Any tips for TTC?

[Pastaallday]

I have been on the pill for many years (18!) without taking a break. We are wanting to start TTC from January and obv would be happy to get pregnant as soon as possible. Thinking about the next few months, I'm planning on stopping the pill xmas day just as this would be the last of the packet. So usually I would start the next pill again 1st Jan but am not planning to. However I have dilemmas as to whether to: stop the pill sooner and get my body used to it or I've also read, you can be more fertile straight after stopping the pill so we'd start trying straight in the new year.
I just wondered if anyone had any advice/tips as I have no experience in this! I've also just started taking vit D and folic acid. Thanks!

I was not on the pill so have no specific advice there, but I would say it might be useful to stop hormonal contraception earlier than you want to start TTC just to give your cycles chance to settle and to get to know your cycle better.

I tracked my cycles with Clue (free app) for 2 years before we TTC (not on purpose it just ended up that way, I was tracking for other reasons). It was so helpful that I knew exactly my fertile window. Didn’t tell DH when I was ovulating or anything, but knew myself and made a concerted effort to make sure lots of sex happened on the important days! Saying that I think the advice of having sex every other day throughout cycle is good just to be on the safe side! Lots of my friends swear by Natural Cycles which can also be used to prevent pregnancy. I looked at it but it is £60 per year so a bit pricey.

We were very fortunate- I fell pregnant on 3rd cycle TTC so never got truly serious with ovulation sticks or anything. We did use Preseed (sperm friendly lube) just as I wanted to be sure we weren’t harming the sperm with our usual stuff! Other than that I would say just have fun and try not to worry if it doesn’t happen straight away.

So after all that rambling advice from my experience....
-track cycles for a while first
-use sperm friendly lube if you use any
-lots of sex including lots on fertile days
-try not to stress about it

Good luck!

Thank u so much for the advice! I was thinking of using an app to track my cycle when I have them. Just in two minds whether to stay on pill until pretty much the day I start TTC to kickstart it or not... I would be the same as you @Magpiefeather and would track things myself but not particularly discuss it with my husband! Not right now anyway.
What was your training for using Preseed? This is completely new to me btw!

*Thinking not training!

Track cycles.

By doing that I conceived in 1 or 2 months several times. I firmly believe the biggest barrier is timing!

It was just because I found the need to use lubricant a lot more than usual since we were having so much sex (TMI is not really a thing on TTC threads right??) and our usual one has spermicide so obviously didn’t want to use that as it would have inhibited the swimmers. I looked up sperm friendly ones and preseed had loads of glowing reviews. Apparently it not only doesn’t inhibit sperm living, it is actually the right PH for them to thrive.

I think you need to decide what you would rather live with if things don’t go quite to plan - come off pill now and get pregnant right away, wait till new year then take a long time for cycle to regulate.

If it wouldn’t be a disaster to get pregnant now, I would come off, track cycles and give yourself time to regulate.
If you really can’t be pregnant till next year then wait.

Good luck!

@Pastaallday based on my experience i would come off the pill now to allow time for your cycle to regularise.
Really wish id done it sooner. Came off the pill in Jan and my periods are still all over the place - varying from 28 days to 56 days which makes it difficuly to track fertility.
You may find your periods settle straight away but if they dont you could be in for a lot longer trying that you hoped

I came off about 6 months before my wedding and before I knew we'd start to try for a family to get my body used to not being on it. It made sense for me anyway. I was pregnant 2 months later!

I’d come off the pill sooner. Every woman is different but it can take up to a year for your cycles to get back to normal and it’s not easy to track your fertile window when your cycle is all over the place.

From my experience it took 4 months just for my period to return.

Good luck.

@Pastaallday I think it would depend on what type of pill you are on as to how long it stays in your system?. I was on the mini pill cerelle & from what I can gather as soon as you stop taking that your not covered from pregnancy so you don't have a withdrawal bleed.
But others you have to have a withdrawal bleed then your 1st period.

Good luck either way though!xx

I would come off the pill and use condoms till you feel ready to ttc/ new year.

That way you are allowing your cycles to get back to normal as well as not ttc before you are ready!

Thanks I'm on the combined pill so not sure how long that takes to get out your system. But I know people can get pregnant by missing a few so thought maybe just wait until then to stop and go for it! We see don't want to try starting until January though.

Hello,
I came off the pill in Jan 17 as we originally thought we might start TTC in the October. I came off it then as I wanted to track my cycles, as it happens it's was the best thing I did as they where so erratic it took until about Feb this year for them to settle in to an approx window.
We ended up waiting until this July to start trying and we got pregnant first go off (we are 8 weeks tomorrow). We had a pretty good idea from using kindara when my ovulation period was likely to be and got me used to tracking my body and it's cycle and what was normal and what wasn't. I would definitely advice coming off and using protection to get yourself in a similar position :) . You can use ovulation sticks too to track when you come off the pill. Good Luck. X

Thanks for the responses. I always just thought I'd come off it in Jan and start trying straight away but it seems I should really come off it now to get my body back into the swing of things and just protection until I'm ready. I'm guessing there's plenty of people that got pregnant straight away after stopping the pill but equally lots that didn't. I'm early 30s too and although I'm not worried, I do understand it's harder past 30s.