#131 Facing Infertility with Jenica Parcell

In today’s podcast I talked about infertility with Jenica Parcell, who is a certified life coach specializing in fertility and helping women to be fearless when they're going through the process of conceiving.  

 

Planning to get pregnant can be a very stressful process. From the moment you start thinking about having a baby, to figuring out if you are ovulating, whether you are pregnant, is there going to be a miscarriage, will the baby be OK, and then worrying about labor, etc. The whole process can be quite overwhelming. 

 

After Jenica got married at age 21 she decided to wait some time before having a baby, never even thinking about infertility because she was so young. When she decided it was time for pregnancy, she had to go through multiple IUIs and rounds of IVF that did not work, and she started worrying that it just was not going to happen for her. 

 

It was after experiencing infertility for a year that she felt compelled to tell her story, which she published in her blog. She was blown away at how many women were grateful to her for sharing her experience, and to know how many women were going through a similar process. This helped her a lot to not feel alone in this process. 

 

After some time during a trip to Canada she saw a notepad in a little boutique store called “100 Gathered Thoughts (For My Beautiful Child)” which had a lovely message at the bottom of each page, so she started writing letters on her blog to her beautiful child. At that time, she had changed to a different doctor and started a new IVF process, while trying different things to have healthier embryos. This time the treatment worked, and she ended up getting pregnant and having twins!  

 

That’s when she felt really drawn to helping women with infertility. She was able to join a nonprofit which raised a lot of money for women with infertility. She also started listening to a podcast called “Better Than Happy” by Jody Moore, which led her to start helping women with the mental aspect of infertility, their relationships with themselves and with others, so that their infertility didn’t get in their way of achieving happiness. 

 

Even though infertility is a really hard thing you can also learn so much from it and you can live a really joyful life even while experiencing it. 

 

If you're out there struggling with fertility and you're feeling alone please know that Jenica and I are here for you. I’ve been helping women with fertility for over 22 years. Know that you don't have to go through the stress of it alone or feel ashamed about it.  

 

In fact, what I learned from researching when in labor is that the effects of stress inhibit the progression of labor, and the effects of stress inhibit our ability to conceive as well. That’s because when cortisol and adrenaline are either too high or too low, the ovaries aren't going to get the right signals and ovulation is not successful. Even IVF is not going to be as successful when you are in stress mode.  

 

And yet, fertility treatments can be one of the most stressful things we can go through with all the appointments and medical procedures to try to get pregnant. If you don’t overcome this stress, and keep your cortisol and adrenaline optimized, it ends up inhibiting your fertility.  

 

When I asked Jenica how she guides her clients through the stress of infertility, she said that the number one thing she recommends is to accept the reality of the situation, which is a really hard thing to do. We often ask ourselves “why is this happening to me?” In doing so, we're resisting reality and in resisting reality, we can't process it because we're not accepting what is. 

 

When we find ourselves caught in that resistance to reality, we need to learn that we can’t control everything. Society teaches us that we need to be superhumans. That we're supposed to be perfect and that is simply not real.  

 

We need to be able to have some downtime and self-reflection time. We need to slow down and give ourselves space to rest because then you can really align with what you're supposed to be doing. 

 

Going through infertility can represent a mind-body opposition causing a high level of stress because you're fighting against yourself, saying I am ready mentally, but my body is not responding the way I want.   

 

One thing that can help with these situations is staying in the present moment. We don’t have a crystal ball. We can't see what's going to happen in the future but being in the present moment can help us reduce stress and realize what you can and can’t control.  

 

We all have experienced hard times, and we can also choose to look back and see evidence of our strength going through them. We are still here. We are still alive. We have survived.   

 

When I asked Jenica how she guides her clients, she described how we need to start listening more to our thoughts and understand how those thoughts can lead to feelings and those feelings can manifest in our reality. It is really amazing to realize how much power we actually have in creating whatever we want in our lives.  

 

This is very much reflected in the concept of fertility and pregnancy because it's all about creating a new life in a newborn and also creating a new life for ourselves. 

 

Even sometimes little changes like a new diet, sleep habits or a new job can feel very uncomfortable at first, but if we know this is going to get us where we want to go, we can get through those changes and realize we needed them in order to grow. 

 

Even those difficult paths of fertility issues give us an opportunity for transformation for ourselves and our lives, and that's a beautiful thing. 

 

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If you want to reach out to Jenica and learn how she can help you, please check out her Instagram: jenicaparcell or her podcast: “Fearless Infertility” or even her website: https://asliceofstyle.com/infertility/  

 

If you want to learn more about stress and how to master it, please make sure to check out my book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health: https://doctordoni.com/master-your-stress/  

 

To learn how I help with fertility in my practice, here is resource page: https://doctordoni.com/specialties/womens-wellness-and-fertility/  

 

And if you’d like to have my help one-on-one, you can set up an initial appointment here: https://doctordoni.com/work-with-me/  

 

For help with anxiety and stress, you can also check out my free masterclass: Transform Your Life: Get to the Root of Anxiety and Depression: https://doctordoni.com/transformanxiety  

 

We're here to help you!

 

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