Everywhere you look, you find more and more advice, products and information to help increase your chances of getting pregnant. I would like to take a step back and share some of the things I have learnt through our personal journey and working with 100’s of clients all over the world.
Don’t put life on hold
Looking back at our own fertility journey, I can see how quickly things moved from trying to get pregnant in a relaxed way to it becoming the focus of everything we did – from what we ate, when we made love, to how much I rode my bike!
Whilst we were trying to get pregnant, at the lowest point I had a realisation of how I angry I was with life. I was expecting life to give me certain things, happiness through certain things, such as getting married and having a baby. It didn’t happen that way.
I realised I wasn’t taking life by the horns. We were not living life to the full; our sole focus in life had become getting pregnant. My wife had given up work to focus on her wellbeing. We didn’t have any other hopes and dreams for life other than getting pregnant.
I needed us to get pregnant and have a baby as I thought my happiness level and purpose in life depended on it. I can now see life doesn’t work that way.
Life had become Project Baby.
We decided to take life by the horns. I resigned from a job that wasn’t making my heart sing. We planned to go travelling and do the things we’ve always wanted to do. I had a client that started the business she had always wanted to. She was pregnant 3 months later. My wife was pregnant two months after I resigned and decided to create a life of passion and purpose, with or without children. I’d realised my happiness level wasn’t dependent on getting pregnant. It didn’t mean I didn’t want to, it meant it was a preference rather than a need.
Focus on Project You rather than Project Baby
The journey to pregnancy can seem like a project. For her, taking daily temperatures, swallowing a vast number of pills and supplements. For me, not putting my mobile in my pocket, avoiding cycling too much. I even bought baggier pants to allow more airflow!
A lot of all this activity can absolutely be helpful. However it is not what you do that counts, it is why you do it. If you are doing anything out of fear of not doing (not doing absolutely everything possible to increase your chances of getting pregnant) then it could be doing more damage than good.
I am huge fan of daily basal temperatures. However, the moment it becomes a chore, stop doing it. The negative impact on your emotional wellbeing may do more damage than not having the information.
It is the same with making love. Keep making love, not trying to make a baby. Be mindful of timing but don’t let it dictate you. Your fertile window is a number of days. Sperm stay alive in the womb for a few days. Timing down to the minute is not necessary and the stress of doing things at the right time can again be counter productive.
Use Visualisations
One of my most popular blog entries was about positive affirmations, perhaps because it was quite controversial!
I believe visualisations are far more powerful than positive affirmations because visualisation uses your unconscious mind rather than your conscious mind. Your imagination is a gateway to your unconscious mind, which controls all your bodily functions, including balancing the delicate cocktail of hormones required for pregnancy.
The mind and body are an amazing natural healing machine. Look at how a cut heals itself without us doing anything, or how bones knit together. You can direct and guide this power to let your unconscious mind know what you want it to do. You can speed up the rate of healing, something I’ve done many times.
One client only ovulated on one side. After using visualisations she started ovulating on both sides. Was the visualisation the only thing she did that made the difference? No. Was it the thing that made the biggest difference? Who knows and she doesn’t care; she is just very happy to have her full fertility health back, bringing an increased chance of getting pregnant naturally.
For more details about how to visualise and what to visualise, download my free Getting Started Pack here. The ebook contains a section on visualisation to help you increase your chance of getting pregnant.
