When TTC takes over...
Simonne Walmsley continues her
story on trying to start a family, and asks what happens when
trying to conceive threatens to take over a relationship.
Human beings are a relatively
infertile lot. Our fertility compared to other mammals is
laughable. For most mammals, the chance of becoming pregnant each
cycle is about fifty percent, but humans are around half that. So
it's quite conceivable (pardon the pun) that trying to become
pregnant may take a little time.
Once you make the decision together
that you want to have a baby, it's probably the first time since
high school biology that you've given the process much thought,
other than keeping things crossed from month to month that your
contraceptive method (pills, injection, condoms etc.) has done its
job. So, you brush up on the basics - the hopeful mummy and
daddy have special cuddles at the right time in the hopeful mummy's
cycle, egg meets sperm, sperm fertilizes egg, fertilized egg
implants and Bob's your uncle - and it all seems pretty easy and
straight forward. Then, a week before your period is due you
start itching to take a pregnancy test, sure that you are
pregnant.
In practice though, conception is a
complex business, with a very small window for success each
month. A fertile couple in their mid to late twenties having
sex regularly have a twenty to twenty five percent chance of
conception each month (although on a slightly more cheerful note,
at least ninety percent of these couples would be expected to
conceive within twelve months!)*.
The thing is that, even if you are a
fertile couple, you could realistically be looking at sitting
around waiting for that positive pregnancy test for a year or
perhaps even a little longer. The general response to that is…
Aargh! Because, of course, the other thing is that you have decided
that you want to try for a baby, and you want that baby
now.
Momentum and excitement over this new
step in your life will usually carry you through the first one or
two cycles, but often by about the third cycle, you're starting to
get impatient and frustrated, and you're wondering why it hasn't
happened as easily as you thought it would. Over night, there
are pregnant women and babies everywhere, and you keep hearing
stories about, 'accidents' and couples finding out they're pregnant
as soon as they start trying. If you're still waiting for that
positive pregnancy test at the six to nine month mark, you may be
starting to struggle emotionally and those monthly disappointments
when your period arrives will be getting harder to deal
with.
So, what do you do to get from cycle
to cycle, through the roller coaster ride that is trying to
conceive, and out the other side with your sanity in tact? Well,
since I've long lost my own, I'll pass on advice other people gave
me (I'm kidding! Sort of).
As incredibly difficult as it is, try
not to obsess (did you notice how very carefully I avoided saying
'just relax'? I'm too new to this column business to be getting
threats of bodily harm), because it will make you unhappy, and add
stress to your baby-making journey. It is so easy to let trying to
conceive take over your life, especially if you are charting
temperatures and monitoring all things cervix related. You
wake up, take your temperature and plot it on your chart, already
starting the day focusing on becoming pregnant, and chances are
that throughout the day you'll probably dwell a bit on the
morning's temperature and your emerging chart as well. From
there, at some stage during the day, you will take note of the
texture and appearance of your cervical mucus, and maybe also check
your cervical position. If it's getting towards the middle of your
cycle, you're possibly pulling out your Ovulation Predictor Kit as
well. So, in the course of the day, literally from the time you
wake, you are continually focusing on trying to conceive.
There are so many things you can do to
optimize your chances of successfully tracking ovulation, and
therefore pinpoint the best time in your cycle to go at it like
bunnies. But, the problem with these things is that, although
they help you get to know your cycle and your body, they can cause
you to become tense, worried and stressed, even depressed. In
fact, a lot of fertility specialists recommend that once you have a
basic handle on your cycle - that you are ovulating, and the timing
of ovulation in your cycle - to put these things aside, and just
have sex regularly throughout your cycle.
Another cause of stress when trying to
conceive is when sex becomes all about making babies, and not about
the two of you enjoying each other. It's very easy to get into the
habit of checking days off in your diary and 'doing the deed' just
because you're ovulating, taking a bit of a 'what's the point?'
attitude at other times. Although guys can be quite cheerful about
lots of enthusiastic sex in the first few months, if sex starts to
be initiated with you checking the calendar and announcing 'I'm
ovulating we'd better have sex' that's when our boys can begin to
feel 'used and abused' as it were. For them, it shifts things
from having some fun and pleasuring their wife to inseminating her
and then going back to whatever they were doing before they were
interrupted.
Then, there's getting through the end
of your cycle, which can be incredibly tough because you hold onto
such hope for a pregnancy during the month. You've done everything
right - focussing all your energy on becoming pregnant; you've
just spent the entire duration of the 'two week wait' holding your
breath, trying not to do a pregnancy test at least until there is a
snowball's chance that it will give you a positive result if you're
pregnant. Many symptoms of PMS are so similar to early
pregnancy symptoms, a lot of women (myself included) are guilty of
over-focusing on PMS symptoms that have always been there, and
hoping like crazy that the symptoms not just PMS. I don't think
it's really until you chuck your contraceptive method out the
window that you start to notice how sore your breasts get leading
up to your period, or that in the day or two, or even week
beforehand you are battling nausea, certain smells are registering
differently to normal, and a whole host of other things. When
you've been experiencing these things leading up to your period,
and keeping everything crossed (twice!), the disappointment can be
really crushing if your period arrives, as usual, on the
dot. Or, even worse, it's late!
It's not easy, but it really helps if
you can develop a bit of a system for distracting yourself, and
limiting those enormous TTC ups and downs. It does help to focus on
and make the most of your time together as a couple before there is
a baby on the way, and of course, there are also things that you
can do for yourself, as the person who will probably suffer the
worst ups and downs, to help you get from one cycle to the next.
It's indulgent, sure, but why not?
* For more advice go to: http://www.fertilityassociates.co.nz/infertility1.asp
Click here to read about
Simonne's life-changing journey through IVF and her climb to the
top of what she calls "needle mountain."