Why Spring Is the Hardest Season When You're Trying to Conceive
What Chinese medicine says about fertility, frustration, and how to start moving again.
If spring is supposed to feel like new beginnings and instead it just feels heavy, I want you to know that makes complete sense. And I want to explain why from a Chinese medicine perspective, because once you understand what's actually happening in your body this time of year, it changes how you approach everything.
In Chinese medicine every season corresponds to an organ system. Spring belongs to the liver. And the liver's job is movement. It governs the smooth flow of qi and blood through the body. When it's in balance, energy moves freely, emotions process and release, and the body is able to adapt to what's being asked of it. When the liver is out of balance, that movement becomes obstructed. And you feel it. Not always in an obvious way, but as a kind of frustration that sits in your chest and doesn't shift. As irritability that comes out of nowhere. As that particular feeling of being stuck that you can't quite explain even when you're doing everything right.
Spring amplifies this because the energy of the season is inherently expansive. It's pushing toward growth and new life and forward momentum. But if your liver qi is already constrained, that push has nowhere to go. So instead of feeling energised by the season you feel more agitated by it. And for women on a fertility journey, that contrast, between what the world is doing and what your body seems to be doing, can feel really painful.
What I See in Clinic
The first thing I want to understand when someone comes to me is what is really going on at the root of them. Not just what supplements they're taking or what protocol they've been on, but what is actually happening in their body that needs support. Because all of us have a little bit of a root imbalance. And unless we're looking at that specifically we're not going to be treating the body from the place where it truly needs the support.
Two women can walk in with the exact same symptoms and I will treat them completely differently based on what I find when I look at their cycles, feel their pulses, look at their tongue. Every person is different. Every body has its own story.
What I see most often is women who have been doing so much. Changing their diet, adding supplements, going through round after round of IVF, switching doctors, adjusting protocols. And they're exhausted and frustrated because nothing is sticking. And the reason nothing is sticking isn't that they're doing too little. It's that nobody has actually looked at the root of what their specific body needs. Nothing is connected. Nothing is timed to where they are in their cycle. Nothing is building on itself in a way that gives the body enough time and consistency to actually shift.
I had a woman reach out to me after three failed transfers. In one year she had attended 43 appointments, had 5 surgeries, and taken 708 medications. She had done everything the right way. Changed doctors. Adjusted protocols. Followed every piece of advice she could find. And after her third failed transfer she said something that I haven't stopped thinking about.
"When is enough enough? I can't keep going through this heartbreak. But if I stop, I think I'll be heartbroken the rest of my life."
She found me after that. Not because she needed more information or another protocol. But because she needed someone to actually look at the whole picture with her and help her build from the root up.
That is not a unique story. It is one I hear in different forms almost every week.
What Stuck Actually Looks Like in the Body
Liver qi stagnation is not just an emotional experience. It has very real physical symptoms that are easy to overlook because they seem unrelated to fertility.
PMS irritability in the days before your period. Breast tenderness. Clots in your menstrual blood. Headaches, particularly around the temples. That wired but exhausted feeling that sleep doesn't fix. These are your body's way of communicating that energy and blood are not moving freely through the system.
And in the context of fertility that matters a great deal. Healthy conception depends on healthy circulation. On the body's ability to nourish the uterine lining, regulate hormonal signalling, and create the right environment for implantation. When the liver is constrained all of that becomes harder.
The answer in most cases is not more supplements or a new protocol. It's clearing the space so that the body can actually receive the support it's being given.
Two Recipes to Support Your Liver This Season
This is where I want to bring things back to something practical because understanding the theory is useful but doing something with it today is better.
Watercress and Ginger Chicken Soup
This is something I genuinely recommend this time of year. Watercress is bitter, and in Chinese medicine bitter foods help the liver move and detoxify. Ginger is warming and supports circulation throughout the body. Slow cooked chicken broth nourishes qi and blood. Together they create something that is deeply supportive without being complicated.
Ingredients: 500g chicken pieces, bone in 1 large bunch fresh watercress, roughly chopped 6 slices fresh ginger 4 dried red dates, pitted 1 small handful goji berries 1.5 litres water Salt to taste
Method:
Blanch the chicken in boiling water for five minutes to remove impurities. Drain and rinse.
In a clean pot add the chicken, ginger, red dates, and water. Bring to a boil then reduce to a low simmer. Cook for 40 minutes.
Add the watercress and goji berries. Simmer for a further 10 to 15 minutes until the watercress is soft and the broth is fragrant.
Season with salt and serve warm.
Make this on the weekend when you have a little more time and keep it in the fridge for the week. Consistency with small supportive choices is how the body starts to shift. That's not a dramatic statement, it's just how this works.
Mint and Chrysanthemum Tea
Chrysanthemum clears heat and gently calms the liver. Mint moves qi and relieves the kind of tension that builds in the chest when you've been carrying a lot. Together they make a simple tea that helps the nervous system settle when everything feels like too much.
Steep a small handful of dried chrysanthemum flowers with fresh or dried mint in hot water for five to eight minutes. Drink it warm, ideally in the afternoon.
This is support. Not a solution on its own. But consistent, intelligent support applied over time is what actually creates movement in the body.
Where We Start
So that's really what I want to say this week. We don't start with more things. We clear the space for more clarity.
We look at your cycles. We look at what's been done. We look at what you're doing on a daily basis, what you're eating, how you're taking care of yourself, what you're doing to reduce stress, whether you're making time for yourself and your relationship. And then we start to build a solid foundation. And once that foundation is there we start layering things on in a way that actually makes sense for your body and your situation.
That is what the Mala Fertility Method is built around. It's not a list of tips or another supplement protocol. It's a structured approach that helps you understand what your body actually needs at each stage of your cycle, aligned with whatever path you're on, whether that's natural conception, IVF support, or somewhere in between.
If you're tired of piecing this together on your own, I'd love for you to take a look.
And one last thing. If you're someone who has achieved a lot in your life and done everything by the books and this is the one thing that isn't responding the way you expected it to, I want you to hear this. Something being hard is not the same as something being wrong. Your body is communicating. We just need to learn how to listen to it properly. And when you feel like you need a break, take the break. Trusting your intuition in this process is part of the work too.