OPKs on cycle #1 or wait a while?

[Vizzini]

Hello. DH and I have decided to TTC #2. DD has just turned 2 this week.

This will be cycle #1 of trying and TBH I'm a bit nervous. DD was a lovely surprise so we've never tried before and everything is new and scary. I stopped taking the pill in Dec and we've used condoms since then, although we did have a few 'unprotected' days.

What I'm wondering is, should I use OPKs this month (I'm on CD2) or wait and see what happens? I'm 28 and, although I have endo, DD was obviously conceived without problems (was on pill at the time).

Would you recommend using OPKs or just SWI every other day (every day?) when I should be fertile? Any help would be much appreciated. Good luck to everyone else too.

Wait a while. Enjoy 4-6 months of fun filled contraception free sex. If you are doing it 3 times a week you don't need opks really. Don't even worry about when you are going to be fertile at first. Just have plenty of sex and enjoy it. If you start the stressful stuff from the beginning then it can have a detrimental effect on your relationship especially if ttc takes a while.

Having sex every day is also a lot of pressure to put on yourself and your partner if you wouldn't normally be doing it that often. If you feel you have to have sex on a particular day, not because you want to, it can quickly become quite joyless. 3 times a week is plenty unless you like it more often.

If you haven't conceived after 4-6 months then think about the opks. Not that there is anything wrong with you if it takes more than 6 months as that is still perfectly average.

There is an inbetween option though which I used (i had 2 miscarriages and was keen to do whatever possible to get pregnant again quickly - first pregnancy was conceived without any science malarkey though).
I did the opks and the cbfm and all that. But I did not share the results of my stick pissing experiments with my partner. He knew that 3 times a week was required and he is not stupid so knew that mid-month was the best time. So he probably guessed when he came home to find me in bed in my underwear that it was a positive opk day, but it was a bit more romantic and pleasant than me saying "oh look a smiley face on the stick, do me now".

Thanks for that. We usually average three times anyway so I'm glad that'll be ok! The thought of every/every other night did sound exhausting, although DH sounded keen! I'd hate for it to get too stressful too soon, so I'll avoid for now and see how it goes. I really appreciate the advice.

katandkit's advice is spot on.

Someone wise once said on here (was it you kat?) that for the first few months the best thing to do was just chuck some sperm at the egg around the middle of the month and see what happened.

When we conceived DS we did just that and it was lovely and easy (and how lucky are we i know!)

TTC #2 was harder. I got obsessed with pissing on any stick i could find and basically frogmarched DH into way more sex than we needed and treated him like a walking sperm bank. It was not nice and it was not fun. I did fall pg but sadly lost the baby this week.

When we're ready again I'll be going the relaxed route. and if anyone sees me posting to any other effect please pull me up on it

Good Luck

I think it depends on what kind of a person you are.

See, I'm the kind of person where it makes me feel better if I know I'm doing all I can. So OPKs make me feel better. I'd actually feel more anxious if I wasn't using them as I'd wonder if we'd missed the best time.

But I agree you don't necessarily need to share the OPK results with DH