The One Thing That Helped Me Get Pregnant

Getting pregnant is not easy … at least for some.

Ironically, a good amount of women spend the majority of their youth trying NOT to get pregnant. Then when it comes time to conceive and things don’t go as planned, they start to wonder, “What’s wrong with me?”

It took my husband and me almost a year to get pregnant. Knowing so many other couples go through the same thing, I want to share with you the one thing I believe helped put this bun in the oven (other than the obvious, of course.)

Fertility rates in the U.S. have dropped for the seventh year in a row, according to a new report by the Centers for Disease Control. Whether it’s because more people are opting not to have children or because others are waiting until later in life to start their families, researchers aren’t certain what’s causing the decline.

I do know that I’m in the latter group. At 34 years old, by most standards, I’m considered an older first-time mom. But that said, I didn’t meet my husband until I was 29-going-on-30. We didn’t get married until I was 32, and after we said “I do,” I wanted to spend a bit of time with him before our lives changed forever.

Knowing it would take some time for my body to get adjusted, I gave myself a couple of months after going off birth control (which I will refer to as BC from here on out) until we truly started “trying.” But from the start, it was clear things were going to be more difficult than anticipated.

THE CASE OF THE MISSING PERIOD

After a couple of months of not getting my period (which I thought was typical, considering I had been on BC for a good chunk of my adult life), my doctor said, “Nope, that’s not normal,” and referred me to an OB/GYN.

A little back story, I never had a typical cycle. The reason I went on BC was to help regulate it. When I was younger, I had my period more often than not, which is obviously, not ideal.

In hindsight, if I could go back in time, I would never have gone on BC and would have instead tried to find out the root cause of my cycle issues (Was it diet? Hormones?)

POLYCYSTIC OVARY SYNDROME (PCOS)

My OB/GYN ordered blood work and a uterine ultrasound. Despite being a normal weight and having healthy blood sugar levels, I met the criteria for having polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS).

My testosterone was elevated, I had cysts on my ovaries, and, at the time, cystic acne, among other things.

But I take that “diagnosis” lightly because to me, PCOS doesn’t give you an answer as to what is really happening in your body. More so, it’s just a signal that something is off, and it could be from your lifestyle. (This is a great blog post by Root and Revel on reversing PCOS naturally.)

When my period finally did return, it was irregular, to say the least, and my LH surge would never happen when it was meant to (if it happened at all).

If you’re not familiar with a woman’s reproductive cycle, ovulation usually occurs 14 days before your period and your LH surge happens a day or two before that.

That’s why women who are trying to conceive use the LH surge (which can be tested via urine) as a marker of when in the month they’re most fertile.

Side note: The surge when we conceived happened several weeks later than it was supposed to, but by that point, I had become so in tune with the signs my LH was elevated that I knew when to test.

For me, those signs included the soft spot on my scalp getting super sensitive as well as headaches.

Before I get to the one thing I believe helped me get pregnant, there are several other things I tried to help my body conceive.

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PROGESTERONE & LETROZOLE

Since I wasn’t getting my period, my OB/GYN recommended I try a combination of progesterone to get my cycle started, and then letrozole (name brand = Femara) to ovulate.

Letrozole is actually a medication for breast cancer, but one of the side effects is ovulation. A similar drug you may have heard of is Clomid.

I believe I only ended up doing one round of the pair of meds and did, in fact, get my period as well as ovulate. But conception was a no-go.

After that, my period seemed to be returning, however sporadically, so I didn’t take the medication again.

ACUPUNCTURE

When I was having trouble getting my period/ovulating/conceiving, I also started getting acupuncture about once a week for a stretch of several months.

And I will say, it did seem to help. Whether it was a coincidence or not, I did feel a shift in my body following the sessions and it appeared to have an impact on reestablishing my cycle (although it never did return to “normal”).

On a side note, in case anyone reading this is going through the same thing, during one of the instances of my period returning when I was getting acupuncture, I had awful lower back pain. It was unlike anything I’ve experienced before (yet I somehow still painted our entire downstairs living area).

I’m not sure why that happened, but I figure it’s a detail worth sharing.

CLEANING UP MY DIET

Knowing PCOS could be related to diet, I cleaned mine up straightaway. While I prefer to eat plant-based (a diet of mostly of vegetables, beans, fruit, other natural unprocessed foods, and no dairy), I ebb and flow in my commitment to it. But I went through a hardcore period of eating that way and also eliminating gluten (and this was during Christmas, to boot!)

I also read the book Yes You Can Get Pregnant by Aimee Raupp. She recommends incorporating fertility foods like spirulina, Matcha green tea, and royal jelly into your diet, among other things. So I did just that.

But that was late 2017/early 2018 and by the time summer rolled around, I had relaxed my eating habits quite a bit. When I eventually did get pregnant, I was eating buttery lobster rolls galore and indulging in my favorite summer foods, like bread and brie from our favorite shop in Maine.

But that’s not to say I don’t eat “healthy” even when I feel like I’m “indulging.” I think my standards for what is “healthy” are pretty high, so overall, I would still say I was putting a majority of good things in my body. I also never eat meat but do eat fish.

CLEANING UP MY BEAUTY ROUTINE

During this time, I also took a good hard look at the beauty products I was using. Looking back, I never had a notion of what clean beauty was. In the past, I’d use any old scented lotion, potion or foundation.

But learning about how chemicals in products can disrupt hormones or cause cancer made me realize I needed to clean out my medicine cabinet.

I invested in several skincare products from Beauty Counter; makeup from Mineral Fusion, Physicians Formula, etc.; and swapped out my shampoo, conditioner and hair products for gentler brands from Whole Foods.

Now when I shop for beauty supplies, I always search the Environmental Working Group’s (EWG) SkinDeep database first to see how they rank. You can also download EWG’s Healthy Living app for on-the-go shopping.

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THE ONE THING THAT HELPED ME GET PREGNANT

While I think all of the steps above were and are still are important, there is one thing that I truly believe helped us conceive … and it’s not even something designed for that specifically.

So what is this magic thing?

A hysterosalpingogram or HSG test, which is a diagnostic exam to check for blocked fallopian tubes.

Here’s how it works. A tube is inserted into your cervix (Nope, not very comfortable). Dye is injected through it and travels up into your fallopian tubes.

By looking at your fallopian tubes under X-ray, your doctor can see if the dye passes seamlessly through them or not. If it doesn’t, your tubes are blocked.

My test was performed at a hospital and I was told to take over-the-counter pain medicine about an hour beforehand. I was also told I would feel only minor discomfort.

That was not the case.

I felt pretty severe and painful cramping. I teared up during the procedure and the sweet nurse held my hand.

Immediately after the test, while I was changing, my doctor knocked on the door to tell me she needed to leave and that I should call and make an appointment to see her.

Naturally, this made me think something was wrong and I turned into a wreck, expecting the worst.

Several days later, I met with my doctor to get the results. In a moment of relief, she said my tubes are open and that I should have no trouble conceiving. However, she said I do have a slight “kink” in one of my tubes but it’s nothing that would hinder getting pregnant.

A few weeks after that, we conceived.

My theory? Even if my tubes weren’t “blocked” per se, I believe the HSG test helped open up any possible occlusions.

And there is science behind this theory. At least one study shows an HSG with an oil-based contrast dye significantly improves pregnancy rates by two to three times in women who have had trouble conceiving and haven’t previously undergone the diagnostic test.

I have no idea whether my HSG test used an oil-based dye or not, but it seems like too much of a coincidence that I got pregnant so soon afterward.

Let me also state, I am not a medical expert (although in my early career I was a health reporter and do love all things health-related!)

This is what I feel worked for me, but it might not be the answer for you, and that’s okay. There are still a lot of different ways out there to conceive.

My goal is to share my experience in the hopes of helping someone else who is traveling down the longer path of having a baby.