restorative yoga

My fertility journey was my biggest life lesson so far… it taught me self nurture, that working 10-12 hour days is ridiculous, that it’s ok to ask for help, that just because I can run, lift heavy weights and have strong abs I’m fit… I had a lot to learn here… Restorative yoga is a form of exercise my friends. And lastly just because my partner and I were young and fit and eager as hell to be parents, that doesn’t entitle us to an easy pregnancy… fertility goes deeper than that as stress, fear, rest, diet and hormonal balance are also major factors to conceiving successfully… everyone’s fertility story is different. Some fall pregnant straight away while others take years… our journey to pregnancy took us 1 year and 6 months. I know for many of you your journey has been much longer and I hope my story may help you in some way.

My husband was ready long before me to have kids. While I always wanted them, and knew one day Kyle and I would raise a family I knew I wasn’t ready. I already had too many commitments with my business and wanted to do more travel. A few months after our trip back from Europe (after experiencing an extremely stressful situation in business and real estate) I knew I was ready for a change and maybe it was time to focus on something other than my business… children! Children really do change your life, so I guess there’s never a right time to want kids or fall pregnant. But no one or nothing can actually tell or show you how life changing it is. Kyle and I were confident we’d make great parents. We’d been blessed with many nieces and nephews and were very much involved in their lives and had great parent models who taught us so much about parenting.

It’s such an awkward, beautiful, uncertain and exciting moment when you make love for the first time with your partner to try conceive a baby! It becomes a lot of fun after the first few times… so we went to our GP and got all the needed tests to make sure everything was good and on working order! We got the 100%, go for it! A few months in and after a few friends falling pregnant straight away we began to worry a little but just did a little research and were a little more precise about making love around my ovulation time. But unfortunately that still didnt work for us. Truth was, it got to that point about 6 months in when others we knew were falling pregnant and felt like there was babies all around us that one night I completely broke down and did the whole ‘why us?’, ‘what are we doing wrong?’. The uncontrollable really got on top of me. I’m that type of person that when I really want something I’ll do all I can to make it happen. But this was one of those things that don’t always have answers, something you can’t necessarily have control of. It will happen when it’s meant to happen. Then one day when someone asked me… ‘Tenille can you see yourself with children?’ I answered, ‘Yes, definitely and I know we’ll be great parents.’ And my friend replied ‘ well you will have them. One way or another you will work it out and make it possible.’ After another 6 months of charting my cycle and ovulation I decided that I was just going to not think about it anymore and just let it happen when it happens. Mind you since going off the pill my period was very irregular so it was hard to know exactly when I was ovulating. Kyle and I went on a holiday and even had a conversation about IVF, adopting etc. we even decided that if we couldn’t have kids we were going to sign up for the navy together- haha! I think deep down I knew that there were certain stresses in my life that were affecting my cycle and being able to conceive… I needed to work less, sleep more, stop worrying about money and do more for me.

I decided I would begin restorative yoga as heard this helped for fertility plus thought it would be great for me to just relax, switch off and do something more gentle on the body. I was so nervous during my first session and by the end of the class I realised how badly I needed to do more of it. I found it so hard to fully relax and switch off. I mean, I’d done heaps of yoga in the past but it was a much faster pace, with lots of asanas (poses) and strength. I’m that type of person who finds any form of exercise very easy and enjoyable- but restorative yoga was a challenge so i knew my mind and body needed more of it. And so from that moment on I decided I needed less running, weights, cardio and more restorative-type exercise (yoga, walking, meditation)… it was fucking hard. I didn’t love it at first as it frustrated me but I grew to love it and respect my body more and understand my mind and body more. My teacher advised I try acupuncture as well.

So i started acupuncture… this was more for the sleeping and relaxation at first but then I discovered how beneficial it is for fertility. My acupuncturist did a saliva test which showed my hormones were all over the place (just shows your regular blood test isn’t as accurate which is why it didn’t show any of this). My acupuncturist told me to wait 3 months until trying for a baby again so she could get my body in the best state possible to fall pregnant successful. First i noticed my sleep improved, then I my periods and cycle’s were more regular and I felt so much more relaxed and in tune with my body. I’ve always been well body aware but more on at a physical level. Acupuncture and restorative practices gave me a deeper level of body awareness… physically, mentally and emotionally. I also believe that my treatments with my therapists were successful as I believed in what they were doing, I was comfortable with them and put all my trust in their experience and knowledge so I did as they advised me.

Just over 3 months of Acupuncture and my therapist told me my body is ready to conceive. I then did a juice cleanse (just cause I wanted to before christmas and it was the in thing at that time) and did a little more self discovering at a weekend Yoga Retreat with the amazing Darci. I was feeling amazing and wasn’t really thinking about the whole pregnancy thing as was so lost in how I was feeling (which was amazing- relaxed, content, centered, healthy) and how much I had learnt about myself.  It was December 2013 and I had an awesome Christmas Season with all my family and friends, partying, drinking, late nights, eating great food, working little. January came and I did not get a period. OMG… I really thought this is it. My acupuncturist was right I am pregnant. In excitement I did a pregnancy test… it came back negative. Over the next 3 weeks I did another 2 tests… still NEGATIVE. It was early February and still no period and I was so sure I felt different. I did another test… and got a POSITIVE result! I went to the doctors and I was 7 weeks pregnant! I felt like I was on a cloud. I actually didn’t tell Kyle until my doctor told me I was 100% pregnant as it had been such an emotional journey for us I needed to be sure before me knew. I actually gave him a wrapped box with the positive pregnancy tests inside… He cried! We cried! Shit… we were so excited and filled with so much love and joy. I would have never of thought that my Fertility journey would inspire me to write a book about Natural Preparations for Fertility. And so my pregnancy journey began…

Stay tuned for my Pregnancy story next week…

In Health & Happiness,

Tenille

P.S. If you are interested (or know of someone who would benefit) I have written a book on Natural Preparations for Fertility & Pregnancy… https://awomanswellness.com/product/fertilityebook/