Episode 68: Transcript

You are listening to episode 68 of the Path to Motherhood podcast.

Welcome to the Path to Motherhood podcast.

I'm your host and fertility life coach Sarah Brandell.

Join us each week as we walk through navigating your trying to conceive journey.

My mission is to share the skills of managing your mind, processing emotions, and living a full life to create a more authentic path to motherhood.

[music] Hello, hello, and welcome back to another episode of the Path to Motherhood podcast.

I am your host, Sarah Brandel, a life and mindset coach for women going through infertility or pregnancy loss.

How are we doing.

We are about halfway through the month, I think, already into January.

How's it going.

I know that the hustle bustle of like the end of the year and resolutions and all that seems to calm down And we finally get back into our routine like post holidays.

That's typically how I'm feeling mid January is thank gosh for routines.

I feel much better in routines.

That's just me but This month I'm in the thick of sharing with you guys my top tips on starting off the year right, on starting kind of what I'm calling like a new beginning to your trying to conceive journey.

You know, we've talked about how to create possibility and focus on possibility on your journey and why that's so important.

And today we're gonna bring back some more topics on that.

I think that if we can come from possibility, if we can come from hope, and I know the word hope can be a dreaded word, but trust me when I say it's worth it.

It's not dangerous to have hope.

I promise you even if you're gonna have a failure You want to have hope in your life.

And we're gonna talk about that a bit today.

So I Have shared my goals for what I hope you guys achieve this year on your trying to conceive journey We've talked about possibility and why it matters so much and Today I wanted to follow that up with a really important concept to kind of like a framework that I use that I have other episodes on but I think it's important enough enough that it already deserves a 2.

0 version.

And that is the baby belief plan.

So we're going to walk through that today and what that means.

And I said I have another episode on this topic.

If you've listened to that one, stick around because sometimes we just need to hear something worded slightly differently in a different way, explained in a different way to make it resonate, to make it work, to make it make sense, to hit us right and affect us in a way that could be really beneficial.

So this is one of my favorite tools to use when preparing for a new cycle.

And some people sometimes get confused and think that I only work with women who are going through IVF and that's not true.

This tool can be used for anyone.

It could be your first time trying to conceive first month.

You could use this tool.

And so this tool really helps you walk through, how am I feeling going into this cycle and potentially how do I want to feel and working towards a difference.

So something we've talked about a little bit and we'll talk about more later this month is we want to balance, right.

This is not this unrealistic place where we're going to pretend like we're going to be 100% positive and never have doubt.

That's just not reasonable.

Like that's not, that's setting yourself up for failure is how I would think about that.

And so instead what we're gonna do is we are going to understand there's gonna be times a doubt, understand there's gonna be times a fear, and that's okay, but we can also help cultivate moments of hope, moments of possibility.

And that's really what the Baby Belief Plan does, is it helps us balance those two.

And so if you go to sarahbrandell.

com and you it's sarahbrandell.

com/babybeliefplan.

B-A-B-Y-B-E-L-I-E-F-P-L-A-N.

It will be linked in the show notes of this podcast as well.

If you go to that link, there's a download for a worksheet that actually walks you through these three steps we're going to talk about today.

You'll see there's this image where we talk about kind of what I consider the belief triad that needs to be in place for you to really get the most possibility and belief in possibility that you can going into your next cycle.

And so there's three categories.

There's belief in yourself, belief in the process, belief in the team.

And what I like to do is I like you to take stock of where you are in those three areas.

What's coming up for you.

How are you feeling in those three areas.

And then from there, like I said, we can take that to start to plan where do I want to go.

If I could make some adjustments in my belief, if I could build more possibility, which one of these three areas would I want to focus on.

And that's what we'll talk about today.

When I work with clients on this, I typically like to start with the team, but you can start with any of the three.

It doesn't really matter.

The reason I like to start with a team is I just think that that one is not about you.

So sometimes it's easier to think about other people than it is to think about yourself first.

So when it comes to your team, this is literally who's on your team.

If you're trying to conceive by tracking an ovulation tracker and trying at home, your team might be you and your partner.

If you are working with an OB and taking like an ovulation med, it might be your OB, you and your partner.

If you are going through IVF, it might be your entire fertility clinic, your nurse navigator, all the people there are part of your team, the support team around you, the people who know that you're trying.

This may just be your partner.

For other people, this may be friends, this may be family.

So So who's on your team and then what do you think about them.

Are you walking around and your primary thought about your clinic is they're out to get my money and they don't even know what they're doing.

Or is it, yes, this is expensive and I wish I didn't have to spend all this money, but I know they're good at what they do and they really believe they can get me pregnant.

Notice how different those two thoughts feel.

point when we're taking stock of where we are it's not to make up nice thoughts that aren't true.

I really want you to brainstorm what do you think about your team.

Do you believe in them.

Do you believe in their ability to get you pregnant.

Do you believe in their capabilities.

What are your thoughts about that.

What are your thoughts about your support team.

Do you believe in their ability to support you through this next cycle.

If it's just your husband or your partner, what do you believe about your relationship with them.

Are they able to support you through this process.

So ask yourself those questions and like I said the worksheet allows you space to kind of write these down and what I like to do is after I really do a good amount of brainstorming, like I mean like 10, 15 minutes thinking about every thought I've ever had about my team and writing them out, I then look through it.

Am I happy with the thoughts I'm having about my team.

Now when we're talking about like our clinical team, if you do have a clinical team, if your thoughts are, "I don't believe in their ability.

I don't think they're successful.

I don't think this is a good idea," maybe the answer is to get a new team.

That is an option.

It's totally an option.

If you don't trust your team, if you don't think that you can advocate and get what you are hoping for, it might be time to go seek a different provider.

But If it's, you know, here and there, like, hey, they don't answer calls super well, or I get frustrated about this one nurse when she calls, but otherwise I really believe in their abilities.

I believe they're putting the best protocol forward, et cetera, like maybe that's okay.

Maybe it's okay, again, for it to be a balance.

It doesn't have to be 100% positive thoughts about your team.

Just check in, where are you.

And if there was anything you could adjust, if there was anything you could change about it, What would you change.

What I find is that we overall tend to trust our team, right.

We wouldn't be going to them and spending all this money if we didn't trust them.

I hope not.

And if you do not trust your team, you should be changing.

So most of the time when I'm working with people, clients tend to trust their team.

They have some frustrations, they have some irritations.

And where I see things go awry is that they only think about the frustrations.

They only think about the irritations.

They only think about the ways the clinic is annoying, the ways that the clinic is frustrating them, the ways that the clinic is out to get them.

And they never, ever spend even a moment's time thinking about, oh, but I do trust this team.

I'm going here because I do like them and I do believe in their protocol.

While this seems like no big deal, to me it really is a big deal.

If you're going about this huge decision having someone help you on your fertility process, you want to make sure you're spending time thinking about trusting your team.

And so the change may not be that you need to change any of your thoughts.

It may just need to be that you actually remind yourself you have good thoughts about this team because our brain always likes to focus on the negative.

So I'll give you guys an example.

My clinic that I got pregnant through IVF with.

I did four IUIs with them.

And I forget if it was the second or the third one.

I don't remember.

One of my IUIs, it got scheduled at 12, 12, 15, something like that, lunchtime.

It was one of those days where it felt really weird because of work schedules.

My husband literally came in at like 11 or 10, 30 or whatever time he was supposed to be there and gave his sample, but I was still at work.

And then he left and went back to work.

And then I had to go at 12, 12, 15 and do the insemination by myself.

I remember just being weirded out about the hat, but I got there and it was still in the post COVID time.

So you wouldn't go in the door, you would wait outside and they would call you when they were ready for you to come in.

You didn't check in, they just trusted that you would show up and so they would call you and they hadn't called me.

And I'm pretty understanding about that, like healthcare gets behind, I get that.

So I didn't complain or do anything about it at first, but then as I was sitting there for 15 minutes, 20 minutes, and I was seeing nurses leave to go get lunch, I'm like, I think I need to do something about this.

So I call to check in with them, but no one answers because the desk people are at lunch.

And I went in and the door was unlocked, so I was able to get in, but there was obviously no one in the lobby, the lights were off.

So I could see behind this one door to the nurses station that there was nurses back there chit-chatting, laughing, eating.

And so I knock on that door and I could tell this nurse was coming to the door like angry, like you're interrupting my lunch, why are you here.

And I said, "Hey, I'm here for my appointment.

"No one's ever called me.

"It was a half hour ago or whatever.

"I'm not sure what to do.

" And then obviously she changed her tune immediately And she was like, "Oh, okay.

" And like walked me around in the dark lobby down the hall to take me to a room.

I know they forgot about me.

Like I know they did.

And not only did they forget about me, like they didn't know anything about me because she was like, "Okay, let me go let her know.

It's time for your ultrasound.

" I'm like, "No, I'm not here for an ultrasound.

This is not a monitoring appointment.

I'm here for insemination.

" Now I'm questioning, hey, did you take care of the sample properly.

Has it been waiting too long.

I don't know what the timeline is.

I'm 30 minutes late to my appointment.

Is that a problem.

And so when the nurse and the provider came in, the part that frustrated me more than anything else of the entire process was that when they came in, I said, did you forget about me.

It was clear they forgot about me.

They said, oh no, we were really busy.

We had a difficult insemination earlier that put us behind.

Now listen, I'm not stupid.

I could see you guys sitting there eating lunch.

I don't need anything special, but I do expect honesty and a sincere apology.

Like they could have told me I'm so sorry.

We screwed up, it's our fault.

I apologize.

And that would have meant so much more to me than pretending that they were behind schedule.

I really left that appointment super frustrated and I held on to that for weeks, for months.

I remember being frustrated about that interaction.

And it would be the only thing, like when I would think about my clinic, it was the only thing I thought about.

I'd be, you know, that IUI failed, the next one failed, I ended up going through four, they didn't work.

We progressed onto IVF.

And I'm going through the steps and the processes to begin IVF and I just remember thinking like, all I'm thinking about is how annoyed I am by that one interaction.

And then the thing that I noticed, the ironic thing is all of the people, the nurses, the nurse practitioner, everyone that was involved in that late interaction, I was never gonna interact with during the IVF process.

It was a totally separate team.

But I was going through the motions of IVF only thinking about that one interaction.

And so I had to intentionally take time to say like, yes, that was annoying.

That was frustrating.

I voiced my concerns about how frustrating that was.

I'm ready to move on from that.

And now focus on my belief in my medical provider and his team that works around him doing IVF to believe in their ability to get me through this IVF journey.

So that just gives you an example of like, it's not that I'm lying to myself and telling myself that I loved that they did that to me.

It's not that I'm lying to myself and telling myself they never frustrated me.

There were times that I got frustrated but I intentionally chose to focus on the things I did like about my clinic, the things I did like about my team because if not who's to say that I would even want to show up.

I would want to put in the work.

I would want to follow their instructions.

I would want to go through with things.

So So this is step one is really think about your team, whatever is your team, right.

Maybe your team is you and your partner in your ovulation app.

Like, do you believe in your ability to follow through on this tracking process.

I know for me, way back when we were doing just tracking, there were times I worried about that.

Why.

Because timing sex can be stressful.

What are your thoughts about your team.

And do you like those thoughts about your team.

Or do you feel like you need to change those thoughts about your team.

Ask yourself that.

The next step in the process is the process.

So there's, like I said, it's a triad, so there's team, process, and yourself.

So the next one is the process.

Again, this is specific to what you're doing.

So ovulation tracking, NAPRO services, IVF, IUI, ovulation, medication, surrogacy, like whatever the process that you're going through, That's what we're talking about here.

And I always ask, do you believe your current process is going to be successful in getting you to your baby.

Does it have the ability to get you to your baby.

What are your thoughts about that.

And be honest, if you're going through cycle tracking and you truly don't believe it's gonna work, like there's something to be said for that.

If you're going through and you think, I don't even know if this IVF process is worth it.

I don't even know if this NAPRO workup is worth it.

Like whatever you're doing, question those thoughts.

Another thing I think is important here is to really ask yourself what expectations you have of the process.

Let's face it, getting pregnant is a miracle.

It is.

For everyone, even the people who get pregnant easily.

Doesn't feel like that sometimes, but that's true.

Are you expecting transfer number one to be the one that's successful and if it's not, that's a bad sign.

Are you expecting IUI number one to be the one that's successful and if not, it's a bad sign.

Are you expecting to get pregnant after two months of trying and tracking.

Ask yourself, what expectations do you have around your process and are they reasonable.

So really take stock of your belief in your process and ask yourself, is that where I wanna be or do I need to make changes here.

Do I need to go about reading some more research, asking some more questions of my provider, changing my expectations to build more belief in this area.

Ask yourself that.

And then the third category of our three pieces of our triad is yourself.

And here I think about this in two ways.

One is your ability of your body to get pregnant and carry a baby to term.

Do you believe that's going to be possible, this cycle for your body.

Do you believe in its ability.

And I save this one for last because this can have so much pressure around it and so much back trauma of every loss or negative test that you've ever been through really building up difficulty having any belief here and so be honest, be honest where you are.

Do you believe in your body's ability to manage the medications you're planning to take on.

And then also the other half of this is do you believe in yourself to get through this.

Do you believe in yourself to navigate this roller coaster of emotions to get through this cycle and deal with whatever the outcome is good or bad.

And once you have those, are you okay with where you are in your belief plan.

And this is often the category that I find women need the most help in.

They need more support in building up belief that they can get pregnant, that it is possible.

Going back to last week, creating belief and possibility.

That's the goal here.

So what I want you to do is download that worksheet.

Remember it's linked in the show notes or it's at sarahbrandell.

com/babybeliefplan.

You can download the worksheet and take 10-15 for each of these three categories, brainstorm all of your thoughts.

And then I want you to check in with them.

Are you okay with where your belief is for each of these categories.

Is there gaps.

Is there growth that you want to make here.

And when you recognize those gaps, that's when we can go about growing those areas, cultivating new ideas, new thoughts that help you build more belief.

Sometimes the answer is just, what are the thoughts I can have about this that help me have more positivity here that I just don't focus on.

For example, I was working with a client recently and she was talking about, well, my provider told me I had a, what did they say.

65% chance, I think is what she said.

65% chance of this cycle being successful.

And all I can think about is I'm gonna be in that other third.

I talked about, yeah, maybe, right.

That's fear, brain talking.

Maybe you're gonna be in that third.

But if you're gonna think about that, then you probably should also think about, but I could be in the 65.

So it's not about like convincing yourself of stuff that's not true.

It's just adding to your list, right.

Adding to your list thoughts that could be helpful, thoughts that breed positivity, thoughts that breed possibility.

And then if you see in the worksheet, there is some other layers talking about thought ladders to create new ideas.

So for example, if your thought is, "My body can't carry a baby," we have some work to do.

We'd like to evolve that thought.

And we'll actually talk about thought ladders.

They've been talked about in previous episodes, which I can link in the show notes, but we'll actually talk about those in a couple weeks when we throw out some tools of ways to create new thoughts and ways to create new emotions.

So that's in this worksheet.

You can stick around for later this month when we talk about it, or you can go back to the BabyBleafPian episodes that will be linked in the show notes to learn more about that process, to help you create new, useful thoughts.

Again, the point here with this whole formula, this whole foundation, is to create belief that it possibly could work for you.

That's all we're doing.

Something I often notice is that women want the silver bullet, right.

They want the one answer of the one test that was definitely wrong so they can fix it and that's going to be the answer that's going to get them pregnant.

And often what I find is that that doesn't exist or sometimes we think it existed, but we don't know if that's true.

So what do I mean by that.

Maybe someone had an ERA test that told them, "Oh, you should take your medications for a day extra and then next cycle they do get pregnant.

Was it the extra day of meds.

Was it just that was the one that was going to work.

Who knows.

Nobody knows.

We have no way of proving that.

You're going to hold on to it was the meds.

That's fine.

But what I want to remind you is that we don't have to have silver bullets.

It doesn't have to be I'm totally negative and I found this one thing, this one thought and now I'm totally positive.

We can be in the middle.

We can be in the end.

We can have fear.

We can have doubt.

And we can have hope.

And that's where I want you to aim.

So go about using this triad.

Put it together to use.

Download the worksheet.

Go through the steps.

And take a stock of where you are.

And take a stock of where you want to go.

In addition, you know, like I said, if you do this work, reach out to me.

Message me.

Tell me how it goes.

Also, no, I do this work with clients.

This is what I do.

So if you're looking for someone to guide you through this to help you walk through this process, reach out.

Click the apply button in the show notes.

Let's get on a free call, talk about coaching together, and let's get you on a schedule so I can help you through this process.

It really truly can transform your experience of the trying to conceive journey, I promise.

I hope you all have a great week and I will talk to you all next week.

Hey there, inspired mama.

If you enjoyed this show, I want to invite you to leave a review in your podcast player.

This helps to share the message with so many more women just like you.

Also, if you know of another hopeful mama on her path to motherhood, please share this episode with her.

I would love to get this into the ears of anyone who needs to hear it.

If you are ready to step this work up and not only learn these tools but to apply them to your unique story, head to the link in the show notes to apply for a free consult call.

I would be honored to help you.

[Music].