TTC and childless is shit

[ttcissoboring]

I am drained, TTC is shit. Absolutely shit.

I never thought it would get like this. Pissing on OPK sticks waiting for smiley faces it's just bullshit.

I kinda wish now I'd have got pregnant by accident unexpectedly.

I have also had losses so it's dragged the process out and I just cannot be bothered anymore. It's draining and boring.

Not sure the reason for posting I guess just saying to anyone in a similar situation you're not alone.

It's even worse when all your friends have kids, so I'm lonely in that activities have to be 'child friendly' or never an evening out with cocktails sophisticated because they can't due to their kids so I end up feeling isolated and lonely and bored.

Just feel like my life is in limbo, nothing really happening - no life changes just same old bs.

I cling to my DH the only person lately I seem compatible with, and enjoy company.

I guess I'm just fed up today.

I’m sorry that I don’t have anything practical to add but it sounds incredibly tiring and I’m not surprised you’re having a hard time

I'm so sorry OP that you are stuck in this exhausting cycle. I did just want to go pick up on your point about friends though- having been on both sides of the coin...it's almost impossible to know what to say as a well-meaning friend. And for those if your friends who do have children- they can't possibly imagine the depth or complexity of emotion, and therefore have no way of knowing what is the right approach to take. They are fumbling around in the dark, whilst picking up on the awkwardness of the situation. It can be stressful on all sides.

Try not to be too angry with them (unless your friends actually do happen to be patronising a-holes!)

I hate fluffy terms like rainbow baby and I don't think the ones I lost are the brightest stars in the sky and all that bullshit

Totally agree, it’s a load of trite fucking shit. What does ‘rainbow baby’ even mean? It reminds me of ‘rainbow bridge’ which is a load of other bollocks about dead pets.

I agree with being vaguely distanced from it by use of fairly clinical language.

Also if you really feel your friends don’t have your best interests at heart, that’s very sad. Get better friends. Not being able to tell a close female friend what was happening would be unthinkable to me. I wanted to talk about it at times and they wanted to listen.

We've been trying to conceive for 5 years now and the only real path left for us is IVF. I know it's incredibly hard but If I had one piece of advice for you it would be to stop ''trying'' and yes I know that's a cliche but it's more a suggestion for your mental health than anything else. I honestly got so obsessed with things like OPK's and trying to spot potential pregnancy symptoms that I ended up really depressed and I was just left feeling very fragile. Obviously what works for me might not work for you but I found that just going back to actually enjoying our sex life and taking time to do things for myself and for us as a couple was really important. Whatever comes next you want to be in a good head space for it because it's tough wishing you the best of luck :)

I can totally understand. It took us 3.5 years to have our ds. 4 rounds of ivf. 1 missed miscarriage. Of identical twins. 1 ruptured ectopic. We stopped TTC as it all got too much. Every pregnancy announcement was a kick in the stomach. It was such a hard hard thing to go through. So painful.
But we naturally conceived 6 months later. Had our son. We tried for a second thinking it would take a year to conceive, got pregnant after 2 months. We had our dd.
At one point we didn’t know if we ever would have kids and that was absolutely heartbreaking. But it can happen. You just have to keep trying and keep believing. Xx

Take a look at Luisazissman Instagram, go and find her story about TTC, so many woman have since fallen pregnant.

Worth a go! X

I was in your position, many years trying and multiple miscarriages. It’s so hard. I would say that you don’t need to go tee total though, that’s just added pressure if it’s something you enjoy. You were born with all your eggs, drinking won’t affect that. As you will probably know very soon once you become pregnant (if you’re anything like me and test as soon as period is due!), then this won’t pass to the embryo, it takes a while for those pathways to develop. So please don’t let that worry you as it just adds to the pressure. In fact, when I finally got the one that stuck I had had two weeks off work and spent most of it with my husband going out for nice dinners and getting pleasantly merry!! We decide to take a break from trying until after Christmas and just had sex when we felt like it. It’s hard to do that though, especially if like me and getting on a bit, I felt like every period was my last chance. In the end I just got so fed up with the crushing disappointment each month, the pregnancy announcements, I thought, ‘fuck it, I’m just going to get drunk, eat all my favourite foods, and try again after when I’ve had a bit of a blow out. It may be a coincidence, but it worked! I wasn’t expecting it too. Please try and give yourself a bit of a break, it’s exhausting.

It took me 9 months to conceive dd but I've been trying for number two for 3 1/2 years and it has changed me forever. It's been the worst time of my life and I say that as someone who watched their mother die of brain cancer. The thing is, people can never understand unless they've been there. And even then you get the people who ivf worked for first time saying things like "just do ivf, that will work".

I've had one surgery, 5 tried of ivf and having more surgery next month. It is absolutely shit and all consuming. Things I have learnt that help me 1. Don't be so hung up on drinking and diet (obvs no getting completely pissed in the tww) 2. Make plans for things - I used to always delay booking weekends away in case it might end up clashing with ttc stuff 3. Be honest ish with people. I tell people I don't want to see them and their tiny baby as I find it too hard. No one has had an issue with that. 4. Push for testing. After 3 1/2 years of various tests it was finally discovered this week I have an adhesion in my uterus acting like the coil! Specialist saline sonogram showed that - incorrectly diagnosed as something else (that shouldn't affect implantatio) 2 years ago. 5. If anyone tells you to just relax or go on holiday just reply with 'Fuck off' and leave the conversation.

Good luck.

I get you op. We struggled to conceive and had my ds after rounds of fertility treatment. Then we had many losses after, including a late term loss. Absolutely devastating. The one thing that got me through is my dh support. He felt the pain as if it was him going through it. I do think your dh is quite nasty in the way he treats you about this. He doesn't sound supportive at all and this could be adding to your upset .11

@Confused102 sorry to hear your story and also, I didn't mean to put DH in the firing line in this thread! I may sound naive but what makes you say that about him? Sometimes it takes someone looking in to notice this stuff

I've been where you are, it took us 6 years to get a bfp. 6 years of absolutely nothing. I still remember that feeling of utter hopelessness well. Your post saddens me actually because I could have written parts of it myself a few years ago and I know how raw those emotions are.

Unfortunately, the only advice I can give is to just keep going and try not to obsess as difficult as that may be. I put so many years of my life on hold, thinking "we can't do that this year because I might get pregnant". The year I finally did get pregnant, I had booked a big holiday abroad for my 30th and an autumn break to Krakow. We weren't even TTC as I was well and truly over the stress of it all.

I'm pregnant with #2 now and this one was a one shot and pregnant. I was meant to be starting uni next month. DH couldn't believe it, he commented that we try and try and get nowhere and then when we're not trying, bam pregnant!

Best of luck to you. It's an awful journey but you're not alone.

[quote ttcissoboring]@HopingForOurRainbowBaby the consultant fees totalled £350 and then the testing on top came to approx £300-£400 (I haven't had the final bill yet! But it's less than 1k) which in the grand scheme of things is worth paying for to know where you stand [/quote]
Thank you

@sayanythingelse thank you

Also I feel like an idiot for planning around potential babies exactly like you said I used to do the same. DH used to take for granted and say let's not do it this months because we have x coming up or I'm busy at the moment a child wouldn't fit in blah blah

I think we need to promote awareness that science isn't always on your side - people should talk more about it

So my point is that before TTC we always thought it would happen immediately. How stupid were we. We thought Sod's law we will her pregnant unwanted. Now I wish that had happened.

I have just had. Enough.

I feel like rewriting your script/life and making radical changes.

Another few years if it still hasn't happened I will do just that.

Hi OP.

I’ve been there. Never ever believed I’d be out the other side. Ruptured ectopics, nurses in the miscarriage room of EPU asking if I’d ever thought about adoption, the lot.

I have no words of wisdom, just sending solidarity.

IVF isn’t necessarily a cure-all. My losses were all IVF and my miracle was natural. IVF just gets the sperm and the egg together, which you don’t seem to struggle doing. What a good clinic will do is sort you out with progesterone and Clexane or whatever and make sure there are no glaringly obvious other issues that can be quickly fixed.

Have you had your thyroid checked? I had six failed IUIs, including loads of blood tests, before anyone realised my thyroid was hugely out of whack.

I won’t tell you to relax cos it’s not helpful, but do try to love your life in between peeing on stuff.

*live your life.

But I quite like the typo.

@LividLaVidaLoca yes I have a thyroid off which led to a loss - thank you for bringing it up though but already aware of it.

It angers me too how coming thyroid is and again, zero awareness about its impact on fertility.

@LividLaVidaLoca also I do have a great life but I'm utterly bored shitless of it! I want a change.

I just meant when you said he tells you to carry on as normal. Or telling you that you are mean at getting upset at someone else's pregnancy. That is nasty of him. You have been pregnant and have had losses, you are bound to feel upset, angry, selfish around other peoples pregnancies. I certainly did, my dh just supported me and completely understood when I needed to vent and feel upset. He didn't make me feel worse.

In my miracle pregnancy I saw a consultant endocrinologist every four weeks on GP referral to the hospital. They’d check my thyroid and adjust my dose.

You want your TSH under 2, ideally under 1.

You probably know this stuff but better to be over cautious.

@LividLaVidaLoca that's useful because I've been told just keep it under 2.5 not as low as 1 so thank you.

I've had to literally beg for thyroxine and they only recently gave it to me as I felt tsh at 2.5 how Bering was too high so fingers crossed a low dose of this helps me keep it controlled

I don't think your DH sounds like he was being nasty, he just chose bad wording. He was just trying to bring you out of wallowing in your own sadness and try and make you see that it's important to at least try and be happy for others.

Oh goodness it’s so shit and TTC was the worst time of my life. No one can really understand it unless you have been through it and sadly even very close friends abs family say the wrong things. We did get there in the end but it felt desperate at times so I have no advice apart from keep going and solidarity.

I do think infertility changes you as person. I am having to do Lft’s for work twice a week and it’s made me think about how horrible ovulation testing was. In the end my dad made me stop as he said I was just pissing money away. I’d never want to ttc again as it turned me into a bitter bitch who didn’t enjoy anything. I hope you find contentment soon op in whatever form it comes.

Yep, I know exactly how you feel, it's really fucking shit. Just over 3 years TTC. Round 1 of IVF ended in a chemical, currently going through round 2. It's the most difficult thing I have ever been through. No one gets it unless they've been through it, and no one I know has been through it. So I get lots of "just relax", "think positive" and "it'll happen when you least expect it". Absolute bullshit. We've been married 6 years so now have people we don't want to know asking questions. Gahhhh!! 🤯🤯