My Preconception Plan
My husband and I met 5 years ago and right away we knew we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together. With both of us at the age of 27 and that we didn’t want to take things nice a slow. After 2 weeks dating we moved into together, after 1.5 years together he proposed to me in the most romantic way and than got married 6 months later. 6 months after getting married we moved out of the room we were renting and got our own apartment; it was a little scary but so liberating to have our place. We decided it was time to expand our family but we didn’t want to just jump into having a baby and not be prepared for all the things that come with having a baby.
When getting ready to have a baby we had some concerns about health and family history; both of our families have had health issues and we wanted to make sure these didn’t come up with our baby. Just a little background my mother had high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, anxiety, depression, over weight, CoPD, asthma, was always sick, was taking way too many medications and pain killers and ultimately passed away of a brain disease. These things were of big concern for us especially after learning that what my grandmother did to her body and her health will affect me, what my mother did to her body and her health will affect my baby.
We wanted to break that historical past and create a healthy life for our baby. We both have come a long way in changing our health and lifestyle but we still had some steps to take to help us feel comfortable. Every step of the way has been so exciting and enlightening, there were so many things about my body, babies and lifestyle that I had no idea about. I will go over the steps I took and than create a separate blog for each step in the hopes of inspiring other women and couples to take these steps when deciding to have a baby.
Step 1: Fix my Gut. I had a very stressful lifestyle when I was younger along with not sleeping right and eating crappy food all the time. It felt like out of nowhere one day I had lots of bloating and than my stomach would cramp anytime I ate starchy carbs, than it happened when I would eat eggs, than eventually it happened every time I ate anything. I felt tired and unmotivated. I learned that I had Leaky Gut, and I wanted to fix that because I felt so miserable all the time. I also learned that my microbiome was out of balance and that babies get their microbiome and immune system from their mothers. This was very important to us so this was top priority on our list.
Step 2: Genetic Testing. Both my husband and I didn’t know our ancestry and had no one to ask so it was great to learn where our families came from. Both our families had health issues and since my mother passed away of a brain disease I wanted to make sure that we knew everything we could that would come up with the baby.
Step 3: Hormone Balance. This was a big concern of mine; I was on hormonal birth control pill for 15-17 years and this was one cause of having leaky gut but also in my research finding out what hormonal birth control does to your hormones. Also your hormones play a huge role in daily life but also in the development of the baby so I wanted to make sure to have everything in balance. I also started tracking my cycle to know when it was safe to have sex and not get pregnant but also when was the optimal time to have sex to get pregnant.
Step 4: Remove Toxins. This has been a work in progress for about 4 years. I feel like I have removed about 80-90% of the toxins from our household cleaners and skin care and learning to control other environmental toxins like blue light exposure, wifi exposure, toxins in the air and negativity.
Step 5: Circadian Rhythm. This plays a role in balancing the hormones and this is your wake sleep cycle. Being up with the sun and getting optimal sun exposure and going to bed when the sun goes down and reducing blue light exposure helps you get better more restorative sleep. Getting proper sleep helps your body and brain function optimally and to heal.
Step 6: Nutrition. Nutrition plays a major role in our health and also the development of the baby. I was introduced to the health and wellness industry 5 years ago by my husband and I fell in love with the idea of supporting people to feel better and get healthy with food. I started out with basic education on nutrition than dove head first into more advanced bioindividuality training. I have come a long way in my own personal nutrition from having an eating disorder to now having a healthy relationship with food. This has a role to play in healing my gut, balancing hormones and circadian rhythm and a huge role in growing a healthy baby. I wanted to make sure I was getting all the nutrients my body needed to grow a baby.
Step 7: Prenantal. Being a Health Coach I am very particular about what things I put in my body and when your pregnant you need even more nutrients for the baby and your body becomes depleted. I started my prenatal about 3 months before conception to make sure my stores were full so during the first trimester when I might not be eating optimally I won’t be depleted. I chose to be on a vitamin, mineral, alkalizing pill and a probiotic.
Step 8: Set a conception date and get our apartment ready. This step was probably the hardest to achieve; my husband and I had had conversations about having a baby but couldn’t settle on when. I wanted the baby now and he wasn’t sure if we were ready. At this point I had done a lot of ground work to get ready to get pregnant so finally we set a date for summer and I patiently wait for that date to arrive and prepare our apartment so I won’t have a lot to do while pregnant. I painted our apartment, got a used changing station and painted it, cleaning, organizing, and minimizing things that we don’t actually need and getting just the essentials for the baby.
These are just the major steps I took to make sure I was ready for the baby and I will create a blog post for each step and many more things like our cloth diapering decision
Thank you for following my journey and your support. Please share with your friends and family and leave a comment below. I would love to hear from you on how I can make my blog better and what you would like me to discuss next.
