3 Ways To Mentally Prepare For Being Pregnant One Day

Preparing for anything worthwhile in life takes work. If you think of the things you have poured yourself into, they have all required thinking, planning, and feeling through, whether it was a career, a year traveling the world, or a great relationship. Which is why it’s a little odd that we don’t always expect preparing for pregnancy to take any amount of sincere effort. Here’s some very real talk; preparation is just as important when you are trying to get pregnant. As a fertility acupuncturist finally seeing a trend toward open conversations about fertility, I think one reason women don’t discuss preparation as much as we should is because we tend to think of pregnancy from a limited biological standpoint. Pregnancy seems like something that just happens, right? Until it doesn’t.

After over 16 years treating fertility issues, I can promise you that pregnancy is first and foremost about change. Change in itself often requires that we stretch emotionally, physically, mentally, and spiritually. This is even more true with pregnancy. Your body changes, your priorities change, your mentality changes, and the way you approach your life transforms too.

As much as getting real requires examining lifestyle factors that need to be changed, don’t go overboard. There is a certain amount of trust that you need to have in the process of becoming pregnant. Women who do not conceive right away or who experience an early pregnancy loss often default to feeling shameful about their bodies and ability to bear a child. Keeping in mind that you are a whole, beautiful human being who will be fine no matter how your process goes is a very important thing to remember. When you love yourself, you can endure things that come your way. Each of these things is essential in preparing to become a conscious parent who is prepared for the ups and downs of life with children.

The truth is that preparing for pregnancy is not something we talk about a lot. It is a huge life transition that sometimes our society leads us to think just "happens" by itself. That might have been true decades ago, but women today often live stressful work-intensive lives that require we pause before walking into pregnancy. We owe it to ourselves to prepare and to feel empowered during this phase of life.