5 Things You NEED To Know If You're Trying To Get PREGNANT!
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Summary
In this video, I share 5 things every woman should know when trying to get pregnant. I think that talking about getting pregnant can be uncomfortable for some people, but I m somebody who thinks we should be super open about it, if we can, and hopefully we can help each other.
Transcript
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Hello Classic Crew and welcome to today's video where I'm going to be sharing
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five things every woman should know when she's trying to conceive.
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If you are new to my channel, here we talk about classic living and traditional values
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and I would love if you would consider joining our Classic Crew by hitting that subscribe button
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and that notification bell. If you'd like to get access to my book club, my podcast,
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our discussion threads, and just our community in general, make sure to head over to my Substack
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newsletter at classicallyabby.substack.com. In today's video, I want to talk about trying to
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get pregnant. I think that talking about getting pregnant can be a little bit uncomfortable for
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some people, but I am somebody who thinks we should be super open about it, we should talk about the
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process if we can, and hopefully we can help each other. And I want to give you guys some things I
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learned when I was trying to conceive that hopefully can help you a little bit and maybe give you some
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more information. I hope that this video is helpful to you because I think that trying to conceive
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can be a weird and sort of lonely experience. So I want to talk to you guys about it and hopefully we
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can open up a conversation. So make sure to leave in the comments any other tips and tricks that you
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might have for conceiving and let's get into today's video. Number one is figure out what your
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approach to getting pregnant is like. I think that this is kind of a funny one, but I had this assumption
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that I was going to be very casual about it. That I would just be like, oh, we'll try, we'll see how
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we do, we'll just take it easy. That was not my personality at all. It turns out that I was super
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scientific about it and I really wanted to know the best way, the best times for us to get pregnant,
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the best methods, like everything that I could learn about trying to conceive, I learned. I read
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everything. I watched all the videos. I did everything I could to give us the best opportunity
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to get pregnant quickly. Now you may be somebody who is more casual and just wants to take it easy,
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but I think it's important that you kind of recognize and go with the flow with who you are.
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If you're someone who wants to be more casual about it, that's great. It's good to know certain
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things just so you can be more effective, but it's not bad to be more, have more fun with it and be
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more casual with it. If you are somebody who wants to be more scientific and rigid, that's also great.
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Get all the information that you can and then kind of try to relax a bit because it can drive your
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spouse crazy. But I think it's really important to just kind of know yourself and know your personality
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and I would say it's good to kind of balance it out a little bit. So if you're somebody who is more
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like me and who is more like type A when it comes to trying to conceive, also try to bring in the
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casual nature of it and like the fun nature of it that you guys are doing this fun thing together.
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And if you are somebody who is more casual about it and doesn't want to take it so seriously and
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wants to be able to just kind of wing it, maybe read up a little bit just so that you can have the
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best chance of conceiving. Number two is when to take an ovulation test. So I have done loads of
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research on this and I'm not a doctor, okay? So of course everything I say in this video, this is
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just my own research, my own understanding. Ask your doctor if you have any questions. But from my
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understanding, the best time to take an ovulation test is not first thing in the morning. You actually
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want to take your ovulation test about four hours after you wake up in the morning. And this is
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different than a pregnancy test, okay? So a pregnancy test you take first thing in the morning as soon as
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you wake up because that is when your urine is the most pure. Like it hasn't been watered down by how
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much you drank that day. And so you can get the most clear result. With an ovulation test, you're
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looking for a surge in your luteinizing hormone. And that doesn't happen until about four hours after
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you wake up. Now you don't see this information on the box. On the box, they'll tell you to take it
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when you wake up. And you might be ovulating that day and then not know it because you took your test
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too soon. So I used to take two tests a day. I would take one about four hours after I woke up and
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then I would take one a little bit later in the day. And sometimes I would get a positive ovulation
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test later in the day than I did in the morning. And that, you know, obviously you want to try when
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you're ovulating. So it's important to actually know when the best time is to take an ovulation
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test. Now, if you didn't already know just as far as the best times to conceive, the best time to
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conceive is right in the middle of your cycle. Technically, you are supposed to, most women
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generally will ovulate like day, if you have a 28 day cycle, day 14 would be like the day that you
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ovulate. So five days before is when you can start trying. So then you can start taking those
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ovulation tests five days before that midpoint of your cycle. And you can start seeing because
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sometimes you'll be a little early. Sometimes you'll be a little late. Not everyone is like
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clockwork. And so sometimes you just kind of have to test to see. So finding out what day you're
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ovulating can be really helpful to conceiving. Now I will put a link in the description box below
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to the ovulation strips that we used. It also comes with some cheap pregnancy tests and you can
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get them on Amazon. It's by a company called MomMed and they are very, very cheap. So if you want to
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take three ovulation tests in a day, it's not going to be a terrible thing because you have so many
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extras. And I found that to be very helpful and very useful. And I didn't feel like I was stressing
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out about using too many ovulation strips. So that is something I recommend having and they're really
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easy to use. Okay. Number three are the best pregnancy tests. So there are a bunch of pregnancy
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tests on the market. You can really get from any, any store you can get from like the Dollar Tree,
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although the Dollar Tree ones never worked for me. And people have said to me that the Dollar Tree
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ones work. I did not find that to be the case, but you can get them at Walgreens or CVS. And like I
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said, in that MomMed box, you'll be able to get like cheap pregnancy tests. Now the cheaper the
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pregnancy test, the less HCG it will detect in your urine. So HCG is the pregnancy hormone and
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it's basically, it tells you if you're pregnant. So a cheaper pregnancy test can generally only detect
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a certain amount of HCG in your urine. And that means you have to wait longer. So you can wait
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two weeks, like past your missed period, and then you can take the pregnancy test. Now, if you're like
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me and you're a crazy person, you want to take a pregnancy test as early as possible. The two-week
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wait is really, really long. The two-week wait is when you, is from when you try to that missed period,
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and it can feel like forever. And so I used to want to take pregnancy tests a little bit earlier in my
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cycle. So if you're like me and you want to be able to test early, the only tests I really liked
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were first response. First response gets a really accurate reading for a really low HCG level
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in your urine, and they also are not going to fade over time. So this happened to me, and it made me
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crazy. I got some other tests that said that they could do early detection, and they were cheap, and
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they had a blue line on them. I think they were store brand. And I took the test, and it came back
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positive, and the next day it had faded, and I didn't see the line anymore. And it was like, it just
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stressed me out. Whereas a first response test, it does not fade. So you can be able to be
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like, oh no, I was pregnant yesterday, and I'm pregnant today. So I highly recommend first
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response. They are a little more expensive, but you can get them on Amazon for cheaper.
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And those are the tests that I liked taking. Number four is the two-week wait itself. So I read
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a book by Emily Oster called Expecting Better, and I found that book to be great. I highly recommend
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that during pregnancy. I also recommend it during the time you're trying to conceive. It's just a great
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book, and it basically tells you the data for a bunch of different things that were told during
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pregnancy, and it allows you to make an informed decision about what you want to do. So for example,
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a very famous example is that Emily Oster says, if you have sushi, sushi is generally said to be off
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limits for pregnant women. But the risk for sushi, if it's not, you know, gas station sushi, is that
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you're going to get salmonella. Now, salmonella is not good to have. It's not comfortable to have.
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It makes you feel sick and awful. But it also is not directly harmful to a baby. So if you were to
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get salmonella, it would make you feel sick, and it wouldn't be good for you. But it's not going to
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directly harm your baby. Things like listeria or toxoplasmosis are directly harmful to a baby.
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So those are the things you want to avoid. So things like that. Those are things that are in her book,
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and they're great. And she doesn't say, that means you should eat sushi. It just means you can make an
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informed decision. Do you want to get salmonella while you're pregnant? Then maybe don't eat sushi.
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If you don't mind the risk, the teeny tiny risk, then you can have sushi. In any case, one of the
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things in her book that I thought was very helpful was her discussion of the two-week wait. Now, the two-week
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wait, again, is that period between when you try to conceive and when you have a missed period.
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And it can feel endless. It's half the month. And so basically, most women decide they are not going
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to drink at all during those two weeks. But that can make you sort of crazy. Because if you're not
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conceiving month after month, then those two weeks can really, you're trying to act as if you're
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pregnant before you are. And then if you're not pregnant, you feel like, well, I guess I should have
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just lived my life the last two weeks. So what Emily Oster says, as far as drinking during the
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two-week wait, is that you're not going to hurt a developing fetus during those two weeks if you
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have one drink, you know, or have half a drink or anything like that. That's not going to hurt
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the baby. And I'll let her talk about the science in the book so you can read it. Because I can try and
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describe it to you, but I'm not going to get it perfectly correct. So I would recommend actually just
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reading the book. But that gave me peace of mind when we were trying to conceive. Because it just
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meant that I didn't have to totally alter my life during those two weeks that we were waiting, and
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then be disappointed. So if you have a glass of wine during your two-week wait, you will not hurt your
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baby. Last but not least, is how hard it can be to conceive. I think there's this misconception that you
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can get pregnant like that if you have unprotected sex. And that's just not the case. You have to time
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it. You have to time it to the right time where you are ovulating, and things are just meant to be.
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And even then, even if you got all the timing right, it's something like 33% chance that you'll
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actually conceive. It's a super low rate. And so it's not as easy as you might think. And I think that
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it's important for us to know that so that we have good expectations going into trying to conceive,
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so that we're not totally taken aback when it maybe doesn't happen the first month. But I think
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it's just important to keep in mind how hard it can be to conceive, because it isn't as easy as you
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think. And with that in mind, don't assume you can plan when you will have a baby. It doesn't mean
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that you'll immediately get pregnant as soon as you decide to start trying. And I think that's
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really, it can be a hard thing to accept because we all want control over our lives and our timelines,
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but we don't have control over this. So it's very important to recognize that things can take a
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little bit of time. So that is it for my video today. I hope you guys enjoyed it. Let me know
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your thoughts in the comments. If you've conceived and you have some good tips and tricks, leave them
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in the comments below. And if you are trying to conceive but haven't yet, I would love to know if any of
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these tips are news to you. If you're not already subscribed to my channel, make sure to subscribe
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and hit that notification bell. Make sure to head over to classicallyabby.substack.com. If you're not
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already following me on social media, it's at classicallyabby absolutely everywhere. Thank you so
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much for watching, and I'll see you guys in my next video. Bye!