Hello, I used to hate this advise too! This time last year, almost exactly to the date in fact, I was in a terrible state over TTC. Looking back, I feel that I was obsessed and it had really gotten out of hand although I couldn?t see this at the time. All of my friends around me seemed to be getting pregnant and I felt left behind and like I had to have a baby immediately.
Despite being off the pill for a year my cycles had become more and more erratic the more I stressed about them. I didn?t feel like I was stressed so thought it was a load of old rubbish when people said not to stress about it.
We were living abroad at the time and I had an excellent health insurance policy which covered fertility investigations so I decided to take myself off to a gynecologist. She did all manner of scans and blood tests on me and my husband and said we were both absolutely fine. Of course I didn?t believe her, if we were fine then where was our baby?! I requested that she did a HyCosy which she did and of course all came back fine. She then said that she could gibe me a course of Clomid to make my ovulation more regular. I was over the moon and thought that I was definitely going to get pregnant. It didn?t work and to make matters worse, when I went for my follow up scan before getting the second course of Clomid she saw a huge cyst on one of my ovaries and prescribed a month of taking the pill to shrink it. To say I was devastated is an understatement.
Anyway, my husband and I decided over Christmas to change our jobs and move back to England (un related to TTC). We put TTC on hold as we were moving back to England in June and beginning our new jobs in August so I couldn?t real begin my new job already pregnant. I felt like a weight had been lifted from me and threw myself into getting fit. We decided to train for a half marathon and I lost a stone and a half and felt great and of course my cycles went back to normal immediately when I stopped stressing! My friends who had been pregnant in the midst of my depression had their babies and that was absolutely fine, I was happy for them which is something I could not have imagined being nine months earlier when they had told me they were pregnant.
We moved back to England in June and were busy setting up and new house and preparing for our new jobs. We decided that we would start to TTC again after Christmas but would take a very casual approach to it to avoid my madness that had happened before. We started work in August and we were both so caught up in our new lives that one night in September we realised we had no condoms left. We just thought oh well and carried on. That was it, we were TTC again in a very unplanned fashion. Because we were both so focused on our new jobs and our new lives back in London TTC was not my focus. Of course I still wanted a baby more than anything but it wasn?t my sole focus anymore and I had a much healthier attitude towards it. We had sex every other day or every couple of days and I didn?t stress out about ovulation, charting, pre seed and everything else that I had previously done. We planned holidays and really enjoyed making the most of what we had and enjoyed being a couple.
We had just got back from a city break to Belgium in October where I had enjoyed so much alcohol and loads of bad TTC foods like mussels, pate, cured meats etc when I realised I hadn?t had any of my usual pre period symptoms so did a CBD test that I had in the bathroom from my obsessive days. I was so blase about it that I did it at 8pm after just getting back from the gym. I never expected it to be positive so just casually wee?d on the stick and left it on the side while I got in the shower. Imagine my shock when I got out the shower and saw the words ?pregnant 2-3 weeks? I nearly had a heart attack!
So I know this IS another one of those relax and it will happen stories that you all hate and I used to hate too but I just wanted to share it with you as I truly do believe that switching my focus and taking my mind off TTC is what helped me to conceive. I know I was lucky as I had big things like moving country and starting a new job to focus on but even when I was training for the half marathon that was a complete distraction for me. You really, really do have to let go of TTC , take a step back and focus on something else though and not do what I used to do and think ?oh if I do this that means I will get pregnant because I?m not thinking about getting pregnant? as that defeats the point! I also found that taking a break from Mumsnet was fantastic in helping me beat the obsession.
Sorry I have gone on a bit, I just found it really cathartic to write it all down and once I started I couldn?t stop!