Unexplained Infertility & Immune System: Overactive NK Cells, Failed IVFs & Pregnant Naturally at 36
I remember sitting there thinking my body was broken.
Not weak. Not confused. Broken.
I was young. My husband’s sperm was fine. The doctors said there was nothing I could do about egg quality. They never once looked at my immune system. They never once mentioned high natural killer cells. And yet something inside me felt like my body was fighting itself.
When you are in the middle of unexplained infertility or recurrent miscarriage you start to feel like your body is rejecting you. Or worse, that you are rejecting life.
That is not what is happening.
But something is happening.
Natural killer cells are not the enemy. They are the reason you are alive. They protect you from viruses and cancer and infections. They are designed to attack what does not belong.
The problem begins when your system is on constant alert.
When your immune response is elevated all the time it does not just protect. It scans. It reacts. It attacks. And it loses nuance.
An embryo is technically a foreign body. That is biology. Early pregnancy is a delicate negotiation between your immune system and new life. For the first twelve weeks your body is learning to recognize that this foreign presence is safe. That it belongs.
But if inflammation is already high. If your natural killer cells are already in overdrive. If your body has been living in fight or flight for years.
It does not always pause to negotiate.
It attacks.
The Gut Is Not Separate From This
For most women dealing with high natural killer cells there is almost always a deeper story in the gut.
We like to separate things. Thyroid here. Immune system there. Fertility somewhere else.
But the body does not work in compartments.
Your gut lining is meant to be selective. Tight junctions that allow nutrients in and keep larger particles out. When gut health is compromised those junctions loosen. Food particles and endotoxins enter the bloodstream. Your immune system does exactly what it was designed to do.
Attack.
If that process is happening daily because of poor diet chronic stress processed food alcohol hidden sensitivities or years of cortisol spikes your immune system does not get to rest. It lives on edge. It becomes reactive.
Over time that reactivity can become autoimmune patterns. Thyroid dysfunction. Inflammation. Subtle cellular damage that affects embryo quality and implantation.
And then you are told you have bad luck.
Or low quality eggs.
Or unexplained infertility.
There is something deeply destabilizing about being told there is no reason.
Because there is always a reason. It might not be simple. It might not be one thing. But your body is not random.
Inflammation Feels Like Fertility Burnout
Fertility burnout is not just emotional. It is physiological.
Years of trying. Years of IVF trauma. Years of over controlling every supplement and every test result. Years of living in hypervigilance.
That state alone can dysregulate the immune system.
Stress alters gut permeability. Stress shifts microbiome diversity. Stress keeps the nervous system in survival mode. And survival mode is not the same frequency as safety.
Pregnancy requires a degree of immune tolerance. A softening. A willingness in the body to allow something new.
If your system is constantly braced your immune system mirrors that posture.
Attack first. Ask questions later.
When I look back at my own journey I can see how inflamed I was. Not just physically. Emotionally. Mentally. My mindset was rigid. My nervous system was exhausted. I was running subconscious blocks around safety and control that I could not see at the time.
I was trying to force life into a body that felt under threat.
Secondary Infertility and Recurrent Miscarriage
High natural killer cells are often whispered about in fertility forums. Rarely fully explained. Sometimes dismissed depending on where you live.
But I have seen this pattern over and over in women with recurrent miscarriage and secondary infertility.
The first baby came. The body was younger. The stress was different. The gut was not as compromised. The immune system had not been pushed to its limit.
Years later life has layered on responsibility sleep deprivation hidden grief unprocessed trauma maybe even IVF trauma.
The body is more reactive. The inflammation is higher. The cellular health is lower.
And suddenly pregnancy does not stick.
Or it never begins.
When natural killer cells are elevated enough they can impair implantation. Or they can interfere with early development. Not always. Not in every case. But enough that it matters.
This is not about blaming the immune system. It is about understanding that an overactive immune response is often a reflection of deeper imbalance.
Subconscious Healing and the Immune System
You cannot supplement your way out of a body that feels unsafe.
You can support it. You can lower inflammation. You can heal the gut. You can reduce triggers. Those things matter deeply.
But emotional healing matters too.
Your immune system is responsive to stress chemistry. To chronic adrenaline. To the frequency of your thoughts. To the patterns you run unconsciously around control and hyper responsibility.
Subconscious blocks around safety can keep your nervous system in quiet defense mode. That defense mode subtly influences immune signaling.
This is where subconscious healing is not spiritual fluff. It is biology.
When the body begins to feel safe inflammation lowers. Gut integrity improves. Hormones regulate more efficiently. Immune tolerance becomes possible.
This is not instant. It is layered. It is steady.
And it requires you to stop seeing your body as the enemy.
The Uncomfortable Truth
If your immune system is attacking an embryo it is not because your body hates pregnancy.
It is because your body believes it is protecting you.
There is something powerful in that reframing.
Your body is not sabotaging you. It is trying to survive.
But survival mode is not the same as creation mode.
High natural killer cells are not the root. They are a signal. A signal that something deeper needs tending. Gut health. Emotional healing. Nervous system regulation. Cellular repair. A different relationship with stress.
And sometimes a different relationship with yourself.
The work is not dramatic. It is not heroic. It is often boring and humbling. It looks like rebuilding from the inside. Supporting the microbiome. Reducing inflammatory triggers. Processing grief. Letting the body exhale.
It looks like slowly shifting from fight to trust.
Not blind trust. Not bypassing. A grounded embodied safety.
Your immune system softens when it no longer feels like it has to stand guard every second of the day.
And that shift changes more than fertility.
It changes how you live in your own skin.
There is no neat ending here. No guarantee. No formula.
Just a steady truth.
Your body is always communicating. Even through high natural killer cells. Even through recurrent miscarriage. Even through fertility burnout.
It is not attacking you.
It is asking to feel safe again.
Let's Do This Together 💚
Monica
Listen up, lovelies: Everything I share about health, diet, or fertility magic is my opinion. Yep, it’s all based on years of trial and error, study, reading, listening, and side-eyeing the nonsense out there. What worked for me might be a jackpot for you—or it might be a total flop. Bodies are weird like that. 🤷♀️
Let’s get one thing straight: I’m not a doctor, nutritionist, dietitian, or any other kind of licensed health wizard. If you need medical advice, run—don’t walk—to an actual qualified professional. Don’t come back here saying Monique told you to eat kale for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, okay?
As for the products I mention, they’re either what I used during my own infertility rollercoaster or what I wish I’d known about back then. No guarantees, no promises, and absolutely no refunds on your hope budget if it doesn’t work out.
Now that we’ve cleared that up, proceed with curiosity and, above all, discernment. You’ve got this. 💪✨
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Full Transcript:
00:00
Did you know that high natural killer cells could mistake your embryo as a threat? So here's how it works and what you can do to reverse it. Natural killer cells are in every human out there. If you didn't have them, you wouldn't be alive. These are the things that protect you from colds, from viruses, even from cancer. These are the things that go attack what's inside your body that shouldn't be there. So it's a real thing everywhere, but not all medical systems either believe that immune issues are linked.
00:30
fertility issues or it might just not be a thing in your country because maybe you just have better health than some other places in the world i.e. America or the UK because that's where I did all of my fertility treatment. So for most people having an overactive immune response, an autoimmune disorder, it really stems in your gut health and there's various reasons why your gut health can be compromised but mostly it has to do with the quality of food you're
01:00
and your stress levels. So not to get too scientific on here, but your gut lining has these little junctions, right? And they're supposed to be tight and they're only supposed to let the good nutrients in. When you have a uh leaky gut as they kind of call it or a gut lining that is uh really worse for wear, your junctions open up and they get wider and then so more food particles and
01:30
things that aren't supposed to be in your blood system get into your blood system. Your natural killer cells do their job and they're like attack, attack, attack. So they are attacking the things that are in your bloodstream that shouldn't be there and it's ramping up the inflammation. Now when it goes into overdrive it starts attacking areas in your body. This is what happens to your thyroid. What can happen when you're dealing, especially if you're dealing with unexplained infertility or reoccurring miscarriages?
01:59
is kind of two-fold. You have so much inflammation going on, your cellular health is incredibly low. uh You can have low embryo quality. But on top of that, if your NK cells are elevated enough and not, doesn't happen all the time, I know, but listen, your embryo is a foreign agent. That's why 12 weeks is so important and this big milestone is because until that 12 week period when the placenta takes over, your body
02:29
like it's designed to know that that's a safe foreign agent and things shouldn't attack it your natural killer cells shouldn't attack it but when it's on overdrive it doesn't know the difference so it will just attack your embryo hence for me mine was so bad i was not even getting pregnant but this is another major issue for uh
02:53
secondary fertility issues, for reoccurring miscarriages, and for unexplained.
