I'm in desperate need of answers and help. My hubby and I have been trying to get pregnant for 7 months now with no luck. I feel like I've tried everything from tracking my ovulation using ovulation tests kits to getting on prenatal vitamins to help. All of my friends have babies and most of them aren't even married but are still out partying leaving their kids at home with grandparents.
I recently took a hpt and got a faint positive. The next day, I took another and it was even lighter than the day before. The next day, I got a neg. I was also neg at the Dr. along with a neg blood test. But my period is late and none of my Drs. are trying to help me at all.
Infertility doesn't run in my family as far as I know and I just want answers. Any tips on how you ladies got your wonderful children or advice on if I should keep testing until I find out if I am pregnant (or until I get a period)? My Dr. said I'm probably going to miscarry or the tests were invalid. I just don't know.
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Comments (27)
fertility/pregnancy is such hard issue with so many variations and aspects.
well besides the obvious, keep having sex. i know sometimes there is the whole mucinex/robutussin experiment. They both not only thin the mucus in ur nose/throat but also in your vagina so if you have heavy sperm killing mocus down their helps thin it out for his swimmers. It is NOT medically advised, just know its out there.
relax and try acupuncture, heard good things about that.
Sounds like you had a chemical pregnancy, i had the same thing happen to me before i had my son. I tested positive then later that day it was fainter, the next day it was negative. I ended up getting my period a few days later. It's a very early miscarriage, and most women don't even realize they were even pregnant.
Don't give up hope though! My husband and I had unprotected sex for over two years before i got pregnant with my 1st, then only 3 months before i got pregnant with my second. It will happen when you least expect it!
I notice that your profile mentions an eating disorder- if you are still dieting, that could have something to do with it. Good luck to you.
All I can think to tell you would be keep trying. I know how frustrating it is to want something so badly and not have it come fast enough (or at all). My hubby and I have been trying for nearly 2 years to conceive. We have 3 happy, healthy children already, and it seemed like I was a "Fertile Myrtle" because all 3 of my kids were born in less than 4 years. Now, we just can't seem to get pregnant again like we want to. I've tried tracking my ovulation, the gravity method, taking pre natal vitamins.... Nothing seems to be working. All we can do at this point since we don't want to go to a specialist (yet) is keep doing what we've been doing and hope.
I don't know how true this is or not, so please don't quote me, but I remember reading on a website for the infertility clinic in my area that it can take anywhere from 6 months to a year for a healthy couple to conceive. Just keep trying, be patient, and if all else fails, you can always look into treatment options if that's something you and your husband are open to.
The best advice I can give you is for both you and your hubby to be healthy. Quit smoking, try not to drink, exercise regularly, drink plenty of water, and lose weight if you're over weight. Ditch the ovulation predictor kits & just have sex every other night. Make the sex fun too, like introduce new/fun stuff into the bedroom. Go out on date nights & be romantic/cuddly. The ovulation predictor kits help a lot of women, but also mess up a lot of women. Sometimes you're catching your ovulation by like 1 day too late. If you're having sex every other night, or every couple of nights, then there's no way you're going to miss your window of opportunity.
I got prego around end of May? We weren't trying/preventing sort of thing. Unfortunately it ended in a miscarriage. I also say ditch the ovulation kits and what not because you're stressing yourself out. Enjoy the next 6 months with you and your hubby. I'd say in 6 months if y'all haven't conceived, go see a fertility specialist. I know some women will go to greater lengths during their fertile time and take robitussin and stuff to increase cervical fluid.
Good luck.
TRADITIONAL CHINESE ACUPUNCTURE. I am a Chiropractic Assistant and have seen DOZENS of women find success from receiving acupuncture treatments 3 times per week until they saw a positive pregnancy test. I've seen it work in less than 6 weeks to 6 months. Only a few women that came weren't successful in becoming pregnant. Good luck! It's worth a shot, especially since there are NO side effects.
Just FYI, stay on prenatals while TTC no matter what, that way your body is ready for when you do become pregnant. The pregnancy tests were probably not invalid. It is very rare to get a false positive. If your blood level was negative, you may have had a chemical pregnancy.
The term chemical pregnancy means that the miscarriage happened at a point that a missed period and biochemical tests, such as an hCG blood test or a home pregnancy test (checking hCG in urine), were the only evidence that you were pregnant. The miscarriage happened before anultrasound could have shown a gestational sac.
I don't know of much that you can do to boost fertility. Try "being" with your husband/boyfriend every other day around the time you are ovulating. Good luck!
My advice is to stop trying. No, seriously. Just stop. Stop tracking your ovulation, just let go of the anxiety surrounding conception and just go with the flow. My fiance and I tried and tried and tried with no luck, and I'm actually very fertile. Well, as soon as we threw in the towel and decided to stop trying till the following year, I was pregnant that same month. I hear a lot of stories like that, or about supposed infertile couples adopting and then getting pregnant.
@MomWithoutaMinivan@xanga - I agree. Stressing about it or stress in general doesnt help when TTC.
If you relax & have faith in things, it'll just come. Anf if nothing happens once you hit the 1 year mark, you can check with a fertility specialist. It can take up to a year & if, God forbid, you have an issue, it can be dealt with promptly. Good luck!
I just wrote a post about us trying to conceive. It's been a year, and we are still waiting for our positive pregnancy test. Good luck to you!
Get yourself healthy. The vitamins will help, but as someone else pointed out, you have an eating disorder, on top of dealing with depression? Focus on loving yourself. Get yourself healthy, and when you're at a good weight, do a liver cleanse. You have such a congested liver with all the hormones (from the depression, if nothing else), it can actually prevent conception.
But really, most importantly,
focus on loving yourselfdespite your "flaws". Whether you're toned, skinny, perfect, or whatever. That's a pretty high standard for a new baby spirit to live up to. Why do you feel you need to be perfect? Will you still consider yourself in a perfect image when you have a giant baby bump? Or when you're puking from morning sickness? Are you afraid you aren't perfect because you can't conceive, and that's causing the stress?
There will be so many emotions and hormones rushing with pregnancy, you want to prepare for it in as stable a condition as you can get yourself in.
{I base my comment primarily around her "about me". I'm sorry if I'm misinformed about the OP}One thing you could check is how long is the phase from ovulation to when you get your period. It should be 14 days. If it is shorter, your "luteal phase" may be too short. This is one problem which is easy to fix. You have to either follow your temperature very closely or take a fertility test, then count the days to your period. Here is a link you might like: http://www.tcoyf.com/
It's so hypocritical of me to give advice to someone in pain, pain that I did not experience. In my generation we didn't have all the fertility advances they have now, so parents would eventually adopt, and with two of my friends, within 6 months of doing so they became pregnant. I know it's an awfully big hill to climb, but sometimes when women let go just a tad bit of the intense desire, and just go back to enjoying sex, wonderful things happen. This has to be stressful for hubby as well. I wish you only the best, and that however it happens, motherhood will be fulfilled.
@MomWithoutaMinivan@xanga - I was going to say the same thing.
Here is the advice I got from my Dr. "For 6 months, stop trying. Don't but any tests what so ever, don't track your fertility, none of it. Have sex for the sole reason of having sex. Take the "work" out of it and let your body relax." I took his advice seriously, and Ive never bought another test (after a possible early miscarriage and 2 more false positives)
And this is from someone who has been TTC for 8yrs..
Besides using ovulation predictor tests, have you done the TCOYF? "Taking Charge of Your Fertility". It will track the various phases of your cycle, not just when you ovulate. You need to know that all parts of your cycle are working.
I really don't think pre-natal vitamins will help "get" you pregnant. Yes, you need to have good iron, B12, zinc, D3, folic acid, Omega 3 stores while pregnant, but I wouldn't expect pre-natal to help you get pregnant. Using individual vitamin therapy is usually more effective than a "one pill fits all". What can help though is a low carb/high fat way of eating. This reduces inflammation in the body, caused by sugar, starches, and wheat. If you're overweight at all (I saw mention of an eating disorder in one of the comments?), it will regulate your blood glucose levels, which lowers your insulin levels, which helps you lose fat, esp. belly fat which is hormonally sensitive and responsible for some infertility, like PCOS. Low carb/high fat is an easy way to eat, but does have it's challenges. There is lots of internet support though. I am actually amazed that I was able to get pregnant so easily, since I had all the signs of metabolic syndrome, except PCOS! Perhaps if I had had that too, I might have found out earlier about insulin resistance and avoided years of medication that I didn't need for GERD, high cholesterol, hypertension....
Good luck!
Try taking it probiotics and drink fertilitea. Probiotics neutralize your vaginal environment making the pH down there good for sperm. Fertilitea provides extra CM to help carry the sperm to their ultimate destination. I tried both at the same time and bam the first month I got pregnant. ( I had very irregular periods before that, and right before I got pregnant I didn't have my period for like two month, I though I was preggo but then my period came.) Also like everyone said, just have sex for the fun of it and relax. Good luck!
@WaitingToShrug@xanga - Not all eating disorders cause you to lose weight. Mine is actually called "Eating disorder-NOS" NOS standing for not otherwise specified and my weight shifts up and down. There are actually eating disorders causing people to eat to much as well, or the commonly known bulimia disorder. I have no idea what you read on her page and it may say she doesn't eat or or diets ect. However I feel it is important for people to be more educated about eating disorders since there is a lot more then just bulimia and anorexia.
@Foodhog@xanga - The OP author's info bio on the right side of this page states she wants to be 100lbs by Christmas. That's where Shrug got her info.
@sarahsmurfette@xanga - Fair enough. I didn't really look and that is why I said I have no idea what she read.
As of now I am 103 lbs and 5'1 which is 15 lbs under weight. It is dangerous, I get bad heart pain, my cycle isn't exactly normal which is having an effect on my reproductive organs, I get very dizzy, I am always cold. Not the greatest situation to try and carry a baby in.
@Foodhog@xanga - What @sarahsmurfette@xanga said. Regardless of whether she's losing weight or not, an eating disorder would indicate that your weight isn't where it should be, whether too high or too low- both can cause problems. What I was really referring to though, is the fact that extreme dieting can result in nutrient deficiency, especially restricting fats too much.
@WaitingToShrug@xanga - I don't agree with the eating disorder thing and how it indicates that you are not where you should be with you weight. I use to think that as well till I started to get help. Someone who is the perfect weight can have an eating disorder, it's psychological.
I do agree with people cutting to much fat out. Yes great take out the saturated fats but the poly and mono unsaturated fats are super good for you and actually help you burn body fat. I would never limit my poly or mono unsaturated fats.
@Foodhog@xanga - The weight is a symptom of the psychological disorder, yes? I'm not really that interested in discussing the ins and outs of disordered eating here. I am sorry if that sounds rude, I'm not trying to be rude at all, it's just not a subject that I'm interested in. I was just suggesting that the OP might take a closer look at her diet to see whether she's getting sufficient nutrients, since her bio suggested a need to be "toned, skinny, picture perfect 100% of the time", and that she's got depression and an eating disorder. It wasn't meant to be a slight against those with eating disorders, nor do I think that I know everything about her health, certainly not enough to go into detail.
Best of luck to you. I hope you can get your medical problems taken care of.You may be stressing so much you threw your hormones out of whack. Sometimes the test line is visible just because it's gotten wet, and women convince themselves it's a positive. (We women can be silly like that when we want kids.)
I don't know how much a chemical pregnancy can throw off periods, if at all. They're quite common, though. That can be a timing issue, but I think it's usually a "bad egg" (as in a bad fertilized egg; it can be a problem with either gamete) that had absolutely no chance of surviving.
"Fertility boosting" treatments are against my beliefs and I don't know what all is out there.
My advice would be to quit trying and just spend time enjoying each other's bodies when you feel so inclined.
for me, i got pregnant when i stopped freaking out about getting pregnant. I used opk's for a couple months after i got off of birth control to get the general feel of my cycle and fertility period, and had sex every other day (or as close to that as me and the hub's schedule allowed).
i did call in a little "spiritual help".....meaning i broke out my book of 5,000 spells and looked in the fertility section. did a few of the ones that sounded (somewhat) normal/do-able (like burning red candles). a few months later, i was pregnant with my son.
Maybe a combination of relaxing and calling on your religion will help?
I don't really have any advice because right now my SO and our are LDR and we're not legally married and trying to get pregnant or having sex. I understand where you're coming from to an extent, I deeply desire to have children but my life right now won't allow it (because of other issues). My heart is absolutely broken when I see babies or kids. I had a friend tell me once she can't imagine me pregnant with a tone that give the impression I am not the mother type. It hurt my feelings so badly, it still does to this day.
All I can say is I'll pray for you that your struggle ends soon and that you have a happy ending to this story.
People here are right. Take care of your health, physically and mental first. Even if you don't have an ED this situation is a very stressful emotional situation. You should really consider seeing someone. And when you do have sex with your husband do it to be one with your husband, be intimate with him.
Okay that's all :P