At 43, Valerie Conceived Naturally After Low AMH, High FSH, and 2 Miscarriages

Valerie’s inspiring fertility journey proves that pregnancy is possible even in your 40s, despite low AMH, high FSH, diminished ovarian reserve (DOR), and recurrent miscarriage. Many women in her situation are told that donor eggs are their only option, but with functional fertility testing, personalized nutrition, gut healing, thyroid optimization, and partner-focused strategies, Valerie conceived naturally with her own eggs.

The Science: Stress, Thyroid Dysfunction & Fertility

For many women, stress starts long before fertility treatment. Chronic pressure from work, lifestyle, or health challenges activates the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, driving up cortisol. This in turn suppresses the hypothalamic-pituitary-thyroid (HPT) and hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal (HPG) axes. The result: disrupted ovulation, reduced progesterone, and compromised implantation and egg quality, patterns often seen in women with low AMH and high FSH.

Valerie lived this reality. As a teacher, she spent her days caring for other people’s children while quietly yearning for her own. The long hours, high emotional demands, and constant stress took a toll on her body, affecting her thyroid and reproductive health. We work with many teachers facing similar challenges, juggling a high-stress job while trying to conceive with low AMH.

The fertility journey itself can add another layer of pressure, creating a cycle where emotional strain worsens hormonal imbalance. Research shows that psychological distress in infertility patients correlates with elevated thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH), confirming that stress directly impacts thyroid function (PubMed).

Thyroid Health and Low AMH and High FSH

If your TSH is above 2 IU/mL, your reproductive endocrinologist (REI) may recommend thyroid medication. Studies from the American Thyroid Association show this can improve pregnancy rates and lower miscarriage risk. But medication alone often acts as a band-aid, addressing the symptom rather than the root cause.

Functional fertility care digs deeper. A full thyroid panel and advanced testing can reveal why the thyroid is out of balance in the first place. Common drivers include:

• Gluten sensitivity

• Gut infections such as H. pylori

• Chronic stress and adrenal dysfunction

• Nutrient deficiencies that block thyroid hormone conversion

By uncovering and addressing these factors, women can improve egg quality, restore hormone balance, and strengthen reproductive health—boosting the chances of natural conception or IVF success. 

Male Fertility Matters

Valerie’s journey wasn’t only about her health. We also worked closely with her partner. Research shows that up to 50% of infertility cases involve the male partner. Factors such as sperm DNA fragmentation, count, morphology, and even the seminal microbiome can significantly influence implantation and miscarriage risk.

Through functional lab testing, personalized nutrition, and lifestyle adjustments, we optimized her partner’s reproductive health alongside hers. This whole-couple approach is crucial; by addressing both partners’ underlying imbalances, couples can dramatically improve their chances of pregnancy success.

Why Functional Fertility Testing Made the Difference for Valerie

At Fab Fertile, we offer comprehensive testing shipped worldwide, giving couples insight that goes beyond standard clinic panels.

For Her:

• Gut and microbiome imbalances affecting nutrient absorption and hormone balance

• Thyroid and hormone dysfunction impacting ovulation and miscarriage risk

• Nutrient deficiencies critical for egg quality

• Chronic stress and adrenal imbalance

• Food sensitivities, heavy metal exposure, and genetic factors influencing fertility

For Her Partner:

• Sperm DNA fragmentation, low count, and morphology issues often overlooked

• Seminal microbiome imbalances affecting embryo health

• Nutrient deficiencies impacting sperm quality

By addressing both female and male factors, Valerie optimized hormone balance, egg and sperm health, and ultimately conceived naturally at 43. Functional fertility testing, including stool, vaginal/seminal, hormone, adrenal, nutrient, and genetic panels, provides clarity, actionable steps, and hope, showing that IVF isn’t always the first step.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

• Why low AMH or high FSH doesn’t mean the end of your fertility journey
• How high-stress careers, like teaching, can quietly impact fertility and thyroid health
• How gut health, thyroid imbalance, and hormone metabolism impact egg quality
• Why male fertility and the seminal microbiome play a critical role in pregnancy success
• Functional strategies to support fertility if you’re trying naturally or preparing for IVF

Valerie’s story shows that IVF is not always the first or only option. With the right support, functional testing, and lifestyle strategies, women and couples can take actionable steps to optimize fertility and improve pregnancy outcomes, even after previous miscarriages or a diagnosis of diminished ovarian reserve.

TIMESTAMPS -  Low AMH, High FSH, Diminished Ovarian Reserve, POI, and Egg Quality Insights

[00:00] Low AMH Success Story

Valerie conceives naturally with low AMH, high FSH, and diminished ovarian reserve.

[01:00] Functional Fertility Testing

Advanced lab testing, gut health, and partner-inclusive fertility strategies.

[03:00] Hormone & Thyroid Optimization

Supporting egg quality and ovulation with functional hormone care.

[06:00] Gut Health & Food Sensitivities

H. pylori, hidden gluten, and food triggers impacting fertility.

[07:00] Male Fertility & Seminal Microbiome

Improving sperm quality and reducing miscarriage risk.

[08:00] Sleep & Stress Management

Adrenal support, night sweats, and nutrient balance for conception.

[09:00] Digestive Health & Hormone Balance

Constipation, liver support, and gut infections affecting fertility.

[10:00] Natural Pregnancy at 43

Achieving pregnancy despite low AMH, high FSH, and prior miscarriages.

Take Action

If Valerie’s story resonates with you or you’re struggling with low AMH, high FSH, recurrent miscarriage, or preparing for IVF, book a free 15-minute call. We’ll uncover possible barriers and help you build a personalized plan: Book your call here

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] I wanted to share an inspiring story with you from one of our clients, Valerie, who at 43, she faced low AMH, high FSH, diminished ovarian reserve. She had two heartbreaking pregnancy losses before coming to see us. And like many women in her shoes, she was told IVF and then ultimately donor eggs were only hope.

Valerie's story reminds us there's often more beneath the surface, and with the right testing, personalized support, and whole body care, she was able to conceive naturally. So if you're struggling with diminished ovarian reserve, recurrent pregnancy loss, or you're feeling overwhelmed by confusing fertility advice, this episode is for you.

Let's go.

Welcome back. I'm Sarah Clark, founder of Fab Fertile. For over a decade, my team and I have helped hundreds of couples improve their chances of pregnancy success, whether naturally or through IVF. We specialize in supporting those with low AMH, high sage, diminished ovarian reserve, premature ovarian sufficiency.

And recurrent pregnancy loss through functional lab testing and personalized fertility [00:01:00] strategies. Today we're talking about Valerie's story, how she had diminished ovarian reserve, low AMH, high FSH, and before coming to see us two pregnancy losses and how she went on to conceive naturally. This episode is for you, is if you've experienced miscarriage before 12 weeks and want answers beyond everything looking normal.

You've been diagnosed with low AMH, high FSH, diminished ovarian reserve, are looking for a deeper approach. And you're looking to explore functional strategies like gut health, immune balance, and advanced blood work to improve pregnancy outcomes.

Thanks so much for listening. I'm so thankful that you're here. Make sure you hit subscribe or follow, and if you know someone else who's on the fertility journey, please share this podcast with them.

 Let's get into the episode. We're talking all about a success story here with one of our clients. We're going to call her Valerie. So Valerie was 43. She'd come to us after having two pregnancy losses, miscarriages. She had low AMH and high FSH. And her FSH was 13.6.

It did fluctuate because it does fluctuate each cycle, but usually below 10 is where you want to have it. So that can be an [00:02:00] indicator that the body is struggling to produce healthy eggs. She suffered those two pregnancy losses. Definitely check out the two episodes I've done on pregnancy loss.

One before 12 to 14 weeks, one after 14 weeks. Check those out with some biomarkers. Things you can do. We're talking about the conventional testing that you can look at. Also the functional testing that a lot of times this has been missed. And like many of the clients you work with Valarie, was told that either IVF.

Or donor eggs were her only option. She knew her body could do it, and she wanted to figure out what was going on with her health. So she signed up and worked with the Fab Fertile team. So we did some testing. So as part of our Fab Fertile Method, we have access to functional testing.

We ship the testing worldwide. Food sensitivity testing, using blood, stool testing, looking at the DNA the stool, and we do genetic testing different from the karyotyping you're going to do at the fertility clinic, and then being able to really customize your diet, lifestyle, and supplement recommendations and also your [00:03:00] biomarkers.

Many times you go see a practitioner and they're just doing a health history, which we have a hundred question health history, a deep dive on how you're feeling symptoms along with your biomarkers. We can't just do the biomarkers and not do the health history or just do the health history and not do your blood work and then also including your partner.

I can't tell you how many people have just done from a female perspective. It takes two to tango in this. We got to look especially if you've having implantation failure, pregnancy loss, we have got to look at his health. Is there something going on that you're passing infections back and forth and that's why it's not implanting.

You've got this beautiful embryo and maybe there's an issue that he has an infection, the seminal microbiome, and we're passing that back and forth and that's why it's not making, and maybe there's issues with his, dNA fragmentation, no one checked it, and that's why you're having pregnancy losses.

So it's really important to do a deep dive and include both partners. So for her thyroid functions or TSH was at 3 mIU/L when she started with us. Even your REI is going to want to [00:04:00] have that below 2 mIU/L. Typically recommended to take thyroid medication, which was the recommendation for her.

So we're not opposed to taking medication that can be part of solution. We do have a functional medicine OB/GYN as part of our team. He is our medical case reviewer, so he reviews cases for us. He's not your doctor, but he's part of our team. Sometimes we can recommend some prescriptions if needed. And typically it is the bioidenticals or thyroid hormones to really be able to help support fertility. But her thyroid was too high for fertility, and so you need to have that below 2 mIU/L

Thyroid levels are going to help support ovulation. And then after we worked with her, we'll talk about this in a minute, her thyroid improved. Her hormone metabolism, so she was on a medication called Cabergoline. It's used to lower prolactin, but long-term, use can impact the liver and cholesterol levels, and we were definitely seeing indications of that on her blood work.

And so the low cholesterol meant that her body was struggling to make sex hormones needed for pregnancy. So we need to be [00:05:00] careful. Sometimes we're chasing one thing and it affects the rest of the thing. It's usually the body's not in a silo. We need to look at all of this in a holistic manner.

We did some gut testing, so looking at the DNA of the stool, and we found that she had H pylori, so a virulence factor and that can impact your nutrient absorption and inflammation. H pylori can be passed back and forth via saliva to your partner.

Many times people are like, I've found out I had H pylori, and then no one has addressed the partner. So we always look at this conjunction because you could just chase this thing around a circle. Then we did the food sensitivity testing. So we start out by having both partners do a food diary for five days, eat your regular food, let us know how you feel physically and emotionally.

10 days we start the elimination diet. Definitely send a message to hello@fabfertile.ca. Subject line 10 DAY. We'll send you that elimination diet so you can get started on that right away. We have both the partners start the elimination diet, taking out the foods for 10 days, systematically reintroduce over the course of 30.

And then we have the [00:06:00] female partners starting out doing the food sensitivity testing. And so we found out that despite she was already gluten free, we found out that her anti gliadin, which is on the stool test, was actually high. So she thought she'd taken out gluten completely, but she was going to church every week and she was having the little communion wafer, which was not gluten-free.

So just having that small wafer was causing inflammation in her body, which impact your body for days, weeks, and months. And so having that every week, the body wasn't able to reset itself. So it's not about not going to church and not having communion, but many churches have option to do a rice cracker wafer.

So you need to, if that's you and you're totally gluten free, but you're doing the communion wafer to go and check. So we see that quite frequently. And then we did the vaginal microbiome. So imbalances in here can increase miscarriage risk and can make implantation difficult.

So if she's got infections in there, like we see the ureaplasma or bacterial vaginosis, even if you don't have signs ureaplasma can be silent, obviously bacterial vaginosis, [00:07:00] you'll probably know you have that, but anyone on the fertility journey, if you're going in to do an IVF. I did a whole episode talking about what to do before you do your embryo transfer.

You've got to do the vaginal microbiome and then also potentially the seminal microbiome too, especially if you'd had implantation failure before. And then also the stress and nervous system. So she experienced night sweats. Disrupted sleep. So signs the body is in that fight or flight.

It's really important, it's not just about you. We got to look at your partner, look at his health in a deep dive. Her partner Jack his semen analysis show low volume and low sperm concentration, which can impact fertility and miscarriage risk.

And then also blood tests revealed for him, some elevated blood sugar, some kidney stress markers, and so we improved his nutrition, hydration, stress management, and then his sperm quality and overall health improved giving Valerie then a better chance of having this work naturally when they're trying to conceive.

She stopped having those night sweats. She started sleeping through the night. I see so many people. It's interesting when you get your [00:08:00] nutrient levels sorted out, we got people having nightmares for years just terrorized in their sleep. Obviously there could be some mental emotional stuff.

We need to deal with that. That's the case. In conjunction with nutrient imbalances when nutrients are low we can see night terrors. So she was just not sleeping, so she we needed to work on that. Looking at the liver and definitely check out that episode we did on sleep and why that's important when you're on the fertility journey, especially if you're dealing with low AMH or high FSH.

A sluggish liver, magnesium deficiencies, maybe your cortisol is spiking and you're waking up in the early morning. Maybe you're having a hard time falling asleep. Is it blood sugar issues? You're waking up between 1 am to 3 am, so definitely need to dig into that piece. And then her energy improved.

She felt calmer to, despite her stressful job. So she's a teacher and we work with a lot of people, a lot of people in healthcare, nurses and doctors helping other people. Then many people that are working, in labor and delivery, helping other people have babies and then struggling to have their own.

Working in healthcare, nurses and doctors we work with and also a lot of teachers. So these stressful [00:09:00] professions, helping other people doing your best and working long hours. So that was her extremely stressful job. And then she had digestive symptoms. She had a lot of constipation, which when we started work on her gut and added some fiber. A lot of the time when the thyroid is off, we can see constipation.

So normal to go one to three times a day, eliminate. Not one to three times a week. All that's all those toxins are recirculating your body, and that can be impacting your hormones. So then her hormones began to balance she had better ovulation. And then after 18 months, so our our average success is 12 to 18 months.

And and it can be difficult, right? Sometimes people do opt for IVF or an IUI during that period of time. , What we're going to do, we're going to do the testing. Look at your biomarkers, look at your blood work look at your partner and really determine when or if it's time for you to go to IVF.

Sometimes people feel in a rush. And they may want to do that, or we keep working with you to then continuing to optimize your health. And in this case, she got pregnant naturally within 18 months [00:10:00] at 43. Although we're told at a certain age that, your fertility's fallen off a cliff and you'd better boogie.

The majority of us can get pregnant naturally. We need to get to the underlying imbalances. So for her it was addressing the thyroid, the gut, the hormones, and the stress that tilts things the wrong way. And then looking at her partner's health.

And so getting pregnant at 43 with her own eggs, after two miscarriages, years of being stuck, being told VF is her only option. She got pregnant naturally. And so it is taking your health into your own hands, not just you've got the low AMH and the FSH. And there's nothing you can do. And the only IVF or donor eggs and for her there was a lot of health markers that we needed.

Once we addressed those, then the hormones came back on imbalance. So I'm looking at those gut infections. So for her, the H pylori. You eat this beautiful, healthy diet, you don't absorb all those nutrients. She had those food sensitivities for her gluten and the fact she was getting gluten, at her place of worship.[00:11:00]

So being an advocate for yourself there, and typically there's options that can help. Really addressing the stress. If you're in a stressful job working more than 50 hours a week, setting boundaries around that. You don't need to attend every meeting. You don't need to work till 10 o'clock at night, helping others because you're like, I don't have my child right now.

I can work later. The baby comes in when we set up an environment now, closing down the laptop, not accepting calls past five or six o'clock. People can wait till the next day, obviously, unless there's an emergency. But most things can wait till the next day.

And then working on the health of your partner, we've got to look at his semen. We need to look at his blood work. We need to look at his gut microbiome. If we see indicators in there, if you're passing infections back and forth, it's not just about you making those changes. And so once we start making those changes with sleep and nutrition, the whole foundation of this piece.

The diet that's right for both of you. The sleep, the movement, the stress, and then taking some foundational supplements. And then when you get all the testing in taking targeted supplements. [00:12:00] because a lot of times we're just taking supplements that. We have expensive pee. and if you're ready to improve your chances of pregnancy success, especially if you're over 40 and you're wondering, what exactly you can do, there's a lot you can do to get your health in check.

And it's not about doing these generalized recommendations, fertility, superfoods, throwing out the plastics, and minimizing your toxins. Yeah, that's the bare minimum. If you want to do this, looking at your blood work, looking at testing, and then making a targeted action plan, looking to see how stress impacts your adrenals, how that impacts your biomarkers, so then you can make some adjustments and really figure out exactly what's been missed.

So if you wanted to get my eyes on your specific situation, send a message to hello@fabfertile.ca. Subject line FERTILE, and we'll give you some options to help improve pregnancy success. Take care.

How to Get Started With Functional Fertility Support

Book your call here to get your personalized plan and options to help improve pregnancy success either naturally or with IVF treatment. 

Check out our Fab Fertile functional fertility program here and learn how to improve AMH levels naturally.  We work with couples that have low AMH, high FSH, diminished ovarian reserve, premature ovarian insufficiency, and recurrent pregnancy loss.

FAQs

Q. Can you get pregnant naturally with low AMH at 43?

A. Yes. Research shows AMH is only one marker of ovarian reserve. Many women conceive naturally in their 40s with the right support for egg quality, hormone balance, and partner health.

Q. Does high FSH mean I need donor eggs?

A. Not always. High FSH is a sign your ovaries are working harder, but it doesn’t guarantee egg quality is poor. By supporting thyroid, adrenal, and gut health, many couples improve outcomes naturally or with IVF. Read more about how to lower FSH naturally.

Q. How does gut health affect fertility?

A. Studies link gut infections (like H. pylori) and food sensitivities to inflammation, hormone disruption, and implantation issues. Addressing gut health can improve both egg and sperm quality. Read more about gut health and low AMH.

Q. What role does male fertility play?

A. Up to 50% of infertility cases involve the male partner. The seminal microbiome and sperm DNA fragmentation are often overlooked but are critical to reducing miscarriage risk. Check out our success story with Annie and Miles (with both low AMH/high FSH and male factor fertility)

Rescources

📩 Get your free 10-day elimination diet plan! Email hello@fabfertile.ca with the subject line 10 DAY to receive your guide and take the first step toward reconnecting with your fertility.

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