Since announcing that my husband and I are having a baby, I’ve received a lot of questions around “what did you do to help you get and stay pregnant this time?”
If you aren’t familiar with my fertility journey, here is the quick and dirty of it:
- We tried for 2.5 years to get pregnant
- We finally got pregnant in Sept of 2018, but lost that baby at 9 weeks in utero. And since then we have had a total of 3 miscarriages and 1 ectopic pregnancy (that resulted in my left fallopian tube being removed in an emergency surgery)
- Finally, in May of 2020 we found out that I was pregnant once again and for the first time ever had a successful ultrasound! At the date of writing this, I am currently 37 weeks pregnant with a healthy, baby girl!
Throughout this journey, I’ve learned a lot and have tried so many different things to try to have a healthy baby. Below is what finally worked for me.
*Note – I am not giving medical advice, I am just sharing the things that I learned/tried that finally made a difference for us.
While there is a whole mix of things that went into creating this pregnancy, here are the top 6 things that ultimately worked for us…
1. I upleveled my mindset – meaning I told myself that YES I could get pregnant and STAY pregnant.
At one point this past spring, my husband and I started looking into IVF options. While talking with one of the IVF Doctors, he told me that I had a 30% chance of having a successful pregnancy via IVF and only a 5-10% chance of success by trying naturally. I got off the phone with him and immediately said to Jonny “I hear what he is saying, and I am not choosing to accept his diagnosis.” I decided then and there that I was no longer going to relate to my body as infertile, broken, or unable to get pregnant and I started looking into all of the different positive resources that I could find to help me maintain that uplifted mindset.
One of the best books that I found was the book “Yes, You Can Get Pregnant: Natural Ways to Improve Your Fertility Now and into Your 40s” by Aimee Raupp. This book helped me in so many ways, but mainly supported me in holding the mindset that I could indeed get pregnant and stay pregnant. It also provided me with important information around supplements and other things that I could do to support my fertility.
2. I learned that I could boost the health of my eggs!
I wish that someone had told me this earlier – but up until November of 2019, I had NO IDEA that I could enhance my egg health. But guess what?! I did it, and you can too. In Nov of 2019, I met the founders of a company called Needed, and I shared with them about my fertility journey. They started to educate with me about egg health, and how our omega levels can affect the health of our eggs. I had them test my omega levels and they came back pretty low. So, I immediately started on their Omega 3 supplement and have been taking it ever since (including daily in this pregnancy!). I also started doing a lot of research about egg health, and thanks to the books Yes, You Can Get Pregnant, and It Starts with The Egg, I learned so much about why egg health is so important to a healthy and viable pregnancy. These two books were so empowering and the information they share made a huge difference in our fertility journey.
To try your own box of Needed’s Omega 3 (or any of their line – they also have a great collagen supplement, prenatal vitamin, probiotic, and iron supplement – all formulated for Moms and Moms to be) use the code TURNINGLIFEGOLD for 20% off your order.
3. I upgraded my prenatal supplement.
After my 3rd miscarriage in January, I started looking into higher quality prenatal supplements. I had been taking the Thorne Prenatal, which I thought was a good brand of supplements, however something clearly wasn’t working for me with that vitamin – so I decided I needed to make a change. I knew that I had the MTHFR gene (which essentially means that it makes it hard to absorb different forms of folate) and needed a prenatal that was MTHFR safe. I came across Encarna, which is a liquid supplement from Almeda Labs, based off of Ayurveda principles, and it absorbs into your body at a cellular level. Within a month of taking Encarna, many of the different health/gut issues that I had been experiencing went away, and I started to feel really good. I took this for 3 months, prior to trying to conceive again to help my body absorb and retain as many nutrients as possible, and then after the 3 months, we conceived our baby right away. (As a note, I’m still taking Encarna daily throughout my pregnancy and it is my only prenatal supplement that I use. I’ve felt so good throughout this pregnancy, lots of energy, almost no nausea, etc. and I credit a lot of that to Encarna)
If you want to try your own bottle of Encarna, you can use the code ESTORM for 15% off your order.
4. I also upgraded Jonny’s supplements.
One of the things that isn’t talked about enough in the fertility journey is how important it is to make sure that the man’s sperm is healthy. This makes sense, as 50% of the baby is made up of what the sperm contains, however, there doesn’t seem to be much emphasis on sperm health. I had started doing research on this and came to quickly realize how important it was that Jonny also be on high quality supplements to support his little swimmers. So, we started him on Encarna, had him take a good quality Omega 3, CoQ10, and Turmeric Curcumin, all of which are supposed to help increase sperm health and motility.
To get 20% off of the Men's Omega 3, use the code TURNINGLIFEGOLD for 20% off your order
5. The Pandemic Hit and we finally slowed down.
Anyone who knows my husband and I, knows that pre-COVID, we were constantly traveling. We were on airplanes at least every month and as much as we tried to slow down, we never did and continued to travel all the time. In many ways we loved this fast-paced lifestyle that took us throughout the world, and even though it was stressful at times, we enjoyed it.
So, when COVID hit and the world shut down, we finally stayed put. My body was able to slow down, and I’m sure that this had something to do with finally being ready to call our baby in.
6. I hired a Fertility Coach.
During this time at home, I had a lot of extra time to process my feelings and emotions around my fertility journey and my losses and I knew that I needed some extra support to support me through my grief and help me move forward. Being a Life Coach, I know the power of coaching and what can happen when we have someone supporting us with our fears and our dreams. I decided to hire Pregnancy and Fertility Coach, Briana Williams. It felt important to me that I had someone to process all of my feelings around pregnancy with someone other than my husband, because while Jonny is amazing, it wasn’t fair for me to put all of my emotions on him…nor was it the most helpful thing for us either. Having Briana allowed me the space to focus strictly on my fertility and within a few months I found out that I was pregnant and she supported me throughout the first few months of my pregnancy as well.
There were a lot of other things that we also did, such as continual prayers to God and The Divine Mother. As well as a lot of our own inner work to support us in being ready to finally call our baby in. But I hope that this list above helps to spur some ideas for you, as a way to support you in getting pregnant and calling in your baby.
Don’t feel like you need to try all of them – I encourage you to listen to your intuition and see which one resonates with you, and then perhaps try one or two of these ideas. Just because it worked for me, doesn’t mean it will work for you, but I hope that this post helps to empower you to continue to take your health and your fertility into your own hands.
With love,
Elsie