@FridaKFangirl - firstly, good luck with the testing later this week! I have everything crossed for you!! Thank you so much for your kind words - it's nice to have some solidarity. I'm feeling worse today. Feel like I have such a weight on my shoulders all the time as I'm responsible for everything. I research everything, buy endless tests, do endless testing, try (and fail) to analyse etc etc. Then my partner expects me to know the exact date and time we need to DTD and gets frustrated if I get the date wrong. I have been asking him for ages to get fertility tests and he said he didn't want to because it's invasive (??) and it should happen naturally. I thought... invasive for men?? Try being a woman... Anyway, I've been asking him for months (actually over a year and a half) if we can go for fertility tests together and it's never happened. I did some home tests during COVID but I've honestly been a bit confused with the results. I've made an appointment to go for tests on my own today. May aswell take control of my own fertility, then I suppose we'll know half the picture at least.
Thanks @M4v3r1ck for your reply too. Yes, I've felt on my own for ages. It's amazing how therapeutic it is to offload and be in a group with people going through similar experiences! Nice to have a supportive community. I haven't told my close family about our troubles. My mum had a lot of pregnancy losses and still suffers with depression largely because of that. So I didn't want her to be triggered by me going through this. I just wanted to surprise her with good news one day. But now I feel like that day will never come. Just have to keep hoping and take care of myself as much as possible I suppose. I don't really get along with my sister either so don't feel like I can talk to her about it. And I haven't seen my close friends because of COVID. My mum and sister both had endometriosis and other conditions impacting fertility so I wonder if I have similar. I had lots of fertility tests 3 years ago. Everything was supposedly normal apart from my progesterone which was low but the doctor said that could just be stress or a rouge anovulatory cycle. I had an ultrasound as well and they said I didn't have endometriosis. But now I've read you can't tell one way or the other whether someone has endometriosis from an ultrasound, so I'm quite confused why the specialist said that. I did a postal AMH test about 6 months ago and it was quite low for my age - 9pmol/L. From my googling at the time I gathered this was not great, but also not catastrophically bad.
@Homassy thanks so much for your kind words too. I also find outdoor walks really calm my anxiety and sad emotions. Good advice for all of us! It's a vicious circle when stress can adversely impact conception! I know if I ever do get a BFP I'll feel anxiety about potential miscarriage too, as my mum had so many miscarriages and she was a lot younger than I am now. I feel like I'll be terrified in early pregnancy, if it ever happens!
@mouldygrapes - thanks so much too! I feel like there is such a huge emotional burden on the woman. My partner and I have a really equal relationship normally, where I feel like we're not constrained to traditional gender roles (he does most of the cooking etc!). But with this I feel like I'm on my own so it's really messed with my head. He won't even get a sperm test when I've spent hundreds on fertility tests and sticks to pee on and monitors and pregnancy tests (wishful thinking..). I'm so frustrated with him at the moment, but that's always counterproductive as then he just retreats from the entire idea and says maybe he's not ready. I'm glad to hear all your friends got pregnant in the end. My sister went through IVF after 3 years of trying then it took another 3 years of IVF processes, so I'm not surrounded with great examples of hope. She does have a beautiful girl now though. But she started way younger than me and I feel like I don't have 6 years left to do that.
I'm also struggling with the bbt stuff and wondering if my lack of consistency in temping is skewing the results. My schedule varies quite a lot so I don't go to bed at the same time each night or wake up at the same time. Also when I'm staying with my partner (we are living separately atm due to his work) he has a giant fan blowing on the bed the whole night, which I don't know if that skews the results either. So I don't even know if my charts are reliable. Some mornings I've woken up at like 5am and tested then woken up again at 8am and there's been like a 0.5 degree difference. Which would totally skew the chart. Maybe this is an incentive to get more consistent sleeping habits but it's hard with our jobs and with travelling to see my partner all the time.
@kwastell you inspired me to get proper fertility investigations - then hopefully I will become pregnant before needing to undergo any treatment lol.
@Semele5069 - wishing you lots of good luck. hopefully AF stays away. It's so hard to stay chilled!
@Tiletiletile1 - yeah we're the same - maybe 4 times during fertile period at most. But now I think I've got the fertile period wrong, so perhaps back to square one! When we started ttc, I got horrible UTIs, but they seem to have gone now. Not sure what the difference is as we're not doing anything different. But praying they continue to stay away lol. They are seriously the worst. I had the same dilemma as you - how long to leave it after DTD and risk getting another UTI. Uggh. My partner and I tried conceive plus this cycle (similar to pre seed I think). He literally laughed in my face when I bought it, like I had finally lost my marbles completely.
Congrats @EmeraldLily18!! So nice to see people getting positives!!
Anyway this is a ridiculously long post - sorry!! Having a bad few days so please excuse the offloading! Hopefully will feel a bit better soon.
Sending hugs to all xx