Natural Pregnancy After 8 Years of Infertility | Monica Cox (Episode 570)

Full Transcript: Episode 570

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack:

This is the Fertility Friday Podcast, episode number 570.

In today’s episode, I am sharing my interview with Monica Cox, and she shares her personal story of infertility, struggling for over eight years prior to achieving a natural conception when she was told that that would never happen. So really, really compelling story. And she also shares how this journey played a part in her current work now as a holistic functional fertility coach. So before we jump into today’s episode, I am going to go ahead and share a little bit more about Monica. Monica Cox is a top holistic functional fertility coach and solver of fertility issues using the combination of functional diagnostic nutrition and subconscious empowerment. She supports women in finding the root cause of their fertility issues to become the conscious mama they were born to be. She dealt with years of unexplained infertility, failed IVFs, and survived several miscarriages before becoming an IVF mom and getting pregnant naturally, even though the doctor said there was nothing she could do to improve her situation. She is the author of the best-selling journal Six Steps to Boost Your Embryos and host of the highly popular podcast Finding Fertility. Monica is dedicated to inspiring women to look beyond their diagnosis and take control of their health. So without further ado, let’s go ahead and jump into today’s episode with Monica.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack:

Well, I’m really excited to be here today with Monica Cox. Welcome to the show.

Monica Cox:

Hi. Thank you so much for having me.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack:

Of course. Thanks for coming on. I feel like we’ve connected via podcasting many times.

Monica Cox:

Yeah. Well, you’ve been on mine twice and so yeah, I’m super honored to be here and I love chatting with you. I think you’re a wealth of knowledge. So, yeah, excited.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack:

Yeah. Well, likewise. I mean, I would love to start by just giving you an opportunity to share a little bit in your own words about what you do and what drew you to the work that you’re doing now.

Monica Cox:

Yeah. So, I am technically a holistic functional fertility health coach, which means that I help women just reclaim their bodies when they think that they’re broken and there’s nothing they can do to improve their situation. And I got there from a personal story. You know, I tried to start having children at 27 and it soon became pretty obvious that I had an issue, but I didn’t have any normal or diagnosable symptoms for fertility. So, obviously, I got put in the unexplained. And when medical assistance was completely failing me and actually exposed how bad my health actually was, I went down the rabbit hole like most people do because I just didn’t believe them. I had no prior knowledge to health and wellness or, you know, even period health. Obviously, I got very educated in what ovulation was and tracking and all those things, but there was a lot of missing things in my life and slowly, very slowly, because we’re talking 10 years ago, maybe you just started your podcast. I know there was some other fertility podcast that just started when I was actually pregnant naturally after eight years, but I would have been desperate for all of this information before. And yeah, I pieced it together for me. And then when I got pregnant naturally, I was actually really pissed off. I have to admit, like the first four months of that pregnancy, I wasn’t feeling this natural glow that you’re supposed to feel when you get pregnant because this information just wasn’t linked. And especially for me, I had a very silent autoimmune issue. The root cause of all of my issues was my gut health. And I was literally told by OBGYNs when I started bringing up the immune connection to fertility that it was made up science and that I shouldn’t believe that. And luckily, I just followed my intuition and used my discernment and just kept going and I feel like I haven’t stopped.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack:

Well, I mean, before we dive into some of the topics that we’re going to cover, I want to ask you to kind of flesh out a little more of your story. So, we have a general sense that you struggled to conceive for quite some time, but tell us what happened in those eight years. And, you know, prior to the natural conception, I mean, it’s just when you actually think about what that means, like eight years is a very long time.

Monica Cox:

Yeah, it is. So, I did three years of just kind of your typical trying to conceive stuff, working with doctors, getting the hormone checks. My period was totally fine in quotations. And so, they sent us to do IVF, which is the very common thing. Luckily, we had a little bit of a switched-on OB/GYN and they didn’t put us through IUI. He’s like, “You are ovulating. That’s not our issue.” And so, I just went naively into my first round of IVF. I think the only thing I changed, I started drinking a Duel’s beer, the non-alcoholic one. And it just radically exposed that I had very low egg quality, which now I call very low cellular health because your egg is one of the biggest cells in your body and it’s just a reflection of your overall, you know, cellular health throughout your whole body.

We were told that there was nothing I can do and because my husband’s sperm was fine, it was my fault. And it was, you know, I’m not going to lie. It like, I take full responsibility. And they just said keep trying IVF. And because we actually were living in the United Kingdom and at that time we were living in one of the three counties, they call it the postcode lottery, that they didn’t fund IVF through the national healthcare system. So, like in America or maybe Canada, if your insurance doesn’t pay for it, you pay out of pocket. So we paid out of pocket. And I think that radically changed my whole outlook on the situation because when you’re forking up thousands and sometimes tens of thousands of dollars and they’re just saying, “Do the same thing. We’re not going to change anything. Fingers crossed it’s going to work.” Both my husband and I were just like, “That sounds ridiculous.”

I definitely had very strong — I don’t know if you want to call it people speaking to you in your head, spirit guides, God, whatever. But in that office when they were telling me, I just kept hearing like, “That’s BS. Don’t listen. Don’t listen. It’s BS. You’ll figure it out. You will work it out. You just have to not believe them.” And so a friend mentioned to us that we should change our diet. And because there was no kind of real reason to change our diets, we were just like, why? We’re normal. We don’t eat unhealthy. We didn’t eat fast food all the time. I wasn’t a sugar fiend. But the reality is I was eating kind of a normal typical standard diet, a lot of processed food, a lot of fruit at the time that was just super high sugar. And the reality was is that my gut health was screaming at me. And at this point, probably for 12 years. When I look back at my health, I was kind of loosely diagnosed with an ulcer at the age of 19 and I had had gut health issues for many years before that, but they were just normal and common and IBS and just don’t eat raw vegetables, you know, just like the common advice.

And at that time, and even, you know, it’s getting more known, but especially at that time 10 years ago, there was zero real — I don’t want to say real doctors — but Western doctors looking at that connection. And so we took a year and we radically changed things. And I felt better than I had ever felt in my life. Most of my gut health issues went away. My periods got so much more healthier. My PMS went away. My brain fog went away. It was just amazing. But I still wasn’t getting pregnant. And so we went to a very specific clinic that was doing autoimmune testing because that was my intuition that I had something going on there that was affecting my ability to get pregnant. And we got talked out of it. And I didn’t follow my intuition.

And I saw this doctor once, he was like a stand-in doctor at this clinic, and was like, “You’re not presenting with autoimmune issues or reoccurring miscarriages. So this isn’t — I wouldn’t spend the money on this. Just try a round of IVF and see if it works.” We got better embryos. I went from like having no healthy embryos to five amazing embryos. They weren’t tested, but they looked good through the microscope. I did not even make it to day 28 on this round of IVF using all of the crazy hormones that they inject you in. And I was devastated and all the hard work that I had put in just felt like it was a waste of time. And I printed out a surrogacy form and I thought, I’m not going to use these embryos in my body. I don’t want to waste them. And then I calmed down and readjusted. And because I was so neck deep in health and wellness, I was like, “Okay, what more can I do?” We demanded the autoimmune testing. And even after a year of being completely healthy, I still had high natural killer cells, which is, if you don’t know, natural killer cells, everyone has them. They’re there to protect us. We need them to fight disease, viruses, all these things. But when they’re overactive, they start attacking other parts of your body because that’s their job. And so, you know, that’s where thyroid issues come from and a lot of the autoimmune issues. And for most people, it stems in the gut.

And so simultaneously, I went down the rabbit hole with the Paleo Mom and went autoimmune paleo and just really focused on all the foods that I wasn’t bringing into my diet like bone broth and liver and stuff to really heal that gut. I completely cut off alcohol and started on that adventure. But on the medical side, their suggestion was using immune suppressing drugs. And we used them. We did three frozen embryo transfers. I got pregnant all three times, but the middle one was the only live birth I had. So, I miscarried the other ones. And after my last miscarriage, that was it. Like, I was — it was eight years. I was done. No more medical assistance. I wasn’t even thinking that I could get pregnant naturally because at the time there was still no one out there talking about this stuff. There was no evidence. There was no like, well, she did it, maybe I can do it type of thing. And due to circumstances after having my IVF baby, my husband and I actually couldn’t try naturally for over like a year. So, I still continued with my diet and my lifestyle. And obviously, I was in bliss because I had this beautiful baby boy, and we just had this most amazing life at the time.

And after that miscarriage, I was done and just went on living life normally, still sticking to my diet and my practices, but I introduced alcohol back in a little bit. And on a girls’ weekend over in Spain, very heavily drinking, brought my tampons with me, and I was supposed to get my period, and I didn’t. And I just thought to myself, like, okay, I just had that miscarriage, like maybe I’m just a little bit wonky. Another week went by. Another heavy weekend at an air show. My husband, he still is a pilot, but he was a pilot for the Royal Air Force. And I still didn’t get my period. And my mother-in-law was in town from New Zealand and we were driving home from this air show and I said, “I think I’m pregnant.” She’s an ex-midwife. She’s like, “No.” I was like, “No, I think I am. Like, this isn’t normal. I’ve been hyperfocusing on my body for eight years. My jeans aren’t fitting well.” All these type of things, right? And yeah, lo and behold, I was pregnant and gave birth nine months later to my second son.

And that’s when I was in early education before and I felt that I was going to take my knowledge of health and wellness to help special needs kids with, you know, autism, ADHD, food allergies, all those things. And ironically, I decided not to work with parents because you have to convince them to support a child and that’s a completely different level. And then yeah, I just was like, okay, I think I can help children by helping the mother first and having actually a greater impact because the mother is not going to only support the child through pregnancy and the rest of his or her life, but she’s going to have an impact on her whole family system, her whole community because of her change. People are going to look at her and it’s going to have this massive ripple effect. And then yeah, Finding Fertility was born and it’s my third baby and I ain’t having any more.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack:

Oh my goodness, I am so glad that you took us through that. Your story is so powerful. I had tears in my eyes when you were talking about, you know, your pregnancy and, you know, I think I’m pregnant after all that you’ve been through. And I mean, I would imagine that you and I are similar in that, you know, I’m sure you hold a lot of gratitude while you’re simultaneously holding a lot of anger about the situation because of all the things you were told along the way that proved to be false.

Monica Cox:

Yes. Because clearly, now I’m pregnant and you all told me to get pregnant and here I am with child. What do you think? At 36 as well. So, I was technically a geriatric mom. And it still baffles me that some of the top OBGYNs who are on social media will tell you that the number one factor for fertility issues is your age. And they’ve blocked me. They have. They don’t want me in their vicinity. Convenient truth.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack:

Yeah. And you know, I can see how they believe it because the science, right? If you’re very science, you want the data, you want the studies. It’s true, right? The science — well, age is a significant factor. But I think it’s important to remember that it is a factor. Yes. So, it is scientifically accurate to say that age is a factor. And I know that in my books, I’ve worked really hard to try to word that in a way that makes sense because there’s — I feel like there’s this balance. There’s lots of practitioners these days who almost act like age doesn’t matter at all and yes there are some women that can get pregnant naturally at 45, like yes this happens, there are women who do that, but is it the average, is it most? I don’t know. I don’t know the answer to that. So I think there’s a balance.

Monica Cox:

Yeah, absolutely. We are having a different conversation at 25, 35, and 45, right? But I think we have the scientific proof because we have such bad cellular health now. And that’s what we’re testing, right? And we can see that in functional testing. You know, the margins in the Western society — my hands are up in the air — are like as big as my arms can go. Where in functional medicine they’re as big as the width of my face, right? So, we are just getting sicker and weaker and your fertility is going to drop off. It’s going to be one of the first things that drops off because your body is like, I don’t need you anymore, you know? And this is why your work is so important because we definitely need a majority of women waking up and saying, “Hey, my period is not normal for me.” And that, as you know, your book is lovely titled — that’s your fifth vital sign. And I can even see it. I still use my period as a marker of how healthy I am. If I start spotting and have shorter periods, I’m like, “Okay, I’m super stressed out and I’m not eating enough in my luteal phase. Okay, check myself.” You know, like it’s a very good way to just monitor your health without being crazy app-checking and like monitoring everything. You know, it can be very simple once you understand the importance and the basics of it.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack:

Well, so I mean, there’s so much that we can get into. Like I said, I’m still reflecting on your story and I’m so glad you shared it because I know it’s going to be so powerful. And there’s some aspects of your story that obviously play into your work as well. So why don’t we talk a little bit about the cellular health piece of it. So, I mean, I think that that is an interesting way to frame it. The egg cell is fascinating. It’s the largest cell in the body, the only cell that’s visible to the eye, the cell that contains the most mitochondria. So, any issues with cellular health are going to be significantly exacerbated in the biggest cell. So maybe share a little bit about that. I feel like that’s a really — it’s the first time I’ve heard it referred to that way. It’s so logical. I think that it makes it easier to understand and also takes it away from this magical egg quality as if it’s totally separate to everything else going on in the body scenario.

Monica Cox:

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, well, the medical system did a great job of completely taking our body and putting it into little bits and fertility, they massively put it in this box. And when you actually realize that your fertility runs off of everything above it — your gut health, your adrenals, your thyroid, even into your brain, your pituitary, your pineal, and your hypothalamus — there’s your endocrine system that literally links these things. That if something is off above, it potentially has a really big effect on your fertility health.

And your body is just cells, right? We’re all made up of cells. And when we eat, it’s usually for fuel and to, you know, really give us the strength and the energy. And I don’t know where in society — definitely before I was born because this is why I had so many issues — we’ve just disconnected from the foods we’ve been eating, the toxins in every aspect of our life, and our stress in just the daily grind of life. And so this all has a huge impact on your cellular health. And so, yeah, it was just this huge light bulb moment for me because when you’re going through fertility, you’re really told that your egg is separate. Take these supplements. This is the only thing that can improve your egg quality. And connecting the cellular health piece is like a no-brainer. Like, okay, yeah.

And the cool thing is it takes away from that pressure of having to fix one single area that’s not tangible, right? Your ovulation is not tangible. You can’t — the only way that I know of right now to know if you have good egg quality is definitely not AMH or FSH, those are the two worst tests out there for it, is IVF and collecting the eggs, putting them with sperm, right? And you can really — it’s just a conclusion: oh, it didn’t form, so therefore you have low egg quality. So if you can look at things that are tangible in your life — your gut health, your mood, your sleep, your skin, your hair, all those things — and you can start seeing an improvement, you can almost 100% guarantee that the things that are happening that you cannot see in your fertility are going to improve along with it.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack:

I love that. And I mean, I’m always biased with everything from the lens of the menstrual cycle as well. And ironically, you can also look at the quality of your hormone production, the quality of your cycle, the quality of your mucus, the quality of your luteal phase as those kind of proxy measures of your egg quality as well. And as you see improvements very similarly. So I think our bodies are amazing and yes, it’s really helpful for us to start thinking of our bodies as a system, not just simply these different parts. I could totally have horrible gut health and have terrible like all these other things, but my egg is — if I take this one supplement, that isn’t it, right? So, you know, I don’t think the listeners of this podcast necessarily have fallen into that trap, but a lot of us started out thinking like that because we just didn’t necessarily put it together.

So, one of the aspects I want to talk about as well is your gut health. So, maybe you can share — I’d love to hear a little bit about what shifted for you personally, like what kind of moved the needle or what changes you saw. But I would also like to hear the kind of broader picture — what are the common issues that you’ve seen in your work and what are some of the issues that are kind of being ignored? Because obviously the gut health piece of fertility is huge and for many women that is the piece that shifts the whole picture.

Monica Cox:

Yeah, I don’t think I hyperfocused on my gut health at first, even though it was my biggest symptom. I wasn’t really thinking about that during my journey. But when I shifted away from more of the processed food and started incorporating a wide range of food, right? Because that’s a big missing piece for people — like, oh, I’m going to cut all this stuff out. But your gut microbiome needs a wide variety, especially prebiotics, to really do its thing. And I just started noticing like, oh, I don’t look three months pregnant anymore when I’m super bloated after. Like, we used to do these pasta meals with just probably crappy pasta with a crappy garlic bread and a canned sauce and we might have chopped up a few mushrooms and onions. And I would literally look three months pregnant and I was like, “Oh, I don’t get that anymore. Oh, I’m not having the constant flip-flop of diarrhea and then constipation.” And so I just started putting two and two together like, “Wow, this really affected how I felt in my gut. I don’t have this IBS, you know, in quotations. I’m pretty sure that’s just a made-up term because they don’t actually know what to say about your gut.” And then you start seeing the other benefits and that’s in your skin, your hair. Because as your gut is healing, it’s actually able to do the things like take the nutrients from the food, give it to your cellular health throughout your whole body, and it starts performing how it’s supposed to perform. You know, we got sucked into this thinking that this is common and this is normal. And I hear people — I’m 42 now — and I hear people my age like, “Oh, just old.” And I’m like, “I don’t have that belief system.” I feel way better than I did at 27, at 17.

And so the gut health, if you think about it — I’m very good at just breaking it down. It’s like, you know, those books like “for dummies,” right? That’s me. If you think about it, your gut is essential for everything else to work. So if your gut isn’t — and it doesn’t have to be perfect, no one’s going to be perfect, it’s very hard to be perfect in this world — but if it is not working optimally, everything else can go wonky. And so, with the gut health and what I see, not only what I saw in my journey, but what I see in other people’s journeys, is it’s still being ignored. I have women come to me and I talk to them for an hour and I’m like, “You have SIBO.” And they’re like, “What’s that?” And I’m like, “Okay, go get tested.” Because most people can get tested for SIBO on their insurance. Oh yeah, I do. But my doctor says it’s not a big deal. And here’s some antibiotics, which I’m not against antibiotics whatsoever. It can be very, very useful. But it sometimes can just be a band-aid, too. So, you will want to optimize for SIBO for a period of time to really help make sure that you’re clearing that out. I’ve literally had people clear SIBO and get pregnant within three months. So, and for anyone who doesn’t know, SIBO is small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. Yes, because the emails come.

Yes. So, gut health can be really simple. Lower your inflammation, whatever that might be, including stress, including toxins. It’s not just about the diet, but diet is obviously very essential. And then if you’re still having some issues or things just don’t feel 100% right — because that was my issue, I had one little niggly symptom, but because I saw such great improvement, I didn’t think it was a big deal — and if you’re not seeing your ultimate goal, whatever that might be, there could be a missing piece. And that could be SIBO. It could be H. pylori, which can be super silent or not feel like a big issue. And, you know, yeast overgrowth, bacteria infections. And yeah, I’ve had people in my group coaching when we get to know each other, I’m like, “You don’t have fertility issues, you have a gut health issue.” And because you picked up a bug in Spain or something. And they’re like, “Yeah, yeah, you’re right.”

So, when you’re dealing with the gut, and I think everyone on this planet needs to get educated and find what’s right for them and keep to what works for them, because I personally think that that will minimize your risks of any kind of future health issue, including dementia, including diabetes, autoimmune issues, cancer. And it’s just something that we have to overthink in this society. Our ancestors did not have to overthink this where we do.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack:

Well, no, I was just thinking — I mean, I’ve had a number of conversations with clients over the years, I’m sure you have as well, where, you know, you’re asking certain questions and it’s like, well, you know, how often do you poop? And you just kind of ask some of these questions and then it’s like, oh, well, just, you know, once a week. And then that period ends and they don’t necessarily realize that that’s a problem because it’s been like that for so many years and that kind of thing. So I often find that one of the most important things that you need to do is also define what normal is. I mean, I do that day and night with the menstrual cycle and I think we also have to do that with other areas because it’s very common for people to have this niggling issue or this consistent chronic situation that has happened for so long that maybe on some level they know it’s not normal but it is normal for them — it’s their normal right now. So maybe share with us some of those common symptoms, things that you’ve picked up with clients that they didn’t necessarily — you mentioned the SIBO scenario — what are some of those symptoms that we should be aware of and what are some of the symptoms you’ve seen go ignored whether it’s by professionals or by the client themselves?

Monica Cox:

Yeah, so constant bloating — that is a huge warning sign no matter what you’re eating. And especially if you’re eating quote unquote clean and you’re still getting that bloating, there is an issue there. We should not be feeling that. The constant diarrhea or constipation or both, which was my case. I don’t want to call it heartburn — they call it heartburn, but like that burn at the top of your stomach. A lot of people think that it’s over acid, but it’s actually under acid in your stomach. So, your stomach is not producing enough acid to help break down the foods that you’re eating. Those are kind of the most common. So, if someone says that to me and I’m like, “Well, is this consistent? What have you done to adjust things? This, this, and this, and it still hasn’t worked,” then that’s when you want to test, right? I don’t think everyone needs to run into gut health testing or SIBO testing. If there’s enough information out there to do it holistically and give it time — I think that’s the other thing. But if you’ve done that and it’s still like, nah, this doesn’t feel right, that’s where your intuition and your discernment is vital in this journey. Then you want to invest in testing and see if there’s something hidden in there.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack:

Well, and part of your story as well was the autoimmune issue. I thought that was interesting where it was like, well, you know, probably hasn’t anything to do with it. It’s probably totally fine. You don’t have any of the symptoms, like all that stuff. I’m just like — you saw my face when you were saying that. So, maybe share a little bit about that aspect of it and if there’s any signs or flags that anyone who is listening should be aware of.

Monica Cox:

Yeah. So, sometimes this can be really tricky, right? And this is why you have to be just really radically honest with how you’re feeling. My belief system right now, what I’ve studied, is that almost 100% of the time it’s in the gut. And it’s because your gut wall function — it’s supposed to have these tight junctions, but what happens, they’ll open up and food particles can get into your bloodstream. Well, when your immune system — and this is why it’s called autoimmune — when your immune system sees that foreign agent in your blood, it’s like attack, attack, attack. But what’s it attacking, right? And so it goes on overdrive and starts attacking other things.

Now for me it was silent because I didn’t have a diagnosis. My thyroid was fine. I would — I don’t have the records but I would be really interested to know what my numbers were like back then. So if you don’t have these diagnoses or you don’t have the hard numbers, what’s your ultimate goal and are you reaching that goal? If not, then dig a little bit deeper on how you can support your gut health, support your mental and emotional health. It can get really frustrating because you think you’re doing everything right. I get that. I totally get that. But if you’re not seeing your ultimate goal, there’s room for improvement. And it’s just down to either yourself or work with an expert, someone you trust, that can see the holes in your journey, right? Like, that’s one of my biggest things that I do for my clients is that I see the holes and I call them out on their BS. You know, like, okay, I understand that you think you’re doing this, but here’s what I’m seeing on my end. And then if they can be radically honest with themselves — which, you know, that is a gift that not a lot of us have — they can go, okay, I can start shifting, right?

Like, I had a colleague call me out. She was like, “So, are you eating enough?” Right now my life’s pretty chaotic. I’m taking care of my terminally ill father. I have two kids. All these things. And yeah, the priority of keeping myself super healthy and nutritious just kind of dropped down. She’s like, “Okay, well there you go. That’s your answer.” So autoimmune can be very obvious and then autoimmune can be very silent too. The thing too that I have discovered in the last year or so is the energy behind all these elements as well. I wasn’t born this way. Most people weren’t born this way. There are genetic factors that can be associated with a diagnosis, but a lot of times they’re not turned on yet. And our diet and our lifestyles and our mental and emotional health through childhood just pushed us to where we’re at. So it’s really important not just to hyperfocus on the physical things that you can do, but also get real with yourself about what kind of energy am I carrying around? That’s super important, I think, with autoimmune.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack:

Yeah. So much there. And so many of these things fall under that umbrella of so-called unexplained infertility. You could call it uninvestigated.

Monica Cox:

Yes. Because you have it, but just not looking in the right place. That was my issue. They were just so hyperfocused on my lady bits that they were missing where the root cause was. And I know that’s an overused term now, but it’s true. Where did it stem from? And they’re not trained that way. So that’s one thing as well where I’m of the firm opinion that you need a team. This is a team sport. You need a team approach because there’s no one practitioner that’s going to have all the answers. And our society has an overreliance on medical doctors because we think that they literally do everything. We think that they’re nutritionists and exercise experts and whatever, and they’re not. And I think that it’s really helpful to know what lane they’re in, what they’re trained in. You know, allopathic medicine — a pill for every ill. And when you’re looking for answers, they don’t have them.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack:

Yeah. Or at least often not the ones you’re looking for. They will give you an answer.

Monica Cox:

The ones that you need. Yeah. Right. When you are truly — when you come into this journey of health and wellness, the truth is the answers are within you. And that’s why you have to really get into, you know, the inner self and use that discernment and that intuition. I think the episode that you were on on the Finding Fertility podcast is so amazing. But everyone has to realize that there’s no one cookie-cutter way. And when we realize that about this whole world, and we find the people that resonate with us and the stories and the foods that make us feel good — you’re so in charge of your destiny. You know, anything’s achievable.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack:

It’s so true. I mean, there’s so many different directions we can go and I feel like we’ve covered a lot of ground actually. Yeah, just this has been a really fun conversation. So, as we start wrapping up with today’s interview, I would love just to — I’m thinking of the listener. Do you have some final words or final thoughts or anything you’d want them to leave with?

Monica Cox:

Yeah, just be graceful with yourself. You know, a lot of us come to this journey with decades of luggage. A lot of it’s not even our own luggage. And healing isn’t linear, and that’s okay. But I have gotten to where I am because I stayed consistent and I did what felt right to me and didn’t listen to, you know, all the chatter that was out there. Well, sometimes I did listen, but I got back on that horse. And yeah, just give yourself grace and gratitude that you’re even showing up because a lot of people don’t. And for everyone listening who isn’t in a fertility story, and it might be later in their years, I promise you right now, you’re going to thank yourself. You’re going to thank yourself so hard for doing the work now because it is much harder when you really want that pregnancy to happen. And it’s such an amazing blessing when you don’t have to overthink it. You just get to have fun, live your life, and all the changes you’ve made along the way are just going to have this most amazing impact on your children and their future.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack:

I love that so much. I mean, everyone doesn’t have the opportunity to focus on these things when they’re not under the wire and actively trying to conceive at the same time. But I know that’s been an important part of my message as well over the years, which is if you come off the birth control pill when you still need birth control and you let your cycle normalize, right? And similarly, if you know you have raging gut issues and you know you can barely sit down because you’re all so bloated and you know it’s either the runs or full-on constipation, that’s a huge problem. And so it is a better idea to start addressing that now, when you’re not actively trying to conceive, because it’s just so much more stressful when you also have this other piece of it looming over your head. So I’m really glad that you mentioned that.

Well, share with us a little bit about what you do, anything exciting that you have coming up, and all the places where people can find you, tell us about your podcast, all the things.

Monica Cox:

Yeah, I’m at Finding Fertility everywhere on the internet. I love answering questions over on TikTok and just, you know, talking real talk on the podcast. I get pretty — you got to be warned that it’s going to be some tough love, right? We want to get you through this journey quick and fast. I’m your honest best friend. Let’s just say that. So yeah, if anybody wants to connect, they can just Google Finding Fertility and I’ll be there.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack:

Awesome. Everyone needs that honest best friend. So we can’t always handle it, but we need it. Well, thank you so much, Monica. This has been great.

Monica Cox:

Thank you.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack:

Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share with a friend. You’ll find the show notes page for today’s episode over at fertilityfriday.com/570. I hope that you enjoyed today’s episode with Monica. Her story was so compelling and I’m always so thankful and grateful that I started this podcast over 10 years ago because it gives me the opportunity to share these types of stories with you.

I’ve often said that if I had to hear all of the stories that I’ve heard working with clients over the years — within the community, the emails we get, the DMs — just so many stories women have shared with us — if I had to hold it all myself, I don’t know. It would be pretty heavy because it’s really hard when you think about all of the pain and the struggle and the difficulty that so many women have been through.

And the crazy thing is, it’s not so unique. Randomly when I’m in the world doing my thing and someone asks me what I do and then I tell them, inevitably they start to share their experience with me. So literally random women who have no idea about any of the podcasts or the books or anything will share with me their horror stories in doctor’s offices. They’ll share their fertility challenges. They’ll share, just like in Monica’s case, being told that you can’t ever conceive and then it just happening — because she managed to make a variety of different changes to her health. So I mean, this is not a situation where it’s just like the occasional woman has this experience. This is a really pervasive, consistent thing that women are experiencing. So of course it’s up to us to change the face of women’s healthcare one vagina at a time. And in the work that I do, I certainly believe that fertility awareness and cycle charting can play a really crucial role because there’s nothing within the reproductive space that is as empowering, that connects you to your menstrual cycle, that connects you to what’s going on, and gives you the courage and the confidence to actually start advocating for yourself beyond what potentially your primary care provider has been telling you. So, a special thank you to Monica for jumping on today and sharing her story. I hope that you enjoyed today’s episode.

If Monica’s story and today’s episode felt particularly compelling to you, and if you can think of someone who would benefit from hearing it, then I do highly encourage you to share this episode at fertilityfriday.com/570. Of course, in your podcast player, there are also share links if that is easier for you.

If you’ve been enjoying the podcast, I would invite you to leave a rating and review. I read all of the ratings and reviews. It really helps people to find the podcast, and when they find it, it helps them to know a little bit more about what we cover. And I think it’s reassuring, especially in this day and age where there’s just so much information. So when there’s a lot of positive reviews for the podcast, it really puts people’s minds at ease — okay, this is a place where I can go for solid information. I really appreciate everyone who has left a review for the podcast on Apple Podcast. Like I said, it really helps. And also sharing the episode, sharing with your friends, talking about it, spreading the word — ultimately that has been the biggest game changer in terms of getting the word out about Fertility Friday. It’s really been our incredible community who continues to share about the podcast, The Fifth Vital Sign, Real Food for Fertility. And I believe this is one of the ways that we can work towards changing women’s healthcare, just by educating them on the possibilities when they understand their menstrual cycle and can take better control of their reproductive health. 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.