5 month unsuccessful tic despite bd thru o. What should I drop first?

[atomic sagebrush]

Thanks to you both for your response....I really appreciate it! It's great having a website like this to share the 'madness'! I suppose I am just starting to fret unnecessarily about not conceiving. But I find being on the diet and constantly watching what you are eating and the mid month panic about FR and when or when not to BD really quite stressful. If I didn't have all these things to worry about I would take a much more relaxed approach. Our two sons were conceived first time after BD every second day before and during o. This will be our last child so I would very much like to do everything we can to get a little daughter. I was initially planning all the time abstinence (after being on IG for months) only to discover on this website that it can lead to birth defects for couples over 35. I am 35 and DH is 36. Is there point to reducing FR or do you eliminate it altogether and just go for it as and when the mood takes? We ran out of LR last month so DH would have missed two weeks on it. Or maybe reduced abstinence of 5 days or so and then compressed release on the two days of positive OPK?? Gosh who knows!!

No one does, that's the thing about swaying. We can't say for sure how much or IF any of these things even sway, so at some point you have to pick something out of a hat if you need to and just go for it with emphasis on getting pg, because if you don't get pg you have zero chance of your DG. Not trying to scare you but at 35 you don't have time to waste and you need to get pg relatively soon because at some point it's the last fresh egg in the carton.

Can you please clarify what you mean when you say DH would have missed two weeks on LR??? DH is supposed to take LR 2W on, 2W off, and if you were giving it to him nonstop, that may have affected his sperm count/quality very severely.

[heidih1977]

Thanks a million for your input Atomic...much appreciated! Yes he was taking it all the time....I wasn't aware it was 2 ww on and then 2 ww off......sorry I must have missed that somewhere...keeping up with everything you should be doing and taking every month is pretty much information overload! So when he ran out we had a gap of about 2 weeks before I got more LR. He has been taking it now the last few weeks through so I told him yesterday to give it a break. Should O in the next 11-13 days so should he stay off it now and then after O start taking it again for the following two weeks?? I also hear you on the age front. I know after 35 your chances of getting pregnant at all reduce rapidly to something like 20% per month so I am just wondering doing everything we are doing it must be reducing the chances even more! So is giving LR a break now enough or should I have him reduce the FR to maybe 4 days before O and then bd through the 3 most fertile days?? And keep doing rephresh and taking zyrtec up till O? Or doing a short abstinence of 4 or 5 days and then compressed FR during the fertile days? Thanks so much again!

[atomic sagebrush]

Crazily, your chances are 20% when young and fully fertile and then they drop from there!!! "Research has shown that women under the age of 25 stand a 20-25% chance of conception occurring in each cycle for those actively trying.* By the time a woman reaches 35, her chances of conceiving drops to 15% each cycle. And by age 40, it plummets to a mere 5% per cycle." Additionally the rates of miscarriage go up significantly too so for someone like me who got pg at 41, I had 2% chance of pg and half of those pg are lost - that's why I don't want anyone to linger too long swaying, even young people! That time flies by and each of us has a different timetable - some people are done with menopause by 40 while others keep ovulating until their 50's or even beyond (at some point they can no longer conceive.)

the proper time to take the LR is from your CD 1- CD 14 then he needs a break regardless of what day you O. I would not have him start the LR again until after you get your period after this cycle. LR is our most dangerous supp and it's just not worth the risk; besides that, it will stay in his body for awhile anyway and keep working its charms. You may even want to have his blood pressure checked to make sure it didn't go up while he was on the LR nonstop.

I would try for a month with no LR and keeping everything else the same, and then hope for BFP this month.

A lot of people had to drop RepHresh to get pg and I would have you drop it this month and keep the Zyrtec for now, but reduce dosage to one, 6 hours before first attempt.

[heidih1977]

Ok great thanks for the advice Atomic...will give your suggestion a try this month. One question though should I take the zyrtec only before the first attempt or also the day of first positive OPK? Thanks so much again!

[LO123]

Hi heidih, how are you going with deciding what to do? Great to get advice from Atomic. I am CD7 and usually O CD16. I am really confused what to do this month. DH is o/s back Saturday so will have to ask him to start FR while he is away. He is already over the whole swaying thing so I feel like he might just say yes but then not do it. He would do this to keep me happy but not realising how important it is. He just believes we will have another boy anyway as it is all boys on his side of the family. Are you going to continue with the FR? What will you change this month?

[heidih1977]

Hi LO123, yes getting DH to start FR tonight although we are actually late starting. I am on CD9 and the last few months had O on CD17 but started taking vitex at the start of this month so that might push O forward in which case we won't get 7 FRs in before first attempt. Have had him drop LR and will not use rephresh this time either. This will be the 6th month at all this and it's starting to wear me out. I doubt zyrtec had any negative effect because I definitely would have conceived my boys taking this...due to allergies here in spring/ summer, so will take some of that too. Will BD again this time through ovulation. I suppose because DH and I are just over 35 we can't afford to do too many sways which affect fertility....I just hope that the diet and all the other changes will be enough to sway! Hopefully it works this month!!!

[fish2012]

hey hun,

I''d drop the FR (atomic on another post said drop this before LR)

You kinda have remember your odds were o small for the first four attempts this is sorta like a first attempt.... this is kinda what happened to me too my first two months we did cut off now we're on third attempt of dtd right over o and still waiting ;-S

If you still have ecwm I'd leave your supplments and change on thing at a time



this whole thing sucks xx

[riss177]

I see that you've received plenty of answers, but I just thought I would throw in what I did when I got a BFP. I finally got a BFP after our 4th try. For this attempt, I stopped taking Zyrtek every day and took it every other day instead. DH also stopped taking licorice root and Sudafed. DH did FR (once daily). I don't know whether I'm having a boy or girl yet though. Best of luck!

[heidih1977]

Thanks Fish2012 for your advice. Am sticking with the supplements but DH needed a break from LR so he has dropped that. AS for dropping the FR am too afraid...our two sons were conceived bd every second from CD 10 to CD 18 so don't want to do anything like that again! Also as we are over 35 I am too afraid to risk abstinence....it's a tough call and yes this whole thing sucks big time!

Thanks very much riss177...am a little confused now what to do after receiving differing advice. DH has stopped LR for now and will reduce the zyrtec as well this month. DH started FR last night...might only be 5 or 6 times before first attempt though. Question did you use refresh....this is what I am really not sure about?? Was planning on dropping it this month but am just worried if I am doing enough to sway then. I am only taking vitex, one cranberry tablet and folic acid other than that I just have the diet....which I am so sick of....skin has got really bad and I generally feel so unhealthy!! DH is taking cal/mag and 1 cranberry tablet a day too. Huge congrats on your BFP...fingers crossed you will get what you want.

[riss177]

Heidi ~ This is what I did the month that we conceived:

- Mostly strict LE diet (until we went out of town and I messed up).
- I ended up being at my lowest weight in 5+ years.
- folic acid 3x's daily, baby aspirin every other day, saw palmetto and vitex from AF-O (I stopped vitex a few days before I thought I would O. I stopped SP shorty after vitex when we went out of town, but I hadn't ovulated yet).
- Zyrtek every other day.
- Dh took cranberry. He stopped taking licorice root, sudafed and using heating pad this attempt.
- Rephresh every 3 days. We always dtd at night and I used rephresh in the morning. So, on the days I used Rephresh I had waited 12 hours before dtd.
- Used Sylk with most attempts.
- No O. Mid-release.
- No jump and dump.
- DH had released 17 days in a row (once daily).

We stopped dtd when we went out of town. I had not ovulated yet. I don't know when I ovulated because I stopped my sway and checking ov sticks completely when I went out of town. I guess I was just frustrated and gave up for a week. I could kick myself in the bum for that, lol! Of course I get pregnant when my sway goes wrong! Anyway, we must have conceived sometime while out of town. So, I guess we did an unintentional cut-off.

This link will take you to my sway plan journey, LOL! And all the questions Atomic answered for me. http://genderdreaming.com/forum/revi...-plan-0-a.html

Thanks for the congrats! Good luck with your sway!