The information provided by our expert should not constitute a diagnosis of your condition. Always consult a medical practitioner or healthcare provider for a formal diagnosis. By making use of this content, you agree that ConceiveEasy and the expert assume no liability.
Have you been trying to conceive for a very long time but you have not been successful in achieving a pregnancy? Claim Your 20 Free Pregnancy Tests – Click Here
In fact, if you have been trying to conceive for a year while taking all of the steps in order to increase your chances of getting pregnant then you will want to visit your doctor so you can be assessed and see if a problem as to why pregnancy has not happened can be determined. Then that is when you will end up having to need some kind of fertility-related intervention.
However, if you have not prepared yourself at all about what needs to be done in order to increase the odds of achieving a pregnancy, then you may be making at least one of the 12 baby- making mistakes listed below:
If you have regular cycles and you are assuming when you are ovulating, which may likely be in the middle of your cycle, and you are only having sex once during the time that you think you are the most fertile- then you are most likely missing that real fertile opportunity.
Even if you are properly charting your cycles and you know when you are ovulating, If you only have sex once during your fertile window, you are not probably getting the timing 100% correct.
This is why it is important to have sex several times during your fertile window, which means it is best to have sex 3 days before you are ovulating in addition to having sex 1 day before ovulation. That way, your chances of achieving a pregnancy is increased! Having sex only once will not be helpful.
Go for at least every other day leading up to ovulation and then post-ovulation – so a minimum of 4-5x per cycle.
Failing to achieve a pregnancy due to having too much sex may sound counterintuitive. However, the fact of the matter is that if you are having sex too often then that will drain the sperm count. This means that if you are having sex during the best time for you to get pregnant, your partner may end up shooting blanks if you had sex too many times before the fertile window.
Again, it is ideal to have sex 3 days before ovulation, in addition to 1 day before ovulation – which may even be the day of ovulation if it were to happen later, so your chances conceiving are increased dramatically.
Your man needs time to build new swimmers so don’t have sex every day throughout your cycle!
If you are charting your ovulation by taking your body basal temperature (BBT) and you notice a spike- and then you tell your partner it is time to get busy, well you probably will not get pregnant if there is evidence that you have already ovulated.
Once the egg is released, it is only good for 12-24 hours. That means the egg quality disintegrates pretty quickly once it is out there. That also means it is ideal for you to have sperm in your tract waiting for that egg to come out while it is good and fresh, and that is why having sex a day before ovulation is ideal.
However, having sex while you know you have already ovulated will not help and you will end up with another visit from Aunt Flo.
This is why when you are getting to know your cycles by taking your BBT, you don’t have to be actively trying to conceive at this point. The purpose of you taking your temperatures before you start trying is for you to get to know your cycles and to see when you usually ovulate.
This way when you are ready to start trying, you will know when the best time to try, and that is always right before you ovulate!
If you are just guessing when you are fertile and you really haven’t tracked your cycles, and you are having sex when you pretty much feel like it, while keeping your fingers crossed that you will win the baby jackpot, you probably won’t unless you just hit it at the right time by coincidence.
If you have no idea when you are ovulating and you are guessing when you are fertile, and having sex on those days, well you are likely getting it wrong.
Some women think that they can get pregnant right after they finish their periods and don’t realize that their eggs need time to mature. Therefore, they have sex right after their periods are over and maybe at another time when it is completely wrong as well. Therefore, that is why they are not getting pregnant. The only time when pregnancy can be achieved whenever you have sex right after your period ends is if you have a 21-day cycle when you are likely ovulating on day 7. That is pretty much it!
If you are using lubricant while you are trying to get pregnant, that is probably why you are not conceiving.
Lubricants kill sperm.
And if you are close to ovulation, you will be naturally lubricated because your cervical mucus is abundant and looks like raw egg-whites at this time. Therefore, you don’t need any lubrication at all.
However, if you still prefer to rely on some lube for help, there are sperm-friendly ones out there like Pre-Seed. You can also use vegetable oil, olive oil, baby oil, and even egg whites which will not harm the sperm coming in.
If you did not visit your doctor before trying to conceive to get a general check-up or assessment, then this could very well be why you are not conceiving. If you are very overweight or underweight, then that in itself will have an impact on your ability to get pregnant.
If your blood sugar is higher than it should be, then that will affect your hormonal levels and inhibit ovulation. You may really need to make many adjustments to your health and habits before you should be trying to get pregnant. If you did not see your doctor about your general health, now is the time to do it.
At this point, your doctor will not treat you for infertility, especially if you have not been trying for a year and have not adjusted your lifestyle, weight, and haven’t been properly charting your cycles. Therefore, you need to see your doctor to assess your general health before getting pregnant.
Are you snacking on a bag of potato chips every night and had a Big Mac for dinner, and the night before you went to KFC to get take-out?
Are you skimping on fruits and vegetables, and are you using white bread to make sandwiches instead of whole-grain bread? If you said yes to any of this, then that right there is a big reason why you are not getting pregnant.
If you are eating foods like that, you are consuming a high amount of trans fats as well as refined sugar and simple carbohydrates. That will keep your insulin levels up, which will inhibit ovulation and ruin your chances of getting pregnant. Not to mention it is probably keeping your weight high!
What you need to do is stop eating junk food like that, which also includes heavily processed foods, cookies, cakes, white pasta, white rice, and candy- or at the very most if you must have some of it for a treat then put a tight limit on how much you consume. Like if you enjoy a little once a weekend or something, that is fine.
However, junk food is not fertility friendly and stick to fertility friendly foods that will help your hormonal levels level out and increase your chances of ovulating.
Fertility friendly foods include proteins from poultry, lean pork and lean beef, as well as from nuts, legumes, eggs, fish (but stay away from fish like tuna and shark meat that have high levels of mercury that can hurt your fertility as well and hurt the developing fetus) and other vegetable-based proteins. Also, go easy on the red meat because that can increase your cholesterol levels which will also hurt your chances of getting pregnant.
You will want to also eat complex carbohydrates which will give you the energy you need and will not increase your insulin levels such as fruits, vegetables, whole-grain bread, whole-grain pasta, whole-grain crackers and cereal, and legumes.
You will also want to make sure that you are getting plenty of healthy fats into you that will help regulate your hormone levels and will not cause you to gain weight. Examples of good fats are from avocados, salmon, and other fish, nuts, and seeds. Trans fats that you get from fast food or pastries are bad fats that will not help you in any way and those will cause weight gain! Not healthy fats!
You will also need to take prenatal vitamins in addition to folic acid to help prevent your unborn baby from developing neural tube defects.
If you are living a sedentary lifestyle and the only exercise that you are getting is walking a little around your house and a little at the supermarket while you are grocery shopping, then you need to be more active. Lack of physical activity is preventing your body from functioning fully due to poor circulation. That also will have a negative impact on your fertility.
If you are working out with high intensity for several hours each day, you are stressing your body out and that will impede your chances of ovulating properly. Have you ever heard of women training for marathons or bodybuilding having no periods? That hapens because it inhibits ovulation. With no ovulation, you can’t get pregnant. Those examples are extremes, but the same can apply to you.
Too much exercise will most definitely harm your odds of conceiving, so that means you need to take it a lot more easy!
Ideally, you should take a half hour brisk walk for 5 days a week in order to get enough exercise to keep your body functioning well, but that kind of exercise is moderate and will not stress your body out either!
Life is full of stress and we all know that. However, too much stress will affect your health and fertility, and there are ways to de-stress. You will want to take advantage of the methods use to de-stress such as taking up yoga, meditation, unwinding by reading a good book at the end of the day, listening to enjoyable music and watching a light program.
This is crucial to help you reduce stress levels which will help restore your fertility.
If you are having 6 cups of coffee a day and you are trying to conceive, you won’t because that is too much caffeine for your body to handle which will hurt your fertility. Stick to 1 cup of coffee a day, 2 at the very most and you will be fine.
If you have been trying to get pregnant for a while, and you know your cycles and know when you are ovulating and you have been taking good care of yourself and you still have not gotten pregnant, well you may not be the problem.
Your partner may be shooting blanks without either of you knowing this fact. If he is taking hot showers, wears constricting clothing around his scrotum like briefs and tight jeans, and his diet is poor, then he is likely the problem.
That means he needs to make changes to his diet, take luke-warm showers instead of hot, and wear briefs and anything else that will not constrict his area in order to help him develop healthy swimmers. He may want to consult a dietician or nutritionist that can help guide him as well.
If you have been correcting these mistakes for a year and a pregnancy has still not occurred, then you will need to see your doctor to be assessed further. But hopefully that will not happen and you will achieve a pregnancy quickly after making these modifications. Good luck!
Comments