She spent six years trying to become a mother. Male factor infertility caught too late, a stillbirth, egg freezing, a divorce and then gestational surrogacy in the middle of COVID with a therapist who was not trained in Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART).

What Leslie Lopez found on the other side was her daughter - and her calling.

Leslie is an independent mother and host of the Mothers in Arms podcast, whose mission is to address the emotional side of the reproductive journey. Today she joins Dr. Susan Fox to talk about what the fertility world gets right and what it gets wrong.

Learn why male factor infertility is still being caught too late (at home tests can fall short) and what "test, don't guess" really means when morphology and DNA fragmentation are the issue.

The words “childless” and “child-free” are not the same. Hear from Leslie why that difference matters.

Understand the importance of having a therapist trained in ART.

Discover the importance of sharing with your donor-conceived children the right information at the right time.

This episode is for you if:

• you're navigating infertility and feeling alone
• you're considering surrogacy or donor conception and don't know where to start
• you've been through ART and felt like the emotional side was an afterthought
• you're an “independent” parent or thinking about becoming one
• you're wondering when and how much to tell your donor-conceived child their story
• you're in the fourth trimester and seeking mental health support

Support your fertility journey with Preconception Plan at Health Youniversity. Learn more here: https://healthyouniversity.co/programs

Mother in Arms Podcast : https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mothers-in-arms/id1768849257

Donor Conceived Community: https://www.donorconceivedcommunity.org/

US Donor Conceived Council: https://www.usdcc.org/

IVF and Surrogacy Calculator (Tsong Law): https://www.tsonglaw.com/ivf-calculator

Gift of Surrogacy Foundation: https://www.giftofsurrogacyfoundation.org/

Carrot Fertility: https://www.get-carrot.com/

Embrya Health: https://embrahealth.com/

Resolve Support Groups: https://resolve.org/get-help/support-groups/

💻 About Susan Fox: https://www.healthyouniversity.co/about

Take your 5-Element Fertility Quiz: http://yourfertilityquiz.com/

Detox to De-Stress: View the FREE Masterclass on the importance of detoxification to prepare for a healthy pregnancy: https://susanfox1.easywebinar.live/gentle-detox

Learn about our program entitled Your Fertile Health: https://www.healthyouniversity.co/programs

Schedule a Fertile Health Assessment: https://www.healthyouniversity.co/your-fertile-health-call

Let us journey with you as you navigate your fertile health. Connect with me:

🎧 iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/health-youniversity-with-dr-susan-fox/id1592763186

🔊 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/08U9QJf...

📸 Instagram: @dr.susan.fox

💗 Facebook: ...

Jodi Scott was pregnant when she opened her first aid cabinet and started reading the ingredient labels. What she found surprised her. The products people trusted for cuts, burns, and skin irritation contained ingredients she no longer felt comfortable putting on herself or her family.

So she built Green Goo to prove that plant based first aid works.

Jodi is the founder of Green Goo, a plant based first aid and herbal wellness company built from family remedies, herbal medicine, and a belief that what we put on our bodies matters as much as what we put in our bodies..

Today she joins Dr. Susan Fox for a conversation about skin, hormones, inflammation, and why the products sitting in your bathroom may be affecting your whole health and fertility.

You'll learn:

• Ingredients like parabens, phthalates, petroleum, and synthetic fragrances are still found in many skincare and first aid products.
• These chemicals are now being found in follicular fluid, amniotic fluid, and placental tissue.
• How the skin and nervous system are connected.
• Why chronic inflammation and high cortisol can affect fertility.
• Three to four months before conception to reduce toxic exposures to eggs, embryos and fetus.
• How your skin sends signals that prioritizes survival or reproduction

If you've cleaned up your diet and supplements but never thought much about your lotion, this episode will make you look at your medicine cabinet a little differently.

Support your fertility journey with Preconception Plan at Health Youniversity. Learn more here: https://healthyouniversity.co/programs

💻 About Susan Fox: https://www.healthyouniversity.co/about

Take your 5-Element Fertility Quiz: http://yourfertilityquiz.com/

Detox to De-Stress: View the FREE Masterclass on the importance of detoxification to prepare for a healthy pregnancy: https://susanfox1.easywebinar.live/gentle-detox

Learn about our program entitled Your Fertile Health: https://www.healthyouniversity.co/programs

Schedule a Fertile Health Assessment: https://www.healthyouniversity.co/your-fertile-health-call

Let us journey with you as you navigate your fertile health. Connect with me:

🎧 iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/health-youniversity-with-dr-susan-fox/id1592763186

🔊 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/08U9QJf...

📸 Instagram: @dr.susan.fox

💗 Facebook: ...

She woke up with pain in her side and went to the doctor expecting an explanation. She walked out having been told she might have late-stage ovarian cancer. What it turned out to be was a rare disease documented in only 154 people on the planet.

The next question Lauren Makler asked her doctor was, "Can I freeze my eggs?" The answer was no. They didn't know what caused her disease, and they weren't willing to flood her abdomen with hormones to find out.

So her sister froze eggs for her. By some miracle, Lauren kept her ovaries. And the experience of staring down egg donation as her only path forward, she was horrified by what she found. Her conviction that there must be a better way to grow her family became the seed for Cofertility.

Lauren is the co-founder and CEO of Cofertility, a human-first fertility ecosystem that lets women freeze their eggs for free when they donate half. Today she joins Dr. Susan Fox to talk about why the conventional egg donation model is broken and what egg sharing looks like when done at scale.

You'll learn how egg sharing differs from traditional egg donation and why cash compensation, which is tiered by heritage, education, race, and "pedigree" was the first thing that struck Lauren as wrong.

We explain that anonymity is unfeasible with companies like Ancestry.com and 23andMe.

She explains how a single traditional donor's eggs can end up in 25 families and why Cofertility caps at 3 donor cycles.

We talk about secondary infertility.

And why women in medicine experience infertility at twice the rate of the general public.

Finally, we highlight that egg freezing is not an insurance policy but rather an assurance policy.

💻 About Susan Fox: https://www.healthyouniversity.co/about

Take your 5-Element Fertility Quiz: http://yourfertilityquiz.com/

Detox to De-Stress: View the FREE Masterclass on the importance of detoxification to prepare for a healthy pregnancy: https://susanfox1.easywebinar.live/gentle-detox

Learn about our program entitled Your Fertile Health: https://www.healthyouniversity.co/programs

Schedule a Fertile Health Assessment: https://www.healthyouniversity.co/your-fertile-health-call

Let us journey with you as you navigate your fertile health. Connect with me:

🎧 iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/health-youniversity-with-dr-susan-fox/id1592763186

🔊 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/08U9QJf...

📸 Instagram: @dr.susan.fox

💗 Facebook: ...