Ep. 137: Fertility Myths 003

We've all heard things about our fertility that we're shocked to later find out are FALSE! This seems to be especially true when it comes to trying to conceive myths or how to get pregnant myths. But how do we know they're not true? When you hear something over and over again, you tend to believe it... That's why we're doing a Fertility "Myth Buster" episode today to bust some of the most common myths about trying to get pregnant. Enjoy!

NOTE: This episode includes terminology like intercourse, sperm, seminal fluid, and related talk and may not be appropriate for all audiences.

Clarification: A statistic was given related to couples who successfully conceive using the Creighton System within the first 6 months. This specific statistic is related to those without any fertility or reproductive health issues. The other statistic, related to 80% of couples conceiving within the first year, is related to those with diagnosed fertility issues. Thanks!

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Episodes about Creighton Model System:
Fertility Method of Choice: Creighton
Can I really use Creighton myself??
Creighton vs. NaProTechnology: What's the difference?
Choosing a Natural Family Planning Method

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Transcript

Caitlin: 0:06

Welcome to the Woven Well podcast. I'm your host, Caitlin Estes. I'm a certified fertility care practitioner with a master of divinity degree. Each episode will cover a topic that helps educate and empower you and your fertility while honoring the deep connection your fertility has with your faith. Let's get started. Welcome back to the Woven Well Podcast. Each year I like to do a little episode where we explore fertility myths and today we're going to look at some related to trying to conceive. So on Instagram, on our at @wovenfertility account, I sent out a question box a while back and asked for questions or myths or things that you weren't sure if it was true or false related to reproductive health or fertility or natural family planning. And there are a lot of questions about things that we've heard of related to trying to conceive. So we're going to take a few of those today and we're going to talk about them and hopefully at the end of it you'll feel so much more confident about these myths. All right , number one, when it comes to the ability to get pregnant, age is the number one factor. Now the only situation in which this is true is if you're already past menopause. So menopause is the time one year after your last menstruation and ovulation. And that is officially the time where you are no longer fertile. It is no longer possible to conceive a pregnancy. If you are past menopause, then absolutely that's the number one factor, but if you've not hit menopause, then there are all sorts of other factors that can have a huge impact on your ability to get pregnant. For instance, you may be 25 and regularly ovulating with beautiful hormone levels and healthy menstruation, but if you're suffering from endometriosis, that's preventing pregnancy. Endometriosis is the number one factor to address. So age is important because certainly as we age, our hormones will change. The number of eggs we have available will decrease our overall reproductive health will age as well. And so things do change, but it is not necessarily the number one factor and the only thing we need to worry about. I've talked with ladies in the past who had talked about having their eggs frozen when they're younger so they don't have to worry about infertility or the inability to conceive when they're older. But we can't look at age alone because our overall reproductive health is equally as important. If we have these undiagnosed issues that are never getting treated and resolved, then those will continue to grow and fester and cause issues. Now this is especially true if someone is taking birth control because birth control is known to suppress a lot of the symptoms or little flags that would let you know otherwise that this is happening. But when you come off of birth control, those symptoms return and the underlying issue, whatever it was, has just continued that whole time. Sometimes worsening, sometimes staying about the same, but it's still there. And so we always have to identify and treat that underlying issue first. So the first step is working with someone who can identify these factors that are specific to you. We don't want to look at women as a whole when it comes to whether or not someone can conceive. We want to make it individualized. We want to look at your health, your hormones, your cycles, your eggs, and knowing your cycle can be a very helpful step in that process, especially for those ladies who have long or irregular cycles. But even for ladies who have regular cycles. So it's possible to have reproductive health issues that could hinder your ability to conceive whether you have longer regular cycles or regular menstrual cycles too. So when it comes to the ability to get pregnant, age is not necessarily the number one factor. All right . Number two, if you're trying to get pregnant, then you should lie flat after intercourse. I hear this a lot: I hear all sorts of things related to positions you should be in, legs up, all sorts of stuff like that. The reality is this sperm are actually very mobile and they get where they need to go almost immediately, like five minutes or less. And when you actually look at the sperm itself and how it works with cervical mucus, which you know, I talk a lot about cervical mucus, but the cervical mucus does so much to allow the sperm to travel up through the reproductive system very quickly, very efficiently, and also misdirects any sperm that may not be as strong or stable or as healthy as those others. So the sperm are getting where they need to go very quickly. You do not have to lie flat after intercourse in order to conceive or in order to help sperm get where they need to go. That's the whole purpose of your cervical mucus, which is why we encourage you to know exactly when your cervical mucus is present so that you can make decisions that are informed based on that presence. If you have really amazing cervical mucus present, then those are ideal days to try to conceive a pregnancy. Whereas if it's a day of dryness, you're not noticing that cervical mucus, then it's going to be much more difficult to try to conceive a pregnancy on those days. So should you lie flat after intercourse, well it's not going to hurt anything to do that, but it doesn't necessarily help anything either. Sometimes I hear women have concerns about the fact that after intercourse they feel like all the sperm leaves their body and they don't want it to leave, they want it to go the other direction. Well, I also want to clarify that there is a difference between sperm and seminal fluid. So sperm are the actual carriers of the DNA , the genetic material that's making its way up through the reproductive system into the fallopian tubes where it can possibly fertilize. Awaiting egg seminal fluid is instead the nutritional support, that fluid that's there to help the sperm get from the male body to the female body. So that seminal fluid plays a really important role. It allows it to be the gateway, the vehicle to go from one body to the other, but it doesn't serve a purpose after that. So it is critical, but once the sperm is inside the female body, it no longer needs the help of that seminal fluid and that's what you see as it leaves the body. Alright , number three, it is normal for couples to conceive the first cycle they try to get pregnant. This would be nice for many couples if this were a reality, but actually it is normal to take up to six months to conceive even for a healthy couple that have no reproductive health issues whatsoever. Now, those who are using the Creighton model system, which is the system that we teach at Woven Natural Fertility Care, they do have a higher percentage of successfully conceiving those first few months. So we talk about in the introductory session the first time we meet together, how couples who are healthy and have no reproductive health concerns are up to 76% likely to conceive a pregnancy, the very first cycle trying. Now that's because those using Creighton actually know not only when ovulation happens, but the best days to be together. So earlier in the last point I mentioned that there are certain days that are better than others when you're learning a system like the Creighton system, which teaches you, yes, about cervical mucus overall, but also about specific types of cervical mucus, what it reveals about hormones, where you are in your cycle, what days really are the best stages to try to conceive. Sometimes it's pretty surprising and it may not necessarily match up with KS, LH strips or other things that you're looking at to try to determine those days of fertility. So when you really understand what's going on in those prime days, maybe you do have a higher percentage of success in that first cycle. Still a lot of factors have to work together for a pregnancy to occur and to survive. So it is not a situation where 76% of couples who try to conceive will conceive the first cycle across the board. Instead, almost a hundred percent of couples who are using Creighton specifically will conceive within the first six months. So I certainly don't want you to think that if you haven't conceived by the second or the third cycle that something is wrong. You can absolutely be healthy and everything's going well and it still take up to six months to try to conceive. Now a benefit of using Creighton specifically is by the time you get to that seventh cycle, if you know that you've been together with your spouse on days of fertility, meaning specifically the ideal days to conceive a pregnancy and that has not occurred well, you don't need to wait another six months to see what happens. You can go ahead and begin working with a provider trained in NaProTechnology or some other restorative reproductive health approach so that you can get to the root cause of why. So if you just go to a normal OBGYN and you say you'd like to conceive, they're going to say, okay, try for a year, come back if you don't get pregnant, if you're using Creon specifically, you don't need to wait that long. You can specifically time it for six months and have incredible data about when you used the system to try to conceive why that maybe didn't work. And you can work with the provider to get to the underlying reasons of why. Alright , myth number four, it's better to have sex every other day while you're trying to conceive until you conceive. So this actually came from a client who was told this by one of their just like regular OBGYNs in the past, specifically, they were told to have sex every other day. And if they didn't conceive in a year to come in at that point every other day for an entire year and only at that point to come in--I want to go ahead and clarify that this is absolutely a myth. This is horrible advice. First of all, it's not sustainable. Couples often cannot have intercourse every other day for an entire year. But the bigger issue here is that women and couples ought to be informed about when they're fertile and when they're unable to conceive. Each cycle there are only a few days when a pregnancy is possible. So knowing those days is revolutionary. When you identify that window, then you can have intercourse as many or as few times as you'd like and still be actively trying to conceive. So technically one time of being together in the window of fertility is enough to possibly conceive. There is absolutely no need to have intercourse every other day for a year in order to try to conceive. Now there are those who ask about skipping a day so that sperm can increase in number. This does not necessarily apply to all men and to all couples, certainly there is a subset of men who deal with lower sperm counts. And so for them specifically, it may be beneficial to wait a day or two in between intercourse. But unless that's a specific diagnosed issue, I wouldn't worry too much on that. But overall, the myth here is that you have to have intercourse every other day in order to try to conceive, to drive home. The point about the fact that even if you have intercourse one time in the window of fertility, I've got a little story for you because this reminds me of a client who avoided pregnancy for two years successfully, you know, using the Creighton system. And the husband told me that he was convinced that they had fertility issues and that's why they had not conceived in two years after getting off the pill. Yes, they were using Creighton, but he didn't really believe it, okay? Their first cycle of not avoiding, they had intercourse on the very first day of their window of fertility, and it was many days their actual peak day happened. But they were together the first day of their window of fertility that they were able to identify with Creighton and they conceived. And ever since, he's been a huge believer in Creighton and he says, I know that it works. You know, I know that it wasn't just chance. Now I believe it. And of course they've continued to use it for several years and have had other children since and they've all been planned. So , you can be together just one time in that window of fertility and still conceive a pregnancy. It does not take every other day. And gosh, couples deserve to know that information. I really, really believe that a much more effective way to conceive is just being knowledgeable about when you're fertile or infertile as a couple and be able to make truly informed decisions about that. And listen, that's what we're all about. Here at Woven Natural Fertility Care. We teach women and couples how to know what's going on with their reproductive health, how to know when they're fertile and infertile, and how to specifically and effectively either avoid pregnancy or conceive pregnancy. So we work with restorative medical providers who are looking at the underlying causes of reproductive health issues, and we're working to empower women and couples to understand their cycles and their fertility. So if you're interested in learning more, if these myths have got you interested in wanting kind of the next steps, then I would recommend joining us for an introductory session. I hinted at some of the things we talk about in the introductory session today, but there is so much more. It's an hour presentation of lots of great information and you can join us this month. So I'll make sure to have a link in the show notes for you to register. If you want to submit future myths for us to debunk, you know, if you've got other fertility things that you're not sure if they're true or false and you've read different things online or heard them from friends, you can actually text us. So look in the show notes, there is a link to send us a text message and you can suggest those for a future episode of our Fertility Myths series. Well, I hope today's episode has been really helpful for you. I hope we've clarified a few things and demystified a little bit of what it takes to conceive a pregnancy. As always, thanks for listening as we continue to explore together what it means to be woven well .