Many women (and men) in the midst of trying to conceive and having some trouble will start to avoid social situations where they know they will encounter pregnant women or babies. While these sights don’t usually bother me, I can understand how seeing others who have something you want so badly but don’t have (yet) can spark feelings of envy, longing, even worse, doubts about your own self worth.
But Fully Fertile: A Holistic 12-Week Plan for Optimal Fertility points out that this aversion could be counterproductive to your own efforts at reproduction.
Just like laughter and optimism tend to be contagious, …read more

Chapter six of Fully Fertile: A 12-Week Plan for Optimal Fertility is entitled, Identifying and Eliminating Your Stressors, and in it, a section is dedicated to your job and the stresses it brings to your life:
So many women who are trying to conceive wonder if quitting their jobs would reduce their stress, and, therefore, enhance their chances of getting pregnant…Here’s the problem. So much of what we do for a living shapes our ego identity…
This got me to thinking…
Am I defined by my job? Is what I do from 9-5 Monday through Friday (and then some) what I choose …read more

I know that I keep tempting you with a full book review of Fully Fertile: A 12-Week Plan for Optimal Fertility, but the more I read, the more I think it makes sense to share some of the “a ha!” moments it provides to me, as they are happening. Look for several of these this week.
If you haven’t noticed, I am loving this book. Just loving it. It is at my bedside. I read at least a few pages every day. It soothes me. It makes me feel just a little more in control of my destiny by allowing me …read more

Qi (you know, chi, pronounced “chee”) could be just as important to your baby-making ability as the more physical parts of the equation. Kind of like prana, Qi can be translated to mean “life energy” and according to my new favorite book, Qi:
flows within us and around us, giving all things life, animation, warmth and form. Similar to electricity, Qi is invisible but its effects can be seen. When the Qi is flowing in harmony, the body is able to take care of itself. However, the flow of Qi can become obstructed or unbalanced.
And balancing and freeing up that Qi …read more

It happened.
Tonight around 7 p.m.
I went to a yoga class that absolutely kicked *ss (and kicked my *ass to boot). It was fabulous. It was wonderful. It was hard!!! Holy crap is your body supposed to do that? Frankly, I was amazed at what my own body was doing. I had no idea.
Unlike the morning classes taught by a very new-agey, very talky and slow-moving lady, tonight’s class was fast-paced, incredibly challenging and not for the stiff. I was forewarned by a yoga-fiend friend that this particular instructor was very hands on. Think you are at your maximum capacity in …read more

I confess. I have a stack of summer reading to do and I have been avoiding all of the titles that are fertility-related. Because I just haven’t been ready to focus on my own fertility until we got some things out of the way first.
But now I am ready to crack them open again. Start where I left off. And, most important, share what I’ve found with you.
You might recall my little teaser about Fully Fertile: A 12-Week Plan for Optimal Fertility a month ago. This book, created by the founders of Pulling Down the Moon, a Chicago-based holistic …read more

I am in the midst of reading a great book entitled, Fully Fertile: A 12-Week Plan for Optimal Fertility (check back later this month for a full review), and I keep being struck with sentences that just make sense. Like this one which talks about prana, or life-energy:

From a mystical standpoint, the breath is believed to bring prana, or life-energy, into the body. This life-energy is considered divine, the spark that illuminates all beings. When we are full of prana, we are healthy and at peace mentally and spiritually. For fertility, it stands to reason that we want to maximize …read more