Just want AF to arrive so new cycle can begin...

[CaribouCarafe]

AF due in 3 days.

Am sure I'm out this month - negative FRER today and I have the usual PMS acne.

Just want my period to come already so that I can get this useless cycle over with and have a commiseration beer.

Just frustrating as have been taking pre-conception vitamins for months, cut out caffeine, no alcohol during TWW, have DTD every other day, tracked ovulation and with no success.

Anyone else fancy a moan whilst waiting for AF to show up?

Ooh and 5DPO started to have a bit of heaviness in boobs but has gone today

Aaahahaha! "JUICES!!" 🤣
It's so glam this TTC life...ha! I know what you mean @cariboucarafe - I do struggle sometimes to determine what's what! I read somewhere that if you have EWCM the day before DTD and have anything that looks like EWCM the next day just to log it as EWCM.
Still dry as a bone today though so I do think I've already ovulated 🤞🏻

@ls2020 get it girl! 😉 Hehe! I really thought we DTD quite often before TTC but jeeeez this is intense haha!

@mrswilso yeah I read something on a fertility website about how every other day is best as apparently women’s bodies can reject sperm if they’re not familiar enough with it so the only way to overcome your immune system attacking is to do every other day but people have lives, how do they expect us to do this every month!! I’m knackered and we’re only 2 weeks in. We tried last month after SMEP trial and £70 at lovehoney but we’d just take one look at each other and were like ‘nah’ 🤣

@LS2020 if you've been DTD every other day for the most part then I'm sure you're in with a good chance . I've read that some sperm can last up to 5 days (although am increasingly convinced my DH's sperm disintegrate upon entry for all I've got out of them!)

I've tried the legs in the air once but got such a judgey look from DH that I now compromise by just lying on my back for about and napping for about an hour after sex instead. Legs may proceed to go in a more Northerly direction if this month doesn't work out .

Weirdly my symptoms last month matched @LS2020's pretty closely (although have no idea what my RHR was as I don't have a Fitbit). Hoping they prove better luck for you than they did for me!

@mrswilso I only use the most refined vocabulary for my Mumsnet audience .

Talking about 'refined'... I got thinking earlier about the Queen's TTC journey and whether she too worried about juices, temping, and tracking CM...

There was a lady on a separate thread talking about temping using an anal thermometer and now I have a mental image of that too...

Oh God I can't face the temping stuff - I'd drive myself crazy!

I've recently been trying to subtley get the legs in the air after DTD - hubby thinks it's hilarious/ridiculous (and it probably is ha!) but I'll take any increased chance I can get! I've been fairly lenient with him and our TTC journey so far. He's off the ciggies since January but he LOVES coffee, like, at least 4/6 espressos. I'm still having the odd ciggie too though (tut tut!)...so I can't really moan at him. If I get to 6 months of trying with no luck I think my wee sneaky fags are going right out the window though!

Aaah the thought of the queen doing "normal" stuff is so weird! 🤣

@cariboucarafe @mrswilso my OH thought it was weird at first but I told him it was that or he’d have to cut coffee to up our chances.. now I get his pillow to prop me up 😉

The acne is a new one for me so we’ll see but if there’s a symptom, I’ve had it in last 6 month so I’ve stopped reading into it as much. I really thought last month was it as every AF I’ve had sore boobs the week before and I had nothing last month so was part convinced we’d done it but that wasn’t one either so I give up with it!!

Honestly I’m convinced royals and celebs have so much money, I bet they can just pay for private IUI and get pregnant straight away. I was convinced that’s the case for Meghan and Harry, that woman has much more stress than me, no way did she conceive in 3 months naturally with everything she’s had to face

Who knew so much thought went into it?! And all those years as a teenager being panicky about it 😂 needn’t have bloody worried, probably wasn’t shagging on the right day anyway!

Huh. I hadn't thought of it like that @ls2020 You're probably right actually, I bet it happens a lot more than we know with celebs etc.

I've actually only just noticed acne as a symptom too! I got really excited last AF cos that one big massive pimple that I ALWAYS got in the same place on my cheek when AF was due in my pre-pill years came back for the first time since I was 16/17! 😂 I've never been so happy to have a big minging spot on my face in my life! I've taken it as a sign that my hormones are getting back to where they need to be.

EXACTLY @Ughmaybenot !!
I actually said to hubby the other day if we have a girl I might try to help her avoid hormonal contraceptives in the future...it's a lot of hassle in hindsight, for the sake of a risk-free fumble.

@mrswilso if I had the money I would deffo just go and get IUI done and then have it sorted. I guess they also have the option to hire a fitness trainer and disappear off for a month to chill out which would probs help!

Something’s deffo changed in my hormones, I’m just not sure what, getting a diff set of symptoms now for last two months

@Ughmaybenot I know I deffo wouldn’t do the depo for 10 years if I known this would be the result. I don’t even think my GP would see me at the year mark as only 18 months off depo and they say can take that to get fertility back to normal.

Ooh although I did start taking the coq10 2 months ago now, maybe that’s changing my cycle

Hm I wasn’t on hormonal contraception anyway, anything hormonal tended to turn me a bit loopy, one way or another!
It’s daft isn’t it? I sort of went into this thinking it would just happen in a month or two, not really try too hard and happy days. How wrong I was 😂

I thought the same @Ughmaybenot - there's not enough open conversation around how it doesn't just happen right away for a lot of people and how that's completely normal.

Definitely not @mrswilso you only ever really hear about it when it’s a surprise or it ‘just happened’, not that it took 6/8/10 whatever months, which is not only common but actually is fine and normal too.
I am not a very patient person, and I like to know what the plan is... this isn’t my idea of fun.

Although all the actual trying definitely is my idea of fun. Poor DH, never gets a moments peace 😂

Haha! We're quite similar with the plan thing @Ughmaybenot - and the trying haha! At least there's some fun in that 😉

Thank goodness there are some positives to all the headspace ttc is taking up

Hello ladies! How's everyone feeling today?

I liked the idea of tracking symptoms together, so here's my updated list. Feel free to post your own too

CD1-6: AF
CD7: DTD
CD8-12: No sex due to DH injuring himself
CD13: DTD
CD14: Chaste as a nun
CD15: DTD
CD16: Positive OPK, No sex.
CD17: DTD
CD18: Feeling slight cramps.
CD19: A lot of CM - more than when I ovulated, which makes me suspicious about whether I ovulated even later than I thought I had...
CD20: Slightly sensitive boobs (probably a figment of my imagination)

@LS2020 good point about the IUI - that's what I would do if I had the money just to get it over with!

@Ughmaybenot I'm not a patient person either. It's taking all my energy to not show how truly crazy obsessive I've been to my DH for the past 3 months (hiding pregnancy tests, ovulation tests, taking pictures of things I've wee-ed on and the whole shebang!)

@cariboucarafe fair play for keeping it under wraps! I don’t think I’ve reached peak obsessed yet, but DH is more than along for the ride 😂 he’s so sweet, and has been great to reminding me to temp/OPK etc.
To be honest tho, I think he’s struggling a lot with the disappointment. He’s so broody and desperate to be a dad, so he’s hating that it’s not just happened, you know? Plus four of his close friends have announced in the last few weeks they’re having babies so!

@Ughmaybenot that sounds really tough. One of our close friends had a baby 3 months ago, and they started trying when we did...

My DH is only just on the cusp of getting disappointed - I'd warned him it may take a year before we started TTC, so I think he was prepared for it to not happen right away. This month he's started making comments along the lines of him being surprised it's taking so long! (To which I replied that maybe his reluctance to DTD at least every other day may be a contributing factor ).

If it doesn't happen for us this month, I'm hoping he'll get more involved in the 'actively trying' process.

It's confusing because he does initiate talk about "our kids"/"when we have a baby"/mentions names. So it's not like I'm bullying him into impregnating me! It's just he doesn't see it as something he may need to have a more active role in.

@cariboucarafe aaah that sucks. Honestly I Know I’ve said it before but it should totally be more talked about that it isn’t actually super common to ‘just happen’ straight away and that for so many couples it takes just that bit longer.
Yea it’s definitely not all on you!! DH is pretty good on that front, altho he’s started to claim this is all a ruse for me to get laid more as I’ve always had the higher sex drive 😂, but he’s not really taking it seriously in terms of lifestyle iyswim? He smokes and he does drink occasionally (would be more if not for lockdown) and I’ve said he really ought to stop both, especially seeing as he’ll have to quit smoking sooner or later anyway, but he’s not really moved in that direction yet. To be fair to him, he does work in a really stressy industry and this is like his peak busy season BUT STILL 😂

@Ughmaybenot @mrswilso do you ever wonder how many people must try for months and pretend like they weren’t trying? Like I’m even going to think of myself in this scenario, I’ll be one of the first of a few friendship groups to have kids and I’m only just 27 so I don’t feel anyone in years time if I had a newborn would look at me and assume I struggled without me telling them?
I even think of my best friend who had an abortion when we were 17 and she mentioned it when I last spoke to her on my troubles TTC and how guilty she felt now about it when I want one so bad (she’s super dramatic, I didn’t take offence to what she said) but tbh I just thought, well actually I knew you were not using contraception for about a year so you weren’t really that super fertile really were you? And I know that’s super petty but I just think with that and the people on here, it really can’t be that uncommon? I guess I’m trying to sell myself any excuse at this point 😂

@cariboucarafe good luck entering your TWW, RHR is still high today and feeling my normal sore boobs coming on. Had light patches of cramping and noticed some blue veins on my boobs and hips so fx this month 😊

@CaribouCarafe @Ughmaybenot sorry I opened this earlier and seen you’ve posted more!
My OH is quite passive about it, he’ll engage when I make a joke about a man wearing a papoose or something but he’s determined to almost not think about it until it happens so it makes it super hard to get any comfort when it doesn’t happen.
It might be good that he’s wanting to talk more about it as easier to start having discussions about what next steps you’d wanna take if it didn’t happen?

Often actually @ls2020 now you mention it. It must be so common because, let’s face it, unless you’re very close to someone it’s very weird to tell someone you’re letting your partner spunk in you with no protection (sorry to be crude!). Only my very closest friend and DHs very closest friend knows DH and I are ttc. And then once you are pregnant, it’s not usual to say ‘oh it took x months’ so no one would really know.

Hi girls!
Hope you’re all doing okay ☺️
Sorry to hear your other half’s are starting to feel the struggle now too @cariboucarafe @ughmaybenot - mine is quite easy going about it all right now but he’s just that type of guy, I don’t think he would struggle too much if we started to have any issues. Although we never know until we’re in that position too...
Yeaaah @ls2020 I agree! I feel particularly sorry for the poor guys who think they’ve got super-seeds cos their missus has “just fell pregnant” too 😂 not that it can’t and doesn’t happen, I just know a couple of guys personally who didn’t know they were trying for a while...and still don’t! 🤣 (I really don’t condone trapping a dude without his consent but it’s hella funny when the trapped dude fully falls for the ruse!)
I think I might make a point of being a bit more open about my TTC journey when the time finally comes and I get the BFP - and I sound dramatic saying that because I know in reality I’ve only been trying three months, but it’s so strange how I just convinced myself it would be as simple as lots of sex for one month and then BAM - BABY! 😂

My update for today...
CD16/2dpo: creamier/stickier CM (much less) / DTD
CD17/3dpo: very little creamy/dry CM / a few random dizzy spells again in work in AM / slightly tender nipples this evening

Surely 3dpo is too early for anything to be pregnancy related though eh? Or are hormones all whacked out right from the moment of conception?