Just relax and you’ll get pregnant

OP only said they’d had some tests. But once a year has passed they will be able to get more testing done to find out why it’s not happening. 8 months is still quite early to worry.

OP says in her (very short) OP they've had all the tests done and everything is fine.

But surely the ‘relax and it will happen’ technique will absolutely not work if there are other factors at play. If your partner has a really low or non existent sperm count or rubbish morphology then the female being relaxed will do absolutely nothing. Same goes for if a women doesn’t know that her tubes are blocked or her progesterone is too low.

I’m really happy for all of you who say that once you stopped stressing you got pregnant. But, for many couples the stress is not the issue. Which is why my advice to the OP is to destress, have fun, forget about bbt and ovulation sticks BUT once it’s been a year of ttc it’s time to take it a bit more seriously and have investigations done.

Exactly this, except it was after 3 years for us. We decided it probably wasn’t going to happen and went on a stupidly expensive weekend break, got absolutely pissed and danced and laughed and had a great time. 3 weeks later I tested positive for the first time ever.

I do completely get how horrible it is to hear though, I wanted to gag everyone who said it to me.

It's not particularly helpful advice because exactly how do you make yourself relax over something that means so much, but after 9 years trying we "gave up" and spent the money we'd saved for maternity leave etc on a big holiday, and I was pregnant within a few weeks!

@hovebaby99 I know wild story but absolutely true.

i highly recommend reading Ben Elton’s novel Inconceivable. It’s fiction but based on his own fertility journey and the facts of the tests are true. Funny and heartbreaking it’s a good read.

Good luck

I found this so so frustrating but in the end it worked for me. I was so stressed trying to conceive, my boyfriend and I would argue so much because I just became so fixated on it! I wouldn’t exercise as read somewhere that exercise put too much stress on the body (load of rubbish) , wouldn’t even have the odd glass of wine, became obsessed with diet.
Then January and a new year came and I just thought sod it….started exercising, eating what I wanted (I’ve always been fairly healthy anyway!) , chucked away the ovulation tests and just dtd every other day or so. I also planned lots of nice things I could do over the year to help take my mind of things. I got pregnant that month and now have twins.
its so hard though I know! Friends would tell me to relax as it only took them a month or two to conceive…which made me stress more as it took 8 months for me. But just remember, taking up to a year to conceive is totally normal, lots of women need more than a couple of months to get pregnant.
I agree with the posters who have advised you take up a new hobby or book a holiday, just keep busy and take your mind of it. Stress can have such a weird effect on the body. And @Puppupandaway I’ve heard that the drink wild sex thing works too 😂
I really feel for you OP as I remember how hard it was, but maybe taking a break from the tracking etc and focusing elsewhere might at least give you a bit of a rest ….but easier said than done I know

It’s so difficult to do but I wonder if there is some truth in it. I’ve been pregnant 4 times.

1st time I got pregnant when I’d been referred by the GP for testing so I was more focussed on when to book the blood tests in for certain days of my period. (MMC)
2nd time I got pregnant I was aware that the due date would be around the time of my wedding so I was hoping not to get pregnant but didn’t want to miss a cycle. (DD was born, had to move wedding)
3rd time I got pregnant my period had only just come back after breastfeeding and I wasn’t tracking (MMC)
4th time no specific relaxing though! Currently 14 weeks.

So you could try booking some things in to look forward to, that you couldn’t do pregnant, eg spa day, just to have something else to look forward to.

Wishing you all the best x

Perhaps people are telling you to relax as you sound incredibly uptight and stressed about it and are taking a lot of tablets and odd things which sound like a lot more nonsense to me than the advice to chill the fuck out. Stress is one of the worst things for our bodies at any time of life.

I had secondary infertility. Was put on Clomid and had many unsuccessful cycles. Blood test showed levels were too high to conceive. Told have a 2 month break from clomid. At the end of the break we had to test I’m not sure what now! But it involved having sex very early morning. Nurse draw off some of the semen from my virgina and examined the mobility of spern in my juices. It’s as gross as it sounds and nurse was keen for us to look at the microscope too. Anyhow that was the most clinical non sexy shag of my entire life and it produced DD2. We weren’t looking to make a baby we were just thinking of getting through a medical test before going back on Clomid. Happily that last round of Clomid was not needed.

I agree i hated this too! However, my first born was after a miscarriage, it was December and we said we would have a great partying Christmas, ear drunk and be merry then TTC again in the new year ... DD was convinced in December!
Second born, just had yet another miscarriage and was finishing a job contract so put off TTC for a year, DS arrived before the year was up lol 😂
I think distraction is a good thing but again it's difficult to actively pursue yourself!
Good luck

I "relaxed" by giving up hahaha
Dd2 was the month I was like you know what, I can't do this anymore, so many heartbreaks and miscarriages and I was over it all. Then that bfp came up after dtd just one once and I was like well damn.
Same with this current pregnany, starting to accept that maybe we're good with how we are and started to grieve for what wouldn't be, focused on getting fit again and then another bfp.

Sounds idyllic right, but fully aware how hard it is when it's so desperately wanted and is taking longer than anticipated. Absolutely find a hobby, have a Holiday from tcc and give yourself a few months break.

And as great as all the pineapple core etc is, it's the subconscious stress of you're still actually trying everything you can that takes it toll too.

There definitely is something in relaxing but of course it’s easier said than done! I conceived my first very quickly so expected the same for number 2. It took a couple of years in the end and it was the first month that I stopped tracking ovulation and just went with the flow. I unexpectedly conceived my third when I was 41, we were not even trying to have another one and only dtd once! I used to really begrudge people that said it to me when having difficulties ttc but I honestly do believe the better mental state you are in, the rest will happen. Of course that doesn’t include losses etc, can completely understand the difficulties that can bring.

Saw this today and it irked me:

I've literally only became pregnant when I made peace with not becoming pregnant and gave up all the mental stuff. To me, that's what "relax" means, not some hot bath and scented candles kind of relax. It's more of a deep state of making peace with the possibility of not getting what you want.
I wish that for you 😊🙏

It feels impossible to do but I do honestly think it’s the best advice there is.

I found that rather than focusing on “relaxing” it was more helpful to focus on being distracted- you cannot force yourself to relax, or at least personally I can’t, it just doesn’t work that way! But you can keep yourself distracted/busy to keep your mind off of things.

For me when trying for my first baby that meant throwing myself into work, having plans to look forward to in the evening/at the weekend, I’m a runner so I had a race booked and was training for that which was a distraction, and every month my husband & I had a date night scheduled for when my period would have been due so that even if it was BFN I still had that to look forward to. I’be recently found out I’m pregnant with my second and I have to say I found the process of ttc so much easier this time round purely because my life is busier, I have a 1 year old to run around after now so rather than finishing work and having 5 hours to fill googling, symptom spotting etc I’m so busy I barely remembered to even think about it until I realised I could test!

It is really hard though, I remember from the first time ttc even when you stop the testing it is impossible to totally shut off your mind. You stop measuring time in calendar months or weeks, you measure time in cycles, period is here yay cycle day 1, pass 5 days, start ovulation testing, pass 2 days, start having sex, past my peak now stop, start the two week wait, symptom spot, test, period, repeat. It is so draining and hard to get away from.

I was doing exams while TTC, and although I didn’t feel particularly stressed, my periods stopped. So I think there is some truth in it, it’s just hard to do.

Bear in mind that on average it takes a year to conceive and you're only at the 8 month stage.

People say it from a good place and I do think providing there’s no underlying issues it does help (or it did for me anyway)

This.

My situation was a bit different because I was conceiving easily but having miscarriages. Everyone told me to relax. The two times I successfully conceived I was having ultrasounds every three days to monitor my dominant follicle, a trigger shot, progesterone pessaries and ultrasounds every two weeks throughout the first trimester.

I hear you. People don’t know what to say so say that but actually no amount of relaxing ever worked for us as we needed ivf due to low amh and my crappy tubes!
I definitely wasn’t relaxed doing ivf but it did work and our twins turn 8 next month!
I was told to use aspirin by my consultant when I was pregnant but not before… and only up to 35 weeks.
we were advised to take folic acid and proxeed but that was it. I did have acupuncture too which made me feel good and like I was doing something to help!
Really hope it all works out for you x

you shouldn’t take baby aspirin unless a miscarriage clinic has advised - it can actually be detrimental to getting pregnant. Pineapple core is also unproven and I’m assuming the cough medicine you have read about on mainly American TTC forums - it’s not the same as the cough medicine you get in the U.K. ….also unproven and also could do more harm than good if you have had tests which have come back normal

You didn’t mention if you are doing OPKs? Or your age? Age being the most significant factor. If you are doing OPKs and taking a good pre natal like Proceive I wouldn’t bother with the rest (I spent years TTC and had lots of losses). I won’t tell you to relax but I will kindly say 8 months is well within “normal” parameters for TTC.

in terms of acupuncture I did do this over years of IVF and trying naturally…..the only time I didn’t do it so to lockdown was on my final IVF transfer and it was was the one that worked and I had twins!. Do it because you enjoy it and relaxes you etc but don’t consider it a must do every month