Conceived #1 first cycle, a year into TTC #2

[Emz1989]

I honestly think I only blinked at DH and fell pregnant with my dd1, first cycle off the pill, first month after we got married - happy days.
I’m now a year into TTC #2 and becoming more and more sad about it.
DD1 is going to be 3 in June, I always had in my head that a 3 year gap would be lovely and now that ship has obviously sailed!
Anyone in the same position?

Yup! I was on the pill when I got pregnant with my daughter and have been pregnant since then also while on the pill. So imagine my surprise when we actually decided to ttc that I didn’t get pregnant straight away!

I’m now on month 19, had all tests done and they couldn’t find anything wrong with me or my partner. My daughter is almost 10 so the age gap is just getting bigger and bigger. We’re looking into IVF in the autumn.

There’s not much I can really say to help, secondary infertility sucks and I know that sometimes it feels like you can’t talk about it because “you already have one”. What I will say is that my fertility doctor told me that 85% of healthy couples will conceive within a year and 95% within 2 years. So 2 years (although not ideal) is still a reasonable time frame.

Have you and your partner had any fertility testing done yet? Once you’ve got to a year of trying unsuccessfully, the doctors will start testing with blood tests to check your hormone levels and then refer you on to a fertility clinic if necessary. Good luck :)

Thanks for your reply!
We haven’t been to the docs yet, no. I suppose I haven’t wanted to face that something might actually be wrong, but I do think now is the time.
Do you know what they would do at a first appointment?

It’s right what you say about secondary infertility, I’m so grateful for our DD but it doesn’t stop the longing for another. Plus the questions about #2... Arghh everyone, everywhere, always asking!

It does make it seem more real once you get doctors involved but it’s worth it. Speak to your GP and just say you have been trying for a year unsuccessfully and they will do blood tests at your surgery first. They tend to test progesterone (that has to be done at CD21 or whatever a week after you ovulate tends to be) thyroid, prolactin, FSH and AMH. They’ll also get your partner to do a semen sample. If all of them come back normal, you get referred to a fertility clinic where they’ll go through your medical history, do some more bloods/semen samples and then usually an internal US and then finally a sis and hycosy/hsg basically just to check your uterus for adhesions or blockages and whether your tubes are clear.

It’s a long drawn out and boring process but it can get to the bottom of things and stop you potentially wasting more time. There’s lots of things that can be wrong but are treated easily with surgery or medication. For me, we have “unexplained” infertility meaning there was nothing they could find that’s physically wrong with us and there’s no reason they can see why I can’t conceive. Be prepared for a lot of doctors to say “oh well it’s happened for you once, it’ll happen again” lol as if it’s that simple!

I fell pregnant very quickly with my first child.
9 years later, and we have been ttc #2 for 7 years with no luck.

I would suggest going to the doctors, I put it off for so long, and it really got us nowhere.
We got referred to a fertility clinic, and I was diagnosed with PCOS.

Good luck with everything