Erica Hoke walks through what to do after an unexplained infertility diagnosis. She recommends adopting a proactive mindset, getting a second opinion and creating a game plan with specialists, and making immediate health changes like starting a multi-strain refrigerated probiotic and switching to toxin-free laundry products.
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Good morning. This morning we're talking about 3 things that you can do very quickly, very easily when you get that unexplained infertility diagnosis. So if you're watching and you have not been through this, it is like sitting across from the doctor and getting a death sentence, basically. So it's when a doctor tells you that you have unexplained infertility, they've done a bunch of tests for you, you've maybe had some procedures done, maybe you've even had surgeries done. And they can't help you and you have unexplained infertility, it literally feels like a death sentence. But I want you to have hope. I know so many women, including myself, who have gotten this diagnosis and then gone on to have healthy and successful pregnancies. So just because a doctor tells you that they can't help you does not mean that you cannot get pregnant. Means that you might have to do something different. You might have to other avenues. You might have to learn to advocate for yourself, which are all things that I talk about over in my Facebook group, Infertility Empowered. So this morning though, we're talking about those first 3 steps. So you have a choice, and you can make up your mind if you're sitting here watching this and you're getting ready to go to the doctors and you're not sure what they're gonna tell you. You have choices about how how you're going to internalize whatever information they give you, whether it's you need a procedure, whether you have unexplained infertility and you're, you're going to need IVF or donor eggs or what have you. So you can make up your mind ahead of time whether you're going to receive that information and let them speak that over you and you're going to internalize that, or whether you're going to be um, kind of like a third-party observer in your own life. And you're going to say, I'm going to collect this information, but I'm going to keep moving forward. I'm going to keep discovering what it is that is causing unexplained infertility. There's lots of trashcan diagnosis out there. This is one of them. It just means they can't help you. They can't identify anything from a medical, a Western medical standpoint and it does not mean that you cannot get pregnant. So after you do that, um, you know, you're either going to, um, need some time to grieve and to kind of regroup and make a game plan with your partner or your spouse, or you're going to be ready to take another step forward in your infertility journey. So what that could look like is a call to another doctor for a second opinion. That could be some additional testing from a specialist like an endocrinologist for thyroid health and that sort of thing. You could potentially go back to your OB and kind of start at square one again and make sure that you've covered your bases. So that is, that is the second step is to get a, get a second opinion or get a game plan and figure out where you are in your journey. That's something that I help women with every day. Like, we go back and we assess what they've been tested for, um, where things might have been missed along the way, what their symptoms are, have the symptoms been addressed, and that sort of thing. That's, that's the mentoring and the empowerment coaching that I do. So in that, you're going to talk to your spouse about what that looks like for your family. Um, meaning for the two of you, or for if you're experiencing secondary infertility, what that looks like for, um, ongoing for your family. So, um, kind of map out in your own mind a game plan because all these steps have consequences, right? So if you're going to have an additional surgery, you might need some downtime and that sort of thing. So What I'm telling you to do is be empowered and be in control of your own infertility, um, to the degree that you can. So talk to your spouse and ask them, you know, or your partner and ask them, what do you think like the ideal situation would be? Um, and kind of put yourself in the driver's seat so that when you go in for that second opinion, you can say to them, I've had these XYZ procedures. I've had these XYZ tests. We're here for your opinion about the probable and possible outcomes of this, but I've also done some research. I've talked to an infertility coach and they think that these things would help. What's your opinion? So in terms of time and then that sort of thing. All right, so the third easy thing for you to do is just take your health into your own hands. There's there's so much that you can do to help yourself along this infertility journey in terms of diet and what you're putting in and on your body. So my number 1 and number 2, so this is actually combined, right? So you get 3A and 3B. My number 1 and number 2 things to have people to address right away is 2 very fundamental foundational things, and it is, um, a probiotic, a good quality refrigerated probiotic, or something, um, not like a Culturelle, not that, not something with like a single strain of probiotic in it. You want to get something from a reputable health food store, Whole Foods or something like that, where you can, um, where you can see multiple strains and um, a variety— yeah, a variety of strains, multiple strains, refrigerated, and that sort of thing. So starting yourself on a probiotic, um, these are the kind of things that we talk about in my Facebook group Infertility Empowered, um, why gut health is so important. I won't go into it this morning, but this is one of the very first steps that I recommend for people because lots of your hormones are beginning in your gut and are processed through your gut. So you want to make sure that you are supporting your gut health if you're on an infertility journey. Okay, so 3B is gonna maybe strike you as a really weird one if you haven't gone down any toxin-free living path yet. So we are in our clothes or on our sheets 23.5 hours a day, right? And so what we use to clean those things that are touching our skin all that time is very important. So laundry products are the number— my number 2 recommended thing to switch out when you're doing small, easy steps for, for going toxin-free for infertility. So the reason is, is that most commercial, um, meaning that you can go to your local supermarket or your local Target or Walmart and pull them off the shelf, are full of hormone-disrupting and endocrine-disrupting chemicals. And so what that means to your, your reproductive cycle is it's causing a disruption and it's causing a, um, a toxic buildup in your body, a bioaccumulation. I'm proud of myself for pulling that word out of my head without my prior— prior to my tea this morning. So, um, your bioaccumulation of toxins in your body And so you want to start eliminating that as much as possible. And a really easy way to do that is by, is by switching out those laundry products. So Environmental Working Group, it's called ewg.org, has ratings on laundry products. All the conventional products, I started to tell you this a second ago, get a D or an F rating. 85% of them get a D or an F rating. So it's super important to spend a little bit of time sourcing clean products. You can look on EWG's website and you can also look on an app called Think Dirty, although it's a little bit adulterated, I'm just gonna tell you. And what I mean by that is Um, it is— it, um, it has been purchased by Procter Gamble, and who we know makes a wide variety— I'm going down a little bit of a rabbit hole right now— they make a wide variety of home household products that you can buy. And so what they did was when they purchased the Think Dirty app, they skewed it towards their product. So if you see something listed on there that's a laundry soap that has lavender in it, for instance, and it does not have the Latin name for lavender listed next to it, or if it says lavender essential oil and it just has lavender on the ingredient list, that means that that's a synthetic lavender, and those are the toxins that we're trying to eliminate. Okay, you guys, I hope that you're ready for a fantastic weekend. Um, health and blessings to you. I will see you next time. Bye-bye.
