Planning a Family While Living with Crohn’s Disease

I was diagnosed with Crohn’s at the age of 22. I had just graduated from college, was living with three friends and had just started my career, so having kids was definitely far from my mind. However, I would sometimes wonder how having Crohn’s disease would affect me when I decided to start a family one day.

Starting a family with Crohn's disease

Fast forward 10 years and I was a newly married woman and my husband and I were talking about starting a family. The time had come to truly see what living with Crohn’s disease for a decade would mean for our future. With this decision came proactive choices I had to make to increase my chances of getting pregnant as easy as possible despite the fact that I had Crohn’s and was 32 years old.

Prior to getting pregnant, and actually a few months before getting married, I had taken the initiative to have a few tests done to make sure my reproductive organs were working properly. I saw a fertility doctor and had blood work drawn to determine my egg count and to test for genetic diseases. It was there that I also had two tests done to make sure there were no blockages in my fallopian tubes (since I had a colectomy in 2014 which could have resulted in leaving scar tissue behind) and to check the lining of my uterus. I received the green light on all of my tests so I felt more confident that my body was in pretty good shape to grow a baby.

Tests to check for active disease and inflammation

The next step came in September 2018. We were married for five months and thought we would start trying to get pregnant within a few months so I asked my GI to get a colonoscopy to ensure there was not only no active disease but no inflammation as well. My colonoscopy showed exactly that, so it was another green light that we could start trying since the risk of a flare was at a minimum.

Once we made the decision that we were ready to start a family, I invested in an Ava bracelet that I wore at night while sleeping which tracked my cycle and let me know my most fertile days. I felt that I knew my body quite well due to living with Crohn’s, but I wanted to improve my chances of conception as much as possible and this was the easiest and most accurate way to do so.

Working to improve physical and emotion health

But, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention a key component to our family planning— working on my overall physical and emotional health for years prior to marriage. Diet and Crohn’s is a complex subject since our bodies tolerate foods differently, however, going gluten-free and cleaning up my diet 6 years ago helped me start to move towards improving my overall health. I also started practicing stress management techniques and worked on my mental health while living with a chronic illness. These small steps paid off down the road to put my body and mind in a healthy state for having children.

On September 3, 2019, I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. My pregnancy went relatively smoothly and our daughter was born a healthy weight of 6 lbs. 10 oz. I know that the work I had put into my body and the planning we had done prior to getting pregnant was well worth it. Living with Crohn’s has taught me that planning ahead is a must, and while we cannot control many things with our disease and our body, it is important to capitalize on the things that we can control. Being proactive while living with Crohn’s can truly make a huge difference in our future and I cannot stress enough how important it is when wanting to start a family.