Fertility coach Erica Hoke shares why IVF might not be an option and what to do instead. She describes her own pregnancy after 35 with multiple diagnoses, then walks through alternatives like diet, lifestyle changes, and stress management to address root causes of infertility.
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I am here to talk to you this morning about what your choices are, what your options are if you can't do IVF. And there might be a lot of different reasons why you can't do IVF. So as you see, I'm not in my normal location. And hey, sorry, I'm a few minutes late. I'm playing with my schedule this summer to get kids where they need to be. Mom, hashtag mom life. And also, um, come here and provide valuable content for you every day. So let's get started. So you can't do IVF. So there's a few reasons, and I'm just going to touch on them this morning, why you might not be able to do IVF. So first of all, you might not be able to afford IVF. IVF is very, very expensive. Um, somewhere between, um, $10,000 would be on the very lowest end, to $20,000 a, a, um, procedure. And so a lot of people don't want to, don't have that kind of money laying around and they don't want to finance that. So there are, you know, payment plans now and there's finance companies for IVF, but for some people IVF is just cost prohibitive and it's just outside of their range of affordability, right? They don't want to go into debt. That was the case for us. We did not have the money to do IVF. And if you don't know my story, um, I was also told that we were not candidates for IVF. So that is point number 2 for me: you have been told that you're not a candidate for IVF. And so what that meant for me, um, and if you don't know much of my story, I'm going to tell you a little bit right now. If you, uh, So I was over the age of 35. I had 7 diagnosed reproductive medical conditions, things like endometriosis and uterine fibroids. And I was also hyperovulating, which meant that they couldn't stimulate me for retrieval. And I also had what's called DOR, diminished ovarian reserve. And so I could not have an egg retrieval. So I was not a candidate for IVF, and I was told that I would need donor eggs. Now, spoiler alert, in case you don't know me, hi, I'm Erica Hoke. I'm a fertility coach and I have 4 children all over the age of 35, all after being told that I would have a less than 1% chance of getting pregnant. So, um, like myself, you might be told because you have diminished ovarian reserve, you have low AMH, you're over 35, that you would need donor eggs. Okay. So the third thing is, is that for other, some other physical reason, you might not be a good candidate for IVF, right? Maybe you have PCOS, maybe you have endometriosis, some of those things that have not been addressed. So there's a number of different reasons that you might not be a candidate for IVF, also for religious reasons. Some people do not believe, um, religiously that they should, um, participate in reproductive medicine, and that's fine. So if you are not a candidate for IVF, there's a whole hopelessness that goes along with that, right? So that's everybody's plan. I can't get pregnant. I'm going to do IVF. Well, if you can't, then people think, I just can't get pregnant. I want to get pregnant. I can't do IVF. I, um, I'm not going to be able to get pregnant now. And I'm here to tell you that that is not the case. Um, the symptoms in my body were exactly that. The diseases were simply symptoms of what was going on in my body. And once I addressed them at their root cause, um, then I was able to get pregnant at one time, which may have been luck. And you may have been, wow, she's so lucky. Okay. I, I don't believe in that kind of luck. That would be the kind of luck that would make me win the lottery 4 times. I believe that I fundamentally addressed the things that were going on in my body, and that allowed me to get pregnant 4 times. Now, I had a set of twins, so I actually lost a set of twins too, which is a story for a different day. But I was able to get pregnant 4 times naturally on my own after 35. So if you are struggling to, um, if you're struggling to wrap your head around what it is that you have in your control to do if you can't do IVF, diet and lifestyle changes are key. Getting to the root of what your body is telling you is key. Managing your stress is key. Okay, so all of these things, um, I talk about in my, uh, Accelerate Your Fertility Bootcamp. And I have some scholarships available. I have, um, some seats available via scholarship at 90% off, um, that was provided via a client. Um, and so I'm able to provide those at 90% off. Once those seats are filled, it will never be this low again, but I do have some seats available for that. So if you are struggling with IVF, would you— or struggling with not being able to do IVF with would you just comment below and say me or, um, I hear you or something, or that's me, or I understand something, so that I know, um, I know who you are. And if you're watching on replay, go ahead and hit that, um, hit that hashtag replay on there. I will catch up with you at Wednesday. I'm going to change my time to 8:30 because it's a little bit closer to when I can, um, fulfill being on here. And hey, health and blessings to you. Bye-bye.
