When Laura was first referred to me a few years ago, she called and said, “This is so vain, but I have this re-appearing rash all over my chin and neck that suddenly isn’t responding to any medications. One of my co-workers said you sometimes work with this sort of thing as a holistic counselor… do you think you can help?”  We agreed to a four-session block of appointments and off we went, quickly learning that the skin irritation, in Laura’s case, was linked to unacknowledged anger, which dissipated fairly effortlessly once it was all brought up to the surface.

Within a few weeks the rash was gone, too. Permanently. (On rare occasions it warns of a possible return, but Laura now knows how to tune into what the rash “is trying to say” and full-scale flare-ups just don’t happen anymore.)

During one of these early meetings, Laura disclosed that she and her husband had been trying for several years to get pregnant, that they’d recently been to the doctor to do some tests, and that they were seriously considering various medically-based fertility treatments. But after her success shifting things physically using our holistic model for her rash, she decided that she would put some of her doctor’s recommendations on hold for a few months and explore whether any emotional issues were to blame for her difficulties getting pregnant.

Let's see... cheaper. Less painful. And, potentially, lots of secondary gains on the happiness scale… “WHY NOT,” she said! “Let’s give it a shot!”

The first thing I had Laura do was draft out a list of her goals, her pie-in-the-sky picture of her best case scenario around conceiving a baby. She wrote this:

• I get pregnant in the divine, perfect time… without the use of medicine.
• I have an easy, healthy, and natural pregnancy.
• My physical body is prepared and healthy in all ways to carry a baby.
• I experience complete alignment with my physical, emotional, and spiritual Self during the process of trying to get pregnant - all the way through the birth.
• My husband is excited about his active role in my pregnancy: attending appointments, classes, exploring options, etc.
• Our relationships to each other and the new baby set up healthy communication patterns in the future for our family in a context of equality and mutual support.
• I feel complete clarity as to the priority decisions to make throughout this whole process.

“Ahhh,” she said, after word-smithing her intentions. “This feels SOO right to me.” And off we went again. During the course of the next several months, we explored a huge range of topics that had built up in her body over time.

We started shifting all the fears she had about how difficult it would be to get pregnant, how painful it would be to undergo some of the fertility treatments that she was scared were inevitable, how much of a failure she felt like she was for not being able to conceive easily, how it felt that her body had betrayed her, and how unfair it was that so many people around her were getting pregnant (including a few who didn’t even want to be moms). We systematically moved through these issues, clearing them on the physical and emotional levels simultaneously, until she started to feel truly different.

She described a newfound calmness, a sense of hope around becoming a mom. She and her husband began to feel like things were going to work out better than they had been thinking.

But the work wasn’t over, yet. We sifted through patterns that connected to financial fears, gender roles, holding intense emotions, “life is a struggle” belief-systems, self-consciousness around being a beautiful woman, and ideas about managing work and family life (Laura’s husband was working his way up the ladder of success, but would he be able to balance his career with being a dad?).

A lot of these themes are common for couples struggling to conceive, couples who dearly love each other and who genuinely want to be parents. There’s just a subtle (but dense) layer of sub-conscious patterns causing an also-subtle body-level ambivalence.

So part of you is saying, “I want to be a mom!” while another part of you is screaming, “What, are you crazy?!” When that happens, and in some form or fashion it’s happened to all of us at some point in our lives, the task is to calm down the part that’s rooted in the crazy fears (or not-so-crazy fears, as also might be the case), and get all those different parts of Self on the same page, the “YES” page. The “This will be amazing” page. The “We are supported completely” page.

Laura and I began our focus on fertility in April, and even though several times she had to work through the parts of her that felt like it was taking too long, it was never going to work, etc., by August she learned she was pregnant. The baby was born the following spring. Today Laura is a mother of three and she says she can barely remember what it was like to not be running around a noisy, toy-filled, chaotic house.

Now, that’s transformation!

(Part 2  will focus in on how the process works during one session… check back soon!)

Do you or your partner:

• Worry about fertility-related issues on a daily basis?  
• Struggle with major ups & downs all month?  
• Have trouble implementing the recommendations you know you need to do?
• Feel freaked out or completely disregarded when working with your fertility doctors? 

• Face daunting statistics? 
• Start to feel lost in hopelessness or uncertainty?
  
• Find it hard to juggle regular life and all the fertility dos/don'ts? 
• Notice your connection with each other is getting strained & that sex has become almost like a chore?
• Feel uneasy about the effects of medications/harsh treatments on your body?

 
If you said "Yes" more than once or twice, you're not alone... but you've got a problem. You're quite possibly setting yourself up to join the 76% of folks whose fertility treatments are unsuccessful. Why? 

Your body has been in fight/flight mode too much for too long... Which means your immune system is intensely strained. Your circulatory system isn't getting enough blood in - and toxins out - of your reproductive organs. You've got chronic inflammation. Your body thinks it's in crisis and reproduction is at the bottom of the priority list, physiologically speaking. I could go on.

You might be doing all kinds of amazing things to support your fertility. But chronic stress negates most of that good work. So when you're in this stress pattern, it's constantly two steps forward and one step back.

Emotionally, it's obviously not a lot of fun either. 
But let me tell you, it doesn’t have to be so hard and angst-y!


Great stress-busters:
yoga
nature moments
sex - feel free to self pleasure as necessary
walk
breathe

Also keep your eyes open - I'll be sharing more tips about ways to work more specifically with fertility-stress soon! 

What works for you? 
Do you have trouble getting yourself to prioritize relaxation?

Mary's Book Corner:

Orgasmic Birth - E. Davis and D. Pascali-Bonaro

If you're already pregnant and have a sneaking suspicion birth doesn't have to be characterized by difficulty, stress, and strain, this book is for you. (Spoiler alert: birth can feel pretty fan-freakin-tastic - yes, physically.) ;) 

If you are in the preconception stage and interested in improving your "fertility factors" as I like to call them, this information will support you with those intentions was well (and set you up for an awesome pregnancy to boot). 

I had to check out the "Orgasmic" movement, which I'm sure you've heard of, because… well… who doesn't like orgasms? And if even if it were just ONE woman who discovered a way to have orgasms during labor "contractions" (etc), wouldn't you want to know how she did it? 

I've always believed in the transformative, transcendent nature of the birth process, but don't think I'd ever opened up my mind to the true possibility of literal, physical orgasms during labor and birth. 

What a fun education. OF COURSE birth itself is a highly sexual event - and the more we connect in to that as a truth, the more pleasure we have available to us. 

Orgasmic birth might not be for everyone - for many it takes time & dedication to set up the energetics to allow such pleasure possibilities, thanks to our cultural programming, years of unprocessed emotions, and other out of alignment energies. 

But as you know, clearing up all that stuff happens to be my specialty.

So knowing that the work I do will directly support the orgasmic process the authors discuss in this book was good to hear! I encourage you to read this book - I know this information will be inspiring me both personally and professionally!

Click here to look it up on Amazon