TTC our 2nd - advice please

Hello,

I have a 8 month old daughter and my DF and I have decided we'd like to start trying for #2 straight away... I'm very excited! :)

Our first baby was a lovely surprise, and not planned... I fell pregnant the one and only time we were ever careless with contraception, and so we never did the whole "trying to fall pregnant" thing. We really want our babies close together, and i'd love to fall pregnant ASAP with #2.

So I started perusing different websites for fertility advice.

Oh My Goodness, it's so confusing! Here I was thinking you just go off the pill and hey presto, you fall pregnant after a bit. I've read everything from "you can fall pg at any time of the month" to "there is only a 48hr window in which you can fall pg" and now I'm just confused.

I need some advice! Is there only a certain time of the month I can fall pregnant, and if so, when? How do I chart my cycle, if this is indeed what I need to do? I signed up to something called "Fertility Friend" but I don't really understand what's going on there.

I guess that I just don't know where to start.

Any advice you could offer would be greatly appreciated!

xx

I'd say that you should start off by relaxing about it. If you get worked up and stressed you might tend to take longer. Just let it happen naturally. Obviously try DTD more often around the time that you would ovulate. Some woman know when this is as they can feel it but others go by the lengh of your cycle. If I am correct, you ovulate approx. 14 days after the start of your last mentrual cycle. So DTD up to 4 days before and after is good. Not every day but every second or third day will work too. And get your body ready for pg too. Take folic acid and make sure your diet is good etc. This goes for DP too. Up his intake of folic acid and limit alcohol etc. Good luck and I hope you get your BFP soon!

Miss H - Thank you! You're right, I need to relax... I was relaxed about it all until I googled it and got confused. So when you say to "DTD up to 4 days before and after" are you referring to the start of my menstrual cycle, or that 14 day mark before start of menstrual cycle? I started taking my "Pregnancy and Breastfeeding Gold" again a week ago, will double check to ensure this has folic acid in it, I'm pretty sure it does. That's interesting about getting DF to take folic acid, I didn't realise that they can do something as well to aid a healthy baby!

Well the sperm needs to be of good quality for it to be able to swim up and pierce the egg so DF needs to make sure he is healthy and producing healthy sperm. When I say DTD 4 days before and after, I mean before and after ovulation. The sperm will survive for 48hrs or so and so will the egg so you have a window in which to do it. I was lucky with my second, I went to the dr for a pap smear to make sure everything was fine before TTC and he did a scan. He said while he was doing the scan that he could see an egg that had been released and that if I DTD that day I would be pregnant. So I went home and for the next 4 days DH and I DTD. One of those took as I did a test 3 weeks later and I was pg! The first was IUI so you never can tell. Has AF come back properly after giving birth to bub #1? Oh, and welcome to BB!

Thank you! :) seems like a pretty friendly place so far!

Ah okay, well that makes a bit more sense! Yes AF has returned, though i'm not sure if it's normal. When I stopped bf I went on the pill about 5 weeks ago, but I don't think it was the right pill for me as I had slight bleeding for the whole 4 weeks I was on it. I went off it a few days ago and have a "proper" AF now. I'm booked in for a pap smear next week after this AF finishes to check everything is in order, and because I haven't had a pap smear in 7 years (very naughty). Fingers crossed everythings ok, it's quite daunting thinking about my poor body doing it all again!