How to Get Pregnant: What Your Doctor Isn’t Telling You About Your Fertility

Oct 10

Why does it seem like there are two types of women in this world? Some who get pregnant without even trying, and everyone else who faces a much longer, more uncertain path.

We’re told that getting pregnant after 35 is nearly impossible, that there’s a sudden cliff where your fertility just ends. We’re labeled "geriatric," rushed toward IVF or an egg donor, and made to feel like our time has run out. But the truth is, there is no biological clock frantically ticking in the background like some dramatic romcom movie.

And here’s something that certainly never gets said loud enough: if trying to conceive feels hard or confusing, it’s not your fault.

Infertility is an epidemic driven by our modern world full of microplastics, endocrine disruptors, and a society that runs on iced matchas, raw salads, and “healthy” smoothies that are actually harming your fertility (we’ll get into that more later).

Yes, it can be hard to get pregnant in your late 30s and 40s, but it doesn’t have to be.

As long as you still have your period (usually until about age 45), there are powerful lifestyle changes you can make to optimize your fertility and reclaim a sense of possibility—without any of the blame or shame.

Just know that it’s not too late and your body isn’t broken. If you’re ready to have a baby, all it takes is one good egg, one good sperm, and a healthy body ready to support a pregnancy.

But don’t be surprised that your doctor or fertility specialist (who profits from IVF) hasn’t shared this with you. Here’s what you really want to know about your own fertility, so keep reading.

The truth is there’s no reason that you can’t get pregnant naturally (and even easily) in your late 30s or mid 40s.

We’re told that as we age, our egg quality and quantity will inevitably decline. But new research is poking holes in this old story—turns out, age isn’t the fertility doomsday we’ve been led to believe.

A 2025 study in Science Advances found something surprising: while it’s true that women have fewer eggs as they get older, the DNA quality of those eggs stays remarkably stable over time.

It’s actually men’s sperm that accumulates more genetic mutations with age! Women have carried 100% of the fertility burden for far too long, but approximately 50% of fertility issues and recurrent miscarriages are due to male factors like poor sperm quality, mitochondrial and metabolic damage, and toxic load.

So many women are funneled directly into a one-size-fits-all approach: try Clomid, move on to IUI, and then, of course, IVF.

Maybe you’ve had your AMH levels tested, a number that’s often presented by doctors as a final verdict on your fertility, even though research says it has very little connection, if any, to your actual ability to conceive.

This focus on numbers can make you feel like your fertility is completely out of your hands, leaving you to believe that invasive and expensive treatments are your only hope.

But no one talks about how IVF isn’t guaranteed to work. In fact, IVF success rates are really pretty low, certainly a lot lower than we’re led to believe.

Here are some of the most current IVF success rates from the “Society of Assisted Reproductive Technology” after one treatment:

At age 38-40, women have a 25% chance of having a baby through IVF with their own eggs
From 41-42, women have a significant decrease in a successful birth through IVF with their own eggs at 12%
Women older than 42 have a 4% chance of having a baby through IVF using their own eggs

Then after encouraging you to go six figures into debt with repeated, unsuccessful rounds of IVF—not to mention the heartbreak, emotional rollercoaster, and hormonal highs and lows—most women are eventually told that using an egg donor is their only option.

What's missing from this entire conversation is the most critical element of all: preconception planning.

Fertility clinics often skip right over the foundational work of preparing your body to conceive. They don't teach you the importance of creating a healthy egg and partnering it with healthy sperm. Instead, the narrative implies there’s nothing you can do to move the needle, which leaves you feeling powerless.

But the truth is, there is so much you can do to take your fertility into your own hands.

Doctors are urging women in their early thirties to freeze their eggs "just in case," yet some of these young, seemingly healthy women are unable to retrieve any eggs at all.

Literally zero.

No one is taking the time to explain that reproductive technologies aren't magic wands. IVF with unhealthy eggs and sperm is a recipe for failure.

When you force the body to do something it doesn't have the resources to do on its own, you can't be surprised when you don't get the result you wanted.

You still need a healthy egg, healthy sperm, and a healthy body to conceive and support a pregnancy—even with IVF.

If there is one thing to take away from this blog, let it be this: you need to prepare your body for pregnancy.

This means dedicating a minimum of three months, and ideally 6 to 12 months, to preparing your body before you start trying to conceive.

Why so long? It takes about three months for an egg to mature. The lifestyle choices you make today are nourishing the egg you will ovulate three months from now. For men, sperm takes about 74 days to mature. So this 3+ months of preconception planning is your window of opportunity to build the healthy foundation required for a successful pregnancy.

So, you’re sold on preconception planning, but what does that actually look like day-to-day?

Why Warmth Matters in Preconception Planning

Chinese medicine often gets a lot of eye rolls from Western medicine experts—especially when it comes to advice like keeping your womb warm or steering clear of cold foods and drinks. But there’s actually a lot of ancient wisdom here: after all, it’s a bun in the oven, not a bun in the fridge. The goal is to create a warm, welcoming environment for new life, starting with daily habits that support your body’s natural resources.

Here’s how to embrace warmth as you prepare for pregnancy:

Keep Your Core Warm: Wear socks, layer up, and avoid exposing your abdomen to cold. Cold constricts blood vessels, which can slow down blood flow and make it harder for nutrients to reach your reproductive organs.
Choose Warm Foods and Drinks: Go for soups, stews, herbal teas, and cooked meals instead of raw salads or iced beverages. If you must have something cold, drink a warm beverage first to prep your digestion, and follow it up with a hot drink like herbal tea or warm water.
Add Warming Spices: Ginger and cinnamon are classic choices in Chinese medicine to gently stoke digestive fire and improve circulation. Including these warming spices in your meals and drinks not only supports blood flow, but also helps your body absorb nutrients more efficiently—key for nourishing your eggs and womb.
Say No to Iced Coffee and Iced Matcha: The real issue for fertility is the cold, not the caffeine. Cold drinks can constrict blood flow, reducing the delivery of oxygen and nutrients to your reproductive organs. If your morning coffee or matcha doesn’t make you anxious, disrupt your sleep, or mess with your blood sugar, you don’t need to give it up—just enjoy it warm.
Avoid Cold Plunges and Ice Baths: Skip the ice baths and opt for activities that keep your energy and blood flowing comfortably. Skip the ice baths and opt for activities that keep your energy and blood flowing comfortably.

Build Your Body’s Resources with Nourishing Foods

Most dietary advice for fertility centers on building up your nutrient stores and internal resources—especially blood, hydration, and vital fluids. In Chinese medicine, it’s common for women to be spleen qi deficient, which means your body struggles to transform and transport the nutrients from food into qi (energy) and blood. Without this strong foundation, it’s much harder to create a healthy environment for a baby.

Many women are also blood deficient, so focusing on truly nourishing foods is essential. Eating red meat is particularly important for replenishing blood stores and supporting fertility; being vegetarian is not ideal if you want to get pregnant.

Focus on Blood-Building Foods: Your blood volume will need to nearly double during pregnancy, so start building it now. Include plenty of high-quality saturated fats and proteins like red meat, dark poultry meat, duck, liver, and fatty fish. Plant-based options like lentils, beans, beets, berries, and leafy greens can support you, but animal foods are critical if fertility is your goal.
Ditch the Drying Foods: Processed foods like crackers, chips, and popcorn are drying for the body. Choose moist, hydrating foods like soups, stews, porridges, and cooked vegetables to help your body build the thin fluids essential for fertility. These fluids are especially important for producing healthy cervical mucus, which plays a key role in supporting conception.
Prioritize Healthy Fats for Hormone Balance: Make sure to include plenty of saturated fats—like those found in grass-fed butter, ghee, eggs, and fatty fish—in your diet. These fats are crucial building blocks for your sex hormones and play a direct role in healthy hormone production, which is essential for fertility.
Avoid Foods That Undermine Fertility: Limit foods that create a “cold womb” (like cold smoothies and salads), deplete blood (ice cream, most dairy, greasy and highly processed foods), disrupt ovulation (refined grains and excess sugars), cause inflammation (processed oils, trans fats, and artificial additives), or disrupt hormones (soy products, too much caffeine, and highly processed snacks). Instead, focus on fresh, whole foods and quality animal proteins to keep your body balanced and well-nourished.

Re-Evaluate Your Lifestyle Habits

Many things considered "healthy" in modern wellness culture can actually drain the resources needed for fertility.

Slow Down Your Workouts: High-intensity exercise can deplete essential fluids and energy. Support your fertility by choosing gentle movements like walking, yoga, lifting light weights, or stretching instead.
Prioritize Rest: Overworking and always putting yourself last quickly drains your reserves. Make sleep, downtime, and saying no to extra demands a priority so your body can rebuild and replenish itself.
Manage Stress: Chronic stress and emotional strain can be just as depleting as physical exhaustion. Set healthy boundaries, seek support, and find daily practices that help you unwind and restore balance for your health and fertility.
Limit Endocrine Disruptors and Microplastics: Many chemicals found in plastics, canned foods, cosmetics, cleaning supplies, and personal care products can interfere with your hormone balance and fertility. Avoid exposure to common endocrine disruptors like BPA, phthalates, and triclosan. Opt for glass or stainless steel storage, read labels carefully, and choose fragrance-free or naturally scented products whenever possible. And look into the exciting new research about how tamarind can help us detox microplastics!
Start a Prenatal Vitamin and Add CoQ10: Begin taking a high-quality prenatal vitamin with methylated folate (not synthetic folic acid) now, even before you start trying to conceive. Neural tube development in your baby happens within the first few weeks of pregnancy—often before you even know you’re pregnant—so it’s essential to have these nutrients already on board. Additionally, CoQ10 is a vital nutrient for energy production and ovarian health. Supplementing with CoQ10 may help reverse age-related declines in egg quality and quantity, optimize mitochondrial function, and support the healthy development of your future baby’s organs.
Include Your Partner in Preconception Planning: Fertility is a team effort, and your partner’s health plays a significant role in conception: Encourage him to focus on improving sperm quality by adopting a nutrient-rich diet, reducing stress, and avoiding toxins like alcohol, smoking, and endocrine disruptors. For more tips, check out The Complete Guide to Men’s Fertility.

Most of us were taught how to avoid pregnancy, but very few were ever taught how our bodies actually work.

We move through life without a real understanding of our own menstrual cycles, especially the most critical part for conception: ovulation.

You are only fertile for a maximum of six days each cycle.

This "fertile window" includes the five days leading up to ovulation and the day of ovulation itself. Considering that sperm health can vary, for many couples, this window is even shorter. This makes timing essential.

A great first step is to start tracking your cycle.

Using a tool like Natural Cycles, which tracks your Basal Body Temperature (BBT) every morning, can reveal a lot about your overall health. For instance, consistently low BBT can be an indicator of low thyroid function.

However, while valuable, BBT tracking has one major limitation for conception: it only confirms that ovulation has already occurred after the fact. Once you see that temperature spike, your most fertile days have already passed.

If your cycle is irregular—perhaps 28 days one month and 34 the next—pinpointing this window becomes incredibly difficult. Standard ovulation predictor kits (LH strips) can be unreliable. They are designed to detect the luteinizing hormone (LH) surge that precedes ovulation, but this surge can be brief. Unless you are testing multiple times a day, you could easily miss it entirely, leaving you guessing.

To accurately identify your fertile window in real time, you may want to consider more advanced tools.

Fertility trackers like Inito or Mira go beyond simple LH tests by measuring multiple hormones directly from your urine. They give you a comprehensive view of your hormonal patterns, showing you when your fertile window opens and pinpointing ovulation. This allows you to understand your cycle with precision and know exactly when it’s the best time to try to conceive.

Instead of waiting until you encounter challenges while trying to conceive, you can take a proactive approach by testing for common issues that often silently undermine fertility.

Knowledge is power, especially when you are preparing your body for pregnancy. Gathering this information now, during your planning phase, allows you to address any underlying problems head-on. Many negative results can be reversed or managed once you know what you’re working with.

Here are a few key areas worth investigating with simple, at-home tests:

Test for Male Factor Infertility: Fertility is a team sport, and roughly half of all infertility cases involve male factors. Standard semen analysis often misses a critical piece of the puzzle: sperm DNA fragmentation. A home test kit, like the one from Legacy, can measure this, giving you a much clearer picture of sperm health. High DNA fragmentation can be a major cause of failed conception and miscarriage, but it can often be improved with lifestyle and dietary changes.
Analyze Your Vaginal Microbiome: Your vaginal microbiome plays a huge role in reproductive health. An imbalance, with too many disruptive microbes, can create an environment that is hostile to sperm, preventing it from ever reaching the egg. Furthermore, certain microbes are linked to an increased risk of miscarriage. A healthy vaginal microbiome is also what populates your baby’s gut during birth, setting the foundation for their lifelong health. A test kit from a company like Evvy can give you a detailed report on your vaginal flora, allowing you to address any imbalances and ensure you have plenty of beneficial bacteria.
Check Your Thyroid Function: Your thyroid is the master regulator of your metabolism and has a direct impact on your reproductive hormones. Both an underactive (hypothyroidism) and overactive (hyperthyroidism) thyroid can be a major cause of infertility, irregular cycles, and miscarriage. Since symptoms can be subtle or mimic other conditions, testing is key. An at-home test from a service like Paloma Health can give you a clear reading of your thyroid levels, so you and your provider can take action if needed.

Acupuncture is a cornerstone of Traditional Chinese Medicine and has been used for centuries to support reproductive health.

It works by shifting your body out of a chronic "fight or flight" stress state and into a "rest and digest" mode. This is crucial because when your body is constantly under stress, it diverts resources away from non-essential functions like reproduction. By calming your nervous system, acupuncture signals to your body that it is safe to conceive.

This ancient practice also balances hormones and regulates your menstrual cycle.

Many women struggling with infertility have irregular cycles or a short luteal phase, which is the time after ovulation when the uterine lining needs to be receptive for implantation. Acupuncture can help lengthen this phase, regulate ovulation, and bring your hormones into a harmonious balance, significantly improving your chances of a successful pregnancy.

The benefits don't stop once you conceive.

Acupuncture is a powerful tool for preventing miscarriages by promoting healthy blood flow to the uterus and maintaining a stable hormonal environment. It can also safely treat common pregnancy-related issues, such as UTIs and morning sickness, and is even effective in helping to turn a breech baby into the optimal head-down position for birth.

If you are local to Orange County and ready to explore a more holistic path to motherhood, come see us at Magnolia Wellness.

We specialize in fertility acupuncture and can create a personalized plan to support you on your journey.

For fertility support, we generally recommend coming in for acupuncture 1-2 times per week for the best results, especially until your hormones are balanced and your cycles are regular.

If you’re looking for a more budget-friendly option, focus your sessions around key times in your cycle—ideally 3-5 days before ovulation and again during your period.

Remember, acupuncture is cumulative: each session builds on the last, so try not to go longer than a month between visits or you may lose some of the momentum you've built.

BOOK YOUR ACUPUNCTURE APPOINTMENT ONLINE HERE

Additional Reading and Resources

If you're ready to dive deeper, these articles offer more insights into taking control of your reproductive health.

Acupuncture and TCM

Fertility and Nutrition

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Angela Sinnett