My husband always quotes this saying 'Fail to prepare prepare to fail' (I think originally it came from Benjamin Franklin but not too sure). It basically means that if you don’t prepare for something there is more chance it won't be successful.

Now for a vast majority of the population this doesn't apply to fertility and trying for a baby. For many people pregnancy can 'just happen' with very little input or thought.

Unfortunately for those of us battling infertility or fertility struggles this logic doesn't always apply. I remember going into my first round of IVF thinking it would fix everything, we wouldn't need to worry because we had science on our side. As you can imagine this was not the case. 

It wasn't until our fourth round of treatment that we really took preparation seriously. Both me and my husband made big changes to our lifestyle, we stopped drinking alcohol and looked at ways to better support our mental health and I’m so pleased we did. This was the first time we had good-quality embryos that made it to day 5 and we were lucky enough to have 2 for freezing (previous cycles had resulted in minimal poorer-quality embryos and nothing for freezing).

Since then I have seen this scenario play out over and over again with my clients. Only last week I received a message to say that my client was 10 weeks pregnant and had conceived in the month prior to starting IVF. All the changes she had made in the 4 months leading up to treatment had worked their magic. Obviously this won’t be the case for everyone and IVF is an amazing option that has helped millions of people become parents (including myself).

Fertility struggles and infertility can make you feel as though you have very limited control over your body and any potential pregnancy.  So why not try and control what you can? Maximise the areas you do have some control over to ensure you are giving yourself the best possible outcome? It can feel so empowering knowing you have done everything you possibly could regardless of the outcome.

If you would like to know what you can do to prepare yourself for IVF you can access all my online resources through the below link