This one's personal.
I don't talk about this enough.
Partly because it still catches me off guard when I think about it. Partly because I spent a lot of time just... getting through it. And partly because as a clinical nutritionist who specializes in reproductive clinical nutritional medicine, there's this strange pressure to have it all together - especially when it comes to your own body.
But here it is: I went through IVF.
Not for my first pregnancy. Sunny came along without much intervention and I felt incredibly lucky. But when we started trying for our second, something had shifted. Month after month, year after year and nothing. And then came the diagnosis — secondary infertility. If you know me you would know I dislike this diagnosis terminology and prefer to call it an 'extended conception journey'.
If you've been there, you know what that particular grief feels like. The confusion of it. The guilt, even. You already have a baby, you should be grateful. And you are. Of course you are. But that doesn't make the longing go away.
I remember sitting in the fertility clinic, me, a degree-qualified nutritionist who literally specialises in this stuff - feeling completely powerless. Like my body was speaking a language I couldn't translate anymore.
I threw everything I had at my preconception health. Not because I thought I could fix it with supplements and leafy greens. But because it was the one thing I could do when everything else felt so far out of my control. Nutrition. Sleep. Stress. Foundations. And yes - my prenatal.
I already had Natal Support on the market by this point. I'd formulated it because I knew how significant this window was - preconception, pregnancy, postpartum. I'd seen it in clinic. I knew the research.
But going through IVF made it visceral.
The demands on your body during a stimulated cycle, the nutrient depletion, the oxidative stress, the way your system is just... asked to do so much. I wasn't just recommending Natal Support to clients anymore. I was relying on it myself. Every single day.
Goldie is asleep next to me as I write this.
She is here. She is perfect. And the road to her was one of the hardest things I've ever done.
I'm sharing this because if you're in that season right now - trying, hoping, waiting, going through treatment - I want you to know that someone who does this for a living has also sat in that chair. Has also cried in a car park after a scan. Has also felt the particular exhaustion of wanting something so much.
You're not doing it wrong. Your body is not failing you. You have my support.
And I'll be in your inbox again soon with more on what actually supports preconception health - the stuff worth knowing, from someone who's lived it.
With love (and a lot of lived experience),
Katherine x