Manifesting a Miracle as You're TTC

There’s a moment on the fertility journey where you start to wonder… what else is there?

After the appointments, the protocols, the waiting, the heartbreak. You begin to feel like you’ve tried everything.

In today’s episode, I sit down with a beautiful guest who shares how her IVF journey led her somewhere unexpected...into the world of manifestation, subconscious healing, and reconnecting with her sense of possibility.

This conversation is gentle, powerful, and full of hope.

If you’re craving something more than just the clinical path, this might be exactly what you need to hear.

By the time you finish listening, you'll find out:

• How to use the soulful practices of mindset + manifestation on your trying to conceive journey
• What can you start doing TODAY to overcome the limiting beliefs holding you back as you're trying to conceive
• How you can start taking control of your own health + fertility

You can connect with Lisa via her website or via her Instagram

EMBRACE THE JOURNEY IS BACK at the end of this month!

This FREE 3-day live training event will show you how to use the practices of Fertility Yoga, Meditation + Breathwork to:

• Support your fertility
• Regulate your menstrual cycle
• Cam your nervous system
• Ease the anxiety of TTC
• And be in the energy of a group of

Thanks for being here on Your Journey to Fertility! When you finish listening, I'd love to hear your biggest takeaway from today’s episode. Take a screenshot of you listening on your device, share it to your Instagram stories and tag me @jen.elementpilatesyoga 

If you're trying to conceive, I have lots of resources to support you:

To grab a copy of my Free Fertility Yoga Guide, click here:

To jump inside the Secret Fertility Shift private podcast series, click here:

To learn more about In Your Element - The Fertility Yoga Experience click here and start using so many of the practices I speak about for yourself.

This program is a guided way to: 

• Sync with your cycle & synchronize your hormones
• Increase success rates through proven, scientific methods
• Regulate your nervous system & make every part of this journey feel easier

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

There's a moment on the fertility journey where you start to wonder, what else is there? After the appointments, the protocols, the waiting, the heartbreak, you begin to feel like you have tried literally everything. In today's episode, I am sitting down with a beautiful guest who shares how her IVF journey led her somewhere unexpected, into the world of manifestation, subconscious healing, and reconnecting with her sense of possibility. This conversation is gentle, powerful, and full of hope. If you are craving something more than just the clinical path, this might be exactly what you need to hear. Welcome to your journey to fertility. This is the podcast that blends science with spirit to give you all the tools you need as you navigate your fertility journey. I'm your host, Jennifer Edmonds, and for the last 15 years I've been helping women on their journeys to motherhood and beyond. I believe that combining the latest scientific research along with the best energetic and mindset practices will help you to avoid putting your life on hold and bring you closer to your baby. Each week you'll learn ways to support your fertility and trust your body so that you can stop stressing, that you'll never have your baby, and finally walk your path to motherhood. This is the Your Journey to Fertility Podcast. Hello, welcome back to the podcast. I am so excited to introduce our special guest today, who is such a compliment to the work that I do, where combining the science and the spiritual aspect of trying to conceive is exactly what she is here for as well. Lisa White is an IVF coach, a holistic OT, an author, a speaker, and the host of the Soulful IVF podcast. After navigating years of fertility challenges, surgeries, and setbacks, she was left with one embryo after her final IVF cycle. One chance. And today that embryo is her little girl. She knows what it's like to walk this path. The waiting, the uncertainty, the emotional highs, and the lows that no one really prepares you for. There were moments on Lisa's journey that felt overwhelming, isolating, and completely awe-consuming. And through it all, she realized something that changed everything. This journey isn't just physical, it is emotional, it's mental, and it's deeply personal. So in this episode, we explore those unseen layers of this journey, all of the subconscious pieces that don't always get spoken about. This conversation is a reminder that there are many ways to be supported along this path. So let's get started. Here is Lisa. Lisa, welcome to the podcast. I'm so thrilled to have you with us today. We are gonna be diving into so much of the stuff that my listeners love, which is the woo-woo stuff, some of the spiritual things, and how it all ties together on the fertility journey. So big welcome.

SPEAKER_00 2:58

Thank you, Jennifer. Gosh, this is so fun. I'm really happy to be here. You're on my podcast. We're doing a swap. This is so fun. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

No, I feel like it's it's one of those things where you're like, how have I not known this person in real life? It's always makes me wonder. I would love to start by learning just a little bit about you. Would you mind sharing your fertility journey and the way you came to do this work?

SPEAKER_00 3:22

Hmm, thank you so much. Yeah, I always say I never expected to step into this path helping others on their fertility journeys, but often the pain and the struggles that we go through become such a part of our story and a new calling, really an unexpected calling that has led to so many beautiful things. And but taking me myself back as I reflect on where we started, my husband and I, we got married later in life. And uh around what, 37-ish, 37, 38, you know, we were struggling to get pregnant and only about a year married at this point. Um, but we did some early testing. And thankfully, a friend who's an OBGYN was like, I think go to a fertility specialist, which thankfully, you know, just getting some good guidance right off the bat, they identified that we had male factor challenges, and I also had some uterine polyps. So off we went, right? Like down the path. And um I went through my first egg retrieval and got four embryos. Um, we tested them genetically, and sadly, none of them, none of them came back genetically healthy. Crushing news right before right before Christmas and New Year's at that time, and this was in 2015. Um, went through another egg retrieval, had three embryos, and we're crossing our fingers, like one healthy embryo come back, and one did. We got one healthy embryo. So we froze that embryo and kind of naively did not go forward with any more egg retrievals. We were just like, we're moving forward. Like this is a whole world that I did not know anything about. Um, like many do, we kind of go into this pretty blindly. And um at that point, gosh, so we froze our embryo. I had a polyp surgery, waited three months, found out I had scar tissue that formed in my uterus, so they needed to do surgery to remove the scar tissue. Um, I was getting ready for an embryo transfer. They found some blood in my uterus. That was that transfer was canceled, and my doctor left the practice setback after setback, got a new doctor, and he did some testing and found that I had fibroids that formed. So then fibroid surgery, and this is all of 2016. I just remember that as the year of surgeries, and many can relate, I'm sure, to who are on a fertility path is like, oh yeah, that was the year this happened and all the things. So uh uh had fibroid surgery and crossing our fingers that I was ready to go for our one transfer. And in January of 2017, we did have our one transfer and it took, and that's our beautiful daughter now, who's eight years old. Wow. Yeah, it was a journey. Um yeah, I mean, it's just like short but long, you know, it's all relative. So it is it doesn't feel short at the time, does it?

SPEAKER_01 6:27

If every moment that you were waiting, and there's this this surgery and another diagnosis and another surgery, and it is certainly not an easy place to be at the time. And how old were you by the time that you've you had your daughter?

SPEAKER_00 6:40

Yeah, 40. I had her at 40.

SPEAKER_01 6:43

Yeah. Oh my goodness. And so then what is the work that you do now and how did how did that lead into it?

SPEAKER_00 6:50

Yeah, the work I do now really supporting individuals who are going through fertility challenges and specifically IVF, since I've lived this past, I know it well, and bringing a lens of occupational therapy, which I've been in OT for now 25 years, but that supported me immensely. And I went about our fertility path really differently with a holistic approach, a unique lens that I chose to use to go through this. And, you know, I was very intentional and conscious about wanting to go about it in a different way and not getting kind of pulled in by the struggle and the pain. And I'm grateful for the background I had because I knew I had to be an active participant. And so all of this experience and how I went about it, I just felt in my heart like, I want to support other women who are going through this, show them a new way, show them an approach that maybe opens them up to more possibility and just more joy and more of the magic that I really believe is possible on this path, and pulling in a holistic approach and, you know, the like work you do, all of the things that we're not always exposed to unless we meet certain individuals or just have the opportunity to learn like new ways to go about this path. So I respect the doctors immensely, and we need the doctors to focus on that medical side. But what I bring is really helping individuals with mindset, with energetic alignment, really um, you know, nervous system work, all of these kind of strategies to help us navigate this path with more ease from a more grounded place and optimizing. Hopefully, this all working out for us.

SPEAKER_01 8:30

That's it. And it's sort of the this idea when you go into IVF, it's like you don't know what you don't know. So all these things keep coming up. Like I never knew this was going to be a problem. And how is this now an issue? I had no concept that that would ever be coming up. It really throws you, doesn't it? It's like every step of the journey, there is just something else that is slapping you in the face that you have to deal with. I just found that so incredibly overwhelming. And I couldn't get my head around the fact that, you know, you would have the it wasn't, it didn't seem to be an exact science, the IVF process. Just sort of like, how can we not know why these things don't work? And I I just found that so incredibly frustrating. So when you are working with someone, when someone comes to you and they say, Look, I'm I'm really struggling, it's just taking over my whole life. I can't think about anything else. Where do you even start?

SPEAKER_00 9:22

When you when I'm encountered by a client who comes to me, they're just so overwhelmed. It's we're we're a listening ear, right? We're a spot where we can be a sounding board for people sometimes just sharing their story for the first time, just being able to articulate the pains and the struggles. And I listen. I listen openly. And pulling out things that I hear, I ask questions, I really dive into exploring more about their life because we know fertility challenges impact our whole life. They really, they really do. They impact relationships, they impact our work, friendships, social life, spirituality, financials, self-care, everyday routines. So these are things that I'm looking at, you know, how a typical day, what that's looking like, what you know, I want to hear from them, like the hardest parts of this path and also what they want, right? Getting clear on what they would like. So again, it's a lot of kind of questioning in the beginning, beginning and intake form and understanding more of who you are as an individual. Each path is so unique. I don't have like this customized like XYZ, this, this, this, this. Like everyone's at different parts of the journey when they enter this path. So it's really taking a customized approach to understanding, okay, where are you now? Where do you want to go? And doing a deep dive into that. Those are clients I work with one-on-one. I've led group programs, and so those are opportunities to really also share in a group setting. And then everyone can like feed off each other and like, oh, wow, I'm going through that too. That's helping you. Oh, maybe this might help me. But, you know, being careful too about I think surrounding yourself in some of the groups. I know you're probably familiar with some of those big, like Facebook groups, right? Where everyone's sharing what they're doing. And then it's like you can get into that comparison mode of like, well, I'm not doing that. Well, I gotta do that. So there's a fine line of, you know, staying in your own journey. This is your own personal path, honoring where you're at, trying to put the blinders on as much as possible, like not getting so much so distracted of like, well, everyone's doing this, and right. Like, we've seen this before, and it's it's helping individuals really stay like connected with themselves and their why, their intention, and it's it's an exploration together. We walk it together. So, yeah, that's a little bit of my process.

SPEAKER_01 11:58

I think just what you said there about actually listening to someone being heard. I had a new student this week who, you know, should we were we're just chatting about what she'd been going through and and I shared a little bit about my story. And she said to me, When you shared what you'd been through, and it was similar to me, I felt, I felt really supported. Like, is is that normal? And I said, of course, of course. It's it's so incredibly validating, isn't it? Just to be able to share your experience and have someone else go, I've been through that too, and it was really hard. And how sad that we're not getting that in in any of the places we traditionally go and look. Like when you go to your doctor and you know, no IVF doctor is saying, you know, what are your stress levels like? How are you coping at work? How's your relationship going? Exactly. Don't think these are the questions that are being asked. So when someone comes into a space like this and they they just get to feel heard, really emotionally supported and heard. Um, that is, I think, a huge, huge part of the healing process. So thank you for sharing that as well.

SPEAKER_00 13:04

Yeah, thank you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:05

I want to dive more into manifestation because that is what so many of my listeners just love to kind of get their heads around and jump into. But it feels I the manifestation world just kind of feels very intangible sometimes. It's like, sure, I do I do the vision board? Am I doing my affirmations? Am I doing it wrong? Do I do it for five minutes a day? How does this process actually work? So many questions here. Let's start with what does manifestation mean for you?

SPEAKER_00 13:36

Well, even just the word doing, I want to just touch upon that because hearing you say that, I just it it makes me tighten a little bit. And that is often the vibe when we're going through our fertility path. It's the doing the shots and doing the appointments and doing the ultrasounds and all the things of the doing. And so if we feel like we're doing it wrong, like we are manifesting all the time. Manifesting is like to make real, right? To bring something into reality to we're manifesting all of the time. And so this idea of manifestation in IVF, it's not like thinking my way to a baby, right? But it's like feeling safe enough to receive one. So it's who we are becoming in the process of this. Who do we want? We we do want to manifest a baby, but like it is this energetic, we want to become the space to hold and expand our capacity enough to receive. So and when I say manifest a baby, like there's so many things to manifest through this path. And I when I say manifesting a miracle, don't we want to manifest more peace, more ease, more joy, right? More connection. So this idea that we no one else has control over our thoughts, our energy, our actions, right? Like we are in control of that. So it's choosing how do we want to approach our path to motherhood, being in alignment with ourselves and becoming in alignment with that desire that we hold. And so it's not about the trying energy, it's really more about this way of being. And I like to call my my fertility sisters manifesting mamas, like we are holding the frequency of a manifesting mama, right? We are calling in these souls, and we are still living our life. I always say if we want to be calling in life, it requires us to be living life. That is beautiful. So thank you. You know, it's just feeling the safety in our body, trusting in the unknown, right? Releasing the control and stepping into this energetic alignment. Like these are key parts of what I help individuals navigate through. And it gets to be a really fun process. It's not something I don't want this to be stressful, hard. It's it's a way of being, it's a way of choosing how to go about this to shift the experience of IVF because it is so medical. Right. The process of IVF is so medical, and our experience doesn't have to be. So that's where like people like you and I step in, right? To to introduce these new approaches and um, you know, to shift into a new way of being, our identity, right? We get to up level into this new way of going about it. So I hope I answered your question. It's it's challenging to kind of just simplify it, but it can be really simple because it's just like it's who we're becoming through this process.

SPEAKER_01 16:49

I agree. And I always say to my students, like, you don't want the positive pregnancy test. You don't even just want like the baby. I mean, what are you gonna do? Have a baby and like put it in the cupboard. Like that, you don't want the baby, you want the love that's it feeling that comes with that baby and everything that you're going to build together. That is what you are working towards, you know. And I think that's where we we lose sight of that. We think, oh, okay, once I get the positive pregnancy test or once I have the baby, like everything will be fine. And speaking from experience, that isn't quite the way it works when you you, you know, you don't do the work to to heal yourself and to figure out what it is that you really want for your life when that isn't the focus anymore. Having the baby doesn't really fix how you are feeling about your whole journey. And I I think that there's just got to be a nicer way for us to go through this, an easier way that feels more supportive, more grounded. And I just I hate that this journey is just so hard and so overwhelming for so many of us. And I just want everyone to know that yes, it is not an easy place to be. This is not an easy journey to walk down, but there are so many ways that we can make our lives feel a little bit lighter in the process. So I think that is so, so important. I I love this idea of you've spoken about this a lot where you you don't want to postpone joy. As you were saying, you need to live your life now in order to call in your baby. And I think that's part of the process of manifesting. Is that right? Can you talk a bit more about that?

SPEAKER_00 18:30

Yeah, well, the energy of joy, right? That that's the kind of space we want to be in when we're trying to create life. Thinking of a baby and what kind of space they would want to enter into. I mean, think of a warm, welcoming, joyful, happy place, right? I always believe there's this connection that we can have with our embryos. And I was writing letters to our little one before he, she, we didn't know boy girl at the time, that you know where they were gonna be. And there are so many ways energetically and like being in that joyful place of calling them forward to us. So joy, I believe it's essential to keep while we're calling in life. And unfortunately, the path of IVF is often one of a lot of pain and heartbreak. And it's important to honor that. You know, I too also experienced, as you know, I shared in my story a bit of the struggles we had, yet I still kept this element of I'm gonna keep living my life. I'm gonna focus on what good things I have to be grateful for, what um what shifts can I make in a positive direction? And you know, when we need to have the the pity party, we allow that. And that also makes more space for joy to enter. Because if we're holding so much of this pain and hurt and it's there, like we know it's there, it's important to release that. So, in order to bring more of the joy, whatever you need to do to punch, to kick, to hit, to all the things to release physically, to cry, to write. I was writing and journaling a lot through this. So, all of these practices are ways to clear what's heavy and to make space for more of the joy and the creativity. So, creativity is another thing, kind of in alignment with joy that I believe we get to use to our advantage on this path, right? Creating with our hands, creating, doing a hobby that we love to do. And that's with the occupational therapy hat that I wear. And, you know, it's all about using activity in a purposeful way that we get lost in the flow of things, right? Some people some of my clients have started like knitting, they did paint by numbers, getting back into cooking, um, all these things where we're actually using our hands in a creative way, uh, taking a class, doing something like that, right? Pottery class. It's that's and I was doing it too, actually on my fertility path. I was in a beta art program and doing painting. And so that that was joyful for me to be in a space where I could let my let myself just be free. There's like a sense of freedom when you can get lost in that flow and allow yourself to be present. And I wasn't thinking about fertility struggles a lot at that time, you know, it would just kind of go away. So if you're in it right now, if you're in the thick of it, I encourage anyone listening to really like do something out of the box, take a class, listen to what hobbies you, you know, pay attention to that inner voice. What did I used to do when I was a kid? What did I let you? I know you talk about this too in your podcast. So it's so important to keep those simple joys alive, and it will really help you as you're calling in a little one.

SPEAKER_01 21:50

We talk about this a lot in yoga, this idea of creativity being very much aligned with the sacral chakra, which is the area of creation within your body. And we we find that often if that that area is very closed or very blocked, it is a wonderful way to start releasing some energy through that area by doing something creative within your life. And that's it's sort of just a wonderful connection between the two. And I always say to people, you know, yes, I'm a yoga and a meditation teacher, and I think these practices are so beneficial for so many reasons. And like you said, that idea of flow where your mind just gets to switch off from your fertility struggles. But I mean, you don't have to do yoga, you know, you you find what works for you. But I feel like on this journey, you have to do something. You've got to find something that takes you away from every moment of every day. I am just in this space of despair and worry and anxiety and fear. And it's such an awful place to spend every moment of every day. Isn't it? You were just in survival mode, 24-7. Yeah. So finding these little ways to get out of that, even if it is for five minutes, maybe an hour, if that's possible, and just do it as much as you can. I feel like my whole world opened up when I found things like that. Yeah, that's the key. Thank you so, so much for sharing. Uh, you spoke a little bit about this idea of creating space. And this is something that I love to talk about a lot with with my students as well. And there's so many ways we can do that. But can you explain how making space, either, you know, emotionally or physically within your life or your surroundings, really then opens up space for your baby as well?

SPEAKER_00 23:36

Yeah, I love this question. I I believe we can tune internally and externally to our space. So I'll start with uh I'll start with externally. So looking at our physical environment, right? Where are we taking our shots? What kind of space are we? How do I want to say this? Is it a space that is nurturing us? Is it cluttered? Is it messy? Is it disorganized? How is that supporting us as we're doing these shots? And I'm I I see now, like back when I was doing this, there were no like organizational kits, at least that I'm aware of, of like how to organize all your meds, right? I had like a table full of all these meds and things in the fridge, and now there's all these cubbies and different things, but that's just one simple example of like your external space. How can you create like a sacred ritual around this, right? Making it really intentional. So our space for for doing our shit, taking our shots. Um, that's one. Our space just in our everyday living environment, right? Is it cluttered? Is it clean? Is it organized? There are simple ways. Do you have a clean car? Like, how do you feel about going about your day, right? So all these ways that we are navigating through our life, going to work, and we have like maybe a plant in front of us that brings us some life and reminds us of our intention, right? Crystals, and I'm on into all of that stuff. So it's like if you have a symbol to help ground you in your physical space, all of these things can really shift the energy, the frequency. So those are some external things just around you, paying attention to your environment. You know, do you live in a high-rise that's noisy? And can you be outside in some open space to do some grounding? Right. So these are all ways that we can be more mindful of making space for ourselves. And then internally, I mean, you touched upon it, like there's so much. There's the mental, the emotional, physical. So we can be physically like releasing, going to the gym, working out, lifting weights, doing yoga, um, all of these things to give our body a physical boost, which also helps us stay grounded and kind of more centered in our body. Um emotionally, I feel like I cried. I mean, don't hold it in, let yourself cry. And using our voice, I mean, that's something that's not talked about a lot, too, with the throat chakra, because I do chakra readings with clients. And so finding out where there could be some misalignment. And if we're feeling like this, if we notice this closure in our throat, if I pick up on that energy, maybe there are some things that need to be spoken that we're hiding within that we're holding back. And it could be advocating to a family member, it could be advocating to a friend, to your doctor. So things that need to be on to be spoken, to release and make space. Um writing was a way that I released a lot. I mean, so making space and getting it out of your head and onto paper. I've been journaling my whole life since I was 10 years old. So it was natural for me to just journal through IVF because that that's been what I know. And it's it's cool. Like not every not everyone likes journaling, and that's okay. But um for me, it became really therapeutic, and I found it a really healing way to make more space. Um yeah, so those are a few ways, internal and external clearing of the space. That's actually one of the modules in my program in my course. So there's there's so much that we can do to optimize this, to make space because no one else can do that for us. That is within our control. And I'm really uh in the belief that there's so much that we can do, you know, not giving all of our power away to the medical team. And they have their role, and we can, again, do so much to support ourselves.

SPEAKER_01 27:29

I love all of that so much. And it just feels, even let's just listening to you say that, it just feels so freeing, doesn't it? You know, and I'm sort of glancing around the room here and I'm like, oh God, I could, I could do it. That needs to go away. That, you know, just having that clutter away, it just it just feels like spacious, doesn't it? It just feels energetically better. I would love to ask you a bit more about this idea of mindset and positivity. And I think a lot of people get stuck in this idea that they have to be positive all the time. And, you know, if you're having a really bad day and if you just can't get out of bed and you just need to cry, everything is terrible. I feel like people get into that space and think, well, I've ruined my chances this month. And it doesn't work that way. I think you touched on it a little bit about how we need to honor all of the emotions. You know, nothing is good nor bad. It's just it is what it is. So I would love for you to speak a little bit more about how we shouldn't get hard on ourselves when we are having those more negative moments and why that isn't necessarily going to change the outcome.

SPEAKER_00 28:35

Yeah, I think the hard it's it's a part of life, right? We can't do without the hard and we can't be happy, just go lucky every single day. Like that's not healthy. Um, so it like touching upon that honoring of it all, allowing all the emotions of life, the richness of life. I mean, I think um I just am I'm thinking about as I was going through my fertility path, you know, my mom was also her her, she was getting sicker and sicker. And so I could have really really easily gone down a hole of despair and hopelessness. And here I'm trying to call in life, and my my own mom is sadly kind of fading away, you know. And I just I think holding on to that intention of our desire, allowing all of the hard emotions to surface to welcome space, talking about space, you know, welcome welcoming space for them. And neither, like you said, it is good or bad. So I feel just that you don't want to have this element of forcing, I have to be hopeful, I have to be in this space of um everything's gonna work out. Everything sometimes doesn't work out, you know. I've had clients where you know their last embryo did not take. And each person's path is so individual and so unique. It's getting to a place of peace. I think a a feeling of peace where we give it our all, we don't have control of certain things, things. We don't have control of the outcome, but we can control how we experience it, how we react to certain things. That's something my mom taught me, you know, no matter what happens in life, we don't have control of what happens, we can control how we react to it. And so it's it's not easy. Um when you want something as badly as a child and you want to be a mom more than anything. And um if you need to separate yourself and be kind of like in your cocoon for a bit, I I say honor that and knowing when things are a full yes and a full no, what you want to attend or go to, like letting go of any guilt of like I should be doing this, I should be doing that. No, like finding support, you know, from someone to talk to or you know, trusted friends that that really just are there to listen and make space. Um, I think there's there's space for all of it. I always say it's like we're holding on and we're letting go, right? And that's a continual in day-to-day as we're calling in a child through IVF and as we're navigating other challenges in life. Like those don't go away. So holding on and letting go. There's we can't have the joy without the pain almost. It's like life can't be rosy all the time. What would be what would that life kind of be like, right? Are we really growing? Are we really thriving, evolving if everything is just work? I mean, I would love everything to be working out for us, right? But yet when we really grow, it's in those hard times where we shift and we evolve and we deepen in understanding more about ourselves. So sorry, this is a long-winded answer, but I just, you know, I could talk about this for a while because no, I love that answer. This is what life's about.

SPEAKER_01 32:11

One of my students put a post in our members' group recently and she said, you know, she's in a place where she's really struggling at the moment. And I had done a podcast episode on what I got from the the hard times of this journey. And not just the baby babies, but what did I what did I get from my journey? What what was the what meaning did I find in it? And she found that really triggering. And it is very e of course, very easy for, you know, people like you and I to be like, oh, you know, well, I went through this and it gave me that. But I got so much before I got the family. And she then asked, you know, all of my other students who were still struggling on their own journey, what have you gotten from this journey that's been a really positive change in your life, even though you don't have the family yet? And I thought that was such an incredible thing to ask people. And the the responses that came back were amazing. You know, they things like, I have the most incredible relationship now with my husband or my partner, and I didn't have that before. And things like, I am now able to understand my body in a way that I never knew was possible. You know, we, you know, as teenagers, we're put on the pill and told our periods are insignificant and take some painkillers and no one ever teaches us to honour our bodies. But I think the fertility journey really, really does. And it was so beautiful to see all of these women who don't yet have their baby, they're able to find ways in which this journey has given them something else amazing in this life. Because as you said, we don't get to feel the incredible highs that we that we do in this life without going through some of the hard things as well. Because I I know people who didn't struggle to have their children, most of the people I know, of course, you know, with the unlucky ones. And I think this is a I don't know if this is a an observation that everyone else noticed, but I just I feel like things annoy them about their children that wouldn't even occur to me to be annoyed about. I just think that I have this every single day gratitude for my children that I don't think everyone does when they don't have to go through that struggle. You know, these you see these memes about how the best part of people's days when they drop their kids at school and they finally, you know, get rid of them for the day. And I'm like, I just do not relate to that. I don't relate to this idea of dreading the school holidays. I don't think bedtime. Do you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 34:39

Yes, it shifts your perspective when you've gone through a journey like this. It shifts your perspective. Like everything has become becomes more meaningful. We have a deeper appreciation for the journey it took to get here. So those little things don't bug me. I'm a I'm a way more empathetic, compassionate parent than I mean, if I was getting frustrated at every little thing, I have my frustrations, but it's like I just approach it with a different lens, like one of more, like so much love, like our one embryo. She is a walking miracle. And I'm just like, every day I'm in awe of the journey. I have her embryo picture and I see it every day. This little spark of light that we experienced on a transfer day. And I'm like, I look at her and I say I just so much wonder and gratitude and appreciation because it could have gone another way, you know. It really could have. That's what you're talking about, like so many of the gifts, like so many of the gifts, like staying whole, right? Like with manifestation, I think it's so much about like becoming the version the version of you who can hold the outcome while still being whole without it. Oh my goodness. Can you yes, can you still be whole without this happening yet? And so that's what I'm the big things I'm about is holding on to you for first. It starts with us on this path.

SPEAKER_01 36:09

It sure does. The last thing I wanted to ask you about was mindset. And I think this kind of flows on from this this thing of being happy to be positive all the time, which we we know is impossible. But what what is mindset, do you think, when it comes to struggling with fertility? And how can we help ourselves sort of get into that mindset of manifesting what we really want?

SPEAKER_00 36:34

Yeah, I love all these questions. I I have coined a term miracle mindset, and I used a miracle mindset as I was going through my path. And it's approaching each day with an openness, with an openness of like my mantra that's on the wall. Always expect something wonderful to happen. So that is how I approach my fertility path. That's how I approach life when I go to concerts or I'm getting parking spots or who I'm gonna meet, whatever event or experience. And I've manifested some pretty cool things in my life. So, you know, it's this attitude of a mind, so mindset. I think it's one of the missing links through this path. And when you see your doctor, oftentimes they're not really focused on mindset. So that is the part where I feel like I like to be the bridge to individuals, to helping you navigate this path with a different lens. What kind of glasses are we going to put on as we approach this? And we have a choice of what we want to put on. Um, it's literally like taking a pair of glasses, and like every day, what how do we want to approach going to our appointments? And that's that's something I did. I was open, I was not forcing anything or expecting a certain number, right? With like vollicle numbers or measurements, and it's like detaching, letting go of a lot of that. So, mindset becomes a way of living and a way of being and a choosing. How do we want to go about our day? And who do we want to surround ourselves by? Because that all contributes to our mindset. Are we surrounding ourselves with the energy vampires who are just sucking the life out of us? We all know those people that we're like, uh no, I do not want to open my whole fertility journey up to you because you're just gonna suck it out, right? Like we want to surround ourselves with positive uplifting people. So that's why, again, environment is so key in space. Um, but mindset gets to be what we choose, what we make it. So let's choose one of more of the fun and more of the ease. Again, not in a toxic way at all, but I'm all about that is something that we do have within our control to bring about a more positive experience through this that's often very challenging. So yeah, learning how to I say ride the wave because it is a wave of highs and lows. And we don't want to be staying like up here all the time because we know there's the lows, but it's the the in-between. How do we expand our capacity to handle when the lows get so hard, right? And to ride with the wave and to navigate all of it because there's gonna be, I mean, in one day, you can get like the best news and then like drop to your knees kind of news, right? We hear all about it, experienced it too. Um, getting that call that our first four embryos were not healthy genetically. I was like absolutely devastated. And I had the mindset, like again, I allowed myself to be in the sad space, to cry, to weep, to be held, to still hold the vision that I had for my life, that I was gonna be a mom no matter what. So holding that vision, detaching from the outcome, that's a big part of the mindset that I helped my clients get to.

SPEAKER_01 39:59

I love hearing you speak about all of these things. Lisa, you wrote a book. Can you tell us about your book and what can people expect to learn from reading your book?

SPEAKER_00 40:10

Oh, thank you, Jennifer. Yeah, I wrote this book in 2019. It's called Hold On Baby. It's a soulful guide to writing the ups and downs of infertility in IBF. It's really based on personal experience. It's also a practical guide. So I wrote this, not knowing that we were going to be in a pandemic the next year. So Hold On Baby, the title really had a different kind of meaning for me. Right. Where it kind of applied to many different challenges in life, but it's really for the woman going through IVF and navigating fertility challenges, wanting to become a mom. And my goal with it is to help you stay in that empowered place, to realize there's so much you can do to create a more positive experience for yourself, to optimize this path working out for you. I share all the things that we're talking about, truly, like um mindset and not postponing your joy, not putting your life on hold, going into the nervous system, how important that is, regulating yourself, um, finding ways to release, make space, and finding your sisterhood, community, tribe, and also spirituality, really like tapping into, you know, being a co-creator on this path. So I'm so grateful. I mean, gosh, it's turning six years old actually this month on Mother's Day. So I'm just really grateful. It's a book that is truly from my heart. I share journal excerpts and um I'm I'm really grateful to have it out in the world and just the messages that I get from people around the world really touch me. So yeah, I it's on Amazon. And anybody who would like one, you know, signed or something, reach out to me because I love I love connecting with people and thank you for asking me my book.

SPEAKER_01 41:52

Of course. No, it's an incredibly beautiful book. How can people learn more about you, Lisa, or connect with you if they would love to get in touch?

SPEAKER_00 42:00

Yeah, I'm on Instagram and LinkedIn, IBF Manifesting a Miracle, Lisa White, and uh my website, of course, same IVF Manifesting a miracle. And um, yeah, I really truly love connecting with people in this space as I know you do. And um, my podcast is soulful IVF too. So that's something else that encourage people to jump on and listen to our conversation. Um and um gosh, four years going with that now, too. It's just wow keeps getting better. How long have you been doing your podcast? Two and a half, two and a half years now. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, it's so fun. I absolutely love it. And it's uh it's you know, connecting with people like you where we get to really make an impact and sharing our stories and knowing all of this has a bigger purpose, you know?

SPEAKER_01 42:49

I completely agree. And we will link up all of the links to those in the show notes as well. So thank you. Lisa, thank you for being here. You're amazing. I love everything about you, your energy, your approach to this kind of work. And it's been an honor to chat with you today. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for listening right to the end of this episode. And I hope that you found this conversation inspiring. As I mentioned, all of Lisa's links will be down in the show notes. Now, next week on the podcast, this is an episode that a lot of you have been asking me for for a while. We are going to hear from one man who shares his side of his male factor in fertility journey. So I can't wait for you to hear my conversation with him. But until then, until I see you next week, I am sending you all of my wishes as you continue your own journey to fertility.