Obstacles to getting pregnant

We’re not pregnant …… yet

It’s 2020 and you want to have a baby. While some of your friends fell pregnant prettily easily, it is likely that a few really struggled, and may have needed the help of a fertility clinic.

What are your chances?

This depends on a lot. Things like hereditary factors – did your mom struggle to get pregnant with you? -  health issues – are you over or underweight, have blood-pressure issues and are you taking medication for a chronic illness? Have you been using hormonal contraceptives, for how long and finally, what are your periods like?

The clue to fertility is, without a doubt, your periods. Periods tell us so much about our health, its a pity we don’t use them as a health barometer. This is because Mother Nature is so meticulous about building the perfect ‘nest’ to incubate our babies, that the first sign of an illness or any of the body’s systems going a bit haywire, and the menstrual cycle loses its rhythm. The hormonal balancing act that synchronizes the timing of the menstrual cycle is not unlike the workings of clock or calisthenics.

For example, women who have scanty, irregular and unpredictable periods or heavy, prolonged and very painful periods may have ovulation problems. This means that getting pregnant is pretty much a hit or miss. The good news is that when a woman ovulates, her pre-pregnancy hormones peak during this time making sex absolutely amazing. When this happens, a woman is more likely to have an orgasm. An orgasm is likely to maximize her chances of getting pregnant because, during this peak of pleasure, her womb contracts and the cervix (mouth of the womb) dips into the top of the vagina to literally ‘catch’ the microscopic tadpole-like sperm.

To get your body ready for pregnancy, it’s important for it to be balanced. Your weight, sugar, hormonal and stress levels need to be under control. This is so that not only will you get pregnant when the fertilised ova gets over its first obstacle course through the fallopian tube and lands like a lunar space module onto the surface of the womb, endures the first three weeks of pregnancy without the backup of a placenta, and finally, grows and develops into a baby during the next ten lunar months in captivity, your body will also survive a series of endurance tests before the Grand Finale – labour and birth!  

I think this gives you pretty much of an idea that planning a baby is not like going to buy a microwave, investing in a new house, changing your career path or planning a trip overseas. It’s pretty much a change of lifestyle and body-image, the unselfish sharing of everything you will ever own (including your body, mind and soul) your life (night-time shifts till your children leave home – and beyond) and making sacrifices only a saint would do. The first hint of a smile, the first word (ma-ma of course!), the first ‘I love you’ will make up for every effort you made to get pregnant in the first place. Good luck!     

Give your children the freedom to fly!

Teach your kids to be tough

When I pass from this world to the next, one thing I would like my kids to say about me is: “Mom taught us to be tough.” Teaching my kids to stand up for themselves as one of the hardest things I ever had to do. I wanted to wrap my babies in cotton wool and look after them forever. I wanted to be with them on every bus ride, every school outing, and every birthday party. I wanted to make sure they were not bullied, that their teachers were fair, and they stayed out of the principal’s office.

A tall order when there were five!

Oh, those sleepless nights when they were teenagers! How I wanted to be a fly on the wall or to buzz like a bee around their heads everywhere they went. But they each stood precariously on the edge of the nest and I urged them to fly away and make a life for themselves. Off they flew, one by one – New York, London, Cape Town, Germany, Amsterdam – and I prayed that they were tough enough to survive the storms that lay ahead, of which I have no control.

Of course, you want to walk your pre-schooler to the classroom, but you have to stop doing this when they go to ‘big’ school. When they get to double-digits, they want to explore and be seen by their friends without parental entourage! Tweens need to have adventures on their own to build-up confidence, risk falling, getting lost and even finding themselves in trouble with the grumpy old man at the end of the street for climbing over his fence and stealing pomegranates from his tree. Children need to learn to trust their instincts – how can they do this if you’re always there telling them to be careful, to look out, and saying ‘don’t’. Their conscious needs to tell them these things when they’re teenagers – because that’s when the BIG test comes – for you and for them!

Some children need a gentle push, others need a rope to haul them back in. Siblings balance one another – where one is cautious the other throws caution to the wind.  Parents need to know when to intervene and when to stay out of it. The best advice I can give is to communicate with your children. Body language is their biggest give-away. Trust your instincts. When they tell you something is wrong, it usually is. This is a built-in parenting instinct we all have – thanks to our parents who taught us to be tough.

On second thoughts, I would like my children to say: “Mom was tough on us, but she loved us with all her heart.”   

Picture:  https://www.wikihow.com/Feed-a-Baby-Bird

Urinary tract problems in baby boys

How does your baby boy pee?

It’s interesting what you can learn from people waiting in hospital queues. I learned something so important at my last hospital visit, I just have to share with my readers – especially moms with baby boys. It’s this - please make sure that when your baby boy makes a pee, that it’s a strong flow that arches (like the picture … ok, not into his mouth!) because this is a good indication that all is well with his water-works; bladder, ureters, and penis. If he pees in an odd direction, or urine simply dribbles out, or the tip of his penis balloons, there’s a problem.

This is what a mother told me. When her son was a baby, his nappies were always wet, so nobody (even the paediatrician) suspected there was a problem. But there was. The tubes leading from his kidneys to his bladder (called the ureters) were partially blocked. This meant that his kidneys couldn’t empty properly and over the years, this led to chronic nephritis with severe implications.

Although her baby’s nappies were always wet, urine was constantly ‘dribbling’, and, as time went by, her son picked up repeated bladder (urinary tract) infections. This should have sounded warning bells, but repeated antibiotics always solved the problem.

As her son grew older, infections became more frequent and severe so that by the time he went to school, he was in trouble. Always sick and miserable, her son struggled to make friends, couldn’t play sport and often ‘wet his pants’. Constant ‘urine reflux’ meant that his kidneys became infected (called chronic nephritis) so that by the time he was a teenager, the damage was irreversible and he needed a transplant. His mother was his donor.

Her son’s health improved remarkably after the transplant, but this has meant constant follow-ups, life-long medications like cortisone (to prevent organ rejection) and an otherwise hospital-bound life-style for her son. If the problem had been picked up early, this may have been avoided.

Other things to look out for in your little boy:

Are his testicles in the scrotal sac? Preemie baby boys often have delayed descent. Undescended testicles may have to be corrected surgically if, by three months. there are no testicles in the sac.

Is his little penis straight? If it’s curved, this is called chordee and can be corrected.

Hypospadias is when the opening for the urethra (tube for the urine) from the bladder is not at the tip of the penis where it should be, but on the underside anywhere from just below the end of the penis to the scrotum. This can vary from minor to severe and depends on whether the urethra is near the head of the penis, along the shaft or where the penis and scrotum meet. Again, this can be picked up if the baby boy does not pee in an arch. 

Unfortunately, corrective surgery is very difficult if the baby has been circumcised because the foreskin is used in reconstructive surgery.

Epispadias is when the opening is on the front of the penis.

If the foreskin ‘balloons’ when the baby boy pees, this means that the foreskin is too tight or attached to the tip of the penis and must be corrected by circumcision. 

We tend to forget the importance of these ‘unmentionable’ organs, but if there is a problem, the sooner they are seen to the better. Men can struggle unnecessarily with life-long emotional, physical and sex-related problems because their parents were ‘ashamed’ about the way their son looked, and simply used the nappy to ‘keep it covered’.

I hope this advice helps. Please pass it onto a friend if she has a baby boy.

Photo from Amber Holley.