Help. 37, having no luck, having trouble understand the things to do

[1990s]

Hello. Looking for some help with what to do next. We’ve been just regular trying, around the rough right time for ovulation, for nine months.

People around me announcing they’re pregnant and I’m feeling pretty hopeless and upset.

Please can someone help me with what to do next? I see people talking about tracking ovulation, vitamins to take and acupuncture, please could someone summarise (imagine I’m 10) what I should do?

If you or your partner smoke or drink alcohol, it's important to quit smoking and drastically reduce alcohol consumption. That's been the main thing that's made a difference for the people I know. Tried unsuccessfully for a long time before the man did that.

You can get conception vitamins which might help and won't hurt.

AFAIK the best way to track ovulation is to take your temperature at the same time every day, I never bothered but could be worth trying.

Get an ovulation app, briefly check it and then try your best to forget all about it. I didn’t fall pregnant for 6 months with my first because I was stressed. The second time around I got pregnant first time because I was relaxed and unfaced by it all. Enjoy trying :)

I would get ovulation sticks. They aren’t cheap, but I think they are good.

How is your weight OP? My friend who is very slim and runs a lot struggled to get pregnant until she put on a little weight (about half a stone) and got pregnant immediately. Similarly I think being overweight can also reduce your chances.

Taking vitamins (eg pregnacare) are more to do with ensuring a healthy pregnancy, they don't really help with getting pregnant in the first place.

You can try ovulation tests (like pregnancy tests) to make sure you're getting the timing right.

As you've been trying for 9 months you could make an appointment with your GP or a fertility clinic and get yourself and your partner checked out.

If you’re over 35 and you’ve been trying for six months then you can see your GP about it and get the ball rolling with fertility testing.

Other than that, you’re already doing all the right things to make a baby. A lot of women drive themselves crazy thinking that there are other ways it can be controlled, but there is no proper scientific (randomised double blind peer reviewed studies) for any of it I’m afraid.

The major determining factors other than age are weight (either over or under), STIs, smoking, alcohol, severe stress and exposure to hazardous toxins.

It’s really hard, but just try to relax OP. It took me a year to fall pregnant with my first, 6 months with my second, 3 months with my third and my 4th and 5th came along when I was on the pill! I’m sure it will happen for you real soon. Good luck

We got pregnant the first month we started taking Pregnacare conception vitamins for him and her. Probably a coincidence, but I bought them after seeing other reviewers say the same thing.

www.amazon.co.uk/Pregnacare-Vitabiotics-His-Conception-Tablets/dp/B003VJTOMM?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

I used the Ovia app to track ovulation. I’m using the pregnancy tracker at the moment and even though it is American based, I think they’re great. It was developed by Harvard university. (Attached screen shot)

I also used ovulation predictor kits. Just the cheap ones off Amazon.

www.amazon.co.uk/MOMMED-Ovulation-Test-Strips-LH60/dp/B07RXBSL6S/ref=mp_s_a_1_1_sspa?psc=1&crid=1TNFXNC9PR58X&keywords=mommed+opk&sprefix=mom+med+opk%2Caps%2C121&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUExQVc0N0tDSTZQSkpBJmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwNDcyNzA5M01IQThDQTFMRVNOUyZlbmNyeXB0ZWRBZElkPUEwODU3OTYxMk81VlhKRlI0Rk1QUiZ3aWRnZXROYW1lPXNwX3Bob25lX3NlYXJjaF9hdGYmYWN0aW9uPWNsaWNrUmVkaXJlY3QmZG9Ob3RMb2dDbGljaz10cnVl&tag=mumsnetforu03-21&qid=1637425074&sr=8-1-spons

DTD the day before a positive result and got pregnant. (My husband was sick, so that’s the only day we DTD near ovulation.)

I took an OPK test every day of my cycle, but if you’d rather not, the Ovia app can give you an idea of when to start testing. Just be careful if you do get the Mommed OPKs, as it will always show a line, it just gets a lot darker around ovulation, which is another reason I started doing them everyday when I switched to this brand.

I’m no expert, like some of the people on here, but this worked for us. Wishing you all the luck in the world!!!

"We" do not get pregnant!
DH and I conceived. I got pregnant.

Definitely make an appointment with the GP. I was pushing 36 when we started trying and stupidly I just thought you had to be trying a year before you could speak to the doctor so wanted for that, to be told I should have gone after 6 months. It takes ages to get in the system - well it did for us anyway - and even once you’ve had all the tests etc there’s a wait between each round of things they try so might as well get the ball rolling.

In the meantime take folic acid in case you are successful, work on getting as healthy as possible.

It’s helpful to work out what day you ovulate - it’s normally around day 14 of your cycle but not always (I always ovulated very late which was one of our issues). You can if you wish get some ovulation predictor kits and use them to work out when you’re ovulating - or you can use other symptoms of ovulation such as egg white cervical mucus. There’s also a way of doing it by tracking your basal body temperature but I never discerned any pattern. There are some good apps that help you do all this and track it all - I used fertility friend.

My fertility specialist did tell us to forget all that and just aim to have sex every other day from the end of one period to the start of the next - although the month we were eventually successful (after 4 years) we’d only actually had sex one - I’d given up - Sod’s law.

There’s other stuff you can look into - there’s a lube you can use called preseed which we tried, other supplements, acupuncture - the list is endless, but I’d start with GP visit, try to get a sense of your cycles and when you ovulate, and sex every other day between periods.

I'd go for ovulation sticks. Cheapies off the Internet are fine. It gives you an idea of when you're ovulating so you have sex at the time you're most likely to conceive. You may not be ovulating at the typical point in your cycle.

Not sure what the attack on me was about there Just trying to help someone, no need to be mean to me because of my choice of words.

It wasn't an attack or mean. Just disagreeing with the choice of words.

This is not ‘AIBU’. Didn’t post and ask for an opinion on how I write/speak. This is supposed to be a safe space.

All this stress for trying to help someone just isn’t worth it. I’m done with MN.

Back to the OP… had I not tried ovulation sticks (I use Clearblue 2 days digital), I would have been at least 3 days off. Worth the money & good luck!

Hey lol @1990s I’ve just got my BFP and these are the things we did.

My first cycle I tried the Clearblue OPKs, not the super advanced one, just their standard one. I did that for one cycle and found out when I ovulated.

On our second cycle, I didn’t track my cycle using OPKs I just used Flo for my ovulation prediction this month and went off EWCM.
We also did the Sperm Meets Egg Plan, which is very full on but it must have worked. Basically start DTD every other day from CD8, then we did every day when I started to get EWCM. I genuinely think this is what worked because I only took Pregnacare for my first cycle then took a few here and there on the second cycle.

Really hope you get your BFP 💕

I’m 37, and conceived in July after a year of trying, but only three/four months of REALLY trying.

My version of trying properly was buying a ClearBlue Advanced Fertility monitor (about £150) and testing for ovulation from day 8 of my cycle.
I couldn’t be doing with temperature testing/cheap ovulation sticks, I just wanted a clear sign whether I was ovulating or not. It also came with pregnancy tests so I saved a bit of money in the early days of a BFP when I was testing like a crazy person every day.

From when I got the flashing smiley on my monitor until two days after I got the static smiley we aimed to DTD every day, but sometimes missed the odd day if we couldn’t get our schedules to line up, DH works away a lot.

The month I conceived we had got married, been on honeymoon etc so we’d had quite a drinky, unhealthy month but we cracked on regardless and conceived twins about four days after we got home from honeymoon. They’re due at the end of March.

Sex
Lots of it
Unprotected

How often do you DTD? Aim for every other day. If you do that you don't need temping and opks. We used preconception vitamins, both male and female, I stopped using makeup and perfume (saw some advice online regarding that, no idea if it had an impact).

Have you spoken to your GP yet? You can pay for private fertility testing if it'll be faster.

I agree there is no need for tracking anything as long as you have sex every other day from the day your period ends. That and some pre conception vitamins and healthy weight, cut down on alcohol and caffeine is enough if your fertility isn't an issue.