This content was created by Erica Hoke. This content was uploaded by Erica Hoke. This is a YouTube video titled "Urea Plasma and 4 Other Tests You MUST Do Before IUI/IVF to Avoid Heartbreak" (published 2022-03-13). The content is a single-speaker informational/personal video aimed at women preparing for IVF or IUI, advising them to request specific pre-treatment tests to reduce the chance of failed cycles. The speaker discusses two tests in detail — ureaplasma (a genital/urinary microbe that can cause infertility) and Factor V Leiden (a blood-clotting mutation) — and shares personal anecdotes and examples of friends whose fertility outcomes were affected. The speaker urges viewers to talk with their reproductive endocrinologists, mentions that three additional tests are described on her blog, and includes a call-to-action to like/subscribe. Content type: YOUTUBE, created_time: 2022-03-13T00:44:39Z.
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Join me today if you are a woman who is getting ready to go through IVF or IUI, or you even have an appointment for your reproductive endocrinologist consult. This video is very important to you, the information that I'm going to share. Um, I have a friend who wrote a chapter in my Infertility Success, uh, Stories of Health and Hope book. And imagine that you are waiting on that phone call after your IVF transfer, IUI procedure. You're waiting for that phone call from your doctor's office like she was, and the time comes and goes when they should call you and tell you what your results are and how things are you know, how things, how things went. And you have to call the office, uh, about your, about your, um, embryos. So we're talking about IVF here. Sorry, I said IUI too, but we, we're waiting, uh, to see if your embryos are good and if you're going to be able to transfer them. One, they don't call you, and two, you're waiting. Okay, so you call them because it's the most important thing in the world to you. Uh, it should be the most important thing in the world to them, but clearly today it is not. And they tell you that your last remaining eggs, um, and your last remaining embryos did not, did not make it. So you have low AMH you barely got the 6, um, 6 eggs to create embryos from, from the first procedure. You know that there is no opportunity after this to use your own eggs and that you're moving on to donor eggs, which is, which is great. I'm so thankful that that medicine exists for women who are in that situation. But here's the kicker. Here's what I want to talk to you about today is here's the kicker is that then they told her, well, we're gonna run this test and find out if it's X, Y, or Z, if this contributed to it. And it turns out that she lost the opportunity to use her eggs because they didn't run a test ahead of time. Literally, she lost the opportunity to use her own eggs because of one tests that they didn't perform. Now let's talk about a couple of those tests. I have 5 for you today. I'm going to talk about 2 in the video and the rest are going to be on my blog, new this week, so you can take a look at them there. But the 2 tests that I want to talk to you about today, um, is ureaplasma and Factor V. Um, ureaplasma is a type of microplasm that everybody has, but it kind of gets an overgrowth from your urinary tract into your reproductive organs. So guess what? Sometimes the only symptom is infertility. Other times, like my other friend that's writing a chapter for the, the upcoming book, other times you have years She had 9 failed IVF and IUI procedures combined. Erin Banks and I did a YouTube video together about ureaplasma, so if you want to take a look at that. But she had all these procedures done. She was bounced around from specialist to specialist being told that she was basically crazy. She had urinary tract symptoms for almost 2 years and she finally got it cleared up and lo and behold, not only did she get pregnant with her second daughter, but while her second daughter was very young and she was still breastfeeding, she got pregnant again. So you might say, "Well, that's anecdotal or whatever." I will tell you that this is something that I will preach until the cows come home because if a $5, a $10 antibiotic is going to give me an insurance policy on a $30,000 procedure, you know that I'm going to put that in place. Okay. So it's worth it is what I'm saying to you. All these tests, your doctor might say to you, well, I don't know. That seems kind of out there. You know, if you're spending $15,000 to $30,000 on a procedure, you owe it to yourself to have a conversation, at least have a conversation with your doctors. I want you to feel empowered that these are legitimate concerns that some practitioners, some reproductive endocrinologists, take seriously. Yours might not, okay? So that's a whole separate conversation, but I want you to feel empowered to have that conversation. At least bring these 5 things up to your doctor. So the second one that I'm going to tell you about affected me personally. So it's called Factor V Leiden. So, um, I'm grateful that I was diagnosed with a blood clot before we started trying to conceive. I knew that I had all these other reproductive problems, but really, without the diagnosis of Factor V Leiden, without the blood clot in my leg, I would have maybe never carried my babies to term because I needed to get on blood thinners as soon as I got a positive pregnancy test. And that theory was proved out to me when I didn't get my medicine quick enough because of, um, offices being closed and a holiday and things like that. I actually miscarried a set of twins, um, after my first set. So Factor V Leiden is really interesting, and I have a whole, um, training in my, uh, group that I support women through their infertility journey called Empowered Infertility. I'm sorry, I said that backwards. Infertility Empowered. Um, so I, I have a whole training on that, but factor 5 is really interesting because it can affect you at any stage, um, in your infertility journey. So it can cause primary infertility because it can cause clots and not allow the embryo to implant. It can cause a lot of chemical pregnancies, which I had for years. Without knowing it. It can cause secondary infertility because as you age, your body deals less well with the estrogen, and it can cause miscarriage at any point during your pregnancy. Now, for me, I was having, um, I was having early chemical pregnancies for years and didn't know it. Um, my friend, another friend of mine, she ended up having a third trimester loss because of Factor V and getting a blood clot in the umbilical cord for the baby. So at any stage, Factor V can actually affect the pregnancy or your fertility status. So your doctor might tell you again that these tests are unnecessary. They might even say, well, this is a really expensive test. Are you sure that you want to invest $800 or a thou— maybe it's $1,000. I don't know what your insurance might cover, or maybe you don't have any insurance. If you have repeat miscarriage or even one miscarriage, the Factor V test alone should be covered. But they're expensive, but they're not as expensive as the turmoil of losing a child via miscarriage. They're not as expensive as having repeated failed, um, reproductive medicine procedures. And I would really encourage you to, um, take my information, do your own research if you want, talk to your doctor, but please consider that these things are an investment in making sure that your procedures go well, um, not the first time or the second time or the third time like the doctors would like it to work out the first time. We want it to go one and done for you, and then this is a way that you can make sure that you've checked a lot of boxes on some very common and, um, very detrimental to your reproductive health problems. All right, I will see you here next time. Hey, if you're watching on YouTube still, go ahead and hit that like and subscribe. Health and blessings to you. See you next time.
