Build Your Family: A Christian Woman's Reading Guide to Natural Fertility

My Journey to Health and Motherhood

My journey to motherhood began with excitement that quickly turned to heartbreak after an unexpected C-section with my first child. Holding my daughter, I feared I might never have another baby naturally. But God had different plans.

After prayer and soul-searching, we moved our family to Davenport to pursue my doctorate in Chiropractic. For my second pregnancy, I was determined to have a natural birth, so I worked with a doula, took birthing classes, saw a chiropractor regularly, and transformed my diet and activity levels. Despite gestational diabetes, I delivered a healthy 10-pound boy without any interventions — a truly transformative experience!

Just two years later, we welcomed our third child after only 45 minutes of labor at home. With each pregnancy, I noticed my health improving and my children having fewer health challenges as I focused on my own wellness. This powerful connection between preconception health and pregnancy outcomes became the foundation of my practice.

Through my experiences with traumatic birth, children's health challenges, and postpartum struggles, I uncovered the transformative power of prevention. Now I guide couples on their fertility journey, equipped by both my professional education and personal experience.

The books below have been invaluable resources for couples wanting to grow their families naturally. They focus on building health holistically—mind, body, and soul—rather than immediately turning to medical interventions.

Essential Reading for Your Fertility Journey

The Fifth Vital Sign: Master Your Cycles & Optimize Your Fertility by Lisa Hendrickson-Jack

Your menstrual cycle is actually a vital sign of your overall health, just like your pulse, temperature, and blood pressure. Lisa Hendrickson-Jack, a certified Fertility Awareness Educator, shows you how to understand this "fifth vital sign" and use it to optimize your fertility naturally.

Why you'll love it: This guide helps you understand what a normal cycle looks like, how to chart effectively, and how to use that information for your health and fertility. The book covers practical health management, including sleep, exercise, nutrition, and natural methods for managing period pain and PMS.

For Christian women, the fertility awareness methods align perfectly with a natural, God-honoring approach to family planning. The book breaks the myth that ovulation only matters when you're ready for a baby and helps you take control of your reproductive health at any stage of life.

It Starts with the Egg: How the Science of Egg Quality Can Help You Get Pregnant Naturally, Prevent Miscarriage, and Improve Your Odds in IVF by Rebecca Fett

Egg quality has a profound impact on fertility, conception time, and miscarriage risk. In fact, poor egg quality is the primary cause of age-related infertility and recurrent pregnancy loss, but you can take action to improve it!

Why you'll love it: Rebecca Fett provides a research-backed three-month program for enhancing egg quality through targeted diet, supplements, and lifestyle changes. The book tailors advice for specific challenges, including endometriosis, unexplained infertility, diminished ovarian reserve, and PCOS.

You'll learn practical strategies for reducing toxin exposure (particularly BPAs and phthalates), selecting the right supplements, and incorporating fertility-boosting foods into your diet. For PCOS specifically, the book covers supplements like Myo-inositol that can help restore ovulation patterns. This empowering guide shows how natural interventions can significantly improve your body's ability to conceive and maintain pregnancy.

Real Food for Fertility: Prepare Your Body for Pregnancy with Preconception Nutrition and Fertility Awareness by Lily Nichols and Lisa Hendrickson-Jack

This collaboration combines Lily Nichols' nutrition expertise with Lisa Hendrickson-Jack's fertility awareness knowledge, creating a powerful guide to preconception health. The authors show how nutrition and lifestyle choices before pregnancy profoundly impact both your fertility and your baby's development.

Why you'll love it: The book explains how improving nutrient intake before conception has a greater impact than dietary changes during pregnancy alone. Beyond nutrition, it addresses fertility awareness, birth control alternatives, stress management, toxin avoidance, and common reproductive health challenges.

What makes this approach unique is the focus on traditional, nutrient-dense foods that indigenous cultures prioritized for couples before conception. Many modern fertility issues stem from poor nutrition combined with toxin exposure and stressful lifestyles. By building nutrient stores before conception, you're not just increasing your chances of getting pregnant—you're setting the foundation for a healthier pregnancy from day one.

Taking Charge of Your Fertility: The Definitive Guide to Natural Birth Control, Pregnancy Achievement, and Reproductive Health by Toni Weschler

For over twenty years, this groundbreaking book has helped hundreds of thousands of women understand their bodies and take control of their fertility. Toni Weschler thoroughly explains the Fertility Awareness Method (FAM), which takes just a couple minutes a day to practice.

Why you'll love it: This comprehensive yet approachable guide teaches you to identify your fertility signs, maximize your chances of conception, and gain a true understanding of your gynecological health. The book explains the empowering Fertility Awareness Method that allows you to enjoy scientifically proven birth control without chemicals or devices, while also preparing your body for pregnancy when you're ready.

The 20th Anniversary Edition includes updates on the latest fertility technologies, expanded coverage of women's gynecological health, and new chapters on hormonal balance, preserving future fertility, and common conditions like PCOS and endometriosis. The book features clear illustrations and an expanded color insert to help you understand your body's signals.

As Christian women seeking to honor God's design for our bodies, this knowledge aligns perfectly with natural approaches to family planning. Many readers describe the book as eye-opening and empowering, finally understanding the intricacies of their bodies that were never taught in conventional education.

Period Repair Manual: Natural Treatment for Better Hormones and Better Periods by Lara Briden

Naturopathic doctor Lara Briden empowers women with practical tools to improve their hormonal health. This guide shows how to achieve better periods through natural approaches, including diet changes, supplements, and herbal remedies.

Why you'll love it: The book provides natural treatment protocols for common issues like PCOS and endometriosis, explains how to safely transition off hormonal birth control, and helps you understand what a healthy period should actually look like.

The transformative insight is that PMS symptoms and irregular cycles aren't normal—they're signs your body is out of balance. Organized by symptoms for easy reference, the manual reframes periods as monthly health reports. Many readers describe this book as life-changing, finally finding relief from symptoms they'd been told to simply endure.

Count Down: How Our Modern World Is Threatening Sperm Counts, Altering Male and Female Reproductive Development, and Imperiling the Future of the Human Race by Shanna H. Swan

In 2017, epidemiologist Shanna Swan's research revealed an alarming trend: sperm counts in Western countries had dropped by more than 50 percent over just four decades. This book explores how chemicals in our modern environment are dramatically affecting human fertility and reproductive development.

Why you'll love it: This eye-opening work reveals how both lifestyle choices and chemical exposures impact fertility and sexual development. It provides practical guidelines for avoiding harmful chemicals in everyday products that can disrupt our hormonal systems.

Count Down is essential for couples planning conception because it specifically explains how chemicals like phthalates (found in plastics, shampoos, and countless everyday items) directly impact reproductive health. Rather than just identifying problems, Swan offers actionable solutions to protect yourself and your future children from these environmental threats.

Embracing the Journey with Faith and Knowledge

As Christian women, we understand our bodies are fearfully and wonderfully made by God. These resources help us honor His design by working with our natural biology rather than against it. The journey to parenthood is both physical and spiritual, and these books provide valuable knowledge while leaving space for faith.

Remember that health is more than the absence of symptoms—it's about function, expression, and fulfillment. In preparing your body for pregnancy, you're building a foundation of wellness that benefits your entire family.

In my practice, I've seen couples who invest in preconception health achieve pregnancy more naturally and experience fewer complications, easier deliveries, and healthier babies. Though this approach might take longer than immediate medical interventions, the benefits extend far beyond just conception.

May these resources bring you deeper joy in your journey toward parenthood, and may God bless your path to growing your family!

Ready to start your journey to optimal fertility?

Schedule a discovery call with me today, and let's talk about how we can support your body's natural ability to conceive and nurture new life.