IVF Talks (and Fertility Exercise!) with Nikki Bergen
When I brought Nikki onto my show, I thought we were going to talk mostly about exercise, pelvic blood flow, and optimizing fertility through movement, but she’s very open about her past struggles with fertility. So, we ended up talking about some really interesting and important topics regarding her personal journey with IVF.
Nikki happens to be one of Canada’s most sought-after health and fitness experts. With a background as a Pilates instructor and former professional dancer, she serves as an inspirational trainer and creative educator with a passion for encouraging women to lead happier, healthy lives. I also cherish her as part of my amazing group of local female entrepreneurs kicking ass in my neck of the woods!
She’s dedicated her life to creating fitness programs with creative choreography from science. Each is specifically designed to enable women to ditch the guilt and bring balance into their bodies. The methods combine physical therapy with Pilates-style functional movement, which helps women improve incontinence, prolapse, and diastasis recti.
In today’s episode, we discuss Nikki’s experience with IVF due to male factor infertility. We dive into her unhappiness with her clinic and switching doctors, advocating for herself, and being a Type A personality embracing surrender. Also, she shares some great tips regarding exercise and body movement during fertility struggles.
This is a great interview with an expert trainer who displays her passion for helping women feel confident and strong throughout their pregnancy, postpartum, and beyond. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did!
Show Notes:
[02:41] - Michelle welcomes Nikki to the show and asks her to tell us a little about herself.
[05:21] - Michelle recalls how she and Nikki met and wants to hear more about her fertility journey.
[06:13] - Why did Nikki feel like she and her husband had to get tested?
[07:49] - Before her first IUI (intrauterine insemination), Nikki had to undergo an unexpected surgery to get rid of this.
[08:46] - Find out why Nikki felt like her old clinic was just throwing darts at a board to see if something stuck.
[09:39] - Nikki switched clinics and started trying IVF instead. It made a huge difference for her mentally too.
[10:07] - Michelle has frequent discussions with her patients surrounding trust issues with fertility recommendations from other experts.
[11:14] - Hear the response Michelle often gets from her patients and the advice Nikki offers on how to advocate for yourself.
[13:48] - Nikki describes the fertility process at her new clinic. She and her husband had fairly good luck at this point, but not in the way she expected.
[15:18] - After a frank discussion, Nikki decides to take her chances despite the odds of success against her favor. Listen to what happened next.
[18:02] - Michelle explains ICSI (intracytoplasmic sperm injection) for those unfamiliar with the term.
[19:07] - The word “surrender” was a mantra for Nikki that didn’t come easily to her, especially because of her Type A personality.
[19:55] - Nikki recounts a conversation with a friend who asked her this important question.
[20:42] - Feeling like her husband wasn’t as diligent, Nikki describes how she felt resentment toward him.
[21:40] - Michelle shares some Canadian statistics about male and female factor infertility and other observations based on her clinic experience.
[23:09] - Michelle and Nikki describe how people express a patriarchal attitude towards women in fertility-seeking partnerships.
[24:36] - Nikki emphasizes pragmatism and working together, not playing the blame game. Yet, it’s entrenched in society.
[25:25] - Seeking an end to unsolicited comments from her father, Nikki recalls telling him about her first false pregnancy alarm.
[27:24] - Nikki offers some advice on how to deal with unsolicited comments from others.
[28:56] - Surprisingly, Nikki found a lot of support in an unexpected place. She found the women here truly a lifeline for her.
[29:44] - How are you supposed to exercise if you’re looking to conceive? The answer differs for everyone, but here’s what Michelle and Nikki do and don’t recommend.
[32:33] - Nikki sees this as the perfect exercise and asks these questions of people who insist on doing something strenuous.
[34:25] - What does Nikki regard as the key to exercise? She shares this sentiment with women when they’re postpartum too.
[35:50] - There’s a tendency to have less and less trust in your body the further you go in the process. Nikki shares how to listen to your body and the ways we’re trained to ignore it.
[38:05] - Michelle urges Nikki to tell us about her Belle Method and the inspiration to create it.
[39:39] - Nikki discusses progressive overload versus what she calls “progressive underload.” She guides her clients to slowly scale things up and down.
[42:29] - Before signing off, here’s Nikki’s advice to someone who’s just getting started in their fertility journey.
[45:02] - Hear what Nikki admitted after Michelle stopped recording.
Links and Resources:
Intrauterine insemination (IUI)
Intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI)
The Universe Has Your Back by Gabrielle Bernstein
@fertilityacademy on Instagram
