When my husband and I were trying to get pregnant with our first kiddo, we ran into hurdle after hurdle.  When all was said and done, we had gone through 8 (maybe 10?) cycles of IUI (intrauterine insemination), two surgeries between us, and a whole host of testing, stress, drama and strain on our relationship over the course of nearly two years.

Then, we took a trip out west, had a wonderful long weekend together planning for an eventual cross-country move, took all the pressure and stress off, and got pregnant naturally, with no interventions.  I’m not going to say that getting out of dodge (or stressful NYC) was the magic bullet, but I will say that among the major fertility issues we experienced, stress and living somewhere that was just no longer making us happy was a big factor.

The second time around, 3 years later, we assumed we would run into the same issues.  But lo and behold, we got pregnant on the first try.  Again, I’m sure there were many factors that contributed to our success.  Our lives were very different — we were settled in lovely Santa Monica, California; we had a much higher quality of life than we did in bustling New York, with much more exposure to nature, sunshine, and farm-fresh food; we were healthier, happier, and much more balanced (even with a precocious 3 year old in tow).  And of course, we had the benefit of having remedied a lot of the fertility health issues that we had discovered the first time.  But I was still astounded.

Needless to say, as a holistic nutritionist specializing in fertility and pregnancy, I’ve always strongly believed in a non-Western approach to boosting fertility.  Looking at all contributing factors such as diet, stress, lifestyle, quality of relationships, happiness, is just as important to fertility as identifying and treating underlying medical issues, but these factors are all too often ignored, even by the best reproductive endocrinologists.

So let’s dig into them, and let me share with you the 5 most important things you can do, at any age (within reason), to boost your fertility and get pregnant naturally.