to think that if you don't conceive within about 3 months...

[DaftOne]

... It's likely that you're going to take a long time to conceive?

Posting here rather than conception as just want an open and honest conversation. Really don't want to upset anyone.

Totally anecdotal. It just seems to me that of the people I know, they either get pregnant immediately every time or they have long struggles on their hands. There don't seem to be many "in betweenies" who take between 4-10 months. I'm basically wondering if statistics are misleading, comprising of averaging out those who get pregnant immediately and those who take ages and ages.

(TTC 5 months now and a bit impatient... Can you tell?)

2 years with DS 3Months with dd

straight off pill 1st, 7 months second. yabu but I totally understand being impatient by nature

Actually a completely healthy couple with no fertility problems at all only have about a 20% chance of conceiving in each cycle.

So 20% will conceive after 1 month
So 36% after 2 months (adding 20% of the 80% who did not conceive in month 1)
So 49% after 3 months
So 59% after 4 months
So 67% after 5 months
So 74% after 6 months
So 79% after 7 months
So 83% after 8 months
So 86% after 9 months
So 89% after 10 months
So 91% after 11 months
So 93% after 12 months

... by chance alone. This is why we doctors do not investigate "infertility" until (usually) 1 year of unprotected sex, unless there is an obvious problem like the woman not having periods at all so probably not ovulating.

Nearly three-quarters of normal couples will have conceived after 6 months of trying.

Good Luck!!

I took 7 months to conceive dd and 12 to conceive expected ds.

I do know people who seem to always conceive immediately so there must be some sort of pattern to it.

I conceived first month with dd1, second month with ds and wasn't trying at all with dd2 (actually had a mirena in!). Dh and I only seemed to need to sit on the same chair - was very glad when he got the all clear from his vasectomy!!!

hmmm I don't know really

with dc1 it took about a year - but tbh was not DTD much as was already going off dc1 dad

with dc2 with a new partner it happened in the first month

then with this one (am 32 weeks with dc3, with same partner as dc2) it happened in the second month of ttc

DS1 was a surprise pregnancy but we had been less than careful for about a year, not trying but lazy about contraception now and again. DS2 was planned and it was almost instant.

No, that's not true.

Obviously, couples differ in their fecundability which is the probability of falling pregnant each month. Older couples are less fecund than younger ones, couples with a fertility problem are less fecund that couples who don't have a problem.

If you look at the population as a whole, there is heterogeneity because you put the more fecund couples (who will takes less time on average) and the less fecund couples (who take more time on average) in together - which is why it can sometimes look a bit skewed - although I think it's just random that you happen to know people who got pregnant straight away and those who have struggled.

As a previous poster said, it's all probability. For you as an individual couple, even the most fecund couples only have a probability of about 25% each month which is an average time to conception of four months. Most of us have a lower probability (because we're not 20 anymore!) so if your monthly probability is a normal 20%, five months is actually the average time to conception and to take more than five months is completely normal, especially if you're a bit older.

I hope this isn't the case OP otherwise I'm about to have a shit-fit the way I feel today. Overdue, no AF and POAS says BFN.

And we're just straying out of the 3mth window. I have to hope the statistics are correct!! But what IWantAnotherBaby says in particular made sense to me!

I was told that no one would be concerned until i had been ttc for a year as that is completely normal. pregnant 1st time of sex with DP now DH but did not have a birth, second time once we were married took about 6 months, MC early, second time about 4 months later again MC at 13 weeks, DS1 took a further 9 months, possibly more then DS2 was first month of trying so no real reason why it does / doesn't work.

It took us 11 months with DS1, 6 months with DS2 and first month with DS3

It took us 13 months to conceive the first time and about a week the second time, although sadly the second pregnancy ended in miscarriage at twelve weeks. We're now on the second month of trying again. Anecdotally it seems incredibly common for couples to take a year or more to conceive DC1 and then go on to conceive further DC quite quickly.

We took 11 months w ds1 and 2 months w ds2. Clearly we had perfected our technique .

I remember reading once (Prof Winston) that human embryos very often "fail", only about 1 in 5 succeed. Others just stop developing/fail to implant and you'd never know. I was in that camp, I put it down to poor egg quality. Took 24 months and I was 43. Was much less stressed for the first time in years the month I conceived.

Yabu. I'm an IVF patient, no egg, sperm or uterine issues, my tubes are broken. Even with s perfect lining and perfect hormone levels not all embryos will survive, some have genetic issues and won't keep growing, you may not realise you had an embryo though if you don't miss a period. It can take a few embryos before you get a good one,

Took us 5 months with both DSs

Not necessarily - I took 18 months with first (MC), 4 months with second, 1 month (MC), one month and then 2 months. Got significantly quicker after the first PG essentially!

10months
3months
Whoops - once and immediate

Five months DH was 47 and I was 35 if it helps

DC1 wasn't trying missed pill.
DC2 3 cycles, we weren't DTD much.
DC3 not really one cycle, coil removed, bled for two weeks, two weeks later BFP
DC4 wasn't trying, no period, was BFing had depo injection but miscalculated when it was needed again.

Because I'm a geek who loves biology, I charted (OPKs, temperature etc) from the very first cycle we TTC.

Pregnancy 1 - 0 months, 8 week loss
Pregnancy 2 - 3 months, but this was first cycle post loss with decent LP
Pregnancy 3 - 0 months, 9 week loss
Pregnancy 4 - 3 months, but again first cycle with decent LP
Pregnancy 5 - 0 months, DC3
Pregnancy 6 - 1 month, chemical

Pregnancy 7 - WTF 14 months.

People gave me all sorts of platitudes about "it can take a while" but given my previous history I felt sure I was right to be concerned. Had bloodwork testing, sperm analysis, heck, an HSG and laparoscopy - all was clear. Except DH's morphology was rather low but two different doctors said his high count would make up for that.

The cycle we conceived this baby (am nearly 35 weeks now) I decided we'd only do the deed when the OPK turned positive, rather than obsessively covering all the bases as I'd been doing over the previous 14 cycles. And bingo.

It occurred to me that all the other pregnancies, as we'd conceived so quickly, we'd not been really obsessively trying as it was the first proper month pretty much. A glance back at my charts showed sex once or twice really close to ovulation rather than the O-3/O-2/O-1/O we'd been doing of late. So we went for O-1 and O (and some pineapple core, ha ha!) and it worked. So my suspicion is that it was DH in some way.

As others have said though, many people aren't timing sex perfectly, and frankly yes I also wonder how on earth these things ever work out when it is soooo complicated!

From my time on fertility forums I would say possibly YANBU just from a purely anecdotal point of view of seeing so many charting women and the outcomes, but for the general population then YABU!

Having said that, things can change month by month anyway - problems fix themselves, statistically you could be just unlucky etc etc. So there always will be some "inbetweeners" even if they're timing it perfectly! I do have quite a few friends who got lucky at the 6-10 month mark despite charting from the start. If you have previous conceptions to go on, that's a far greater indicator of an issue (or not)

Good luck!! I hope you don't have to wait much longer.. the whole "life on hold" aspect of TTC is an absolute killer mentally and those 14 months, despite being nothing compared to what many couples deal with, I found very hard once I hit six months.

My first pregnancy we conceived while I was on the pill...so not only not planned, but actively taking precautions against getting pregnant.

Second pregnancy we tried for 14 months before conceiving.

I could not figure it out!

Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to respond to what was, in some ways, quite a silly post! Despite the "Plucked out of nowhere" nature of my original theory, I've actually learned quite a lot. I do think that some couples are super fertile - they can prob have sex at any old time and due to factors like really robust sperm or tons of fertile mucus or whatever, they will fall preg anyway (or one of my "case studies" conceived fraternal twins and twins run in her family so you've got to think perhaps she often releases multiple eggs). So i do think these people are a bit special and it's not just chance that they repeatedly conceive immediately. But for the rest of us I do totally see how the cumulative 20% thing works so thanks for that - I do feel reassured. One thing I never realised is just how normal it is to have wildly different conception times amongst members of one family - obviously I had heard stories like "my first took 5 years then no. 2 took 1 month" but I just never realised how normal that was. All in all a most enlightening thread so thanks again!

I was 5 months with dc2 . With dc1 I was on the pill but hadn't been well and was going through a bad time so wasn't taking it religiously , so I am unable to tell how many unprotected months I dtd while ovulating .

Interesting.

We took:
DD - 18 cycles
MMC - 1 cycle
triplets - 1 cycle (DS1 only survivor)
DS2 - 1 cycle

I guess we learnt what worked (eventually :o )!