Infertility and MTHFR - Amy's Story

Understanding the emotional and physical challenges surrounding MTHFR and pregnancy loss is crucial for many. In this episode, Amy shares her journey as a naturopathic doctor, discussing genetic factors affecting fertility and the importance of community support.

Takeaways:

• Amy’s professional journey leading to motherhood 
• Personal experiences with pregnancy loss and infertility struggles 
• Explanation of MTHFR polymorphism and its effects on health 
• The emotional implications of trying for additional children 
• Importance of community and support systems for healing 
•  Emphasis on listening to one’s body and remaining curious about health 
• Encouragement to pursue genetic awareness and education 

Sound Bites:

• "I would say always be open to the possibility."
• "Listen to your body every time."
• "It's a grieving process in and of itself."

To learn more about Amy, visit her: 

• Website
• Instagram
• Facebook

You can help our community grow by leaving us a rating and review and consider sharing our episodes on social media.

Transcript

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The Stigma Around Postpartum Mental Health

Chelsea 0:00

Have you ever thought about starting your own podcast ? Maybe you have a unique experience you'd like to share as a guest . Podmatch helps you connect with guests and hosts who have similar interests , experiences and goals , making sure that each connection is meaningful and impactful . Thanks to PodMatch , I've connected with parents and caregivers worldwide and supported them in sharing their stories on Quiet Connection . If you'd like to check them out , visit wwwjoinpodmatchcom . Slash quietconnectionpodcast and learn more . Welcome to Quiet Connection , a podcast dedicated to ending the stigma around postpartum mental health . I'm Chelsea . In this week's episode , amy shares her experiences as a naturopathic doctor , as well as her personal journey with infertility , pregnancy loss and an MTHFR polymorphism genetic variant . She talks about the emotional aspects of pregnancy loss , the significance of support systems and the power of community . Amy is committed to spreading awareness about MTHFR and genetic variants like it , so that others may gain a better understanding of their own possible struggles . Here's Amy . You know it's Monday , it's a Monday mood .

Amy N. 1:42

Yeah , I get it , I totally get it .

Chelsea 1:44

Yeah , just got my . I mean not just , but got the kids out the door off to school and we're gonna . We're gonna do it , we're gonna do the thing . Amy , I would love it if you could introduce yourself . Tell us a little bit about who you are now , as well as who you were before you were a parent .

Amy N. 2:08

Oh my gosh . Yeah , those are two separate people . So I am a naturopathic doctor and prior to being a parent , I did that full time and I was very career focused and you know that was really my life honestly , like I was very , very focused on career and social and whatever and I kind of grew up late .

Amy N. 2:33

I have to say , you know , I really enjoyed , you know , being focused on my career and being able to really , you know , put my brain in that direction , and it wasn't really until my mid 30s that I was like , huh , maybe I'd like to I don't know have a partner , have a kid , yeah , All those things they tell us we're supposed to do , all those things , yeah .

Amy N. 2:56

Well , I just you know , honestly , it had not been on my radar prior to that , not that I wasn't in relationships and things like that , of course I was , but it just wasn't my focus right . I was very , very much focused on , you know , achievement and whatever .

Amy N. 3:14

And then I feel like when it did sort of become my focus , which was maybe my mid 30s . You know , I sort of poked my head out of the sand and I was like , oh okay , well , this is not looking good . It's the truth . I mean , you know , dating for dating for dating is a different deal than looking for a person that you can actually spend your life with , right , and that's that's a whole different ballgame . And then I met my husband and he's hilarious . You know . It was a long distance relationship in the beginning which both of us said we would never have . Of course , never say never . But we just , you know , we hit it off so beautifully that the distance didn't really matter and it ended up being kind of a whirlwind .

Amy N. 4:08

I'm pretty sure we got pregnant the night we got engaged , which is very unexpected , and that pregnancy went incredibly well , especially given that we are both older . He was in his 40s at that point and I was 37 . And obviously I mean medicine . I know how badly pregnancies can go when you get to a certain age and I have a lot of risk factors for bad pregnancies . Anyway , I have an MTHFR polymorphism and you know , my mom was technically infertile . She was diagnosed as infertile before she had me , I was kind of the miracle baby and you know I was the smallest baby to ever survive in the hospital when they you know , at that time period this was of course in the 70s Wow . And so you know , like my family fertility history is not great , yeah , yeah .

Amy N. 5:07

But that pregnancy honestly went like it was blessed . We didn't have pregnancy complications . They were worried about gestational diabetes and so they were monitoring that , but it never actually emerged . But then , after the delivery , then we got into trouble with postnatal preeclampsia , which was a bit of a mess , but we all got through it right . You know , my daughter was healthy . That was really the thing that mattered , so that was excellent . It wasn't really until we started trying for a sibling that we figured out how actually dire our fertility situation was .

Chelsea 5:46

Yeah , yeah it's , it's crazy , amazing , that . Isn't it weird sometimes in life , that it's just like , like it just happens for some people , like it's like oh , oh , I , I didn't , I wasn't planning on that , I didn't think it was going to be that easy , but then you got two sides of the coin Like the first time . The first time it was super easy . And then , yeah , I want to , I want to like take us back . Could you explain what MTHFR is for listeners who may be ?

Amy N. 6:18

unfamiliar . Yeah , it's a . It's a strange sort of thing that's surprisingly common . So roughly 50% of the US population has an issue with an MTHFR genetic variant , and so this is the gene that basically codes for the enzyme that activates folate , and I mean , I'm sure you know you've talked about folate probably a million times .

Chelsea 6:43

You know what I haven't Really In my personal life ? I have , but not on the podcast .

Amy N. 6:50

Well , so folate is one of those nutrients that , you know , nobody really thinks about it until they're thinking about fertility , and then it's all anybody ever talks about . So folate , you know , if you don't get enough folate then cells can't divide properly and your genetics can't replicate themselves properly , and so folate deficiencies can lead to things like spina bifida , neural tube defects , anencephaly , all of the like , the whole range of neural tube defects which are obviously life-threatening to the infants that have them , and it's a big deal . But also folate deficiencies lead to repeat miscarriages , spontaneous abortion , that sort of thing , pregnancy complications , I mean there's all sorts of things . And the MTHFR polymorphism is basically a difference in the way we process and activate folate , and if you have this gene difference then you don't activate folate very effectively and we have kind of the double whammy where folic acid blocks up our receptors .

Amy N. 7:59

So the synthetic form of folate , which is what a lot of us get in our vitamins , in our prenatals , in food fortification programs , it actually blocks the receptors so that it makes this problem worse . So even if you're taking the folate that you're supposed to be taking , a lot of times it's actually harming rather than helping . Oh man , yeah , it's a bummer , yeah , but the other bummer is that roughly 50% of the population has this and doesn't know it . It's one of the leading causes of male infertility and it's underdiagnosed I mean severely underdiagnosed Most men . This isn't on the radar anywhere .

Chelsea 8:37

Yeah .

Amy N. 8:38

And in female infertility it's only ever tested if you have repeat late-term miscarriages . Okay , so it's kind of one of those unsung problems that nobody really talks about .

Chelsea 8:55

I had never heard of it before . I stumbled on your story and , like you said , like folate and stuff like that , like it's things that you hear a lot about in pregnancy , it's in your , it's in your prenatal vitamins and I had never heard of the and I keep looking at my notes because I don't want to miss . I'm so bad at acronyms , I don't want to put the letters in the wrong order , but like I had never heard of the MTHFR polymorphism before , I know I know it's a weird one .

Amy N. 9:27

And it doesn't get a lot of conventional media coverage , right , there's lots of people on social media talking about it , but it's all this , you know , anecdotal , exactly like this , right , my story is this , and so you know , it's important to the people who experience it , but to medicine at large it really hasn . It's important to the people who experience it , but to medicine at large it really hasn't become important yet , which is kind of ironic because it's tied into almost everything , right , infertility especially , yeah , but also , you know , neurotransmitter health , inflammatory health , cardiac health right , it increases your risk for things like stroke . You know all sorts of things . So it's really , it's a , it's a big deal that nobody's really talking about yet , and especially when roughly 50 percent of the us population has some variant .

Chelsea 10:20

So that's a lot right , it is a lot , it's a lot . And like this is is a lot , it's a lot . And like this is such a bizarre . This is the way my brain works , I guess on a Monday morning .

Chelsea 10:30

But like the more people that I meet with and the different types of like syndromes and deficiencies and things that I'm learning about , I feel like as kids , like when we go , you know how everyone's always interested in like their pet's genealogy and they want to find out this and that , like shouldn't we just get like a full blood work panel when we're young and be like , OK , these , so you have these things , just so you know , just so you have a heads up so that , like later in life , especially when you're getting into like wanting to start a family , you're not slammed with oh yeah , by the way , now that you've gone through x amount of losses or x amount of yeah years not being able to get pregnant .

Chelsea 11:11

Oh yeah , just so you know this is something that you have like . It's a little bit baffling to me that's exactly it is it something you had even known about before being diagnosed with it ?

Amy N. 11:23

So I actually , you know , as things happen in medicine , I found out about it the first time from a patient who was experiencing late term pregnancy losses , and so she had , you know , three subsequent pregnancies that she had lost in either the second or third trimester , which is obviously just heartbreaking and terrible . And she was one of those people that you know you just wanted her to succeed so badly , like I knew she would be just an excellent mom , like she . Just she was that person right . She made everybody smile around her , she made everybody happy , even when her heart was breaking . She was just one of those people that was so full of light . You just wanted her to have a baby .

Amy N. 12:07

And so , when the third loss happened , they did genetic testing on the fetus and that came back showing you know several things , but one of them was this MTHFR . And I remember her coming into my office , just you know , brokenhearted , and dropping this pile of paperwork in my lap and being like this is what they found . I don't understand . Please help Right . And so I started digging into it and this , you know I was in family practice , I wasn't in fertility medicine , it wasn't my area of specialty , and so for me it was kind of a research project like dig into this , see what I can find , whatever . There were lots of things that were small factors , but nothing really big except this MTHFR thing . And the more I started researching it , the well several things happened . One was , you know , I was reading it and I was like , oh , that's me , oh , that's me .

Chelsea 13:02

Okay , well , that's me too , Right , yeah , being like , okay , well , that's me too , right .

Amy N. 13:05

So you start being like , okay , well , thank you universe for dropping this in my lap because obviously there's a message here . But then also , you know , when you start putting together the pieces of this puzzle and this was back probably around 2000 . And there wasn't a ton of research at that point , right , like you know , there wasn't the public like even point . Right , like you know , there wasn't the public , like even now , if you look on social media , if you look on the internet , you can find things . At that point it wasn't really like that . I was digging through medical journals and that sort of thing , you know . It became really clear that this is a giant piece of the puzzle for a lot of people and , you know , probably 80% of my patient population . At that point I was like , okay , well , this is , this is happening for a lot of people , right , these ? These are the problems that I'm seeing every day , because what I , what came into my office was always anxiety , insomnia , depression , triad , right , which is strongly linked to MTHFR and women's hormone stuff , strongly linked to MTHFR , especially when there's complex multi-endocrine issues , right , so like metabolic issues along with hormone stuff , or blood sugar instability along with estrogen dominance or whatever . So this was like my patient population , right , yeah . So from there it just kind of became a passion project and obviously I did my own genetics with 23andMe just a consumer service , not a medical test , but a consumer project . And obviously I did my own genetics with 23andMe just a consumer service , not a medical test , but a consumer service and from there downloaded the raw data and figured out how to extract the MTHFR thing , which there's a great service called Genetic Genie that has an methylation panel . Love it , love it . But if you upload your raw data to them and do the methylation panel , then they give you MTHFR but also some related gene SNPs that are helpful if you start kind of diving into this .

Discovering Insights on MTHFR Gene

Amy N. 14:54

And from there it just became this process of working with clients and in the beginning it was all experimentation , right , like here's this thing . I'm not sure entirely what to do with it because that research doesn't exist . So here we go , right , we're going to go in a process .

Amy N. 15:11

I am happy to report that that patient ended up having a family successfully . She did have babies successfully . It was certainly a process of trial and error for her and her husband . Actually her husband also had an MTHFR issue that we didn't know about . So we treated them both and basically it was a process of eliminating all of the folic acid , finding MTHFR safe folates that they could use and process and activate , finding prenatal vitamins that didn't have the folic acid that had an MTHFR safe form , and then also working to support other problems that might happen . Like with MTHFR , there's an association with micro clotting . That's , you know , really linked to pregnancy loss , because those tiny little clots basically prevent enough circulation from happening to the fetus that there's early term losses in that situation . And so it became this big journey of like what's the right dose of fish oil for these folks ? What's the right folate ? How do you change their diet to allow this to happen right ?

Chelsea 16:21

Yeah , and like , as you said , it's along this , this road , you're discovering that you check a lot of those boxes . What , what is that doing in that moment ? Like , what are you thinking Like ? Are you thinking like , oh my gosh , this explains so much . Or are you thinking like I don't know what ?

Amy N. 16:43

what were you thinking ? Well , that's exactly it . I mean , I've you know part of the reason . I don't know . What were you thinking ? Well , that's exactly it . I mean , you know part of the reason that I went into medicine . Obviously I want to help people . I want to , you know , make this world a little bit better in whatever way I can . But I also , you know , I had been one of those kids that always had kind of inexplicable pain , right Like soft tissue pain and structural pain , and it never made sense to everybody . It didn't fit in a diagnosis , it was just this really weird phenomenon , and part of why I went into medicine was to see if I could figure out some of what that was right , what's actually happening here , and I feel like the MTHFR thing actually has helped me to figure out a chunk of it , you know . And I still do have some pain , but it went from like a five to six every day to like a one to two , right , which is a whole different world .

Amy N. 17:34

Exactly , exactly , and so , you know , I feel like , yeah , when I was reading this , I was like , okay , this is me and also this is some answers , right , like this is finally something that starts to make sense and starts to give me an indication of why I have symptoms that don't , that don't make any sense , that are not explicable . Right , because it's not actually a disease , it's just a variant in the way I process a vitamin .

Chelsea 17:58

Yeah , absolutely , and I mean in anything in life , especially when it comes to our health . Having a name or having a is so validating and also it helps you be able to take that next step , to be like okay , what's next ?

Amy N. 18:14

What do I do next ? Gives you a direction to explore , which is amazing , right , because outside of having a name , you're sort of directionless .

Chelsea 18:22

Exactly having a name . You're sort of directionless . Exactly , Do you suspect that your mother likely had the same gene deficiency ?

Amy N. 18:32

Yeah , I'm 100% sure she does . So she had been diagnosed with endometriosis and you know it's funny I was talking to somebody about this the other day but like we learn about our menses from our relatives , right , like from our mothers and aunts and things like that , and so whatever's normal in that genetic line is sort of your normal . That's your baseline for what a normal period looks like . And so my baseline for a normal period was that mom would hemorrhage every month and have to go to the hospital for transfusion , right yeah , turns out that's not normal . No , medically not normal .

Chelsea 19:08

If that's happening , please see your doctor . Yeah , exactly , this is a problem . This is an issue .

Amy N. 19:17

But yeah , I mean , you can really see it through that family line and that was part of what really started red flagging me with MTHFR is just that you know , through my family there's this strong vein of like anxiety , strong vein of insomnia and also strong vein of estrogen , dominant hormone issues right With fertility trouble and the whole shebang right , and it's on both sides of my family .

Chelsea 19:46

Oh , great , we got it coming and going .

Amy N. 19:48

Yeah , exactly , yeah , that's fun .

Chelsea 19:53

I say that so often . I feel like you have to with stuff like this that's fun . Well , yeah , exactly , I mean it have to with stuff like this , that's fun .

Amy N. 19:59

Well , yeah , exactly , I mean it . Just it is what it is right , and everybody in life has their challenges . But but it really does help when you can say , okay , wait , I sort of understand some of these challenges , and not only that , I can give this information to my daughter , who will certainly have some of these challenges , like that's the biggest thing . Right , this is genetic . Sorry , honey , you're related to all of us , so here's what we know . Right ? Here's how to actually take care of your body in a way that suits your genes .

Chelsea 20:31

It's very powerful . Yeah , absolutely , it's incredibly powerful , and my brain has gone in so many different directions . But in the vein of like talking about your daughter and that she may experience this one , since you have sort of discovered this about yourself and your family , she's already starting off at a point that you guys at an advantage that you guys didn't have yes um , you were left without answers .

Chelsea 20:59

And she is coming from a place . If she chooses to have children one day or if she's experiencing any of these other symptoms , she can be like , oh yeah , by the way , and she could talk to her doctor and be like this is whatever . So that's amazing . That's just amazing in and of itself . I'm curious , though a couple of things . So you had sort of alluded when you were talking to like life become before becoming a parent , like settling down and stuff . It wasn't like it sounds like it wasn't like priority number one for you no like no , it was priority number 800 , honestly .

Chelsea 21:36

It was priority number 800 , honestly , yeah . So when you did make that shift to decide , like , okay , like I do want to start a family , I do want to settle down and thankfully you miraculously had a wonderful first pregnancy , yes , when it started to become difficult and you weren't really understanding why to have number two , what did that sort of do to your psyche or what were your thoughts ?

Amy N. 22:06

Yeah , I was very conflicted the whole

Navigating Family Planning and Loss

Amy N. 22:09

time . There was a lot of time pressure , partly because I was an older parent , right , and partly because we really wanted a sibling to be close to Sabrina in age , so that , you know , so that they would be closer , hopefully , right , we wanted them to be , you know , able to play together and able to understand each other and to grow up together and blah , blah , blah . And so you know , there was all of this pressure to really you know , do the thing right then .

Chelsea 22:39

Get everything going .

Amy N. 22:40

Get it done Exactly , exactly , and that definitely made the first couple of losses much harder .

Amy N. 22:52

You know , especially too , it was really important to my husband . He has a very big family , like he has . He's one of seven siblings and so for him , if you're having a family , you have a big family , right , you don't stop at one , that's crazy talk . Go big or go home , that's right , that's right . And so you know we , definitely we were trying , and you know I'm sure many listeners can relate to the trying soon after a pregnancy being just exhausting and like the least sexy thing in the world , right , like there's just nothing sexy about sex for a goal .

Chelsea 23:32

Absolutely not . Yes , I know that story all too well . Yes , I know that story all too well . Oh , my app . I mean , you didn't have this advantage at the time , but it's like honey . My app says we have to do it right .

Amy N. 23:44

Yeah , exactly Right now . Where are you Get home Exactly ?

Chelsea 23:49

Because yeah , yeah , no , not sexy at all .

Amy N. 24:34

I'm sorry , I feel that and it was a challenge . It was a challenge . And my husband , you know , he's a pilot , so a lot of it was single parenting for me . Just by virtue of the nature of his work , right , he was away a lot and that got in the way too right .

Amy N. 24:44

Lots of times he was away in my fertile window and so those months that he was home , you know it just , yeah , it was a strange time , yeah , to have a baby , the more conversations we were having about , like , wait a minute , okay , what are we doing to ourselves right now ? Right , like , is this good for our marriage , is it good for Sabrina , is it our daughter ? Is it good for us as a family ? Like , is this adding things to our lives or is it taking away from ? And at that point , I felt also that a lot of the problem was really truly down to age . And I'm not , you know , I didn't necessarily want to do the big interventional fertility treatment . Like you know , I wasn't ready to go an IVF route or anything like that . It just it didn't feel right .

Amy N. 25:37

And I've had so many , so many patients who have gone that route and it's been wonderful for them and it's helped them to grow their family , and that's amazing , right . But it's also , it's just such a personal decision . It's one of those things that has to , it has to feel right to everybody involved . And , you know , and it's also it's one of those things that I've seen people , you know , grind people under in terms of in terms of their quality of life and their hopefulness and their mental health and all of those things Right . It's very , very taxing physically , emotionally , mentally , everything . So for my husband and I , it just it wasn't the right decision for us and eventually we decided to just you know what ?

Amy N. 26:25

let's , let's just stop right , Like , let's , let's , let's make this about us again and not , you know , focus on what we have rather than what we don't have , Because , I mean again , he and I both have MTHFR polymorphisms , Like I really do think that , you know , with that first pregnancy it was , you know , some sort of like thank you universe moment .

Chelsea 26:49

Yeah , yeah , right , Like , right time , like everything had to align perfectly . Everything had to align perfectly .

Amy N. 26:55

Exactly , exactly . But for us , you know it just the rest of the journey just didn't line up and we did have a number of losses , which is hard , but I feel like the harder part was making the decision to stop . You know what I mean . I feel like that was really the part that was a challenge in terms of , you know , coming together as a family to , of dragging us under and and um , putting putting a pressure on the relationship and us as humans . That just didn't need to be there .

Chelsea 27:46

Well , and there's so much to that . To to everything you said , like going through loss in any stage of a pregnancy is ridiculously hard , is not the word ? Because there's no , there is no word . It's one of the worst things you can experience . Um , and I haven't personally suffered a loss , but through speaking to other guests and personal friends in my life , what you just said like that decision to stop , is a grieving process in and of itself . Correct me if I'm wrong , but it's almost like putting the hope down .

Amy N. 28:22

Yeah , that's exactly it . That's exactly it . It's well and the hope , you know it's so funny , like hope is such a beautiful thing , but it can it can also be a really painful thing . Yeah , and you have to kind of choose that stopping point for yourself where you're like , okay , you know what , maybe it's just not meant to be , maybe it's not going to happen and that's okay , right , like that's got to be okay at a certain point .

Chelsea 28:52

Yeah , what sort of support system did you have around you Like ? Were you talking to family ? Were you talking to friends , or was this really just you and your partner ?

Amy N. 29:24

sympathy harder than I find the actual experience , for whatever reason . And so for me this , you know I did have one or two friends that I would mention it to , or you know even even mentioned that I had been pregnant . You know like it's . It's not something that I talked about a lot just because it . You know pregnancy losses are relatable but also not relatable . It's like a death in the family , right Like people kind of have their own experience of how that goes .

Amy N. 29:59

But very rarely do you share that experience with another person in a way that allows you to talk about it easily .

Chelsea 30:08

I find yeah , well , every experience , everybody experiences everything differently every differently everybody experiences the world differently , but especially when it comes to grief and loss , no two people are going to . You can go through the exact same circumstance , but experience it completely differently .

Amy N. 30:28

Yeah , that's exactly it . That's exactly it . And so so , yeah , it was really my partner and I and and we talk really well together , like we have a really great communication sort of style with each other , and and I feel like that for us was enough

Navigating Family Planning and Genetic Health

Amy N. 30:45

. I'm also a big journaler . Like I find that I don't necessarily know what I'm thinking until I write it down , which sounds really dumb , but it's true .

Chelsea 30:52

No , not at all . I used to be that way . I wish I had the bandwidth to still journal , but like that , I used to do that all the time . It's how I made sense of my world .

Amy N. 31:03

That's exactly it . That's exactly it I process on paper and so , and so for me that was very helpful to to just put down what I was feeling , put down what I was thinking , put down , you know , anything that was coming up for me and and then from that kind of , I could see the the was enough , right , like . I feel like once we made the decision to , there was a tremendous amount of relief for me , um , and I didn't really realize how much pressure I was putting on myself until until I got the opportunity to take that pressure off , you know , and also how much trepidation I had about a second child , you know , because it's funny , like you , you want kids , but then it's so much to have a baby , right , it's so much like I remember the day that that my daughter actually graduated out of her diapers , right , it was such a big day .

Amy N. 32:00

And I remember also thinking on that day like I can't , I can't go back to this , I'm , I can't do it Right , because if we had got pregnant then , then I would have had one out of diapers but one in with no like there would have been that , that freedom in the middle Right .

Chelsea 32:18

Yeah , you had that little taste of independence yeah exactly you know .

Amy N. 32:25

So there was , there was definitely a right point for us where it just we need to lay . We needed to kind of lay that down and make the decision that this was our family moving forward .

Chelsea 32:43

Obviously , on this podcast we talk a lot about mental health and loss and birth trauma and things like that , and there's a lot of talk about families and big families , but the decision on so many levels to just have one child there's a stigma around that . There's a stigma for everything these days .

Chelsea 33:08

Oh it's so true . Oh my goodness , I was convinced that I was a one and done , and I was , and I ended up having two . But my kids are seven years apart , so I had that freedom for quite a while , and now I have a two-year-old , so yeah , but I wonder too if you felt any of that sort of stigma , like they're like oh well , when are you having more ? Did you ever get that question ?

Amy N. 33:37

All the time . All the time . Yeah , when's the second one ? Coming From family , from friends , from casual acquaintances , you know , like it's a question that people feel free to ask . It's like touching the belly when you're pregnant , right , it's a question that people feel free to ask . It's like touching the belly when you're pregnant , right ? Nobody would ever do that under normal circumstances . But suddenly you get pregnant and everybody's got their hands all over you . Yeah , it's very weird ?

Amy N. 33:57

I don't very weird , but uh , but yeah , there's the same , there's the same thing . Like people just it's kind of an accepted part of normal conversation to to say like , oh , are you thinking about another one , when's the next one coming ? Blah , blah , blah . And even just implied in conversation , like even if it's just in passing , people will say things about it . Absolutely , you know , and it's yeah , it's a little , and I'm sure I've been guilty of that too , right , and not even noticed , but when it's happening to you it definitely stands out a bit , especially when you're kind of in the middle of trying .

Chelsea 34:33

Yeah , that's what I was gonna , that's what I was gonna point out . So it is such a normalized like conversational piece for for parents and newlyweds When's the baby coming , um , but you absolutely never know what those people's circumstances are , and for you like you were trying you wanted another baby and then to make the decision like no , it's best for us not to Like . I think this is a good reminder for all of us Like questions about people's bodies or health or procreation those are pretty personal questions .

Amy N. 35:11

Yeah , yeah .

Chelsea 35:12

Like maybe not ask when the sibling's on the way . Maybe focus on hey mom , how are you ?

Amy N. 35:19

How are you doing ? Yeah , exactly , yeah , yeah , it's funny . My daughter , she went to a daycare program starting when she was two and a half maybe , and it was , you know , in a private home and it was wonderful , like the lady that ran the daycare was just amazing with kids . She was so , so good and she had this group of you know , up to six kids in her home that she would do through semi Montessori program in her home , that she would do through a semi-Montessori program . I loved it .

Amy N. 35:50

Oh , awesome , yeah it was great and she had a daughter who was a few years older than my daughter and I remember putting my foot in it with her because one day I said you're so wonderful with kids , do you ever think about having another one ? And she kind of got a little bit misty-eyed and told me her fertility journey which had been very , very difficult and they had had a number of losses after their daughter . And you know like it just you hate to do that to somebody and bring it up . And she was a lovely person , right Like I don't think she was offended necessarily .

Amy N. 36:26

I think it was just it's such a big topic and it can be so painful for people . Yeah , you hate to .

Chelsea 36:33

You hate to put somebody through that needlessly normalized thing to say , but we really truly never know what the other person is going through . Well , so we've talked about . We've talked about you sort of coming into the discovery of your MTHFR polymorphism and going through that entire journey of , okay , we had our one , we would like more . We're not going to have more . Okay , you're at this point in your life . Were there any sort of resources ? I think I'm anticipating the answer to this , but like resources for you to to like find others in your position , to sort of like seek solidarity ?

Amy N. 37:27

Not at all . I actually built a resource for it because there really isn't a way for people with MTHFR to connect , and so , you know , I started basically an MTHFR community just in a mighty network , so that people could talk about this stuff , so that they could actually compare notes right , because , you know , along with the fertility stuff there's all sorts of other symptoms and things that we experience that just like , where do you find this right ?

Amy N. 37:59

And weird , weird reactions to medications and blah , blah , blah , all of this stuff . So I started a community called Genetic Rockstars . That's basically for MTHFR folks who want to learn a little bit more about MTHFR . We've got a library of resources about , you know , like problems we might have with different medications , we have to be very careful with certain anesthetics and antidepressants and things like that , and so so it's just a kind of a library of resources but also a community of people who are experiencing some of the same things and working on their health and trying to get better and and can kind of share notes with each other and kind of compare their experiences and it's , it's incredibly helpful . I started it , you know , for my clients .

Amy N. 38:50

But really what I'm finding out is it's my favorite thing , right , like I love getting online and connecting with these people because they're my people . Like , finally , it's people who I'm like oh yeah , I , that's happened to me . Like , here's my story . Right , tell me your story . What's going on ? It's just yeah , it's really , really helpful to have that group of people who are like , yeah , I've been there .

Chelsea 39:16

Yeah , there's so much power in solidarity and again , like going back to like you can go through the exact same experience and but experience it differently . So but being able to to share it . It's beautiful that you created that space . Yeah . I love it I was gonna ask to like how ? How has this journey affected your practice ?

Amy N. 39:40

Very strongly . Honestly , this is mostly what I work with now , right , and it was mostly what I worked with before . I just didn't know . Yeah , yeah . So yeah , it's been roughly . You know , I would say since the mid 2000s that my practice has really turned in this direction and started focusing on these sort of inborn genetic variances and how we can work with those , how we can actually , you know , utilize those to our advantage or at least work around them so that they're not causing a disadvantage . So , yeah , it's , I find it . I find it very rewarding because , you know , it's not necessarily treating a disease or a condition . It's more like helping that person to overcome something that's been there the whole time .

Chelsea 40:28

Absolutely . I again , this is just like personal opinion and listeners do with this what you will , but I have found that naturopaths and naturopathic physicians in tandem with primary care physicians a naturopath can be your primary care physician they you're treated so much more holistically , yeah , and you're looked at as a whole person rather than a list of symptoms , yeah , um . So I think a I think what you're doing just in general is beautiful , like I think that's incredible . But then to be able to take your experience and really tailor your practice , to be like I'm going to make a difference in this area , like that's beautiful . That's so beautiful .

Amy N. 41:16

Thank you so much , chelsea , that's .

Chelsea 41:18

Yeah , it's it feels .

Amy N. 41:20

It feels like kind of filling in a blank for a lot of people which I love .

Chelsea 41:24

Yeah , I mean , I think I think life's . I am absolutely not a fan of the term silver linings . I don't love the whole idea that , like everything happens for a reason .

Amy N. 41:35

Right right .

Chelsea 41:36

I do feel , though , that , like some of these challenges that are put in our way really show us what we're here to do . And it kind of sounds like that's what this was for you . Very much From a child , from the time you were a child .

Amy N. 41:56

Yeah , very much , Very much . It feels like that to me , right , Like it feels like this has evolved so naturally as a consequence of what you know . My life experience has been like that . There's almost nothing else that I could do , really .

Chelsea 42:08

I mean I'm sure there is but yeah , I mean capable .

Amy N. 42:11

But you know what I mean .

Chelsea 42:13

This is what's fulfilling for you .

Amy N. 42:15

Yeah , that's exactly it .

Chelsea 42:16

Yeah , that's incredible . I love that . I'm not even going to try to guess your daughter's age at this point , because I never want to assume , but is she of an age where this is a conversation that you're having with her ? She ?

Amy N. 42:34

not really yet , although , you know , with MTHFR , one of the things that we do have to be very conscious of is food sensitivities and food reactions , and so that's something that we talk about .

Amy N. 42:46

You know , like she knows that if she eats dairy , her tummy is not going to feel good , she's going to get a rash , right , and I still let her make that choice , right ?

Amy N. 42:55

I don't want her to be the kid that goes to a birthday party and can't have ice cream or whatever , but I try to make her very aware that those choices do have consequences and that , as long as she's accepting those consequences , that's okay , so that one day , if the consequences become more than she wants to deal with , she can be like okay , well , let me revise my choices . Right , I want that to be kind of a part of her knowledge growing up . There's things we're doing in the background , like she's taking an MTHFR safe multivitamin and we limit her exposure to fortified foods , like foods that are fortified with the synthetic folic acid and that sort of thing . But again , you know , at this point she's only nine , and so I feel like those conversations will start to happen as she gets a little bit older about hey , here's your genetics right Like . This is how you're written , this is how you're made , and here's some things that we can do to help your body to feel its best , given your genetics right .

Chelsea 43:56

I don't know how you're feeling . So my oldest is about to be nine and I don't know how you're feeling about it . But a lot of this stuff , a lot of this , questions about bodies , my daughter's body and the chin they're already coming and I was not anticipating it being this early .

Amy N. 44:17

No me neither .

Chelsea 44:19

Me neither .

Amy N. 44:20

I mean yeah , the questions are . I mean there's a lot of questions and they're very good questions .

Chelsea 44:25

They're very good questions . Yeah , If your daughter's anything like mine like she's very in tune with her body .

Amy N. 44:32

Yeah .

Chelsea 44:33

And we've always been kind of open just about like I don't know what's going to happen to her body . If you have a uterus , these are some of the things you can expect , but I would anticipate like those questions are just going to keep coming and they're going to get a little more challenging to answer .

Amy N. 44:49

And I was not prepared . Yeah , I don't know if anybody's ever prepared , right yeah .

Chelsea 44:56

I mean , I don't remember having these conversations with my mom . I just don't .

Amy N. 45:01

No , I don't either .

Chelsea 45:02

Especially not at nine years old .

Amy N. 45:04

So I love it .

Chelsea 45:05

I love it . Don't get me wrong , I love that she asks both me and her dad these things . But , um , I was like gosh , I was like 15 or 16 before I started noticing these changes in my body , like yeah , yeah , this is crazy yeah , they are really growing up fast . Solidarity with you there . Well , and I almost refer to her as a tween , whereas , like when I was a kid , tween was like 12 .

Amy N. 45:35

12 , I know I know , but no , I think of my daughter that way too .

Chelsea 45:39

Yeah , and definitely .

Amy N. 45:40

I'm noticing some of the changes that I would associate with sort of tweendom right . Absolutely In cognitive processing in her physical body , in all of the things .

Navigating Health and Joy in Parenting

Chelsea 45:52

Well and it's interesting to me to maybe the timing of this I honestly say I feel like every guest that I meet with , I meet with them exactly when I'm supposed to meet with them and I'm learning things exactly when I'm supposed to learn them , because there are things that you have talked about and I'm not automatically going to like oh my god , my daughter has a MTHFR diagnosis , but there are things that you have said that she has brought up to us , like these , the , and most of the time I'm like oh well , honey , it's growing pains , you're growing , but she'll have these recurring pains in these certain areas , and I'm like well , maybe we should look into that just a little bit more , not because it could be one thing , but it could be a litany of things .

Amy N. 46:32

Could be anything , yeah .

Chelsea 46:34

Yeah , absolutely . That was a tangent in a rabbit hole , but that was just me . Solidarity with you , with the nine-year-olds and they're built different these days .

Amy N. 46:45

They are built different these days . Yeah , it's a brave new world and I feel like , you know , those of us in the parenting generations are kind of running to keep up .

Chelsea 46:56

Yeah , yeah , yeah , it's crazy . I have , like you have done such a . You obviously do this a lot , because you've hit all of my bullet points so beautifully , so I think I'll sort of take us full circle . I also want to highlight that , the way that you talk about it , there's a smile on your face and I feel that there is joy in you . And that doesn't mean that you like everything that you went through and that you're happy that you went through everything , but it's to highlight to listeners that , whatever it is you're going through right now , there's another side and there is joy and there will be joy . Yeah , I'm leeching joy off of you right now so awesome yeah , it's beautiful and and I love it .

Chelsea 47:43

so you're at this point in your life , I think I always I have two questions and I save them until the end of the recording and I decide which one I'm going to ask . And I think the one that I'm going to ask you is if you could go back in time way , way , way back to , let's say , you've said it and I've said it to like six-year-old you and you could instill something within yourself . It could be a phrase , it could be a word , it could be a feeling , it could be a characteristic , it could be anything , something to instill within yourself to help you navigate the journey of your life . What would you choose ?

Amy N. 48:24

to instill your life .

Chelsea 48:25

What would you choose to instill ?

Amy N. 48:28

I would say curiosity remain curious , right , because lots of people have lots of explanations for things and lots of those explanations sound solid , written in stone , maybe right Like this is what's happening or this is not what's happening . I would say always be open to the possibility that many things can be happening at once , right , like with the MTHFR thing . It was nowhere on my radar . This was not anything that I would have anticipated becoming important in my life or becoming kind of my professional focus or anything like that , nor would I have anticipated how deeply it has impacted me .

Amy N. 49:17

So I think keeping that little part of yourself open to new explanations for things that maybe other people have old explanations for is really , really important , right , looking always for that next little bit of information . And also , god , listen to your body . Listen to your body every time , right ? Yes , that is so huge , like there's so many times when I see especially women come to my office and say , well , here's all my lab tests . The doctor says they can't find anything , there's nothing wrong with me , but I feel like crap and you can see that they're so despondent and so like they feel so invalidated by this lack of just . You know other people are telling them they should feel fine .

Chelsea 50:13

Right , Well , you're just you're being and they don't Right . You're not being validated . It's a lack of validation , lack of validation , I guess , is the bottom line .

Amy N. 50:21

but like , listen to your body before you listen to anybody outside of you . Your body is always more right than any authority , right , yeah ? So listen to your body If there's something that doesn't feel right , if there's something that does feel right . That is important information Always trust that .

Chelsea 50:40

Yeah , and it goes hand in hand with the curiosity . Listen to your body and stay curious .

Amy N. 50:46

Yeah , exactly .

Chelsea 50:47

And it sounds like you didn't need those things . Instilled in you . It sounds like you had those things . I mean , you didn't .

Amy N. 50:57

Yeah , you're meeting me at maybe a wiser time in my life than I was having in my 20s , I mean 60-year-old you and 20-year-old you . Yes , 20-year-old me was all over the place .

Chelsea 51:09

As we all were in our 20s . Yeah , for sure . No , I just I want to thank you for taking the time to chat with me . I want to thank you for sharing your story . This is a again a topic that we have not covered and , as you say , it's incredibly relevant and prevalent in the birthing community . So , yeah , just thank you . So , so so much .

Amy N. 51:42

Oh , it's absolutely a pleasure , Chelsea , and I love what you're doing here . I mean we need more people's stories right , Especially around fertility . It's so fraught with difficulty even for people who have , you know , easy fertility journeys . I have learned from my patients that nobody's journey is the same . Nobody's journey is what they expect it's going to be , and everybody has a story right . So thank you so much for gathering some of these stories and making them public , because women need to hear them .

Connecting With Amy on MTHFR & Parenting

Chelsea 52:14

Thank you , amy , for sharing your experience and insight into MCHFR , fertility and just parenting in general . It was an absolute joy getting to connect with you and I hope that listeners who may be struggling with similar circumstances will use this as an opportunity to be more curious and listen to their bodies . Be sure to check out the show notes to find out where you can learn more about Amy and MTHFR resources . You can keep up with us on Quiet Connection by following us on Facebook , instagram , tiktok and Threads at Quiet Connection Podcast . You can help our community grow by leaving us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and consider sharing our episodes on social media To share your personal journey . You can contact us through our website at quietconnectionpodcastcom or by email at quietconnectionppmh at gmailcom . Join us next time when another story is told and you realize you are not alone . I see you .