(I loved readying other people’s stories on what they did differently to get pregnant. So I wanted to share in case I could help anyone)

It took us 7 months to conceive and that was with me going immediately off birth control after many years on it. The entire time we used preseed and I didn’t always put my legs in the air but I would clamp my legs together for maybe 20ish minutes before cleaning up.

In the last few months my husband and I made a lot of changes.

1) I got on a healthyish kick. In the last 3 months, we switched to organic. Fruits and veggies first. I quit buying canned veggies and only fresh or frozen.

2) we cut back eating out from 1-2 times a week to 1-2 times a month by opting into a meal subscription. We use Bite Meals. They’re healthy already prepared meals that you just heat up. It’s great for nights you don’t want to cook.

3) I cut dairy out completely this month. Milk hasn’t been agreeing with my stomach for almost a year but I finally cut out cheese and sour cream and the works. 4) ive never been a huge meat fan (besides an occasional burger. 😂) so I cut back on meat. From maybe meat with 18 out of the 21 meals a week to about 1-4 meals a week. It really helped me to eat more veggies too. I also tried to keep my proportions of carbs healthy. Not cutting back but not packing it on to make up for no meat.

5) it may be a small thing but I quit consuming products with red dye number 40 and yellow 5 and in general most food coloring.

6) we switched to more organic food overall. Glyphosate is found in many foods and is known to cause cancer as well as infertility. I would highly recommend looking into it.

7) I started tracking bbt to see if I was ovulating. It was extremely helpful if only to ease my mind that at least there was an egg. It was annoying waking up early even on weekends but so worth it. On the month we conceived I didn’t track anything. I was feeling defeated in conceiving but confident about the regularity of my cycle to go off of date predictions but to add extra days to our fertile window, just in case.

8) I cut back on sugar. I did a round of whole 30 in January and it was so helpful. I used to have the worst sugar cravings and not be able to control them.

9) and lastly more of a social/mental change is I opened up to my closest friend. We hadn’t told anyone (besides the glow community) that we were trying. My husband is my rock and best friend, he was always there for me through this but it still felt so lonely. The month I opened up was the month we conceived. I don’t know if it had any physiological affect but it was so helpful to voice my stress and fear.

For my husband he also ate the organic meals and snacks that I made. A few other things about him is that he’s military so he works out daily. He also started going to the gym 3x a week for more muscle development. He’s so healthy already. For non fertility reasons we had his sperm analyzed and his numbers were good. He did have a little bit of a high viscosity and liquefaction time, but overall was said to be normal. If you’re having a hard time with it I would suggest getting it done even without insurance. I think in our area it was maybe $50-$75 without insurance. It took some worry off of us and made us feel like we weren’t wasting 12 months of baby trying.

1) he started taking omega 3 fish oils. It was for muscle recovery but it was something new that he did in the last 2 months.

2) he’s so into this journey with me he vowed that he wouldn’t have alcohol until we conceived. That was about 2 months before it happened.

I love glow. Reading people’s stories is so helpful and gives hope when you need it. But for me, (and I’m sure it happens to others but I never see it on glow) I didn’t get a positive, not even a faint line until I was about 15 dpo, or one day late for me. That was a little frustrating, so don’t give up. Everyone is different. Just because you don’t get positives at 7dpo or even 10dpo like it seems most do on here, doesn’t mean you’re out.

I will be praying for healthy mamas and babies. And so much baby dust for those trying. My heart goes out to you all. 💙💙