Morning glorious friends! It’s sunny and bright here in south Jersey, I hope you all are feeling the warmth and love I’m sending your way! Preparing your body for pregnancy can be as simple as eliminating things, or it may be a challenge with an entire lifestyle change. I was able to prepare naturally by using simple practices that you can do too! This worked great for me both pregnancies and I hope could potentially help you get ready for a new season of your life.
Since this was a very meticulously planned pregnancy, I’ll openly say our very first try was a success! Before my ovulation cycle came, I knew I had to prepare my body so that we wouldn’t have to try multiple times or end up in disappointment.
My husband and I both are generally healthy people; we eat well, exercise, and don’t consume really any alcohol/caffeine/nicotine (none)/sugar/ processed foods etc. Being (generally) healthy, I would say, is the number one way to begin trying for a baby because if your body is ready and at its best performance levels then you’ll be successful in more than one aspect of your life, that goes without saying though.
Disclaimer: I am grateful to be of service and provide content that brings value to your life. However, I’m not a doctor, health care physician, or expert of any kind. This post may also contain affiliate links where I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. See full disclosure for more details.
Natural Pre-pregnancy preparing
**UPDATE: I found simple and easy workouts that were specifically targeted for core and pelvic floor strengthening. My first pregnancy, I prolapsed, which is very common with first natural births. Especially if your baby is 8 lbs 11 oz at 41 weeks in! I did yoga at least once a week and continued that into my actual second pregnancy. Since I am done nursing my second baby I have gone back into ‘let’s get ready for the next one’ mode. That includes intentional exercise every week, tracking my ovulation (even though that can be challenging right after post breastfeeding), and honestly, a lot of mental preparation.**
The best simple exercises we can do would be pelvic floor strengthening ones. Easy ones that you can do before bed or while your kids are playing trains. Ones such as ‘dead bugs’ or ‘bridge lifts’. You can find them on YouTube or any other video platform.
Walking is also one of THE EASIEST exercises to do. Plus, you can do it with your dogs, alone, kids, partner, friends, whoever! It is simple, free and doesn’t require using a phone for information. Unless of course you don’t know your neighborhood, then maybe you’ll need maps.
I did try out some new yoga sequences to ‘enhance fertility‘, if you practice it, but who knows if that helped. Either way it didn’t not help!
Let food be thy medicine
The only major things food wise was cut out coffee and switched to green tea. I stopped drinking alcohol about a month or two in advance.
I began taking prenatal vitamins about two weeks before trying to ensure I was getting all the nutrients I needed.
**UPDATE: Although I have read a lot about prenatal vitamins and how having synthetic vitamins and minerals isn’t ideal, I’ve since been getting most of my vitamins and minerals from food. So, if you do decide to take them, I’d recommend a food-based supplement!*
As well as high quality cod liver oil, which remains a part of my daily regiment.
The only other random thing I added was drinking pomegranate juice, that was something I read about supposedly to ‘increase fertility’. Who’s to say those things actually made a difference in the grand scheme of things though. They certainly couldn’t hurt! I didn’t do this the second time though.
**UPDATE- I didn’t drink pomegranate juice in my second pregnancy and still had a natural, unmedicated birth. My baby was huge and healthy and two weeks early actually! If this is something you’d like to try, I would opt for eating pomegranates instead of a juice to have the optimal fibers added into your diet! I did FINALLY start drinking raw milk daily when we found a local dairy that was also another difference.**
Preparing your body for pregnancy by KNOWING your body
Another huge resource was learning about LUNACEPTION. Getting my periods into check and aligned the way nature intended was so helpful to track ovulation. Having predictable cycle days did wonders for not only pregnancy planning, but my month-to-month symptoms in general and overall health!
**UPDATE: Into this next pregnancy I may try seed cycling. I just recently learned about it and since I am I HUGE advocate of letting food be medicine, this may be a perfect way to help track my cycle.**
Regularly drinking red rasberry leaf tea has drastically changed my period for the better too. My symptoms are basically non existent. I’m FINALLY on a very predictable 28/29 day cycle, which is ideal so that I can easily know which phase of my cycle I am in.
Knowing when ovulation is happening plays probably the biggest role in preparing for pregnancy. Mainly because chances are at their highest during that time.
More on naturally getting your body ready to be pregnant
There are plenty of resources and books if you want to learn more and not break the budget at the conventional doctors!
Full disclosure as well, I don’t take contraceptives of any kind and haven’t our entire marriage. In a nut shell, artificial hormones can seriously mess up your natural hormone production and make things more complicated in the future. You’re welcome to do your own research on that, my opinion is simply to let your body do what it’s meant to do without synthetic means. Here’s a FANTASTIC podcast, references and all, about the subject. A great listen, or if you prefet to read it, it is transcribed as well!
On the guy’s side of the fence, a lot of my research said to have him drink a soda or coffee an hour or so before hand. That supposedly helps to motivate his… contributions to get to the… destination faster. Also.. the morning time is apparently a better time to try and conceive.
For us, we never tried that because he doesn’t drink soda or tea. He didn’t really do anything different, just being present and staying positive!
All in all, preparing my body for the second pregnancy was much easier. I knew what would make me sick, what made me feel better (like ICE COLD water), and what generally to expect my body to do. Hopefully my experiences have helped, if you’re like me, this won’t be the only stop on your fertility journey!
What did you do for natural pregnancy preparing? Lots of exercise, or maybe having support from a doctor of some kind? I’d love to hear from you! Let me know a bit of your experience below in the comments!
In deep gratitude,
Tayler
