Parenting
10 Tips for Staying Positive While Trying to Conceive
Guest Blogger: Debbie Keene 
Whether you just started last month or are in the middle of a year-long attempt, it is hard not to lose your patience when trying to conceive. As each month passes, hold on to hope and stay positive with these 10 tips:
1. Stay Busy During the Two-Week Wait
Stop letting the TWW take over your life. Focus on other things and people to get your mind off what you can’t control. Plan a girls’ nights with your friends, a date with your partner or take on extra work to keep you busy and active instead of at home counting the days.
2. Don’t Let Your Period Pull You Down for Days
If you are using an ovulation calendar from FirstResponse.com, you’ll likely know exactly when your period should or shouldn’t arrive. If it does come, you aren’t expected to be cheery but try not to let its arrival pull you down for days. Instead try to change your perspective and expect your period to come. Then, if it doesn’t, you’ll be more surprised than disappointed.
3. Remember and Reclaim What You Used to Love
The excitement and stress of starting a family can easily cause you to forget what you used to think about and do in your spare time. Get out a pen and paper and make a list of your favorite pastimes, hobbies and activities you did alone, with your spouse or with friends. Everyday try to check one item off the list.
4. Spend More Time With Your Spouse
Trying to conceive is notorious for turning sex into a chore. Spend some time with your spouse that doesn’t require planned intimacy. Go for a walk, take a mini vacation, play sports together or sign up for a class and talk about something other than getting pregnant.
5. Take Time to Relax
Settle your nerves and take time each day to relax. Take a bath, paint your toenails, do yoga or whatever mind and body therapies that soothe you. Breathe, believe, and don’t lose hope.
6. Surround Yourself With Positivity
Whether it is people or the situations you find yourself in, be surrounded by positive influences to help keep your head up. On a good day, pin up note cards with positive words and phrases on them for you to see everyday. Words like “beautiful”, “healthy”, and “balanced”, will remind you to smile on the harder days.
7. Acknowledge Hard Feelings
Preconception isn’t all butterflies, rainbows, and women who never feel down. It’s OK to let yourself experience sad emotions, whether it’s fear, anxiety, or grief. Acknowledge those feelings and work through them instead of hiding or denying them – which is unhealthy and unproductive.
8. Stop Obsessing Over What Ifs
It’s inevitable that thoughts of pregnancy symptoms will cross your mind every now and then. Swollen breasts, abdominal twinges – these things can generally make us giddy with “what if” excitement. You don’t have to totally ignore these thoughts, but try to keep them balanced and controlled, so your imagination doesn’t get the best of you and cause you to have anxiety or extreme highs and lows.
9. Seek Support and Let Others Help
Trying to conceive is an intimate, personal topic, and even more so when it is taking longer than you expected. While it is OK to keep things between you and your spouse, consider letting a friend or family member help. Trusted confidants can offer love and support and know how to serve you better if they know what is going on. If you don’t want to share quite yet with anyone close, join an online forum.
10. Take a Break
Don’t be afraid to take a month or two off. Giving yourself a break doesn’t mean you are giving up; it just means you are taking some time to regroup.
About the Author
Debbie Keene is a physician and health writer who lives in Nebraska.
