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

Hi @TinyPuds, welcome! I’m glad we made you feel less crazy - even if it’s only because we’re crazy too 😂

I’m a Covid bride too, our April wedding was postponed but we went ahead in August for a few reasons - one of which was not wanting to wait to start a family! We’re on cycle 6 (just finishing af) and I’ve all but entirely lost the plot 🙃 xxx

Merry Christmas ladies 🤍 hope you all had a good one.

Wow @lydiarose7 you've defo covered it!! 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽

You're so right @Amy259 life is great until the TWW kicks in 😂

Welcome @TinyPuds we're in very similar situations. Postponed weddings and all that! I'd say no app is going to be accurate tbh without tracking. Flo was a few days out for me when I was tracking (I'm not anymore).

I think ovulation is today for me (CD 15) but as I said, not tracking. Just trying to monitor CM but not confident I know what I'm doing there 😅.

We DTD CD 9, 11, 12, 14. Will also try to do it the next few night also. I definitely feel like it's easier in lockdown and Christmas period!!

How is everyone?! Xx

Hi all!!

Hope you’ve all had a fab Christmas and enjoying the break (if you get one) in no mans land week!

@Amy259 I've found someone on fb selling the book for cheap but she hasn’t replied to me in 3 days lol so I’ll msg her again today and if not it’s an eBay job!

So I finally got my LH surge on Boxing Day! But I didn’t get chance to DTD or LH test on Christmas Day as we were so busy from start to finish! But now I’m worried, it’s been 3 days and no temperature spike. But, whilst working I kept waking up at 4am and using the bbt converter to Mark what it would be at 6am, now I’m off work I’m waking up naturally at 6am so I wonder if I am spiking but not seeing it for that reason or just that I haven’t ovulated?! I stopped LH testing the day after when I saw it start to decrease. Will attach photos to get your opinions! Also today was the first morning I’ve woke up with no CM.

@meganlea hope you had a lovely Christmas too!

Certainly looks like a great peak and I wouldn’t be worried about missing Christmas Day - your dtd efforts are so impressive 😂 I honestly don’t know how you gals are doing it!! Delighted your DH has obviously been feeling up to it this month!!

Not sure about the temps though.. could the converter be adjusting them too high when you put them in at 4am? Do you know roughly your actual 6am pre-ov temp at all?

@meganlea, @beckyBP I finally found this chart I was talking about - it’s made from fairly old data (1995 and 2000) but there hasn’t been a study as big/reliable done since.
It was done to show that waiting for peak/LH to go positive isn’t as affective as dtd before you even peak. So basically I’m taking from that that we should still be trying to find out the timings of ov/peak but should use that to attempt to bd before it.. and I’ve never thought of it that way so going to try this month!

Sorry, the chart would help...

Okay well quick update, I was feeling so tired after breakfast so I’ve just been for a quick hour and a half nap. Before I went to sleep I got a reading of 36.36, which is quite low and I’ve just woke up and taken my temperature before I moved and got 36.77 (not had a shift this big at all this cycle yet and sometimes I test through the day out of curiosity and it’s been around 36.1-36.3 but I don’t record it anywhere it’s just out of my own curiosity). I actually feel warmer now too I wonder if my temp has shifted late morning whilst napping as whilst I've been writing this post I tested again and it’s 36.69 which is still high for me. Or it’s just I got too cosy whilst napping haha. I guess I’ll see in the morning!! I don’t know my actual 6am pre-ov temp either.

And omg well I told you I had that talk didn’t I? And I basically said look turns out I haven’t ovulated yet but it could be in the next week. So we’ll need to DTD every day from now, so you’re either all in or we’re not trying at all! (Harsh I know) but I couldn’t do another cycle of missing the day and being upset by that. Missing Christmas Day was totally my fault I went a bit overboard on the drink and didn’t eat much so made myself feel ill when we finally got into bed so DTD was definitely a no go!!

That chart is brilliant I've just saved it to my phone to keep going back to and I’m going to show it to DH too as soon as!! 😂 thank you

Hi everyone, I hope no one minds another joiner

My husband and I have been proper fence sitters our entire relationship, until 2020 struck and he was diagnosed with a brain tumour after collapsing at home completely out of the blue. When he was given the news he said the first thing he felt was a huge sense of regret re children, which took him by surprise. Thankfully it looks like they managed to get the f*** out and he’s made an incredible recovery - scan in a couple of weeks should hopefully confirm it’s not grown back and then he will be monitored for 10 years we are so, so lucky. As it is looking so incredibly positive for him, and his complete change of heart over the whole thing, we made the decision that we would “stop preventing” rather than actively try, and see what happens. (We did always say if one changed their mind it would change the other’s - but we always thought it would be me haha! Also, one of the main things we didn’t want to give up was boozy festivals...and given what my husband’s been through he is at increased risk of seizures after heavy drinking - so I think that lifestyle is done for us now anyway. We don’t mind as much as we thought we would)

So I’m here rambling because I finished my last period on December 11 and while we did nothing to stop it happening, I honestly didn’t think I’d be sat here now driving myself mad because I feel weird - crampy, nauseous, night sweats, heartburn, blue veins over my chest and burping like it’s my new hobby (I never burp. Husband thinks it’s hilarious). I did one of the First Response tests after lurking away on this site and we can see a line. It’s so so faint, but it is there.

Why am I going crazy obsessing over this, I can’t deal with this level of obsession every month! Is this what it’s like, even when you say “hey let’s see what happens”?! Can these faint lines on tests be something else? I guess I’ll find out if my period doesn’t show her face!

Aaargh! Thank you for reading my rambling brain dump of a post.

Is everybody else tracking their temp? I’m slightly confused by all of that! Is it something I should be doing?

I went on an Amazon splurge yesterday and ordered a zillion early testing kits 🙄 they literally arrived last night!! 8 hours after I ordered them - I’m amazed! How early is too early to test haha.. I feel like a classic first cycle gal haha. Day after ov and buys aaaaalll of the pregnancy kits! I guess not until at least 8dpo? I’m 5dpo now (approx!) still no cm so not sure if that’s a bad sign - have read not to go by cm after ovulating as it varies so much?!

What’s everybody’s thoughts on drinking during the tww? Really tricky at the moment!! Usually during the Christmas/NYE limbo I have a casual drink most evenings with dinner and then while we watch a film etc.. a bit paranoid all the Baileys and wine I’ve been having in the evenings is ruining my chances!! But have read loads of conflicting things online.

Also NYE obvs not going to be partying because I’m in tier 4 but I’d like to have a drink or two during the zoom party games - what is everybody else doing?

@Chimboo omg that sounds like a horrible start to the year!! Sorry you had to go through all of that, especially with Covid! All sounds promising with your symptoms though - fingers crossed for you! How many dpo are you? When did you take the first response?

Ttc has bought out a whole new level of crazy i didn’t know I had in me. It’s an internal crazy though haha I’m not sure men get this obsessive about it?! 😆 xxx

Oh wow @meganlea that is high! I don’t think my temps have ever gone that high. Yeah hopefully tomorrow you’ll get a high reading. Which means you ovulated yesterday then? If it’s gone high today?
I’m currently sitting at 35.9-36.0 which is normal for me at this point (cd8). Testing temp and LH every day this cycle after last month’s weird one, but hopeful the temp shift doesn’t happen around NYE/NY as I’ll struggle to see it with having a few drinks! I suppose there are worse problems to have 😂

@Chimboo welcome! Wow, that’s some story. Delighted for the amazing outcome for you both though!! Those all definitely sound like pregnancy symptoms to me haha - and false positives are very rare, so if your line has colour I would be very hopeful! 🤞🏻

Oh it cut some of my post out - only to say the chart is so interesting!! @Amy259

Makes me realise how much of a n00b I am to temp charting - i didn’t realise temp rises and peaks didn’t just happen on the same day as ovulation? Is it to mark the whole fertile window?xxx

@TinyPuds ahh I see your cemented your residence in crazy town!! Great to have you 😂

I think 11dpo is pretty much the most reliable - like 80% of bfps show by then compared to about 50% at 10dpo (apparently). But I always end up testing at 9/10 - can’t help myself. Wouldn’t focus on cm too much, they say you might notice more of it in early pregnancy but I’m sure everyone is different.

So your temp spikes the morning after ovulation. Meaning detecting it doesn’t really help for that month in terms of jumping into bed, but it does confirm you ovulated and are now in your tww. Helps to predict it for next time too xx

@TinyPuds thank you! We both had Covid as well would you believe (before all the other stuff happened) as my husband is a keyworker so there wasn’t much chance of avoiding it really...but thankfully it wasn’t bad for either of us, just felt a bit rough for a week!

I don’t know how many dpo I am because I wasn’t paying attention, and now I REALLY wish I had been because I didn’t realise I was going to drive myself so mad the app I’ve used for years to predict when I’d be on (for holiday planning purposes haha) estimated 19th or 20th Dec? I usually have a 26 day cycle. I did the test this morning when I woke up.

@Amy259 thank you. It is pink but it’s super faint - def there though as my husband pointed at it even though I didn’t tell him what he was supposed to be looking for! I have got my fingers crossed but I guess if it’s not I can have champagne on NYE I also feel a bit like I always do the day before my period though so who knows. It would be super early and weird if it appeared tomorrow.

@Chimboo if your app is right and you’re about 8/9dpo then it adds up to it being super faint! 🤞🏻🤞🏻 When is your next period due?

@Amy259 on January 2nd

@Chimboo not long to wait at all!! Hopefully it’s a fair bit darker tomorrow and Thursday so that you know for sure about whether or not you have to miss that lovely champagne! In the early days I think most people get darker tests in the evening too as hcg is rising, so you could always do another after a 2-3 hour hold if you’re bursting at the seams?

@Amy259 ooh I didn’t know about that - thank you, I will do that I think.

We have a bottle of VERY posh champagne that we got from my husband’s colleagues after he got out of the neuro ward and we said “woah that is SO posh we’ll never have it again so let’s save it for NYE” paahahaha facepalm

@Chimboo just make sure you don’t drink too much whilst you’re holding pee in!!

Oh man, that’s so annoying. But for the best reason! Now hopefully you can open it to celebrate in about 9 months haha.

@Amy259 yeah it seems that way, although premom app will probably say it was today. Though I'm not bothered what exact day ovulation was as long as I can pinpoint roundabout I'm happy with that. Omg yes that would be so annoying if you missed it on that ONE day!! I suppose you could test the day after and pinpoint it to at least 2 days haha.

@Chimboo oooo fingers crossed. It sounds likely that you are pregnant!! Maybe do another to be sure? And I'd say if it's positive, now is the perfect reason to pop open the champagne (and just have only 1 or 2 glasses, obviously ;-) )

@meganlea yeah I think it doesn’t matter which day it is - you’ve definitely covered it! Here’s a potential TMI/nosey question for you.. after your chat then going on to dtd so much, did it ever feel weird/staged? Once (and thankfully only once!) we squeezed in dtd on a fw day back when we first started ttc and it felt a bit weird? I can’t describe it... but it was obv we were doing it because of timing not necessarily wanting too and we were in a rush too so couldn’t really take our time to get into it. I wouldn’t want it to happen again but not sure how to plan dtd so much for a week or so without it feeling staged!

@Amy259 no question is too TMI or nosey for this thread!! haha.

Our TTC DTD is completely different from how we usually DTD. It can feel weird, staged, even robotic sometimes, especially at first but you just get used to it. I wouldn't call it love making as such, which is quite sad as it started out as that the first month. But that first month there was too much pressure there to seduce each other and then it would cause tension because it was going back and forth is this because we want to DTD or is it because we're trying for a baby now. I mentioned before DH has a LSD and so as much as I wanted to TTC, I was sad to see his SD increase when TTC because where was the HSD before TTC? If that makes any sense? Where was this effort with me before?! haha.

Now it's more of an operation, we both just jump into bed like lets do this, not much passion at all. It's hard to explain though, it's done with love and we do have a good giggle about it and make jokes when it's 'time', so it's never awkward, but it is planned in and so feels more like a job that has to be done. Like we're there because we have a box a tick. It's funny because this past week we kept doing it the 'operational' way and then promising we'd relax the day after and DTD romantically, but then it comes around so quickly and you're like sh*t, quick, we need to have showers and then DTD before tea or before we get too tired and then romance goes out of the window yet again! I'd love to be able to say it's passionate and fantastic every time, but it's not. I'm tracking so I know when to schedule it and I keep DH up to date where I'm at so he understands when it has to happen, there's just no spontaneity there. Outside fw it goes back to normal, which I prefer because then I can differentiate between DTD out of love, and DTD with a motive. A bit complex, but it seems to be what's working for us at the moment.

Waaa I’ve been wondering the same about others feeling like DTD while TTC feels like it’s being staged @Amy259 !!

Nice to hear your experience though @meganlea it sounds similar to mine so far!!

Fiancé and I had the chat to TTC a few weeks ago, and were only ever using condoms before we decided to give it a go. So the first couple of times we DTD without them we were both left in a bit of shock at the end like OMG ITS HAPPENING hahaha. Which has made it feel different every time so far anyway. Especially outside the FW as Megan described! That just feels normal again which is nice (with the added bonus of not bothering with a condom!).

I think because we have it in the back of our minds it’s for a baby and not because we feel like it - it does take away the romance a bit, even though it’s still lovely! I’m hoping DTD feels more normal and with less purpose next month if we’re not lucky this time around. Also maybe worth noting that I’m the broodier one of the couple, my fiancé wasn’t even thinking about starting TTC any time soon until I bought it up recently! So sometimes I worry that he’s just doing it to make me happy which has made me feel like it’s a little bit staged (and some guilt!) although he’s assured me he definitely wants to have a baby now.

Bad experience with unintentional staging of DTD on the weekend..! I was in the last fertile day of my ov window on Boxing Day and we were ready and raring to DTD and remembered we had a family zoom call, so we had to do that first but said we’d go back to DTD afterwards. We ended up on the zoom call for over two hours and once it was finished my fiancé was starving but I still wanted to squeeze it in before dinner because I knew we wouldn’t feel like it afterwards and I also knew it might be the last day for it. But I didn’t realise he reeeeally wasn’t in the mood for it anymore - he gets quite hangry haha, plus it didn’t help our puppy was howling from the bottom of the stairs for us and then he actually said he didn’t like how forced it felt. It had a very different vibe to it, especially because i got a wee bit desperate and sucked all the fun out of it by bringing up that it might be our last chance this month which was the nail in the coffin for him. Learnt my lesson though because we didn’t DTD in the end (I felt quite embarrassed after the conversation actually, so was happy to just get on with distracting myself with some cooking!). So I won’t be instigating it like that again haha! I don’t think I would’ve enjoyed it if it did happen after he said all of that to be honest. Especially with our needy pup howling throughout haha 😅

Xxx

@TinyPuds omg what an actual mare!! There's always something that comes up isn't there when you know it needs to be done because you're in your fw! I get that with the puppy too, ours is 3 years old and if he can hear us talking upstairs and not actually sleeping he starts making these funny noises like he's trying to talk to us and tell us not to leave him on his own haha. And being hangry on top of that?! Not a good combination, hopefully you did it enough before that so you're still covered.

We've had instances when it was planned and then I've stropped and we didn't end up DTD in fertile week. One example is we went to do it and he started moaning about how tired he is, this is a tactic he usually uses to get out of DTD outside of fw so I was like, well don't break your back I'm not forcing you to DTD with me, and he was like no no it's fine I'll DTD with you, and that was it for me then lol, turned completely off, one sign that you're not up for it and it's not happening at all!!! Fw or not haha. I can be very stubborn!!

@TinyPuds what a nightmare! I think lots of us have had those experiences though - I’ve had my dtd mare too!! I think it’s when you’re just so keen for it to happen and you know it has to be in that specific time frame. In my head I’m like come on come on come on let’s goooo but outwardly trying to play it cool 😂

@meganlea aww been there, the pre-dtd strops that mean there’s no way it’s happening. Why is it so complicated?!

Barely there line on a first response this morning. I’m driving myself mad and getting quite upset over the whole thing, which I would never have thought I’d do in a million years. I am an anxious person that doesn’t like “unknowns”, but that being said I’m not someone who has been desperate for a child her whole life and if you’d asked me six months ago I’d have said I didn’t want one. I don’t know why I’m reacting like this and being so obsessive

I can’t keep doing this every morning, I think I’ll have to assume they are actually negative and just wait and see if my period arrives.