Practically Fertile
If you wanted to get pregnant yesterday, but you're confused and overwhelmed by all the noise on the internet, then this is the right podcast for you. Hosted by Dr. Adrienne Wei, Doctor of Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine, Fellow of the American Board of Oriental Reproductive Medicine (ABORM), functional medicine practitioner, and functional nutritionist. Here, you'll find zero fluffy, useless information or rah-rah motivation. You'll only find practical strategies and "how-tos" for identifying the root cause and amplifying your fertility by using a proven method of combining science with tradition.
Practically Fertile
Episode 15 - The Fertility Mystery: Why Her, Not Me? (If you're a Water archetype, this is especially important)
If I surveyed my patients on how they feel when a friend announces a pregnancy, the majority of them would say that although they're happy for a friend, they also immediately feel sad, depressed, inadequate, and like a failure. Sometimes, there are feelings of jealousy mixed in there as well.
Hearing about others’ success stories is a double-edged sword. It can certainly give you a ray of hope—if it worked for her, it can work for me, too. Sometimes, it gives you the motivation to get back on track with your routine, but sometimes, it doesn’t—it makes you feel worse.
In this episode, I answer your question: why is it so easy for her but not for me?
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Website: www.adriennewei.com
Welcome to the Practically Fertile Podcast. I'm Adrienne Wee, doctor of Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine, functional Medicine Practitioner and Functional Nutritionist. I specialize in using an evidence-based method, blending principles of East Asian medicine and modern functional medicine to help women optimize fertility and get pregnant. I believe in a world where every woman who wants to be a mother becomes one. If you're tired of being told that you're infertile and you want to take the right steps to get pregnant naturally and quickly, this podcast is for you. If I surveyed my patients on how they feel when a friend announces a pregnancy, the majority of them would say that, although they're happy for the friend, they immediately feel sad, depressed and inadequate and like a failure. Sometimes there are feelings of jealousy mixed in there as well. Hearing about others' success stories is a double-edged sword. It can certainly give you a ray of hope, like if it worked for her. It can work for me too, and sometimes it gives you the motivation to get back on track with your routine. But sometimes it doesn't. It makes you feel worse. Although you're happy for this person. The biggest question that you're asking yourself is why not me? Why does it seem so easy for her but not for me? Do you know what I'm talking about that icky feeling like you're doing something wrong, like you're not good enough. We all compare ourselves to others. We all have friends who seem to just so easily acquire whatever their hearts desire. When other people are posting cute pregnancy selfies and baby pictures, part of us is saying, well, I want that too. I don't want to miss out on shopping for baby's clothes and showing off bump pictures. I don't want to talk about comparison or FOMO today. That's not the focus of this episode. I actually want to answer the question so many of you have why her, not me? And I'm going to answer your question so many of you have why her not me? And I'm going to answer your questions with Chinese medicine. Yes, there's a real explanation with Chinese medicine, and after you're done with this episode, you're going to feel a lot better because you can actually do something about it. So let's dive in. So if you ask a doctor the same question why her, not me? He or she might give you an answer like well, it must be genetics. Everyone's different. I talk about that too. But why exactly is everyone different?
Speaker 1:From a Chinese medicine perspective, it all comes down to your kidneys. When Western medicine doctors talk about the kidneys, they're usually referring to the function of the kidneys as an organ like it's used to filter blood about two liters each day remove toxins and control urination. The kidneys also release hormones to stimulate red blood cell formation in the bones. They are super important for the electrolyte and water balance in our bodies and also we can function with only one kidney. If one's removed, the other one will compensate and take over. The adrenal glands sit on top of the kidneys and they're so, so, so important. They regulate the nervous system and reproductive system with hormones like cortisol, adrenaline, dhea. But the kidneys in Chinese medicine are on a whole different level. We put the kidneys on a pedestal because they are the vital life force, the origin of life, and they control more than just filtration and detoxification.
Speaker 1:The kidneys have broader functions. In Chinese medicine Some of them relate to organ functions. Like in the Western medical world, they control the bladder and therefore water metabolism and urination. In Chinese medicine the kidneys control the bone marrow as well. So nourishing them will help to boost blood production.
Speaker 1:But there's a whole other aspect of the functions of the kidneys that's unique to our medicine and that is the kidneys control reproduction, because that's where our reproductive qi, or energy, is stored, and this reproductive energy is part of what we call jing or essence. Most of you are familiar with the terms Yin and Yang. Yin energy is the cooling, lubricating energy, and Yang energy is the moving and warming energy. But we haven't talked about Jing or essence. The best way to look at Jing is that it's similar to DNA and genetics. From a Western medicine perspective, the kidney essence is the source for yin and yang energetics, just like Western medicine looks at your genetics that were born a certain way and also pertaining to fertility.
Speaker 1:A woman is born with all the eggs that she'll ever need for life no more, no less. In Chinese medicine, we are born with a certain eggs that she'll ever need for life no more, no less. In Chinese medicine, we are born with a certain amount of kidney gene. Think of it as like a savings bank. So in this savings bank, our parents deposited a certain amount of reserve when we were conceived. Think of how, when the sperm fertilizes the egg, all the genetic materials combine together. We're born with a certain amount of savings.
Speaker 1:And here is the thing everyone's reserve levels are totally different. How much we get depends on our parents' age, their health status at the time and their lifestyle. So another reason to work on your health before getting pregnant is because it does affect the next generations, anyway. So we get the savings bank from our parents when we were born and whenever we need it we dip into it, like for major live events like hitting puberty, getting the first period, ovulation every month, maintaining a pregnancy, giving birth, breastfeeding, and also everyday events like needing to stay up an extra hour to finish work, needing a little extra energy to get through a 30-minute run, needing to recover from an illness. As we age, our reserve gets lower and lower and then we die. Sounds really morbid, but that's just what happens. However, we can slow down the drain on this reserve because we get a little help from other organs in the body Spleen, liver, heart, to name a few. As long as the organs are working together and functioning well, we preserve the savings.
Speaker 1:The spleen helps to generate chi to use throughout the day by processing the foods that we eat and extract energy from them to transport to other organs. If you're eating a crappy diet, then yes, you guessed it your body would have to borrow from your energy reserve in the kidneys. Your body would have to borrow from your energy reserve in the kidneys. The liver helps us with stress management and making sure the chi that was made by the spleen is circulating and getting to where it needs to go. If we're constantly stressed, then, yes, the liver energy is going to be stuck. All the other organs are going to be malnourished, so we're going to have to borrow from our reserves.
Speaker 1:Now, stress is a really broad term. Stress can come from chronic illness, autoimmune disorders. If our body's fighting inflammation, it's all hands on deck and the savings bank is used again. Stress can also be emotional stress. Who are we hanging out with that are toxic to us? For us, how about long-term medication use? The liver and kidneys have to work overtime to detox and get rid of the byproducts of metabolizing these meds. So that's going to expedite your withdrawal from your savings bank.
Speaker 1:Are you burning the midnight oil? It's sad that in our society we praise those people who work overtime, who go the extra mile, quote, unquote and it's almost like you can't get anywhere in life if you don't do that. But anytime you stay up too late, you are burning up your reserve. You probably can figure out where I'm going with this. Your lifestyle choices absolutely impact how quickly your kidney energy is depleted. And if your kidney energy is not preserved then, yes, you can run into issues with fertility.
Speaker 1:I have a lot of patients who don't have issues getting pregnant the first time, but struggle to try to conceive with their second child, and the first thing I look at is their recovery after childbirth. Pregnancy and childbirth are both major events that require you to dip into your savings. They're the most energy-draining events in a woman's life and in Asia, after childbirth, traditionally women stay home for an entire month to recover. It's called sitting the month. That's how they do it in China. Postpartum women don't bathe, they eat only hot foods and the whole family chips in to help with the newborn. Versus in the US, women have to rush to get back to work or right after childbirth they're going back to boot camp and running again. And new mothers are so busy taking care of the newborn because in our culture here very often you don't live near family and you have no help. So new mothers have to take care of the baby, their families and they often forget to take care of themselves. So the reason why getting pregnant may seem easier for some women, even those women who have terrible habits like drug addiction, and they seem to get pregnant so easily.
Speaker 1:Well, perhaps this person was born with more kidney essence and had a bigger savings account. And the friend whose husband looks at her and she gets pregnant, maybe she's working hard to preserve her kidney essence. And here's the thing you can't control how much kidney gene or essence you were born with, because that depends on your parents. However, you can definitely control your lifestyle choices. So if you are a water archetype, this episode is especially important for you.
Speaker 1:Water pairs with the kidneys, although for the other archetypes, their imbalances can affect the kidneys and start to draw from their preserves. For the water archetype, your main pattern of imbalance are with the kidneys. Yin deficiency is the most common one. You might also have elements of some young deficiency, because one affects the other, but as a water archetype, you might already be starting off with kidney energy deficiency. For example, one symptom that, as a water archetype, you might experience is premature graying of hair. This is usually a sign that you were born with a slightly lower kidney gene reserve. Birth defects a lot of times can also mean low kidney gene as well. Low ovarian reserve. In some cases you might have been born with a smaller reserve, so you must work especially diligent in preserving the drain on this reserve. And if you're a water archetype and you don't have these symptoms, I would just take precautions now to slow down the depletion process.
Speaker 1:I'm not saying that, don't have any fun, I totally get it. I have this thing planned with my friends once a year and we do go clubbing and we're out until 2 am. You have times when you have to enjoy your life, so don't stress and think that you need to stop living life. However, what I want you to look at is this what are you doing to preserve your energy savings bank? Do you know what you need to be doing but not doing? Do you find yourself making up excuses like well, it's just this one time, it won't matter in the long run, well, these one times are going to add up to big withdrawals from your energy savings bank.
Speaker 1:So, to wrap it up, let's recap recap we talked about in this episode what makes us all different, and the reason is our kidney jing or essence our energy savings bank. We're born with a certain amount of this energy reserve and our lifestyle choices determine how quickly we withdraw from the savings and ultimately impact fertility, because reproductive energy is part of the kidney gene or essence. So your action item, as we concluded this episode, is focus on what you can control. You can only control your own actions, your own choices. We always have a choice, and you'll know whether your choice will help you or set you back when you start seeing results or when it seems like nothing is working. So there you have it. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. If you like what you're hearing, please don't forget to share with others. Thank you so much for tuning in today. Until next time, have a great week.