Interview with Kirsten Karchmer
Let me tell you a little about this lady – she is a force, a freight train moving forward toward her vision, and she is kicking major ass! She is inspirational in the arena of ‘getting shit done’, and pulling her weight in moving TCM into the future. At the end of this interview you will be asking yourself ‘How can I leave my mark on the TCM industry, and help more patients in the process?’. The products she has created may even end up being a revolutionary change in your own practice. This podcast is a must not miss. ~ Spence Pentland
Email
kirsten@conceivable.com
Website
conceivable.com
Professional Profile
Kirsten Karchmer is a health tech pioneer and women’s health expert. She has pioneered proprietary infertility assessment and treatment protocols that optimize fertility while improving patients overall health.She is a Board Certified reproductive acupuncturist and former President of the American Board of Oriental Reproductive Medicine. Karchmer is also the CEO/founder of Conceivable, a technology enabled fertility solution at 1/100 the cost of IVF and Viv Wellness a woman’s health revolution committed to eradicating PMS and cramping.
In 2013, Kirsten translated her successful clinical programs into her technology enabled platform that uses machine learning/ AI to provide affordable and impactful reproductive solution. Karchmer was named one of Texas Women in Technology to Watch and Conceivable was named one of the most innovative health tech start ups from MedTech in 2015, Best Fertility App by Healthline in 2016 and has been featured in Fox News, The New York Magazine, TechCrunch, Huffington Post, and MHealth.
Karchmer lectures internationally on women’s health, the future of integrative medicine, and using technology to better serve patients, providers, and healthcare systems. Kirsten has been recognized as one of the top female start-up founders to watch, the recipient of the Texas Trailblazer award for her innovation in health care and, is also Huffington Post and MindBodyGreen contributor.
Professional Achievements
former aborm president
launched pro line of mod herb tinctures
developed and patented award winning technology in women’s health
Professional Experience
20 years as reproductive acupuncturist
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Kirsten Hurder
18/01/2018
Hey, everybody! Welcome to the Conception Channel Podcast, brought to you by the Being Fertile Program and Yinstill Reproductive Wellness. I have the honor of being here today with a woman named Kirsten Karchmer or Hurder, and what she’s got to talk about today I’m so excited, because from my research in my life, I have come to understand that anyone who’s successful at almost any endeavor in their life becomes a master at self-observation. Whether it’s a sports star or an entertainer or someone in the financial world or someone who’s really careful about their health, the bottom line is we need to understand what’s going on with our health and how to adjust accordingly to optimize for whatever it is the goal is that we have. Kirsten and I have both been practicing Chinese medicine, her longer than I, for a couple decades now, and part of the essence of Chinese medicine is very, very intimate observation of the patient, and between an education to the patient on how to observe themselves in-between treatments. When we get back together for another acupuncture treatment or consultation, there is a deep exchange about how the inner workings of the physiology and the mental emotional have been progressing so we can adjust treatment. So, it’s effective. And cultivating fertility is absolutely no different. We need to observe very closely certain aspects of the body that are giving us feedback. One of my favorite teachers in traditional Chinese medicine school, old Chinese man said, “Your body is your best friend. Listen to what it’s telling you.” That’s always stuck with me obviously, almost 15, 20 years later. Anyway, without further ado, sorry, I would put Kirsten in the realm of expert, especially with what she’s going to speak to today, with the software she’s developed to help women trying to get pregnant and/or carry a pregnancy to term. With the software she’s developed, she’s going to speak to this, and you’ll learn the important things that you need to be observing and kind of starting to understand more about your body so that you can optimize your health and fertility potential. Welcome, Kirsten.
Kirsten: Hi, there! It’s great to be here.
Spence: Awesome. Texas all the way. She was just telling me before we hit record that it’s okay, I’m Canadian.
Kirsten: -6°C.
Spence: And in Fahrenheit?
Kirsten: 13.
Spence: This is Austin, Texas. I had a coaching call with a woman yesterday in Houston, it’s ice storm. It’s crazy. Anyway, you could come visit me in Canada.
Kirsten: It’s warmer probably.
Spence: I think it’s +8° today. I’m in a pretty mild part of Canada, probably the most mild. Anyway, I would love you to share your story. Kirsten has been working with women specifically in reproductive health for over twenty years, so I can’t wait to get to that, to your story of how you got there. But first, I’m going to read through her CV as I told her. I’m just going to read it out because I would never do justice without doing it. This will just give you a sense of how amazing this lady is, blushing.
Kirsten: We can skip this part.
Spence: Kirsten, you can skip the reading part? No way. Kirsten’s a health tech pioneer and a women’s health expert. This is your partner, he wrote this for you, so let him boast for you. Kirsten Karchmer is a health tech pioneer and a women’s health expert. She has pioneered proprietary infertility assessment and treatment protocols that optimize fertility while improving patients’ overall health. She’s a Board Certified reproductive acupuncturist and former president of the American Board of Oriental Reproductive Medicine. She is also the CEO and founder of Conceivable – and this is what we’ll talk a lot about today I’m sure – a technology enabled fertility solution as well as a Viv wellness, women’s health revolution committed to eradicating PMS and cramping. And that is big passion for you these days I know. We’ll get to some other stuff, exciting, super exciting stuff you were talking about just before the record button. In 2013, you translated all this clinical time and your programs into the technology enabled platform that uses machine learning/AI to provide really affordable, impactful, reproductive solutions for women anywhere, basically on your phone. Karchmer was named one of Texas women in technology to watch and Conceivable. This technology was named one of the most innovative health tech startups from MedTech in 2015. Best Fertility App by Healthline in 2016, and has been featured in FoxNews, the New York magazine, Tech Crunch Huffington Post and MHealth. She also lectures internationally – I’ve seen her all over North America – on integrative medicine and using technology to better serve patients, providers and healthcare systems. Really making some great steps forward. Kirsten, I love chatting with you. You’ve been recognized as one of the top female start-up founders to watch, the recipient of the Texas Trailblazer award for her innovation in health care, and you’re a contributor to HuffPost and MindBodyGreen, as well as another new publication that is super exciting. You also have a herbal line that is integrated with this software that can help women correct some of the imbalances they may find through this self-monitoring. Yeah, that’s Kirsten.
Kirsten: Thank you. That’s so nice.
Spence: Well, it’s just true. That’s all factual. That’s great, and that’s why you’re here. How did you get into acupuncture and treating women’s health, and a little bit about the evolution toward where you’re at now with Conceivable.
Kirsten: Well, long time ago, like 20 years ago, I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. I was quite ill, I was using a cane, and I was teaching at the University of Texas in the Linguistics Department. I had a lumbar puncture that wouldn’t close. What that meant is that when I was teaching or standing upright, enough cerebral spinal fluid would leak out that I would just pass out. The lights were turning off and then I would start to pass out. If I lay down, the cerebral spinal fluid would equalize and then I would kind of come back to life and start teaching again. I was also doing the Korean Special Forces training at that time because I had a job in Korea for the following year. So, here I’m with my cane, Korean special force is really interesting because it uses a lot of weapons and the training is sort of one stop, one strike, finish. You’re doing one or two things to end an altercation, and I thought, well, this is really good for a disabled person if I just know some tricks. I’m scrappy, some things don’t work but some things still work really well, and I get to use a cane. I can kick some ass with my cane. One of my classmates was in acupuncture school, and she said, you should really go to acupuncture, I think my acupuncturist could help you. I was like, shit, acupuncture is like going to a psychic, there’s zero chance I’m going to an acupuncturist. I was like, I’m a scientist, and she said, look, you have no other options, you’ve had surgery, is this how you’re going to live, you’re only 20 years old. She’s like, just go to one treatment. So, I go to see this Chinese guy, and he walks in. I had hid my cane, I hid my file. I mean, I was like, this is so sketchy, and he starts feeling my pulse, and he’s feeling my pulse, and he’s very quiet, and I’m rolling my eyes and hemming and hawing, and he says, oh, you’re so tired. I said, whatever, everybody’s tired. I was really tired. I slept like four or five times a day. And then he said, oh, you cannot digest food. I was like, okay, that’s true too, like bad, loose stools all day long, so hungry all the time. Then a little bit longer, he says, oh, you have muscle weakness, and I was like, how do you know that, and he said, oh. He’s like, do you have muscle weakness, and I said, yes, I have multiple sclerosis, and he starts clapping, oh, that makes perfect sense, makes perfect sense! I was like, what are you talking about, I’m completely lost. He says, here’s the deal, your pulse that we feel that is associated with your digestion is completely non-existent. That tells me that your ability to take the food that you’re eating and break it down and turn it into energy and turn that into blood is completely compromised. You will be very tired. And if you can’t digest food, you will have like bowel movement problems. And if you can’t turn food into energy and energy to blood, if you can’t make blood, you can’t nourish the muscular system and the neurologic system. I said, okay, that does make perfect sense, and the light bulb went off, like, this is something, this guy knows something that nobody else knows. I became an acupuncturist that day, I am 100% sure. What he said, that was really pivotal. He said, when you were born – let’s see if I can show this on camera – he said, when you were born, your constitution was very strong, like this, and your disease was very weak. You had a disease, but we couldn’t tell because your constitution was very formidable. You are a competitive athlete, and you worked, worked, worked and you study, work, work, work, type A, type A, type A, and then suddenly, you turn 20 years old. And your constitution is now weaker than your disease. If we may work on your constitution and make your body stronger, then you will go under admission. I was like, that makes perfect sense too. Then I started doing the work, and the work was not just acupuncture as you know, and it wasn’t just herbs. It was realizing that I was sick enough that I needed to be napping every day. I could not work eight hours anymore, like I wasn’t robust enough to be working as much as I was working, and I had to change the way I was eating. Slowly but surely, I started making a lot of changes, and then I went to acupuncture school, and I stopped using my cane. In acupuncture school, I started noticing that the menstrual cycle told me everything about their health. No matter whether they were coming in for migraines or asthma, or whatever they were coming in with, you could see all of these patterns inside of the menstrual cycle that related to those diseases, and I was really fascinated by that. I realized if you just pay attention to the menstrual cycle and you fix everything in the menstrual cycle, everything else gets better. I did that for 15 years in my clinic. I helped 10,000 infertile women. I ran three clinics in three cities across the country. I learned from my patients and my associates, and we all really kind of grew up together in reproductive acupuncture. Five years ago, I was in a conference and we were talking about the epidemiology. You and I have talked about this before, Spence. In the United States, at least 7 million women can’t get pregnant. But in that year, there were only 100,000 in vitro fertilization cycles. So, you have 7 million women who can’t get pregnant and only 100,000 of them got services. In 20 years, I only helped 10,000, and I thought something’s fundamentally wrong. If you know anyone who can’t get pregnant or you can’t get pregnant, you know that the amount of suffering that goes on, both physically and emotionally for those individuals, is catastrophic. I was compelled to figure out how can I translate what I know, what I learned with all of these women into a piece of technology. Maybe it’s not as good as coming to me, and maybe the results won’t be as good, but it’s better than nothing, and can we also use this as a way to democratize access to fertility care. My partner and I spent two years trying to teach an algorithm, what we knew about Chinese medicine and herbal medicine and behavior science and nutrition and mind/body, and in the intersection of that with Western medicine and technology, we birthed a company called Conceivable. We’ve been helping women get pregnant, who don’t have access to acupuncturists or who don’t live near an acupuncturist, or for some of those who can’t afford to come and see us. For the last two years, we talked about that conceivable technology is based on this idea that when I was in my clinical work, after seeing so many patients, I saw that there’s this cycle, this mental cycle and this basal body temperature chart that is the winning formula. I call it the Conceivable cycle. It’s a 28-day cycle. They ovulate on cycle day 14 with cervical discharge, on cycle day 14 that’s stretchy and abundant, and they don’t have any PMS whatsoever. When their period comes, they have four days of bleeding, they soak a tampon or a pad every four hours, not more not less, or a Diva Cup, now we have to add that. They don’t have any cramping, no clotting, no spotting, and there’s fresh red blood. Their basal temperatures are like 97.2°F. The first part of the cycle in the 98.2 in their luteal phase, and when their cycle gets to that point, they start getting pregnant. That for me, in my practice, when people come, I say my job is not to get you pregnant, my job is to get you a conceivable cycle. If we get you close to a conceivable cycle, you will get pregnant. Much, much better chance of getting pregnant. I think that that’s easier way for people to understand what we do because they’re like, how can acupuncture make you get pregnant, that seems like a stretch. I’m like, well, maybe acupuncture can’t help you get pregnant but acupuncture is really good at fixing all of those things, cycle irregularities and ovulation problems and cervical discharge and temperatures, etc, etc. So many women approached me after that and said, look, I want that conceivable cycle, but I’m 26 years old and I’m not married, I don’t want to have a baby, and I’m not touching shit called conceivable. The editor-in-chief of Inked magazine told me, I have a terrible period but I already have three children. If fixing my period means I’m going to be more fertile, I don’t want to fix my period. We birthed the sister of Conceivable called Viv, which is basically the similar technology on the back end in terms of fixing all of those things. Not with a goal of helping people to get pregnant but actually to help women understand that your mental cycle is a barometer of your overall health, and that PMS and cramping are not normal, and that they’re actually quite correctable. As women, we’ve been indoctrinated to think like no matter how much we suffer around our period, it’s pretty much normal, unless your uterus is falling out.
Spence: Before we hit recording, we were speaking about how many women today just in general maybe aren’t aware of the feedback that the menstrual cycle can actually give them about their entire health and fertility, of course. And how Viv is largely a movement to help raise awareness around that. Now, I’m going to dip into Goop here, but is that how through Viv, Gwyneth Paltrow kind of found you and said, hey, can you be a contributor to my Goop magazine to help raise awareness for women’s health. Can you give a little bit of background on that story, we just touched it, and I’m so blown away.
Kirsten: It’s really exciting news, because it’s really become my like gigantic mission. I’m sort of crazy for this right now to sort of lead a revolution about a conversation about PMS and cramping. They have to say to doctors annually do they have enough PMS and cramping that they miss work. But their doctors are like, well, you can get on birth control for your cramping. There’s no resources for women with PCOS, and if you look at message boards for women with PMDD, these women are committing suicide their PMS is so bad. Women with PMS are — I am going to answer your question about Goop but I just got off on my tangent– women are often misdiagnosed as bipolar because of the misunderstanding about the nature of premenstrual syndrome and how severe it can get. Anyway, as a start-up for Conceivable, you’re kind of constantly raising money. I’ve met with an investor who was one of the original investors at Goop, and she was like, I love what you’re doing, this is so important work, how can I help you. I was like, well, introduce me to Gwyneth Paltrow. She has a women’s health and beauty brand, and she’s not talking about women’s health and the menstrual cycle in a meaningful way in my opinion. I think that I could really help change the conversation and that sort of in our mission. So, they arranged a meeting press, and they kind of fell in love with the conversation about this whole idea. I always say like, you see women all over the place who look healthy, they’re going to yoga, they’re drinking smoothies, their weight is appropriate, they look healthy on the outside, they don’t have any diseases. And if you ask them, are you healthy, they say, yes, I’m healthy. And then you say, how’s your menstrual cycle, they go, oh, my god, my menstrual cycle is hideous. I have to stay in bed for two days, I bleed for 13 days. I talked to a lady yesterday who bled for 12 years straight from the day she got her period. She bled for 12 years before they got it handled. I was like what, what, what. Spence, I’m sure in the thousands of patients that you’ve taken care of, when you talk to them about their menstrual cycle, that what women say all the time is, like, they cry and they say, why am I just now hearing this. I just made it my mission that I never flippin’ want to hear that again. It doesn’t matter what people do, all of us are free to take care of ourselves however we can or choose to, but I don’t ever want it to be because of lack of information. Viv is really on a mission to make PMS and cramping history, to make periods matter and to change the conversation about periods. Like I was telling you before we started, in the first 3,200 years of written history, there is not a single mention of a menstrual cycle. But the truth is that we’re still not talking about it. Hopefully, we can use the high-profile needs of both Viv and Conceivable to raise that awareness. People always ask me, like you’ve been a fertility acupuncturist your whole life, now you’re pivoting sort of to the menstrual cycle, don’t you want to help women with infertility. And I said, absolutely, but I can prevent infertility if I can help women at an earlier age. Imagine if we had women who are like really regulating their periods and realizing the relevance of their periods earlier, while we would have less women in our practice for fertility, we’d be supporting women before they were struggling, and all the suffering exists for them when they’re trying to get pregnant, and they’ve waited too long. Now there’s a lot of pressure, and I hate that for them.
Spence: I won’t probably do it justice, but this is a saying from one of the early texts in Chinese medicine, “the mediocre physician treats disease, the good physician prevents it, and the master helps teaches community to be well”, and that’s where you’re at. I think I’m seeing a shift in the world and the awareness of this. We have to be accountable for our own health. Physicians are busy. People like you are creating portals and information. Even Gwyneth, which would be great. Oh, this isn’t normal, because you’re taught from when you were a young woman that, oh, if it hurts, there’s something called the birth control. It’s easy, you can just take that, and it’s no big deal, or, here’s hygiene products for you. Of course, people aren’t talking about it. Kudos for you for being brave, and using Viv as a Trojan horse. I would add that if you’re treating women, like you said, to help prevent issues with the menstrual cycle, you’re treating fertility period. This goop magazine, GOOP, you say. It’s goop.com probably or something. You’re contributing there, how can people find that, or what’s happening there like on the actual actionable side so women can check it out and spread it to their friends and help you with this cause?
Kirsten: It’s either Tuesday or Thursday of next week. If you go to goop.com and you sign up for their newsletter, the articles are actually very interesting in the newsletter. It just comes out once a week, so they don’t harass you too much. The article will come out, and my request is that if what women read is meaningful to them that they share it like crazy. Because I literally want to put this information that’s in that article into the hands of every single woman from the day she starts her period until the day she finishes menopause, so that she realizes that what she’s going through, there’s a lot of resources that can make her suffer less, and help women to be empowered. I think that part of that will be having more conversations about the menstrual cycle and what it means and why we’re not talking about it. I think that Thinx, I don’t know if you know about Thinx, the period panties, I think they’re really challenging the status quo in terms of the conversation and I really applaud them for that. Yeah, that’s the easiest way to do it. It’s a really fun magazine, it’s a little bit high-end, and so it’s like a lot of eye candy to the clothes that are on there and she does make up, but great recommendations. And what I also like, while it’s a sort of high-end magazine, its foundation of it is about wellness and clean products and clean living and she’s got great recipes and it’s really fun.
Spence: When you work with women trying to get pregnant or struggling to get pregnant or carry a pregnancy to term, eventually it’s whole health, everything, like avoiding toxins, even nurturing your spiritual life – these things all matter and can affect your menstrual cycle as well. There’s no disconnection there is I guess what I’m trying to say, but it just popped into my mind, it seems like it would be really effective if somehow this information got in the hands of teenage girls that are just starting their cycle in the education system. I’ve always kind of thought that if we taught kids about how pregnancy occurs and the health of the body and the reproductive organs, that they would a) understand how to not get pregnant and b) what’s right and what’s wrong before just jumping into the birth control. I mean, how many generations of girls now because it hurt, or there was acne or whatever, there was flooding, which isn’t we’re put on that. I don’t know, is there any efforts toward curriculum change or is that something that Viv could definitely influence somehow?
Kirsten: I think from a curriculum standpoint, I think you’re absolutely right. I live in the deep south of the U.S., and in Texas, they teach abstinence, which is useless. They are like, we are not going to talk about, just don’t do anything. I would love to develop the curriculum for that. Because even if it’s not even around sexuality, just around women’s health, I mean like really updating the content that we’re delivering, we’re actually going to partner with a pharmaceutical company, which often, we acupuncturists, we’re like, boohoo on the pharmaceuticals, but definitely sometimes you need them. They are important part of our medical system. In an effort to try to really demonstrate their commitment to women’s wellness, they’re going to actually partner with us around Viv, and so, we’ll be doing custom content programming depending on what aide to the woman is when she’s using the app. If she just starts her period – I have a 12-year-old daughter, she just starts her period, and she’s using it from, say, age 13 to 17, she’s going to get very specific 13 to 17 year-old appropriate content about her body, what’s going on and contingent upon what she’s tracking. So, if she’s having flooding, she’s going to get information about flooding and what to do about it. When she gets 18, 18 to 21 they are going to get a separate and so on and so on all the way through menopause. We’re actually nurturing women all across their entire reproductive life cycle.
Spence: The ideal world that you would live in, young girls would be instagramming pictures of their menstrual blood to each other, just say, hey, check out how fresh and healthy my blood is. I mean, I know that’s extreme but maybe not. It’s just something that needs to come out from behind closed doors, and that’s so awesome. Because that app, you got to talk in their language and use the tools that they would use to understand it. There may be a movement happening when that app is ready for them, that’s being used by thousands millions of girls, and then there’ll be a critical mass. It’s so great.
Kirsten: Well, you know, Spence, I just thought of something, you’re absolutely right. I hadn’t even thought about some of the things that you’re talking about. My daughter is a competitive cheerleader, she’s 12 years old, and her coach is a gay man and his boyfriend just came to their gym and they’re going to co-coach together. Right after they met him, we were driving home, I said, so what did you think of Omar, that’s the new coach, and she said, God, he’s so mean. Well, he’s strict, he’s a hard coach, and I said, oh, yeah, well, you know, if you want to win actually, that’s probably what you’re going to have to have, it’s a really competitive sport .And then my daughter says, you know, I just think Jarred can do better, and I said what do you mean. She’s like, he’s just so cute, he doesn’t have to settle for Omar, he could get a much better guy. I just realized that there was no weirdness for her. She is of that generation that there was no stigma for her. It’s no different than her coach having a girlfriend or a boyfriend, and I thought, oh, something has changed. I hope to help generate the conversation that someday everyone’s just talking about that. As a reproductive acupuncturist, I’m sure you have this problem too, you are at a dinner party, people are asking what you do and next thing you know people are eating steak and you’re talking about menstrual clots. Then I’m like, is that inappropriate. On the same thing, I hope that it is possible to change, and we just have to continue to have the conversation more in an empowering way. I told you I’ve been doing all this research on the history of the menstrual cycle, and it is interesting, because sort of there was all this fear of menstruating women. In the middle ages, there’s all these documents about that the menstrual blood would melt a penis, that if she went out into the field, all the crops would die. If she touched an animal, the animal died. In many ways, it’s like villainizing her, but it is also a tribute to how fucking powerful they thought she was. When she got her period, they secluded her for three years, and I don’t know why but they wouldn’t let her see the sun. I think that we can blame society and we can blame history and we can blame marketing and we can blame magazines, but only until we take ownership of like what they were afraid of in the first place can we really change the conversation. I mean, society was very scared of us as menstruating women. Menstruating women, they would take her out and beat her in some primitive cultures. If she didn’t die – that’s what it says – if she didn’t die, then she was marriageable. To kind of beat the spirit out of her a little bit. It is just a reflection of like, wow, these women hold the purse strings to sex. We would either make sure that we can control her, that we have access to her mojo whenever we want it. I think that I do believe in like self-empowerment, and I do want to help women to think about like how do we change the conversation no matter what happened in the past.
Spence: I think it’s very timely. I mean, I don’t follow pop culture a lot, but from what I’ve heard, even with the Golden Globes and all this kind of behavior from men, or whatever, how women have been treated over time, really is likely coming to an end. We live in such a different world. My wife was driving to Vancouver yesterday, and she calls me, and she’s like you got to listen – she loves Oprah – you got to listen to this podcast with RuPaul. If you know who RuPaul is, most people have seen him, but if anyone in the world would just listen to that podcast, no one alive would click stop at the end of it and not think that he’s a brilliant, wonderful person, deeply spiritual and on a mission just to make everyone understand that we’re all connected. The reason I think I emphasize the younger people is because he was. He’s like, there’s this movement amongst younger people about sexuality. None of that stuff really even matter to him as much anymore. I know very little about it so I won’t speak to it, but your mission is extremely timely, I think. It’s another spoke in the wheel that will accomplish what needs to be accomplished in our modern society. So, props to you and all your effort. I’ve got an idea that I’ll bounce off you after about a little. Maybe I could fly you up here to give a little conference set, or I’ll talk at a conference, but anyway, we’ll talk more about that. How can people – I won’t take up too much of your time, I know how busy you are – but how can people get a hold of you or understand more or visit all the regular social media ways or your website, can you just give people some?
Kirsten: If you’re trying to get pregnant, and you don’t live near Spence – because you should definitely if you live anywhere near him, you should go to him, but if you don’t and you don’t live near me – then you can go to conceivable.com and learn about our program there. If you don’t want to get pregnant but you do want to have a conceivable cycle, you want to get rid of your PMS, regulate your cycle, get rid of cramping, I feel like that’s unnecessary suffering go to vivwellness.com, one word, and you can check out our products and our mission. If you really believe in the mission that we’re talking about, I strongly request that you read the article on Goop magazine next week and share, share, share, like help us to change the conversation, help women to liberate themselves from the suffering that they’re having when they can. I always say there’s lots of suffering in the world. I don’t know how to solve world hunger and I don’t know how to get clean water to people, but I do know how to fix menstrual cramps and PMS, and I’m going to do it as many times as possible, because to me, that’s like for the most part needless suffering. If you’ll help us, I would be eternally indebted to you.
Spence: Help Kirsten scale her mission, make her vision come true, because it’s obviously good for everybody. Thank you so much, and obviously, I think Facebook and stuff as well for you. But if you have any ideas as well or ways that you could help further Kristen’s mission, contact her through her website or social media.
Kirsten: If you want to help, email me at kirsten@conceivable.com. Some of the things that we’ll be doing this year are we’ll be donating money to organize some meetups across North America to make period packs for homeless women. If you would like to host one of those, let me know, because you imagine not having food, well, if you don’t have food, then you don’t have any tampons or pads. If you only have one outfit, it’s a real bummer.
Spence: I would try to remember that. I would love to chat. That’s so great. You’re giving back in so many ways. I’m going to express gratitude for everybody, for your efforts, and this is exactly why I wanted you to just chat. I just love chatting with you. Because I come out from conversations with you inspired to help the world to move and shake and help more people. Hopefully, you’ve got a snowball going, we just have to all help roll it up bigger and bigger.
Kirsten: Awesome. You are the best.
Spence: YOU are the best. For the Conception Channel, beingfertileprogram.com, check out the Yinstill reproductive wellness on Facebook and on our website. Lots of resources for you as well there. In the show notes here, if you didn’t catch them, we’ll put links and to the resources that Kirsten talked about, and so it’ll be easy for you to get to. Otherwise, thank you so much, Kirsten, have such a wonderful day, and we’ll talk again soon.
Kirsten: Sounds great. Thanks, Spence.
