Infertility Archives - Natural Fertility and Wellness

Feeling like my body is broken

June 16, 2017 by Donielle Baker

Infertility is painful in many ways, but feeling like my body is broken is especially problematic. I feel like I’m fighting against it. No matter what I do it won’t conform to “normal”.

I feel like a failure.

The changes “they” tell me to make are overwhelming at best. And what if they don’t work? What if I follow this diet and take all the right supplements and it doesn’t work? Why can’t I get pregnant?

If you’ve been trying to get pregnant and struggling with feeling broken, know that you are not alone. So many women (couples) are in the same place and your feeling are normal.

Coping with infertility is hard enough – let’s deal with these feelings and move to a place of finding peace with our bodies instead of constant struggle.

Asher and I got together and made this video specifically for you. <3

The truth behind feeling like your body is broken

(the following written by Asher, naturopath)

Do you want to know the truth?

The truth is that you’ve been lied to.

In fact, most of us have been. And most of us believe the lie.

We’re taught it subtly and aggressively almost from the moment we are born.

We’re taught that our bodies are bad. That there is something totally and completely wrong with them. They’re defective and need to be twisted, molded and changed to be something else, something different, something better than how and what they naturally are. Better than how WE are.

This lie is loud and too easy to believe.

And it gets louder and easier to believe when our bodies don’t function as we think they should.

Maybe we struggle with depression.

Maybe it’s that we’ve gained weight even though we’re doing all the right things (ugh!).

Or maybe we’ve tried everything, and we mean EV-ER-Y-THING known to mankind to conceive and carry a baby to term. It just hasn’t happened. And, on top of everything else, there are babies and pregnant couples everywhere.

We then begin to internalize what we perceive as failure as being inherently defective.

It’s an easy thing to do because we are constantly and consistently sold the idea that we’re not enough, nor are we doing enough.

It’s not true.

When we find out something is wrong with our body our first instinct is often to do something to fix that particular problem. Take ibuprofen for a headache. Antacid for heartburn. Cough suppressant for a cough. And we can carry this mindset over to natural health. Take this herb for that, this vitamin or mineral for this.

When we take a step back though there is another way to look at our bodies.

Instead of assuming that our bodies are defective and bad we can assume that they are good.

We can believe that all our symptoms are messages about what’s going on inside the body. We can believe that our body is inherently working for our survival, not our destruction, and that even the most painful diseases, illnesses, and symptoms are a result of our body’s best efforts given all that it has and doesn’t have to work with.

When we look at our bodies as innately good and wise we can take a deep breath and begin to lay down our self-loathing.

Not every supplement or herb will work for everyone. Why? Well, because, like people, herbs have constitutions—an individual make up that helps us know exactly who and what they’ll be helpful for.

This explains why, in so many situations, a herb or supplement works for one person but not someone else.

It’s not that natural health won’t work and it’s certainly not the fault of your body. Not at all. Your body is good. SO GOOD. Even if it’s hard to believe.

A really popular method of changing our mindset is affirmations. Now, I’m not going to sit here and say to you that affirmations are an end-all-be-all. They can feel foreign and weird and insincere. That said, they can be helpful if it’s meaningful to you.

Take a moment then to sit down and really consider what is meaningful to you. What do you want to believe? What do need to believe?

Start there.

And know that even with all the symptoms your body is giving you to let you know something’s off and in need of support, you’re whole. You’re good. Your body is strong, wise and capable.

The decision of trying to conceive during chronic illness

April 7, 2014 by Jessica

All of my life I dreamed having a large family. I must have been sheltered because I never once remember hearing things like ‘miscarriage’, ‘PCOS’, or ‘chronic illness’. I thought if you wanted a baby, you would have one.

My bubble of security was busted after my first miscarriage. My feelings were all over the place, but fear of never having a child ranked high up in my list of worries.

A few years down the road, I also never imagined I’d have to weigh my health into the equation about the decision of trying to conceive.

The decision to wait until I’m healthier has been a heart breaking one, that included a lot of prayer and conversations with my husband. It is a joint decision that we pray is the right one at this time. Our hearts are ready to try but my body is not.

Chronic illness, in many cases is a delicate balance from day-to-day depending on the condition. A delicate balance that pregnancy can completely offset.

How do you decide if it is the right time to try to conceive when you are managing a chronic health condition?

Here is a brief list that helped me to logically see the answer that was right for us.

Prayer.

Prayer is the first step that our family uses when making a decision.

What does your doctor say?

While I don’t think your doctor is the end all be all in making this decision, they should have an educated opinion on how your condition is going to effect a pregnancy and your baby. They may also have helpful things to do to get your body ready to try to conceive. The other great thing about doctors in this situation is they do not have the same person feelings invested and can give you a logical look at things.

How would your illness effect a pregnancy?

Some times the chronic illness itself until controlled can negatively impact a pregnancy and the baby. Or, will the supplements or medications you need daily have an effect on the pregnancy or baby while in the uterus? These are two things to heavily factor into the process of deciding if it is the right time to try to conceive.

How do you feel?

If you are in mid flair or experiencing a lot of symptoms, how would a pregnancy effect that? I know in my heart right now that a pregnancy would add a very large burden to my already very taxed body. I would be short-changing a new little life and depleting myself of already scarce resources.

What is your time line for healing?

What if by waiting a few months your body can be more fully loaded and healed to take on the burden of a pregnancy? It’s good to have a goal and then prepare the body for pregnancy.

There are so many things to weigh when making a the decision to try to conceive while you are manage a chronic health issue. It’s even more tough when your heart is already longing for a child. However, taking the time to heal and get your body in shape is only going to help pave the way for a healthier you and pregnancy.

What are some of the things that you had to consider when making the decision of trying to conceive during a chronic illness?

Overcoming the Ugly {my guest post}

July 12, 2012 by Donielle Baker

Do you ever feel that bitterness or jealousy creeping up inside you?

Me too.

Today I’m guest posting at Still Standing, an online magazine dedicated to helping women embrace life in the midst of infertility and loss. I’d love to invite you over there to join me in the conversation about how we can overcome these feelings that tend to paint our heart ugly.

Click here – {Overcoming the Ugly, a guest post on infertility and self-care}

Two Journeys

June 18, 2010 by Guest Author

The following is a guest post from Michele of Frugal Granola about her experience as both an adoptive mom and a mom who has now experienced a biological birth as well. Also, please don’t miss one of the posts on her blog this week, written by her husband. He allows us a glimpse into what men may be feeling while on the journey through infertility and loss.

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A surreal blend of lavender-scented candlelight, the hum of the eternal labor-song, the ripple of soothing water droplets, the timeless taste of salt swirls with gentle whispers…

A child- my child– is entering the world. In a blur of moments, I meet my new son.

And yet, in the midst of relinquishing to Strength, the journey of embracing another soul fills my thoughts. Each wave of physical intensity is repeating a journey once walked with agonizing footsteps of my heart.

I gaze upon my little girl witnessing this sacred moment in awe and rejoicing at the birth of her new brother. Her dark curls tousled from running in the summer sun are a sweet reminder of the winter’s eve nearly three years before.

The moment her daddy’s hand mussed her soft baby curls and laid her in my arms for the first time, after years of fervent midnight prayers, exhausting days of waiting, and tears of mingled hope, grief, and surrender; I met the daughter I already loved.

Birth… Adoption… Two different journeys. One love.

Two precious souls, gathered into an embrace, adored by one mama’s heart of gratitude to their Creator.

The same pain. The same joy. The same reflection of The Gift.

Photo Courtesy of sarahgrace photography.

Guest Post: Sterilizing Life

March 18, 2010 by Guest Author

The following is a guest post from Kathleen, who blogs and philosophizes about marriage at Project M: Musings on Love, Marriage, and the Madness that Ensues.

I started thinking about sterility when, after ten months of trying, I still wasn’t pregnant.

I’m not just talking about human or sexual sterility here, but all kinds – sterilized foods, sterilized environments. I’m talking about all the various ways that we humans experience or try to stamp out or smother life.

See, I had been on the Pill for the last four years of my life to induce artificial fertility while I finished up school. I had never, during that time, given more than a moment’s thought to sterility or to what I was really doing. I was taking a Pill to suppress life. And I was OK with that.

I had wanted control over my reproductive system. I wanted to avoid the mess of unintended life. That’s what every woman wants who takes the Pill, right? I also wanted to be free to avoid thinking about reproduction. They told me I just had to take a little pill every day and unexpected life was out of the question. I didn’t have to think about it. I thought it was perfect.

After changing my mind and deciding that I did want to participate in life-creation, I found out quickly that my body was not primed for that. I had spent too much time trying to suppress life, and now my body was confused. I found out that it was going to take longer than I had anticipated for my body to change its mind after those four years of deliberate infertility. In fact, my body might never produce life. I don’t know yet.

Like many women in my situation, I began to look into ways of achieving fertility.

The first think I learned about was fertility awareness, or natural family planning, which can help you either avoid and achieve pregnancy. Fertility awareness involves getting to know your cycles. You have to get to know your cervical fluids and your basal body temperature and keep track of it all on paper. You have to pay close attention to your reproductive system. You have to develop a mindset that is completely contrary to the contraceptive way of thinking.

Fertility awareness is messy. Some might say it’s icky. It takes attentiveness and a high esteem for bodily fluids and other yucky things we don’t like to think about. And that’s why most women don’t want to use fertility awareness as a method of birth control: you have to embrace the natural, messy rhythms of life. And we don’t like messiness. We prefer to produce life in a sanitary, sterilized environment, where we can control everything with pills and capsules and antiseptics.

Then I started learning about nutrition from Naturally Knocked Up. I learned all about what I need to promote fertility: things like good bacteria, fermented foods and raw foods. In short, I learned about foods that still had life in them. I learned that in North America we’re over-sterilizing our food, to the point where there’s little nutritional value left.

I learned about eating other icky things, like organs and fat and skin, about sprouting and cultivating and fermenting. I learned about boiling my own bone broth and eating raw egg yolks and all kinds of things that we are told are gross. I learned that real nutrition takes work. It takes attentiveness and a high esteem for the kinds of food we’re taught to turn up our noses at.

And then it started to dawn on me. We’re a culture that is afraid of life and its consequent messiness. We’re scared of yucky things. As a society, we have learned to kill everything we can’t control.

We Westerners learned that some bacteria in food are bad, and so we set out to kill them all. We learned that fertility is hard to control, so we developed ways to stop it entirely. Then we developed ways to bring it back again artificially.

We decided that we wanted to be able to create life in a sterile environment. We thought that it was the safest way to do it. But in the process, we have eliminated all the things that are necessary to life: messy bodily fluids, living foods, nutrients and good bacteria.

I am started to come to the awareness that life breeds life. We can’t surround ourselves with death and expect to bring forth life. We can’t conceive new life in an environment where we’ve killed everything that scares us.

I am trying to embrace this truth. I am trying to embrace life, even the forms that scare me. Maybe in this way my body will be coaxed to participate in creating life. Until then, I want to learn all that I can.

Thanks Kathleen!