Welcome back to the Endo Belly Girl Podcast! This month, in honor of National Infertility Awareness Week, we're diving deep into a series of discussions about infertility and our personal journeys with it. If this topic hits close to home and feels overwhelming for you, it's totally okay to take a breather and join us again in May when I'll be covering different topics.
For the first episode in this series, I wanted to open up about my own fertility journey. My hope is that sharing my story will offer you comfort, validation, and the understanding that this journey is ongoing and full of hope.
In this episode, you’ll hear:
-I'm not perfect, and I'm still on this healing journey too; I've made progress and I'm not the same person I was when I began.
-My journey of when I stopped birth control to start a family, and the symptoms I experienced due to my endometriosis.
-My experience with IVF, including how it took a toll on me mentally and physically, and the lessons I took away from it.
-What I experienced after having a miscarriage, and realizing that I needed to take a step back and focus on my own health.
-The lessons I have learned along the way such as dealing with the grief I experienced from my failed embryo transfer and miscarriage, the body dysmorphia that I experienced after my miscarriage, and that boundaries and communication are important during this phase of my life.
-The profound gratitude I've developed for my body and the journey of learning to love and accept it for all its complexities.
And remember, if you're going through a similar journey and feel like you have no one to turn to, know that you're not alone. You don't have to be my client to reach out and connect. I'm here to offer support and lend an ear whenever you need it. Your listenership means the world to me, and I'm deeply grateful for the opportunity to connect and help in any way I can.
Email Alyssa: alyssa@wholewomanwellness.net
Subscribe to The Endo Belly Girl Podcast:
Apple | Spotify
Connect w/ Alyssa:
Work w/ Alyssa:
Learn more about Alyssa
Disclaimer: This podcast is for educational purposes only. This may not be the best fit for you and your personal situation. It shall not be construed as medical advice. The information and education provided here is not intended or implied to supplement or replace professional medical treatment, advice, and/or diagnosis. Always check with your own physician or medical professional before trying or implementing any information read here.
Welcome back to the Endo Belly Girl Podcast! This month, in honor of National Infertility Awareness Week, we're diving deep into a series of discussions about infertility and our personal journeys with it. If this topic hits close to home and feels overwhelming for you, it's totally okay to take a breather and join us again in May when I'll be covering different topics.
For the first episode in this series, I wanted to open up about my own fertility journey. My hope is that sharing my story will offer you comfort, validation, and the understanding that this journey is ongoing and full of hope.
In this episode, you’ll hear:
-I'm not perfect, and I'm still on this healing journey too; I've made progress and I'm not the same person I was when I began.
-My journey of when I stopped birth control to start a family, and the symptoms I experienced due to my endometriosis.
-My experience with IVF, including how it took a toll on me mentally and physically, and the lessons I took away from it.
-What I experienced after having a miscarriage, and realizing that I needed to take a step back and focus on my own health.
-The lessons I have learned along the way such as dealing with the grief I experienced from my failed embryo transfer and miscarriage, the body dysmorphia that I experienced after my miscarriage, and that boundaries and communication are important during this phase of my life.
-The profound gratitude I've developed for my body and the journey of learning to love and accept it for all its complexities.
And remember, if you're going through a similar journey and feel like you have no one to turn to, know that you're not alone. You don't have to be my client to reach out and connect. I'm here to offer support and lend an ear whenever you need it. Your listenership means the world to me, and I'm deeply grateful for the opportunity to connect and help in any way I can.
Email Alyssa: alyssa@wholewomanwellness.net
Subscribe to The Endo Belly Girl Podcast:
Apple | Spotify
Connect w/ Alyssa:
Work w/ Alyssa:
Learn more about Alyssa
Disclaimer: This podcast is for educational purposes only. This may not be the best fit for you and your personal situation. It shall not be construed as medical advice. The information and education provided here is not intended or implied to supplement or replace professional medical treatment, advice, and/or diagnosis. Always check with your own physician or medical professional before trying or implementing any information read here.
Alyssa Chavez [00:00:01]:
Hello, my friend, and welcome back to the Endo Belly Girl podcast. So today, as this episode is going to be released, we are now in the month of April. Crazy springtime over here, and April happens to be infertility Awareness month. And of course, it is very common for women with endometriosis to also experience infertility in some fashion or another. So we are going to be diving into that topic all throughout the month. I'm actually going to dedicate all four episodes in the month of April to a series on infertility, and I'm going to have several special guests coming onto the podcast to talk about that from their unique perspectives, which is going to be so much fun. Now, one thing I wanted to mention and comment on as we're diving into this series. First of all, I want you to take a moment to feel out if listening to all of this is going to be something that is right for you to listen to right now, where you are in your journey.
Alyssa Chavez [00:01:09]:
If you feel like you just want to be far away from this conversation and not really hear about fertility because you're overwhelmed with all of that already. Totally get it. No worries. Please feel free to just tune out of the podcast and join us again in May when we'll be getting back to some other topics. Totally understandable. I get it. Please honor where you are right now. We are going to be digging into some conversations that can be challenging, that can be sensitive, that can be just zingers for some people.
Alyssa Chavez [00:01:41]:
There may be some things that can feel triggering to you along the way, and I want to just honor that, carry space for that, that all those feelings are totally valid and cool. Right. One thing, though, that I heard recently that I wanted to share with all of you, this idea that I thought was really powerful, it really resonated with me, so maybe it will with you as well, which is the idea that triggers show us where the healing needs to happen. I thought that was really beautiful. Triggers show us where the healing needs to happen, and I am here for that. I have. I've been on an infertility journey for quite some time, which I'm going to share more with you all today. I'm going to kind of talk you through my journey and the lessons learned along the way.
Alyssa Chavez [00:02:30]:
But definitely triggers have come up throughout that time, and so I totally get it right. But there's a choice in there of, okay, are we going to turn and run away and hide from those triggers, or are we going to face those triggers head on and get ourselves one step closer to healing within that space. So totally up to you as far as what you need right now. But I just wanted to share that, really, my hope with creating this series is that you can walk away from this with some actionable steps if you are someone who is currently walking through an infertility journey, and also to validate everything that you're feeling right. Because so often we're just brushed off from people who don't really get it, haven't been there, don't really understand what we're going through. And it can be hard sometimes if you're not feeling validated in your experience. So just maybe to hear from other people who have been there who get it maybe can be really powerful for you. So I'm going to kick off this series, just you and me, today.
Alyssa Chavez [00:03:40]:
The following three episodes are going to be a series of interviews with some other professionals who have some wonderful insights to share with all of you today, or this month, I should say. But today it's all about you and me. So I am going to fill you in today on my own fertility journey from where I started to where I am now and all of the lessons I have learned along the way, which there is a lot of now, I wanted to start this off with an honesty moment. So, full disclosure, I really hesitated with sharing all of this with you in the first place. Not necessarily because I don't want to talk about it. I'm kind of in a place in my journey where I am ready to be open and have conversations around this and like I said, help other people to not feel so alone in their journeys. But there is also a side of I am a practitioner where I help people with their health, and I am also just a human being. And I feel like I want to show you what's possible.
Alyssa Chavez [00:04:54]:
I want to show people how you can go from being in pain and fatigue and all of the symptoms and things that come along with endometriosis and to be able to show you that there is a pathway towards feeling better. And the truth is that I really have transformed my health in so many ways. Right? I'm not here to just put on a, what's that phrase? Horse and pony show and just wave my hat and make you feel like I am in this perfect place of health, but I'm here to show you what real life is like, right? And the truth is that I have transformed my health in so many ways. I've made so many positive changes, and I have seen an enormous amount of change in my own body. And so I do really want to share that with all of you. And I have shared a lot of that information along the way as well. I'm not the person I was when I started this journey, right? Used to have a crazy amount of gut symptoms. For example, I was having bowel issues daily, right? Those diarrhea, loose stools, bloating all the time.
Alyssa Chavez [00:06:07]:
And that stuff is gone. I went from having super intense pain and fatigue to actually feeling good, where my periods are really pretty mild these days. And I actually have energy again. Things that I didn't think were possible once upon a time. I've seen huge changes in my menstrual cycles. My cycles are much more regular than they used to be. My PM's symptoms are really a thing of the past. My periods aren't long like they used to be.
Alyssa Chavez [00:06:34]:
I used to be bleeding for seven, eight days at a time, and that's no longer happening. My acne has cleared up. I feel more vibrant. I actually know what I can eat and not eat, so I'm not stressed and confused every time I sit down to a meal. I've gone through some intense gut healing protocols along the way. So much positivity has happened in my life, and I'm so thankful for that. And I know that there are so many tools that I have used that can be so beneficial for so many other people, and that's really what I started this podcast to share. But there is still the fact that I am not a mom, which is a big goal of mine in my life.
Alyssa Chavez [00:07:16]:
And honestly, that is a tough pill to swallow sometimes, right? It's a challenge having something that you so deeply desire in your life and, you know, not being able to have this. This resolution to the story yet, right. Because as a practitioner, you know, I'm a human as well, and I want to come across, I guess, as somebody who has it all figured out, I feel like there's a little bit of a, I don't know, self imposed stigma on that, of I needing to be this perfect person. But the truth is that I am human, right? I am still walking this healing journey right alongside you, right? I'm not going to claim to have perfect health, and I have absolutely everything figured out. I am still walking this healing journey as well. Right? And that's something that's really probably going to be going on for the long term. I'm constantly tweaking things and figuring things out along the way. But I decided to come on here and talk about this today because I hope that by sharing my story here today, that it will help you to feel a little less alone in your journey, because I know that that's something I have felt a lot of along the way.
Alyssa Chavez [00:08:29]:
And to give you just a little more guidance and support along your own journey. Now, in the world of stories, if you're talking about any good book or movie, there's always a resolution to the story, right? There's a beginning setting up the characters in the story. There's the middle, where there's some sort of conflict, and then the hero finds their way back to the light, to the finish line, to whatever their goal is. And there's a resolution at the end. So I'm just going to give you fair warning that in this episode today, there's not going to be that wonderful resolution that you might want to hear. But that's okay. It just means that my story isn't over yet. So stay tuned, stay with me, and I will definitely be sharing as things progress in the future.
Alyssa Chavez [00:09:20]:
So let's dive in. I would like to start off by rewinding back to 2016, and this is the year before my husband and I got married. We ended up getting married in July of 2017. But in preparation for that, I think it was like late 2016, I decided to go ahead and go off birth control in preparation to start having a family. After our wedding and immediately after going off birth control, because I just quit cold turkey, I didn't know any better. Now I know things I wish I would have known at the time, but I went off birth control and started having all of the endometriosis symptoms coming up, many of which had been present before. I'd been on birth control when I was younger. Didn't really know what they meant, and generally it was better when I was on birth control, so I didn't think much of it.
Alyssa Chavez [00:10:12]:
But after going off, my symptoms just came back with a vengeance. It was nuts. I started having really intense period pain, fatigue, super long and irregular cycles, heavy periods, PM's symptoms, all the things I remember being on the phone within a local Ob GYN's office trying to get an appointment, I was like, I need to get in today, because there's. I shouldn't be in this much pain. This is crazy. But of course, I went through the whole, oh, the next appointment wasn't for another four weeks or something crazy like that. And so I kind of just hung up, walked away from it. A few days later, I was feeling a little better, and so I.
Alyssa Chavez [00:10:52]:
I ended up just not even going to see a doctor, just kind of continued to suffer through that intense pain on my own. Fast forward, July of 2017, my husband and I got married. We had our wedding and immediately started trying, actively trying to conceive. We'd already been in a relationship since 2009. We waited quite some time before we actually got married. So by 2017, we were ready to go ahead and dive in and start a family. Now, by fall of 2017 had been a few months. We hadn't had any luck yet, wasn't really stressed about it because it had only been a few months.
Alyssa Chavez [00:11:31]:
But I had a friend who was local to me at the time. She's since moved out of the area who was an acupuncturist specializing in fertility. And so I started going to see her on a regular basis and did see actually some improvement in my cycles and my symptoms. I definitely had benefit from that, but after, I don't know, a few months or so of that, still wasn't getting pregnant. And so my husband and I made the decision in 2018 to go ahead and visit a fertility clinic for the first time, which is a whole big step in and of itself for anybody who has experienced that before. You know, there's a lot. We did some testing, and at that point in time, endometriosis was suspected. The doctor was doing a vaginal ultrasound and saw something that looked possibly like endometriosis and kind of put that on my radar.
Alyssa Chavez [00:12:27]:
But basically, she recommended going into IVF, and we felt at the time like it was a bit much. It's a huge commitment. And so we went home to think about it and ended up just not going back for quite some time. So fast forward, fall of 2019. So now we're about a year later, a couple of years after we'd gotten married, and still nothing was happening. So we went back to that fertility clinic again. We did more testing, more labs, more procedures, and at this point in time, the doctor went back and looked, did another ultrasound, and by this point in time, that endometrioma that she was seeing on my right ovary had grown quite a bit. So it was a lot more clear on that ultrasound.
Alyssa Chavez [00:13:12]:
Of course, we all know an ultrasound is not a definitive diagnosis. That happened much later. But when you can see an endometrioma like that, you can pretty heavily suspect that it's endometriosis, which it ended up being. She recommended at that time, going into IVF, and we decided to go ahead and proceed at that time. So February of 2020, and you might notice the timing on that. I'm going to talk more about that in a second. We started the process initially in January, but it was February 2020 when we actually did our egg retrieval. And that was quite an experience in and of itself.
Alyssa Chavez [00:13:51]:
For anybody who's been through this, it is quite a lot. It kind of felt like preparing for. That was my full time job. There was a lot of medication involved. You're getting a lot of injections that you're doing at home multiple times a day. We were doing injections into my belly of hormones and things like that. I don't even know what all the medications were. It was a lot.
Alyssa Chavez [00:14:17]:
And then I was also going in every couple of days for a blood draw and an ultrasound so they could keep track of my hormone levels and they could keep track of my ovaries and how the follicles were developing, because, of course, the goal is to develop as many follicles as possible so they can end up getting as many eggs as possible out of that cycle. So we were monitoring things. Things were going along. And then I remember going in one morning, had my. My blood draw and my ultrasound done. They kind of sent me home saying, okay, well, we're going to check again in a couple of days. Not quite yet. But then I ended up getting a phone call in the afternoon, and she says, oh, my gosh.
Alyssa Chavez [00:14:57]:
We got your blood results back, and your hormone levels are in the place where now we need to go ahead and schedule your egg retrieval. So if nobody. If you haven't done this before, it's kind of a crazy process because you can't schedule the egg retrieval from the get go. It totally depends on your body and how it's responding to these medications. So you don't know when your egg retrieval is going to be scheduled. I mean, they give you kind of a general realm of where it will be. Like, there was kind of a date range in there, but you don't know exactly when it's going to be until, I think it was 72 hours before, if I remember correctly. And so I got that phone call in the afternoon.
Alyssa Chavez [00:15:34]:
It was like, okay, we're scheduling your egg retrieval for this time and this date. You need to do your. They call it the trigger shot. You may have seen this on. On movies or tv or maybe you know somebody who's been through this before, and you need to do it exactly at this time. So it's like a specific. I'm making this up, but it was something like 10:22 p.m.. Exactly.
Alyssa Chavez [00:15:55]:
Like, even if it's in the middle of the night, it has to be exactly at this time. So it's a certain length of time before the egg retrieval. It's a whole thing. So we did that. We ended up getting the trigger shot done, which triggers the ovulation, or I'm probably describing that not quite correctly. I don't know the exact terminology of all this stuff. I'm not a doctor. This is just from my experience.
Alyssa Chavez [00:16:17]:
So if I'm a little inaccurate on anything, my apologies. Went in, got the egg retrieval, which wasn't as big of a deal as I thought it was going to be, the actual moment of it, because they. They put you under just in a twilight anesthesia. We were really in and out of that fairly quickly. Did get some. I think we ended up getting ten eggs, five embryos out of that, which isn't. Isn't a huge amount, but it was better than nothing. Right? Yeah.
Alyssa Chavez [00:16:43]:
Recovery really wasn't. Wasn't too crazy for that. And then you all might remember what happened in March of 2020. COVID. So, yeah, our egg retrieval was February 2020. And then basically everything went on hold. Frustrating. Yes.
Alyssa Chavez [00:17:07]:
And so during that time between. So I was originally supposed to have my first frozen embryo transfer in. I think it was supposed to be April initially, and ended up being postponed. So in the meantime, my doctor had me go on two rounds of a medication called Lupron, which is also commonly used with endometriosis. Basically, they say it suppresses your endometriosis. What it really does is it suppresses presses your estrogen, which basically puts you through a mini menopause. So I was in the middle of COVID having hot flashes and feeling quite terrible during those couple of months. Finally, fast forward to June of 2020.
Alyssa Chavez [00:17:53]:
They were able to do that first frozen embryo transfer, which failed, was not the successful transfer. After all of that waiting, which was quite an emotional roller coaster in and of itself, of course, they prepared me for that, that there's always a possibility that the transfer won't work. Right. It doesn't always implant into your uterus, which was the case. What they didn't prepare me for was how emotional I was going to feel about that. It hit me hard, right. But we decided to go ahead and regroup, and in September of 2020, we were able to do a second transfer, and that one was successful. So September of 2020, finally got that positive pregnancy test, continued to do all of my progesterone injections, where you use this, like, inch and a half long, thickest needle you've ever seen in your life that's getting jammed into your butt every night for months.
Alyssa Chavez [00:18:52]:
And after all of that in November of 2020, we ended up having a miscarriage. And for me, that was my I need to take a step back moment. It was my like, enough is enough. I need to take a break. Step back from all of it. It was a huge emotional journey for me, way more than I ever thought that it would be. I'm going to talk a little bit more about this in a bit, but it was a lot to take in. Right? It was a huge loss after that journey.
Alyssa Chavez [00:19:25]:
This is already several years into my fertility journey at that time. But I decided then I had this, I don't know, call from the universe or whatever, whatever you want to call it, of just knowing that I needed to get back in touch with my own body, focus on my own health, my own healing, get back to a place of just feeling good in my body, and then maybe I'll regroup and revisit that journey that I was on. So I decided to do that. I decided to take a step back and focus on my own health. I started my journey with nutrition like I've talked about before. I started just by learning things by myself. I was doing research and learning how food works in your body, how food impacts endometriosis, and started making some positive dietary changes, and I saw some good things happen. Right.
Alyssa Chavez [00:20:17]:
I saw some very positive changes just from making nutrition changes alone. Right. I saw huge changes in my pain levels and energy levels and things like that, and started to realize that there was so much information out there. There was so much to learn. There were so many people out there who had information on these topics. And also I recognized that there was a huge need for this information to be shared, particularly with the endometriosis community. So I decided to go ahead and dive in and went to nutrition school. I went to the nutritional therapy association was my first stop, and then later ended up going back for some specialty courses around hormones and gut health and blood chemistry and all these different things so that I could really learn to help and support people as best as possible.
Alyssa Chavez [00:21:12]:
And I was my own guinea pig along the way, right? Everything that I was learning, I was applying to my body and just hoping that everything that I was trying would help me in some way. And it did. I talked earlier about how much my health improved along the way. There were so many positive changes that happened. I was working on that for quite some time, starting end of 2020 through 2021, really until the present moment. I've been continuing education in that arena, and along the way was also starting the journey of looking into endometriosis. Excision surgery. I'm not going to dive deep into that today because that's a whole topic in and of itself.
Alyssa Chavez [00:21:57]:
Ended up going through multiple doctors and surgeons before I found the right one, and did finally have my excision surgery in August of 2022. So I'm going to talk more about that at a later date. But of course, that was quite an experience in and of itself. Preparing for surgery, recovering from surgery, finding the right surgeon to begin with, that's really a whole episode, or maybe multiple episodes in and of itself. But I wanted to just fast forward to where we are now, 2024. Over these last few years, like I said, I've been doing so much work on my own body. I am actually currently, at the present moment, working with a practitioner myself. She's a colleague of mine who has had actually very similar training to what I have.
Alyssa Chavez [00:22:44]:
But what I really found for myself is that I just needed to kind of take the pressure and even this is going to sound weird, but take the thinking off of myself. It's one thing trying to look more objectively at somebody else, right? Because I work with clients one on one myself, and run through their labs, talk through their health history, what they're experiencing in their bodies, the symptoms, all the things, and I love doing that. I'm super passionate about helping other people, but I was finding that I was my own worst client. I would give myself protocols and not follow through with it at times. I am human as well. I was doing my best with diet, but I just felt like I needed somebody, a second set of eyes to take that off of my plate and also just to have a coach along the way. Just like I helped to coach my clients, I knew that I needed a coach to help me along my journey. So that's actually what I'm doing now, and it has been super valuable for me.
Alyssa Chavez [00:23:47]:
I've been working with her now for a few months. I've seen a lot of positive changes in my health and a lot of good things have been happening so far. So I'm just working more than anything. I'm certainly. We're certainly working on some. Some protocols and things. I had some imbalances happening in my body that we're working through, and I will keep you all posted as things progress in that area. But discovered, for example, that I had a yeast overgrowth that I hadn't been aware of before.
Alyssa Chavez [00:24:22]:
It hadn't shown up on some of the prior testing that I had done. So working on that, as well as just some balancing out nutrients and things like that, and I've also been doing a lot of work just on mindset. Healing from the inside out, right? Taking the stress out of it, taking the pressure off of it, learning to really have gratitude and joy for where I am right now. And that's been super powerful for me. So please continue to send me your love and positive vibes right. As I continue this journey, because I am walking this healing journey right alongside you all. So I will continue to share as things progress along the way. But what I also wanted to dive into today is some of the lessons that I've learned along the way because I've been on this journey now for close to seven years since we first actively started trying to have a family, and that's quite some time, right? And I know there are so many things that I recognize and understand now, things that I've seen and learned along the way that hopefully can help you along your journey as well.
Alyssa Chavez [00:25:29]:
So starting out, I just want to speak to the fact that infertility really comes with so many layers. There's the physical piece of it, right? Especially when you're experiencing a lot of physical symptoms related to endometriosis, the physical pain and all the different things that can come along with it. But there's also the emotional ups and downs. There's so much happening there, and we're actually going to dive more into that next week. I have a mental health professional coming on who specializes in that area and is going to kind of guide us through some tools to help along that journey, especially the mental and emotional pieces of it. But I just want to validate that it's a lot, right? So if you're experiencing infertility and you know you have people in your life who are maybe dismissing you or not really understanding what you're going through, not feeling validated for the feelings that you're having, totally get it. And you're very much not alone for that. Some of the things that have stood out for me along the way.
Alyssa Chavez [00:26:37]:
First off, grief. I won't say that I had never experienced grief before this infertility journey. Grief is a heavy thing, right? I lost some family members throughout my life, and so I have experienced that loss before. But there's something very unique about the grief that you experience with infertility. And I had a hard time for a long time kind of putting words to this. Of course, it was just plain old difficult to talk about, period, for a while. But I've learned a lot along the way, and I hope that this can help to bring some insight to your experience as well. So even things like experiencing that failed embryo transfer and the miscarriage that I experienced as I was going through IVF, it's a very unique form of grief because a.
Alyssa Chavez [00:27:34]:
Most people in your life don't even know what you're going through, right. Of course, I told my closest family members and friends, but most of the people in my life had no idea what was even happening, much less, you know, it's not somebody that anybody else knows. Right. I think I know there's actually some science behind when you are pregnant that, like, immediately you and the embryo start sharing cells or something like that. And so there's this immediate connection, and I do believe that it's physical and emotional and all the things. And so when you experience that loss, even though you may have never, quote unquote, known that human being, you know them better than anybody else on the earth. And it's such a unique thing to experience because it's almost hard to put words to that because it's. It's just different.
Alyssa Chavez [00:28:35]:
Right. And it's not only grieving the loss of that life, but it's grieving the loss of the life that you pictured for yourself. Right. You kind of immediately start to make plans in your head and think about what your life is going to look like as a parent, and then all of a sudden, that is gone. Right. And miscarriage is such an interesting thing because it. It's super common, right. As I was experiencing that, I started to.
Alyssa Chavez [00:29:04]:
So many people in my life were coming out of the woodwork telling me how. How they experienced miscarriage at some point in their life. And, wow, it's so common. But being common doesn't make it easy to go through. Being common doesn't lessen the amount of grief that you're going to experience with that. And it's one of those things. You can't fully understand what that's like until you've been there. And I think maybe even more so when you had already experienced infertility prior to that.
Alyssa Chavez [00:29:35]:
You've been through this crazy roller coaster of going through IVF and the whole assisted reproductive process. And I sat, I went through a period of time about six months after that miscarriage where every single morning, it became just a routine thing for me. Not planned, just kind of what happened. I would take my shower in the morning, I would sit down on the floor of my closet in my bedroom, and I would just cry every day. And I thought there was something wrong with me. I thought it was broken. I thought it would never end. It was a daily thing, sometimes other times of the day as well, but it seemed to be just a regular thing.
Alyssa Chavez [00:30:20]:
I don't know what it was about that time of day, but it was happening all the time. There's a saying that an emotion is energy in motion. That actually, that quote, that was actually something that Mary O'Dwyer talked about, the breath work coach, when she was on the podcast a while back. And it really stuck with me because I was like, yes, that sounds about right. There is a lot of energy in motion, and I think that we need to allow that energy to move the way it needs to. And, you know, maybe you need to cry and let it out. Right? There's nothing wrong with that. Another thing that I experienced along the road, as I was, you know, as I experienced that pregnancy loss, is I actually experienced, for the first time in my life, body dysmorphia, and not in the way that you might think.
Alyssa Chavez [00:31:11]:
So I actually. I don't know if I've talked about this before on the podcast, but prior to getting into this world of nutrition and all the things that I'm working on now, I actually had a first career as a professional classical ballet dancer. Now, tell me a population that doesn't have body dysmorphia more frequently than a ballerina, right? You're expected to be fit and thin and all the things, but somehow, through all of that, I never experienced any of that. I had no issues eating all the food. Eating disorder was not a thing in my life. I've always loved food. I never experienced any of those issues that other people did. I had friends and knew other people who experienced some form of body dysmorphia where they're unhappy with their body.
Alyssa Chavez [00:32:05]:
I never experienced that until I went through this pregnancy loss, because then I found myself, you know, week after week, month after month, leading up to what should have been my due date, looking at my body in the mirror and feeling upset that it was small. I know this is going to sound backwards, and please don't hate me for talking about not being happy about being thin. I've always been relatively naturally thin. I did certainly gain some weight once I stopped dancing full time, but I haven't really had huge issues with weight gain in my life. And so I would look in the mirror and see my flat belly, and I would be so upset by that because I didn't want to have that flat belly. I wanted to have a big old giant belly that looks like it's going to pop any moment. And I didn't and I did experience a form of hating my body for a time because of that. Have later learned that hating your body does not help in any way.
Alyssa Chavez [00:33:11]:
I've really transformed my thought process on this, where I really focus in on having gratitude for my body and loving my body. I actually have a daily practice on this. Every night when I go to bed, before I go to sleep, I lie down in my bed and I actually thank my body. I know this may sound silly, but it's been super powerful for me to actually thank my body for everything that it's doing for me, because it really does do a lot, even if it's not perfect. All right, another topic that I wanted to touch on today. I know that this is going to be kind of a jam packed episode, so stay with me here. But going through IVF, it's a lot. I assumed that it was going to be taxing physically.
Alyssa Chavez [00:33:58]:
It was, although more so than I thought. I remember feeling bloated a lot, having a lot of side effects from the medications, having, you know, kind of redness and stuff around the injection sites, because you're regularly getting injections in your belly and in your butt and all the fun things, and, you know, having side effects from the medications. I know I talked about earlier, the one medication I was on that basically put me through menopause left me feeling terrible recovering from the egg retrieval, having kind of the pain and cramping from that. Did go to work the day after the egg retrieval. Don't recommend that. Take at least one day off would be my recommendation. But anyway, the emotional ups and downs that come along with all of that is not something I was super prepared for. The constant stress and anxiety.
Alyssa Chavez [00:34:53]:
I talked earlier about getting that call that here's your egg retrieval date. Get ready. And the financial burden that that put on us, especially given that we were going into IVF right at the beginning of COVID having no idea that we were going to take an enormous financial hit during that time. We actually own a classical ballet academy as well. That's. That's a business that we've had for quite some time. My husband, who you may have heard on the podcast before I interviewed him a little while back to talk about his side of things, his experience. He actually is a classical ballet instructor and, you know, is the director of the studio, and that didn't translate very well to doing classes on Zoom, as you might imagine.
Alyssa Chavez [00:35:42]:
And so our finances took a hit, and we had this huge debt on our shoulders, partly why we didn't end up going back to it, besides the emotional trauma that had come along with it. And really what I learned along the way more than anything, is that, a, it's way more than I thought it was going to be, b, I learned that it's probably not for me. I say probably because I really don't know what the future is going to hold for us. I'm not completely ruling it out. We actually, at this point in time, still have three frozen embryos that are kind of hanging out, waiting for us should we decide to go back to that route in the future. So I'm certainly keeping my options open, but just going with my kind of gut instinct, my gut is telling me that going with all those medications again, going back into that, just isn't something that I want to dive back into, at least for the present moment. And that ties really into the next lesson that I've learned along the way, which is do what resonates with you. Right.
Alyssa Chavez [00:36:47]:
I'm talking about my experience from my perspective. Other people have had completely different experiences. I know many people who have been through IVF and had successful rounds and have children through that. And God bless you if that's something that really worked and resonated with you. I'm just not sure that it's something that resonates with me. I resonate much more with holistic practices, as you might guess, based on my current profession over here. It just feels so much better to my body and to my soul. I've seen so much more improvement along the way in my own health, and so that's the journey that I am choosing to follow at the present moment.
Alyssa Chavez [00:37:30]:
All right. Another lesson I have learned along the way is all around boundaries and communication, right. And this is a tricky one because it can be challenging sometimes between balancing your own emotions and needs and maybe triggers that you're experiencing, but also wanting to support loved ones around you. And I'll use a perfect example for this. Well, kind of more generally. Right. I am in my mid thirties right now, and everybody around me is having kits, right? It's just. It's been that way for probably the last, I don't know, 510 years of my life, maybe more that, you know, friends, family are.
Alyssa Chavez [00:38:15]:
Are having kids, right? And even last year, just about a year ago now, my sister, my older sister actually was having her second child. And I remember there being a moment where my. My mom was asking me basically to help plan, not only help plan, she kind of wanted me to plan the shower initially, and I just had to take a step back and be like, mom, I am not in a place where ill go to the baby shower. She is my sister. This is my nephew who is now going not just a few months shy of a year old at this point in time, but the actual shower ended up being about a month before he was born. And I go, I want to be there. This is family. I actually dont often go to baby showers, but this is my sister and so that's kind of a different story.
Alyssa Chavez [00:39:08]:
I want to be there for her. I want to still be a part of the family. I'm not just going to remove myself. That's my personal decision. Yours might be different and that's totally fine and valid, but I did have a hard boundary around actually planning the baby shower. I was like, mom, I'll be there. I'll show up and I'll help you. But I am not really in a place where I'm ready to sit there and plan every detail of the baby shower.
Alyssa Chavez [00:39:35]:
Right. I have had other baby shower invitations that I've just simply turned down feeling not ready for that. And that's okay, too. It's a matter of, I think, communicating in a kind way to those around you what is comfortable for you and what is not. And what I found along the way is that many people just kind of feel uncomfortable around these topics. Maybe they don't want to bring it up with you because they don't want to upset at you. And honestly, for the most part with, that's totally cool with me. Like, I don't necessarily want to have conversations about my fertility with everybody I meet along my life.
Alyssa Chavez [00:40:11]:
But, you know, if there are certain situations where it's going to come up, I'll just bring it to the table myself and just say, hey, you know, I know you're like, I had a friend who was having, having a baby a couple years ago and I said, hey, look, I know you're pregnant. Don't feel uncomfortable. Like, I still want to be your friend. I still want to hang out. We could still go on hikes together and stuff. Like, don't feel weird about it. And I think that really put her at ease, just not feeling like she couldn't talk about it along the way. So again, this is going to feel different for everybody.
Alyssa Chavez [00:40:44]:
It's really a matter of figuring out what works best for you and then communicating that right. Because on the other hand, if I'm perfectly honest, it's a little bit of a double edged sword for me because sometimes I feel so much more relieved that people don't bring it up. And I don't have to talk about things, like, at a family get together, but at the same time, like, in the same breath, it feels a little hurtful sometimes to just not feel acknowledged, like, particularly when Mother's Day comes up and everybody's celebrating their moms and, you know, oh, let's all get together, you know, multiple family members celebrating together and stuff. And, you know, it can feel a little uncomfortable and hurtful to not feel celebrated and included in things like that. Right to the point where I've actually, at this point in time, kind of made the decision that on the actual day of Mother's day, I just kind of stay home and have a chill, relaxed day, kind of ordering takeout food so I don't have to cook, you know, just doing my own thing. I still have my mom in my life. She just lives about 30 minutes away from me. And so we just choose to celebrate on another day that feels just like your average day, just celebrating my mom, because I do love her and love to celebrate her, but just not on that day anymore at this point in my life.
Alyssa Chavez [00:42:05]:
And I've also found it super helpful to have that one person in your life that you can lean on and dump all the feelings and things that, you know, will support you and listen to you no matter what. I have an aunt who I'm really close with. She's always been kind of like my second mom, and she's actually going through some emotional trauma of a different kind on her own and has also experienced infertility herself years ago in the sense that she experienced some multiple miscarriages. So she kind of gets it more so than some of my other family members and friends do. And we have sat there and had long talks on the beach. She lives near the beach, so it's super convenient to do that for hours. I'm talking where we go for lunch and, you know, we're still there when the sun goes down kind of day. And that has been super cathartic for me, just to have that one person I can just release everything to, and that could be a family member or friend, that could be a mental health professional as well, or a coach or somebody who you can talk to about things, but that can be super powerful as well.
Alyssa Chavez [00:43:13]:
Now, when it comes to mental health. And like I said, I'm going to have a guest on here who's going to dig into this stuff more. So we'll have more of a conversation around this. But there have definitely been struggles along the way with anxiety and depression, which isn't something I would have said was part of my life in a big way before I started struggling with fertility. It kind of brought that all to light. And there's just over the years, especially these past couple of years, I've really been doing a lot of deep mindset work, reframing thoughts, acknowledging the fact that I'm not broken, learning to trust my body again, learning to appreciate and love my body and have gratitude for my body, and celebrating the little wins along the way. Right. The positive things that are happening have all been really powerful for me, especially that kind of chronic dialogue you have going on your brain talking about how you're broken and your body doesn't work and all the things that used to be a dialogue that I had running through my mind all the time and actually my original business name.
Alyssa Chavez [00:44:22]:
So currently I'm endobelly girl. That was kind of a rebrand that I did, I don't know, a year and a half ago, give or take. Originally my business name was whole woman wellness, which you might still see sometimes. Like, if you're on my email list, I think it still says whole woman wellness. Full disclosure, I'm just not techie enough to figure out how to, how to change that on all the things. It was like a whole thing trying to change the email address. So I just said, you know what? Who cares? I'm just going to be whole woman wellness. For some things.
Alyssa Chavez [00:44:53]:
It still fits with what I do. Anyway, that original business name came around because I wanted to celebrate that realization that I am a whole woman and be able to celebrate that in other people as well. That you are a whole woman. Even if you are experiencing reproductive difficulties, you're not broken. Right? It's. You're a whole human being. And that is something to celebrate. Right? Being able to reproduce is not the only thing that makes you a woman.
Alyssa Chavez [00:45:24]:
In fact, it doesn't make you a woman at all, because that's not, that's not, that's not all that being a woman is, right. That can mean different things to different people. I won't go into the ins and outs of that today, but you can, you can bring to mind what being a woman means to you. And I think thinking that way is super powerful. Like, to me, being a woman is about being strong, feeling empowered, feeling beautiful. And I'm not even necessarily just talking about physical beauty, but just, I don't know, radiating beauty around you, being kind, being compassionate, being supportive, being nurturing. Right? These are all for me, just speaking for myself as an individual. The qualities that make me a whole woman.
Alyssa Chavez [00:46:16]:
Right? Nothing to do with reproductive health. So anyway, that's about it for today. That's a lot. I don't even know. This episode has gotten to be probably one of the longer ones here, but that's okay. There was just kind of a big brain dump I wanted to share with all of you, but sharing is caring. So I hope that sharing my story helps others to feel less alone in your story. If you want to connect on this in any way, please feel free to reach out.
Alyssa Chavez [00:46:49]:
I really actually love connecting with fellow human beings. Whether you're a client or not, whether you ever want to be or are going to be a client or not, I don't care. I mean, I do care in the sense that I want you to get the support that you need. But I don't care in the sense that I don't want you to feel like you can only reach out to me. If, you know, if you want my services or whatever. If you want to just reach out to share a little bit of your story or let me know any insights that you had from today's episode, anything at all, please feel free. You can find me on Instagram, endobellygirl. You can shoot me an email, even.
Alyssa Chavez [00:47:28]:
I'll even put a link to that in the show notes so that you can connect with me in that way if you care to do that. And at the very least, I hope this sharing my story helps you to feel less alone in your own journey. So. And I know. Sorry, just coming back to that for a minute, I keep having new thoughts pop into my head. I, other than my aunt, who had experienced some miscarriages and did end up having two beautiful boys. At the end of the day, I really didn't have anybody else in my life who understood what I was going through. My mom, both of my sisters got pregnant pretty easily.
Alyssa Chavez [00:48:07]:
There weren't any issues. Everything was smooth. Like, nobody in my immediate family really understood it. I don't really have any close friends or anything who had been through this, so I know for me, I felt very alone when I was starting this journey. It can certainly feel very lonely. So anyway, that's partly why I wanted to offer that up. Just, I'm happy to be that person for you. If you need to connect with somebody, to just feel a little less alone in your journey, you can just reach out and just brain dump your story to me.
Alyssa Chavez [00:48:41]:
If you need to do that, totally fine. Now, as I mentioned before, throughout the whole month of April, we're going to be focusing in on fertility. There's so much that I can share with all of you, so I am bringing on three special guests this month, some fantastic interviews. I've already recorded two out of the three, and I'm going to be recording the last one next week, which will actually be before this episode airs. Anyway, I have a perinatal therapist coming on who's going to be here next week. She's going to share with us all about how to support your mental health as you're going through a fertility journey. That's a really powerful conversation. I also have an acupuncturist, traditional chinese medicine practitioner who is going who specializes in fertility and endometriosis.
Alyssa Chavez [00:49:29]:
She actually has endometriosis herself as well, and she's going to be sharing some wonderful insights from that lens. And I also have a fellow restorative wellness practitioner. She's actually one of the teachers even, who has helped guide me along the way in my own learning, who specializes in fertility and is going to share, and she works with a lot of clients struggling with fertility and is going to share, share some powerful information as well as to how you can support your body along the way. So, more guest episodes than I usually have on a typical basis, but I just wanted you all to benefit from various perspectives this month. So I hope that you all enjoy. And I just wanted to share before I sign off for today, just how much love and deep gratitude I have for you listening to this podcast, connecting with me in any way, even if you're a listener and you haven't, you know, actually reached out and connected. Totally cool, I get it. Enjoy this and consume this information in the way that feels best to you, right? But I just wanted to express my deep gratitude for you being a part of this community in any way.
Alyssa Chavez [00:50:41]:
And yeah, I think that's all I've got for today, my friends. So much love to you all. I can't wait to talk again soon and take care. Have a wonderful day. Bye.