I received the FabFertile Mindfulness Fertility Series for free in exchange for my honest review of the program (I totally pitched it to Sarah because I wanted to do the program!). I am delighted to say that the program was wonderful and I highly recommend it.
Update: Sarah Clark is no longer offering the Mindfulness course, and is focusing on Couples Fertility Coaching. You can book a free Discovery Call with her here!
If you are a member of many Fertility-related Facebook groups you’ve probably found FabFertile and it’s owner, infertility conqueror, author, and health coach, Sarah Clark. Her Facebook group, the Fab Fertile Support Group, is always growing and Sarah is very engaged and responsive.
Sarah is a certified Life and Health Coach, and for the Online Mindfulness Fertility Series she works with professional therapist, social worker, Reiki practitioner, and hypnotherapist Amira Posner. Amira has actually run an in-person Fertility Mindfulness Program in a hospital fertility clinic for years and has a great website at http://healinginfertility.ca. That is sort of what this program feels like- a small group of women who are struggling with infertility, meeting in the basement of some church with a therapist and learning new tools to manage the stress and cope while they journey to baby. Except, you know, it’s a webinar :-). Both Sarah and Amira struggled with infertility themselves, which makes them more relatable. Sarah had her children via donor egg before realizing she had an underlying food intolerance that was causing her problems, and Amira did IVF to have her children.
What is the FabFertile Mindfulness Fertility Series?
This Series is a 6-week online program costs $399 and consists of 6 evening interactive webinars, plus one bonus session. The program includes many bonuses including handouts, a free copy of Sarah’s e-book, Fabulously Fertile, and printables like Fertility Affirmation cards. You also gain access to Sarah throughout the program, so you can email her with questions about your fertility journey, mindfulness, or really anything. The six different sessions cover topics that include Mindfulness, Fertility Yoga, Relaxation Response, Breathing Exercises, Cognitive Restructuring, Fertility Foods, Loving Kindness Meditation, and Self-Hypnosis.
Who is the FabFertile Mindfulness Fertility Series for?
This series is for anyone trying to conceive, but will be the most helpful for women who are taking the scenic route to baby (i.e., struggling with infertility). One of the best things about this Series it that it is a truly introductory series for women who have never dabbled in meditation or mindfulness before. In each session they provide the evidence behind each technique and how the research shows it helps fertility, wellness, and health. Then they teach the technique, and assign it as homework. This means this series is a perfect fit for someone who need to know the WHY behind something, and for those struggling with infertility who needs a coaching to develop their fertility mind-body practice.
With all that said, this series may not be a great fit if you are highly experienced at meditation, mindfulness, hypnosis, chinese medicine, etc. If you are already understand the benefits of a robust daily mind-body practice, and you regularly practice mindfulness, meditation, etc., you may find the series a bit simplistic for your needs. I would recommend looking instead at the Fertile Heart Program. The Fertile Heart Program gives you the benefit of the group-based fertility mind-body work, without feeling like an introduction to stress reduction techniques. However the Fertile Heart Program feels more spiritual and never really references any kind of scientific evidence. You can read my full review of the Fertile Heart Program here to see if it might be a good fit for you.
Both the FabFertile Mindfulness Series and the Fertile Heart Program are for women who are ready to really WORK on their mind-body connection for fertility. You have to be self-motivated to do the homework, practice the exercises, and integrate it into your life. If you aren’t quite ready for that level of commitment, another fantastic, but much more passive option is the Circle & Bloom. They have fantastic fertility meditation programs that are easy to use, and require no effort other than sitting or lying down for 20 minutes a day and listening. You buy them- they are each about $59 unless they are having a sale- download them, and listen to them. Boom, done. You get full body relaxation and visualization of a successful full month cycle for: Natural Cycle, IUI/IVF, Frozen Embryo Transfer, Donor Egg, or PCOS Fertility Healing. They even have a new one for embryo donation!
But if you are ready for MORE, you want the group interaction, and you want to learn the WHY of each technique, then the FabFertile Mindfulness Series might be for you!
My experience with the FabFertile Mindfulness Series
I have to admit, after having done the Fertile Heart Program and Circle and Bloom to get pregnant with my first miracle, my standards were quite high when I signed up for the FabFertile Mindfulness Series. And at first, I was a little disappointed. The things we were practicing I had already done before! However, I think I was in the third session when I realized something very important – the other women in the group had NOT done anything like this before and it was CHANGING them. Their smiles were larger, their voices were lighter, their approach had changed from sad and struggling to in-control and positive.
This is what made me realize the most important thing about this program- it is for mind-body “beginners.” And, in this day and age, that is what most people are! I’m a little spoiled, as I delved into all of this when trying for my first, and even before that I had practiced yoga, meditation, mindfulness, and a handful of other mind-body techniques as part of my daily life. My brother is a yoga teacher and acupuncturist, and my mom raised us with visualization and full body relaxation exercises. I was probably five years old when I listened to my first guided meditation. So, if you are like me, and you’ve been swimming in this stuff since you were a kid, this might not be the right program for you. But if you haven’t- if this is all new to you, then this is really, really great program for you.
And the truth is that by the end of the program, I had undergone a transformation myself. I remember during the first session thinking to myself, “yeah, I KNOW I need to do this stuff, I had to do it to have my first miracle, but I just don’t have the time.” I was actually in a kind of negative place and feeling frustrated. By the sixth webinar however, I was back in my fertility groove! Waking up and praying, being mindful, practicing my Circle & Bloom daily, doing Fertile Heart Body work, doing breathing exercises, doing my daily fertility yoga— all of this because I was motivated by the group to do it. Because I knew that Sarah and Amira were going to ask about our weeks, what we had done, and how we were feeling. There is just something about that group accountability that can motivate you in ways that it’s hard to do solo. I think it is one of the reasons these group sessions are so powerful.
Sarah and Amira shared a link to Alice Domar’s research on mind-body medicine for fertility. Her results are startling- she found that infertile women undergoing IVF and using mind-body techniques learned in a group setting had a 55% conception rate, compared with the regular 20% who did not use the techniques. As Dr. Domar says, “Actually being in a group and integrating those skills into your life is associated with nearly tripling a pregnancy rate, so why wouldn’t everyone be doing it?”
So here’s my question to you– with those kinds of results, why WOULDN’T you be doing this? You can nearly triple your IVF rate, and one can presume you would greatly up your natural conception rate as well.
In the end, I strongly recommend this program. They only hold the program twice a year, so watch out for when it is offered! Be sure to tell Sarah Clark I sent you!
If you still aren’t sure take some time to poke around the FabFertile website and make up your mind. Feel free to contact me with questions as well!
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Anna Rapp is a fertility journalist and non-toxic living expert. When Anna Rapp was struggling with infertility and recurrent early miscarriage, she was diagnosed with diminished ovarian reserve, High FSH, low AMH, low follicle count, endometriosis, and an MTHFR mutation. Despite being told donor eggs were her only solution, Anna used her graduate training in research methods and analysis to read everything she could find on fertility and egg health. Ultimately, she lowered her FSH and got pregnant naturally (twice). She blogs about how she did it and encourages her readers to take charge of their fertility journey and get happy, healthy, and pregnant!
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