There's a word that gets thrown around a lot in fertility spaces.
You've probably heard it. Maybe you've even been handed it as a diagnosis, written on a referral form in black and white, clinical and cold.
Infertility.
And specifically - if you already have a child and are struggling to conceive again - secondary infertility.
I hate it.
Not because I'm being precious about language. But because I've seen firsthand what that word does to a woman when she receives it. The way it lands. The way it sticks. The way it quietly starts to define how she sees her own body.
Infertile. Like something is broken. Like the door is closed. Like that's just... who you are now.
I went through this myself. And even as a nutritionist - someone who understands the physiology, who knows the terminology is clinical shorthand and not a life sentence - it still got under my skin.
So I stopped using it.
In my clinic, in my content, in my own internal dialogue. I don't say infertility. I say extended conception journey.
Here's why that's not just semantics.
Language shapes biology. That sounds woo, but it isn't - it's neuroscience. Chronic stress, including the psychological stress of a heavy diagnosis, activates the HPA axis and elevates cortisol. The words we use about our bodies contribute to our stress load. And in a space where we're already asking so much of our nervous system, that matters.
An extended conception journey acknowledges the reality without pathologising the person.
It holds space for the fact that conception timelines vary enormously and that variation doesn't mean failure. It recognises that your body isn't broken. It's in a process. One that might need more time, more support, more investigation but a process nonetheless.
It also opens the door to asking better questions.
Instead of what's wrong with me - which is where "infertility" takes most women, we can ask what does my body need right now? What hasn't been investigated yet? What can I actually support?
Those are productive questions. They lead somewhere.
I'm not dismissing the medical reality. Sometimes there are structural or physiological factors that need clinical intervention and that intervention can be life-changing, I'm living proof. But even within that, the way you talk to yourself about your body matters.
You are not infertile.
You are on an extended conception journey. And that journey is worth supporting with everything you've got.
More on what that actually looks like, nutritionally, clinically, practically — coming soon.
Katherine x