Seeking direction

[monz]

Hi all,
I am very new to all this, but happy to have found you, as i need some direction.

My husband and I have been ttc since July this year. Prior to this i was on the pill for 7 years. For the first few months we felt pretty confident about concieving and heard nothing but first time concievement stories from most of our friends, which sounded promising, now just hurts. :(
Last month i saw my naturopath as i was begining to get anxoius about it all. As a result, and in addition to my usual pregnancy multivitamin, i am currently taking fish oil tabs, vitex berry, a homeopathic nerve tonic and magnesium supplement. I am also taking my BMT.
Even though i ovulated at the right time this month, have had some definite changes to my body, and my period is a few days late, the hpt is negative.

I feel myself getting more and more anxious as the days pass, even though i know i shouldn't as it will impact on my chances of concieving.
What would you suggest be my next port of call, if i am not pregnant this month. I dont know whether it is too early to see my doctor for investigative fertility tests, as i can only think of the worst case scenario at the moment.

[sunflower]

hi monz, i think a dr won't see you till you've been trying for at least a year but depending on your age and circumstances they may see you after 6 months! if you have just come off the pill your cycles and body may still be getting back to normal i think it can take any where up to 9 months for this happen. there are things you can do to pin point ovulation including tracking your temps a great website that helps you do this is www.fertilityfriend.com. you can use opk's or a saliva microscope called maybe baby or track cervical postion and cervical mucus do a google search and you will get heaps more information!

i've trying for about the same amount of time as you, so i know how frustrating it can be. i hoped i've helped a little bit.... goodluck :)

[hummingbird]

Hi Monz,

I came off the OCP in July last year and used condoms until january this year. i wanted a period of time to pass to let my body get rid of any OCP still in my system as, like you I had been on it for a long time - about 10 years. We started TTC in January and I was also confident that there would be nothing to stop us from conceiving straight away.

Months passed and each time we were unsuccessuful. I had a few issues at work that were causing me stress and it wasn'y until these were resolved in mid June that we all of a sudden conceived. I firmly believe that the stress I was under at the time (which I had thought was not that bad and I could handle) was a big reason why we had been unable to conceive previously. This coupled with the disapointment at returning a negative result each month was just adding to it. Like you, I also had a couple of months were I was over a week late (and I have a very regular 28 day cycle) and kept returning negative results with HPTs. Again, I think it was just the pressure of expecting a positive result.

From what I understand couples TTC are not considered to have fertility problems until they have tried unsuccessfully for over a year.

I am not sure of your age as this may be a factor to your not conceiving, however it sounds to me like you may be focusing too much on a positive outcome. Try to relax (sounds easy I know)- I am sure it will happen for you in good time.

[JanetF]

It took 2 years to conceive my son, so I know how upsetting it can be to struggle with this. I strongly recommend that you learn to chart your cm as you're doing so many wonderful things to support your fertility and learning to pinpoint O exactly may just be your missing link. Try this:
http://www.woomb.org
You can also get one on one lessons from a Billings practioner. :)

[monz]

Sorry i didnt include my age, im 30 and DH is 31. I am already taking my BBT, that is how i know that i O at the perfect time.
Thanks for the support. Its so good to know we are not alone in this, as we havent told any friends or family about us TTC, as we dont want to burden people. Would it be better to tell our loved ones? Any advice on this?
Thankyou for the websites.

[brideofjabba]

Hi Monz, I'm sorry you are having trouble. Dh and i have been ttc #2 now since May. It only took 5 weeks to conceive our ds(now 21mths) and i thought it would be just as easy this time. I was never on the pill so i havent that problem but I find the my cycles get screwed up from stress too as sioban mentioned.
If you are doing all you can then you need to just keep plugging away at it. I know its hard not to get anxious and sad about it though.
As for telling your friends and family - i told my family and a few friends and i really wish i hadn't. Because now i get asked all the time if i am pregnant yet, and that just adds to my distress. But you need to do whats best for you.
Good luck and baby dust!

Andrea

[hummingbird]

telling family / friends is tricky.

I did and at the beginning my sister was ringing up asking if anything had happened yet. It kind of adds to the anxiety. She's just a really excitable person though so I can't blame her. My mum on the other hand never asked - she always waited for me to bring up the sibject (which was every month) and she was very supportive and that helped.

After a few months, interest wained as I guess people didn't want to be adding pressure in case we were really going to have a tough time. So after six months people weren't suprised that we finally got pregnant, but naturally they were as happy as we were.

I guess it depends on telling the right people - those that are going to support you, people who may have been through the same sort of thing. There's not much comfort when you tell people who conceived the day after they came off the pill!