Fertility Meditations

After my second failed IUI, I took a month off from trying to conceive before cycling for IUI #3.  It wasn’t part of my plan, so I was miserable about the delay, and anxious to do something to improve my fertility while I waited. Which is how I found meditations for fertility.

The first one I came across was Kathy Freston’s Visualizing Pregnancy.  It’s about 20 minutes long, and I immediately liked it because she says something near the beginning like, “This isn’t magic, we can’t make something come true, just because we wish for it.”  Not something that we who want to become pregnant want to hear, but true, and I respected her for avoiding the “The Secret”-like mumbo jumbo.  It’s a relaxing 20 minutes, but it is somewhat mystical in nature – you are guided through visualizing God or spirit surrounding you and supporting you as you imagine being pregnant and having a successful pregnancy.  The end result of this meditation is relaxation and at least a few minutes of positive thinking, which has to be a good thing.

I got bored with just one meditation, though, so I tried the Meditations for a Fertile Soul from Anji Online (warning, her website has her talking on it, and I can NOT figure out how to turn her off, so don’t click on the link if you don’t want anyone listening to know your business!)  This is a series of 3 meditations that was created with fertility guru Randine Lewis, and is for at any time in your cycle.  The first one, A New Hope, started off well, (despite the fact that the title brings to mind Jedi warriors instead of fertile ovaries) but it quickly went downhill.  There’s one part where she asks the listener to think of all the negative words she’s used to describe her fertility in the past – and then after a pause she starts offering up examples.  Really horrible, mean and hateful examples!  It felt like she was using all those words to describe what she thought of my fertility and I hated it.  Totally ruined my relaxation.  The other two were better, but did involve visualizing things like golden cords connecting you to the earth and to spirit, and pink misty light healing all the dark places inside.  I liked those parts, but they’re a lot of work, not particularly relaxing and definitely not good for me to listen to right before bed.  And they’re long, almost 30 minutes, so I rarely make time for them.

I also listened to the Medicated Cycle meditation during my third IUI cycle, which I liked because it directs the listener to first visualize the medications working in the first two weeks, and then visualize conception and implantation in the second meditation.  I found myself wishing there were more meditations to listen to, because I did get a little bored with it after a few days, though.

For my next IUI, I decided I needed something new.  I looked around, a found Circle and Bloom.  Their website says their meditations focus on tapping into the mind body connection, and there is a definite difference, at least so far.  I bought their IVF/IUI program, which has a different meditation to listen to every two days, including a special one for trigger day and IUI or ET.  There’re even three mediations to listen to precycle. 

So far, I’ve listened to just the precycle meditations.  The first one is more of an introduction to what the rest are going to be like; it really just establishes the foundation of thinking about a mind body connection.  The next two are more involved, and focus on imagining your reproductive system as being in balance, including focusing on the hypothalamus and pituitary (the two glands that are responsible for hormones like FSH and LH).  Each session begins with a directed relaxation exercise, then goes on to the real meat of the meditation.  There’s less of a focus on God or a higher being in these meditations than the other ones I’ve listened to, which doesn’t matter to me, but some might find they like these more (or less) because of that.  Best of all, they last only 15 minutes, so they’re easy to fit into the day.  I’ve listened to one almost every night for the past few weeks, and I’m really starting to look forward to having something new to listen to soon!  I’ll let you know what I think of the series once I finish it, but so far it seems like Circle and Bloom is the winner (even if her voice does occasionally irritate me).

I don’t know if all the claims on the websites are true.  I don’t know if these meditations actually do anything at all to improve my chances of conceiving.  But it helps me to know that I’m doing something, and gives me some semblance of control in a situation that is really completely out of my control.  And it’s relaxing.  As wound up as I feel lately, anything that relaxes me is a good thing.