Dr. Alexandra Stockwell is back. In Part One, she and Dr. Erica tackled physical intimacy on the fertility journey. This conversation goes deeper — into the emotional disconnection that quietly builds when two people are navigating one of the hardest experiences of their lives together, but not quite together enough.

This episode is for the couple who still loves each other and is struggling to find their way back to each other in the middle of all of this.

In this episode:

• Why major stressors, and the fertility journey especially, bring the foundation of a relationship to the surface
• The pain of not feeling seen by the one person who is supposed to get it most
• Why men and women are culturally conditioned to feel different emotions and what that means for how couples navigate this together
• Unfelt emotions as energetic cysts: what happens when we lance them
• A simple exercise for reconnecting with your own emotional landscape, bonus points if TID (three times daily)
• The most consistently problematic thing in committed relationships: when two people think they're having different conversations
• How to name the kind of fertility conversation you want to have before you have it, and why that one shift changes everything
• What to do when you're on completely different pages about treatment: another cycle, donor egg, stopping altogether
• The practice of temporarily parking your own position and trying on your partner's perspective, and why it doesn't mean giving up your ground
• Why curiosity is the opposite of certainty, and how it opens doors that defensiveness keeps shut
• Zooming out to the shared vision: remembering what brought you here together before the fertility journey took over
• Appreciating who your partner is, not just what they do, and why that distinction matters more than you'd think

Find Part One HERE.

Find Dr. Alexandra Stockwell:

• Website: alexandrastockwell.com
• Instagram: @intimacydoctor
• Book: Uncompromising Intimacy
• Podcast: The Intimate Marriage Podcast
• App: Intimate Connection

Support the show

As always, please keep in mind that this is my perspective and nothing in this podcast is medical advice.

If you found this conversation valuable, book a consult call with me using this link:

https://www.loveandsciencefertility.com/private-fertility-consult

Follow us on social media:

IG: www.instagram.com/loveandsciencefertility

FB: www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61553692167183

Please don’t let infertility have the final word. We are here to take the burden from you so that you can achieve your goal of building your family with confidence and compassion. I’m rooting for you always.

In Gratitude,

Dr. Erica Bove

This episode is part of the series on why certain specialties make the fertility journey uniquely painful. Today Dr. Erica turns her attention to ICU physicians and hospitalists, and the particular combination of analytical thinking, altered sleep, hospital environments, and rumination loops that makes this specialty uniquely challenging.

This episode is for the physician who can solve almost any clinical problem and is struggling with the fact that this one doesn't have a clear algorithm.

In this episode:

• Why the well-oiled analytical brain that excels in critical care can become its own worst enemy on the fertility journey
• The difference between internal medicine's relatively clear algorithms and the data-free zones of REI, and why that gap is so disorienting
• Analysis paralysis on the fertility journey: going down the PubMed rabbit hole at midnight and why it makes things worse, not better
• The hospital environment itself — fluorescent lights, altered sleep, limited food options, and a schedule that is hard on the body
• How altered Circadian rhythms increase cortisol, inflammation, and sympathetic tone, and what that means for fertility outcomes
• The hospitalist schedule: clustering appointments during off weeks, arranging call swaps, and what actually helps
• Why having a trusted REI and coach who can distill the science is the antidote to rumination, so you don't have to carry that mental load alone
• Embodiment as a tool, why some of the best thinkers have the hardest time dropping into their bodies, and why that matters for fertility
• Small acts of restoration in a hospital environment: finding a patch of sun, stepping outside, smelling the flowers by the cafeteria garden
• Food as medicine: why investing in healthy meals delivered to your door is not indulgent, it's strategic
• Turning the inner critic into an inner coach, and why self-compassion actually improves performance, not just wellbeing
• Trusting the process when the algorithm is infinite and how to make an empowered, values-based plan. Than, how to let go

With Love and Science,
💜 Dr. Erica

Support the show

As always, please keep in mind that this is my perspective and nothing in this podcast is medical advice.

If you found this conversation valuable, book a consult call with me using this link:

https://www.loveandsciencefertility.com/private-fertility-consult

Follow us on social media:

IG: www.instagram.com/loveandsciencefertility

FB: www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61553692167183

Please don’t let infertility have the final word. We are here to take the burden from you so that you can achieve your goal of building your family with confidence and compassion. I’m rooting for you always.

In Gratitude,

Dr. Erica Bove

One in four female physicians has infertility. One in three female surgeons does. And when you control for age, female surgeons still have worse fertility outcomes than their age-matched peers.

This episode is part of the series on why certain specialties make the fertility journey uniquely painful, and today Dr. Erica discusses why female surgeons tend to have the worst statistics when it comes to fertility outcomes.

This episode is for the female surgeon who has proven she can handle anything and is exhausted by what that costs her body.

In this episode:

• The statistic that makes Dr. Erica want to punch a wall — and what the research actually shows about female surgeons and fertility
• Why age alone doesn't explain the gap: what else is going on physiologically
• Sleep dysregulation, long OR days, and call schedules that run through the night — and how that keeps the body in a constant state of stress
• Why the body may interpret a 16-hour surgical day as a famine and what that means for the reproductive axis
• The pattern Dr. Erica sees in surgeons: excessive exercise, often (but not always) low BMI, skipped meals, and a martyr complex that has become normalized
• What one client learned when she finally scrubbed out at regular intervals and what happened next
• Trauma from the job: why female surgeons carry a graveyard within them, and why that trauma has to go somewhere
• Why endometriosis may have a deeper connection to unprocessed trauma than we realize
• Trying to get pregnant like a man: the masculine energy that serves you in the OR and works against you in the fertility journey
• Conceiving is receiving — and what it actually takes to shift into a more receptive state without losing yourself
• Self-compassion as a clinical tool: why Dr. Erica will not do an embryo transfer until her patient is emotionally regulated
• Practical strategies: negotiating call schedules, protecting the two-week wait, going per diem, and preserving the asset
• Coming home to yourself: what it means to ask your body what it needs and actually listen

One in three is not acceptable. Dr. Erica is here to change it.

Support the show

As always, please keep in mind that this is my perspective and nothing in this podcast is medical advice.

If you found this conversation valuable, book a consult call with me using this link:

https://www.loveandsciencefertility.com/private-fertility-consult

Follow us on social media:

IG: www.instagram.com/loveandsciencefertility

FB: www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61553692167183

Please don’t let infertility have the final word. We are here to take the burden from you so that you can achieve your goal of building your family with confidence and compassion. I’m rooting for you always.

In Gratitude,

Dr. Erica Bove