Fertility ‘starter kit’

[awakeatnight]

Help a mother out please ladies! Not sure if this is the right board - please be kind if not, I’m new here and to fertility following!

What do I need in my ‘starter kit’? And what tools do you recommend for tracking ovulation? I’ve tracked periods before using ‘clue’ app but don’t think my cycle lines up with their algorithm.

Folic acid and iodine supplements are all you really need. And sex every second day until you feel really premenstrual. I wasted a lot of money and energy on all types of rubbish while TTC - looking back, that's all you need for the first 12mo of trying.

If you get to one year and are still not pregnant, then speak to your GP and look into fertility tracking. But not before - it can take that long for a healthy couple to conceive.

I already take vit d and folic acid @zwan, what’s the iodine for though? I’ve been heard of that.

Does anyone have a handy guide to ovulation testing or particular method recommendations? Do you do both the rest and the temperature thing?

Edit: been should be ‘never’!

Thanks

Iodine is critical to the proper development of the brain in utero. Most pregnancy multi vitamins will have it in there.

Seriously, OPKs can drive you mad trying to interpret them, and they only indicate a LH surge, not actual egg release.

The saliva microscopes are pretty useless - my husband ovulated regularly when he tried it.

Temperature charting can also be over-analysed and rage inducing. Vaginal vs oral is more reliable IME. But none of it helps make the 2WW any easier.

Chill out! For the first few months all you need is regular sex and daily folic acid. Unless you have known fertility issues the charting and symptom spotting just puts too much extra pressure on and is counterproductive. By all means log your periods and sex in an app like Ovia but just enjoy this time with your DH, don't stress him out to perform!

I used the clearblue advanced fertility monitor. I had one natural period after coming off my pill and then started using it. You pee on a stick when it tells you to and pop it into the little computer which tracks your oestrogen and LH surge and gives you low, peak and high fertility days, you just have sex on every other on high day and both peak. You can track your period and mark the days you had sex ect. I only used it for 1 cycle and I'm I'm now 13 weeks pregnant! Couldn't recommend it enough! I also took pregnancare pre conception and drank a glass of grapefruit juice each day. Good luck!

I took a prenatal multivitamin for a couple of months before conceiving (although it's not absolutely essential to start so soon).

Contrary to the other posters, I would recommend ovulation testing. We used the Clear Blue Advanced ones uk.clearblue.com/ovulation-tests/advanced-digital

You don't need them if you DTD every other day, but if you're normally doing it once or twice a week then it can help you find the days you're most likely to conceive and not miss them. It does depend on your attitude though - if you think the pressure to perform will stress you or your partner out then don't do it (or do it but don't tell your partner). It worked for us anyway and we conceived the first month of trying.

The tests are a bit expensive but they worked so well for us that we didn't need many and tbh if money had been so tight that we couldn't afford the ovulation tests then I would have been having second thoughts about whether we could afford a child.

And just mainly remember keep calm and be happy

Folic acid and regular sex. That's it. You don't need anything else. You may not need to track and I wouldn't bother with ov sticks yet, it's a lot of pressure which can delay things.

I think it's also worth remembering you actually only have around a 30% chance of conceiving per cycle.
I use clue to track my cycles which is helpful to know when AF is due and to track symptoms throughout the month.
We've taken the sex every other day approach for 3 cycles now and ive been using the ovulation sticks and it hasn't happened yet. I'm ditching the sticks now though as I wouldn't say they add anything to what I already know... The cm changes and changes to libido are clues enough that ovulation is about to happen!
It can take up to a year or more for healthy couples, so try to relax and enjoy for now!

It’s sctually 20% per cycle lou

My advice as someone who’s been trying for 18 months is to enjoy it for a long as you can. If it gets past 6 months, ramp up the game a little and start using OPKs but before that, please just enjoy it. Trying to get pregnant is supposed to be fun, not some kind of military operation or chore where you only have sex because a stick tells you too, which is what long term TTC turns into.

Have sex a lot. Don’t smoke. Go for nice dinners and have sex just because. Take folic acid. Be aware of your cycle ( eg length) but don’t obsess. Any early pregnancy symptoms are likely to be progesterone related and not pregnancy symptoms. Don’t worry about it not happening straight away because it is TOTALLY normal for it to take healthy couples up to a year to fall pregnancy.

All you need is folic acid, some opks and to have regular sex. There’s nothing you can buy that will help you to conceive, unfortunately that is completely up to nature and is beyond your control. But folic acid is good to get in the habit of taking should you conceive, opks help figure out when you are fertile and sex, well that speaks for itself. But at the end of the day, all you can do is have sex around ovulation and hope for the best. Trust me, I’ve been doing this long enough to know that fancy lubes and 100 different supplements do jack shit. Conception is a total lottery, I’m afraid. Good luck!