Alison's Story
Why don't we talk about trying to conceive? Reflections of a second time TTC mum
I have been wondering why when people are trying to conceive (TTC) they try not to / tend not to talk to others about it, apart from maybe their partner. I had a few thoughts and one of the main reasons is that there are just so many unknowns. Telling people you are TTC brings assumptions – you want a baby now (there may even be implications on work, childcare, etc) and if it doesn’t happen fairly quickly people feel like they have the right to ask why. And telling people why it isn’t happening now comes with it’s own awkward conversations; maybe about periods, cycles, ovulation, cervical position, mucus, temperature, and even sex! Within that list are things you aren’t always comfortable talking to people about, so therefore it answers my first question- why do we not talk about TTC?
TTC also comes with its own emotional considerations. At the end of each month there can be the potential for sadness, happiness, disappointment, joy…. and that every single month (or 25-35 days). If this goes on for months or even years, that’s a lot of mixed emotions (as well as general PMT emotions). No wonder we don’t want to share this with a lot of people. Especially people who are emotionally invested in you trying to conceive (wider family members for example) or even those who are going through their own, similar emotions, because you never know what others are going through (because, again not many people talk about it). It can be even harder when friends or family announce pregnancies or have babies when you are TTC. You want to be happy for them but you also can’t help feeling pangs of jealousy. One of the worst ones is when people announce their pregnancy was an incident or they were ‘just lucky on the first attempt.’
When I was TTC with my first child, I had very little information about how the whole thing would work. After an initial let’s see how it goes for a few months, I quickly got into a cycle of wee-ing on sticks, plotting dates on apps and counting days. All that knowledge came from googling and the information on the ovulation and pregnancy test information booklets. I did not think to ask people I knew who already had children about their own TTC journey. This is odd to me now as this is something that most of us has gone through (to varying degrees)
Considering all of the above points, I thought it would be useful to share my insights on this, my second round of TTC craziness. My first time took around 9 months to be successful (about average) and this time we are 4 years down the line, I am 4 years older and few months away from 35 (the ‘key’ age when things are supposed to get harder). I have a feeling this time round will be harder and I was prepared for that when we made the decision to try for a second. I am not ‘young’ anymore, I have less time to invest in testing and plotting what with a toddler and a job and there is less time for just trying as much as you can around potential ovulation dates. We are currently on 6 months of trying without success and this is even with the knowledge I have from the first time round and some conversations with others I am happy to chat to about this sort of thing.
If I can help anyone else feel like they are not alone in this journey then that would be amazing. You are not alone, let’s embrace the TTC chat just like we embrace the other areas of having and looking after a child.
Written by Alison - TTC Diaries Blogger
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