To TTC or not to TTC, that is one of the many questions...

[YorkshireTeaDrinker]

Ok fellow ditherers, as we have filled up one thread (and still not made too many firm decisions) here's another one for us to continue to procrastinate and worry on.

Here's to more monitoring of relative green and redness, mutual support and occassional chivving, discussion of everything baby or not baby related, and perhaps even our first BFP...?

Hello! Im back. Another night of work so am catching up with you all before cracking on!

I dont care what anyone says, I adore my cats and couldnt be without them. They have their own personalities and are members of my family. I actually think looking after them has taught both me and DH a lot about responsibility and caring for them surely is a small step towards a human-baby? After all, we cant just drop everything and go a'visiting without making provision for them, and making sure they are healthy and fed is a commitment. Life is too short and full of enough negativity without people getting snooty about how others feel about their pets. Personally I would have laughed at the text from Confused - whats not to like?

My temp stayed high today, and Fertility Friend made the expected adjustment and has me ovulating on Day 13. Yippee! I am firmly in the Luteal Phase now, and the EWCM has gone. The issue of endometriosis has me a bit worried, so its been good to see that no matter what else is going on, some bits might be working . Unfortunately my pregnancy score has rocketed because FF assumes you are trying to conceive, so the good lovin' on Day 13 is considered baby-making rather than protected. Am intrigued as to the trials and tribulations of CM, LST, as Im on a big learning curve.

Right, I'd better do some work. But feel free to distract me....

Evening all,

Just flitting in and out of MN occasionally at the moment but thought I would drop by and say hello. Sounds like there's lots of exciting things going on like ovulation and snakes and stuff Hope you're all doing OK.

I wish baby-making was a lot more precise than it is. I would really like to say, OK then, I definitely want a baby, therefore a baby will definitely happen, and at a time of my choosing. Ho hum.

Just been reading reviews of Taking Charge of Your Fertility on Amazon and, while HIGHLY recommended it all seems to be from people wanting to get pregant rather than the opposite!

That is true, but the information provided on how to chart is really good. It is also good at explaining what is happening throughout the cycle. The book is equally written from the point of view of contraception and pregnancy achievement, but I think more people probably use it to conceive than not, given the preference for active contraception like the pill. I figured it was a small amount of money so if I hated it, it didnt matter, and as it is I am finding it fascinating to see it all unfold before my eyes (or fingers )

Suerock! Lovely to hear from you. Please stay for a while! Hope you are ok. How are things?

Suerock it's good to hear from you. How are things? I hope they are a bit better and, if not, things are manageable.

I am with you on wishing that babymaking was a bit more predictable. The odds of 20% conception each month doesn't sound great and I think it would very easily take over your lives if you let it.

Yup, it's true and I'll say it loud and proud - I love all my animals with all my heart! So, ner!

HP what are you meant to be doing for us to distract you from?

Writing a report for a course I am doing. Deadline looming. And updating my CV for the job I am interested in. Deadline Friday.

Is it worth a buy then? Is it quite faffy - lots of temping and, euw, poking around? Or is it reasonably simple once you get the hang of it?

I want to ask a dumb question. When you were at school and had sex education you got told that you can get pregnant any time, inc even on your period. Considering now some of us are actually considering (I think 'wanting' is too strong a word for lots of us here!) TTC it seems we actually really only have a very small window. Please, Dr HP SP can you explain this to me....?

Sex education - I think they didn't want to confuse matters (or have a bunch of pregnant school girls to cope with) so we were definitely told you could get pregnant any time! It was all a bit Victorian, now I come to think about it....

I'm doing OK - some days I have a complete meltdown, some days I'm confident it will all work out somehow, most of the time I just panic a bit about how my CV isn't finished yet and how having a baby in the middle would both complicate matters and also make some decisions easier. At the moment I'm surfing for houses we can't afford but which are baby-compatible

Well. I think what we are all taught for education/scientific purposes is based on every possibility, ie on a population level, but at the same time using understandable but perhaps misleading averages, like 28 day cycles and ovulation on Day 14.

My interpretation is that the situation really varies depending on the individual. Say you had ovulated really early in your cycle, and you had sex on the last day of your period. If you had good, sperm friendly CM after the bleeding stopped, it is theoretically possible they could hang around until the egg was released. Perhaps it isnt likely, but it can happen. A lot of figures are given, such as how long sperm can survive in the good eggy juice (5 days) or the dry nasty juice (hours). If you are a fertile 23 year old, you might get many days of fertile eggy juice, thus extending the days in which you could conceive. If you only get 1 day of the stuff, then your chances drop a bit, unless you have had well times sex. The life of the egg seems fairly set at hours-24 hours. Once its gone, its gone, and game over for another month.

The whole thing is a complex but beautifully simple pattern of 'if this happens, then that happens and then this may occur'.

Regards charting. So far, Im enjoying it, but there is a big novelty factor. You have to temp every morning at around the same time, and keep an eye on your CM via fingers and/or pant checking. There is online software to help you keep track and interpret it. Thats actually pretty much it. Im now of the opinion that I couldnt not watch all this going on. Its pretty cool.

HP lol reading your description of "fertile eggy juice" crikey, I was almost sick on the screen! only kidding but my sickness ramped up today.

Suerock nice to see that you popped in and hope that things are brighter for you soon.

Talking about loving our pets, I think i have worked out what kind of father DH will be. He is constantly saying to the cats (usually when they are scratching the carpet "now we don't do that do we, no good boys don't do that!" always makes me smile from when I overhear this conversation. Cats and us are currently curled up on the sofa.

Also does anyone know why, oh why you buy a bag of satsumas from sainsburys (yesterday) to find this evening that one of them is mouldy and the others are unripe as anything

Suerock DON'T surf for houses you can't afford as you're bound to see the perfect one, perhaps just tantalisingly out of your price range! So, which decisions would be made easier by having a baby and which would be harder? And which way are you leaning?

Hmm, maybe you are right - they didn't want a load of pregnant schoolies so told them NO sex without protection. Ever. I guess also that the age you were taught these things is more the age where you could conceive a hell of a lot more easily than now so it was probably a very wise move.

Am intriguied with this TCOYF business but not sure if I am intruiguied enough to buy the book and start temping etc. Can you, now you are looking, really tell what's going on then? Having never taken much notice of what's going on 'down there' it may have a novelty factor (but how shortlived would this novelty be...) DH might like the idea of not having to pull out through

Can't help with the satsumas. Sorry.

I am amazed. What I am seeing is straight out of the book. I just wanted to give it a go to see what was happening after the pill, and use it as a distraction to my stress about giving up the syntho-hormones . I feel like it may give me a bit of control back, TBH. Also, maybe get used to it so if we TTC, things may be a bit easier (I know it often isnt as straight forward as that). I didnt expect it to be so obvious, once I knew what to look for. Although Im only on month 1, yet!

I think maybe you could do what I did - get the book, have a read and chose what bits to apply, if any. Even from an educational point of view, its good. Not that you have to buy this particular book to do that, but once you see the cool graphs and get intrigued, its a slippery (no pun intended...) slope to buying a thermometer and keeping an eye on the juices.

juices - euw!

Sorry, am not very grown up am I? Might give it a whirl then, but perhaps next month

How can anyone be grown up about juices??

Right. Im wrecked, so Im shutting the lap-top down. CV almost done. Thanks for keeping me company! Night, all.

Maybe I should get TCOYF after all! I don't think I have the discipline to monitor temps (for which read, Suerock doesn't have the discipline to get up at the same time each day...) and I didn't have much joy with ovulation sticks, but maybe I should be more assiduous about checking, err, other stuff? Though honestly sex is the last thing I feel like just now, so knowing when I'm ovulating is fairly academic.

Bit complicated to explain how having a baby would affect decisions, but basically if I go into certain jobs I may ruin my prospects by being/getting pregnant and then disappearing on maternity leave soon after arriving. There are other routes I could go down where it wouldn't be such a disaster - but they aren't necessarily the thing I want to do most. I wouldn't mind the compromise if I was definitely going to be a parent, but I don't want to bugger up my career then find I can't have a baby after all

Sometimes I wish I'd ignored the dire warnings of my teachers and had a baby at 17

What a quandry. Is there any reason you are likely to find you can't have one after all or is that immaterial at the moment too? (Sorry if you have said before, I get a bit muddled up if there's a gap between posts!)

Having one at 17, in my opinion, would be a disaster. Although, perhaps, my liver would be in better nick than it is now. Hmm...

No special reason I can't AFAIK - apart from advancing old age

But yeah, having one at 17 would have been a disaster in so many ways for me too. Though if I had, s/he would be the same age I am now! Scary thought.

Just had a look at our old thread and saw your (well, all our) first posts. Seems your reasons are similar to mine - ie sometimes really want to and other times really don't and, if there is any time left over we're indifferent.

You are, I think, the same age as me (35?) and the idea of a 17 year old is indeed scary. Make that SCARY.

Suerock, if you are still around... From re-reading your initial posts, you and I do sound rather similar in our quandries about babies or not. My friends too would have me down as one of the last people they'd expect and I too am often indifferent but then get an overwhelming urge to (just not right here and now - there are too many things not right to get cracking now, as it were.)

I would like to now end this post with a few lines about how those posts were aaaaaages ago and, big smiles, look how sorted we all are now but unfortunately I can't... Ditherers forever!

Wohoo!

Ditherers Forever!

PS. Am here again, working.

Does it have the tune from Viva Forever?
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I ain't signing up for it till I gets the Sparkle Pants guarantee!