Conceiving Baby #2: A Much Different Story This Time Around

Published on March 3, 2025 by Ashley Rothstein  our

 

Well, this is my first blog post after taking a long hiatus from the blog. I am pregnant with my second baby now (another girl!) and am about 28 weeks along.

You may have read my previous blog post about conceiving our first daughter (Our Fertility Journey: Conceiving on an Animal-Based Diet). This post will be a bit different.

This one is less of a “what we did to prep” post and more of a “this is the story” post. As much as I wish I had a picture-perfect preparation journey and slam-dunk conception process, reality – for me – actually looked quite different.

And the “large hiatus” is actually centered around conception (and all that followed), so if you’re wondering why it’s been over a year since I created a new recipe, it should make more sense after reading this post.

Check out the pregnancy section on my website for more animal-based pregnancy, birth, postpartum, and motherhood resources.

Heart & Soil Films featured me and my first daughter in their mini-documentary, Nourished, which spotlights animal-based pregnancies. Click on the above image to watch it on YouTube.

The plan to conceive baby #2

My first daughter was born in May 2022. I actually felt pretty darn good postpartum. I had challenging moments, but nothing I felt like I couldn’t handle.

I had an idea that we would shoot for a 2-3 year age gap, but never really thought further than that. I figured that when it was time, I would feel it.

My daughter started walking just before 1. I remember my stress increasing a bit here, but it was nothing unmanageable.

From 12-15 months postpartum, I gradually began to feel pretty crappy. I was having sleep issues (waking up at 2-3 am and having to drink milk), had lots of anxiety/intrusive thoughts, depression/crying fits, irritability throughout the day, and was waking up feeling shaky in the morning (hypoglycemia, I assume).

Strangely enough, something possessed me to quit cheese cold turkey right around a year postpartum (mind you, cheese was a huge part of my caloric intake as I consumed 1/2-1 block of raw cheese per day through pregnancy and the first year postpartum), and the timing correlated directly with the crappy feels. So, I wondered if I was undereating.

Around 14 months postpartum (July 2023), I hadn’t gotten my period back yet and I started to obsess about wanting it back.

After a few discussions with friends, I decided to radically up my carbs. I started making raw milk + fruit sherbets and smoothies and I had them twice per day on top of my other intake (still no cheese). Lo and behold, about 1 month later, I got my cycle back. This was in August 2023 and I was around 15.5 months postpartum. More on that journey here.

My husband and I decided we would start trying for baby #2 in December/January 2023/2024, which – God-willing, if we conceived on the first try – would put us at an October/September birth. I dreamed of a Fall baby, so this felt really good to me.

Early nourishment

Once I got my cycle back, I became really motivated to start nourishing myself consciously.

I began eating raw carrot salads to balance my hormones, got more regimented with my real food supplement routine, and just focused on eating a lot of nutrient-dense food. If you want more information on this, check out the Cycle thoughts highlight on my Instagram page.

I did this for a few months and began to track my cycle.

Egg-white cervical mucus around ovulation was plentiful (and followed a healthy cyclical pattern during the other times of the month), my libido and energy was high, my luteal phase was on point (12-14 days), and I didn’t have many PMS symptoms or symptoms during my period.

I felt ready to go in terms of my cycle health, and on the surface, felt excited to call in baby #2. What I didn’t register, however, was the large undercurrent of stress that was brewing under the surface.

I have a tendency to tell myself that everything is okay until it is really not. That was the case here unfortunately, and the dam broke in early 2024.

That year ended up being one of the darkest and roughest years of my life.

The backstory

In Q4 of 2023 (so, right after I got my cycle back), I became very cold, distant, and vacant. This was an undercurrent as I mentioned, and while I kind of felt it while it was building, I was pushing through hard and it is only in hindsight that I can really see it now.

Once my daughter was born, my mom would come over and spend time time with us every week, sometimes spending 1-2 nights. In September 2023, she moved hours away, and the visits became rare. I didn’t see it then, but this really affected me.

My husband helps when he can, but most of the time, I am alone with my daughter. It is just the two of us when my mom is not around – no extra help.

As my daughter approached 2 and became more and more mobile and conscious, I realized I needed to be engaged all day. She had very specific desires, wants, and demands of me and the world around her.

This became super overwhelming because I had transformed my life in such a way before so that I could be disengaged from life basically all day (largely with work), and now my life was rapidly becoming the opposite. The daily energy expenditure was significant and growing.

I experienced a few other stressful events, kept doubling down on my diet (thinking only if I could just eliminate the right foods, I’d be fine), and the reigns on my life kept getting tighter and tighter.

My routine was rigid and strict, I barely left the house (my husband ran all errands), I was focusing heavily on work (thinking “once I get to this milestone and achieve X, I will finally relax” – only I never did), and I had zero joy. I was snappy with those around me and felt irritable often.

I also had sleep issues and food reactions (mainly to high histamine foods), so I just eliminated the foods…sometimes getting down to just 4-5 foods.

When I got restrictive, it was harder to eat, so I wouldn’t eat as much.

When I look back, I see this all so clearly. Yet during this time, I held the narrative that I was just fine, sometimes even doing good (and really believed it at the time). I was focusing mainly on my daughter and preparing my body for the next pregnancy, but something was building underneath the surface.

As much as I thought I felt ready to conceive at the time, I’m not sure that I was…spiritually or emotionally.

The traumas that broke the dam

In late December 2023, my aunt (whom I was close to) was rushed to the hospital for emergency open heart surgery. She declined for a week or so, and it was very hard for me to eat that week. I was also pretty restrictive during this time.

I think I was just eating beef, squash, raw milk, egg yolks, and apples. I remember waking up many mornings thinking, “okay, I NEED to eat a lot today,” but I wouldn’t because I didn’t have an appetite due to stress.

On NYE morning (Dec 31, 2023), my aunt died suddenly and somewhat tragically, and the following morning (Jan 1, 2024), we experienced a horrifying choking incident with my daughter (she choked on frozen fruit, wasn’t breathing for 10-15+ seconds, turned blue and limp, and my husband had to slam the hell out of her back to get the fruit out).

I remember feeling so numb, yet panicked, after the incident with my daughter. Like I was holding on to so much, but didn’t know how to release it.

This is a dense, tangible feeling that I can still feel in my body if I call it up in my mind.

The first try at conception

Two days later (January 3), I felt like I lost it. The scariest part was that while these things never happen “instantly,” it really felt like my life changed overnight.

I began to have panic attacks, experience regular shots of adrenaline throughout the days/nights, had zero appetite, and just felt like I was in sheer terror. I also had postural issues, extreme fatigue, and my heart felt like it was pounding out of my chest all day long. I also had an extremely heightened sensitivity to light and sound.

Believe it or not, my performer/achiever/“stick to the plan” self decided to move forward with the conception efforts despite how much I was spiraling (shocking, I know, but it’s my wiring). I ovulated on January 5 and my husband and I had sex a couple times in the days before. This was where I think things really took a turn.

It took me a few days to work through the first panic attack, and I did it through eating and drinking. All I kept telling myself was “if I can just eat/drink enough of the right foods, this will go away.” Food/diet is largely how I anchor my psychology, and it has worked for some time to some extent…only it didn’t this time.

Around the day the embryo would have been implanting, I had another panic attack, which shocked me because I thought I had “caught up” with food and drink and shouldn’t be panicking again.

Days went by as I ate as much as I could and drank as much salted water as I could (which usually greatly helps me) and I still felt like crap. This is where I really spiraled as I didn’t know what was going on.

I kept telling myself that I was losing it and didn’t know why. And that maybe I was pregnant, and this was not good at all. An added layer is that while this was all going on, I didn’t have help with my daughter. So I was spiraling, but also a caregiver all day and night – further adding to the stress and fatigue.

I started getting extremely intrusive thoughts – pretty much all day long – about how sick I would feel if I was pregnant, and that there was no way I would be able to eat enough and drink enough to feel well, continue nursing my daughter, and care for her during the day.

I ended up not being pregnant that month, and given the situation, my husband and I decided to take a break from trying to conceive for a few months (I also didn’t want to give birth in winter, so the timing worked out in that regard too). But the thoughts continued and seemed to darken.

I suddenly got a huge influx of thoughts and feelings of inadequacy – like I was failing majorly in every aspect of my life.

Mind you, I had no appetite. I was having to force-feed myself and ate as much as I could manage, which was very little. I lost over 15 lbs in about a month. (Thank goodness for my awareness of nutrient-dense food, as I really think it held me up during this very challenging time.)

The continued spiral

I felt like I could not “catch up” or reset from the lack of sleep, constant nervousness I felt, and fears that came with feeling so uncomfortable in my mind and body while being a full-time caregiver.

I became extremely and chronically exhausted, and my sleep issues only seemed to worsen – which then exacerbated everything else – and it felt like a horrific snowball. I became petrified that it would never end, which began to compound everything more and more due to the extreme fear I lived with moment to moment.

I had problems being upright, with sound/light, and with any form of mental/physical exertion. Also…an extreme sense of dread, suicidal ideation, crying spells all day long, and a general feeling that I was not okay and would not get better.

I rarely got relief from these feelings, especially in the first few months. But when you’re a mom (especially a SAHM with little help), the show must go on, so I cared for a toddler through all of it. Sometimes I did not think I would make it another 5 minutes due to how challenging the sensations felt in my body.

I had no idea what was going on and my default was to assume that I wasn’t eating enough food (since my appetite was also almost nonexistent at this time).

So I started tracking my food and eating upwards of 2500-2800 calories per day and upwards of 150g of protein per day (I was still nursing at this time)…pretty much entirely animal-based which is how I’ve eaten for years.

That didn’t help.

I tried so many combinations of macros and different eating rhythms…lower carb, higher carb, lower fat, higher fat, eating a few hours before bed, eating a snack right before bed, eating throughout the night, not eating throughout the night, super restrictive eating (almost carnivore), diversifying my eating.

Nothing on this front helped.

Trouble sleeping and trauma flashbacks

Sleep became a nightmare…literally. I had never experienced anything like these sleep issues before.

I could not sleep past 2-3 am. I had nightmares all night long and would wake up in flashbacks (from early childhood up to the recent traumas – it was so random) and with extreme body sensations…panic, shortness of breath, feeling like bugs were crawling through my body, like my brain did not work, and extreme feelings of dread and terror.

I also had tingly hands on and off throughout the day and so many other weird symptoms (like “jello” legs and a chronic cough).

The flashbacks would stay with me for hours (and sometimes days).

Once I was up, I was UP. It felt like as soon as I realized I was awake and was in my body, I was catapulted to Hell. I would shoot up and run to the kitchen to eat something because my stomach was in knots and it felt like the only thing I could do/control.

The food would immediately quell my stomach, but minutes later, I felt like I was going to hurl it up. I would breathe through the nausea and it would eventually subside somewhat.

I would then try to go back to sleep, but the nightmares and hypervigilance became even worse at this time in the early morning hours and I would often shoot awake in terror every 10-15 minutes or so if I tried to sleep, which led to me becoming more and more terrified of sleeping.

It usually took me at least half the day (if not most of the day) to recover from the state of terror I woke up in. I often felt pretty good by the evening, but then the phenomenon would start all over again every morning, without fail.

Some things I tried

I self-diagnosed myself with histamine intolerance/MCAS/POTS (which were all things I had dealt with before during times of stress – and all stem from nervous system dysregulation anyway, so it didn’t surprise me that I would be experiencing flare ups during this highly stressful time).

I went on a nearly zero histamine diet and it helped a little bit. I pounded down electrolytes and it helped a little bit. But nothing seemed to touch the sleep issues.

It seems like as the year went on, I just got more and more scared/nervous that I had no idea what was going on with my body, which compounded into this horrific state of mental terror, very poor/unrestful sleep, and extreme exhaustion.

Most days it was challenging to be upright and felt unsafe for me to leave the house or do anything but basic/survival tasks like cooking, cleaning, and caring for my daughter.

The “mom guilt” and “partner guilt” was tremendous.

Any sort of stimulation felt like too much…down to the sound of appliances (yes, appliances…like the sound of the washing machine) and would make me feel like I needed to vomit. I had a hard time staying in a conversation with someone for more than a few minutes as it also made me nauseated to listen to people talk. I couldn’t listen to music much or consume much information, go on social media, etc.

All of it made me feel nauseated and like I needed to go isolate immediately in a dark room away from any sort of stimulation, only I couldn’t while caring for a (very stimulating, by nature) toddler. I felt like someone was holding a blowhorn up to my ear 24/7 that I just wanted to turn off, but couldn’t.

I also couldn’t work, and work was my main distraction/coping mechanism before, so it was just brutal all around. Brutal.

Nervous system focus

I eventually concluded that I was going through some sort of cPTSD reactivation given that the core of my symptoms were insomnia, nightmares, flashbacks/re-experiencing, nausea, and sensitivity to light and sound (I had dealt with this back in 2015, but this time around, everything felt way more potent; more on the 2015 experience here).

I started brain retraining (Primal Trust) which helped some, but still didn’t move the needle much for me.

(When I look back now, my highly activated state was honestly probably too much to be successful with the program. It was a great program, I learned a lot, and I still recommend it to people. I just think I was way too activated to really give myself to the program fully. I was also so busy, stressed, and overstimulated with round-the-clock toddler care that I felt like I could barely see straight, let alone add anything else on top of the bare essentials.)

So, I just continued to live with this phenomenon. Like clockwork, I’d wake up between 2-3 am with sheer terror, and just deal with it.

I’d sit in my living room and either pace, cry, or sit with my head in my hands in a defeated posture for hours, just waiting for my daughter to get up (and pray that I wouldn’t die that day and make it through).

A try at conception again

Over the months, I found God, began to read the Bible, and started to wonder if I was dealing with some sort of spiritual warfare. Being in a vulnerable season of creation and life, I wondered if I was getting attacked in some way…by demons, dark forces, bad energy.

So despite all that was going on, I didn’t want to let it run or ruin my life. I wanted to expand our family. And I decided that we would keep trying.

(And I must add…the more I saw (and allowed myself to see), the more I processed – the flashbacks, the dark memories, the stuff that was really hard to face. And the more I processed – slowly but surely – the better I began to feel overall. At 28 weeks pregnant now, while this is still going on (I still wake up at 2-3 am every day, have nightmares, and I still get flashbacks that I have to work through), I feel much better than I did in 2024. So I really feel like this was/is some sort of purge that was necessary, and possibly (spiritually) initiated by my baby.)

We tried again in June and July without success. Those were really emotional months for me.

We decided to skip August as it would have put us at a due date of early May and I didn’t want my kids having the same birthday month (once you read on, you’ll lol at this one).

Then September rolled around. I checked what the due date would be based on my ovulation that month. It was May 28.

I didn’t want to skip another month to prevent a May birthday because it felt so silly. Also, because I hadn’t gotten pregnant yet, I didn’t really think it would happen due to my stress levels. (For reference, I was still losing clumps of hair at the rate of fresh postpartum months…below is an actual photo of the hair loss I was experiencing every 1-2 days).

So I just said whatever, let’s try and let go and if babe is meant to come, they will.

Heart & Soil Films featured me and my first daughter in their mini-documentary, Nourished, which spotlights animal-based pregnancies. Click on the above image to watch it on YouTube.

Surprise!

Fun fact…my husband and I had sex just once during my fertile window that month. In the prior months, I was forceful with timing and frequency and it was all just so tiring.

In September, I was exhausted. I figured that we opened up the portal once, and if it was meant to be, that would be enough.

Lo and behold, I got pregnant that month. I was completely shocked (and still am).

And – the funny part – my daughters’ due dates are just 2 days apart…May 26 for my first daughter (she came on May 15), and this one is May 28.

I joke that my husband and I just have one conception setting – we only know how to create girls due in May.

The above photo is the first time I saw line progression at 10 DPO…

…which eventually turned into a “dye stealer” line shortly after (maybe a week or so), when the test line showed up incredibly dark before the control line even showed up!

Another fun fact…I wanted to conceive so badly in January because I really wanted a Fall baby. Well, I ended up getting one (our day of conception was September 4), just in a different way. 🙂

I really think this baby started her work on me back in January when we made our first attempt to conceive her…months before she was in my womb.

There were many things I had to see and process before she came. Our first try at conception is what seemed to burst open the floodgates.

Here’s another (more surface-level) fun fact. For all of you organ fans, the month we conceived is the month I started Heart & Soil Her Package. If you read the reviews, many women get pregnant shortly after starting this supplement. If you’re struggling to conceive, it could be worth a shot.

Starting in February 2024 – at the beginning of all this – my luteal phase drastically shortened from 12-14 days to 8-10 days (from stress, I assume). And it remained like that all year. I assumed I wouldn’t be able to conceive with a short luteal phase, and that maybe Her Package would help extend it.

Perhaps it did, however…

I got my positive pregnancy test 10 DPO, which means the egg was fertilized days before. So I definitely still could have had a short luteal phase the month we conceived.

Ladies, if you have a shorter luteal phase, conception is not impossible or unlikely. Don’t let that narrative scare you. I’ve heard of women conceiving with 7-8 day luteal phases.

The “short luteal phase” narrative really scared me the whole year and I assumed I’d never be able to conceive unless my luteal phase lengthened back to 11+ (which it never did).

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The beginning of pregnancy

Even though a part of me felt stoked and grateful to be pregnant, I still felt absolutely horrible mentally going into pregnancy. When I got pregnant, I was worried that the 9 months of extreme stress had caused some sort of physical deficiency that would affect the pregnancy.

Mind you, despite having nearly no appetite, I was eating (force-feeding, really) 2300-2800 calories per day of as much nutrient-dense food as possible (lots of raw milk, beef, and fruit) all year to prep my body (and to keep my milk supply since I was still nursing my daughter).

I also took supplements when I could (acerola cherries for vitamin C, D/K2, fish eggs, organs, oysters, and magnesium). But I still felt very unwell.

So around 4.5 weeks pregnant, I got a full blood panel done and checked my thyroid health (including antibodies), hormones (progesterone/estrogen/cortisol), vitamin D, a full iron panel, folate, vitamin B12, and a full CBC. (For more about how to test these markers from the convenience of your home, check out this post here.)

Besides cortisol being slightly elevated, all else was normal (which honestly shocked me, but also put me at ease).

My thyroid health had even improved – shockingly – from when I last checked at 10 months postpartum.

I really think the months of force-feeding nutrient-dense food even when I had zero appetite really helped to keep my body afloat.

When the bump started to poke out around 10 weeks…so much earlier this go around!

Final thoughts

I will be creating an entire blog post on the first trimester and how I got through (spoiler alert: it was rough; being pregnant while caring for a toddler is no joke). So if you’d like to hear more about that, keep an eye out for that post.

If you made it this far, thank you for reading my story. It was healing to write, organize, and further process.

It also feels good to be creating again – both in my womb and on this blog.