Updated January 16th 2026
You’re not alone if getting pregnant again is feeling difficult. If it’s been a few years since you last had a baby and you’ve been trying to get pregnant for several months (or years) this is your sign that there could be something deeper going on.
When my husband and I decided to try for our third baby it didn’t happen right away. With my firstborn I got pregnant the second cycle after coming off oral birth control (likely due to a surge in hormones). And with our second, he was conceived the month we decided to try. Needless to say I was used to it working out for us.
So when we decided to try for our third and it didn’t happen, I started to get a little anxious. I was tracking my cycle. I was ovulating most months (big sign right there – it should be every month) and we were timing our baby dance around ovulation.
But month two came and went as did my period. Another cycle and nothing. I felt heartbreak when those two pink lines didn’t show up because I knew our family wasn’t complete but at the same time, I felt guilty because I already had two beautiful children I loved.
But month two came and went as did my period. Another cycle and nothing. I felt heartbreak when those two pink lines didn’t show up because I knew our family wasn’t complete but at the same time, I felt guilty because I already had two beautiful children I loved.
I had basic blood work done for vitamin D levels and iron and all was well. So we continued trying based on tracking and timing. And about 4 months in, I had a chemical pregnancy. I was heartbroken, again. Why wasn’t my body doing what I knew it could. What happened between me giving birth to our second and now? What could I be doing differently? Was I getting too old?
If you’ve been wrestling with these same questions too, please know you’re not alone. Secondary infertility like I experienced has been on the rise in both men and women for several years now. And male infertility specifically is projected to rise faster than female infertility by the year 2040! (1). So what’s going on?!
First I want you to know that your body is not broken. I know how easy it is to blame yourself. But here’s the thing, after you’ve had a baby, your body changes and it can affect your fertility.
Hormones Shift
Your body goes through the largest hormonal shift it will ever experience when you transition from pregnant to postpartum. And when you’re postpartum, your body systems are still working hard to repair your tissues, create milk from your bloodstream and keep you functioning on broken sleep.
Your adrenals might be feeling overwhelmed, your thyroid might need some support and if you’re exclusively breastfeeding, you might not even have a period for up to two years! These are big changes and fertility doesn’t work in isolation. It’s a reflection of all your body’s systems — how nourished you are, how rested you are, how stressed you are and how supported your body feels as a whole.
This is why I take a wholistic approach, focused heavily on nutrition, when it comes to supporting fertility.
Nutrition Status Changes
It takes a big nutritional toll on your body to grow a baby. Even more so if you breastfeed postpartum. Your minerals (calcium, magnesium, potassium, iron for example) can become depleted which can then affect your body systems including your thyroid, hormones and gut health. Hormones like estrogen and progesterone will also affect ovulation and your cycle.
If your body is depleted and you’re trying to conceive again, you may need to spend sometime replenishing it first.
But how do you know if you’re depleted?
Besides having a baby, you may be feeling very fatigued, have brain fog, have mood swings including experiencing anxiety or depression. It’s important I share that not *all* postpartum mood disorders are because of nutrition depletion. It is multi-factorial. However, there is enough research showing deficiency in key vitamins and minerals such as iron and B12 (for example) do affect mood postpartum.
So having a plan to replenish your lost nutrients and deeply nourish your body in the 90 days (minimum) prior to trying to conceive again is a great place to start.
Stress Levels Change
Parenting a toddler is no joke. If you’re not stopping them from climbing onto something you’re trying to stop them from choking on something. This alone is stressful. Add our modern day stresses – finances, job, family, (the global news!) – and most of us are experiencing some level of stress everyday. This chronic, ongoing stress can increase inflammation as well as cortisol in the body and can be a barrier to getting pregnant.
When the body is stressed, reproduction is not optimal and sometimes shut down completely. If you think about it, it makes sense. For our ancestors, if there wasn’t enough resources (food, shelter, clean drinking water, safety) then having additional people to take care of doesn’t make sense.
There’s many more possibilities for why you’re now struggling to get pregnant
There’s many more possibilities for why you’re now struggling to get pregnant after having a healthy pregnancy. These are only a few of the most common I see in my experience working with women. But this is also why I wrote the Fertility Foundations Guide because trying to conceive shouldn’t take over your life.
I see these common themes when I’m working with clients who are trying to get pregnant and when they build a solid foundation, they improve their chances of conceiving. This is not a medical protocol. It’s the missing lifestyle foundation most fertility plans overlook.
Inside the guide I’ll walk you through everyday habits that work against fertility and what to do instead to support blood sugar, cortisol, sleep, and hormone signaling all without giving up your life.
You’ll learn about the most fertility supportive foods to start adding and why these foods matter, how they support egg and sperm quality, and how to include them without overthinking meals.
And I’ll show you the most overlooked activities that can support conception because they regulate your nervous system — one of the most important fertility factors of all.
Most importantly, each point is clearly explained so you understand why it matters, not just what to do. I wrote it to help you take the stress and guesswork out of trying to get pregnant.
References:
(1) Liang, Y., Huang, J., Zhao, Q., Mo, H., Su, Z., Feng, S., Li, S., & Ruan, X. (2025). Global, regional, and national prevalence and trends of infertility among individuals of reproductive age (15-49 years) from 1990 to 2021, with projections to 2040. Human reproduction (Oxford, England), 40(3), 529–544. https://doi.org/10.1093/humrep/deae292