Trying to Conceive 1st & 2nd Child

My whole life I have known my family has had a hard time carrying pregnancies to term. I have always been honest with myself that my journey to motherhood might look very different than most. Knowing this, I did things to try to prepare myself for this personal journey. This is how I organized all of my preparations down into 4 sections. 

1. Get healthy - I have always been a workaholic, and for many years, I was on the C diet (Coffee, Carrots and Carbs). Looking to start the next chapter of my life, I knew going to the gym was not always going to be in the cards for me - mainly because I was too busy with work. Even though exercising my gym membership was not happening, I knew I needed to prepare for child birth. For the few years before trying to get pregnant, I made sure physical activity was something that was in my day-to-day life. Whether it was walking during my lunch break or taking the extra set of stairs, I tried to sneak in a little movement here and there. On top of that I made sure I would move on the weekends. Weekend dates and friend catch-ups included a lot of hiking, walking, surfing, or even at-home body weight workouts. I constantly tried to do things to get my blood flowing.

2. Take prenatals/vitamins (prenatal, calcium+vitamin D) - I am someone who has a history of getting sick after taking vitamins. Whether it was prenatals or fish oil, all of them were FISHY. Lingering fishy smells and tastes are a big no no. So, I spent a lot of time looking for a prenatal that I liked about 2 years before getting pregnant (think forward ladies). This allowed my body to get used to them well before the horrible first trimester hormones made everything come back up.  I also started to take a calcium supplement, because I only drank milk with coffee and cereal. I knew for my own bone health I needed more calcium. Nerd alert: studies have shown that there are health benefits to starting a prenatal while trying to conceive, so just start taking them and stay on them. 

3. Try to enjoy the process - trying to conceive can be difficult, stressful, emotional, and sometimes upsetting. For both of my pregnancies, it did not go as planned and took longer than I expected. If you think about it, you have 12 optimal chances to get pregnant a year and as someone who had super irregular cycles, tracking my ovulation was almost impossible. I did use over-the-counter ovulation strips to try and help track/figure out my cycle. Also, before my husband and I got married, we were both open to adopt if we could not conceive by the time I was 32. Knowing we had a plan B that we were both very happy, reduced the stress and brought peace to the process. 

4. Practice quick and easy dinner/lunch meals.  Eating healthy is key to a healthy journey to motherhood. From conceiving to postpartum and nourishing a baby to starting their solid food journey. As someone who was split on whether to go back to work after my maternity leave or stay at home, I didn’t have much energy or time to devote to planning my meals, but I knew I had to start working on my food choices. This was hard. But, I’m not one to give up, so I tried to make it fun. For the years leading up to my first, I had a blast practicing new recipes that would make a quick healthy meal for the family. I started to research ingredients that would be healthy for everyone and found ways to slip those ingredients into our day-to-day diets. It was my little puzzle game. This was honestly one of the biggest and best things I did to prepare for pregnancy and the new chapter of our life as a family of 3, then 4. 

Life is hard and being pregnant while working is even harder. You probably have a million things on your mind. This is common and okay - you can handle it! Keep going! So, whether you are thinking about having a baby or are already in the middle of the process, be kind and charitable to yourself. I hope these 4 sections can help guide you while removing all the fluff you see online. I plan to write about getting my body and finances ready for a baby. Stay tuned and subscribe to be the first to learn more!

Good luck on your individual journeys!