This content was created by Erica Hoke. This content was uploaded by Erica Hoke. This is a YouTube livestream titled "The saddest part of infertility" (created 2021-10-26 UTC). It is an English solo presentation by Erica Hoke, an infertility mentor and empowerment coach, in which she shares her personal infertility story (including stage 4 endometriosis, uterine fibroids, and seven diagnoses), explains that she was once told she would need donor eggs but later had a child without IVF/IUI, and emphasizes regaining control of health by addressing root causes. She offers encouragement and practical hope for people facing infertility, mentions a chapter in an upcoming book collaboration on infertility success, and promotes her one-on-one coaching. This is a live monologue/presentation rather than a multi-speaker conversation.
Chapters
Hey, hey everyone. Thanks for joining me today. If you're new here and seeing me live for the first time, I'm Erica Hoke. I'm an infertility mentor and empowerment coach, and I'm here Monday, Wednesday, Friday, um, around noon, as close to noon as I possibly can get. Um, just a couple of minutes late today, but I help women in their infertility journey, um, find the next steps, especially after they've been told no by uh, Western medicine by traditional reproductive endocrinologists that they can't help them. And my clients feel like they can't get pregnant because the doctors have told them that they can't help them. And that's simply not the case. So the title of our video today is The Saddest Part About Infertility. And you might think that that is, um, not being able to get to the child of your dreams, but there's a lot of ways to accomplish that without reproductive endocrinology. Some people end up adopting, some people do embryo adoption, some people do egg donors. But the saddest part about infertility to me is one, when women feel like they have no control and they have no power over their health because the doctors have told them this and told them that they can't help them. So they just simply can't be helped. So that loss of power, I feel like, is one of the saddest parts about infertility because it is not just about infertility, which is my second point. It's about taking control of your health. It is about digging into what is actually going on with your body and figuring out why you don't feel good, why your reproductive system is crying out in the form of uterine fibroids or endometriosis or any number of things like your cycle's not regulated, any of those things. So if you don't know much of my story, I'm able to talk to you about this because 7 years after I was told that I would need donor eggs, my last child was born. Um, no IVF, no IUI. Um, they told me that they couldn't give me those things to help me have a baby. And I went about my journey just researching what affects infertility, how I can have an impact on my body, why my body was so sick. I had stage 4 endometriosis. I had uterine fibroids. I had 7 diagnoses, which I talk all about in my chapter in my upcoming book collaboration on infertility success. I had 7 diagnoses, you guys, and I was able to get to the bottom of why my body was having this dis-ease, and it was causing a cascade, right, of reproductive problems. Um, those were just symptoms. So we fixed the symptom. Uh, we fixed the root cause. We fixed the, the overall reason why you're not getting pregnant. So it's really sad to me because if I had not gone on this infertility journey, if I had not gotten to the root cause, I would be sitting here today as a very unwell person. I had a lot of inflammation in my body. I was in a lot of pain. There's no doubt in my mind. My mother had a hysterectomy at about the same time that I had my first— same age as I had my oldest son. When she was that age, she had a hysterectomy. So I think I probably would have ended up with a hysterectomy, which if you know anything about endometriosis, that's not, that's not always a cure for endometriosis because it can still keep growing in other parts of your body. So I would be sitting here and that's a really sad thing for me to think about is that people give up on their baby and maybe they go a different route, but they also are giving up their own health and their own wellness and their own longevity in the future. Whatever the outcome is with growing your family, whether it's adoption or what have you, you want to be able to take care of your kids the best way and be around for them as long as possible. So If I understand that the journey is hard, I have been there. Every month feels like death. Every month feels like, um, torture. You feel, um, like God is picking on you or you're being punished. I understand all of that and I understand how very hard it is, but I just want to encourage you today. I want you to have some hope that there are some things that you can do, um, whether you continue your infertility journey or not, to make sure that you get well and that you're taken care of. Because the bottom line is, is that you owe that to yourself. And just think of it as mothering yourself. All right, well, thanks for joining me today. If you're watching on YouTube and you haven't done so already, go ahead and hit that like and subscribe so you get notified when I go live next time. And if you would like me to help you with your next steps in your journey, the link for my one-on-one which we just sit down and talk for 15 minutes and let me see if I can help you with your next steps. Health and blessings to you guys. Bye-bye.
