10th Month TTC..anyone else in a similar boat?

[IslaO]

Hi everyone,

I am trying hard not to catatrophise here but 10th month of actively TTC and nothing. I have been tracking ovulation and doing all I can but I’ve had no luck. Friend after friend announcing pregnancies and I’m getting increasingly panicked and down about it all. Is 10 months normal? Or is it likely to point in the direction of a problem?

thanks everyone x

@Shaker21 it's weird isn't it. I used to get that all the time. Some cycles they would be so sore I couldn't walk down the stairs without holding them!! But ever since my chemical pregnancy where I had no sore boobs, the last cycle after I had minor sore boobs and this cycle nothing. Trying to stay positive!! This is our month (although I'm so scared of AF coming) 🙈

@Angie2018 You are right- you have zero way of knowing if you’re in or out this month. At this stage, you couldn’t actually be pregnant so writing yourself off already is just self preservation.

@Shaker21 is this your first that your TTC for?

Regarding testing today, I am tempted and terrified in equal measure. At least with the rollercoaster of symptom spotting, I still feel in with a chance. Having never ever seen even a faint line on a pregagncy test, they just signifies disappointment to me. Flo app says period is due today but my cycle has varied between 26 days and 34 over the last year. Most commonly 28 days recently and today is day 30 so I’m not on time but not actually late either. Each toilet trip and wipe is an ordeal!

@IslaO Yeah it is my 1st were trying for so kind of makes it even more nerve wrecking not knowing what to be looking out for or what to expect I guess.

What DPO are you today? I would go off of your DPO then rather than CD if previously it has maybe been couple of days longer than you are today.

@Shaker21 my first too. I thought this is the only time TTC would be so nerve wracking but loads of the ladies here feel just as worried when TTC for their second. I suppose it never ends!

just scanned back through Flo I’m 13dpo now. I can get my period anywhere from 10-13dpo I think (my tracking hasn’t been spot on always).. so if AF doesn’t come today, I might test tomorrow. In the meantime I’m likely to give myself a physical injury with the way I am wiping at every toilet trip 😂

@IslaO 😂that made me chuckle! It is good sign that AF hasn't showed already then! How are you feeling? Any pains or usual AF signs? Or any signs you wouldn't normally get?

Omg ladies another friend has posted her baby bump today. 😱😢😢😢 happy for her but seriously feel like crawling into a ball 💔

@IslaO I know you are right but then the self preservation is so overwhelming I just tell myself that it can't be happening so I'm out!

Ah I feel your pain! I always think I'm wiping my vagina away come 7-14dpo 🙈🙈🙈

Please keep us posted tomorrow if you do test. How do you feel in yourself? I'm praying for a BFP for you!!!! X

@Angie2018 noooooooo! Oh I’m so sorry, I know this feeling too well. It’s like you’re mindlessly scrolling and then you’re assaulted!!! I can honestly say that if I’m ever lucky enough to conceive, I will be so mindful of posts like that and what they can do to people!!

@Shaker21 usual cramps but they are milder and disappear after a while rather than building to be quite bad and then AF arrives. Since you asked about how many DPO I usual get AF, I’ve had a deep dive and can still get it at 13DPO or 14DPO once so I’m not out of the woods yet. How long have you been TTC? This is my 10th cycle- I went into it very naively, thinking it would happen straight away so this has been a real learning curve.

@IslaO oh I also entered this so naively!! Thought I would be pregnant within 3 months because it happened for my neighbour!! Yeah right! Oh and bloody Covid stole 3 months off us too! As that severely damages sperm and takes 3 months to recover. So here I am 7 cycles along feeling rather sorry for myself!!

Yes that is how it feels!! I literally feel like people gloat about their pregnancies without a care for those struggling. I guess why should they? Unless they've been though it themselves!

I certainly won't be plastering my bump over social media. It just makes me feel sick and sad!

Mild cramps are defo a sign of early pregnancy though. I had them around implantation. Oh I can't wait for you to test!!

@IslaO Oh I am keeping everything crossed for you and really hope you get your BFP! I am on cycle 7 at the moment and I was exactly the same as you and also went into it thinking it would happen quite quickly, I would never have said I would still be trying like this 7 months down the line. You just assume you will be ok and it will just happen, so many people seem to fall pregnant so easily without having to do all the supplements, stopping drinking or smoking and changing much in their lives.

@Angie2018 @Shaker21 , when I think back over the last few months, cycle 7 was actually my most difficult in terms of my emotional well-being. I just reached breaking point and had to speak to a GP. She was amazing and reassured me that this is all normal. She recommended focusing on methods to alleviate my mental stress and panic so that’s when I started weekly acupuncture mixed with reflexology. I have my doubts about how helpful it is with fertility but it has been so amazing for me mentally. It’s my weekly but of self care and has helped calm that frantic feeling I felt rising with every new pregnancy announcement. I’m still up and down within my own cycle but cycle 7 was particularly hard.

@Shaker21 i feel so annoyed at the lifestyle changes- every glass of wine I forego I think ‘other people don’t need to do this’ and every coffee I have (cant give it up!!), I feel guilty!

@Angie2018 hope you’re ok after that announcement. So so so shit to see and it knocks you back, I know.

do you girls have any friend who are TTC in the same boat?

@IslaO @Shaker21 I think it's because cycle 7 is just over the 6 month hill & you start worrying about the year mark!! I agree with you though it's so important to do things you enjoy to help with stress and mental health. I horse ride 3 times a week & normally do yoga twice but haven't fit two weeks due to time. I also have acupuncture at the beginning of every cycle.

I'm ok, it is just shit and it feels like a chair slamming into your face every time someone else does there next obligatory bump or scan pictures... morons...#joking 😬

@Angie2018 joking but not joking and I support it 😂

agreed about cycle 7 being hard because it’s the end of the 6 month mark- hadn’t really made that connection!

god, once we get these BFPs, think of the relief. I don’t know what I’ll occupy my brain space with when it does happen for me!! It has taken over my life in a way I didn’t think it would!

@IslaO haha 😂 I mean yeah totally wasn't joking and when I see it I literally just roll my eyes and think piss off 🙄

Yeah I think that's why.... even though I wasn't "relaxed" before cycle 7, I've always been desperate for it to happen because I want it so much, there is something about being over the 6 month mark that cuts a little deeper.

I know right, il be bored shitless! Although I suspect il be worrying about staying pregnant by then 😂😂😂

Oh and ladies, obviously I said I wasn't going to symptom spot 🤪😂 but I feel a but constipated, gassy, bloated and hungry.... which is weird as I have eaten enough today. I think it's complete tosh and I am just finding something to fixate on. Oh and I never get any CM at all unless it's in fertile week & I've had a couple of creamy globs just now. WEIRD! Not strictly 6dpo until this evening so too early?! Probs nothing. Probs just the evening primrose oil and grapefruit I'm drinking and eating. 🙈🙈🙈🙈

@Angie2018 so hard not to symptom spot!

I just got home and had the urge to test.. not first wee of the day but just thought ‘sod or’… BFN. Now don’t know why I did it!!

@IslaO I love the honesty in your posts - please don't change. It makes everything seem real and normal, reassuring that we are not making this rollercoaster of a journey up.

I am okay thank you - going into TTW. Found out there is a 6+ month wait for the scan I have been referred for. To go private it is £500, trying to think of what is best.

My friend at work announced she is 3 weeks pregnant after her first month of trying. She is convinced she already has a bump and speaks openly about her symptoms. She told me I would make an amazing Mum before asking if I want children, I couldn't bring myself to say we have been TTC for 10 months already.

This journey has made me think about how people openly ask "do you want children?" and "why don't you have children yet?" when privately the couple could already be on a hard fertility journey.

Well.. light pink CM when I wipe now.. think I’m out for this month x

@Angie2018 is it true COVID damages sperm? I didn't know that, we had it in March so could be something to do with it for us too? I was worried at the time when DH had a bit of a fever about the temperature of his balls. I didn't say anything at the time though because it might have been insensitive 😅
Sorry @IslaO , it's so sad when AF is just ever so slightly later than usual and you get your hopes up so high 😥

@IslaO ahhhh I am so sorry for the BFN, that is, for want of a better word...wanky!

If it's any consolation I am pretty sure I'm out too this month, I have a hunch again!

How are you today?

It's so hard not to symptom spot, and this morning I've woken up with no symptoms at all in fact I feel too normal and I'm now overthinking the post ovulation symptoms I used to get aren't there now because my body is broken and doesn't work 😩

I'm so sorry 😞 it's so hard, I was actually praying to see a BFP from you today. I hope you are ok x

@SFrancis1 I have to agree with you on that, how hurtful is it when you are asked "will you have any children?" When you've been TTC for months with no luck and or suffered a loss?! Why do people think it's ok to gloat and ask about such a sensitive subject?!

Also agree with @IslaO being a total joker on these posts and is a total spirit lifter!!

@tingalayo hey! Yes it's true! Sperm recovery post Covid is thought to be 3 months with the information they have to date. I know my partner is fertile because he has got two children already and I also have been pregnant before twice when young so I know it's possible for us.... and we caught Covid 6 weeks after starting TTC and I was told by my gynae and acupuncturist that it will affect sperm and also my cycles. It affect two cycles for me, and I think 3 months worth of sperm. We had a chemical pregnancy on the end of the 3 month period and I am convinced that either my egg had dna damage from Covid or his sperm did. Apparently even if you get semen analysis results that come back ok, unless they check the actual dna inside it's not a correct representation of how good the sperm is. You can have a decent count, decent morphology and decent motility but damaged dna and you either won't conceive or have a baby with healthy issues. I read that it's 50% down to sperm damage and not just the "egg" that we are all led to believe. A fever damages the dna in the sperm and reduces all other characteristics. The good thing is that you can repair the dna damage and take CoQ10 and other supplements and eat a really really clean diet and cut out all the shit and it will reverse the affects. It's the same with our eggs, they actually only age to a point as we get older and they then lay dormant. Until 4 months before ovulation where the majority of the damage is done. So if we take the right supplements like CoQ10 and others, eat all the food we need that are naturally rich in anti oxidants, vitamin C, D & folate we can ensure that the egg quality is boosted as it starts maturing. I found all this out when I read the "it starts with the egg book" and it was so interesting. I never new any of this and it's totally inspired me to let go of the first 5 months of TTC because Covid stole 3 months of those and the first two I had not at all given my eggs or his sperm a fair chance of working properly. We spent two years through Covid of drinking excessively, eating shit food excessively, putting on weight, and being lazy couch potatoes!! Why do I think I'm going to conceive quickly when the amount of dna damage to his sperm and my eggs would have been huge!! I should have prepared my body and his, and I suspect we may have been in a different position now. We can't help Covid it just is what it is but now we are absolutely taking the right supplements in higher doses, the diet we are eating is clean, full of EVERYTHING we need and NOTHING we don't (in accordance with that book & pretty much everything on the internet) and we don't drink at all, lots of water, and now we are hoping that if this is cycle 2 post change of lifestyle we hope that by November after 6 months of really doing the right things, we hope we are lucky and get that BFP! Sorry for the long message I hope that it's helped you and anyone else reading it. I do believe that if you both had Covid and certainly your OH had a fever in March you will only just be out the other side of it so please don't beat yourself up because it's fact. Covid affects fertility but not permanently xx

@Angie2018 im actually broken today. Period came full force last night and I knew getting my hopes up would make this all the more painful. I’m not really a crier but really broke down last night. Honestly, so many things were different this month and pointing to a potential BFP- heart burn, late period, acid reflux, nausea and then BOOM. OH actually got his hopes up too which is upsetting as well. I just don’t know how I can keep doing this- it’s just so painful and im so bloody angry at myself for letting my mind wander and believe for a while.

@Angie2018 you would have no way of knowing at this stage so distraction is prob your best course of action. Try learn from me and try not to become fixated/convinced of one outcome!

@IslaO I am so bloody sorry! I do genuinely understand that absolute feeling of sheer devastation when you believe you may get a positive outcome. I was like that when I had my chemical pregnancy. And last month too when it just wasn't my month. I break down a lot.... why the fuck is it just not happening?! What is wrong?! Why us?

This journey is not for the faint hearted and requires fuck loads of strength, positivity & patience... all three things robbed off you each morning it's a BFN.

I know this is going to be me next weekend.

It's fucking shit. Excuse all the language but I honestly know that gut wrenching, defeated, broken feeling you are feeling now.

Sending a massive hug. ❤️