Preparing for Pregnancy

Before getting pregnant with Breckin I spent 2 months on a "fertility diet." A diet that helps regulate your cycles, and improves your overall health. Basically it's the way you should be eating anyways, limited sugar and carbs, lean proteins, more fruits and veggies, avoiding food that you can't eat while pregnant, etc. Before Breckin my cycles were all over the place. I started the diet and prenatal vitamins and within a month I had normal 28 day cycles. The idea is to improve your chances of having a healthy pregnancy. Whether it actually helps I don't know, but it makes me feel like I am actually doing something while I am waiting to conceive.

When preparing for my pregnancy with Breckin I had no trouble going on this diet. I easily gave up everything I had to. This time around it hasn't been so easy. I'm not sure what it is. I keep telling myself my body need to be healthy to increase my chances of a healthy pregnancy but I keep allowing myself to splurge and indulge in those things that I am going to have to give up in a few weeks. Things like sushi, SUGAR, red meat, carbs, etc. Maybe this time I have a better idea how long I am giving these things up. I felt it was important to eating this way through the year and a half that I breastfed as well. I often felt deprived. I was very aware that what I ate affected my breastmilk. I wanted to give him any chance possible to be healthy. 2 months of a fertility diet, 40 weeks of pregnancy, then 18 months of breastfeeding is a long time to stress about everything you put in your mouth and how it will affect your child. I'm a worrier though.

We have planned this pregnancy so carefully. We want the baby to be born at the end of the school year so I can go out for my maternity leave and not have to come back until the next school year. Because we have put such an emphasis on this due date timeline I have been terrified of having trouble getting pregnant or having a miscarriage. You would think I would be trying really hard to be healthy but instead I have been eating horribly and gaining weight. I need to put a note on my refrigerator saying "You are eating healthy so you can have a healthy pregnancy and baby."