Problems Concieving Second Child! Help!

[catherinepalmer]

Hi Everyone

I'm new to Mumsnet!

My husband and I have one little boy who was born in April last year. We love him so much but we really want to expand our little family.

I breast fed my son until September (5 and a bit months) and only after stopping did my periods return. However they were really infrequent (before I conceieved my son they were every 28 days) and can range from 28 to 45 days between them.

We have been trying to concieve since september and are having no luck at all and its beggining to worry us.

Does anyone have any suggestions or ideas that may help? Or similar experiences!

Thanks

[sparklyshoos]

Do you know when you ovulate - ie have you been doing any checking of your CM or doing temp charts? - I don't know anything about temping, but there are loads of experts on here. As far as CM goes, I've been monitoring mine as BF DS for 12mo and have only have a few periods since stopping, so I've been checking how it looks each month and when it appears to help me know what my cycle is up to - I'm not 100% sure I'm ovulating each month as I only have the egg white stuff this month and 2 months ago.

This might help you if you start checking it as once it's egg white-ish, that's when you're ovulating, so you should be going for it in the build up to that - if your cycle isn't the 28-day average (mine def isn't!) this might help you pinpoint if you ovulate earlier or later than the 14-day point.
But I'm really not an expert - I'm sure somebody will be along soon and if not, try bumping your post tomorrow.
good luck!

[2boysnamedR]

I waited a few years to try for my second baby. I got pregnant on the second month of trying for my son and thought that would be the case for the next baby. However it took 13 months to fall pregnant. After the first 6 months I monitored ovulation. After a year I went to the docs who said that it's normal to take two years of trying!! I went for a blood test to test hormones and before i got the results i got my long awaited BFP! My periods were all over the places as well so not easy to monitor fertile times. Maybe a temp chart would be a good place to start. Hope you get a BFP soon

[AttilaTheMeerkat]

Unfortunately this problem you describe is not all that uncommon.

With your periods being as they are currently they would be seen to be irregular in nature. A "normal" cycle is a cycle length of between 21 and 35 days or with less than 4 days of variation from month to month.

At 8 months of ttc without luck you are well beyond the stage of doing a temperature chart so I would not do this. Apart from anything else it is not worth doing anyway if periods are irregular and the GP won't likely take any notice of it.

The best thing to have done at this stage is to have a blood test done to see what your hormone levels are actually like. This is often done early in a cycle around day 3. Two hormone levels are tested; these are LH (luteinising hormone) and FSH (follicle stimulation hormone). If these two are out of balance then ovulation will be affected. If periods are irregular as well it can be done according to calendar days i.e the 3rd of the month. Progesterone levels can also be looked at; this is measured later on in the cycle. This would determine whether ovulation happened or not that particular month. Ovulatory problems are very common and can be treated but you may need a referral to a gynaecologist at a subfertility unit.

I would pay a visit to your GP asap and see if he will do a blood test. I would also ask for a referral to a gynae as well.