26 months without a BFP

[greeneyesbigbottom]

I'm feeling very indifferent about this today.

From initial hope to despair, tests, more tests, no answers, more hope, more despair... accepting that it may never happen, then reading stories of BFP's after years of TTC.

Is there anyone who has been trying for a while and has to deal with the ups and downs of emotions etc. How do you cope with the disappointment? How do you cope with friends having their families?

I think I have totally exhausted myself and I'm not sure what has changed this month, but I'm finally feeling like this is taking over my life in a bad way and I need to make some changes in my life.

Pass me the

We went through this.

The way we coped was by making lots of positive changes in our lives to make us feel like we had some control back.

We changed our diet completely (no red meat, no cow dairy, no alcohol, no caffeine, no additives etc), had acupuncture, did yoga, upped our exercise levels, took holidays etc.

I found that there really was no way to deal with the disappointment or the feelings when friends announced their pregnancies, other than to recognise that I felt happy for them, but so, so sad for me, and to allow myself time to grieve.

It is very, very hard. Be kind to yourself.

I've been there.

It was slightly different for me in that I already had a child, but was still hard in terms of the hope/disappointment.

What I would say is that you need to live your life and try not to let it take over. I do know that that can be difficult, but I also know that allowing infertility to take over your life can be extremely damaging, and tbh achieves nothing other than misery.

If you're 26 months on with no success then I do agree re taking control and assessing what your options are from here on and how well equipped you are to pursue those options. But I wouldn't hold on to the stories of people who ttc for years and then fell pregnant when they gave up, because the reality is that that might never happen and you could be hoping on a non-starter. So look at what you can do, IVF? adoption? and whether either of those are options you want to pursue, and if not whether you can see a way to move on with your life.

In my case we were never able to conceive, but I didn't feel that IVF was for me (although I accept that I may have felt differently if I didn't already have a ds then. But six years on I am actually now at a point where I don't want to have more children - my ds is eight now and I couldn't conceive of going back to nappies and sleepless nights at this point in my life, so there is hope and it is possible to get past it.

I agree with WannaBe. Part of our taking control was to accept that IVF may be the only way forward for us. We were determined to get ourselves into the best possible physical and emotional state in order to give the IVF every chance to work.

This was really important for me - I never wanted to look back blame myself for not having done enough. I knew this would be very important in the event that IVF didn't work.

We never gave up, but I did fall pregnant naturally, the month before we were due to start IVF. I've got no idea whether our changes made any difference, but I know that they were certainly important to our emotional well-being along on the way.

Like Wannabe - we only have our one child. We never managed to conceive again.

Thanks for your messages.

I am very aware that it is was taking over our lives, but as our last hope is IVF and we are not able to take the risk financially, I just worry constantly that I will live to regret it.

We have changed our lives for the better. We eat healthily, we exercise more, its brought us even closer together, however I feel there will always be a part of our future - how we hoped it might be - missing.

I have always wanted to be a mum, but I never met the right man, it was never the right time, and when I think of all those wasted years taking the pill and the MAP once than once I could cry!

Today I am ok with it. Tomorrow is another day. I have days of utter despair and I wonder how long this will last?

Theres no reason why we cant conceive other than bad timing... which is why I have this constant need to ask why???

I always trusted that I would be a parent. Over the course of our long, long journey, I came to the realisation that it didn't actually matter to me how that happened. I started off being fixated with natural conception. Then I became ok with the idea of IVF. We then started talking about adoption and I realised that I could love a child, no matter how it came into our lives.

This thought gave me great comfort.

Have you had any counselling? I had some as part of my acupuncture treatments and found it incredibly helpful to be able to explore my feelings without feeling I was putting a burden on my dh, or other friends/family.

I feel for you. We went through this too. IVF did work for us, although it cost lots and lots of money, and was very hard emotionally and physically.

I found during those even more difficult pre-ivf days that if I always had a plan, I felt in control and able to face the rest of my life. If whatever we were trying didn't work, I knew the next thing to try and when. Of course this might be too rigid for some, but i also always had fun things, days out, seeing friends to look forward to.

Don't be afraid to limit communication with people who you may be feel upset to be with. A true friend will understand a gentle explanation.

Don't feel there's anything wrong with not wanting adoption (or not yet anyway). It's a completely different issue, and should not be a replacement for your own child, just an opportunity to love because you don't have your own children.

Little things that helped me: I sponsored a child with World Vision and receive updates from and send little presents to her regularly. I made a list of all the other things I wanted to acheive in my life, however small, from making a patchwork quilt to driving across the USA. And start to tick them off!

Whatever you do, please don't blame yourself. You never know why or when your sub-fertility began. I too used to blame myself for something that was very obviously the cause in our case, but a friend counselled me out of that. As Littlefish says, be kind to yourself.

I'm crying reading this, I know just how it feels. It took 3 and a half years to conceive our one and only and we haven;t manage to repeat the feat.

I don't know why it happened that month and not any of the 60 other months we tried.

I hope it works for you - but do get all the help the doctors can offer too.

You shouldn't let it take over your life - but I don't know how to avoid that either.