PCOS : A Woman’s Journey to Have A Baby

PCOS : A Woman’s Journey to Have A Baby

Transcription:

Dr. Marc Sklar:

If you’ve been told you’re of advanced maternal age, have been diagnosed with PCOS, or you just haven’t been given the answers that you deserve, then I think you’re going to find this video really useful. So this video is going to be a little bit different, but I think you’re really going to like it and find it useful. What I want to hear from all of you is, if you do find it useful and practical for your fertility journey, so leave a comment below and let me know.

Dr. Marc Sklar:

This is what I’m going to do, I’m going to analyze the real life story of a woman that I coached, and her name is Donna. Donna was able to get pregnant at 45 with PCOS, after 13 years of trying to get pregnant. We’re going to listen to her while we go in depth so you can understand what she did and hopefully you can apply some of those same things into your fertility journey. If you’ve been told you’re of advanced maternal age, have been diagnosed with PCOS, or you just haven’t been given the answers that you deserve, then I think you’re going to find this video really useful.

Dr. Marc Sklar:

Before I get started, I want to quickly announce that my fertility coaching program to work with me one-on-one is open. If you want me as your fertility coach to help you get pregnant naturally, then I want you to click on the link below in the description so that you can apply. This program is by application only, if you qualify, you’ll be able to join. Now, let’s get on with the video.

Donna:

I’m 45, I’m a New Yorker and I was married when I was 28, and I got divorced when I was 32. And at that time… During that period, I wasn’t sure about having kids. So we weren’t trying, but we also weren’t preventative. Towards the end of the marriage, we started thinking more about children, but only because doctors started pressuring me. When I turned 30, they were saying, “Oh, you turned 30 and fertility is going to decline, you should start seeking.” And I didn’t really feel ready, but I felt pressure over time.

Dr. Marc Sklar:

So I think this is a really important piece that we often ignore, and it’s not specifically appropriate in terms of creating your specific plan. But time and feeling pressured by whoever it is, whether it’s your OB-GYN, your partner, or your family, is a big piece and a comment that I hear often from women or couples that I work with. And I think it’s important for us to understand what this really means, okay? Because just because you turned 30 doesn’t mean the light switches are turning off. It means that you need to find a time that is appropriate for you and your fertility planning so you can start a family. Don’t feel pressured to start a family just because somebody else is telling you or all the people around you are starting to have children, and you feel like you need to keep up with the Joneses.

Donna:

I should mention, when I was in graduate school, I took part in a research study and felt that I had PCOS. I did know about PCOS, but I didn’t really understand how it would have affect fertility. And so, I got divorced when I was 32 and then about two years later, I started dating someone new. I was 34, and I really, really wanted to have kids then. And so I went back to that same doctor and said, “Okay, I’m back,” and it was a reproductive endocrinologist and I said, “I’m back and I really want to have a kid now, so I’m ready to do maybe a little bit more than even just Clomid.” So he talked to me about IUIs and I said, “Okay fine.” And so we went through the whole process, semen analysis and IUIs, and we did three, and all three were unsuccessful.

Donna:

And at the time, I didn’t really understand my lab work. We did a ton of lab work, but I didn’t understand any of it, and I didn’t know why the IUIs didn’t work, I just knew they didn’t work and so.

Dr. Marc Sklar:

So I want to make a point here. She knew she had PCOS, like many of you probably do or did. She went into the reproductive endocrinologist, and they moved straight into IUI. And she did three rounds of IUI and they failed. And I hear this all the time, “I did IUI, it didn’t work, what do I do?” Or “Where do I go?” Or “Why did I even do IUI?” Here’s the missing piece, she knew she had PCOS and she knew it for years, but she didn’t spend the time to treat and manage the PCOS in the appropriate way before she went forward with IUI. She only realized that later, which you’ll hear, but the biggest piece of this is that we’re often pushed forward in the fertility process and journey without ever spending time to treat the underlying issues that are at play, and in her case, or possibly your case, the PCOS.

Dr. Marc Sklar:

And so it’s really important that we try to treat and address these underlying issues first before you move forward. So that you can have a better journey, a faster journey, and the results that you’re looking for in hopefully, the timeframe you’re looking for. Who knows? If she would have treated the PCOS prior to this, she may have been successful on her IUIs at that time.

Donna:

Looking at my labs too, I realized that the things I had, it did make a difference. That’s why the period was getting better with PCOS because my LH was three, two times my FSH, and by the time I got to Marc, they were kind of one to one, they were in line with one another. And so, because he explained the results, I was like, “Oh, that’s why the period had started to improve, I had improved my LH, I lowered it considerably.” And so then that motivated me, okay so diet, supplements, it does make a difference. I am changing my own body chemistry. And so then I cut out, I am very into fitness.

Dr. Marc Sklar:

So has as hard as it is to make changes with your diet, with your exercise, with all the lifestyle changes that we ask you to do. Once you start to see the changes and the benefits that that is happening, like she did, then you’re motivated to keep going. You see the longterm goal, you see the light at the end of the tunnel, and you could see a reason why you’re doing these things and the benefit of it, right? So it keeps you motivated. So as hard as it is in the beginning, I want you all to know that this is going to keep you going and that it will become easier to make these changes and see the results.

Donna:

And he had me cut out everything because I knew once I gave up Bikram yoga, hot yoga, and I was a fanatic yogi. I gave up aggressive cycling and I turned to just doing gentle yoga, walking, sometimes running.

Dr. Marc Sklar:

A big part of PCOS patients, and I actually just got off of a call with a woman that I’m coaching. It’s the same situation with her, with PCOS is that stress plays an enormous role in the impact of you being able to regulate your cycles. And for both of them, the more stress, the more irregular the cycles become. And so, a big part is for us to manage that stress. But stress doesn’t always come in emotional stress, sometimes it comes in physical stress. So increased exercise can be a stressor, obviously stress of work or the environment or lifestyle, the environmental toxins can be stressors. So any stress that’s going to impact your body, your hormones and your health needs to be managed properly, which is why in her case, I pulled her back on her strenuous exercise and I wanted her to do more gentle exercise. But exercise was still important, so it’s about finding the right type so that we’re not causing more damage to the process.

Donna:

Figure out how to get my period to come on its own because PCOS and being on the pill from about 17 to about 30, it wrecked my period. And so, I took myself off the pill on my own, against my doctor’s recommendation because I said, “You’re not going to fix my period, you just have me on a pill, I need to figure out how to fix this.” I went on this quest to kind of figure out how to fix it. And so, for years I was changing diet, taking supplements and all of that stuff, trying different things, seeing different specialists. And in the process, I moved to Atlanta when I was, how old was I? I think I was maybe 40 when I moved to Atlanta, so that’s about six years.

Dr. Marc Sklar:

So let’s follow this progression. She knew she had PCOS, she did a bunch of blood work and lab work, but no one interpreted for her, she didn’t understand what it meant. She went on a journey during this time, after she was out of her relationships to fix her cycles and her hormones and her PCOS on her own. Which often I hear that, “I’m going to do all of this on my own.” And I do believe a lot of you can do so much of it on your own, but I think it would be much faster for you if you have the right guidance and structure to make that happen. And she was just changing her diets, changing her exercise, but she wasn’t seeing the results. So I want you all to remember all of that, okay?

Donna:

And it was still very inconsistent. And then I ran into this acupuncturist, who’s also a herbalist. And she was like, “There’s issues with your liver, and that affects everything.” And so we started naturally doing things to work on my liver, that definitely helped. My period got better, I used to go for maybe 60, 70 days and… Well 70 days, and now it went down to every 60 days, I would have a period. Which was still abysmal and so then I went to someone new and we got it down to every 42 days, and so even that… And it was consistent, that was the best I had ever been, 42 days.

Dr. Marc Sklar:

So, on her own and with some guidance from a couple of acupuncturists, she was able to take her menstrual cycle from 70 days, she got off the pill remember, she was able to take her cycles from 70 days to 60 days. And now to 44 days or 43 days, she said, so that’s huge progress. It’s a good step in the right direction, okay. And that’s what we’re looking for. For PCOS patients we’re looking for consistency, even if it’s not always a perfect 28-day cycle.

Donna:

I’m about 41, yeah about 41 when this is happening. And so now I really feel the age pressure. I’m like, “Okay, I need to really do something drastic.” And so I start Googling and I joined-

Dr. Marc Sklar:

I want to point out here also for all of you. She knew that she had PCOS when she was 30, she’s now 41. I want you all to be proactive about your health now not later. It’s okay to seek help to regulate your hormones, your cycles and your PCOS or anything that’s going on with your menstrual cycle, sooner rather than later. Even if you’re not in a relationship, even if you’re not ready to get pregnant, do it now. It’s going to make your life so much easier later. It’s going to make your fertility process and journey so much easier later. So be proactive when you know there’s an issue, listen to your gut, listen to your body and take action sooner, rather than later.

Donna:

Someone mentioned Marc and so I went to his website and it seemed cool and said, “Okay, I’m going to do a consult.” And so I do the phone consult with him and he explained… He has me send my lab work, the lab work that I had did when I was 34 so these are years later, and he’s now explaining what all those results mean. And I start crying because it was the first time that I understood my… So even though I was trying to do things, it’s like spinning a wheel and you’re not really getting anywhere. Without really understanding what was happening, it’s really hard to make a change. And I remember thanking him, I remember feeling like, “I didn’t even pay you anything and you took the time to help me understand my own health.” And that’s how I knew I had to work with this person because he-

Dr. Marc Sklar:

Here’s a key piece, she had blood work done when she was 34, no one ever explained it to her. The first thing that I will do with all of you, that my team will do with all of you is we will explain your blood work when we get to reviewing it, okay. And when we run new lab work, we’re going to explain to you what our findings are and why we think we’re seeing these issues and what’s going on. So you’re going to get an explanation, we’re not just going to give you all, “Everything’s fine,” or “We found some things, here take something.” You’re going to get an actual explanation like she did.

Donna:

And I was already on the path to eating healthier, but I started with him doing things like bone broth and castor oil packs and just a lot of different things that I hadn’t tried before. And then continuing with things that I had already started, acupuncture and meditation that was kind of the journey. But when I talked to Marc, I think that’s when I started to really believe it was going to happen. I had always hoped and wanted it, wanted to be a mom, but he made it tangible, I could feel it now, “I’m going to become a mom, we’re going to make this happen. I don’t know when, but we’re going to get there.”

Dr. Marc Sklar:

I hear this all the time, again today with that woman that I was just telling you about that I was coaching and you can hear it from Donna. Many of you lose hope, you lose belief in yourself. And I’m telling you that I will tell you the truth, we will guide you in the right way to find the right path for you. And hopefully that path actually is partly restoring hope and restoring belief in yourself that you will see the results. But we’re not going to lie to you, we’re going to tell you the truth. And we’re going to tell you what we believe is true for you, from a natural perspective, if you’re willing to put in the time, the energy and the resources to seeing the results and getting the change that you desire, just like she did.

Donna:

To be able to email him and say, “I’m pregnant.” And then, “She was born.” Oh yeah. So I did my IVF retrieval when I was 42 at a time when everyone’s thinking the odds are going to be very low. And that’s when I did the retrieval, and then I froze the embryos for a year. And then I transferred at 43, and she was born in when I was 44.

Dr. Marc Sklar:

She was determined to do this on her own, and she wanted to make sure she was healthy enough. So against a lot of recommendations, she spaced this everything out by a year. So she did her IVF retrieval, then she froze those embryos and then she took a year to recover, to make sure she was ready, healthy enough to transfer. She did it on her terms, on her timeline for what worked for her, not what everybody else was saying to do. And she got pregnant at 43, she delivered a healthy baby at 44 because she did it her way when she was ready with the right guidance and the right plan. And that’s what I was able to help guide her through.

Donna:

So all the information is readily available, especially because it’s the internet. There are some things that you just don’t understand, because it’s not what you focus on or what you’ve been educated on. And so I think for me at the time, I’m thinking I could just read my way through things. And I think maybe that’s what a lot of the followers … I’ll just read an article and that will tell me these five things and then I’ll get pregnant. I think pregnancy is a lot more complex than that. And we can take it for granted because there’s so many people on the earth. You’d just assume it has to be easy. Maybe one, not assuming that it’s so easy because if you didn’t, then maybe you’d be more willing to get an expert involved because you realize it’s not that easy. And two, I think I would tell myself that it’s okay to acknowledge that this is hard and it’s not easy, even though it might seem easy for others.

Dr. Marc Sklar:

This is key, okay? For all of you trying, is that you can do so much on your own, but you can do so much faster, so much easier and with the right guidance and plan, if you have the right person coaching you and looking for the issues to help you break through that in the right way and in a much faster way. And it’s okay to ask for help and to get help just like Donna said, because often we all need help, in all aspects of life and fertility is no different. So to wrap it up, I want all of you to know, first and foremost, you can get the help that you need and that you deserve. And that with the proper plan, the proper coaching and enough time and patience on your part, you can get the results you’re looking for, the pregnancy you’re looking for and hopefully, the family that you desire.

Dr. Marc Sklar:

I also want you to tell me what was the one thing that Donna mentioned that really struck a chord with you that made you second the way you’re approaching things. And it’s making you think about doing things a little bit differently. I want you to comment below and let me know what that is, okay. And I want you all to know that me and my team are here for you. And again, if you’re looking for a coach to help you on your fertility journey, then I want you to apply to work with me in my fertility program, by using the link below. If you like this video, give it a thumbs up. If you found it really important, I want you to share it with somebody who you think could find a lot of value in what we just shared. And until the next video, I want you all to stay fertile.