The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Podcast - Dr. Shahin Ghadir On Fertility, In Vitro, Freezing Eggs, & Conception Issues

Episode Date: February 25, 2021

#334: On this episode we are joined by Dr. Shahin Ghadir. Dr. Ghadir is a founding partner of Southern California Reproductive Center. Dr. Ghadir is board-certified in both Obstetrics and Gynecology as well as Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility. On today's episode we discuss fertility, In vitro fertilization, when to freeze your eggs, and conception issues.  To connect with Dr. Shahin Ghadir click HERE To connect with Lauryn Evarts click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE For Detailed Show Notes visit TSCPODCAST.COM To Call the Him & Her Hotline call: 1-833-SKINNYS (754-6697) This episode is brought to you by ARRAE Arrae was created to help women feel the best so they can be their best, through targeted products which are 100% natural, filler-free, organic, and formulated by a Naturopathic Doctor. For 10% off, go to arrae.com and use code ‘tsc’ at checkout. This episode is brought to you by Sakara This year, turn your resolutions into reality. Whether you’re looking to try plant-based eating, build an empowered body, boost skin’s glow, or simply feel your very best, Sakara makes it easy to create rituals that last. Sakara is a wellness company rooted in the transformative power of plant-based food. Their menu of creative, chef-crafted breakfasts, lunches, and dinners changes weekly, so you’ll never get bored. And it’s delivered fresh, anywhere in the U.S. And right now, Sakara is offering our listeners 20% off their first order when they go to www.sakara.com/skinny and enter code SKINNY at checkout. This episode is brought to you by Pique Tea Ever since I discovered Pique Tea, I’ve been obsessed. I now incorporate at least a cup of Pique into my daily routine and it’s really been increasing my productivity levels. Pique Teas are made from organic high quality tea leaves and ingredients sourced from around the world, delivering up to 12x more antioxidants than any ofor heavy metals, pesticides and toxic mold so you know you’re getting the best stuff.    Use code “SKINNY” for 10% off piquetea.com. They rarely (if ever) have sales so you’d definitely want to check this out! P.S. This discount does not apply to their fermented pu’er due to their limited quantity.ther tea. What’s better is that they are all Triple Toxin Screened Produced by Dear Media 

The following podcast is a Dear Media production. sitting in my hot water, melting all the chemicals, which is why when they told me that they're launching Daily Immune, I was intrigued. So this is the absolute best vitamin C. Here's the deal. A lot of us are not absorbing vitamin C. We're just peeing it out. This is different. This is all about absorption, okay? So there's these things called liposomes, and they're made from the same material as your cells. So they help deliver the vitamin C exactly where you need it, which is to your cells. You should know that there are a lot of vitamin Cs on the market, like packets that you eat, but they're all GMO. This one's non-GMO, and it's also soy-free, which is very important. What you can expect when it comes to the taste is it tastes like elderberries, like fresh elderberries, which is so good. It's made with black European elderberry to get specific with you. And this vitamin C is going to support healthy immune

system, healthy collagen levels, and radiant skin. You can count on seven clean ingredients, no preservatives, refined sugars, or additives. Let me tell you, there's a reason we're working with Peak and there's a reason there's over 15,000 five-star reviews. I feel good about recommending this too because it's 30-day satisfaction guarantee. Check out their tea. I'm a fan of the ginger and the matcha. And then if you want a little discount on the vitamin C, you're going to go to peaktea.com slash skinny right now and you'll get 5% off your first order. You get free shipping when you purchase a bundle. And what's cool is Peak hardly ever discounts, so don't miss this exclusive offer. That's 5% off at peaktea.com slash skinny, spelled P-I-Q-U-E-T-E-A dot com slash skinny. This episode is brought to you by Array.

Array, you guys, was recommended to me by Melissa Wood Health, and I fell in love. This is this amazing blend of five herbs and I'm going to tell you about the herbs because they all work amazing for bloat. It's also a fruit-based digestive enzyme that targets every possible cause for bloating or gas so you feel relief. I started to notice I was getting super bloated after I had a baby. This is why when Melissa recommended this, I looked into it right away and I found that their ingredients were just so pure and potent. And I also discovered that they were formulated by a neuropathic doctor. So again, with our show, we're always very careful with what we vet.

And this is 100% natural, filler-free, organic. So let me tell you about what's in their bloat capsules because I think you're going to be obsessed. It has dandelion root, lemon balm. It has peppermint leaf, bromelain, which is what my plastic surgeon recommended when I got a boob job for inflammation, so it makes so much sense, and my favorite, slippery elm. So it's all combined to make this amazing bloat capsule, okay? How I like to use it is I take two capsules after a meal and especially a meal that's heavy.

So we didn't have access to a store like normally last week. And so I was eating a lot of Cheez-Its and I had a ray on hand and it helped so much with bloat. But it also optimizes digestion with all of the five herbs in it. So if you're looking for something that's completely laxative free and natural and you want to work with those herbs, then you definitely want to look into Array's products. It also helps that they're super chic and they look amazing in your cupboard or your handbag. Array's offering a 10% off to all skinny confidential him and her listeners. You just use code TSC at checkout for 10% off. Okay. So you're going to go to

array.com. That's A-R-R-A-E.com for 10% off. I think you're going to fall in love with this, especially if you run bloated like me. She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire. Fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur a very smart cookie and now lauren everts and michael bostick are bringing you along for the ride get ready for some major realness welcome to the skinny confidential him and her if you are older i don't even think you should wait six months. I think you should first immediately talk to a doctor because if you're 37 and you want to have four kids, if you have a kid and you deliver at 38 and next time you consider it, you're 40,

well, guess what? The chances of baby number two, three, and four are almost now zero. Welcome back. Welcome back to the Skinny Confidential Him and Her Show. That clip was from our guest of the show today, Dr. Shaheen Ghadir. And on this episode, we are talking all about reproduction, freezing eggs, freezing sperm, creating embryos, a lot of wild stuff here. Science is pretty incredible. For those of you that are new to this show, my name is Michael Bostic. I'm a serial entrepreneur and brand builder, most recently the CEO of the podcast network, Dear Media. And typically I am joined by my co-host, the real star of the show, Lauren Everts Bostic. But today

she literally called me in a panic and said, she's not coming home. I thought she was telling me she was leaving me forever, but it turns out she's just going out with the girls, getting a couple of drinks, laying a few back and said, you know what, Michael, you're going to have to carry the show on your own. And I said, oh shit, I don't think that's what the people want. But here I am. I'm delivering because she's on the interview. So don't worry if you want to listen to her.

She's in the interview. She just left me for the intro and hopefully I don't butcher it. If I do, Lauren, that's on you. I shouldn't be doing this on my own. I really need a co-host here. I should have known. She came down here. I was in my office and she came in looking like a complete fire 10, was all dressed up

and I thought it was for me. And then I went, I finished my work and I went out to look at her thinking, oh God, we're getting dressed up tonight. This is going to lead to something good for me. And she was gone. And I text her and turns out she's having a night with the girls. So I don't get to have any of that absolute snack that I saw walk into my office. She just, she's giving that to the rest of the world.

Not me. I'm just left here alone doing the intro to the podcast down here in this murky man cave. Anyways, I digress. All right. So Dr. Shaheen Ghadir, guys, this was an interesting episode all about reproduction. And like I said earlier, this is all about alternative ways to get pregnant and conceive, talking about freezing eggs, freezing sperm, reproduction, when to see a specialist, who to see, creating embryos, what age, the pros and cons. We really dive into it and answer all

of these questions. I don't think this is an area that we've really gone into on the show before. And I know it's something that so many people have questions about, especially when the topics of in vitro and how it all works and surrogates and all of that. So Dr. Sahin Ghadir is a great person to talk to. He is a founding partner of the Southern California Reproductive Center. He's board certified in both obstetrics and gynecology and reproductive endocrinology and infertility. So who better to have on their show? With that, Dr. Shaheen Ghadir, welcome to the Skinny Confidential Him and Her Show. This is the Skinny Confidential Him and Her.

We have a doctor in the house. I am so excited for this episode. Can you give our audience a little intro? Tell us about your background. Absolutely. I'm Dr. Shaheen Ghadir. I'm a reproductive endocrinology and infertility specialist at Southern California Reproductive Center. Basically, I'm a fertility doctor, and we are the largest center on the west coast of the United States. We are very proud that last week, an article came out, top five clinics in the world. Congratulations. We were the one and only in the United States. So we're very proud. All the docs at Cedars, all the docs at UCLA, and 29 other doctors in town use our IVF lab because it's considered to be one of the number one IVF laboratories in the country.

And we've had one of the highest success rates in the country as well. Normally, we used to have an international following of patients coming to us from around the world. Unfortunately, in the last year, that's gotten limited. But even with last year's horrible situation, we were busier than the year before with a lot of people that are home and figuring this is probably a really good time for me to go in. And we had a very successful year last year with getting people pregnant and freezing

eggs and tucking things away for people that aren't ready yet. I have 100 questions, and we have primarily a female audience, millennials. But first, I would like to know how you got into this. It's a really good comment, and I don't want anyone to judge. But I went to med school, and then I realized I did not love being around sick people at all. So I decided, okay, I'm going to do obstetrics and gynecology. Young women, mostly fun stuff and good stuff. And I loved it.

I absolutely adored it. The lifestyle is very difficult, delivering babies for your entire life and having no freedom. And I did a rotation in reproductive medicine, and I absolutely fell in love with it. My personality fit really well. I love the patient population. It is something that is a limited scope of service, but I actually like that because it allows me to do that really, really well for patients.

So I don't have to do 50,000 different things in my practice, but I do the things I do and I do them really well. So that's actually been a turn on for me for that career choice. And to be very honest, I do things that give me the satisfaction and gratifying feeling of what I'm able to accomplish in people's lives that most people in their careers don't ever get anywhere near that. And it's an incredibly, incredibly rewarding career. I imagine you get very close to their patients because like you said, you're bringing them so much joy. They've been struggling to have a child and all of a sudden you're somebody that can help them accomplish that. I imagine like that patient, Dr. Bond gets very close, very quickly. It does. It gets very close.

It gets very close, very quickly. Luckily, I've had the fortune of becoming very good friends with many, many of my patients. Even the ones that I don't become good friends with, they stay in touch. I get tons and tons of Christmas pictures. I get random emails just taking a picture of their kid in the park and just thanking me for changing their lives. Little things like that that really put a smile on my face on a daily basis. Why didn't you like being around sick people? I can imagine some of the reasons, but was there a specific reason? I was doing a rotation at a county hospital, seeing things I've never seen before.

Can you give us something? I'm someone who's so scared of everything with hospitals. So I saw something that I'll never forget for the rest of my life. And I'm a nice little Jewish kid, grew up here in LA and went to the Beverly Hills Unified School District. So getting into a county hospital where like five inches of someone's leg was missing from a diabetic ulcer, I didn't even know those things existed. Maybe I saw things that were extremes that I probably never would have seen in a hospital environment here at Cedars. But I realized I found my calling of doing something that's so rewarding, pleasant in many ways, and usually ends up in a great outcome.

Here's my question. Is there more people that are having fertility problems now or are people just talking about it more? Both. Both of those are completely true. When I started my career 16 years ago at my clinic, very few people were talking about anything. Coincidentally, we had

one child and it was super easy. The second child, super easy, but ended in a miscarriage. And after that, we had about two years of difficulty getting pregnant and had to go down the IVF path ourselves. So my wife and I have twins. They just turned nine. And it was the best thing I think we've ever done. Taking off the pressure of having future embryos sitting there waiting was huge for us. So we, I believe in it wholeheartedly. And because I've been through it, I can tell you that it's something that works and works really well when you go to a good clinic and you follow a good path. So those are all lots of little things that kind of allow me to do this job and do it really well. I also have an unbelievable team of people that work with me.

People in our lab. Our lab is regarded as one of the number one IVF labs in the country. What is the reason, if you could pinpoint one reason or a few reasons, why people have so many more issues with fertility these days? So for one thing, if you look back at our parents and our moms, people were having kids in their early twenties. Okay. No one's having a kid in their early twenties anymore. So a lot of those women, if they were waiting into their thirties would have had difficulties as well.

So for that reason, I think that it's really, really important that you consider if you are not going to be having a kid in your twenties, which is usually when people don't have difficulties that you need to preserve fertility for the future, meaning freezing your eggs, or if you're already in a relationship, making embryos, which combines the egg and the sperm together. So people have now begun to talk about it a lot. It's not the major taboo. It's a smart thing. Someone freezes their eggs when they're 30 years old. You're successful. You can afford it. You know how to get it. And you've done all the right things in your life And so people are not keeping it a secret and people are much more open

Thank god to certain celebrities that talked about it a lot and we're very open about this It's been huge and I appreciate the fact that some of my patients were incredibly open and had a following and had Millions of people that were looking to see what happens to them and it opened a lot of doors for me as well Having them talk about it. So I think in for me as well, having them talk about it. So I think in general, just the fact that they're talking about it is really helpful. Secondly, people are waiting. People are waiting and waiting and waiting and not realizing and ignoring. I have a patient that called me the other day. She did her consultation when she was 39. I didn't hear for her for two years. She's like, okay, I think I'm ready. I had a lot of stuff going on. So she came back at 41 now to freeze eggs. And I told her, I said, we're going to do the best we can do,

but I have no guarantees for you. Just because it's too late. It's not that it's too late, but in two years between the age of 39 and 41, it's a huge difference in the quality and quantity of eggs that you get from someone. Not so much between 25 and 27, but 39 to 41, huge. We've had a lot of conversations on this podcast, and I feel like there's no one better to ask

this question. We're in LA, right? There's a lot of superficial reasons that people do things. Is there a lot of superficial reasons that people are doing IVF? For instance, can you say, I want a boy, I want this egg, I want the best egg, I want... Is there a list that you're seeing or is that not a thing? So it is a thing to an extent. So we are able, by you doing IVF and doing genetic testing on your embryos, as a result of your genetic testing, I can reveal to you which ones were boys and which

ones were girls. And if you were lucky enough to make both genders, we're happy to put the gender you want back in you. So if you said, I wanted to put one girl back or two girls, or when a boy and a girl, my wife and I picked a boy and a girl, and we put a boy and a girl and they're both nine years old. So you can pick that. You cannot pick anything else. So you can't get into like hair color. We have a friend that says that she's going to pick her eye color, her hair color, her da-da-da-da-da. That's not a thing? It's not a thing. Oh, she's maybe misinformed then.

But listen, this is why I want to ask the question. I think there's a lot of people that are misinformed. The way I understand it is you basically are still like say that she froze an egg and we froze my sperm. You're still kind of working with what your maker gave you. Yeah, absolutely. And there's, and there's no way to reveal. There's no way to reveal. I call it, there's some clinics that say there's things they can do. There's nowhere in the medical literature that I've read. And our clinic is at the top of its game doing the most advanced things in the world. None of those things are really possible. Okay. I think a lot of people are just misinformed about this. Listen, I think

everywhere it gets competitive, but people think that they have a little bit more choice. And so when you, when you've bet through this, like who is an ideal candidate for something like this? So there's different things that we do. If you are struggling and cannot get pregnant, and it's been six months, a lot of studies say a year. If it's six months, I would see a doctor immediately. You are a candidate that needs to be seen by a fertility specialist. If you are older, I don't even think you should wait six months. I think you should first immediately talk to a doctor because if you're 37 and you want to have four kids, if you have a kid and you deliver at 38 and next time you consider it, you're 40, well, guess what? The chances of baby number two, three, and four are almost now zero.

So if you did it at 37, there's a good chance you could potentially make four beautiful embryos and give you that chance of having your four kids using those embryos from 37 when you're 44 for your fourth one. Okay. So this may be another ignorant question and my wife probably knows more about this, but how long can a woman carry a child? Like, so you have a great embryo. It's a really good question. What, and up until what age can you carry a child where the mother and child are protected? The American Society of Reproductive Medicine says that you can put an embryo back into someone up to the age of 55. Now, if you have diabetes and high blood pressure and obesity and medical problems, I'm not putting a embryo back in you, even if you're 43. So the general consensus and I did

have a patient that was 40 54 and in excellent health she worked until the day she delivered. Wow. And she did amazing. I did try to encourage her not to carry the pregnancy because I don't think that's safe and I think there's a lot of other complications and luckily none of those happened to her but in general as long as you are healthy and you are aware of the risks that go along with getting pregnant at an older age, which are gestational diabetes, preterm delivery, high blood pressure called preeclampsia, those things may happen. Oh my God. I could not be more excited to partner with Saqqara, you guys. I have been obsessed with this wellness company since I feel like I started blogging forever. They have the most organic,

ready-to-eat meals that come right to your door. And what I love about them is that they're very, very thoughtful about what kind of ingredients they use. Each thing they choose is powerful plant-rich ingredients, and they're designed to boost your energy, improve digestion, and get your skin glowing. They have all kinds of fun wellness goodies on their site too. And if you're looking to streamline your life and just turn your resolutions into reality, you got to try this. I especially like this because I'm trying to be very mindful about what I put in my body. I'm moving right now, so it's very easy to grab for the Cheez-Its. You know what I mean? This is delivered straight to my door. They have

a menu and it's all these creative breakfasts, lunches, and dinners. And then like I said, they also have goodies like wellness essentials for optimum nutrition that support gut health, energy, immunity, and just like healthiness in general. I know a lot of wellness gurus rave about Saqqara, and I'm not surprised at all. We've had both of the girls on the show, and they talk about their why, they talk about their mission, and people are just obsessed. I mean, I haven't heard one bad thing about this company. It's all been rave reviews. I'm telling you, if you're going to do a meal delivery service, I would first check out Saqqara. They've received rave reviews from Vogue, Goop, and the New York Times, plus, like I said, hundreds of wellness influencers. And right now, Saqqara is offering

all Skinny Confidential, him and her listeners, 20% off your first order when you go to sakara.com slash skinny or enter code skinny at checkout. That's sakara, S-A-K-A-R-A dot com slash skinny to get 20% off your first order. Sakara.com slash skinny. Try this meal plan. You are going to love how creative it is. For someone that doesn't know a lot about IVF, can you walk us through the entire process, start to finish? I hate needles more than anything. So give us all those kind of little details. Absolutely. So my wife used to pass out from every blood draw and every needle she ever saw. And after like the fourth day of the injections in her belly, she called and I was rushing home to give it to her. And she's like, don't come. I already did it. So let's go through it.

And I'll explain to you why these needles are a little bit of, there's something to be concerned about, but nothing to be concerned about. Okay. And what I mean is that the average IVF cycle, the average one starts by you calling us with your period on day one. And then on day two or three, you come in for blood work and ultrasound. And if everything looks good, you go down two paths. The more common path is we put you on a birth control pill for about 10 days so that your cycle just stops. Once the cycle has stopped and you're not ovulating on your own, we take over by teaching

you how to administer injections for you. They go into your belly. They're very, very tiny needles. If anyone's seen an insulin needle, they're similar to that. I like to describe it as like a thick hair, like from your wrist curve, one of those hairs. And that's basically how the whole needle is. And they're like this big. You pinch and then you go right into your abdomen and that's it. Or we skip the birth control portion and you go right into injections. The injections usually last about 10 to 12 days. For our patients that cannot do it, you have a choice of coming to my office and the nurses there will give it to you every day. Or you can just have one of our nurses go to your home. There's unfortunately an extra fee for that, but many people do that. And it's usually about

four or five ultrasounds during those 10 to 12 days. You come in and we do an ultrasound vaginally that looks at your ovaries and that we see these little eggs growing. They're called follicles. And when they get to a certain size, we know that the egg inside of that little bubble is usually ready to come out. And then we take you to our surgery center when my anesthesia team gives you an IV. And in the IV, they just put a little bit of medication to relax you. And once you're in the surgery IV, they just put a little bit of medication to relax you. And once you're in the surgery room, they give you a little bit more. You just fall asleep and you're totally breathing on your own. It's a deep sedation. And then the eggs come out with a

special needle going into the vaginal wall with an ultrasound next to it. And the eggs just get sucked out through this hollow needle and they go into a test tube. And then the test tube goes to the lab and in the lab, they're giving me a count, One egg, two eggs, five eggs, 10, 15, 20. And then we're done. How many eggs do people usually get if you're healthy? I've had people make one egg. I've had people make 50 eggs. So an average great response is probably something between 20 and 30.

That's a really good number. Why would someone do IVF if they can get pregnant on their own? Is the only reason they would do it is to have a certain gender or are there other reasons? Many reasons. Okay. So I have patients that come to me and say, in my family, there's the BRCA cancer gene. And I want to make sure that I'm a carrier and I want to make sure my kid never is a carrier. So we can do genetic testing on an embryo that checks for certain disorders and diseases.

So we get it out of your lineage and you never pass it on. So that's one thing. The other thing is that there are other reasons, like let's say a couple, both of them carry cystic fibrosis. One out of 19 people are carriers of cystic fibrosis, the most common as well for the Caucasian population. And if two people are together, they have a chance one in four of their kids will actually have cystic fibrosis and not be a benign carrier with nothing their whole life. So those are reasons people do that as well. Let's say you just both finished law school and you're both 30 years old, and you know that for the next 10 years, you are going to

be killing yourself on that partner path. At 40, your chances of getting pregnant with your own eggs and everything working out perfectly get slim, but at 30, they're great. So that's another reason why people would freeze their embryos, tuck them away. When they're ready, they come back and use them. If you have three girls and you want a boy, you can do this. If you want the opposite, if you have three boys and you want that girl, you can do this. I've had people tell me, I just want one kid and I want it to be a girl. I don't judge. I think that's perfectly fine. Everyone has their heart set on things, but there are a lot of reasons that people do this a lot. I think your comment earlier about this is LA and people are superficial. This is a lot to do. This is a little bit more than like

just injecting a Botox or the things that the average LA person does. This is a lot to do just for vanity. I do think that people that have come to me, I've noticed that some people that have more of a financial wellbeing, it's easier to make this decision to move forward and make sure that things are tucked away. It is not cheap doing this whole process. Well, I think this is also good to talk about to maybe remove some stigmas because I think because there's been so many known people that have done this, they think, oh, it's maybe a superficial thing to do, but maybe like all the issues you just highlighted are not superficial reasons to do it. And so I think like removing some of that judgment

and understanding that there's more than just the reason that you want a girl or a boy. Like some people want to do this for genetic reasons, or they want to do this because their age and they're at risk. I had one follow-up question, say that there's a couple, healthy couple, they get pregnant easily on their own the first time, but then they're in that kind of cusp where they're getting towards later in the forties. Would you suggest to those people, hey, if you want to keep having kids, it's good to freeze your eggs and do it this way? Or would you say keep going naturally? I would never tell them to keep going naturally because it's going to close doors for them down the line. And I think that some people have a hard time understanding why we recommend

to go straight to IVF and not try on your own. Because if you get pregnant, and the next time you think about getting pregnant, you're looking at it about two years from then. So if you're 39, 40 years old, and there's a chance you could get pregnant on your own, you better think what you want down the line. If there's more kids that you're waiting for, you better be very careful dealing with that now. And do you have a better chance? I guess this may be sounding stupid too. By the the way none of your questions trying naturally or like can you say you're like

hey I'm on the fence I either want to go natural I want to do IVF or you're saying listen your chances are higher if you go IVF amazing question actually what do you two think

if you were both 20 years old and we put you in a room together and you had sex every single day of the month what is the chance of you being pregnant

at the end of that month I would assume it's high guess I don't know 80% every single day of the month, what is the chance of you being pregnant at the end of that month? I would assume it's high. Guess. I don't know. 80%? 50%. 20% to 25%. Wow.

The highest conception rate for human beings at their peak of perfection is 20% to 25% per month. IVF success rates, you were way on, and I know you were just leading me into that, is in our clinic last year was between 76% and 84% per month. Sadly, that is not the case in the country. The average country success rate was in the 30s. I think it's gotten into the 40% now. So is there an age that people should start thinking about freezing their eggs, or is it not an age? Is it something that's situational per person? Yes. Eggs and sperm. Let's not forget about that. So I recommend because it's really been hard for us to get people in their 20s when their eggs are the best they are because no one in their 20s thinks they're not going to have a mate and have

a kid when they're 34 and everything's perfect in life. If you have hit 30 and you don't have a significant other and someone that you are about 30 and you don't have a significant other and someone that you are about to start the process of starting a family, then I think you should be freezing your eggs. What if you have a partner? So I have had people come to me at the age of 39 and say, I was with someone for eight years

and it just fell apart. So I want people to address these things. So if you have a partner, but you're not ready to have kids, you have two choices. If 100're not ready to have kids, you have two choices. If 100%, not 99.9999, but 100% you're sure you're going to have kids with that person, then make embryos. You put the egg and the sperm together, you make the embryos, and they're there for you for the rest of your life.

So I just had a daughter a year ago. You would say to us as a couple, if we want more kids, why not freeze your eggs? Or make embryos. Or make embryos. Eggs, but embryos. Excuse me. If we're staying together. You got to be 100% though.

So if you are, I have had couples when the woman came in and froze eggs, because they were honest and said, you just never know what's going to happen. And that tells me that they're probably not in the most solid relationship ever. When I'm on my second or third husband, I need to be protected. So I don't know how old you are. Yeah. Like when I'm on my second or third husband, I need to be protected. Exactly. So I don't know how old you are. Okay. But if you've had one kid and you do want to have more kids, it's something to consider. If you're still in your early thirties and you just want one more kid and like in a year, you're going to try again. I think you're good to go. If you are in your late thirties and you're like, well, I want like maybe two, maybe three more. I think you should think ahead. So that my age that I've come to the conclusion and I tell my patients is it's 30. I have had patients, my, my, I've had patients in their twenties that did

it. They just knew they are just about to start some kind of professional career and they're not going to be ready anytime soon. So that's what they've done. They've froze their eggs, but men also have to worry. So I've never gotten so many DMs on my social media or text to my phone asking me, do I need to freeze my eggs, make my embryos, or do something with my sperm because of the COVID vaccine and the COVID situation? There's information out there that we are not sure exactly if it's accurate or not that says it can affect fertility. It can affect sperm well-being. So we've had people just freezing theirs. It can't hurt you. So people are freezing their eggs and sperm faster than ever right now because they're not sure what the effect of the actual COVID virus on them or the vaccine will be when it comes to their fertility.

I have a couple of friends that have froze their eggs and they gained weight and they got very bloated. Is that something that comes along with it? Do you see that all the time? Are there other side effects? So they probably did well. So if you make two or three eggs, your ovaries go from the size of like two little walnuts to like an apricot. And then the next week they go back to normal so that they probably didn't make a lot of eggs. So when a woman's like two little walnuts become two grapefruits and they have like 10 eggs on this one and 10 on that one and your ovary gets this big, it's impossible that you're not going to feel bloated. Imagine we just took two grapefruits and just squeezed it under your skin. You're going to feel bloated and you're going to feel full.

The weight gain is usually water retention from the ovary getting big. And then usually it just goes away. I have had patients that told me I just became a stress case and nervous as hell and ate so much. I think that's why I gained 12 pounds in two weeks. So that can happen as well. So I tell people, be cognizant of what you're eating. There's no reason you should be eating differently. You should be eating healthy and watching what you eat and do all the normal things that you do, but you do get bloated. It's almost impossible to do well doing this, not getting bloated, retaining more fluid than normal. And then usually within two weeks, it's back to normal. Maybe another ignorant question. Say you're a woman that fits your

age range and you're going to go try to create eggs. Once you do that, are your eggs, like say 30 year old woman does this, are their eggs limited moving forward or can they still produce, like say you have the eggs and that's like your insurance policy, but then you actually get pregnant naturally. I guess what I'm saying is that's one of the major myths that I answer for every patient on a consultation. Every month when you ovulate that one egg, about a thousand, maybe even more, die off during the process. We are recruiting some of those eggs that we were going to lose anyways during that

process. And you're not going to be depleted of your eggs. You are not going to go into menopause earlier. The next month you can still try on your own. And we have done nothing to your overall fertility status at all. Okay. I think that's, like you said, that's a lot of fear that a lot of people have is like, once I do this, am I done in other areas? I have a question. How come I hear so much about the woman having all these issues when a lot of the times it's the man? Is that something that we're not talking about enough? What's going on there? No, we're not talking about it enough. So it's there. And I can tell you probably,

studies have shown about 40% of infertility is female. And most recent studies showed about another 20% is male. And unfortunately, the other 20% is really unknown. And we just like never figure out why someone couldn't get pregnant. But for some reason in the lab, we put the egg and the sperm together and put it back into them and they get pregnant. So it's about equal men and female. It's about man and woman. It's about 40% each. We don't talk a lot about the man issue of it because a lot of men don't talk about it. Now, women have come around. I think men will come around. We've had a big push for male fertility freezing as well because you never know what's going to happen to you. You never know if you're going to get, God forbid, cancer and need chemo. And

a lot of things can happen as well to a man. So it's the safest thing to do. When a man gives sperm, does he just go in a room and beat his meat to porn and just put the sperm in and just walk out like is that how easy it is because that's frustrating if so yeah that's exactly what he does thanks for the imagery can you type that so we could put it on our brochures please we intentionally did not lock eyes during that question i just don't understand why i just haven't heard that vocabulary in a really long time but yeah that's i don't know i don't know if that's a medical term but you know we actually probably would request that they don't understand why i just haven't heard that vocabulary in a really long time but yeah that's i don't know i don't know if that's a medical term but you know we actually probably would request that they don't do that that way because like i don't know what it's gonna lead to does

anyone ever say like like a woman ever say listen i'm gonna go in with the man and i'm just gonna do it for him or is it always just the guy in his hand yeah we've had people go in together let me ask you this. This may be even a more outlandish question. I'm embarrassed to repeat the words you said. What was it again? Beat your meat. This might be an even more outlandish. Every time you say beat the meat, we're just like looking away from each other.

Listen, this might be even more outlandish. But say you're a man and you want to go in and you want to give your best sample. Are there things men should do to prepare to provide the best sperm sample or does that not really matter? Like you just roll out of bed and do it. It doesn't really matter. Okay. So it's already. So let's put it this way. You know, you are not going to have the most intense experience of your life in our little room with a chair and your phone. We stopped doing that. We have TVs. I don't know. No one even uses them anymore. Everyone used to steal all of our DVDs. By the end of the year,

like our thousand DVDs were gone. So everyone uses their phones and they do the best that they can do. It doesn't really matter if you have like six milliliters of ejaculation versus two, it doesn't make a big difference. And usually in our experience, in our lab, it doesn't provoke the best result, but it's good enough because there are still millions and millions of sperm in there. Because I know like a lot of guys, and I've talked to that, when they're trying naturally, they're like, oh, I'm eating these foods or I'm working out. I mean, they're trying to like boost their testosterone and get like the best. But that's why I asked the question.

I'm like, does it really matter? I think that in general, when someone is trying to conceive man and woman. To be healthy. Being as healthy as you can, like, you know, maybe that's not the time to be like using pot every single night or smoking or drinking like a fish. These are the times where I really believe that your overall health has a lot to do with how well you do. And it's so simple to be on top of it and make yourself as healthy as possible. But a few months before trying, I think it's important.

So the 600 margaritas that I drank when I got pregnant probably didn't help a lot. There are many people that have been down that path. And you know what? It probably didn't help you, but obviously it didn't hurt you as well. But for people that are going out of their way to spend a ton of money and a lot of time

and a lot of energy and a lot of emotional power, I think it's probably best to be the safest and healthiest you can be to let yourself know you're doing well. Let me ask one more question. I think so many people, when you're with your partner, you're saying, hey, we're trying for a child. I feel like there's this heavy pressure for everybody to kind of perform. And I wonder if sometimes that pressure is unhealthy in terms of fertility.

I hear that so often. And unfortunately, one of the sad things is that for men that are in relationships where you're not a switch and when they're like, I'm ovulating, we have to have sex now. That's the number one time I've heard from people that never had problems having sex ever that when I was told I had to have sex right at that moment, I just couldn't. Yeah. And I hear that all the time. That makes sense. It's at that moment, I just couldn't. Yeah. And I hear that all the time. That makes sense.

It's like not the biggest turn on, right? No, no, no. And I've told a lot of my female patients to maybe you don't need to announce and scream it like that and just like continue the way you normally start to get into the mood. I'm a big believer on no pressure. Like I think if we were to try for another child, like I wouldn't want to put a lot of pressure. I think that that makes guys freeze up. What are some other tips and tricks, if there are any, to helping get pregnant naturally? I'm a firm believer that the more you do, the better. So it's so simple. If you want to check your fallopian tubes and make sure

your tubes are open before you try the whole year or two. I mean, why wait a year and then find out your tubes are blocked? Wow. That's a really good tip. I'm licensed. I do them in the office. It takes under five minutes and you're done. If your tubes are open right then and there, and it's been shown that if your tubes are open for the next three to four months, because that highway was flushed clean, there's a higher chance of pregnancy. A sperm analysis, the same, like many men don't want to deal with that, but it's so simple to go give sperm and make sure like, okay, my boys are good. I can go, I can go and start. There's, I've had people call me and tell

me they tried for eight years to get pregnant. And then they come in and the guy has no sperm. And to me as a physician and someone who's organized in my life, like it's baffling. Someone would wait eight years. Like what happened after the first year? But there are people that are just not aware of all the things that can be done for them out there. You seem like a very organized doctor, which I would like and I would appreciate. I read that you're a proud supporter of the Family Equality Council, and this has helped tons of LGBT couples and individuals build their families. Can you speak about that? Absolutely. So one of my favorite populations in my practice are the LGBT. It's not easy to start a family if you're gay or lesbian or transgender. And the fact that they have to

come to us to do what they're doing and the things that we can do really make it special. Right now, before I came here, I was talking to, I have two females that are just lovely and they're making embryos and one of them is going to carry the other person's embryo and she's going to carry the other person. So talk about making it special. Wow. And we've had some of the nicest gay couples in the world

have been my patients and they support our practice and they do everything. I'm a firm, firm believer of doing everything to help that population of patients be able to have kids. And we've done so much, so much in that population and has had such unbelievable outcomes. It's a very proud feeling to know that to be able to help. Is it true that if it's a same sex couple that you can pull from each couple or is that not true? You cannot. So you cannot put two sperm into one egg. Okay.

But you can put one sperm into one egg and another sperm of the other guy into the other egg, make two embryos, put them both back into one surrogate mother and see if she can carry both and deliver both. You're doing the Lord's work. That's amazing. This is a very rewarding job, I bet. It is. Yeah, it is. I have one more selfish question. So this is obviously, as we've gone through this much, I don't want to say harder, but it's more challenging on the woman than the man. It seems like it's not, it wouldn't be a big deal for me to go and give a sample. I just go in the room, do what Lauren says, and I'm fine. For men, as we're aging, if I'm 34 years

old right now, is there any downside in me going and doing a sample now and having it? Because it seems like that's pretty easy to do. No, it's very easy to do. And I think the younger you do it, the better you are. All studies have shown that for men over the age of 40, all kinds of aneuploidy or abnormal chromosomes and some minor links that we're not clear of about autism have all gone up after the age of 40, along with other issues as well. So for men, it's always smarter to do it earlier and younger, and it's easy and not that expensive. Yes, this is a much harder process for women. So men, go beat your meat. Go steal a DVD. It doesn't take that long. It's not that hard. Where can everyone find you? Pimp yourself out. Tell us your Instagram handle if they want to book with you. Absolutely. Thank you so much.

This was a lot of fun, by the way. I can't even believe I could just blink and it ended. Quick. We could have talked a lot more. I feel like, I'm happy to come back. So my Instagram handle is Dr. Shaheen Ghadir and it's S-H-A-H-I-N-G-H-A-D-I-R. I have a YouTube channel as well, which is Fertility Talk by Dr. Ghadir. My clinic has social media platforms as well, which is Southern California Reproductive Center. We have a great website

and a new one is coming out real soon. And we are SCRC IVF on Instagram as well. That was so much information. Thank you so much. I hope that people are listening that I bet you got so much value out of this. Please come back for part two. I would love to. I just wanted to add one more thing.

We do every month one or two patient educational events that are completely free. Anyone can enroll. Cool. If you do listen to, it's about an hour, hour and 15 minutes, and there's question and answer. It's all done by Zoom. We used to do this in a huge auditorium, and now we're like, this is great. People can do it from their home, and it's so much easier for everyone. If you do participate in that, your consultation cost goes down to like a third, because those are people that we know are incredibly serious and paid attention for a good hour. They deserve it. No, and I imagine the attendance of that has to have gone way up.

That sounds way better than having to show up to auditorium. So it has and it hasn't, but we used to do them once every month to six weeks. So we used to fill our auditorium of about 100 people to the max and sometimes like seating on the stairs. But now that we're doing like two a month, it's gotten to, it's basically about the same thing. It's gotten to like about a third to a half every time. And it gives a better opportunity for people to ask questions at the end, but people are still

very, very interested. We were the ones that started, our clinic was the one that started the patient educational events and now every clinic in town does them. So I think it's good for patient care. I 100%. What a resource. Thank you for coming on. Please, please, please though, come back for part two. Thank you. I definitely will. Thank you so much. My pleasure. Giving away cute, cheeky stickers that you can decorate your hydro flask with. As always, all you have to do is tell us your favorite part of this episode on my latest Instagram at the skinny confidential. And some people from my team will drop in your inbox and send you some cute goodies. And if the show's brought you any kind of value, make sure you've rated and reviewed on iTunes and we will see you next time.