Fertility Health for Military Couples: Hormones, Supplements & Tips for Navigating Infertility

Infertility is already an emotional and physical challenge, and when combined with the unique pressures of military life, it can feel isolating and overwhelming. Whether you're navigating IVF, dealing with pregnancy loss, or facing the many hurdles of infertility treatments as a military spouse or veteran, this episode offers critical insights to help you take control of your fertility health.

In this episode of Mindful Warrior Alliance, host Kerri Bicskei, Air Force spouse, psychotherapist, and founder of the nonprofit, dives into the practical ways to support your fertility journey while balancing military life. You’ll learn:

• How hormonal imbalances affect fertility and strategies to manage them
• The best supplements to support fertility and overall reproductive health
• Tips and tricks for navigating IVF, egg retrieval, and fertility treatments while dealing with the stress of deployments, relocations, and PCS moves
• How mindfulness and stress management can improve fertility outcomes
• Insights on reducing emotional and physical strain while undergoing fertility treatments

This episode is designed for military families and veterans struggling with infertility—because you don’t have to go through this alone.

👉 Listen now, subscribe, and share this episode with someone in your military community who could benefit from these tips and support. Visit mindfulwarrioralliance.org for additional resources and to connect with a community that understands your journey.

Transcript

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Hi, I'm Carrie bge, military spouse, licensed therapist, and founder of Mindful Warrior Alliance. Welcome to the Mindful Warrior Alliance Podcast, your go-to space for real conversations around mental health IVF, fertility and military life. Each week we connect with leading experts, service members, male spouses, and thought leaders to bring you tools, insights, and stories to support your journey. Whether you're navigating deployment, fertility treatments, or just trying to stay grounded, you're in the right place. What's up everyone? Welcome back to another episode of the Ready Set Mindful Podcast. For those of you who are new here, I'm Carrie bis, gay athlete mindset coach and therapist. I started Ready, set, mindful as a mental health resource for athletes and high performers like you. I'm so happy that you're here and joining us today for this episode about taking charge of your fertility. So in light of National Infertility Awareness Week, which was last week, I figured this podcast would be a great opportunity to kind of shed some light on that topic. Something that we really don't talk about super often. I did a reel on Instagram about it last week just talking about how one in six people struggle with infertility worldwide, which is a wild number if you really think about it. Um, infertility is so much more rampant than it was, you know, even just 20 years ago. So what the heck is happening? Right? and my answer to that would be, Chemicals in the food and radiation from our phones and blue light from our screens. There's a lot of things that we have today that are endocrine disruptors that are in our environment that we didn't have even just 20 years ago. Right? So infertility and our hormones are definitely impacted by those things. So this episode's gonna be all about. Hidden factors that maybe you didn't know were attached to your fertility. I'm gonna talk about my fertility journey a little bit too, just to kind of give you, a reference of where I'm coming from and what one trajectory can look like. I listen to podcasts, I like hearing about the personal journeys of people who, have solved their own problems That's super interesting. So hopefully you'll get something from that and then I'll walk you through three tips that you can kind of take away, so you can feel like you have some action steps to take so that you can optimize your fertility in whatever way that looks like for you. Okay. So fertility. You know, when we talk about fertility, It's something that impacts, men and women. So it's, it's not just women who need to be thinking about their fertility, right? It's, it's men as well. And if you're in a partnership, you have a significant other, it's definitely a conversation that should be on the table. I know Austin and I really didn't. You can never predict your trajectory. Right. but we, it's a whole new territory of teamwork that we have to navigate that we really didn't see coming. And it's something that's really strengthened us as a couple and strengthened our relationship. Um, but it's something that, You have to get comfortable talking about, it's not just, oh, I need to worry about my fertility cuz I'm the woman, or he needs to figure out his own stuff. We have to have a conversation about how we're, how we're supporting each of our, each of our journeys and, you know, come together and be supportive of one another as well. Um, so that's, that's something to kind of be mindful of. And for high performers, we often don't think about our fertility. For much of our career, like I know I was so focused on, you know, playing in college at University of New Mexico, I was focused on my team and playing good volleyball. And then when I played overseas, I was really focused on. My performance, mental and physical, I absolutely was not thinking about having a baby or my fertility or anything like that at that point. It was, it was just so focused on, on performance, which I think a lot of athletes and, high performing people can, can maybe relate to, even if you're not an athlete and you're a high performing person, you've been really focused on your career and you've kind of put your fertility on the back burner. It's something that impacts our overall health. So it's really important to talk about, and I remember when I was, you know, 16 years old and I started having some really intense pain with my cycles. And I remember going to an OB, G Y N. gynecologist and telling her about my pain and hoping that she can kind of help me pinpoint my symptoms and solve my problems. But, you know, as in western medicine, for a lot of the times, it's here, take a pill, this'll, this'll mask it. and. See you later. So I, I took, I was prescribed the, you know, birth control and ended up taking that for like 11 years. And like many of my friends and clients that I see, you know, women who've been on birth control for years and years, and what birth control. It does, is it really, I mean, it doesn't solve your issue. You're still gonna have, P C O S, polycystic ovarian syndrome or endometriosis, you know, all of these different issues that you can be having, go on with your body. But the birth control really masks those symptoms and masks your pain. But guess what? The problem is still there. So I was on that birth control for like 11 years and then when I got off of it, when Austin and I. Decided we wanted to start a family like three and a half years ago. Um, guess what? Those symptoms were there. I was like, oh, the birth control just masked, masked everything. Like, that's cool. So it it, the pain didn't go away, but what a blessing to, to have that pain. Because pain, when, when we have pain, our body sends us a message, right? And we shouldn't ignore that message or suppress it. We have to listen to it. So it's super scary, like when. Pain, you know, when medication masks a a symptom because we, we wanna know what's going on with our body, right? Sure. We don't wanna be in chronic pain or like intense pain. But for years and years to have medication mask a symptom, it's, it's not great. You wanna know what's happening, otherwise that symptom's gonna get worse and worse and worse, right? So, um, you know, for high performing people or athletes, infertility can feel. You know, like a massive blow. Like if you're having issues with your, with your cycle, or maybe you have a low sperm count, if you're a male, um, or something wrong with your testosterone levels, uh, you can feel really, uh, You know, in a low spot because you're used to performing at a high level. being able to, to have solutions, to be able to control, um, your performance or your outcome a little bit. And this, you might seem, you might feel pretty helpless in this situation. So for high performers, it can be especially challenging to have fertility issues for sure. So some common thoughts and emotions. That, you know, I've definitely had, and that are common with when you struggle with infertility would be, you know, fear of, of, uh, Not being able to get pregnant. Um, fear of what's happening with your body. Uh, feeling like a failure, like it's your fault. Uh, you know, having a ton of anxiety about that. And if you are having a ton of anxiety about where you are in your fertility journey right now, don't worry about it. I got you. Uh, I have an anxiety checklist for high performers and athletes, so make sure to go check that out on Ready Set mindful.com. Anxiety is such a big piece of the fertility puzzle puzzle, right? So whenever we have something that we can't control, our emotional brain likes to get anxious about that. So feeling defeated, you can feel defeated, helpless, angry with your body, like it's somehow betrayed you or betraying you. Um, so it can be kind of a confusing process for lots of people trying to figure out their fertility. Journey. And if you're having any issues with your body, it can be really frustrating to, to figure out like what's happening. Right? So with my journey, you know, Austin and I started thinking about having a family like three and a half years ago. Um, you know, we were doing all the things I've mentioned that I'm a self-reported type A person, right? Run on the anxious side. we talked about starting a family and we, we started to, to do some research there and I really plugged away with the research and found us in O B G Y N and did our hormone panels and did some ultrasounds and some testing. I saw a naturopath and did a Dutch test, which is a dried urine, hormone panel test. Which is very expensive. but it is a very comprehensive, hormone panel that you can get. So if you're someone that's really struggling with your hormones and you want to get an a comprehensive panel, I mean, I highly recommend getting, all the, the panels that you can done. Cuz the more information that you have, the better, especially when you haven't figured out a solution to your issue. Right. Um, so we saw all these different practitioners, uh, you know, It was a struggle. Like I remember when we couldn't get pregnant for the first six months. That was a big kind of threshold of feeling, feeling like a failure, feeling like my. Gosh, my bo, I was trying not to get pregnant for so many years playing volleyball, and I put all this pressure on my career and prioritize that and now did it. Is it too late for me? Right. Like all of those anxious thoughts and Austin is such a fricking rock. He really is such a big stabilizer in our relationship and he was so, has been so amazing throughout this process. So having a partner who's supportive and who gets it and who. Is able to kind of soothe you, soothe your anxious brain in those moments where those emotions can definitely come up. it's, it's super helpful. So went through all of those emotions, trying to see the lessons, trying to figure out the timing of, you know, why this was happening or not happening for us. and so as a lot of athletes and. Type a high performing people can relate. When you can't solve a problem, it, it's, it's wild. Your, your brain just wants to solve that problem. Right? So having something like unexplained infertility, which is what I, and you know, is my. Quote unquote diagnosis. Right. Um, what do you point to for that? I, it's, it's so frustrating to not have an answer, so we just kept digging and digging and trying to find solutions and other providers to work with us. And eventually when we moved to Florida over here, oh, sorry. I think Loki, Logie and Otis were. Barking at the garbage truck. So sorry if you can hear them. They're always, they're always finding a way to finagle their way into the podcast. So anyways, okay, where was I? Um, so when we moved, we moved to Florida, we found a provider. Who was a fertility specialist, and he actually gave us a lot of hope. He, said that I had endometriosis, which was something that I thought that I had like two years ago. and OB GYNs and the naturopath both said that I, you know, I didn't, no, you don't. It's, you don't have all the symptoms. And so they really dismissed, dismissed that notion. And so side note, this is a reminder to advocate for yourself when you have, when you have this intuition and you, you have symptoms that are pointing in one direction, trust yourself. Ask for those tests or switch providers when, when they're not listening to you. Okay? So. Anyway, in Florida this, this provider said, I think you have endometriosis from looking at one, just one of my ultrasounds. And so I ended up having two surgeries, to correct my endometriosis. And I also had cys. and so we had to do another surgery to address that. So it was called a laparoscopic and a hysteroscopy. Um, so we had a lot of hope that we would, you know, get pregnant and our fertility journey was kind of gonna turn around. Um, and we did three. What's called interuterine insemination. So it's, it's the next stage below I v F. So it's not as an invasive of a process, but you're still going to the clinic, and you're, having a, the semen sample and they're putting that, into your body, to try to get you pregnant. So that's what the I u I is called. So we did three of those. With medication, they often put you on medication to stimulate your ovulation. Right? So not stoked about that. Cuz Austin and I are both really holistic people and we don't love a lot of western medicine and intervention. We try to, you know, just live our lives as naturally as possible, but desperate times, right? So we do what you gotta do. So we did three of those. unsuccessfully, we actually did two of those in Spokane before we moved to Florida. So total of five of those with no, you know, no dice. So here we are now in Florida trying to figure out our next move and we are going to be doing I V F, which is, in vitro. Fertilization. So that is the, I'm sure lots of people have maybe heard about that. Maybe you haven't. So that's a pretty intense, like, full month of, you know, medication and labs and ultrasounds and shots in your arm or your butt. Not sure exactly where you, where you put those just yet, not far enough there in my journey, but, you know, it's, it's super invasive and it's, it's a big emotional journey. You're, and it's, it's, It's a lot. So you're putting a lot into these strangers, you know, nurses and doctors, uh, to get you pregnant. So it's a last resort for us in a place we never thought we would be. And so it'd be really easy to, you know, be super frustrated with that. Really angry with that. Um, but I have found that it's super helpful to have my self-care practices, obviously, which I talk about all the time. That ground me. When I'm feeling like things are, you know, too heavy or too emotional or too much, so for me, those self-care practices that have really helped me with my anxiety for, you know, my fertility journey have been yoga, acupuncture. You know, meditation and uh oh, with my meditation. PS side note, I just added a, because it's mental health awareness month, a seven day free meditation challenge that is on YouTube. So go to YouTube. Ready, set, mindful the seven day challenge should pop up. They're all five minute guided meditations. Super digestible so that people can. In honor of mental health awareness month, take care of their mental health for five minutes, for seven days. So make sure you go and check that out. Meditation's definitely been something that's been like a rock for me in this journey. Um, it's, it's something that I can always come back to when I feel like things are, are too heavy, right? So also finding joy. You gotta find joy in the little things when life throws us curve balls and we feel like. There just couldn't be any more stress added to our plate. You have to find the joy daily and the little things. And for me, that's my beautiful, wonderful puppies. Sorry, Austin. I mean, Austen brings me a ton of joy obviously, too, but whenever I look at those, I mean, Austen works during the day and the puppies are here with me during the day while I work. So, Whenever I'm feeling, you know, a little stressed or I need a little break, I just will look at them. And Logi often has like a little ball in her mouth, or it's like right in front of her paw or something like that. And she'll just like look up at me, like, come play with me. Go play fetch. And so that's my cue. I'm like, if she ever has the ball within like five inches of her, like I gotta just go play fetch cuz she just looks too desperate and too like, too cute, right? So I, I can't resist. So. She's amazing. And Otis, oh God bless him. He is like Austin and I call him our teenager. He just lays around. He just doesn't really do much. He's kind of indifferent. He's more like a cat. He's just super independent. Could kind of care less if you pet him or not. Like he's just hilarious. So, but he brings me a lot of joy too. I just kind of giggle. I'm like, ah, Otis. So. Anyway, you gotta find the joy right in, in journeys that feel like they're a lot. So managing your stress is super, super important. And, preparing your body and mind, when things aren't feeling great in your body, you gotta pay, attention to those things, right? Another thing, another way that you can really take control of your fertility. You know, I talked a little bit about. In my journey, being proactive, finding providers that, you know, make sense for you. So if you're someone that likes to do things more holistically, like maybe starting with a natural path, right? or, a reproductive endocrinologist or an ob, OB, g y N, who. You know, just aligns with your values. Making sure that you have a provider that vibes with you is super, super important. Right. And then figuring out what your fertility goals are like are you trying to just make sure that your fertility is gonna be good for when you want to have kids? Right. Are you just looking for fertility, like overall health? Like maybe that's just more the supplement train for you. which I have links to some supplements that I'll link in the show notes and I have a discount on. A 15% discount on one of my supplements that I recommend too. But maybe supplements are just your jam right now, and you're not trying to get pregnant, you're not trying to freeze your eggs or anything like that. which is another option. You can always be proactive, super proactive. And if you are not wanting to have kids right now, but you want, you're wanting to be proactive and to, you know, freeze your eggs or do something like that, a down the road. That's an option for you too. So however you wanna take charge of, you know, your fertility, I think feel empowered to, to do that and really pay attention to your body and the messages that it's trying to send you. So if you're on birth control, I highly recommend you to read this book. Which will be one of my tips a little bit later on, but, so we'll, we'll save that for later. But if you're somebody who's on birth control or you have a partner who's on birth control, oh my goodness, read this book. It changed my life. I recommend it to all of my clients who are struggling with their. Hormones or their body image or you know, different things. I'm like, you gotta read this book. That's your first exercise. So I'll let you know what that book is later, but pay attention to your body and the messages that it's trying to send you. So for hormone imbalances, you know, for. For male, like how is your male and female, like how is your libido? How is your, you have brain fog. Do you get excessive headaches? Do you have a hard time waking up in the morning feeling just really lethargic? Even if you've gotten eight hours? Do you have problems staying asleep? Like, how's your concentration? These are things that can point to hormone imbalance, right? So, Just paying attention to the things that maybe are pr pretty autopilot for you. You've just kind of dealt with things. That's what we do, right? We just get on autopilot with lots of things and we're like, oh yeah, that like, that's just what happens now or that's just my body. And we just come to accept when things aren't working. Um, and we have gut issues consistently, or we have chronic pain and we have, uh, hormone imbalances or headaches all the time, we're just like, oh yeah, it's just another Tuesday, but let's look into that. What if that could be different? What if that could look different? There's always something. Deeper that's at play, right? Like with your hormones, chances are that's, that's impacting lots of things, right? Our hormones are, are, are massive, massively impacting our, our health. Um, so I think that's, there's a lot of different ways you can take charge of your fertility, right? Um, so I'm gonna bust a myth right now, and the myth that I have is that infertility means that something is wrong with you. False. Although, you know, something may be quote unquote logistically wrong with you, and in terms of a process that's not working as it should, um, but you're, you know, that's not attached to your identity or to your character, which I think it, it can be such a blow to who you are. Like, oh my gosh, I can't do the, I can't, I can't, my body can't do something. I'm such a failure. What's wrong with me? Um, right. Like those are, those are common questions and, you know, feelings that we have related to our, our fertility or infertility, right? Um, but nothing is wrong. Nothing is wrong with you. you're not broken. Having infertility does not mean that you're broken. So if you're someone that needs to hear that, hear that and let that just soak in, right? And again, if you're having a lot of anxiety about your fertility or about where you are with your overall health, your body image, your hormones, all this kind of stuff, and your anxiety is really getting the best of you, make sure to go check out those meditations. I definitely have a couple on on YouTube for meditation, for body image, for confidence. Um, So go and check those out just for five minutes. Go and invest in yourself just for those few minutes and lessen your anxiety a little bit. Do that for yourself. So I think it's super important for me to empower my clients. I love, I. Asking people about their cycles, about their fertility health because it's, it's such a passion of mine and I know my own journey and I feel like I can really connect and help, um, you know, and help people in, in that way. So that's, that's my, my main jam. So I hope that if you got nothing else from this episode, that you feel empowered to take charge of your fertility, whatever that means for you, whether that's, you know, taking supplements that. Optimize your fertility, or going and being proactive and trying to find a provider, um, or, going and freezing your eggs or making some of those testing appointments, right? So the three tips I have for you for fertility optimization would be to go get your blood work done, ask for a comprehensive hormone ta hormone panels. You know, and be, be proactive and find a PR practitioner who listens to you and who you feel good about. You don't just have to accept the first person you know, you come in contact with you. You should feel empowered to choose your, choose your provider and, and make that situation and that relationship work for you. I think a lot of people, like far too often, feel pigeon held into a position or feel. You know, like they just, they're, they're stuck with who they are or it's too much work to get another provider, but, oh my God, it's so much work. It's, it's so worth it to find someone that you feel good, uh, going and meeting with and you feel like they listen to you. It's such a big deal. Number two, the books, oh my gosh, these two books are my Ride or Die for Fertility Health. The first one is In the Flow by Elisa Viti. I'll link these both in the show notes, by the way. in the flow is amazing. It's all about. Your cycle health foods, you, you know, that optimize fertility and optimize your cycle and balance your hormones. So it's absolutely amazing for females and I've made Austin read some of that too. I believe. I've made him read a few books. He's always actually super interested though, I swear. but this one is really good. Even if you're. A male and you just wanna be more in tuned and kind of have, be, be in a better position to support your, your person, you know, read in the flow. It's so good. And the other one, which is like gold is called Making Babies and it is by. Dr. Sammy, David, and Dr. Jill. She is a licensed, uh, doctor of acupuncture. He is a reproductive endocrinologist, so like western medicine, Eastern medicine, uh, Austin. I actually met with Dr. Jill. And did, her protocol for acupuncture and supplements and all of that. Sh they both live in New York and wrote this book together and it's just seriously so comprehensive, so informative. I, I've never felt like I didn't know anything before I read this book and was like, oh my gosh. There's just so much to know and there's so much great information in this book. I really felt empowered after reading this book and this book really makes you look at. You know, medication and supplementation and, birth control, like in a whole different light. So please just, just read those books. They're so good. the third thing that can help optimize, I'm kind of lumping a few things here together, but the third thing that can help optimize your fertility would be diet, you know, sleep and stress levels. So I, I'm clumping those ones together, but those are like, The big three, right? The foods that you put into your body. I know Austin and I, this whole time we've been trying, we've gone on and off from being alcohol free, not, not drinking. We never really eat a ton of sugar, uh, or processed foods, anything like that. Just Whole Foods. What's Michael Pollen's? Quote about food. It's like, eat food mostly. Plants, not too much. Or eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. I love Michael Pollen. He's a dream guest someday. But yes, diet is so, so important. You have to nourish your body with foods that are gonna support your fertility, support your hormones. If you're filling your body with a bunch of shit all day, it's gonna perform like shit, right? Like if you, if you're eating. You know, processed foods and sugary drinks and all that stuff, your blood sugar levels are gonna be so dysregulated. Um, your skin's gonna be impacted, your hormones are gonna be impacted, your energy levels, your sleep, uh, and definitely your performance, right? So, fuel your body, uh, with foods that, that nourish it. Make sure you're getting enough foods, too, not under fueling, cuz that's obviously a hormone disruptor as well. Sleep. Big deal. So if you're struggling with sleep, again, I have another blog all about sleep on the podcast. And I also have a fertility blog that just got posted too. So that one's brand new. So go check out, uh, ready set mindful.com for those new blogs and sleep. if you're not. Taping your mouth when you sleep. If you have more questions about this, I did a reel about this a couple weeks ago, and I believe I talk about it on the blog too. So if you're like, what did she say about mouth tape? Just go check out the blog. Um, but if you're not sleeping great. I definitely, that blog has lots of sleep hacks for you. So sleep can definitely impact all the things, right? It seeps into every aspect of our life. So if you're not sleeping well, chances are. Your hormones are disrupted, your energy levels are pretty wack. Um, your, your focus in concentration and not to mention your relationships are probably suffering, right? You're sacrificing, um, you're sacrificing something when you're not sleeping right or a lot of things, and managing your stress levels. Dealing with your fertility health can feel like a lot, or maybe like you don't know where to start, and so I will give you somewhere to start. Start with meditation. Start by getting your brain and your body to this place where you're neutral, so you're not super high with your stress levels, you're not feeling super low and depleted. Get to this neutral. Level where you can feel like you can, you know, take some steps in the right direction to, to, to take charge of your fertility. Because it can seem, it can feel overwhelming, right? Especially if you're struggling with some symptoms and your body is not, You know, it's not working like you want it to, it can feel super stressful. So make sure you're just managing your stress levels, uh, and supplementation's a part of diet as well. And I will link those supplements in the show notes. There are a few supplements that. I take and the Austin takes that we feel really optimize our, our health and, um, are good. I only, you know, I only talk about supplements that are clean and quality because that's super, super important to me and it's, uh, it's kind of the wild West with supplements. You gotta be super mindful about what you take. So all of the things that I recommend might be a little pricier, but. They're worth it and clean and quality. You should, sacrifice your$8 Starbucks to get, the clean quality supplements that optimize your fertility. That's what I say. So anyway, I hope you guys really enjoyed this episode. If you did, make sure that you share it with somebody, with somebody who's maybe struggling with their fertility or needs to hear a message like this. hopefully you took something from the episode. If nothing else, just take, take those steps to get, get tested, get your hormones tested, and just pay attention to what messages that your, your body's sending you. I just want you to feel empowered to, take control. if you're, if you've been on autopilot and maybe been like ignoring some messages your body's trying to send you and your endocrine system, your hormones are really disrupted and unhappy, like time to pay attention to those. So hopefully this was helpful for you. Thanks so much for joining us on the Mindful Warrior Alliance Podcast. If today's episode spoke to you in some way, share it with your friend and leave us a review. It helps us to reach more warriors like you. Don't forget to follow us on social media and head to mindful warrior alliance.org to connect with our community access resources and stay up to date on what's coming up next. Until next time, take care of your mind. Stay strong and be mindful.