Getting Pregnant Is Hard Work

We have two kids aged 2 and 4 and this is how it all started.

My husband and I married late ie in our mid and later part of thirty. We knew we wanted to start a family so we went to work immediately. What we didn't realise was that getting pregnant is hard work. The people in the movies always get pregnant so easily but in reality its not that easy. Every month theres only a short window of opportunity (fertile period) where sperm gets the chance to meet egg and get fertilized.

We bought books, among them Dr Miriam Stoppard's "Conception, pregnancy and birth", "What to Expect when you're expecting" by Arlene Eisenberg, Heidi E. Murkoff & Sandee E. Hathaway and a "Pregnancy for Dummies" book. They were all great books and very helpful to a clueless couple like us.

We signed up for Babycenter's conception newsletter. This was amusing. It would send us email reminders of the fertile period. "Tonight is the night for some activities" it said. Actually, I don't remember what the email said but it was amusing nevertheless.

In addition, we also made our own ovulation chart using an ovulation calculator. You can find many of these calculators online. My favourite was the fertility calculator from HealthAtoZ.com because the result was a pretty calander with a rose on the expected ovulation date.

We even charted my Basal Body Temperature (BBT). This involved the husband sticking a thermometer in my mouth the moment I wake up as the chart would not be accurate if you take the temperature after you get up and move about. The temperature would go up after ovulation and you can only see a pattern after several months of charting.

With these methods, we achieved success in 4 months for our first and 1 month for our second. Even our gynaecologist laughed with us when we showed her our charts. She thought we were very hardworking indeed.

One thing I want to add. Making love for making babies can be quite a chore and rather tiring. To achieve a better success rate, you have to do it everyday or every other day during the fertile period. Some pretty lingerie, sweet scents and a sense of humour definitely helps. And of course a mutual desire to have a baby would be good. When you have other kids in the picture, getting the timing right is even harder as you have to either wake up very early or stay up very late to make baby! Yaaawwwwn....

And remember, try to lower your levels of stress as cutting stress may increase your chances of pregnancy. Read more here: Stress reduction boosts chance of pregnancy, offers alternative treatment to restore fertility

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