When is less more….when is more less?
I started watching this YouTube channel called “Simple Happy Zen” about a year ago when I was first starting my own YouTube channel. It’s hosted by Vera, a YouTube creator in the Netherlands. I was inspired by Vera’s sensibility and general loveliness. And I’ve always been drawn to the idea that there are times when “less is more.”
In my own fertility journey I had grappled with this notion…wondering if I should take supplements to lengthen my cycle, wondering if I should work with an acupuncturist to support my fertility, wondering if I should consider supplements to improve my egg quality.
So many options, so little time.
These are hard choices to make when you know you don’t have all the time in the world, and it feels like everything is on the line.
Finding my own path to getting pregnant at 45
I was 45 years old and had been through two miscarriages due to poor eggs. It appeared to me that improving egg quality was the most important issue for me.
Some people in this situation would fill their medicine cabinet with every supplement that might be thought to enhance fertility and improve egg quality.
Recently on fertility forum for women over age 40, I saw a post, “I know all of us are taking like 30 supplements a day. How do you space them out so that you’re not taking handfuls at a time?” Dozens of women chimed in about how they distribute numerous supplements throughout their day.
When is less more? What does your body need help with and what will it do better without the addition of external elements?
For my own regimen, I decided to strip away the things I wasn’t sure about. As far as supplements I only took a prenatal vitamin and 100 mg of ubiquinol. I wasn’t actually sure about the ubiquinol either, but to be honest, I was afraid to not try taking it as it was seemed to be commonly recommended for egg quality.
The rest of my focus was on living a clean healthy lifestyle, nourishing my mind, body and soul in natural, simple ways.
It was a minimalist approach to fertility in a sense, and it ultimately worked out for me as my next pregnancy was with a good egg…and my little girl is three years old now.
Guiding others to find their path
I realize as I create programs to help other women with their fertility, that it’s my philosophical approach to consider when “less is more”—to try to strip away the excess so that we can focus on what’s most likely to make a difference.
I find that there’s value in reducing the sheer number of things we are trying to focus on and do.
I look for principles that help to unify our focus and make our approach less “noisy.”
I feel that this simplification process helps to decrease stress because we’re no longer trying to run in every direction at once. I also believe that when we’re attacking a problem from multiple directions without a lot of rhyme or reason to what we’re doing it can be confusing internally (mentally and perhaps physically too).
Sometimes I think the extra things we do actually get in the way of the natural flow within our system. Imagine a stream with a bunch of debris blocking the flow of the water. Maybe rather than building a pump to move the water downstream, you just need to remove the debris that’s blocking the water and everything will move fine.
I’m reminded of Julie, who joined the 90-Day Egg Nurturing Program last October. Actually she initially expressed interest in August, but she said she was about to do another round of IVF and asked if she could join in the event that the IVF was not successful. She was 43 years old and had been TTC with her husband for 18 months. They had gone through through 3 rounds of IUIs and were now onto their third round of IVF.
At the end of September she reached out to me and shared that the IVF was not successful (no embryos matured enough to be transferred), and that her fertility clinic told her there was nothing more they could do for her using her own eggs. I welcomed her into my program and within a month and a half she was pregnant naturally. Her baby is due any day now. (Congratulations, Julie!)
Perhaps this was a case of less is more? All those interventions, and then things worked out when she let her body do this naturally. She had also been making lots of healthy lifestyle changes and taking a variety of supplements in the 4-6 months before her successful pregnancy. So it’s hard to know what made the difference, but clearly the high tech interventions weren’t working for her.
It’s not always easy figuring out when to step back and when to step in but I want to open this conversation with the suggestion that there are times when less is more.
Upcoming opportunities to support your fertility journey
In the coming months I’m going to be focusing on articulating the ways I believe we can simplify our approach to fertility, focusing on a few core principles that can guide us down a Simple Happy Zen kind of path.
If you’re looking for a comprehensive mind-body approach to improving fertility and in particular egg quality, you can download my “20 Strategies for Improving Egg Quality” guide and explore my Fertility Programs, which include the 90-Day Egg Nurturing Program.
The 90-Day Egg Nurturing Program has everything including the kitchen sink in it, though, and not everyone needs (or is ready for) all that. So I’m creating a lighter, simpler program that contains what I consider “essentials” for getting pregnant naturally.
My goal is to help you simplify your process so that you can feel confident that you’ve got the important bases covered and then relax into TTC (Trying To Conceive).
I’m putting the finishing touches on my “Essential Guide to Getting Pregnant Naturally” and I’m taking waiting list signups for the upcoming “Conceive With Ease – TTC Essentials Program.”
I’m SUPER excited about rolling out this new program because I think it’s going to be so helpful to so many of you. It’s going to contain the top strategies I wish every woman who is TTC would know right from the start, because it can save a lot of time, energy, and money–reducing your overall TTC stress…and hopefully helping you get pregnant more quickly!
I’m also starting to draft a new meditation integrating this concept of simplifying and removing barriers that block our natural flow. In the meantime, I encourage you to contemplate what it might look like to remove any excess debris that may be blocking the flow of your internal energy stream.
New fertile creations are coming your way soon!!!
Update: It’s here! Minimalist Fertility Meditation: Simplify Your Approach to Getting Pregnant
Thank you for your work, Natalie. This is exactly what I need I believe, I’m having a hard time having a second child and feel like I’m doing so much, focused on so many things at a time. I feel mentally tired of keeping track of all the things I am supposed to do and recently have been pretty much thinking of abandoning and accepting it might not happen.
Hi Diana, I’m sorry you’re feeling worn down from it all, and I totally understand! I’m curious to hear, if you don’t mind sharing, what are “all the things” you feel like you’re supposed to be doing?
I’m sure you’ve heard many cases of women who quit trying and then suddenly it happens. My approach is for those who are a little too Type A to totally throw in the towel. And we focus on being strategic about what’s important and then also cultivating that energy that is similar to what we feel when we “quit trying.” So it’s a sneaky way of getting the body into the space of letting go while actually still doing the things that would be optimal for getting pregnant.
Thanks Natalie, I sort of feel the same, but not sure how to do it, as I don’t really want to give up on having the baby, just want to let go of the pressure. The things I’m focusing on:
1. Taking the right supplements – I am working with a naturopath which I trust, however this is getting very expensive, i.e. consultation + supplements. FYI – most supplements are to support oxidative stress in the body and hormonal balance.
2. Doing enough exercise – it’s nearly impossible for me to fit it in and so i think about it all the time and it’s stressing me out. exercise = yoga for me and I have been doing more restorative and yin yoga when I get to + kundalini. I know I could in theory take 20min to do it home but I feel I am not getting the same release of being in my own space unless I leave the house.
3. Mental work – by the time I get to bed and choose what meditation to listen to it’s already super late and I’m going to sleep after 11pm, getting up at 6am.
4. Acupuncture session – somatic/EFT therapy session – fertility massage session – about 1 session each every 4-6 weeks. i’ve taken a bit of a break lately just because of the budget pressure.
It does not look like too many things on paper probably, but I feel that my mind is super busy thinking about what else I could or should try and also about planning all these appointments or what other videos and articles to read and find inspiration from on top of job + household with a 2 year old and a 13year old step daughter. Euh! That’s all! 🙂
I can see how you’re feeling overwhelmed by everything. You’ve got parenting, household and job (already a full schedule) plus everything else thrown in, in your “free time.” That’s a lot! I just created a new mediation to address the overwhelm issue, and I will probably post it to YouTube today or tomorrow. It’s about how to tap into your own intuition to decide how to simplify your program. These can feel like tough choices because we don’t know with certainty what is making a difference, and we’re often afraid to leave something out, but there just isn’t time for everything.
When I was in the last months of trying for our second, I decided to drop everything I wasn’t sure about so that I could focus on resting and restoring my energy. I cut out acupuncture, not because I didn’t think it was potentially helpful, but because the stress of scheduling it (and paying for it) might be cancelling out the benefits of doing it. This is not a blanket recommendation I would make to others, but it’s the choice that felt right for me when I stepped back, looked at the big picture, and listened to my intuition.
In your case I would also be curious how much you feel getting to bed late might be impacting your energy, your mood…and possibly your fertility, if you think of the body being most aligned for conceiving when it is rested and restored. Are the things you do between 9 and 11 more truly more important than sleep? These are questions for pondering, not questions with easy answers.
If you try out the new meditation, please let me know how if it resonates for you!
I’m TTC after having a misscarage 7 years ago.!!!!! It’s crazy. I would just LOVE to have 1 child. I’m 43 now and I’m worried about time. I need to stop thinking about age because I was 36 when I got pregnant naturally last time. The things that are blocking me are that I tried IVF twice and the last cycle was 3 years ago. We had unexplained fertility/ I.e nothing wrong with us. My husband has an older son he is 10 years older. I think it’s just because we have a big family and everyone else has children ecept us and it’s stressing me out… I really need to join your 90 day challenge please. Your meditations I have been doing since a month now and they help xx Thank you . Im not going down the route of IVF again as I know I can do it naturally. As it’s happened before. Just need to de-stress .
Hi Maz, I’m sorry it’s been a long road for you and it can be hard when everyone else around you is doing the family thing. I’m so glad you’re finding the meditations helpful! I think the 90-Day Egg Nurturing Program could be really helpful for you as there are many things that you can do to help improve your odds. Holding hope for you!
My name is Irene, I´m from Argentina.
Since 2015 we have the diagnosis of infertility.
I went through 2 surgeries in 2016 and 2018, and my diagnosis indicated infertility (no explanation of why), and our only option was IVF.
At that time, as I knew I did not want to go the IVF route, I consulted with Naprotechnology doctors.
From there they carried out studies on me, and gave the diagnosis of subfertility, because I am deficient in progesterone production.
Currently, after 2 more surgeries with Napro doctors, and I am medicated for this insufficiency. I also take supplements that have an anti-inflammatory purpose (they usually give them with endometriosis, but I don’t have endometriosis, thank God it was ruled out)
Still, with integrative anti-inflammatory diet (I consulted with an integrative doctor formed by Dr Weil), physical activity, pertinent medication, good results in laboratories, good ovarian reserve, psychotherapy, my husband also with good health indicators and accompanied in psychotherapy …
Still, my body slowly loses weight (a consequence of so many roads traveled), although my cycles are good (according to the Creighton charts), and I feel physically better … there are days when I can’t handle myself anguish.
I feel like I do everything, but I don’t know if I should do less …
I’m sorry you’ve been through such struggles. It sounds like you have really done a lot to reestablish balance in your system and you’ve made great progress, however something isn’t quite balanced if you’re still losing weight? It’s hard to know sometimes when to do less and when to continue searching for more answers. You can experiment with dropping away some of the things and watching your lab tests, energy levels and other symptoms to see if there are changes. But I would be careful to just change one thing at a time so that you can tell what changes seem to make a difference.