A while ago, I announced on the blog that Tommy and I were expecting a baby. And then I posted very few blogs, and now he’s here! I was wondering if anyone would like me to share any baby-related content, so I asked my email list and my insta-fam, and got an overwhelmingly positive response! I had already had a few ideas in mind for what content I’d share, but I asked an “anything else” open-ended question, and one of the requests was sharing the #TTC or “Trying to Conceive” journey, so here we are with our conception story! 
One of my biggest fears in my life was that I’d be a bad mom… I had never been the type of girl who was always dreaming about children and being a mother someday, and because it wasn’t my #1 goal in life, I worried that I wouldn’t have a motherly instinct. I will never forget (partially because he’ll never let me) how when Tommy brought children up on our honeymoon and we selected a general idea of when we’d start trying, I shakily said “sounds like a plan!” as though we were talking about brunch, because I was absolutely terrified. (And no, that was definitely not the first time children were discussed, just the first time it was time to actually plan for them – like ish is getting real)! 

Initially, we thought we’d wait a year or two after marriage, but then the NBA job happened, and we decided to wait an extra year to get settled into NBA life. Then, of course, the pandemic happened… The way this impacted our situation was that we knew we wanted to have the baby in the off-season, so Tommy wouldn’t be traveling so much and wouldn’t miss so much (and so I wouldn’t be in a town without family fending for myself as much with the baby and Q), but the pandemic threw off the NBA season, and they delayed the announcement of the next season. At some point, we just said “it’s time,” even without the next season announced, and started trying! 

Before that, I started kind of “preparing” my body.  I dialed in my nutrition, and tried ramping up my workouts (as much as I could with the gym closed… it helped once we set up a garage gym)! I both wanted to be the best host I could for our future baby, and I wanted to be in the best shape I possibly could, for multiple reasons. I worried that my body would never be the same again after childbirth (jury’s still out), so I wanted a sort of “last hurrah,” and I hoped that I would recover more quickly and better if I started from a fitter place! 

I had stopped taking birth control a long time ago – ever since I interviewed Stasha Washburn for my podcast and learned how bad hormonal birth control can be for you (and if this is news, click here for more, and/or check out this book she recommended*)! I’m sure that helped move things along more quickly, as I have heard and read that it can take a while for your body to be ready to conceive after stopping the pill. Before we were ready to start trying, Tommy asked a dietician colleague from UCLA athletics for a recommendation on what type of prenatal vitamin  I should take, and I started taking it right away. Apparently the egg that can become a baby starts maturing 90 days before it can be fertilized, so it is important to have a good baseline of nutrients! 

Like I mentioned, after a while of waiting for the season dates to be announced, we decided to just start trying. I had been tracking my cycle via the Apple Health app, which gave a general idea when I’d be ovulating, and we planned our “#TTC Activities” *wink wink* (no, our conception story won’t be that detailed! 😂)  around that, which meant we had a general “ovulation week” we were working with. 

We continued this for a few months, with sadness every time I got my period. Then, I had a yearly checkup with an OBGYN, and mentioned that we were trying, and that I was nervous, since I was 39 and on the older side. The practitioner mentioned that I should try ovulation trackers, so I decided to check those out! She also gave me the phone # for the infertility clinic in our healthcare group, which I hoped not to use. She mentioned that to get a prescription (something my friend recommended), I’d have to say I was using the ovulation trackers and trying for at least six months, so I got them right away! This is what I got! Basically, you urinate on the tracker, take a picture of it with your smartphone in its app, and it will tell you (down to the day) when you’re ovulating. 

If I am not mistaken, (conception story spoiler alert) we conceived like that day! 

It was kind of wild, because I continued using the fertility trackers, and started getting weird results, and reported back to the nurse practitioner, who told me I wasn’t supposed to use them the week of my period, and to take a pregnancy test if my period was a week late… So on that “one week late” day, after Tommy went to work, I took the first two pregnancy tests I’ve ever taken, and they were positive! 

As I waited for the results, I was scared – what if I saw that I was pregnant, and I got really disappointed? (See fear at the beginning of this blog). What if I took it and it was negative? Well, of course you know it was “pregnant” on both, and I spent the next few hours figuring out how I was going to share the good news with Tommy! 

Well, that covers the conception story part… Next is the pregnancy journey! Stay tuned for that! 

Cheers, 

Mandie