Naturally Getting Pregnant

Make an appointment. Wait. Take a Test. Wait. Go through a procedure. Wait. There’s a common theme to fertility and that is, you guessed it: waiting.

I’ve been through countless blood tests, appointments, and procedures. Some with conventional medicine and some with alternative medicine. Then there have also been the numerous natural remedies I’ve done on my own. One thing was always the same though: I needed to wait.

Wait to see the doctor, wait to get my results, wait for the herbs to arrive, wait for my next menstrual cycle. There’s no getting around this tricky thing called time. Practically, it takes time to find the right doctor, therapist or remedy. But what I didn’t count on is always waiting for my body. It needs to be in the right phase of my menstrual cycle, it needs time to adjust, it needs time to heal.

This is really hard, this waiting thing. I want to get pregnant and have a child - now. But this isn’t how a body works. It’s about patience and understanding.

The ultimate test of waiting was my miscarriage three months ago. The doctors told me that they weren’t sure what was going to happen with my pregnancy: it may turn out fine or it may be an ectopic pregnancy requiring surgery. “We have to wait and see,” is what they said. How do I wait 48 hours until the next blood test, which is supposed to reveal the fate of my pregnancy, without each minute feeling like an eternal waiting nightmare?

My answer: keep busy.

Perhaps, as a yoga instructor, I should have sat down to meditate and work through my anxiety. But, honestly, this was outside my realm of what I deemed humanly possible. So I kept busy. I focussed on tasks that needed to be done that required as few brain cells as possible. And somehow the time did pass.

I’m just now emerging from yet another waiting sentence - this one for three months. After the laparoscopic surgery for my ectopic pregnancy, the doctor told us we needed to wait three months before trying again to get pregnant. This was a totally different kind of waiting. I couldn’t just keep myself busy for three months. I needed time to relax, to reflect and to emotionally deal with the miscarriage. But how can I wait three months without getting totally discouraged?

When I asked myself this question I realized that I was tired. Trying to conceive for over two and a half years has drained me emotionally. This, I decided, was the perfect time to take a break. To let go. I won’t have to figure out the optimal days for conception or agonize over whether I’m going to get my period or not.

I’m going on vacation from fertility.

So, I passed the last three months by taking a time out. I let my body and soul recover. For the first time in two and half years, I did not focus on getting pregnant. I was no longer waiting; I was on vacation. The moments were not always pretty, but by changing my perspective on the three months I was able to get through them much easier. And now, I’m ready to try again. We are trying to have a baby and so we will try and we will wait and we will hope.

If you enjoyed reading my blog, please write a comment here or bookmark it to a social bookmarking site by using the link below. Thanks!