Anyone out there who took longer to conceive than they expected - can I ask you some questions?

1. 3 - 6 months

2. 5 long and agonising years

3. Devastated and it took over my life completely. I avoided pg friends and spent less and less time with those who had children. I became very depressed .

4. Finding friends in my situation, making lots and lots of plans for how my life would look childless. We were going to emigrate.

It is miserable and isolating.

Good luck x

1. Having got pregnant with ds within a week assumed it would be really quick this time round.

2. 6 months & counting

3. Sometimes feel ok but other times feel like a total failure, convinced there must be something wrong with me & scared I'll never have another child.

4. I've recently starting marathon training with a group of people which I find really helps me. Gives me another focus & lets me think without thinking iyswim. I've recently discovered someone at work is in the same boat & talking to her really helps. We don't sit & talk for hours or anything, more of a case of having someone else who understands how shit ttc is.

1. at first 6 months to a year. Then we were referred to a fertility clinic and I thought maybe 1 or 2 years.

2)After 1 round of Clomid I became pregnant, and miscarried at 8 weeks. About 2 years later I had a laparoscopy, and became pregnant again. I miscarried again, and this time it was a molar pregnancy, which unfortunately was persistent, meaning I had 10 months of chemotherapy, after this I wasn't allowed to ttc for a year.
In 2005 , i found out i was pregnant (no assistance) and had dd1 in 2006 (7 years after starting ttc). Oh and I had dd2 14 months later - also with no assistance!

3)I felt a mixture of anger, embarrassment ('why can't my body get it right'), frustration. I found it hard to get on with my life, whilst also feeling pissed off with myself for letting it take over my life.

4)My dh was the single biggest factor in coping, he was (and is!) fantastic, it means as much to him as it does to me to have children. But we talked and talked about what we would do if it never happened. I think it is important to face up to the fact that it might never happen, and we had all sorts of plans for business ideas,travel etc and also looked into adoption. I can't say I ever found anything that really took my mind off it, except that I really wanted to enjoy every day with dh, rather than look back and feel upset that I had spent, what turned out to be 7 years trying for children and feeling bitter. A lot of friends and family were having children around me during this time, and, whilst it is hard, I really tried to enjoy their children, and be a good aunty and friend, and as a result feel very close to them.

Good luck to anyone having problems ttc, it is so hard.

1. 6 months

2. almost a year

3. I found it upsetting especially when a lot of my friends fell pregnant and would say things like 'ooh it happened the first month we tried' . However, my best friend was going through the same thing but she'd been trying 18 months prior to me, it really helped to talk to someone who was going through the same thing. When I found out I was pregnant I was worried she would be upset but told her straight away. Then 2 months later she fell pregnant so got to share that with her too, was lovely!

4. Being able to talk to my friend and my dh helped me to cope with the disappointment. I decided that I would go out a lot, celebrate my 30th and Christmas and worry about it after the new year. Then lo and behold, once I stopped worrying I fell pregnant!

Oh and just to add to number 5 - I basically have begun to realise that you cant have everything you want in life. I have seen lots of very unfair and unpleasant things happen to people in my work life, devastating things and I have come to recognise, no matter how hard you want things, sometimes you just dont get it. LIfe really and truly is unfair. So I look at the things I do have and hope that in years to come I dont look back and wish I had spent more time appreciating what was right there in front of me, wishing for something that didn't exist. Not easy to always think like this though I fully admit!

1. bout 6 months

2. Still trying 18 minths later - no chemical pregnancy or anything to suggest its ever going to happen.

3. stressed, sad, angry, obesessed with finding ways to make me get pregnant, hopeless, lonely

4. (I am guessing q4 was the second part of Q3 )It affects my life pretty much cyclically (is that even a wor!!?) in that its always there but is much much worse around a week before I come on my period and probably the first day of period. Then I seem to get on the obesessive, right lets find a way to make it work this month (never does)

5. pretty much as bucky says, the only only way I have found of coping (of a fashion) is to seriously consider how I want my life to be if I dont conceive, A BIG part of that though is putting a time limit on TTC. My DH and I decided at xmas to TTC no more than 2 years from then. So that means we will give it our all from now til then , including IVF IUI or any other intervention. Then in xmas 2010 we stop. And so I have begun to plan things we will do when that poinr arrives, including getting a dog (prob sounds silly but its not something I would do now as wouldn't want a young dog and a baby, It gives me something to look forward to, and also things like improvemnts to the house, holidays, These might sound really superficial things but they help me

1)2-3 months
2)6 months
3) awful, even though 6 months isn't long
5) hypnotherepy - made me really relax about the whole thing and was pg next month....[http://www.justbewell.com/acatalog/fertility_therapy.html]

1. I thought it would take about 3 months or so (not sure where I got that figure from )
2. I did get pregnant in about that time but miscarried after 9 weeks. It has been nearly three years now since I started ttc and last November was my 2nd pg and mc.
3. Feelings vary, initially I figured what was meant to happen would, then I got angry that it was so easy for so many people and we have been trying for years, then I got it into my head that if I wasn't going to have a baby I would make the most of my life as it was and went on a big bender for months. It was during this time I got pregnant for a second time 2.5years after my first.
4. Where is question number 4?
5. See No. 3! However, generally it is difficult to escape the lack of control that you feel and the helplessness in the fact you cannot do anything to make it happen. I now try to put it to the back of my mind when I can, but it is always there.

What is your situation?