How to ensure first month pregnancy?

Everyone wants to get pregnant in the first month. No one sets out hoping it will take months, travel arrangements (?) Or not.

There is no way of guaranteeing pregnancy. No way at all. You can have sex everyday in all positions with a great diet, be young and healthy, and it still doesn't happen because it's actually quite hard for sperm to reach the egg. There is also a theory that it's easier to get pregnant with a long term partner than a newer partner. May not be true, of course, but it proves how little we all know about fertility.

Seriously, there is absolutely no guarantee. My luteal phase was too short for a couple of months, which probably prevented pregnancy. There was no reason for this, or none that I knew, anyway. The same may be for you!

And when I say everyone, obviously I mean people without underlying fertility factors.

Everyone has a 25 per cent chance of falling pregnant in a month. This is due to many many factors from diet and stress to timing of sex, quality of eggs and sperm, blah blah, some of which are short term and some which aren't.

Obviously if it were down to just having lots of sex, then we'd all get pregnant very easily and quickly. It's all down to luck, basically. Some women get pregnant after having sex once in a month whilst on the pill, others take years to conceive. I know you didn't mean to offend but obviously it isn't that simple.

This is an amazing video that shows just how difficult sperm have it!

m.youtube.com/watch?v=_5OvgQW6FG4

Not to the same extent as the OP, but I was also quite naive when we started TTC DC1.. I thought, we're early 30s, both fit and healthy, having frequent, regular sex at the right time, surely it won't take longer than a few months to conceive.. DC1 was conceived on cycle 12.. by which time I knew enough about fertility and reproduction to write a book

As others have said OP, it's not just about being young, healthy and having lots of sex. (And yes, those statistics relate to couples with no fertility problems having regular well-timed sex).

Egg quality, sperm quality, womb quality all impact on the chances of sperm fertilising egg and it implanting successfully. And what I actually found amazing is that despite millions of sperm being released on ejaculation, there are so many obstacles on their journey to meet the egg (eg acidic cervical mucus, even going up the wrong Fallopian tube!), only a couple of hundred will get anywhere near the egg.

FWIW, two years older, more sleep-deprived and on a much less healthy diet, I am now pregnant with DC2.. Who took a grand total of one day to conceive...

Everything is chance op. Science isn’t perfect no matter if as far as you are concerned everything is aligned. First time, I fell pregnant second month and didn’t really know when I was ovulating. Second time I knew damn well when I was ovulating and NEVER missed the fertile window having sex on every day before day of and day after ovulation. Second time it took me seven months despite having sex regularly at all the right times and knowing that I was ovulating... depends on the mister too! I read somewhere that only about 30% of sperm is normally shaped and normally functioning. And who knows if the man has fertility problems either. Stress can affect conception. As can sleep, lack of exercise, diet. Loads of things. And to be honest, people that struggle to get pregnant often are of course doing alll the right things, know their bodies inside out and would do anything suggested if it made them conceive. Which is why many end up pursuing fertility treatment at great expense and emotional and physical strain.

Babies don’t know the life plan and don’t fit in with arrangements. They come when they come, as much as we like to think we can, you really can’t plan it. It happens when it happens.

I think some of the replies are pretty harsh towards OP's first post.

Some of the thoughts and ideas she describes are quite reasonable for someone who has never TTC before and has no idea what the process could involve.

I say this as someone who has been TTC number 2 for 15 months now following a MMC last year.

My first 2 pregnancies happened straight away after coming off the pill and I'll freely admit that I had no bloody idea about TTC when it came to trying after the MMC.

But I have learned so much over the last year and gone through the roller coaster of emotions & frustrations, and realised that there is a lot more to it than just DTD lots!

It's not as simple as more sex = more chance. If your ovaries haven't spat out a viable egg it doesn't matter how much sperm you throw at it.

Your post and your reply with your views are an absolute joke I’m sorry.

Baby’s don’t work around travel arrangements for a start, and as for “how hard a couple tried” comment, I have no words!!

Here’s a little example for you. 2 months ago, we thought we’d missed our fertile window, only dtd once before positive opks. Didn’t really do much to help things after that as I was convinced I was out. I DID end up pregnant that month but miscarried the week after.

Last month we tried incredibly hard. Dtd throughout fertile window, taking all the vits every day without fail, desperately wanted it to happen last month for many reasons, we couldn’t have done anything more. Guess what. Didn’t happen!

You are incredibly naive

Wow, so if I’d just had more sex it wouldn’t have taken 8 years and many £££ to have a successful pregnancy.

Believe it or not we had travel plans in those 8 years, we obviously weren’t doing it right!

What a grossly offensive disgusting post from the OP. Awful.

On a lighter note, I can't believe that nobody so far has let her in on the secret that it's praying to Aphrodite, Venus and Eros that really help you fall pregnant first month. Well, that as well as lighting a fertility candle each night before sex 😂

Travel arrangements? Are you going to Maui Op

Travel arrangements 😂

Seriously

Wait until you have had months or even years of trying, and all the heartache and frustration that comes with it, then ask yourself whether you had sex enough.

One of the weirdest threads I have ever seen on mumsnet.
It took us well over a year to get pregnant and that was with a heck of a lot of sex over the fertile period of my cycle. Over and over again.

To suggest I wasn’t trying hard enough is quite offensive, especially as there are a lot of people here who have tried for YEARS and still not got pg and in many cases no real idea why.

Shhh OP just because you’ve worked out the answer don’t go broadcasting it so casually. An entire industry depends on women not knowing that sex = babies (if they are doing it right of course).

What are first month odds with someone in their 20s having regular sex no other issues?

We had regular sex in our early 30s, tried for a year then seven rounds of ivf. Had twins. First time we had sex after they were born I got pregnant and obviously I was late 30s by then

People are just using the phrase "luck" as short hand for "if all the relevant scientific variables are in our favour this month". That's all

And I get that. But calling it luck fails to acknowledge the main issue when it comes to conceiving, which is egg quality (ovum and sperm).

Calling it luck does nothing to demystify the process.

Saying to a 33 year old - you will find it more difficult than a 21 year old because fewer of your eggs will be viable, and so it will likely take you longer to have a viable blastocyst, will make a lot of women feel easier about the process than ‘it’s just luck’.

Especially if someone is only just getting to grips with the difficulties of trying to make a human.

If we emphasise the complications, people can make more informed decisions, and perhaps feel less depressed when it takes a few months

As someone struggling from infertility, I find your post incredibly offensive. Fucking travel arrangements??!! Good luck to you.

MamaOfTwos your post is equally offensive. Wishing infertility or baby loss on someone just because they are ignorant is disgusting.

Was prepared to give you the benefit of the doubt OP (after all, I asked myself many times why it hadn’t happened when ttc #2), but you lost me at ‘travel arrangements’...

People are just using the phrase "luck" as short hand for "if all the relevant scientific variables are in our favour this month". That's all.

^that. Even if you are quite young a steadily increasing proportion of your eggs won't be genetically normal - it's "luck" whether your ovary releases a "normal" egg which can form a viable embryo in any given month.

That’s not how biology works OP.
I’m curious about the “travel arrangements” also.

People are just using the phrase "luck" as short hand for "if all the relevant scientific variables are in our favour this month". That's all

^ yes, exactly this.

It’s luck in the sense that the couple whose healthy blastocyst implants successfully in their first month of trying is luckier than the couple who try for many months to get this result.

People are just using the phrase "luck" as short hand for "if all the relevant scientific variables are in our favour this month". That's all.