Head to happyplacefestival.com. Right, let's crack on. Here's the show.

7:13Hello, Liberty. Hello. It's so nice to meet you. And you. I'm really looking forward to having this chat because on Happy Place, we've been going for seven years now, we've talked about fertility probably more from a personal story side of things, but I don't think we've really got into the nitty gritty of looking at it from your perspective, which is from the perspective of, I can never say this word properly, integrative health coach. Yes. so if anyone's thinking what on earth is that how would you describe that role first of all I look at everybody I'm not for everybody you know I look at everybody from the 360 so I'll even ask people what was going on when your mom was pregnant with you you know was she stressed did she have to have antibiotics what was your birth like so I look at everything trauma food because if you're eating I don't know what did I just eat an egg avocado kale pickles kimchi all of that lot but you're stressed and you're having four coffees or you fasted and not broken your fast with the fat and all those things you're not going to be absorbing those nutrients yeah do you know what it's so interesting when when we look at wellness how there'll be all this specific stuff that you might read or see on the internet about you need to eat like this or you need to exercise like that and then we forget to say yes but if you're incredibly stressed and you're not managing that none of that stuff's going to touch sides what's the point what is the point and especially when it comes to fertility which we're going to really deeply dive into because not only is your professional work focused on helping people throughout their fertility journey but this is really fired up from your own personal story as well so can you tell us a little bit about that yeah my own personal story is I had a child three days after my 23rd birthday naturally and then I met someone a long long long time later I was 41 when I met him and I'd always wanted to have another child but I hadn't met someone that I thought would be the kind of dad that I wanted them to be and he is he's an amazing dad so off we trotted to get our tests and the GP just looked at me basically as if I was mad and she did she took her glasses off looked down at her notes and said you do know how old you are and I was like yeah and she said 1974 you were born the same year as me this isn't gonna happen you'll need to go and see a fertility clinic and you'll probably need egg donor wow so I was like oh okay you know you you just believe what the people in white coats tell you right of course I think this is the issue for so many people that you're told something as if it's a fact.

9:57That was just off reading my date of birth. No testing done, no blood work done. And you were given a 0.7 % chance with IVF. With IVF from a very, very renowned IVF clinic with my tests. Because I did, you know, which is, you know, was based on their clinical data. That was the number I was given. You know, I had one, their words again, barren ovary, barren. and then the other one had only a few viable follicles. I want to get on to the language in a minute, but first of all, spoiler alert, you had a baby. Spoiler alert, had a baby naturally. Yeah, conceived naturally, no IVF. Not that I'm against IVF.

10:38Loads of my clients do IVF and I fully support that. Yeah, she was born naturally. I wasn't induced, no complications. And when I gave birth to her, I shouted, Women rule. Yes! Yeah, because she was a girl. When we look at the 0.7 % chance with IVF that many, many women, we're going to get onto the couples and the man bit in a minute, but many women hear that, their heart sinks, they mentally sort of give up and just think it's not going to happen. But we hear so many stories like yours where you make changes, you make tweaks, you know, you had a head start with your, you were doing your training at the time to become a health coach.

11:16So you knew the direction you wanted to head in. But we need to hear more stories like that and ways that we can feel empowered and make choices that do work for us. So let's first of all talk about the language, because, again, this seems to be very problematic for women. I've had so many friends who have been told they've got geriatric eggs. I was a geriatric mother. Yeah, you've got to. So I'd have to have certain extra tests and this was going to happen. I would have to be induced. And I said, no, I'm not. I don't tell me on my data why do I have to be, not on my date of birth. Yeah, but the language feels almost sort of accusatory, like it's your fault, like inhospitable womb.

12:00That's a phrase that's used in the medical world, as well as you have failed to conceive. It's like you have failed to conceive. Yes, you have failed, failed. All on the woman. Clients come to me day in, day out and say, I'm the one that's to blame. It's my low AMH. It's my fault. That's what they say. And I say, well, actually, can you just give me the sperm result? And I say, well, there's a male contributing factor as well. It's just a contributing factor. And those numbers you can move. You can't change the number of eggs, but you can change the quality of the eggs. You can change the quality of the host body.

12:37You can easily change the sperm quite often. Yeah. More often than not, I've not had a man that I've, sounds weird, not personally seen and changed his sperm. But as a coach, I've not had a man in the last five and a half years that I've not changed his sperm quality, quantity, even DNA fragmentation. And that's important. People don't talk about that either. The disparity is huge. I mean, there's a canyon between how we're looking at women's health when it comes to fertility and men's because we're not looking at it. We're just like, oh, what can the woman do? How can she feel less stressed? How can she eat better?

13:18But actually, in your book, you write in detail about how much alcohol is the male consuming? Are they vaping? you know vaping's huge that's actually three to four thousand chemicals within each vape you can vape way more places that you know socially than you can smoke so you're probably actually having more than you would do if you're having a cigarette because you can't smoke in a lot of places and what's that doing to sperm it's destroying it and it's and it's not only actually is it destroying those but what is it what happens if you do fertilize the egg what quality embryo what is going to be the quality of your child's health going forward.

14:00So when we're looking at men, we can look at the obvious stuff like, are they smoking, are they vaping, are they consuming too much alcohol? What else could change the quality of sperm that could fundamentally, you know, change the course of whether somebody gets pregnant or not? Quite often it's the basics as well. Just think as well, sperm, semen is in fluid. A lot of men are dehydrated. They're not drinking enough. So you can get clumpy sperm. Right? Not great. I want to be mature about this but I'm finding it really hard me too clumpy sperm I've never heard those words together clumpy sperm and I always do this I don't know why they're not this big

14:46check for a varicose seal varicose seals are very very common so it's like a varicose vein you might have in your leg you can get them within the testes right right and that can be a contributing factor if it's too big wow don't freak out if you do have them and you're a chap or your partner has them because they are quite common but they it depends on the size right so certain ones for example if you were doing um ivf on the nhs you wouldn't be eligible if there were a certain size right but it's something that's on first you know your gp He can check you out and you can then go and have an MRI to see how big they are or how many you've got.

15:28And then I've had clients, they've had the little operation to sort that out. Then you have to wait before you try to conceive because it has the sperm renews every 64 days. And then you can try again. And then I've had clients that were told they needed sperm donor or they'd have to have ICSI. And then after that, they didn't need it. And they've conceived naturally just because their varicoseals were quite large. Because this isn't really talked about, you know, on a mainstream level, we're not bringing men into the fertility conversation. How often do you find it when you're working with couples that the man is reluctant to get on board with changes?

16:08Quite often. Quite often, men, they come to me. So it's all on Zoom because I do it worldwide. And they'll be like this. you know oh my wife my partner's met this woo woo lady on on you know instagram what's going on and um so i was talking to a gentleman i said you know you believe in maths right you believe in statistics so you wouldn't if you're baking a cake it has to be you know that's a science has to be certain measures you can't be a baker like me just shoves everything in willy nilly and then it doesn't quite turn out right how it's meant to be in the picture and I said so you need to get those levels right there's there's measures for example like the Kruger scale of morphology for a reason and we can't just say oh well it doesn't matter anymore you have to get those levels up and then we can then we can enter the game yeah yeah and then they're like oh okay and when they usually see that the you know I say right we'll we'll do this and then you'll get tested and if it hasn't improved you say goodbye yeah to me but if it has improved let's continue working and we do that and then like oh it's improved or my sleep quality has got better my energy's got better my focus and then i've you know quadrupled my sperm motility like the way it goes up because quite a lot of men's sperm just hangs out having a little party.

17:41Right, right. Yeah. Wow. And I'm imagining you're hearing these stories constantly from your clients that, you know, they're surprised by these changes. Yeah. Last week, even I had one guy who had quite low levels all over his sperm and he was sent to see a urologist and the urologist had checked him out, no varicocele, nothing, said, okay, trying some lifestyle changes I've seen you've you know got this lady and then he went back and everything was great optimum level and he's and the urologist holly street urologist was like what have you done give me the sheet what did the lady what what she put you on but it was everything it's not a lot of people come to me like what pill can I take yeah it's not just that if it was that simple you know someone would have done it by now yeah well your approach is you say body and soul so we need to cover both let's continue on the body front first so we've looked at sort of vaping alcohol there'll be a whole host of people that will be listening to this that will currently be on antidepressants or anxiety medication what are the guidelines with that because I'm imagining there is a detrimental there is so my partner won't mind you know after we were given our diagnosis he did slump into a depression and was put on an um an antidepressant and then when I looked into it I was like actually this is not great for your sperm can you go back and ask for a different one or can you ask for some other way to be helped because it's actually going to harm what's made you slump into this depression if you really don't want to come off antidepressants or anxiety medication because you know it works for you you've been on it a long time are there things you can do to perhaps counter it yeah help your b12 your vitsy i'll send you there's there's like a whole pdf of what depletes what so even certain different medications deplete certain nutrients within the body so if you know oh i'm taking this medication it depletes magnesium.

19:48Well, you need to make sure you have extra magnesium or you look for more magnesium-rich foods. Yeah. I mean, how important are supplements? Because again, it's such an oversaturated market. I think people are so confused. They're not sure who to listen to. Yeah. The leading brand of fertility supplement for women and for men, I'm not a fan of because it's full of bulking agents, talc. why do we need talc you know I don't want talc in my body maltodextrin which has a really high GI what happens if you're trying to get your BMI down to be eligible for some fertility treatment and that's in every single one of your supplements also my issue with a lot of supplements is the amount that's in there it's very confusing so the amount that's in there is not what the clinical trials have been done on to make a difference right for example this supplement i'm talking about has 14 mg zinc in the men's supplement and 66 is what's been clinically tried to make a difference so you're taking this fertility male supplement but it's only got you know it's it's like 50 off what you're meant to have yeah it's not going to make a difference yes it does have zinc in which makes a difference but it's not at the difference that it would make so is it worth is it worth really looking into what you need how do you find out i know it's listed in your book but what is a good way to work out a supplementation program that is really going to aid you in your fertility i think just seriously to sit down write a food diary write are you stressed you know zero to 10 how you're sleeping zero to 10 quality do you wake up feeling refreshed what is your poo like i took a look about poo i love talking about poo so many people i say when i first started i messed up i'd say are you regular they say yes i'm regular tick now i say how often do you go when do you go and what does it look like yeah because it says so much about you i had one lady the other day she said i'm regular i go like every two three days oh i would feel i said you only eat every two three days yeah no so you know that that will tell you a lot I it will tell you are you dehydrated um look at your tongue you know all of these things are free yeah you know you look at people's tongues that's one of the first things you do yeah that's surprising so what is the tongue telling us in this conversation um so I'll ask them to stick it out you can tell if if someone's got gut dysbiosis by the color so when I used to be really sick with lupus mine was It's often very, very thick white or even yellow, depending on how fissured, like how cracked the tongue is.

22:40Also, if you stick it out to the side, you can see if you clench your jaw. So I'll say, oh, you know, I might be trying to a chap and say, you know, you said you're not really that stressed, but you seem to clench your jaw. And he'll say, how do you know? Well, it's like teeth marks. Yeah, you'll have like indentations on the side of your tongue. So I'm like, okay, how do we, instead of you just bulldozing through the stress, how do we actually look after you?

23:29Go to Upwork.com now and find your freelance expert. That's U-P-W-O-R-K.com. Post a job for free and get started today. Hi, this is Knox from the Popcast with Knox and Jamie. And maybe like us at the Popcast, you also know people who have been smokers or vapors. And Zen is the one product it seems like everyone is talking about. Because there are many good reasons to make a change to Zen nicotine pouches. Reasons like Zen nicotine pouches are still America's number one choice for smoke-free, hands-free nicotine satisfaction. And you can choose between 10 varieties, each variety available in either 3 or 6 milligrams.

24:03Check out zen.com slash find to find Zen at a store near you. Warning, this product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical. If you're a maintenance supervisor at a manufacturing facility and your machinery isn't working right, Grainger knows you need to understand what's wrong as soon as possible. So when a conveyor motor falters, Grainger offers diagnostic tools like calibration kits and multimeters to help you identify and fix the problem. With Grainger, you can be confident you have everything you need to keep your facility running smoothly. Call 1-800-GRAINGER, click grainger.com, or just stop by.

24:38Grainger, for the ones who get it done.

24:45I mean, one of the other things that you say many of your clients are reluctant to, men and women, is journaling. And this seems to be quite a key part, not only food diaries, but also just writing about how you're feeling. This is perhaps now getting onto the soul side of things. Looking at how you're feeling and what's on your mind. How is that important in the fertility conversation? It's a poison. Anything that's negative in the body, like if you eat a dodgy prawn or a dodgy oyster, your body wants to get rid of it. But there's a lot of negativity around fertility and we just do that stiff upper lip.

25:19Yeah, I'm fine. Yeah, I'm fine. It's okay. It didn't work. I'm just going to do another round. or if it's quite often the partner of the person that's not carrying, they feel that they don't have the space to be upset because it's the lady that's doing it. So you want both the man and the woman to be really honest about how they're feeling? Yeah, quite often they've not even communicated to each other or they've not even voiced it to them. I have clients that have not told their mom, their sister, their best friend. They're like, no, I'm just getting on with it. I think also when it's, and I've had this again with friends over the years, is when you are so desperately wanting to get pregnant and it becomes all consuming, there is pressure on a relationship.

26:06It does change things. Huge, huge. I write a lot about sex in the book as well. You know, people, they're just having sex around that window and then the rest of the time they're not having sex. I have guys crying to me saying, I don't feel like my partner thinks I'm attractive anymore. Well, it's functional rather than it being sex. Yeah, and the lady never even knew. And I'm like, okay, we need to get you both on here and talk about it. Or people don't. I asked a lady the other day, you know, she'd been through three rounds of IVF. I said, how do you feel towards your body? You've sorted it out of your head.

26:42She was like, I hate it. I don't like my body. It's failed me. So I was like, okay, we need you to start loving your body again. Yeah. I mean, you say in the book, a lot of women have a massive disconnect with their body going through this process, whether it's IVF or not, that they start to have that either self-loathing about it. They feel that it's not working as it should. And this is a fundamental thing that needs to be changed for you to get pregnant. I believe so. I really believe that it's science, it's nutrition, it's your psyche. It's everything. Everything needs to be healed because also I don't want, you know, I always say to people, you're not my client.

27:28Your future child is my client. And I want them to be really, really happy. you know I know that when I went through my my fertility journey I didn't tell anyone until I was 24 weeks because oh you're old you're probably miscarrying you know and so I had that in my head I couldn't even celebrate when I got the pregnancy test oh and we just looked at each other well you know better not get too excited I'm just gone with the day so really it's you've got to be as well as to what you're letting in what you're mentally going to listen to and what you're going to choose to listen to and that's not about having false hopes or being overly optimistic it's it's actually because you know when we look at yes there's the science bit of it and it's not like you're denying any of this but when we look at the psychology or our psyche when it comes to physical health we can see how much stress correlates to illness you know I've had health issues myself and I'm pretty sure most of it was from stress there's no other reason what it is we're way more likely to develop an autoimmune disease yeah than men like why is that because we are carrying because we carry on the world we pile on makeup you're getting your hair done you've been on the contraceptive pill since you were 14 because you had acne all of those things it's not just the one thing no it's all contributing factors so you need to address all of the contributing factors the stress thing I think is is huge for women you know I remember when Gabor Mate he came on the podcast but obviously you know we've read his books and we know what his take on a lot of things are and one thing that always sticks out to me that he said I think it was in an article he wrote not actually in a book and he said that women are the shock absorbers of society and it's so true often it's not all the time obviously but often that we are carrying the emotional load for the family the practical load of everything going on in the home it's so much for us to deal with and we're not coping particularly well and of course that's going to have a bearing on our physical body of course it is I have women that come to me and it's maybe even just a primary soul factor is the men man's sperm and they say you I'll I'll do the sessions for him because I don't want to stress him out wow and it and it's and it's a male it's a male factor You know, infertility or sub-fertility is affecting, you know, one in seven couples.

29:57And within that, the data is anywhere, you know, it's a 48 % man, 52 % woman. Is that right? Yeah. So why are we not addressing the male factor? And within that, that's both contributing to unexplained infertility. And then within that, it's a 30 to 40 % sole male factor. Wow And if we're not supported as women on this journey The men are just left out on a desert island Yeah, it's crazy I mean, I was totally ignorant to that It's almost half And we're treating it like a female issue A female issue Yeah When you say the word fertility, I think woman Yes But if we're going to solve this issue for so many couples That are so desperately wanting to have a baby It's got to be both Well, people need to read the work of Dr.

30:50Shauna Swan. She wrote a book, Count Zero, and she predicts by 2045, because of the way sperm is declining, the quality of sperm is declining, most couples within the Western world will need assisted fertility. Wow. Yeah. That's terrifying. Because the sperm quality has decreased so much in the last 50 years. And that is because of not only stress and diet. Microplastics. Microplastics. So let's dive into this because I'm not going to lie. When I read that bit of the book, I was slightly freaked out. Like I need to buy all new pots and pans. Yeah, I don't want people to freak out because then that stress is going to deplete all your nutrients.

31:31So please don't stress. I won't be stressed about it. Just be aware. I'll be aware. I think it's to be aware, to be educated, and then you can make an informed decision of what to do. So even if we go, if we really like drill into this, even if we're looking at what spatula we're using to cook. That was the first thing I thought of in my head. Which pot we're using to cook in. What are we looking for here? Because this isn't just some sort of like woo-woo thing. There's tons of data that looks at what we're ingesting because of the utensils and the pots and pans we're using. I mean, I think I used 66 studies within the book, but I think I read about 160 over that just for the book.

32:11But there's so much clinical data out there. And by the way, this isn't just important for fertility. No, it's just our health. Well, yeah. And hormone disruption. Exactly. And this book isn't for people that just are trying to have a baby. I wrote this book because I want to look after my daughter's fertility who's five years old. So I don't have bleach in the house. That's not going down the loo because it's a hormone disruptor, you know. So if you put bleach down the loo when you sit on the loo. Or when you're cleaning the loo, you're down there, aren't you? Your head's down there. You might be up there with a mask on, I don't know.

32:48But you're breathing in those fumes. Yeah, I use bleach to clean the bin. I'm rethinking this. Yeah, rethink it. I'm getting a different product. But our houses are seemingly full of these toxins. It seems to be everywhere. So where do we even start? Because it is overwhelming when you start to have to do an overhaul. I think just start removing and replacing as you go along. If you need a new pan, get a different new pan. And what are we talking? What is the best pan? You don't really want the non-stick ones. Look at cast iron, ceramic. Also, wood is great. For spatula. For spatula. Not a wooden pan, that's a terrible idea.

33:27Set the house on fire. Just anything to do with plastic is just not a good idea. So if it's got a plastic coating, just think, I know we have straws or your coffee cup. It will, even though it's a paper coffee cup, it's still got the plastic coating inside. Otherwise, the paper's just going to disintegrate when it has your coffee in it. Yeah. So carry your cup around. Like a stainless steel cup. Your water bottle. Even if it says PBA free, I don't care because they're probably just putting it some kind of plastic, right? Yeah, yeah. So it's all of these things we need to keep a lookout on. Also, drinking water is a big one.

34:08And look, we listen to the news. We know it's a huge problem worldwide. But in our supposedly civilized country in the UK, you know, the water quality is poor and it's full of bleach and chlorine and all sorts. And quite often the companies are getting fined as well because of the quality. When I was researching for the book, I was astounded at the amount of water companies that do get fined. And they just pay the fine and they just carry on. Yeah. And yes, all of these things do cost money. I get that. It's not for everyone. But you can get an under-the-counter filter for just under£100. pounds and I would rather do that than get my nails done or well which are toxic anyway but you know go out get a takeaway you there's places where you can remove and replace yeah so often and save the money to invest it elsewhere because also the thing I mean I'd read this elsewhere but I saw it in your book and it reminded me and how shocked I was the first time I read this that in the water if you're not filtering it you are drinking contraceptive pill yeah contraceptive pill and you're trying to get pregnant and that is again going to disrupt your hormones hugely i'm imagining yeah or everyone else's antidepressants or drugs or whatever they've been taking yeah that's all in there so water is a big one yeah i'd start with your water definitely if you're cleaning up your kitchen start with your water because it's something you boil your food in you drink you wash your plates with everything start with your water and also pesticides we should talk about pesticides so washing all fruit and veg washing or soaking if possible soak for 15 to 20 minutes there was um i was listening to the dr sean swan they did a study of they were already fertile men who were near not even just ingesting the food crops that were sprayed and then they went to a city so everyone's ingesting probably the same kind of food but it's the ones that was exposed to the the spraying of the crops and the the disparity between the sperm was phenomenal wow like lower sperm i've even had it with farmers that i i've worked with in general the farmers that i've worked with their their sperm has been quite low wow because of the chemicals are having to use gosh I mean it is it is a it's a lot to take on and it's a lot of change but if this is something that you're wanting and you know say you've been through IVF and then you're having to pay for it because you can't use the NHS these changes are going to be cheaper yes they are also you know yeah I make my organic gluten-free bread and it costs me about£1.25 I don't go and buy the one in the supermarket that's wrapped up in plastic i'm not a baker as i said before i'm terrible at that sort of thing i'm just to throw it in the mixer press the button don't proof it stick it in the oven and everyone seems to like it yeah and it's cheap yeah well cheaper than if i was buying a product out in the supermarket yeah i mean making stuff from scratch is always going to be cheaper and certainly going to be better for you for sure so let's go back to the mind for a minute because this is I think something that we can talk about really broadly whether it's for fertility or not but how much negative self-talk impacts us not only mentally which we know because you we've all done it you end up in a terrible spiral you end up feeling 10 times worse because you're obsessing over these negative voices these negative thoughts in your head but also the physical repercussions and that and they do exist and this is where again the debate can get heavy in terms of this because some people completely write this off and just say it's got no bearing on our physical health.

38:08But we know it does. We know stress is a huge factor. You know, my lovely mate Rangan Chatterjee talks about this a hell of a lot as a doctor. That so many, I don't know what the, I don't want to misquote him, but in the 90s, percentage of everyday ailments that he sees in his practice are based on stress. You know, we know that it's having an impact on our bodies, but we're not taking it seriously enough so let's look at negative self-talk first of all what do we do is it noticing we're doing it first and then what notice it correct yourself you know say also see it's you know i'm infertile no i'm going on a fertility journey we've already switched it there's it's not a definitive no as well you're going on a journey Yeah, I I've been journaling since I was 30, 20 years now.

39:05I read The Artist's Way. We've had Julia Cameron on here. We love her. Oh my gosh, I changed my life. That woman did. She's great. I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease and that was one of the books that started to help me get better. Wow. So tell me about this. So tell me about your diagnosis and then and then how did this particular discipline of journaling help you? I was diagnosed with lupus, which they say and still say there's no cure. And I got very, very, very chronically ill. Loads of my hair fell out. I still wear a wig. I think that's I've still got issues since my hair came back.

39:41It's not the same hair. And so I'm I'm like, but I want it to be what it was before. I think I'm about nine and a half stone now. I went down to five and a quarter stone. I wouldn't have been able to be in here with all the light because I'd get blisters and lesions on my face my tongue would bleed all sorts of things and starting journaling and changing the way instead of me saying I have lupus was I said you know I just have this constellation of symptoms and and wrote about my anger and how angry I was about my body and what I wanted I guess it's sort of like a therapist on a page. Wow. I mean, this is game changing for so many people for so many reasons where we feel really stuck with it.

40:30It might be a diagnosis. It might be a belief we have about ourselves. It might be something that happened in the past. A divorce. A divorce. Like anything that we're wedded to the negative side of and that we feel is immovable. Because I think certainly with something like lupus, where you're told there is no cure, there's no way you will find a solution to this it's very hard for people to think otherwise because they're being told it by the medical world yeah and I I get berated quite often when I say I reversed it I never say that I cured it but look at me do I look like I've it's not active I'm not with the symptoms of all of my hair falling out I don't have lesions on my face my face isn't bleeding I don't have the butterfly rash I don't have severe arthritis I don't have the walker zimmer frame that I used to have I don't need a lever to get me out of bed I can like press more than I weigh you know that's someone that used to pee the bed because I couldn't get out of the bed to get to the toilet so what would you say so certainly the mental side of it is hugely important would you say the most important part of that healing journey I think it's a great start because you change your mindset it's not this is it it's not even though I was told this is it I had to tell myself no there's a possibility it's not it and it's about creating that possibility for yourself yeah yeah well otherwise what do you have right yeah you give up and there's there's a practice that I love that I've even done for myself that I created with a client actually in the book because I listen to meditations hypnosis everything you know I'm on my journey of life and being who I want to be but you still see you still have that negative voice sometimes right in your head of what we've been told as a kid or you can't do this because you're a girl you're you know you're too fat you're too thin you're black you're white whatever so I created this meditation for this lady I kept sending her meditations and they just weren't working I just couldn't get that hope and that belief in herself anymore so I said okay write down every negative thing you've been told by a society a family member a teacher anything all you believe about yourself you do that the next day you write the opposite of it and then the third day you read it each line over and over and over again out loud and you record yourself because your own voice is the biggest voice you're ever going to listen to you can listen to your gabo mate you can listen to mel robbins to you to me but still in your head yeah but it's not for me i'm this i'm this person and you listen to that and you go over and over again and you reprogram your brain and it's worked for every single client i bet it has because we all do it and you know it's so dependent on you're tired you've eaten badly you've had a shit day because something happened and it's so easy to slip back into it i do it all the time i'll have yeah great periods where i feel pretty okay and robust and i'm not you know falling back on the old negative tapes that used to whirl around in my head but then i could so easily slip down it if i have a shit day or something trips me up and I'm like, oh my God, no, I was foolish to think otherwise.

44:01You feel naive or too, I don't know, like overly confident to think that you could step outside of that line of thinking. But actually, this is habit. This is a good, you have to get into a good habit of it. It's like going to the gym. Yeah. But for your head. For your brain. Yeah. I mean, you do need probably more discipline than you would to go to the gym to continue with that because it's privately and quietly in your head. There's no one holding you accountable. You know, there's no training schedule. You've just got to get jolly well used to replacing that negative shit with something more positive.

44:36Yeah, for me, I say it's getting my armor on for the day. So once I've dumped on that page and got everything out, then I do my gratitude list. And then I've got my armor on and I'm like, yeah, I'm okay. I'm an okay kind of person. I'm ready for the world. I think it's so important, you know, in and outside of this fertility chat for us all to get a lot better at doing it because I think it causes, I mean, I know personally it's caused me all sorts of stress over the years and shit periods of my life where you believe it. That's the most dangerous bit, I guess, is that you start to not only, you know, you're not hearing those voices every day, but you're believing them.

45:14You believe that things can't get any better. Yeah and if someone tells you you need egg done or you of course there's always going to be some cases that someone does have to have that but also it's about reframing that and that that's not a failure you know or I've had clients come to me that have even changed their mind on the journey that we've taken together. Actually we don't want it we don't want another child we just thought we should have one and actually now we've come together doing this work we've realized we're happy where we are. How interesting.

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47:28I mean, if someone's listening to this, obviously it's a lot of information to take in and you've got to have a start point somewhere. It's going to be maybe different for everybody. but if someone is feeling at the end of their tether you know again I'm sure like you have not only clients but so many friends you have just gone I'm done this is it I can't take this anymore because not only is it constantly disappointing but it's draining it's draining to be on that cycle of every month getting your hopes up feeling completely dejected at the end of the month again what would you say to someone who's who's in that place at the moment it really depends on like they might be a single person I've got lots of single people you know sit down and have a chat with yourself do this journal it out what what do you really really want is it do you do you have to give birth to this child would adoption be okay for you you know fostering surrogate there's many options to becoming a parent if you're in a couple sit down and so many of my clients I'm like have you even discussed your option b c d and they're like no and I'm like well quite often when you have options it's less scary yeah it really is less scary you know my partner didn't want egg donor but he was okay with adoption so I was like okay right we'll throw the kitchen sinker we'll do this then if this doesn't work out then we'll try IVF we can go to a different country they will accept us and then that's the next option down the road it took takes the pressure off yeah and you you need less pressure yeah you do yeah and also if you are you are in a couple and now and it's that's crazy but one of the weeks that I give my clients is no sex in the bedroom oh fun no sex in the bedroom and then the guys then they then they like me I'm like oh okay well Liberty says the garden you say yeah anywhere and I'm like and you can't you can't schedule it so everyone's you know it takes it gets you into your body it gets you flirting again it makes you fun remember that you you think isn't you know a baby machine and they have the most fun and they for quite often for good you know infertility journeys can be so serious and pressurized and money and appointments and all of these things they've forgotten to have fun yeah and you need that well you do and also because we know that all the hormones that are released when you feel happy and relaxed are good for you so that's going to help hugely that's not just some sort of frivolous fun idea from you that's gonna physiologically help you yeah it's a good thing yeah it's a really good thing another really important thing when we're looking at the journaling side of thing the writing side of thing is letter writing talk to me a little bit about letter writing let so another controversial I've just realized quite a lot of what I do is quite controversial a lot of us ladies I will hold my hand up and say I'm one of those I've had a terrible relationship with their mothers and our eggs were in our mummy right and we all know about how stress and trauma affects our body.

50:54So I'm often say, you know, even if your mum's not here anymore, or you've never met your mum, write a letter. Let's deal with it. Let's, you know, about what you are grateful for, because we can all say to our mums, what she didn't do, what was wrong, blah, blah, blah. But what, we don't often know what our mum was going through or sacrifices. I remember you had Dynamo on and what he said about his mum was just so beautiful, but he didn't realise that until he was an adult. And I was the same. You know, my mum had me quite young and it must have been so hard for her. You know, she was white, gave birth to a brown baby in Manchester in 1974 and we had bricks roamed through our house and all of those things it must have been really difficult and I never gave her the grace for that.

51:50Do you send this letter? You can send it you if not some clients have sent it you can burn it you can put I've had clients surf and put it out to sea and then they're like oh you know when I picked up the phone to my mom I no longer have stomach ache my tummy is just like settled yeah that was the guy out of you isn't it just getting it out and addressing that it even exists yeah yeah no and then we do letter writing to embryos past babies that didn't make it miscarriages abortions there's a lot of guilt around that and I've had clients where we write the well they write the letter and they plant it under a tree yeah or they plant it they go and buy a plant and they water it and let it grow you know and they say thank you thank you to you embryos you got to you know you got to day four or whatever and it's acknowledging that you've come so far on on a journey as well rather than that was a failure.

52:59Same with ladies. Fertility, if you're menstruating, people are like, oh, I've got my period this week. Oh, damn. I'm like, that's great. That's great. Yeah, it's working. You're menstruating. It still means things are going. If you don't have a period and you're not pregnant, then we've got a problem. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Again, I think it's just going back to what you said right at the start of this is that the negative language used around fertility specifically towards women is something that is impacting us hugely and something that needs to change. And we can't systemically change it, medically change it, but we can change it in our own worlds.

53:33Yeah, and I want to change it in the world, out there with doctors as well. I'm working with a charity to go in and talk to GPs about language, about how certain supplements do help, you know, your omega-3s, testing for vitamin D, how important that is on a fertility journey. those basics you know so it I want to do what has been done for the menopause for fertility because if we don't look after our fertility well we're not going to exist yeah it's important so it's kind of important it's kind of important and I I really I learned a lot from reading this book I really enjoyed you know it's a book I probably should have read 15 years ago um but yeah but But it's brilliant.

54:20And it's, you know, as you say, some of this stuff people might take as controversial, but it's really important that we put all these different options out there for people. So yes, they might want to do IVF, but they might want to do journaling at the same time. You can do it all. It's not going to harm you. This is all going to add to empowerment that you should feel when you're going down this path. Exactly. I'd love to finish by asking you personally, where is your happy place, Liberty? well I've thought about this a lot this last week and the only answer is it's when I'm in those moments of being really really present and that could be anything and it's and I've worked I was thinking last night and it's it's always in silence so every morning me and my little girl I go in she wakes up every morning and northern exes is is it wake up time really loud and really deep and she's tiny and I say no it's cuddle time and we go in and she sort of rubby tackles me and we put our faces cheek to cheek and we just lie there for like two minutes we don't speak it's just and then I go okay come on let's get up so it's moments like that or I might just be eating and I'm like oh my god aren't I so lucky that I've got this food and I've got this house because there was a time because of my illness I went to food banks and I didn't have any other food that people would give to me so those are my habits it can happen anytime throughout the day it's not a general thing because I might be thinking about oh I've got to go here next or I should have done that or I need to put the washing on it's about those moments of silence when I'm truly present with life even on a walk I could go oh this is a nice place but you know I've got to go back and do this reel or I need to get on with the next book and I'm not 100 % present.

56:13It's when I'm totally present and I'm like, wow. Yeah, they're special moments. I'm really, really lucky. That's my happy place. I love that. Well, look, Liberty, it's been so great talking to you. I think this is going to be really helpful for so many people out there. And it might be a really great start point for many people who are feeling quite lost on this journey. so thank you so much. Thank you. I really love that chat I learned a hell of a lot I mean I wish I'd heard it before I had my kids because I think there's so many things that I would have and could have done differently but I also really hope that if you are on your fertility journey that that's made you feel calm and relaxed and like there are more options for you and like I said at the start of it if you're not thinking about having kids I really hope all the stuff around just having maybe a bit more mental clarity and being a bit more team you has really hit home because it certainly did for me liberty's book 360 fertility is out on the 22nd of may in the meantime do come and have a natter with us both big conversations and light-hearted chatter welcome on instagram we're at happy place official all right a huge thanks again to liberty to the producer and ashka tate at happy place studios and to you because you're bloody ace

57:42so

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