Things That Kept Me Sane While Trying to Conceive

I think there are many of us who head into the journey of trying to conceive pretty naive. And there’s nothing wrong with that, but so many of us end up with a rude awakening to our fertility (but there are plenty who are lucky and conceive right away).

I’m not here to claim I know everything or that I had the same experience that someone who’s been trying to conceive for several years has had. So if you’ve been at this for two years and I offend you by any of my suggestions or anything I say, I apologize. I can only speak from my experience. 

Let me start by sharing two previous blog posts if you missed them:

+ My Journey to Pregnancy

+ My D+C Experience After a Blighted Ovum

So, long story short, it took us 11 months of trying, one blighted ovum miscarriage and D+C to get to our little nugget we have now cooking in my belly. 

But today I want to talk about those months of trying, the doubts and fears and things I tried to stay sane and carry on with normal life. 

Trying to get pregnant is just a lot of waiting. Like, a lot. 

Waiting at the beginning of your cycle for your period to end, for your fertile phase, and then waiting to see if you were successful that cycle. 

And I quickly came to realize I needed something to distract myself from obsessing over it all. 

So, this is just a brain vomit list of all the things that came to mind as I thought back over our journey of trying to get pregnant. But to reiterate, we didn’t have any fertility issues (that we know of) it just took us time. But if you’re struggling with infertility, treatments and all that, feel free to disregard this list. 

But, in no particular order:

+ Reading books — I just love reading books in general, but reading was super helpful. When I was in the mood to think about babies and pregnancy I would pick up a book on that topic. When I needed to distract myself and think about something else I was able to find so many great books to just escape into. 

+ Hanging out with friends and family — This has been something important for me over the past several years, but you can’t coop yourself up during this process. You need to get out and be social. To talk and think about stuff besides getting pregnant. But it’s also OK to have conversations about it too. 

+ Don’t forget about relationship with partner — TTC is always exciting at first. You kind of feel like a rebel, like ooh mom I’m 26 and gonna get knocked up. But it can wear you down real fast. Make sure you’re making time for each other outside of the whole baby making universe. Keep the romance alive, and pay attention to their feelings on the situation. 

+ Self-care — Pamper yourself. This means something different to everyone, but paint your nails, give yourself a facial, soak in the bath tub. Set aside some you time. When you’re trying and not getting pregnant you can start to get upset with your body and feel like it’s letting you down. Be kind to your body and mind. 

+ Journal — I can’t recommend this enough. Grab a random school notebook with no pressure to be poetic or have good writing. Just sit down and get whatever is inside your head out and onto paper. I promise it helps, so much. Even if you’re not you can feel like pregnancy is all you think about and talk about and people are sick of it. Get all of that out of your head and into your notebook. 

+ Meditation — Not everyone’s cup of tea. And even I’m not consistent at it. But when I get really anxious about something (and I was getting anxiety about oh my god what if I can’t ever get pregnant or have a baby of my own?) meditation is so beneficial to just bring you back down to earth and calm your mind and thought process. 

+ Create a “registry” — I’ve been working on my baby wish list long before I was pregnant or we were trying to conceive. But there was something soothing about working on my wish list that made me feel good. Like researching the perfect stroller or cloth diaper system made me feel like I was doing something to aid the process. And I would tell myself like when you are pregnant you’re not going to have to worry about all this because it’ll be ready to go.

+ Choose a few things to try out to boost cycle — There is an overwhelming number of recommendations when it comes to what you should be doing TTC. But taking a supplement, cutting something out, etc. can give you that feeling that you’re “doing” something. And it really can’t hurt. I focused on boosting my cervical fluid or healing my luteal phase. 

+ Drink your coffee, have your wine, etc. — When we first starting trying I stopped drinking alcohol, coffee, and was kind of anal honestly about being “perfect”. Well that only lasted a few months before I was like Girl calm the fuck down and drink some wine. So, I kept my coffee to the recommended 2 cups of coffee or less a day. And I would let myself drink up until ovulation and then I would take a “just in case” break until my period came again 

+ Stop charting — controversial coming from me, I know. But sometimes you have to realize what’s helping the process, and what’s making you crazy. We (I mean, I) was so focused on my chart, when I was fertile and when we were supposed to be having sex that it took all the fun out of it. Michael felt like a stud horse and that I only wanted to be physical with him to get a baby out of the deal. Taking a break from charting was one of the best things we did while TTC, but I still knew when I was most fertile because of my cervical fluid. 

+ Creating content ideas list of videos I wanted to make — Ok, this one is specific to content creators. But the whole time we were trying I had all these ideas for blogs, videos, vlogs that I wanted to create and share with you guys. But I couldn’t because I didn’t want to open up about TTC yet. So I just made a killer list of content ideas that has come in super handy now. 

+ Avoid forums — Or at least limit yourself to how much time you’re spending on them. There is literally always going to be someone out there with the same exact symptoms as you who is pregnant or not pregnant. 

+ Try not to test — This isn’t for everyone, but don’t start testing 8 DPO. You’re going to drive yourself mad cycle after cycle squinting and stressing about tests. For some reason I was always more upset to see a negative test than I was to get my period. So I just made it a rule that I had to wait until I was supposed to get my period before I could take a test. Unless there was some sort of event that I would want to know I was pregnant before (aka thanksgiving day race). But testing gave me so much anxiety and was always such a let down that I just had to not do it. 

+ Watch birthing videos — Why not start prepping for labor and birth now? I would have to limit these to when I was in the hopeful mood, and not the crap, my period just came mood. But watching birth vlogs has been something I’ve enjoyed for years. I think it’s great to see a variety of birth stories, styles, options, you name it. Even if you can’t see a live birth before you give birth it’s good to get an idea of what can happen before you’re in that position. 

+ Declutter and deep clean house — Maybe I’m just a weirdo but I find deep cleaning and decluttering really soothing. And I always feel really accomplished after it. It’s just another area that you can feel you have control over, when you kind of just feel like you don’t have any control over your TTC journey. 

+ Exercise — As much for your mental health as for your physical health. There’s all sorts of benefits both ways, but when you’re feeling upset or frustrated there’s nothing better than going on a hike, run or pumping some weights. 

Control what you can, and try your best to let go what you have no control over. There are so many emotions and thoughts wrapped up in the TTC journey. You have to do what’s best for you and your mental well-being because it can be a very stressful and draining experience. 

Now that I’m pregnant I try to routinely step back and remind myself of how I felt trying to get pregnant, my worries and fears, and to just tell myself see, you did it, remember this next time something is difficult. 

When Your Pants Don't Fit + You're Too Small For Maternity Clothes Still

I know it takes several months to look “pregnant” but man I’m ready to have a bump. 

I don’t know about others but I was immediately bloated, not uncomfortable bloated, just looked that way. My stomach would fluctuate in size throughout the day, even now halfway in. 

And my pants quickly became uncomfortable. Some are fine in the morning, but by the end of the day I want to take a pair of scissors to them. 

So, today I wanted to talk about that weird limbo between your current pants not being comfortable anymore but not being “big” enough to fit into maternity pants. 

The first trick is going for your stretchy pants. These are going to become your best friend. At the beginning leggings were great because they were flexible enough. Now I’m down to one pair that still fits comfortably for most of the day. 

The next trick is the hairband on the jeans one. You take a hairband/rubberband and loop it through the button hole of your pants attaching it to the button to give you several inches of belly room. 

I didn’t love that trick for long for some reason. 

But an alternative to that that I did enjoy was a belly band. You wear it over the top of your jeans, covering the button and zipper area and it’s tight enough to hold your pants up and together without being too tight to where its digging into your stomach. 

This allowed me to wear my jeans again, but I did find that it looked lumpy so you just can’t wear tight fitting tops with the belly band and rubber band tricks. 

And finally I made my first transition into maternity wear, starting with maternity leggings. The kind that have the stretchy waistband (like you see with a lot of maternity jeans) didn’t fit my bump yet, and looked really baggy. 

What I found were these normal looking high waisted leggings that had a fitted, but super flexible waistband that were tight enough to stay up but stretch enough for my bump. These are still loose some days, but it’s totally manageable. 

And finally try out a few different brands of maternity wear, because while you might not fit into the Target brands maternity leggings and jeans you may fit into another. 

I went shopping with my sister at the end of February, and found a second pair of maternity leggings for literally 1/6 of the price of my first that I bought at a big store. And I found a pair of maternity jeans that not only fit my bump with room to grow but were $8, both a steal of a deal compared to full price. And this made me feel better about getting a few maternity pieces without worrying that I was breaking the bank getting things that I wouldn’t wear all the time. 

Now, if you’re pregnant in the summer months this opens up a whole different world of possibilities. 

I cannot wait until it’s warm enough to wear my overall shorts and my flowy summer dresses. Not to mention stretchy skirts, dresses, you name it. 

I’m very grateful that the second half of my pregnancy is in the warmer months, when my normal wardrobe will work perfectly!

What did you do for this in between stage to stay comfortable? 

How Charting Can Help You Know You're Pregnant

I absolutely love that FAM can be used for a number of things including natural birth control, learning more about your body, and to get pregnant. Today, I thought it would be interesting for me to share a few of the ways in someone who charts may know they’re pregnant sooner than someone who doesn’t. 

The first obvious one for me is that if you chart then you know the average length of your cycle and you know the different lengths it’s fluctuated between.

Now, there are plenty of women who don’t chart that probably know around when to expect their next period, but there are also a countless number who couldn’t answer the questions of how long an average cycle was or when their last period was (that was 100%  me before I started charting). 

And knowing when you should be starting a new cycle can let you know when to test for a possible pregnancy. And since you’re charting waking temperatures you can see the drop in temperature at the start of a new cycle. 

Moving on, you know when you ovulate, and whether you ovulated that cycle. Because obviously if you’re not ovulating you’re not going to get pregnant. You also know if you ovulated earlier or later than normal. 

Going along with that you know how long your luteal phase is (average is 14 days, but anywhere between 10 and 16 days is normal). Once you get past, or even close to that 16 day of your LP you know you can test. The luteal phase is rarely longer than 16 days unless the woman is pregnant. 

Because you’re charting your cervical fluid you know if you had sex on a fertile day that could result in a possible pregnancy. 

And finally, you know what’s normal for you, symptom wise leading up to your menstrual phase. And while a lot of pre-menstrual symptoms are quite similar to pregnancy symptoms, women who chart can have a better knowledge of what is normal because they can chart data beyond temperature and fluid. 

Now, I’ve never been pregnant so I can’t say any of this with experience, but these are the ways in which I could see charting coming in handy when it comes to knowing what’s normal for you and when to test. And it makes me curious for when the time does come for me (hopefully) how soon will I be able to tell?

And this doesn't even include all of the amazing ways charting can help you conceive a baby (or avoid it). 

If you’ve been pregnant, at what point did you know? Did you chart/practice FAM and did that play a role in you finding out sooner?