"I was trying to fall pregnant. And I temporarily lost my mind."

As I peed on my sixth pregnancy test that day, I knew I had a problem. Aside from spending way too much money on pregnancy tests, I had become addicted to them.

Just one more and it might be positive.

It takes TIME for the pregnancy hormones to register on them.

I drank a lot of water so it’s too diluted to work.

It was while I was trying to fall pregnant with my second child that I temporarily lost my mind. And I swore I would never do this to myself. I had a beautiful son. I was so lucky to even have one child. I wanted to try for another one and promised myself I’d be okay no matter what happened.

Just as an FYI, this post is sponsored by IVFAustralia, Melbourne IVF and Queensland Fertility Group. But all opinions expressed by the author are 100 per cent authentic and written in their own words.

“If it’s meant to be, it will be,” I assured everyone.

There was no reason why I couldn’t get pregnant. I’d done it once before and it had happened in the first month. But I had now been trying for over a year.

I admit it. I was distraught.

I was in such a manic state that I also lost the ability to sort through the information being thrown at me, the unsolicited pregnancy advice and the old wives tales coming from all directions. WHY had I told everyone I was trying to fall pregnant?

I’ll never make that mistake again.

Here are the 6 biggest lies I was told while I was trying to fall pregnant. If you are going through this journey too, you’ll be prepared for when they are told to you.

1. It will happen when you are not thinking about it.

I lost count of the number of times I was told this doozey. Really? It will happen when I’m not thinking about it? Okay then…um…think of England, think of England, think of England.

Firstly, what you are thinking about has nothing to do with whether or not conception takes place. It also implies blame on my part. I’m the reason I’m not falling pregnant because I’m thinking about it too much.

What am I meant to think about?

I think their point was that I was a tad too stressed about it and I just needed chill, but I was relaxed at first. At first I was totally fine. It was when we were in the seventh and eighth month of trying that it became stressful and all I could think about.

So not thinking about it hadn’t worked.

Cue panic.

2. It will happen when you are relaxed.

Apparently I was meant to not only stop thinking about it, but let it happen while I was relaaaaxed. It was suggested that we take a holiday.

A well-meaning friend constantly told me about how she was having trouble falling pregnant and so she and her husband went away for a dirty weekend and ta da!

Pregnant.

So I booked us into a hotel for the weekend and we did our best to:

a. Not think about falling pregnant
b. Relax
c. Have sex for fun instead of conception

It didn’t work.

3. Eat more nuts/eggs/protein/biscuits.

Apparently a simple dietary change would result in pregnancy and unfortunately for those who advised me of this, the food I was meant to eat more of and less of was always different.

So basically I had to start eating everything as well as stop eating everything to fall pregnant.

I did listen to these suggestions at first and I added and then removed nuts, added then removed eggs, added then removed protein.

And then decided to just eat biscuits.

4. Try having sex every day.

It was suggested to me by a GP that my husband and I have sex every day and to be honest, it took ALL the fun out of it.

And put pressure on us.

And stressed us out.

And made us a bit grumpy.

Having sex every day is much harder than it sounds and I’m not surprised it didn’t work.

Not surprised at all.

I later read that we were lessening my husband’s sperm count by doing it too often so we changed our sex schedule. (Please see next point to find out what happened next).

5. Only have sex when you are ovulating.

So we stopped having sex every day and started having sex only four days a months, two days before I ovulated and two days after.

This didn’t work either.

We were grumpy for an entirely different reason. It’s very stressful to schedule sex and I think my ovulation monitor was a bit off.

This didn’t work either.

And by the way, this was told to us by a different GP. I have since learnt that sperm should be waiting for the egg when you ovulate, so sex after ovulation is probably too late.

Does anyone know anything?!?

6. Try using (insert alternate medicine suggestion here).

And then we were told to try everything else. Herbs, vitamins, acupuncture, detoxes. It became incredibly frustrating.

I spent 18 months trying to fall pregnant with my second son and not once did I think to consult a proper fertility doctor. Not once. Because I wasn’t over 40 and it just seemed silly to seek fertility treatment when I already had a child.

For some reason I’d gotten it into my head that fertility treatment was for people who had no children. Wrong. I was wrong about so much and I shake my head.
I now have three children and they are all my miracles. It took one month to fall pregnant with my first child, 18 months to fall pregnant with my second child and my third child was an accident/gift-from-God/happy surprise.

The irony.

I wish you all the best in your own journey to motherhood and I don’t have any advice to offer you except for this…

Listen to the fertility experts

And don’t listen to the advice of old ladies in cafes.

What’s the biggest pregnancy myth you’ve been told?

 

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