Conscious conception is the term given to the act of a couple actively choosing to get pregnant.
I don't like the term "trying." To me it denotes this idea of obsessively forcing one's way into pregnancy. To be quite frank, when someone asks if you're "trying" or a Doctor says "just have sex multiple times a week" what they're asking/talking about is the act of ejaculation into the vagina, something that I think is no one else's business.
Our mindset was that we would not avoid contraception altogether--if I intuitively felt called to use or not use contraception, we would follow that desire.
But even well before this point, I had started reading books, changed my diet, changed cleaning/beauty products and attended an intuitive birthing class. This all started over a year before we conceived, by my personal choice. It is also important to note that we didn't fall pregnant straight away even though we are young and healthy, so do not be disheartened if it doesn't happen for you.
GLOSSARY
IMPORTANT NOTES BEFORE READING
I am not a healthcare professional AND you don't have to do any of this if you don't want to. For me, knowing how much resistance, fear and doubt I had about myself and surrounding pregnancy and birth, I needed to take these actions to feel better. Your actions might be different. If you feel better seeing a doctor rather than doing what I did, please do that.
These activities are also not subject to just females. Your partner can be as involved as they want to be, and you can always ask them for support in whatever way feels best for you.
Books
I read the first half of Zen Mama's by Teresa Palmer and Sarah Wright Olsen. This gave me an honest insight into the journey of pregnancy. One special mention from this book is the research they did: there is a common belief held that you cannot tell people about your pregnancy until you are 12 weeks pregnant in case of miscarriage--the statistics given in Zen Mama's book states that the risk of miscarriage after seeing a fetal heartbeat at 7 weeks drops to 4% and at 8 weeks the risk drops to 1.6% so do not let that 12 week mark scare you. I told my most important family members around week 5 or 6 despite those statistics.
I read some samples of other books, most notably Birth Journey's by Leonie MacDonald which was honest and insightful, Nurture which gives a week-by-week guide to pregnancy, Expecting Better by Emily Oster which starts out by giving you a foolproof way of making your own decisions for your pregnancy, birth and postnatal choices, and Transformed by Birth by Britta Bushnell which sits, unread, on my bookshelf--this one relates the mysticism of Ancient mythology with the realities of birthing, and is therefore a very niche book of interest to me personally.
My husband and I are currently moving through Ina May's Guide to Childbirth by Ina May Gaskin, a highly renowned midwife in the birthing world.
It is important to note that all of these books are about changing the limiting beliefs we have about pregnancy and childbirth and transforming those into beliefs of wonder, amazement and beauty whilst still holding the honest truth of the journey of motherhood.
Diet Changes
I already had a very good, clean, mostly fresh diet, however I knew that there were specific nutrients you needed--thank you books--in addition to the good old regular ones. I also knew there were other things, like caffeine for example, that were suggested to be avoided, so I did my research.
Folate
To be clear, folic acid converts to folate in our bodies. It is very important for our baby's development.
Yes, companies do put folic acid into cereals and breads--which might actually be why in the modern world we pregnant women crave dried, savoury foods, a personal evolutionary theory of mine--however cereals and breads also lack other nutrients.
I did a deep dive, looking into studies where scientists had tested different foods, different ways of preparing those foods and how much Folate is provided. I started adding leafy greens like buk choy and pak choy in addition to green beans, broccoli, kidney beans, oranges and mandarines into my diet alongside the other foods I was already eating that contained folic acid (particularly, meats).
When I looked at those studies showing the micrograms and did the math on my daily food intake, I realised that I would be ingesting enough folate to not even need supplementation!*
*doctors will usually suggest you get on a multivitamin. I am lucky that my doctor cared enough to ask about my diet and current supplementation, so I was not directed towards a multivitamin.
Obviously pregnancy is a better time than ever to take action on changing your diet if you know you eat poorly, and it's really not that hard. It's fun even. For 4 years, we never changed the veggies and fruits we were buying!
Vitamins that are also important are Iron, Omega 3's, vitamin D and Iodine.
Iron
I take Blackmores Bio-Iron which contains 300mcg of Folate (almost the recommended daily intake) and plenty of Iron alongside B-vitamins which can aid nausea. Not only is iron fantastic or energy levels, when you're pregnant you're also creating more blood in your system!
Omega's
I try to get my Omega's from food where I can such as fish and chia seeds. This helps avoid neural tube defects but isn't something to obsess over.
Vitamin D
With vitamin D, I once read a study that said we absorb more vitamin D after ingesting protein, so around lunch time I will try to eat in the sun. Most people who see the sun won't have a problem with vitamin D. You can always ask a doctor to test these in your next blood test.
Iodine
Iodine is an easy one--you can purchase Iodised Salt (instead of table salt or himalayan pink salt) from your grocery store. It is much stronger than other salts so when adding to a meal, be sure to start small and taste as you go along. Iodine also helps with breast pain from PMS.
Important note: I am not a doctor or nutritionist so as a legal precaution I must state that I am speaking from experience and personal research and urge you to consult a healthcare professional.
Caffeine
I had already quit coffee once before (with major headaches for two weeks--STILL worth it) and had been having a coffee once every Saturday for my husband and my date mornings. Quitting that one coffee a week was easy. I also noticed that when I drank Kombucha in the afternoon two nights in a row, I couldn't sleep that night, so I looked at the ingredients list and sure enough, it's main ingredient is black tea!
Now you don't have to stop drinking caffeine HOWEVER it does increase your heart rate and stress levels which are good to avoid in the lead up to pregnancy, and caffeine masks how tired you actually are. When you repeatedly drink coffee every day, you are giving your body a reliance on an external stimuli (it's a drug, literally) rather than addressing the real problem, i.e. an unregulated nervous system or poor sleep or sleep habits.
Exercise
I changed from HIIT workouts to Pilates. Pilates, when instructed correctly, strengthens your pelvic floor--muscles you will use to push out a child. I just use Move With Nicole's Pilates videos on YouTube. Nothing fancy! This video of hers is a great place to start, as it teaches you how to activate your pelvic floor.
For years I have been doing gentle yoga in the morning, mainly for aches and pains, but also for my mind and relieving stress. Keeping your stress low is super beneficial for falling pregnant.
Any form of movement can be deemed exercise, so even going for a walk each morning (which we started doing before work once I found out I was pregnant) counts too!
Yoni + Body Healing
I have experience sexual trauma before and I knew how my journey feeling safe with sex was long and hard, so I also summised that giving birth, especially if I am to have strangers around me during that process, would feel vulnerable and unsafe to me. I also learned that sexual trauma can tighten the cervix--the part of the womb that connects the vagina to the uterus, the canal the baby comes through which is best flexible--so I did something about it.
A long time ago, I bought a small Yoni Wand, which is a conical cylindrical crystal. You are advised to clean it (obviously), apply some lubrication, and push the wand inside your vagina until you reach a block... your cervix. Applying light pressure at first, you hold the wand there and breathe, learning to relax. Your cervix starts to soften, and then you can apply a little more pressure, relaxing and breathing into that. You don't have to have experience sexual trauma to benefit from this practice.
I also repaired my relationship with my body by connecting with it more. Regardless of if you've have sexual trauma or not, we become so disassociated with our bodies throughout every day life. This disconnect can leave us feeling alienated to our bodies and freak us out when we do need to be present with our bodies, or even cause us to ignore our body's intuitive signals for help.
Seeing how healing this would be important for pregnancy and birth, once a week, I tried to give myself slow massages (not the sexual kind) with coconut oil all over to connect myself with my body, to become more present, to de-stress and slow down. This sometimes incorporated dancing, very rarely include sexual touch and eventually changed to simply applying coconut oil to my legs and any shaved areas (and now that I'm pregnant, breasts).
Changing Beauty, Cleaning and Kitchen Products
I've always been into natural and organic skin care (because of my experience working with intense cosmeceutical products) and deodorant because my husband has very sensitive skin. I've done two whole blog posts about the Best Natural Deodorants to Try and Toxins to Avoid in Beauty Products using evidence-based research which you can read by clicking them.
Beauty
As I said above, we use natural deodorant. Your armpits are an area where you sweat out toxins, but anti-perspirant blocks that! It can also mess with your hormones, something you don't want if you're wanting to fall pregnant.
I also stopped using body moisturiser and switched to using straight up Coconut Oil. For a while, I used it as a facial moisturiser too but the skin of my face didn't like it, so I switched to using Moosh Naturals, which is a local Brisbane brand dedicated to using ingredients that are world-class standards of non-carcinogenic. I highly recommend them!
In terms of make-up, I've been using Elleebana Elleeplex Mascara for a long time because it is much gentler on your lashes and I chose to switch to Lust Minerals for my foundation and powder. LM is a Sunshine Coast-based business dedicated to mineral make-up that mimics high-end results. Mineral make-up is much gentler for our skin.
Cleaning
I also changed my floor cleaner, multi-purpose spray and avoid using Mortein at any cost, other than cockroach baits which I have hidden in spaces a baby couldn't reach--we get so many cockroaches in our little basement!
I use a mixture of white vinegar and an essential oil (Palmarosa is the only one I had) for my mutli-purpose spray, and I have also used that same mix as floor cleaner before. The current floor cleaner I use is Earth Choices' Floor Surface Cleaner.
Kitchen
My husband holds so much information about new research on health and I tend to trust him with his knowledge, although sometimes I refuse to succumb to his rules and do my own things because I also get freedom of choice!
When he told me about the research on plastics, microplastics and teflon/non-stick, how they leech into our foods and contribute to infertility and can make us sick particularly when heated, we switched to stainless steel cookware (this actually happened YEARS ago), metal or wooden cooking utensils, glass food containers, glass cups and glass water bottles. Yes, we have broken many bottles over the years, however if you get the one that I have from Woolworths, the external rubber protects the glass from breaking AND it also has a wooden lid, not a plastic one!
If you're not sold on this idea when it comes to non-stick cookware, I highly recommend you watch the movie Dark Waters with Mark Ruffalo and Anne Hathaway which is based on a true story.
Pre-Conception, Pregnancy & Birth Class
I had the pleasure of attending one of Intuitive Birthing Brisbane's events. At this stage (January 2023) I knew my husband was ready to have kids--with absolutely no pressure put on me at all--and I felt hesitant. I would change my mind a lot, and I had a lot of fear. So I found Renee's page and event and it was the best decision I ever made.
Renee hosted this event in Brisbane city, where we met up with two other couples, and spent half the day being so deeply educated about the processes of pregnancy, birth and even the medical system and options available to us. I loved this event because it was very aligned to my way of life--focussing on the process as a beautiful, natural experience rather than a medical process, and personal shares from Renee of her experience leading up to motherhood. We were given delicious snacks, got to hear the gorgeous Angel (her name, not her role... although she is also an absolute Angel) sing and play music for us while we meditated, got to do some light sharing about where we were at mentally, emotionally and physically and some connection work with our partners... although my husband can't stay serious for too long and started being silly with it.
You can find these guys on Instagram:
A Final Reminder
AGAIN, I am not a healthcare professional AND you don't have to do any of this if you don't want to. For me, knowing how much resistance, fear and doubt I had about myself and surrounding pregnancy and birth, I needed to take these actions to feel better. Your actions might be different.
Men can also do a LOT to help their fertility as well, such as reducing drugs and alcohol for 6 months, taking a zinc supplement to help with sperm health, and joining you in the above lifestyle changes.
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