Does Stress REALLY Impact Your Fertility? With Robyn Birkin | Episode 99

Welcome to Fertility Friendly Food, the podcast. My name is Stefanie Valakas, and I’m an expert certified fertility dietitian and nutritionist and founder of The Dietologist, a multiple award winning virtual fertility and pregnancy nutrition clinic serving thousands from around the world. And of course, the host of this pod, Fertility Friendly Food.

 

This podcast is dedicated to all things health and nutrition in the world of fertility, reproductive health, and pregnancy. Each week, I bring you practical snack size episodes to help improve your lifestyle on your trying to conceive journey. Alongside guest expert interviews to help inspire you to learn and grow your fertility.

 

Whilst you grow your family, welcome back to another episode of Fertility Friendly Food, the podcast. I’m Stef, your host, and today is a special guest episode with a colleague and friend of mine, Robin Birkin, who is the host of the very popular Fertility Warriors podcast and also. The founder of the MindBodyFertilityReset, which is an incredible online program designed to help people going through the fertility and infertility journey to prioritize their mental health and well being.

 

And in today’s episode, Robin and I talk in depth about mental health and stress. In this journey of trying to become a parent and she shares some incredible insights into her own personal story, as well as some of her incredible community stories and just reinforces how important it is to prioritize our own mental wellbeing along the way.

 

So without any further ado, let’s To make Robin, welcome to Fertility Friendly Food, the podcast. I know you very well, but tell us a bit more about who you are and what you do for those who are new. So, 

 

good Day. I am Robin and I’m a fellow Aussie, except that I am all the way in Western Australia and I am a certified life coach and mind body practitioner, ex corporate marketing lady.

 

And you know, it’s been, I think exactly 10 years to the year that we started trying to conceive. And I was convinced, so, hands up, I’m a type A, convinced that we would conceive on our very first cycle and to the point that before we started trying to conceive I went and saw a naturopath, I was doing the right supplements, I had preliminary tests done with my GP, so convinced and smug.

 

That I was going to conceive the first month and like so many friends who I’m sure are listening to this podcast, it was a little bit of a slap in the face that it didn’t happen the first month or the second month or the third month. Fast forward two years later and we were at a fertility clinic.

 

About to undergo, we had our first IVF cycle and I was pregnant. Huzzah. I was also had a moderate case of hyperstimulation. I was quite tiny at that point. So only I think 54 kilograms, but had seven kilograms of fluid in my abdomen. So my stomach was like literally up. crushing my lungs so, like, really couldn’t breathe.

 

But I was pregnant, so it was kind of okay, except that we then found out that the pregnancy wasn’t viable. And I had a medical miscarriage and somehow landed today with a podcast, The Fertility Warriors, which you’ve generously been one of our guest experts on, certifications as a life coach and mind, body practitioner.

 

And where you focus on lifestyle, my zone of genius is on the emotional slash stress side of infertility that I don’t think we realize is Yeah, 

 

I remember reading that study about how, like the level of stress and how it’s comparable for fertility treatments and IVF to being in a cardiac rehab unit or navigating cancer treatment.

 

And it’s not to put those, you know, life threatening illnesses. In any kind of minimization, but like I tell my clients, you know, if your colleague at work got diagnosed with cancer and went in for chemotherapy, they would have time off work. People would be huddling around them, bringing them meals, checking in on them, making sure they’re doing okay.

 

You know, feeling worried about them. You know, you’d feel this sense of communal rallying. But for IVF and fertility, for whether either not talking about it, not letting people in so that there’s no opportunity for that, or there’s so little understanding about the magnitude of the impact that it has on our lives in so many different facets that there’s not that knowledge to rally in that way.

 

And I think like when we look at the, some of the other studies that have come out, so I think it was a Danish study, 42, 000 women undergoing. fertility treatments. The study came out that showed that 39 percent showed symptoms of major depressive disorder. Like not just depression, you know, and I think there was another study that showed that 52 percent of women at fertility clinics were showing symptoms of depression, 76 percent showing significant symptoms of anxiety.

 

And then we look at studies by Dr. Alice Doma and she, her kind of specialty, she’s done a lot of study and research on mind, body practices, uh, et cetera, for. Fertility, infertility. And one of the phrases that always sticks in my mind from one of the studies that she’s done is that she’s written, it’s possible that women fake, they’re okay.

 

They fake good or I’m fine in order to navigate that. And I think we kind of fit that. Sometimes fake that with ourselves as well, that we’re like, you know, it’s not like a cancer diagnosis. It’s not like losing a loved one. It’s not in that realm. And we are feeling really stressed. It is really having a big giant impact on our lives, but we keep telling ourselves, I should be better.

 

I should be coping with this better. And possibly it’s only me that this is impacting so much. And the reality is actually it is really stressful. And actually it is really common. Although common doesn’t always mean that that’s the way it has to be. 

 

Totally. I think the way that I’ve always had it explained to me was that, you know, some level of stress in everybody’s life is inevitable, right?

 

Like, we cannot escape some level of stress. And we all have different kind of stress tolerances and triggers and thresholds and we’re all kind of unique in that way. I think the biggest stress that I commonly see is people feeling stressed about their levels of stress, that cycle that people get caught on.

 

And then that in and of itself is probably more harmful. than anything else is the, the worrying about being worried or the worrying about the stress. And so then people get caught in this loop. And then there’s the question, you know, is stress impacting fertility directly, indirectly? What’s the situation?

 

Because I think there is a lot of mixed messaging about it. And I think there’s also a lot of potential, what’s the best way to say it? Kind of toxic positivity sometimes about just, you know, just meditate and be mindful and then you’ll get pregnant just like that or IVF will all of a sudden work and it’s like, well.

 

It’s actually way more complex than just that one thing. So can you shed some light? I know it’s a nuanced conversation, but jumping off point. 

 

So I don’t love talking about, and full disclosure, I did used to talk about this a lot before I guess leveled up in terms of the conversations that I was having.

 

That I don’t love talking about stress harms fertility because I don’t think it’s a really, and I think you agree, it’s not really the healthiest conversation for us to have, because then what happens is we stress about being stressed. We are constantly still stuck in that narrative of like, I’m doing everything wrong or what am I doing wrong?

 

And that only compounds the way that we’re feeling. And I very much have stepped into a place now of wanting. Everyone navigating stressful experiences in life, whatever that looks like, but particularly for trying to conceive for infertility, this is not going to be the only devastating experience we have in life.

 

And particularly as we get older, we’re in the generations or like ages now where we start having parents with health issues. We start navigating things, you know, like mortgage stress, redundancies. Stressful, this is, this may be your first stressful experience, but it’s not going to be the only one, right?

 

And we can say to ourselves, like, is getting gastro good for my health? Probably not, but we don’t beat ourselves up because we’re throwing up in the toilet seat, right? So we have to have a level of acceptance and grace with ourselves. And I want us to, if we are not feeling great, emotionally feel secure and positive enough to say, I’m worth.

 

Seeking help, not having to have the carrot of because this will get me pregnant and what I’ve seen time and time again. So I’ve had more than a thousand clients now who have worked with me primarily on the emotions of getting pregnant. And I have really seen the difference in people who come into my programs saying, do you know what?

 

Regardless of what happens, I want to be my best and healthiest self. And let’s not a hundred percent, like everybody, I’m well aware that everybody wants to get pregnant. Like the goal is still to get pregnant. The goal is not like, let’s throw all that down the toilet and just skip through a happy field.

 

No, I’m, you know, the goal is still to get pregnant versus though the people who come into this and they’re like. You know that, especially me being a type A, that anxious energy of just give me the to do list and I’ll just tick it off. Like, is it a 10 minute meditation? Is that the thing I need to do to get pregnant?

 

And it’s like, hang on a second, like that’s not going to work because you’re not in wanting to feel better and consciously be open to what is going to help me navigate stress. So when we talk about stress and infertility and the impact that that might have on us, I kind of like to say that having more energy, having more capacity, having better decision making, more rational thinking, more perseverance is always going to support your fertility.

 

Like if you’re never going to go backwards, so prioritizing yourself could possibly be Number one flex on your fertility journey, but let’s not sit in this space of, you know, like what am I doing wrong? And what’s next on the to do list because these giant endless to do lists of perfection and you would see the same with diet.

 

It doesn’t work. 

 

Oh, no, it doesn’t. I resonate so much with the energy in which people come in. To programs with, I resonate so much with that. The people that come in and are like, I’m doing IVF in this amount of time. It’s immovable. Give me all you got until then. And when I turn around and say, sure, I can give you what I got, but if I give you absolutely everything under the sun in this two hour session, you’re going to be overwhelmed, you do it for a week or two, then you’ll forget about it.

 

And then you’re not coming at it with the intention of this is good just for me. This is. Part of my self care. This is part of just good preconception health. These are habits that I can carry into pregnancy. And guess what? If I give you the crash course in one hit, yeah, you’ll, some of it will stick. But if we do it over a longer period of time and build up to it, You’ll feel less stressed, less rushed.

 

Everyone will feel more unhurried and you’ll get that longer lasting change that will flow through for years to come. So, and I mean, as you know, a lot of the people that we see also have other reproductive health issues. And the thing that I always say to people might, you know, you can have endometriosis.

 

You do the surgery, you get pregnant, you have a baby, or you have PCOS, you know, same thing. Any of these things, yes, it’s become, come to a head at this life stage, but you need to learn how to deal with this. So this is invaluable, no matter which way you spin it. And I feel the same about learning about how you cope with stress and tuning into that and building new strategies around that as well.

 

It’s kind of the mindset, emotional wellbeing, counterpart to that. Now, what are some of the things that you’ve seen work in your time supporting Your clients are either one on one or in your programs in terms of what helps them deal with this inevitable stress. 

 

So I love that you asked this question because so I’ve worked now with clients for several years and I’ve had clients and it was this interesting sort of aha moment that came to a head with myself as well, that I was having clients who were getting.

 

Into really different frames of mind. So I’m talking that they would come into the program and we do like a starting survey, and then we do it like a finished survey. They would come into the program and they would say, I was feeling derailed in life. I didn’t feel like a warrior. I felt like I was navigating muddy fog.

 

Like I couldn’t think straight in my day to day life. I couldn’t, everything was starting to have an impact. And I call it the tornado of trying to conceive. And when we look at trying to conceive, like. Sure. It’s costing you like money. It’s costing you time, but actually how much is the emotional toll of trying to conceive actually costing you?

 

Because for many women trying to conceive friendships start to be impacted relationships, start to be impacted your self confidence, your energy, your perseverance, All of a sudden you kind of, you continue with this low level anxiety, you then get to a point where you’re like, hang on a second, my entire life has been swept up in this tornado of trying to conceive and I feel like a shadow of myself.

 

So I would have women come to me in that frame of mind. And the lady Jamie from Canada is probably the shining example of that’s how she was feeling. She got to the point where she was like, you know what? Like I literally used to see women in the supermarket who are pregnant and just go to my car and cry.

 

That was the level of where I’m at, but I actually feel really at peace now. And I feel confident that whatever happens. I’ll be able to navigate that. And I would look at women and I’d be like, is it, what is it? You know, people were like, what is it on the to do list? What are they doing? Right. But lots of these women weren’t.

 

actively like doing anything. And so they weren’t sitting there meditating. And so meditation, incredible tool for mind mindfulness works for many people. There are many different types of meditation, not just guided meditations that we all know, actually for a third of people, particularly those who are navigating trauma, sitting still with your eyes closed can actually be quite a triggering event.

 

So a third of people, meditations actively not going to work. So, but it is a great part of mindfulness and being able to reset your nervous system support another game changer Actually having support that gets it and that is strategic and that is guided support amazing But what the majority of these women like that wasn’t impacting their lives It wasn’t necessarily about what they were doing so much as what I call metacognition It was this level of understanding themselves You Right?

 

Understanding why do I have the thoughts that I have? Understanding, like, how does this thought impact me? What is my going to be my relationship to this thought? And how do I want to understanding their brain and why they think the way they think. And whether or not they’re going to be impacted by that or not impacted by that.

 

We have so much power over our thoughts, way more power than we realize way more power and our relationship to ourselves. That’s the number one thing, because once you know that you don’t have to add anything to the to do list, you just know it it’s like once and done. So once you understand your brain and your thoughts.

 

It’s easy peasy, lemon squeezy. 

 

I love that. Yeah. The metacognition bit is something that I’ve personally done quite a lot and I think is so powerful and it gives you perspective in real time. 

 

Right. And it’s instant. And so when I looked at myself, I was like, well, I journal sometimes I meditate sometimes and I’ve been able to, you know, since my IVF experience, I mean, I had very high risk pregnancy with my first daughter.

 

I gave birth alone and then all ish hit the fan. They were like, so my husband couldn’t make it from time. From work. It was that level of emergency. And they were then like, sorry, we’re going to need to give you a hysterectomy. We’re going to put you under now. So I navigated that alone. And everybody after that in the hospital were like, how are you actually okay?

 

And literally it was because I had the perspective and the awareness and I understood my brain, my thoughts, my relationship to my thoughts, and that then flowed through to my behaviors and my experience of life, I had. I managed to break my elbow and have a full cast during lockdown at the same time as I had a cancer removed from my eye and it kept, they couldn’t like fully close it so it would just be blood dripping down, sorry this is gross, blood dripping down my face and I couldn’t wipe it because it was the same bloody arm but I was largely okay through those experiences.

 

Not because I was a Zen monk, not because I like, I was hippie, dippy, you know, did candles and crystals and things like that. But just because I, like, I had this innate understanding of my brain, which I’ve now been working on, you know, for like 10 years, but the more you can understand your brain, how it works, why you have the thoughts you have and how to shift your relationship to that, which is not it like, It’s not like an easy or instant thing, but once you learn it, you’re once and done.

 

And can I give a great example? I’m going to tell you a great example of exactly how your brain can either help you or harm you. All right. So for everyone listening here, the first thing that I’m going to say is I promise I’m not a monster. Wait till the punch line. So, Imagine you’re going on a blind date.

 

You’ve met someone on Tinder. It’s your very first blind date. So you’re feeling all the nerves. You’ve like gone and, you know, worked for hours on exactly what am I going to wear? What might I talk about? You know, okay. Feeling really nervous. And I’m your best friend. Friend, and you come over, you’re like, Rohan, help me get dressed and help me get ready.

 

Like come and have a drink with me before he comes over. I’m feeling really nervous. Right? So you and me, you’re going on a blind date and I’m your best friend. I come over, I help you get ready. I’m like, go sister. Have the best time. Bye. And you go on this blind date, you’re feeling all the nerves. You’re sitting there.

 

It’s okay. You’re having some conversation and you think it’s going pretty well. You order your entrees, you order your mains, let’s call him Troy. Then all of a sudden Troy stands up and says, I can’t do this and walks off. Yeah. That’s all he says. Right? And you all stood there, like, mouth open. You were already feeling nervous.

 

Now you’re like, Oh, what do I do here? And you called me. Right? And you were like, Robin, he just said I can’t do this. And then walked off. So I was like, well, Stef, what was your profile picture like again? Where, did you, like, did you have a filter on or something in your profile picture and then he saw you in real life and you weren’t the same person?

 

Did you talk too much about your business and like your podcast or something? Like, what was it? Like he’s obviously seen you on Tinder and got some impression of you and then he’s got there and you’re something else and you’re just not what he was looking for. And at that point, I’m pretty sure that you would a little bit want to punch me in the face, but also want to burst into tears in the middle of a restaurant.

 

Because that’s exactly not what you want to hear when things are not going your way. If I was a true best friend, none of this has happened in real life and I’d never actually say that to somebody. But if I was a true best friend, I would be like, Screw him sister, he’s a jerk, he doesn’t know what he’s missing out on, order me a margarita and I’ll be there in five.

 

And I would be helping you turn that down. Turn like those tables around. He could have had his ex wife sitting at a table in the corner being like I hate you I see you like messaging him and being like the second that you go to the toilet I’m gonna go up and tell her what a jerk you are. He could have been cheating on his wife He could have had a mum that was in hospital that was on her deathbed and he was like I’m just gonna keep going and do it There’s like literally a thousand reasons why this man could have got up and walked away from the table Now, we can all agree, I think every single person here can agree, that one of those friends, like Robin 1, was a jerk and made things 10 times worse, versus Robin B, was like the best friend that everybody wants, in crappy times.

 

Now, here’s the plot twist, Stef, tell me, if you had that experience, which friend would Would you be to yourself? Which friend would your brain be? 

 

Oh, fabulous question. Your brain goes straight to Robin one. Yeah. 

 

That’s where think of life when you are full disclosure, you’re, you’re literally your brain is designed to analyze past experiences and figure out where we went wrong or where we can shift that in order to maximize future pleasure.

 

Right? So that’s what your brain is designed to do. So you need to understand that, but think of your experience of life and how that might change if you stepped more into inner cheerleader than inner critic. Imagine if there were like 10 or 20 different concepts like that, that would shift your entire experience of your brain and your relationship to your thoughts.

 

But therefore flowed into the behaviors that you took and the experience that you had in life and how much less exhausting day to day life would be, you know, like didn’t have those thoughts and didn’t buy into those thoughts because you don’t need to believe every single thing that your brain tells you, right?

 

So even if you have that thought of like, was it me? Am I like fatter than I used to be or whatever you might think. And actually you have the power to believe that thought or not believe that thought or rewire that thought or not rewire that thought. So once you learn the skills to be able to shift your relationship to yourself, your thoughts, your brain, game changer.

 

Yeah. 

 

The good news is, 

 

is my brain isn’t Robin one anymore,

 

especially with dating.

 

You need the inner cheerleader. 

 

Yeah. Yeah, no, now, now I’m, uh, it’s almost like the other way around. I take zero, uh, to almost take no responsibility for part of my, it’s all them, I’m 

 

perfect, beautiful. It’s fine. But I think, you know, I think that’s really important, especially as Australians in our culture where we’ve kind of been brought up not to cheerlead ourselves and not to celebrate ourselves.

 

And I think we, it’s. It’s so important that we start unlearning so much of what we’ve learned as we were growing up as well. 

 

Yeah, totally. I think that is the case in so much of what we do, like translating that back to like IVF and fertility Jenny. Because Thanks. Constantly, you know, when cycle IVF cycles don’t go as we hoped, you know, you don’t get as many eggs as you wanted or embryos, or you don’t have any embryos to transfer or, you know, devastating things happen on this path that you could have never anticipated.

 

And sometimes we never anticipate too. I mean, we hold a greater degree of, you know, holding out all the possibilities, you know, a little bit more of a bounce way, cause we don’t have that level of emotional. To a degree we do, but it’s not our body that’s going through it. It’s not our fertility journey.

 

So you can only hold so much for it. And you know, all the possibilities logically, it’s not good for most people to have that very cynical approach, but for us, like, that’s what we have to do. And. It is that immediate jump that people go to, what did I do wrong? Is there something we could do more with the diet?

 

Is there something we could do more with the supplements? And sometimes there is, like, sometimes we, like, usually it’s a bit of a stepwise approach. Like we’re not going to give you, you know, the things that we give people who are six years deep into IVF on the initial preconception appointment. It doesn’t make sense to do that.

 

It’s time, money, cost, all these things that you don’t need to be spending potentially. Yes, there are stepwise things, but there is a point where I go to people and really up front with them. I’m like, we have done all the things that we could possibly do. It’s either you keep going or you change tact medically.

 

This is where we’re at. I don’t want you to keep coming back feeling this sense of I’m not doing enough. I’m not enough in some way, because you are, you’re doing all the things. I can see it. I’m validating that. We just got to keep going. And like, I’m cheering you on, but like. We just got to keep pushing now.

 

And it’s in those moments where it’s like, it’s hard to say, like, I find it hard to say, but it’s the truth. And I don’t sugarcoat anything. It’s the truth. I’m compassionate. I’m empathetic. I will never lie. And it’s those push through moments where things change. And that’s where I always found, like, you’ve got to have the right support people who are going to support you.

 

Hold you in that space when you need that delicate, you need that best friend. Who’s going to have a margarita with you in this world. It is clinical and someone, sometimes you need somebody who’s going to straight talk to you as well to a degree. 

 

Yep. And I think we can pick and choose where we get. our advice from as well.

 

But this is where I think so much of what we’ve been taught growing up is we’re now in a different generation. We now know so much more about what works and what doesn’t work. And hands up, which one of us, like who here is the generation where you went to school and you learned? When you had a little, you had a burl and a whole bunch of different sports.

 

Great. You had sex ed, which was basically, if you look at a boy sideways without a condom, then definitely going to get pregnant straight away. I’m not sure the quality was there, but no one, we never had mental health ed class, but we were the generation, like, I know that if I was having really big and uncomfortable feelings as a child.

 

And I was having a meltdown and things were really hard for me. Sometimes I’d get a smack bottom. And so the narrative there is it makes other people uncomfortable or you’re not allowed to have deep, big, uncomfortable experiences. So you have to hold bottle that in and hold that in or. You would have to go to your room, i.

 

1. you can’t have hard and uncomfortable experiences because that makes other people feel uncomfortable. So again, bottle that all up. Big girls don’t cry. Again, bottle that all up. And when they’ve now done studies on Infertility stress and like they separated the study into what works for men or what people do and then what worked and what didn’t do and they separated it by men and they separated it by women, right?

 

And one of the things that women typically will do is isolate themselves. And so this is where we start saying things like. I’m not going to go to the baby shower. I’m not going to go out on Saturday night because I’m not drinking. I’m not going to go, gonna stop playing basketball because, you know, I’m trying to really protect my fertility.

 

And what if the ball hits me in the ovaries or whatever it is that we start thinking, but women instinctively, so I’m not saying you must go to every baby shower and every event, not talking about that. What I am talking about is sometimes. If you cut something out, replace it with something else, or don’t be conscious of where you are shrinking your life and isolating yourself because so many women continually start shrinking and shrinking and shrinking their lives.

 

What happened or what the study showed was that increased both infertility stress and relationship stress when we isolated ourselves. And it’s one of the general themes of anxiety is that avoiding discomfort. might help you in the short term, doesn’t always help you in the long term, because then what happens is.

 

Going to the next thing becomes more of a hurdle, going to the next thing becomes more of a hurdle. It becomes harder and harder to, like, pop the cherry again because the anxiety then it becomes so real and so large and you shrink your life down to nothing. You kind of end up having nothing really of substance left.

 

So what we typically go to, what we might have learned as we’re growing up is not always, What is going to work for us now in this situation? And so giving ourselves permission to be open to seek strategic support can, you know, really be 

 

quite life changing. What do you think people need in terms of support structures, if they’re.

 

There’s a lot of people listening to this who are quite proactive, kind of type A personalities, they want to be ticking the boxes kind of thing, but perhaps they’ve now had this little epiphany, I’m hoping, that it’s more than just ticking boxes and Support is valuable for someone in that just starting out thing.

 

Like if you could go back to previous Robin, who felt a bit smug about getting all her checks done and she ticked all the boxes and did all the things right. And what would you say to her? Like, what kind of support do you think that she would have benefited from at that time? 

 

So I was very proactive. As I said, we’ve like physical support.

 

I went to my doctor for a preconception check. I went, saw my naturopath. I was like onto it. But. Protecting and getting support for my emotional health was something that I neglected in some parts. I think I kind of assumed that my fertility clinic was a one stop shop for everything, and they really weren’t.

 

I had one counselling session right before I was about to do my surgery. IVF, and I think that the session was more so for them to tick the box that I was aware of the ramifications of what I was physically putting myself through and the whole concept of what happens if you have embryos that are left over, et cetera, rather than to support me at an IVF.

 

emotional level. And the counselor that I had no shade to her, but her strategies were keep busy. As an example, keeping busy can sometimes, sometimes it’s a great strategy. Sometimes it’s actually trying to distract ourselves from our emotions instead of feeling them, which doesn’t help us feel better. By that point, I’d already been trying to conceive for two years.

 

What she told me wasn’t particularly groundbreaking. And I had my, the medical miscarriage and I physically emotionally at that point had that breakdown moment where I was like, I actually don’t think I could continue to do another egg retrieval. I don’t think I’ve got it in me. I don’t have the physical or emotional capacity to do that.

 

And I was walking around work at that point, and like I said at the beginning of the interview, women fake good in order to appear like they’re okay to everyone on the outside world. And it was this point that I actually, for the first time ever, didn’t feel like I wanted to be an open book, whereas previously I had, I just was like, I don’t think I can talk to anyone about this.

 

And I felt like I was walking around work in a fog. Couldn’t think straightly, didn’t really feel like I could concentrate at work or give it my all. I felt like there were always tears welling in my eyes and everybody could see it. And so we took a last minute trip to a very, very remote surf resort in Lombok.

 

It was like five hours from the airport. There was no shops. There was nothing. It was just a literal isolated surf resort with like three other guests there. And that’s what I needed. I was like, I actually can’t cope with my life at the moment. If I looked back now, I, you know, I think I had this resistance to asking for help.

 

I probably had the belief that asking for help for my mental state slash emotional state maybe equaled that I was weak and I 100 percent was faking that I was okay or trying to convince myself that I should be doing better and that I was okay even though I would have these moments like I would get home from work just emotionally frazzled and burst into tears chopping potatoes.

 

Right. And kept telling myself, like, I just need to get pregnant and then it’ll all melt away and I’ll be fine. That really wasn’t that experience of that first pregnancy. That first pregnancy felt like I was walking on eggshells every moment of the day. If I look now at my life and my philosophy, I protect my emotional health now, I guess as a life coach, I probably should, above all else.

 

I saw my first life coach in 2018, two years ago. So after lockdown, I was like, I, you know, need some emotional help. I saw my first therapist then. And what I know now as well is that, I mean, I’m lucky I saw a great therapist who I really resonated with off the bat. I only saw her for a couple of months because I just felt like I needed I wanted someone at that point to be a, who was professional and educated to be able to guide me through and bounce things off.

 

I only saw her, needed to see her for a short period of time, but sometimes programs, tools, modalities, et cetera, you got to try on the one that works for you. I know many people who have joined our program, they’ve been like, you know what? I’ve tried a number of therapists and I’m just not vibing with therapy.

 

This is what works for me. I’ve had a number of people who are like, you know what? I am seeing a therapist and doing this program. And together, this is ninja. What works for one person isn’t always what’s going to work for you. So give yourself permission to try on different things. Maybe you go and see a talk therapist and you like the concept, but the therapist.

 

And you aren’t vibing just like dating one bad day doesn’t mean that you’re never going to go on another date again. Find the right person for you, but having strategic and professional support for your emotions. Sometimes isn’t weakness. It’s freaking strength, right? One of the differentiating factors, and like you said, so many of your women are type A’s.

 

One of the things that sets CEOs aside from middle management is that CEOs ask for help. They don’t expect to do everything on their own. They don’t expect to know everything. They don’t expect to be the expert at everything. They go out and say, okay, who am I going to get? To help me with this and probably looking back readily asking for help and being like, okay, if things are a bit wobbly, if things aren’t in balance in my life.

 

Where am I going to get professional help from? And I apply that across all areas of my life now. 

 

How does your advice differ from the person who’s optimizing for trying to conceive versus someone who’s, you know, a few years deep into their fertility journey, have faced losses, IVF. Is the principles the same or.

 

Is it quite nuanced to those unique experiences? 

 

I think in some ways like it’s same same but different. So I was always going, we have people who will join our programs at absolute rock bottom. So we had a lady, Amy, she was a nurse in a NICU ward. So she knew so much about biology, fertility, all of that kind of stuff.

 

She joined our program. She was doing banking cycles. So she’d done, I think four IVF banking cycles. And whilst she was in the program. Discovered that every single one of them had genetically tested abnormal, and that was a blow. Like, that would be a blow for anyone. We have had, we have someone who is one of our active ladies, Melissa, she has gone through cycle after cycle, and then there’s this big emotional hurdle for, she ended up Moving to donor conception, as well as we’ve had another lady, Molly, who’s moved to donor conception.

 

And sometimes when we have these, we have these big, really pivotal moments through our fertility journey, but it still comes back to the basics of understanding the thoughts that you have, how to regulate your nervous system, how to like, let’s say, you know, when we are constantly, our brains has this like fire alarm to trip us into like anxiety, right.

 

To trip us into fight or flight. You might be constantly tripping that fight or flight system in your body because you body like thinking of like a well worn path, right? Your brain just takes that path to anxiety every time. It’s called a dominant neural pathway. So having a look at like, where am I existing?

 

And when you learn how to reset your nervous system and step away from that, you bring Areas in your brain back online that are responsible for rational thinking, problem solving, decision making, perseverance. That is equally as important at the beginning of your conception journey. If you’re six months in as to, and equally as important when you are making huge pivotal decisions about your journey, it is never too early.

 

And it is never too late to start learning those skills. So yes, the foundations are important, but I think once we get to I guess more advanced level of trying to conceive. I’ve been on the roller coaster for years. Like this is this, this is that sometimes it is about, okay, what was working for me? And a lot of people, I, so many people will be like, Oh, you know what?

 

I used to journal every day and it was the most helpful thing. And then I stopped because everything was okay. And I’m like, cool, go back to journaling. If it worked for you, let’s restart that. And they’re like, Oh my God, game changer, but learning what works. And the other thing that I notice when people have done that foundational work, if they move through those decisions much more rapidly, for some people, that’s the decision to move from trying to conceive naturally or doing IUI to doing IVF.

 

Might be, you know, whether or not you move into donor conception or don’t and be able to recover and bounce back faster, but also understanding that healing isn’t linear. When you learn those big lessons and have those big moments, the big aha moment can be That healing isn’t linear and it’s not life is never going to be like skipping through a field of roses and you never have a bad thing happen to you again, regardless of whether it’s your fault or not your fault or whatever.

 

But give me being able to give yourself grace and step into self love, compassion, et cetera, through those moments as well. 

 

Yeah. So beautifully said Robin, what would be your biggest like take home piece of advice about. this topic, fertility, mindset, stress, emotional health to our listeners today, if you could give them one little tidbit.

 

I’m sure they’re all thinking about Troy and I’s first date, but, but perhaps we can leverage that analogy and give them some kind of final words to take away from today’s episode. 

 

So the very, if I could have one message That I would love for everyone to hear and embrace like one phrase. I would love for you to think throughout the day today, throughout the week, I matter, you matter.

 

You do not have to martyr yourself, your wellbeing, your life, your relationship, everything in the pursuit of having a baby. And sometimes putting your own oxygen mask on first. It’s actually one of the most helpful things you can do all around. It doesn’t have to be one or the other sometimes saying I’m a priority and I matter, like I’m worthy.

 

It’s not, you know, I’m not going to spend that 1, 000 on the latest iPhone. She’s going to spend that 1, 000 on prioritizing myself and my emotional physical wellbeing. I matter. But then at the, Next level is anytime you have a thought, a fear, whatever it is, sometimes fears masquerade as facts. So when your brain says to you, I’m not doing enough.

 

All you have to do is answer back. Is that true? Am I? What if? I am doing enough. You don’t have to believe everything that your brain tells you and it’s not a one way conversation. Like it can be a two way conversation. What if I don’t get pregnant this month? But what if I do? Right. And so it doesn’t have to be this giant declaration of, but this is my month and I’m going to get pregnant.

 

It’s all going to be perfect. And I’m manifesting it into reality. Actually, you can just literally say to your brain. But what if I do? Like, not set in stone yet, right? Just like this guy, Troy, you know, on our first date. But, you know, what if he looked at you and was like, you’re not the shining goddess that I saw on Tinder.

 

Yeah, but What if it’s also one of 999 other scenarios that I literally don’t have the answer for right now? You can answer back to your brain and you don’t need to believe everything your brain tells you. Feelings are 

not facts. Right? Truth. Truth. Robyn, you’ve been a delight. Thank you for coming on the pod, sharing your wisdom, your knowledge, your real talk.

Where can people find out more about you and plugging in with you? So we have 

250 in episodes of the fertility warriors podcast. So that’s always a great place to listen to more stories, more insights from me. And folks can also find us on Instagram at mind body fertility reset. Uh, so you can come and find us there, learn lots of other little things from us.

We love doing those big carousel posts with aha moments. So. The fertility worries podcast or mind body fertility reset on Instagram. 

Incredible. We’ll have that linked in the show notes for you all. Thanks again, Robin. Appreciate you. Bye. Thanks everyone. Big, warm. Thank you to Robin for joining us on the podcast to talk about this incredibly important topic.

I hope you all resonated with an element of today’s podcast. So do share it with a family member, a friend. friend, someone, you know, who would appreciate it. Don’t forget to hit follow on your favourite podcast streaming platform and leave us a five star rating whilst you’re at it. This is a free and really helpful way for you to support the podcast.

Wishing you all the very best on your trying to conceive journey in the meantime, and I will catch you in the next episode. Bye.

Fertility Friendly Food, the podcast, acknowledges the traditional owners of country throughout Australia and recognizes the continuing connections to land, sea, and air. Waters and community. We pay our respects to first nation cultures and to the eldest past, present, and emerging, and extend that respect to all first nations people tuning in today.

This podcast is recorded on the land of the Gadigal people of the Eora nation.