Healing to Conception

If you’ve read my post on how I healed from postpartum mood disorders you’ll have a little more insight as to how I am approaching healing and everyday life (as of today). This post is sharing how we approached conceiving our third baby.

When we were 3 years deep into trying to conceive our first baby I was so desperate to be pregnant that I was willing to start fertility treatment. We were fortunate enough that after our initial consult with the Dr. it was made clear that I did not ovulate like I had thought I already had. He sent us home to have one more attempt on our own and I was to return for lab work as soon as my next cycle began.

Two weeks later, I had a positive pregnancy test and instead of going in to monitor for fertility I went in for pregnancy labs. We went on to have a very boring low-risk pregnancy (absolutely NO complaints!) and beautiful home birth.

This time around, as desperate as I was to have another baby in our home, I was not as quick to use fertility treatment. I continued all my healing modalities that I have been using for the past year+. My TSH levels were in a “safe range” in March of 2019 so we decided to start trying to conceive again. Around this time I had been networking with local chiropractors to see about teaching HypnoBirthing classes at their locations. I had heard from almost all of them the benefits of chiropractic care and how it can aid in fertility. This sparked my attention.

During the planning process of our “Meet the Provider” event that 941 Wellness and I hosted, I met Dr. Jordan and Ms. Jenn from Pinnacle Chiropractic for the first time. They were both so genuine and caring individuals and just being around them was such a breath of fresh air! Hearing about the work and amazing results they were seeing with their pediatric families got me interested in utilizing their services for our family. Although Evie was 2.5 years old and healthy in all aspects, she was still not sleeping through the night - which meant neither were we.

We as a family went into care with Pinnacle Chiropractic and met the rest of the amazing team - Dr. Matt & Ms. Clare. After a few weeks of adjustments, Evie was successfully sleeping through the night. After a few months of care and month after month of heart and spirit breaking negative pregnancy tests, Zach and I decided to ask Dr. Jordan and Dr. Matt for additional information on the fertility protocol mentioned at our initial intake. What I LOVED more than any of the details they discussed was that for every question I asked if this protocol would help with “families with PCOS, endometriosis, etc.” they repeated “the protocol does not promise pregnancy, but instead, it aims to get your body as healthy as it can be. When your nervous system is functioning optimally, your reproductive system can as well.”

I know that might sound very anticlimactic and almost pessimistic to some (not having a guarantee of pregnancy) but it made more than enough sense to Zach and I. That is what I was looking for - to get to the root cause of why we were not already pregnant. We started the protocol in July of 2019 with the understanding that it takes a minimum of 4 months (cycles) to see results due to healthy egg (4 months) and sperm cycles (3 months).

The protocol had a handful of supplements that we both added to our daily regimen and we continued with our weekly chiropractic appointments per usual with a few minor tweaks with focus on fertility. The months continued and some were better than others. I remember one week distinctly where I had one of the biggest cries I can recall (the only other time being again when I was trying to conceive Evie) and just being at a place of heartbreak over not being pregnant yet.

In September I resumed my weekly acupuncture appointments with Dr. Deena at SRQ Community Acupuncture this time with the focus on fertility. There were a lot of stressful events during the first weeks of October including my birthday, a birth I had the honor of supporting, meeting with our realtor to list our house, painting a few rooms to get it ready to list, etc. Stressful or not my body has always operated like clock-work when it comes to my cycles. I woke up around 2 am 10/19/19 and I knew I was at least a few hours “late”. I grabbed the last pregnancy test I had and took it. There were no waiting 3 minutes, there was no waiting 30 seconds. I had my two big bold pink lines that I had been begging and praying for.

I took a few minutes to myself and baby just like I did my two previous positive tests, held the outside of my uterus and wept. Just like I did the last two times, I went and woke Zach up. He came in the bathroom and we just stood there in shock.

The few weeks prior to us conceiving I had lab results that came back with elevated TSH levels (6 - the highest I had ever been) and my antibody count was a lot higher than it had been in March. With that my functional medicine Dr. adjusted my thyroid medication.

We both had that information hanging over our heads as we stood in the bathroom holding each other and prayed over our newest Thorpling. I obviously didn’t go back to sleep and I scheduled labs for the first available appointment at 8am.

I am beyond thrilled to report that those labs came back beautifully! All my levels are in a healthy “perfect” range and have continued to stay there for our entire first trimester (as of this post).

It took us every bit of the 4+ of the months to conceive, but we did it with a FRACTION of the cost that we were looking at spending almost 4 years ago for IUI and or IVF. Not to mention all the other amazing benefits our bodies received during our adjustments and acupuncture appointments.

In conclusion, what was the thing we did differently? I can honestly say, there was not one thing. I truly believe it was a beautiful culmination of the chiropractor and acupuncture. What I loved most about this journey to our next babe is that both Zach and I had parts to play - we both had supplements, we both kept up our weekly chiropractor appointments, and Zach even went to acupuncture once or twice (which is a big deal!) It wasn’t me alone or me feeling I had the blame on my shoulders. We were in this together!

There is not a one size fits all when it comes to health. There is not a one size fits all when it comes to healing modalities. It’s ok to work with multiple care providers - with them all in the loop on what else you’re doing. All 3 of the care providers (functional medicine Dr., Chiropractors, & Acupuncturist) we worked with leading up to this pregnancy were all in support of each other and I feel had/have a very important hand to play in my initial healing on to conception and extending into the rest of this healthy pregnancy and you can bet my postpartum journey with this babe.

I can not thank my care providers enough for the amount of love and attention they have given me (and my family) along this seemingly long journey from healing to conception.