From IVF to natural conception, and going slightly mad about Mum’s candles

From IVF to natural conception, and going slightly mad about Mum’s candles

Here are the ramblings of a woman who learnt too much, briefly went slightly mad, and eventually found somewhere sensible to land.

Has your father-in-law ever asked you about your secretions? Mine has.

I was raised in a strict Catholic family. Vaginal secretions were not on the shortlist of topics du jour. We were much more comfortable with the weather. So when my father-in-law started asking about mine, I wanted the floor to open up and swallow me whole. Also, the word secretions? I mean, come on.

But underneath the horror was an uncomfortable realisation: he knew more about my fertile signs than I did.

When we started trying for Barney, my understanding of fertility was embarrassingly basic. I thought women had 28-day cycles, ovulation happened somewhere in there, and you had sex and hopefully got pregnant. I burnt through an absurd number of pregnancy tests whenever my cycle ran longer because it genuinely hadn’t occurred to me that 28 days wasn’t some universal rule. Looking back, I’m embarrassed that I never thought to question any of it.

Honestly, that’s how I approached quite a lot of my health. I drank too much, stayed up late, ate plenty of takeaways and crap from the supermarket, and probably would have told you I was healthy because I exercised.

After two and a half years of trying, we conceived Barney through IVF.

I started pulling at threads

Suddenly I had this little person completely dependent on us, and I started thinking more about what I was putting in and around his body, and mine.

Then I discovered Low Tox Life. I recently found a message I’d sent a friend at the time that probably sums up my reaction better than anything I could write now:

“I remember listening to her on a podcast and being like oh my life is way too high tox and then I threw a shit load out."

Then came Taking Charge of Your Fertility, an absolute whopper of a book that made me realise just how little I knew about my own body. One book led to another, then podcasts and a much deeper interest in nutrition.

The more I learnt, the more I looked back at our infertility differently. I couldn’t shake the thought that there must be something fundamentally wrong with how we were living if something as basic as reproduction wasn’t working for us. I’m not suggesting that’s the explanation for infertility generally, but it became a huge driver for me.

Then I went slightly mad about Mum’s candles

Public bathroom hand soap bothered me. Holidays meant body wash I hadn’t chosen. I’d go to Mum and Dad’s and there was an array of fragranced products, candles and those scented fecking bag things tucked into drawers with the clothes. An automatic fly spray going off at someone’s house felt like I was being casually doused in poison. Someone could cuddle my baby and I’d still smell their perfume on him a day or two later. I once had a casual babysitter for baby Boston and, rather than ask her not to wear perfume next time, I did the obviously more rational thing and never booked her again.

Eventually I had to concede that stressing about Mum’s candles probably wasn’t doing wonders for my health either.

I wash new clothes before the boys wear them and look for organic cotton where I can. Boston mostly lives in Barney’s hand-me-downs anyway. Buy less, choose better where you can, use the hell out of it.

Somewhere amongst all this learning, I started looking after myself properly too. We cooked at home more, I ate food that sustained me, and exercise became more about being strong and having energy.

Trying again

When we started thinking about another baby, I didn’t assume we’d need IVF again. In fact, I was convinced we wouldn’t. This time I understood my body and my cycle, and genuinely believed everything I’d learnt and the changes we’d made could make a difference.

Eventually, we conceived Boston naturally.

Can I prove our lifestyle overhaul is why? No. Fertility is far too complicated for that. But I’m not going to water down what I believed at the time to make this story more palatable. I believed those changes mattered. Make of that what you will.

Where it all led

I studied nutrition around work and raising Barney, finishing while I was on maternity leave with Boston. I loved learning about food and feeding my family well, and eventually that interest escaped our kitchen and became Real Deal Foods.

I’m still learning and changing things, but I no longer feel the need to fix it all by Tuesday.
For now, I can use the hand soap in a public bathroom without having an existential crisis, though I’m still slightly neurotic about kids and lollies, so we’ll have to wait and see where that pendulum lands.

Written by Hannah Connor, founder of Real Deal Foods

Real Deal Foods creates whole-food snacks for Kiwi kids and families.
realdealfoods.co.nz | @realdealfoodsltd