S2 E2: My Preconception Protocol: What I Did to Prepare (#37)

Summary

Taylor Rae Roman hosts an episode of On the Outside sharing her preconception protocol, detailing the two-year journey that led to a successful pregnancy on her first attempt. She discusses key lifestyle changes, including nutrition modifications, eliminating alcohol, and removing endocrine-disrupting chemicals from her home. She also highlights her supplement choices, such as Thorne’s prenatal vitamin, DHA, folate, COQ10, and inositol, emphasizing the importance of starting them months in advance.

Taylor also explores mental and medical preparation, stressing the value of couples therapy, individual counseling, and early OB-GYN consultations. She shares her experience using the Natural Cycles app for cycle tracking and understanding her fertile window. The episode wraps up with a timeline of her preconception protocol, outlining essential steps in nutrition, supplements, and overall preparation.

KEY MOMENTS

Introduction and Overview - 00:00:07: Taylor Rae Roman introduces her personal preconception protocol, emphasizing that while this worked for her, every journey is unique. She aims to help others synthesize information from various sources into a personalized plan.

Lifestyle Changes and Toxin Removal - 00:05:45: Taylor details lifestyle modifications, particularly focusing on removing endocrine-disrupting chemicals from her home. She discusses switching to glass containers, natural cleaning products, and eliminating synthetic fragrances from personal care items.

Supplement Protocol - 00:13:05: Taylor outlines her supplement regimen using primarily Thorne products, including prenatal vitamins, DHA, folate, COQ10, and inositol. She explains the importance of each supplement and their specific benefits for conception.

Mental Health Preparation - 00:20:36: Taylor emphasizes the importance of mental health preparation through therapy, both individually and as a couple. She discusses preparing for various pregnancy scenarios and having important conversations before conception.

Medical Appointments and Cycle Tracking - 00:24:42: Taylor shares her experience with medical preparation and cycle tracking, recommending establishing an OB-GYN relationship before pregnancy and using the Natural Cycles app for tracking.

TRANSCRIPTION

Hello, and welcome back. My name is Taylor Rae, and this is On the Outside. In today's episode, I talk about my personal preconception protocol. I'll share everything I did starting two years before trying to conceive, and finish the episode with my specific personal protocol timeline.

We'll cover lifestyle changes I made, including things like nutrition, hydration, stress management, sleep and limiting toxins. I'll talk you through my supplements and vitamins that I decided to take, my mental health preparation, including how me and my husband prepared as a team, the medical appointments I made before getting pregnant, how cycle tracking worked for me, and I'll share the books and types of research I consulted if you want to continue learning more.

Now remember, every journey is different and unique. This is what worked for me and led to a great pregnancy outcome for me, but there is only so much that we can control. I knew that doing as much as I possibly could would help me feel my best, knowing that I tried my best and gave it my all.

I knew that whatever the outcome, I would at least feel good that I did my part. I didn't want to have any regrets or wish I had done things differently, so I gave myself peace of mind by locking into what the research says and giving it my best shot.

I hope this episode helps demystify some of the information out there and helps you find a game plan that works for your preconception journey, if that's what you're looking for. Now my purpose and goal for creating this episode is because I felt like I really didn't know how to synthesize all of the information that I was reading, that I was hearing things from friends, from books, things from papers.

And I didn't really know how to take all of that and just put it into my own plan that was right for me. That was like challenging. And so I'm hoping that this might be a way to help you figure out the best things for yourself.

Remember that there are so many different reasons why we need different things. You might have a vitamin deficiency. You might be on your second or third birth. There's a lot of different ways that each of our bodies operate.

So of course, keep that in mind. Okay, friend, so I got pregnant in one day. Not one month, not one cycle, literally one day. I know this because me and my husband took precautions for two years while I was off hormonal birth control to ensure that I didn't get pregnant before we were both ready.

Come August, we felt that it was time. According to my perfect ideal dream calendar, August would be the month that I got pregnant. I started feeling pretty anxious when August came because I thought, huh, I probably should have started earlier in the event I don't get pregnant right away.

But I knew if I got pregnant in August, then I would have my baby in May. May is when my graduation is. I was like, oh, I'll get to graduate and then I'll go right into motherhood. I don't have to worry about like having a weird lull between grad school and motherhood.

I don't have to worry about trying to get a job and then get maternity leave. Instead, I could just go into this chapter first. All of those things made this feel like the perfect time. So I took my first LH test and I'll talk a little bit more about LH tests and what I wish I did differently.

But I took my first LH test in putting that info into my pregnancy app. I was using Natural Cycles and I'm so excited because they actually gave me a discount code for you guys because I told them I talk about them in every episode of this podcast.

So I inputted that into Natural Cycles and it readjusted my peak fertility days based on that new information and told me I only had two days left in my cycle to get pregnant, not five. So once I had this new information, I was pretty anxious.

We went on a jog and I was so nervous. I was thinking I'm 31, why did I wait so long to start trying? I thought I had no chance of getting pregnant that month unless I got pregnant right away. We have a trip planned with friends this summer and I was like, we're gonna have to cancel that because there's no way that I'm going to get pregnant in time.

And if I don't get pregnant this month, our baby won't be vaccinated in time. I was stressed. As a grad student, I thought, what if I have to write my thesis during a really tough time in my pregnancy because I don't get pregnant soon enough?

This was also our second wedding anniversary on this date. So we had dinner plans and we had a busy day ahead. My husband knew I was distracted and worried while we were out for our jog, but he slowly helped me.

calm down. I ran further than I ever had. I ran from our apartment over the Brooklyn Bridge, up to Asher Place. I was literally covered in salt and sweat and finally felt okay, accepting that what would be would be.

And that day, I got pregnant with my son. Before we dive in, as always, I want to remind you that I am not a doctor. I am not a medical professional. Everything I share in this episode, as always, is based on my personal experience and research.

Always check in with your doctor or qualified healthcare provider before making any decisions about your health, pregnancy, or preconception journey. Let's get into it. Okay, first up, lifestyle changes.

Aside from removing all of the endocrine-disrupting chemicals from my home, I didn't really change a ton. I'm going to go a little bit deeper into that. But just to get the other things out of the way, nutrition, I cut out alcohol six months before trying to conceive.

So six months before August of 2024, I cut out alcohol. Otherwise, pretty much the same thing I said in my episode around preconception, the nutrition recommendations are the ones that you've been hearing.

You know them. I don't need to go over them. I'm not a dietician, but even if I was, I would say you probably have a good idea of what you should be eating. Your leafy greens, your vitamin-dense foods, less ultra-processed foods, more vegetables, more fruit, more lean meats, all the things that you have heard, that really stays true.

It doesn't hurt to give a Google of things to eat while trying to conceive, things to eat while pregnant. Mostly it tells you eat fish for the Omega-3s, eat leafy greens. But friend, just eat a balanced diet.

Your girl still gets a fast food every now and then. Your girl still eats chocolate cake every now and then. I ate a whole tray of brownies this week. It's okay. It's okay, you just want to try and have a balanced diet.

But I feel like I was pretty balanced before, so this wasn't a huge area of concern for me. I also was right in my healthy weight range for me. And so this wasn't something that I was overly concerned about.

But if it is an area of concern for you, then you might want to look into it a little bit more deeply. But I haven't found that there is anything revolutionary that you don't already know. Hydration, same thing, be hydrated.

There's again, not really anything too wild. Once you become pregnant, later in pregnancy, you might have some rough contractions. You might have some aches and pains. There might be some issues if you're dehydrated.

But in this preconception, phase, just be as hydrated as you've been. Stress management and sleep, again these are areas that I think we have a really solid idea of what the recommendations are going to be.

You want to keep your stress down, you want to focus on having restful sleep, you want to focus on getting you know your eight hours or more of sleep every night. These are again things that I feel like you already know and where I'm not really going to give you the most help.

What I really want to talk about in terms of lifestyle is going to be in removing toxins. As I shared a little bit in last week's episode, endocrine disruptors are chemicals that interfere with your body's hormonal system, potentially leading to reproductive, developmental, neurological, and immune issues.

Many of these chemicals are found in everyday household products. There are a lot of different things that you might've heard like BPAs, falfets, parabens, forever chemicals, heavy metals, synthetic fragrances.

You may have come across these terms and thought, okay, cool, I hear you, but what am I supposed to replace it with? So let's go down the line of some of these most important things. Your plastic containers, water bottles, canned food linings, food wraps that have BPAs in them.

We really wanna switch those, the things that might be glass. So all of our containers in our home are glass. Our Tupperware is glass. We made all of those changes. All of my utensils for cooking, instead of plastic, we use wood or we use metal, but we don't have plastic cooking utensils anymore.

You really just don't want anything that could melt. You don't want anything that you can cut little pieces of plastic into your food. So if you have an old plastic cutting board that has been just used down to the bone that every time you cut into it, you're cutting a piece of plastic out of it, these are the things that we wanna look into.

Parabens, this is found in soaps, detergents, personal care products, shampoos, lotions, deodorants, perfumes, and makeup. And this is also true for synthetic fragrances and for phthalates. I think I'm saying that word right.

I feel like I am. These things are also found in plug-in air fresheners, candles, and sprays. So basically anything that has a scent is potentially a synthetic fragrance unless it's something like an essential oil.

We want to check on it. We wanna check on our cosmetics. We wanna check on the products that we're using and see what those ingredients are. I had never read the ingredients of like, I don't know, body wash a day in my life until I started thinking, huh, what's actually in there?

What I have changed to is just a Dr. Bronner's soap. That's pretty much what I use all the time. Every now and then I switch it up to a bar of soap that has very simple. ingredients in it. And I really just make sure that I am using products.

My deodorant is all natural unscented. I know we all hate an all natural deodorant because half the time it doesn't work, but I knew that going into pregnancy and eventually my breastfeeding journey, that that was something I was going to have to get used to and wanted to get used to anyway.

So these are some of the changes that I have made. Do I still wear my perfume every now and then? Yeah, I do. Being pregnant, especially first trimester, the smell of my perfume was absolutely gross to me.

So I didn't wear it a lot of this pregnancy, but you know, again, we're living in moderation. This is just something to consider. I highly recommend that you go through all of your cosmetics and just take a look.

You might be surprised in what you see on those labels. Forever chemicals. This could be found on our nonstick pots, and pans. So take a look at that. And lastly, heavy metals, especially in an urban environment.

I'm here in Brooklyn. This is very common in tap water. So we have a reverse osmosis filter, which we put for our water filtration system, and that's what we use. And I love that for us. So removing those toxins was something that I really spent time doing, especially the more that I learned about them.

We use dark glass spray bottles for all of our cleaning products. I label them. I use filtered water, either lemon or lavender or eucalyptus essential oils, just because those are the fragrances that we like.

And I have some with hydrogen peroxide, some with soap, and some with vinegar. And that's what we use to clean the entire house. I used to absolutely love a disinfectant. But once I started really looking at what was in there, I thought, I don't really need this for everyday use.

If someone was super sick in the home, if I really needed to get some kind of crazy germs and bacteria out, of course, I'm not against it. We love science. I love that we have these disinfectants. But for everyday use, it's just really not necessary.

So these are some of the changes that I made in the lifestyle category. Now, when we get into things like supplements and vitamins, I have an entire episode that I just finished the research for that is going to go a lot more in depth to vitamin and supplement recommendations, how to find the best supplements, why supplements are different, what brands we should be looking at, what certifications we should be seeing,

and how we might choose our prenatal. Again, this is my personal protocol in this episode. So I'm going to break it down with what I've done. So I get pretty much all of my supplements from Thorne because it's one of the highest quality supplement brands for their purity, potency, rigorous testing, and they're just my brand of choice.

This is not sponsored. Thorne hasn't given me the time of day and I wish they would. because I love them so, so much. But really, this is just because I have found that they are an excellent vitamin and supplement company.

So first, I take their basic prenatal. Their prenatal also includes iodine. And iodine's believed to support a healthy fetus and infant in development. And it's a new recommendation from the American Thyroid Association and Council for Responsible Nutrition to have iodine in prenatal vitamins.

So there is iodine in their basic prenatal as well as a ton of other vitamins. With that, I also take a prenatal DHA and that is really where I'm getting my omega-3s. So I can get omega-3s in foods that I eat, but this is something that's super important for egg quality, for baby's brain, nervous system.

and retina. So I really wanted to make sure that I had enough of these Omega-3s that supports fetal development and can reduce preterm births, miscarriages, and stillbirths. So making sure that I have that was also very important to me.

I also take folate. Now there is a little bit of folate in their basic prenatal, but I also take a separate folate because, friends, folate is basically the most important supplement according to every health organization around the world, and so that is something we want to prioritize.

Folic acid can reduce the risk of neural tube defects by more than 70%. It affects the brain, spine, and skull. It also can reduce the risk of neural tube defects, like I said, like spina bifida, in developing baby.

And these things occur very early in pregnancy, often before someone knows that they're pregnant. Really, in those first 12 weeks, baby is developing like crazy, and so having this store of folate in my system for six months before trying to conceive, I felt really good about that, that I was really getting those vitamin stores ready to party for my baby, and so folate had to go for it.

Now I also did some other supplements that I stopped once becoming pregnant, but that, during this preconception phase, were really important. That was coenzyme Q10, or COQ10, to help improve egg quality, enositol, which helps with ovulation, insulin sensitivity, and glycemic control, but really, it is for that ovulation support, and both of those are blended together in a blend called ovarian care from Thorne,

and they have it in a powder formula, so I used it in the morning and at night, and I mix it in my water and drank it. I'm super sensitive to gross tasting drinks, and I actually thought that this one was very good and very true.

So that Coenzyme Q10 and Anisital, I was also taking that for egg quality before I got pregnant. And I did that for three months, honestly, just because I didn't know about it before. I might've done it for longer if I had known about it, but I read it in a book when I was already three months into kind of my prep.

And so I was on that supplement for three months. Lastly, I do take choline every day. And I don't get this one from Thorne. I get it from Ritual. Thorne does not have a choline supplement. Choline improves egg quality, helps form the nervous system, supports cognitive development, and reduces the risk of neural tube defects as well.

And so I also take that choline supplement every day. All of these are linked in the show notes. They're on my Shop My. They're on my storefront. And I highly, highly recommend, like I said, Thorne is my personal fav.

Ritual is also great. I do take their choline and that's what worked for me. I'm gonna cover the supplements my husband took in another episode. So I will get to that at another time. Now let's talk about the medical appointments that I made before getting pregnant.

Friend, I could recommend something for you to do differently than what I did. It would be this moment right here. Now for me, I did a regular checkup and that's great. Love that for me, very cool. Didn't really learn any new information.

It was like getting a physical, cool, great. What I wish I had done was done my research, met my OB-GYN, started seeing her as a regular client, regular patient, did my PAP, did any testing that was necessary, had at least a few visits with her, even if it was one and was like an official patient in her office.

I wish I had done that before becoming pregnant because what I did is I did all the research. I knew what hospital I wanted. I knew the kind of care team that I wanted. I knew what kind of doctor I wanted.

I went through the entire roster. I found the location that I liked. I looked at her research. I watched videos of her. I finally called. She had an opening and then I made my appointment. You do not see your OB for six to eight weeks into your pregnancy.

It really depends on where you live in the country. So I did not see her. I believe I was at six weeks when I finally went in. For those six weeks, I had so many questions and I basically didn't have a doctor.

The reason I ended up in this circumstance was because I was finishing grad school. So I was doing all of my medical care at the Columbia Health Center because I had very good and very cheap insurance through that.

But because of that, I obviously was not gonna use an OB. at Columbia, you don't even have to. You can use the insurance to go to any OB around the city. And I just didn't have one because before that, I had a complete different doctor who does not deliver babies.

She was a GYN agoncologist that I could do some of my basic stuff with, but not an OB. So I basically never had an OB-GYN in my adult life. And I wish that I had found her and figured all that out before getting pregnant so that I would have already had that rapport and support system in those first six weeks from the moment that I found out that I was pregnant until my first visit with her.

So that is my advice for you to do something a little bit different than what I did. I'll also talk more in my episode on what to expect from your doctor's visits to talk you through. every single thing that happens once you are pregnant and going to the doctor regularly.

But in this preconception phase, I think it's definitely worth doing your research, thinking about, do I wanna give birth in a birthing center? Do I wanna have a midwife? Do I want to give birth at home?

Do I wanna give birth in a specific hospital? All of those questions I think are very, very much worth considering during preconception. Now let's get into my mental health preparation, including how me and my husband prepared as a team.

Really friend, I am all about therapy. I'm a therapy girl. So we went to couples therapy. I always go to therapy solo dolo and having just that time to reflect, to understand the intense permanence and gravity of parenthood, to grapple with the ways in which I knew I would change, both physically, mentally, emotionally, the ways that my priorities would change, and just truly my life.

Every day from the moment that my son is born, I will have a son in the world. It's not a temporary thing. Pregnancy is a temporary state. I'm only pregnant temporarily, but I will eternally have a son.

And I feel that really wrapping my head around that and the ways in which my relationship with my husband could and surely will change and really talking to him about what that meant for us, what we wanted that to look like, I think that's so crucial to do in this preconception phase because the last thing that I would have wanted was to be having arguments, to be crying, to be shocked, to be confused,

to be upset, to be fighting while I was pregnant. I am so glad that I've not had to endure any of that because we had any and all tough conversations in the preconception stage. So I highly recommend that.

Something else that I really want to talk about in terms of mental health preparation is learning about it. about common pregnancy issues and preparing yourself with knowledge. For me, this was absolutely crucial and it's part of the reason why I have all of these goodies to share with you on this season of the podcast.

I really felt like I was arming myself with knowledge and information. Me and my husband had these talks about what if our child were to have this condition? What if we were to get these kinds of results?

We really only talked about the most common things. I feel like it would be incredibly overwhelming to try and parse through every single thing that could go wrong in a pregnancy or delivery. That's not really realistic and I think that's just gonna make you super anxious.

But the most common things, what if this were to happen? What if this were to happen? How would you feel? How would you wanna handle that? How would I want to handle that? So very early on in my pregnancy, I wanna say I was about six weeks, I started spotting.

I was obviously freaking out about this, but I also understood, okay, what color is the blood? How much blood is there? How can I go about this? Is this something that requires me to go to the emergency room?

Remember, I did not have an OB. So I called the office and they said, sorry, you've never been a patient here. We can't really give you recommendations over the phone because we don't really have you as a patient.

So that was tough. I had to go to urgent care. They then sent me to a specialist to get an ultrasound. Ultimately, everything was fine. But I at least had some sort of foundation and framework for understanding that this was a very common issue, that this was something that happens all the time.

This tech at the urgent care was like, yeah, spotting's super common. When I started going to my OBGYN, she said, yeah, spotting happens all the time. Don't worry about it. I had never heard that spotting was common.

I did not know that. That was like so terrifying to me before learning more about this phase of pregnancy. So there's so much information out there. Sometimes it can be really overwhelming, but I really found that having a lot of this information has really prepared me to advocate for myself, to advocate for my baby, to think about the pregnancy I want, to think about the labor and delivery that I want because I have this information.

So I really encourage you to start preparing yourself with knowledge at that early phase. Something I want to note about cycle tracking and how it worked for me. I started it two years before trying to conceive.

So that was because that was when I stopped my hormonal birth control. Obviously, this is only going to be useful if you have a regular cycle. About 14 to 25% of women of childbearing age experience irregular menstrual cycles.

So we could assume at least 75%, if not more, of women of childbearing age. bearing age have regular cycles. Me personally I have a very regular cycle so cycle tracking really worked for me. I explained a little bit more last week in this episode about preconception about cycle tracking.

I have really found that doing it in my natural cycles app is the easiest way. Some people do it with a calendar. I love that for you babe. Okay pen and paper. Love that for you. Maybe you're doing it digitally regardless.

I was like this is a lot. I really just rather put it in an app and it was worth it to me. You can do it by taking your temperature every morning or I do it with my aura ring which automatically took my temperature throughout those two years and logged it into my app.

Again I'll have a discount code from natural cycle in the show notes but I really love it. loved it, I found it to be the easiest way and I highly, highly recommend it because then you know when your fertile window is and I think that takes a lot of pressure off of you.

Last things I'll share are the books and the types of research that I consulted. I will put these in the show notes as well but I love the book, Fertility Rules. Also, expecting better. I also did like the impatient woman's guide to getting pregnant but there were some weird vibes in it.

Like I remember there was one section that said something like never tell your husband when you're ovulating instead entice him with lingerie, something like that. That didn't sit well with me, that was fricking weird.

I was like, hate that for all, not the vibe I want but there was some good information in that book otherwise. And also just Google Scholar. Really try and like even if you are not reading the entire study, the entire paper, you can just read the results section.

You can just read the summary. And I find that that information is so much less alarmist and terrifying than what you're gonna get if you just Google something and start reading these random blog posts from who knows where.

Okay friend, let's get into my full protocol. I'm just gonna break it down for you. I talked through each piece by piece and I'm just gonna take this final minute to give you a step by step. So if you're a note taking kind of girly, this is that moment to jot these notes down.

Two years before I started tracking my period and ovulation using the Natural Cycles app. One year before I started reading up on the milestones of pregnancy, what to expect from important OBGYN appointments, what to expect from genetic testing and other pregnancy testing and common birth defects.

I also started therapy with my partner. just a few sessions to get us really aligned and on the same page. Six months before I started the Thorne Fertility Bundle with Omega, Folate, and Prenatal, I started Choline and the Thorne Ovarian Care with COQ-10 and Anisital.

I cut out alcohol. I also started pelvic floor and deep core exercises. For me, that was and continues to be and I honestly still do it to this day. Deep core breathing, 360 breathing, pelvic tilts, tabletop core holds, bare planks, and kegels.

I really just wanted that to be a part of my routine. So I started that about six months, maybe not every single day, but at least once a week. Now I do do it almost every single day because I'm getting this body ready for labor.

Three months before trying to conceive, I would recommend to start using LH tests. Like I said in my earlier story, I took one LH test, which is when I found out, oop, I don't have that much time this month.

So I wish I had started earlier so I could have inputted that into my app and had it a little bit more accurate. So three months before I'd recommend that. And using a pH balancing lube is also super important.

You wanna make sure that you're using the right thing for your body to make sure that you're not really wasting your opportunity by using a lubricant that is just not safe for little spermes and eggs to thrive.

Okay friend, that is my preconception protocol. There will be some more info in the show notes and I hope that this really helps you figure out what is best for you. I really feel like cutting out alcohol, adding in my prenatals, and getting mentally and emotionally prepared are the most important things that I would share with anyone and I hope that you took away some good info today.

On next week's episode, I'll be discussing everything men need to know about preconception featuring my husband's preconception protocol. You can follow me at Taylor Rail Montay. As always, a full transcription of the episode along with citations can be found on my website.

All of those links are available in the show notes. See you out there. Bye.

REFERENCES

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National Library of Medicine. 2024. "The Role of Folic Acid in Pregnancy and Child Development." PubMed Central (PMC). Accessed April 3, 2025. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11174651.

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Schrock, Leslie. 2023. Fertility Rules. New York: Avery.

ScienceDirect. 2024. "Omega-3 Fatty Acids Support Pregnancy and Child Development." Heliyon. Accessed April 3, 2025. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405844024053556.

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Twenge, Jean M. 2012. The Impatient Woman’s Guide to Getting Pregnant. New York: Atria Books.

Disclaimer: The information shared on On the Outside is for informational and educational purposes only. I am not a doctor, medical professional, or licensed healthcare provider. The content of this podcast is based on my personal experiences and research, but it should not be taken as medical advice. Always consult with your doctor or a qualified healthcare professional before making any decisions related to your pregnancy, health, or well-being. Every pregnancy is unique, and what works for one person may not be right for another.