Our Personal Story on Preparing for Pregnancy

Heads up.... this is long and one of my most vulnerable Success Secrets EVER!

Before I tell you what I did to prep for pregnancy, I feel as though you need to be filled in on the back story as to why I made such decisions and changes to my life in order to concieve.

I would say I mentally had a game plan for a very long time about pregnancy- Especially because I knew that the women on my mom’s side of the family all went through menopause at a very young age (early forties). Personally I was never interested in making a time line for myself when it came to life- meaning conjuring up the perfect age for myself to find a romantic partner, get married and have a baby. I just feel that you can’t force those things in life and when the time comes, the time comes. However, I was getting a little nervous when I was twenty eight years old and still not with someone. So I had told myself that when I found Mr Right and we were settled down together, that I would let him know about the timeline my biological clock had for me rather than what I had wanted for myself- Because I knew that someday I would probably want kids.

However, at that time I was one hundred percent not interested in trying to produce a family. I was all about my career. I owned and ran a personal training studio and …. well nothing else really. Wearing all the hats that it takes to run a business burnt me to a crisp. I was having flare ups often from stress (I have an autoimmune disease) and just pushing through them because when you don’t work, you don’t make money. I was mentally fried and unhappy, and did not have much time for myself because I worked 6-7 days per week.

Because of this I was on a crazy expensive and large dose of medicine for my autoimmune disease and I was on a low dosage antidepressant (I did not tell many people that… ever, but eighty percent of people experiencing autoimmune flare ups suffer from depression). If I was not working on Sunday’s my body would crash and I would sleep all day long, and honestly many of my smiles were half fake.

With a great twist of fate at that same age, I finally met Mr Right (of course Mike). After two years of being with him, we had some very lengthy talks about marriage, kids, career, etc. I guess all the common things you talk about in a serious relationship. When I told Mike about my concern with pregnancy- my health and my age because of how menopause runs extremely early in my family, he just listened. He wasn’t totally set on the idea of kids, but was not against it either. I think he thought, “Well she wants to start having kids no later than 35… I have some time to think on it”. But he did express his concern with me, my workload, and how it was affecting my sanity and body. He put reality right in my face and said that there was no way we could raise a family with the rate I was going.

That brought up so many other topics. I forgot to mention that while Mike and I were dating I started another online business that was taking up even more time, but I was seeing much success with it. I was also using the products I endorsed and feeling healthier and more energized. Because I was seeing success with that and was not that happy running my personal training gym, we decided to close my studio. It was the hardest decision I ever made, but the smartest one I ever made. My body started to get more rest, I had less flare ups, I was able to fill up my own cup with things that I loved to do, take weight off my shoulders and actually have a life again.

Around the age of thirty two I brought up the kid discussion with Mike again and told him that if we do decide to have kids, we need to start in a year or two. And because I was not having flare ups and experiencing less stress, I knew it was time to start weening myself off of the anti-depressant. I knew I didn’t need it and in the back of my mind I did not want to get pregnant with that in my system. I wanted the cleanest system for our baby. It took two weeks to ween myself off of that and I also started to look into all natural herbs for my autoimmune disease. Because of my lifestyle change and the healthy products I was already taking, I was able to ween off of all my medications and switch to herbal supplements (under my doctors supervision of course). However I was only on the herbs for about six months during the transition of getting off my hefty meds. I only took those herbal supplements for six months because they were heavy in Vitamin A and that does not support pregnancy. I also decided to get off of birth control.

Once off all of that the only things I transitioned to were prenatal vitamins, pre and probiotics, and spirulina pills which I am still taking today. I have to add that I did workout four to five days per week and have been doing that for a very long time now so that was nothing new. I also ate clean eighty percent of the time focusing mainly on protein, veggies, fruit, healthy fats and moderate to minimal complex carbs. I didn't drink much alcohol, maybe two to three drinks per month. And I almost only ever drank water.

However, Mike was a little different. When I had the discussion with Mike when I was thirty two, he was very supportive of me getting my system as clean as possible and I told him because of all the transitions in my body with my medications/hormones, I may be a bit grouchy. He suggested that together we start meditating, working out, doing yoga and communicate as much as possible with each other. That’s what we did and I thank God that I did not have any complications getting off the medications. Well, I did have one three week long flare up, but that was it.

I came back to him one year later and told him I was ready. He turned blue in the face. I wish I had a snap shot of that. His response was, “Okay, give me six months.” So I did. During those six months, he had a lot of talks with his friends and my male cousins who have children, listened to podcasts where they interview dads and tried to wrap his mind around the fact that our life is going to change. Mike and I have an extremely close relationship and his largest fear was that we wouldn’t have the time that we do together anymore. He did not want that taken from him. He also wanted to change his perception of parenthood. At one point parenthood to him meant being trapped. But after switching his thought process he realized that having kids could actually allow him to relive his childhood again, grow, and expand his own life in ways he never thought before. So, with a lot of reassurance, eating healthy, working out, and priming his mind, he finally came to me and said he was ready.

But during his six month "priming period", I took advantage of learning my cycle a little more. I downloaded the app, MyFlow, and started to track the four stages of my menstrual cycle. It was very fascinating and I started to really hone in on my body. Because I am super sensitive and can connect on a deep level with my physical self, I could tell by month three when I was ovulating without using the app anymore. This helped in knowing when the perfect time would be to “go for it”.

We had a conversation in April about conceiving, but both got cold feet when it was actually time. Then we went for it in May because we knew that it could possibly take months to get pregnant. That two week waiting period was really tough! "Am I pregnant??!", was the only thing that went through my mind. However, the first time we tried, we became extremely lucky parents. I know that gift does not happen for all couples (or each time) so we are very grateful at how fast it happened for us. We were ready (mind, body and spirit) and are so excited for whats to come! We just found out over a week ago that we are going to be bringing a little man into the world! Our cheeks hurt from smiling xo

I hope this helps someone out there. I know people can get pregnant extremely easily without changing a thing about their routine, but we each had a couple obstacles to tackle in order to feel like we were ready to conceive.

Questions or want to share your story?! Please do in the comments below!