How to Visualize Your Way To A Baby: My Infertility Story

Being here this morning. If you don't know who I am, I'm Erica Hoke. I am a coach and the infertile mom of 4, and I want to share a little bit about my story with you this morning. I want to talk about, um, kind of a turning point for me in terms of, um, my mindset and how I was thinking about my infertility journey. And so, um, I started to— somewhere along the lines that I was chasing this idea of getting pregnant, and I had come across, um, magazines. I think it was called Natural Awakenings or something like that, and had read some articles in there about visualization. And so one of things that I started on is I started to actually, as difficult as this might sound if you're going through infertility and watching this, I started to utilize visualization in a very specific way. And at the time, I did not know, um, I did not know what I was tapping into, but I understand it so, so much better now. And I truly feel like led to this this visualization practice that I'm going to tell you about, um, and it— and see if this resonates with you. Okay, so tell me, have you ever heard the phrase, a washed pot never boils? So in the kitchen, pot of water waiting for it to boil will not boil if you're watching, waiting for it to boil. Okay, and then, uh, something chased is never caught. So these are things that maybe you have heard along the way. And, and what I'm going to talk to you about, like the practice that I used to do in terms of visualization, um, has its foundation in neuroscience and research. Um, and so, um, instead of focusing on I want, I want a baby, I want to be pregnant, I want, all of these things. Um, I started focusing on, um, what I believed to be true, which was that I was already carrying my child because my eggs I was born with, they've been with me my whole life and I still have a few left, I'm sure. But at that time I knew that a part of my child was with me. I focused on that and I focused on, um, I, this is exactly what I would do right now. So, uh, we didn't per se, but we had an empty bedroom that we hoped would be the nursery. And like a lot of you do, um, and a lot of people do, um, I would go into the nursery and I would kind of visualize or fantasize about what it would look like when the baby came, what, uh, where I wanted the crib to be. What other kind of furniture. Anybody going through infertility can't help but kind of peruse the nursery sites online, or where it's, it's in your awareness. And so I kind of mentally picked some things out, arranged them in the room. And so I would sit in the middle of the room and I would, um, I would hold my, my mom used to be, um, she's not with us anymore, but she, um, used to be a doll collector and I would hold a baby doll and kind of sit Indian style in this room and I would just do some visualization exercise and some breathing exercise where the crib would be. Um, where the changing table would be, where the rocking chair would be, color that I might want, and all of those things. But all the while sitting in gratitude and not thinking about I want, but thank you for the baby that's coming. Thank you for my body that is functioning. Sitting and gratiking God for as many things as I could think of and going through this visualization exercise. What it will be when this comes to fruition, when I get pregnant. Um, so just being in that state of mind, not in a, um, not in a future tense, a it is to me, right? It's already happening for me. This is what it looks like when my— as I'm told. So I hope that helped you. I hope that in some way you can connect your own story to that and that you can sit in gratitude for whatever you can honestly be grateful. Utilize some visualization to help your mind and your coping because we know that if you can't cope, you can't continue on this infertility journey. So thanks for joining me and I will catch you next time. Health and blessings. Thanks.