If you've been hurt by the healthcare system while trying to access fertility care, you are not alone, and you are not broken. This episode is for anyone who has experienced harm, dismissal, or humiliation from healthcare providers and is now caught in the incredibly difficult position of needing care from a system that has already hurt them.

In this episode, we cover:

What healthcare trauma actually looks like, and why so many fat folks experience it without ever naming it that way

How your nervous system responds to perceived threats (fight, flight, fawn, and freeze) and why your fear is not self-sabotage

The Prepare and Care framework: practical steps to support yourself before and after appointments

The difference between advocacy mode and survival mode, and why it matters

How to find trauma-informed providers, and what to do when that's not possible

Key takeaway: Your fear of being harmed again is a completely rational, protective response. You do not have to be in advocacy mode all the time. Sometimes just getting through the appointment is enough.

Resources & Links

📖 Fat and Fertile

🌿 Work with Nicola: Fat Positive Fertility Roadmap

📱 Instagram: @fatpositivefertility

📧 Email: nicola@nicolasalmon.co.uk

This week's episode is about something I hear constantly and it makes me genuinely angry. You can't access fertility care until you lose weight. But you can't access support to lose weight. And they won't investigate the health condition that might be causing everything in the first place. Round and round you go.

If you're stuck in this loop right now, this one is for you. And the first thing I want you to know is: it is not your fault.

In this episode we cover:

Why the NHS BMI cutoffs for fertility treatment are arbitrary, not evidence based, and not actually NICE guidelines

Why this catch 22 is intentional and how the system has been designed to exclude people in bigger bodies

How to advocate for your health conditions separately from your fertility goals, and why this matters

Practical steps to document refusals, push back, and escalate if you have the capacity to do so

How to take care of your mental and emotional health when you're fighting a system that should be fighting for you

Useful Links:

Download: Fat Person's Guide to Getting Pregnant

Book a Fat Positive Fertility Roadmap Call

Follow me on Instagram

Email me a question for a future episode

This week's episode is a permission slip. If you've been drowning in fertility diet advice and quietly wondering whether you're doing enough, this one is for you.

Spoiler: you probably already are.

In this episode we cover:

Why "eat enough" is the only nutrition advice that actually matters, and why that's harder to hear than it sounds

How the fertility diet industry profits from making us feel like we're always one superfood away from getting pregnant

Why your relationship with food matters far more than any specific foods you're eating

What the social determinants of health tell us about how little individual food choices actually impact fertility

Why the "perfect diet" is rooted in diet culture, capitalism, and colonialism, and what that means for how we think about food

Useful Links:

Download: Fat Person's Guide to Getting Pregnant

Book a Fat Positive Fertility Roadmap Call

Follow me on Instagram

Email me a question for a future episode