If you’re anything like me, when you decided you wanted to try to have a baby (or another baby), you wanted to have it yesterday. Am I right? If there’s a book, magazine, journal, blog, forum, or website with tips and tricks to get pregnant quickly, I’ve read it. I have also talked to several people about their own personal “tips”, and have employed some of these tactics myself the first two times we conceived. For your baby-making pleasure, I have put together a list of the current health tips/strategies/products available to assist in getting pregnant. Now, there are several people out there who don’t believe you should actually “try” to get pregnant, they say “it’ll happen when it happens” and when “you’re not trying/thinking about it”… Good for them. Anyways- if you’re like me and refuse to believe certain things are completely out of your control, or you’d like to TRY to get pregnant at a certain time for scheduling purposes, you’ll appreciate this list of stuff to try to speed things up- it can’t hurt anyway. Enjoy, and happy trying!
1. Start with vitamins-
Approximately 3 months before you try to conceive you should begin taking a good prenatal vitamin. Make sure it has 800 mcg of folic acid, as well as DHA/EPA. Many women also add a B-complex vitamin. This can help prevent many (preventable) birth defects.
2. Cut out the bad habits-
Everyone knows you shouldn’t smoke or drink alcohol during pregnancy, but these things can decrease your fertility beforehand too. Same goes for caffeine, no more than 1 cup a day (ish) is recommended while trying to conceive or pregnant. This is also a good time to clean up your eating habits and increase your fruits, veggies, fish and poultry. Spinach, walnuts and eggs have been found to be especially good for fertility, and pineapple (mainly pineapple core) is said to aid implantation when eaten after ovulation. While you’re at it, add at least 30 min of light exercise to your daily routine and you’re all set.
3. Track your cycle and use ovulation predictor kits (opk’s)-
The average woman has a 28 day cycle. The average woman will ovulate in the middle of said cycle. However, not everyone works like clockwork. To help pinpoint when you will ovulate, use an opk every day starting when your period ends to find your LH surge (the hormone that will rise right before you ovulate). Many woman have this surge mid-day, so try using them in the early afternoon or evening hours so you don’t miss it. Once you get a positive, you know what to do. My favorite are by Wondfo, as they are very accurate and very cheap. Here is a link to order them on Amazon, where you can get 50 opk’s and 20 pregnancy test strips for $21.99 (plus shipping):
4. Improve your mucus (sorry, there’s no other way to say it)-
Cervical mucus is very important for getting pregnant, as it helps the sperm travel to the egg and survive there to wait for egg for a couple days. Drinking water helps this, Evening Primrose Oil (an herb you can take by capsule) helps this, and Robitussin helps this. Yes, Robitussin. Take recommended dosage a half hour before getting it on and it helps to thin mucus- everywhere. If you like to do things the easy way, there is a lubricant called PreSeed that mimics the body’s natural mucus and is sperm-friendly. NOTE: Most other lubricants are not! Here is a link for PreSeed, also available on Amazon for $19.96:
5. Try the Sperm Meets Egg Plan (SMEP)-
With perfectly timed intercourse, a couple only has about a 25% chance (ish) of conceiving every month. The SMEP is a schedule of timed intercourse meant to make sure you are doing it at the right time to give conception the best opportunity. Here’s a link for more info on the SMEP.
6. FertiliTea-
FertiliTea is a (wait for it…) TEA that many woman swear helped them conceive almost instantaneously, if you believe the hype. It has vitex (a dried plant/fruit) in it, among other herbs, and is said to regulate cycles, balance female hormones and increase ovulation. Others protest that drinking this tea messed up their monthly cycle- but still others swear by it. The gist I’ve gotten is, if you have an irregular cycle and/or ovulation, it could help you. If you have a very regular cycle/ovulation already, you might not want to mess with a good thing. Feel free to give it a go, but do your research and decide what you feel comfortable with before trying it. Here is a link for FertiliTea, on Amazon for $14.95.
7. Random things-
Many people have their own little tricks and suggestions that they insist will help you conceive. Some of these include doing fertility acupuncture, using castor oil packs to “cleanse” the reproductive system, lying with legs in the air after sex, lighting fertility candles (yes, they have these), wearing fertility bracelets (yes, they have these) and saying conception prayers to St. Gerard, St. Anne, and St. Rita (apparently, they can help you). A quick Google search on any of these things will turn you up loads of info.
Whatever you decide to do or not do, try not to stress! It could happen right away, or it could take a few tries (or more), which is perfectly normal. It’s not a race. Keep it fun and enjoy the process; soon, you may have a tiny little baby screaming in the next room! 🙂
