When trying to conceive is stressful
I don’t think I’d realised how stressful trying to conceive had become for us until we decided to go on a break and just give ourselves the time to properly heal.
It’s also incredibly lonely. Sure, you may have connected with the countless other women in online forums but in the real world, it probably feels like no one understands what you’re going through.
“Relax” they tell you. “It will happen when it’s meant to happen.”
They don’t get the manic counting of days and dates.
Tracking every sign in your body, looking for clues that you’re ovulating, implantation, possibly, nervously, tentatively, pregnant.
This approach to trying to conceive is exhausting.
In many way your friends are right, you do need to relax. But if one more person tells you that, you might just rip their heads off.
How do you relax when something you want SO badly just isn’t happening. When something you’ve always dreamed of seems to be happening to everyone else but you.
Doing nothing feels counterproductive. How will relaxing help you to DO anything?
So you turn to the internet and Dr. Google gives your a barrage of things you’re doing wrong.
Suddenly you need to:
- Change your diet.
- Stop drinking coffee
- Drink more water
- Move more
- Move less
- Sleep more.
- Take supplements.
- Have more sex.
- Have less sex.
- Have sex at a precise time of day, on the right day of your cycle, in the right position while standing on your head.
It’s not surprising that you’re anything BUT relaxed. It feels like there is NO time to relax because you’ve got so many parts of your life that you need to change before you get pregnant.
This is all before your even start down any roads that involve fertility specialists and treatments.
I know it feels counter intuitive but I honestly believe the answer is you need to stop. Take a deep breath. Stand back a little.
How does the stress of all of this feel in your body?
Tight.
Restrictive.
Panicky.
It feels like you have no room to move.
You’re probably rushing from thing to thing, every moment is filled with thoughts and plans to do more, to MAKE SURE YOU GET PREGNANT this month.
But all it’s doing is telling your body that your life is too stressful. Biologically your body won’t create new life where it believes it can’t be sustained.
Rather than focusing on ALLLL the things you absolutely must do or else you’ll never get your baby. Focus instead on making yourself feel good. Focus on your health and being in the best health you can, without the pressure of ‘if I eat this I’ll never conceive’. Continue to do and plan things based on things that make you happy rather than on whether or not you might be pregnant or not by then.
At the end of the year, you’ll either be pregnant, or you won’t.
I know I’d rather spend that time looking after myself but not stressing about doing things ‘wrong’.
I know I’d rather continue living and enjoying my life rather than putting everything on hold while I focus on trying to conceive.
I know how I’d rather feel.
I want to share a yoga for fertility class with you today. It’s one I’ve used to help release some of that stressed heavy energy we create when something we want so badly, just doesn’t seem to be happening for us.
Let me know how you go. If you’d like support or just somewhere to vent I also have a Facebook group for fertility. We’d love for you to join us.