Conception + Prenatal Supplements Advice

[MintGreenLife]

Hi all,

My partner and I haven't started TTC yet. We are due to get married in September, so we are going to wait another month and see if there's any possibility of the wedding going ahead, and if not will focus on TTC instead.

In the meantime I'm trying to prepare as best I can if we do have to make a call to postpone the wedding. I stopped taking my pill about three weeks ago - I had my withdrawal bleed but no period yet.

Hello, didn't want to read and leave 😋.

I'm taking vitamin D spray (apparently this is as important as folic acid these days), prenatal gummies with folate and COQ10 for egg quality improvement (I'm 42).

I also use fertility friend to track cycles and have used digital ovulation predictor kits (OPKs) in the past with great success. You use them around mid cycle when out think you might be ovulating and they give you a smiley face to show impending ovulation. Try to get used to monitoring your cervical mucus (but grim I know 🤣), but the stretchy egg white type consistency (EWCM) is another big sign you're about to ovulate. Wishing you lots of luck for both baby and wedding! Mine has moved to 2021 ☺️ xxxx

Hi @Kangaroo77

Thanks so much for your message :)

I'm finding it impossible to juggle planning when to have the wedding and family planning, especially as we are not 100% we will have to postpone yet. When was your original wedding planned for? Hope you coped OK with having to postpone, I have a lot of mixed emotions.

I kind of wish we had a clear answer to enable us to decide to postpone so we could get on with TTC, rather than waiting around to see what's going to happen.

Thanks for all your tips, I've looked at ovulation sticks but not a digital one so will look at that. Is there one you'd recommend? I've actually started monitoring cervical mucus in the last few days, as my Glow app said I would be ovulating now, but am guessing cycle length etc with just coming off the pill. Wishing you lots of luck too xxx

@MintGreenLife Ah it's a pickle isn't it, all the planning etc. Tbh I moved my August wedding because I was pregnant at Xmas, it happened really fast. My due date was 1st sept so we decided to move to next year.

Then unfortunately my baby got diagnosed with Trisomy 9 so we had to terminate at 16 weeks. I almost wished I hadn't moved the wedding and then corona virus hit the UK, so I was thankful it had. Now I'm planning another (hopefully successful) pregnancy but I'm aware I could conceive later this year, impacting next years wedding 😅. Basically, I'm realising it doesn't matter how much you plan, life does what it wants to and sometimes you need to be flexible 😋.

It was pretty easy to move the first wedding, absolute worst case I'll move it again. A healthy baby takes priority for me although I am 42 so conscious of age.

I say go with your heart. Sometimes it takes a while to fall, sometimes right away. The thing is until you try you never know which way you'll be. 😘😘

Sorry I forgot to say I used clear blue digital opks. They're excellent. It's ☹️☹️☹️ or 😃 type format. Soooo much easier than the 2 lines interpretation.

Hi @MintGreenLife. I’m in a similar position to you. We were due to be getting married at the end of July and were going to wait until after the wedding before TTC. With everything up in the air, we decided to start trying earlier. We’re on cycle #2. I stopped the pill on 10th March, had the withdrawal bleed and then had my period on 19th April. I haven’t used OPKs but from when I think I ovulated my cycle seems to have got back to normal.

We found out last week that our wedding is cancelled so I’m glad we made the decision to TTC. With regards to conception vitamins, I started taking Pregnacare preconception but heard bad things about them making your cycle longer (it says it on the box too) so stopped those and am now taking Seven Seas trying to conceive.

When do you think you will hear for sure about your wedding?

@Kangaroo77 you're totally right, it's impossible to plan for these things, especially with a pandemic in the mix! Sorry to hear about your earlier pregnancy. Will keep all my fingers crossed for you.

If I think about my gut feeling I would like to just crack on without TTC and postpone the wedding. I think even if the government allow weddings of a decent size I'd be a worried about our guests being nervous and not sure about embracing each other or dancing too closely, that would be awful. Don't think I would want to compromise the day that way.

That's so true. I've never TTC before so I have no idea how it'll pan out for us. I'm 31 so we have plenty of time. I think I need to stop putting deadlines on everything and worrying about when we will do the wedding if we do conceive. Best to go with the flow and see what happens that's not very me though ha xxx

Hi @ZRS86

That's so interesting that we are basically in the exact same situation and have come to the same conclusion to TTC.

That's what I read about Pregnacare so wasn't sure about them. Have also looked at Seven Seas so may try those.

What happened to mean a decision was made to cancel the wedding? Did the venue end up cancelling? We are waiting to see what the government say over the next few weeks really. We've set a deadline for ourselves early June to make a decision, which is three months before the wedding. I wish there was a way to make things more clear cut, such as the government saying no gatherings over X amount of numbers until X time, but I think that might be wishful thinking. I think if I were to go with my gut I would say we will most likely postpone, as we wouldn't want to put guests at risk or for people to feel uneasy about attending. That wouldn't make for a nice day. It's frustrating though as until we make a decision we are holding off TTC xx

OP- are you taking folic acid yet? I used either Tesco or asda pregnancy multi-vitamins. You can get pregnacare and other brands, but they are MUCH more expensive, yet contain almost the same ingredients. Just make sure your multi-vitamin doesn't have Vit A (more so once you actually are pregnant though). If you eat a good diet, some say you just need Vit D and folic acid though.

I also found a mens multivitamin with lycopene in. Its found naturally in processed tomato products, but I'd read a few articles that it can increase sperm quality. There was little advice on what exact dose though. I found some places sell it separately, or combined in a multivitamin- often under mens conception vitamins.

Yes @MintGreenLife the wedding was cancelled by our venue. They said that they follow advice from a national Wedding organisation and they didn’t feel that weddings would be happening in the next few months. As our venue only does summer weddings, it didn’t give us much choice!

We made the decision to TTC before the wedding cancellation but decided it was unlikely to go ahead, and even if it did I might be able to hide a pregnancy! Plus, I was expecting that it may take a bit of time anyway.

You’re definitely right that it’s hard to plan anything in a pandemic but I don’t want us to put our life on hold because of it. I hope it becomes easier to make the decision about the wedding.

Thanks for your advice @Elouera - I've not started taking folic acid yet, but take vitamin D generally anyway. Would you advise starting folic acid now even though we might not start TTC for another few months? Will look into men's supplements also thanks :)

Ah that makes sense @ZRS86 - how did you feel when it officially got cancelled? Have you set a new date yet, or are you waiting to see when you conceive? That's brilliant you were able to make that decision to just get on with TTC. I'm finding every time I come up with an answer I find reasons why it won't work, I have days where I just go round and round in circles. We've got about another 6 weeks until we plan to make a decision, but you never know something clear might come out in the next few weeks and then we will know we can start TTC earlier and can postpone. It's all so confusing at the mo though!

Our venue is only suited to summer weddings also, so we wouldn't be able to postpone until next summer anyway, so may as well get on with starting a family in the meantime.

OP- You've stopped taking the pill, so YES, I would start taking folic acid. Its usually advised to start taking it several months PRIOR to conceiving. It is found in food, but not in high enough levels. It also wont do any harm, even if you do start now, but here is the NHS link.

www.nhs.uk/conditions/pregnancy-and-baby/planning-pregnancy/

Thanks, we are using other protection for now as waiting to see what will happen with the wedding and whether we need to postpone or not to determine when we will TTC, but will start taking folic acid to prepare :)

@MintGreenLife Yes we have tentatively rebooked for next July. Just waiting for confirmation. Not sure how it will fit with TTC but we’ll just have to see! We may go ahead with the ceremony with close family (if we can) and have the reception next year as our anniversary. Although we are actively TTC, it has been useful at the moment to get to grips with my cycle coming off the pill. It’s good that you’re in that position to track things now to get an idea of when you ovulate etc before deciding about when to try. We’re trying to be quite chilled about it so apart from the vitamins we’re not doing anything else at the moment.

@ZRS86 I'm super impressed by how positive and chilled you are, I'm already stressing about having to postpone and how that would fit in once we start TTC. Need to take a leaf out of your book! We are thinking of doing the same - getting married in a registry office later this year and then host the 'wedding' when safe to do so and when it fits in with starting a family. That's very true. I was on the pill for 10 years before so have no clue what my cycle will be like etc. Wish you all the best with the wedding and TTC, if you ever want someone to chat to that is going through the same thing I'd be happy to catch up any time x