Preparing for Pregnancy

As many of you know now, we are expecting the greatest thing ever at the end of March. We are overwhelmed by the outpour of love we have received from all of you over the last several weeks. We are so blessed to have the best patients and people in our lives. Now that the secret is out, I have had so many questions about how I’ve been feeling and all of the things leading up to our pregnancy. I thought it would be a great opportunity to share some things here.

A little over a year ago, Paul and I were dreaming about our future and what we wanted it to look like. We do this every year and this year we knew it would look a little different. We knew we wanted to start a family and decided that this would be the year. That would give us (ok, let’s be real, me) some time to prepare for this next step. So, I started my pre-conception planning right then. I wanted to make sure that my body was physically, chemically and emotionally ready to carry a child and become a mother. I did not do all of this by myself. Along with the knowledge I already had, I searched out experts/mentors that could help me along the way. Here is a little of what I did and hope that it could help anyone in that time of life get ready for the big step.

The thing I started with was checking my bloodwork. I contacted a colleague of mine to order some lab work just to check my levels of some of the major things. It was a standard panel that included vitamin D levels, thyroid hormones, B12, inflammatory markers, infections like EBV and gut health. I wanted to get a baseline of how my labs looked so I knew from the beginning what I needed to work on. This is an important step if you don’t know where to begin. We want to make sure that all of your levels are OPTIMAL (not just in the normal ranges!) before you conceive so it gives you the best shot for a healthy baby.

Once I got bloodwork, the next step was to look at my diet. I have already done a lot of work at this over the years but I am going to address it because we all could use some work. This is something that conventional medicine won’t spend a lot of time on but it truly can affect fertility and conception. If we are eating sugary, processed, inflammatory foods as a staple of our diet, this can lead to endocrine (hormonal) issues that could hinder fertility. Along with fertility, if our gut is inflamed during pregnancy, that can cause inflammation in the baby and can lead to more allergy or immune related issues in our children. What we put in our mouth, we get out and can give to our babies. I suggest eating an anti-inflammatory diet - trying to get fresh, organic fruits and vegetables, good quality proteins and good fats. If we can cut inflammatory foods like gluten, dairy, corn, sugar, vegetable oils, and processed foods out of our diet, we feel so much better and can see a difference with our hormones and health.

Next, I took a deep dive into the physical components of getting my body ready for conception and pregnancy. Having a husband that is an expert in movement correction and exercise is one of the best perks of this whole planning time. He has been one of the biggest components for my physical health this past year. He programmed a protocol for me that would get my body strong and flexible for the demands that pregnancy puts on women’s bodies. He knew my weaknesses from my functional movement screen that he puts all of his clients through and created a protocol based on that as well as my goals of wanting to be able to move during pregnancy and post-partum. This was a game changer for me in this year. I was also introduced to something called Mercier Therapy by my sister. She is an acupuncturist/massage therapist that practices in Kansas. While home for one of the holidays, she worked on me and used this technique. It is designed to work on the pelvis and uterus to put the reproductive organs in the right position in the pelvic floor. If the uterus does not sit in the right place in the pelvis, implantation of the fetus can be compromised and can be a cause of infertility. Many women can actually have very hard cycles because of a uterine tilt as well. If the uterus doesn’t sit in the right position, the lining can not shed completely and our body will cramp more to try to get it all out. This is where we see painful cycles as well as PCOS, endometriosis, etc.

With my previous history of being a runner, I was worried about how my uterus was sitting in my pelvis. She did some amazing magic and I almost immediately noticed a difference. I also had one of the best cycles I had in a year after she worked on me. Naturally, I had to find someone here in Tennessee to help me with it. I found Brittany Anderson who is a Nurse Practitioner to work with me. Along with looking at my bloodwork and taking recommendations for changes, she does Mercier Therapy as well. I have actually started checking this with all of my women in this time of life at the office as well. This movement piece is very underestimated in fertility and conception.

These are just some of the things that I checked in my year leading up to our conception of this baby. There is another important topic that I will share in a later blog that deserves a blog of its own. As I have been talking in the mode of pregnancy, know that these topics can apply to anybody in any time of life. This information is important for those of you working on other aspects in your life. What we do to care for our bodies transcends into whatever part of life we are in at the moment. What we do now can and will affect us in the future. We get to decide what we do about it.

Crystal Rodenbeck1 Comment