ttc is breaking my heart, how do I have a break and not go insane?

[KittenCamile]

Hi,

DP and I have only been ttc for 4 months which I know isn't long but have been the longest 4 months of my life.

I have been desprate for a DC for much longer but DP had agreed last year to start trying in Nov so I had to wait until then but the stress and worry and pure frustration is making me ill.

My cycles have gone crazy, last month a started bleeding 7dpo for only two days and it was horrific, I could barely leave the house, I then ovulated super early this month, I'm 11dpo and DP asked me to test last night so I did, BFN again! I cried all night and feel like the biggest loser today.

I have made my self so depressed I can barely get out of bed in the morning, I cry all the time, at nothing, I have had really bad constipation (sorry tmi!) Since we started ttc and I hate myself, feel like the most useless, pointless human being. I hate being around DSD who is lovely but I just don't want her around me anymore. I have turned into a horrible person.

So I want to stop ttc and make myself better again but how do I forget about babies? Pregnant women everywhere, babies everywhere, I can't lock myself in a box! How do I become normal when the only thing I want in the world I feel like I will never have. I'm sure there is something wrong with me.

I'm so lost and desprate

Poor you, it can be so tough and stress inducing TTC.

Have you had fertility tests? We did before we even started TTC, so I knew I would either have my mind put at rest, or start getting the appropriate care immediately.

It sounds as if you need some help managing your anxieties - counselling, yoga, meditation, throw the lot at your anxiety perhaps! You're putting a lot of pressure on yourself and need to find ways to ease off on yourself

Are you using ovulation prediction tests?

Please, please try to calm down! It would be a bloody miracle if you got pregnant within four months!

If you really do feel so bad then go to see your doctor. Mood swings like that will make you very unhappy.

You will know this, but 4 months isn't a long time. Only 25% on average (IIRC) of all cycles where no contraception is used and sex is had at the 'right' time will result in conception.

How old are you?

It's clear that ttc is laden with particular significance for you and has been for some time before you started. Why do you think this is? Exploring this, perhaps with a counsellor, I think would be an excellent move for you. It feels a little to me as if this is about something bigger than ttc or wanting a baby - as if you are attaching deeper feelings about yourself to your perceived 'failure'. If I'm right, neither conceiving a baby nor, in fact, stopping ttc will 'make you better', and something else will surface for your anxiety to attach itself to. I you do conceive, this could make for a very difficult pregnancy and post-natal period. So I think working out what is going on here is imperative for you.

One last thing - I understand you are posting honestly about how you feel, but I do think you need to take into account how someone who has been ttc for a long time, or receiving fertility treatment, or has had miscarriages (I have had four, although I have also been fortunate to have two children) might feel to read your evaluation of yourself as a 'useless' and 'pointless' person for being on month 4 of ttc without success.

Good luck.

Try not to worry about it. The more you worry, the more your body will will not do what it needs to do. Give it up to 2 years if you r 25 and below, 1 year if you are 35 and below and 6 months if nothing happens 42 and below! Then get a consultation. There are ways and means but I don't think you are in a position to get pgs if you are feeling this down. Having a child is stressful so you need to be in as positive frame of mind as poss. If you have time to wait, then give yourself time off and enjoy dating your hubby.

Ovulation tests r good too. I had ivf but went onto have 2 successful pgs after - I was 37 when had first and 41 when I had dd3 who is now 7 months. Good luck

OP, I can really relate to everything you have said. I now have two wonderful DC's but like you, by the time DH agreed that the time was right to ttc I was really desperate. I was amazingly lucky to conceive after just 2 months but by that stage I had had been monitoring my cycles and read everything going about ttc!
I would really recommend talking to a sympathetic gp about both physical amd emotional aspects of ttc and the way it is making you feel.
Yes, I was lucky, but I think previous posters may be right about there being more to it. There was for me and as a consequence I experienced pnd, then the most horrendous period of grief at my family being complete. The pain of never having another dc was awful and something that I came to understand through therapy and counselling.
Of course this may not be the case for you, however its worth thinking about.

I was desperate for a baby after losing my first. I was TTC for 2 years before I got pregnant again and was spare about it. Aside from keeping as healthy as possible, I genuinely believe that it was only when I stopped caring about it that it happened.

When I could conceive of a life without DC, when it was not the only option that could possibly result in happiness. When sex became sex for sex's sake and not babymaking - that's when I got pregnant.

It's like boyfriends, it happens when you're not looking.

Have you recently come off the pill or other hormonal contraception? This might explain the irregular cycles and low mood. I second advice to discuss it with your doctor. If you have come off contraception why not give yourself a few months of not trying but not preventing and tell yourself that you're just waiting for your cycle to even out.
When I'd been trying for 4 or 5 months and was feeling a bit mental I found it helped to stop watching my alcohol intake, stop reading ttc threads and stop doing opks. Good luck, I hope you feel better.

I had a hell of a ttc journey, but the truth I feel is given in the posts above. Com right down, 4 months is way way below average in terms of conception. Get the Toni weschler book mentioned above, but don't get hung up, please please, on opk's, temping, shagging your dp at the right time. The book is a great insight as to how things all work, and just do the deed as often as you can regardless of where you are in your cycle. Don't demand sex from dp, don't put him under pressure (or yourself) it'll only make things worse.

Now I know you'll want to punch me for the above, but hey.....

I ttc for almost 5 years. All the tests, I jumped on the testing temping bandwagon before I'd barely breathed out my last pill. DH was instructed. Our lives were regimented and focused, it was a nightmare. After stressing ourselves senseless, we had clomped, iui and then ivf. We then saw a new consultant, who told us that most babies were conceived when least expected, that there were no medical reasons behind our infertility, and we should stuff the money for anther round of IVF and CHILL. We did. Totally. We had sex when we wanted and for he right reasons. I was pregnant first month. I now have a dd and a DS (whose conception was a doddle, post 40).

So feel free to swear at me if you want for telling you to relax, but for me and any others, it's certainly the key.

Good luck!

*calm, not com!

OP I'm sorry you feel so low. But I don't think this is about ttc. You sound seriously depressed and I don't think you can "make yourself depressed" as you put it to this extent. I think you need to go the docs and talk about your depression. As everyone else had said, you'd be doing amazingly well to be pg already in just 4 months. What you are experiencing physically is very normal. What you are experiencing emotionally is not. Please go and talk to someone - or talk on here until you are ready to go to docs.

Wow than you so muc for all of te replys.

I'm 31 and have never been on the pill, I have always used condoms, weridly nov was the first time I have ever had sex without a condom!

I know I sound crazy as I haven't been trying very long, this makes me feel even more appaling. I just want a family, its so hard having a lovely 4 year old live with you 50% of the time but not having your own. I love her but she isn't mine, I get cuddles but she isn't mine, I don't have my own little one to love.

DP is doing so well but he isn't going to put up with a head case partner forever. I'm just so scared that I won't be able to have DCs and we won't ever have our own family.

I know I sound like a bitch because I don't know I'm infertile and other people are going through much worse but that makes me feel even more pointless, I can't even be sympathic!

I just feel so ill and my body is so fed up. I know I should talk to someone but its very expensive.

Thank you so much for listening

Have some fertility tests OP, right now, to set your mind at rest.

And you can get counselling on the NHS.

Sounds like anxiety has taken over and you're finding it impossible right now to unbend your state of mind, whatever anyone says.

You have to find a way to manage your anxiety, TTC takes time. Ultimately no one else can get control of this but you and you alone.

And 31, you've got plenty of fertile years

I know it doesnt help but I took six years to fall and then had a miscarriage only to fall six weeks later. I then took another eight and a half years the second time. I now have two, one of each. I agree with the poster above, do go and see the doctor as your feelings are a little extreme. He at least will put you at ease.

I forgot to add it was when I sort of gave up that I fell pregnant.

If you're not posting there already, go and look in the Conception forum. There are lots of people there who know the craziness of TTC only to well.

If your cycle is changing, it is definitely worth going for to your GP for a gynae once over. They may be able to refer you if they agree counselling would help.

You could also think about stress busters in all areas of your life. Exercise helps, and something like yoga could be particularly useful (as it's a good form of exercise once PG).

And you could try declaring to yourself that you've 'stopped trying', and just have unprotected sex. A couple of months just having sex two or three times a week will still put you nicely 'at risk', but might not feel like a deliberate pursuit IYSWIM. At 31, you have plenty of time for that approach - you are much younger than when I conceived DC1.

Thank you for all of your amazing stories they have made me feel a bit more 'real'. I'm angry at myself for being so self indulgant, to be honest I was depressed last year because we weren't ttc and I thought once we started I would feel better but in fact I have made myself worse.

I went to the doctor a couple of weeks ago because I have lower back pain and thought that could be making it worse, she said as long as I'm ovulating I will get pregnant and if I relax it will happen quickly but I just don't know how to relax about it, it seems like the most important thing in the world. I am doing opk and get a strong + every month, I'm temping and getting ovulation dips so I'm guessing I'm ovulating.

DP's DD was an accident so he thinks it comes easily and tHought we would get pregnant straight away as I'm younger and much healthier (I'm a vegan, don't smoke, drink booze or caffine) so I feel like I Have failed him.

Stupid thing is a haven't even got AF yet! My cycle has been so all over the place I don't really know when its due!

I wanted to get test but DP didn't want to as he has a dd so there can't be anything wrong with him, maybe I should get tested on my own. I did research and we aren't intitled to help from the nhs because DP has a DC so I'm franticly saving incase.

Once again thank you so much for being understanding and sharing your experiences.

Stop trying so hard (easy to say I know). I was like a headcase. Ovulation sticks, tears every period, tears (in private) every time someone around me got pregnant, it was horrible.

A friend of mine recommended we 'flood the womb' by having sex every day. We started doing that but real life took over (as it does) and we missed a couple of days. I thought that was when I was ovulating so realised we'd missed out that month and it'd happen the next so no stressing. Turned out that was when I got knocked up :) Baby's now 8 weeks old. I was 33. (34 now)

It'll happen but trying to force it won't help and all it will do is drive you crazy.

Don't get upset with yourself either, this is perfectly normal. X

OP, what else do you have going on for you in your life at the moment? Work/hobbies? I get the impression that TTC has taken over to such an extent that everything else ceases to have meaning for you - thereby increasing the stress of TTC!

I am not saying that having a baby will magically stop being so important to you - but finding a bit more balance may alleviate the pressure a bit.

Another one here who got pg the month after I decided to stop stressing about it! :-) Easier said than done I know.

We were TTC for 6 months or so (again not long compared to some, I know) but it was stressing me. We decided to book a fertility health-check at a local fertility clinic and I just kind of relaxed about it then. I had convinced myself that something was wrong and we were going to need help to conceive and so I then figured I may as well chill out until such time as we got the help we needed. I packed up Taking Care of Your Fertility and my thermometer and noted wryly that we had actually forgotten to have sex between days 13 - 17 of my cycle and then less than 2 weeks later - no AF & BFP!

4 months really is not long and the best gift you can give your child is a strong mummy and daddy unit. Take out the compulsive stuff (charts, OPK's etc) for a couple of months and try to enjoy this time with your DP.

Oh dear all this stress is really NOT helping you at all.

You probably know that if you want proof that your partner doesn't have a low sperm count, it is really easy to get it tested. My husband did the 'sample' and I had to get it to our local hospital for tests within 1 hour. For your piece of mind, perhaps you could persuade your partner to do the same, so that at least this fear is eliminated.

There is a simple blood test that you could have done, which my 'wonderful' GP did for me - I am so sorry I just can't remember what it's called, but it basically shows your hormone levels and therefore how able you should be to conceive (I am sure lots of other posters will know about this because I think it is quite a common test to have).

I was early 40's when I had my lovely little boy, so count myself very very lucky.

You are still very young, and my advice would be to try and chill out a bit, eat well (both of you), enjoy your partner and your DSD, and I am sure it will come.

Actually have just seen that you are a vegan. I do know that animal protein is quite an important factor in pregnancy and development etc., so it might be wise to find out as much as you can about it so that you know you are well equipped and doing the right thing.