What I learnt about egg health while trying to conceive

When egg health becomes an issue

I have a confession to make: I just didn’t believe that much in egg health in the early days of my journey. I was a total sceptic. I’d fallen pregnant with my first child annoyingly easily and my egg levels have tested very high from the AMH test so I was a bit ambivalent about it all.

Changing my lifestyle to improve egg health

Caring for my eggs seemed to be really hard work too. I mean yeah, I could cut out alcohol and I didn’t smoke or take drugs of any sort so surely I had the bases covered. Did I really have to go to the trouble of cutting out dairy and red meat, eat an alkaline diet and take a bazillion supplements every day?

I cleaned up my diet, eating less sugar and processed foods, but resisted against anything else. I’m not sure why I did this. Self-protection of some sort perhaps? I wanted a baby but all this felt so hard. I honestly thought it would just happen eventually. And then I had two chemical pregnancies and it looked like we were going to have to spend big bucks on the whole IVF shebang. What can I say?

Things got real. And I got real about egg health. Some of the thing I did to help with this were:

• Acupuncture
• Massage
• Light exercise
• Clean diet – no processed foods. Lots of fresh fruit and veg. Nothing out of a packet, even bread!
• Avoid the naughty ones – caffeine (I know!!), alcohol and cigarettes. A sneaky wine here and there won’t kill you but that’s what it has to be. Not a daily drink.
• Fertility supplements – but only those with solid research backing up their use

Reducing stress

Stress is the enemy of the body but it is impossible not to feel it when you are going through an experience as intense as this. So we need to counteract this stress with moments of relaxation which is why I incorporated things like massage and acupuncture into my routine.  

I also did meditations and Fertility Coaching which was invaluable in getting my head straight. Without those things, I felt like I was seriously about to lose the plot after a while. I won’t lie, in some moments it is hard to live like this (I mean, no coffee, right?!) but I just kept telling myself it was only for a set period and it didn’t hurt me to live a healthier lifestyle anyway.

If you wind up doing IVF you will be pumping that body so full of hormones that make you cranky and tired and all sorts of things so if you have lots of the good stuff going on before you even start the process you have a better chance of dealing with it all when you are in the thick of it.

I promise this to be true. Please trust me on this.

It is frustrating if you do all these things and still doesn’t get good results. I get it. You start to wonder what it is all for and feel like a failure like you didn’t do it right. But this is so not true. While you can impact your egg health and it is worthwhile to take steps to do this –  you are not holding a magic wand that will immediately restore your fertility if you just take these 13 pills and only drink herbal tea for three months! You are just giving your body the best chance it can get. No more, no less.

It starts with the egg

I would highly recommend reading ‘It starts with the egg’ by Rebecca Fett. I found reading this was transformational, really accessible and easy-to-read but grounded in science.

Good luck. It is a rocky road. I truly hope you find peace and strength as you continue on your journey.