Shedding the Corporate Bitch
Welcome to Shedding the Corporate Bitch – the podcast that challenges the status quo and empowers bold professionals to ditch outdated expectations, rewrite the rules, and rise into leadership on their own terms.
Hosted by transformational coach and unapologetic truth-teller Bernadette Boas, each episode delivers raw insights, unfiltered conversations, and practical strategies for ambitious corporate professionals, executive leaders, and HR trailblazers who are ready to level up—without selling out.
Whether you're navigating toxic cultures, battling burnout, or aiming for that next big role, this show is your weekly dose of motivation, straight talk, and real solutions that get results.
Follow now—and start shedding what no longer serves you, so you can build a career and life that actually fits you.
Shedding the Corporate Bitch
Stress, Success, and Fertility: What Every Woman and Man Needs to Know with guest, Gabriella Rosa
Bernadette Boas is getting into a difficult and intimate conversation with guest, Gabriella Rosa, all about fertility, and in many cases, infertility.
Gabriela shares her profound insights on how workplace pressures impact both men and women on their fertility journey, and provides actionable strategies to optimize health and improve chances of conceiving a healthy baby.
Episode Highlights:
- Gabriela's Personal Fertility Journey
- Impact of Stress on Male Fertility
- Stress and Female Fertility
- Optimizing Fertility - Key Strategies
Mentioned Resources:
- Gabriela Rosa's Book: Fertility Breakthrough: Overcoming Infertility and Recurrent Miscarriage When Other Treatments Have Failed. Available FREE on Spotify and YouTube
- You can buy the book on Amazon and other major booksellers
- Gabriela's Podcast: TalkSex with Gabriela Rosa - fertilitybreakthrough.com
Connect with Gabriela Rosa on Instagram @GabrielaRosaFertility
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Join us in the conversation and take the first step towards shedding the corporate pressures that impede your personal and professional growth. Don't miss our future episodes where we'll continue to explore transformative journeys and actionable insights. Until next time, keep shedding, keep growing, and keep leading!
As a female or male leader in the workplace? Is your stress impacting your health, well-being and potential future goals such as family planning, aka having a baby? Are you prioritizing your long-term health and fertility goals in the same way that you prioritize your career and professional development? According to our guest, gabriella Rosa of the Rosa Institute, there are significant impacts to one's health, fertility and even their ability to lead effectively as a result of work-related stress and pressures. As a world-renowned fertility specialist author, reproductive health educator and Harvard University-awarded scholar, health educator and Harvard University awarded scholar, gabriella is dedicated to helping couples create healthy babies despite previous reproductive challenges and treatment failures, and one key way is to help get any stress, pressure and health ailments under control.
Speaker 1:Gabriella will help all of us to identify symptoms impacting work and leadership abilities and learning strategies to overcome them with better clarity, energy and ease. That will make our fertility that much more productive. As a result of her taking charge of her health and fertility, as well as accepting nothing less, she didn't leave a stone unturned and she left nothing to chance. If you want happiness and success at work and in the home with a family, this is the discussion you want to take part. Stay with us.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Shedding the Corporate Bitch, the podcast that transforms today's managers into tomorrow's powerhouse leaders. Your host, bernadette Boas, executive coach and author, brings very essence of transformation that she now inspires in others with her tips, strategies and stories. So if you're ready to shed the bitches of fear and insecurity, ditch the imposter syndrome and step into the role of the powerhouse leader you were born to be, this podcast is for you. Let's do this.
Speaker 1:Gabriella, how are you? Welcome welcome.
Speaker 3:I feel like this was such a long time coming. I'm so excited to be here. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:You're welcome and I'm excited about this conversation, not only because we're both dressed in pink Yay and we didn't even coordinate.
Speaker 3:Imagine that, wow yes, telepathy.
Speaker 1:Exactly, exactly. But at the same time I really I love the work that you're doing. I'm not a mother but at the same time, you know, I do have friends and family that have struggled, and both male and female, which I think is what's going to be really powerful about this conversation is to really just talk about just the stress and the symptoms, the situations both at work and at home that can create real issue for both men and women from a fertility issue. But before we get there, I like our listeners and viewers to always get to know the person that we're talking to so they can get to connect with them. So could you share with us a little bit about Gabriela?
Speaker 3:Yeah, sure, I mean, I think that there are so many different angles from which we can go into this conversation. But I think that you know, it's fair to say I like a lot of chocolate and weights training is definitely a big thing in my life. Those are two very defining characteristics of Gabriella. But you know, on a more serious note, I've been helping couples overcome infertility and recurrent miscarriage literally since 2001. So, as you can imagine, it has been a long time and lots of learnings. We've helped now thousands of patients in every continent other than Antarctica, and I think that what has led me to where I am today and what keeps me here are very distinct things.
Speaker 3:You know, like when I first started, it was out of really not knowing what I didn't know. And you know the story there was that I was my periods, when I was 18, simply stopped. You know, one day it was like okay, this is, it was meant to come now and it didn't. And it didn't for a month and two and I started to wonder am I pregnant? Do I need to? You know, like, is something wrong, you know? And I had done multiple pregnancy tests and nothing was was showing up on that level. So I'm thinking, okay, well, this is weird, because my body should be cycling, it should be doing what it, what every woman's body does as far as I was concerned, and so it really got me curious.
Speaker 3:I was working at the time for an obstetrician gynecologist clinic. There was a group of them that were there and I remember one day pulling one of the female gynecologists aside and saying, hey, you know, is there a reason why this could happen? Like it's really strange. And, of course, I felt a bit weird about seeing a doctor in that clinic because I was working there. So I went elsewhere and, you know, went to see this doctor and said listen, um, I haven't had a period in six months. And I don't know why, because I'm not pregnant. And it was this old guy who literally, just like you know, from across the table, just says to me every woman's pregnant until proven otherwise. And I'm like okay, you're clearly not listening to me. It's like yes, I am 18, but you have to listen to what I just told you. I am not pregnant.
Speaker 3:I have done multiple pregnancy tests. Well, let's just do some tests. And I'm like, okay, let's so. And I basically took the referral and he said just call me in two days for the results. Okay, cool, went, did the blood test, called in two days, fair enough. He literally just, you know, tells me, okay, let me just tell you, you have polycystic ovarian disease. And I'm like, okay, like it, literally. In that moment I just stopped and I was like what is that? Like am I gonna die? You know, like literally. So I said, is that really serious? Like what's, what's that? And he goes, oh no, you're just probably never gonna have children, children. I'm like, okay, that's one way to give that kind of news to an 18-year-old, thank you.
Speaker 3:But from that it really kind of springboarded into this curiosity around okay, well, what does that mean and what can I do about it? Because I was kind of always very action prone, you know, in my young days and even to this day, just very much focused on okay, well, what can I do about it? What is it that can actually help me in this diagnosis, you know? So I basically started learning and researching and I had just started studying. My first training was as a naturopathic practitioner, and so naturopathic medicine was kind of the first approach to the process. You know. That led me later to develop all of the things and to do all of the things that I have done up until now. But that really was where it started and I think about five years into what I was doing, and I already knew from the very start when I started practicing.
Speaker 3:I started working with women's health and PCOS and PMS and you know all of these kind of premenstrual and hormonal imbalances conditions, and that led to because, obviously, where I was working at the time, whilst I was studying, with an obstetrician, gynaecologist, who was one of my very early mentors and still you know someone who's very special to me in my life today and he said to me one day what are you going to do when you finish, you know? And I was like, well, I think I'm going to specialize in babies, pediatrics and he goes that's the worst idea you've ever had. I'm like, okay, talk about being nice and motivational today, jim, and he goes. Not really. And I said, because he was always such an encouraging dude, you know, he was always so like, yes, that's a great idea about, you know, things that I used to tell him. And with this day, I was like, oh, I was taken aback by this kind of comment. And he goes well, you know, because pediatrics.
Speaker 3:I was gonna do pediatrics before I decided to do obstetrics and gynecology, but you know, your patient's not your patient, your patient is the parent of your patient and your patient can't speak. I'm like, oh, those are some really valid points that I had not considered and so, yes, it turned out that there was a better idea and for me it ended up being looking at and focusing on fertility. And so one day I was kind of finishing up my clinical hours that you know 500 million that you had to do. I was finishing it up and I came across this poster Natural Fertility Clinic. I went fertility, that's what I'm going to specialise in, and so that's kind of how it started.
Speaker 3:You know about yeah, I know it's so serendipitous, you know like literally just walking, and you like, see this a4 little point just to kind of finalize that conversation very quickly. Um, it so turned out that five years to ten years later, I started getting people who weren't at the beginning of their journey, but they were much later down the track. You know, more than two years of infertility, and you know really, kind of like, with lots of different challenges, having tried lots of different treatments, that nothing had worked. And so that's what then led me to really narrow down and focus on, you know, helping couples overcome infertility as a full-time thing, you know, like not looking at other things but really just focusing on that. So that's, that's how it happened and that's how it's going. Yeah Well, that's fabulous.
Speaker 3:For women, typically it's a woman. If they come and they say I haven't found a partner, I really want to do this by myself. Can you help? Yes, we will guide them in the direction of what they need and certainly optimize their own chances. But when it comes to, you know, most of the patients that we treat 98% actually are essentially couples who are struggling to conceive or keep a healthy pregnancy to term. And we do focus on both partners in that equation, because it's a 50-50 equation, you know. I like to say that fertility is a team's force and we have to treat it that way.
Speaker 1:Yes, I love that, and that's really what drew me to want to have this conversation, because I think, when it comes to pregnancy and fertility, the focus and the spotlight is kind of always on the woman. And yet there's this other person in a good amount of times it's a male and they are also being impacted by this situation A hundred percent.
Speaker 1:A hundred percent this situation, 100%, 100%. So I'd love to get into, because we do want to talk about how stress and workplace pressures really wreak havoc on both parties and definitely want to talk about how it impacts the woman. But I'm really curious what have you found to be the biggest struggles and challenges that men have and how does it affect them when it comes to their work and their leadership?
Speaker 3:I think fertility, as you very correctly pointed out, is very much narrowed and focused on women, when it shouldn't be, because, if we look at what it takes to create a baby, the reasons for infertility are typically 40% male factor, 40% female factor and 20% embryonic factor, which tells us that, when you know, when we're really looking at the man and woman component of that equation, it's a 50-50. And so, looking at what that actually means and all of the attention which can be beneficial and also negative going only towards the woman, leaves the man often very unsupported in the process, right and also feeling very helpless about the entire situation. Because most men who love their partner and they want to reproduce with their partner because it's their partner, because they envision that woman or person as the, the person for them and the person they want to create a family and raise a family with, right, so for them, they feel like well, what is it that I can do? And often men will go to an appointment with their partners and will ask the doctor, what is it that I can do to improve the situation? And they literally get the most like lackluster answer of oh no, there's nothing you can do. You just need to provide your sample and you know it's fine, it's like well, actually there is so much a man can do to optimize the couple's chance to have a baby, whether we're talking about inability to conceive or inability to keep a pregnancy to term.
Speaker 3:Because, with miscarriages, what a lot of people don't realise is that 50% of the reason as to why miscarriages happen is because of male factor, and so, yeah, so you know, a lot of times a woman will have a miscarriage and she'll be blaming herself, thinking, oh my God, what did I do, what should I have done? And you know, whilst the conversation really needs to shift to a whole different direction which is okay what are the factors that are present in this equation, ie the couple being the system right that is actually leading to the outcome that we are seeing, whether it's an ability to conceive, inability to keep a pregnancy to term and, of course, one of the things that are preceding, one of the biochemical chain reactions that are preceding that issue, that are starting all the way over here. Because often, when it comes to fertility, we think that, oh, you know, have sex, get pregnant, have a baby is just a matter of what's going to happen, right? And yet, if you look at how reproductive medicine actually, you know, kind of shapes this narrative, it's almost like you haven't been able to conceive.
Speaker 3:You go to your doctor, you get a referral to go and do IVF. Literally there's nothing really to dealt like, there's no kind of diving deep into why do we need IVF to begin with, typically it's just like, oh, let's just go and do this next step. And there's a very little explanation. People go in, they do a cycle. They don't realize that 70% of them fail, right, 70% of IVF cycles fail, imagine that. And so they're expecting that it's going to be the silver bullet because their doctor said, hey, this is what you need, and this is what you need next.
Speaker 3:Go and they go through a very onerous, very expensive, very high intervention process to get to the end with no baby and really left their kind of like scratching their head thinking what did I do wrong? You know, this is the thing that should work. What did I do wrong? So there's a lot of self-blame there, there's a lot of helplessness, there's hopelessness, there's, you know, there's so many emotions that can kind of come into this equation.
Speaker 3:The other thing that can start happening, especially when couples have been, you know, going through the challenge of infertility or miscarriage for a long time is not only self-blaming but then blaming each other, and that is often something that's really difficult and quite toxic to the relationship. Sure, because you know, when people aren't working together as a team and kind of going toward the same direction and they're blaming each other, well, that's a recipe for disaster in a relationship in the long term, right? So there's all of those factors, and so you know, when it comes to how men feel and what I hear them tell me obviously has never been my personal experience, but obviously I've spoken to many thousands of men going through this challenge and they tell me very similar things. They wish that they knew that there was more. They wish that their doctors told them that there was more. They wish that they actually got the support mental, physical, emotional that they needed to be at their best.
Speaker 3:They wish that they were educated about what it actually meant, as a couple, to be experiencing infertility, because there is, at the same time, that there is a lot that left, gets left on the table. There's a lot that they can do, but they just don't know what right and as much as they're like, you know, tell's a lot that they can do, but they just don't know what right and as much as they're like, you know, tell me what do I need to do? When they're told, oh no, there's nothing, just provide your sample. It's like, well, that, okay, I'll do that.
Speaker 3:But and then, of course, the woman is going through a very difficult time in general with hormones and you know all sorts of things, feeling like she's going a little bit mad and crazy because you know that those hormonal fluctuations can be so challenging to put up with for anybody. Yes, there's a lot, you know, in that whole equation. So there's a lot of impact not only for the relationship, not only for the person, but also from a work perspective. You know, that's a whole other thing that we can get deeper into.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Okay, looking at what you said and what you explained in regards to the men workplace pressures specifically we're going to stick with men right now and then we'll move to the women. But to men, impacting that whole ability to have, yeah, ability to have yeah.
Speaker 3:You know, the interesting thing about stress in men is that it will typically in terms of infertility, it will typically manifest itself in erectile dysfunction or premature ejaculation right or inability to ejaculate.
Speaker 3:Those are the kinds of like very specific ways in which stress will affect men. The biochemistry component of how stress affects fertility, ie the stress hormones on the reproductive hormones and how that then relates to or affects the sperm, is there, but it's not the biggest, most predominant factor, because here's the thing that happens. You know, I often talk about and I've talked about, I've written about this infertility breakthrough, my book that people can find, you know, free, on spotify, on youtube, available in booksellers everywhere. You've put the link there as well. Um, what in the book? I discussed the fact that there are, you know, we've, we in our framework, we've identified 11 pillars of infertility or 11 pillars of fertility, and so there are many factors and I like to talk about it in this way Everything that is in your environment, in your day-to-day, will have an impact. It's called the exposome right. The exposome of fertility is everything that is around you and whether it comes from within you or whether it comes externally ie from within you would be stress hormones, right and from externally could be anything from exposures to different types of foods, to cigarette smoking, to alcohol, to whatever right. So all of these different types of exposures will all play a role in what is going on for a person.
Speaker 3:Of course, very high levels of stress sustained over chronic periods of time is going to decrease a person's ability to adapt. It's going to play a role in terms of health on many levels. We know the links between stress and heart disease, stress and gut function dysfunction. You know so. Of course, there is a component of that effect when it comes to fertility, but in a very direct way, the the sexual dysfunction issues are going to be the first and primary kind of place that we're going to see stress playing a role. The other thing, too, that happens with stress is that because, in order to sustain it over a long period of time and the body adapt as best as possible, what's going to end up happening is that you are going to need to really operate from a different level. You're going to utilize a lot of your sex hormones to make up your cortisol, adrenaline, noradrenaline and your your stress hormones. So you're going to be literally taking away from your reproduction to feed your stress cascade. Okay, so you're going to decrease testosterone levels. For men, that's going to be something that's going to happen. So then, of course, libido gets affected, so they're not really that interested in having sex to begin with, right, and that of course, reduces the chances of taking home a healthy baby.
Speaker 3:The other pressure that can sometimes be exacerbated whether it's because of infertility or because of work stress, and then they these things kind of like rebound towards each other, you know is the fact that if a woman is trying to get pregnant, she's going to be highly focused on making sure that the job is done and it's done on time and in a way that it needs to be done, and you know all of those things, and so sometimes the woman creates an extra, an additional stress in that relationship because they're like well, today, today is the ovulation day we have to, like, you know, you need to perform.
Speaker 3:What happens to a man when he's told that he has to get an erection on demand, right, like, I don't care about this whole foreplay thing, just kind of get it up and let's get this over and done with. It's a challenge, it's a big challenge. It would be a challenge in the best of days to a 20-year-old. Put that kind of challenge on a 30, 40, 50-year-old, well, you're exacerbating a problem even more, right? So those are the kinds of things that I think, in terms of stress specifically focused on men, I'm under discussed and almost ignored to the point that so many couples end up choosing to go down the IVF path, which has a high failure rate, because they don't want to have sex.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:You know and you'll be amazed, but I'll tell you this, you will be stopped the number of conversations that I've had with people that goes like this you need to have sex to have a baby. Oh, but you know, do we really have to? Biology 101. You know, how often do we really have to do it? You know, and I'm like as much as possible, Although we know that you know, the egg, the release of the egg happens, and the window for the timing of conception is really 12 to 24 hours, right. So we know that, and this is part of why it needs to be timed so specifically and why men often rebel to that timing by exacerbating sexual dysfunction issues, because it's like, oh my God, this all feels too overwhelming, right, and it all feels like there's too much pressure. And imagine people in the corporate world already going through immense pressure and then coming home to like now get an erection what degree is stress on a woman versus other more physical uh type of?
Speaker 1:I'll call them symptoms but other reasons uh for a woman?
Speaker 3:look the same with women. What we see is going to be less of a physical manifestation, although that can also be the case, right? I mean, think about it. When you're really not into it, vaginal lubrication is not going to happen as as well as possible, you're probably going to have more pain on intercourse. You're probably not really going to want to do it because it's just more of a function than a pleasure.
Speaker 3:You know and I think that this is part of what I actually started a podcast for couples trying to get pregnant and dealing with you know, long-term relationships and you know how to bring back the pleasure and the satisfaction in those relationships. It's called talk sex with gabriella rosa. It's out of season now, but there's some really great conversations in there with other experts. That, you know, really highlights what are the things that couples can actually put in place in terms of their connection and their intimacy. That's going to help to promote much more.
Speaker 3:Because think about it if you don't enjoy having sex, like if it's not pleasurable, you're not going to enjoy it, right?
Speaker 3:If you're not going to enjoy it, you're not going to want to do it.
Speaker 3:And so it becomes this kind of like catch-22, because you need to have more sex, to have more chances to have a baby, but it's not pleasurable, it's painful and it's um, you know, like you just want it to be over. The man is going to be so turned off by that he's going to be like, oh my, do we even need to get started, you know. And so this is what creates a lot of sexual dysfunction in relationships and for couples, and for individuals and for couples, because it's kind of like those traumas that you know will kind of accumulate. But in terms of women specifically, other than those vaginal dryness symptoms and, you know, like that lack of orgasm, you know those things will definitely be part of the equation when we're talking about stress in this context. But in terms of hormonal imbalances, you have the same issue. You're you're taking away from your reproductive hormones and you're kind of like building bones or building blocks of sexual hormones to be able to feed your stress hormone cascade right.
Speaker 1:So, therefore, so both of those situations therefore sound the alarms of they need to find remedies, strategies, techniques to manage their stress and get rid of or minimize the pressures they're putting on themselves. Is there differences in those techniques or those strategies between men and women? And if so, what are the strategies, but what are the differences?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think that, look, if we were to look at what's going to be the number one thing that's going to make this better is actually just start enjoying it. You know, it's like what are the things that we can remove from the equation and or add to the equation that's going to make this pleasurable, right, that's going to make this enjoyable? I think that the number one focus that couples who are having difficulty conceiving and keeping a pregnancy to term need to change. If there is one thing that they can change is their mindset around having sex and the reason to have sex. Because you know, for them it becomes like, imagine, before you're trying to get pregnant and have a baby, ie, because you really want to. You only really have sex for pleasure, right, you only really have intimate. But what other reason?
Speaker 1:what other reason would there be?
Speaker 3:I mean, that's the orgasms like I mean, that's that's it, you know, it's like there's no real other reason than enjoyment and pleasure and connection with your partner. It's almost like people who are trying to get pregnant forget the primary reason to have sex and focus solely on reproduction, which, sure, for our ancestors that may have very well been the prior, the prior and the primary reason, but really, I mean, even they did it for enjoyment, you know, and so that, as a kind of why do you think that it is enjoyable to begin with?
Speaker 1:because otherwise you wouldn't do it so would your work then help them? Work through getting them to identify the negative or the things that are holding them back as far as enjoying sex for pleasure versus just reproduction, and then finding them the way through and guiding them through that change so they can, once they stop so overthinking or over negative drama about it, they can just relax.
Speaker 3:You see, it would be so nice if I could say yes to that answer. It would be so nice if that was the only thing. The point, however, is this is that when people are struggling to get pregnant and conceive, it's usually never a simple solution, right, it's never just a one thing solution that's going to actually get them to overcome their challenge, because, you know, what happens is that there are so many different pieces that get in the equation. However, if we don't address that part, right is a way of making sure that we remove the friction no pun intended, because this would be not good friction, right, but, uh, it will move the obstacles, remove the things that are actually not getting in, the that are getting in the way to creating the opposite outcome to what we want to create. Then we don't get a result. So, yes, it's absolutely essential to look at that as a component, but, if I can give you a bit of an insight, what happens is that, even before we talk about that, there's usually like four months worth of work to figure out why they're not conceiving and keeping a pregnancy when they're having sex to begin with, right, right. So that's the thing.
Speaker 3:And also, you know, I did a study which was part of my master's in public health at harvard, and we looked at our results and we looked at what, what, who were the couples that we were able to help, what were their characteristics, how long they were trying to get pregnant, you know what, how many of them had experienced failed IVF treatments and miscarriages and all of that. And what was really interesting is that we noted that, on average, our patients, the patients who came to us who we got our best results for were infertile for on an average of four years. Imagine, every single month getting you know, going through through this process, hoping that you're going to be pregnant, literally to get a negative pregnancy test, and almost 50 of them had done previously failed IVF cycles and over 50 of them had experienced previous miscarriage. So these are really challenging situations where it's multifactorial. You know, there are many different things that are getting in the way and, of course, we want to make sure that they enjoy that intimacy and that because also think about it from this perspective, benedict why are you wanting to have a child to begin with?
Speaker 3:You know, why is it that you know? And after the child arrives, what's the whole point of that? I mean, obviously, obviously. You're wanting to raise a family, and if you can't get the team together to be able to create the baby to begin with, imagine what it's going to be like. When the child and the children are already there and all of the additional challenges of life mount onto that equation, it becomes even more challenging.
Speaker 1:And more stressful, so it just adds to the ongoing pressure. Do you find that when you ask them that question, that they A may not really have a good answer other than I just want a child and two? That they don't have the same answer, like they're not working on the same objective?
Speaker 3:Look, that happens and people want to have babies for all sorts of reasons. You'd be amazed at the reasons as to why people give to wanting to have children right, and there's no judgment in that. It is what it is. The different meaning is for different people.
Speaker 3:But what's interesting is one commonality of what I absolutely note is that when two people have very different reasons and or desires for having a child, those conversations are so essential to have in advance right. Like, for example, you know I often will ask in part of my we do a free fertility assessment for people so you know when, when they we're trying to figure out if we can help, we actually do that part first and we do that part for free. So we don't take on people on board of our program unless we already know that we can help them and what we offer perfectly aligns with what it is that they need. And the reason that we do that is because we know we already know the types of people that we can help. So selection bias actually helps us to keep the number, the rate of our success, very high and help the people who actually can best benefit from what it is that we do. So one of the questions that I asked them in the very beginning of the those conversations is how much of a priority and how motivated are you to actually doing something new about your fertility? And that person will answer on a zero to ten scale, ten being it's a highest priority, zero being not a priority. And then I ask what about your partner? And invariably I know from years of asking this question that if I have differential numbers for two people like that is a conversation we have to have right there.
Speaker 3:And then, yeah, because so often I'll tell you this, so often people go along with another person for social desirability, bias, for wanting to, you know, know, doing the thing that they think is going to be acceptable to the other person, whatever reason, but they go along with it, but they actually really don't want that same thing and they are too scared to tell themselves and to tell the other person that actually, you know what I don't actually want a baby, right. And that creates so many this, this stressful situations within the context of overcoming infertility and miscarriage, but also going through the whole infertility journey, which is already difficult, and if you don't have a person who actually really is committed or wants to overcome that because they actually, deep down, don't really want to have a baby, but they're just not being brave enough to say it. Ouch, there's. There's years and sometimes decades of, you know, like not very happy things coming their way. So I find that sometimes the job is actually to help people to be really truthful with themselves in that.
Speaker 1:So you had already mentioned that, like the number one thing would be the mindset. So what would the what would this number two thing would be to really kind of get both the male and the female in a good place mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually in order to then make their chances. And you always seem to say make something about having a healthy baby.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, look, you know, at the end of the day, people don't want to be pregnant. I mean, who wants to be pregnant, dear Jesus, like you don't want to be pregnant, you want to have a baby, right? Yeah, sure you might want to experience pregnancy for, like you know thing, the last nine months, um, you know, it's pretty intense. So you know, the reality of it is that most people who want to have a child, they want to just like hold their baby and and that really is what I hear so, so frequently from a lot of my patients, particularly second time, third time, fourth time around you know that's true, I can.
Speaker 1:I'm one of 12, so I can imagine that.
Speaker 3:Exactly so. It's like you know what, can we just hurry this business along? You can't hack the fact that it's a nine month pregnancy. You know like it's just how it is. But you know to answer that question, I have a little kind of almost way that I like people to think about what it is that they can do. You know, often, when I'm asked what is it that I can do to improve my chances? Or, to you know, make this, overcome the challenges that I'm experiencing, or whatever it is.
Speaker 3:I ask the men to indulge me in this moment because for them it's a little bit harder to conceptualize being pregnant, right. But I often say like, look, conceptualize being pregnant, right, but I often say like, look, imagine if you could be, imagine if right now you're the one gestating that child. I know that there probably would be even less people in the world because men would not want to be giving birth, but that's a whole other story. But all jokes aside, you know, if a man could like, and women, it's easy, kind of, for women to imagine that because I think we see it so often. Um, but if you kind of imagine yourself, whether you're a man or a woman being pregnant right now, and I was to ask you what are all of the things that you would absolutely stop doing or would absolutely start doing to give yourself the best possible chance of having the healthiest possible baby? What are those things? And, very quickly, people are able to identify in their own situation the things that they absolutely would start doing or would stop doing, and they're able to conceptualize that in actions. I would start doing this and I would eat healthy and I would take supplements and I would, you know, take care of my, I would exercise, I would, whatever right. And then, on the other side of that equation, people will say things like you know, I'd stop smoking, I'd stop drinking, I would stop taking drugs, whatever right. Those are the things that you know.
Speaker 3:Right now, inside of you, you already have 50 of the little baby that you want to create. That is the reality, right? So, whether you're a man or a woman, 50 of that baby is already within you and your job is actually to bring your best contribution to the table, so to speak. Right, so your job is to really bring the best contribution to the table, so to speak. Right so your job is to really bring the best possible quality egg, the best possible quality sperm, and the way that you're going to do that is by nurturing those cells in the same way that you would if that was already a baby.
Speaker 3:Oh, I love that. It's what I call act pregnant now to get pregnant later, right. And so that is essentially what people need to take into consideration and really need to kind of conceptualize but also internalize, because it's very easy to say to somebody oh, you should stop this, do this, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and it's like, oh, yeah, okay, whatever. But when you are responsible for gestating that little baby, or 50% of that little baby in the cells that you bring to the occasion, right, then it becomes a matter of like okay, there is actually something that I can do, and not only there is something that I can do. There is something I must do to bring my best contribution forward, and often that is what is not only necessary but essential to help couples overcome infertility and miscarriage, even when other treatments have failed.
Speaker 1:Fabulous. This has been an eye opener, an absolute eye opener, and I love your take on supporting both parties, supporting both male and the female, and it is sad and disappointing that the male can get overlooked a great amount of the time. Yeah, and yet at the same time they are 50 50, as you say, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Absolutely so important.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, wow. This has been great Everyone. I want you to be sure to pick up her book Fertility Breakthrough Overcoming Infertility and Recurrent Miscarriage with Other Treatment when Other Treatments have Failed she had mentioned you can go to her website fertilitybreakthroughcom. She also said where did you say it?
Speaker 3:was free. It's free on Spotify and on YouTube and it's available in every bookseller, amazon, et cetera. You know everywhere.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's fabulous. And then, at the same time, go to fertilitybreakthroughcom to learn all about her work. Her website's fabulous, and you can also. There's some great articles and resources in her blog as well. I wanted to do a shout out on that because I spent about a half hour with it this morning.
Speaker 3:Oh wow, Impressive.
Speaker 1:And then, of course, follow her on Instagram Gabriella Rosa Fertility. Gabriella, thank you so much. This has been fabulous. I really appreciate it. Thank you, and I'm so glad. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 3:Thank you, and I'm so glad we finally made it.
Speaker 1:Have a beautiful, beautiful day.
Speaker 3:You too. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:Thank you.
Speaker 1:What a powerhouse of a conversation with powerhouse. Gabriella Rosa Loved the conversation, especially as she focused a lot of the discussion on men and what men deal with when it comes to their fertility journey and the pressures that are put on them, but, at the same time, how overlooked they are in the process, while she also highlighted what both men and women need to do when it comes to minimizing men and women need to do when it comes to minimizing, if not eradicating, any stress that is just depleting what it is that they need in order to productively have a healthy baby. So the conversation was just ripe with tips and advice and even her own personal story and journey. So I appreciate you being here for that conversation.
Speaker 1:If you are dealing with workplace stress and pressures and you're just not sure what you need to be doing in order to minimize that so it doesn't affect any aspect of your life, then feel free to reach out and schedule a call with me. Go to coachmebernadettecom forward slash discovery call and let me give you some tips and strategies you can put into place right now so you can be as effective, productive and a powerhouse as you can be. Until next time, thank you so much for joining us for this week's episode of Shedding the Corporate Bitch.
Speaker 2:And I'll look forward to having you right back here, take care. Thank you for tuning into today episode of Shedding the Bitch YouTube channel. Want to dive deeper with Bernadette on becoming a powerhouse leader? Visit balloffirecoachingcom to learn more about how she helps professionals, hr executives and team leaders elevate overall team performance. You've been listening to Shedding the Corporate Bitch with Bernadette Boas. Until next time, keep shedding, keep growing and keep leading.
