So, if you're joining me today and watching this video, odds are you are over 35 or about to be 35,
and you're trying to get pregnant. You've started to hear that it can be more difficult,
or maybe even so, you've heard that you're too old. That you're geriatric, God forbid. I don't
even know why they use that term anymore. That you might even be Advanced Maternal Age. These are all
purely based on a number, and they're horrible to hear. Nobody wants to hear this. I know
this because members who joined my Hope Fertility Coaching program, which is my online program, are
often over 35, and I know firsthand what they've been told when they've been looking for support.
And yes, it is true that as you age, your fertility declines. I mean, we can't deny that.
That's absolutely true. But you know what else is true? That over the last 20 years that I've been
a natural fertility expert, I've seen hundreds of women, couples over 35 years old, who've been
told that they're too old or they're Advanced Maternal Age or their only option is IVF. I've
seen them get the proper support and get pregnant naturally. So if it was possible for them,
it has to be able to be possible for you as well, with again the right support. So in this video,
that's exactly what I'm going to cover. All right? So you may be 35, approaching 35, or even older
than 35 and trying to conceive. Well, what are the biggest challenges that you may face as you're
trying to get pregnant at this age? Because you've made the choice that now is the right time. Now is
the time to have a family or to have more children in your family. Well, the first most important
thing that I think we need to consider and discuss is time. That's right. And you might say,
"Well, I don't really have any control over time, and how can I even impact that?" Well,
the reason why time is probably the single most important variable that needs to be mentioned
is because it's going to impact all the other decisions that are at play, and it also helps
to give a little bit more structure and time frame to allow you as an individual or couple to
make the decisions that are appropriate for you. So what happens is that we feel this pressure,
okay, as we get older and we want to have children, that it needs to happen yesterday
or a year ago or right now. And so that's where that time factor creeps in and causes you to start
to make decisions that maybe you wouldn't have otherwise made or causes additional stress. The
other reason why time is important is because it's going to give you structure. If you are
going to say to yourself, "Well, I'm willing to give myself x amount of time to try naturally
or to incorporate new therapies or techniques," then that gives you structure so that you're not
revisiting this conversation all the time. It also says to you that when I get to that point in time,
whatever time that might be for you, let's just say it's 6 months, that when I get 6 months down
the road, I'm going to revisit my progress. I'm going to see where we're at, and then we can
reassess. Do I continue down this path, or do I go down a different path? Do I look at insemination
or IVF or something else? And that's where that time piece is really important. It also becomes
important as we're older, as we're approaching 40 or over 40, that time piece also condenses,
and that's where these challenges come in because we have to start to make decisions again sooner
than we would have liked, and they also start to impact the decisions that we want to make.
I also think that time is important for another piece. If you are not going to do anything with
the time you have and you're not going to be proactive, then, yeah, I think that time really is
not on your side, and you maybe need to make those decisions sooner rather than later. If you are
going to be proactive and make good choices with the time that you have to make changes positively,
hopefully, then my feeling is that that time kind of expands a little bit for you and gives
you a little bit more flexibility. So those are my thoughts about time. The other piece that kind of
comes into play with time is that your hormones shift and potentially decline over time. That's
right. As we age, our hormones change, and what we typically start to see is that our
estradiol decreases or estrogen decreases, and our FSH increases. Well, all of these hormonal
shifts and declines are challenges for all of us who are over 35, both for men and women,
by the way. It goes both ways, and so we have to be able to manage those hormonal shifts,
and we want to utilize the time that we have appropriately to improve those hormones and
really make some progress in those areas. Another piece that's a challenge as we approach
35 or older is that we start to get pressure from society and from our doctors that your time is
running out and that you need to make choices, and typically those pressures and choices lead towards
IVF. Again, I don't want anyone to misunderstand me. I think there's a really important place for
IVF, and I think it's really valuable for many of us and is a tool that allows us to have the
families we want. But I don't think that all of us need it, and I think many of us get pushed in
that direction a little prematurely without ever trying other things to address the root issues
and kind of, you know, address who we are and the imbalances that we have. And so I do think that
the pressures that are put upon us to move closer to IVF, and those pressures are happening much
sooner every year. I think those are variables and challenges that we have to face as well,
and that we have to make decisions with. Another one that I do want to mention here as women are
approaching 35 or older, and something that I've been seeing much, much more recently,
is this concept of egg freezing. That there has been a recent push both by the society,
by the medical profession, by employers, by our friends, that as we get older if we're not
in a relationship or we haven't started to have children yet, that we should freeze our eggs. And
so that is a different pressure, the pressure of egg freezing, which again may be appropriate for
some of us but odds are is not necessary for many of us, that starts to shift how we approach things
as well. And this is something I'm seeing a huge shift in with the women that we are supporting. So
these are all different challenges that we face as we approach or get past the age of 35. And now you
know how do we start to balance these things out? Well, the only way that we can really balance
these things out is with knowledge and information. And we need to expand our knowledge
and understanding about the way the Body Works, our hormones, our fertility so that you as an
individual can make the best choices for yourself. So the first thing that we need to understand is:
How likely is it for us to hit menopause, the MW that we're all petrified about at the age of
35 or even 40? Right, like we often hear that, "Oh, we need to do these things. Our fertility
declines as we get closer to menopause, and we need to address our fertility and have children
before we get to menopause," which is true. But how likely is it? How do our hormones work? Well,
really what we're looking for, many of you have probably heard about these two hormones,
is FSH (follicle-stimulating hormone) and estrogen or estradiol (E2). Well, these two hormones work
in tandem with one another as a feedback loop, and as we age and get closer to menopause, our,
as I mentioned earlier, our estrogen decreases and our FSH goes up. And you are closer to menopause,
the higher your FSH is. So a good range for your FSH is between 5 and 10. The next kind of tier
or range, and there's a couple of tiers within there, but I'll say is between 10 and 15, and
then 15 to 20, and then above. But you're really not in menopause until your FSH hits about 50,
and not once but maybe like consistently. So these are things that we need to understand.
Additionally, the likelihood of you being in menopause or perimenopausal at 35, 38, 40,
42 is really not that likely. It's really not that common. It typically happens after 45 and for most
women, well, you know, closer to 50 or above. So I just want to give you that understanding
so that you can feel confident and comfortable kind of with managing your time a little bit
differently as it relates to those hormones and you know, menopause. The other piece around age
and fertility is that as we age, our ovaries don't function as optimally and your eggs kind
of vanish, right? I often hear from women that, "Oh, I've been told I have no eggs left or I only
have one egg left." There's a big misconception around this. When a woman goes into menopause,
you will still have eggs. Your ovaries might not be functioning in a way that's going to mature
those eggs, but you will still have eggs. They're obviously not going to be the millions that you
were born with, but you will still have some. So, do we lose all our eggs as we age? Well,
yes, those decrease, but some new research does show that with the proper support,
your ovaries can produce new eggs as we age as well, and we have to nourish our ovaries
appropriately to do that. I actually created one or two other videos on this topic so I'm
not going to dive much further into that right now, but I want to say there is a little bit of
discrepancy in new research is contradicting some of our old thoughts around that.
Additionally, we really should be focusing on the quality of our eggs. So many of us are concerned
with the amount of eggs that we have. "Oh, I've been told I only have five eggs left or
10 eggs left," which is, you know, incorrect in of itself. Or they only saw on a scan five eggs
or 10 eggs. By the way, when they look on a scan and they see eggs, they see follicles for any
given cycle. That's that cycle. It doesn't mean that that's all you have, okay? That's first and
foremost. And second, that's right, you only, on a natural cycle when you conceive naturally,
release ovulate one egg, and we just need that egg to be healthy. So do I need you to have 20
eggs? I mean, it's nice to have those numbers, but it's not necessary. So I want you all to change
the concept in your mind as well, and we need to start focusing on quality versus quantity.
So what are some of the factors that affect your fertility and egg quality? Well, so much of this
comes down to choices, and these are choices about almost all the decisions you make every day. And
I talk a lot about these things in different videos when we go deeper into diet and stress
and so forth. Today, I actually want to focus on one because it was something that came up this
week with some of the members or specifically one member in my coaching program, and she experienced
a huge amount of stress in the last like 6 weeks or so. And we just finished the holidays,
it was Thanksgiving, and then Christmas, and then New Year's, and if you celebrated other holidays,
it was Hanukkah and Kwanzaa or whatever other holidays they were during this time. And even
though it's a beautiful time of celebration, this could also be a very stressful time because
businesses are trying to finish business, they are still trying to produce and generate revenue,
and if you've got deadlines to meet and so forth, these are all things that impact what's going on.
And then we have life circumstances. I mean, things happen, right? Like 3 weeks ago, my aunt
passed away, and it was in the middle of all the holidays, and I had to travel, and these things
just happen, life happens. And so she was under a lot of stress, and prior to that, her numbers,
her hormones, all looked great, and her cycles were regular. Well, all this stress impacted her
cycles over the last 6-8 weeks, and sure enough, her cycles got disrupted, her hormones shifted,
and her numbers were not what she expected them to be. She had to cancel her cycle, she was in
the middle of an IVF cycle. These things happen, and I'm telling you this because so many of us
hear the word stress and we're like, "Oh yeah, stress, stress, stress." I'm telling you, stress
for so many of you has a profound impact, and these stressors are Not just emotional stressors,
they can be physical stressors, and those physical stressors can show themselves in the ways of like
dietary stress and not enough sleep, not enough exercise. You know there's so many other ways
that stress impacts us or that we're exposed to stress that impacts our fertility, that
it's really important that we manage those things. So are there other things that affect the quality
of ARS? Absolutely. I just mentioned some of those, but those all impact our endocrine system
and our hormones and cause added stress to the body. And if we don't manage our stress properly,
if we don't manage our health properly, that's going to impact our fertility and our reproductive
function. And that example that I just shared with you of the woman from My Hope Coaching program
is one example that I unfortunately see all the time. So I wanted to highlight that because one,
it was just something that came up this week, but I know it's meaningful to all of you.
So we need to start to address those things and carve out time to support ourselves and manage our
stress better. So what are some lifestyle factors that we can improve to optimize our fertility a
little bit more? Well, nutrition is a huge one and one that you all have profound impact over and can
control so much. So this is where choices come down, right? And we can all make better choices.
We just finished the holidays. Many of us maybe didn't make the best choices during that time,
so let's improve that now. Also, adding in one or two supplements that we know can improve egg
quality like CoQ10 and Resveratrol, those are things that can absolutely support our fertility
and optimize our egg quality as well. And lastly, if you know that there's something wrong and you
know that you need help, I want to encourage you to reach out for help sooner. The sooner you get
the proper support, the faster you're going to see change and hopefully the faster you're
going to see the pregnancy that you desire. If you feel like you've been doing a lot for your health
and your fertility with really no results or very little and you want to make sure that you have the
best team on your side, then I want you to head on over to marks.com Discovery call to set up a time
to speak to a real person on my team so that we can identify if having me as your fertility coach
is the right Next Step for you on your fertility Journey. All you have to do is use that link,
and I'm going to drop it down below in the description below. Additionally, if you want
more information on FSH and your fertility, then I'm also going to leave a link to a video that
you can check out after this one. All right, everyone, until the next video, stay fertile.