TTC - Advice on pregnancy planning - Baby No.1

[Amy290381]

Myself and OH have decided that we are going to start trying for our first baby!
We are super excited but very scared at the same time!
I have been reading up on ways to prepare for pregnancy and wanted to see whether you ladies had any advice for me? I think I am definitely going to start taking folic acid supplements, does anyone have any recommendations on which ones are best?
I want to feel as though I have prepared my body to be as healthy as it can be so any advice would be greatly appreciated! xo

Hi @Amy290381. Are you TTC straight away? I’m getting married April next year and planning to try after then. I’ve got 1 month of my pill left then will come off it to give my body time to regulate. Thinking of starting folic acid from the new year so open to advice on this or any other supplements to start x

Hi @Purpleflowers21 thanks for getting in touch
I am just finishing off my pill pack at the moment and will start TTC from basically the beginning of September. Congratulations on your wedding next year! Are you planning on taking specific folic acid supplements / other supplements so that I can do some research on them? Will this be your first child too?

@Amy290381 thank you! Just hoping things return to normal re corona so the wedding won’t be affected! I’m not sure exactly which yet so hoping someone else will comment on here with some info for us both haha. Yeah will be our first and we don’t really have any babies in the family/friends with babies so we’re both very inexperienced with children and complete newbies

@Purpleflowers21 Oh COVID has ruined SO much hasn’t it! Did your wedding get rescheduled or was it always going to be in April 2021? Here’s hoping someone has some more advice for us!

@Amy290381 I know it’s crazy isn’t it! No we’ve always been April 21 luckily. I guess if there does end up being restrictions still in place we’ll probably delay and start TTC straight away. Yeah looking forward to any advice we can get

This was us at the start of the year. I came off the pill at the end of January and was pregnant 2nd cycle.

I used the Fitbit app to track roughly when I would be ovulating and started taking folic acid (just a standard Holland and Barrett cheap one).

The first month, I wasn’t really tracking things properly, in the second month we had sex every other day from a week before ovulation to a week after & that worked. I’m now 23 weeks pregnant and wasn’t expecting it to happen so quickly.

@MaverickDanger Ah wow things happened very quickly for you, I bet you’re super excited congratulations!
Do you recommend any good apps to track? I downloaded Ovia this morning. I will have a look at some folic acid from Holland & Barrett. Did you start taking folic acid when you came off the pill at the end of January?

Hi, here are the things I/we did and I got pregnant on the first month of trying. I was on the pill before and came off a few months before trying to regulate my cycle. Whether any or all of these things helped us to conceive I don't know, but I do know I got pregnant much earlier than we anticipated.

• bought pre-seed lubricant (my friend tried it on my recommendation and conceived quickly after trying for quite a while. Again, whether that's a coincidence or not I don't know, but it's worth trying)
• clear blue ovulation kit to try and find out how many days after my period I ovulated
• I tracked my cycle on the app Flo
• learnt what happens to discharge in my cycle (egg white discharge is a sign you're ovulating - google the cycle)
• Only drinking decaf tea/coffee (my DH also went decaf the month before we started trying)
• folic acid vegetables for both of us like broccoli and spinach
• tomatoes are supposed to be good for men
• I read the NHS website for advice on eating and vitamins for conceiving (there's loads of advice on there)
• we both took the vitabiotics wellwoman/ wellman pregnacare vitamins (DH stopped when I got pregnant). I took it from three months before trying and DH for a month before. It contains folic acid.
• we both stopped drinking alcohol a couple of weeks before trying
• sex every other day building up to ovulation. As sperm can live in you for up to 5 days and it takes a little while to travel to the egg it's actually better to have sex in the days building up to your ovulation day as well as after to cover yourself (rather than waiting for a particular day/date). Daily sex isn't recommended as the quantity/quality of the sperm isn't necessarily at its best.

I'm now 36 weeks pregnant.

Good luck!

Hey ladies!

Currently TTC baby number one after COVID cancelled our wedding.. twice 😅

Last month (cycle 1) we just DTD and I used flo to guess my ovulation.

This month (cycle 2) i used opks which actually showed I ovulate later than I though and vitamins; folic acid, COQ10 and VitalDHA.

Currently in the TWW .. one down.. one to go!!

@liquoricecravings Hi! First of all, congratulations! Thanks for all of your advice, that is all so useful thank you
I am in the process of finishing my pill pack at the moment. I have a couple of weeks to go but I started taking folic acid supplements today as I read that they can be taken when on birth control and I want it to be in my system before we start trying properly. Out of interest, how long was you on the pill for? Did it take a while for your cycle to regulate?

@beckyBP Hi Becky, nice to hear from you! So sorry to hear about your wedding cancellations, not once but twice! Awful!
Thanks for the advice, I have downloaded Flo so I will give that a go too. I started taking folic acid today. I am still on the pill at the moment but after this pack in 2 weeks we will start trying. Wishing you all the best with Cycle 3!

@Amy290381 Thanks doll still got a week left of cycle 2 so keeping my 🤞🏽

Good luck for two weeks time when the pill ends

@Amy290381 I was on the pill for about 3 years. I came off of it mid September and we started trying in December. My cycle pre-pill was around 28 days but after coming off of it it was between 30-39 days over the few months before conceiving. Tracking my cycle on Flo and using the ovulation kit in November and December helped me to have a fairly good idea of when I ovulated though (and knowing what type of discharge to look for).

If you are taking straight folic acid by itself I'd recommend taking vitamin D tablets too (10mg strength). It's needed once you get pregnant as a vitamin every day through pregnancy. My SIL struggled to conceive for a couple of years and the doctor gave her extra strength vitamin D tablets after having a blood test. She and my brother then conceived fairly quickly afterwards.

@liquoricecravings I’ve been reading about how long it takes a woman’s body to go back to normal after being on a birth control pill and it seems to vary. I have been on the pill for around 6 years or so and only had a break for a couple of months about a year ago so I will be interested to see how quickly my body adjusts back. Hoping that it won’t take too long. I will definitely be closely tracking my cycle using the app come next month too!

Thanks for the recommendation, I was considering Vitamin D tablets as well but didn’t know if to wait until I had completed my pill pack. I will get some. Is it recommended you take Vitamin D tablets throughout your entire pregnancy?

@Amy290381 yes, it's actually on the front of the maternity notes you are given to record everything throughout the pregnancy. They say folic acid for the first three months (though as I'm taking pregnacare I've had it all the way through - it's not required you take it to full term though) and vitamin D throughout the pregnancy.

@liquoricecravings I got some Vitamin D tablets today so have started taking them along with the folic acid. Thanks for your help :-) Good luck with the rest of your pregnancy!