Wow, its been a really long time since I wrote in my blog. For anyone following, I’m sorry for leaving you behind. Once I became pregnant I got this sudden fear of sharing too much and wanting to just hog all the glory to myself. But now, I’m ready to get back on and share where we’re at! I’m currently 32 weeks pregnant, which means we only have 9 weeks tops until we welcome our little guy into this world!

While I’m super nervous of what life will entail after this little miracle is born; life with two kids, how exhausted I’ll be, will breast feeding work, so many unknowns. But with these unknowns, I can’t help but think about how we got here and how special this pregnancy really is. The two failed transfers before this successful one didn’t give me much help. I was almost positive that I was broken, my body wasn’t capable of creating or holding on to a baby… The first two transfers I did so many things that were supposed to help with implantation. I drank red raspberry tea, I put my legs on the wall, I did bed rest for one and no bed rest for the other, I ate and drank only warm foods, etc… I felt like I did it all. So, when it was time for the third transfer I was kind of at a loss of the things I could do to help. People would say, “its either going to work, or its not, theres not much you can do to increase your chance.” That answer wasn’t good enough for me, I couldn’t just do nothing.

So, along with my protocol and doctor change I tried to research more things. I felt like with the first two transfers I was so stressed out, worried and sad that it wouldn’t work and maybe that had a lot to do with it. Well, I found a wonderful program that I thought would maybe be one more thing to help this transfer work and couldn’t find a reason it would hurt. The program is called Mindfulness Fertility Series. I cannot say enough wonderful things about this program as I truly believe it got me where I am today. It was a 6 week course that was designed to help reduce stress and be mindful of your fertility. I had to commit to an hour once a week from 4:30-5:30 which at first sounded quite challenging having a 5 year old in the house (keeping her quiet is not an easy task). But after talking with the husband, he thought I needed to make it work. He said you need to figure out a way to do this course, bribe her, offer her candy, whatever you need to do. So I did. Every Thursday from 4:30-5:30 I would let her watch whatever movie she wanted and could have a treat after as long as she was as quiet as could be and could be self sufficient for that hour.

So the class began, this was two weeks from time of my next transfer and I was already in a more positive mindset just because I had signed up for the course. This was a conference call that I had to call into which was very easy to do from my computer, and would be easy to do from a smartphone as well. I could see myself and the other people that were doing the course and felt this immediate sense of relief. I wasn’t the only one. I didn’t know any of these other women (there were 10-12 of us) but seeing their faces gave me a sense of realness. (I have an instagram with over 900 followers dedicated to my embryo adoption) This was the first time feeling connected to real live people even though I had no idea their situation. We all waited to get started and then we did. We started with 3 deep breaths, this was extremely relaxing and really helped ease into introductions. We then all told our stories, why we were doing the course. There was everything from trying to get pregnant naturally, trying to reduce stress before their next transfer or IUI, starting over after miscarriage or loss, etc… You could hear the hurt in some of their voices and I hoped that they felt like I felt, just a little bit better knowing they weren’t alone.

After every class Sarah would send us a detailed document of the things we discussed and things to practice before next class, this was helpful as we didn’t really take notes during the class. So after the first class we really dove into how to be mindful during this stressful time of infertility. Every class would begin with the deep breaths and a check in of everyone’s week. There was one person who was waiting to hear if her transfer had took and so seeing her face during the class just made me smile, no matter her outcome, she was so so brave for sharing with us her strengths and weaknesses. We spoke about our ways that we practiced being mindful that week, whether it was taking baths, walking through the forest and listening to the leaves crunch, practiced yoga, did meditation, found a meditation app or maybe we weren’t mindful at all, and for recognizing that, we were being mindful. There was a class that taught some basic infertility yoga poses, with a live yoga instructor that we could follow along (unfortunately, I missed that one but got to watch it later). We talked about the foods we are putting in our bodies and how important it is to eat Organic if you can. One of the classes even taught self hypnotherapy which is so very helpful in this whole process. A great thing about the class was the ability to go watch or rewatch the class at a later time, because well life happens. This class had Sarah and Amira teaching the class, helping us learn techniques and they do it so well.

What did this 6 week course do for me? This course helped me immensely dig much deeper into myself and learn how to do things I’ve never been able to do. One day after my transfer I was walking my dog through a wooded area near our house and I noticed myself smiling as I was walking. I noticed the beauty that I was walking through and I noticed that I noticed. I felt so mindful. Another time during this I took a bath; normally I’m looking at my phone, sitting in the hot hot water not disengaging at all. But this bath was different, I turned on one of the meditation podcasts that Sarah and Amira mentioned and was relaxing more than ever before. Another thing I did during this course was I found myself happy and calm, I found that I could accomplish this if I put my mind to it. I was scared the first two transfers, so scared it wouldn’t work. This time was different. Although it was scary I felt like if it didn’t work I would be ok.

Well guess what? It worked, that transfer worked and I’m happy to say I believe this course really helped me get where I needed to be in my mind in order to be successful. The Mindfulness Fertility Series not only helped me learn about my body pre transfer, but it also helped me through my pregnancy. It helped be aware and how to come back to center when I needed it most. I can’t recommend this course enough and I highly suggest if you’re struggling to get pregnant naturally, or going through an IVF cycle you enroll in this course! You won’t be sorry 🙂

The Early Bird special starts today 9/17 and expires 9/20- Class starts on 9/27

You will be so happy you signed up!

https://payhip.com/b/v6YV/af5b9ea009ed4bd

Thanks for sticking around everyone! I truly appreciate you and your comments and support. xoxo