Are you able to trust the process?

So many people start their fertility journey full of hope and excitement. However, as time goes by those feelings can get eroded. Before you know it, doubt and fear have taken all those good feelings away. This often leads to losing trust in yourself, your body and trust in ever receiving a positive outcome. It’s completely understandable to feel this way of course when all you have to go on is a string of monthly disappointments and no guarantees for the future.

But what if I was to say to you that it is possible to trust in the process and yet still not be pregnant?

Wouldn’t that make for a better experience on this journey to motherhood?

These are my two top tips for learning how to trust more:

• Start saying no to whoever and whatever does not feel right for you. Saying no to what you do not want opens the door to what you desire.
• Listen to your gut feelings. It gives you clear warning signs that can help you navigate through any situation. Everyone has it, it shows up in many ways for example:
• A voice that calls out to you from within
• A lingering, repetitive thought
• A gut feeling that won’t go away

The problem is that often these messages are subtle. If you overthink or ignore these messages, chances are you end up thinking “I wish I’d listened and walked the other direction because now I’m going to be late” for example.

As you learn to listen to and follow your intuition, the more likely it is that you’ll develop a level of self-trust that enables you to make self-supportive choices.

Trusting your intuition takes practice. Also, your intuition grows from your internal value system. When what we believe in is clear, intuition provides us with the information we need to align with our values.  

Intuition also gives you a sense of inner wisdom as a basis for making choices and decisions that will not only restore your trust in yourself but it will make it less likely that you can be influenced, led off track, or betrayed by others. A prime example of this is a fertility doctor recommending you use donor eggs because you are a certain age, but not based on your personal medical history. Then your intuition may be saying in response that, donor eggs are not for me but your fear may be saying this may be my only chance for a baby…this is a primary example of where listening to intuition over fear is so important.

One reason that we often deny or ignore our intuition is that we are taught as children to be overly dependent on others. The same intuition that helps us to be self-reliant as adults may have gotten us into trouble as children. We may have been taught to check in with or listen to others before we decide for ourselves. I feel the pandemic is a primary example of this where we have been called to think for ourselves about what is right for our bodies.

Another intuition killer is that it is very common to dismiss, ignore, or deny your gut feeling because often the subtle vague ‘feelings’ go against what you have come to believe is common or acceptable in the world around you. For example, you may have 3 failed IVFs under your belt but suddenly you feel that now you need to try a more natural route and start a course of homeopathic treatment instead of doing more IVF but your IVF specialist wants you to try PRP instead? Your feeling may be that your baby wants to be conceived naturally but it’s hard for you to follow this feeling because your doctor is the expert and surely, he knows best… I would always argue that you alone know what is best for you beyond any expert.

Unfortunately, the best way to learn how and when to follow your intuition is in retrospect. Each time you find yourself in a difficult situation, or after you discover that your trust has been betrayed, I recommend you look back and think about what warning signs did you miss or ignore? What did you see or hear that you resisted or excused away?

Your intuition is also how you detect when a situation is not right for you, even when on the surface everything looks fine.

Everyone has got big challenges in their own life. What’s easy for one person is incredibly difficult for another. If you can tap into your intuition more you will overcome your biggest challenges quicker and more easily.

How has your intuition helped you on your fertility journey?