Hypothalamic Amenorrhea Recovery (Episode 441)

Full Transcript: Episode 441

Lisa: Today I’m sharing another brand new episode in my FAM practitioner series. Today I’m sharing my interview with Holly Leever, who is a licensed acupuncturist, and we really delve into her personal journey with charting and her personal struggle with HA, hypothalamic amenorrhea. And at the time that we recorded this episode, Holly is a couple years postpartum actually, and she shares her experience with working towards bringing her cycle back and some of the challenges that she faces. Today’s episode is a really great window into the complex process of HA and the challenge of unraveling all of those things and healing and bringing your cycle back. One of the things that this episode also highlights is within the FAM practitioner training program. One of the key parts of the program is for the practitioners to chart themselves, and this really brings them into the conversation in a different way. It goes beyond understanding a theoretical process that you can use on others, to understanding what it’s like to use the process on yourself. The challenges that arise from it and how you see through those challenges and how you get through that whole process yourself really informs then how you work with clients.

So before we jump in, let me tell you a little bit more about Holly. Holly Leever is the owner of Rosebud Wellness, where she practices women’s holistic health as a licensed acupuncturist, herbalist, yoni steam therapist, Arvigo abdominal massage therapist, and certified Fertility Awareness Mastery Mentorship practitioner. Holly became interested in working with women’s health after learning how much could be revealed about a woman’s overall health by looking at the parameters of the menstrual cycle. She has continued to study a variety of techniques in order to offer women at all stages of life, from menarche to menopause, the care they deserve. She is especially passionate about working with women in the perinatal time, prenatal, birth, and postpartum. Holly also hosts a weekly podcast called Womb Wisdom. The podcast is a combination of information on women’s holistic health practices and stories from women on their experience with periods, fertility, pregnancy, birth, postpartum, and motherhood. So without further ado, let’s go ahead and jump into today’s episode with Holly.

And I’m really excited to be here today with Holly Leever. Holly is a member of the 2022 FAM program. And before the FAM program, Holly actually was part of one of the rounds of Fertility Awareness Mastery Live. So I feel like we go way back, way back. And yeah, because it wasn’t the first time that we connected in this program this year. So without further ado, welcome to the show, Holly.

Holly: Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I’m excited to be here.

Lisa: I’m excited to have you. I always love just starting in these episodes to give the listeners a sense of who you are and where you’re coming from. I just love to hear a little bit. I know about your personal journey, so I feel like this may take the better part of the show today. Maybe before we jump into all that, you can give us a general sense of what you do, what your professional designation is, and what prompted you to jump into the FAM program to come enhance your practice.

Holly: Yeah, so I am an acupuncturist. That was sort of my initial training. So I’m also an herbalist, a Chinese herbalist. I also practice Arvigo abdominal massage and yoni steaming in my practice. And so over the years I’ve been practicing acupuncture for almost 10 years, and over the years I’ve definitely gotten more interested into women’s health and working with periods and pregnant women and fertility and all that sort of stuff. And so I learned about charting for myself, which is why I did the Mastery class initially. And then I was like, wow, this is so cool. How can I talk to anybody about their period without including this part? But I didn’t realize how complex it could be. And so I felt like I was always kind of scrambling to teach them and then interpret their chart. And I didn’t really fully understand the mucus. And we’ll talk about my personal experience and why I didn’t ever fully understand the mucus part. But yeah, so I always kind of felt like I’m sort of helping them, but I’m a little unclear about timing sex and especially most of the women that I was teaching charting to were trying to conceive. And I really wanted to make sure that I understood fully what I was teaching them so that they were getting the most benefit out of all of what I was offering to them, both with the acupuncture and with teaching them fertility awareness. But now that I’ve been in the FAM program, I’m not exactly sure how I’m going to weave it into the other services that I offer because teaching fertility awareness is kind of like its own thing.

Lisa: Well, I feel like maybe we’ll come back to that point of like maybe a bit later on, because that is definitely one of the challenges for practitioners. I think I’m a little bit biased. I mean, because this is what I do for a living. It is its own wheelhouse. It is its own beast. And so I think that it’s easy to underestimate the modality in and of itself and think, oh, I’ll just, you know, do a little this and a little like a little sprinkling like seasoning, like let’s throw in a little salt and pepper. But it turns out to be a whole dish of its own. And so then you have two full offerings to offer to your clients. So navigating that can be challenging, but it can also be a blessing. I know some of the practitioners actually really love having the additional offering to add. But yeah, but it can be challenging because you have an additional offering. Anyways, so we can jump into that a little bit later.

So I’d love to start with your journey into kind of the awareness of your cycle and how important that it is, and charting. I know for you, this journey started when you were in acupuncture school. So maybe you can start there and just let us know, I guess just take us into your personal experience with your cycle and everything.

Holly: Yeah, it’s like most women, I think, long and winding road. So I got my first period when I was 14 and I was kind of like on the later end. I was definitely the last of my friends. And then I pretty much immediately went on birth control because my mom overheard a conversation I was having with my sister about my wanting to have sex with my boyfriend. And so it was fine at the time. I was grateful for it. It made me feel grown up. And then I also had pretty irregular periods, like I would only get my cycle every three months. I mean, from basically just that year at 14, that full year until I went on birth control at 15, which now I understand is potentially that was okay, because I was so young and I had just gotten my period. Probably, I think at that time there was already like an under-eating element to it, which is maybe why I even got my cycle so on the later end.

So yeah, then I went on birth control and my period would go away on birth control. Like it would just, so there was one time I remember thinking I was pregnant because like most people I was taught that you can get pregnant every day of your cycle. And even though I was taking birth control, I guess I don’t know what I was thinking, but I was just like, okay, I’ve been having sex. I guess I could be pregnant. That’s like the only reason I could think of that a period would not come. And it must have been long enough for me to have been concerned about it enough to take a pregnancy test. And obviously I was not pregnant. And so then they would just put me on a different birth control pill and I would, I took Provera a lot throughout my teenage years. Like a certain pill would make my period go away and then I would have to jump start it with Provera, and it would always work. The few times that I took it, it did work at that time.

Lisa: And for anyone who doesn’t know, Provera is basically like a progesterone challenge.

Holly: Yeah. And so I know that like for once you get into more advanced stages of HA, that won’t even work potentially. But at that time, it did work for me. I wasn’t as deep in. And so yeah, then I was on birth control for nine years.

Lisa: And sorry, I just, sorry to keep interrupting, but I feel like I just want to clarify this point. So correct me if I don’t have this right. So you started on the pill at 15. And when you were on the pill, you were getting no period. This has come up in podcast episodes previously because for women who are on the birth control pill and taking their sugar pill week, you should get a bleed. And if you’re not getting a bleed, that’s a huge flag, just for anyone’s reference. It’s different if you’re taking the pill packs back to back. That’s different, but that’s not what you’re talking about. You’re talking about actually taking the sugar pill break when you should have your withdrawal bleed and it not happening.

Holly: Exactly.

Lisa: And so when you’re doing the Provera, that’s because you’ve gone months, I’m guessing, without an actual bleed at all and you’re trying to get a bleed.

Holly: Yeah. And nobody ever said to me, this is a problem. It was just kind of like, oh, birth control can do that. It can cause that. So that’s what the reason is. Nobody ever said anything about my diet or my weight or anything like that.

Lisa: Yeah, okay. Well, no, I just wanted to clarify that point because I just want to make that really, really clear. So basically you had these signs of HA, but obviously by what you’re telling me, it never, no one ever mentioned that. So you can keep letting us keep kind of going into then the unfolding of events.

Holly: Yeah, sure. So I do remember at one time, I think I was older, maybe like 22 or something. And at that point, I was kind of deeply in an eating disorder, very restrictive eating disorder that basically, yeah, was just pretty gnarly and involved over-exercise as well. And I went to a gynecologist and I can’t remember, I know that I was on the pill and I told her I kind of wanted to stop taking it. I can’t even remember why. And she said, it’s really better if you stay on the pill to protect your bones. And she actually is the first person that ever said to me that the other option is to gain weight. The other option is to eat more and to gain weight, but you don’t seem like you want to do that. So the only other way to protect your bones, and she only talked about my bones, nothing else, is to stay on birth control. So that planted a seed at that time.

And then I went to acupuncture school when I was 24. And I was still pretty in my eating disorder, but thought I was doing a lot better, but just kind of a little delusional at that time. And acupuncture, a big part of women’s health is looking at the menstrual cycle, looking at all the things that we talk about in fertility awareness, like looking at all of the cycle parameters. We also look at the color and the consistency of the blood. But yeah, I hadn’t had a period while I was on birth control when I started acupuncture school for a really long time. And I was like, oh well, birth control isn’t really a cycle. That was the first time I ever knew that the bleed that I, if I ever got a bleed, which was rare, that I was getting while I was taking birth control was not actually a period. It had nothing to do with the hormonal fluctuations in a normal cycle.

So I decided to stop taking birth control. And I didn’t get a period for two years. Acupuncture, I was taking herbs, I would go to our school clinic. I was a vegan at the time, of course. And the Chinese medicine definitely talks a lot about animal protein and particularly red meat being really nourishing for the blood. And I was diagnosed always with something that we call liver blood deficiency, which isn’t like exactly like you don’t have enough blood per se, but it’s just kind of a pattern in Chinese medicine. From eating meat like you, you need to eat more, but it wasn’t ever a like, you are not going to get your period. There’s no way that you’re going to get your period if you don’t do this.

So I was going to see a number of practitioners while I was in acupuncture school, partially to help me learn about the medicine and learning about my own body. And I was basically being told to eat more and to eat meat in particular. And as a vegan, I wasn’t really ready for that. I would try sometimes, but I didn’t like the taste and it just kind of felt weird to me after not having eaten meat for such a long time, and I think I just didn’t fully understand or maybe just wasn’t ready for that. And so I was going and getting treatments and taking all sorts of herbs. There was this one practitioner that I was seeing that she told me to stop running, that I needed to eat meat and animal products. And she tried every single thing that Chinese medicine has to offer. She was like doing e-stim, I don’t know if people don’t know what that is. It’s basically like a TENS unit kind of, but you attach the leads to acupuncture needles, and she would attach them to my belly and then to a point on my leg to try to get things going. She would put herbal, so it’s like acupuncture with…

Lisa: I’ve actually had that. I don’t know if it’s the same thing, but I had this ridiculous spasm in my back and they put the needles in and attached it to like electricity and had it going.

Holly: Exactly. Stronger, yeah. Yeah, so she was doing that. She was doing herbs on my belly. She gave me internal herbs. She tried a bunch of different formulas and nothing worked because I wasn’t doing the work outside of the treatments.

And so then I decided to move to California because California has a different licensing. Now I know it’s just political and not that important, but I was like, oh, they have a different board exam and they require more clinical hours and I just wanted to get the best education possible. And plus California is really cool. So I wanted to move here and there was something about that move, which I have moved a lot in my life, and I think part of it is like a refresh, like a restart. And that’s kind of how I viewed the move to California. And I just was like, I don’t care anymore. I’m just gonna not have an eating disorder anymore and I’m just gonna eat whatever. And I did that and I also stopped, I didn’t stop exercising completely, but I stopped running. I was definitely trying to be a lot more moderate. And I got my period.

And I got one period and celebrated with under-eating again and letting myself exercise again. And I think a lot of people with HA do that. They get one cycle and then they’re just like, okay, cool, now I can go back to doing what’s comfortable for me. So that’s what I did. Period went away immediately. And that happened for a lot of my life. I would say I would go through these periods of screw it, I’m just gonna do whatever and relax and not be so crazy about exercise and I would get my period. And then I would go back and do what was comfortable. And I would say majority of my life, I did not have a cycle at all.

And then I went, I’ve been in treatment, in residential treatment for my eating disorder a few times. And the two times that I went for a really long period of time, I got my cycle back after four months. And so what that entails is basically kind of like what Nicola talks about, if anybody’s familiar with the No Period Now What book. And I think you’ve had her on your podcast too. So it’s basically what residential treatment is, is following the guidelines in that book, which is basically not exercising at all and eating a lot more than you’re comfortable with and incorporating all different types of foods and doing that for a period of time and then slowly reintegrating movement and then potentially making shifts to your diet if necessary.

And so I got my period back the first time and then I left and immediately went back to what I had always been doing, so lost my period again. And then the second time is shortly before I met you, Lisa, and started listening to your podcast. Because I got my period back and I stayed in a PHP and an IOP program for a few months and my period kept coming. And I can’t remember, I could count in my app, how many, but I think I maybe had six or so cycles that came. I always had a pretty long follicular phase. I always had these sort of like patches of mucus, and then it would go away and then a patch, which to me seemed like my body was trying to ovulate and couldn’t quite get there and then would try again.

And so in the beginning, when I was still in treatment, I mean, you can see so clearly in the chart what I was up to with food. Because the first charts are, they were probably like 30, 30 to 35 day cycles. But I would ovulate, you know, like my luteal phase was pretty consistent of, I think it was mostly like 12 or 13 days. And then you can see like the times when I started restricting my food again and getting more exercise, that my follicular phase got longer and longer and longer. And my cycles would be then like 60 days, 70 days. There would be just less consistent mucus.

And I can’t remember in the Mastery program if you went into as much detail with the cervical mucus observations. And if you did, it did not go in for me at that time. I did not, I don’t know if I didn’t understand or if I think I just didn’t have the time to commit to it like I do now.

Lisa: You probably weren’t, one of the, so this is just my observation from the instructor seat, but your experience would have been very little if any mucus. So the HA characteristic, as we all know, but just for the listeners, you know, how it shows up on the chart. Typically, if a person has active HA, they have no follicular activity, meaning they are not moving towards ovulation. That is the definition of HA. You are not ovulating, but not only are you not ovulating, but you are not moving toward ovulation. There is no estrogen being produced or very, very little, definitely no progesterone because you’ve not ovulated. And so the way that that shows up on the chart is basically what we would call dry days, meaning that if you’re checking for mucus, there’s no mucus. And then once you, like what you’re saying, once you move toward cycling, once you are not restricting the food and not exercising so much, basically, once you are eucaloric is the word, but getting sufficient calories to make your body work properly, then you start to move towards ovulation. And that’s when you start to see mucus. So for someone with HA, seeing mucus is a positive thing. It means that you’re actually eating enough to create some level of follicular activity. Whether that’s enough to actually lead you to ovulation is another question, but for many women, that’s huge progress.

So for you, I would imagine, so going back to what you were talking about in the program, if you are really not seeing mucus yourself, then we talk about it in class, but it’s a theoretical thing. And I find with my clients who, whether it’s HA or whether they have an issue with their cervix or whatever, but if they’re not seeing mucus, it can’t make sense until you actually see it.

Holly: Right. I think that is part of it. At the time, I think it was 2017 or 2018 when I was working with you, but I was cycling at that time. Those were like, that was the sweet spot of when I had those six or whatever cycles that were long, but I did have mucus. But I just always felt really confused by what I was seeing, and like you said, it was so inconsistent. I think that it just, yeah, I was confused.

So anyways, then in that time, so then it gets to be 2019 and I had those like six cycles. So obviously my cycle was still long and irregular and I knew that it was because of my history. And somehow, I miraculously got pregnant because that cycle I ovulated day, I don’t know, like 30 or something like that. And I was charting at the time. I did know that I had mucus that day. I did think, this is good for everyone to hear, I did think that it would probably not be possible for me to get pregnant. So I was lazy about, you know, creating boundaries around what we were doing with sex, because I was just like, oh, I’m like infertile right now. Which is kind of sad that I had that mentality, and whatever. But anyways, I got pregnant. And I could tell, I knew pretty much right away because I had like 16 high temperatures. And I was like, my luteal phase is never that long. And that’s what made me go and get a pregnancy test.

And yeah, so I was pregnant. And pregnancy was really hard for me, not physically at all. It was fine. Well, in the beginning I was really nauseous. So it was hard to get enough nutrition. And I was working with midwives throughout. And so much of it was, you need to make sure that you’re eating enough. And at certain points I had ultrasounds where they thought she wasn’t growing appropriately, and that was always about my not eating enough. And so I entered into pregnancy in kind of a still depleted state, and then throughout my pregnancy I don’t think I was making, like, I think my body was losing weight even though on a scale my weight was going up because I was growing a baby and a placenta and all this, you know, double blood volume and all of that.

So then when she was born, I was breastfeeding her. Breastfeeding was totally fine for me, thankfully, but took everything I had. So I had this like, went into pregnancy depleted, didn’t eat enough during pregnancy, didn’t eat enough while breastfeeding. And so now two and a half years later, I’m back in HA, eating way more than I ever have before, being really quite moderate with exercise, and still kind of in this HA space, trying to get my cycle back pretty wholeheartedly since January, which is when the program started. I worked with a period recovery coach for six months and was doing really well. I’ve eaten way more animal protein than I ever have in my entire life. Been taking the liver capsules, stopped drinking caffeine completely. And I’m still holding on pretty tightly to exercise because I think it’s quite moderate.

And this is a thing I think a lot of people that have struggled with HA can relate to. It’s like, I’m eating way more than I ever have, I’m exercising way less. What is the deal? You know, like, why is it not coming? And it’s, I’ve listened to Dani Sheriff’s podcast before. I know she was a student of yours. And she says like, yeah, you might be eating way more and exercising way less, but if you still have HA, it’s not enough. You know, like, even if it is more than comparatively to what you’ve done before. So I think that that kind of brings us to present day. And yeah, still just trying to get my cycle back and taking my temperature and checking for mucus and being frustrated with myself, I guess.

Lisa: Well, thank you for taking us through your charting journey. I mean, I do remember when we first met in the FAM Live program and you were cycling. And I mean, I don’t have your cycles in front of me or anything from then, but I remember, I feel like they were like the 35, 37-ish day cycles. But I remember at the time, like, that was huge because you had gone several years without a period. You had recently got your period back. And so that in of itself is a huge accomplishment.

It is really interesting kind of pulling the lens back and hearing you recount your story now. That’s one of the things I love about doing these episodes. And so I think one of the things we were talking about even in the pre-chat to the call is that it’s such a pleasure working with you for a number of reasons. And I think one of the reasons is because you are like really on top of things, you’re really smart and you know all the things in a sense. And this is probably, I would imagine, a typical characteristic of women who are more on the anorexia spectrum. Because the reason that you’re doing that is because you’re really smart. You’re trying to game the system, like that’s the whole thing.

And so one of the, so I’ll just kind of share kind of my thoughts on it and then you let me know if I’m on target or not. But I feel like from the conversations that we’ve had, because we’ve had hot seats, we’ve had conversations, we’ve obviously had a whole, basically eight to nine months of the FAM program, we’ve talked about HA not pertaining to you specifically, but in the general sense, we’ve had a really good breakdown of basically what it is and how it works. And one of the things I often say about HA is that it’s actually really easy in a sense to understand it. It’s basically like not enough energy in to get out the cycle that we need. And so from a practical standpoint, if you were writing a paper, you could very clearly write down what needs to happen in order to overcome the HA, like you need to eat enough food and you need to match what you’re eating to that energy level. I’ve said it in class many times that it’s often much easier for clients to reduce the exercise level. And you have to do both, reduce exercise and eat more, because often women with HA are not eating enough to sustain life with no exercise. So they’re under-eating for their basic life and they’re exercising too much. So in order for them to get their period back, it’s often easier to just eat to the normal level and cut the exercise versus eating to actually go past that normal level to account for the exercise also. The amount of food a person has to eat in order to sustain the exercise level is often kind of like an unreasonable amount to ask.

Holly: Yes.

Lisa: So, yeah, literally, you know, for many women with this problem, they need to actually, like, if they want to see those results. So these are typically the clients who are trying to conceive and they need, they need and want to see those results right away. It’s often an easier strategy to cut the exercise completely and eat more, which is hugely destabilizing emotionally. So the bigger issue, because it’s not that we don’t know what’s going on, especially like I said, you know, you could write a paper on it. And it would be an A plus paper. But the issue is more just the emotional aspect of it. And I feel like that’s something that going through this challenge all these years serves you in your work with clients. Because you know, firsthand, the challenges.

Maybe talk us through, so before we started recording, I was asking you about this. And I feel like one of the questions I asked you, which is I feel like a very helpful question in general when it comes to HA, is, you know, how much did you weigh the last time you got your period? And so you had shared that you don’t weigh yourself because that’s obviously really triggering, but you still know your body shape and size. And so you kind of know. And you mentioned that you’re probably like 10 to 15 pounds lighter than what you, if you had to guess, what you were at the time. So you and I both know what the issue is. But you shared really like what the actual issue is for you, and you mentioned it was body image. So talk us through that kind of paradox where you, at the stage you’re at, you’re fully informed but the challenge of still incorporating it because of how it feels when you start putting on weight.

Holly: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it is, I’ve been in therapy, I’ve been in lots of different treatments and tried to work through the body image piece. But it is a beast. I mean, and I know at this point that it is not just the way my body feels, that I know that it’s coming from my mind and like the interpretation of gaining weight is bad, like that’s just so deeply ingrained in my psyche that it’s so, and even like I remember the last time I was in treatment I had been doing a lot of reading and I was really, really prepared myself in advance, like, I’m going to gain weight and that’s good and that’s what I want to do. Like I had to make it, I had to force myself to feel that way. And I was able to.

And so far, I haven’t been able to in this specific situation. And I think part of it is being a mom now. And I remember growing up that I felt like, once you have kids, like you get fat. Like that’s a thing that happens. And because that was what my mom always said. She was just kind of like, oh, I had you kids and I got fat and whatever. Or like, I never was able to lose the weight that you gain naturally during pregnancy. And yeah, I remember even like when people would ask me as a 30-something like, oh, do you have any kids? I would be like, how dare they think I have kids. Like, I’m not fat yet, you know, kind of. And this was not a conscious thought that I want to have. You know, this is not how I want to feel about my body or anybody else’s body.

But I think there is this sort of like, now that I’ve had a child, this sort of like attachment to like wanting people to be like, oh, you don’t even look like you had a kid. And people have of course said things like that to me, or you don’t look like you just had a baby or whatever. So I think that there’s like an extra layer on now of that part. And also just like how much, how little control I have over my life right now having a two and a half year old. Like I don’t know exactly what’s going to happen day to day. Like I have a general idea of the way that things are going to flow. But I think that the food restriction and exercise is very much like an emotional, like a way to control my emotions, where other people maybe would like smoke a cigarette or drink a beer or, you know, whatever, or like eat a bunch of cookies. Like different people have different things that kind of like soothe their nervous system. And for me, it is unfortunately this like restriction and exercise that in a way calms my nervous system.

That’s not like a sustainable, like maybe meditation would be. Or I mean yoga is kind of one of my movement things that is in some ways good but in some other ways is kind of part of this. So yeah, I think it’s this emotional regulation that I’m looking for with my restrictive behaviors. But yeah, I don’t mean to blame motherhood. But I think it’s like a step up from what I had gotten through previously. And then pregnancy and breastfeeding and mothering has been like a whole other can of worms. And I think that my body also needs a lot more nutrition than it ever has. So it’s like, I got myself comfortable with the amount that could kind of get me to this 35 day cycle or whatever that I was having previously. And now that is just not cutting it.

Lisa: Yeah, I feel like that’s a really deep insight into it. And I feel like one of the interesting aspects of working with you, Holly, is that you just rewind the tape. Like, you have a really deep insight. Like you’ve been, this is not a new thing for you. You’ve been dealing with this your whole adult life. And because you’re so, you know, smart and on top of all the stuff, like, I feel like you, you certainly, you did it before. I feel like you could in a very short time, just do it if you, if like, you know what I mean? Like, so you, I feel like you know, and that’s one of the challenges. Because this isn’t about what you know or what you don’t know. So it’s like you thought your way into this problem because of, you know, and you’re not going to think your way out of it. I don’t, I really don’t think you’re going to think your way out of it.

There’s a couple thoughts I have, just kind of reflections on what you were talking about. The first is more of a question, and you probably know the answer. You know, it sounds like there were some interesting side comments by your mom. And I don’t know if that’s where this, because I wouldn’t even say that even if that contributes to it, we live in a culture that’s really, just anyone who has been pregnant. So being pregnant, just being pregnant. I mean, I, at the time that we’re recording this, my daughter is five weeks old. So I have just very recently been pregnant. You might have heard her. She was breastfeeding a couple minutes ago on the call, just for a short period of time there.

And so being, having been pregnant three times throughout my life, every time I was pregnant, there’s someone who tells me that I, you know, look so small for being pregnant. And you know, you barely gained any weight at all. And then I have someone telling me, wow, are you sure it’s not twins in there? And then once you have the baby, you have, well, my son is like, you still look pregnant. And then, you kids are the best. And then a couple of weeks later, you look normal now, Mommy. And I’m like, thank you. Oh my gosh. But I have a filter, right? And then people saying, oh my gosh, you don’t, like you said, you don’t look like you just had a baby and, you know, et cetera. So there’s the world, there’s society, and all the side comments. And there’s a lot of side comments when you are going through this stage of life. So one question I want to ask you is, I’m sure you’ve reflected on this, you said you did the therapy, like, do you have a sense of where this came from?

Holly: Oh, yeah. I mean, I would say my mom was a huge part of it. But like, her mom gave her a diet pill when she was like 12 or something. So, wow, poor thing. Like she didn’t have a hope. But yeah, I mean, I know she was a big part of it. Just like comments about other people’s bodies throughout my life and never about my body, which I always think is interesting. And I think a lot of people with HA that I’ve talked to over the years can relate to that too, that it’s not necessarily somebody making a comment about your body specifically, but if other people, and this is even true now, like if other people make comments about other people’s bodies, it affects me too. So I think it’s just like being really sensitive just to that whole topic.

And then also just growing up in this society, I think, was just, yeah, I mean, it sucks to be a woman and, yeah, have people commenting and staring at your body, like, no matter what you’re doing. Yeah. And then I think also being in the yoga world for so long, a lot of the behaviors that I do now seem just kind of like normal, like people fasting or only eating vegetables or not eating meat. Yeah, or just, you know, like that, like being like pure and clean and that whole thing. I think has really, yeah.

And then also in my practice, I find that it’s harder, like I can’t get as deep into postures and they’re not as satisfying if I have additional weight on my body, which is fine because that’s not what the yoga practice is actually about anyways. But there is like a physical satisfaction of being able to find in a posture and get a really awesome stretch that just isn’t as accessible when I have more flesh on my body and a lot of the postures.

Lisa: There’s a part of me that hears that and thinks to myself, so this, I’m just gonna stream a thought here. So feel free to be like, shut up. But like, first of all, when have you ever been so large other than when you were nine months pregnant? Which is not the same as being weighty. But yeah, that’s like a question that, because honestly, when have you ever been overweight in the past 20 years, right? And then the other thing is like, yeah, you’re comfortable with it because this is the size that you’ve always been comfortable at. So I’m kind of pushing back on that, what you said there, because I feel like I could just let it slide. But then I’m like, when have you ever been?

Holly: No, I mean, I think what I was going to say actually before, and this actually makes a lot of sense. A lot of, especially the style of practice that I do, and there’s probably somebody that’s going to hate me for saying this, but I have practiced Ashtanga yoga for a really long time. And that style, I’ve heard other people say, so this is not like just for me, but that the practice was really designed for like younger, like adolescent boys. And so like, it wasn’t really designed for like the curves of a woman. And also, like I said before, it’s like attaining a posture is not what it’s about anyways. It’s the process of getting to that and what you uncover in your mind from working through those challenges. So it’s like for me to say it’s like even about that is kind of BS, but it is something that has affected my ability to fully recover, is this sort of like holding on to, but like, why would my fat be getting in the way? That can’t be good.

Lisa: Well, and I would imagine that there’s, like I said, I feel like you have not, this is not to like say, like, to blame you or whatever, but to say like, the whole process of getting to this point involves a lot of complex thought. And so you can think, convince yourself, like, give yourself, you could list 100 reasons why it’s better to be this way. And at this time, those reasons are actually winning.

There was something else that you said, and I said it too, which is when someone looks at you and says, oh, you don’t even look like you had a baby. And it made me think of this, you know, I can’t remember where I heard this from. If it’s even a real story or if it’s an anecdote, but either way I often share it because I feel like it gives perspective. And so I remember hearing the story of, it’s like a bunch of women are sitting around a swimming pool. And often, you know, beyond the weight thing, it’s like if you have stretch marks. You know, so I have stretch marks. I have stretch marks on my legs, I have stretch marks on my tummy. And obviously that’s something where a lot of women feel self-conscious about that if they were pregnant and they had stretch marks. But I remember hearing this story, and it was like a bunch of women were sitting around like the pool or whatever. And, you know, they saw a woman that didn’t have stretch marks. I believe it was like African culture. Again, I pardon me, I can’t remember exactly where I heard this. But it was a different culture where we didn’t look at it that way. And instead, stretch marks were like something to be coveted because it means you were able to have a baby. It was like signs, evidence that you went through pregnancy and birth and you have a child. And so they saw a woman that didn’t have stretch marks and looked at her with sadness because, you know, they thought it meant that she couldn’t have kids.

Holly: Wow.

Lisa: Yeah, I feel like that is a helpful reframe sometimes because to get us out of our head. In terms of, I at the top of my head I can’t remember if we’ve had this conversation, if you and your husband are thinking about having another child. Going through the FAM process, now that you’ve gone through the FAM process and you’re taking clients through this process, I’m curious to know what your experience has been, learning about all these nuances of it. We can talk about the specifics and practicality of conception, and it’s often easier when you have an HA client who’s actually trying to conceive because they have a specific goal in mind. They want to, you know, get their period back so they can have a baby. And I feel like in those situations, it’s often easier because in that situation, you have someone who’s often willing to just do things, eat the food, stop the exercise, gain the weight, like they’re, because they have a goal in mind and they can achieve that goal unless they do it. When you don’t have that specific goal in mind, the other benefits just of having, you know, the healthy bone conversation with all the years of not cycling, like all that stuff, it’s just less in your face and the recovery and all that kind of stuff.

I don’t know, I feel like this conversation is really interesting because it does highlight the very real challenges when it comes to kind of like mind over matter, like, you know what needs to be done, but there’s still things holding you back. And I suppose as we kind of, we still have a few minutes left, so we’re not wrapping up just yet, but as we kind of shift maybe to different topics. I’m curious what your experience has been now after having gone through the FAM program and taking clients through the process and kind of seeing now in a lot of depth how the cycle reflects what’s going on. I mean, you mentioned that like in retrospect, you can look at your previous cycles and see exactly when you started restricting again and how it affected your cycle and all of those things. And you also know why your cycle hasn’t necessarily moved to that. You haven’t necessarily moved the needle. Has going through this process shifted anything for you in terms of how you look at it? I’m curious.

Holly: Yeah, I mean, I’m so grateful to be able to work with other women that are cycling because I definitely don’t feel like I would be getting as much out of the program if I was just looking at my own cycle and just being flatlined and not seeing any mucus. So it’s helpful for them to like send me pictures and I can see like what’s normal for to come out of a person. And I do, and I have noticed that pretty much all of them, yeah, are under-eating. And that’s for them, it’s showing up in like short luteal phase or like lower luteal phase temperatures, PMS symptoms, spotting. And I’m encouraging them to increase their food intake.

And none of them really seem to, one of them has like a movement I think attachment to, like she likes to be really active. And it’s so obvious to me that if they were to do what I’m recommending, that it would improve their cycles. And the people that have been able to do that, and it kind of varies from cycle to cycle. I’ve noticed like if they’re really motivated it will show up on the chart and if they’re not, then that will show up too. And so it has been helpful for me to see it in action with other women.

And it kind of, it feels like even makes me a little more frustrated with my own body because I feel like I’m eating way more than them. And I would say my exercise is maybe a little bit more than what they’re doing, but like I said, doesn’t seem, feel unreasonable to me right now. So I feel a little frustrated that like they’re just kind of tweaking things and I’m just here flatlining, you know.

Lisa: I don’t think, I don’t feel like that comes up for me like during the session. I think it’s just because I’m being invited to reflect on this, so I’m not like thinking like, how come you get to have your period and I don’t. I’m so glad that you’re sharing this because this is huge. This is huge for women in general who are charting their cycles and experiencing challenges. And obviously it’s a really important part of the actual program too, to gain that awareness as a practitioner.

So we have this tendency to compare ourselves to other people, obviously. And so I think that for many of us who do have an issue, so for example, you know, I have an issue with my thyroid and I believe that I am on that PCOS spectrum, in that if I did eat all carbs and skip the protein and whatever and have like totally dysregulated blood sugar, my cycles would get really long. So these are things that I know. So it’s easy on the one hand to see somebody who is, quote, eating all the crap and continues to get their cycle, or someone who does exercise regularly, doesn’t seem to be eating that, like you said, more than you, but continue to get their cycle. And for us to look from the outside and be like, oh, well, blah, blah, blah, blah.

So, you know, the first thing I often say, especially when you’re looking out, like literally on the outside, to somebody like their Instagram profile or whatever, like, you don’t know if that person even has a cycle. So when it comes to social media and that kind of stuff, or the friend that you talk to sometimes or whatever, I always say like, you don’t know what’s happening in their cycle. So hopefully through the FAM process, it’s opened it up because you could think that their cycle is going to be one way based on their actions, but when you actually see what their actual cycle is like, when you’re working with them as a client, that gives you more of an insight.

But the second thing is that everyone is not the same. And these women that you’re working with, chances are they don’t have a 10 plus year, you know, HA history. Chances are they don’t have years in their history of no periods at all. Chances are they didn’t just have a baby and have a two and a half year old now and still haven’t had their cycle back. So I always have to put that into perspective. And this is actually one of the questions in the final assignment, the assignment related to reflecting on your own cycle, which is what happens if you’re working with someone who has a similar cycle to yours or similar experience to yours. Like, how do you not treat them like you think they’re you? Always remember that everybody is different. People aren’t the same.

And then as like, to kind of again push you a little bit in that direction and use this as a teaching moment, it also shows you that for your own self, you’re not doing enough. And the amount that you probably have to eat to offset the exercise is more than you have ever eaten, obviously, but more than you’re doing now. And then if this was a more dire situation and you and your husband were saying, okay, in six months, we want to start trying for a baby, like I’m not putting words in your mouth, I’m just giving a hypothetical. If that was the goal, then I would push you more. I meet my clients where we’re at. So obviously, like, you know what I mean? We’ve had, and I feel like we have hot seats coming up. So we’re going to have an opportunity to have this conversation again, which will be really fun. So I won’t put you, like, I’m not going to necessarily go there on the podcast. But we’ve had conversations like this.

And ultimately, one of the positives, I think, I think it’s a positive about the FAM process, is that we’re not here to like force you to do anything. We’re here to show you how to chart so that you understand. And so that you can not only understand how to use the method itself for birth control or contraception, but you can start to make those health connections. And when we see where you’re at, so for you in this exact moment in time, you’re not, there’s, I don’t know if you’re seeing mucus, okay. So we have no follicular activity, no approaching ovulation, none of that. We know where we’re at. And I think honestly that you have done amazing. And I know you’ve made a lot of changes, obviously, even incorporating the meat regularly, which is something that you kind of had to force yourself to do because the meat wasn’t exactly the thing you love to eat. We talked a lot about that specifically for the postpartum recovery process and nutrient repletion.

So, I feel like you’ve made huge strides in that direction. And it’s really to that point of, you can, we know it’s possible. You’ve done it before. So you can get your period back, but the ball is in your court in terms of how important is this to you? And I think you talked about this a little bit. I think we were touching on this before we were recording, which is that it is very, very typical for women in this situation with the HA history to literally do everything, but cut the exercise, or do everything, but there’s a certain amount that you’re willing to eat. But beyond that, I would imagine this is like how big, like look how much food is on this plate. Like this is completely unreasonable to ask me to do more than this. And then in terms of the exercise, it’s like, because you keep saying, I feel like it’s very reasonable. Like, this isn’t, I’m exercising less than this. Well, you actually said you’re exercising more than the person that you’re thinking of. But you know what I mean? Like, so there’s some, like there’s a place that you’re willing to do, your comfort zone. You have a very clear comfort zone and you’re really good with doing everything in that. And you’re even willing to push it a little. But in terms of smashing the comfort zone and coming out of it, that’s something that’s a totally different conversation.

Holly: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah, because it could be like a day that I decide, you know, I’m going to, Nicola calls it like going all in. Like, there have been many days that I’m like, I’m just going to do it. I’m just going to go for it. But you have to make that decision every single day for like months. And yeah, that’s challenging.

But to go with what you were saying before with, you know, trying everything. That is part of this, might be like a way to transition into talking a little bit about my business and the things that I do now. Because the way that I found out about all of these different practices is because I was trying to figure out if there was some other way that I could get my period back without having to eat more, exercise less. And I found a lot of really wonderful, amazing practices in trying to seek that out.

So the abdominal massage is a, you’ve talked about it, you’ve even had Rosita on your podcast, which is really cool. So it’s basically a massage on your uterus for anybody that doesn’t know. And it does, I mean, it focuses on your uterus, but gets to any of the other organs that are in your abdomen as well. So I have received that and now practice that. And there’s also a self-care massage, which I really love. And it’s really helped me to, especially when I was doing better in cycling regularly, and even during my pregnancy, just to connect with that part of my body as like a really sacred, beautiful space rather than something to loathe, which I don’t think I’m alone and kind of being like, I hate my stomach as a woman, or like the, you know, the additional layer of fat that’s there to protect your uterus. So that’s a really beautiful practice.

And then I found steaming, yoni steaming, through that practice, it’s part of that. And then I also studied with Kelly Cini Chick, to just kind of get more understanding about how to do it. And I love having those as part of my practice too, to not just be doing acupuncture, but to have these other options for people if something’s either not working or they resonate with one of the practices more than something else.

And steaming has also really helped me a lot. Personally, I’ve always had a lot of pain with sex, which I think, I hope this helps someone that I’m saying this, that I think that HA is part of why I had pain with sex. Like, I think it’s that I just didn’t have the hormones to like have those tissues be nourished enough.

Lisa: You’re shaking your head yes, so yay. Okay, because literally you could do a blood draw and you would see that the hormones are not optimal.

Holly: Yeah, I’m not cycling right. So it’s not a stretch to think it could potentially be a part of the picture.

Lisa: But I don’t think it’s a stretch at all.

Holly: Yeah. So I’ve, you know, I’ve gone to pelvic PT and the gynecologist. And when they put the speculum in, I like turn white and want to cry. So like, this has been another, like, kind of, my, I don’t know, my like time on this planet, my pelvic area has kind of been my challenge. Like there’s a lot of other things that have been wonderful and easy. And that’s been kind of my like challenging area. But it has led me to all of these other things that I’ve learned about. So steaming has really helped me personally with that. And then when I did get my period, it would always be really painful. I think probably because my progesterone levels weren’t high enough to prevent that from happening. So I would always have like PMS and pain. And so steaming would really help me with that. I remember the last period that I had before I got pregnant being awake at night and I was like steaming, and then I was burning moxa over my belly, which is an acupuncture thing. It’s an herb that you, is dried and rolled up and really helps with cramps. And I was just like, man, it’s so lucky that I have all these tools. You know, like, I would never have any need for a painkiller because I have all these other tools in my toolkit. And now I have the fertility awareness knowledge, which the program isn’t finished, but I’m really excited to, you know, be able to weave that in, in a more clear way than I was previously, like just with a lot more information.

Lisa: Well, and although we spent, and this was, we had planned to do it this way, but although we had spent the majority of our time today talking about your personal experience, I mean, I think that it’s so valuable. And I love the way that you talk about your experience so openly. I feel like it’s really going to be such a helpful and insightful episode for practitioners and women alike and women who have experienced HA themselves.

But in terms of the FAM program, so you know, as I had mentioned towards the beginning, we’re towards the end of it. We have about a month left officially, and then we still have a few bonus calls after that. But throughout this process, you have taken a number of clients through that FAM process, led them through the whole charting journey. And you have already mentioned a couple of times about some of the things that you’ve been able to learn and see with the charting. So maybe share a little bit about how this program has changed your practice or changed your outlook and/or helped you to, I guess, go on a deeper level with your clients and serving them.

Holly: Yeah, I mean, what I’ve been doing since going into the FAM program is so different from what I was doing before. I mean, I’ve read your book and Taking Charge of Your Fertility and listened to probably every podcast episode you’ve ever had. And so I felt like I had a pretty good grasp of the method. And this program was like a whole other level that I didn’t have all of this information. And so taking all of my clients through so far has just, I feel like I’m so much more able to really give them, advice, maybe advice isn’t the right word, to guide them towards making decisions about how they’re going to navigate lifestyle things or things that they could do differently with their charting. I feel so solid in my recommendations. I don’t want to be like, I know everything now, but I just felt a lot more confident than when I was working with people. It was usually in the context of either an abdominal massage or steaming or acupuncture, mostly acupuncture, that when we were doing our intake, I would kind of be like, okay, and then can you show me your chart? And it just kind of always felt like, man, did I really understand? Did they really understand? I think was the biggest part. And am I really interpreting it appropriately? And it was just because I didn’t have the time allotted or all of the information that I needed to really give them the best recommendations.

So yeah, I hope I didn’t go off onto too much of a tangent. But I think it’s mostly just like clarity of the method for myself has led me to have more clarity in guiding my clients since being in the program.

Lisa: Well, and I think we had touched on this a little bit in terms of incorporating the fertility awareness knowledge into your practice. And you could maybe speak a little bit to what that has been like and also the practical aspects of it. I know for practitioners who are listening and thinking about joining the program, obviously really thrilled at the idea of being able to incorporate the fertility awareness knowledge and using it as a vital sign in the practice, but also, you know, they’re busy practitioners. And how did you find incorporating this into your work from a practical standpoint also?

Holly: Yeah, so I’m probably not the best to speak to this yet, because my work is pretty limited still. My daughter is still home with me most of the time. And throughout the program, you’ve talked about hiring child care. And I haven’t done that yet. That’s like a whole other story. But she is going to be starting preschool in the fall, and next week actually. So I’m hoping that that will give me more breathing room to think about this a little bit more.

But so far what I’ve been doing is I have my fertility awareness clients and I have my bodywork clients and I haven’t really been integrating the two yet. So my vision for it is to have some package things where if they want to learn fertility awareness, say, for example, it’s somebody that’s trying to conceive, which is what I get a lot. So they could purchase a package where we would have a series of online meetings where I’m teaching them fertility awareness and guiding them in that way. And then they can also, if they were local to me, they could come to receive bodywork or do a steam or whatever they want. And that would be part of the package.

But I can’t really see, because in the context of an acupuncture session, just to make it easy, just talking about one thing, we usually talk for 10 to 15 minutes about what’s been going on. So if it’s somebody that had shoulder pain, for example. That’s pretty quick. You’re just like, how does it feel? What’s the pain level? Where does it hurt? You know, like there’s maybe some tests, like orthopedic tests you would do or something like that. You get them on the table, you give them acupuncture, done. So in the context of fertility, it’s definitely much more nuanced than that. So if I have a 10 to 15 minute conversation with them, there’s no way that I could teach them fertility awareness in that time. So maybe we could check in about some of the recommendations that I made, perhaps that would inform my treatment that I would provide them with, and then we would fill in the gaps in our telehealth sessions.

So in terms of how exactly I’m going to structure that, I think is something that I need to continue to clarify. But the people that I’m working with right now in fertility awareness, none of them are local to me. So that package wouldn’t even be possible. So I’m also thinking to have this fertility awareness mentoring be a separate offering as well. So I hope that that makes sense.

Lisa: Yeah, it does. And it’s really helpful. I mean, this is one of the questions that naturally, when practitioners are thinking about joining the program, it’s like, okay, this sounds really awesome, but how is this going to work for me? And the answer is that it depends on your current practice, what you are already doing with clients. And so I feel like what I’ve heard from many of the practitioners both this year and last year is that many of them are creating a separate program, which is great, because then that means you have the option of creating a whole new offering. And then some are able to kind of, but it seems like there’s often, depending on the work that you’re doing, it often is separate because each thing is its own thing, but there are times that you’re able to integrate it.

But one last question along these lines. I mean, one of the things that I do find interesting is that even if you’re not able to take each of your existing clients through the whole FAM process, you yourself are changed by this process. And in terms of what you’re asking the person and the way that you’re looking at things. And so I’m not sure if you can speak to that, how, even if you’re not, I mean, obviously the shoulder pain is a different example. But even if you’re not necessarily taking each and every client through the whole FAM process and having them go through the fertility awareness package, so to speak. Do you feel like, how do you feel that, like, do you feel like it trickles down in any way? Like, in terms of, oh, yeah, even if you’re not taking them through the whole thing.

Holly: Yeah, I mean, I think definitely has changed because the people that I, I would say that I don’t really get like the shoulder pain people very often. I more get people that are working on menstrual issues or fertility or are pregnant. So I do, I think it’s been helpful in just understanding what some of their symptoms could potentially mean in the context of like if they were charting, and some lifestyle recommendations I could make. Which none of the foundational factor recommendations that we would make would be bad for anyone. You know, it’s not like it would be bad to tell anybody to eat balanced meals or eat enough or sleep regularly or sleeping in the dark and things like that. There’s a lot of recommendations that I can make just based on their symptoms outside of seeing the whole chart, which it would be, I think, more complete to see the whole chart. But I don’t think that’s necessary to provide them with a good treatment.

Lisa: Yeah. No, that’s helpful. Because it’s always, I find it to be really interesting to think about how this knowledge can be integrated into your practice. And of course for me, this is my practice. This is what I do. And so it’s hard for me to even imagine working with someone on any level without having some degree of this knowledge informing the care. Because this is how I look at the whole person, which is a really interesting and useful way to do it. So it’s really interesting to hear how everyone is integrating it into their practices.

So, I mean, as we wrap up, I would love for you to take an opportunity to share a little bit about your practice, where you are physically located in the world, and then all the places, your website, the socials, all the places.

Holly: Yeah, so I’m in Thousand Oaks, California, which is just north of LA. And my website is rosebudwellness.com. And there’s a ton of information on there about all of the different services that I offer and blogs. I also have a podcast that’s called Womb Wisdom that you can find on Apple or wherever you’re listening to this podcast. And it’s mostly birth stories and like women’s health type stories of just women telling about themselves. And it’s really fun. And on Instagram, I’m rosebud_wellness. And that’s pretty much it. I don’t really do any other social media type things. But yeah.

Lisa: Awesome. Well, I’ll make sure to link all of those in all the places. So if you’re listening on the go, you can just have a look, scroll through your app and you’ll see how to connect with Holly. And I just want to thank you again for being on the show. It was just such a nice opportunity for us to have another chat. And like I said earlier, I really feel like your experience is going to be really helpful. HA is close to my heart. I feel like because it’s so challenging emotionally. And I think part of another reason why it’s so close to my heart is because I feel like the culture that we live in gears us towards HA. Not all of us end up with it, but there’s very few of us that are unscathed at all. You know what I mean? We all have the body image issue. And like, so yeah, I mean, maybe someday I’ll be able to articulate it a little bit better and I could do an episode kind of going into that a little bit more. But I just feel like none of us are unscathed with respect to how this culture, the expectations of our bodies and all that. So I’m not going to go into another tangent, but I’m very thankful that you shared your story and I think it’s going to be really helpful. So thanks again for being here with me today, Holly.

Holly: My pleasure.

Lisa: Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it with a friend. You’ll find the show notes page for today’s episode over at fertilityfriday.com/441.

I hope that you enjoyed today’s episode with Holly. I really felt like this was a powerful conversation and it really shows the bigger challenge with HA. So when you look at HA in the research, and I know I discuss HA in The Fifth Vital Sign, the research is fairly clear. When it comes to hypothalamic amenorrhea, it is caused by a combination of under-nutrition, over-exercise, and stress. And the solution in many ways is straightforward. It involves reducing exercise in some cases and increasing caloric consumption and then obviously managing stress. And as simple, relatively speaking, theoretically, as those things can be, it’s never simple for women with HA, because it’s not just a simple equation that brought them to that point. There are a lot of forces, societal influences, and a variety of experiences that bring us to this point. And in many ways, after decades of working with women and being a woman also, I feel that most of us have at least a piece of that mindset. You know, even if we don’t have HA, many of us do want to be slimmer and we are concerned with changes in our body size. Having just had a baby and being postpartum for the third time, I can’t sit here and say that I’m immune to these forces either. I feel like this is an issue that affects all of us. And so from that perspective, many of us would be on that spectrum, but not all of us are going to actually lose our cycles or have a difficult time bringing it back.

When we get into cycle charting as a way to monitor and track the fifth vital sign, that’s where we can get into some of those nuances to see how, even if you haven’t lost your cycle, if you’re under-eating, for example, it can still affect you even if you’re ovulating every single month. And one of the aspects that you may have gained and heard throughout Holly’s story and experience is that having gone through this herself is really going to inform how she works with her clients.

And I wanted to share a little update because I am recording the outro that you’re hearing now a few weeks or a month or two after we recorded our initial interview, and Holly has since regained her period. She actually ovulated and had her cycle. And so I thought it would be a really nice piece of information to share that Holly is now at a different stage in her journey. So she’s no longer waiting for her cycle to return. She’s actually managing her cycle at this stage. And similarly to many women’s stories who are somewhere on that HA journey, getting their cycle back and moving towards that next phase, it always involves jumping outside of their comfort zone.

So if you tune into today’s episode because we noted the HA challenge in the title, what I’ll do is I’ll link a number of previous HA episodes to this one so that you can go back and have a listen. We’ve had a number of really useful, helpful discussions about HA, to get into more of what it is, what the symptoms are, what women go through when they’re recovering from HA, what that process looks like, how it shows up in the menstrual cycle chart, and all of those important details we’ve covered in a lot of other episodes. So I’ll be sure to link in the show notes page for today’s episode some of those episodes if you want to go back and have a listen. And again, you’ll find the show notes page over at fertilityfriday.com/441. So with that said, I hope you have a wonderful week, weekend, whenever you’re tuning into the show. And of course, as always, until next time, be well and happy charting.