TTC Myths Exposed!

[CaveMum]

I've been hanging round on the Conception boards for quite a while now (far longer than I ever expected) and have noticed that the same myths/theories/whatever you want to call them, seem to keep cropping up.

As a nation we are useless at talking about fertility issues and as such these myths can perpetuate and end up being taken as fact, so I thought we ought to do a myth busting thread that might help some people better understand things and, hopefully, feel better about the whole process.

So here goes:

Very few women have a 28 day cycle. If your cycle is shorter or longer than this don't panic! It's just a number that Drs like to use.

Most women do not get pregnant straight away. It can take a perfectly healthy couple up to a year to conceive, so again, don'tpanic if it seems to be taking longer than you first expected.

In the same vein, most GPs won't investigate potential fertility issues until you have been trying for 1 year. They really won't be impressed if you make an appointment after only 2 months of trying!

There is very little point in POASing before at least 13dpo. HPTs are only up to 60% accurate before this date, so why waste the money and upset yourself with a potentially false result?

OPKs as HPTs are very unreliable. Just don't go there!

Feel free to add your own

You can tell that a year or so down the line when Kick and I have babies that there will be a rush on rubber chickens on Amazon and loads of women swearing by waving a rubber chicken after sex.

I will dress said child up in a large chicken suit as well.

And we can write books and stuff on the power of magical rubber chickens and their ability to impregnate when waved into the air during intercourse.

I am now on cycle 18 of ttc #2, and in that time have been certain I was pg due to the symptoms being like my previous pregnancy at least three times. I was wrong, and when I'm honest, I didn't actually have any symptoms that weren't pre-AF until a week or so after my BFP when pg with my DD.

Is there a particular brand of rubber chicken we need? I would hate to waste money on the wrong type.

I want to BELIEVE!!!

I think this could be the one. Rubber Chicken
Y'know I'm sure I read somewhere about a woman who was trying for ages and then relaxed and went on holiday and waved a rubber chicken after sex and she got pg

That's EXACTLY what I was thinking!! That MUST make it the solution to all our problems!!

That's it then. Rubber chickens are the way to go.
I think we should log how many BFPs we get from women waving metaphorical rubber chickens.

HOLY CRAP!

Just thinking about the rubber chickens has potentially made me pregnant!

Whoop whoop!

You need to think about waving rubber chickens.
Right then kick you and I are the test subjects this month. I'm on CD17 and about to OV. I shall think about rubber chicken waving right after sex now until AF. What about you?
If it stays with just us too we could prove rubber chicken waving having a 50 or even 100% effect. Anyone else in?

I can't TTC just yet :(

But I will do it in spirit! Reckon I have just as much chance as falling pregnant as if I was TTC

Well if it's just me then it's going to be either 100 or 0 %. There has to be someone else to join in.

Also we need a control group. Someone who promises NOT to think of a rubber chicken at any point before, during or after sex.

Fuck it - may as well throw caution to the wind. I want to see DHs response to the chicken

kick you can be the control group!

What about you Have are you going to be thinking of a rubber chicken?

Kicktheguru I do wonder if you'd posted your list of symptoms on here under a different less leading question you would have gotten a very different response. Say you had asked the question Am I type 1 diabetic with these symptoms, then everyone would agree with you that yes you were. I don't think you are fair to blame other people on here for leading you into believing in a false hope of being pregnant. I know what its like to wait and wait and have false symptoms, I didn't have a period for three months so I must've been pregnant right?! Wrong! It was a very difficult time, but I know that I helped myself by staying clear of ttc communities and the opinions of others. If you think other peoples opinions are not helpful or perhaps even dangerous, don't seek them out.

I'm only 5 days away from AF my BFP pip so the rubber chicken waving oppportunity has passed. My only symptoms have been tiredness - but I've upped my exercise recently -and rather large, slightly tender boobs. But we only dtd once round the 'right' time so I'm not really expecting to be diffed this time...

Wow some people are just so unbelievably touchy. Holy jesus

I was not blaming anyone. I do not believe that people on here, whom I have never met and likely would NOT ask to "diagnose" me (although, why in any gods name you suggest I ask "Have I got Type 1 Diabetes at 30 with no genetic link" on a BABY forum is the typical kind of suggestion that would get me in an even worse situation).

What I did say (that you seem to overlook) is that MY desperation in TTC saw me believing that they were pregnancy symptoms. And the idea that there are pregnancy symptoms (a myth or fact perpetrated by MNetters) only served to further encourage my erroneous belief.

Had I even SUSPECTED that I had Type 1 Diabetes, I would have ignored the Boots pharmacist, who sold me synthetic saliva (because it could be hayfever) and told it "probably wasn't diabetes", I would have moaned louder at my doctor (twice) and I promise, I wouldn't have waited until I was vomiting, not able to breathe or see or walk before getting myself to A&E

Pipbin - how can anyone NOT think of rubber chickens during sex now?

Kicktheguru - I'm glad you're on this thread. And I'm so sorry that you're having such an awful time with your diabetes.

Just wanted to stick my oar in - on my third round of ttc:

• I empathise a lot with Kick in saying that you truly want to believe in 2ww symptoms when you're ttc. I have learned (after two pregnancies with no symptoms until at least week 8) that -for me - symptom spotting is a waste of time. I also don't believe in implantation bleeding. This might not be true for everybody but it's saving me a lot of heartache this time round.

• Kick - I know what you're saying about having experienced every 'pregnancy symptom' before you've even got pregnant and won't trust them when they turn out to really be pregnancy symptoms - I've had the same with my first time ttc. But - in all fairness - you don't know yet what symptoms you will feel and how different they'll feel from what you've experienced before.

• I do agree that for people who have been ttc a long time, especially if it's their first, that over-emphasis on symptom spotting can set you up for a massive disappointment. It's not so bad in the first three or four months when that happens, but once you've been ttc-ing for over six months, it gets harder. But I think the responsibility is on the ttc-er to step away from the board and find other things in their life to focus on rather than say people shouldn't symptom spot. For those lucky enough to get pregnant easily, it's quite good fun.

Thanks for the myth busting at the start of the thread though - really useful. Even though I've bought the book and got the T-shirt of TTC (15 months for first, 9 months for second, 7 months so far for the third), there were still things there that I didn't know. DH and I have - in fact - just started DTD EOD as you suggested this month because my cycles have become a bit erratic. I've stepped away from the OPKs and the thermometer, because I realised that they were just making me more obsessed and - in themselves - wouldn't make a blind bit of difference to whether I get pregnant or not.

And "just relax and it will happen" is definitely the biggest pile of bollocks ever!

Thanks, ladies, for all the common sense on here. It was a total revelation to me to discover that increased progesterone post-ovulation (in a pregnant or non-pregnant woman) causes symptoms. The penny dropping moment has completely put me off most sources of information as they're clearly full of wishful thinking.

When you really want to be pg it does make you quite vulnerable to other people's comments, on MN or in RL. Kick and others are doing a grand job of saving us from ourselves on here (even if we can't protect each other from the "isn't it about time you had a baby" crew in the big bad world!).

Here's to collective sanity!

The point is that we are all different & it's just as absurd to say 'pregnancy symptoms don't exist before 5-6 weeks' as it is to say 'x symptom means you're definitely pregnant'. It bothers me though when people quote science over experience. 'No you're not experiencing that, science says it doesn't exist'. The trouble with scientists is they often confuse having no proof that X exists with having proof X doesn't exist.

Pesky scientists and their science.

The point is that there are no symptoms that definitely indicate pregnancy for every woman.

Until implantation occurs the fertilised egg cannot influence any effects over the woman's body and until a placenta has formed any effects will be minimal as the two do not share a common connection.

Now CaveMum I thought we'd decided to leave that science malarky out of it and leave it to the rubber chickens. Much more comforting.

Vintage - no need to be like that, if you have a point to make spit it out

And bollox 'until the egg implants it can't have any effect on the woman's body' It clearly CAN. Maybe not for you, but for some women it can & does. Or is everyone a liar who doesn't conform to your theory?