“You’re old, you’ll probably miscarry”: What’s really causing infertility? With Liberty Mills

At age 43 Liberty Mills was told she had a 0.7% chance of having another baby with her own eggs – and that was with the assistance of IVF. But she and her partner decided to continue their fertility journey with the help of integrative medicine, and after a lifestyle overhaul, she conceived her daughter naturally, and gave birth two weeks before her 45th birthday. In this chat with Fearne, Liberty explains how her own experiences inspired her to become a Certified Integrative Health and Nutrition Coach, helping other individuals and couples to amend their lifestyles to optimise their ability to conceive. Liberty talks through how everything from vaping, to stress, to the plastics in your kitchen are affecting both female and male fertility. Not planning on having a baby? All these lifestyle changes are still important for our overall health and mental wellbeing. Plus, Fearne and Liberty do a deep dive into negative self-talk, body image, and the shame that can be attached to infertility. Liberty’s book, 360 Fertility, is out on May 22nd. Some extra reading you might find useful: Nutrient depletion from prescribed medications https://www.chiropractic-clinic.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/nutrient-depletion_V6_17Dec.pdf Nutrients depleted by the contraceptive pill https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35856377/ How prescriptions deplete nutrients https://www.rupahealth.com/post/10-commonly-prescribed-medications-the-nutrients-they-deplete If you liked this episode of Happy Place, you might also like: Estelle Bingham https://pod.fo/e/2c3bf2 Holly Bourne https://pod.fo/e/2b5d15 Paloma Faith https://pod.fo/e/245bab Dynamo https://pod.fo/e/2b3c43 Child on the line is a three-part documentary podcast series celebrating the Volunteer Counsellors of Childline, and the brave children & young people who contact the helpline service. Listen here: https://www.childonthelinepodcast.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Hi, I'm Natalie Dormer and I'm proud to be an ambassador for Childline. This year, Childline turns 40. To mark it, I've made Child on the Line, a three-part documentary podcast. We hear why children needed a helpline in 1986, how it was built against the odds and the challenges children face today, from abuse and mental health to social media and AI. Search Child on the Line and listen wherever you get your podcasts.

• 0:29Fearne Cotton?

  Hello, I'm Fern Cotton and this is Happy Place, the show that supports you through rough moments in life. Today, I'm chatting to Liberty Mills.

• 0:38Speaker 02

  I know that when I went through my fertility journey, I didn't tell anyone till I was 24 weeks because, "Oh, you're old, you're probably miscarrying." And so I had that in my head. I couldn't even celebrate when I got the pregnancy test. "Oh, well, you know, better not get too excited." Change your mindset. It's not, "This is it." Even though I was told, "This is it," I had to tell myself, "No, there's a possibility it's not it."

• 1:08Fearne Cotton?

  I'm excited about today's chat. What I want to say before I even get into this is if you're not on a fertility journey, you might have already decided you don't want kids, or you've got kids and you're fine with it. I really urge you to listen to this chat because it goes way beyond fertility. This chat goes into lots of different subjects that I'll talk about more properly in a moment, but certainly about the toxins in our house and how we can clean up our act there and just feel generally better. But the bit that always really obviously piques my interest is when we're looking at mental health. And we talk a lot in this chat about negative self-talk. And if you're anything like me, and I know many of you are, you will have a lot of negative chat in your noodle.

• 1:49Fearne Cotton?

  I talk to myself like utter shit a lot of the time, and I know I do it and I hate it. Even though I've been doing this podcast for seven years and I've written a load of books on it, I still do it all the time. And I know that it really messes up my day sometimes. It can completely change the mood and tone of a day. And all of these things are fixable, certainly when it comes to negative self-talk. We've got so much more autonomy over all of it than we think we have. So this chat got me thinking a lot about that. And I'm going to do one of the exercises that Liberty, who I talked to today, suggests. I'm going to do it within the next hour. When I get home, I'm getting out a notepad and I'm writing this shit down. Because this is something that I think stops all of us in our tracks.

• 2:34Fearne Cotton?

  So as I said, if you're not bothered about hearing about the fertility stuff, do stick around because it is bloody interesting, especially if you've got a negative little chatty voice in your head like me. So let's get on to talking about Liberty. So at the age of 43, she was told she had a 0.7% chance of having another baby with her own eggs. And that was with the assistance of IVF. But she and her partner decided to continue their fertility journey with the help of integrative medicine. And after a lifestyle overhaul, she conceived her daughter naturally and gave birth two weeks before her 45th birthday.

• 3:15Fearne Cotton?

  Now Liberty works as a certified integrative health and nutrition coach, which means she helps create bespoke programmes for anyone hoping to conceive. And her new book, 360 Fertility, shares loads of her brilliant knowledge. So a couple of things that we talk about. One of the big ones is accusatory language around fertility, which we dive into. I mean, some of the language is shocking, it's outrageous. The shame attached to infertility and it all feeling like your fault. And when I say that, I'm talking specifically to the females listening to this episode. We also chat about the lifestyle changes that we can all make, most of us can make. Also communicating with your partner if you've got one and you're on this journey with your partner.

• 4:00Fearne Cotton?

  And a lot about the power of journaling and letter writing. And that sits in and outside of the fertility chat too.

• 4:09Speaker 03

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• 5:43Fearne Cotton?

  Right, to Liberty in just a sec, but first, have you got your tickets for the Happy Place Festival? I hope you have. We're going to be at Gunnersbury Park on July 12th and 13th, and Tatten Park on August 30th and 31st. Are you a fan of Vogue Williams? I am. I think she's bloody brilliant. She'll be doing a live podcast with me at the festival. Millie MacIntosh is going to be there too. So is Gemma Atkinson, as is Jordan Stevens, who I adore. So many brilliant people. And as well as hearing those amazing talks, there is so much you can properly get involved with. There's breath work. There's yoga, there's spoken word to listen to and some really great shopping. Or just get yourself some delicious food and have a little chill on a beanbag in the sun divine.

• 6:29Fearne Cotton?

  Keep an eye on our socials too, by the way, because we're going to be announcing the workshops you can sign up to very soon. But you can only sign up to the workshops if you've got your ticket. So why don't you do it just now? Head to happyplacefestival.com. Right, let's crack on, here's the show.

• 7:07Fearne Cotton?

  Hello Liberty.

• 7:08Speaker 02

  Hello.

• 7:09Fearne Cotton?

  It's so nice to meet you.

• 7:11Speaker 02

  And you.

• 7:11Fearne Cotton?

  I'm really looking forward to having this chat because on Happy Place, we've been going for seven years now. We've talked about fertility, probably more from a personal story side of things. But I don't think we've really got into the nitty gritty of looking at it from your perspective, which is from the perspective of, I can never say this word properly, integrative health coach.

• 7:30Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 7:31Fearne Cotton?

  So if anyone's thinking, what on earth is that? How would you describe that role, first of all?

• 7:35Speaker 02

  I look at everybody, I'm not for everybody. You know, I look at everybody from the 360. So I'll even ask people, what was going on when your mum was pregnant with you? You know, was she stressed? Did she have to have antipartum? What was your birth like? So I look at everything, trauma, food, because if you're eating, I don't know, what did I just eat? An egg, avocado, kale, pickles, kimchi, all of that lot. But you're stressed and you're having four coffees or you fasted and not broken your fast with the fat and all of those things, you're not going to be absorbing those nutrients.

• 8:12Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, do you know what? It's so interesting when, when we look at wellness, how there'll be all this specific stuff that you might read or see on the internet about you need to eat like this or you need to exercise like that. And then we forget to say yes, but if you're incredibly stressed. Stress and you're not managing that, none of that stuff's going to touch sides.

• 8:31Speaker 02

  What's the point?

• 8:31Fearne Cotton?

  What is the point? And especially when it comes to fertility, which we're going to really deeply dive into. Because not only is your professional work focused on helping people throughout their fertility journey, but this is really fired up from your own personal story as well. So can you tell us a little bit about that?

• 8:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, my own personal story is I had a child three days after my 23rd birthday naturally. And then I met someone a long, long, long time later. I was 41 when I met him and I'd always wanted to have another child, but I hadn't met someone that I thought would be the kind of dad that I wanted them to be. And he is, he's an amazing dad. So off we trotted to get our tests. And the GP just looked at me basically as if I was mad. And she did, she took her glasses off, looked down at her notes and said, you do know how old you are? And I was like, yeah. And she said, 1974, you were born the same year as me.

• 9:33Speaker 02

  This isn't going to happen. You'll need to go and see a fertility clinic and you'll probably need egg donor.

• 9:38Fearne Cotton?

  Wow.

• 9:39Speaker 02

  So I was like, oh, okay. You know, you, you just believe what the people in white coats tell you, right?

• 9:44Fearne Cotton?

  Of course. I think this is the issue for so many people that you're told something as if it's a fact.

• 9:51Speaker 02

  That was, that was just off, you do my date of birth, no, no testing done, no blood work done.

• 9:57Fearne Cotton?

  And you were given a 0.7% chance with IVF?

• 10:00Speaker 02

  With IVF from a very, very renowned IVF clinic with my tests. Because I did, you know, which is, you know, was based on their clinical data. That was the number I was given. You know, I had one, their words again, barren ovary, barren. And then the other one had only a few viable follicles.

• 10:21Fearne Cotton?

  I want to get on to the language in a minute, but first of all, spoiler alert, you had a baby.

• 10:24Speaker 02

  Spoiler alert, had a baby naturally, yeah, conceived naturally, no IVF. Not that I'm against IVF, loads of my clients do IVF and I fully support that. Yeah, she was born naturally. I wasn't induced, no complications. And when I gave birth to her, I shouted. Women rule.

• 10:44Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 10:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, because she was a girl.

• 10:46Fearne Cotton?

  When we look at the 0.7% chance with IVF that many, many women, we're going to get on to the couples and the man bit in a minute, but many women hear that, their heart sinks, they mentally sort of give up and just think it's not going to happen. But we hear so many stories like yours where you make changes, you make tweaks, you know, you had a head start with your, you were doing your training at the time to become a health coach. So you knew the direction you wanted to head in. But we need to hear more stories like that and ways that we can feel empowered and make choices that do work for us. So let's first of all, talk about the language because again, this seems to be very problematic for women. I've had so many friends who have been told they've got geriatric eggs, barren.

• 11:30Speaker 02

  I was a geriatric mother.

• 11:31Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, you've got a.

• 11:32Speaker 02

  So I would have to have certain extra tests and this was going to happen, I would have to be induced. And I said, no, I'm not, I don't, I don't, tell me on my date, why do I have to be? Not on my date of birth.

• 11:45Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah. But the language feels almost sort of accusatory, like it's your fault, like inhospitable womb. That's a phrase that's used in the medical world, as well as you have failed to conceive. It's like you have failed to conceive.

• 12:03Speaker 02

  You have failed, failed.

• 12:05Fearne Cotton?

  All on the woman.

• 12:06Speaker 02

  Clients come to me day in, day out and say, I'm the one that's to blame. It's my low AMH, it's my fault. That's what they say. And I said, well, actually, can you just give me the sperm result? And I said, well, there's a male contributing factor as well. It's just a contributing factor. And those numbers you can move, you can't change the number of eggs, but you can change the quality of the eggs. You can change the quality of the host body. You can easily change the sperm quite often.

• 12:35Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 12:36Speaker 02

  You know, more often than not, you can, I've not had a man that I've, sounds weird, not personally seen and changed his sperm. But as, you know, as, as, as a coach, I've not had a man in the last five and a half years that I've not changed his sperm, quality, quantity.

• 12:54Speaker 02

  Even DNA fragmentation and that's important. People don't talk about that either.

• 12:58Fearne Cotton?

  The disparity is huge. I mean, it's, there's a canyon between how we're looking at women's health when it comes to fertility and men's because we're not looking at it. We're just like, oh, what can the woman do? How can she feel less stressed? How can she eat better? But actually, in your book, you write in detail about, you know, how much alcohol is the male consuming? Are they vaping? You know?

• 13:21Speaker 02

  Vaping's huge.

• 13:23Fearne Cotton?

  Yes, that's actually.

• 13:24Speaker 02

  You've got three to four thousand chemicals within each vape. You can vape way more places that, you know, socially than you can smoke. So you're probably actually having more than you would do if you're on a cigarette because you can't smoke in a lot of places.

• 13:39Fearne Cotton?

  And what's that doing to sperm?

• 13:41Speaker 02

  Destroying it. And it's, and it's not only actually is it destroying those, but what is it, what happens if you do fertilize the egg? What quality embryo? What is going to be the quality of your child's health going forward?

• 13:54Fearne Cotton?

  So when we're looking at men, we, we can look at the obvious stuff like, are they smoking? Are they vaping? Are they consuming too much alcohol? What else could change the quality of sperm that could fundamentally, you know, change the course of whether somebody gets pregnant or not?

• 14:07Speaker 02

  Quite often it's the basics as well. Just think as well, sperm, semen is in fluid. A lot of men are dehydrated. They're not drinking enough. So you can get clumpy sperm.

• 14:18Fearne Cotton?

  Hmm.

• 14:18Speaker 02

  Right? Not great.

• 14:21Fearne Cotton?

  I want to be mature about this, but I'm finding it really hard.

• 14:25Speaker 02

  Me too.

• 14:27Fearne Cotton?

  Clumpy sperm, I've never heard those words together.

• 14:30Speaker 02

  Well.

• 14:30Fearne Cotton?

  Clumpy sperm, right?

• 14:31Speaker 02

  Clumpy sperm.

• 14:32Fearne Cotton?

  We want.

• 14:32Speaker 02

  Um, they wanna, and I always do this. I don't know why. They're not this big.

• 14:36Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, no.

• 14:37Speaker 02

  Not.

• 14:41Speaker 02

  Um, check for a varicose seal. Varicose seals are very, very common. So it's like a, you know, like a varicose vein you might have on your leg. You can get them within the testes.

• 14:49Fearne Cotton?

  Right.

• 14:49Speaker 02

  Right? And that can be a contributing factor if it's too big.

• 14:53Fearne Cotton?

  Wow.

• 14:54Speaker 02

  Don't freak out if you do have them and you're a chap or your, your partner has them because they are quite common, but they, it depends on the size.

• 15:02Fearne Cotton?

  Right.

• 15:03Speaker 02

  Certain ones, for example, if you were doing um IVF on the NHS, you wouldn't be eligible if they were a certain size.

• 15:11Fearne Cotton?

  Right.

• 15:12Speaker 02

  But it's something that's on first, you know, your GP can check you out. And you can then go and have an MRI to see how big they are or how many you've got. And then you, I've had a client, they've had the little operation to, you know, sort that out. Then you have to wait before you try to conceive because as the sperm renews every sixty four days. And then you can try again. And then I've had clients that were told they needed sperm donor or they'd have to have ICSI. And then after that, they didn't need it and they've conceived naturally just from because their varic seals were quite large.

• 15:49Fearne Cotton?

  Because the, because this isn't really talked about, you know, on a mainstream level, we're not bringing men into the fertility conversation. How often do you find it when you're working with couples that the man is reluctant to get on board with changes or?

• 16:02Speaker 02

  Quite often, quite often, men, they come to me and so it's all on Zoom because I I do it worldwide and they'll be like this. You know, oh, my wife, my partners met this woo woo lady on on, you know, Instagram, what's going on? And so I was talking to a gentleman, I said, you know, you believe in maths, right? You believe in statistics. So you wouldn't, if you were baking a cake, it has to be, you know, that's a science. Has to be certain measures. You can't be a baker like me, just shoves everything in willy nilly and then it doesn't quite turn out right. How it's meant to be on the picture. And I said, so you need to get those levels right. There's there's measures.

• 16:44Speaker 02

  For example, like the Kruger scale of morphology for a reason. And we can't just say, oh, well, it doesn't matter anymore. You have to get those levels up and then we can, then we can enter the game.

• 16:56Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 16:57Speaker 02

  And then they're like, oh, okay. And when they usually see that the, you know, I say, well, we'll do this. And then you'll get tested. And if it hasn't improved, you say goodbye.

• 17:07Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 17:08Speaker 02

  To me. But if it has improved, let's continue working. And we do that and then like, oh. It's improved.

• 17:14Fearne Cotton?

  Hmm.

• 17:15Speaker 02

  Or my sleep quality's got better. My energy's got better, my focus. And then I've, you know, quadrupled my sperm motility, like the way it it it goes up. Because quite a lot of men's sperm just hangs out having a little party.

• 17:35Fearne Cotton?

  Right, right.

• 17:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:36Fearne Cotton?

  Wow, and I'm I mean, I'm imagining you're hearing these stories constantly from your clients that, you know, they're surprised by these changes.

• 17:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, last week even, I had one guy who'd had quite low levels all over his sperm. And he was sent to see a urologist. And the urologist had checked him out, no varicose seal, nothing. Said, okay, try some lifestyle changes. I've seen you've, you know, got this lady. And then he went back and everything was great, optimum level. And he's and the urologist, Harley Street urologist, was like, what have you done? Give me the sheet. What did the lady, what what has she put you on? But it was everything. It's not, a lot of people come to me like, what pill can I take?

• 18:17Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 18:18Speaker 02

  It's not just that. If it was that simple, you know, someone would have done it by now.

• 18:23Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, well, your approach is, you say, body and soul. So we need to cover both. Let's continue on the body front first. So we've looked at sort of vaping, alcohol. There'll be a whole host of people that will be listening to this that will currently be on antidepressants or anxiety medication. What are the guidelines with that? Because I'm imagining there is a detrimental.

• 18:44Speaker 02

  There is. So my my partner won't mind, you know, after we were given our diagnosis. He did slump into a depression and was put on an um an antidepressant. And then when I looked into it, I was like, actually, this is not great for your sperm. Can you go back and ask for a different one? Or can you ask for some other way to be helped? Because it's actually going to harm what's made you slump into this depression.

• 19:14Fearne Cotton?

  If you really don't want to come off antidepressants or anxiety medication because you know it works for you, you've been on it a long time. Are there things you can do to perhaps counter it?

• 19:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, up your B12, your VITC, I'll send you, there's, there's like a whole PDF of what depletes what. So even certain different medications deplete certain nutrients within the body. So if you know, oh, I'm taking this medication, it depletes magnesium, well, you need to make sure you have extra magnesium. Or you look for more magnesium rich foods.

• 19:48Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, I mean, how important are supplements? Because again, it's such an oversaturated market. I think people are so confused, they're not sure.

• 19:57Speaker 02

  It is really confusing, yeah. Like the leading brand of fertility supplement for women and for men. I'm not a fan of because it's full of bulking agents, Talc. Why do we need Talc? You know, I don't want Talc in my body.

• 20:13Fearne Cotton?

  No.

• 20:13Speaker 02

  Maltodextrin, which has a really high GI, what happens if you're trying to get your BMI down? To be eligible for some fertility treatment and that's in every single one of your supplements. Also, my issue with a lot of supplements is the amount that's in there, it's very confusing. So the amount that's in there is not what the clinical trials have been done on to make a difference.

• 20:39Fearne Cotton?

  Right.

• 20:39Speaker 02

  For example, this supplement I'm talking about has 14 mg zinc in the men's supplement. And 66 is what's been clinically tried to make a difference. So you're taking this fertility male supplement, but it's only got, you know, it's, it's like 50 off what you're meant to have.

• 20:59Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 20:59Speaker 02

  It's not going to make a difference.

• 21:00Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 21:01Speaker 02

  Yes, it does have zinc in, which makes a difference, but it's not at the difference that it would make.

• 21:08Fearne Cotton?

  So is it worth, is it worth really looking into what you need? How would you find out? I mean, I know it's listed in your book, but what is a good way to work out a supplementation program? That is really going to aid you in your fertility?

• 21:20Speaker 02

  I think just seriously, just sit down, write a food diary, write, are you stressed? You know, zero to 10, how are you sleeping, zero to 10, quality, do you wake up feeling refreshed? What is your poo like? I talk a lot about poo.

• 21:38Fearne Cotton?

  I love talking about poo.

• 21:39Speaker 02

  So many people, I say, when I first started, I messed up. I'd say, are you regular? They say, yes, I'm regular. Now I say, how often do you go? When do you go? And what does it look like?

• 21:47Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 21:48Speaker 02

  Because.

• 21:48Fearne Cotton?

  It says so much about you.

• 21:50Speaker 02

  I had one lady the other day, she said, I'm regular. I go like every two, three days.

• 21:54Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, I would feel dreadful.

• 21:54Speaker 02

  I said, do you only eat every two, three days?

• 21:57Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 21:58Speaker 02

  No, so, you know, that, that will tell you a lot. I, it will tell you, are you dehydrated? Um, look at your tongue, you know, all of these things are free.

• 22:07Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 22:08Speaker 02

  To let you know.

• 22:08Fearne Cotton?

  You look at people's tongues, that's one of the first things you do.

• 22:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:12Fearne Cotton?

  That's surprising. So what is the tongue telling us in this conversation?

• 22:15Speaker 02

  Um, so I ask them to stick it out. You can tell if, if, um, someone's got gut dysbiosis by the colour. So when I used to be really sick with lupus, mine was often very, very thick, white or even yellow. Um, depending on how fissured, like how cracked the tongue is. Also, if you stick it out to the side, you can see if you clench your jaw. So I'll say, oh, you know, I might be chatting to a chap and say, you know, you said you're not really that stressed, but you seem to clench your jaw. And he'll say, how do you know?

• 22:48Fearne Cotton?

  Well, it's like teeth marks, like grooves?

• 22:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, indentations on the side of, of your tongue. So I'm like, okay, how do we, instead of you just bulldozing through the stress, how do we actually look after you?

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• 25:03Speaker 07

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• 25:37Fearne Cotton?

  I mean, one of the other things that you say many of your clients are reluctant to, men and women, is journaling. And this seems to be quite a key part, not only food diaries, but also just writing about how you're feeling. This is perhaps now getting on to the soul side of things.

• 25:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:52Fearne Cotton?

  Looking at how you're feeling and what's on your mind. How is that important in the fertility conversation?

• 25:57Speaker 02

  It's a poison. Anything that's negative in the body, like if you eat a dodgy prawn or a dodgy oyster, your body wants to get rid of it. But there's a lot of negativity around fertility and we just do that stiff upper lip, "Yeah, I'm fine. Yeah, I'm fine. It's okay. It didn't work. I'm just gonna do another round." Or if it's, you know, quite often the partner of the person that's not carrying, you know, they feel that they don't have the space to be upset because it's the lady that's doing it.

• 26:30Fearne Cotton?

  So you want both the man and the woman to be really honest about how they're feeling?

• 26:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, quite often they've not even communicated to each other or they've not even voiced it to them. I have clients that have not told their mum, their sister, their best friend. They're like, "No, I'm just, I'm just getting on with it."

• 26:45Fearne Cotton?

  Well, I think also when it's, and I've had this again with, with friends over the years, is when you are so desperately wanting to get pregnant and it becomes all-consuming, there is pressure on a relationship. It does change things.

• 26:59Speaker 02

  Huge. I write a lot about sex in the book as well. You know, people are just having sex around that window and then the rest of the time they're not having sex. I have guys crying to me saying, "I don't feel like my partner thinks I'm attractive anymore."

• 27:14Fearne Cotton?

  Well, it's functional rather than it being...

• 27:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, and, and the lady never even knew. And I'm like, "Okay, we need to get you both on here and talk about..." Or people don't... I asked a lady, I asked a lady the other day, you know, she'd been through three rounds of IVF. I said, "How, how do you feel towards your body? You've sorted it out of your head, but how..." She was like, "I hate it. I don't like my body." It it spelled me. So it's like, okay, we need, we need you to start loving your body again.

• 27:44Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, I mean, you say in the book, a lot of women have a massive disconnect with their body going through this process, whether it's IVF or not, that they start to have that either self loathing about it. They feel that it's not working as it should. And this is a fundamental thing that needs to be changed for you to get pregnant.

• 28:04Speaker 02

  I I believe so. I really believe that it's it's science, it's nutrition, it's your psyche. It's everything. Everything needs to be healed because also I don't want, you know, I always say to people, you're not my client. Your future child is my client and I want them to be really, really happy. You know, I know that when I went through my my fertility journey, I didn't tell anyone till I was 24 weeks. Because, oh, you're old, you're probably miscarry, you know, and so I had that in my head. I couldn't even celebrate when I got the pregnancy test. Oh, and we just thought, well, you know, better not get too excited. It's gone with the day.

• 28:47Fearne Cotton?

  So really, it's you've got to be boundaried as well as to what you're letting in, what you're mentally going to listen to and what you're going to choose to listen to. And that's not about having false hopes or being overly optimistic. It's it's actually because, you know, when we look at, yes, there's the science bit of it and it's not like you're denying any of this. But when we look at the psychology or our psyche when it comes to physical health, we can see how much stress correlates to illness. You know, I've had health issues myself and I'm pretty sure most of it was from stress. There's no other reason.

• 29:21Speaker 02

  What it is, we're way more likely to develop an autoimmune disease than men. Like, why is that?

• 29:27Fearne Cotton?

  Because we are carrying.

• 29:29Speaker 02

  Because we carry on the world, we pile on makeup, you're getting your hair done, you've been on the contraceptive pills since you were 14 because you had acne, all of those things. It's not just the one thing.

• 29:41Fearne Cotton?

  No.

• 29:41Speaker 02

  It's all contributing factors. So you need to address all of the contributing factors.

• 29:46Fearne Cotton?

  The stress thing, I think, is is. Huge for women, you know, I remember when Gabor Maté, he came on the podcast, but obviously, you know, we've read his books and we know what his take on a lot of things are. And one thing that always sticks out to me that he said, I think it was in an article he wrote, not actually in a book. And he said that women are the shock absorbers of society. And it's so true, often, it's not all the time, obviously, but often that we are carrying the emotional load for the family, the practical load of everything going on in the home. It's so much for us to deal with and we're not coping particularly well. And of course, that's going to have a bearing on our physical body, of course it is.

• 30:23Speaker 02

  I have women that come to me and it's maybe even just a primary sole factor is the men, man sperm. And they say, you, I'll, I'll do the sessions for him because I don't want to stress him out.

• 30:39Fearne Cotton?

  Wow.

• 30:40Speaker 02

  And it, and it's, and it's a male, it's a male factor, you know, infertility or sub fertility is affecting, you know, one in seven couples. And within that, the data is anywhere, you know, it's a forty eight percent man, fifty two percent women.

• 30:57Fearne Cotton?

  Is that right?

• 30:58Speaker 02

  Yeah. So why are we not addressing the male factor? And within that, that's sort of both contributing to unexplained infertility. And then within that, it's a thirty to forty percent sole male factor.

• 31:13Fearne Cotton?

  Wow.

• 31:14Speaker 02

  And if we're not supported as women on this journey, the men are just left out on a desert island.

• 31:20Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, it's crazy. I mean, I was totally ignorant to that. It's almost half and we're treating it like a female issue.

• 31:26Speaker 02

  Female issue.

• 31:27Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah. When you, when you say the word fertility, I think woman.

• 31:30Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 31:32Fearne Cotton?

  But if we're going to solve this issue for so many couples that are so desperately wanting to have a baby, it's got to be both.

• 31:38Speaker 02

  Well, there's, people need to read the work of Dr. Shauna Swan. She wrote a book, Count Zero, and she predicts by two thousand and forty five.

• 31:51Speaker 02

  Because of the way sperm is declining, the quality of sperm is declining. Most couples within the Western world will need assisted fertility.

• 32:00Fearne Cotton?

  Wow.

• 32:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:01Fearne Cotton?

  That's terrifying.

• 32:02Speaker 02

  Because the sperm quality has decreased so much in the last 50 years.

• 32:06Fearne Cotton?

  And that is because of not only stress and diet.

• 32:10Speaker 02

  Microplastics.

• 32:11Fearne Cotton?

  Microplastics. So let's dive into this because I'm not gonna lie, when I read that bit of the book, I was slightly freaked out, like I need to buy all new pots and pans.

• 32:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't want people to freak out because then that stress is gonna deplete all your nutrients. So please don't stress.

• 32:24Fearne Cotton?

  I won't be stressed about it. I'll just take your.

• 32:25Speaker 02

  Just be aware.

• 32:26Fearne Cotton?

  I'll be aware.

• 32:26Speaker 02

  I think it's to be aware, to be educated, and then you can make an informed decision of what to do.

• 32:33Fearne Cotton?

  So even if we go, if we really like drill into this, even if we're looking at what spatula we're using to cook.

• 32:38Speaker 02

  That was the first thing I thought of in my head.

• 32:40Fearne Cotton?

  Which pot we're using to cook in. What are we looking for here? Because this isn't just some sort of like woo woo thing. There's.

• 32:46Speaker 02

  Oh, there's so much.

• 32:47Fearne Cotton?

  Tons of data that looks at what we're ingesting because of the utensils and the pots and pans we're using.

• 32:53Speaker 02

  I mean, I think I used 66 studies within the book, but I think I read about 160 over that, just for the book. But you know, there's so much clinical data out there.

• 33:06Fearne Cotton?

  And by the way, this isn't just important for fertility.

• 33:09Speaker 02

  No, it's important.

• 33:10Fearne Cotton?

  Our health.

• 33:10Speaker 02

  Well, yeah.

• 33:11Fearne Cotton?

  And hormone disruption, right?

• 33:13Speaker 02

  Exactly. And this book isn't for people that just are trying to have a baby. I'm, I wrote this book because I wanna look after my daughter's fertility who's five years old. So I don't have bleach in the house. That's not going down the loo because it's a hormone disruptor, you know?

• 33:30Fearne Cotton?

  So if you put bleach down the loo, when you sit on the loo.

• 33:33Speaker 02

  Or when you're, when you're cleaning the loo, you're down there, aren't you? Your head's down there. You might be up there with a mask on, I don't know. But you're breathing in those fumes.

• 33:42Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, I use bleach to clean the bin. I'm rethinking this.

• 33:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, rethink it.

• 33:45Fearne Cotton?

  I'm getting a different, getting a different product. But our houses are seemingly full of these toxins.

• 33:53Speaker 02

  It seems to be everywhere.

• 33:54Fearne Cotton?

  It's all everywhere. So where do we even start? Because it is overwhelming when you start to have to do an overhaul.

• 33:59Speaker 02

  Start removing and replacing as you go along. If you need a new pan, get a different new pan.

• 34:06Fearne Cotton?

  And what are we talking? What is the best pan?

• 34:08Speaker 02

  You don't really want the non-stick ones. So look at cast iron, ceramic. Also, wood is great.

• 34:15Fearne Cotton?

  For a spatula.

• 34:16Speaker 02

  For a spatula.

• 34:17Fearne Cotton?

  Not a wooden pan, that's a terrible idea.

• 34:18Speaker 02

  Set the house on fire. Just anything to do with plastic is just not a good idea. So if it's got a plastic coating, just think. I know we have straws or your coffee cup. It will, even though it's a paper coffee cup, it's still got the plastic coating inside. Otherwise, the paper's just gonna disintegrate when it has your coffee in it.

• 34:40Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 34:41Speaker 02

  So carry a cup around.

• 34:43Fearne Cotton?

  Like a stainless steel cup?

• 34:45Speaker 02

  Your water bottle, even if it says P B A free, I don't care. Because they're probably just putting it in some kind of plastic, right?

• 34:54Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, yeah. So it's all of these things we need to keep a lookout on.

• 34:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:58Fearne Cotton?

  Also, drinking water is a big one. And look, we listen to the news, we know it's a huge problem worldwide. But in our supposedly civilised country, in the UK, you know, the water quality is poor. And it's full of bleach and chlorine and all sorts.

• 35:13Speaker 02

  And quite often, the companies are getting fined as well because of the quality. When I was researching for the book, I was astounded at the amount of water companies that do get fined. And they just pay the fine and they just carry on.

• 35:29Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 35:29Speaker 02

  And yes, all of these things do cost money. I get that. It's not, it's not for everyone. But you can get an under the counter filter for just under a hundred pounds.

• 35:43Speaker 02

  And I would rather do that than get my nails done or, well, which are toxic anyway. But, you know, go out, get a takeaway. You, there's places where you can remove and replace.

• 35:57Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 35:58Speaker 02

  So often and save the money to invest it elsewhere.

• 36:01Fearne Cotton?

  Because also the thing, I mean, I'd read this elsewhere, but I saw it in your book and it reminded me. And how shocked I was the first time I read this, that in the water, if you're not filtering it, you are drinking contraceptive pill.

• 36:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, contraceptive pill and you're trying to get pregnant.

• 36:18Fearne Cotton?

  Um, and that is again, going to disrupt your hormones hugely, I'm imagining.

• 36:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, or everyone else's antidepressants or drugs or whatever they've been taking.

• 36:27Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, that's all in there. So water is a big one.

• 36:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'd start with your water, definitely. If you're cleaning up your kitchen, start with your water because it's something you bowl your food in.

• 36:37Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 36:37Speaker 02

  You drink, you wash your plates with everything. Start with your water.

• 36:41Fearne Cotton?

  And also pesticides, we should talk about.

• 36:44Speaker 02

  Pesticides.

• 36:45Fearne Cotton?

  So washing all fruit and veg?

• 36:46Speaker 02

  Washing or soaking if possible, soak for fifteen to twenty minutes. There was, um, I was listening to the Dr. Shaun Swan, they did a study of, they were already fertile men. Who were near, not even just ingesting the food, crops that were sprayed. And then they went to a city. So everyone's ingesting probably the same kind of food, but it's the ones that was exposed to the, the spraying of the crops. And the, the disparity between the sperm was phenomenal.

• 37:20Fearne Cotton?

  Wow.

• 37:20Speaker 02

  Like lower sperm. I've even had it with farmers that I, I've worked with. In general, the farmers that I've worked with, their, their sperm has been quite low.

• 37:30Fearne Cotton?

  Wow.

• 37:31Speaker 02

  Because of the chemicals they're having to use.

• 37:33Fearne Cotton?

  Gosh, I mean, it is, it is a, it's a lot to take on and it's a lot of change, but if this is something that you're wanting. And, you know, say you've been through IVF and then you're having to pay for it because you can't use the NHS. These changes are going to be cheaper.

• 37:50Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 37:50Fearne Cotton?

  They are gonna be.

• 37:51Speaker 02

  You know, yeah, I I make my organic gluten free bread and it costs me about one pound twenty five. I don't go and buy the one in the supermarket that's wrapped up in plastic. I'm not a baker, as I said before, I'm terrible at that sort of thing. I'm just a throw it in the mixer, press the button, don't proof it, stick it in the oven. And everyone seems to like it.

• 38:13Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 38:13Speaker 02

  And it's cheap.

• 38:14Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 38:15Speaker 02

  Well, cheaper than if I was buying a product out in the supermarket.

• 38:19Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, I mean, making stuff from scratch is always gonna be cheaper and certainly gonna be better for you, for sure. So let's go back to the mind for a minute, because this is, I think, something that we can talk about really broadly, whether it's for fertility or not. But how much negative self-talk impacts us, not only mentally, which we know, because you, we've all done it, you end up in a terrible spiral. You end up feeling ten times worse because you're obsessing over these negative voices, these negative thoughts in your head. But also the physical repercussions and they and they do exist. And this is where, again, the debate can get heavy in in terms of this, because some people completely write this off and just say it's got no bearing on our physical health. But we know it does, we know stress is a huge factor, you know.

• 39:03Fearne Cotton?

  My lovely mate, Rongan Chatterjee, talks about this a hell of a lot as a doctor, that so many, I don't know what the, I don't wanna misquote him, but in the nineties, percentage of everyday ailments that he sees in his practice are based on stress. You know, we know that it's having an impact on our bodies, but we're not taking it seriously enough. So let's look at negative self-talk. First of all, what do we do? Is it noticing we're doing it first and then what?

• 39:32Speaker 02

  Notice it, correct yourself, you know, and say, also, say, you know, I'm infertile. No, I'm going on a fertility journey. We've already switched it, there's, it's not a definitive no as well, you're going on a journey.

• 39:49Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 39:50Speaker 02

  I, I, I've been journaling since I was thirty, twenty years now. Um, I read The Artist's Way.

• 39:59Fearne Cotton?

  We've had Julia Cameron on here, we love her.

• 40:01Speaker 02

  I love, changed my life, that woman did. I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease and that was one of the books that started to help me get better.

• 40:09Fearne Cotton?

  Wow, so tell me about this, so tell me about your diagnosis and then, and then how did this particular, this discipline of journaling help you?

• 40:18Speaker 02

  Um, I was diagnosed with lupus, which they say and still say there's no cure. And I got very, very, very chronically ill. Loads of my hair fell out, I still wear a wig, I think that's, I've still got issues since my hair came back, it's not the same hair. And so I'm, I'm like, but I want it to be what it was before. I think I'm about nine and a half stone now, I went down to five and a quarter stone. I wouldn't have been able to be in here with all the light because I'd get blisters and lesions on my face. My tongue would bleed, all, all sorts of things. And starting journaling and changing the way, instead of me saying I have lupus.

• 41:01Speaker 02

  Was I said, you know, I just have this constellation of symptoms. And, and wrote about my anger and how angry I was about my body and what I wanted. Be, I guess it's sort of like a therapist on a page.

• 41:14Fearne Cotton?

  Wow, I mean, this is, this is game changing for so many people, for so many reasons. Where we feel really stuck with it, it might be a diagnosis, it might be a belief we have about ourselves. It might be something that happened in the past.

• 41:29Speaker 02

  A divorce.

• 41:29Fearne Cotton?

  A divorce, like anything that we're wedded to the negative side of and that we feel is immovable. Because I think certainly with something like lupus where you're told there is no cure. There's no way you will find a solution to this. It's very hard for people to think otherwise because they're being told it by the medical world.

• 41:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I, I get berated quite often when I say I reversed it. Never say that I cured it, but look at me, do I look like I've, it's not active. I'm not with the symptoms of all of my hair falling out. I don't have lesions on my face. My face isn't bleeding. I don't have the butterfly rash. I don't have severe arthritis. I don't have the walker Zimmer frame that I used to have. I don't need a lever to get me out of bed. I can like press more than I weigh, you know, and that's someone that used to pee the bed because I couldn't get out of the bed to get to the toilet.

• 42:23Fearne Cotton?

  So what would you say, so certainly the mental side of it is hugely important. Would you say the most important part of that healing journey?

• 42:34Speaker 02

  I think it's a great start because you change your mindset. It's not, this is it. It's not, even though I was told this is it, I had to tell myself, no, there's a possibility. It's not it. And it's about creating that possibility for yourself.

• 42:53Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, yeah. Well, otherwise.

• 42:57Speaker 02

  What you have, right? Yeah.

• 42:59Fearne Cotton?

  You give up.

• 43:00Speaker 02

  And there's, there's a practice that I love that I've even done for myself that I created with a client actually in the book. Because I listen to meditations, hypnosis, everything, you know, I'm on my journey of life and being who I want to be. But you still see, you still have that negative voice sometimes right in your head of what we've been told as a kid or. You can't do this because you're a girl, you're, you know, you're too fat, you're too thin, you're black, you're white, whatever. So I, I, I created this meditation for this lady. I kept sending her meditations and they just weren't working. I, I just couldn't get that hope and that belief in herself anymore.

• 43:40Speaker 02

  So I said, okay, write down every negative thing you've been told by society, a family member, a teacher, anything, all you believe about yourself. You do that. The next day, you write the opposite of it. And then the third day, you read it, each line over and over and over again, out loud and you record yourself. Because your own voice is the biggest voice you're ever gonna listen to. You can listen to your Gabal Matej, you can listen to Mel Robbins, to you, to me. But still in your head, yeah, but it's not for me, I'm this, I'm this person. And you listen to that and you go over and over again and you reprogram your brain. And it's worked for every single client.

• 44:22Fearne Cotton?

  I bet it has, because we all do it and you know, it's so dependent on. You're tired, you've eaten badly, you've had a shit day because something happened and it's so easy to slip back into it. I do it all the time. I'll have.

• 44:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:34Fearne Cotton?

  Great periods where I feel pretty okay and robust and I'm not, you know. Falling back on the old negative tapes that used to whirl around in my head. But then I could so easily slip down it if I have a shit day or.

• 44:48Speaker 02

  Cause it's been conditioned into us.

• 44:50Fearne Cotton?

  And I'm like, oh my god, no, I was foolish to think otherwise. You feel naive or. Or too, I don't know, like overly confident to think that you could step outside of that line of thinking. But actually, this is habit. This is a good, you have to get into a good habit of it.

• 45:06Speaker 02

  It's like going to the gym.

• 45:07Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 45:07Speaker 02

  But for your head.

• 45:08Fearne Cotton?

  For your brain, yeah. I mean, you do need probably more discipline than you would to go to the gym. To continue with that because it's privately and quietly in your head. There's no one holding you accountable. You know, there's no training schedule. You've just got to get jolly well used to replacing that. Negative shit with something more positive.

• 45:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, for me, it's, I say it's getting my armour on for the day. So once I've dumped on that page and got everything out, then I do my gratitude list. And then, then I've got my armour on and I'm like, yeah, do you know what, I'm okay, I'm an okay kind of person. I'm ready for the world.

• 45:46Fearne Cotton?

  I think it's so important, you know, in and outside of this fertility chat, for us all to get a lot better at doing it. Cause I think it causes, I mean, I know personally, it's caused me all sorts of. Stress over the years and shit periods of my life where I, you believe it, that's the most. Dangerous bit, I guess, is that you start to not only. You know, you're not hearing those voices every day, but you're believing them.

• 46:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:06Fearne Cotton?

  You believe that things can't get any better.

• 46:09Speaker 02

  Yeah. And if someone tells you, you need egg donor, of course, there's always going to be some cases that someone does have to have that, but also it's about reframing that. And that that's not a failure.

• 46:22Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 46:23Speaker 02

  You know, or I've had clients come to me that have even changed their mind on the journey that we've taken together. Actually, we don't want, we don't want another child. We just thought we should have one. And actually now we've come together doing this work, we've realized we're happy where we are.

• 46:39Fearne Cotton?

  How interesting.

• 46:43Speaker 04

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• 48:08Speaker 00

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• 48:42Fearne Cotton?

  I mean, if someone's listening to this, obviously it's a lot of information to take in and you've got to have a start point somewhere. It's going to be maybe different for everybody. But if someone is feeling at the end of their tether, you know, again, I've had, I'm sure like you have not only clients, but so many friends you have just gone, I'm done, this is it, I can't take this anymore because not only is it constantly disappointing, but it's draining. It's draining to be on that cycle of every month, getting your hopes up, feeling completely dejected at the end of the month again. What would you say to someone who's, who's in that place at the moment?

• 49:21Speaker 02

  It really depends on like, they might be a single person. I've got lots of single people, you know, sit down and have a chat with yourself, do this, journal it out. What, what do you really, really want? Is it, do you, do you have to give birth to this child? Would adoption be okay for you? You know, fostering surrogate, there's many options to becoming a parent. If you're in a couple, sit down and so many of my clients, I'm like, have you even discussed your option B C D? And they're like, no. And I'm like, well, quite often when you have options, it's less scary.

• 50:01Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 50:01Speaker 02

  It really is less scary, you know? My partner didn't want egg donor, but he was okay with adoption. So I was like, okay, right, we'll throw the kitchen sink out, we'll do this. And then if this doesn't work out, then we'll try IVF. We can go to a different country, they will accept us. And then that's the next option down the road. It took, takes the pressure off.

• 50:23Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, and you, you need less pressure.

• 50:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, you do, yeah. And also if you are, you are in a couple and now, and it's crazy, but one of the weeks that I give my clients is no sex in the bedroom.

• 50:37Fearne Cotton?

  Oh fun, no sex in the bedroom. And then the guys, then they, then they like me.

• 50:40Speaker 02

  Oh, okay. Well, liberty says.

• 50:44Fearne Cotton?

  The garden, you say.

• 50:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, anywhere. And I'm like, and you can't, you can't schedule it. So everyone's, you know, it takes, it gets you into your body, it gets you flirting again. It makes you

• 50:55Fearne Cotton?

  Fun.

• 50:55Speaker 02

  Remember that you, you think isn't, you know, a baby machine. And they have the most fun. And they for quite often for, you know, infertility journeys can be so serious and pressurized and money and appointments and all of these things. They've forgotten to have fun.

• 51:13Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 51:13Speaker 02

  And you need that.

• 51:15Fearne Cotton?

  Well, you do. And also because we know that all the hormones that are released when you feel happy and relaxed are good for you. So that's going to help hugely. That's not just some sort of frivolous fun idea from you. That's gonna physiologically help you.

• 51:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 51:28Fearne Cotton?

  It's a good thing.

• 51:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 51:30Fearne Cotton?

  It's a really good thing. Another really important thing when we're looking at the journaling side of thing, the writing side of thing is letter writing. Talk to me a little bit about letter writing.

• 51:39Speaker 02

  Let, so another controversial, I've just realised quite a lot of what I do is quite controversial. A lot of us ladies, I will hold my hand up and say I'm one of those, have had a terrible relationship with their mothers. And our eggs were in our mummy, right? And we all know about how stress and trauma affects our body. So I'm often say, you know, even if your mum's not here anymore, or you've never met your mum, write a letter. Let's deal with it. Let's, you know, about what you are grateful for. Cause we can all say to our mums, what she didn't do,

• 52:24Speaker 02

  what was wrong, la la la. But what, we don't often know what our mum was going through or sacrifices. I remember you had Dynamo on and what he said about his mum was just so beautiful, but he didn't realise that to as an adult. And I was the same. You know, my mum had me quite young and and it must have been so hard for her. You know, she was white, gave birth to a brown baby in Manchester in nineteen seventy four. And we had bricks roam through our house and all of those things. It must have been really difficult and I never gave her the grace for that.

• 53:04Fearne Cotton?

  Do you send this letter?

• 53:05Speaker 02

  You can send it, you if not, some clients have sent it. You can burn it, you can put, I've had clients surf and put it out to sea. And then they're like, oh, you know, when I picked up the phone to my mum, I no longer have stomach ache. My tummy is just like settled.

• 53:23Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 53:24Speaker 02

  That was a guy.

• 53:25Fearne Cotton?

  Getting it out of you, isn't it? Just getting it on paper.

• 53:27Speaker 02

  And addressing that it even exists.

• 53:29Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 53:30Speaker 02

  You know, and then we do letter writing to embryos. Past babies that didn't make it, miscarriages, abortions, there's a lot of guilt around that. And I've had clients where we write the, well, they write the letter and they plant it under a tree.

• 53:50Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, that's nice.

• 53:52Speaker 02

  Or they plant it, they go and buy a plant and they water it and let it grow, you know? And they say, thank you, thank you to you embryos, you got to, you know, you got to day four or whatever. And it's acknowledging that you've come so far on on a journey as well.

• 54:08Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 54:09Speaker 02

  Rather than that was a failure.

• 54:11Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 54:12Speaker 02

  Same with fertility, if you, you know, you're menstruating, people are, oh, I've got my period this week, oh, damn. I'm like, that's great, that's great.

• 54:21Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, it's working, you're menstruating.

• 54:23Speaker 02

  It still means things are going. If you don't have a period, you're not pregnant, then we've got a problem.

• 54:27Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Again, I think it's just going back to what we said right at the start of this is that the negative language used around fertility specifically towards women is something that is impacting us hugely and something that needs to change. And we can't systemically change it, medically change it, but we can change it in our own worlds.

• 54:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, and and I want to change it in the world out there with doctors. Well, I I'm working with a charity to go in and talk to GPs about language, about how certain supplements do help, you know, your omega threes, testing for vitamin D, how important that is on a fertility journey, those basics. You know, so it it I want to do what has been done for the menopause for fertility, because if we don't look after our fertility, well, we're not going to exist.

• 55:19Fearne Cotton?

  Yep, it's important.

• 55:20Speaker 02

  So it's kind of important.

• 55:21Fearne Cotton?

  It's kind of important. And I I really, I learned a lot from reading this book. I really enjoyed, you know, it was a book I probably should have read fifteen years ago. But yeah, but it's it's brilliant. And it's, you know, as you say, some of this stuff, people might take as controversial, but it's really important that we put all these different options out there for people. So yes, they might want to do IVF, but they might want to do journaling at the same time. You can do it all. It's not going to harm you. This is all going to add to empowerment that you should feel when you're going down this path.

• 55:53Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 55:54Fearne Cotton?

  Um, I'd love to finish by asking you personally, where is your happy place, Liberty?

• 56:00Speaker 02

  Well, I've thought about this a lot this last week, and the only answer is it's when I'm in those moments of being really, really present. And that could be anything. And it's, and I've worked, I was thinking last night, and it's it's always in silence. So every morning, me and my little girl, I I go in, she wakes up every morning in her northern accent and says, is it wake up time? Like really loud and really deep. And she's tiny. And I say, no, it's cuddle time. And we go in and she sort of rugby tackles me and we put our faces cheek to cheek. And we just lie there for like two minutes. We don't speak. It's just, and then I go, okay, come on, let's get up.

• 56:45Speaker 02

  So it's moments like that, or I might just be eating and I'll be like, oh my God, aren't I so lucky that I've got this food and I've got this house. Because there was a time because of my illness, I went to food banks and I I didn't have any other food that people would give to me. So those are my habits. It can happen anytime throughout the day. It's not a general thing because I might be thinking about, oh, I've got to go here next, or I should have done that, or I need to put the washing on. It's about those moments of silence when I'm truly present with life, even on a walk. I could go, oh, this is a nice place, but you know, I've got to go back and do this reel, or I need to get on with the next book, and I'm not a hundred percent present.

• 57:26Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 57:26Speaker 02

  It's when I'm totally present and I'm like, wow.

• 57:30Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, they're special moments.

• 57:32Speaker 02

  I'm really, really lucky.

• 57:34Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 57:34Speaker 02

  That's my happy place.

• 57:36Fearne Cotton?

  I love that. Well, Liberty, it's been so great talking to you. I think this is going to be really helpful for so many people out there, and it might be a really great start point for many people who are feeling quite lost on this journey. So, thank you so much.

• 57:50Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 57:53Fearne Cotton?

  I really love that chat. I learned a hell of a lot. I mean, I wish I'd heard it before I had my kids, because I think there's so many things that I would have and could have done differently. But I also really hope that if you are on your fertility journey, that that's made you feel calm and relaxed and like there are more options for you. And like I said at the start of it, if you're not thinking about having kids, I really hope all the stuff around just having maybe a bit more mental clarity and being a bit more team you has really hit home, because it certainly did for me. Liberty's book, Three Sixty Fertility, is out on the 22nd of May. In the meantime, do come and have a natter with us, both big conversations and lighthearted chatter. Welcome on Instagram, we're at Happy Place Official.

• 58:37Fearne Cotton?

  All right, a huge thanks again to Liberty, to the producer, Anushka Tate, at Happy Place Studios, and to you, because you're bloody ace.

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