I just saw that you're in the health niche, that's a tough niche to break into by someone with your attitude and experience. You'll not rank in this niche for at least 12 months. I've had a pregnancy blog several years ago (and notice I said SEVERAL years ago, not today when google's choke around our necks is even tighter) and I didn't manage to rank a single article anywhere in top 30, and that despite of the fact that I've spent most of my time on creating stellar and well optimized content.
I've also built a few shitty links to that content using cheap PBNs, web 2.0 links and foundation links, but it didn't matter shit. 3 years later and I had to sell the website (I'm actually surprised that someone found any value in that, but I'm glad that they took this burden off my shoulders, and since then I'm not even going to touch health niches anymore without at least $500-600 monthly budget for backlinks alone).
So anyway, I don't want to depress you or anything, I'm just trying to tell you like it is. You either find a niche that doesn't fall into the YMYL category (and ALL health-related niches and subniches fall within this category), and stick to it for years (decades if you have to), and work your ass off to make it rank, or you save yourself headaches and lost time and money by simply not going the SEO rabbit hole. Because once you get sucked into it... oh, boy....
Also, I just re-read your initial post and noticed that you're already ranking on positions 35-40 ?!? That's good news then. Some good backlinks pointing to those articles and a bit of on-site SEO (speed improvement if your speed is bad, some internal linking, maybe better keyword density if it's needed -check your competitors and see how their content fares when compared to yours) and you might jump a page or 2 higher. Of course, unless this is the 1st month... or first 2 months of your site, then those rankings will probably vanish soon anyway.
But regardless of whether or not the rankings drop, you still need to wait, man! Patience, continuous work and proper SEO will get you there. You just need to stick with it