Has anyone ever conceived naturally after 5+ years of trying?

[DoneAdulting]

DH and I have been trying to conceive our second child since 2015. In all this time we've never even had a chemical.

Our son was a happy accident in 2012, so obviously like most people we assumed we'd easily be able to conceive again.

I'm now 34 and wondering if we should officially 'call it'. It still hurts like a bitch every month when the tests are negative, or whenever there's a pregnancy bomb.

We've had plenty of tests done, and they are all always fine, no explanation whatsoever.

We aren't well off enough to be able to afford more than one round of IVF with ABC, which I am ummming and ahhhing about at the moment, because I don't know how I will cope if it doesn't work.

In November I started having acupuncture and reflexology every week, the therapist was so confident she could get us pregnant in three months, and I've just tested negative again. She has me doing castor oil packs, seed cycling, drinking bone broth. As well as the usual supplements I've cut out sugar, caffeine, spicy food, processed meat and alcohol.

It's all starting to feel pointless, so I'm just wondering if it IS pointless, we've been trying so long it's never going to happen, or could it still happen?

@DoneAdulting i don’t have much advice as we are in a similar position, been trying for a third for two years after two natural and straight forward conceptions! We only left it 18 months after having our second which feels crazy.

if you go on the NHS website, it says your chance after 3 years of TTC, of conceiving naturally is less than 25%.

I have heard other fertility doctors banding around a 2% monthly chance if you get to over 12 months and have unexplained infertility.

how many semen analysis has your partner had? As I know that is something that can chance from month to month.

I have no advice on the ivf front. We are considering it too but a big decision when you have existing children I think. It obviously takes money away which could be spent on them and it takes time away which could be spent with them, plus all the emotional side. It also feels a big deal to us given our previous pregnancies have been naturally conceived. Is it not meant to be? There are lots of thoughts that go round. Feel free to DM me if you want to chat further x

Hi OP. We naturally tried for three and a half years. This was after naturally conceiving our son after the first month.

We did move onto IVF. We had two cycles. The first with ABC and I had a miscarriage. Turned out the egg quality was poor.

For the second round we did conventional IVF and it worked. My advice would be to do one round of conventional IVF if you can afford it. Only do mild IVF if you’re sure it’s a sperm issue rather than an egg one.

Looking back IVF was the easy bit. The worrying and years spent thinking about whether or not to do it was hard. But I appreciate the cost is mind blowing.

@summerpoolandsun sorry to jump on this as I’m not the original poster but I do resonate so much with what you said about the thinking about whether to do it. I think about it all the time. I change my mind hourly. Some days I’m really set on doing it and other days I just get cold feet 😕

@Anonbaby My advice, for what it’s worth, is is to go for it. You’ll regret what you don’t do not what you do. If you’ve thought about it this much then ten years down the line you’ll regret not even trying IVF. A friend with one child said to me before I started ‘I wish I’d tried harder’. It really pushed me into action. I was so thankful for her insight. X

When I say she wished she’d ‘tried harder’ she meant she wished she’d tried IVF and stopped TTC naturally. I do think IVF is pretty awesome. We wouldn’t be having our second child without it. Good luck both x

It could still happen.

I think it would be worth speaking to a fertility specialist. I know you say you've had tests done but if these were NHS they're unlikely to properly investigate in the current climate.

They often seem to just say 'all OK', tick the boxes and not do anything more, even though the problem is obviously still there.

Is there a private clinic near you? Can you get a fertility MOT for both of you followed up by an appointment with a consultant?

Another thought - you mention a lot of things you're doing - I'm wondering about your DH and if he's taking any steps? His 'contribution' is just as important :)

Yes but I really appreciate we are not the norm and I would never advise someone that it will happen one day based on our experience.

We stopped using contraception at the start of 2016 and conceived naturally in 2022 (currently 30 weeks pregnant). We had fertility testing in 2019 and were unexplained. We had DS in 2020 via IVF as we’d given up all hope of it happening naturally.

I would agree with the pp that you are more likely to regret not trying. I’d probably save the money from the acupuncture and reflexology to be honest, or at least put an end date on it if you’re not pregnant.

@summerpoolandsun may I ask why you contemplated it for so long, what your thought process was? For me it’s the worry of something going wrong and it impacting the life we have. I think because we haven’t had to have ivf before and it feels in our circumstances that we are forcing something that’s happened before and won’t happen again (for whatever reason)

@Anonbaby Yes it was partly those exact reasons you describe - getting my head round IVF. I thought it was this clinical, almost manufactured process. Also I thought it’d be incredibly hard - both physically and emotionally.

So as far as it being forced is concerned, I got my head round it by remembering this is assisted not forced. It won’t happen unless nature lets it happen. It’s just a helping hand. The conditions are made easier for a sperm and egg to come together but if it’s not meant to be you’ll get a negative or in my case a miscarriage. So it’s not some weird pseudo-science, it’s just support to a natural process. My first IVF cycle actually woke me up a bit in realising that.

As far as it being hard emotionally and physically is concerned. I don’t know if I just got lucky, but it really wasn’t hard physically at all. I mean I had practically zero side effects. My monthly periods were full of a helluva lot more side effects than IVF! But I know I may have got lucky. We were on short protocol which was pretty easy in our case. Emotionally, it was a bit harder. The miscarriage was hard, hearing embryos die off when you start with 15 and end up with 1 is hard. BUT you are being proactive and you’re going through a process, rather than being completely blind when TTC. We were unexplained, everything looked good on paper, but it never worked naturally. I felt absolutely hopeless and like I was banging my head against a wall repeatedly trying month after month. IVF gave us a way out of that and hope. And ultimately it got me pregnant 🙏

Yes, we conceived naturally after 9 years of using no contraception.

I was 25 nearly 26 at the time with a cycle that wasn’t the most regular so thought it would take a while. After two years we had initial investigations done but didn’t show anything so it was just unexplained. Didn’t meet criteria due to BMI for NHS IVF. Husband then took a job for the following 4 years or so working away Monday to Friday so I don’t know how many chances we actually had during that time.

2020 hit and lockdown he started working from home and I lost a lot of weight after ironically being baby bombed by a family member it really got to me and I had to try and do something about it for myself than anything else. Five stone later and I started to track religiously and it improved my cycle so much but as time went on and nothing happened I got seriously depressed and ended up putting it back on in a fairly short space of time.

At the end of 2021 start of 2022 started to make plans to move life on and that’s what I did took on some voluntary work in my spare time and didn’t think about it. We then conceived pretty much this time last year in February. I wasn’t feeling well one day in the middle of March and thought it was Covid. The shock of getting that second line on the pregnancy test I still remember so clearly. It was only when I saw him on the screen for the first time it actually felt real. He’s almost
three and a half months old now and sometimes I still struggle to believe it happened. This time last year I wouldn’t have believed it if someone had told me it would happen for us. It’s a massive cliche I never use to agree with but we gave up and then it happened and I know this isn’t the case for everyone but it can.

Wishing it does for you in the future from someone who knows how hard it is. There is always hope even when it feels so hard to believe there is.

Did you get pregnant in the end? I have a 14 year old son and have been TTC baby no2 for 10 years! It's soo hard! And no way we could pay for IVF. X

Hi OP. I conceived dc1 in 2013 but struggled to get pregnant until I conceived again at 41 in 2022. Both natural conceptions. No explanation as to why it took so long.