Trying to Conceive

I wanted to share the story of our journey to conception, as it might be helpful for other would-be parents out there who are in the process of trying to get pregnant. When we were trying I found reading the experiences of other people invaluable.

I will start of by saying how, with hindsight, I feel incredibly lucky that we fell pregnant with relative ease, but over the course of our, relatively short, journey I did feel very much like it would never happen!

It took us five cycles to get pregnant – we started trying in May and I took a positive pregnancy test in September.

Month 1

Our first month trying we didn’t do any tracking of fertility signs at all. I had been recording my period for a while using an app (Clue), and we started trying during my estimated fertile time (or so I thought at the time – I’ve since learnt a lot about fertility and the monthly cycle and now realise we must have tried too late that month). That first month I fell into the trap of thinking getting pregnant was as easy as just having unprotected sex; I also had a wealth of ‘pregnancy’ symptoms (also known commonly as pre-menstrual symptoms too) and so I was quite upset when I inevitably turned out not to be pregnant after all.

Months 2-4

The second month trying was when I started to take things more seriously (also known as obsessing!) and tracking fertility signs. I read a LOT about trying for a baby and implemented the following:

• Downloaded the Fertility Friend app
• Bought a basal thermometer and started tracking my basal body temperature each morning
• Tracked my cervical mucus – looking out for the fertile type
• Bought some cheap ovulation test strips and started doing urine tests

As a scientist I love data, so the collection and tracking of all this information really fascinated me and over months 2-5 I really learnt a lot about my body, fertility signs, and the ins and outs of the menstrual cycle.  I really loved the Fertility Friend app and a lot of what I learnt came from the app – I would definitely recommend it to anyone trying to conceive who wants to go down the tracking route.

Here’s an example of my Fertility Friend chart from July last year.

The basics of the chart explained...

The blue line is my basal body temperature, measured orally each morning on waking, before getting out of bed. Generally speaking temperature dips on the approach to ovulation and then rises up again rapidly once ovulation has occurred. It will then stay higher until your next period starts (or will remain high if you have fallen pregnant).

The red cross indicates when I am likely to have ovulated (calculated by the app, using an algorithm, based on the data I was entering.

The boxes below the chart contain other data I was entering including: quality of cervical mucus (CM), the timing of intercourse (BD), result of ovulation tests taken (OPK). You can also record any symptoms you wish (the list provided by the app is almost endless). Note - I've removed the specific details of this information from the chart above as it is quite personal!

The days before ovulation are referred to as the Follicular Phase. This is when the follicles in your ovary are maturing, until one (or occasionally two!) matures completely, becoming the egg which is then released. The follicular phase is typically the phase that can vary in length and any variation contributes to irregular periods. My periods ranged from 29-37 days over the months we were trying and this was  driven by the length of my follicular phase.

The period of time after ovulation has occurred is known as the Luteal Phase and is generally much more consistent cycle to cycle; it can vary by a couple of days at the most and should last no longer than 16 days. If you are not pregnant then your temperature will begin to drop towards the end of the luteal phase and your period will start. If you are pregnant then the temperature will remain elevated beyond the length of your normal luteal phase.

OPKs

As I mentioned above – I also purchased some ovulation tests (known as Ovulation Predictor Kits and shortened to OPKs), and I have mixed feelings about them. They work in a similar way to a home pregnancy test – you dip them in a urine sample – but they measure luteinising hormone (or LH), which triggers ovulation, rather than the pregnancy hormone. They have a control line and a test line, when the test line is ‘as dark or darker than’ the control line this indicates that you are having the LH surge (which will be shortly followed by ovulation). Below is an example of my tests from one of my cycles – you can see the test line on the right getting progressively darker.

I had a few issues with the OPKs, that meant I found them quite stressful to use, including:

• The ‘as dark or darker than’ thing is subjective – I would look at the test and be unsure if the test line was really dark enough
• You have to test in the afternoon – a pain when you are at work!
• It is advised to test up to twice a day as you could miss the LH surge testing only once a day
• You need to avoid drinking too much liquid in the 3 hours before you test (just not practical and also contravenes that ‘you should drink lots of water when you are trying to conceive’ advice)
• Linked to the above point about water – I found the concentration of urine had a big impact on how dark the line was, which just led me to constantly doubt the test results!

That said, when combining the OPK data with my basal temperature data, they did generally line up pretty well, which gave me more confidence in the OPK results, but I don’t think I would have gotten on so well using the OPKs in isolation.

Month 5 – the Fertility Monitor

For month five I mixed things up a bit by purchasing a Clearblue Advanced fertility monitor - but I kept tracking my temperature as normal. 

This monitor, essentially, does the same as the OPKs but comes with a machine that reads the test result for you, so you don’t have to interpret the lines yourself. In addition it also measures two different hormones – oestrogen and LH. Oestrogen decreases when LH increases and by measuring both hormones the monitor is more accurate than an LH test alone.

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The monitor itself has a very simple display and gives you three different fertility ratings when you do a test – low fertility, high fertility, or peak fertility. It also allows you to record when you have sex, but you can’t use it to record other data (like cervical mucus or temperature). The monitor only asks for a test on certain days each cycle and it stores all your data each cycle and will ‘learn’ your cycle as the months go by and get smarter about when it asks you for a test.

The other big plus (for me at least!) of the monitor is that you must do the test with first morning urine. I found this so much easier than doing OPK tests in the afternoon as I could get the test out of the way in the morning and just forget about it.

The downside to the monitor is that it is expensive – both the monitor itself and the test sticks you need to buy to use with it. I got my monitor on offer from Ocado when it was on offer and I had a £20 discount voucher so I only paid around £50 for it, but it retails at around £120. The test sticks also cost around £35 for a box that should last 2 cycles (unless you have very long cycles!). I got my tests from Amazon as they cost a bit less, but still expensive. However, I would say the cost was absolutely worth it and I loved using the monitor, I would definitely use it again if we try for a second baby.

Whether the monitor really is magic, or perhaps it was just ‘our turn’ but I found out I was pregnant the first month we used it.

Here’s my chart from the month I got pregnant:

And my first positive pregnancy test (you can also use the monitor to test for pregnancy and each box of test strips includes four pregnancy tests):

And the second one I took ‘just to be sure’… a lovely strong second line and it came up straight away.

As you can see from my chart, my temperature was high for sixteen days and I tested on day 16. My luteal phase normally lasted 14 days so, when I took my temperature on the 16^th day and it was still high, that was my first clue that something might have happened. I couldn’t resist testing any longer at that point. Although I must admit, when I took the test I still didn’t really expect that it would actually be positive. I had cramping which I thought was signalling the imminent arrival of my period, so I honestly couldn’t believe it was true! I will say that each month I tried to resist testing early to avoid the disappointment of a negative pregnancy test – somehow I found my period turning up less disappointing than taking a test and getting a negative, hence waiting for 16 days to test. I am glad I waited though as there really was no arguing with the line on my test.

So that is the (rather lengthy!) story of how I got pregnant - relatively easy compared to what some couples struggle through and for that I am very grateful indeed. I'm here now at 24 weeks pregnant it seems like a long time ago I was holding my breath each month, but also I can still remember exactly how it all felt. It has definitely one of the most exciting journeys I have ever been on.

Good luck to anyone out there who is currently trying for a baby!