Told Donor Eggs Are Your Only Option? Ask This First

[00:00:00] You sat across from
your REI and you heard the words, "Donor eggs are your only option."
And maybe this is tied to the fact you have low AMH, high FSH, diminished
ovarian reserve, premature ovarian insufficiency, failed cycles, miscarriage,
or you've just been told it's your age. And something in you said that, «Wait,
we need to look at this a little bit further.»

So the goal of this episode is is not to talk you out of donor
eggs. The goal is clarity, because moving forward with donor eggs without full
investigation is going to cost you time, money, and emotional heartbreak if the
picture underneath was something that could have been addressed first.

And even when donor eggs end up being the right path, the work
you do on your health is going change the outcome of your pregnancy, your
postpartum health, and the health of your child. Let's go.

So here's what I want you to hear before anything else. In most
cases we review at Fab Fertile, the diagnosis is real. You've got [00:01:00] the low AMH. It is genuinely low. The
cycles are irregular or absent. We see this a lot. FSH being high. So it's not
about the diagnosis being wrong, it's that the biological environment, i.e.

your health, what's driving those numbers across multiple
systems over time has not been looked at. No one's asked about your gut health,
the health of your gut microbiome. No one has looked at your food
sensitivities. No one has looked at the fact that maybe you have eczema or
migraines or asthma, and all this could be linked to your ovarian environment.

They just look at that AMH and FSH and tell you there's nothing
you can do. So those are treated as separate issues and managed separately with
creams and prescription medication. Meanwhile, your reproductive system
deprioritizes because it's trying to keep you alive. And so the REI, the
reproductive endocrinologist and fertility specialist, is working with what is
in front of them, the numbers in the lab, and no [00:02:00]
one is looking to see what's driving that number.

That is the gap we're talking about today. I'm Sarah Clark,
founder of Fab Fertile, host of Get Pregnant Naturally. I built this company,
Fab Fertile, because I did not want another woman to find out what I found out
after the fact.

So at 28, I was told donor eggs were my only option. I didn't
get a second opinion. I didn't even ask why. I went straight to donor eggs and
was lucky enough to have both my children. Not until years later did my health
take a nosedive that I discovered the driving force behind my diagnosis.

So for me, food sensitivities and gut microbiome imbalance and
chronic stress, which if you had to ask me at that time, "Hey, Sarah, are
you stressed?" I would have said no. Now looking back, that was not the
case. Of course, I was stressed, and all of that can then really tilt all the
biomarkers. But what I found didn't change my outcome, but it changed
everything that I know and understand about fertility, and that's the reason I
do this work. We have a team working for over 10 years helping [00:03:00] couples and also this podcast over eight
years of having people look at their health completely differently.

So it's not to rewrite my story. My daughter is 24, my son is
21, so this is many years ago. It's that if you're here right now and you think
your only option is that you've been told donor eggs, there's things you can do
to look at this differently. So I want to take you through a case study here.

We've got Rebecca. So she is younger, so 27, but she came to
Fab Fertile and her AMH was at a .04 ng per mL. She had premature ovarian
insufficiency and she had a very low AMH. And her REI told her, like many
people, if you're listening to this, you may have been told that donor eggs are
your only option, and she was not ready to accept this.

Her partner actually had already found functional medicine,
functional nutrition, and he has Crohn's and so irritable bowel disease, and
he'd already made a lot of diet and lifestyle changes, noticed significant
improvement. And so he was like, "Wait a minute, what's this functional
fertility thing?"

And was able to then [00:04:00]
his partner along because a lot of times people do feel hopeless. They're like,
"Wait a minute, the REI, a well-meaning, highly trained individual, has
told me there's no hope of having my own biological children."

And even though donor eggs may, we're not opposed to them may
be a path for you. That's not the first step. We need to look at what's driving
your numbers. We work with idiopathic POI, so if you do have fragile X or
Turner syndrome, you can still do things to work on your health.

Most of the people we work with, there is no genetic component
to this. And either it's POI or diminished ovarian reserve or repeat pregnancy
loss or maybe you just got low AMH. We don't just look at the diagnosis. We
need to dive beyond it. So for her, we did, And we have access to functional
lab testing.

We ship it worldwide. We do food sensitivity testing. We do
stool testing, looking at the GI map. We use the Growbaby, a genetic test
different than the fertility clinic. I really do caution about you just taking
a whole bunch of tests and doing this by yourself without someone to interpret
it, and also someone that specializes in fertility [00:05:00]
because you can spend a boatload of money on tests and supplements, and it
still doesn't work because it's extremely nuanced.

These diagnosises are complex, and it's not usually just one
lever. It's all of them right? And so just looking at one thing and then you
chase it down a silo with some medication can waste a lot of time. So for her,
we found that she had some parasite. She had H. pylori so she's not absorbing
her nutrients.

She had food sensitivity, so she had that non-celiac gluten
sensitivity. I have done multiple episodes on that. She was intolerant to
gluten, dairy, and eggs. She had adrenal insufficiency. Our thesis, is it, POI
or is it early menopause or is it your adrenals that's totally fried and you're
out of balance there?

She had thyroid imbalance. We see this over and over again. A
lot of people have genetic predisposition to this, friends and families. My mom
has thyroid issues. I have thyroid issues. Mineral imbalance. Everything's just
low. Toxic overload. We're exposed to glyphosate and, herbicides and [00:06:00] pesticides and things that are sprayed, so
we're in a toxic soup right now.

It's impacting our female fertility and male fertility. So she
had eczema, migraines, asthma. They were not separate issues. We gotta look at
the health of the gut, food sensitivities, you don't have a lotion deficiency.
We're not putting on more lotion for the eczema.

All of this is tied back to the fertility and can be clues.
They followed our Fab Fertile method. Both of them made the changes, and when
they returned to the REI... Now, this one is an earlier one. She got pregnant.
She got pregnant actually after five months of working with us naturally.

And with POI, there is spontaneous ovulation, so we were able
to work on her health and, were able to help that. But at month four, she went
back to her REI and he's "Wow, things have really started to
improve," and he wanted to have her rush over to IVF. We see that a lot.
People make the changes.

They go back to the clinic, and the clinic's "Oh, wait.
Okay. There's things we can do. Let's get you in the clinic." If the
majority of us can't get pregnant naturally, the clinic is there. There's a lot
of focus on that, getting coverage with your employer [00:07:00]
and, getting fertility coverage.

But we gotta work on your health, and there's a lot of things
we can do. So for them, she conceived the following month. The REI called it a
miracle. We called it a miracle as well. But she also met the miracle partway
and she made the changes. And so working on nervous system, working on the food
sensitivities, the gut microbiome, the thyroid, all of this connected and for
her driving, POI.

Her REI didn't ask about the gut infections. No one asked about
food sensitivities. Focused in on the AMH and FSH and missed the, the elephant
in the room here. It's just being able to look at the right things, not
excluding a fertility clinic, but looking at your health and then you'll be
able to get some clarity.

Our goal is always to give you clarity. We're not about
promising a specific outcome. That doesn't make sense. We're all different, but
we need to see what's being missed. And so if you're listening to Rebecca's
story and recognizing pieces of yourself in the puzzle and if you want to have
something to help you on this, I [00:08:00]
developed a guide called What Your Clinic Missed.

It's going walk you through the markers we look at before a
donor egg recommendation. Looking at the full thyroid panel, not just the TSH,
the iron panel that flags ferritin the gut testing that your REI is not going
look at, inflammatory markers. All of this is to reduce inflammation in your
body so your body feels safe to procreate.

And the male factor too. It's not just about you. Even though
we've got female factor, we've got to look at his health too, even if the semen
analysis is normal. 'Cause a lot of the times we see it's not. They've been
told it's normal, it's not optimal. So you can send me an email,
hello@fabfertile.ca, subject line MISSED.

I will send you what your clinic missed. No one told me this at
28. They probably haven't told you either. Maybe you've done some AI research
but a lot of that can be DIY stuff.

So you need to have someone to be able to, interpret your data
'cause we're all different. Be careful about following these generalized
protocols. Your REI is going look at your ovaries, the AMH, the FSH, the
follicle [00:09:00] count. Yes, we want to look
at those. We want to know it. We don't want to be blind to it.

Your uterus, making sure it's everything structurally is good.
Your tubes, are they blocked? Your cycle. A lot of people don't have a cycle or
it's irregular. So the workup is good, but it's just not designed to ask what
your ovarian function actually, why it is the way it is. And so functional
fertility looks beyond that.

Your thyroid, the health of your gut, your inflammation. Has
anyone looked at your high sensitivity C-reactive protein? We like it under
one. I can't tell you the number of people I see it over and over again above
one. Inflammation, where's it coming in from? Iron deficiency, vitamin D being
low.

It's not just about you supplementing. The toxic load, the
cortisol pattern All the stress, the nervous system. So this is a lot, right?
You decided to have your family. You probably tried for a couple years, at
least a year, went into the fertility clinic, got the diagnostic testing, went,
"What is this?"

And then next thing you know, you're in talking to the REI, and
he's "Sorry we can't [00:10:00] even help
you with IVF. Donor eggs are your only option." Or, "Wait, I might be
able to help you with IVF. You gotta rush." But in this case, it's
typically, being told donor eggs, and then off you go, and you're like,
"Wait a minute.

Really? Is that all there is?" In our books, no, there's
way more to investigate. We need to look to see what's driving, the poor egg
quality, and they can't test for that, and so you just, run around a circle and
follow these generalized recommendations.

So the clinic is looking at your follicles, right? So if
they're low? But we see follicles improve, AMH improve, FSH come down. Not
every single person. Doesn't work for everyone. But if we haven't even looked
at this in a targeted manner, if you haven't even got clarity and you're just
taking it at face value, we're missing a whole piece of the puzzle here.

And so the functional fertility piece really is going ask those
question and empower you 'cause medical gaslighting is real. You're like,
"Something is being missed. I know it." There's a reason you're on
this podcast, that you're searching and trying to [00:11:00]
figure this out. If you're like me, you're a researcher, you're like,
"Wait a minute, something is going on," and you're bound and
determined.

So if you would like to have my eyes on your specific
situation, we offer a functional fertility second opinion, and this is where we
look at your labs, your history, your full picture, your partner's picture
together. The call is for you and your partner. Looking at your health and
really figure out what your next decision should be.

Is it donor eggs? Do we need to work on our health beforehand?
Typically, yes. And really help you get some clarity around this. If you've
listened to the podcast before, we have a team here with an OB/GYN with a
functional medicine background, functional nutrition practitioners, nervous
system specialists, a collaborative approach.

The biggest piece is you know your body best. You are
at the center. Something is being missed. So if you wanted to have a functional
fertility second opinion, send me a message at hello@fabfertile.ca, subject
line FERTILE, or go to the show notes and book your