The Fertility Strategy: How I Build a 6-Month Transformation Plan

Ever wondered what it actually looks like to go through a well-designed 6-month fertility plan—not random tips, but a true mapped path? In this episode, I take you behind the scenes of how I approach a PCOS fertility case. We look at labs differently, we connect symptoms to functional patterns, and we move through phases: blood sugar harmony, ovarian clearing, liver metabolics, and cycle refinement. This is how I support the body to shift—not with force, but with strategy, nourishment, and consistency.

https://mailchi.mp/restorefertilityandwellness/cycle-day-3-lab-guide

 Start Here → Get Your Cycle Day 3 Lab Guide 

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Transcript

Speaker: 0:00

Welcome to Restore Fertility, the podcast where women's health meets holistic healing. Hosted by Stephanie McKay, fertility and hormone expert. With 20 plus years in alternative medicine, we dive into the root causes behind period problems, hormonal imbalances, and fertility struggles. Combining Eastern wisdom with modern functional medicine, whether you're trying to conceive. Navigating PCOS or simply Craving Hormone Harmony. This podcast is your space for support, education, and empowerment. Join us weekly for expert tips, fertility success, stories, and guidance from someone who truly gets it. Today I wanna take you behind the scenes into how I actually map out a six month fertility journey with my patients. A lot of women come to me after trying so many different things. Maybe you've taken supplements, you try to cut out sugar, you've done a cleanse, someone told you to take an acetol, then someone told you to just relax, and meanwhile, no one sat down and said. Let's make a plan. Let's move in phases. Let's get your body ready step by step. That's what I do, and I wanna show you how powerful it can be when we stop chasing symptoms and start building a transformative timeline. So let's use one of my patients as an example. A 34-year-old woman comes in, she has A-P-C-O-S diagnosis. She has long cycles, around 45 days with two to three surges a month, but no confirmed ovulation. She's exhausted from Googling. She's been told, just lose weight. Just go on Metformin. You're young. It'll happen when you stop thinking about it. And I look at her and I just know she's tired of being dismissed. Before we even begin the six month plan. I run very strategic lab work, not just the basic hormone panel, but a full metabolic and hormone landscape that gives us clues far beyond a diagnosis. I order this blood work on cycle day three, which is a very intentional choice. Cycle day three gives us a baseline, a true resting point where we can see how the brain is communicating with the ovaries before ovulation hormones begin rising. When labs are drawn randomly throughout the cycle. The numbers can look normal, but tell us nothing. Day three pulls back the curtain. I don't just check hormones. I look at F-S-H-L-H and their ratio. This tells me how the brain is signaling to the ovaries estradiol on day three. This shows me if estrogen is coming too early or appears flat. Androgens like testosterone and D-H-E-A-S. These help me to understand ovarian resistance. Fasting insulin, even if glucose looks normal, tells me how the cells are actually responding. Liver enzymes, not if they're high or low, but their tone, are they sluggish or overactive? Markers of inflammation and protein status because inflammation changes how hormones are delivered, and protein levels show if the body has raw materials to build hormones. I do a full thyroid panel, not just TSH, because T three conversion tells me how well the liver is doing its job and antibodies to see if the immune function is working. Most women have had some of these markers checked before, but rarely altogether, and almost never was someone who sits down and teaches them how to read their own map. By the way, if you're listening and thinking, I wish I knew a lab she was talking about and what they meant, I put together a free cycle, day three checklist and interpretation guide that mirrors what I use in my practice. I'll tell you more about it later, but you can grab it using the link in the show notes when your labs come back, we don't do a quick three minute, everything looks okay, review. I schedule a detailed session purely for lab interpretation. I pull up your results and I explain what they actually mean in terms of function, not just. They're in range. They're out of range. I show you how insulin is speaking to your ovaries, how your liver is speaking to your thyroid, and how your cervical mucus response lines up with what your brain hormones are doing. Women often say, no one's ever explained my body like this before. That moment, that shift in understanding is so powerful because from there we stop guessing. We can finally build a strategy. This is where I start asking questions that most people don't. I don't just say, do you get PMS? I ask, do you feel better when you eat? Or worse? Do you wake up alert or foggy? Do you feel warmer or colder than people around you? Do you notice a sudden drop in energy mid cycle? These details are gold. They tell me if your progesterone is dropping too soon, if your cortisol is blocking thyroid handoff. If your liver chi is stagnating and affecting emotional flow, mid cycle, I dig deeper and women feel that they feel seen. They feel that I'm a true partner, not just a prescriber. And remember, if you wanna see the exact labs I run with my patients, I put all of those into a beautiful checklist. So you don't have to guess once I have your lab work results and your lived body experience layered together, that's when I create your phase based plan. And every woman will be different because even if five women came in on the same day with PCOS, they would all present differently and have very different blood results. And because we've done this detective work, you don't feel like you're trying random things. You feel like this is your customized fertility timeline created with intention and logic and that brings peace and hope for this lovely woman. We start. With phase one for blood sugar harmony, it's gonna be months one and two. We start by stabilizing her blood sugar not just for weight, but because the ovaries need a steady stream of energy to mature follicles. If your insulin is spiking and crashing, your ovaries are literally getting a signal that it's not safe to ovulate. So we work on that gently with food therapy, meal timing, herbs that help insulin receptors function better without shocking the system. Women are always surprised within weeks. Energy levels after meals shift, cravings, ease, and cervical mucus sometimes appears earlier. It's not magic, it's blood sugar. Clarity. The next phase will be about ovarian clearing and follicle nourishing. I like to think of the ovaries like a garden bed. PCOS ovaries are full of partially developed follicles, like old plants that never fully bloomed. Instead of trying to force ovulation, we create space. I use formulas that increase blood flow to the ovaries. Gently move stagnation, nourish the uterine lining. This isn't detoxing. This is inviting new growth. By honoring the old tissue, patients often start to see their PMS change. Cervical mucus becomes more defined. They say something feels different this month. That difference is your body is finally cooperating. Next, we might have phase three. As a liver metabolic reset, we shift our attention to the liver. Not in a harsh juice cleanse way, but in a metabolic way. Your liver is your hormone editor. It decides what stays, what gets cleared, and how quickly if it's sluggish. Estrogen can hang around too long. Ovulation signals get fuzzy and inflammation rises. I support the liver with warming digestive herbs. Bitters that improve. B flow and lifestyle shifts like post-meal movement breathing exercises to stimulate vagal tone because the liver works best when the nervous system feels safe. Phase four might be a hormone refinement and cycle rhythm. Here's where most women want to jump in right away, but by waiting, the results are so much more profound. Now that the body is regulated, we refine hormones. We enhance ovulation signals, thicken the lining during the luteal phase, nourish progesterone production. This is where women tell me my cycle came at 33 days instead of 45. Or I saw my ovulation window clearly for the first time. And yes, this is when a lot of pregnancies naturally happen because the groundwork is done. We don't just celebrate. Pregnancy is the only success we celebrate. The first month, she didn't crash after lunch the day she noticed fertile mucus for the first time in years. The moment she said, I feel like I understand my body again, because that connection to your body, that's what actually opens the door to conception. So when someone works with me. It's not random. There's a strategy, timing, and a soft but powerful rhythm to how we do things. And if you've been piecing things together and feel like nothing quite fits, you probably don't need more loose tips. You need a sequence. That's what I build with you one phase at a time, and that's where everything begins to shift. If you're ready to take the first step, Download the cycle day three lab guide I made for you. It's the actual first step I take with my private patients, and once you see your numbers through this lens, you'll never look at labs the same way.

Speaker: 9:38

FREE DOWNLOAD — Cycle Day 3 Lab Guide Start where I start with every fertility patient — before herbs, before hormone support, we begin with clarity. 👉 Download here:https://mailchi.mp/restorefertilityandwellness/cycle-day-3-lab-guide (This is a calm, step-by-step guide to reading your Cycle Day 3 labs the way I do inside my fertility program.)