In this week’s show, Maria and Roisin address the challenges of navigating the vast world of fertility information. With the overwhelming nature of absorbing new knowledge during a fertility journey, drawing from Maria's personal experience with PCOS and recognising the need to build a fertility survival kit.
In this week’s show, Maria and Roisin address the challenges of navigating the vast world of fertility information. With the overwhelming nature of absorbing new knowledge during a fertility journey, drawing from Maria's personal experience with PCOS and recognising the need to build a fertility survival kit.
key Items to include in your fertility survival kit:
Maria, is a PT who's on a mission to help women and couples achieve their baby dreams!
Website: Fitness Fertility
Instagram: fitness_fertility
Facebook: fitnessfertility
This Podcast is a Worth a Listen production
Website: WorthAListen
DISCLAIMER: The content in the podcast and on this webpage is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or qualified healthcare provider with any questions you may have. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on the podcast or on my website.
00:00 MARIAHi, I'm MARIA and
00:00 ROISIN I'm Roisin.
00:00 MARIA And welcome to the Fitness Fertility Podcast. This podcast is all about how improving your physical fitness can help support you on your very own fertility journey. I'm a personal trainer who specializes in training women with fertility problems. I myself have PCOS and have had two beautiful boys, and I'm on a mission to help you do the same.
00:26 ROISINBefore we get into it, we will be discussing adult themes such as where do babies come from, pregnancy loss and bereavement. We may also be sweary from time to time. We are optimistic, light-hearted girls, but we know this is a really stressful time for some of our listeners. We respect that.
00:42 MARIA In this week's show, I'm talking about your fertility survival kit, the key things you need to manage your own fertility journey.
00:49 ROISINThe reason why we wanted to develop this is because we know that the whole process, the whole journey is overwhelming. At that point when you are diagnosed with a problem, we know that people tend to go into hyperdrive, jump straight on the socials, get absolutely snow blind with information, and there's so much conflicting advice out there. MARIA, when you were first diagnosed with PCOS, where did you go for your information?
01:15 MARIAI did what everybody does, and I just jumped straight into socials. I totally understand why people do it. I totally understand why I did it, but to be honest with you, for me that was extremely overwhelming. There are so many different accounts out there. There are so many different websites, and it was just so much information. The thing that really stressed me out was ironically, I was already feeling stressed. I was trying to stress read all of this information. It was just too much for me. I'm an academic at heart. I like more of a solid base, ground up approach. This kind of bitty information all over the place, it just didn't work for me. I found it very difficult.
02:05 ROISIN Panic learning is never good. I'm trying to absorb a completely new specialty, and it is a specialty. I have said before, and I'll say again, we're over a year now doing this as a podcast, and I'm still a newbie. I'm still sending a lot of questions to MARIA, going, what does this mean? Why is there some McDonald's fries in every post that I see? I can only imagine if you're coming from an absolute standing start and you had that clock ticking, Bedlam is happening in your mind.
02:37 MARIA It is really hard. I'm a pretty level-headed, very chilled out type of girl, but it was just so stressful. You feel like you've been thrown in the deep end, and you don't even know which way is up. You literally don't know where to start. For me, I didn't even understand that this whole fertility world existed. We've mentioned this on earlier shows. It's like the Matrix, for those of you old enough to know the Matrix, but it's like the Matrix. There's this whole other world out there. It's not until you jump into the socials that you realize there are women just like you out there, feeling overwhelmed, stressed, trying to gather this really decent information. That's the tricky bit. It's trying to get hold of the really decent information.
03:21 ROISINAfter you went to the socials, where did you go? Where was your next port of call?
03:27 MARIA I spent a little bit of time digging around, trying to find good reputable websites. I ended up in places like IVF Babbel. IVF Babbel is a fantastic website. It's full of expert information. They have links to different fertility clinics all around the world. For me, I much preferred websites like that, so that I could see where legitimate, see were full of brilliant information. Like I said before, it allowed me to start from the ground up. They literally have articles about what is PCOS, what is endometriosis. I went to really good websites and then just started to build up my own knowledge from. We've developed a fertility survival kit.
04:05 ROISINYes. What's the first thing that you're going to put into the kit?
04:14 MARIAYou need a decent tracking app because regardless of whatever fertility situation you're in, you need to track your cycle. Now I know that we talk a lot about tracking, but we haven't actually spent that long on what I mean by a decent app. Now I'm using that word on purpose. We haven't really talked about exactly what you need to track when you're going across your cycle. I say this because I will hold my hands up and say I used to be guilty of not using my app very well at all. Not at all. To be quite honest, I got really annoyed with it because I didn't understand why it was asking me for so much information. It wanted to know my mood. It wanted to know my cervical mucus. It wanted to know if I had stomach cramps. It wanted to know if my boobs were sore. Honestly, I remember just reading it every morning going, what do you want from me? Why do you want all this information? Did you find it really intrusive? I find it so intrusive. It's like, oh my God, that's like a job. Honestly, it was like a job. In between that and temping, which we'll come onto in a minute, I find it really stressful and I really did get angry at my app. Now in retrospect, what I realized was it was trying to collect as much data as possible to help me predict and log and track as well as any kind of artificial intelligence can do. Now I realize why it was really important.
05:39 ROISINI love the fact that you're like, what is this app? I wonder what it's getting personal now.
05:44 MARIAReally? My cervical mucus. I was like, Jesus, who's reading this information?
05:46 ROISIN The algorithm. The algorithm is reading the information. I do absolutely agree with your point. I'm always halfway through something like that. You know when you have to fill in something and get to the point of going, now, do you really need to know this? I'm just trying to buy a toaster. But it is like that these days, isn't it? It's because people are building such complicated pictures of us. Is that what is the difference between a decent and a not decent app?
06:13 MARIAIs it about that level of information that it requires from you? Yeah. I hold my hands up now and what I realize is it was all about the accuracy because as a novice, I didn't understand why my mood swings or why my cervical mucus or why my headaches were even remotely linked to my cycle. Now, I appreciate it to do with your hormone levels and all of that type of thing. The whole point of the app is to track your cycle. And when you're trying to conceive, it's to track when you're about to ovulate. And so it needs as much information as possible to help predict when you're going to ovulate. So obviously, you can time sex just before ovulation to try and maximize your chance of conceiving. So now I get that. At the time, I was just annoyed. What app did you land on as being one that you felt was the best? Yeah, I did go through a few, but the one that I ended up on is Flow. I really like the Flow app. For me, it's really intuitive. And even though, yes, it does ask you for a lot of information, it actually does it in a dead easy way. So when it comes to tracking that information, it does make it as easy as possible. And I have to say, for me, it was also pretty accurate. And considering I have PCOS, that is a little bit of a miracle. Yeah, Flow is the one I've ended up on. Do you use them?
07:23 ROISINI do use them. I use Flow as well. I use tracking apps just to find out when, you know, my next period was coming in. I always say about my period, I always know when it's going to be there. It's because it's the day that I saw that I want to go out or wear a new dress or the sun comes out. And on those three occasions, my period is going to be, boom, is this going to be there? I would just have to check the weather. No, it's a great app. But obviously, Maria, we need to put some stuff into this app.
07:51 MARIAYeah, this is temping. Temping, people aren't aware, temping is where you record your basal body temperature, which just means that every morning at the same time, before you've moved a muscle, you take your temperature. And the idea behind this is after ovulation, your temperature will be higher than before ovulation. So temping is a really good way of trying to detect that ovulation has happened. I'm going to just stress that. Temping shows you that ovulation has happened. It does not predict ovulation. It's a really good way of just being sure that, yes, you have ovulated, you've got the timing right, and now you are now into the two week wait. In terms of how much your temperature would increase after ovulation, you're looking for around 0.3 to 0.6 degrees Celsius. And the idea is that should be detected the day after ovulation. So, you know, brilliant of ovulated, let's get into the two week wait.
08:50 ROISINObviously, if your temperature hasn't risen, maybe everything's still at play. Yes. Maybe just have another afternoon or evening……..
08:58 MARIAYet another romantic night. Yeah, absolutely. I like how you put it, Rosin, everything's still up for grabs there because perhaps you haven't ovulated yet. And again, month after month after month, joking aside, this can get a little bit tiresome, but this is why it's really important to do what we said first of all, which is get your decent tracking app just so you can try and get the timing right. And then with the temping, the event has happened to know you can perhaps have a night off, should you wish.
09:24 ROISINCould I ask a question about the not moving? I'm just trying to put myself in a position where you're, you've woken up, the alarm's gone off. Do you answer the alarm? Do you move to do that? And then how do you get your hands on the thermometer? If you're not moving, and is there any particular type of thermometer that you preferred using once you did get your hands on it?
09:44 MARIADo you know what? I do laugh about this, but this all took me ages to figure out. And when you're in the depths of it, you do really stress about these things. These are genuine things that you really worry about. So for me, I realized the best place to put my thermometer was under my pillow. And this was after many trials and tribulations. Was it too close? Was it too far away? Did I knock it off in the night? And then I had to get out of bed looking for it. That was a trauma. So in the end, I would put it under my pillow, which meant minimal movement, really, and that worked really well for me. The other rookie error I made was when I first started temping, I just got a really cheap thermometer, but the problem was it only tracked to one decimal place. Now this does not sound like a big deal and it's not something anyone ever tells you, but you really need your thermometer to track to two decimal places because the temperature rise may not be massive day on day, and you really need it to be to two decimal places so you can actually track that the temperature is going up. And again, when you're out of this, it doesn't seem like that big a deal. You might just say, well, just, just leave it a couple of days and then just record again, but when you're in it, and especially if you're on the meds, you know, I remember when I was first on Clomid and I just remember saying, I just need to know that it's worked, I just need to know that it's worked and then I'll be okay. For me, waiting for three days would have been like torture. It would have been too much. I wanted to know straight away, has the meds worked? So it was really important for me to have a thermometer that went to two decimal places so I could see it the next day, the next day, the next day. It doesn't sound like a big deal when you're not in that stressful space, but it is. So my top tip is get a thermometer and make sure it tracks to two decimal places.
11:22 ROISINNo, I think that's great advice. I think I would be exactly the same. You want accurate information. You don't want to guess things that you can get accurate, get accurate.
11:31 MARIAWas it one of the ear ones you used? No, I went for the under the tongue medical thermometer. They're all over Amazon and I can't remember exactly how much it costs. I think it costs maybe seven pounds. Do you know what is really annoying though? And again, no one tells you this. It beeps. And if it's half six in the morning, anything at that time of day is loud. Sorry to interrupt, but do you know that I offer a two-week free trial on all my training plans? This means you have access to my fertility focused training plans; my meal plans and accountability calls for the duration of your trial. For more information and to sign up to start your free trial, get in touch at info at fitness, fertility.com.
12:11 ROISINBut now there's all different types of tracking apps that people can wear when they sleep. Is that something that people can use?
12:17 MARIAYes. Oh my goodness. So there are so many really good things you can use now that are slightly more advanced than the basic thermometer I went for. So one of the really cool things that a lot of my clients use is the Aura ring. And it is literally a ring. You wear it on your finger, but it tracks your sleep. It tracks your menstrual cycle, your heart rate, but it can also track your temperature, which is amazing. And obviously it hooks up to your phone and all of that good stuff. So if you're looking for something a little bit more technical, the aura ring is definitely an option. And then the other one that a lot of my client’s use is OvuSense. And basically OvuSense is a sensor and you do wear it in your vagina as you sleep. And again, it's incredibly accurate in tracking things like your temperature and your cycle. I will, however, give you a top tip passed on to me from one of my clients. She just said, just be very careful when you're waking up in the morning and you're going for that morning wee. Just make sure you take it out before you go for the morning wee, because otherwise it will definitely end up in the toilet. So there we go. Another top tip if you're using OvuSense.
13:22 ROISINBut other than that, the data is supposed to be excellent and very reliable. So did you buy your clients example, OvuSense must be quite small, is it?
13:30 MARIAIt is. Funnily enough, it actually looks a little bit like a sperm. It's like a mixture between a sperm and a tampon. But basically, it's small enough. It does sit comfortably. They call it the Ovucore sensor. Like I said, you insert it into your vagina each night. You take it out in the morning, and it downloads data onto the OvuSense app. Basically it just provides you like real-time data, which as I was just saying, is actually really important to you because you don't want the data in two days, you want accurate real-time information and it just allows you to track your whole cycle. Is there any major differences between Aura ring and OvuSense? OvuSense is particularly good even when you have PCOS. The problem when you have PCOS is your cycles can feel a little bit all over the place. We've kind of touched on this before. It feels like you're going to ovulate and then you don't. It feels like you're going to ovulate and then you don't. But OvuSense just constantly tracks you, which does make it stand out against other products.
14:28 ROISINThat's incredible. And yes, take it out before you have your big girl wee first thing in the morning, our bag is starting to fill up. We've got some trackers, we've got some tamping, we've got some additional equipment that's going to gather fantastic information. What else can we throw in?
14:46 MARIAOkay. I'm not sure if you're going to be expecting this one, Roisin, but the next thing that's going in is lube.
14:52 ROISINI think lube is an often, often overlooked area when it comes to fertility. Genuinely speaking, this is something that you are going to use and you are going to assume is just fine.
15:04 MARIAYou are. Now, Roisin, I'm going to ask you a question. Why, I know, why would you assume that you are going to use lube when it comes to the type of sex for trying to conceive rather than maybe just fun, fun sex?
15:18 ROISINBecause it's not always fun, fun sex. Oh, that's it. Yeah. Because it's kind of sex by calendar, which, you know, I know we all love. I know the thing about it and all the love songs. That's the one. I say this with huge respect for people that are going through a fertility treatment. And I'm again, always immensely in awe of the journey that people are on because this stuff is tough. And one of the tough things is that you're in and suddenly you have to tap someone on the shoulder and just kind of go, look, I know we just want to watch Netflix.
15:52 MARIA Netflix and chill, Roisin.
15:54 ROISINThat is Netflix and chill. Hopefully always fun, fun time, but it might need a little bit of help.
15:59 MARIAYou might. And do you know what the kicker is? What even just adds into everything you've just said is sometimes even the meds that you're on can actually contribute to vaginal dryness because obviously the point of lube is just to make things, um, more slippy in the vagina so that obviously you can have sex comfortably. And also it allows the sperm to travel to where the sperm needs to go. But things like clomid, one of the side effects ironically can be vaginal dryness, which is the last thing you want.
16:27 ROISINAnd you would suspect that all lubricants were fully tested to make sure they were completely in sync with the female and the male body and there's loads of research papers out there to say how much research has gone into this.
16:41 MARIAWouldn't you just, Roisin, wouldn't you just? Funnily enough, no, I get the impression that lube was not invented to help for the, the trying to conceive community. I think it was invented more for the kind of fun, fun sex that we were talking about. But basically not all lube is good for fertility. And actually to really stress this point, some lube is actively disastrous for when you are trying to conceive. It can basically kill your sperm. So this is a serious point. You have to be really, really, really careful. If you are using lube, the type of lube that you are using. So you have different types of lube. You have oil-based lube, you have water-based lube, and you also have silicone-based lube, but they all do different things.
17:20 ROISINI'm fascinated by the idea that these lubes do different things.
17:29 MARIAHow dramatically different things are they doing? Do you know, it is really interesting to give you an example is saliva. I didn't even consider this to be a lubricant, but in one particular study, saliva out of everything caused the greatest reduction in sperm motility and the percentage of motile sperms, the number of sperm that could swim around, reduced by 50% in the first five minutes of exposure and movement reduced to near zero within 15 minutes. Nobody teaches you this in sex ed in school, but saliva, really bad for sperm motility.
18:04 ROISINWhy would our saliva be really bad for sperm motility? You would just think from an evolutionary standpoint that these things should work in concert, so to speak.
18:14 MARIAI agree. And I do not know. It makes no sense to me whatsoever. I don't know, Roisin. Maybe evolution didn't consider saliva. Maybe it was more interested in the Vaga-jay. I'm not sure, but it's a really big one to be aware of. Those lubes that you might just reach to actually could be really damaging to your trying to conceive efforts. And we're always saying the clock is ticking. You don't want to be wasting cycles. So for those of you wondering, OK, well, what can I use? The one that I would recommend is Preseed. Preseed is actually designed to help you when you are trying to conceive. And the idea is it mimics, so it tries to be as similar as possible to your natural fertile fluids. And at the same time, it reduces vaginal dryness. So it's safe for sperm and allows you to do the deed, as they say, in a nice, safe, enjoyable way. So Preseed is the one I would recommend.
19:07 ROISINIt's so important to use the right lubricant. And I was so shocked when I heard people were using lubricants that were killing their sperm. We are going to have all the products in the show notes. So certainly go and research them and have a look around and see if they're useful for you. We really hope they are. Recognize that we've only done five things for this kit, but there's much, much more to fit into it. So next Friday, we'll be filling this kit with more essential products that are going to truly help you on your trying to conceive. Sure.
19:36 MARIAAnd on Tuesday, I will be focusing on how to start working out again after loss. This is a topic very close to my heart and something I know a lot of my clients struggle with. Make sure you tune in to hear more. Thank you so much for listening to this week's show. Remember to subscribe to get a shiny new episode each week and please rate, comment, and really importantly, share with your friends, especially our trying to conceive sisters. You never know who's struggling and they may need that little bit of extra help.
20:04 ROISINThis may come as a surprise, but we are not doctors. We strongly recommend you consult with your doctor before beginning any exercise or nutrition program. Get everything checked out first. Your safety is our priority. This has been a Worth a Listen production.