According to an article on iVillage, a site K___ has pointed me at, the key statistics for a woman of her age (early thirties) trying to get pregnant are:
- Odds of getting pregnant in a given month: up to 15%
- No. of women who achieve pregnancy within first year of trying: 70-85%
- Average number of months to conception: 7-10 months
By that reckoning, we've done pretty well. It was our fourth month of trying.
Of course, we had a secret weapon. K___ was well read up in advance. We did everything we could to maximise the chances of getting a conception. Like what? Well, we knew when K___'s ovulation occurred. We adjusted love making accordingly. That alone probably made a huge difference. Those stats I've quoted above will include all sorts of people who want babies but basically rely on chance. K___ was on folic acid, I was on Zinc...
K___ has quite correctly made the point that I shouldn't get too carried away. Although we have no reasons to think anything will, things can go wrong at this early stage. If this happens, I feel things would be different when we wanted to try again.
Before, there was that huge gulf of "can we/can't we?". With every month that it didn't work, despite knowing that it was daft to do so after only trying for such a short time, the thought would pop into my head. "What if you can't?" K___ says this is ridiculous, particularly given that I got a girlfriend pregnant when I was 21 (she subsequently miscarried). But that was over 10 years ago - who knows what may have happened to my reproductive capabilities since?
There's a second question that goes hand in hand with "What if you can't?", namely "...and what does it mean for us, if that's the case?" K___ and I got married in the certain knowledge that we both wanted to have a family. What would it mean if that was no longer an option? One might like to think that one's relationship was stronger than that, but I feel it would be naïve not to acknowledge that it would have a big impact on us.
Fortunately, I seem to be in a position where, fingers crossed, that seems to be no longer an issue.
God, I'm a lucky man!
Hi there,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your kind words, sir and congratulations to you and your wife.
Exciting and scary, isn't it?
Let me know when your baby blog goes up!
Cheers,
Dad_to_Be
Dear Jonathan
ReplyDeleteI know what you mean about a big depressing blow when her period arrived as I used to get my hopes up and then it was such a great disappointment when I came on. We really have found trying to conceive an emotional roller coaster of suspense, hope and dissapointment. We were lucky that this was only our 4th month of trying as I think we both feared what failure to conceive could do to our relationship long term. I found those last few days waiting for a period to start or not so agonosing.
Good luck to you and your wife.
K
Hey everyone,
ReplyDeleteI realised the track-back from my link posted here was showing up on my site and giving everyone a free back-door into my secret baby blog!
I fixed that, so I'm just reposting the link in case anyone interested...
Our baby blog