Our first month ttc our first

[rosiej95]

As soon as AF disappears, which will be soon 🤞 me & my partner will be ttc :)
I've been keeping an eye on my cycles for a little while using the flo app & have been taking pregnacare.
Is there anything else we should know or do to help prepare ourselves? :)
Exited to go on this roller coaster of a journey & as no one knows of our plans would be lovely to hear off people ttc too :) xx

Ah I feel excited for all you girls! Fingers crossed 🥰

How crazy is it that you aren’t taught all this about your own body at an earlier age, I’d have loved to have known all of this before now! x

@meganlea thank you doll 😘

@Em201 you're spot on! It's drilled into us 'have sex and you'll get pregnant' and that's just not the reality and if I'm honest, I only realised that when this journey began. I think kids need to be properly taught about the process, fertile window, possible infertility issues. I think it's incredibly important to learn all of this before the time comes to try.

AF just arrived 🤔 she must have heard me talking about her lol. I did spend the first 10 minutes convincing myself it could be an implantation bleed until I nipped back for a second check 😂🤣

I’ve already mourned though!!.

So, CD1 here we go! #positivemindset #cycle2

@meganlea Ah sorry doll she's such a b*$#h!! But love your attitude. I'm the same, once I've got over her arrival I'm fine and it's like a reset and some time not to think about it all. Have a glass of wine, some sushi, anything you wouldn't be allowed to have if you were pregnant!

Xx

@beckyBP I know and I completely agree. There definitely needs to be a shift in education which may well happen, as more and people now rely on natural methods of contraception (tracking etc).

I used an OPK this week (only twice) out of curiosity but I’m putting those away now as I need to let nature do her thing before getting into all of that. It’s such early days but reading threads on MN, I’m not the first and won’t be the last to rush into trying to everything 😂

Hi girls! Welcome to all the new girls over the last few days! I think it only took me one cycle to go loopy with googling so hoping you’re all more sane than me and not going too nuts yet x

@meganlea Im sorry to hear AF arrived but glad the horrible wait is over - I swear every tww I think I’m going to be totally calm this month then by 7dpo I’m climbing the walls. I also agree with pretending the psychic thing didn’t happen 😂

@beckyBP keeping everything crossed for you! I had very light cramps more central/lower than af cramps when I had my bfp so I think that’s what I’ll be looking out for every time now.

@Em201 I 100% agree - we should definitely be taught about way more fertility, and I hadn’t even heard of a chemical pregnancy until I ttc and had one myself!

@meganlea re: the thermometer I think it has to be to .1 to be accurate. I'm leaving it in the drawer for now though

@meganlea @CLP86 the thermometer needs to be a basal one so it’ll have 2 decimal points, not just .1. The changes can be quite small so to get an accurate trend you need a bbt one x

Happy Friday everyone!

12dpo and I've cried 5 times in 24 hours 😂 I think AF is well and truly on her way but not counting myself out until she does (hopefully she won't)

@amy259 thank you! I'm all new to this so it's good to learn

@beckyBP I've got fingers crossed for you!

@CLP86 no probs! I’m no expert at all, just a researching maniac haha. I do OPKs then bbt to confirm ovulation, they’re both surprisingly easy so if you ever decide more tracking is for you I’d recommend them!

@beckyBP happy Friday!! You amaze me each month with your ability to not test!! Keeping everything crossed for you.

@beckyBP yes definitely!! Lots of chocco and a few malibus tonight I think before starting my health kick tomorrow. I'll be channelling lots of baby energy your way this weekend, there's still a glimmer of hope for a BFP for our thread!!

Well I think it hit DH harder than me last night, someone he works with has been showing them all his 12 week baby scan so I think it has got to him a bit. He's wanting to go to the Dr already to check himself out already but I've told him there's no need as it was only our first cycle and we'd have to be incredibly lucky to fall on first time.

Anyway, I'm torn now between what to do for this cycle, a part of me is like, buy the basal thermometer, go pick up those cheap ovulation kits and another Clear Blue Advanced kit, expand the diary and include every step and every symptom, take the vitamins, use the preseed......and the other part of me is like right, do you really need to do all this?! your cycle lasts 5 weeks, you've got an idea of your peak time from your first cycle, just take your vitamins have sex every other day from CD 8 to say CD 26 and hope for the best.

I think I'm going to take a leaf out of your book @Amy259 and go with the latter. No tracking, just go with the flow. How have you found it, has it been less stressful this time round?

@meganlea so in the interest of complete honesty, I’ll give you a bit of background 😂 buckle in!

Coil out in June, withdrawal bleed 5 weeks later in July. Immediately started using cheap OPKs and clear blue digi ovulation. Followed SMEP and everything that first month! I have 5 week cycles too and ov’d on CD19 - no luck. Genuinely the longest month of my life! Felt so down hearted because I felt like we did absolutely everything possible yet nothing.

Cycle 2 I researched and added in bbt and preseed. Stopped using the CB digi because it’s not accurate at all in finding your peak - cheapies are the best way for sure. Gave up on SMEP because timed dtd is definitely not for us. Ov’d CD20 (our wedding day!) and got a bfp, but that ended in a chemical preg.

Cycle 3 was a little messed up because of the CP but pretty much did all the same again (opk, bbt, preseed), ov CD20 - no luck. But got a new job that I still haven’t started so lots of chats about now stopping ttc for a bit. That led us to deciding to just not prevent, but take a break from obsessing over it.

Cycle 4 (now) - no OPKs, no temps, nothing. But obv you know when your peak/ov are likely to be so I actually found it a bit hard to not “check” and sort of thought about it anyway because I knew it was coming! We happened to be away for a couple of nights so I know we dtd around the right time, and so I now will still have a tww. So really I’d say they only real break was the first 2-3 weeks of my cycle where I didn’t use OPKs or check my temp daily, which was lovely... but I still felt the same mild anxiousness around ov and I’m sure this next two weeks will still drag 🤷🏼‍♀️

That was a long winded way of saying that I feel like once you start ttc, it must be almost impossible to ever relax/switch off from it - with or without peeing on sticks!

@Amy259 honestly you don't understand how useful run downs like that are. Because we just talk as we go you forget whats been said and who's where so thanks for going through that!! And yeah, I know what you mean, I think it'd be hard to switch off either way it's taken over our lives now whether we want it to or not.

It sounds like you've covered your back for this cycle anyway, just a waiting game now. Hope it speeds up for you!!

I'm a bit superstitious as well so I even said to DH - don't talk about it or we might jinx it. So we spent the 2ww not saying anything out loud about it happening. He tripped up a couple of times so I'm just going blame him for breaking the spell this cycle, god damn it! haha.

Do you know what, with you saying the digital isn't accurate, I think I am going to buy the OPKs and thermometer. Just because, I only used the CB digi kit this cycle, and according to that, I had 'high' fertility for 9 days before I got my peak on CD 24, which seems quite late considering AF came on CD 35, it all seems a bit suspicious. 8-10 days seems quite short for a luteal phase. So for this cycle and next, I should track to learn when I actually ovulate. It might be CD24 again but at least I'll know for sure then.

@meganlea I think I’m 2dpo today, but can’t be 100%. About that anyway!

Yeah once you know your cycle you’ll be able to relax more because you won’t need to pin point it. I always seemed to peak in the afternoon so the problem with CB is because it uses fmu, it would be a flashy face the day of my peak.. then the next morning be static but actually my peak had passed. Even though that only throws off ov by a day, I still prefer the cheapies because you can test twice a day (or more) around your peak time and pinpoint when you peaked, then when LH went back down, then test for a few days to make sure it doesn’t rise again (failed ovulation). It sounds more complicated than it is, but just give me a shout if you want. As I say I’m certainly no expert but I think I’ve read everything there is to know - I was even in an fb group for the app/OPKs I use! 😂🙈

@Amy259 I think that's what happened with mine so I'm definitely going to do it a few times a day near 'peak' time.
Omg, you're definitely going to be my OPK guru now! It's the easy @ home ones that are the best aren't they and then upload them to the premom app?

@meganlea they’re the strips and app I use - I love the app 😂 and it’s got my predictions spot on every time (except the month af was late with the cp). The private Facebook group it suggests you join is a bit intense - handy at the start because you can search the posts and know for sure someone has already asked whatever you’re wondering, but I ended up hiding it because it was a lot to keep appearing on my feed..

@Amy259 I tested.. broke my own rule 😂🙈 I'm not sure if I see something or I'm convincing myself there's something there. I think I've lost my head girls 😂

@beckyBP post the photo!!

@Amy259 I think it's just an indentation now. It's hard to get a pic of what you see isn't it xx

@beckyBP I see it - fingers crossed it gets darker tomorrow or the next day!!

@beckyBP no way!!! I definitely see something!! Test in the morning and let us know. Fingers crossed eeeeek 🤞🏼 xx

@Amy259 @meganlea I'm not sure girls. I need to stop looking at it. Driving me mad.! I've don't have any other tests. This one came with my ovulation strips 😫 will need to pop out in the morning xx

Any update @beckyBP? 🤞🏻🤞🏻