I'm FUCKING sick of this, come wail with me and help me please.

[MademoiselleFrenglish]

Right. Started my period this morning, onto cycle 12 and I mean BUSINESS. No one seems to want to talk to us until we've been suffering endlessly for over 48 years, so I'm taking matters into my own hands.

I've obviously read all there is to know about conception and what you should/shouldn't take bla dee bla but I'm looking to go back to basics and would like some MN knowledge, please.

Me:

• 28 years old
• Regular periods my entire life
• Average cycle 29 - 30 days
• Average luteal phase 12 days
• Periods usually last about 4-5 days with only 2-3 days of heavy bleeding, not too much cramping
• Quit smoking a year ago
• Don't drink much alcohol
• 1-2 cups coffee a day
• Breathtakingly beautiful and perfect in every way
• Healthy diet - I calorie count on My Fitness Pal, diet is mainly Mediterranean as I live in France
• Have had 2 chemicals, I believe, but also possible that the lines were evaps and it was just a dodgy batch

DH:

• 31 years old
• Never had a period 🙂
• Healthy, works out, good diet, quit smoking a year ago, no issues in the bedroom, good sex drive, very good at getting things off of high shelves etc etc

Supplements I take:

• 120mg - 240mg CoQ10 daily
• Folic acid daily
• Vit D daily
• Vit C every now and then

Supplements DH takes:

• 120mg CoQ10 daily as long as I have enough left for me, if so, he goes down to once every couple of days until we can get more
• Vit D

I bought Maca powder recently, I've read the good and the bad but I think I'm willing to give it a go, so will take 1 tsp daily and DH probably will do the same.

Mentally, I'm flitting between "I'm so fucking DONE with TTC screw babies and their stupid little STUPID faces, I don't need one!" or wailing on the bathroom floor in a puddle of my own tears, OR floating around the house in an impenetrable bubble of positivity repeating the mantra "everything will work out in the end" whilst waving around smoky sage and fairy tears. So all in all, pretty good.

I'd just like some advice, really.

Oh god I know, it was shiz, but in a weird way I almost only half believed it might actually be happening for me, like I knew I wasn't out of the woods yet.

This is the ubiquinol, it is a soft gel but you take two capsules at a time so they are quite small? I also read that taking them with a gulp of a warm drink can help them go down. https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BD7SWDW5?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details

@4LeafCloverBaby Erm, could he try reaching around and making use of his fingers? 😂

@MrsScotland I know what you mean. Not the same at all, but I had a similar feeling when I had a chemical. Like I didn't want to get excited "just in case". DH felt the same. Thank you for the link! May have to just go for it and see if I can make them work, better than nothing, although I won't be saying that when I'm gagging in the kitchen trying to get them down my throat 🙃

Little update from me, mainly because I don’t want someone in a similar position to come across this thread and not have the full story.

Relaxing and having the month off lasted about 6 days. As I said earlier, I decided not to track ovulation this month and just have some time off from it all. I still haven’t tracked anything but it turns out that a year of tracking leaves its mark and I know what symptoms to expect before ovulation and can’t exactly turn my brain off to them.

This cycle marks a full year that we started trying to conceive and to put it simply, I’m not ok. I knew I wouldn’t be ok. I’ve had a week of feeling more and more anxious by the day and it all came to a head last night, when I ended up (once again) sobbing to DH. Truth is, we’re utterly heartbroken that it’s taking this long, it feels like our entire lives are on hold, in limbo, until we get a BFP and we both know that even when/if that happens, we’ll then just be anxious about losing the damn baby. We can’t even have amazing stress-free sex because I almost feel too scared to even HAVE sex because then that would count as “trying” and ultimately when I get the BFN at the end of the month, I’ll feel like I failed. But stopping sex entirely for a month is also ridiculous because at the end of the day we still want to get pregnant! Gah. Need more wine.

I don’t know how it’s possible for anyone to just “give up” or “take the month off” because the reality is that I still want to get pregnant, it’s still on my mind every single day and the simple fact of not tracking anything and having an extra glass of wine and a sodding piece of pissing pâté isn’t really enough to convince my brain that I don’t care this month, because I do.

So. There’s not really any point to this, other than to hopefully show the reality to anyone who stumbles across this thread in future. It’s fucking shit. We’re fucking sad. It’s fucking difficult.

Hi @MademoiselleFrenglish I’m so sorry you’re feeling this way. I completely agree - it’s fucking shit! There’s no other words for it. I am unfortunately in the same boat as you - started ttc December last year and so we are now at a year of trying and officially in the ‘unexplained infertility’ box. To make matters worse my sister in law announced her pregnancy last weekend and I am now slightly dreading Xmas - my DH is one of four and we are now the only ones without children. It’s all consuming - I can’t tell you how many times I’ve told myself I’m going to relax, track less, not symptom spot etc and it never lasts - basically it’s impossible to not think about because unless you go back on contraception obviously there’s always a chance it could happen and so you let yourself hope! I don’t really have any advice I’m afraid other than try to distract yourself as much as possible, do things you enjoy / couldn’t do if you were pregnant or had kids, and if you haven’t already maybe make a plan to have some testing in the new year? I’ve had all the baseline tests done and everything come back normal so am going to book a consultation to discuss Letrozole / IUI / IVF in January and having something of a plan at least let’s me pretend I am somehow in control? Sending solidarity - I have cried a LOT this month and so I know what it’s like to put on a brave face and then suddenly it all comes flooding out!!

@MademoiselleFrenglish thank you for your honesty - it's never as simple as "just relax and it'll happen". Honestly if someone ever says that to me again I'll punch them in the face! I'm in a similar boat to you right now in that definitely not ok. It's on my mind all the time whether I try new methods of "mindfulness" or not (spoiler alert - trying to meditate just gave me time with nothing else to focus on except thinking about getting pregnant 🙄). It is shit.

2024 has been stressful and sad and at times I've wondered if it will even all be worth it, including having the horrible thoughts that I might not even enjoy motherhood and I will have gone through years of anguish just to end up in a life I hate (that's if I actually have a baby of course). So here's to all of us surviving every day, trying to work and live like normal human beings whilst being slowly destroyed from our souls out. Hugs to everyone in this horrible situation xxx

@hopingforapeainapod Oh wow, we're really in the same boat - my sister in law also announced her pregnancy recently. I just find it so sad how whilst I was incredibly happy for my brother (they had issues conceiving too), my first thought was how jealous I was. It's fucking awful. My DH also have family who have now announced their second "and definitely last!!!" baby. When he told me I just said "I don't fucking care" and neither did he. Don't know if he's spoken to her much, it's just difficult.

Honestly it just feels nice having someone else say how impossible it is to just "not think about it". I said to my DH last night that I feel like I have a broken leg and all anyone can tell me is "you'll get there", "it'll all be alright in the end", "just don't focus on it and it'll heal" and meanwhile I'm lying on the ground in pain, screaming that I don't care what happens in a month, it hurts NOW.

Unfortunately, all of the things I find fun are things that I'll definitely be doing with kids. I love art and drawing and crafting, I've made about 500 sodding Christmas cards this month and have stupid little yarn bobble hats to make next. Kids would love it.

I hope you manage to get some answers in the new year, I'm going to book an appointment with my doctor in January and see where the road leads. I'd say "stay strong" to you but actually fuck it, just bawl your eyes out as much as you want, envision drop kicking your sister in law and don't feel guilty about it. x

@moosey89 Thank you. I agree with you 100%. And yes don't get me started on the meditation stuff. To be fair, my DH said something last night that helped. He's been doing meditation for months and he said that actually he's not very good at it. He puts it on in the background while he's doing other stuff. Sometimes yoga, sometimes putting away washing. He says his brain will pick up a little here and there, maybe just the things that it needs. Sometimes he'll zone out for 3 minutes or think about something else entirely, but as long as he's listening sometimes, then he feels ok about it. I think I'll start doing that too. I paid for the fucking Calm app at the beginning of the year accidentally, so may as well make use of it.

I feel the same. DH asked me what my biggest fear was last night and I told him that it's not even that we'll never have a kid, but that I'll destroy myself/us in the process of trying to have one. That we'll be 5 years into it and I'll be bitter and horrible and depressed. That I won't care about anything but having a baby and that I'll just sit there and think about how I've wasted 5 years on this, only ever looking a month in advance "just in case". If I found out tomorrow that I couldn't have kids, I would be heartbroken, we both would, but we would be able to make our peace with it. I can't make my peace with the process ruining our life, taking away happy years from us. I can't let that happen. We have such a good relationship. We have fun every single day, we laugh and cuddle and we're caring, we tell each other we love each other about 50 times a day, we hate spending even a day apart from each other and this is after almost 10 years of being in a relationship together. The scariest thing to me is that years and years of TTC will take that away.

How long have you been trying? I'm vowing to give up on the little "tricks" that definitely worked for Becky and Judy because I just don't believe them anymore. You end up pinning your hopes on them and then feel doubly crushed at the end of the month, it's not worth it. I hope that 2024 is kind to all of us and that we get what we need.

"So here's to all of us surviving every day, trying to work and live like normal human beings whilst being slowly destroyed from our souls out. Hugs to everyone in this horrible situation xxx"
**I'll definitely drink to that, thank you. xxxxx

@MademoiselleFrenglish that's really interesting about your other half - might try that to see if it makes the most of my unused Calm subscription too 😅

I'm not going to lie, TTC absolutely destroyed my relationship between me and my ex. Clearly we weren't in a good place anyway as it was the trigger not the whole cause of us splitting, but it took 2.5 years to get pregnant (diagnosed with "unexplained infertility" after about 18months) and then lost it at about 11 weeks. First time I TTC with him was 8 years ago now.

With my current partner it took 6 months which felt like a miracle but lost it at about 10 weeks (although knew it probably wasn't going to survive from my first early scan at 7.5 weeks so that was torture for a couple of weeks just waiting). Now on to cycle 5 of trying again since that loss and not had a hint of anything, my brain skips between being terrified I'll never get pregnant again and being terrified of what might happen if I do.

From my experience over the years the little tricks that work might mildly contribute to success but a lot of the time it's just the right egg meeting the right sperm at the right time, and there's only so much you can actually do to make that happen (like having sex at the right time!). The rest is pure dumb luck.

If it helps reassure you, this loss with my new partner was horrible but it felt that much less horrible with my current partner than the first loss did with my ex. My current partner is emotionally intelligent, loving, kind (we also tell each other "I love you" tons of times a day, have so much fun together etc, sounds similar to you and your other half). If you're with a supportive partner and you're open communicators that really helps. Xx

I was going to post that you should definitely take a month off and just have fun. You can start with semen analysis and pelvic ultrasounds and day 2/21 blood tests in the new year.

You could also book some skiing and see if it has the same effect as lighting a cigarette while you're waiting for the bus.