This is a continuation of the TTC series. Other articles that go along with this are:
- Five Better Questions to Ask Yourself While TTC
- 20 Journal Prompts While TTC
- Believing Pregnancy Over 40 is Possible
I am not TTC anymore, but I had an almost three-year journey to my baby with donor eggs in 2024. I’ve since had two losses in 2025, so all of the TTC feelings and thoughts have come back strong. If you are currently on a journey to conceive (TTC), you know that the mind is busy at coming up with wild answers. Left to its own devices, it often defaults to unintentional thoughts like It’s never going to happen. I’m running out of time. My body is failing me.
These thoughts aren’t just “mean”—they create physical anxiety and exhaustion.
The goal isn’t to force a “happy affirmation” that feels like a lie. If a thought feels fake, your nervous system will reject it. Instead, we want to move toward Intentional Thoughts: statements that feel like a physical sigh of relief in your body.
If you find yourself thinking, My body is broken and you try to jump straight to My body is a fertile goddess your brain will likely scream Liar! Instead, climb the ladder. Start with a neutral thought you actually believe, like, I have a body. Then move to My body is doing its best. Only when that feels true do you move up to: My body and I are on the same team.
Here is a menu of thoughts to help you move from the “unintentional spiral” into a space of peace, curiosity, and determination.
Neutral Thoughts (To stop the spiral)
Use these when you feel like you’re failing or running out of time. They move you from “this is a disaster” to “this is just more information.”
1. “I am a woman who is currently trying to get pregnant.” (A neutral fact vs. “I am struggling.”)
2. “My age is a number, and my body is doing its best today.”
3. “It is possible that I can get pregnant at 40.” (Using “It’s possible” because it’s hard for the brain to argue that.)
4. “Nothing is going wrong here; this is just the middle of the story.”
5. “My worth as a human is not tied to my fertility status.”
Empowered Thoughts (To drive action)
Use these when you need the “fuel” to keep going with appointments, supplements, or tracking.
1. “I am the exact right person to advocate for my future child.”
2. “I am learning more about my body every single day.”
3. “I am willing to feel the discomfort of a ‘no’ to get to a ‘yes’.”
4. “I have the resources and the resilience to handle whatever happens next.”
5. “My body and I are on the same team.”
Compassionate Thoughts (To handle the 50/50)
Life is 50% “good” and 50% “bad.” These help you accept the hard parts without judging yourself.
1. “It makes total sense that I feel anxious right now; I’m human.”
2. “I can handle a negative pregnancy test. It’s just a vibration in my body.”
3. “I don’t have to be ‘positive’ all the time to be a good candidate for motherhood.”
4. “Grief and hope can exist in the same space.”
5. “I am taking care of the woman who is waiting to be a mother.”
Abundance Thoughts (To shift out of “lack”)
These help you stop looking at the clock and start looking at the bigger picture.
1. “There is more than one way for me to become a mother.”
2. “My life is already 100% whole, even while I wait for it to expand.”
3. “I have a 100% success rate of getting through hard days.”
4. “The timing of my life has always unfolded exactly as it should.”
5. “I am becoming the version of myself that is ready for this baby.”
I hope you have found these thoughts useful and empowering to help you along your journey. Which of these thoughts feels like the biggest “relief” in your body right now?
If these thoughts helped you, I’d love to invite you to listen to real stories of women who had babies over 40. These stories were also a game-changer to my TTC journey.