“Feed your Fertility provides solid information and advice on the most fundamental strategy for increased fertility. We have developed much in the way of high technology, but the foods we eat every day are our most powerful medicine. Laura and Emily provide a path to nourishing yourself not in only body, but in mind and spirit as well.” —Chris Axelrad, L.Ac., FABORM, president of the American Board of Oriental Reproductive Medicine “Feed Your Fertility is a wonderful and refreshing multifaceted approach towards reproductive care. From diet to stress reduction to conventional fertility treatments and Eastern methodologies, this book is a comprehensive guide for fertility care and successful, healthy pregnancies.” —Eliran Mor, M.D., California Center for Reproductive Health “Feed Your Fertility is a must-read for anyone trying to conceive. It draws on traditional Chinese medicine brought right up-to-date, offering couples a simple but effective nutritional plan that works. I recommend it highly.” —Jill Blakeway, M.S., L.Ac., co-author, Making Babies: A Proven 3-Month Program for Maximum Fertility “[This book] is a must for anyone who wants to optimize their success by integrating Eastern and Western medicine. It is a comprehensive resource outlining a mind–body evaluation and approach to fertility.” —Kelly J. Baek, M.D., California Fertility Partners “Feed Your Fertility is really an invitation to pursue the best that life has to offer: the beauty of Earth’s bounty, refining and cultivating your own intuition, sharing this wisdom with your loved ones, and passing along the delicious truth to your children. Food is our medicine, and thus the holistic circle ripples and expands.” —Lilakoi Moon (formerly Lisa Bonet), actress and mother “If you’re caught in a quagmire of conflicting information about infertility, its causes, and its treatment, you need this book. Accessible and easy to read, it’s a wealth of information that addresses everything from environmental toxins, diet, and Chinese medicine to PCOS, endometriosis, and standard medical fertility treatments. Emily and Laura approach these issues with wisdom, kindness, and a firm can-do attitude that will help you conquer stress AND beat back your infertility!” infertility!” —Kristen Michaelis, author of Beautiful Babies: Nutrition for Fertility, Pregnancy, Breastfeeding, and Baby’s First Foods “Feed Your Fertility is a wonderful reminder of not only the mind–body connection, but the connection between ourselves and our environment and how they both affect our health and ability to conceive. The knowledge you will gather from this book will give you the power to cultivate a healthy lifestyle, body, and pregnancy.” —Jill Latiano Howerton, executive producer of the film GMO OMG Feed Your Fertility Your Guide to Cultivating a Healthy Pregnancy with Traditional Chinese Medicine, Real Food, and Holistic Living Emily Bartlett, LAc & Laura Erlich, LAc Contents Introduction Part 1: Causes of Infertility Chapter 1: Stress, the Baby Blocker Chapter 2: Toxins, Toxins Everywhere Chapter 3: The Standard American Diet and Fertility—What Is Going Wrong? Part 2: Cultivating Fertility Chapter 1: Understanding Your Cycle Chapter 2: Embracing Conscious Conception Chapter 3: Self-Care Chapter 4: Building a Solid Support Team Chapter 5: Chinese Medicine and Fertility Chapter 6: Adopting a Traditional Foods Diet Chapter 7: Chinese Medicine and Traditional Diets Chapter 8: Feed Your Fertility: Bringing It All Together Chapter 9: Vitamins and Supplements for Fertility Part 3: Dealing with Obstacles—Conventional and Holistic Solutions for Common Infertility Issues Chapter 1: Advanced Maternal Age—Am I Too Old to Have a Baby? Chapter 2: Miscarriage Chapter 3: Endometriosis, Fibroids, and Polyps Chapter 4: Irregular or No Ovulation Chapter 5: Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) Chapter 6: Thyroid Issues Chapter 7: Unexplained Infertility Chapter 8: The Male Factor Part 4: Navigating the Medical Fertility Work Chapter 1: Understanding the Basic Fertility Work-Up Chapter 2: Insemination—IUI and ICI Chapter 3: IVF and Other Advanced Fertility Treatments Chapter 4: Other Options—Sperm Donation, Egg Donation, Surrogacy, and Adoption Conclusion Appendix A Week of Meals Glossary of Medical Terms References Acknowledgments About the Authors Recipe Index General Index Introduction WHILE THE DECISION TO START A FAMILY can be both exciting and terrifying, it is especially so for couples who encounter challenges. At its best, making a baby can be the thrill and joy of a lifetime. At its worst, it can be a roller coaster of hope, disappointment, and unfulfilled dreams. We wrote this book to take the chaos and confusion down a notch and put you back in the driver’s seat. Is your diet nourishing you and contributing to your ability to conceive? Have you explored the unique perspectives on fertility that Chinese medicine can provide? Are you getting the most out of your medical care? Have you truly created space in your life for a new little being? The title we chose, Feed Your Fertility, has to do with a lot more than food. We believe that, in order to truly nourish yourself in a meaningful way, all aspects of your life must be fed. That means paying attention to your relationships, your lifestyle habits, and all of the nuances that go into making you feel healthy, inside and out. In this book, we hope to provide you with tools to enhance your whole self, paving the way toward conception, a healthy pregnancy, and a thriving baby. Taking this a leap further, in Chinese medicine, human beings (and all living beings) are viewed as a microcosm of the world in which we live. This means that we as individuals are simply tiny parts of the greater whole, and our little tiny part is a mirror image of the world around us, just on a much smaller scale. With this in mind, we admit that this book is about more than achieving a healthy pregnancy—it’s a call to cultivate fertility within your life and for our planet at large. Without an external healthy environment, our internal environments become essentially irrelevant, because we cannot survive without the earth upon which we live. By living consciously and choosing our food sources carefully, we take on the role of the archetypal Mother, nourishing ourselves, the health of our planet, and the viability of future generations. As part of your fertility journey, we invite you to embrace the role of the great archetypal Mother, bestowed with the obligation to protect her children. Begin to live your life from the belief that you already are a mother and that your mothering can be applied right here and now. Consider the possibility of letting go of the wanting and instead living through the present moment—honoring, cultivating, and activating life and fertility in every aspect of your existence. Living from this place, on both a physical and energetic level, will invite the conception of a baby into your body far more readily than existing from a state of fear, stress, and ticking clocks. { PART 1 } Causes of Infertility Prospective parents, it’s time to get healthy. Now’s your chance to finally quit smoking, stop binge drinking, and stop depending on sleep medications, caffeine, and other chemicals you can do without. Start exercising, see a therapist to get over your issues with your mother-in-law, stop overworking, and start eating healthy foods from sustainable sources. Sounds simple, right? Even if you don’t feel like you have any major issues to overcome, there still may be barriers standing in your way to conception including mounting stress, a myriad of hidden toxins, and the pitfalls of our broken food system. Chapter 1 Stress, the Baby Blocker ASIDE FROM POOR DIET, stress is the biggest contributor to modern health problems. The truth is that stress is unavoidable. It’s as integral to being human as eating and sleeping. In fact, our very survival depends on our ability to react to our surroundings via our stress mechanisms. Have you heard of “fight-or-flight?” This is the part of your nervous system (called the sympathetic nervous system) that, when activated, will give you superhuman powers for survival by sending extra blood flow to your muscles, making your vision more acute, and sharpening your reflexes. The sympathetic nervous system can ask the body to perform out-of-the-ordinary feats because it temporarily deprioritizes normal body function, including digestion, sleep, and … reproduction. After all, why would your body agree to make a baby if there was a pretty good chance your life was in acute danger? In our modern hustle-bustle, go-go-go world, it’s common for your nervous system to always be in a state of mild to moderate fight-or-flight, telling your reproductive system to take a nap. Recent research supports the theory that stress negatively impacts fertility. Researchers at Columbia University published a 2014 study in Fertility and Sterility, that concluded that stress diminishes male sperm count and motility. Another 2014 study published in Human Reproduction found that women with elevated salivary alpha-amylase (a marker of chronic elevated stress) had more than double the risk of infertility. Studies aside, common sense suggests that by reducing and managing your stress, you may increase your likelihood of conception by improving your overall health. Here’s another simple fact: Baby-making itself can be stressful, especially when months tick by without getting pregnant. What’s more, the stress of trying to conceive can often drain the fun and enjoyment out of sex, leading to strain in your relationship. If all of this news seems rather, well, stressful—don’t fret. In Part 2 (page 34), we will be arming you with a myriad of ways to manage and deactivate your stress. First, let’s look at some other silent fertility offenders that can be found in places you may least expect.