Find Part One of this episode, here.
In this second part of my conversation with Dr. Lucky Sekhon, we dive deeper into what it really means to understand your fertility journey: not just the science, but the emotional and psychological landscape that comes with it. Dr. Lucky is a double board-certified reproductive endocrinologist and the author of the best selling book, The Lucky Egg, a book born from her own IVF experience and years of supporting thousands of patients. Her approach is refreshingly honest: she acknowledges what we know, what we don’t know, and how luck plays a role in the deeply personal process of growing your family.
We explore the fertility patient mindset and how knowledge can transform anxiety into empowerment. Dr. Lucky shares why educating yourself before you’re in crisis mode makes all the difference, how to navigate the excruciating waiting periods during treatment, and why perfectionism can actually work against you. We also discuss her “Fertility Goddess Lifestyle” chapter: which isn’t about green juices and following social media trends, but about releasing shame, embracing realistic habits, and being kinder to yourself. This conversation is for anyone who wants to feel more grounded, hopeful, and informed as they move through their fertility journey.
In this episode, we cover:
- How understanding the fundamentals of reproductive biology helps you make calmer, more informed decisions during treatment
- The role of luck in fertility and why surrendering control over the unknowns is helpful in maintaining mental health
- How to mentally prepare for the hardest moments in IVF, like waiting for embryo updates after egg retrieval
- Why the “Fertility Goddess Lifestyle” is actually about rejecting perfectionism and the culture of shame around fertility
- The importance of compartmentalization and taking things one step at a time in the present moment, instead of planning 10 steps ahead
- How to stay hopeful and grounded while remaining realistic about your fertility journey
Resources:
- Dr. Lucky Sekhon’s book: The Lucky Egg (on Amazon)
- Dr. Lucky Sekhon on Instagram: @lucky.sekhon
- Website: theluckyegg.com
Full Transcript:
Dr. Aimee: I’m so delighted to welcome back my colleague Dr. Lucky Sekhon, whose new book just came out and is already helping people feel more informed and confident as they navigate their fertility journey. Dr. Lucky is a double board-certified reproductive endocrinologist, infertility expert, and the author of ‘The Lucky Egg.’ Her book grew out of her own IVF experience and from years of listening to thousands of patients who simply wanted straightforward supportive information.
Welcome, Lucky. Thank you so much for joining me today.
Dr. Lucky: Thank you for having me back.
Dr. Aimee: You spend so much time educating patients during your first visit with them, just like me. What changes when someone truly understands the biology behind their fertility, where do you see the most surprised reactions?
Dr. Lucky: I will meet a patient wherever they’re at in their journey. If they know nothing, this is the best place to be and I’m going to start from scratch, we’re going to teach you everything you need to know about how your body works and what it takes to get pregnant. If we run out of time and we need more time, we’ll make another appointment. It doesn’t matter.
I’m curious to see if you’ve had a similar experience. I can tell immediately from the body language when a patient walks into the room if they have read my blog, they know me from social media, they’ve watched my videos. They are coming in with a completely different demeanor than the person that was referred by their OBGYN and has no idea who are way more nervous, usually. They’re usually coming in looking more apprehensive, not sure what I’m going to tell them. I think just by virtue of familiarity, it takes people’s guards down.
Anyone who has studied for a board exam knows this. If you feel at ease, you’re going to learn better, you’re going to be able to absorb the material better. You’re learning so much in that first visit. I think the people that come in not only having read stuff, but who are familiar with their doctor and familiar with the material that’s going to be discussed are coming in at a huge advantage, that they can process the information differently. They’ve already laid the foundation. You can go from having a conversation that’s elevated to much more complex and nuanced versus starting from scratch.
I do think that it is ideal for you to not wait to find out these basics when you’re struggling or stressed because you’ve been trying and it hasn’t happened or because you’ve had multiple miscarriages. I think that it’s always better to just lay the foundation before it’s even relevant or something that’s stressful to you. I say that as someone who went through a series of failed cycles, a cancelled cycle, or two eggs retrieved that didn’t turn into embryos. That was still difficult for me at times, but it was made so much easier because I was an expert and knew all the ins and outs.
I’m not suggesting that everyone needs to become an REI. But I think if you have some basic knowledge, anything that comes your way is going to feel less stressful and you’re going to be able to make calm, clear-headed decisions. It’s like going down a freeway and having the difference of a GPS that tells you when there’s going to be forks in the road and when you need to go on the right and actually merge lanes versus just looking ahead at the signs and trying to make quick decisions while you’re going at breakneck speed.
I think that’s a good analogy because you’re always going to make calmer, more informed decisions if you have the roadmap. There is every reason to educate yourself so that it’s not just you blindly trusting whoever is in front of you. The experts are great, but I think that you really need to partner with the experts and be a partner in your care. Part of that is arming yourself with the best information because you don’t know what you don’t know. I think that it can feel really overwhelming, like there’s 50 different treatment options, when it’s not that complicated.
Dr. Aimee: Do you find your patients are using ChatGPT more to educate themselves before they come in?
Dr. Lucky: Yes. Or even in stressful moments. I’ve educated them, but in the in-between moments. Like when they saw me for their scan a few days ago and they’re checking in for their embryo transfer, they’ll say, “I had a moment of panic and I was asking ChatGPT about the grading.” I always say, “You have my email. Just email me or call us,” because ChatGPT gets it wrong a lot. I think people put too much faith in it, they think AI is so smart. I’ve done this many times just as an illustrative example. It will make up resources for things. It’s not something that you can really trust.
Dr. Aimee: You also write about fertility being a mix of reproductive biology and luck. How should patients who have experienced multiple difficult cycles approach the process emotionally and mentally, what is your advice for them?
Dr. Lucky: I think that we have to surrender ourselves to the idea that we cannot control things in this situation. Whatever you can control, those are the things that we focus on. You have to admit that there are things that we can’t test for, there are things that we can’t predict. I’m sure you say this all the time, this is such a catch phrase. Here are the stats, but we won’t know until you actually go through it and we’ll see how things pan out. I think that’s something people struggle with, the unknowns, and trying to grasp at things that make you feel like you have an anchor and that you’re more in control. I think that if you go into it mentally prepared, that’s a huge aspect of all of this.
While stats are great and I can check your AMH and I can do your egg count, there is no direct way to test your egg quality. That test does not exist. There are multiple blind spots. I talk a lot about luck and some of the things that we don’t know because I think that helps to restore trust between doctors and patients. We can’t act like we know it all. We don’t. We have to help our patients mentally prepare for those moments where there are those big unknowns.
I think no one talks enough about how excruciating it is after the egg retrieval, waiting that week for those updates. Whatever we can do to mentally prepare people for those moments and give them practical advice on how to get through those moments, that’s what is going to help them avoid the 2:00 AM Reddit rabbit hole or the ChatGPT sending them in the wrong direction. I think it’s about just admitting the things that we don’t know and the blind spots. Saying these are going to be the more challenging moments, because we’re all on the edge of our seats wondering how their eggs are performing in the lab. I think when you start admitting that and accepting that and normalizing that, it makes it easier for people to go through those pockets of time.
I also think that it’s a message of hope. It’s not a message to say this whole situation is completely out of our control, I’m the expert and I don’t even know what’s happening. I think that’s how sometimes people might think that message could be interpreted. I’ve only ever gotten positive feedback when I tell patients even in your late-thirties and your forties, even in your mid-forties, when there could be an overwhelmingly high number of eggs, a high proportion of eggs that could ovulate and result in an unhealthy embryo, there are still normal eggs that can result in a healthy embryo. You were telling me that you’ve had a patient who got pregnant on their own with a healthy child at 47. So, it is possible.
Do we want to sugarcoat things and give people false hope? No. We have to talk about the stats, but know that anything is possible. We’ve all heard the stories. I’ve had multiple patients and have heard of other people where they had failure after failure when it came to their transfers, maybe even had difficulty with a surrogate being successful with a transfer, and then somehow miraculously got pregnant on their own. All it takes is one lucky egg. That’s why I named my book what I did. I just want people to have every reason to say anything can happen.
In those in-between cycles, if it makes sense and you talk to your doctor, it does make sense sometimes to try because you just never know. Something about IVF, especially when it’s not going well and someone is going cycle after cycle, those are cycles where a lot of times, unless you convert to IUI, if you change course, where a person is not able to even try in that moment. Sometimes science is great and can get you very far, but sometimes just harnessing the power of what your body can do will get you there. It doesn’t make any sense and there’s no scientific explanation as to why, other than it’s a random lottery.
Dr. Aimee: I always sometimes when two people love each other, miracles can happen. You just never know when you’re going to see that miracle. Often, it’s the husbands or the male partner that says things to me like, “I’m a numbers guy. I want to know the numbers.” It’s like I can give you what the numbers are, but that doesn’t mean that you have more control over them.
Dr. Lucky: This is where understanding the fundamentals goes a long way. Okay, you’re a numbers guy. Remember, I told you about the recruitment of the limited number of eggs. That’s a limited sample size. It’s not necessarily going to translate into the large-scale data that I’m presenting. That’s why some rounds are better than others, because you have a better set of eggs in that random cohort that were recruited. There’s not always a we know you took this supplement so that’s why you had the better cycle. That is kind of a magical way of thinking and it doesn’t capture the complexity and nuance of our biology.
Dr. Aimee: There are many things about your book that I love, but I love the fertility goddess lifestyle. I want to know more about what that looks like and how it helps patients let go of perfectionism. Talk to us about that.
Dr. Lucky: The title was kind of a joke leading into the intro for that chapter. We’ve all seen the perfectly curated Instagram profile of the influencer in front of the ring light talking about how she eats clean, she’s doing this, she gets her 10,000 steps a day, she’s not using any plastics, and it just feels very much like this curated fantasy versus what is day-to-day life for the normal average person. That’s why I named the chapter that, because that was what I led with in the chapter, but if you read it, it’s actually the opposite of the tone that a lot of this type of advice can take, which can make you feel very overwhelmed, it’s very prescriptive, it’s very formulaic, you need to do this, you need to do that, or you don’t want to touch any receipts because that’s bad for your fertility with chemicals.
I think that we have to be a little bit kinder to ourselves and to each other. I remember even as an OBGYN, in early pregnancy, family members being like, “I can’t believe you had a soda. You’re pregnant. You should know better.” There’s this culture of shame and blame, making the person who is trying to get pregnant or who is already pregnant feel like they have to live in a bubble. That’s the messaging society has given us. Only recently is it acceptable for pregnant women to exercise regularly in pregnancy. I remember even when I was pregnant, my very old-fashioned parents were like, “You need to not be going to all these exercise classes.” I was like, I’m an OBGYN.
The book aims to make people feel calmer and it presents the science and the actual data saying these are the things that are associated with better outcomes, whether you’re trying on your own or whether people studied women going through IVF or treatment. It’s very easy and maybe not sexy. I think a lot of times people that are giving out this advice online, they want it to be sexy and feel novel, like I’m in the know and I have all this information that no one else is telling you. Also, I think that they’re trying to cater to the consumer, and most people give out the message that they just want to be told what to do because it feels overwhelming. “Just tell me what to do. If you tell me to drink green juice every day, that’s what I’m going to do.” I think there is an element of that, but it is something that backfires when you give too much prescriptive advice and it’s very rigid and it’s not based on anything, it burns people out.
You and I know that’s a major contributor to people not getting to their happy ending, their desired outcome. A lot of times, it’s because they just can’t stick with it. There’s a lot of reasons for that, but a huge part of it is psychological. It’s also sending this kind of backhanded message of, “Why are you dealing with infertility in the first place? Why are you having miscarriages in the first place? Maybe it’s because you were doing all those things.” You and I both know that’s not true. That’s why I want to shift away from this culture of needing to be so restrictive and feeling like everything you’re doing could hurt your chances. That’s not rooted in biology and truth, and it’s making people feel negatively about themselves. It’s already a hard enough journey.
Dr. Aimee: There’s so much shame and self-blame that goes into the psychology of a fertility patient. It takes a lot of work to lift that off of the patient. I’m so glad that you wrote that chapter so people can read it and let go of that perfectionism.
You also remind readers that success is not about perfection. How do you help people develop a fertility mindset that allows them to stay hopeful, grounded, and open to different paths forward?
Dr. Lucky: I think it’s a constant reevaluation. I try to tell my patients that compartmentalization is their friend, because it can feel like a lot of times people will want to try to lay out a path. What if the transfer fails? What if that next one fails? What if this then happens? I understand wanting to do that because it makes you feel this illusion of control. I’m a very optimistic person. This isn’t toxic positivity, but I think that there has to be a balance between wanting to lay out a roadmap and plan ten steps ahead but also being able to try to maintain some positivity and hope. I think that can help fuel you and help you get through the day-to-day everything that’s expected of you.
I think it’s about striking a balance between realism and hope, and visualizing what it is that you want for yourself in the future, no matter how far away that feels, and focusing on the baby steps in front of you. Constantly reevaluating at each of those time points and saying, “Let’s look back at what just happened. How does that inform our decision making moving forward,” so that we’re not just barreling ahead without being thoughtful.
I think compartmentalization is my greatest advice. When you think about IVF, breaking it up into two parts can make it feel less overwhelming. Let’s focus on making the embryos. Now that we have the embryos, let’s focus on the next step. Of course, you want to be efficient. I’m always thinking ten steps ahead, but I think for the patient that mentality is best reserved for a few conversations. I think if you’re going to hyperfocus on things, focus on the baby steps.
Dr. Aimee: When I plan a transfer for a patient, just like you said, I’m ten steps ahead, I’m thinking if this transfer didn’t work what I would do differently. I sometimes even present it to the patient so they can hear that upfront, so that if they want to choose that path, they can. For example, let’s say a patient has one embryo that’s strong and one that isn’t so strong, maybe presenting that to them upfront…because that’s when people get angry, when they wish someone had presented them things upfront before a failed transfer. It sounds like we’re thinking about things the same.
For listeners who want to learn more, get a copy of your book, or follow along with your work, where can they find you?
Dr. Lucky: I’m on Instagram, @Lucky.Sekhon and I have a website by the same name, TheLuckyEgg.com. I’ve had it now for five-plus years. That’s a great resource because it has more longform content aside from what I do on social media. It has blogs, but then also there are tools. I have an egg freezing calculator tool. I have an embryo morphology grading tool that will sort your embryos by their grade, and it’s using actual data. I have the study there for people to access to see where this information is actually coming from. Just a lot of practical things that I think can help make the journey a little bit easier.
My book is available everywhere internationally. I think it’s a great guide not only for the people that are in the trenches of infertility with more complex cases, but it’s the book that helps someone understand what is a biologic clock, what do I need to know, what does my cycle mean, and what are the things that I need to be thinking about as I prepare for the future, and everything in between. There’s something for everyone and it’s very inclusive to all family building journeys. We’re seeing a lot more solo parents by choice and same-sex couples, and all of that is represented. There’s a chapter for each of those types of journeys.
Dr. Aimee: Lucky, thank you for coming back and for sharing your wisdom. Your book offers such clear compassionate guidance. I’m so thrilled people can learn from you in this new way.
All the links to what we covered today will be in the show notes. Be sure to subscribe to The Egg Whisperer Show on YouTube and Spotify. Remember to keep going with hope in your heart and a little sparkle in your step as you move forward on your fertility journey.
