Did they lie to us?

@SunKissed89 I get it. I thought he this was the biggest lie ever too! 3 years of ttc and not a sniff of a BFP. After investigations it turns out we had Male factor infertility and needed ivf. I’m so lucky to say that first round is currently snoring next to me at 8 weeks old. However those years of ttc were absolutely brutal. Some stats that helped get me through were as follows:
80% of fertile couples will conceive within a year
90% of fertile couples with conceive within to years
Each month you have a 25% chance of getting pregnant.
1 in 6 males have a fertility issue
1 in 8 couples have ivf or fertility treatment
You are more likely to conceive if you have sex two days before ovulation the day of ovulation and 2 days after.
The average luteal phase needs to be roughly 11 days or more to help support a potential pregnancy.

Personally I found the clear blue and cheapie ovulation sticks gave similar results. I used both a few months to test the theory.

Steel yourself for people telling you to just relax....easier said than done. Good luck

Thanks again everyone for your kind words of support. I'm using this time to get to know my body now it's pill free.
As I said earlier, I'm a very emotional person but I am fine. I work in a health centre and my office is next door to the midwives...hearing ultrasounds and discussions with other women who are pregnant just make me yearn and think "I want it to be my appointment some day soon."
It'll happen when it happens though 🙂

@KeepSmiling89 we're a similar age, so yes I also remember being taught more about how to not get pregnant. It's a very strange switch to go from years of contraception to actively trying to conceive.

I'm 7 cycles and 2 chemical pregnancies in. I would say that if you know when your period is then you don't need to use OPKs, as the NHS advice is to DTD every other day from the end of your period until you're nearly at the start of your next period. That way you can't miss it

Speaking from someone who got pregnant by accident first tine and then struggled second time there doesn't seem to be a science behind it. It just happens when it happens and it can be a long process. They say most couples will be pregnant within 12 months of trying so please don't panic on your second cycle, it will happen at some point it's just a long process unfortunately

Baboon baby ??????

Of course it's possible to get pregnant from one intercourse. It's happened to me twice on two different cycles. However with 2 of my children I took over 12 months to conceive both of them. So two of my 4 children happened quickly, the other 2 who were in the middle were really tried for. 2 months is no time at all to be worrying.

The problem is the biological ideal age to start a family and the social age are so different now.

OP I hope you are ok? Yes it might only be month 2 of trying but it still sucks! It’s very easy to get caught up in TTC, all the things you should/shouldn’t be doing, what foods should I eat, what supplements should I take, ovulation sticks, taking your bbt and checking cm! The TWW for me and I imagine many others is the most stressful. Take a deep breathe and try not to get overly stressed (way easier said then done I know), if it helps use an app and ovulation sticks to get a better understanding of your cycle, the clear blue sticks started to stress me out this month so I gave up and I’m not going to use them this month. Find what works best for you, good luck!

OP, honestly don't buy the strips or get the apps. Take the pressure off. Record the date of your period but nothing more. Have regular sex when you fancy it.

If you aren't pregnant in six months consider using tests and apps to help.

It is really easy to make things very stressful and upsetting.

Thank you to everyone who's replied to my post. I've been on various forums in the past (one being a phantom of the opera fan page when I was in high school) and this one had had the most replies.
As my DH put it, I'm going to take each day as it comes and let it happen when it happens.
I do feel there is so much info out there and we know that it's no longer a simple case of man + woman + sex = baby. It makes me wonder if ignorance is bliss...
Going to try ovulation strips this month methinks...off to eBay!

Hi OP :) I wrote a quite long reply about biology class and how we absolutely were not taught how to get pregnant as the emphasis was on NOT getting pregnant but then I remembered I'm 30 and life is too short to be upset by people I'll never meet in real life.
You're not alone in your feeling of being lied to. TV, films, books, adverts - all make it seem easy and almost always accidental and a 'surprise' with no effort, obsession or upset. So yes. We are lied to every single day. Not by everything, but by a lot.
TTC is a learning journey and nobody started out knowing it all 😊 try to stay realistic every month as it does help to remember the "facts" and it's okay to have a vent about it not being easy. Good luck! 🤞🤞

My Mum thinks we know too much now. Once upon a time, you stopped contraception and waited and expected it to take a few months. And it did. Now, normally fertile couples with no reason to suspect issues are immediately tracking, temping, checking their heart rate and mucous and temperature, frantically googling, testing for ovulation, testing for pregnancy 6 days before their period, taking supplements etc and then understandably devastated when it doesn't work.

I disagree that we know too much as knowledge is always power but with all the science available, cheap testing and the Internet, people who are 2 months into ttc (normal, expected) are in floods of tears, devastated and finding their mental health suffering. There needs to be a happy medium. Empowering people with facts as well as choices.

It's normal for it to take a year. Your chances are never more than 25% if you time it perfectly and are 100% fit and fertile.

Having a baby with somebody you love should be a time of joy with lots of carefree sex. Somehow, we are turning it into a pass/fail science experiment.

Also remember women are way more fertile at say 16 than at 31, so no I don't think you were lied to as such :) Good luck OP - It took us 3 months for our first, but then 8 months and 9 months for the next pregnancies, so don't lose hope!

It's so hard to pitch the advice right. Honestly, they wouldn't be able to do right for doing wrong.

Can you imagine if sex education actually told you the insane improbabilities involved in a single sperm meets egg encounter? The way the circumstances have to be just right? All the things that can go wrong? No teen would ever think that contraception was necessary ever again (and lets face it, the unplanned pregnancy rates among all age groups tell us that lots of people think of contraception as an optional extra at the best of times).

So yes, it is actually quite hard to get pregnant, even if you're trying. Most days of the month is impossible to get pregnant. Many women have some months that they don't actually ovulate. Even if you do get sperm-meets-egg, it fails early on a lot of the time.

But it's the same as the statistic that if you have 23 people in a room there's a 50-50 chance that 2 of them share a birthday - if you take a population of couples and they each have one single instance of unprotected sex, some of them will get pregnant - what you don't know at any single encounter is if that someone will be you.

Op, it's hard to flip from a lifetime of preventing pregnancy to wanting it more than anything. The stats are on your side. Lots of sex, try tracking ovulation if you think that will be helpful to you (sometimes it can feel mentally helpful to be doing something, anything to help things along, sometimes it's mentally unhelpful and just makes you obsess even more).

Sorry just seen you've changed your user name and updated.
Yes the cheap ovulation strips are just as good and actually cos they're cheaper you can pee on them more days in the first few months so you can get a better idea when you ovulate. The app will predict it but I'd pee on ovulation sticks for a few days before they say to and if you haven't ovulated for a few days after.

Some people will get pregnant straight away, others won't. It's just one of those things and nobody's fault. My friend took 4 months to get her period at all after stopping the pill, but after another few months then fell pregnant. Sometimes things take time.

@ivfgottostaypositive

I get upset all the time! I'm not mentally exhausted at being unsuccessful this cycle. Just a very emotional person. I do remind myself that it's still early days yet.

@SunnySideUp2020

I'm still working in lockdown so I've got stuff to keep me going. I'll try to think of this as my side project so not all my energy is spent on it and it hinders our chances due to stress!

Oh yes and I was 18 -23 trying first time and 24 -27 the second. It just takes time.

@KeepSmiling89

The cheap test strips are just as good as Clearblue digitals if not better. My IVF clinic won't actually let me use the clearblue as they say they are often late detecting the hormone surge - you can test as much as you like with the cheap tests without feeling guilty about the cost and use an app like Premom where you take a photo of the test and it tells you if it's low / high / peak and plots it on a nice graph and you can see your line progression - all for a fraction of the price (and I was a big advocate of clearblue OPKs for years but at £50 a month it got far too expensive)

TTC can take time, DS took us 5 years DD took 3 yrs. Both conceived naturally in the end.

You misunderstand, of course it only takes 1 time - sperm goes in, finds egg, baboon baby. You don't build up a reservoir of sperm by having sex lots before conceiving.
But that doesn't happen every time because you ovulate once a month and if the sperm doesn't go in at the right time it can't find the egg, or the sperm goes in at the right time but it's old sperm or too immature sperm and it can't penetrate the egg. Or it does penetratecthe egg but it doesn't quite work and nothing happens or it divided a few times but has massive copying errors so implodes. And that's just normal.

We probably all know someone or someone who knows someone who got pregnant first time they ever had sex, and someone whose been having sex on schedule for years and still isn't pregnant.

How old are you? Unless your late 30s onwards I wouldn't even consider 6 months as difficulty trying to conceive. If you're late 30s onwards then after 6 months if prob go to the docs and ask for some tests (a d I might fib a bit about how long I'd been ttc)

@unicornpower

Yes I've been thinking about it. I saw some fairly cheap ovulation strip kits on eBay (inc pregnancy tests too) but wondrerd if they're as accurate as branded products like clear blue and first response. Tempted to try them our for the next couple of cycles.

Totally get the frustration.
Especially in the first few months... when you expectations and hopes are high and you really still think that unprotected sex = baby.

Obviously don't wish this on anyone but truth is with time it does settle a little bit and as the months pass and you still aren't pregnant even with all the timing opk temps trying hard etc..
You will learn to chill out a little and more importantly to adjust your expectations.
You still get sad when AF shows up but you will move onto your next cycle ...

As it was correctly said before... this baby business really depends on too many things and there isn't one rule or probability. Even for one couple doing the same things it won't work the same way each time.

Each couples is different and some will conceive with one time effortlessly, some will take 3 months, some 2 years, some more, some will have miscarriages, some will have easy pregnancies some will have tough times, etc etc...

I think the lie is just that we were made to believe that fertility is a textbook thing. But it's the complete opposite. More like looking into a crystal ball... (unless you have a medical condition obviously and need assistance)

So i would say just try to think of the bigger picture and not expect a baby in 9 months every time you have sex. But rather see this as a process that could be more of a marathon...

Be kind to yourself and try to focus on positive things in your life while ttc. Don't make your life revolve around it as much as you can...
Think of it as a side project otherwise you will make yourself miserable. Talking from experience...

That being said i do wish you are just a couple of tries away and it happens soon for you!! X

Not lied to but perhaps naive (but we are all guilty of that when it comes to TTC). And I do think more should be taught in schools about fertility - or the lack thereof. Humans are actually one of the least fertile mammals on the planet.

If you are crying and talking about mental exhaustion at month 2 then you really need to get a hold of yourself as you could be in for the long haul - 12 months Is considered "normal" for TTC and more like 24 months for a lot of people

@keepsmiling89

Glad you didnt let negativity stop you :) Have you tried using Ovulation sticks? they are more accurate than an app and will help you narrow down the fertile window-The app may be using an 'ideal' Ovulation day etc. Just an idea so you can be sure you're DTD on the right days