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[00:00:00] Jenny Swisher: Welcome friends to this episode of the Sync Your Life podcast. Today we’re doing something different, something we haven’t done before on the show. We’re actually going to be doing a series of throwback episodes. We are well over 200 episodes into this podcast and every day I get a message from someone asking a question about progesterone or asking a question about proper testing or asking a question about what it means to embrace a functional wellness journey and I always find myself referring them back to one of the old but good podcast episodes here on the show.

[00:01:26] Jenny Swisher: So we’re going to take some of our favorite for the next few weeks and we’re going to throw them back. We’re going to do an episode replay so that you can hear these amazing interviews with experts in their field. I’m so excited to introduce you to each one of them here in the next three weeks, but without further ado, let’s dive in.

[00:01:40] Jenny Swisher: Today I’m joined by my new friend, Caroline Kojum. She’s coming to us from Pennsylvania and she’s actually going to share her personal story with us today. You guys know that I always like to say women need to become vulnerable in the service of other women.

[00:01:53] Jenny Swisher: And she has stepped up to the plate and said she would like to share her story so as to really encourage other women to either, either share theirs or to know that they’re not alone. So I talk a lot about the fact that women just don’t talk about women’s health, right? We don’t talk about periods. We don’t talk about menstrual cycles.

[00:02:09] Jenny Swisher: I have a two year old and a six year old daughter and I’m personally determined to change the course of that for them, right? I don’t want them to grow up thinking that. That they’re just normal, right? That, that if they feel off that they’re supposed to just assume that they’re normal. So we’re going to dive into a lot of that today.

[00:02:23] Jenny Swisher: And I think there’s no better way to do that than with a personal story. And when I reached out on my social media and said, Hey, who wants to share about perhaps miscarriages or infertility or anything that they’ve dealt with? Caroline raised her hand and she said, I’m willing to do it. So I’m excited for you guys to just hear her story.

[00:02:39] Jenny Swisher: And, and for those of you listening, who can resonate, know that you’re not alone at the very end, we’ll share Caroline’s information in case you want to reach out to her personally, but. Caroline, welcome to the show. I can’t wait to dive into this. If you could just. Tell my listeners a little bit about you and your story.

[00:02:55] Caroline Kojm: Hi. Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. I’m excited to be here. I have two children who I absolutely adore, but it hasn’t been a very linear path for me. I’ve suffered miscarriage. I’ve suffered infertility working through that still now, um, kind of coming to terms with. Loving our family of four as opposed to the family of five that we were hoping to have.

[00:03:18] Caroline Kojm: And yeah, it’s, it’s definitely been, it’s been a multi year journey. I mean, we’re on year like five of, of realizing how little I knew about my body, about women’s health, about all of the things that I’ve now become quite familiar with, um, as a consequence of, of understanding my cycles and how it all relates to, to overall health.

[00:03:38] Caroline Kojm: And

[00:03:42] Jenny Swisher: Yeah. So I’d love for you to share with us sort of, you know, what were the pregnancy journeys like for your children that you have, and then we’ll kind of go from there. Yeah, perfectly.

[00:03:52] Caroline Kojm: So yeah, so the, the first one was relatively easy. We had a couple of issues with testing, but nothing ended up coming up that.

[00:03:59] Caroline Kojm: But in the, in 2020, which like, what didn’t go wrong in 2020 is kind of the way I think about it. 2020 suffered a miscarriage at 11 weeks. A mis miscarriage, which I didn’t even really know was a thing. Um, where, you know, you think you’re pregnant, you go in for your first ulcer sound. Um, And you find out there’s no heartbeat.

[00:04:18] Caroline Kojm: And so for that, there’s a variety of different treatments and, you know, that’s, that’s a personal decision between you and your medical provider. But I opted to go with the, the, the pill route, um, so that I could have a miscarriage at home as opposed to needing to do a DNC or, or just waiting. Right. Cause like, you know, you, the emotions and the feelings that come up.

[00:04:40] Caroline Kojm: When you realize that that’s the position you’re in when you thought you were going in for a very different appointment. Um, and so, so that’s what I chose to do. And it ended up, it ended up working fine. Um, I mean, it’s like anything else you can read all the horror stories in the world online about it, about it not going well, but ultimately it went fine for us.

[00:04:57] Caroline Kojm: And a couple of months later, I got pregnant with our son. And so that was great. He’s fabulous. No issues there. We decided to try for our third last starting last summer. So the summer of 2022 now, and. Just couldn’t get pregnant and I knew something was wrong because even though I’d had had the Miscarriage in between the two each time it was it was very quick to get pregnant.

[00:05:21] Caroline Kojm: And so I knew something was wrong But of course The prevailing advice is, you know, you have to wait for 12 months, I think if you’re under 35, six months, if you’re over 35. And I was like this, something’s there’s something up here. So I went into my doctor, got tested, you know, did all the blood draws, went through the whole, the whole song and dance of like, well, are you sure you understand when you’re ovulating?

[00:05:43] Caroline Kojm: And it’s like, yes, we’re, we’re, we’re past that at this point, we figured it out. Um, we’ve cracked that code. And so, yeah, it turned out I had diminished ovarian reserve. And so that led to then kind of more testing for me, more testing for my husband, exploring our options, having a lot of conversations with our, our fertility specialist, where he basically said, you know, IUI is not going to work.

[00:06:08] Caroline Kojm: You should go IVF. Um, and so I, perhaps in my hopeless naivete or just, you know, wanting, wanting IUI to work, went the IUI route. It did not work. And so we’ve chosen to not. pursue IVF for, for a variety of different reasons. Um, but that’s kind of where we’re at now. So I say, you know, we’re coming to terms with the fact that we have two beautiful, amazing children that I wouldn’t trade for the world.

[00:06:36] Caroline Kojm: And like, if that’s what we get, fabulous. We, we are winners, but yeah, we’re in the process now where we’re starting to move. So it’s, we’re getting rid of the baby clothes and the stroller and the extra changing table. And there’s every time being confronted with that feels. Like more salt in the wound and so yeah, we’re very much I’m very much still in the real in the raw once I think we get rid of most of the stuff I’ll be able to fully focus on this is the beautiful life that I have but for right now, we’re in this like Incredibly painful stage where I can’t move on because we have to like get rid of these things Visual reminders.

[00:07:16] Jenny Swisher: Yeah, I understand. As, as you’re saying that, we have a garage full of, um, we have a crib out there, pack and play, we’re trying to decide, like, what are we doing here? So, you know, yeah, I mean, I have a, not a similar story in, in the sense of everything you’ve gone through, but my husband and I did see a fertility specialist in my late 20s.

[00:07:34] Jenny Swisher: I was in a different position in that um, I was really out of tune with my body. Now, here I was a personal trainer, very into nutrition. I thought that I was just very dialed into my body, but I wasn’t dialed into my menstrual cycle and there’s a difference, right? We say ovulation is the vital sign.

[00:07:50] Jenny Swisher: Understanding your menstrual cycle is a key element of your overall health. And I was, I mean, I, I had regular periods, so I was like, I’m fine. Like everything’s good. Right. Until we started to dive down this rabbit hole of why aren’t we getting pregnant? Right. Like we pulled birth control years ago. Why is this not happening for us?

[00:08:06] Jenny Swisher: And I’ve shared this before, so I won’t go into the whole story, but. Of course, the same thing that was triggering my headaches, which was low progesterone was also playing a factor in our inability to get pregnant because if you don’t have enough progesterone, you can’t support a pregnancy. And I don’t think I was ovulating in my 20s.

[00:08:21] Jenny Swisher: Right. So that’s a whole other story for another episode. But for me, it really was a lot like I had to learn a lot about just my own body. And under, like, I can’t believe when I look back on it, I’m like, I can’t believe I went to so many fertility appointments without ever trying to investigate myself.

[00:08:35] Jenny Swisher: Like, I mean, I was like urinating on the over the counter ovulation sticks. Looking for the smiley face, not understanding that there was so much more. I mean, no one had ever talked to me about mucus charting or basal body temperature. I mean, I had Googled some things, but you know, I’ve, I’ve so lost, and this is what drives me freaking crazy about women’s health because it’s solely because we don’t talk about it.

[00:08:57] Jenny Swisher: Like it’s, that’s why women don’t know. Right. So my story is a little bit different, but we did get to the point where. After my husband had had surgeries and and we realized that he had some infertility issues and then I had had endometriosis surgeries and that we were told that I had a smaller chance of conceding, we got to this point where the doctor said our only best option was to do IVF.

[00:09:16] Jenny Swisher: And for us, it was like, for me personally, we didn’t want to put me back through possible migraines, like by going on to oral contraceptives and coming off and the whole journey of synthetic hormones that you go through when you are going through IVF. So it was a very easy decision for us. It was like, no.

[00:09:31] Jenny Swisher: And then almost soon after that, like we always say our oldest daughter fell into our lap. We adopted both of our girls and we didn’t even pursue an adoption process. Like literally, it was literally a God thing where she just literally fell into our laps. So, and I wouldn’t change it just like you said, I wouldn’t change anything for the world.

[00:09:47] Jenny Swisher: Right. But I would, I, I do this podcast and I do everything that I do because I want women who are in their twenties or thirties to understand their body better and to self advocate. I want them to be able to say to their doctor, no, something is off. Right. And I want them to have a functional understanding of their body.

[00:10:02] Jenny Swisher: So, okay. So before we go any further, I want to ask, um, you talked about diminished ovarian reserve. And then I think when we talked previously, you had mentioned, was there like a chromosomal issue there as well?

[00:10:14] Caroline Kojm: Yes, so yeah, so we had had our miscarriage in 2020 was a chromosomal abnormality of trisomy 15.

[00:10:24] Caroline Kojm: We had also had a weird thing with my first, where she had come back positive for Down syndrome, and upon further testing, it wasn’t the case. But we kind of like, don’t really even think or talk about that, because like, she turned out fine. But then it’s odd that, you know, then we have this chromosomal abnormality, and then, In terms of the diminished ovarian reserve, the thing that I, I kind of forgot to, to mention on this is, I’m 36 years old.

[00:10:52] Caroline Kojm: I came from a, you know, I come from a school of thought of, you know, women can do anything, you know, take on the world. You can have babies until you’re 60, you know, every so often you see some sort of story. Not really understanding, one, how those women are getting pregnant. And two, the opportunities and opportunity costs that exist when it comes to your body and your health.

[00:11:16] Caroline Kojm: And there are some women, their clock runs out at 22. And they didn’t even have a chance. There’s some women like me who’s, apparently their clock ran out at 35. But I thought I had more time. I didn’t realize that, I thought, you know, 40 is kind of the number that gets thrown around, I think. Like, oh, you can get pregnant naturally until you’re 40.

[00:11:37] Caroline Kojm: And, Obviously, for me, that’s, that’s not the case. And so, that’s one, I guess, mis, uh, misunderstanding or, or, uh, mistruth that I want to dispel a little bit. Is that your ability to get hormone screenings, to be working with your provider, I wish that, you know, part of your, your phys, you know, they’re, they’re so intent on doing a pap smear and other sort of well women exam procedures.

[00:12:04] Caroline Kojm: I don’t know why a hormone panel isn’t included so that you could understand that at, you know, 28, you’re, you’re, you’re running out of time. You know, this could have been caught because it all shows up in your blood work. It’s all tied to, to hormone health for the most part. Sure. There are plenty of other mitigating factors in this.

[00:12:21] Caroline Kojm: But when it comes to hormone health, a lot of that can be detected sooner. And I wish that I had had the language and the awareness, because now, of course, I’m, I’m mentioning to everybody I know, you know, all the 30 somethings I know who are like, Oh, you know, we’re, we’re getting married soon. And we’re, you know, want to have fun.

[00:12:38] Caroline Kojm: And like, we still have time and I don’t want to be a fear monger, but also like you need to, you need to understand what your specific situation is.

[00:12:49] Jenny Swisher: Yes. I know. I did a podcast recently on male infertility as well. Cause I just think, I mean, I have shared this before, but we went through two years of, you know, working on my fertility, you know, like we did all the drill injections.

[00:13:02] Jenny Swisher: We did try to get me to ovulate. We, you know, I mean, everything I had endometriosis, surgeries, laparoscopies. And after two and a half years, they were like, you know, maybe we should send your, your husband to a urologist and have him checked as well. And I look back on that now and I’m like, how crazy that, I mean, you know, and I remember asking, I remember asking my OBGYN.

[00:13:22] Jenny Swisher: I remember asking the fertility specialist, like, shouldn’t we both be checked? Like, doesn’t it take both of us to make a baby? And they were like, oh, you know, we know you have endometriosis. We know you’re dealing with this. Like, let’s tackle that first, which I understand. But at the same time. You know, maybe could have saved us some time and some stress and some emotions we had known.

[00:13:39] Jenny Swisher: So, you know, the emotion piece is just so not talked about. And I have a friend who actually recently went through a miscarriage. And You, it changes you, right? It changes you. I mean, I just listened to a podcast from someone talking about how birthing a child and becoming a mother changes you, right? And it’s like, I don’t think people really get it, um, necessarily.

[00:14:03] Jenny Swisher: And so I know for me, when, when my oldest daughter came along, My, I like going into, you know, becoming a mother, I was very scared on how that might make my ambition. Like I was such an ambitious, like driven person and I was traveling a lot and I was loving my job and I’m like, and I told myself, right, and I told, I even told the world, I’m like, this won’t change anything, I’m just going to bring her with me, you know, like female power.

[00:14:27] Jenny Swisher: And then she comes along and you’re, you stop sleeping, you, you know, you’re like, I don’t even know where, where, when I washed my hair last time, like things just change. And all of a sudden it’s almost like there’s this deeper calling that comes out of a lot of women when their children are born. And so for me, it just became that stuff isn’t as much of a priority as, as she is.

[00:14:47] Jenny Swisher: Right. But the same thing happens when I would assume when you go through a miscarriage experience, where it’s just, just this loss that never gets replaced. Right. And so I’d love for you to just, I know you’re, you’re being so vulnerable, um, but I’d love for you to just share what that has looked like for both you and your husband.

[00:15:04] Jenny Swisher: Yeah. The man

[00:15:05] Caroline Kojm: out of it too. No, that’s such a good point. That’s such a good point. And it was, so yes, it was a deeply defining experience for me, and I think, I’m so glad that you bring up, you know, my husband’s perspective on this, because All of the attention and focus was on me, and it was, you know, my loss, my experience, and obviously people felt sympathy for both of us, but it wasn’t until maybe two months after it had happened that my husband kind of broke down in speaking about it, and he’s like, you know, I feel like we’ve lost so much, and it was almost like such a lightbulb moment for me to be like, oh, you know, I feel like we’ve lost so much, and it was almost like such a lightbulb moment for me to be like, oh, You’re also upset about this, and like, to a certain extent, like, duh, but it was, it was so eye opening for me to, to realize that there’s so much, there’s so much not being talked about for women in this topic, and there’s even more not being talked about when it comes to loss for men.

[00:16:05] Caroline Kojm: I know for me personally, and it’s, it’s so interesting, because women I’ve known for, Almost my whole life. My, my stepmother, my husband’s grandmother, like women who I’ve talked to on almost a weekly basis, you know, for, for decades at this point, sharing that they had had miscarriages. I mean, nobody had any idea.

[00:16:25] Caroline Kojm: All of a sudden, I, you know, I was open about it with my family. And so, the stories that just started coming out of people, the second you give them the opportunity and the permission to speak about it, You learn so much. Um, and so I think that’s one thing that’s really, really great about our generation.

[00:16:47] Caroline Kojm: And the, and a lot of it comes from social media, right? Like there’s tons of bad on social media, but there’s also tons of good. And one of the thing is realizing that you’re not alone. Realizing that these are, Universal human experiences, which previously had to be felt in isolation and felt like, you know, how, how could you share this?

[00:17:04] Caroline Kojm: How could you tell anyone? But yeah, really feeling empowered to, to speak about it, to share my experience with my family, to then learn about their experiences. And then also to realize that, you know, the, the partner in every miscarriage. Also suffers and really, really appreciating that.

[00:17:23] Jenny Swisher: Yeah. Yeah. Well, well, we didn’t have a miscarriage experience.

[00:17:28] Jenny Swisher: I remember sitting in the fertility specialist’s office when he looked at us both and said, even with IVF, we would consider you to have about a 20 percent chance of conception. And I remember looking at my husband and like, he looked back at me with this look of, nope, we’re not doing it. And I’ll never forget that look because after we left the office that day, I was like, well, what do you think?

[00:17:51] Jenny Swisher: You know, I w I wanted to be open to like, whatever his opinion was. And he was like, we’re not doing it. I said, why are we not doing it? He’s like, it had nothing to do with the chances necessarily had everything to do with. He didn’t want to put me back through the headache pain. He didn’t want to put me back through the hormonal fluctuations that by the way, no one talks about when you go on an IVF journey.

[00:18:08] Jenny Swisher: I mean, I went, I went crazy just on, just on the synthetic hormone that they put me on to help me ovulate. Like I was, I felt like I was bat shit crazy for lack of Better better curves. And I felt the same way on oral contraceptives too. So, um, I just am very sensitive to that stuff. So, but I just remember, like, he was such a stronghold, like, through that process of being like, here’s what we’re willing to do.

[00:18:31] Jenny Swisher: Here’s what we’re not willing to do. Almost protective of my emotions. And I remember when Ellery was born, like, leading up to it, right? We had about a five month lead way on knowing she was coming that we were going to be adopting. And he, he struggled more with, can I love this child as my own, um, more than I did because I mean, I was adopted at birth myself.

[00:18:52] Jenny Swisher: So I grew up in a family with adoptive parents. I was very comfortable with adoption, but he struggled a little bit more with like, can I love this child as my own? And I’ll never forget the moment where he was holding Ellery in the hospital, like the day she was born. And he looked up in tears. And said, I don’t think I could possibly love another child as much as I love her.

[00:19:11] Jenny Swisher: And so sometimes we do forget that like our male counterparts have very strong feelings. And even though they’re not carrying the child or the one going through like the physical journey, they play such a huge role, right? As both our stronghold. And also they have emotions too. I want to make sure that we don’t, you said something earlier.

[00:19:29] Jenny Swisher: I want to make sure we don’t skip on, which is, I love what you said about, for some reason, we have this conception that like at age 40, all of a sudden maybe our. Our egg quality isn’t as great or we’re losing time. I also hear from women all the time that 40 seems to be the magic number for perimenopause too, right?

[00:19:43] Jenny Swisher: Like, well, I must not be in perimenopause because I’m only 35. Well, you can still be in perimenopause and not be 40. So you mentioned something about testing and this is totally my wheelhouse. This is, this is my soapbox when it comes to this, because I totally agree with you. I mean, number one, from a basic perspective, I don’t understand why Metabolic health isn’t factored into any of our physicals.

[00:20:05] Jenny Swisher: So even just from a general practitioner standpoint, like when you go in to see your regular doctor for a physical every year, we’re still stepping on the scale, measuring our height. Like, why are we doing that when we know that like the waist to hip ratio matters way more, right? We need to be taking into account metabolic health.

[00:20:20] Jenny Swisher: So that’s a total side tangent, but also when it comes to women’s health. We go in, like you said, we go in for the path or the breast exam. And why are we not also looking internally? Why are we also not. You know, I started demanding this year. I started demanding. I’ve had some rocky situations with my hormones lately, so I started demanding, and I mean that word strongly, demanding pelvic ultrasounds twice a year.

[00:20:43] Jenny Swisher: I was like, I want pelvic ultrasounds twice a year. I want to see what’s going on in there. I’m going to see what my uterine lining looks like. I also want labs. I do Dutch testing every year just to see what my hormones are, and I don’t understand why it’s not the norm. I really don’t understand. So if you’re listening to this and I say this often, but like, let’s say that you’re in your twenties or thirties and you have regular cycles and you’re like, I don’t have any hormone imbalance issues.

[00:21:04] Jenny Swisher: Maybe you’ve even birthed children and you’re like, everything’s healthy with my, with my reproductive system doing a Dutch test. When you feel good. Is so key because then if something was to go wrong and perimenopause or whatever, you’re able to compare that to when you felt good. So doing something like a gut test or saliva and urine testing, which tends to be the most accurate look at hormones is key.

[00:21:26] Jenny Swisher: And the experience that I’ve had and the women I’ve worked with is sometimes their OBGYN will do basic blood work. But sometimes basic, basic blood work is not enough. Sometimes it’s just a glimpse in time when you really need to look at your whole cycle, right? You really need to know, am I ovulating regularly?

[00:21:42] Jenny Swisher: How healthy is that ovulation? Is my progesterone rising as it should? There are so many different factors in understanding your hormones. So I’m so glad you brought that up. I want to ask you this. You mentioned that you had a fertility specialist, was that fertility specialist, like what was their, it sounds like they were kind of into the IVF.

[00:21:58] Jenny Swisher: approach. Have you seen a functional fertility specialist or did you go down the journey of like IVF type doctor?

[00:22:05] Caroline Kojm: Yeah. Yeah, sure. So one follow up to your point around the testing that I think is so important too, is women understanding that the testing is only as effective as the point in your cycle in which you get it.

[00:22:22] Caroline Kojm: So I had no idea, cycle day three testing, that, that was a phrase that was completely foreign to me. I thought I could just go in any day of the week and, and get testing. And the real marker to, to be assessed against is that cycle day three testing. And so I mentioned that just to, to give people a little more information in terms of like when you go in and you say you want this, be conscious of that.

[00:22:44] Caroline Kojm: You know, I think the more information you can have going in, The more likely your doctor is to kind of respect you and take you seriously. Cause I think a lot of the time there’s very much this like attitude amongst some doctors that, you know, I’m, I’m the doctor I’m in charge. I know what’s best. And I think women more and more need to be empowered to say, no, I know my body.

[00:23:06] Caroline Kojm: And I, I, I want your advice and I’m here because I need your help, but we need to be partners in this. This isn’t like a, uh, A directive sort of situation.

[00:23:16] Jenny Swisher: And actually before, before you even go on to answer my question, I’ll just chime in and say, I want to make sure people listening, understand. So the cycle day three testing, what they’re looking for is your FSH levels and your FSH is your follicle stimulating hormone.

[00:23:28] Jenny Swisher: So when you’re on a fertility journey like this, that is key, but it’s also key to have what I like to call day 21 testing, which is about seven to 10 days from your period, that’s when we want to look at your estrogen to progesterone ratio. So it’s, it’s not just. stopping into the lab for an anytime blood draw.

[00:23:44] Jenny Swisher: It has to be timed with your, your cycle. And you have to be looking at specific hormones during different phases of your cycle. So I’m so glad you brought that up, but continue. Yeah.

[00:23:52] Caroline Kojm: So we were limited by our health insurance in terms of our options that we had. We have great health insurance, depending on the situation, not so great when it comes to fertility treatment.

[00:24:03] Caroline Kojm: Um, and so we found a provider, a local provider that was very. Well regarded, recommended by ROB, but very much a, very much a piece of the medical industrial complex. Like, it was, it was a conveyor belt. It was a beautiful conveyor belt. Um, it was, they were very kind, everybody I interacted with was great, but like, fertility was their approach, and I think they probably made most of their money on IVF.

[00:24:30] Caroline Kojm: It was very much, I don’t, I mean, It’s like a chicken or the egg situation, right? Like, were they recommending IVF because that’s what I needed? Seems like it. Um, or were they recommending IVF because that’s where they get the most bang for their buck also true. And so, yeah, I, I chose to take, I did a stimulated IUI and chose to not pursue IVF, but that was in part guided by a combination of lack of healthcare coverage, age, you know, chances of success.

[00:25:00] Caroline Kojm: And then just. I’m not wanting to put myself through that physically after all of this. I mean, I, I, it’s, it’s such a hard choice to make because, cause once you’ve done it, I mean, no pregnancy is easy, but to your point around all of the synthetic hormones, all of the injection, all of those appointments, like you don’t realize the dozens and dozens of appointments that you will go through before you’re even to the point of having some sort of, uh, insemination.

[00:25:26] Jenny Swisher: Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, so it’s funny because. You know, I went in for so many different, we did the ovidrill injections. We did everything, but I was not willing to go on birth control. I had had a bad experience myself with that, but I did try synthetic progestins and things during that journey.

[00:25:43] Jenny Swisher: And like I said before, it made me go crazy, like actual panic attack, crazy, which I can laugh about now, but it was not funny in the moment, in the moment. But all that to say that, like, I think you’re totally right. And you know, we don’t even bring up the fact, and this is, This is something that we don’t talk about because of course, if we don’t talk about menstrual menstrual cycles, we don’t talk about periods.

[00:26:03] Jenny Swisher: We don’t talk about sex. Like, of course, we don’t talk about this, but there’s something that this does to the relationship. Um, as far as like, it really takes a toll on the emotions and just the overall stress. of your marriage or relationship. And I know for, for me, if you want to know the quickest way to take the fun out of sex, it’s to tell somebody when exactly to have sex.

[00:26:25] Jenny Swisher: Like, and by the way, before you do that, please inject this into your belly fat. You’re going to feel extremely bloated because of this medication. And then please have sex at this time. Like we don’t talk about that part of it, but it is part of an infertility journey. And you do that enough. And then Add in the doctor’s appointments and the discouragement and oh, by the way, a 20 percent chance, right?

[00:26:48] Jenny Swisher: Like there’s this constant stress that no one talks about.

[00:26:52] Caroline Kojm: So true. So true. Yeah. You think, yeah, you only think of the physical, you don’t think of that immense mental burden. And then just the piece, the privilege to be able to take all those days off from work, to be able to do all those doctors appointments, like all of that comes into to it as well to say nothing of the oftentimes immense cost.

[00:27:13] Jenny Swisher: Yeah. Yeah, you’re exactly right. Like I remember when I, when we were doing this, I, I owned a gym at the time and I was teaching 5 00 AM bootcamps, 6 PM bootcamps. My husband was teaching school, right? So it was, it was taxing to like find somebody to cover the gym to, you know, for him to take off school. I mean, it’s not very easy for school teachers to take off anyways.

[00:27:33] Jenny Swisher: That’s a whole other thing, right? That’s like three days of planning to take off one day. So yeah, I mean, I totally agree with you and I just wish that, you know, to me, I can’t help, but think because I have been so rooted now because of my own journey. And what I like to call proactive health instead of reactive health, right?

[00:27:49] Jenny Swisher: Like functional wellness, as opposed to treating the symptoms and band aiding with pharmaceuticals. So I can’t help, but think as we’re talking through this story, like to kind of bring it all together, right? If we were doing the right testing on women, if we were looking at metabolic health, and if we were looking at true sex hormones and everything else from an early age, how much of this could we be preventing in the first place?

[00:28:12] Jenny Swisher: Right. Like, and even to throw in the fact of let’s just take the medical world out of it completely. If we were educating women on their hormones from the time their period start, like I’m thinking about my daughters, right? If I can help them understand ovulation, if I can, if I can help them understand what’s going on in their bodies from a younger age, I feel like a lot of this.

[00:28:30] Jenny Swisher: I mean, yes, it’s still going to be needed, but I feel like we can avoid a lot of it. I know I could have avoided a lot of it. I can’t think of the name of this device, but I will link it up in the show notes once I figure it out. But there’s something that has recently crossed my path and it is a menstrual cycle tracker for young girls.

[00:28:46] Jenny Swisher: So it’s literally for like that sort of 12, 13 year old girl who’s starting her period to better understand her cycles. I will link it up in the show notes. I just learned about it recently. Definitely something that I will do with my daughters has an app that comes with it that tells them maybe how they might be feeling when their hormones are high or low.

[00:29:01] Jenny Swisher: Like it’s so, so key, but I really think that hopefully we’re heading in the right direction of just educating women better on their bodies. And then to write like men to I mean, I’ve had my husband has said this before and I’ve I heard this recently on a very well known podcast like this guy was he’s like considered a biohacking expert very in the health, health and fitness realm, and he admitted on his podcast that he and his wife have been trying for children and he didn’t realize.

[00:29:26] Jenny Swisher: That women only had like a 24 to 48 hour window of fertile window each month. He thought women could get pregnant anytime because during sex ed and middle school, he was basically put into the fear of God that like he could potentially impregnate a woman anytime. Right. And so men need educated on this as well.

[00:29:45] Jenny Swisher: So I, the reason I asked about the functional fertility thing is this is something that I’ve just started learning about. I mean, I started my own journey with, I mean, my migraines and everything else. I was seeing traditional doctors. And then when I moved over to functional doctors, it was a game changer, right?

[00:29:59] Jenny Swisher: Because I was able to actually treat root cause. And then now in the last year or two, my family has switched over from traditional dentistry over to functional dentistry. And it’s making a huge difference in my children’s sleep. It’s making a huge difference in the way we treat our oral health. And so I can’t help but think, right?

[00:30:15] Jenny Swisher: Like this, I just recently started hearing stories of people who are now pursuing functional fertility clinics and what that’s looking like. And I just want to mention this briefly because I’ve heard a couple of, um, very credible Resources, including the Dutch podcast. I’m a huge fan of the Dutch test.

[00:30:32] Jenny Swisher: Um, I’ve heard it elsewhere as well that a lot of functional fertility clinics are doing the right testing from the get go. So point a is you’re saving a lot of time, right? Versus coming in multiple times for multiple appointments. And number two is they’re using DHEA supplementation to improve the quality of the follicles.

[00:30:50] Jenny Swisher: And that to me just makes total sense, right? Like, why is it that everything in the functional wellness space just seems to make sense? You know, like, Oh yeah, that makes sense. Like, as opposed to just giving you a migraine medication, let’s figure out what’s causing your migraine. Right. And then we’ll give you something to supplement because it’s most likely a deficiency or a void that needs replaced.

[00:31:09] Jenny Swisher: The same thing goes for this, right? Like let’s figure out what’s causing the infertility so that we can supplement accordingly. And obviously the quality of your egg depends largely on the quality of that DHEA. And so when you’re having things looked at, like your, um, ovarian reserves, right, they’re looking at your DHEA.

[00:31:25] Jenny Swisher: They’re looking to see. Is this viable? Is this going to produce a quality pregnancy? So if you’re listening to this and you are considering, you know, a fertility journey, my first advice to you would be don’t wait. When I was in my 20s, I thought I could probably get pregnant anytime because I had regular menstrual cycles and my husband and I didn’t really start focusing on it until we were closer to 29.

[00:31:46] Jenny Swisher: And not saying that that’s bad. I just wish I had learned sooner. I just wish that I had really dove into it sooner. So there are things that you can do in the functional fertility space that can, you know, essentially possibly treat root cause and help you get to root cause and just improve your overall fertility from a natural perspective.

[00:32:04] Jenny Swisher: And I don’t want people to gloss over that. I do know that it’s often not covered on insurance and that’s a whole other whole other conversation, right? I’ve done an interview with Dr. Calvin Ng where we talk about this idea of You know, why things cost the way they do in sort of the modern medical system and how flawed it is.

[00:32:22] Jenny Swisher: I won’t go down that tangent, but if this is something that you’re pursuing, you know, look into the functional approach for sure. So now with where you are now, right? You’re in this place of like, you’re getting rid of the baby things. You’re kind of coming to terms with what this is going to look like for you.

[00:32:36] Jenny Swisher: I’d love to know, you know, I think when we talked before, you said your husband is like 99 percent sure. Like, he’s like, I think we’re done. I’m good with this decision. And you mentioned to me, I’m only about 70 percent there. So tell us more about how you’re feeling.

[00:32:51] Caroline Kojm: Yeah, sure. And it fluctuates day by day, right?

[00:32:54] Caroline Kojm: You know, you have a hard day with the kids and you’re like, you know what, this is, this is enough. Or you have a great day with the kids and you’re like, wow, you know, in 30 years, what could Christmas look like? Like, it’s really easy to kind of get lost in the daydream. And so I would say, Yeah, I would say on the whole, I’m, I’m good with this.

[00:33:12] Caroline Kojm: If it were to happen, that would be great. But I think, I think I’m even up from 70 percent from when we talk, you know, maybe, maybe I’m closer to 85, 90 today, just in terms of we have a beautiful life. And I don’t want to waste. any of it, wishing things were different. You know, it’s, it’s, it’s like any other aspect of your life.

[00:33:32] Caroline Kojm: You know, you can, you can be working towards your goals, but don’t waste your time wishing, wishing something was different. And so that’s kind of the, the approach I’m taking with this is to, to appreciate the moments that I have with them. I definitely, sometimes I’m like, Oh, I should have, maybe I should have appreciated the newborn stage more or whatever the case may be.

[00:33:51] Caroline Kojm: But, um, It’s really hard. Having a baby is really, really hard. And I think it’s easy to forget that when you become so hyper focused on, I have to get, you know, I have to have the baby. I think you, you mentioned something that, that resonated with me around, you know, it takes all the fun out of sex. It takes, it literally, when this becomes, when you become so narrowly focused on the goal, it can, it can block out everything else around you.

[00:34:19] Caroline Kojm: And so that’s kind of the perspective that I have today. around appreciating the situation as it is. Now, tomorrow, when I have to do some garage clean out, I’ll be getting a little teary eyed over all the baby clothes. But, you know, yeah, not, not letting that, you know, yeah, not letting that block the lights that I have.

[00:34:41] Jenny Swisher: Yeah, absolutely. And it’s funny you say that because vulnerable moment. So my husband and I have always said, we’ve always wanted to adopt. So even we were high school sweethearts. And I remember talking even in college days about how we thought we would have biological children and adopted children. And then God had other plans and he’s like, no, we’re going to do the adoption route, which is totally cool.

[00:34:58] Jenny Swisher: So we have two girls, but I’ve always had it in me. Like from the time I was probably four years old, I had boy, baby dolls. I had everything was boy. I mean, I literally like my mom gave us all of our baby dolls for the girls to use and they want nothing to do with them because most girls want to play with girl dolls and all of mine were boy dolls.

[00:35:15] Jenny Swisher: So I’ve had a really, you know, I’m totally content and happy and grateful for my life. And I’m not trying to say anything different, but there are times where I’m like, there’s just something about the little like tuxedo Easter outfit or whatever, you know, like that you just, you can’t let go of. But it’s funny because when we had my first, when my, when my daughter was born, my oldest, my husband was teaching and coaching and I was primary parent.

[00:35:38] Jenny Swisher: Right. And so I was in charge of her sleep schedule and her eating schedule. And I was up with her during the night. And of course she’s an early bird. God thought it would be really funny. To make me the world’s largest night owl, the parent to the world’s largest early bird. So all of, you know, all the stress, like enter all the stress.

[00:35:54] Jenny Swisher: And I really did. I really hit adrenal burnout when she was about a year old. And that’s a combination of We were owning the gym and I had a newborn and it was just a lot of physical stress. But when she was about three years old, my husband starts saying, well, are we, are we just going to have one? Are we going to pursue?

[00:36:12] Jenny Swisher: Cause we did, like I said before, we didn’t pursue adoption with her. It just sort of fell in our lap. So he’s like, are we going to go through that again? And for anybody listening, who’s ever been through an adoption process, it is a process, like it is, there’s a home study and it’s, it is not quick. And so I kept telling him, I’m like, I just mentally can’t be in that head space because it was so stressful.

[00:36:32] Jenny Swisher: Like, no one tells you what it’s like to have a child under two after the age of two, things get a little bit more freeing, but you literally like your sleep schedule, like whether you eat and shower is dependent on another human being. And so I, I told him, I was like, I do, when I think about our family longterm, and I think about, like you said, Christmas three years from now, I want more than one child, but I just couldn’t get in the present moment of like pursuing that because I had, I was like, it was almost stressful.

[00:36:58] Jenny Swisher: It’s like PTSD from, from having a child. Right. Yeah. And so I told him, I said, here’s the thing. If, if, if you’re okay with like having a second child, I need, I either need you to come home and help me build this business. Or we’re going to have to pursue like daycare options outside of childcare options, something else, which is totally fine.

[00:37:16] Jenny Swisher: So then COVID happened and it was like, it was like divine intervention because he, you know, schools stopped teaching instead of having just a three month summer, he came home in March. So we had like a six or seven month summer and we really put the hammer down on our business. And when it was time for him to go back to school, we got a phone call from a birth mother saying, Hey, we, you know, I’d love to connect.

[00:37:39] Jenny Swisher: It was like divine timing. So he put in his notice at school. He came home to work with me. My second, my second daughter was born. So I share all that because. Yeah. You know, I think sometimes we don’t share that piece of it either. I mean, and there are parts of me, I didn’t even get into the story about how I didn’t ever really want to be pregnant.

[00:37:54] Jenny Swisher: Like that’s a whole other podcast. Like I, I, from a physical perspective, I was scared to death. I had friends who were like, Oh, I feel like I’m blowing. I love feeling the baby kick. And to me, I was like, Oh, like, I can’t, like, I can’t wrap my head around it. You know, and why have I not shared that? Because society doesn’t allow us to share those things.

[00:38:10] Jenny Swisher: Because we’re like, I think I’m supposed to feel differently. Right. And so anyway, I don’t even know where I was going with that besides to say that, you know, this can look different for everyone. And I’m not sure where our journey is going to go either. I mean, we have literally just sold the crib, the pets all sitting out there ready for people to pick up.

[00:38:26] Jenny Swisher: Like we are in a place where we’re like, we’re not doing this again. And I totally jive with you when you say there are days where you’re like, I can not do this again. And then there are days where you’re like, Oh, maybe I could, you know, but I’m just trusting that God has a bigger plan for me and whatever he thinks should be in our future is what will be in the future.

[00:38:44] Jenny Swisher: Now I do want to ask you this, and this is a super, this is like a highly vulnerable question and you don’t have to answer it, but I can’t help but think as you’re talking about an interview that I did with my dear friend on a former, and I’ll link it up in the show notes as well, where she shares their adoption journey and she has biological children of her own.

[00:39:01] Jenny Swisher: And they’ve decided that she decided that she was done with pregnancies. But they weren’t done with their family. And so they’re pursuing adoption, international adoption. So we did a whole podcast during adoption month with her. But I’d love to know if that’s something you’ve ever considered.

[00:39:15] Caroline Kojm: Yeah, it actually, I mean, it definitely is.

[00:39:17] Caroline Kojm: We had, before we got pregnant the first time, you know, we had kind of a conversation around, you know, What, what, how do we want to plan for our family? How do we want our family to look? So we kind of had that conversation even before getting pregnant the first time. And then we had that conversation many times after the miscarriage.

[00:39:37] Caroline Kojm: Because I said, you know, I did this once. We’re going to try again. I don’t know that I’m going to be able to do more than two. And so we, we very much wanted to be able to expand our family. And so we had a lot of conversations around what that could, what that could look like, you know, because there’s so many months of, of waiting and there’s so, there’s so much more that goes into a miscarriage than just like, oh, you lose the pregnancy and then everything’s normal.

[00:40:04] Caroline Kojm: It’s not. So, yeah, so there was a lot of time spent there and then even just the past year kind of exploring, you know, if we wanted to have a third, understanding the different, Adoptions option, you know, different adoption options, the funny rhyme, whether it be, you know, international, domestic, or even, you know, becoming foster parents, um, to, to see how that might work for our family.

[00:40:32] Caroline Kojm: So I would say the door’s not closed on that. But I think right now, we’re, we’re still in a place of trying to figure out. Yeah, trying to figure out, um, you know, me getting pregnant and expanding our family that way, but it’s definitely it’s been on the table since the beginning.

[00:40:52] Jenny Swisher: Yeah, I mean, it’s an emotional roller coaster, no matter what, right?

[00:40:55] Jenny Swisher: Like, it’s just, I saw, I saw a meme yesterday. It’s really funny. It was like a picture of a child, like, holding on to a roller coaster rail, like, screaming with his head back. It was a meme that said something about like me trusting God with my life or whatever, you know, like take me on this rollercoaster because, um, that’s what it’s all about.

[00:41:11] Jenny Swisher: Right. And so, gosh, we’ve talked about so many things. We’ve talked about just what I like to call body literacy, like helping women understand their bodies. We’ve talked about, you know, what it looks like emotionally to miscarry and to be told that XYZ issues are occurring for you. We talked about the male perspective on this.

[00:41:29] Jenny Swisher: We touched on a lot of things. Is there anything we’re missing that you think that women listening should hear?

[00:41:36] Caroline Kojm: No. I mean, yeah, we touched on, we touched on so many things. I think the biggest piece that I want to hammer home is to learn your body and to trust in it. Like you only get this one body. You only have this one opportunity to live this life.

[00:41:51] Caroline Kojm: So don’t, don’t take it for granted. Don’t assume that somebody knows that somebody knows it or you better than

[00:41:59] Jenny Swisher: you. Absolutely. You are your own best advocate is what I like to say. And that’s awesome. I’d love to empower women to really just. Step into themselves and to understand their bodies better, because if you can communicate about your body better, you’re most likely going to have a doctor who can work with you on an easier level.

[00:42:16] Jenny Swisher: I, for me, for the longest time, I was looking for my doctor house. I was looking for somebody that was going to be like, aha. You have mold in your gutter or you, you know, whatever. And the truth is it wasn’t until I got really, really proprioceptive and aware of my body. And then when I was matched with a root cause doctor that I could say, here’s how I’m feeling.

[00:42:35] Jenny Swisher: And that doctor could say, okay, now I know what to investigate. So yes, I mean, absolutely. And I think that is the main message of this, right. Is to, to really just be your own best advocate. If someone tells you you’re normal and you don’t feel normal, it’s time to find a new doctor. Right. And if someone tells you, uh, You know, we’re going to take you on this journey without looking at your husband first, or, you know, whatever the case is now, you know, just for listening to this episode that that you don’t take that for an answer.

[00:43:00] Jenny Swisher: Right? And there are plenty of specialists out there and, and functional wellness doctors and, and people who are in your corner, people who are there to educate you for those listening. I have a sync digital course that teaches you all of this. It teaches you not only how to cycle sync for maximum energy, but really it’s a lot more about.

[00:43:15] Jenny Swisher: Okay. Finding a practitioner, getting the right testing for you, making sure that you are speaking up and are body literate about your own body so that you can ask these questions. So Caroline, thank you so much for being on here today and just being vulnerable in the service of other women. I would love for you to share if people wanted to reach out to you.

[00:43:31] Jenny Swisher: Um, I’m sure we’re going to have women listening who were like, this spoke to me. I’ve had a similar story. Where can people find you?

[00:43:37] Caroline Kojm: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Um, you can find me on Instagram. My handle is at mom brain social. I actually do social media management for busy moms in real estate. So if you see that, that is me.

[00:43:50] Caroline Kojm: Awesome.

[00:43:50] Jenny Swisher: Perfect. Well, I will link that up in the show notes so that people can simply swipe up to get in touch with you. But thank you again for being here. I’m so glad our paths crossed and we’ll talk soon. Yes. Awesome. Take care.

[00:44:09] Jenny Swisher: Thanks for listening to this episode of the Sync Your Life podcast. I hope you found value from today’s episode. If you did, please share it out to your friends or leave a review. Remember, your cycles are your superpower, and by aligning with them, you can live your life with all the energy you need to be a mom, wife, daughter, and friend to those you love.

[00:44:27] Jenny Swisher: Until next time!