Our Journey to Parenthood: How Struggling to Get Pregnant Grew Our Faith

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If you’ve been following my story, you know that my husband and I lost our first child to a miscarriage at just 9 weeks in the fall of 2019.

Following this loss, we were absolutely devastated. We walked through a season of grief that felt like it was going to crush us. 

We cried and we mourned and we questioned everything. We struggled with our faith and believing God was still good when our little one was gone. 

I struggled with the guilt of being unsure about motherhood and not being initially excited about that pregnancy. 

But eventually, we learned that in grief there can still be hope and that in our time of devastation God was still with us. He has our little one in His arms and one day we will get to meet them. 

As we moved forward, we both knew we wanted to try for another baby. God used that loss to soften my heart toward motherhood, and I knew this was something I wanted. 

So, in the months following our loss, we looked forward with hope that we would become parents to a little one we’d get to meet here on earth. 

The first pregnancy came so easily that both of us assumed it would happen again fairly quickly. After a few months and multiple negative tests, I started to wonder if something might be wrong or if there was something more we should be doing. 

I began doing as much research as I could about fertility and what could be done naturally to give us the best possible chance of conceiving, 

After a few weeks and countless hours of research and reading, here are some of the things we did to help us conceive our rainbow baby and how God moved in us through that experience. 

1. I began taking prenatal vitamins. 

This one may be obvious to some women, but it wasn’t until a few months into trying for our little babe that I realized how important taking a prenatal is when you’re trying to conceive. 

While I ate a generally very healthy diet prior to getting pregnant, there are nutrients that most American women are deficient in that are vital during those first few months of pregnancy, such as iron, folate, and vitamin D. 

Trying to conceive is about so much more than your current cycle. The egg you release during your current cycle is the sum of the 3-6 months prior to that cycle. 

So the health of that egg depends on your nutrition and hormones for the months leading up to when you try to conceive. That’s why women are encouraged to begin taking prenatal vitamins 3-6 months before attempting to get pregnant. 

I began taking prenatal vitamins in March of 2020 and we conceived again in May of 2020, but that conception resulted in a very early loss called a chemical pregnancy. 

These are the ones I started and taking have been ever since. They are a military spouse and Christian-owned company that I love supporting.

2. I began to seek ways to naturally balance my hormones and have a healthier period. 

One of the biggest things I learned on this journey is that as a woman, I was given almost no practical information about my own body and how it worked. 

God designed our bodies to work in a beautiful way, but often things get out of alignment due to a variety of factors, such as stress and nutritional deficiencies.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve suffered from extremely painful and disruptive periods, starting from my very first one at age 10. 

I had extreme PMS each month and I went years believing feeling this way and experiencing pain so intense it made me sick was normal. 

It is not. 

It’s a sign of an unhealthy menstrual cycle, likely caused by a hormonal imbalance. 

Female hormones regulate everything about the menstrual cycle and if they are off-balance, this can make it harder to get pregnant and have a healthy baby. 

After a lot of research and recommendations, I made some changes to my diet and began taking a supplement called Vitex that is a natural herb that supports female reproductive health. 

I began taking this supplement in mid-June of 2020 and I already felt a difference in my subsequent periods. We conceived again in July of 2020, but this conception also resulted in another chemical pregnancy loss. 

3. My husband began taking a daily multivitamin that supports male fertility. 

Something that pregnancy and fertility experts rarely focus on is male fertility. Conception is 50/50 and the male contribution is just as important as the female, at least for fertilization and embryo health. 

Most information I was reading focused on my health, my nutrition, and my exposure to toxins, but eventually I ran across someone who pointed out that my husband’s health was just as important as mine. 

So, he worked on his nutrition as well and made some product swaps (which I talk about below), and began taking a daily vitamin that supports male fertility. 

He began taking his supplement in June of 2020.

4. I cleaned up my health and beauty products and household cleaners. 

I started this process before I got pregnant the first time, but after experiencing that loss, I dove in deeper. 

I began researching more about the chemicals I was putting on my body and using in my home and slowly began to replace them with safer, more natural options. 

Many of the beauty and home products we regularly use contain ingredients that are banned in other countries and are known as endocrine disruptors, and even carcinogens. 

I utilized the Think Dirty app and the EWG app to help me see what items in my home were potentially toxic to my health. 

Some of the main brands I now use are:

Primally Pure products for my skin and deodorant.
Innersense Organic products for my hair.
Seventh Generation products for my home.

5. I read It Starts With The Egg and implemented the basic recommendations.

I learned so much from this book about the science of egg quality and fertility. I appreciated this approach to infertility and trying to conceive after loss because the claims were rooted in science. 

The author recommends some supplements and lifestyle changes that we implemented in our home, such as adding a COQ10 supplement for both myself and my husband, reducing our use of plastic, and adding an additional Vitamin D supplement. (This is the one I use)

Just a few months after reading this book and implementing the recommendations, we learned that I was pregnant with a healthy baby in August of 2020. 

6. We prayed and prayed and prayed some more. 

We prayed deeply and fervently for the conception of this child. 

We had others praying for us for a year, hoping to hear the news that we were expecting. 

Our families were praying patiently for another grandchild, niece, and cousin.

It was hard to let others in on something so personal, but we knew we needed other believers to lift us up in prayer and to encourage us when things got hard.

Some days we prayed through tears, some days through gritted teeth, and other days with hands lifted with hope.

While I’m so thankful we only had to wait a year, that was a very hard year. I know we were being held up by the prayers of our family and friends.

Never underestimate the power of a praying community.

7. We learned to trust God’s timing and His plan for our family.

The biggest lesson we learned from being on this journey is that God’s timing is perfect, and His plan is better than ours.

Through the waiting, we had the choice to either keep trusting Him and keep believing that He is good, or to let our faith falter.

We were not perfect in this endeavor, but every time we chose to praise through the tears of another month and another negative test, our faith grew stronger.

Our hold on control in our lives grew weaker. Despite how hard this season was, we felt more peace as we let go of the control.

We were doing our part, but we knew God had to do His. And we waited. Sometimes with frustration, anxiety and fear, but mostly with hope.

We were 1 month away from seeking testing and medical assistance when we learned I was pregnant.

The timing of this miracle pregnancy is my favorite part of our story.

It was at the end of July 2020 and we had just gone through another very early chemical pregnancy loss.

We were set to go on vacation with my husband’s family in August and we had so hoped we would get to share the news of a pregnancy with them. The way my cycles fell, we were sure July was the last opportunity for that to happen.

A few weeks before we left for the beach with his family, I ordered an at-home fertility testing kit just as a starting point to see if everything with my hormones and levels was normal.

I was all set to take a blood sample on day 3 of my next cycle, which just happened to fall during our vacation.

I ended up not needing it because the week before we left for that trip we learned that I was pregnant.

I got a positive test earlier than I should have and was able to get into my doctor’s office for a blood test to confirm it the day we left for that trip.

We ended up getting to share that news with his family and as of the date of this post, I am 29 weeks along with a healthy baby.

God gets all the glory for this story and this little life. I pray it was encouraging to you.

Your Sister in Christ,