Trying to Concieve..

[Effkayess]

Hi. My name is Susan and I'm 20 yo. My husband and I have been trying to concieve for atleast six months now. We haven't been using protection, and have been off BC for almost 2 years. I am pretty sure i had a miscarriage 4 months ago, but I can't remember what happened exactly. I went to the doctor and everything and they kept telling me I wasn't pregnant, and refused to give me a blood test. Then, about four days later, i had brown spotting that resulted in a painful bout of period. I'm regular on my period and have been for about three years or so since the BC. The last couple days have been kinda rough. I thought I was miscarrying again because I had back and ovarian pain with a spiked temperature. I felt really weak and tired, but I had no spotting. Today I feel no pain and still no spotting. I'm starting to get really depressed and down on myself because I haven't been able to become pregnant. I hope that this was implantation and not a miscarriage. I'm not sure what to do. Advice please?

[Ttcnow]

hey susan im in the same boat your in and i was womdering have you ever thought about trying the drug called clomid... Ive been trying to get pregnant for 2years nw. I ovulate but havent gt pregnant so my doc put me on clomid to help me out a little. This month was my fist cycle od clomid 50mg days 5-9. And dont feel upset or discourage because thats stressin yourself. Gooluck

[Jaimee]

Welcome to MDC ladies!! 

Before starting on drugs, I always highly recommend charting.  Charting your basal body temperature and cervical fluid will allow you to see when you are fertile, when/if you're ovulating, how long your luteal phase is (it is generally agreed you need at least 10 days to sustain a pregnancy), when is a good time to test, when to expect AF, if you're pregnant, and if there is anything of concern happening with your cycle.  Charting a few cycles and seeing what is truly happening with your cycle is an excellent tool for figuring out your next steps whether it's timing intercourse better, taking some supplements, tweaking your diet and exercise routines, or seeing a fertility doctor. 

If you'd like more information about charting, just post!

[Effkayess]

@TTCnow; I haven't thought about it because I'm really young and shouldn't need fertility drugs. :( I wouldn't recommend BC to anyone of any age. My bestfriend has had cervical cancer and now has PCOS after taking the Depo shot for 6 years straight. I hope I'm not infertile because of some stupid pill that I was forced to take as soon as I turned 16. And I really am stressed out, it shouldn't be this hard to concieve. Everyone else does it without trying. Ugh!

@Jaimee; I don't know how to chart and I just recently (past two months) found out how to check if you're ovulating. I'm ovulating right now. But I think I only ovulate around three days or so. I'm healthy as far as no diseases or anything like that. But I am overweight and I have had trouble losing it. I don't have health insurance right now so I don't have a regular doctor to tell me these things. I'm scared that this may be one of the reasons why I can't concieve.

[Jaimee]

Effkayess, I would not say at all that you cannot conceive as the average time to conceive is much longer than most people realize.  At age 20 the average is still several months as far as I know.  Being a bit overweight can absolutely affect your estrogen and progesterone levels and mess with ovulation and your luteal phase.  I'm not saying that is the case here, but it could be a factor involved.  Birth control does not cause infertility issues that I am aware of, but it can take quite a while to regulate off of the hormones.  Usually the longest this takes is about a year, so you should be regulated by now.

You say that you just learned how to check if you're ovulating...?  How exactly?  Nothing can confirm ovulation for you except for temping (or ultrasound) and in rare cases, not even that.  Ovulation is a single event that happens on just one day and once the egg is released it lives just 12-24 hours.  It is necessary for sperm to be present during this 12-24 hours in order to conceive.  Sperm usually live about 3 days, but can live upwards of 5 days in fertile cervical fluid.  So the goal is to DTD for a few days prior to and at least one day after ovulation to maximize your chances. 

Charting is not difficult if you're interested in starting.  I highly recommend it as a starting point.  If you'd like more information, let me know and I will post how to get started.

[Effkayess]

Well, I just have an intuition? I'm pretty intune with my body. It's usually on the third day of my CM discharge. I ovulated today. I have no more CM discharge. Lol. I've been burning up lately. I haven't been sleeping because of it. I feel like I'm starving like I have to eat every couple hours because my stomach is growling so hard it makes me sick to my stomach. It's doing it right now, even.

It's just discouraging whenever you wish so hard for something and it seems like you never get what you want.

I was checking my cycle and it's about 30 days or so. I have my period at the first few days of the month, then i start my ovulation process around the 17th ending around the 20th. So I have a 10-13 (MAX) lp. That's not very good.. idk what i need to do to fix that. I went to FF and started my profile and started watching the course videos. I will learn how to chart and i will do that ASAP.

Thank you so much for everything!!!! :)

[Jaimee]

I do believe in intuition, but it's also possible that things aren't quite happening like you think they are, so I'm happy to hear that you're going to start charting!  FF's course is helpful, but I'm going to post some more  info for you here (that I wrote up for another member) and recommend reading the book Taking Charge of Your Fertility.

As for your LP, 10 is the minimum.  11, 12, 13 are all fine.  But through charting you'll find out how long your average LP truly is.  You can always increase you vitamin B6 intake.  50-100mg can help lengthen a shorter LP.

Start as soon as you can since the first day of red blood is cycle day 1.  Pick up a copy of Taking Charge of Your Fertility by Toni Weschler at the library (or buy it).  You don't need to read it cover to cover to get started, but it really is an excellent resource.

You can pick up a basal body thermometer (BBT) at your local drug store.  Some are better than others.  I prefer ones that take longer than 30 seconds (they seem more accurate to me) and can hold two temperatures in memory (this is especially handy when you wake up, temp, and go back to sleep- you can look at and record the temp later).  The Walgreens thermometer gets generally bad reviews.  BD gets good reviews. 

When temping you want to focus on a few things: taking it at the same time each morning (within 30 minutes); taking it after a solid block of sleep (3 hours is usually recommended); and making sure that you don't get out of bed, sit up, drink water, or fall asleep before or while temping.  So basically you just wake up, roll over, temp, and go back to sleep or get up. 

Some women are really sensitive to changes in sleep patterns or ambient temperature (like if your room is hot one morning and not the next or you wake up snuggled under a warm blanket and the next are out of the covers).  But other women find that they can see their pattern despite numerous night wakings, not getting a 3 hour block of sleep prior to temping, or environmental changes.  Other things that can affect temp- pretty much the same things that can delay ovulation: travel, stress, diet changes, injury, illness, and strenuous exercise.

Next, cervical fluid (CF) is something you can observe throughout the day- whenever you feel it, whenever you see it (while wiping, on your panties), etc.  Here is my general guide to CF:

Dry: you'll feel dry all day and there is nothing on your panties

Sticky: you'll generally feel dry and there will be a bit of staining- usually yellow- on your panties.  It might be a bit crumbly or clumpy.

Creamy: generally you'll feel a little wet, lotiony in texture, could be slippery when you wipe, often it will stand up on your panties

Wet: you'll feel wet and your panties will likely be wet- maybe even soak through, may look like skim milk (I rarely get this)

Eggwhite: you might actually feel it slipping out of you throughout the day and it might fall out of you while using the bathroom, stretchy- it may stretch from you to the TP for several inches- and usually clear or yellow tinted, often quite profuse

Temp and CF are the two basic fertility signs you need to chart.  There are other signs you can record like cervical position (CP), but it's not necessary unless your temps and CF are not showing a clear pattern.

So what you're going to see is a group of low temps from the start of AF, which is cycle day 1 (CD 1) until the day after ovulation (O) when you should see a spike in temp or steady climb to a higher group of temps.  The days between O and AF are called your luteal phase (LP).  Generally it is said that you need at least 10 days to sustain a pregnancy.  The average length is 12-14 days.  Your LP will not vary much- usually just by one or two days cycle to cycle.  But your O day could vary considerably.  So when you see O on your chart you can then predict when AF should show based on your average LP length.  If you go 3 days past your longest LP length then that is an excellent sign of pregnancy.  If you get 18 high temps after O that is 99% accurate- just like an HPT.

Likewise your CF will go from dry just after AF to sticky, to creamy, to EW as O approaches.  You may or may not go through all the different types of CF prior to O or you could skip from dry to creamy or dry to EW.  You might have many days of creamy and one or two of EW or you might have 3 or 4 days of EW with hardly any creamy.  It all depends on the woman and that particular cycle.  But after O you will dry up.  It could be instantaneous- like the day of the spike you're dry.  Or it could decrease slower- EW to creamy to stick to dry.  But usually you will dry up within a few days and then may or may not experience a few more days of creamy or even wet/EW later in your LP, just prior to AF.

Anyway, that should get you started!  Post if you have questions and use www.fertilityfriend.com to share your chart!  Good luck!

[Effkayess]

Well. I'm just so frustrated with my body. I wish it would just cooperate and be done with it. And yeah, I hope charting will help me because I will definitely use it.

Thank you so much Jaimee for talking to me. I wish everyone was as helpful as you are. :

[Jaimee]

You're welcome!  You can always start temping now- even though you're in your LP.  You can mark the first day of your LMP as CD1, manually enter what you think was your O day, and then log temps.  You'll be able to see what your typical LP temp is like and if you don't get a BFP, you'll likely see the characteristic temp drop as AF comes, mark any spotting you have prior to AF, and then get going on the next cycle.  The more data you have, the better!  You can post a link to your chart in your signature (you do this from your profile page)!

[happy2bamama]

I feel for ya   I have a 5-year-old son who took us 18 months to conceive. DH and I were healthy, in our late 20s and it should've been easy. Friends were getting pregnant right and left and they weren't even doing all the acupuncture and supplements that I was! What I realized was that pregnancy can happen in SO many different ways. There is not one right way for it to happen and if it's not happening for you (or me) it doesn't mean that we are broken, doing something wrong, not relaxing enough, etc. I know women who are stressed and who focus on TTC who get pregnant quickly. I know women who are zen about it and relaxed who don't get pregnant. I volunteer at a safe house and I see lots of pregnant women come in there - NONE of these women were eating a fertility diet, doing yoga, relaxing, the "perfect body" weight, etc. And I see lots of fit, healthy women not get pregnant quickly. It just doesn't add up and that's the point - there is no 1+2 = 3 in this journey. Every month is a new chance, a new set of circumstances. As human beings, we like to be able to figure everything out and have it make logical sense. But pregnancy (and birth too) just don't always follow a logical pattern. And that is hard for us to process. I know this because of TTC with my son, but we are also TTC our second baby and it is taking some time and so I am finding myself encountering some of the same feelings - the impatience, the wondering if everything is okay in my body and the urge to hold my future baby. Be gentle on yourself, this is not an easy road :)

When I was TTC my son, I put together this website of stories from other women who were TTC and it helped me immensely to hear other women's stories of struggle and know that I wasn't alone. 

http://www.tlcforttc.com/

Good luck and hugs to you!

[Effkayess]

@Happy2bamama: Thank you so much. I will have to check out the link later tonight when I'm at home. I am feeling very impatient because so many people I know are pregnant. My two ex-BFF's from high school have kids already, ten other people I graduated with (out of 80) are either pregnant or had kids already. It makes me really upset because I'm trying so hard and these people had uh-oh pregnancies. :( It shouldn't be this way for me. My husband keeps telling me that we will get pregnant when the time is right. I really just want to tell him to shut his face, but I know he's just trying to make me feel better.
 

He wants a baby as much as or more than I do, and yet he's not doing anything to help. When i told him I was going through my ovulation phase he kinda brushed me off and we never even had sex. It's super annoying.

[Jaimee]

Originally Posted by Effkayess 

He wants a baby as much as or more than I do, and yet he's not doing anything to help. When i told him I was going through my ovulation phase he kinda brushed me off and we never even had sex. It's super annoying.

Well, that ain't going to make a baby! 
 

[Effkayess]

Hahahaha. That's what I said. :) :) He's so cute, though. He'll talk to my belly and rub it like there's a baby in there. It's pretty adorable and I can't wait to have his baby because then he can do it for real. :D

[aHikaru]

Originally Posted by Effkayess 

He wants a baby as much as or more than I do, and yet he's not doing anything to help. When i told him I was going through my ovulation phase he kinda brushed me off and we never even had sex. It's super annoying.

If he really wants to have a baby, you'll know. DH has been trying to go at it every day, against my wishes of every other day, but I oblige because he may end up not want to do it for a couple days. What's starting to bug me is that he just asked (for the second time this week) if I'm ovulating... I wish he wouldn't stress about it. It's interesting how TTC works, it's pretty much up to the men to decide if pregnancy happens.

[Effkayess]

Yeah, exactly. It's not my fault. Sometimes we have sex a lot and then we don't have sex for like a few days. Idk. We talk about having babies and concieving in just about every conversation. He is the reason I decided I wanted to have kids. We've always known, since we first got together when we were younger that we wanted kids. I'm glad a waited until after high school, though. Because I wouldn't have gotten the same opportunities that have been given to me for schooling.