So you want to have a baby, huh?
Congrats! You’ve made the major life decision of starting a family. Consider addressing the following items to prepare your body for pregnancy:
GETTING OFF BIRTH CONTROL
Stop birth control pills at least 2 months before trying to conceive
Take a good quality prenatal omega 3 , vitamin D+K2 , and prenatal vitamin. Prenatal vitamins (with folate, not folic acid) will help replenish the nutrient deficiencies often caused by the pill and help set a healthy foundation for successful conception!
Side note: if you are acne prone, B12 and biotin (very important prenatal vitamins) are common acne triggers. These brands may be less likely to cause breakouts: Spring Valley Prenatals, Vital Fusion Prenatal Gummies, and Country Life Realfood Organics
Be patient with your body as your hormones regulate
GENDER SWAYING
You can increase your odds of having either a boy or girl to 75% (vs. normal 50% chance)
Read The Baby Dust Method, a short and sweet book that guides you through this process
Swaying for a girl is technically harder than a boy. If you are having your first baby, I recommend not swaying and just tracking ovulation via an app like Premom or Natural Cycles to make sure you can get pregnant naturally. Otherwise, it could take awhile to become pregnant with The Baby Dust Method and you may think you need other interventions like IUI or IVF when it’s actually just the timing of “baby dancing.”
TRACKING OVULATION
Start tracking your period, which will help you figure out when you ovulate. You can only get pregnant around the time of ovulation (not the entire month) so having this information is very important! A lot of fertility issues can be attributed to bad timing and some medical interventions may be avoidable.
Check out the following apps to make tracking a breeze:
Premom- they will send you Easy@Home LH (ovulation) test strips that you can scan into the app and it will analyze the hormone ratio in your urine to pinpoint ovulation
Natural Cycles- an FDA approved method of birth control, you can also use this to prevent/plan a pregnancy.
TempDrop- a fertility tracker that connects to an armband thermometer via bluetooth to get your basal body temperature (BBT), another way of tracking ovulation
Oura Ring- can be used with Natural Cycles to track your temperature easily!
NUTRITION AND LIFESTYLE
If you are currently not exercising, find something you enjoy doing to move your body. It does not need to be complicated or long hours at the gym...even walking around the block has tremendous benefits!
Focus on adding high nutrient foods to your current diet. This is not the time to diet, unless you've been told by your doctor to lose weight before conceiving. You may think you will have an incredible diet and workout routine when you get pregnant but you never know what kind of pregnancy you are going to have. I gained 60 pounds and was very sick my entire pregnancy. I survived off of white carbs for at least 3 months and had to come to terms with my nutrition and lifestyle plans going out the window.
Focus on what you can control now to set the stage for a healthy pregnancy
My best advice is to not overthink the process. It is totally normal to take 6-12 months to get pregnant. In fact, most fertility doctors won’t see you until you’ve tried for at least a year (depending on your age and other factors).
