FERTILITY
In 2019 I had a blood test to check what my ovarian reserves were, I knew that at 38 it would be harder to get pregnant when the time came for my partner and I to start a family but my AMH results left me feeling devastated.
My bloods gave a reading of 0.6 which basically meant that I had the same reserves of the average 45-50 year old woman, combined with the fact that my mum started menopause early left me scared that I would never be able to have children of my own. I was told that I wasn’t even a case for IVF as they wouldn’t be able to collect enough eggs from me and so I was told to go away and try. If I was lucky I would get pregnant, the sooner the better as I only potentially had two years luck left. Luck works for a lot of things in life but when it comes to having a child I wanted to hedge my bets and make sure I’d done everything I could do to help.
I read up on AMH (books below) there isn’t a lot out there. From what I could gather there were supplements that you could take to help fertility in general and that Co-q10 had been proven to help specifically for women with a low AMH, so I started taking co-q10 and Vit D along with a standard pre-conception supplement.
I also went to get acupuncture and started on chinese herbs that I took twice daily.
I gave up drinking and caffeine.
I started walking more and going to pilates (low impact exercise only if you are trying to conceive)
I drank beetroot juice (a small glass daily - as I knew that this helped blood flow in general which is very important when you want to get pregnant as you need to have lots of blood pumping around your uterus)
I upped my greens by making a daily smoothie (My fraud shake - this contained 100g / sometimes more of raw spinach)
I had a tumeric latte daily to help reduce any inflammation in my body
I re-introduced eggs and red meat into my diet as they are both excellent sources of all 9 amino acids.
I started all of of this in the November and was pregnant in February 2020, sadly I miscarried in March but I was over the moon that my body had been able to fall pregnant so this spurred me on. If I could do it once then I was doing something right and it gave me so much hope that it would happen again. I was also told at this point that as I’d managed to get pregnant naturally then I was ‘now a case for IVF’. I really didn’t want to go down this route unless it was my only option. I gave myself a time frame of 4 months to get pregnant naturally again, then sure enough in July at 2.5 weeks I had the two lines that I’d been waiting to see. This time I felt very calm about the whole process, I guess that was my brain’s response to me being okay with any possible outcome. Luckily this one or Dusty as he’s known today decided to stick around and in April 2021 we were blessed (and I truly mean that) with a beautiful baby boy.
I’ll never which of the above helped me fall pregnant with Dusty but I do know that I would do it all over again.
I hope that if you’ve been told you have a low AMH and you aren’t a case for IVF that this gives you some ideas and most importantly HOPE.
What I did and what I took . . .
Co-Q10 - X 100MG / 6 tablets daily - total dose 600 MG
VIT D X 1000 IU / 6 tablets daily - total dose 6000 IU
Pre-conception supplement / daily
Spinach 100g - 200g - my fraud shake recipe is perfect as you can’t taste the spinach - daily or 5 days per week
Beetroot 4 Juiced - daily or 5 days per week
Tumeric 2 tsp activated with black pepper - daily or 5 days per week
Chinese herbs as directed by herbalist - Once you are pregnant herbs to change to a ‘holding formula’ - If you are based in Sydney then I would recommend going to see Jacqui +61 402 139 790
Acupuncture to support fertility once or twice weekly - If you are based in Sydney then I would recommend going to see Jacqui +61 402 139 790
Low impact exercise daily 60 minutes walking or pilates (Walking is the best exercise and its completely free)
VERY IMPORTANT - No alcohol and no caffeine - essentially poison
5+ Eggs and 2 servings of red meat per week
