How do you stay positive when you’re trying to conceive – and you want a baby more than anything in the world? These tips are for women who are living with the disappointment of not getting pregnant after trying for months – or even years.
In this article, you’ll find tips from two real women who know how you feel. If you’re trying to conceive a baby and you know you need to stay positive but you just feel overwhelmed with hopelessness and fear, you’ll find words of comfort and healing here. These women share how they stayed positive after years of trying. One got pregnant against all odds — she’s a mom now! The other is still hoping to conceive and is practicing her own tips on how to stay positive.
Some hopeful mothers-to-be find it helpful to say prayers for women who are trying to get pregnant. Others have problems praying for a baby because they think God doesn’t care or is deliberately preventing pregnancy. And still others believe that learning how to stay positive when you’re trying to conceive is more effective than praying.
But here’s one thing we can all agree on: spiraling downward into depression, despair, and even self-pity is an unhealthy way to approach getting pregnant! Which is why we need these tips for staying positive during the process of conceiving a baby.
4 Ways to Stay Positive When You’re Trying to Conceive a Baby
It’s healthy to express your negative feelings or depression if you’re disappointed that you’re not pregnant, but don’t succumb to feeling sorry for yourself. Fight those feelings of hopelessness, bitterness, and anger. They’re not just emotionally toxic, they’re physically unhealthy for you and everyone around you…including your un-conceived, unborn baby.
1. Know that pregnancies happen – even after years of trying
“I didn’t get pregnant in an unusual way but my pregnancy was nothing short of miraculous!” says Patty, who stayed positive no matter what. “Both my husband and I were diagnosed infertile. I don’t have fallopian tubes – they were removed last year – and I have diminished ovarian reserve. My husband has terrible sperm quality (low sperm count and low sperm motility). We actually had one fertility clinic “fire us” after a terrible round of in vitro fertilization (IVF)!”
After four very high dose fertility treatments (IVFs with a drastic diet change, Patty got pregnant. She was 42 years old; her miracle baby is now four months old! She and her husband were one of those “couples coping with infertility” poster children but they got pregnant…even though they were told it was next to impossible.
2. Grieve the heartache of trying to conceive
“After I’m done wallowing in my pity party (when I find out I’m not pregnant) for about two days, I STOP,” says Kate, another woman who taught herself how to stay positive while trying to conceive. “It’s actually a meditation. I focus on everything good in my life – what I do have, not what I don’t have.”
This is a healthy way to overcome infertility fatigue or infertility depression. You don’t want to wallow in self-pity, but you do need to express your feelings.
3. Appreciate what you do have
Kate says, “Then I focus on all the ways our lives are interesting and different in comparison to how we’d live if we had children. My final thought always ends with our dogs. Dogs are one of the biggest gifts we’ll ever have – whether we get lucky and finally conceive or not. And no, we’re not the kind of couple who dresses them up in fruffy baby-replacement outfits and carts them around in a baby-dog carriage (though we have been known to give over to baby talk once in a while). They simply are one of the greatest ways to enhance this human life.”
4. Stay positive by savoring your favorite things
Kate loves coffee, sushi, soft cheese, and margaritas – but not all at once! “I’m not about to add insult to injury by making myself sick,” she says. “I’m staying positive in healthy ways because we want to conceive a healthy baby. I refuse to sink into unhealthy ways of coping or being miserable and negative because it’s taking so long.”
When I was trying to conceive, I stayed positive by planning exciting vacations that I couldn’t take if I had kids. Turkey, Israel, and even Costa Rica are places my husband and I have explored as we wait and tried to get pregnant.
How do you stay positive when you’re trying to conceive?
The Impatient Woman’s Guide to Getting Pregnant is a fantastic resource for women who are struggling to stay positive. In this book, author Jean Twenge gets to the heart of the emotional issues around trying to conceive, including how to prepare mentally and physically when thinking about getting pregnant. Jean also includes tips on how to talk about trying to conceive and infertility with family, friends, and your husband…as well as how to handle the great sadness of a miscarriage.
The Impatient Woman’s Guide to Getting Pregnant also offers practical tips, such as how to know when you’re ovulating, when to have sex, timing your pregnancy, maximizing your chances of getting pregnant, how to tilt the odds toward having a boy or a girl, and the best prenatal diet.
Are you worried about money and getting pregnant? Read How to Deal With Financial Stress During Fertility Treatments – the tips apply to women in all situations.
Feel free to share your own tips on how to stay positive when you’re trying to conceive in the comments section below! What works for one woman doesn’t work for everyone…but everything is worth trying, at least once 🙂
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