The Fertility Warriors

Hellooooo and welcome to my Behind the Scenes Series for January. Today's topic is about being solutions-focused, and I share two experiences that I had that encouraged me to look for the solutions, rather than focus on the problem at hand.

These podcasts are taken from inside the private Fertility Warrior Family Facebook Group that accompanies my signature 12 week program. The Fertility Warrior Intensive. These are NOT the training videos or modules from within the course, but within our private Facebook Group, I jump in with regular group coaching and support for warriors - I'm super active in there and drop in every few days with videos, images, thoughts - support, advice, real talk - you name it, and then once a month we do a big group coaching session.

There is SO much to this program, and I'd love to share more with you - to learn more, jump on the waitlist here: robynbirkin.com/warrior - we'll be opening the doors to the program in February and we'd love to welcome you as our latest warrior.

Hellooooo and welcome to my Behind the Scenes Series for January. Today's topic is about letting go of the pressure to juggle all the balls.

These podcasts are taken from inside the private Fertility Warrior Family Facebook Group that accompanies my signature 12 week program. The Fertility Warrior Intensive. These are NOT the training videos or modules from within the course, but within our private Facebook Group, I jump in with regular group coaching and support for warriors - I'm super active in there and drop in every few days with videos, images, thoughts - support, advice, real talk - you name it, and then once a month we do a big group coaching session.

There is SO much to this program, and I'd love to share more with you - to learn more, jump on the waitlist here: robynbirkin.com/warrior - we'll be opening the doors to the program in February and we'd love to welcome you as our latest warrior.

Struggling? Start Small with these three things to notice every day.

Every day I work with women who feel infertility is taking over our lives, and I often reflect upon two things:

•There was definitely not enough taught in schools about how we can foster resilience, cope emotionally in healthy ways and how important our mental health is.

•Infertility is HARD. It will most likely be one of the hardest things you will experience, and there are going to be really sh*tty days along the way, but there is (even if it doesn't feel like it) some really easy things you can do to start to shift your thoughts and anxiety (although, because #1, I often find there is a LOT to get through, which is why I also have my 12 week course as a more comprehensive next step.)

One really simple thing that start shifting your emotions is these three things - it's quick, and it's doable. And then, every day, spend 5 minutes in the shower working through these and come back to me in 1 month and tell me if you have experienced a shift. You can reach out to me @robynbirkin on Instagram.

3 things to notice every day if you're feeling depressed about infertility

🍍 3 THINGS YOU ARE GRATEFUL FOR

Our brains are not wired towards the positive, but, this simple act can start to have a huge shift in your mental state. In finding 3 different things to be grateful for each day, your brain starts to consistently LOOK for awesome stuff, and research shows wide ranging emotional AND physical health benefits from a gratitude practice.

Studies have been conducted in several groups of people (Harvard is most well known for studying the effects of positive psychology) including Vietnam Vets and 911 Survivors and have found that in both groups, those who can appreciate the good alongside the bad have lower rates of PTSD.

Gratitude has also been shown to improve sleep, improve immunity, lower rates of depression and increase rates of happiness.... and it's really easy to do.

🍍ENERGY DRAINS AND GAINS

We can sit far too long with things that do not serve us (social media, toxic friends - and some of these actually feel quite productive in the moment, but that instant gratification is... well... instant - so it's like you need to continue pouring into a cup that never fills) and when infertility is already draining so much of our energy (we only have a limited amount of physical and emotional energy) we need to be filling our cup with more things that fill our cup: our energy gains.

Think about the things that give you a buzz (dinner with awesome friends, hiking, reading books - whatever that may be for you) and make sure you are doing them, not sacrificing them in a time of need (i.e. infertility!)

🍍 HOW YOU SPEAK TO YOURSELF

Hands down, one of the most important steps in self love and self confidence is checking ourselves (before we wreck ourselves).

And I work with many fertility warriors who just consistently beat themselves up. You would be outraged if anyone told you that you weren't doing enough or that you were ruining everything because you are that toasted cheese sandwich or couldn't fall asleep... Yet so many warriors talk like that to themselves constantly. Stahp!

How would your best friend talk to you? I bet she would be understanding and comforting and completely lovely. Speak to yourself like that. You are working SO hard and you are enough and you do deserve to be a mother.

It's about catching yourself and calling BS when your brain starts to tell you that you aren't good enough, and then reframing the conversation with compassion and grace.

So there you have it, my three really easy and doable things to try every day - I'd love you to spend one month doing these and then come back t...

On today's podcast, I'm sharing one of the questions I was recently asked within my program, the Fertility Warrior Intensive - and that was about feeling scared to get your hopes up, and also struggling with the concept of being positive all the time.

Here was what I wrote in our private group for my 12 week Mind Body Fertility course:

Question: I'm trying to be positive. I've noticed for me, being positive just feels like I'm getting my hopes up. I can't differentiate between the two. I struggle with being positive and not getting my hopes up at the same time!

My Reply:

I think that we should absolutely balance our lives by recognising what we are grateful for and all of our blessings in life alongside the struggles we are currently experiencing.

And one of our last modules, Highlighters, talks about how to feel more positive without needing to try so hard.

But.... Trying to be positive all the time, is HARD WORK, and not always appropriate. Sometimes deep down we really do feel angry, or sad, or hopeless. And it's important that, as unwanted and uncomfortable as they are, we feel, allow and process those emotions.

Why?

Because if we don't, they literally just grow under the surface - they last longer, they're more intense... and we can only sweep them under the rug for so long until literally, we explode.

So, do you need to be positive all the time? Nope.

Are sad days ok? Heck yes.

How do we get through the sad days? by giving ourselves grace, putting ourselves first (and yes, sometimes that means chucking a sickie, sometimes that means unfollowing pregnant friends online, sometimes that means treating yourself to a massage, sometimes that looks like having honest and frank conversations with people). But mostly, just allowing the emotions and waiting for them to pass. You can sit and explore those emotions through journalling or our worksheets (particularly Module 2), but also, if you allow them, for the most part, they'll pass without doing anything. Within the intensive, you are literally learning about your brain and gaining perspective and self-awareness that you know not to take everything as fact.

Trust that everything you need, you already have.

So now that just feels like I'm getting my hopes up all the time?

Please do. I implore you to always get your hopes up.

"But then I'll crash and burn if things don't pan out"

Yes, you will. You're 100% right.

But you'll crash and burn if things don't pan out anyway.

You'll have just started from a lower place.

The difference is that you'll have spent the entire month or two weeks convincing yourself it wouldn't work. Sitting in overwhelm, sadness, panic and hopelessness, without having the facts.

You've counted your chickens before they hatched.

•So when your brain tells you > this won't work

•Just gently ask yourself > but what if it does?

•When your brain asks you > Who are you to have a baby and defy these odds?

•Reply back > but who am I not to?

I know you've been burnt before.

I know that your heart hurts so badly when things aren't happening.

But it will hurt (appropriately) when the time comes.

Don't panic until it's time to panic.

Don't feel sad until it's time to feel sad.

And the difference is that until that time comes, you'll feel great.

You'll have more spa...

Today on the podcast I'm talking about a topic that is a little bit woo woo - for best effect definitely listen to this episode. I want to talk about some tips and tricks to help you manifest your baby in 2021 and bring that little person earthside, and in the process talk more about manifestation in general and also what it takes to generally bring success into the world... in ways that we have not been brought up thinking creates success.

So if you're tuning into this episode, I'm guessing that 2020 has been a rather shitty year and you've been through.... A lot. You might be feeling a little jaded, a little hopeless and down and as we're about to come into Christmas... dreading the next few days. If that's how you're feeling, I truly feel you and I want to let you know that you're super normal.

So let's see if we can shift some of that energy and get things moving for you in the next 7 steps.

•Get clear on exactly what it is that you wantI want to become a mother with my own eggs, naturally. Dive in a little deeper into what it is that you want and the feelings and emotions that you're trying to inspire. You want to be a mother. You want to nurture a little person. You want to feel needed. You want a deep connection. If you're fixated on the top level, you aren't fully able to engage with what it is that you're ACTUALLY looking for, and it's important for us to be super clear to the universe about what it is that we want, at all levels. And plot twist: sometimes the universe gives you what you need, rather than what you want, and sometimes there's a bunch of lessons and necessary growth and discomfort on the way.

•Release your grip on controlIt's super shitty at times, but unfortunately, whether or not your baby comes into the world, exactly how it comes into the world, and when it comes into the world is out of your control. And one of the biggest ways in which we screw ourselves over is in placing our self-worth and judging our success or failure on whether these things happen. It's one of the core reasons we feel so crappy on our fertility journey. You need to release your grip on controlling those things because maybe your path is slightly different - but if you're completely fixed on minute details and the HOW, rather than just believing it will happen and things will pan out one way or another, you will stay stuck. The things you can control on your journey

•Believe itI can hear a bunch of you now thinking to yourself that it's impossible as you've been so hurt in the past, but taking aligned action means that you have to believe it is possible for you.

And the statistics ARE in your favour, if you continue and if you get help, and are prepared for things to possibly look a little different.

How can you help yourself believe that it's possible for you?

There are a few ways to do this - one is to look at infertility success stories, not as signs that everyone around you is falling pregnant and you're not, but signs that it is possible for you too. If we can work through the initial discomfort of actively going out of our way to be around and see other pregnant women and success stories and double lines - but rather the spreading of baby dust our way, and normalising that it IS possible, it makes it so much easier.

•Remind yourself of what you're working towardsWhether that's vision boards (or check out my Instagram Reels to see an easy way to create a digital vision board), or a letter to yourself, or regularly conducting a ritual during the new moon - what can you do to remind yourself that you're m...

Today on the podcast I wanted to talk to you about what we've got up our sleeve for 2021 and what you can expect.

It's been a CRAZY year for so many of us, and I've been working quite hard behind the scenes on a number of things within The Fertility Warriors Intensive program - including an additional little module area for partners and husbands, and for warriors who fall pregnant during or after the program.

If you didn't know, the Fertility Warrior Intensive is my 12 week Mind Body Fertility Program. Its aim is to support you in developing emotional resilience and fostering happiness and calm amidst your fertility journey, as well as helping you change your brain like your dominant neural pathways, to in turn help you balance your body and your hormones to optimise your chances of falling pregnant.

At the core of the program is 12 weeks of lessons with worksheets from me, but we also have so much else as part of the program, including a bespoke yoga series and pilates series, guest expert interviews, affirmations - sooo beautiful, and meditations - so many things.

This year, we added some bonus areas into the program, including some modules for Husbands and some pregnancy resources and these are currently free for folks who sign up to the program, and I look forward to being able to add more into it in the new year.

I'm also busy working on providing something else - another more mini product. If you'd like to be first in line to hear the details, then you can hop to robynbirkin.com/gamechangers and jump onto my email list. At this link, you'll also receive a free PDF download of the 3 biggest game changers on my journey.

In terms of the podcast, I'm looking forward to doing more solo episodes where I can deliver to you more roadmaps and more specific advice on how to cope with the emotional aspect of infertility. I absolutely love having guests on the podcast, but I really want to be able to take you on a journey, and sometimes I find that a little hard when I'm just interviewing guests. I'd love to get your feedback on that so please let me know - jump onto Instagram and send me a DM :-l)

So that's a little summary of what we've got on the cards for 2021.

Make sure you're subscribed to my email list for MANY more little announcements and happenings.

You can jump in here.

Ahhhh, for some of us the holidays kind of suck. There were times when they especially sucked for me whilst I was trying to conceive - one year, right as we were about to start IVF (we'd already done lots of IUI's etc), our family from the United States came to visit and it was just family stuff galore.

Ross and I married quite late, so everyone was asking us constantly when we were going to have babies and at that stage, nobody knew our struggle. Meanwhile, my cousin had the most adorable 4 week old baby, and it was a constant reminder of the struggle we were in.

But... despite that, we still managed to have a (mostly) ok Christmas.

If you'd like to know some of the strategies and tips I have for navigating Christmas whilst Trying To Conceive, check out this post.

But today, I'll be talking more about how to make Christmas Special. How to have a good time (more thriving, less surviving if you know what I mean), and most of that comes from doing things that are fun, spontaneous and whimsical. This time of year, is not the time to be serious. It's the time when you can break the rules a little.

Today on the Podcast, I'm reviewing the Mira Fertility Tracker. I've been DESPERATE to know and understand when I'm ovulating, but I've been really picky about who I've partnered with.

One of the questions I had on Instagram was "Whaaa? You're ovulating even though you have had a hysterectomy?" and the answer is Yup! I do.

If you head to my resource library, I've put together a great eBook that talks about what happens during our cycles - it's SO important for us to understand this and I still can't believe that we aren't taught more of this in school. But essentially there are four hormones - LH and FSH - which come from our brain, and Estrogen and Progesterone which primarily come from our ovaries. I still have my ovaries and fallopian tubes, although I don't have a uterus anymore nor most of my cervix.... And I still have a brain (ha!). So I still have my monthly cycle, even though there is no lining to shed at the end of each cycle.

When I was trying to conceive, I used two methods to track my ovulation:

Tracking my Basal Body Temperature

I tracked my BBT for about 7 months, and it was really time consuming. In order to do it properly, you're supposed to do it while you're lying in bed, as still as you can be, for about 10 minutes when you first wake up (without getting up), and even though I did that, I still never got the temperature spike that showed I was ovulating.

If you're trying to conceive, it's also important to note that your basal body temperature spike is only telling you AFTER you've ovulated, so you can't use this as the signal to do the deed, you can only use it as confirmation that ovulation has occurred.

The problem for me though was that I never got that lovely graph that you're supposed to have when tracking your BBT, and so aside from the time commitment, I wasn't super keen to try that again.

Using Cheap LH Ovulation Strips

The other thing I used when we were trying to conceive (before we hit the fertility clinic) was some cheap ovulation strips that I got from EBay. What. A. Waste. Because of the short window of ovulation, I was using multiple strips per day (and probably not correctly) and never once. Not once. Had a positive confirmation of ovulation (even though I ovulated quite regularly).

So I'll be completely honest with you - I've been looking into ovulation trackers for some time now and the bottom line was that I just wanted something that was convenient and accurate. Also, I wanted something that gave me a little bit more than a really short window to ovulation so I wanted something that went beyond just a 'yes' or 'no' in terms of whether I've ovulated or not. Enter the Mira Tracker.

To date, the only other partnership I've done has been with the Mira tracker to be honest, even though I'm approached multiple times per week from other organizations.

Since walking the path of infertility, I feel like I've become much more in tune with my body and the natural rhythms of my mood and energy across the month, so I had an idea of when I might be ovulating, but I truly wanted some confirmation.

How to use the Mira

So the first thing you need to do when your Mira tracker arrives is to charge it up, and then install the Mira app on your phone so that it can sync all the data. It's pretty cool because it uses bluetooth to sync everything and then you can see and compare your results, and it also has a graph you can see (and download if you want to send to your Naturopath or anything). Once it's charged and you've got the app, you just connect your tracker and then you're good to go.

When you want to test, you use your first morning wee...

Today on the podcast we're talking about how to honor your miscarried baby.

If you haven't checked out my episode on loss and recurrent loss yet with Molly, please make sure you do that as it was awesome. But also, please check out my podcast on surviving miscarriage. I've had such positive feedback about it.

I remember my miscarriage like it was yesterday. It was truly the moment that broke me (but also the moment that made me - sometimes you need the breakdown to have the breakthrough). And it can be so hard when we're so emotionally invested in this and our baby is SO wanted, and especially serve as a kick in the teeth if we've had fertility struggles.

Before we start, the first thing I want to let you know is that you do you, boo.

There is no set way to grieve, or feel following a loss. There is no magic 'time along' that you should be in order to feel a particular way. There is no set timeline for grieving.

So despite how people tell you to feel.

Despite all the comments people may make dismissing your feelings

Despite how your friend who experienced a loss felt

However you are feeling is valid and ok, but know that many people won't say the right thing.

6 Ways to honor your miscarried baby

Name them

Sometimes when we name our baby, it gives meaning and significance to their lives. It helps us recognise who they were and honors them as one of our own. Regardless of whether they experienced life Earthside or not, they were yours and they were loved.

Plant a tree in their honor

There's a funny thing about grief - and that's that it comes in waves. For such a long time you might be ok, but then you might reach a place when your walls come crumbling down, and you might want a moment to get some fresh air, to see something growing (and honor that timeline) and to just be with them.

Get a crystal

This was a particularly powerful thing that I did when I had my loss. I got a crystal (rose quartz) and I use this technique for lots of situations in my life, but a crystal can sit in my bra or my pocket - it's discrete, but it also sits with me for as long as I need it and when I feel like I want to remember or send love their way, I can clutch onto it.

Set an anniversary and do something special each year

Whether it's leaving a light on in the porch, lighting a candle for the day, or going out for a nice dinner, there can be something lovely about a yearly ritual. You don't have to make it known either, you can keep it to yourself, but I firmly believe that our love is endless. And this can be a lovely way to honor your baby and show them that you love and care for them.

Conduct a full moon ritual

So full moon rituals are typically for letting go. You can see my podcast on how to do a full moon ritual, and you can vary this in any way you want (seriously - there is no 100% right or wrong way if you ask me), but you might be thinking right now that you don't want to let go of your baby. I hear you! But your baby would want you to let go of:

Holding onto them so tightly that you can't experience happiness ever again

Any guilt you have around their loss - it was not your fault.

Wondering what you could have done differently

And you can during the full moon (or wait until the new moon) to invite in grace, abundant love, their beautiful spirit and strength and happiness.

I also want to let you know right now that you can have different parts to you that exist at the same time. You can have different emotions at the same time. So it is possible to exper...

Today on the podcast I'm chatting with Dr Malinda Lee and grilling her on all the questions you need to know about recurrent loss. Dr Malinda Lee works for Spring Fertility and this area is one of her specialties. Spring Fertility has quite a patient-focused approach and one of their specialities by the way is also LGBTQ+ family building. They're across California, but they also have a clinic in Vancouver, Canada.

So the reason I was so keen to talk about this with Dr Malinda Lee was because it's something I'm seeing more and more within my program, the Fertility Warrior Intensive. I inevitably get a related question on this once a month, and there are a number of tests and approaches I advocate for, and so we chat about that with Dr Lee, and related to that, I feel like this is an area many clinics also get wrong, or don't do enough testing for from the get go, which in turn, for me, raises questions because it's such a significant cost to clients, that I feel like the extra effort is worth it to avoid the additional time, heartache and general sh8ttiness of now knowing what is happening.

So tune into the The Fertility Warriors Podcast today and see what Dr Malinda has to say. You can also check out my podcast with Molly Nicholls, where we talk about the emotions of recurrent loss and how to survive that.