Stuck in Survival Mode? How to Thrive Through Infertility

Have you ever felt like you were merely surviving on the fertility journey? 
What would it feel like to thrive instead?

In this episode I reveal my top 5 strategies for navigating the fertility journey (and life for that matter) in a way that allows us to thrive instead of merely survive. We discuss:

• emotional sobriety

• a broader sense of identity

• healthy relationships

• the ability to set loving and flexible boundaries

• surrender

If this is a struggle for you, I’d love to help! 
Book a consult call today and I can start helping you to thrive.

As always, please keep in mind that this is my perspective and nothing in this podcast is medical advice.

If you found this conversation valuable, book a consult call with me using this link:

https://calendly.com/loveandsciencefertility/discovery-call

Also, be sure to check out our website: loveandsciencefertility.com

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Please don’t let infertility have the final word. We are here to take the burden from you so that you can achieve your goal of building your family with confidence and compassion. I’m rooting for you always.

In Gratitude,
Dr. Erica Bove

Transcript:

Hello, my loves, and welcome back to the Love and Zions podcast.

Today I wanted to talk about the difference between thriving and surviving.

I have been interested in this topic for a very long time, especially as it pertains to being a woman in medicine.

I think that we chug along, we do our medical school, our residency, our fellowship.

We're just sort of keeping at the task at hand and we become new attendings even, and we're like, "Okay, what I need to do to do a good job here." And at some point, we might feel like robots.

We might feel like our lives are truly just medicine and that there's not much else.

And so I really have been thinking about this distinction for a while, probably most notably when I was a new attending and I thought that being an attending was going to fix a lot of my problems, having more money, seemingly more time.

But then I realized that quite the opposite happened.

My marriage was falling apart and life was not as I had imagined it would be.

And so what does thriving really look like?

And perhaps that looks like something a little bit different for each of us.

I think that as we each have our own Joy 20 list or Joy 10 list, we can each have our own particular version of what thriving looks like.

But I do think there's some common elements specifically as it retains the fertility journey that it's worth noting because if those elements are out of balance and we're not aware of it, we can't even do anything about that.

It's like, why am I so irritable?

Why am I so short on time?

Why am I avoiding certain situations?

It's probably because we're in survival mode, totally understandable.

Our brains evolved literally to survive.

And so sometimes when we have a trauma response, a hypervigilance response, it's because this is what our brains know in terms of actually our ancestors who were being chased by bears and such.

But chronically dealing with infertility can feel like being chased by a bear all the time.

And what I wanted to do is sort of go through my top five ways in which we can thrive and not merely survive on this fertility journey.

So the first is what I call emotional sobriety.

Now what does that really mean?

Does that mean that we never have a glass of wine or beer?

No, no, this isn't about sobriety with our emotions.

What that means to me, and I talk about this with my friend Jenny all the time as we navigate life is that we have this steadiness that allows us to go through a situation, right?

Things that feel this comfort in the moment.

Maybe it's frustration, maybe it's anger, maybe it's resentment, maybe it's surprise, maybe even excitement or happiness or whatever it is, the full range of emotions, but to go through an experience and to honor that experience, but to be the wise leader of that inner world at the same time, right?

So thinking about what is it to merely survive?

It's essentially to be rocked by the emotions and the circumstances like a ping pong ball, excuse me, not really having a tether, just sort of walking on eggshells, not sure of that next piece of information from the fertility clinic, whether it's a pregnancy test or bad news about a cycle being delayed or canceled, all those different things that that then sends us off into a tailspin.

And so emotional sobriety is basically, it's not that we're not upset about those things because they are deeply upsetting, but it's having that, like I said, steadiness, that groundedness, that understanding that I am a human and a part of me is feeling anger.

I am a human and a part of me is feeling incredibly frustrated by this experience, but it doesn't dictate who we are.

It doesn't mean anything about us.

We're able to go through the experience as humans and not avoid it, not resist it to say, okay, this is me walking forward on this journey and I have this ability to feel all the feelings, right?

We have that sort of, I don't want to call it desensitization.

It's not really desensitization.

It's more like the ability of the tolerance to say, like I am in this moment and this is what I'm experiencing without fight, flight, freeze, et cetera.

But that ability to, like I was on a call like this morning and I was having some pretty intense emotions during that call.

It was a medical appointment actually.

And I just thought to myself, I'm so glad that I practiced feeling my feelings on a regular basis because I can connect with my breath.

I can notice what my body is offering to me in those moments and I'm still able to find my authentic voice, sort of counter things that don't align with my truth and move on forward.

I think before I had these skills of feeling my feelings, I might have just like crawled into an emotional hole essentially and just navigated forward without, maybe my brain would go out, maybe I'd start online shopping.

I don't even know.

Like that would be my flight response because that's one of the things I do is I, well, not necessarily shopping, but I tend to let, you know, flight as soon as something is super stressful.

But the ability to stay present in an emotionally charged circumstance and feel centered and grounded that is a skill.

And I call that emotional sobriety.

And I think that, you know, that goes along with navigating triggers.

We all talked about, you know, all of this around the time of the holidays and how that's a particularly hard time.

We just navigated Mother's Day, which is pretty, or just about to navigate Father's Day.

Like, you know, there's so many different like minefields of things that are hard and some are anticipated and some are not.

Maybe there's a baby announcement.

Maybe your colleague, you know, says something about a new pregnancy and it just shoots you through the roof.

Emotional sobriety is saying, okay, this is happening.

This is deeply unpleasant and I'm going to keep on moving forward.

Right.

So that's emotional sobriety.

And the version of thriving is to really be emotionally sober and stay and hold that tension and not let it take everything.

Okay.

So the second sort of distinction between thriving and surviving is when we are really surviving, infertility is the entire picture, right?

It's the only thing that our visual fields can see.

It's the only thing that occupies our mental space.

Like if, you know, if you just say, okay, well, what percentage of your non-work thoughts are occupied by infertility, it would be like most of them, like nearly a hundred percent.

Right.

Another way to think about this is like a house.

I think about, you know, my house, it has many rooms, right?

So on the fertility journey, it's as if every single room is in fertility, like the whole house is in fertility.

But my goal in terms of thriving is to help my client say, well, this is my infertility room, right?

It's a room in the house.

It has its space, but there's these other spaces of my life and there's the whole house.

And it is just a part of this house of mine.

Right.

Now this also extends to identity.

So if we think about, you know, who are we, if we are a female physician or even, you know, professional, I have CEOs, I have attorneys who work with me, you know, if we're in our line of work, right, and we are sort of having our professional identity, but the only thing we can think about is like, you know, what is my next appointment?

What is my egg retrieval?

What if my cycle gets canceled?

All those things like that, our identity gets to be so fused with being on a fertility journey.

It's exhausting.

It's tiring.

It's frustrating.

It seems like there's not any room for anything else.

But you know, I think that we are all entitled to things that give us joy, even, and especially when we're on the fertility journey.

So for instance, I have a client of mine right now who is in Europe, learning how to arrange flowers, because as she is awaiting her embryo transfer in a couple of months, she thought, what's the best use of my time?

This is something I could not do under different circumstances.

And so she took the opportunity to go to Europe and arrange flowers.

That's beautiful because beauty is one of her driving principles and she's getting to explore that.

I have another person who loves Broadway.

And so like part of her experience is making time for Broadway shows and even integrating that with her fertility journey and finding some songs that remind her of things.

And I think that's super wonderful.

And again, you know, you could say, well, the house analogy kind of breaks down.

It's actually even even better than that, in a sense, because it's integrated in the experiences in a way that we become whole people.

So I think that when we think about our identity, it's like, who am I?

You know, I'm a person who loves to go to nice restaurants.

I'm a person who appreciates beauty and loves to welcome flowers into my life whenever I can.

I'm a person who loves live music and looks practically at the calendar to see who's coming to my area.

Or maybe if you're like a friend of mine, maybe you and your people, your significant other or friends, maybe you travel elsewhere because you're a music junkie and that brings you joy.

But I think it's like it's giving yourself permission to say I'm more of a human than just a person on this journey.

I can plan things in my life that are outside of this.

I can delay a treatment for a cycle because I'm living my life.

That to me is a sign of thriving and a sign of health that we don't feel so beholden to the whole process that we truly cannot do anything.

We cannot envision any other aspects of our life as taking priority during this time.

Okay.

So the third way I think we can sort of distinguish thriving and surviving.

So if I'm surviving, my relationships are kind of humdrum, right?

Like I might check in with my friends.

I might have a relationship and significant other, maybe my parents, but sometimes like if we sort of have those quiet moments and we look internally, like we know that something is off, right?

Like maybe it's in the distance that we have between ourselves and our significant other.

Maybe our, maybe people chronically ask us how we're doing and we just leave that as a hanging question and we don't really close the loop and answer.

I think all those things, like we know when something is broken, right?

So someone was just like, gosh, these people keep texting me.

I'm just trying to get through my day.

You know, like, let me just like see another patient.

Let me just book my next appointment and leave me alone.

But that's, I mean, that's not really, we're humans, we're social beings.

Even my introverted self can say like, I appreciate a hearing contact and I plan things proactively.

And I really do enjoy being around people, especially people who bring me joy and lift me up and have similar views of contributing to the world and set big goals for themselves.

You know, I think about sort of all the people who just improve and enhance my life, right?

So when we have a sense that our relationships are well, we know it, right?

And that to me is the third way that we know that we're thriving.

And so we proactively reach out to our friends.

Like I have a talk with a client yesterday who's like, I talked to all my important people at least every two weeks.

And I was like, that's amazing.

That's something I aspire to.

And like, sometimes I even have to write a little note in my calendar, like, have you touched base with people?

Cause like left in my own devices, I'm like a fish.

Like I take a deep breath.

I go underwater.

I'm underwater for a few weeks.

I pop up again.

I'm like, how you talking about me?

How's everybody?

Like, I mean, sure, if there was a birthday or something, I might come out of it.

But that is sort of just by nature how I am.

And so, you know, that's not, that's how I got through my residency.

It's how I got through my fellowship.

I'm definitely in the last few years, I've been better about this, but it's something that I consciously keep at the top of my mind is like, how are my important relationships doing?

Am I reaching out proactively or am I waiting for people to respond to know to reach out to me?

Am I planning things in person with those important people in my life?

You know, one of my like sort of things I like to do, if you know me well, is I like to have races where I, so as soon as I finish one and I do this with a particular, well, I guess I guess two particular friends, I finished one race and then we plan the next one because it's like, I need to see you quarterly.

And if I'm going to see you quarterly, we're going to figure out how that's going to happen.

And it's going to happen, you know, because we both enjoy exercise, we both enjoy even traveling to places for exercise.

So it kind of fits a lot of the things that are fun for me and us in a way that allows that relationship and those relationships to be maintained.

So some of those little structure can be helpful, but I think, you know, if it's been like, I don't know, six months since I've talked to my sibling, like that's not good, right?

Then I have to look at it.

But if I'm like, I'm in right relationship with my people, the conversation's flowing, I support them, they support me.

You know, everything doesn't have to be like a long, drawn out conversation.

So I'm always just like, Hey, I'm having a hard time.

Can you send me some energy?

And then a good friend is like done.

And I'm like, well, we've connected.

I've asked for what I needed and doesn't have to be a big to do.

So I think just like doing a social inventory and being like, how are my relationships doing?

How do I feel first and foremost with myself when I sit with myself?

Because that's the most important relationship we have is a relationship, you know, with ourselves and I would argue our spiritual source.

And so like when I sit in those quiet moments, how am I really doing?

And then, you know, thinking about how am I in social situations and how am I in my family?

How am I in my friendships?

I'm a single person.

I don't have a partner, but if I did have a partner, how is that relationship going just to kind of do an inventory and to be like, am I thriving or am I surviving?

And if it's surviving, the good news is there are things we can do about it, but we have to be intentional about, you know, for putting our energy there.

We say where our attention goes, the energy flows.

And so if we're not putting our attention on our relationships and maybe we just feel like our well is so, you know, dry that we don't have that.

If that's the case, we need to figure out how to create a little room for that because there's this sort of giving and receiving that happens that in the end gives us energy because it feels good to love on our people and to be loved in return.

So that's what I have to say about relationships.

The fourth way that I tell if I am thriving or surviving is my ability to set loving, flexible boundaries.

And I say loving, flexible boundaries because anybody can set a boundary.

That's like this very extreme, like I am on my little Island and nobody's allowed in.

And it's harsh and it's cold and it's not coming from a loving space.

Right.

I think we all know how to do that.

But when I say loving and flexible, really a boundary.

And I learned this from my mentor, Kavitha.

She talks about how a healthy, loving boundary honors and respects both people at the same time.

So it's basically like I am honoring, respecting you.

I am being honored and respected at the same time.

And we have to find that space where everyone's needs are honored and respected.

Right.

If we're crossing our own boundary, then that's not good.

We got to evaluate that.

If we're crossing somebody else's boundary, that's not good.

And if somebody feels disrespected, it's worth a conversation.

So maybe you're a person who is undergoing IVF and you need some time off from work to be able to make the morning monitoring.

Right.

And you're struggling to find a way to ask for that because your office is very busy and you're already getting pressured from the administration to see more patients, like whatever that is.

I think that there are ways to handle that conversation that is a very sort of firm, cold, just I'm doing it.

And sometimes we do have to be that way.

But I think also there's ways to find our own voice and ask for what we need.

And like I said, there's another episode I just released about how to find time for IVF and fertility treatments.

I think in certain teams, it's a two way street.

I will pay you back when I can.

This is what I need right now for me in my life.

And that to me is a sign of really thriving and not just surviving.

So I think that the more we can look at these conversations, we have to figure out what we need first, right?

Like boundaries are kind of like four steps down the road.

First we have to figure out who we are and what we need.

And we can ask for what we need.

And if we're not getting what we need, we have to look at that and say, okay, well then how can I figure this out?

And if things are encouraging, if the schedule is encouraging, if there are people in our lives who are not being supportive, I just talked to someone my goodness the other day who had a friend who said some pretty harsh things to her.

Well, guess what?

That person doesn't get to be on the island right now, right?

Because that's just not a source of nourishment and strength.

But to be able to say, hey, I really care about you and I know you care about me, this is a time in my life when I just need us not to talk about this fertility journey.

I will let you know what I have something to share.

Like that is a way that we can honor and respect the other person and honor ourselves because if somebody doesn't know how to be sensitive about these things, then guess what?

We draw the boundary that they're not allowed to talk about it.

So yes, and there's more to say about boundaries.

I have other podcasts and I even have a whole module in my Thriving Through Infertility Course and Boundaries, but I think the ability to know what boundaries we need to set, we need to know where to put that line.

We need to know where our flexibility is.

We need to know how to hold the boundary when needed to really hold that discomfort.

To me, that's a sign of thriving and not merely surviving.

Surviving is just like sort of cutting people out entirely or sort of not even sitting with what we need or not thinking outside the box and just having this very, either we over give or we over set the boundary and we have these harsh rigid ways of being.

But I think if we can really come up with this is who I am, this is what I need and figure out what that means to us, then that can really be a sign of help.

And then the last way that I think about and I'm thinking about thriving versus surviving is the ability to surrender.

This is a tricky one because the fertility journey, there's so many hopes wrapped up in it.

There's so many dreams.

I always ask all my new clients, like, what is your deepest why?

Why are you on this path?

Like what are you most deeply hoping for?

And so when we want something so deeply, it makes sense that there's tremendous fear, anxiety, worry that this particular thing might not come to fruition.

Right.

So maybe it's you're trying to become a mom for the first time and you're really feeling threatened that that might not happen.

Maybe it's you already have a kid and you're dealing with secondary infertility and you're really struggling to grow your family.

Maybe you have loss after loss and you're just wondering when is finally going to be the time when you're able to carry a baby and deliver like all those things.

Like those are all very, very real things.

I think what can get us into trouble is when we have attachments that don't serve us.

And let me be clear about what I mean.

It is natural and human to hope for a certain thing.

So for instance, like if I'm cute enough to have an embryo transfer, it is completely normal to say, I hope and I pray that this little embryo takes and that this is the last time I ever have to go through this.

That is very normal and natural.

I think what gets us into trouble is when we say, well, I have to be pregnant on this last cycle because I have this rotation or I have that thing planned this summer and this trip.

And like, it just has to happen now.

Or if we sort of say it has to happen in this way and this, this has to be the protocol or this has to be the thing, you know, what I, I think, and I think about this all the time because we know that female physicians have worse outcomes than our non-physician counterparts.

And the question is, why is this true?

And it's not just explained by age.

I've been really thinking about this a lot in my reflections and my, my studies.

There's not a ton written about it, but now I have a ton of experience that I can draw on.

And I think that a lot of it is the hyper vigilance that we have and how much we want something.

And so what we're taught throughout our training is if you work hard, you're going to get a result and if you work harder, you're going to get a better result.

And so we apply the same philosophy to the fertility journey where we're like, Oh, I just have to try harder.

I just have to want it more.

I just have to restrict my diet and be super clean.

I just have to do this with my exercise.

I have to live with all these rules.

I have to go gluten free.

I have to do whatever it is, like drink, whatever smoothie, beets, pineapple.

Like, you know, french fries, like, you know, I have the most quote unquote compliance patients and clients that I've ever seen.

That is helpful to a point, but I think at some point it doesn't serve us.

And so there's this hyper vigilance.

There's this stress or this worry that we're doing it wrong that I think energetically is not so beneficial to the process.

And so what I think is that, you know, I encourage all my patients and my clients to get to what I call the sweet spot of hoping for the best and then releasing the outcome.

It is so hard to do.

And I actually think this is a version of surrender, right?

I think when we were, when we are able to trust the process, trust our bodies, authentically surrender to the bigger picture, I think the transfers go better.

I think the success rates are higher.

And if it doesn't work, it doesn't mean you didn't surrender well enough.

That's not what I'm saying.

We cannot use this against ourselves.

But my point is how can we get ourselves energetically in the right space where our highest good can be realized?

Right.

And so, you know, I think about, you know, what does this look like?

This looks like understanding that one embryo transfer is truly a chapter in the book, right?

And that we trust the process.

We trust our team as long as we've curated it carefully.

We trust our coach.

If you're lucky enough to have a coach, we trust ourselves.

We trust the process that ultimately it will happen when it is meant to happen.

It doesn't mean we're passive in our, in our process.

It doesn't mean that we don't take the driver's seat in terms of asking empowered questions, all those things.

It is important to be confident in our treatment plan, but that comes from a different energy than sort of being hyper attached to the outcome in a way that we start acting in ways where we're micromanaging ourselves, if that makes sense.

So what I always tell my client is, okay, what is evidence-based that makes a difference?

What is not evidence-based and what can we let go of?

How can you trust me to take the burden from you?

How can you understand that you are meant to become a parent and you will have your pathway to parenthood?

It may not look like the original plan A, but there is a little soul who's waiting to meet you on the other side.

And how can we bridge you there?

Like those are my questions.

And so I think when we are at lower vibrational frequencies, when we're stuck in guilt, shame, regret, you know, sometimes even grief can keep us, keep us down.

Like those things are really, really hard because then we really are stuck in lower vibrational frequencies and, you know, sort of our, our old patterns of what worked for success start to take over and they start to become counterproductive.

What I offer my clients and my patients too, if they're open to it is the ability to turn it over spiritually, to look for the authentic hope, to be confident in the plan, to trust the process, to trust our bodies, to trust our team, to hope for the best and let go of the outcome.

And when we can do that, in my opinion, that is a sign of thriving and not merely surviving.

So that was a lot.

And I really do believe in everything in this.

Sometimes it's not just listening.

It's really like letting these concepts wash over you.

So if you listen to this podcast again, fantastic.

If you want to call with me to talk about these things in more detail and figure out how to really integrate these into your own life, that's a wonderful thing too.

You know, but these are some things that I've learned is sort of the distinction between people and people when they come to me, I would say 99 more than 99% of my clients when they come to me are in survival mode and whatever they're doing is not working and they've had transfers and they've had unsuccessful treatment.

They've had losses and they're just like, listen, I did everything they said and it didn't work.

I'm in the 5%.

Like these are my people.

Right.

And so what I love to do is I love to say, okay, let's look at what's happening.

Let's see what is serving you.

Let's see what's not serving you.

This includes our thoughts, includes our feelings.

This is where some of the coaching tools come in, right?

To kind of clear all that out, bring awareness and figure out what we can shine light on and maybe choose differently in terms of our thoughts and our feelings.

Because what happens is when we even slightly change our thoughts and our feelings, the things that align more with our values, that's when our actions flow from that.

And that's when we start to see the results that we want to see.

And so although I could never say like, yes, this is going to guarantee you a positive result, I can tell you this is what's working for so many of my clients and my patients.

It's a beautiful thing.

Hey, you know, even if we were just thriving and not surviving in other realms of life, it would be a win-win anyway.

So but that's not the point.

The point is fertility, but it does up level all these other aspects of our lives as well.

So to review, I want to sort of go through the top five ways that we know or can strive to be thriving and not merely surviving.

The first is emotional sobriety and navigating our triggers with grace.

The second is that we have a broader sense of identity than just infertility.

And that infertility is truly just a room in the house, right?

It's sort of we have a regained sense of perspective that it's not everything.

The third is that our relationships are well and healthy.

And we know when that's the case.

The fourth is to be able to set loving and flexible boundaries.

And the fifth is to be able to hope for the best and let go of the outcome, which is as close to my version of surrender as anything that I've ever found.

And that I think, you know, if you sort of read between the lines here, this does require a deeper sense of trust.

It does require relying on some sort of a higher power, whatever that means to you, whatever name you use.

And maybe it's love, maybe it's the love that you have in your family, in your friendships, like all those things, but something that is bigger than ourselves.

Because spoiler alert, we have to absolve ourselves of all the responsibility because it's not ours in the first place.

We take it on and it just does not belong to us.

So with that, I will say it is your birthright to be thriving and not merely surviving.

If you're hearing this and you're like, Oh yeah, that's me.

I am just surviving.

There is a way forward.

You just need support.

We are not taught how to thrive.

We are taught how to survive and we need a whole new set of tools to be able to navigate at these higher vibrational frequencies.

So I would love to have a conversation with you.

Let me know.

Like I said, I figured this out in my own life and I'd love to share what I've learned.

It's not easy at the daily discipline.

It is better in community.

I promise you, but there is a way forward and it's just the most worthwhile thing you'll ever do.

So, you know, I love you and I will talk to you later.

Can't wait to have more conversations about this.

Mwah, bye.