Ttc in sex education

[Thefaceofboe]

Am I wrong to think that the struggles of ttc should be approached as a teenager or potentially during sex education at school? Growing up all I remember is being told to have safe sex, how to avoid getting pregnant etc but thinking back I think it would of helped me to have an understanding that not everyone is going to fall pregnant immediately and that it’s okay (and completely normal) to have fertility issues. My mum once told me she was very fertile and fell pregnant the first month trying, therefore I should be the same. I also remember thinking that if I missed 1 pill I was going to be pregnant and had many sleepless nights over it. I had no idea about ovulation, my fertile window or how my body really worked. I also wish I had tracked my periods from a younger age so I might have realised earlier my body wasn’t working the way it should.

I agree but I suppose the difficulty is in inadvertently suggesting to teenagers that unsafe sex is somehow OK because you won’t necessarily fall pregnant every time a boy sneezes in your direction.

So it needs to be quite nuanced - here’s how ovulation works, here’s how a woman can become pregnant, but here are all these other reasons why contraception is important.

I think, at the point in their lives, teenagers have a lot going on anyway. Best to try and get them to remember something they're going to need imminently - how to practice safe sex and why.

I think maybe a nod to the potential that couples may have issues but nothing more than that.

I agree. When we first started discussing ttc my husband wanted to wait longer - until I pointed out that fertility starts to decline after 30 (I'm 33), I'd been diagnosed with pcos in the past and that it can take even healthy adults over a year that he agreed we should probably start, and as we're 10 months in with nothing he's glad we did. He'd just assumed - as that's the impression he'd been given at school - was that it would be one night and done.

To be fair, it was only as my friends started having babies and I started thinking about it that I realised the difficulties.

I do get the point pp made about not wanting teenagers to decide there's no need for safe sex though too. Maybe more focus on sti's might help with that?

At my secondary school teenage pregnancies were a pretty big problem so this wouldn't have been a good idea imo. Before I started ttc I had a quick health check with my gp who gave me some useful information about ttc and for me that was sufficient. I also had some pregnancy books with lots of useful information.

Infertility, miscarriage and ivf are included in the new RSE framework

infertility, miscarriage and ivf are included in the new RSE framework ah that’s interesting!

I agree with all the above points, I just feel like I was thrown in at the deep end with no idea what i was really doing, but I think it’s probably down to me being so naive. Now I’m having struggles ttc, it’s crazy how many people I know also in the same boat that I would have had no idea about.

I suppose if teenagers knew about their ‘fertile window’ they might not practise safe sex the rest of the month.