Have you miscarried in the past or have difficulty with fertility?

Are you pregnant for the first time and wonder what the crucial next steps are?

Do you have a child with autism spectrum disorder, Down syndrome, hypospadias, tongue tie, or congenital heart defects?
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Many birth defects or significant pediatric conditions are caused by inadequate nutrition before, during and after pregnancy.

Dr. Lynch's passion is to reduce the incidence of disease in unborn children.
This is what gets him up and out of bed and excited to go to ‘work’.
Do you believe it is possible to reduce the incidence of disease or birth defects in unborn children? We do. Read more to see why and how prenatal vitamins with folate over folic acid is critical to your unborn child. 

My latest magazine publication is now live in Moms Beyond Magazine on my personal journey with trying to conceive and what TTC can mean for those in the waiting.
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The holidays are a mix of magic and remembrance for us. 

Magic, now that our miracle baby is here with us. Remembrance of what the holidays were to us for the years leading up to him joining our family. I remember the past holidays full of "when will you grow your family?", seeing the joy of other families with little ones and the added "babies look good on you two. It's time." Each comment crushing my soul a little more. We'd been married four years, and everyone in the world (or so it seemed) wanted to see us with children. 

The thing that most didn't know at the time was that we WERE trying. And we too wanted to see us with children. We had been trying. For three years we tried, both with and without medical intervention, to grow our family. 

​The Christmas season of 2015 brought much joy when we found out we were expecting, however, just three short weeks later we'd learn that the baby was not viable and we experienced a great loss a week before Christmas. In those moments I was grateful to be surrounded with family, holiday obligations and business, but my heart ached for the "almost". 

A year later, almost exactly to the day, we found out we were expecting Grey and I literally fell to my knees in gratefulness and pure joy. We had changed our protocol with our doctors and something worked to bring us our sweet boy. 

Fast forward to this year and we are celebrating our second Christmas with our sweet little guy and we are now looking to the future and what we ultimately want our family to look like. 

We know there is a realistic chance that we could, again, struggle and are open to options that may help us conceive faster in natural, non-invasive ways that don't cost the large pricetag that IVF and other methods bring along. 

Which is why I'm thankful for discreet over the counter options like Stork OTC. Found at Target in the family planning aisle, Stork OTC is a product that aids in helping couples with certain issues conceive faster, naturally. It’s cervical cap insemination technique helps deliver sperm as close to the cervical opening as possible, increasing the chances of fertilization by up to 20%. 

Just $59.99 at most retailers, (I got mine at Target, because I practically live there this time of year), it's a small price to pay for a higher chance of us growing our family. To me, I can't put a price on that. 

You can also find it online at www.StorkOTC.com. 

Labeling this Part One felt wrong, as this journey has been in the works for two years now. 

But I wanted to document more of our fertility/infertility journey, so thus the start with a Part One. I dislike the word infertility. It sounds hopeless, whereas we have so much hope. Hope that God's plan is greater than our struggles, hope that we will be granted wisdom and patience and peace in our circumstance and hope that we will have our baby one day. 

And we have grateful hearts. Grateful for God bringing us together. I am grateful that my husband is strength, that he is hope, that he is love, kindness, beauty and light. 

We found out this morning that our insurance (the plan we pay the equivalent of a house rent payment for every month) won't pick up a nickle of our upcoming costs. No office visits, no testing, nada. And it kind of feels like being punched in the stomach. All I could do, after trying to get it to go another way, was joke with the kind fertility office girl with a "well, what can ya do, we still want a baby." when she asked, without emotion, if we still wanted to move forward with our appointments. 

​Of course. We still need to know what's going on. We still want to know what causes my pain, inflammation, discomfort and ultimately our infertility. We still want to move forward on trying to do all we can on our part to bring a child into this world. Of course. So, as I stated before, what can ya do? We can give it to God. We can pray on this news, we can pray for our future child. We can pray for His peace and that His will be done in His timing. We can pray that we will be able to financially move forward. We can pray. 

We can pray, we can pray, we can pray. We ask that you would pray too. 

From a hopeful future mama, I appreciate you stopping by to read a little piece of our world. 

Our family recently took a trip to California to visit Disneyland this month. Normally a magical, wonderful & happy place, I can tell you from experience that there is no where else on earth that will remind you how much you want to be a parent than in that park. And while I had a lot of fun celebrating with our sisters, nieces and nephews, and being in Disney with Mr. Charming is always magical, there were definite moments when I felt I couldn't quite catch my breath as a chubby little baby squealed with glee over seeing Mickey for the first time, or a mom pushed a stroller by filled with bags of perfect, tiny little Disney onesies and stuffed animals.

Today is a little harder for me than I thought it would be. I've been blessed to know God's amazing peace in this journey, but as I am still human, some days get the best of me.

It's hard to know so many mama's are hurting, not just today but through their journey. And I want to hug them, squeeze them like I sometimes need to be squeezed and let them know it's OK. That God's got us, and our lost littles and our hopeful future littles all in His plan. That His timing is perfect. And that He knows far more than we do. But I know sometimes it still hurts. It hurts in remembering due dates, and birthdays. It hurts knowing it's been almost a year since the anniversary of our loss. It hurts thinking back to the doctor, our friends, heck, even us, thinking that it would only take a couple of months and we'd be pregnant again.

We weren't. We aren't. But we are hopeful. 

In honor of Infant and Pregnancy Loss Awareness Day today, I want to take a moment for our little one we lost last December. For those of you who are new to Nosh & Nurture, Mr. Charming and I have been trying to start our family since September 2013. We tried for nearly one year before visiting the doctor and after tests found out I have a late luteal phase, causing me to ovulate a week later than most and I have very low hormone levels due to (??!!??!!) (we are undergoing most testing soon). But back in November 2014, once adopting the Whole 30 diet for a month, we found out we were pregnant. It was some of the warmest, joyous days I'd ever felt. Knowing my body was working for our family. Receiving God's blessing. I knew the high chance of miscarriage before week 12, but since I'd been trying so hard for so long to feel this feeling, I wanted to enjoy every second of that pregnancy. For however long God allowed it to last. We told close family only, but we soaked up those moments. Pinning baby things. Perusing the baby stores. Talking about plans. I had to do that. I needed to do that. 

Our next step was picking up the phone to schedule more tests. And I have an appointment next month. More decisions. More waiting. And most importantly, more praying. For prayer is the most important part of all. He's writing our story, have faith, His plans are greater. 

Prayers appreciated, and I will be praying for all of you who are also waiting. Love you all you mama's and dad's. 

Sometimes I think about you.

I don't dwell a sorrowful dwell, but I think about you. And sometimes, I miss you.

I think about the number of days that have passed. I think about how big you'd have grown by now. About your little fingers, your wiggly toes.

I think about how by now you'd have become a little 'she' or a little 'he'. 

I think about you.

I think about all the mother's around the world, who have their littles and who have lost their littes and pray warmth and love. Peace in all situations related to this journey of motherhood.

My mother tried to conceive for 9 years before having me. Amazing faith and patience that woman has, and I am so thankful that she kept trying. That she believed with all of her, and had so much faith in God, that I would finally make an appearance.

I like to say I was fashionably late if there ever was such a term.

So, this is a raw and vulnerable subject for me. I've never blogged about this part of my life, and I don't talk about it much. Society puts so much on us to be successful by a certain age. Marry by a certain age and have children by a certain age. Since the age of 16 I've been living out my dreams career wise, found and married my best friend before I was thirty. So, I didn't think there would be so much pressure to procreate. But alas, it does come from all angles. 

I guess the reason why I've decided to put it out there is because I want those who get to know me, to know all of me. I want to help people on my health journey and a big part of that is the hormonal issues and anxiety issues that have kept me from diving full on into the adventure that is starting a family. Maybe in the process I can even connect to moms who have been through some of this.

When I started seeing my Naturopath a couple years ago, I was a brand-spanking-new-newlywed and travel and getting healthy were on my mind. I brought up the fact that we wanted a family, but she said that with all of my gut imbalance issues I would need to work on repairing and cleansing for at least a year before that would be a possibility,

So a year went by, and now almost two,  I started to see vast improvments through my diet over the course of these last two years but I recently came to find out that my hormones are kind of out of whack. Oh, joy. YAY. 

I visited with an OBGYN who specializies in Ostepathic health and she wanted to have me test my ovulation cycles each month to make sure everything was working properly. And the good news was this little face that I've seen repeatedly pop up showing that I'm "peaking" for ovulation...

I started homeopathic hormone tinctures recently, and move on to actual hormone support this month. Hoping that God is leading us on a journey to having a little family of our own... in the mean time I will stay faithful in prayer, and take care of this one body He's blessed me with until a little can call it home. Next stop: overcoming fear of actually birthing said human. Any moms out there who dealt with birth anxiety or hormone issues, I'd love to hear your inspiring stories. :)