Infertility Success Author Chats: Constance Lewis

Thank you for joining us today for Infertility Success Author Chats. Um, Infertility Success Author Chats is about the authors that participated in Infertility Success Stories: Help and Hope for Your Journeys. I have Constance Lewis, Constance Lewis here talking to us today about her chapter, uh, Struck by Lightning. And let's just make sure we can get Constance on here. Okay, there we go. Yay! I love it when technology actually works.

Hi, Condi! Hi guys, how are you?

Oh, and now I cannot hear you. Oh, I gotcha, I got you now.

Hi, how is everybody doing?

Thanks for joining us today. I know that sharing— I know from talking to you that sharing your story was super important to you, but Erica Hoke, go ahead and share with our viewers, um, why sharing this story now, why sharing your story of infertility now was such an important thing for you to do.

Um, well, as I was writing the chapter, I didn't realize how much healing it would bring to my life. Um, and also, um, how much it affected others. I mean, I work in ob-gyn care, and I help women with fertility all the time. But everybody that read the book that I was in contact with just was astounded by how much it touched them. I mean, tears and tears of, um, came out of them, and they just were so thankful. So I didn't realize how much it would touch somebody, and I also didn't realize how much it would heal me.

Yeah, I just got like head-to-toe chills. Um, I know that each of the authors, and I know you and I have talked about this before, that we felt like even if our stories, sharing our stories, helped one person shorten their journey or find success or make a difference in their lives, that we would have written the book just for them. Um, and so to hear you say that, and, um, you know, we've gotten great feedback from our readers on Amazon too, and it's just been really a humbling experience um, a humbling experience to be a part of it. So I really appreciate you sharing, um, you sharing that with us. So tell us a little bit about your journey and, um, and what you went through during your, your infertility journey.

Yeah, so I wanted kids my whole life and I thought it was just going to be that easy. You know, everybody around me got pregnant it was super easy and it wasn't difficult. And I didn't really even know much about infertility. Um, even being a nurse in the NICU, you don't really see the beginning part of the situation. You just see the after part when the baby's born. And although you, you know, know if there's twins or if there was IVF, you kind of know that, but you don't really know the story behind those babies that were born. So I didn't really even think about it much. And then obviously when I started to begin my journey of trying to have a baby, and 2 years later there was nothing after trying And, you know, that was shocking. So then I'm like, okay. And then that's when I started my women's health practitioner program in women's health and decided that this was something I really liked and I wanted to focus on it. And I started— I think one of the reasons I went into women's health nurse practitioner was because I was just so interested in the women's body and fertility. Why was I infertile at that time? Why wasn't it working? I wanted to be as educated as I could for myself, but I knew eventually I would be able to help others. But for myself, I wanted to know as much as I could about the woman's body so that I can help myself have a baby. And even knowing everything that I knew, although I caught some mistakes of my healthcare providers, I still— it still took me almost 7 years. So, you know, we started from the beginning just like everybody else does, labs and blood work and semen samples and, um, you know, histosalpingiograms and everything. So, you know, that basically led to a finding of endometriosis and a low AMH and poor, you know, egg quality and egg amount. Um, and then therefore we realized we needed to find a fertility specialist. So we did that, and we were there for probably 3 years, and we did 3 rounds. Well, we did 6 IUIs before all of this, a few with my, um, regular provider, OB-GYN, and then, um, 2, I think, and then 4 with the IVF place. And even though I had this low AMH and I wasn't really responding, we just kept doing it. And you'll read in the book why that happened and what I should have done, and that's what the book is about, right? Giving you tips. And trying to figure out what we should have done and what we wish we would have done so that other women don't go through the same thing.

Yeah, absolutely. So there's a couple things that you mentioned that I wanted to touch on. One of them is that coming from a health provider background yourself, being a health provider, you still had things that were kind of overlooked in your medical care. Um, and we talk about that a lot because people, women, we assume that everything is going to be a checklist for the doctors, right? And that they're going to go down this imaginary checklist or this, for all we know, this real checklist and check the boxes for us. So talk a little bit about that. Just, you know, some of your tips that are included in the book have to do with ways to advocate for yourself?

Yeah, so I mean, just, you know, I'm really strong. I strongly believe that you don't need to have infertility to have your blood tested, a basic fertility blood test. I think that every woman, when they start thinking about having a baby, that should be the first step. They shouldn't say to you, oh, you need to wait a year if you're under 35, and oh, you need to wait 6 months if you're under 35 a year, if you're, you know, if you're Vice versa. So I think that's ridiculous. I think that, um, I find so many things, um, abnormalities on women, just a simple blood test that literally have like affected their fertility in the future that we didn't even know about when they just wanted to start trying. So anybody that comes to me in my practice, if they want blood work, I don't say no. I say absolutely, let's do it. And I have a checklist of all the labs that I do So first and foremost, that is a tip, is that you want to find a provider that is supportive of that. And then, you know, you want a provider to know your, your numbers. That's what happened to me originally. I was still in school when I had my labs drawn and my AMH came back 0.13, which is extremely low, and I was told it was normal. So I just happened to look 2 weeks later Because I was like, oh, I'm interested in, you know, and, you know, what do my labs show? And I'm, you know, I was at this part in my cycle and what should they be? And then I saw my AMH level. And again, you'll read that in the book. And I was like shocked because I'm like, wait a minute, this is not normal. And I was told it was. So if I hadn't went back and looked at my labs and knew that could have been a crucial piece missed tonight, who knows what would have happened at that point?

Yeah, it could have definitely prolonged your journey if nothing else, right?

Yes, correct.

Yeah. So, um, it's something very important that Constance just said about advocating for yourself and also taking responsibility. I think that the message for a long time has been wait, just wait, wait and see, wait and try, just wait. And I think that, um, as an infertility community, we're beyond that and we're, you know, trying to educate people. Like, that's why we're here today. We want to educate people about not waiting, because something as simple as a thyroid level that is, um, you know, goes a whole year undiagnosed just because you didn't have some simple blood work done.

So yeah, um, yeah, that's a big— that's huge. So just that tip alone is, you know, really recommended by me. Like, just get the blood work. Like, hey, I want to have kids, and you know, you can be I really tell my patients, like, you have to also take control of knowledge of your own body. So I can only do so much as a provider, but I need to— when you come to me with fertility, I need to know about your periods. I need to know, are you ovulating based on what ovulation tests say? I need to know all this information. And so if it's just a meeting, like, I'm thinking about getting pregnant soon, then I give you that information. Okay, go home and do this. Log and, you know, keep a book and, you know, what are you eating and are you working out, you know, all those kind of things, right?

Right.

So that's a big part of your— our— your responsibility as patients too, is trying to know your body as well as you can, um, you know, so that you're aware of what is going on. Like, okay, my cycles are this many days and this many days. The more information that you bring to your provider the, the more able they are to help you. And I love when patients do that, or we— I give them homework to do too.

Yeah, absolutely. And also knowing what your baseline is, right? Because I know previous to being an infertility patient, I kind of felt like, well, when you go to the doctors, they look at that, they look at your, you know, previous blood work and things like that. And that's most of the time, that's not the case.

Yeah, correct.

So going back and knowing yourself what your baseline is, because just using thyroid for an example, thyroid range is the size of a football field, you know, in the scope of— and so you can still be in normal range, but for you, you know, 2 years ago, 3 years ago, um, you could be completely very far away from what's normal for yourself, you know.

So yeah, I mean, I have a lot of patients that need to be between 0.75 to 1.5. On their TSH level, and that's where they get pregnant or that's where they feel good. And then I have other patients that need to be a 2.5 to a 3. And it's hard to know that if you haven't really investigated that because I can say, okay, your level is a 2.5, but how do you feel? So just knowing your body, getting to know your body any way that you can is super important. What makes you feel crap? Do a food journal. I have a lot of my patients do a food journal because I know that dairy and gluten makes me feel terrible. And so I try to stay away from that. So what makes your body feel terrible?

Right. Absolutely. So where are you at today, Constance? Like, what's your life look like today?

Yeah. So after all that, you know, 3 rounds of IVF, not successful. I had 2 miscarriages and that when you read the book, You come to a big cliffhanger as to why I had those miscarriages. And, and the reason for that was a missed blood test again. Um, and it wasn't on me, it was on my husband because another really big issue in the infertility community is that we look at the woman obsessively. Um, and you know, but, but really the statistics are completely even. 30% are male infertility, 30% are female, and the rest are just, we don't know, undiagnosed. But But we don't look— and it's hard for me because as a women's health nurse practitioner, I don't really see the man. So I do invite them to bring their spouse in to the visit. But a simple thing that was in my practice recently was— and I learned my lesson from this because I'm still learning— was he was on testosterone and he didn't tell anybody. And his wife knew, but he didn't. It was a hush-hush thing. Well, testosterone suppresses their sperm. So that was a huge issue. So, you know, things like that, the spouse, spouse needs to be involved. And that's a big problem in the community as well for fertility is we look at the woman so much and we were like, oh, his semen sample was fine. He's fine. There's nothing else wrong with him. But there's so much more to a, to a man's body than just their semen that can make them help in the pregnancy. So when you read the book, you'll learn what happened to me because I was the one that was looked at mostly and not my husband. Yeah, yeah, go ahead.

No, no, please.

Yeah, so then after that we ended up switching fertility clinics and found a wonderful one, and we ended up doing, doing donor, um, egg and used my husband's sperm. And even after some other issues with that, we finally ended up having our, having our two angels right now. So that's where we are. We're— we got two— we have two kids. We have Miles, who's 4, and Mariah, who's almost 2, both from donor embryos. And and I carried them. And, um, so that's where I am today in the crazy mom life and work, work life, right?

Yeah, whole different ball of wax, right?

For sure.

So what would you tell someone that is still in the trenches of infertility? What, what one big tip could you give somebody today if they're still struggling and they think, yeah, I hear what she's saying, but that's not me, that's not something, you know, that I think will help me. What, what would you say to encourage that woman today?

There's gonna be a lot of lows that will make you want to give up, um, you know, and I, I find that there's more lows than highs. And so when you're beaten down that much as a human being, or woman, human being, person, it's really hard to get back up. It's really hard to believe that there's going to be some good that comes out of this, that you're going to have a baby or a child or what a family, whatever that looks like to you, is. And so you really— it sucks and it's hard. And there were so many times that I didn't want to get back up and I just wanted to give up. But if I had done that, then I wouldn't have gotten the children that I was meant to get today. And so, you know, find a way to pull yourself out of those dark places and get back up. If that's what you want and you want a child, don't give up. Don't stop. Don't, um, you know, give in to that, that disappointing feeling because, you know, like I said, you are in— most women when they're going through infertility, even no matter how long it is, it can be 6 months, it can be 10, 20 years. Like, you get knocked down a lot, and just that emotional, physical— because it's not just emotional, it's mental, it's physical, it's spiritual— that journey that you go on is, is received so negatively by yourself all the time. You're just negative answers, negative, negative results, negative, negative, negative, that your spirit just, you know, it's tough to come back from that. So find a way to, to, um, help your spirit, your heart, your soul, um, that, that all those really low points get back up. What, whatever that is for you, um, you know, that may be self-care, that may be, um, you know, whatever that is, you know, that was counseling for me, that was, um, you know, exercise for me, that was, um traveling with my husband, you know, that was a support group of somebody else going through it. So whatever that is for you, find that, because that's what'll help you to keep getting back up and, and keep your eye on the goal. Like, you know what I mean? Your goal is to have a family.

That's your goal.

Yeah, just keep that in, in front of you.

Yes, uh, absolutely awesome advice. So thank you so much for joining us today. Thanks for being on here. Thanks for participating in the book and for helping women on the daily, you know, in your practice. If you're looking for more information about, um, about Constance's story, my story, if you haven't heard it, you can find, uh, Infertility Success: Stories of Help and Hope for Your Journey on Amazon. I'll drop the links here in the comments, and we will see you next time. Thank you again so much, Constance. Thank you.

Good luck, everyone.