A Holistic Approach to Fertility: Taking Control of Your Pregnancy Journey with Elizabeth King

Full Episode Page: A Holistic Approach to Fertility: Taking Control of Your Pregnancy Journey with Elizabeth King

Summary: In this episode of Life Intended, host Kelly Berry speaks with certified fertility expert Elizabeth King, founder of the Fertility Coach Academy. Elizabeth shares her journey of becoming a mother after 40 and her experience helping women worldwide on their fertility paths. She highlights the importance of a holistic approach, including emotional support, nutrition, and advocating for oneself in medical settings. Elizabeth dives into the emotional toll of infertility, discusses the impact of societal pressures on women’s fertility journeys, and explains how personalized strategies can lead to healthier pregnancies.

Elizabeth is the host of the podcast, Friends with Fertility and is a contributing author to three best-selling books Naturally Conceived, The Creative Lifebook, and Radical Self Love. For her expertise, she has been featured in Forbes, BBC, Entrepreneur, The New York Post, New York Magazine, as well as many others, and on a variety of top podcasts.

Takeaways:

• Holistic fertility care enhances conception success.
• Emotional support is vital for fertility journeys.
• Advocacy in medical settings improves outcomes.
• Conception is possible after 40 with the right approach.

Links:

• Elizabeth King’s Official Website
• Elizabeth on Instagram
• Elizabeth on Facebook
• Elizabeth on LinkedIn
• Fertility Coach Academy

For more inspiring stories and resources, visit Life Intended's official website. Subscribe to my weekly newsletter to get episode updates, announcements and inspiring content. You can also follow along on Instagram @lifeintendedpodcast for content, updates, and more!

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More About Kelly Berry

Kelly is a Coach, holds an MBA and is the VP of Operations at Fitness Revolution. She has a rich background in strategic planning and business management is a devoted community volunteer and an avid adventurer. Kelly believes in living life to the fullest—whether it’s running an ultramarathon, running her businesses, or spending quality time with her husband Nick Berry and daughter Vivienne. Her life is a testament to the power of resilience and intention.

Life Intended is published in partnership with FCG.

Transcript

Elizabeth King (00:00)

The Mayo Clinic also did a study in 2013 that says if you are going through a fertility journey, it's the same stress level as a cancer patient. And I use that a lot because people that are going through it are having such a hard time and they think it's just in their head or it's okay, they'll get through it and they lean on their partner. And really, this is a big deal. So reaching out for support is okay. You will get to the other side and you'll get to the other side faster if you have that support.

Kelly Berry (00:28)

Hi friends and welcome to or welcome back to Life Intended. I'm your host, Kelly Berry. Life Intended is a podcast that explores what it means to be true to yourself and live an authentic and purposeful life. Each episode explores my guest version of personal growth, self -discovery, and the pursuit of becoming the best version of themselves, as well as how to find the joy in the journey. Today, I have a great guest with me, Elizabeth King. Elizabeth is a certified international fertility expert and founder and CEO of the Fertility Coach Academy, who helps people of all backgrounds on their path to conception to have a healthy pregnancy, healthy baby, and carry to term. After having three children of her own after the age of 41, Elizabeth believes taking a more holistic approach is the key to success when attempting to conceive. As a master certified ICF life coach, birth and bereavement doula, and new parent educator,

She has helped thousands of women achieve their dreams of conception and parenthood in 21 countries around the world. She supports clients through natural fertility, infertility, IVF, miscarriage loss, early pregnancy PTSD, and new parent support. With over 24 ,000 followers on Instagram, Elizabeth is the host of a podcast, Creation Innovation, and is a contributing author to three bestselling books.

Naturally Conceived, The Creative Life Book, and Radical Self -Love. For her expertise, she has been featured in Forbes, BBC, Entrepreneur, NewsweElizabeth King, The New York Post, New York Magazine, and many, many, many, many others, and on a variety of top podcasts. Welcome to the podcast, Elizabeth. I'm so happy to have you here today.

Elizabeth King (02:13)

Thanks for having me. I'm excited to have this conversation.

Kelly Berry (02:16)

Yeah, definitely. So I know that I mentioned that you became a mother three times after the age of 41. So tell us a little bit about your background and how you got into the work that you're doing now.

Elizabeth King (02:30)

So I have been a life coach, certified life coach since 2008, back when life coaches were not really a thing too much. And when I started going through my own fertility journey, so let me back up to say, women's wellness and fertility as a whole has been a special place in my heart since 1995. I was 19 years old when my sister, who was 26 at the time, was diagnosed with a very, very rare form of cervical cancer.

Kelly Berry (02:36)

Mm

Elizabeth King (02:59)

and had to do a radical hysterectomy and was not going to be able to have children. And so that was my first intro into what is a cervix, first of all, and what does that mean for us to have children for her? And so that was, I didn't know what a fertility doctor was. I didn't know anything, of course. I'm 19, freshman in college and just want my sister to survive this. And her big concern was, I'm not gonna be able to have children.

Kelly Berry (03:08)

Mm -hmm.

Elizabeth King (03:28)

Fast forward to age 30 and I got divorced and I went to go freeze my eggs and the doctor, same doctor that we saw with my sister previously had said, you're too young right now and the technology's not super great right now. Come back, hopefully you'll meet somebody and we'll go from there. I went back at 36, still single and went through the IVF process on my own.

had 11 eggs frozen and then went about my way. kind of checked the box of I froze my eggs, I have my 401k, I'm running my business and I'm traveling the world and whatnot. And then around 38 and a half, I started to think, okay, I think I wanna do this now. It wasn't really ever top of mind to be burning, yearning, having a child. It was more of building my business and experiencing life and all of that sort of thing. So really how...

it narrowed down to me becoming a fertility coach and helping people on that journey was a natural progression of what had been leading up to at that time, 20 some years of women's wellness and getting to know all these aspects of ourselves. And I had a fibroid surgery around 39 and a half that was preventing me to get pregnant with my first son. And

Then I had a subsequent miscarriage after my first birth. And during that DNC is when it really, the light bulb went off of, I need to go full time into this instead of just helping Suzy's friend who referred me to her because she's had a miscarriage or she's going through IVF and they have a question or they're struggling through this or that, because that's what it was at the time. It was really just heart centered, let me help friends of friends that knew I had been through it.

Kelly Berry (05:15)

Mm -hmm.

Elizabeth King (05:19)

in that moment of us having the DNC and our future story being essentially ripped from my womb to the family next door, the couple next to us, starting to build their family with a transfer happening. I thought to myself, nobody is prepared for either of these situations that life is facing them right now in these moments. And I get goosebumps even talking about it.

Kelly Berry (05:40)

Mm

Elizabeth King (05:44)

And that's when I really knew I needed to shift everything in my life and focus on bringing awareness to all things women's wellness, fertility, miscarriage loss, the grieving process, and so much more since then. But that's how this is how we are here today.

Kelly Berry (06:03)

Yeah, yeah, that's amazing. you know, it is, it's so needed. You're right, you know, no one is prepared, I think for really anything along the spectrum of the journey, you know, there's so, there's so much and I think you will know way more than this and hopefully we'll speak to it. But, you know, I think for so long, we're conditioned that all of these things that are going on are just private, you know, they're, they're things that you just need to kind of handle on your own and

figure them that doesn't make any of it easier and it doesn't help other people. So what have you seen as far as this shift in how open people are being about their own journeys and experiences and the benefit that that's having for women in general?

Elizabeth King (06:52)

Yeah, I mean, it's huge on many, many levels. I work on an energetic, intuitive level as well, and with my clients and patients, and just that awareness in and of itself is shifting a consciousness around fertility and pregnancy and childbirth and all the things in so many ways, and we can touch on that later. But really, it's about having people, even the people that are supporting the ones around you.

they didn't know what to say, right? People would pretend like it didn't happen. Generations of families would have had struggles or miscarriages or stillbirths and not talk about it. It was like whispering, I think grandma had lost a baby, but I'm not really sure what exactly happened or, you know, whatever. And now we're opening these conversations and dialogues to the future of our families to come as to

Kelly Berry (07:22)

Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Elizabeth King (07:48)

This is what to watch out for. The other thing is educating. We are not educated in the United States especially and most places in the world outside of anything of you have a period and it's 28 days and see you later kind of thing, right? And basically told, be careful not to get pregnant. We're not told anything about our ovulation, anything about the four parts of our cycle, anything about how to support our bodies or our hormones or what to watch out for.

if we may have some hormone interruption or imbalances. And so it's really important now for our children, grandchildren, et cetera, to understand, okay, I have a female body. This is what it looks like. Different times of the month is going to be different. Not just that one time of the month when we're bleeding in this period, there's multi layers to this. And so again, it's, it's

multifaceted in lots of ways. And I think the awareness with social media and everything is amazing. Of course, there's also the side of it that is not as amazing when people are self -diagnosing because they see Suzy Cube, you know, doing some fertility diet and that worked for her or some protocol and that worked for her. So they think that that's what they should be doing. And that's what we really do with our practice specifically is

Kelly Berry (08:59)

Mm -hmm.

Elizabeth King (09:11)

tailor it to you because there are so many aspects of fertility that need to be tailored to your body specifically. I always say it's, you know, it could be normal for somebody of my size of five, four to wear a size seven shoe, but I'm actually a size six. So if I'm wearing a size five shoe or a size seven shoe, I'm probably going to get blisters and it's not going to fit, but that's considered normal size, right? And it's the same thing with fertility, fertility diets, fertility supplements, et cetera.

Kelly Berry (09:35)

Mm -hmm.

Elizabeth King (09:40)

You want to be doing what's right for your body so your body can metabolize what it is that you're doing and also get you to your healthy baby.

Kelly Berry (09:50)

Mm -hmm. Yeah, so one of the things I know that you work with women on is the more holistic approach. So what are the common challenges that you see from people who come to you and how do you work through that with them on a holistic level?

Elizabeth King (10:08)

That's a great question. So holistic meaning, I've had my three children over 41 naturally. That doesn't mean that I don't agree with if you need to go to do ART, artificial reproductive technology like IVF. There are some situations where you need to do that and I'm happy to support that. But even in that direction, there's still ways for you to come to that holistically so that your baby is

healthy and your body is primed and your eggs are where they need to be, et cetera. So even when I was doing my own egg freezing 12 years ago, nobody was really doing that then. And they didn't tell me that I have the ability to affect change in my eggs. It was your 36, you have 36 year old eggs. Well, guess what? I guess the joke's on them because I had babies at 41, 42 and almost 44. So I guess my eggs were pretty good because I have some very healthy

baby boys that are running around So I think that's kind of my one thing that I like to tell women first and foremost, our society has ingrained in us, especially people of my generation, if you have a baby over 35, they're probably not gonna be healthy. And so that alone is something that we need to get out of our consciousness, our subconscious mind. We know now, I am one, you are one, that it's possible to have children over 40.

Kelly Berry (11:06)

Thank

and a place.

Elizabeth King (11:32)

Period, we know that. We have social evidence all over the place that that's possible. The next thing to that is from a holistic perspective, what does that look like? How do we bring our bodies to a point where we are combining mind, body, and spirit to bring in a healthy baby? Because I've had losses, a lot of people have losses. That's another thing I tell people. You can be in your 30s or 40s or in your 20s and have a miscarriage. It doesn't necessarily mean.

Kelly Berry (11:32)

Mm -hmm.

Elizabeth King (12:01)

your eggs are bad because you're 40 and you're having a loss. And unfortunately, a lot of our medical community, that's their kind of go -to is, it's because of your age. It could be other reasons as well. So getting those blocks out of our subconscious mind first and foremost is a huge part of this holistic idea of mind, body, spirit, coming to the table, trying to conceive at any age really, but especially when you're over 35 and over 40.

Kelly Berry (12:12)

of me.

Mm

Elizabeth King (12:31)

The next thing is, like I mentioned before, what is the right supplements for your body? What are the right diets, so to speak? I use that term loosely because a lot of people come to me having spent over $10 ,000 with a fertility nutritionist to get them what they need to do in order to get pregnant and they're still not pregnant. And then we pull it back and say, okay, this is actually causing your stress level to be more. When you actually don't have

allergies to gluten, sugar, and dairy, right? So we really look for what are the food sensitivities that you have that are causing inflammation in your specific body, and we work just with those rather than the whole big gamut. Now, if you feel better by not eating gluten, dairy, and sugar, great, that's amazing. That's totally different. Same with supplements. I get people...

completely over supplementing what they need to be taking and their body can't metabolize it. If you don't need it, it's hard for your body to break it down. And we want your body to focus on reproducing and creating a new baby and all of that good stuff. The other big part of it is creating and having fun. Most people that come to see me when they're on their fertility journey, whether they're trying to conceive naturally or not, it's super stressful.

Kelly Berry (13:53)

This one.

Elizabeth King (13:54)

Every month they start their period, they're super depressed and then they have to pull themselves out of this downward spiral for a few days and then hope that they're gonna ovulate and try again and then they're forcing sex with their partner and it's just a cycle of, know, not as good as we would like it to be and that's just the nature of it and everybody goes through it. And so what every coach is different, but what we work through is we start with the medical side and the reason that we do that

I call it getting the lay of the land. You want to see a fertility doctor, a reproductive endocrinologist rather than an OB. The reproductive endocrinologist knows and specializes in fertility. We want to know that because I had seen hundreds of people come to me who had been trying for two plus years only to find out they had a blocked tube or they had endometriosis scar in their tubes or something else was going on that no matter how hard they were trying, they weren't going to get pregnant.

Kelly Berry (14:53)

Mm -hmm.

Elizabeth King (14:53)

Let's get the lay of the land, make sure everything's clear. Uterus is good, everything's good to go. Blood work checked. We go through the blood panel. We see, did your doctor order you all the right blood work you need to do? And did anything come up abnormal? I see even last weElizabeth King, a client come to me and they have levels that are high and their doctor is still saying, we're ready to transfer. I'm like, no, you gotta go back to them and say, you're not ready to transfer this embryo.

this needs to come down or this needs to go up or whatever it may be. So oftentimes it's really helping the patients advocate to their own doctors and know the questions to ask and just being, feeling like they're a wholier person, a calmer person, a more confident person and bringing in this extra magic that we talk about when we meet one -on -ones is I am able to communicate with spirit babies.

And I get downloads when I'm speaking with people around that and we can get information as to oftentimes is that spare baby not coming in because of maybe I've seen where you live. Like they'll tell me they don't like we're living in the city and they want to move out of the city or whatever. I've seen lots of crazy things, the personalities of these babies, et cetera. So that's another thing that we talk about as far as

narrating and bringing in the grounding space of that spirit baby for you and your family and whether that's your family of just you and your partner and an animal because animals can feel that energy as well, all the things. So as you can tell, it's very multifaceted when I say holistic.

Kelly Berry (16:35)

Mm -hmm. Yeah. Well, I love, there's two things that you said that I want to like retouch on. And the first is, you know, like the mind -body connection. I think that is so undervalued and underrated. And, you know, your specific examples were just like, you know, women over 35, you know, I got pregnant at 40, had my daughter two weElizabeth Kings before I was 41, know, geriatric pregnancy, had to see, you know, high -risk doctor. And, you know, we're told.

over and over like if we don't have a baby about 35, you know, it's going to be harder. If we don't have a baby by 35, there's a higher chance that we're going to have a baby that's not completely healthy, you know, all of these things. we've been programmed already before we've even begun that it's going to be hard, that it's going to be challenging, that it's going to, you know, things just aren't in our favor anymore. I hear you saying is that we just have to like deprogram ourselves or

Elizabeth King (17:14)

Mm

Kelly Berry (17:32)

even reprogrammed to listen to a different narrative. And I think that, you know, when you look at infertility as a whole and the age range that it affects, you know, you just kind of wonder how significant is that, you know, the mindset that people have going into it, you know, causing the, maybe the problems that they're having. I don't know, but I love that you start with that. And I think, you know, for health in general,

There's so much value in the stories that we tell ourselves or the stories that we believe and hear from other people just how that affects how we feel and live.

Elizabeth King (18:10)

Right. And I think it just takes that one story to hear, right, for you to know, my gosh, it's possible, I can do this. And that carries so much weight in our subconscious mind to know that it's possible. And I think that the old story of the over 35 and all of that, granted, you know, I know the doctors are not meaning to inflict fear in us and we do need sometimes

Kelly Berry (18:14)

Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Elizabeth King (18:38)

additional support and watching of those things. And that's great that we have the technology that we're able to do that. But at the same time, we also know that the cells and the science behind cell reproduction and how things work in our bodies, we know so much more than we knew 40 years ago or more, right? And our eggs and the mitochondria within able to be affected by what we do to our body now.

Kelly Berry (18:57)

Mhm.

Elizabeth King (19:06)

So just how stress has caused so much for our bodies in however long, right? So in the new world that we live in compared to 50 years ago, we also know now that there's a lot of ways to combat that and reverse Medical doctors don't really talk about that a whole lot. And that's where I like to really combine the fact that if we are doing all the things right, that we do have the ability to affect change on ourselves. And once you know that and believe that, it really gets you

Kelly Berry (19:06)

Mm -hmm.

Elizabeth King (19:35)

a whole lot further in your medical journey to be able to say, well, no, I think I'm not really going to buy into that narrative anymore of whatever it is that you think. And I can appreciate that that's what it was when you went to school and that's what you were told and whatever, but I'm forging the way this way. Feel free to observe me as the guinea pig of this geriatric mom or whatever it is that you want. But we also know I've been in medical conferences where they're talking about

Kelly Berry (19:43)

Mm -hmm.

Elizabeth King (20:05)

the inflammation in our bodies is really what causes the eggs to age rather than the aging itself, which makes a lot of sense. You see older people, they have arthritis, the inflammation in their body increases over age. Well, that affects our egg health, which is why one of the first steps we do is go through that food sensitivity test to see what is it that you are doing that we can eliminate in order to start to get that down. Another thing that causes

Kelly Berry (20:11)

Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Elizabeth King (20:34)

inflammation and stress in our bodies is stress. And so how do we regulate your nervous system? Because when our nervous system is regulated and our cortisol is level, we're not producing inflammation in our body. So we wanna make sure that all of that is in sync and in harmony within ourselves in order to make sure that our eggs are healthy, as healthy as they can be.

Kelly Berry (20:55)

Mm -hmm. Yeah. Yeah, I have a lot of thoughts on that too, but I want to I'll come back to that. The other thing that you said that I think is is so important whether you're on a journey like this or any other health journey is advocacy. this has come up a couple of times for me just in conversation recently, but no one is going to care as much about you and you what's going on with you than you and so

Part of going through anything like this is learning how to advocate for yourself and learning when it's appropriate or when, I use the word appropriate, mean, it's probably always appropriate to advocate, but when to know, I need to be the one to push this a step further or I need to question this. Another narrative that we've been told is that doctors are all knowing. And so if we go in there thinking that,

Elizabeth King (21:45)

Yeah. Right.

Kelly Berry (21:50)

We just are kind of conditioned to not question what we've been told.

Elizabeth King (21:54)

Right. And I tell all my doctor friends, get ready because all these women nowadays are so educated about their bodies and everything. And we have coaches for everything. We have business coaches. We have personal trainers. We have coaches if you're training for the Olympics, et cetera. A fertility coach is basically the same type of thing. Of course you have it for that short period of time, but we coach you through how to have those conversations with your doctor.

what to push them on and to feel good about that. You know, we're not coming in to bulldoze the situation. We need them. They are educated in a very detailed way and that is amazing. But we also know our body and we also have other questions about other things that they weren't necessarily educated on, like supplements and mindset and all of that other stuff, right? And that's again, where I call it your fertility team, building your fertility team so that the coaches work with the

Kelly Berry (22:27)

Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Elizabeth King (22:48)

the medical doctors and the acupuncturists. And so we're all talking about all aspects of your mental health, your physical health and everything that's going on in order to get you to your healthy baby.

Kelly Berry (22:58)

yeah, so the thing that I wanted to talk about was, you know, just how many situations that we go into as women or as people, if we have an issue with our health and we have a conversation with a doctor and the doctor never asks us anything about how we're eating, what our stress level is, how we're sleeping, you know, what, I don't know, everything, like what kind of products are we using in our household? So those are all things that I think contribute to every,

health issue that we have. And I think that if you are going to a doctor and they never ask anything about those questions and they immediately go to treatment plans or prescriptions without knowing kind of like who you are and how you live and what you do, that they're not really approaching it from this holistic way. And maybe you need to like take a step back and think about like, well, what are all these other bazillion factors that are going into what's going on with me and how can

I come up with a plan to address all of them.

Elizabeth King (23:59)

Right. And that can be a little bit overwhelming, right? I know for myself, when I first started seeing the fertility doctor after my myomectomy, which was the removal of my fibroids, which by the way, I had to advocate for myself because my OB, I went because my periods had gotten heavy. They said, it's just fibroids. It's fine. They're small. I knew my gut intuition.

Kelly Berry (24:02)

Mm

Elizabeth King (24:23)

I don't know, something doesn't seem right. And I went to the fertility doctor. said, can you just check this out? Cause I want to start using my uterus now. And I was 39, maybe almost 40 at that point. And he said, yeah, you're not getting pregnant because they're in the lining of your uterus. They're small, but they're exactly where you would implant. And so he recommended a gynecological oncologist. I had the surgery, I healed from the surgery. He's like, okay, you're 40 now. You got to hurry up and try.

Kelly Berry (24:31)

Hehehe.

Elizabeth King (24:51)

and I got pregnant my first try that time. So had I listened to my doctor and not my intuition and just accepted that, I don't even know where I would be at this point, you know? I first started seeing him, I was having, I have always had for many years, gut issues. I was having diarrhea nine times a day. My...

Kelly Berry (24:58)

Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Elizabeth King (25:11)

My reproductive endocrinologist never asked me how my bowel movements were. You know, we now know that gut health has a strong tie to fertility. So this is where I would say the reproductive endocrinologists are amazing, the fertility doctors. We need them. We love them. We adore them. There's millions of babies out in the world that are here because of them. At the same time, that's where you need the fertility team so that you can have somebody else to help you work through what else is going on in your body because

Kelly Berry (25:15)

Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Elizabeth King (25:40)

It is important, it is all connected and bless the fertility doctors. They don't study up on gut health, supplements, etc. acupuncture, all the other things that help to heal. What they work on is the embryos, the retrieval of the eggs and all these other important aspects. So it's important to pull together the people that can help you with those aspects.

And I was saying earlier, it can be overwhelming because if you're going to a functional doctor or a naturopath or something, you could walk in and say, okay, I've got issues. I want to get pregnant. And you come out with $900 worth of supplements or something insane. And you're like, my God, I thought I had, I just wanted to do this. And now I have this, this, this, and this. Like, I don't even know what to do now, you know? And that's again, where a fertility coach can help you.

Kelly Berry (26:18)

Mm

Elizabeth King (26:30)

pull it back in and say, what do we need to do to heal first? What's the game changer for your outcome of wanting to be pregnant, a healthy pregnancy? And what is on the outliers of what can we start to heal slowly alongside, but it's not really preventing the pregnancy, so to speak, if that makes sense.

Kelly Berry (26:49)

Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Yeah. So what are some things that you see a lot that are impacting people's ability to conceive or stay pregnant that people can just start paying attention to in their lives?

Elizabeth King (27:08)

So the one thing is supplements and understanding that just taking a regular prenatal is not enough. You definitely need to be supplementing that prenatal with additional vitamin C, vitamin D, zinc, CoQ10, depending on your age, et cetera. Again, that's just an overall list, but you really want to figure out what you need to be taking specifically for you. The other thing is the...

food that we're eating, a lot of times people don't realize their day -to -day food of what they think is healthy is actually not healthy for them. Myself as an example, I was eating shrimp salads most days, fish, you know, thinking I was being healthy eggs because that's on a fertility diet, only to know that those were highly, highly inflammatory for my body. So once I stopped doing that, my stomach

Kelly Berry (28:00)

Mm -hmm.

Elizabeth King (28:04)

calmed down, I instantly got to a balanced body weight and things just started working properly. In our visceral area, in our stomach, everything goes on there, right? Our digestion, our organs, everything's there as well as our reproductive system. So if we're having gut issues and our body is either constipated or diarrhea or whatever and it's working overtime, there's a lot of energy expended.

to those areas and anybody who has those types of things will tell you, it's exhausting. Like you are tired at the end of the day because your body's working so hard. So I see that quite a lot with gut health issues. Maybe they have chronic yeast, other things like that. But honestly, Kelly, what I see most is the mind blocks, the subconscious mind. They don't think it's possible. Maybe someone in their family has had some

Kelly Berry (28:37)

Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Elizabeth King (29:01)

problems in the past. Maybe they don't think that they can have a career and be a parent at the same time. I mean, the gamut is huge from what they aren't even aware is a block for them until we start to peel back the onion and people to get these aha moments of like, my gosh, I didn't even realize that I was thinking that or that that was a thing for me because consciously they're walking around saying their affirmations.

Kelly Berry (29:18)

Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Elizabeth King (29:27)

And I'm like, the affirmations aren't going to do anything unless your subconscious buys into that and agrees with that. So getting the conscious and the subconscious to agree, we work through a modality called psych K with my clients. And that's where we really get people to be open to receiving a baby in whatever way that may be, whether that's naturally or through any other ways.

Kelly Berry (29:32)

Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. So I know one thing that you do also is work with like a new parent coach. So what does that look like and what are some common things you see with, you know, women over 40 who are starting a family for the first time?

Elizabeth King (30:03)

Yes.

Yes. So, I mean, that's super fun to me because at that point, we've already worked through the PTSD with patients. A lot of people that do see me, unfortunately, have had losses or have struggled for many years before they have their baby. So it usually takes through the first trimester, through the anatomy scan for them to finally really believe, okay, this is happening.

And then we pick up again in the third trimester before baby comes to really get them prepared to know, okay, what is this new life going to look like? Right? If you're in your forties, that's a long life with being on your own with nobody else to take care of, so to speak. So, and there's a lot of nuances that we go through, even from how to put your baby in the bassinet correctly so that they feel comfortable, so that you're not waking up all the time, to red lights so that the

the circadian rhythm of both you and your baby can get on track when you're feeding through the night and those sorts of things, as well as anticipating the hormonal changes and what that looks like and what we can do to try to get you prepared for that. I struggled with feeding my children naturally. And so that's another thing. I make sure that everybody's prepared for that, that we have the lactation consultants already booked prior to having the babies, all of that kind of stuff so that

they feel as confident as you can going into it because when you're having your first baby, you don't know what you don't know, especially if you're in your 40s because like me, I had aged out from all my friends having kids. They had kids that were going into high school and I was just starting to have kids. So these weren't daily conversations that I was having with my friends. I was building businesses and traveling the world. I wasn't Googling how to be a parent or reading whatever books there are out there. And I have found that

Kelly Berry (31:40)

Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Mm

Elizabeth King (32:03)

after having night nurses and children and babies in the NICU, I learned so much from these experts on that side of things as well that I wanted to pass that on to my clients and patients so that they can feel confident going into that and anticipate the things that will be coming down the pipeline.

Kelly Berry (32:21)

Mm -hmm. Yeah. One thing I was surprised by too, because I'm similar, know, all of my friends had kids in middle school, high school, you know, now I'm like posting back to school pics of my daughter going to preschool and we're like looking at senior pics of my friends' kids. But, you know, just looking at my baby registry, they're like, we didn't have any of these things, you know, and so it's just, you almost have to like meet other new moms or have somebody who's just

Elizabeth King (32:35)

Thank you.

Exactly.

Yeah

Kelly Berry (32:51)

gone through it so that you know, like, okay, what are the things that are relevant like right now? Because things change so quickly.

Elizabeth King (32:56)

Right. Yeah, that's exactly what we do. We go through the registry. What do need to spend money on versus what do you not need to spend money on? What should you invest in more so than not? And yeah, after having three children, I definitely felt like I had that information to share with people. And it is overwhelming. And it's amazing what technology there is now for new parents. Even Amazon, I was thinking the other day. My goodness.

Kelly Berry (33:06)

Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Elizabeth King (33:26)

cool is that we live in a world now that even 20 years ago parents had to like get in the car and go to Target every time they needed something. We can now like Amazon.

Kelly Berry (33:26)

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, it was amazing and also much needed. Yeah. So as far as because I think I can totally relate to the I had been also building a business, not thinking about being a mother, not even sure that I wanted to be a mother until basically I decided that I wanted to be a mother. So it was a big shift for me to become a mother. What are some of

Elizabeth King (33:39)

Yes.

Kelly Berry (34:00)

You know, as far as maybe mental blocks, maybe not even mental blocks, but what are some of the things that women are struggling with when they become moms later in life?

Elizabeth King (34:11)

Yeah. I mean, it's a whole new identity. And as I talk about it for myself is I was taking on another full -time role. And when I take on a full -time role, I need to educate myself in that because I had my mom and other people say like, why are you taking that parenting class or why are you hiring that parenting coach? I had four kids and I never did that. I'm like, well, clearly

Kelly Berry (34:14)

Mm -hmm.

Elizabeth King (34:33)

I want to do better than you did. so I find it necessary because I am taking this seriously. I do want to raise my children in the best emotionally healing way for them at all times. And that looks different for different people. So taking on the extension of my new identity compared to, okay, business entrepreneur for 27 years prior to now

I can't just get up and go whenever I want because I have this kid. And even though I thought, I'm going to be the person that just straps on the baby and we travel and go do whatever. Well, I learned very quickly that all children are not created equal. And I did not get blessed with the type of children that you can just strap them on and go anywhere. So it was really hard for me at first to be into this new ground, I call it grounded experience because I was always traveling so much before.

for work and also exploring that in a way that was helpful for me and my husband, because my husband is even eight years older than I am. So for both of us to be in this situation of this new experience and so quickly.

again, I had three kids in three years. And so I went from single from 30 to 40 to all of a having three children and my world was turned upside down. And that still, quite honestly, takes me moments of, I have friends that are like, I can't believe this is your life. I'm like, I still can't really either. Like, how do I have three kids and this happened, you know?

Kelly Berry (36:11)

Yeah.

Mm -hmm.

Elizabeth King (36:15)

Because I was like you, I wasn't like I as always talking about having kids or I just assumed that it would happen when it was supposed to, just like I assumed I would meet my husband when I was supposed to and it worked out that way. But I think the biggest thing is having a support person or team or group or something that you can relate to other people that are going through it. Because even the difference between

Kelly Berry (36:23)

Mm -hmm.

Elizabeth King (36:42)

An older parent being a stay -at -home mom versus a working mom is different. And you go through different experiences in that. So finding people that you can relate to that are your tribe and your people is really important for you to stay within your own identity as well as raising these amazing little humans that are coming up in the world. So I think community is the biggest thing, is finding the people that can relate to you in wherever you are.

Kelly Berry (36:47)

Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Did you find that challenging, just being an older mother, like relating to mothers with children, similar in age? How did you approach creating that community for yourself?

Elizabeth King (37:25)

You know, ironically, I'm in Southern California and most people here are not having kids in their 20s, even really in their 30s. Maybe late 30s is where I saw it most. What the difference was is there weren't people in their 40s that were running two businesses and having that aspect. That's where I found it difficult to relate to people more so than the age aspect.

Kelly Berry (37:49)

Mm -hmm.

Mm

Elizabeth King (37:53)

And so where I found that was in masterminds and groups of other people. And I would literally say, does anybody else have like 303 boys, you know, because I need to have a chat with you and talk through it, you know? And that is how I started to build my community, literally putting out messages of like, is there anybody that can understand what I was going through? And then I'd have one CEO reach out to me like, yes, I, you know, they were four in three years or whatever it was, you know, so.

Kelly Berry (38:14)

Mm -hmm.

Elizabeth King (38:22)

Of course, nobody's gonna have the same exact situation as you, but as close as you can so that you can have conversations that people understand and also the same conversations of, school's starting now. What does that even mean when you're a first -time mom? Again, you don't know what you don't know. And so it's helpful to have other people that are a year ahead of you or in it with you to say, no, you gotta sign them up for this and that or.

Kelly Berry (38:32)

Mm

Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Elizabeth King (38:51)

know, like, here's the best backpack to get or whatever it may be. But that's how I just started to build it around from joining groups where I knew I wanted to uplevel myself and that I could find other people in my community in those sorts of ways.

Kelly Berry (39:06)

Mm -hmm. Yeah, yeah, that's so true. I remember, you know, I didn't know anything about daycare wait lists. So it's like, I'm thinking about, you know, this fall starting my daughter in daycare and people are like, is she on any, is she on every list? And I'm like, list, what do you mean? You know, it's like, for around where we live, you know, two plus years. And I'm like, well, I'm way behind. So no, I don't have her on a list. And so, you know, there are just things.

Elizabeth King (39:15)

my gosh.

Right.

Kelly Berry (39:35)

I didn't have that community quite yet, so I just didn't know that those were things. I didn't know what I didn't know.

Elizabeth King (39:39)

Right.

Right. And that's a big part of our early parent education as well because that was very, very difficult for us to find a nanny and to… Because again, being entrepreneurs, I didn't have the pleasure of taking time off of work when I had my kids. it was, you know, have a baby, have somebody there to help you with them. And I did not know how not easy it was to find childcare.

Kelly Berry (39:52)

Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Elizabeth King (40:11)

That's the one thing I will say as far as having children older. We also can't really relate to family members being able to help. My parents are in their 80s. They're not capable of stopping by and helping with my children. And a lot of people who have had children older can relate to that. They don't have the built -in family support that maybe you would if you were in your 20s or 30s having children that aunts and uncles or parents can...

Kelly Berry (40:25)

Mm -hmm.

Mm

Elizabeth King (40:40)

can really help in that way. yeah, childcare, daycare, all those things is not, it's not easy because you want to make sure that you're finding people that you trust and your kids are happy with who you have. And yeah, we've gone through au pairs, we've gone through nannies, we've gone through the gamut, daycare. Yeah.

Kelly Berry (40:47)

Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm. -hmm. Yeah, that is, it is challenging and it's, you know, I reflect on when I was younger and I was a babysitter and I don't know, I just think things are so much different. You know, I had a friend who couldn't babysit one day and was like, can you babysit these kids for me? You know, never met the parents. It's just like, I don't think that would happen these days. You know, like we were having somebody come over and it's like, okay, we're gonna have an interview. We're gonna talk to references. We're gonna shadow.

Elizabeth King (41:11)

Yeah.

No.

Kelly Berry (41:26)

And I don't know if that's being older or if that's just kind of the way things are now. But that's another aspect I just hadn't thought a lot about was because we don't live near family. We don't really have that built in support. You know, additionally, since we're older, our parents are older. So things just look different, especially than even they did for our siblings, you know. So, yeah.

Elizabeth King (41:40)

right?

Right.

Kelly Berry (41:50)

Interesting. Do you have any like go -to books or resources that you like to recommend whether it's on conception or pregnancy or parenting? Like what are your favorites in those categories?

Elizabeth King (42:04)

So a book that I really like is called The Better Baby and that is by, I think, Lana Asprey is her name. Most people know Dave Asprey. did the Bulletproof Coffee, all of that sort of stuff. And so I read her book. She's, I want to say from Sweden. I had read her book prior to me even, I think I was about 38, like I said, when I started to think like, okay, I better like start to figure this out if I want to have kids and what this is going to look like.

Kelly Berry (42:17)

Okay, yeah.

Elizabeth King (42:34)

And because I had followed Dave for many, many years, I knew the philosophy around the natural things and the biohacking of cells and all of that. And that's definitely my jam. I always say you see Jane Fonda and she looks amazing for whatever year, however old she is. And yes, there's genetics that go into that. But we also know there's so many things that we can do now for our health. So I read this book, The Better Baby Book,

And that's the one that I recommend to people now. There's another book that I actually haven't read, but it's quite popular. It starts with an egg. And a lot of people read that book. There's nuances there that I would say too. It's great as an overall, but you really, really want to hone in on you specifically. Because if I were just to read that book and start eating a fertility diet that has eggs in it,

I would be a full train wreck and green vegetables are not my friend. So it's important to kind of take it for face value and really just have a consult with a coach that focuses on all of these things, not just the mental health, if you want to hone in on those things. Because again, not all fertility coaches are certified, not all fertility coaches focus and have a broader spectrum of knowing other things. So you just want to find somebody that can help you.

with a larger umbrella. then as far as parenting books, really my, my advice is to not be in the books, but have conversations with people. And because of social media and Facebook and all of those things now, it's really easy to say, even to ping me and be like, Hey, can I have a five, 10 minute conversation with what you would recommend? My baby's coming in two weElizabeth Kings and I'm not really sure what to do.

Now, if you have time to read all these books, God bless. I was not somebody who had that time to do. And really where I focus more for myself is from the emotional and spiritual standpoint with my children. So the epigenetics. What are the things that I went through that I don't want to pass down to my kids? What are the things that are really going to matter at a cellular level rather than how to change a diaper at

four in the morning or those sorts of things. So I think it depends on everybody specifically how they approach parenting. And for me, was more so how can I make sure that they are the most well -rounded, good people walking the

Kelly Berry (44:57)

Mm -hmm.

Hmm.

Yeah.

Elizabeth King (45:12)

Yes. So a book that I love and is actually part of our curriculum of the Fertility Coach Academy. So we have a lot of people who have either gone through it and or nurses that want to become fertility coaches. We have a certification program to help you to do that. And part of that curriculum is a book called The Biology of Belief. And that is from Bruce Lipton, wrote that book. He's a scientist, an MD who talks about

epigenetics and how important it is and especially I would say if anybody's getting ready to have a baby to read this book. It's very scientific in the beginning and talks about cellular makeup and all of those things that for some people may be quite boring. For me, I completely geElizabeth King out on all that stuff. But then it kind of comes full circle as to why all of those things are so important. Like you said earlier, doctors aren't asking you what is your stress level like. They're saying

Did you eat your vegetables? Are you getting enough sleep? Whatever. But the cortisol, the stress hormone, if that's high running through your body, your baby's getting that cortisol and your baby's body is developing with the anticipation of what it's going to be coming out into the world with. So if it's in a high stress environment, just by what you think is going on in your world, he or she is going to come out thinking the world is stressful because

I'm getting a lot of cortisol going through my blood for some reason. And the world we live in now is not like it was thousands of years ago where we would have short stints of this, you know, high cortisol when we're being chased by a tiger or whatever it was. Now we are living in constant states of stress. And when you're pregnant, it's really important to make sure that you find whatever it may be for yourself to calm your stress. And the people that I work with are very type A most of the time.

they're not even really aware that they have stress because they're like, I got it. I'm doing all the things and I'm doing it well. And they don't even recognize that actually they are stressed, you know, whether it's getting an email at 10 o 'clock at night that you didn't expect or something going on with your family or whatever. So it's really important to see that full picture prior to getting pregnant and especially when you are pregnant. So The Biology of the Leaf, I think, is a great book to explain that to people.

Kelly Berry (47:16)

Mm -hmm

Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Yeah, I've not heard of that one, but I'll check it out. I just got done reading one this morning. Actually, it's on my book. It's called How to Raid Successful People. Have you heard of that? It's by Esther Wojcicki. Anyway, she had three daughters. One was like the CEO of YouTube. One was the co -founder of 23andMe. And one is like a, I don't know, medical doctor, teacher at

Elizabeth King (47:39)

Yeah.

Mmm. I have not.

Kelly Berry (48:04)

big university in California anyway. you know, she just talks about all of the ways that you kind of help your children become, like extend trust to them, responsibility, independence, all of these things that, you know, we've been deprogrammed to do with like helicopter parenting and all of these other things. But, you know, basically how to help children think for themselves and be like more caring and compassionate individuals.

Elizabeth King (48:30)

Yes. And that just reminds me, last night I watched a documentary on Prime called Sensitive. I can't remember the tagline to it, but it's about highly sensitive people, HSPs, how to raise children to let them be, let them feel their feelings all the way out and let them know that it's okay to express this and that. that, you know, she uses the example of

Kelly Berry (48:43)

Mm

Elizabeth King (48:58)

coming into a preschool and the kids are standing in the back checking it out and the teacher goes, are you shy? So right away they've been labeled as shy and that child takes on that programming. They're not shy at all. They're just taking in a new environment and checking it out. And I have seen that so many times with my three boys. And I, because I'm so much into this subconscious programming, it makes me infuriated because I'm like, my gosh, you just put

Kelly Berry (49:05)

Mm

Mm -hmm.

Elizabeth King (49:26)

a into my child's brain that is going to be really hard for me to undo. This documentary was really great because it helps you also to understand the differences of they may just be expressing themselves in a different way because they're sensitive. I know I hear a lot from other entrepreneurs that they were always told like, were too much or your energy is too this or too that or whatever. Actually, they're just, you know.

Kelly Berry (49:31)

Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Elizabeth King (49:55)

that's normal for them. So it was interesting. It's awesome how many different ways we can learn to help raise our children now than there were when we were being brought up. I think it's awesome.

Kelly Berry (49:56)

Yeah, yeah.

Mm -hmm. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. I think, you know, in general, labels are not very helpful. And I've talked about this a lot on the podcast, so we won't go into it. But, you know, it's like the growth and the fixed mindset. You know, like you are smart or you are good at that or all of these things that are just not exactly helping us help our children become who they're meant to be. yeah.

Elizabeth King (50:32)

Right.

Kelly Berry (50:34)

I'll check that book out for sure. Well, this has been a really awesome conversation. I'm so glad you came and shared all of these things with us. I do want to make sure to give you the opportunity to talk about where can people find you, how can people work with you, and what does that look like?

Elizabeth King (50:52)

Yes. So it's different for everybody. First, you can find me at ElizabethKing .com or Instagram, the official Elizabeth King. We just rebranded the podcast to Friends with Fertility. And it's different for everybody because everyone comes to the table with something different. So someone may have PCOS, some people may have unexplained fertility, some people may just be on their starting their journey. So, you know, it ranges of how that works, but usually it's

a three to six session weElizabeth Kingly call and in between communication via Voxer. So when I was going through it or any difficult time in my life, it was always, you know, if you're seeing a therapist, it's Tuesdays at two and God forbid anything else happened in between then because you're on your own. So we work through that as people are getting their information from their doctors and whatnot. So it's very different from that.

And then we also have the Fertility Coach Academy. So again, if people are having side jobs and they feel like they really feel this pull to help other people on their fertility journey, whether they've, like I said, conceived naturally and or they've gone through their own IVF process or they've had multiple losses and they are just feeling like, you know, this is something that I feel really passionate about helping other people. We teach them how to hold the space as a coach.

how to learn about all things fertility, again, from the cellular level of the egg and the sperm and how that comes to be to building a business and what that looks to market it and get clients and all of those things. So there's a lot of different aspects.

Kelly Berry (52:32)

Yeah, I love that. didn't know that. But that's great because I think that there, it's probably a big need. And there are a lot of people who are equipped, you know, with part of the skill set to do what they need to do and just need, you know, some of the very specific training that you all are doing. So that's awesome. I think it's a really important work for a big, big population. I think bigger than people realize even.

Elizabeth King (53:00)

Yeah. mean, in 2020, I had a t -shirt that was one in eight. One in eight couples were going through infertility. Now it's one in six from the CDC. So even in that short amount of time, and we knew then that that even that number, a lot of people don't even report what's happening, especially with miscarriages too. That's one in four, but that number really is distorted as well.

Kelly Berry (53:10)

Yeah.

Elizabeth King (53:28)

The Mayo Clinic also did a study in 2013 that says if you are going through a fertility journey, it's the same stress level as a cancer patient. And I use that a lot because people that are going through it are having such a hard time and they think it's just in their head or it's okay, they'll get through it and they lean on their partner. And really, this is a big deal. So reaching out for support is okay. You will get to the other side and you'll get to the other side faster if you have that support.

Harvard did a study on that. You're 55 % more likely to conceive if you're getting that cognitive support during your journey. So there's a lot of evidence that shows the need for fertility coaching and help through the process. It's just a matter of stepping into it and knowing that it's okay. doesn't mean it's not a sign of weakness. It's empowering yourself and you'll get there faster and healthier as well.

Kelly Berry (53:56)

Mm -hmm.

Mm

Yeah, amazing. Well, thank you so much. I will link to everything that Elizabeth just mentioned in the show notes. So thank you so much. This has been great and appreciate everything that you're doing and all the work that you're doing.

Elizabeth King (54:39)

Thanks, Kelly. Stay safe in that storm. Bye.

Kelly Berry (54:41)

Thank you. I will try. Bye.