4 Things Killing your Chance of Conceiving

Are you killing your chance of conception?

Trying to conceive can come with lots of challenges especially for someone struggling with infertility.

I want you to ask yourself, are you supporting or sabotaging your goals of becoming pregnant?

You may not know the answer to that question but read along and find out the top four things that may be hurting your chances. I share this knowledge with love and support as I want you to achieve success of motherhood, but sometimes getting to that success requires us looking inward.

Attempting to conceive can be one of the most stressful times in our lives. Our hearts are so open, so big as we desperately want this dream to come true of becoming pregnant and to be a mom.

But oftentimes we are doing the wrong things to help our chances. I am not saying there isn’t reason to have fear or worry, however these emotional states can get into our own way. We become our own challenge to building the family of our dreams.

Often fighting the fear is harder than fighting the fight.

Let me outline three things you may be doing right now on your fertility journey that is killing your odds at achieving conception.

1. Giving too much power away to the numbers

When we are tracking, overanalyzing, and questioning every number we are attempting to have a baby with our logic, rather than our innate wisdom we hold within to conceive.

You may have had a great few days, but then you see your temperature drop, immediately start to believe you did not ovulate and your brain puts you into fight or flight mode, which is counter productive to conceiving a child. 

When we believe that the “perfect” tracking system, analyzing all of our hormone levels and having sex at the exact right moment makes a baby, it sadly does not.

We create more stress for ourselves, more worry and we lose our body’s own power to do what it was designed and capable to do.

What to do instead: 

Stop all the tracking, at least try to. It’s one thing to know your cycle on a basic level and another to have every device out there to predict the absolute best window for sex down to the hour.

Instead, be in the moment with your partner and do your best to enjoy sex again. Stop overthinking each data point. Don’t let fear stand in the way if something is slightly “off.” 

Yes, fertility clinics create the best case environment to conceive, but nothing is perfect, because if it was, we could all track ovulation, our hormones and get a baby at the end.

Trust your body enough to not have to track it and to have trust in your dream. 

Your body is the most powerful thing, when we believe in its abilities. When we question every step of the way while attempting to conceive we are doubting our innate wisdom to conceive.

Stop trying to have a baby with your brain or logic and instead tap into your body’s innate power.

2. Worry, stress, anxiety and doubt

You may think I am crazy for even suggesting you stop worrying while trying to 

do the most important task you hope to accomplish in your life.

I promise when you can harness your inner evidence for why you will be a great 

mom, you can develop unshakable confidence in your dream. When we are connected to what can be, our possibilities are truly endless.

You are a warrior in this fight. See yourself as powerful, confident, capable, and 

possible to achieve incredible things.

What do to instead: 

Write out your evidence for why you believe you will be a mom. Don’t focus on all of the failures that have happened. Focus on what is in your heart. When you know what is true in your heart, let that evidence guide you to your success. Let’s not focus on the negative results or failures, instead focus on what you desire, dream and hope to be. What you place focus on, can become your reality.

Create a self care plan to reduce anxiety and stress.

Check in with yourself daily, at least once per day, rate your stress on a scale of 1 to 10, engage in self care activities that fit your needs for that day. If you’re at an 8 or higher, make self care a priority! 

Tip: the more self care we incorporate into our day, the less stressed we become over time. 

3. Believing science will save you

As I began my conceiving journey, I thought that science could create life more effectively than I could at home. For some, this may absolutely be true, however there is no fertility treatment out there that can guarantee you a baby. 

I believe in the amazingness of fertility treatments and medicine, as science is creating an opportunity for success. But there is so much more in the game. You also have to be in an all things are possible mindset and connected with your body, or the treatment itself is only once piece. 

Science creates the perfect “environment” to have a baby in the physical sense, but your mental health is just as important in this process to conceive. Mental health has to be in the forefront as well! The environment is beyond egg and sperm quality, as your environment is also your mind and the body in which you are living while trying to conceive. 

Science creates possibilities that otherwise would not exist, however it is not creating drastically better outcomes for pregnancy. As stated, there is not guarantee of 100% success.

What to do instead:

Give yourself space to reflect on possibilities that women become pregnant everyday with imperfect circumstances. You only need to try once, for it to be a success. You do not need the highest level of treatment, monitoring or support to conceive a child. People who struggle to become pregnant for years, also can conceive naturally.

Focus on your mind and body. Journal, connect with nature, sit quietly and let your thoughts just be, meditate, or go on a walk and notice how your body moves in time and space, disconnect from all media/ phone for 4+ hours.

4. Comparing your journey to others

Everyone’s journey is unique to them and their experience. There is no specific time frame that something has to happen that will make everything in the world ok. Thinking that just because your friend did three rounds of IUI and got pregnant and you're on round 5 does not mean you have failed.

Comparison truly can be the thief of joy. Let’s not stress ourselves out even more if we do not get to a certain outcome by a specific time. I know this is so challenging to do when all you want is a baby NOW.

Sadly, some will have a journey filled with grief, immense sadness, desperation, challenges and everything in between. Even if this has been your experience so far, it does not mean your dream cannot be true, even if the timeline is much longer than desired.

What to do instead: 

Be aware of when you are slipping into comparison.

Make this a habit to be mindful of when comparison is coming up for you.

STOP your thoughts and step back and reflect, know that you are stealing your own joy by comparing yourself to others, even when the comparison is not a frivolous comparison such as trying to conceive.

Remember, everyone’s time frame and journey is going to be different.

To be successful on this journey is truly knowing when we are sabotaging our goals.We can all be our biggest barrier to success. This journey is too important to let ourselves stand in our own way.  But the first step is knowing we are in our own way and second is to make change.

Be the change you need to make motherhood a reality!