If I'd known how hard conceiving can be I'd have started younger

[conceptionisdraining]

I feel like society/people/medics act like you have sex once and bang, you're pregnant.

I know this can and does happen, but it's just not the reality for most people - especially not me!

Actually getting pregnant can take time, then with miscarriages along the way it's ridiculous. It's been two years now since the journey started I'm 35 and planned to have a baby by now but not even pregnant.

Am I unreasonable to think there could perhaps but a little more factual education for women which in turn would probably save a lot of funding that goes towards IVF and other treatment.

Me and DH never ever had unprotected sex until TTC as I thought I would fall and have a baby right away, had I have known what I do I probably would have been a little more relaxed about unprotected sex a few years earlier.

TTC is quite possibly the most boring, emotionally draining thing I've ever done.

Well, obviously a lot of people on here are disagreeing with me, but I still maintain that it's not always possible to "start sooner" for many women.

What if you haven't met your partner yet? Living in shared accommodation or rental shouldn't preclude it, but people understandably want security.

I know, that's why I said at least two. The third, finding a partner- well, some go down the donor route. Not a popular option. So, at least two.

Can't see how it's bad to remind people there's a time limit. Seek a partner preemptively if you can.

My point really is you don't have to own your own house, or having the most senior position. These are entirely possible to do with a baby or whilst trying. If you wait for everything to be perfect you could lose your chance, and you'll look back and think it probably wasn't worth it

I am sorry your feeling so down OP, TTC is not for the faint hearted. Some people fall pregnant easily, others don't. I fall into the latter. Some people have fertility issues and other don't.
Even if you started earlier there is no guarantee it would be any easier. It took 18 months to fall for DC1 age 33 and 12 months for our second age 38. Until you start TTC I don't think you give it much thought, I know I didn't. I had no desire for children until I was 30+ with the love of my life. Everyone's circumstances are different and I dot agree you should TTC until your ready regardless of age, yes it's should be considered as you get older.
TTC is lonely and soul destroying. Month after month, be kind to yourself and make time for you 😬 Good Luck

@rarge but then when you end up on the front pages of the Sun cos the council refused to house you after you get evicted by your landlord, everyone on Mumsnet (as well as the comments section) says what are you doing having children when you don't even have a stable place to live?

Really can't win. You have:

1. You know you definitely can't afford to buy your place/pay your rent if you are paying for another living baby, esp if its childcare fees of £1200-1300 (my friend's childcare costs in yorkshire). Unsurprisingly, my friend who actually just started her new role pre baby after being unemployed and racking up credit card debt during the pandemic is going part time. Her DH is a delivery driver and I am guessing mortgage providers are not incredibly receptive to the self employed. Rents in Yorkshire are rising year on year so who knows how a family of 3 with a delivery driver income + part time income will fare in the next 10 years esp with rising inflation. Of course my friend is 37 so I fully respect that she probably doesn't have much time, but i think if she was 10 years younger/in my age bracket, I am not sure that this would be her choice.

1. Wait and save and maybe play russian roulette with your fertility. Downgrade your expectations of the number of children you have. But hopefully when you do have a child, you will have your own place and more savings. If you don't, well at least you weren't a sob story in the making.

[quote PinkMochi]@TableFlowerss you misread my post. I put an example of something I’ve heard in speech marks. I’m in my 20s, but I’ve heard women in their 40s saying they’re ttc and it’s fine to wait until that age. My reaction is always at those threads.[/quote]
😳🙈 Sorry about that, I missed the speech marks! 🤭

I was too busy thinking does this poster think her situation the norm?! 😂

You assumed. Never assume.

Plus you dont know if all your family /friends had it easy as a lot of people don't talk about miscarriages.

Hope you get your wish one day op x

@conceptionisdraining
Sorry your having a hard time of it it, I'm going through it to 4 miscarriages and 1 cp ttc num 1 38 and I never had the chance in my 20s to start ttc as never met the love of my life until I was 34 fell pregnant when 35 and a half and that's when my losses started.

I know what u mean abot it taking its toll but I look at it my desire is to strong for a baby I say what if next one sticks so that keeps me going, a fear of not trying again and the what ifs next one was the one, I have had all the fertility test only thing he could tell was some old ADENOMYOSIS but not to bad, I'm getting progesterone on my nxt bfp so hoping that helps.

Good luck on your journey and lots of baby dust your way and I hope you get your rainbow baby.

More people have issues TTC than you realise, but it's not really spoken about until you're going through it. It took us over 2 years TTC DC1 and in that time I learned I had PCOS which was making it very difficult for us to conceive. I had no idea I had it until we went for extra tests a year into TTC and I was in my late 20s, but there had been signs of it since I was a teenager. I managed to conceive on the 3rd round of clomid (plus some help from provera). The first two rounds were depressing and it had become a chore, trying to time things right, etc. By the 3rd round I'd given up hope of it working so we went on holiday and stopped being so uptight about it, and somehow that was the round that worked.

DC2 was a total surprise. I had come off the pill and was gearing up to return to the fertility clinic to see what could be done, when I fell pregnant. I didn't think I could conceive without some help so I was very surprised.

TTC when it's not working is a hard, frustrating and upsetting process. Everyone you see seems to be pregnant or getting pregnant without any issues, but you're not alone.

I am so sorry OP. I've been ttc 4 years now, I didn't get with my husband until I was nearly 32. We started ttc at 34 and initially struggled to conceive, so started on the infertilty pathway but conceived naturally and then had a miscarriage. 4 years later, 3 more natural pregnancies, 1 round of ivf and two more lost babies. I'm having surgery tomorrow to remove my 6th baby. Its fucking hard. We know why we are struggling, I was on a concoction of meds to stop my body attacking my baby and it still failed.

Sending love ❤️

@A580Hojas

I'm sorry for your struggles but how can you not have known about this in 2019?

I was TTC 20 years ago in my mid to late 30s. I knew full well then that it would potentially be harder as I was older.

I don't think this information has been hidden all this time.

@A580Hojas

Maybe individuals are aware of the difficulty. There was a thread on here recently where posters were telling the Op that she had 'plenty of time left at 37 to leet someone at and start a family '. Because Sarah/Jane/Georgina at the school gates conceived with no womb/fallopian tubes and had twins ...you see what I mean. Fertility is very individual and your own chances might be completely different to someone else's of the same age. You just don't know until you start trying. It doesn't help that the 'meeja' portrays fertility treatments as accessible and successful. They are not. Reproductive medicine is complex, IVF is frontier science. So much is still unknown.

I'm a single mother by choice to be - I did IVF aged 39 with a sperm donor. I was briefed by the consultant about the declining egg quality/increase in chromosomal abnormalities/increased miscarriage rates in older women. Nobody had ever really explained it in such raw detail. I certainly wasn't told to wait...

I was given less than 30% success rate. IVF failure rate globally is over 75%. People are not aware of this information. They think IVF is a panacea to childlessness. Another test which isn't routinely offered by the NHS is a HyCosy test which checks the patency of the fallopian tubes. One of mine is blocked. Had I not done this test I wouldn't have known and possibly could have tried in vain for months/years to conceive naturally.

Nobody talks about the sperm -around 1/3 of infertility cases are due to sperm issues. Poor sperm quality is linked with increased risk of miscarriages.

I didn't leave it late because I was chasing a 'career': a series of poor relationships/inability to meet a suitable partner/housing issues/job issues plagued my 30s. I have been extremely lucky and am now 36 weeks pregnant on my first fresh IVF cycle (with several embryos in the freezer). If I had my time again, I would have fine abroad for treatment as it's much cheaper, have frozen my eggs aged 30 - mixed some with donor sperm so I'd have embryos in cases I didn't meet anyone and then I could do frozen transfers. Hindsight is a wonderful thing...

Wouldn't it be great if medical science could tell us how hard it easy it would be. I fell pregnant immediately 3 times. The first time was unplanned and that was stressful also. It would have been nice to know if it was going to be like that or difficult.

@turnaroundtime a new york lady advised me to check my ovarian reserve. I have also talked to fertilty doctors. The reality is that these checks may not tell the full picture, you could have great ovarian reserve but still struggle to get pregnant. Some ladies also freeze eggs but in reality it is not as easy as they make out to have a baby using that method.

@Anthurium would you advocate a 29 year old and 31 year old married couple to freeze embryos just in case?

A well known fertility expert said that you should start trying in your early 30s if you want one child and if you want more than one it should be early 20s

I was infertile by age 36 after 2 ruptured ectopic pregnancies and 5 miscarriages

I just want to shake people when i hear them say they'll probably put off TTC until their late 30s and early 40s because it doesn't suit their current lifestyle to have a child

@tiggerwhocamefortea would mid 30s be ok for someone who wanted 1 child?

[quote onlychildhamster]@Anthurium would you advocate a 29 year old and 31 year old married couple to freeze embryos just in case?[/quote]
In short yes @onlychildhamster

One thing I've found with IVF, and I am speaking as someone who found the process and protocol relatively hassle-free (again, very fortunate), is that if you're fortunate to have made a few/several high quality embryos, I'd imagine doing freeze transfers to be easier/more manageable and time-effective than DTD every month? Of course, you'd still have to pay for medication and the actual transfer so there's additional costs involved. I'm not medically qualified so please take my 'suggestion' with a huge amount of salt, but creating embryos and using them to expand my family did cross my mind if I had a partner... And they agreed of course!

@Anthurium but i guess with frozen embryos, you would effectively be paying for IVF when you don't know whether you would struggle to get pregnant- its just a precaution. The thing is unlike a 29 year old single woman who might worry that she might not get coupled up quickly enough, i am already married and have been so for 6 years. The only indication of possible fertility problems is that we have been using withdrawal method for that amount of time and still no sign of baby (while other people are getting pregnant on the coil).

I guess like many things, its better to be safe than sorry. So even if i can get pregnant naturally, its an insurance policy?

[quote onlychildhamster]@Anthurium but i guess with frozen embryos, you would effectively be paying for IVF when you don't know whether you would struggle to get pregnant- its just a precaution. The thing is unlike a 29 year old single woman who might worry that she might not get coupled up quickly enough, i am already married and have been so for 6 years. The only indication of possible fertility problems is that we have been using withdrawal method for that amount of time and still no sign of baby (while other people are getting pregnant on the coil).

I guess like many things, its better to be safe than sorry. So even if i can get pregnant naturally, its an insurance policy?[/quote]
@onlychildhamster

Yes, that's right - you'd be paying for IVF when you don't know whether you'd get pregnant or not. It's all such a gamble, and when IVF works it's great, but when it doesn't it's just heartbreaking/demoralising and invasive and financially draining when not.

I'm not sure how old you (and your partner) are, but the NHS states that if you are over 35 years old and if you've been trying for more than 6 months, that you should seek help from your GP (not sure if you've done any investigations already or not in the meantime).

@Musttryharder2021 My DH is 31 and I am 29.

I don't know the circumstances obviously of the previous poster who found ivf hassle free - depends on your reason for doing It I suppose? I was infertile so no other way of having a baby and several miscarriages under my belt - ivf cost us in total £35k - it might have been physically not much hassle but emotionally it was horrendousl, the pressure of it not working, of finding more money to go again, of it working then losing another baby, the stress over how many follicles how many eggs how many fertilise quality on day 1 quality on day 3, if they make it to say 5 and blastocyst what grade they are, not to mention will the survive being thawed for a transfer the list goes on.

It's not an easy quick fix

Success rates are actually pretty abysmal. Around 30% if you are under 35, if you are over 43 it's 2%

Oh and using the withdrawal method and not happening to get pregnant doesn't indicate you have fertility problems

Yup. You're not wrong.

People do try to talk about, Kirsty Allsop has a lot, and I know she's rather divisive, however, I think she's right on this one.

Sadly she and others get silenced by the vociferous minority who don't like it because it scares women or puts them off having careers or whatever other nonsense they want to come out with.

It will happen though, keep the faith, and I'm so sorry about the miscarriages (I've had 5) they are truly harrowing. Have you had any investigations done? A lot of the time it's just bad luck, which is the bitterest of pills to take, but, after 2 years you might want to think about some investigations.

I've read through quite a lot of these posts and what I would advise you to if you want some high-quality info on fertility investigations, miscarriages and should you ever need it IVF or assisted conception, go to the boards on Babycentre.

I can't even be bothered replying to any of them but a lot are total bat shit and written by people who I don't think have any experience of IVF or fertility treatments IRL.

The babycentre boards were a godsend for me when I was going through it

@Cyw2018 illustrates my points perfectly....we're not allowed to talk about it because some people might get upset, well boohoo, grow up and close your ears if you don't like it. I am sick and tired of scientific facts and helpful knowledge being suppressed because it might hurt someone's feelings, it's beyond pathetic.