30s TTC - We BESH you a Merry Jizzmas and a droid-free new year!

[CurlyCasper]

Come in, come in. The wine is mulling, the bird is stuffed and cooked. We have a huge table at which to enjoy our festive feast, and the rippling Ricky Whittle is the centrepiece, draped in berries to be removed by whatever method you choose.

A bottle of Gin and an elf-man in a box awaits each and every one of you. Just make your wish and when you undo the bow he will appear.

There's a nativity tableau in the corner, for praying to the baybee Jebus and, most importantly of all, Santa has been asked to deliver the gift of exceptional fertility, so that each and every BESH can enter the new year with a baybeeee in their tum tum.

Oh, and I've let a few cats in to aid with the 2WOOFL menkulness.

Now, let's get together and get the tree up!

A mere child, you've got years of prevaricating left yet, do not fear.

Fear? I'm not afraid

Seeing friends with tiny babies terrifies me on occasion - I have no idea what to do with them, and am rubbish on no sleep. Give me a toddler and I'm happy, babies I'll coo over and hand back fast. So I do sometimes wonder why I want one....

My latest bit of procrastination was to go back and work out what my cycles were like pre-pill. I knew I was never spot on regular, but appear to have had cycles anywhere between 25 and 33 days, with one or two that I presumably forgot to record but in one case must've been either one v long one or two v short ones. So goodness knows what will happen now. If they return with that kind of irregularity presumably I'm going to have to check temps/mucus/random symptoms to have any idea when I'm ovulating rather than just guessing from cycle length.

I just finished Wolf Hall and it is ace!

Tiny babies I think are great. Toddlers and above freak me out. I always think they know I'm completey clueless. Am hoping I will have figured this whole thing out by the time little babies turn into scary toddlers anyway.

I can picture myself as a parent of a child up to about 5 - after that it is a blank, especially the teenage years.

Don't even want to think about teenagers! But then I'll be grown up and sensible enough to cope by the time it's an issue won't I?.....

honeypetal May I boldly step in with some advice? (Seeing as you haven't asked for any and it's therefore horribly rude of me.)

Petal my dear, if you are 32 and in any position to start ttc, please do. Just do it. The rest will follow. You don't want to end up like me updiffed at 41 far too old with all sorts of unexpected risks and health problems, feeling creaky and tired, and desperately wishing I had done all of this 10 years ago.

Of course, I hadn't met MrP 10 years ago, but after we had met the things that delayed ttc were:

• I have no maternal instinct
• I have been offered a big important job so I better give it a couple of years, and it would really unprofessional to get pregnant
• I want to go on a horse trek next summer

etc. All of which seem so stupid now, given that it took so long to get diffed the first time so in order to have two kids here I am, feeling far too old for this!

P.S. You should also interpret the above comments in the context that I am extremely grumpy with morning sickness at the mo, and am famously hopeless at coping with being pregnant.
P.P.S. Kids are great. Who knew?

Yes, yes to the circles! Oh, the unending circles. The main reason I found Mumsnet was in the name of research (I am a scientist, I can't help myself). That was before I got addicted interested, of course. At the same time I was lurking, a fellow ditherer set up the TTC or not to TTC thread and it's been circles and more circles ever since.

Ponymum, thanks for the advice (congrats on the being updiffed!), that's exactly why I drift aimlessly around these corridors, hoping I can learn from others. And I have learnt a lot, especially how heartbreaking it is if things don't go to plan.

Ladies! Am surviving... the... skank ... just. Hell truly is other people 's family.

I have no qualms, conflicted feelings or prevarications - I want a baybee or I don't want to live. Have cuts on palms of my hand where I dug my nails in yesterday when 20-month old cherub-girl came to otherwise incomprehensibly dreary party of ILs. She toddled over and clasped her chubby mitts around my leg and looked up and lisped 'hewo'. My ovaries nearly flew out of my eyes.

Of course, according to TYF's extended family, I have been pronounced - in front of me - too old to have a baby, which is, apparently, okay because I 'clearly' don't want one as I would've done so by now (despite only having been with TYF for 3 years) and have also been deemed 'genetically inferior' (ho yes, that was said to my face), as I have allergies and wear glasses. No, TYF's family surname is not Mengele, surprisingly (this crap came from an obese Aunt with massive facial lumps, a wonky eye and rotting teeth who told me off for 'trying to be clever' because I used the word 'coincidentally' ). What's even better, is that when I protested this crap and said, actually, I do want kids and am not too old, they all just laughed and muttered stuff along the lines of 'keep telling yourself that, kiddo'. AAAAAAAAAAARGH!

Still, I only had 10 hours of that on Boxing Day

But enough of my woe. Being desperate to be a mum is clearly the greatest contraception known to humankind . Am with Camelina and the rest of youse that obsessing about TTC and when to SWI and all that is just so fucking boring and draining.

Am so bored and pissed off here I wish I was at work. Chat about knitting and books- yes please! I farkin love you guys

You are not too old. Tell them all to fuck off Scorps.

I am almost inspired by the knitting chat to pull the scarf out. Except I think I shelved it because I had to unravel the one that went wrong for the wool and don't know how to. Am watching the best Dr Who episode in the world, evah, instead. Blink. S'brilliant.

Now, shall I have a glass of wine?

hello... third time this evening i've tried to post but my brain is still totally blank and i can think of virtually nothing to say...

so i'll go for - muser YES to wine, scorp fuck da hatahs (excuse my un-ghettowise spelling) VAG cos hawaain thanks.

am now going to continue eating an entire multipack of 'fun sized' sweets washed down with a bottle of wine.

HAWAIIAN obv

Scorp, you need my secret Santa t-shirt.

Come back to internet lands soon! I meeeees you.

figgy Are you still lurking, then? Is always nice to hear from you.

Honey and pony. Interesting . As any fule kno, my desperation for a baybee is unfunny. That's why I have a permanent reservation in the Pit of Despair. But I likes the different perspectives.

ocarina missed your earlier post re: temping/opks/mucus-checking. You probably won't be able to stop yourself, but if you can DON'T DO IT! Is so bad for your mental health and my fertility consultant dismissed my charts without even looking at them. Lots of the other BESHES are doing these things v sucessfully, so feel free to ignore me, mind.

hello, luvver.

Can hardly refuse gin so I've opened the tiny bottle I got in my Christmas stocking. Yum.

watch out i'll get snot on your t shirt...

Yeah.. sorry for being so loud with my opinion. I just wish someone had said the same thing to me, but I stupidly thought that I was in high danger of conceiving the moment I stopped using contraception. I had no idea how long it would take and I hadn't really done my maths.

I'll shut up now.

ocarina If you go for it, just shag like mad (every two days at least) from as soon as you feel up for it post-droid, for at least a fortnight (or until you dry up and it hurts like fuck ). I did use temping etc successfully - but only once my cycles had reached something resembling "normal" length - and that was five months after stopping the pill. Until then, my fertility friend charts looked like one of those painting created by throwing water balloons filled with paint at a canvas

Or... get pissed, use condoms, get an amazing figure (if not already got one) and generally be relaxed like a teenager, innit. Then you'll get diffed. Guaranteed.

I'm off back to the ILs tomorrow - but thankfully SIL has now sussed out the access key to PILs' wi-fi so I will have proper t'internet access every day! (phone reception and therefore my mobile broadband = non-existent, I was posting from the pub last week)

gin lovely to have you back. scorps, I'm feeling the rage for you. I would be unable to restrain myself in that hellish situation.

oh, and in case you haven't noticed you'll get lots of different opinions here.

Have if just confused occie and honey with the "if you go for it" line? Well, that's my view no matter who is reading.

Off to draw up a wish list of things SFF won't buy me for my birthday next week.

I don't do charting or OPKS, too crazy making. I do look for mucus but only because, for me, it's hard to miss. If it wasn't obvious I'd not do that either. I have no idea if anyone produces it in the vast quantities I do! (no such thing as TMI, right?)

That's a good thing muser! I have previously said that FFJ should be bright blue or summat, just so there's no mistaking. Right, off this time...

FFJ?

Managed anniversary meal in the end, although nowhere near as fancy sounding as vag was planning - not that fancy's an option round here.... So we've succeeded in the get pissed bit, but I've never had an amazing figure and the condoms are hiding so I suspect we'll just fall asleep - will that win us a baybee?

Hic.