The Uneducated PT Podcast - #70 Ciaran Russell / Fertility, Frustration, and Finding Strength

Episode Date: March 27, 2025

In this episode of The Uneducated PT Podcast, we sit down with Ciaran Russell for a powerful, honest conversation about fertility. From sperm analysis to treatment options, we dive into what the journey looks like for couples trying to conceive — and the emotional toll it can take along the way. Ciaran shares his personal experience, the challenges he and his partner have faced, and how they’ve navigated it together with resilience and love. We also shine a spotlight on a crucial message for men: get checked early, have the conversation, and don’t suffer in silence. This episode is for anyone who’s struggling, supporting, or simply wants to better understand the reality behind the word “trying" 

Hello and welcome to the uneducated PT podcast with me, your host, Carlo Rourke. The goal of this podcast is to bring on interest and knowledgeable people from all walks of life, learn a little something from each conversation and for you, the listener, just learn something from each episode. So don't forget to subscribe to the channel, press the box below, show some support and I'll see you on the next episode. Okay, welcome back to the uneducated PT podcast. We have a very special guest on today.

As someone I know very well, we've met up, done fitness events together, and I wanted to get them on because, And he has a really powerful message to talk about. We're going to talk a lot about coaching, fat loss, self-dough, and really important topics. But I wanted to start on fertility because it was actually Andrew Schultz. Do you know Andrew Schultz, the comedian from America? He's a very big comedian in the States and he's from New York.

And he actually was speaking on this topic in his latest special as well about him and his wife struggling with fertility. and I thought it was really powerful that he was opening up about it. And I know that you spoke a lot about it on podcasts as well. I think it's a really valuable conversation, especially to hear from men speaking about it because obviously there is going to be a lot of men going forward in the future who are going to be experiences in these difficulties,

probably men's, you know, experiencing them now. And to be able to listen and hear from someone, you know, who's in a similar situation, I think that's a really valuable conversation to have. So could you just go through Kieran just a little bit about your own experiences and give the listeners a little bit of context? Yeah, absolutely.

So an experience is definitely putting it mildly. We have been trying for a baby for six years. Which, and it was funny because it was literally, my wife always said, no, I want to wait until I'm at least 30. So then she turned 30. He was like, right, game on. And obviously we think, you know, this is going to happen. It might take a month or two.

And, you know, it'll all happen. It didn't. It took six months and she got pregnant. And at that time, it was weird because it was like, oh, this is taken forever. So it took six months. It was September 2019. Her periods didn't come. Yay, wonderful.

We had all this thing planned. Right. What's next? we're going to go get a private scan. We're going to have this big elaborate thing that we're going to tell our parents about. My wife loved, not so much anymore, she loved crispy cream donuts.

So we're going to buy a big box of donuts for everybody and in it there was going to be this letter saying, we're having a baby, blah, blah, blah, right? Fast forward a couple of weeks after that. We go to this private scan. In the scan itself, we could see the nurse she was doing a scan, she was getting a bit agitated, as if like there's something wrong

and my wife knew straight away, what's the problem? No, no, no, no, all good. No, no, seriously, what's the problem? So there was no heartbeat as such. So basically it turned out it was a missed miscarriage. So essentially there was a sack, a sack being where the baby is grown within the womb. That was there, but there was no embryo

or whatever should have been inside wasn't there. That was an experience and obviously devastation within itself. That was the one and only time that pregnancy occurred. So fast forward a couple of years. We kind of took our foot off the brake off the accelerator for a time and obviously COVID happened and there was no real pressure to kind of, we were just going to say if it happens, it happens. And then we got to a stage where I was like,

you know what, there is literally nothing happening here. we need to start going down the road of having a look at some sort of treatment, doing more tests, that kind of thing. So we started to do that. We went through all the medical processes and the route that people would generally go down. We went to the maternity hospital, done all the tests from her side. As far as I was concerned, and as far as the doctors were concerned, I give the sperm analysis. Cool, that's normal. Don't worry about it.

And then we started doing a little bit more research. about that and it turned out there's potentially a problem with me and again even to this day we still can't pinpoint to say well yes it is what is the problem because we don't know yet and so it turned out I went and got an ultrasound done because there you know there might have been or just to get checked for a varicosea which is basically varicca's vein in the scroven so within those veins kind of heading towards the growing area within the scrotum and so on and that becomes a problem because there's a lot of blood flow blood flow generates heat sperm don't like heat and it causes DNA damage so is did they say is that is that a common thing in men or uncommon no it's it

i suppose it can be common but a lot of the time it doesn't create a problem yes and a lot of the time it will go undetected unless it's like anything if you go looking for something you'll find it. But it never, you know, for a lot of people, it doesn't become an issue. And see, I went and gone and done a DNA fragmentation test, which is essentially the next step to a sperm analysis because, again, this is not something the doctors even recommended. They didn't recommend. No, because it's, I won't say it's relatively new, but it's new as in, it's a lot newer than just a regular sperm analysis. Spirm analysis will test how many you have and how fast are they. Okay.

I had loads and they're fucking fast. Okay, is that a good, that's, that's that, I presume that's good thing. Part of the good, yeah, that's one good part. So which most people will be tested. Yeah, he's granite sorted. Okay. So I went and got the DNA fragmentation test and that came back as if I had high DNA fragmentation, which basically means there's potential DNA damage within the head of the sperm,

which carries all the chromosomes and so on and so forth. Okay. So that was fine. I think it's I think the borderline is like 29% or something and I was at 37. It wasn't ridiculously high but it was high enough that it might be causing a problem. So then that's why I went and got some other test done. I went and got the ultrasound. Turns out I had a varicoseil.

And then I had to go get that removed. So that was literally in and out within a half an hour into the hospital, awake for the whole thing. dude goes in through my neck, throws a coil, literally travels down through my renal vein, throws a coil in, you know, Bing bang,

Bosch, out you go, all done. Mental. Fucking, the medical world is nuts. Half, sorry, did you say half an hour

and all you took? Half an hour. And then I drove home. Yeah. Even just going back to the, because I want to, I want to have this conversation in terms of,

okay, let's say someone is maybe struggling to fall pregnant, and they want to know what process to kind of go through and they're kind of listening to the process that you went through. So you went through sperm analysis first and then they didn't recommend you to do a DNA fragmentation but you obviously researched that

and thought that it was the best next step. Yeah. And after that then it was to go get the ultrasound. Mm-hmm. Right. And this was all through self-discovery. Right. Unfortunately. And again, we're talking over a period of a few years here.

Yes. And how easy, how easy is. to get access especially in Ireland how easy is it to get access to these things like a spurs sperm analysis test DNA fragmentation the ultrasound all these things um i found it relatively easy yeah i although and obviously there's costs associated with some of them i'm very much of the opinion if there's anything you know what i value health so i'm very much of the opinion if there's something to do with my health or my wife's health I don't care how much it costs we will we will pay the money or we'll find a way

and so obviously that's maybe not the case for a lot of people and that's fine now in terms of the square analysis that's something that they'll do within that we went to the rotunda so that's something that they would have done in the and in the gynecology department there and obviously that's when you go see the consultant that they take their boxes right they'll have a look at they get bloods from her. They, we've done the sperm analysis and then they start to tick boxes essentially. But it was after that, so my wife decided to work with a nutritionist who kind of works

in this field around fertility and stuff. And then it was heard that recommended the DNA frag test, which neither one of us had heard about before. So obviously it'd done a bit of research on it. So can I just ask a question? So after you got this sperm analysis test and you know, you found out that, okay, sorry, it was it was lots of sperm and there were fast sperm. like right.

Basically, yeah. And did they not recommend what to do then after that? Because they're telling you, okay, that's a good thing. But then, okay, well, how come it's not producing the outcome that I want? As far as they're concerned, then that's him sorted. He's good. Yes, okay. They're only looking at one metric.

They only care about that one metric. And that's obviously an issue because it turned out there was other issues going on with me. Again, we still don't know to this day that that is the problem. Yeah, yeah. you have to look at multiple things 100%. Yeah, there's never one answer. So once I ticked that box of a normal sperm analysis, then the attention went back to my missus.

So right, okay, then she went through some other investigations. They went and checked if she had endometriosis. They went in the check if there's any other issues, cysts, polyps, that kind of stuff. So they would have, she went in for a day, she had a hystereoscopy and a laparoscopy, which is basically, a camera but also the laparoscopy is keyhole surgery where they go in and they scrape part of the lining of the womb and the uterus to check for endo essentially and again all came back normal

and that was a lot of the time that's the frustration because you're going in and you're doing all of these tests and up until the point where we found out about the lights of the DNA and the ultrasound they were all coming back normal we're like what the fuck and and there was nearly it got to a point where like just have something wrong with me yeah so then at least then you know you've a road to go down yeah so then um we decided then even after i had that varicoseal embolization which is basically to cut off the to put the coil inside me and cut off the the blood flow in the in the this part of the vein. We were like, cool.

The sperm regeneration cycle is 90 days. So I'll have a fresh batch of sperm made ready to go within three months of that. Yeah. So we're like, cool. That was done in May. By August, sorted. We'd be pregnant by Christmas and away we go,

because this is the problem. Turns out that's not the problem. Or at least we don't know. So then that's when we started to look into eye What is IVF? IVF. IVF. The way I kind of look at IVF is obviously in vitro fertilization, but IVF is just one, people will know it colloquially

as IVF, but it's fertility treatment because there's different, there's different things. So if IUI, which is, I suppose, is probably most commonly known as a turkey baster, then you've IVF, which they'll collect the egg, They collect the sperm, they put them in a dish, they do their thing, they create the embryo, and then they transfer the embryo. But what we did was, and it's now not coming to me, it will, we did ICSI, ICSI, which essentially what they do is they take it one step further. When it is kind of pointing towards male factor infertility, they tend to go down the road of ICSI. And They'll go one step further than IVF and they'll actually inject the sperm into the egg rather than just letting them do their thing in the dish. So what, that gives it more of a percentage chance of actually? Yeah, exactly. And then from that the embryo is created. So once they do that, you wait five or six days, you see what fertilises and then you go from there. and my missus has PCOS she has a high egg count and so we got once we start the process we done all

this and actually before I get into that we decided that we were going to go and press the button on the IVF spend the money right and then the government scheme was announced that they were going to pay for the first round of fertility treatment for couples that are struggling to have. What is the government scheme? Because that's one that I'm very interested in as well. Because obviously people are having kids later and later in life. And it's like, you know, there is a huge population decline around the world.

And I'm like, why are governments not making incentives for people to have kids and also to, you know, with kind of fertility problems being an issue to be able to make more affordable so that people can have as much help as. as they care for these things. This was announced mid-20203, I think. Okay. That the government were going to provide funding to basically help couples get pregnant. For fertility treatment specifically, so IVF, IUI or IXE, whichever.

Yeah. These are the three main ones that you would go to. They would fall under. Yeah. So if you go to any fertility clinic, they're picking basically one of those three things to do. because the chances are up until that point you might have tried something like um ovulation stimulation medications and stuff to still do naturally but it's it's a medicated thing so let's say the female might take some certain hormones you still have to count down the days and you find out when ovulation is and you do the business so with the public scene and as i said we were

ready to push the button and pay the money and my miss is like no let's just wait and see what happens with this publicly funded thing I just have a good feeling that it's going to be soon now I'm an impatient fucker I would happily just go no let's just go ahead

but that's the mail inside it's like yeah get to get shit done it's not often my missus turns around and have so much conviction to say no let's just wait so that's and then that's my key to just shut up and listen for a second

because I would imagine it's I would I don't have an idea of numbers but I imagine it's expensive. So yeah, it is now a number. It has been expensive historically. I think that has kind of come down and there's one or two clinics have kind of joined the market which obviously sounds like a fucking business because it is. And that have kind of come in and undercut other clinics.

So you know, um, you know, it has brought the cost down. But all in all, so if we had have gone through. the whole of last year which i'll get into details in a second we probably would be pushing 15 grand yeah like like for some people they're just not gonna you know what i mean like to put that burden on them it's yeah it becomes inaccessible then for a lot of people so um we were lucky enough we applied for the the government funding we fit the criteria we were accepted for it at the time they've changed it now they've broadened the criteria but at the time it didn't allow for same-sex couples it didn't allow for secondary infertility which is you've had baby one now you're

struggling to have baby two and it didn't allow for people over a certain BMI or people over 40 I think again they've changed that I don't know what they've changed because it's no longer relevant to me to an extent I don't know that I know they have broadened it I actually know they have broadened it to secondary infertility that's one thing I do know so let's see how baby one and you're struggling to have baby number two you now fit that criteria that you can yeah so my my theory was they're trying to get the best people to make this look like it's been successful yeah yeah makes sense you know well and also like realistically it probably is going to be a more successful so it yes and and if if you only have so much funds for it you know you're

going to try and make as successful as possible exactly and we fit that criteria in that we were both mid-30s, young, fit, normal weight. That must be a frustration as well, the fact that, like, if we haven't even spoke about it yet, but you know, you're a coach, you know, you live a healthy lifestyle, you take care of yourself, you know,

you do all the right things, and yet this still ends up becoming a struggle. Yeah, 100%. So then that came along, we got accepted, we went, and so the way you do it is you pick your preference, in which clinic you want to go to. So there's a huge amount of clinics across Dublin across Ireland. And you decide one, two, or three in order of preference.

So we got the one that we wanted. And so we went to that. We had the consultations. We did all the tests, the blood tests and everything else we need to do. I got a second DNA fragmentation test done. So this was probably maybe six months or so after I had that procedure. And it came from 37 down to 30. So there was an improvement, but still borderline.

And so potentially still causing problems. So we went into the IV clinic. We don't know. We started the process. Now, because my missus had PCOS, she then was at risk of ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, which apparently is horrible. So the doctor suggested, no, we're going to collect however amount of eggs that we collect, we're going to try and create however amount of embryos there are and then we're freezing them all.

So it's known as a freeze all cycle. The reason for that is because there's so much stimulation from the medications and the hormones that she was going to be taken that it just could cause a lot of problems. The fact that she had a high egg count and she had PCOS. And so we got, there was 24 eggs collected from the egg collection. And that is a lot. Like a lot of people will be lucky to maybe get nine or ten. So we got 24. Then a day later, one didn't fertilize.

So that was, we were left with 23 eggs. They then try, then they do their process of mixing the sperm with the eggs to create the embryos. From the 23 embryos, we got, no, sorry, from the 23 eggs, we got nine embryos. Which is generally, they say 40%. and it was actually pretty much bang on. So 40% of our eggs turned into embryos. Nine embryos, we were thinking, we're not with a football team here.

You know, what are we going to do? What are we going to do with all the leftover embryos? Can we donate them? You know, and this is the talk process at the time. Looking back very naively, but, you know, you get to that stage, five years on from first trying, you think, no, this is going to be it.

You're counting your wins when they come. Yeah, so we had nine embryos. They were all frozen then for a month and then you get the call right, come back in. And obviously you're very much working around when her period comes, when her cycle starts, okay, cycle has started, you let the clinic know, cool, start this medication today.

In three days time you're starting this medication. So it's both true injections and like tablets, oral medication, that kind of stuff. So that was started and then you go in around ovulation time you go in they then they tie out the embryo the morning you're going in so the day before it's like please confirm that you're coming in tomorrow and you know you literally have the right back yes we will be there and because obviously they take the the embryo out of storage to thought and then the next thing that kind of surprised us

but we didn't really think about and until you she's literally in the chair and I'm allowed to go in with her and sip a cider and someone so you're in a room and then there's a window here and the lab is literally the other side of the the window and someone the embryologist will open the window and be like okay great so you had nine embryos we thawed one this morning and it survived the thaw and we're like hold on we didn't even think about the fact that it had to survive being defrosted and then about that either until you said No, why would you? So it, and then it goes through the process, right?

They transfer the embryo. You're like, there's a nurse here. She's scanning my wife's stomach. The doctor is then with his catheter, putting this tiny little microscopic embryo inside my missus. You're seeing it on the ultrasound on the TV. It's all a bit mental and a bit scary. And he goes, like, you just watch now, you'll see just this little bit of a flash. And then that's it, implanted.

or it's in implantation takes a couple of days so that was fine this was this is embryo number one this is going to work of course it is why wouldn't it so then you wait two weeks right and you go back for the blood test to check the HCG levels to see if there's been if pregnancy has occurred and we they they like say to us now we don't recommend doing home pregnancy tests because you can get a false positive just with the medications that you've been taken so we advise against it nobody listens okay we did we listened so we didn't take any pregnancy tests for the two weeks because you don't want to get their hopes up and then yeah they're shattered yeah until they're shattered anyway yeah yeah that was I won't say it was the hardest one but because it was the

first one we had high expectations my missus took the day off and because you go in for the blood test in the morning they ring you in the afternoon basically with the results she took the day off no this is going to be it i'm up here doing what we're trying to do with the work obviously like fucking distracted yeah she's downstairs phone rings carry on come down um and she puts it on speaker and as soon as the nurse said unfortunately the two of us literally the mood you could literally cut the tension in the room with them not with a bar knife like and how many so when you're getting this when you're getting this phone call and she's saying unfortunately how many years is this now trying this so this it was actually this time last year well a little bit earlier it was middle of

it was yeah it was the middle of march last year so at this stage it would have been five years trying five years trying to do like and this is the first thing this is the first time obviously we've gone down the treatment route yeah this is their first ibf transfer and so on so on but then that's also in your head then okay this is we were we're trying to you know the very top tier of trying here and then still getting that that result it must be yeah difficult it's yeah it was very very hard yeah but it's grand we will be fine we have eight left and that's when the mentality was kind of it was very very difficult and there was a hard week that week but you're very

quickly focused to the next cycle yeah because once they tell you they give you the bad news that's when all medication stops right stop taking all the medication and then you wait again for her period to come again which and then generally say a week or so my missus she got a period within three days so you're straight back on okay cool period has come right start this medication today start this medication the next day and you're straight back in you don't even have a chance to really catch your breath you're straight back into the next one yeah now that was our choice. We didn't have to go straight back into the next one. But we decided, you know what, let's, we're in the frame of mind here to keep going. So let's keep going. And we did that. So that was a transfer in February, March, April, May, all unsuccessful. In, yeah, in May, we got it up until that after that day, after that first time, she started doing pregnancy. test then because we're like do you know what if they're going to if they're going to break our hearts at least we'd like to break them ourselves before hand and soften the below yeah and so she started

then so that was fine may and I was like do you know what I think we need a break I think we just need to take a month off here and just chill out and my miss is like no okay so she said no look we're in the frame of mind let's just do me one more and see what happens did one more unsuccessful and she's like right okay let's take that break and even that break itself so that was the month of july off like all of a sudden six months is gone of this year um so with the month of july off medications even when the medications and and again it's some of the stuff that just people don't talk about like she was never going to give herself an injection a lot of women will most women will so i was give i had no problem i said look yeah i'll do all the injections

but when it comes to their progesterone so in the second half of the cycle once the embryo is transferred we start progesterone support which is basically an injection they have to be taken 12 hours apart

so then you're thinking right we need to be home at 8 o'clock in the morning and we need to be home at 8 o'clock at night because they were the times that suited us best and so then you're living your life between 8 and 8 which then obviously I actually there was one time we went to see the two johnnies

in St. Towns Park and we had to bring an injection with us which obviously my wife was stressing out because she had to get in touch with ticket bass or an MCD and the whole lot had to bring needles into a concert which was nuts so then it was that it just went over to the first day park I said I've seen a few yeah I know over to the first day 10 yeah yeah come on in you need to take this medication blah blah blah like they never look for any proof around but it was fine yeah and so I was around we took the month of July off And then we went back to it in August. I don't know, whatever, I just had a feeling.

It's going to work this time. Maybe it was just blind optimism. And do you know what? It did work. There was implantation. There was a positive pregnancy test. But do you know that saying you can't be a little bit pregnant? You can.

Apparently you can. So there was implantation in that the embryo took to her body and started the process. But it ended just as quickly. So when you do a home pregnancy test, the line that shows up as a positive line, that should get darker over the course of a few days. So she done one, we've seen literally she nearly dropped to the floor when she's seen the positive test. But then done one two days later, it was the same. It didn't get any darker. Done one a couple of days later.

We were kind of looking at it. Is it the same? Is it even there? We're nearly starting to see things. so then um we went in for the blood test yeah got the phone call yes there has been implantation there is it is a positive test however we like to see the hcg levels at 150 millimoles per liter whatever the measurement was and my wife's was 20 i think so they were like look we can't conclusively say it hasn't worked however the signs are

showing that but come back into us on Friday and we'll do another test and we actually had a wedding on the Friday to go to so we went back and we're like look with your wedding they okay come over a half seven on the Friday morning there'll be somebody here and they'll let you in and they'll do the test cool and so they did that and then because we were at a wedding we were like look don't ring just send the message because they set you up on like a portal and stuff and you can message them back and forth through this online portal. We were like, you know what, just send a message into the portal. My missus knew.

She knew it. Again, I was just being optimistic. Oh, there's still a chance. But no, she knew herself. She was like, I'll just send a message and that was fine. So yeah, look, I came back again unsuccessful. So again, just fast forward then to the end of the year. We got to the point where we had two embryos out of the nine left.

And the doctor was just like, if we put the... the two in yes there is a risk of multiples as in twins or more but we're like I mean at this stage what are the chances really yeah so we're like yeah just throw the two with them in and rather just be done with it now at this stage and and get on with our lives yeah so put the two in again unsuccessful so needless to say last year was a very challenging difficult emotional year for both of us. I would imagine that it's one of the most difficult things a relationship has to go through.

Yeah. We're together 19 years. So we kind of, we're together a long time. Since we were like kids, 16 and 17. What are you? What are you 36? I'm 36, yeah. Yeah, so since what age? You've gone through probably multiple,

like, you're not the same person you were. No, like we're, we are together longer than we're not. So we've grown up together. Yeah. We've literally like, it's nuts, like what we've gone through together. So we know each other pretty well. We're very confident in the stability of our relationship. But that's not to say it wasn't a trying time for our relationship.

Yeah, yeah. And, you know, especially. What do you think just, just, just. For those who are listening, who may be in a similar situation or like right in the crux of what them difficult times are. Like what do you think in terms of your relationship helped for youth to, you know, be able to get through that year? Space. Yeah. Yeah, definitely space.

Knowing that it's not my job to fix it. I would imagine that it's very easy for both of views or either views to end up in that guilt you know I think there

I think yeah there definitely is a part of that and she won't mind me saying like she would have had thoughts before as well if I don't get pregnant he's going to leave me so I'm sure that's common. Again, I can speak for women,

but maybe more so for women than it is for men. Men, you know, could then potentially think, well, if this is not working, then maybe I could try my hand at something else or someone else. Again, these could be the thoughts that people might be thinking. And obviously, that's not the answer.

You know, and... You think that having that communication between me and each of them. But I have that self-assurance or that reassurance, sorry, is really important. Yeah, I think I know her well enough to know when there's something wrong with her or when she's worrying about something

or when she's stressing. I'll know, like, she's generally a bubbly, chatty person. So if she's a bit quieter, okay, what's going on? It'll take a few minutes for her to tell me there's something going on. She might not know what it is, but as I take to her, I don't care if you don't care, if you don't know what it is, just tell me that there is something and let's figure it out together.

So I think communication is very important, but also the space within that to grieve that disappointment is important. How do you create that space for each other or no to create that space for each other? Sometimes it's just, you know, I'm going for a walk, I'm going to leave you there and just watch shit on TV or, you know, if it's talking to a friend like look we always said we were never going to be closed about what's going on with this i'm not shouting it from the rooftops yeah to an extent however if someone asked be it family friends how's things going i'm not holding back i'm telling them exactly how things are going because what's the point in hiding it be you know that's been a problem with society for so long oh this doesn't exist and then when it does exist for you you feel so alone you feel so isolated

you feel left behind what is wrong with me but not knowing that so many other people are going through this same problem if not worse you know there's been people in our situation who are a lot older who maybe have been going through it for longer and multiple times of fertility treatment over and over and the financial and emotional burden that that takes on people is just it's incredible and so it is it's different for every couple how they communicate how they find that space for us for me generally obviously i spend a lot of time here because i work for myself i work from this tiny little office here but a lot of the time my my wife's going to work and she's not the type to no i don't feel well I'm not going to work today.

She would go in regardless. Because she works with kids with intellectual disabilities, so she feels that she has to be there. And, you know, I think the difficult thing for her is that she always knew she wanted kids. She always knew she wanted to work with kids. And now she fights that bit of a battle of, well, it's not happening for me. So anytime she'd go to work, I'm spending a lot of energy,

making sure she's okay trying to if she's having a bad morning trying to be there to comfort her as much as I could and trying to fight the urge to fix whatever her problem is in that given moment because I can't yeah which is also a difficult thing as a man because it's in your nature to be like

okay I need instead of just holding space for someone it's like I need to be in fix it mode I need to fix whatever is the problem that's it that was a big learning big learning curve for me in that when she had the miscarriage back in 2019 and we were in the emergency room in the rotunda and the nurse that delivered the news that okay this is a miscarriage I held my wife's hand and I told her this wasn't the end of the world the nurse put me back in my box very very quickly and said but it feels like it right now okay next time care on keep your

mouth shut you can't fix this so yeah it is I think for a lot of lads and you know if there's people that are going through something similar you can't fix this you it's a journey it's it's trying to find out what potentially might be the issue and look at what solutions might help that and it's it's so complex you know it's such a multifactorial thing that's going on and that it could be any number of things everything and literally the stars have to align and especially more so for people that are that are going through the struggle of infertility in that it feels like the stars have to align even more so you know and so we got to the end of last year we had a review consultation with the doctor

he then suggested right what you need to do next is go and get your embryos tested. So the next time you do IVF or any sort of treatment, you have to get genetic testing done because that then, so let's say for example, we got nine embryos. If you get those nine embryos tested, four of them might come back chromosomally normal. And then you have, you know, you look at it and say, well, actually objectively, we have a better chance with these four. Let's discard the other five and literally put all these four eggs in, in the basket that are going to work. So we looked at that and we're like yeah let's and the clinic we were in he's like look I don't want to lose you as patients but we don't offer this genetic testing. So I'm going to

recommend here and here. So then we were like okay let's go do a research. Let's start making consultations. Let's start putting the money together because then we're in a situation where we're having to spend money and the genetic testing doesn't come cheap. So then we're, We're staring down the barrel of. And luckily, like I said, if we had to pay for all of that treatment last year, we were looking at 15 grand plus. And we didn't have to pay for it, luckily. So we were very grateful for that, obviously.

But now that that didn't work, we're now looking at if we go and decide we want to do fertility treatment again, we're paying for it. And if we want to get those embryos tested, it's an extra cost. So we were looking at it. I think it was 10 grand or something to do the egg retrieval. one transfer and to get the embryos tested. And they'll only test up to a certain amount of embryos as well. And people also have to remember that's only,

that's one cost. It's a big cost. It's the obvious cost. But then you have all the hidden metrics of the time, the emotional drainage of that. You know, like it probably consumes most of your life, most of all your year really. Yeah. It did. Yeah, last year was just a blink of an eye. Yeah.

And we then, after a week or so of, yeah, we're gumho, we're ready to go. We're going to start making appointments for consultations. I was having a bit of a rough time. Mentally, I've always kind of advocated for therapy. I kind of, I say every so often now I go for a top up. So I just needed a session kind of late last year, late November around this time. and came off the back of that and I was like, you know what?

I said to my wife then later on that day. I was like, no, the only decision we need to make right now is to not make any decisions. It's almost Christmas. Let's chill. Let's enjoy Christmas. Let's go out and not worry about injections, not worry about alcohol consumption

or what we're eating or what we're doing. And I just not even think about it. what ended up happening was we didn't speak to each other about fertility whatsoever for the whole of December and it was bliss it was and you know what I think it was very much needed so then we decided kind of that in between time between Christmas and New Year's and like actually you know maybe we won't do IVF again or maybe we won't go down that road again next year so we decided that we're going to look at maybe some other clinics and and we started with a clinic in January which kind of go the more natural approach but their thing is let's find what the root cause is here let's find out why this is not happening and so we did that we went to the consultation we were like you know what this feels good it turns out I knew somebody who was going there my wife knew somebody that was going there they

good recommendations as well they had a good experience it is a fraction of the cost of what we would have been paying and we had the consultation we felt very comfortable and confident coming out of it is that you know this is a part real possibility and his thing was that you've been pregnant before naturally so there's a reason it's not happening we just need to find out what that reason is and I think that kind of gave us a bit of confidence. And in fairness,

I had kind of heard before we had this consultation that this clinic won't bullshit you. If they tell you you're not suitable for this, they'll tell you that you're not suitable if they don't think it. So we went then, we had the consultation. He was like, right, we're going to give this 18 months. So this is an 18 month process here.

Within that time, there might be pregnancy. Within that time, there might be miscarriages. But it's more of a journey of discovery this next 12 to 18 months. So in that time then my wife started charting her cycle. So she's been doing temperature tracking. She's checking a lot of stuff in terms of, you know, like, what does she call it? Her mucus, which sounds like an awful word, and it sounds like if a runny night. but basically checking a lot of that kind of stuff to see what it's like and then

she'll chart the stickiness the consistency and all of that which obviously again some people might square me about but you know what this is the fucking facts and this is the stuff but you know you need to know and especially for more so probably for females you need to know your body and and I think there's this ignorance about that and this is not me having to go at women there's an ignorance on the behalf of men as well in not knowing how they're if they're a heterosexual men and they have a wife a girlfriend or partner you need to know more about what's going on with their body as much as they do i don't give a shit

who you are you need to know that do you think that a lot of people um make the mistake of just presuming that oh this this won't happen to me you know when i'm ready to have kids you know it will just be easy and then they like Because I've had two friends in the last couple of months who, you know, them and their partners have gone through through miscarriages. And I think, like you said, it is so common. And yet there's so much of a hush, hush about a kind of thing. So most people don't know that, you know, their neighbor or their best friend

or their, you know, cousin or their, you know, brother or their sister could be going through a very similar experience as them. Absolutely. I think there's a shame attached. There's a, again, like I said, that feeling of being left behind. I think, you know, for me, I've certainly had, well, I'm not a real man because I can't impregnate my wife. There's, you know, she would have had similar feelings and similar thoughts or what's going

on. How can I be a mother if I can't, you know, what's my purpose? All I want is somebody to take care of. And so there is a lot of that and that's why it's buried. It's, I think there is that big thing of, well, it's not going to happen to me. Why would it? I mean, you think that about everything, you know, I'm not going to get cancer. I'm not going to do this until it happens.

And while, yeah, statistically, it's not going to happen everybody. I think we're living in a world now where, you know, more people are choosing not to go down the road of having families. fine and no judgment a lot of people are leaving it till later and later what I'd say to those people that are leaving it later and later is get tested I don't care if you don't want kids for another five years get tested now because if we hadn't known when we were in our mid-20s okay there's a problem here we could have got ahead of that potentially whether that was from a lifestyle point of view or a medical point of view we could have got ahead of that and so I actually had a physio appointment kind of before Christmas and the subject came up and

we started talking about and he's like I think he was maybe early 30s yeah it's not something that we're thinking about and I say I don't care just go get tested can I ask you a question do you think that it's something that should be really spoken about and emphasised maybe you know people in university or maybe you know later in in secondary school when they're 18. 1920 because a lot of people might say, I know, I think even the statistics say that a lot of people intended to have children, but then life happened to them whether they pursued a career or they didn't find the right partner at the right time. They might have found the right partner too early and they weren't ready for kids or they might have found the right partner too late.

And, you know, there's, I don't think, you know, young adolescents are really told that, well, like, you know, careers are important and stuff like that, but, you know, you have a fertility. window and I think it's important to recognise that. Yeah and I think at the end of the day it's it's knowledge, it's information and if you have that knowledge, if you have that information of that fertility window that, you know, as as women get older, their egg reserve declines every literally every month when a woman has her period she loses eggs. Obviously she has like, like fucking loads of them in there.

But it's not like with men, because you'll see men that have, Robert De Niro had a child there a couple years ago or something. So men can still have because they regenerate sperm every 90 days. That doesn't happen with women. Once their egg reserve is gone, it's gone. Hence menopause.

And so I think there does need to be more, whether that's from a public health point of view, whether that's taught in school, during sexual health class, classes, maybe it is, but I doubt it, or in college or whatever. I think, look, it's like anything, it's only until you face a problem that you finally start researching about and you start learning more about it. Exactly. Yeah, at the same time. Think about kind of. Yeah, at the same time, if like, you know, if we hadn't heard about this

10 years ago, yeah, we probably would have brushed it off, because that's not really an issue. but then we might as we started to get older and started thinking about actually you know maybe we do want a family someday oh actually remember we heard that thing or learned about that thing five years ago you know maybe we should dig a little deeper and in fairness there is a lot more information that's readily

available whether that's podcasts whether it's even nutritionists health coaches whatever there's a lot more information out there and about it which is which is good and it is getting better and so it is it's it's hard And I think, as I said, our opinion was to be open about it because if it helped another couple to even half their journey and cut some of that heart take out, brilliant, you know, there's almost like nearly like, okay, we'll see how it goes and we'll report back and let you know how we get on kind of thing.

and then, you know, let you know what might be the best way to approach it. And again, that's not to say we're experts. You know, we'll tell you our experience, you know, for someone it might become something completely different. Like, it could be someone that has endometriosis. It could be someone, it could be anything like, it's just so complex. It's so valuable, though, to be able to hear other people's stories and know that, okay, this is, like, that is a reassuring thing for people that are.

right actually it's not and one thing that was we'll say to people whether male female whatever just talk about it don't be ashamed of it talk about it to your parents talk about it to your friends talk to each other about it because at the end of the day you're a team you know you're literally in this together so don't hide your shame whether that's within the couple don't hide it be open and I'm not saying that's easy that is fucking hard to do But what's harder, hiding it? Like, it just makes, it puts a lot of pressure on the relationship then as well.

So what advice? I'm just thinking about even two of my friends in general as well, but just for the wider audience. What advice would you have for couples right now who have just recently gone through a miscarriage in terms of their own healing process? Would you have any advice? miscarriage okay take some time and space to grieve that miscarriage depending on the stage of the pregnancy

we reckon we were six to eight weeks so it was very early but don't just rush over it as if it was nothing yeah and grieve it like you would grieve losing anybody and i didn't know what to do because nothing happens to me but I had to support my wife and that was difficult because as far as I'm concerned nothing really happened at that time and that's what I felt at that time but that was just my focus was her and it was only in time then I started to realise actually no this has had had an it has had an impact on me and then I was able to kind of work through it and again whether that's through writing my shit down in a journal or gone through therapy sessions or talking it out with my wife.

You have to give that time and space to be able to grieve that process before moving on. I think that is the mechanism of Mendo, isn't it? It's like alone, I'm fine, but I just want to make sure that she's okay. Yeah. And you might not be fine. Yeah. I think it was probably a year after that it really hit me. I remember seeing someone on on Instagram that I had known.

She had a miscarriage and it hit me like a ton of bricks. A year later. And then I wrote some stuff down and so on. And it helped me to kind of actually, this happened to me as well. Isn't it funny how long we can suppress something without knowing that it's there? Yeah. Yeah. And the impact that that takes on you.

without you even known it until hits you like a ton of breaks. Like, yeah, it's difficult. So yeah, my advice to couple is give it that time, give it the space and be kind to yourself and to each other. It's there and while there is a window and why there's, I suppose, there is some sort of time pressure, but there's no hurry to kind of get back to it either. You know, whether you give it a month or six,

given obviously depending on person to person and their age and so on and yeah give it the time that you feel is needed to do to grieve that loss because it is that's what it is a loss you know what gives you hope going forward and as a couple gives you hope going forward to to continue to pursue and and jump through these loops I'm not sure it it just feels like it's going to happen. And I think until we're told otherwise, basically. And I think

obviously, you know, we're still in a situation where, you know, we have time on our side. We're 36 and I'm 37 soon. But we're still, you know, people will still tell us you're young and you obviously hear a lot of people having kids when they're older. But yeah, no, I'm not going to sit here

and say every day, you know, I'm positive, I'm hopeful. Some days it's like, this is never going to fucking happen. You know, that is going to be the case. And that's part of it. But, you know, what am I going to do? Not hope for the best. So, you know, there is a big part of that. It just feels like it's going to happen.

Like I said, until I'm told it's not. So I'm just going to keep hoping. Have you, have you looked up any kind of, or has anyone gave you any kind of like real, good like case study examples of you know them going through a long period of trying and nothing happening and and going through these loops and going through different methods and and then have yeah not really kind of looked into it as such i think there's an element there of let's focus on us to an extent um there there there can be you know the you know you're again

there is no you're comparing apples and pairs every single time whether you're like like you said everyone's case is going to be so so different like I mean it to an extent you do look around and you think right grand we're 36 and you hear of someone that's gotten pregnant oh hold on what age of they you might hear the 39 40 or 42 whatever I'll kick up there's still a chance and we haven't really looked into case still isn't it because I think it could go both ways it could be like you know what there's hope but then actually hold on do we still have another five years of this as well so again it depends on the person and I think I think it's just

honestly from from our point of view which is best to focus on awesome what we're doing and what we can do whether that's from a lifestyle or a medical perspective that makes sense you know do you know the hardest part is tell us when like your mates are having kids when you find out such and such has got pregnant such and such has got pregnant and I think everyone knows now at this stage not to tell us in person

and I think my wife would kind of said look she had said to a few of her mates look I understand you know you're going to be trying for kids you're going to be having kids just do me a favour just text me because I don't want to be put in a situation

where I have to put across happiness Don't get me wrong. If anyone tells me they're pregnant, I am ecstatic for them, but at the same time, I'm sad for me. Yeah.

And sad for us. And I think, you know, that's, like, that's, like you should know that that's allowed. Like, I have it myself. Like, like, right now I'm single and I'm starting to think about,

I want to, I want to start a family soon. Like, it's something that is really, really important to me. I am very family-oriented. And, you know, I'm in a WhatsApp group where maybe 12 of my closest friends who have grew up with,

you know, I'm starting to become the last one without a girlfriend, without kids, they're onto their second and some of them nearly going on to their third. And I'm like, oh, shit, I'm being left behind. And as much as like when the next person puts in the WhatsApp message that so-and-so is pregnant and everyone's like,

congrats, and I'm like, congrats. And also then there's a little bit of a like, oh, fuck. It's a sinking feeling. Yeah. You know, as you kind of get that. So happy for you. Yeah.

Oh. Yeah. That's sad. You know, and it, and yeah, give me, give me your tiredness, give me your exhaustion, your, your wimgy children, give that to me, give me those problems over the problems I have right now. But, you know, we all have our own kind of race. Yeah, 100%. Yeah, absolutely. You know, so, but like I said, we still have hope. We, you know, we feel that it will happen in time and like I said, until we're told otherwise. So, give me. one last piece of advice for people going through, you know, a similar situation to you and your partner. Do your research. Do your research on whether that's, and you know, I fucking hate the term alternative medicine and I'm not going to say it works because, you know, we've both

done our fair share of acupuncture and stuff. And again, I think there's that survivorship bias of if someone said, yeah, come do acupuncture. You get to. pregnant it was the acupuncture was it was it though yeah as I've often said to people whether it was acupuncture whether it was whatever reflexology or herbs or whatever do you know what I think it was just a positive and it was a positive step forward and doing something for yourself and your health regardless of what the thing was you know and if if doing acupuncture forced you to lie down on your back for an hour and chill the fuck out yeah well they just

you know what go and do that because you're not doing it otherwise yeah um so look into other stuff do your research there is obviously a whole heap of scammers and charlatans and cowboys out there that are just looking for to make a few bob off people's desperation which is very sad and you're obviously as much aware of that as anyone else being someone who has the background of the fitness industry and coaching and you know but i still fall into it yeah because because when people are desperate they'll do desperate things. We know that in weight loss and it's like the people who want the result the most

will fall into these charlatans to get the result because they really care about what they want. Yeah, yeah, they do. And spend the money because at the end of the day it's just money, it'll come back to you. You know, you're not really losing out to an extent.

Obviously, you know, that depends on people's financial situation, but it is, yeah, just do your research. The doctors will, you have their boxes to tick, tick those boxes, but also look into what other things might be the problem. Whether that was maybe investigating the male side of things a little bit more, maybe there's a varicoceal

that might need to be checked by your doctor, maybe there's DNA damage, so getting the DNA fragmentation test done. Maybe there's problems with blood results or hormones or endometriosis or whatever, but don't just take everything the doctor say as gospel. question it, advocate for yourself and because there is a reason. There has to be a reason. It's not working. So find out what that reason is. Karen, I wanted to talk to you about other things in terms of coaching and weight loss and fat loss and stuff like that.

But I think this conversation is, it's far more impactful and far more important. So if there is any kind of couples or any men out there who are listening to this conversation and you know, they want to reach out to you and maybe even ask a question or, you know, get some guidance from you or just, you know, share their experience.

Where can they go out to reach you? Best places. Instagram, Kieran Russell coaching. Again, I'm not one of those pricks that just because you message you're not going to try and sell you any fitness package you aren't. Like, I mean, I'm very open about talking about this stuff.

I've had people reach out to me before. I've reached out to people just to have a conversation about fertility alone. It can be, a lonely, isolating place to be maybe more so from men. Again, I don't know. I can't say that categorically, but it definitely is

from my point of view. So if there is other people and they're in a similar situation and you know what? I'm just happy to listen to what's going on without giving advice. You know what? Yeah, here's a couple of things that we did to share our experience, here's certain clinics we looked

or certain people that we visited that were, turned out to be either very good or very shit. So yeah, I think I might have posted around the time that I had the Varacale done. I had some completely random person, dropped me a message to say, oh, my wife, I think this guy was older, the way he was going on.

My wife and I were having trouble years ago. We ended up having our daughter through IVF. It turns out now I'm going in to get a varic seal fix. So that could have been the problem for him. Yeah. Again. And the main thing is that there is nothing conclusive when it comes to fertility or fertility treatment. There is no one thing that's going to be a cure-all.

There's going to be lots of things that could potentially be an issue. So don't be so closed off and close-minded to think that, right? If we get this thing done, it will cure everything. Because, again, we've been down that road. we thought the Varacusia was the problem Grant we'll get that fixed that's going to work We thought cool we're going to start the IVF It's going to work that didn't so it's

It's very much opened our eyes And if anyone wants to talk about that In any way shape or form I'm very much Happy to do that Well I think you having these conversations And being open about these conversations

I think it's only a net good A net positive for the world so Karen I appreciate you mate I thank you for your time today I think it's been really, really valuable. And we'll do part two and get up a bit of coaching as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, the good stuff. Thanks very much, Carl.

I really appreciate it. I really appreciate you giving me the opportunity to kind of spread the message and get it out there because there's nothing to be ashamed of. No, you're a gent. Thank you very much. Folks, this has been an uneducated PT podcast with Kieran. And again, we'll leave all the links below if you want to reach out to Keron. And thank you very much for listening today.

Thanks for watching. If you like that episode and you want to see more. content like this, make sure you're subscribed and I'll see you on the next one.