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Whoo doggie. If you are clicking on this particular topic, you are feeling some pressure. And maybe, just maybe, a smidge of guilt. Or more. But you've come to the right place.
Let me put your mind at ease. I'm Nicole Lange, evidence-based holistic fertility educator and acupuncturist extraordinaire, and I have been a part of thousands of IVFs, IUIs, and good old-fashioned sexy intercourse cycles and I'm here to tell you, you cannot be too sad or guarded or distracted to get pregnant. That's basically it. Video over.
Okay, so how about this. Let me convince you why having these feelings aren't going to wreck your odds. Here's what I'm about to teach you. We'll talk about grief and sadness, feeling guarded, being distracted, and the big picture takeaways to move forward, even with these feelings, with purpose.
Now these are ideas that I see so many of my patients struggle with. And when I teach them what I'm about to teach you, it helps so much. So I hope you're going to leave this video feeling good about feeling whatever it is you feel. Welcome to the Am I Too Sad, Guarded, or Distracted To Get Pregnant video.
Grief, sadness, loss. This stuff is all really heavy and intense. It's also really human. Chaplain Kate Braestrup says it pretty perfectly in her story called The House of Mourning. She says, "You can trust a human being with grief because it's just love squaring up to its oldest enemy, and after all these mortal years, love is up to the challenge."
So, the first thing I want you to remember when you're heading into a cycle sad, is that when you're sad there's almost always a flip side of love there. We might be missing something we had or longing for something we want, or some of both. But love, and the big feeling heart, and the oh so human capacity to care, even when it hurts, isn't a weakness and isn't something that'll hold you back. It's actually probably part of why you're still going.
I've been to IVF transfers where I just held onto a hand and let the person or the couple cry. Sometimes I've even cried with them. In one instance it was when an embryo they thought they were going to transfer, their only girl, didn't thaw. In another it was because a really close friend had unexpectedly committed suicide the days before. And I have witnessed so many tearful, sadness-tinged cycles where it should have been a due date, but instead there was a loss and it felt like being back at sucky square one.
Many of these cycles worked. Some of them didn't. But not any more or less often than the happy excited cycles that I see. Because the truth is you can't be too sad to get pregnant because you can't have too much love in your heart to get pregnant, and you can't be too human to get pregnant.
You feel whatever you feel because your circumstances make however you feel the only real option. Embrace that. Be kind to yourself. And try to believe, because it is absolutely true, that your cycle can work even when all you want to do is curl up and cry. And also know that as your circumstances unfold and change, you're going to feel exactly the right way at every step. And eventually that's not going to be just sad. At least not all the time. But if that's how it is now, that is okay.
Hope kind of does spring eternal. But that doesn't mean you have to be a ridiculous Susie Sunshine and be positive and pumped to do something that has basically broken your heart and disappointed you. That's basically bit you on the [toy horn] before.
If the steps that led up to this particular moment involve things going south over and over and over, if you've constantly landed on the crappy side of statistics every dang time, and if you're now pretty much positive you're destined to keep winning the crappy luck lottery, it'd be really weird for you to be anything less than super guarded as you head back into the old gladiator ring again.
Just like in the situations where sadness is front and center, when you feel guarded you feel what you feel because your circumstances make that the only appropriate and authentic option on the table.
In sadness, I think of love being that undercurrent that can feel a little reassuring. In guardedness I think the flip side is determination and grit, which is another beautiful and uniquely human thing. If you really 100% think that you're guarded and you don't think this can work, then ask yourself, 'Why are you still trying?' 'Why are you paying attention to ovulation or taking those medications or going through these procedures and to these appointments?'
No one who was 100% sure that things would fail would do half as much as what you're doing. So you do believe, it just feels too raw and too vulnerable to wear that all on your sleeve. And so instead you muster that grit and you guard yourself as best you can to keep going. That's not bad, that's just gumption.
I just worked with a person who said it just felt easier to convince herself she wasn't pregnant at every step to guard her heart because her last two pregnancies had ended in miscarriage.
So she went into her first blood test sure that it was negative. And it wasn't.
She went into her second blood work sure it was going to be bad news. And it wasn't.
She went into her six week ultrasound certain it would be no heartbeat. There was one.
And you guessed it, she went into her nine week ultrasound convinced something would be bad, and it wasn't again.
At that point she started to feel this glimmer of hope that she might actually have a baby after all. But that was actually after the point where she passed where her other two pregnancies would have ended. In other words, her circumstances finally lined up for her to feel less guarded.
At every step I reassured her, research proves time and time again that it's way healthier to own your authentic feelings, and deal with them, than to fight them or pretend like they don't exist and fake something else like positivity. I hope you'll remember that too.
When I think about the people that I've seen who are worried about being too distracted, it actually makes me smile because they're usually distracted with something pretty great. Maybe a new puppy or a toddler or a kitten or accepting a new job. In the last year alone, I can think of two puppy distractions, one kitten, a handful of toddlers, and one new job. And they all ended well.
Usually in the case of the toddlers, their parents are heading into a frozen embryo transfer, and they feel a little extra guilty about being so distracted because the first time through they were all about prepping for IVF. And this time? Not so much. It truly is a second child kind of an issue.
But whether it's a new pet, or a needy human being, or a new job, with or without any prior success, I guarantee you at some point, usually many points actually, I'll hear people who are feeling distracted say things like:
"I should really be doing more supplements!"
"I should be focused on detoxing my entire diet!"
"I should be listening to that same exact guided meditation I did the last time!"
In other words, "I should be more focused on my uterus and my ovaries, but instead I'm going to puppy classes, or dealing with earaches and daycare, or training at work."
And this makes me feel ecstatic because I would literally pay money if I could get people who aren't in this sort of distracted state to magically get there. Because where being sad or being guarded doesn't hurt your odds, I actually think that being distracted like this helps.
The root of this sort of distraction is actually abundance. And that is my Single Biggest Concept video big idea. When life feels more abundant, the body feels less threatened and more willing to get pregnant. And I 1000% know that every single person can and should make big picture choices that move in a more abundant direction.
Sign up for my Single Biggest Concept video at thebabyyouwant.com under Fertility Freebies if you want to learn how. But, if you just organically have a setup where this just happens, you're super lucky. So don't feel like you're not doing enough because you're living your life instead of hyperventilating about what your ovaries or your uterus are doing. You should celebrate this situation because it's a good thing.
The main takeaway from this video is that as long as your feelings line up with your actual real life circumstances, you shouldn't feel one bit bad about having them. One of my favorite favorite phrases is 'Conditions being what they are, how can it be anything other than what it is?'
Think about that for a second. It's a pretty dang lovely, compassionate, and important big picture idea.
Now, I could rattle off so many studies that prove expressing feelings, even if the feelings are hard, is healthy and helps the body feel less threatened in measurable ways. Of course, none of this is to say, 'Well, just don't worry about it. You can still get pregnant. So carry on feeling sad and lonely and guarded and put yourself on the back burner.' Of course you should still take care of yourself. Of course your quality of life matters. But I just want you to choose self-care for the right reasons and do it in the right way.
If you force self-care out of desperation and guilt with the goal of feeling some unrealistic emotion that doesn't jive with your real life, I can pretty much guarantee you that you're gonna end up feeling even worse. Because you're gonna feel like you're failing. Like you're overwhelmed. Like you're doing it all from this clenchy threatened place. Now 'that' is the opposite of abundant and 'that' actually does hurt your odds.
When you choose self-care for the right reason, which is because you understand that these feelings don't make or break a pregnancy in one fell swoop at all, but that trauma and loss can make or break you, and you matter, you're going to do self-care the right way. It'll be from a place of self-compassion and love. It'll honor and work with your real feelings- not make you feel bad about having them. And it's going to be doable, moderate, evidence-based, and truly holistic. And these things all up your odds, even if you're still sad.
Infertility is super hard. But it is made harder when we have unrealistic expectations, unhelpful pressure, and we don't know how to call BS and do better. But now I hope that you can, and you do.
Let's review. We just covered grief and sadness, feeling guarded, and feeling distracted. And that none of these make you less likely to get pregnant.
I also gave you the big picture framework to move forward with purpose, however you're feeling.
I so hope that this video helps you shift your mindset in healthy ways. If you like ideas like these, please subscribe to this channel, give this video a thumbs up, and leave me a comment. Tell me what sort of messed up 'be positive' messages you've been told and how they make you feel. Share your story, share your thoughts. Thanks for taking the time with me today.
Remember, I created my full 90-day online program so that every single person going through infertility can move towards abundance, and move through and then on from infertility with more instead of less. I would absolutely love to be on your team. So check it out at thebabyyouwant.com.
And don't forget The Single Biggest Concept freebie video is such a fabulous companion to this video. So if you haven't signed up to get instant access, I've put the link in the description below.
Now get out there, and don't feel one bit guilty about being a human being with a big, amazing, feeling heart. You're doing great, and I'm out in the world cheering you on.

AM I TOO SAD, GUARDED, OR DISTRACTED TO GET PREGNANT?

Nicole Lange

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

TTC SEX STRESS

REALITY CHECK - PREGNANCY AFTER INFERTILITY