May 6, 2025 • 40 mins
Is there a better way to listen to - or tune out - your biological clock? "Badass Fertility" host Kathryn Bregman drops by to talk about the realities of reproduction, why mindset matters most, how to tune out the naysayers and the noise, the questions that need to be asked, how to be a loving partner, the keys to balancing hope with science, the steps you can take to increase your odds, and much much more!
Kathryn Bregman is a Fertility Mindset Specialist. Her greatest passion is to support women who have lost themselves, their bodies, their relationships or their sense of hope while trying to become a mom to once again find their way. After years of struggling to conceive, Kathryn started working on her mindset and became pregnant naturally within months (even after failed IVF), right before her 40th birthday. Today, Kathryn teaches the action-oriented steps and spiritual tools she used to become pregnant to all the brilliant, badass women who work with her so that they can become the moms they are meant to be. Kathryn is the only fertility mindset coach in the world who studied directly under Marianne Williamson and earned Master Level Certification in her Miracle-Minded Coaching Program. Kathryn is also a Certified Life Coach and holds two Masters degrees in the social sciences.
Today's Gift: 5 Tips to Become a Mom Faster and with Less Stress
Follow on Instagram: @BadassFertility
To Learn more: BadassFertility.com
Kathryn Bregman is a Fertility Mindset Specialist. Her greatest passion is to support women who have lost themselves, their bodies, their relationships or their sense of hope while trying to become a mom to once again find their way. After years of struggling to conceive, Kathryn started working on her mindset and became pregnant naturally within months (even after failed IVF), right before her 40th birthday. Today, Kathryn teaches the action-oriented steps and spiritual tools she used to become pregnant to all the brilliant, badass women who work with her so that they can become the moms they are meant to be. Kathryn is the only fertility mindset coach in the world who studied directly under Marianne Williamson and earned Master Level Certification in her Miracle-Minded Coaching Program. Kathryn is also a Certified Life Coach and holds two Masters degrees in the social sciences.
Today's Gift: 5 Tips to Become a Mom Faster and with Less Stress
Follow on Instagram: @BadassFertility
To Learn more: BadassFertility.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is pod Popular Podcast for the People, The Great
Love Debate. It's the Great Love Debate.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
The Great Love Debate.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
It's a great loved Hi get everyone's Brian Howie. Welcome
to the Great Love Debate, the world's number one dating
and relation podcast since twenty fifteen. I am back here
in the very fine and fancy studios of Pod Popular
Podcast for the People. I am at the one in
Boca Ratone, Florida. It's actually nice here in Boca Ratone, Florida.
(00:36):
It's not always nice today, it's nice. I want to
get into today something that it's always a little bit
of a third rail around here. This is the second
podcast I've done in the last month or so that
is sort of devoted to a certain demo who listens
to this show, I think more intently than any other,
(00:57):
a demo that has I think more challenges when it
comes to love, dating and relationships than a lot of
the others. And I know you're probably twenty three listening
to right now, and you're like, no, the challenges are
the worst. Twenty three. It's sixty two. You're listening and
you're like, ah, the man still suck after fifty years
of dating but the ones who's sort of like ground
(01:18):
zero for this subject matter because there are a lot
of questions, concerns, crossroads, all of those things, is sort
of the women between thirty five and forty five. So
that sort of age bracket really does have to deal
with some unique challenges. And so if you are that
twenty three year old woman listen to this, you're gonna
get there. And if you're sixty two listening to this,
(01:40):
you got through it. It's not always the easiest subject
matter for a boy to jump into, and I get
in a lot of trouble, But I think sometimes men
have clarity on some of these issues in a way
that a lot of women don't because they are a
little bit distant from it and they can look at
reality of it. And so I'm going to bring in
a pro here. We're going to talk about the unique
(02:03):
challenges that come along with the subject of fertility. And
she hosts one of the better podcasts I've ever heard
on the subject matter is really really hard to both
offer hope and also grounded in realism. You know, there's
a lot of books, and there's a lot of clinics,
and there's a lot of people that are sort of selling,
(02:23):
you know, outliers or they're putting out there a false
sense of reality. She is the host of the Badass
Fertility podcast, and like I said, she seems to have
a handle on this in a way that I have
not heard anybody talk in a way that resonates with me.
So I can't imagine that it wouldn't resonate with the
women and a lot of the men who are listening
(02:44):
to this. Catherine Regman, how are you hello.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Good morning, I am wonderful, Thank.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
You, And her shirt says the badass woman in me
honors the badass woman in you? Do I have badass
women in me? Do we all have badass women in us?
Speaker 2 (02:57):
We all have a badass feminine side? Absolutely, one hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Obviously. I have always tried to dance around this subject
matter and a lot of men are you know I
brought this up. I got a bunch of emails on
it when I said a couple of weeks ago that
you know, men in their late thirties early forties who
might want to have three four kids, they have to
look at the reality of that age in who they're
dating if they want to have that, And it's like
(03:28):
a conversation I can't have, but as a conversation you
want to have, how do you balance the reality with
false hope with really giving people options that everything is possible.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Okay, that's a really really good question, and it brings
up a lot of the tension in dating, you know.
I mean, I'm forty three now, but I remember when
I was dating in you know, my early mid thirties,
there was always like this sort of ah gosh, I
want to call it a secret stereotype, but maybe not
so secret. Like if you date a woman and over
(04:00):
thirty five, oh, you better watch out because she's just
looking for, you know, a father for her babies. Basically
like she's ready to go. You know. So I think
that that stereotype is real, it's out there. The degree
to which it's true, I think, varies from woman to woman.
It really depends on a lot of factors. Right, Like
(04:21):
one of the things I talk about a lot in
my show is how we are really socialized within our
culture to think of thirty five as somehow this like
expiration date type of number. Right, And honestly, I mean,
there is like growing medical research out there that really
addresses that that is just false right, It's not true.
(04:44):
Women can maintain their fertility in a very vital and
optimal way. They can even improve their fertility actually as
they age, depending on various choices that they choose to make.
So this whole idea that like a woman who's thirty
five has to suddenly be in baby making mode or
(05:04):
she's going to lose that opportunity is Honestly, it's bullshit.
It's not true. And so what I would encourage women
to do is to really continue to be selective and
discerning not only about you know, the partner that they
want to choose, but also about how they want to
enter into their child bearing years because there's a lot
(05:24):
of choice in that that I think a lot of
women aren't made aware of.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Right there, so they can prove them what nutritionally.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Absolutely, yes, yes, yes, so there's a whole I mean,
there's a whole like you know, bank of research out
there and lots of people who specialize in this. And
I can make some recommendations later, but yes, diet, nutrition, exercise,
all those types of things one hundred percent factor into fertility.
(05:58):
One of the things I've talked about on my show,
and I don't know if this is getting too technical,
but it takes ninety days for the egg that you're
going to release to basically like turn into that egg.
So there's like a ninety day window where actually, if
you make a really concerted effort in terms of how
you address certain issues dietary lifestyle habits, you can make
(06:19):
a huge difference in the quality of egg that you
produce just ninety days later.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
There are you know, there's a group of women over
here who are frantically hit thirty four, thirty five, and
they are frantically, you know, overestimating the doom that they
believe is coming on in terms of their age. And
then there's a group of women over here who are
not dealing with it at all. They're like, I'm in
good shape, I do pilates, I can deal with this.
(06:45):
At forty six. You kind of have to bring both
of those sides back from the edges a little bit.
There is a reality of it that you statistically, thirty seven,
probably you can't have seven kids, but maybe, I mean,
you know, everybody's like you can. I don't know. Oh,
you know, I was a girl who came to one
of our live shows here and she's like, you know,
I want to have a big family. I'm a mom
(07:07):
and you know, I'm thirty six years old, and I'm like,
I think you gotta get on it, but I can't.
I'm not allowed to say that out loud as a man.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
I know, I know. And it's so hard because on
the one hand, like I hear you saying that I
get this like clenching in my test and the chest,
and I'm like, oh, that's not really true.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
But how much of it it's not really true?
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Okay, So I'll put this out there and sata. So
first of all, all right, yeah, there are odds. I
will say this like, and if you like, there's the statistics,
and then there's the women who defy the odds all
the time, right, correct? And I would say that, you know,
just because there's a lot of medical research out there
that says one thing, it absolutely does not mean that
women aren't defying that all the time, right. And that's
(07:48):
where a lot of my work comes in, which is
the my body type of connection, because that is what
really amplifies your odds. And it's also something that like
we don't have a ton of scientific research data on,
you know, but there's a lot of anecdotal evidence based
on the women I work with, based on you know,
the stories that I hear from lots of different people
about how we can defy these odds. So if you
(08:10):
want to take a moment and think about it, When
my mom, for example, who's in her seventies now, had
my sister, she was thirty five, right, and that was
like old at that point in time, Like that was
like kind of the today's equivalent of forty five. I
would say, right today, if you want to have a
child in your early to mid forties, right, women who
try for one year have a forty to fifty percent
(08:32):
chance of conceiving in their early to mid forties. Right,
that's naturally. Naturally, that is one in two women.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
And what is that that's probably not way different at
twenty eight.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Now it's not either not necessarily that different. I mean,
any any like person who's in their sort of optimal fertility, right,
they will say, and any given month, you have a
twenty five percent chance of conceiving naturally. So theoretically, if
someone wants to conceive, it should take them about four months, right,
And that's why they have the sort of window of
if you are thirty five or over and you've been
(09:06):
trying for six months, you should get a work up.
If you're younger than thirty five and you've been trying
for a year, you should get a work up. So
that's where those types of markers are generated from. M H.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Yeah, do you throw age out of it all together?
Is there a test that you can do to sort
of understand your fertility?
Speaker 2 (09:24):
So yes and no. If somebody comes to me and
they say, all right, I'm forty two years old, I
don't want to get pregnant, I'm like, yes, like absolutely,
one hundred percent. We can do this and there are
a lot of things that we're going to work on.
So the first thing that I do when a woman
comes to me, because I focus primarily on like even
just the women we're talking about right now, right, there
(09:45):
are women who are listening, and this conversation could feel
very defeating, right because we're challenging this idea that can
she or can't you get pregnant? Right? And that is
a very personal and a very complicated and de question.
So for the woman who's listening who feels that edge
of what the fuck is this making me feel better
(10:07):
or worse? I don't actually know what I do is
I would start by working on the mindset. I would
start by working on recognizing the innate potential you have
within yourself, to follow your intuition, to make choices that
resonate with you, and to guide be your own best
(10:27):
guide on your journey to your baby. Because I really
do believe and I operate from the assumption that every
woman who wants to have a baby, who feels that
calling in her heart to become a mom, is meant
to be a mom. And what actually gets in the
way is the social messaging and the statistics and all
the things that are telling you you can't or your
(10:49):
chances are very slim. Because what that does is it
becomes a sort of self fulfilling prophecy, and we start
to believe it, and then we make choices that actually
are more self defeating. I'm not staying statistics don't matter, right. So,
if you're forty two and you're going to say to me,
I want to drink a bottle of wine every night
and smoke a pack of cigarettes and you know, stay
up till two am and have six kids, I'm going
(11:11):
to tell you, well, I think we need to figure
out which one you want more, you know what I mean,
because you're not necessarily going to have both. But the
mindset part is really about learning how to embrace the
types of choices that are going to benefit the ultimate
desire that you really have.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
And you bring up the choices and a lot of
women say, you know, throughout their dating years, I want
to get married and have kids one sentence, get married
and have kids. Yeah. Yeah, there's a point where you
have to decide which of those at a certain age
is a priority. There are a lot of ways, and
women are obviously more independent than ever that you can
(11:50):
have the kid or kids and then circle back to
the married. And that's perfectly reasonable way to do it
because a lot of women they go out at you know,
thirty seven years old, and they go on a date
and they do the math where they had two years
on even if we like each other, we get married
in a year and if it goes really really well,
and they're they're bailing out of possible relationships that could
(12:12):
work out because they do have this two years add
on to every single It's really hard to date that way,
and it's really hard to conceive that way.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
Absolutely, and it's so funny you bring up the timeline,
because the timeline is like one of the number one
things that women who I work with come to me
with and that we try to dismantle and get rid
of because the timeline is seriously only going to waste
your time in the sense that exactly what you just said, Like,
you go on this date with this guy who could
be amazing, but you're so caught up in your head
(12:42):
about like how are we going to make this work
on my timeline that you can like extinguish that fire,
you know, and then.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
You're pulling the emergency shoe way too quick because you're like,
I don't have time to work out this icky point
in our dating that happens in every relationship. Three months
in it's like, oh, this isn't perfect. Then you're going
backwards because you're doing math constantly.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Exactly, And it's the same thing when women are trying
to conceive, right, except it becomes I mean extremely intense,
and then it also involves your sex life, right, so
it's like, Okay, we have to have time sex all
the time, and then you're like exhausted after that window,
and then you don't have sex for a couple of weeks.
And then you have it really intensely and it becomes
like exhausting. I mean, the impact of infertility on relationships
(13:25):
is huge. And it's so interesting to me that you
bring up this timeline issue because I always think of
it in terms of that fertility world. But you're connecting
it to the larger timeline of relationships. Yeah, which is fascinating, right.
It's really really an accurate, insightful point.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
The other side of that, a lot more women are
freezing their eggs, and we're going to get into that shortly.
But a lot of women say, oh, it's I'm cool,
I froze my eggs, and they almost they take their
foot off the gas in terms of dating. They're like, oh,
the eggs are frozen. I'm good. That's that'll work out.
I'll come back to that at forty five, when if
(14:01):
they have maybe just kept dating naturally. Dating naturally is
never a never good term. I don't know what that is.
It might have worked out naturally too, you know, it's
all I mean, you're not really game plaiming, but you're
sort of hope playing on all of it. Like you're
always looking at the perfect scenario and life doesn't give
you the perfect scenario. You could get married and want
to have and he can't conceive it, or he's sterile,
(14:24):
or he's got issues, which is a very underrated part
of this whole equation. Yes, that a lot of men
don't test he or they get older, or things are
they low sperm count. There's a lot of ways to
go about this. That the burden is unfairly a lot
on the women. We're gonna get into all this. Like
I said, we can take a deep dive on this.
I got to take a quick break. I'm here with
Catherine Bregman. We are diving into bad ass fertility. She
(14:48):
is a badass and she can hopefully help you with
your fertility. And we will be back right after this.
And we are back. Obviously the technology has improved in
a lot of ways. Yes, how much can you trust it?
I know it's a loaded questions. Let's start with the egg.
(15:11):
Is there an age where where freezing eggs statistically makes
it harder?
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Oh gosh, that's a really good question. I think that
when it comes to egg freezing, and this is going
more into the medical stuff than I would typically go,
but I can give you kind of a generalization. It's
gonna sort of it's gonna mirror, you know, the similar
types of recommendations that you're getting for natural conception, right,
So anyone's going to tell you the earlier you freeze
(15:39):
your eggs, the better, right, But it's also going to
vary a lot from woman to woman. And that's why
a lot of the statistics and the things that we
hear about age and numbers are really only like a
broad sort of outline of the truth for every individual person,
and not only the truth for every individual person, but
that truth can change at different phases of her life.
(16:01):
So generally speaking, yes, of course, the younger the better, right,
I'm not going to pretend like, oh, all of the
eggs that you have at forty five are just as
good as they were when you were twenty five, Like
that's probably not true, right, it's not it's not true.
But what is true is that it only takes one
good egg to get pregnant, and a woman at forty
(16:22):
five still has tens of thousands of eggs, right, So a.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
Good frozen thirty nine year old egg as viable as
a natural forty two year old egg.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
I mean that would absolutely one vary from woman to woman.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
I know it's all stats. I know. I know we're
not trying to be doctor.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
I'm just what numbers. No, I don't well, I think
you're No.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
I just want there to be some reality in it,
because you know, the outliers give hope, yes, but the
outliers sometimes lead to choices because you're like, oh, no,
I read about in the paper forty seven years old.
She's so and.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
So right right right, right right.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
So we can't pretend the conversation doesn't matter. But there's
there needs to be nuanced to the conversation, and there's
a lot of shades of gray in here that when
it comes to dating or even if you are in
a marriage that you're thinking of getting out of and
you're thirty eight years old and you're like, or a
relationship and you're like, oh, I want to get out
of this, but I still want to have kids, so
maybe I'm going to stick with my idiot husband to
(17:26):
get one more baby out. It is constantly, you know,
women have to do this. So is there a reliable
test that you can how good your eggs are? I
mean that is that the phrase?
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Yeah, there's there, there are, Yeah, there are reliable tests.
But what's interesting about that again is that so you
can go and get a blood test, right, and the
blood test is going to tell you things like your
AMH and your f SAH, and your estrogen levels and
your progesterone levels, and all of those things have ranges
that are optimal based on the range of age for
(18:01):
a woman. Right, So there's an ideal range for I'm
making up the numbers, but say thirty to thirty five,
and there's an ideal range thirty five to forty. So yes, absolutely,
Like if you decide to freeze your eggs, if you
decide to do any sort of assisted reproduction, if it's
IUI or IVF, they're gonna that's the first thing they're
gonna do. I mean, if you just go to your
ob and say I think I want to try and conceive,
(18:22):
he or she might say, let's do a blood test
and just make sure that everything's.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
Often a blood test. You don't need to pull out
a bunch of eggs.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
Oh god, no, no, it's just a blood test. But
then okay, so that's like step one is the blood test.
But now I'm going to throw in, you know, the
other curveball, which is that these blood tests are not
They're not like because the problem is what I see
a lot happening with women is they look at the
blood test as a seal of their fate. Right, So
(18:50):
they look at it as if to say, well, my
f SH is low and so now now I have
to stick with this husband that I don't like because
my chances of having a baby later are so much
are lowered. Right, Well, that's not necessarily true, because what's
interesting about the human body, right, and in particular about women,
because our hormones fluctuate, you know, in almost like weekly cycles.
(19:13):
I mean like every month, we're going through all kinds
of cycles of hormone production, and the levels that are
found in that one blood test can change. Okay, so
one month you might be low in this but only
a little bit, and the next month you might be
just fine. So like it's a it is a marker, Okay,
it's a good thing to know. If you get a
blood test and it says you have heightened AMH. There's
(19:36):
like again, dietary choices you can make to fix it. Like,
there's a lot you can do. So blood test is
not a seal of your fate. It's information that you
can use.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
It's something absolutely all right, this is a very personal
subject matter. So I'm going to get in the personal
side of this. When did you become so interested in this?
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Oh good question.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
Where were you along the line where you're like, I
need to figure out my own bay.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Yeah, okay. So it's funny that you say that, because
I would, you know, speaking about the blood test. I
would use myself as an example of that, because I
got married when I was thirty six, right, and I remember, like,
you know, the day I got married, I'm like, all right,
let's do this. We have to have kids, you know.
And my husband and I did fall a bit on
that timeline, like we dated for a year and then
(20:21):
we moved in together to live together for a year,
and I remember him saying like, well, if we weren't
thirty five, like I think I would wait to move
in together. But because you know where we are, like
we both wanted to have kids. We were on the
same page about that, and so he and I decided together, well, like,
we don't have quote unquote time, right, like we need
to make this happen. So we did. So we got married.
(20:43):
We met at thirty four, married by thirty six, start
trying to have kids and pretty soon into it. Actually, well,
first I got pregnant within a couple months, but then
we had a miscarriage, and after that I became That
sort of prompted me down this whole journey, and it
actually took three more years before we got pregnant again
(21:06):
and then had my daughter right before I turned forty.
So going down this path, you know, I did all
of it from the assisted reproduction. We did two rounds
of IVF. They didn't work. I was told by my
doctors that I should consider donor eggs, which is a
whole other thing that we could get into. They were
telling me my eggs were not good. So that's why
(21:26):
I'm like really passionate about the egg issue because I
know from personal experience that a lot of this relates
to chronic inflammation, which is a major issue among people
in our society, and it really affects reproductive issues. It's
like a very large number of women who struggle to conceive,
like forty percent have some sort of inflammation or autoimmune
(21:47):
issue that's undiagnosed, meaning that modern western medicine isn't going
to pick up on it. Right. So when I was
told these things I knew in my heart. I was like,
I just I couldn't see well with donorags. I think
it's a beautiful thing. I have worked with women who
have chosen to do donorags, so I one hundred percent
support any choice a woman wants to make, but it's
(22:09):
got to come from her right And for me, it
was like, no, I want to do everything possible to
build my mind, my body, and my spirit so that
I can become the mom I meant to be. And
then when I started working on Mindset, it inspired me
to make changes that I didn't feel like I could
(22:29):
make before. So I started to eat like an anti
inflammatory diet, which is not what everyone should do, but
it's what I needed to do. I started to do
certain types of exercises that were good for balancing my hormones,
even though I hated them, but I learned how to
be okay with them. And seriously, within like six months
of working on Mindset, and literally four months of making
(22:50):
those changes, I was pregnant naturally after going through a
year of treatments at an IVF clinic where they were
telling me it was hopeless.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
You miscarried at thirty seven, Yeah, and you got pregnant
with your daughter just before forty yep, So what was
that three years like, because you must have thought during
that time, I can't the miscarriage has to which is
you know, statistically miscarriage is perfectly normal.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
Yes it is one in four pregnancies.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
They say, right, but you're going through this, Like was
that my shot? And then I guess it can't happen.
That had to be the darkest time because you're in
your late thirties.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
Yeah, absolutely, I mean I was how do.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
You keep the hope going? And how does your husband
react and all that?
Speaker 2 (23:32):
Well, I mean honestly, that's why I mean it. It
changed my life, right, And I always say that, like
it really was the darkest time in my life, and
it became like my greatest teacher and the thing that
has inspired so much light in me and that I
also helped now bring to other people. So you know,
(23:52):
I always tell people like, as much as you'll hate
me when I say this, it's actually true. Your fertility journey,
as I call it, really is a blessing because it
can inspire so much growth. So for me it was horrible.
I mean, like my social life strength because everything suddenly
like started to revolve around trying to get pregnant. So
(24:14):
every choice I made revolved around that what am I
going to eat, what am I going to drink? Who
am I going to socialize with? Because if these people
have kids and they're going to talk about their kids,
it's really hard for me, Like do I go to
a baby shower? Do I not go to a baby shower?
You know, all of these questions that you don't think
about until you're trying to have a baby and you
(24:36):
can't right, and then suddenly it's like your whole life
starts to be put on hold and this becomes the
one central focus. And then you can imagine the tension
and like weight that it places on a marriage.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
I can imagine and the sort of familial and societal
pressures around you. Oh my god, when you guys gonna
have oh, oh my god, they're going to be an amazing
mom and they have no idea what you guys are
either going through or trying to go through on your
It's brutal.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
It's horrible. I mean that question like when are you
going to have kids or do you want to have kids?
Is like you should be bad?
Speaker 1 (25:15):
Or don't you want to have kids, which is even
worse with a negative connotation. Yeah, and then a lot
of things, you know, a little bit of a sidebar.
A lot of times the women you hear, oh my god,
you're gonna love being a mom so much as a
grace thing in the world, they have kids and it
is absolutely terrible. For two years, none of the fun
is kicking in, and they're like, what am I doing wrong?
And all of it is self doubt and this is
(25:38):
not this is not in the brochure right right, you
know this, I haven't slept for a decade and all
of that. And so it's constantly self doubt. And as
a guy, or if you're the husband or the partner,
you're trying to understand. But it's still a lot of
times you're just in this whirlwind by yourself, whether you're
trying to conceive or actually conceiving. It's rough.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Oh my god, Why should I know? Ladies, we have
earned okay, so let them let them pay No, But seriously,
I think the issue of self doubt, I think is huge, right,
and and it permeates like every aspect of this whole process,
(26:20):
from the dating right and the timeline on the dating
to the trying to conceive and the timeline on that
to am I a good mom you know, by the
time you finally have your child. So it's a lot,
you know, And again I'm gonna keep saying it like
that is where that mindset peace comes in, because that
is where you learn how to center and ground yourself
(26:42):
and find the confidence and clarity to really like believe
in the choices that you're making. Because we really do
all have like an inner compass, you know, that can
guide us to our best self, but we are not
really encouraged in our culture to connect with it.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Right.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
We're very heady, We're very logical, We're very rational, so
we're constantly like deducing odds, you know, playing the numbers game,
looking at like the checklist, can I check all the
boxes to make sure I'm a good mom, And we're
really tuning out from the information in our heart. Right,
We're focused more on the head and less on the heart.
And so what I do is I help women really
(27:20):
connect more with that internal compass, that internal knowing that
we all have, so that when they make those choices,
they can say like, yeah, I am a good mom.
I am making the best choice about whether or not
to go on a date with this guy. I am
making the best choice about what to do with my.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
Eggs and when and when you decided, you know, I'm
gonna help other women and build this supportive community. Was
it because I wish I had this then? Or was
it you know, I went through this and I want
to share this so like a bit of everything I supposed.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Yeah, it's really both. Like I remember sitting in the
IVF clinic right and looking around, and it's it's this
really weird moment in time where you're in the waiting
room and you know what everyone else is there for, right,
because you're only there for one thing. But there's so
much shame involved in this journey, like you know, and
if that's why the question of like do you want
(28:12):
to have kids is such a freaking horrible question. Please
don't ask people that if they're you know, just stay
away from it. But it's because they're shame wrapped up
in the answer. Like there, it's not people don't feel
comfortable saying I'm struggling to get pregnant. That is not
something you just bring up at a cocktail party, you
know what I mean. And it's also so when you're
(28:33):
at the IVF clinic and you're all sitting there, it's
like everybody's avoiding eye contact. Everybody's kind of like shamefully
looking down at their feed and their phones and their
paperwork or whatever. But like I just sat there thinking
to myself, like we are all going through the same thing,
Like where is the sign up sheet for the support group?
You know, like where is the place where we can
(28:54):
come together and and understand what each other is going through?
So I did not have that, and I think that
it is so important, and that was a huge part
of what inspired me to start doing what I'm doing.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
And that is the part that is missing from a
lot of this. A lot of this is so clinical
and scientific, and you are missing that spiritual and communal
element of it.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
And there's actually a really interesting study and I cannot
think of the journal at the moment, but I might
be able to put it in the show notes. But
they said that women who participate in support groups or
get help from coaches or therapists on the fertility journey
are something like sixty five percent I am not even
kidding you more likely to conceive than women who do
not seek out that same type of support.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
So I mean it's huge.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
It's a huge factor because it like I mean, you
could you could go at that from so many angles,
Like we don't even have time I think for all
the angles that you can like unpack that number. But
it's it doesn't surprise me, you know, I can say that.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
So somebody he wants to work with you, or you
want to work with somebody, what is the process? What
is the first thing you do?
Speaker 2 (30:04):
So the first thing that people do is they usually
reach out to me on my website Badassfertility dot com.
And on my website there's a little click for a
discovery call, and they'll click on that, they get my
calendar and they can hop right on and schedule a
complimentary thirty minute consultation where we really just talk about
what's going on with them, where they're at in this journey,
(30:24):
what they're thinking about, and then we go from there
to decide if it's a right fit. Typically, women who
work with me will join my bad Ass Fertility Program,
and that is an eight week program where we go
through a lot of the different things that I've been
talking about. But there's flexibility there too. It's like I
really customize everything to the individual.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
Are most of the women in relationships? Are they married?
Or is it?
Speaker 2 (30:48):
You know it? It runs a gamut. I mean, I
have worked with heterosexual couples who are struggling to conceive.
I have worked with lesbian couples who want to have
a baby and who are using IVF. I have worked
with women who are conceiving on their own. So it
(31:08):
really runs. I've never worked with two men, but I
guess that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
What can the men do to either be supportive? Ask
the right questions? What can the men do better on
this journey?
Speaker 2 (31:21):
Oh that is a good question. Oh what can the
men do.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
Because you're trying to be supportive but you don't really understand. Okay,
so she's going through.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
There's two ways to look at that, right. So the
first one is, you know, I was reading an interesting
article the other day and it was saying that, you know,
there's an increasing awareness of the contribution that men make
to infertility. Right, So the first thing, number one is
that you've got to make sure that your male partner, right,
if you're partnered with a man, is getting the equal
(31:56):
amount of work up right from the doctor as you are.
Some doctor are like super equitable. Some are surprisingly not. Okay,
So it is really important to make sure that you
treat it as a fifty to fifty thing and that
the men and the women get the same physical work up.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
Are you sure it's not him is a question.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
Probably, it really does not get to I mean you
would think in this day and age it would, but
it actually doesn't. Again, like I said, some clinics are
great about it. Oh there's not so much. So that's
the first half. But then that's the physical part, right.
The second part is the emotional part. And what we
do want to remember every individual is different. So I
don't want to like generalize or stereotype, but I can say,
(32:39):
you know it, men and women often process their emotions differently.
And I saw this come up with my husband and
myself a lot in our journey, so I can use
this as an example. I am an emotive person. I
want to process my feelings. You know, when we had
an egg retrieval and it was unsuccessful, I wanted to
like sit on the couch and hold each other all
day and cry. He bought a hundred bags of mulch
(33:01):
and wanted to mulch the yard all day for.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
An exercise in fertility is mulching, Yes, multing ex plan
So I was.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
Like, what are you doing? I just want to sit
on the couch and cry, you know, And he was like,
I just need to focus on something else. So one
of the things that I would say for both partners
is learning each other's coping mechanisms and making space for
both right, Because it was fine for me to sit
on the couch and he could sit with me for
a little while, but it was also important that I
(33:36):
let him go do the mulch, you know, and and
vice versa. So it's really allowed having a willingness to
acknowledge and you know, honor your partner's needs for coping
and making space for each others ways, and knowing that
they're probably different and neither is better or worse than
(33:56):
the other.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
Yes, so he can he has to read the room.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
Yeah, I mean he needs to read the room. And
like one thing too, Like I always say with my husband,
like he wants to fix everything, and I'm like, don't
fix it, just just be there for me, right right, Like,
just be there. So for the men out there, a
lot of the time, it's a very male tendency. They
want to fix it. They want to come up with
solutions to solve the woman they loves problems, and that's
(34:22):
so beautiful and admirable. But what women actually often want
is really just to be seen and heard, because we
are actually capable of solving our own problems.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
Right, practically, really are.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
No, you're not obsolete at all, but not in the latest.
We need men very much, and we need enlightened men
in particular.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
So we're all in the uh, we're in the possibilities
business here. Everything you know, when it comes to love, dating,
relationship is about possibilities and exploring them. That's what you're about.
Is there are lots of paths to possible fertility and
up comes in answers.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
One one hundred percent, one hundred percent, I mean, there
are so many paths. I mean even just you know,
I worked with a couple that decided that they didn't
want to have their own child and they wanted to
foster a child, and they are now foster parents of
two beautiful boys, and they couldn't be happier.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
You know.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
So there's I mean, there's there's fostering, there's adoption, there's
donor egs, there's natural conception, there's IVF, there's sperm donation,
there's surrogacy. I mean like, there's so many choices and
it's almost overwhelming, right, Like, how do I want to go?
Speaker 1 (35:31):
I know a woman who she was told she could
never have kids. It led to the demise of her marriage,
and ten years later she went out had a one
night stand. Now she has a son. I love it.
There are there aren't as There aren't a whole lot
of absolutes.
Speaker 2 (35:47):
In this absolutely not.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
So I'm gonna let you plug everything in a minute.
But this is your first time in this podcast. As
you may or may not know, we play something called
worst date or first dates, so you have to think
back to swinging single dating goals and either give us
the absolute worst date you've ever went on or the
best date you ever went on your choice.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
Oh my god, Okay, this one is really bad. It's
so bad. I don't even know that I want to
share it, but it came to my mind, so I'm
just gonna say it, all right. So I went on
this date. It was from match dot com. I was
probably whoever remembers that that was like two decades agore
or something, but it was. It was one of the
earliest dating apps, and I met this guy. He's a musician,
(36:29):
he went to Juilliard. You know, he's all like the
sexy artist blah blah thing you know that I thought
was so hot when I was in my mid twenties.
And we went on like this was like our second
or third date. Okay, but I had realized at this
point it wasn't gonna work, even though he was a Scorpio.
And I'm very I love the scorpio astrology sign. But finally,
(36:51):
finally a scorpio. Right, so I thought I loved the
astrology sign. Anyway, We're on this date and I as
I'm going to end it right and say this is
a working. He looks at me and he says, start
telling me this story about how when he used to
live in New York City. I lived in Florida at
the time. He was a heroin addict and he tried
to commit suicide by like and and and he he
(37:15):
was only saved because his landlord like happened to come
by and find him in his apartment. And now I'm
not trivializing this. So as I'm telling this story, it
suddenly sounds like I'm making fun of this, but I'm not.
It's a very serious thing. The issue with the bad
date part was that he then looked at me and said,
and I've never felt complete until I met you. And
(37:38):
I was like, holy shit, get the fuck out of here.
So I was like, okay, no, no, no, and and
I kind of ended it and it was rough. So
I mean that that really is the.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
Damn thrill seeking scorpions, I know.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
But I will say, I know, I really feel like
the caveat that's ness Sarah here is I would never
poke fun at anyone who is suffering with addiction. Addiction
is a very very serious thing, as is mental health.
But what's equally as important is that we don't succumb
to people's desires to pull us into their problems, yeah,
(38:18):
when they have nothing to do with us.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
So all right, you're very wise woman, and I really
like that. Tell everybody where they can find you work
with you Andrew.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
Podcast, Thank you so much. So my podcast is bad
Ass Fertility and you can find it on Apple, Spotify,
wherever you listen to your shows. It's a weekly show.
It drops on Tuesdays and we talk about a lot
of the different types of things that you heard here
you can go to my website, Badassfertility dot com. There's
two things on there that are super awesome. I have
a giveaway which is a really great freebie. It's about
(38:50):
it's five tips to become a mom faster and with
less stress. So that's a really good way to kind
of get in there, get some more concrete information from
me and start to explore this whole idea. If you
want to jump past that freebie and just meet with me.
Like I said earlier, there's also a link at badassfertility
dot com for my calendar and if you want daily
(39:12):
hits of inspiration, education and just connection, go to Instagram.
Badass Fertility is my handle and you will find me
there as well.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
This was fun.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
This was so fun. Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
Thank you for coming as far as us. Please like, share, follow,
and review not just bad Ass Fertility but The Great
Love Debate. Your reviews still mean a lot in the
podcasting ecosystem. Shoot us an email Great Lovedebate at gmail
dot com. If you have any questions, issues, or concerns
with things that I've said, or you want to get
in touch with Katherine and you don't want to reach
(39:48):
out directly. We'll pass it along because, as always at
the Great Love Debate, we never stop making love. See
you next time. The Great Love to Beth. It's the
Great Love Debate.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
The Great Love to be. It's the Great Love to be.
This is pod Popular Podcast for the People, The Great
Love Debate. It's the Great Love Debate.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
The Great Love Debate.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
It's a great loved Hi get everyone's Brian Howie. Welcome
to the Great Love Debate, the world's number one dating
and relation podcast since twenty fifteen. I am back here
in the very fine and fancy studios of Pod Popular
Podcast for the People. I am at the one in
Boca Ratone, Florida. It's actually nice here in Boca Ratone, Florida.
(00:36):
It's not always nice today, it's nice. I want to
get into today something that it's always a little bit
of a third rail around here. This is the second
podcast I've done in the last month or so that
is sort of devoted to a certain demo who listens
to this show, I think more intently than any other,
(00:57):
a demo that has I think more challenges when it
comes to love, dating and relationships than a lot of
the others. And I know you're probably twenty three listening
to right now, and you're like, no, the challenges are
the worst. Twenty three. It's sixty two. You're listening and
you're like, ah, the man still suck after fifty years
of dating but the ones who's sort of like ground
(01:18):
zero for this subject matter because there are a lot
of questions, concerns, crossroads, all of those things, is sort
of the women between thirty five and forty five. So
that sort of age bracket really does have to deal
with some unique challenges. And so if you are that
twenty three year old woman listen to this, you're gonna
get there. And if you're sixty two listening to this,
(01:40):
you got through it. It's not always the easiest subject
matter for a boy to jump into, and I get
in a lot of trouble, But I think sometimes men
have clarity on some of these issues in a way
that a lot of women don't because they are a
little bit distant from it and they can look at
reality of it. And so I'm going to bring in
a pro here. We're going to talk about the unique
(02:03):
challenges that come along with the subject of fertility. And
she hosts one of the better podcasts I've ever heard
on the subject matter is really really hard to both
offer hope and also grounded in realism. You know, there's
a lot of books, and there's a lot of clinics,
and there's a lot of people that are sort of selling,
(02:23):
you know, outliers or they're putting out there a false
sense of reality. She is the host of the Badass
Fertility podcast, and like I said, she seems to have
a handle on this in a way that I have
not heard anybody talk in a way that resonates with me.
So I can't imagine that it wouldn't resonate with the
women and a lot of the men who are listening
(02:44):
to this. Catherine Regman, how are you hello.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Good morning, I am wonderful, Thank.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
You, And her shirt says the badass woman in me
honors the badass woman in you? Do I have badass
women in me? Do we all have badass women in us?
Speaker 2 (02:57):
We all have a badass feminine side? Absolutely, one hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Obviously. I have always tried to dance around this subject
matter and a lot of men are you know I
brought this up. I got a bunch of emails on
it when I said a couple of weeks ago that
you know, men in their late thirties early forties who
might want to have three four kids, they have to
look at the reality of that age in who they're
dating if they want to have that, And it's like
(03:28):
a conversation I can't have, but as a conversation you
want to have, how do you balance the reality with
false hope with really giving people options that everything is possible.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Okay, that's a really really good question, and it brings
up a lot of the tension in dating, you know.
I mean, I'm forty three now, but I remember when
I was dating in you know, my early mid thirties,
there was always like this sort of ah gosh, I
want to call it a secret stereotype, but maybe not
so secret. Like if you date a woman and over
(04:00):
thirty five, oh, you better watch out because she's just
looking for, you know, a father for her babies. Basically
like she's ready to go. You know. So I think
that that stereotype is real, it's out there. The degree
to which it's true, I think, varies from woman to woman.
It really depends on a lot of factors. Right, Like
(04:21):
one of the things I talk about a lot in
my show is how we are really socialized within our
culture to think of thirty five as somehow this like
expiration date type of number. Right, And honestly, I mean,
there is like growing medical research out there that really
addresses that that is just false right, It's not true.
(04:44):
Women can maintain their fertility in a very vital and
optimal way. They can even improve their fertility actually as
they age, depending on various choices that they choose to make.
So this whole idea that like a woman who's thirty
five has to suddenly be in baby making mode or
(05:04):
she's going to lose that opportunity is Honestly, it's bullshit.
It's not true. And so what I would encourage women
to do is to really continue to be selective and
discerning not only about you know, the partner that they
want to choose, but also about how they want to
enter into their child bearing years because there's a lot
(05:24):
of choice in that that I think a lot of
women aren't made aware of.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Right there, so they can prove them what nutritionally.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Absolutely, yes, yes, yes, so there's a whole I mean,
there's a whole like you know, bank of research out
there and lots of people who specialize in this. And
I can make some recommendations later, but yes, diet, nutrition, exercise,
all those types of things one hundred percent factor into fertility.
(05:58):
One of the things I've talked about on my show,
and I don't know if this is getting too technical,
but it takes ninety days for the egg that you're
going to release to basically like turn into that egg.
So there's like a ninety day window where actually, if
you make a really concerted effort in terms of how
you address certain issues dietary lifestyle habits, you can make
(06:19):
a huge difference in the quality of egg that you
produce just ninety days later.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
There are you know, there's a group of women over
here who are frantically hit thirty four, thirty five, and
they are frantically, you know, overestimating the doom that they
believe is coming on in terms of their age. And
then there's a group of women over here who are
not dealing with it at all. They're like, I'm in
good shape, I do pilates, I can deal with this.
(06:45):
At forty six. You kind of have to bring both
of those sides back from the edges a little bit.
There is a reality of it that you statistically, thirty seven,
probably you can't have seven kids, but maybe, I mean,
you know, everybody's like you can. I don't know. Oh,
you know, I was a girl who came to one
of our live shows here and she's like, you know,
I want to have a big family. I'm a mom
(07:07):
and you know, I'm thirty six years old, and I'm like,
I think you gotta get on it, but I can't.
I'm not allowed to say that out loud as a man.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
I know, I know. And it's so hard because on
the one hand, like I hear you saying that I
get this like clenching in my test and the chest,
and I'm like, oh, that's not really true.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
But how much of it it's not really true?
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Okay, So I'll put this out there and sata. So
first of all, all right, yeah, there are odds. I
will say this like, and if you like, there's the statistics,
and then there's the women who defy the odds all
the time, right, correct? And I would say that, you know,
just because there's a lot of medical research out there
that says one thing, it absolutely does not mean that
women aren't defying that all the time, right. And that's
(07:48):
where a lot of my work comes in, which is
the my body type of connection, because that is what
really amplifies your odds. And it's also something that like
we don't have a ton of scientific research data on,
you know, but there's a lot of anecdotal evidence based
on the women I work with, based on you know,
the stories that I hear from lots of different people
about how we can defy these odds. So if you
(08:10):
want to take a moment and think about it, When
my mom, for example, who's in her seventies now, had
my sister, she was thirty five, right, and that was
like old at that point in time, Like that was
like kind of the today's equivalent of forty five. I
would say, right today, if you want to have a
child in your early to mid forties, right, women who
try for one year have a forty to fifty percent
(08:32):
chance of conceiving in their early to mid forties. Right,
that's naturally. Naturally, that is one in two women.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
And what is that that's probably not way different at
twenty eight.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Now it's not either not necessarily that different. I mean,
any any like person who's in their sort of optimal fertility, right,
they will say, and any given month, you have a
twenty five percent chance of conceiving naturally. So theoretically, if
someone wants to conceive, it should take them about four months, right,
And that's why they have the sort of window of
if you are thirty five or over and you've been
(09:06):
trying for six months, you should get a work up.
If you're younger than thirty five and you've been trying
for a year, you should get a work up. So
that's where those types of markers are generated from. M H.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Yeah, do you throw age out of it all together?
Is there a test that you can do to sort
of understand your fertility?
Speaker 2 (09:24):
So yes and no. If somebody comes to me and
they say, all right, I'm forty two years old, I
don't want to get pregnant, I'm like, yes, like absolutely,
one hundred percent. We can do this and there are
a lot of things that we're going to work on.
So the first thing that I do when a woman
comes to me, because I focus primarily on like even
just the women we're talking about right now, right, there
(09:45):
are women who are listening, and this conversation could feel
very defeating, right because we're challenging this idea that can
she or can't you get pregnant? Right? And that is
a very personal and a very complicated and de question.
So for the woman who's listening who feels that edge
of what the fuck is this making me feel better
(10:07):
or worse? I don't actually know what I do is
I would start by working on the mindset. I would
start by working on recognizing the innate potential you have
within yourself, to follow your intuition, to make choices that
resonate with you, and to guide be your own best
(10:27):
guide on your journey to your baby. Because I really
do believe and I operate from the assumption that every
woman who wants to have a baby, who feels that
calling in her heart to become a mom, is meant
to be a mom. And what actually gets in the
way is the social messaging and the statistics and all
the things that are telling you you can't or your
(10:49):
chances are very slim. Because what that does is it
becomes a sort of self fulfilling prophecy, and we start
to believe it, and then we make choices that actually
are more self defeating. I'm not staying statistics don't matter, right. So,
if you're forty two and you're going to say to me,
I want to drink a bottle of wine every night
and smoke a pack of cigarettes and you know, stay
up till two am and have six kids, I'm going
(11:11):
to tell you, well, I think we need to figure
out which one you want more, you know what I mean,
because you're not necessarily going to have both. But the
mindset part is really about learning how to embrace the
types of choices that are going to benefit the ultimate
desire that you really have.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
And you bring up the choices and a lot of
women say, you know, throughout their dating years, I want
to get married and have kids one sentence, get married
and have kids. Yeah. Yeah, there's a point where you
have to decide which of those at a certain age
is a priority. There are a lot of ways, and
women are obviously more independent than ever that you can
(11:50):
have the kid or kids and then circle back to
the married. And that's perfectly reasonable way to do it
because a lot of women they go out at you know,
thirty seven years old, and they go on a date
and they do the math where they had two years
on even if we like each other, we get married
in a year and if it goes really really well,
and they're they're bailing out of possible relationships that could
(12:12):
work out because they do have this two years add
on to every single It's really hard to date that way,
and it's really hard to conceive that way.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
Absolutely, and it's so funny you bring up the timeline,
because the timeline is like one of the number one
things that women who I work with come to me
with and that we try to dismantle and get rid
of because the timeline is seriously only going to waste
your time in the sense that exactly what you just said, Like,
you go on this date with this guy who could
be amazing, but you're so caught up in your head
(12:42):
about like how are we going to make this work
on my timeline that you can like extinguish that fire,
you know, and then.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
You're pulling the emergency shoe way too quick because you're like,
I don't have time to work out this icky point
in our dating that happens in every relationship. Three months
in it's like, oh, this isn't perfect. Then you're going
backwards because you're doing math constantly.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Exactly, And it's the same thing when women are trying
to conceive, right, except it becomes I mean extremely intense,
and then it also involves your sex life, right, so
it's like, Okay, we have to have time sex all
the time, and then you're like exhausted after that window,
and then you don't have sex for a couple of weeks.
And then you have it really intensely and it becomes
like exhausting. I mean, the impact of infertility on relationships
(13:25):
is huge. And it's so interesting to me that you
bring up this timeline issue because I always think of
it in terms of that fertility world. But you're connecting
it to the larger timeline of relationships. Yeah, which is fascinating, right.
It's really really an accurate, insightful point.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
The other side of that, a lot more women are
freezing their eggs, and we're going to get into that shortly.
But a lot of women say, oh, it's I'm cool,
I froze my eggs, and they almost they take their
foot off the gas in terms of dating. They're like, oh,
the eggs are frozen. I'm good. That's that'll work out.
I'll come back to that at forty five, when if
(14:01):
they have maybe just kept dating naturally. Dating naturally is
never a never good term. I don't know what that is.
It might have worked out naturally too, you know, it's
all I mean, you're not really game plaiming, but you're
sort of hope playing on all of it. Like you're
always looking at the perfect scenario and life doesn't give
you the perfect scenario. You could get married and want
to have and he can't conceive it, or he's sterile,
(14:24):
or he's got issues, which is a very underrated part
of this whole equation. Yes, that a lot of men
don't test he or they get older, or things are
they low sperm count. There's a lot of ways to
go about this. That the burden is unfairly a lot
on the women. We're gonna get into all this. Like
I said, we can take a deep dive on this.
I got to take a quick break. I'm here with
Catherine Bregman. We are diving into bad ass fertility. She
(14:48):
is a badass and she can hopefully help you with
your fertility. And we will be back right after this.
And we are back. Obviously the technology has improved in
a lot of ways. Yes, how much can you trust it?
I know it's a loaded questions. Let's start with the egg.
(15:11):
Is there an age where where freezing eggs statistically makes
it harder?
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Oh gosh, that's a really good question. I think that
when it comes to egg freezing, and this is going
more into the medical stuff than I would typically go,
but I can give you kind of a generalization. It's
gonna sort of it's gonna mirror, you know, the similar
types of recommendations that you're getting for natural conception, right,
So anyone's going to tell you the earlier you freeze
(15:39):
your eggs, the better, right, But it's also going to
vary a lot from woman to woman. And that's why
a lot of the statistics and the things that we
hear about age and numbers are really only like a
broad sort of outline of the truth for every individual person,
and not only the truth for every individual person, but
that truth can change at different phases of her life.
(16:01):
So generally speaking, yes, of course, the younger the better, right,
I'm not going to pretend like, oh, all of the
eggs that you have at forty five are just as
good as they were when you were twenty five, Like
that's probably not true, right, it's not it's not true.
But what is true is that it only takes one
good egg to get pregnant, and a woman at forty
(16:22):
five still has tens of thousands of eggs, right, So a.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
Good frozen thirty nine year old egg as viable as
a natural forty two year old egg.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
I mean that would absolutely one vary from woman to woman.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
I know it's all stats. I know. I know we're
not trying to be doctor.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
I'm just what numbers. No, I don't well, I think
you're No.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
I just want there to be some reality in it,
because you know, the outliers give hope, yes, but the
outliers sometimes lead to choices because you're like, oh, no,
I read about in the paper forty seven years old.
She's so and.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
So right right right, right right.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
So we can't pretend the conversation doesn't matter. But there's
there needs to be nuanced to the conversation, and there's
a lot of shades of gray in here that when
it comes to dating or even if you are in
a marriage that you're thinking of getting out of and
you're thirty eight years old and you're like, or a
relationship and you're like, oh, I want to get out
of this, but I still want to have kids, so
maybe I'm going to stick with my idiot husband to
(17:26):
get one more baby out. It is constantly, you know,
women have to do this. So is there a reliable
test that you can how good your eggs are? I
mean that is that the phrase?
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Yeah, there's there, there are, Yeah, there are reliable tests.
But what's interesting about that again is that so you
can go and get a blood test, right, and the
blood test is going to tell you things like your
AMH and your f SAH, and your estrogen levels and
your progesterone levels, and all of those things have ranges
that are optimal based on the range of age for
(18:01):
a woman. Right, So there's an ideal range for I'm
making up the numbers, but say thirty to thirty five,
and there's an ideal range thirty five to forty. So yes, absolutely,
Like if you decide to freeze your eggs, if you
decide to do any sort of assisted reproduction, if it's
IUI or IVF, they're gonna that's the first thing they're
gonna do. I mean, if you just go to your
ob and say I think I want to try and conceive,
(18:22):
he or she might say, let's do a blood test
and just make sure that everything's.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
Often a blood test. You don't need to pull out
a bunch of eggs.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
Oh god, no, no, it's just a blood test. But
then okay, so that's like step one is the blood test.
But now I'm going to throw in, you know, the
other curveball, which is that these blood tests are not
They're not like because the problem is what I see
a lot happening with women is they look at the
blood test as a seal of their fate. Right, So
(18:50):
they look at it as if to say, well, my
f SH is low and so now now I have
to stick with this husband that I don't like because
my chances of having a baby later are so much
are lowered. Right, Well, that's not necessarily true, because what's
interesting about the human body, right, and in particular about women,
because our hormones fluctuate, you know, in almost like weekly cycles.
(19:13):
I mean like every month, we're going through all kinds
of cycles of hormone production, and the levels that are
found in that one blood test can change. Okay, so
one month you might be low in this but only
a little bit, and the next month you might be
just fine. So like it's a it is a marker, Okay,
it's a good thing to know. If you get a
blood test and it says you have heightened AMH. There's
(19:36):
like again, dietary choices you can make to fix it. Like,
there's a lot you can do. So blood test is
not a seal of your fate. It's information that you
can use.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
It's something absolutely all right, this is a very personal
subject matter. So I'm going to get in the personal
side of this. When did you become so interested in this?
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Oh good question.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
Where were you along the line where you're like, I
need to figure out my own bay.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Yeah, okay. So it's funny that you say that, because
I would, you know, speaking about the blood test. I
would use myself as an example of that, because I
got married when I was thirty six, right, and I remember, like,
you know, the day I got married, I'm like, all right,
let's do this. We have to have kids, you know.
And my husband and I did fall a bit on
that timeline, like we dated for a year and then
(20:21):
we moved in together to live together for a year,
and I remember him saying like, well, if we weren't
thirty five, like I think I would wait to move
in together. But because you know where we are, like
we both wanted to have kids. We were on the
same page about that, and so he and I decided together, well, like,
we don't have quote unquote time, right, like we need
to make this happen. So we did. So we got married.
(20:43):
We met at thirty four, married by thirty six, start
trying to have kids and pretty soon into it. Actually, well,
first I got pregnant within a couple months, but then
we had a miscarriage, and after that I became That
sort of prompted me down this whole journey, and it
actually took three more years before we got pregnant again
(21:06):
and then had my daughter right before I turned forty.
So going down this path, you know, I did all
of it from the assisted reproduction. We did two rounds
of IVF. They didn't work. I was told by my
doctors that I should consider donor eggs, which is a
whole other thing that we could get into. They were
telling me my eggs were not good. So that's why
(21:26):
I'm like really passionate about the egg issue because I
know from personal experience that a lot of this relates
to chronic inflammation, which is a major issue among people
in our society, and it really affects reproductive issues. It's
like a very large number of women who struggle to conceive,
like forty percent have some sort of inflammation or autoimmune
(21:47):
issue that's undiagnosed, meaning that modern western medicine isn't going
to pick up on it. Right. So when I was
told these things I knew in my heart. I was like,
I just I couldn't see well with donorags. I think
it's a beautiful thing. I have worked with women who
have chosen to do donorags, so I one hundred percent
support any choice a woman wants to make, but it's
(22:09):
got to come from her right And for me, it
was like, no, I want to do everything possible to
build my mind, my body, and my spirit so that
I can become the mom I meant to be. And
then when I started working on Mindset, it inspired me
to make changes that I didn't feel like I could
(22:29):
make before. So I started to eat like an anti
inflammatory diet, which is not what everyone should do, but
it's what I needed to do. I started to do
certain types of exercises that were good for balancing my hormones,
even though I hated them, but I learned how to
be okay with them. And seriously, within like six months
of working on Mindset, and literally four months of making
(22:50):
those changes, I was pregnant naturally after going through a
year of treatments at an IVF clinic where they were
telling me it was hopeless.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
You miscarried at thirty seven, Yeah, and you got pregnant
with your daughter just before forty yep, So what was
that three years like, because you must have thought during
that time, I can't the miscarriage has to which is
you know, statistically miscarriage is perfectly normal.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
Yes it is one in four pregnancies.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
They say, right, but you're going through this, Like was
that my shot? And then I guess it can't happen.
That had to be the darkest time because you're in
your late thirties.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
Yeah, absolutely, I mean I was how do.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
You keep the hope going? And how does your husband
react and all that?
Speaker 2 (23:32):
Well, I mean honestly, that's why I mean it. It
changed my life, right, And I always say that, like
it really was the darkest time in my life, and
it became like my greatest teacher and the thing that
has inspired so much light in me and that I
also helped now bring to other people. So you know,
(23:52):
I always tell people like, as much as you'll hate
me when I say this, it's actually true. Your fertility journey,
as I call it, really is a blessing because it
can inspire so much growth. So for me it was horrible.
I mean, like my social life strength because everything suddenly
like started to revolve around trying to get pregnant. So
(24:14):
every choice I made revolved around that what am I
going to eat, what am I going to drink? Who
am I going to socialize with? Because if these people
have kids and they're going to talk about their kids,
it's really hard for me, Like do I go to
a baby shower? Do I not go to a baby shower?
You know, all of these questions that you don't think
about until you're trying to have a baby and you
(24:36):
can't right, and then suddenly it's like your whole life
starts to be put on hold and this becomes the
one central focus. And then you can imagine the tension
and like weight that it places on a marriage.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
I can imagine and the sort of familial and societal
pressures around you. Oh my god, when you guys gonna
have oh, oh my god, they're going to be an amazing
mom and they have no idea what you guys are
either going through or trying to go through on your
It's brutal.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
It's horrible. I mean that question like when are you
going to have kids or do you want to have kids?
Is like you should be bad?
Speaker 1 (25:15):
Or don't you want to have kids, which is even
worse with a negative connotation. Yeah, and then a lot
of things, you know, a little bit of a sidebar.
A lot of times the women you hear, oh my god,
you're gonna love being a mom so much as a
grace thing in the world, they have kids and it
is absolutely terrible. For two years, none of the fun
is kicking in, and they're like, what am I doing wrong?
And all of it is self doubt and this is
(25:38):
not this is not in the brochure right right, you
know this, I haven't slept for a decade and all
of that. And so it's constantly self doubt. And as
a guy, or if you're the husband or the partner,
you're trying to understand. But it's still a lot of
times you're just in this whirlwind by yourself, whether you're
trying to conceive or actually conceiving. It's rough.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Oh my god, Why should I know? Ladies, we have
earned okay, so let them let them pay No, But seriously,
I think the issue of self doubt, I think is huge, right,
and and it permeates like every aspect of this whole process,
(26:20):
from the dating right and the timeline on the dating
to the trying to conceive and the timeline on that
to am I a good mom you know, by the
time you finally have your child. So it's a lot,
you know, And again I'm gonna keep saying it like
that is where that mindset peace comes in, because that
is where you learn how to center and ground yourself
(26:42):
and find the confidence and clarity to really like believe
in the choices that you're making. Because we really do
all have like an inner compass, you know, that can
guide us to our best self, but we are not
really encouraged in our culture to connect with it.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Right.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
We're very heady, We're very logical, We're very rational, so
we're constantly like deducing odds, you know, playing the numbers game,
looking at like the checklist, can I check all the
boxes to make sure I'm a good mom, And we're
really tuning out from the information in our heart. Right,
We're focused more on the head and less on the heart.
And so what I do is I help women really
(27:20):
connect more with that internal compass, that internal knowing that
we all have, so that when they make those choices,
they can say like, yeah, I am a good mom.
I am making the best choice about whether or not
to go on a date with this guy. I am
making the best choice about what to do with my.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
Eggs and when and when you decided, you know, I'm
gonna help other women and build this supportive community. Was
it because I wish I had this then? Or was
it you know, I went through this and I want
to share this so like a bit of everything I supposed.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Yeah, it's really both. Like I remember sitting in the
IVF clinic right and looking around, and it's it's this
really weird moment in time where you're in the waiting
room and you know what everyone else is there for, right,
because you're only there for one thing. But there's so
much shame involved in this journey, like you know, and
if that's why the question of like do you want
(28:12):
to have kids is such a freaking horrible question. Please
don't ask people that if they're you know, just stay
away from it. But it's because they're shame wrapped up
in the answer. Like there, it's not people don't feel
comfortable saying I'm struggling to get pregnant. That is not
something you just bring up at a cocktail party, you
know what I mean. And it's also so when you're
(28:33):
at the IVF clinic and you're all sitting there, it's
like everybody's avoiding eye contact. Everybody's kind of like shamefully
looking down at their feed and their phones and their
paperwork or whatever. But like I just sat there thinking
to myself, like we are all going through the same thing,
Like where is the sign up sheet for the support group?
You know, like where is the place where we can
(28:54):
come together and and understand what each other is going through?
So I did not have that, and I think that
it is so important, and that was a huge part
of what inspired me to start doing what I'm doing.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
And that is the part that is missing from a
lot of this. A lot of this is so clinical
and scientific, and you are missing that spiritual and communal
element of it.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
And there's actually a really interesting study and I cannot
think of the journal at the moment, but I might
be able to put it in the show notes. But
they said that women who participate in support groups or
get help from coaches or therapists on the fertility journey
are something like sixty five percent I am not even
kidding you more likely to conceive than women who do
not seek out that same type of support.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
So I mean it's huge.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
It's a huge factor because it like I mean, you
could you could go at that from so many angles,
Like we don't even have time I think for all
the angles that you can like unpack that number. But
it's it doesn't surprise me, you know, I can say that.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
So somebody he wants to work with you, or you
want to work with somebody, what is the process? What
is the first thing you do?
Speaker 2 (30:04):
So the first thing that people do is they usually
reach out to me on my website Badassfertility dot com.
And on my website there's a little click for a
discovery call, and they'll click on that, they get my
calendar and they can hop right on and schedule a
complimentary thirty minute consultation where we really just talk about
what's going on with them, where they're at in this journey,
(30:24):
what they're thinking about, and then we go from there
to decide if it's a right fit. Typically, women who
work with me will join my bad Ass Fertility Program,
and that is an eight week program where we go
through a lot of the different things that I've been
talking about. But there's flexibility there too. It's like I
really customize everything to the individual.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
Are most of the women in relationships? Are they married?
Or is it?
Speaker 2 (30:48):
You know it? It runs a gamut. I mean, I
have worked with heterosexual couples who are struggling to conceive.
I have worked with lesbian couples who want to have
a baby and who are using IVF. I have worked
with women who are conceiving on their own. So it
(31:08):
really runs. I've never worked with two men, but I
guess that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
What can the men do to either be supportive? Ask
the right questions? What can the men do better on
this journey?
Speaker 2 (31:21):
Oh that is a good question. Oh what can the
men do.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
Because you're trying to be supportive but you don't really understand. Okay,
so she's going through.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
There's two ways to look at that, right. So the
first one is, you know, I was reading an interesting
article the other day and it was saying that, you know,
there's an increasing awareness of the contribution that men make
to infertility. Right, So the first thing, number one is
that you've got to make sure that your male partner, right,
if you're partnered with a man, is getting the equal
(31:56):
amount of work up right from the doctor as you are.
Some doctor are like super equitable. Some are surprisingly not. Okay,
So it is really important to make sure that you
treat it as a fifty to fifty thing and that
the men and the women get the same physical work up.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
Are you sure it's not him is a question.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
Probably, it really does not get to I mean you
would think in this day and age it would, but
it actually doesn't. Again, like I said, some clinics are
great about it. Oh there's not so much. So that's
the first half. But then that's the physical part, right.
The second part is the emotional part. And what we
do want to remember every individual is different. So I
don't want to like generalize or stereotype, but I can say,
(32:39):
you know it, men and women often process their emotions differently.
And I saw this come up with my husband and
myself a lot in our journey, so I can use
this as an example. I am an emotive person. I
want to process my feelings. You know, when we had
an egg retrieval and it was unsuccessful, I wanted to
like sit on the couch and hold each other all
day and cry. He bought a hundred bags of mulch
(33:01):
and wanted to mulch the yard all day for.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
An exercise in fertility is mulching, Yes, multing ex plan
So I was.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
Like, what are you doing? I just want to sit
on the couch and cry, you know, And he was like,
I just need to focus on something else. So one
of the things that I would say for both partners
is learning each other's coping mechanisms and making space for
both right, Because it was fine for me to sit
on the couch and he could sit with me for
a little while, but it was also important that I
(33:36):
let him go do the mulch, you know, and and
vice versa. So it's really allowed having a willingness to
acknowledge and you know, honor your partner's needs for coping
and making space for each others ways, and knowing that
they're probably different and neither is better or worse than
(33:56):
the other.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
Yes, so he can he has to read the room.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
Yeah, I mean he needs to read the room. And
like one thing too, Like I always say with my husband,
like he wants to fix everything, and I'm like, don't
fix it, just just be there for me, right right, Like,
just be there. So for the men out there, a
lot of the time, it's a very male tendency. They
want to fix it. They want to come up with
solutions to solve the woman they loves problems, and that's
(34:22):
so beautiful and admirable. But what women actually often want
is really just to be seen and heard, because we
are actually capable of solving our own problems.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
Right, practically, really are.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
No, you're not obsolete at all, but not in the latest.
We need men very much, and we need enlightened men
in particular.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
So we're all in the uh, we're in the possibilities
business here. Everything you know, when it comes to love, dating,
relationship is about possibilities and exploring them. That's what you're about.
Is there are lots of paths to possible fertility and
up comes in answers.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
One one hundred percent, one hundred percent, I mean, there
are so many paths. I mean even just you know,
I worked with a couple that decided that they didn't
want to have their own child and they wanted to
foster a child, and they are now foster parents of
two beautiful boys, and they couldn't be happier.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
You know.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
So there's I mean, there's there's fostering, there's adoption, there's
donor egs, there's natural conception, there's IVF, there's sperm donation,
there's surrogacy. I mean like, there's so many choices and
it's almost overwhelming, right, Like, how do I want to go?
Speaker 1 (35:31):
I know a woman who she was told she could
never have kids. It led to the demise of her marriage,
and ten years later she went out had a one
night stand. Now she has a son. I love it.
There are there aren't as There aren't a whole lot
of absolutes.
Speaker 2 (35:47):
In this absolutely not.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
So I'm gonna let you plug everything in a minute.
But this is your first time in this podcast. As
you may or may not know, we play something called
worst date or first dates, so you have to think
back to swinging single dating goals and either give us
the absolute worst date you've ever went on or the
best date you ever went on your choice.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
Oh my god, Okay, this one is really bad. It's
so bad. I don't even know that I want to
share it, but it came to my mind, so I'm
just gonna say it, all right. So I went on
this date. It was from match dot com. I was
probably whoever remembers that that was like two decades agore
or something, but it was. It was one of the
earliest dating apps, and I met this guy. He's a musician,
(36:29):
he went to Juilliard. You know, he's all like the
sexy artist blah blah thing you know that I thought
was so hot when I was in my mid twenties.
And we went on like this was like our second
or third date. Okay, but I had realized at this
point it wasn't gonna work, even though he was a Scorpio.
And I'm very I love the scorpio astrology sign. But finally,
(36:51):
finally a scorpio. Right, so I thought I loved the
astrology sign. Anyway, We're on this date and I as
I'm going to end it right and say this is
a working. He looks at me and he says, start
telling me this story about how when he used to
live in New York City. I lived in Florida at
the time. He was a heroin addict and he tried
to commit suicide by like and and and he he
(37:15):
was only saved because his landlord like happened to come
by and find him in his apartment. And now I'm
not trivializing this. So as I'm telling this story, it
suddenly sounds like I'm making fun of this, but I'm not.
It's a very serious thing. The issue with the bad
date part was that he then looked at me and said,
and I've never felt complete until I met you. And
(37:38):
I was like, holy shit, get the fuck out of here.
So I was like, okay, no, no, no, and and
I kind of ended it and it was rough. So
I mean that that really is the.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
Damn thrill seeking scorpions, I know.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
But I will say, I know, I really feel like
the caveat that's ness Sarah here is I would never
poke fun at anyone who is suffering with addiction. Addiction
is a very very serious thing, as is mental health.
But what's equally as important is that we don't succumb
to people's desires to pull us into their problems, yeah,
(38:18):
when they have nothing to do with us.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
So all right, you're very wise woman, and I really
like that. Tell everybody where they can find you work
with you Andrew.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
Podcast, Thank you so much. So my podcast is bad
Ass Fertility and you can find it on Apple, Spotify,
wherever you listen to your shows. It's a weekly show.
It drops on Tuesdays and we talk about a lot
of the different types of things that you heard here
you can go to my website, Badassfertility dot com. There's
two things on there that are super awesome. I have
a giveaway which is a really great freebie. It's about
(38:50):
it's five tips to become a mom faster and with
less stress. So that's a really good way to kind
of get in there, get some more concrete information from
me and start to explore this whole idea. If you
want to jump past that freebie and just meet with me.
Like I said earlier, there's also a link at badassfertility
dot com for my calendar and if you want daily
(39:12):
hits of inspiration, education and just connection, go to Instagram.
Badass Fertility is my handle and you will find me
there as well.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
This was fun.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
This was so fun. Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
Thank you for coming as far as us. Please like, share, follow,
and review not just bad Ass Fertility but The Great
Love Debate. Your reviews still mean a lot in the
podcasting ecosystem. Shoot us an email Great Lovedebate at gmail
dot com. If you have any questions, issues, or concerns
with things that I've said, or you want to get
in touch with Katherine and you don't want to reach
(39:48):
out directly. We'll pass it along because, as always at
the Great Love Debate, we never stop making love. See
you next time. The Great Love to Beth. It's the
Great Love Debate.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
The Great Love to be. It's the Great Love to be.
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