Your body has priorities.
Just like you do.
Think about your own life for a moment.
If you’re running a business, there are certain things that have to happen first.
You need to keep the lights on. Pay your staff. Look after your customers. Keep the business functioning.
Only once those basic things are taken care of can you start thinking about growth, expansion, new projects, or the finer details.
Your body works in a similar way.
It has a hierarchy of priorities.
And understanding this hierarchy can completely change the way you think about your fertility health.
Your body is doing thousands of things every second.
Your heart is pumping blood.
You’re breathing.
Your brain is communicating with your body.
You’re digesting food.
Your immune system is monitoring for threats.
Your hormones are sending signals.
Your cells are repairing themselves.
And somehow, your body coordinates all of this without you having to consciously think about it.
But not all of these functions have the same level of importance.
If your body has limited energy or resources, it has to decide where those resources are needed most.
And it makes sense that the functions keeping you alive come first.
This is where the concept of priority becomes incredibly important when we’re talking about fertility.
The first priority of your body is keeping you alive.
Breathing.
Keeping your heart beating.
Maintaining blood flow.
Regulating your temperature.
Digesting and absorbing food.
Maintaining blood sugar.
Keeping your brain functioning.
These functions are essential.
Your body can’t simply decide to stop doing them because it needs to save energy for something else.
They come first.
So if your body is struggling at this fundamental level, its resources will naturally be directed towards maintaining these essential functions.
And that makes sense.
Your body is designed to protect your survival first.
Once those basic functions are working reasonably well, the body can start putting more energy towards the next level.
This includes things like:
These functions may not keep you alive in the next five minutes, but they are essential for keeping you healthy over the long term.
And this is where things get interesting.
You might be alive.
You might be getting through your day.
You might even look perfectly healthy from the outside.
But your body may still be spending a huge amount of its resources trying to catch up, repair, regulate and recover.
Maybe you’re constantly exhausted.
Maybe you’re getting sick all the time.
Maybe you struggle to sleep.
Maybe you’re dealing with persistent inflammation.
Maybe your digestion isn’t great.
Maybe your periods are painful, heavy, irregular or completely unpredictable.
Maybe you feel like your body is constantly trying to recover from something.
When this is happening, your body has a lot of work to do.
And that brings us to the next level.
Once the more fundamental functions are being adequately supported, your body has more capacity to put energy towards functions that aren’t immediately necessary for survival.
This includes things like:
These things are important to us.
Skin.
Hair.
Nails.
Beauty.
Fertility.
Reproduction.
But from the body’s perspective, they are expensive.
Growing beautiful hair isn’t necessary for survival.
Having glowing skin isn’t necessary for survival.
Growing strong nails isn’t necessary for survival.
And, importantly, reproduction isn’t necessary for keeping you alive today.
Reproduction requires a significant investment from the body.
Healthy eggs need to develop.
Hormones need to communicate at the right time.
Ovulation needs to occur.
The uterine lining needs to develop appropriately.
Blood flow needs to support the reproductive organs.
And if pregnancy occurs, the body then needs to support the growth of an entirely new human being.
That’s a huge investment.
So when resources are limited, it makes sense that reproduction isn’t necessarily going to be the first place your body puts them.
I know this can sound strange.
Because if you’re trying to conceive, fertility probably feels like one of the most important things in your life.
But your body doesn’t necessarily see it that way.
Your body is constantly asking a much more basic question:
“Do I have enough resources to support this?”
If the answer is no, it makes sense for your body to focus on more immediate needs.
This is one reason I don’t believe fertility should always be approached by looking only at the reproductive system.
Sometimes, the reproductive system isn’t the first place we need to look.
We need to look at the systems supporting it.
How are you sleeping?
How are you digesting?
How are you recovering?
How much inflammation are you carrying?
How is your nervous system coping?
Are you constantly getting sick?
Are you exhausted?
Are your periods telling you that your body is struggling to regulate?
These things matter.
Because your reproductive health doesn’t exist in isolation from the rest of your body.
This is one of the most useful questions you can ask yourself.
What is my body prioritising right now?
Look at what is happening in your life and in your body.
Are you burnt out and running on empty?
Are you barely sleeping?
Are you constantly stressed or getting sick?
Are you dealing with digestive problems or feeling inflamed around your cycle?
Are your periods painful, heavy or irregular?
Have you been trying to conceive for a long time while your body is also dealing with multiple other demands?
These things can give you clues about where your body’s resources are currently being directed.
None of this means your body is broken.
And it doesn’t mean you can’t become pregnant.
It simply gives you another way to understand what may be happening.
Your body may be putting its energy somewhere else first.
This is where things become really empowering.
Once you understand the concept of priority, you can stop asking:
“What’s wrong with my fertility?”
And start asking:
“What does my body need right now?”
The answer might be more sleep, better nourishment, support for digestion, help regulating inflammation, more recovery, lower stress levels, or a more regulated menstrual cycle.
It might also mean giving your body time and support to recover from illness, burnout, or years of pushing yourself too hard.
The goal isn’t to force your body into reproduction.
It’s to create the conditions where fertility can become a more realistic priority for your body.
And this is where the other foundations become important too.
Your body needs enough resources to support these functions.
It needs abundance.
And the resources it has available need to be of sufficient quality.
I’ll be going much deeper into both of these foundations in future articles.
But before we get there, there’s another foundation that comes next.
This is one of the reasons I love using acupuncture as part of fertility care.
Acupuncture isn’t simply about putting needles into points that are supposed to “make you fertile.”
It’s about working with the body as a whole.
In Chinese medicine, we don’t look at fertility as something completely separate from the rest of your health.
We look at the patterns happening throughout the body.
How are you sleeping?
How is your digestion?
How is your menstrual cycle?
How is your energy?
How are you recovering?
Where is there tension?
Where is there stagnation?
Where does the body appear to be struggling to regulate?
From a modern physiological perspective, research suggests acupuncture may influence systems involved in nervous-system regulation, stress responses, blood flow and inflammatory processes.
So rather than simply trying to push the reproductive system harder, the aim is to support the body as a whole.
Sometimes, improving the foundations underneath fertility is what allows the reproductive system to function more effectively.
This may be the most important part of understanding priority.
Your body isn’t trying to stop you from getting pregnant.
It isn’t failing you.
It isn’t deliberately putting everything else ahead of your fertility.
It’s constantly trying to keep you functioning with the resources it has available.
And sometimes, fertility simply isn’t the highest priority.
That doesn’t mean it can never become one.
It means there may be some groundwork to do first.
So instead of fighting your body, you can start listening to it.
What is it asking for?
What is it struggling with?
Where is it spending its energy?
And perhaps most importantly:
What can I do to help my body function better, so it has more capacity to support fertility?
That is where I believe fertility care becomes much more meaningful.
Because fertility isn’t just about your ovaries, your uterus or your hormones.
It’s about the entire environment those systems are living within.
And when we start supporting the body from the ground up, we give fertility a stronger foundation to work from.
Priority is the first of the five foundations I use when thinking about fertility health.
But it doesn’t work alone.
Once you understand Priority, the next question naturally becomes:
Does my body feel safe?
That’s the next foundation I’ll be exploring in my next post: Safety.
I’ll explain what I mean by safety, why I believe it matters for fertility, and how the signals your body receives every day can influence the way it functions.
If you’re trying to conceive and you’re wondering whether your body is giving fertility the support it needs, this is something we can explore together.
At my fertility acupuncture clinic near Cambridge, I work with women from Cambridge, Hamilton and across the wider Waikato region to understand the patterns affecting their fertility health and create a personalised approach based on their individual needs.
If you’d like support understanding your body and your fertility, book a fertility consultation and let’s explore what’s happening together.
ADB Acupuncture Clinic aims to deliver amazing outcomes with our core services. In addition to giving you time to unwind, we offer therapeutic care that is results-driven. Our goal is to offer services that place a strong emphasis on an individual's overall wellness.
