First time I came across the term, sh**ty egg and sperm in reference to infertility, I have to admit, it raised my eyebrows. I hadn’t really thought about the actual health of an egg or sperm in terms of being able to conceive but of course, it totally makes sense.
I had always thought about fertility or the ability to become pregnant and sustain a pregnancy in terms of hormones: Adequate estrogen and FSH for ovulation, elevated levels of progesterone to sustain the pregnancy and enough lively sperm to impregnate the egg.
Of course these are all important but you can have ovulation and not have a really good egg. And if you don’t have a really good egg, then the corpus luteum (the sac that had surrounded the follicle that houses the developing egg) is probably not very good either.
Why is that important? It’s important because it’s the corpus luteum that’s responsible for making adequate progesterone to facilitate implantation of the egg into uterine wall, and keeping the pregnancy viable until the body ramps up it’s own progesterone production and takes over.
How can you improve hormone balance and egg quality? Through eating as clean as possible, reducing your toxic and stress loads, evaluating your thyroid with a complete and thorough thyroid panel, and monitoring your first morning basal temperature.
And this is something every person who is considering become pregnant needs to do whether you’ve chosen to conceive naturally or with the help of IFV or IUI. IFV and IUI are not short cuts or substitutes to doing your homework first.
Creating a beautiful, clean, healthy environment for conception is number one! It’s what needs to happen first. To get started, download your free copy of Six Preconception Essentials.