Shelly's Shares: Infertility Awareness And Hope

Some wellness topics are easy to post about. Infertility is not one of them, and that’s exactly why we’re talking about it.

We’re coming off National Infertility Awareness Week, and I wanted to slow down and make space for anyone who has struggled to conceive, to carry a pregnancy, or to become a parent in the way you hoped. I share a few fertility statistics that put the struggle in perspective, including how common infertility can be and why it is not always “one person’s issue”. We also talk through the basic timelines many clinicians use to recommend fertility testing, especially the shift that happens when you’re trying to conceive after 35, because waiting can add months to an already exhausting process.

I also share parts of my own story: getting medical help to build our family, the heartbreak of repeated miscarriages, and the moment I realized I didn’t want to live with the regret of not using every resource available to us. We touch on emotional health, faith, and the very real relief that can come from having a plan, even when outcomes are uncertain. Most of all, I want you to hear this clearly: needing fertility treatment is nothing to feel guilty about, and you deserve compassion in this season.

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Thank you for listening to the Words of Wellness podcast with Shelly Jefferis. I am honored and so grateful to have you here and it would mean the world to me if you could take a minute to follow, leave a 5-star review and share  the podcast with anyone you love and anyone you feel could benefit from the message.

Thank you and God Bless! And remember to do something for yourself, for your wellness on this day! 
In Health, 

Shelly

Transcript

Recognizing The Infertility Journey

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Everybody has their journey. And the sad, the sad part for me is that for some women, it never comes to be. You know, they are never able to be a mom. They're never able to carry a baby. And I just want to recognize any of you who have perhaps struggled, whether it's been 10, 20, 30 years ago or more, or maybe you're currently struggling, or maybe you will struggle in the future. I just want to, you know, give, give you hope and send out so much love to you and just take this moment to recognize you. Do you get confused by all of the information that barbards us every day on ways to improve our overall health and our overall wellness? Do you often feel stuck, unmotivated, or struggle to reach your wellness goals? Do you have questions as to what exercises you should be doing? What foods you should or shouldn't be eating? How to improve your overall emotional and mental well-being? Hello everyone, I am so excited to welcome you to Words of Wellness. My name is Shelly Jeffries, and I will be your host. My goal is to answer these questions and so much more. To share tips, education, and inspiration around all of the components of wellness through solo and guest episodes. With 35 plus years as a health and wellness professional, a retired college professor, a speaker, and a multi-passionate entrepreneur, I certainly have lots to share. However, my biggest goal and inspiration in doing this podcast is to share the wellness stories of others with you, to bring in guests who can share their journeys so that we can all learn together while making an impact on the health, the wellness, and lives of all of you, our listeners. The ultimate hope is that you leave today with even just one nugget that can enhance the quality of your life, and that you will, we all will, now and into the future, live our best quality of lives full of energy, happiness, and joy. Now let's dive into our message for today. Hi, my friends, and welcome back to Words of Wellness. My name is Shelly, and I will be your host. And this is our Shelley's Shares episode. And I want to thank you all for listening. And those of you who have been following along, I so appreciate you. And if you're new to Words of Wellness, I want to welcome you. I am going to hop in today and share just briefly about a topic that's kind of close to my heart. And we are just coming off the National Infertility Awareness Week. And I wanted to share with you all a couple statistics about this, and just very briefly share my personal journey with you all. And I think it's important that we know some of the statistics. And I think too that it affects so much more, so many more couples than we realize. And so I think that a level of awareness and sensitivity is maybe needed. And I have my own personal view on why it's happening and why it's happening more and more. I mean, I think that has a lot to do with our environment and the toxins we're being exposed to and so many other things that we're being exposed to. And I'm not going to go into detail about that today. But what I wanted to do was just kind of share a little bit that some of the statistics. And that is so okay. And I feel like when the time is right, the time is right. You know, you can't force something that's not the right time for a couple. And one thing that I learned when I was in this journey, which of course, when I first started this journey, I mean, our oldest is 27, so many, many years ago. But if someone is over 35 years of age and they have been trying to conceive for six months, once you pass that six-month mark, then you are considered to be in that infertility phase. And if you're under 35 years, it's 12 months, it's a year of trying. Now, I need to say something about this because when my husband and I decided it was time to start to have a family, we'd been trying for a while. And I I want to I want to say it was probably maybe around eight months. And I had a neighbor friend at the time who said, you know what, just go and start getting tested. Because if you wait until a whole year, now you have to start the testing process, and now it's going to prolong it even more. So I want to encourage you. I don't, I'm not going to tell anyone out there what to do when it comes to your medical um advice and and what you seek out, but that is what we did. And I actually always kind of appreciate that advice from her because it's true. When you start testing and trying to come to a conclusion of what's causing the delay, it takes time. It really does take time. So a crazy statistic, and many of you probably already know this, that women are born with all of the eggs that they ever will have. And so, how crazy is that? I that always just blows my mind, which makes complete sense. But it also makes sense that, you know, as you get older, the the you know, the health of those eggs can start to change just slightly. So something to really think about. Um usually the the kind of approximate. Now these are approximate figures, but when it comes to infertility, about a third of cases it is on the the the female, the the the woman, and then about a third approximately is uh due to the male, and then there's a combination that's that's unexplained, and so that kind of makes up what happens when it comes to infertility with couples. And this is a crazy, crazy statistic, but you usually, when you're again above that age of 35, is when you really want to start to seek um medical advice if you aren't already. You know, if you've been trying for a while, I would highly encourage you to jump in and seek medical advice as soon as you can. Because, like I said, I've gone, I went through all of that. We went through all of the testing, and it does take time. And another kind of crazy fun fact, this is back from 2013, I believe, but almost 68,000 infants were born as a result of getting some kind of fertility treatment. How crazy is that? Um, and then also one in eight couples can have trouble getting pregnant or sustaining a pregnancy. And so I share these statistics with all of you just because I think it's important to have a little bit of that awareness because I didn't always know all of those numbers. I didn't always know all of those statistics. And I think it's it's just good to be aware. And also, you know, everybody has their journey. And the sad, the sad part for me is that for some women, it it never comes to be. You know, they are never able to be a mom, they're never able to carry a baby. And and that makes me really sad. And we will never know why completely that happens, especially for those that truly, truly want to be moms and have babies. And, you know, I just I want to just really, really take a moment to to give a heartfelt moment to to moms out there who maybe have not been able to have a baby. And you know, I always will say, never give up hope. I mean, I I say miracles do happen. They happen for my husband and myself, and I we see them happen all of the time. And quite frankly, just the mere fact of being able to create a pregnancy is such a miracle in itself. How the body works is such a miracle in itself. And I am just really grateful that we have the medical help that some couples need. And quite frankly, my husband and I took advantage of that. And I am so, so grateful. And again, we're talking, you know, over 20 years ago, we did have some help with getting pregnant. And with our first baby, and our second baby, nope, wasn't a problem. It was a surprise and a beautiful surprise. And then our third, our youngest, we definitely had um help. And, you know, it was that gap between our second and third baby that we struggled. I was getting pregnant constantly. Well, I shouldn't say constantly, but I was getting pregnant and then I was miscarriaging, and then I was getting pregnant and having a miscarriage. And uh that happened about four times. And, you know, I finally was like, we have the we have the resources to seek out medical help. Let's do it, because I didn't want to live with the regret of never trying all of our resources and never knowing. And and so we did seek medical help and thank God we it was successful, and we had our third baby. And, you know, there's that gap between our kids, but that's another crazy thing, you know. You always think that you have a plan and you have something in mind, but of course, God is ultimately the one who is in charge, and I learned that big time because we had our Jessica and then we had our Cody soon after, and I loved having them close together, and I felt like I would love to have another third close together, and honestly, we were pregnant and we quite frankly could have, but then I started losing my pre the pregnancies and not carrying them. So there's about a five or six year gap there between our Cody and our brae. And um, of course, you know, you look back and you go, I wouldn't change a thing, and I I wouldn't change a thing because we we were blessed with three beautiful healthy babies, and you know, you just never know the journey that couples and women and moms are on, and I just want to recognize any of you who have perhaps struggled, whether it's been 10, 20, 30 years ago or more, or maybe you're currently struggling, or maybe you will struggle in the future. I just want to, you know, give give you hope and send out so much love to you and just take this moment to recognize you. And that's really what this episode is also about because knowing that this past week has been dedicated to awareness around infertility, I just wanted to take a moment to to highlight it and to recognize all the mama bears out there. And yes, of course, there are moms out there who don't struggle, who don't have any issues, and that's amazing. But I find more often than not, you're hearing about challenges. And sometimes it requires having some medical assistance and help. And I also want to make sure that you know not to feel embarrassed or guilty about doing that, because I believe that you know God gives us these tools and God gives us medicine to to help us. And this is one of those cases where there is some amazing, amazing advances out there that that can help all of us when it comes to conceiving and having a family of our own. And so I just wanted to again take the moment to share, and I didn't want to go into any big detail personally, but I just did want to recognize all the amazing moms out there. I mean, we have Mother's Day coming up pretty soon in a couple weeks, so this is just the beginning to give a little shout out to all of our moms, but also to give a a very warm and sincere and authentic recognition to all of my moms out there, again, who have maybe struggled or maybe you're in the thick of it now, and I just want to send you so much love and hope in this season of your life. And with that, I just want to wish you all a beautiful, blessed rest of your week. And as always, take some time for yourself and your own personal wellness on this day, and we will see you next time on Words of Wellness. Thank you so much for tuning in to today's episode. I hope you gained value and enjoyed our time together as much as I did. And if you know someone who could benefit from today's episode, I would love and appreciate it if you could share with a friend or rate and review Words of Wellness so that more can hear this message. I love and appreciate you all. Thank you for listening. And if you have any questions or topics you would like me to share in future episodes, please don't hesitate to reach out to me through my contact information that is shared in the show notes below. Again, thank you for tuning in to Words of Wellness. My name is Shelley Jeffries, and I encourage you to do something for you, for your wellness on this day. Until next time, I hope you all have a healthy, happy, and blessed weekend.