Tuesday, June 20, 2006

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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17 comments:

  1. really got such newsletter one ah? LOL!
    maybe will sign up when we decided to have a second one! :)

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  2. You work hard for the baby!
    Any idea to have the 3rd? :P

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  3. Hey.. MG,
    Can you do something about potty training please..?? thanks..!

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  4. Just knew about your new blog from your current blog. Will come visit everyday. :D

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  5. Hallo, just dropping by. Congrats ya!

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  6. Aaa.. but you concieved w/in a short period of time. For me, it was 5years. :-(

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  7. Have fun making more babies ya..

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  8. Yeah 4 months are fast!! My theory, after the first one, the second one will be very fast.

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  9. LOL about the last part - making love to make babies = chore!! Indeed. What more is the disappointment that sets in when aunt flo visits; no fun at all.

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  10. Hello Everyone,
    Thank you for dropping by to help me open ceremony causing my traffic here to double the old blog. Hehe.

    egghead,
    I'm not sure if they still have that same newsletter. I tried to find the correct link but couldn't so I just put in the homepage. Maybe you could check it out.

    jesslyn,
    I am 40 and have a girl and a boy. What do you think? ;)

    mamabok,
    Of course I will definitely come to that in due time. Now just started my pregnancy story, still got lots to go....

    elaine,
    Thank you. Not sure if I can have daily updates though :P

    magictree,
    Thank you for dropping by. Wish I can offer you coffee and snacks. Haha.

    zara's mama,
    Yes, I read your story but thats past and you now have Zara. She must be even more precious coming along after a 5 year wait.

    buzzlife,
    Are you making more babies? If yes, you have fun.

    michelle,
    Its supposed to be easier but sometimes no.

    dg,
    When Aunt Flo visits, we sigh, look at the calander and say Next month have to "work" hard again.

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  11. Hey MG, you forgot one thing. Enjoy the love-making part and don't get too stressed out about it. It took us a year to get preggie and the only time I didn't do all those mumbo jumbo (ovul counting, etc) "chores" we got pregnant! :P

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  12. You deserve to have the baby so soon lor, so hard working LOL... me took three years, but at least high pay off lar, no complain :P.

    Congrate on your new blog wor, so coincidant wan, I started adding my breastfeeding articles (Chinese) in my Chinese blog to earn some income(not yet put the adsense), and you start a new blog too. rajin sma-sama yah ;).

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  13. vien,
    No, I didn't get stressed about it because well, it didn't take us that long to conceive, fortunately. Otherwise we would have been stressed because our biological clocks were ticking away.

    maria,
    When are we going to stop this coincidental thing? Hehe. (*Shake hand*) We Rajin Sama-Sama.

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  14. Wow! 4 months and 1 month is fast leh.. i see you work really hard..hehe..;p

    Btw, thanks for the link to the fertility calculator and the BBT it sure helps since my menstrual cycle is never accurate...thanks! :)

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  15. Hehe..I did my fair share too being hardworking to make babies. It's not easy as when u want it now, you'll get it. My gynae even gave me some pills to help me get pregnant easily. I guess it doesn't work as I was overstress to get pregnant. I even get scolding and at last just relax and let it be. It worked. The 4th mth of trying and not getting overstress, I got pregnant with my 1st child.

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  16. blurblur,
    You're welcome. Anytime. :)

    sabrina,
    Oh? What pills?

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  17. Wow....hard work but 4 months really is ok. My sister took nearly a year.
    As for me, I have my mum's genes, we only have to look into each other's eyes and sudah kena.
    Both of our kids were conceived the night (for my son), day (for my daughter) that we both agree to produce. Hehehe.
    Now, we dare not look into each other's eyes....make sure the room is dark! :)

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