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[jammer]

My husband and I have been trying to have a baby for about 9 months now with no luck.  I just turned 40.  We've decided not to do any serious medical intervention and so I feel like this is kind of my last, best shot at ever getting pregnant. 

I'm really starting to have trouble with this entire thing and I'm not sure what to do about it.  Maybe this is my pathetic attempt at a mid-life crisis. Any advice, stories, suggestions would really be appreciated.

(1) How do you keep from being obsessed with this?  I count days.  I look at forums for women trying to conceive.  I've become an expert in cervical fluid.  I stare at babies on the street.  I watch my body for every possible sign of early pregnancy.  Down deep in my heart, I'm even a little resentful of a friend of mine who just had a baby. She got pregnant by accident.  Every month I'm absolutely positive that I'm pregnant.  I am well aware that I am being ridiculous - in fact, I even know that stress can lessen the change of conceiving -  but I don't know how to stop.

(2) How do you keep this from completely ruining your sex life?  Having sex by the dictates of a calendar isn't the most fun thing I've ever done.  I think it's even worse for him.

(3) Although we've been married for 7 years, my husband "couldn't decide" about children until about a year ago.  He had good reasons for this, but I still can't help but blame him a little, down deep in the back of my mind.  What if it's now too late?  My eggs are old and moldy because he had the luxury of having a long existential crisis about whether or not to have children.  Our marriage is great in every other way and I'm very happy. In fact, we're very lucky in a myriad ways and I know I should be thankful for all the good things in my life.  I know this.  I do.

(4) I also know that we can adopt and we've discussed the possibility. For those of you who don't have kids though, how did you reconcile yourself to the fact that you won't have any?   I guess I always thought I would be a mother.  I really like kids.  I don't think I know how to define myself without that.   

Sorry for the long post....

[_touchedbyanoodle_]

Talk to your gynecologist. Nine months is not a long time, especially for your age. I don't know what you consider to be "serious medical intervention," but there are relatively cheap and noninvasive things to try before you decide to come to grips with infertility. Given your age, and the fact that you've tried more than 6 months, your doctor would probably be very willing to put you on clomid straight away. If you really can't imagine not having kids, it may be worth it to you and your husband.

Unless you've left something out of your post, you don't know yet that you can't have kids. I don't have advice on avoiding the crazies that go with TTC, but I don't think you should call your eggs old and moldy yet. Leave the old and moldy descriptors to those of us on the other side of menopause.

[ideagirl]

Have you gotten your levels of follicular stimulating hormone tested? I think that's the one I'm thinking of... anyway, it's a blood test that can tell you approximately how fertile you still are. Knowing that might help you figure out what to do--what levels of intervention, if any, to consider, and so on.

[llanfair]

Talk to your doctor - IdeaGirl's right, s/he'll test for FSH and LH (luteinising hormone) to get an idea of your fertility.  S/he might also want your husband to have his sperm motility checked.  If that's not all it could be, you might consider IUI (intra-uterine injection) of his semen.  It's not as $$ as IVF, nor as complicated.

I know a couple who have 2 beautiful children as a result of IUI, and it worked on the first try.  But do talk to your doctor - s/he may have some good suggestions for you.  And all the best, it goes without saying.

[gennimom]

Definitely have your hormones tested. I found out I was not ovulating and did Clomid. While I didn't get pregnant with my daughter while I was taking them I did four months later. I firmly believe being on the clomid straightened out my cycle because it behaved like it was supposed to for those months. We also "gave up" which I think relaxed me enough for conception to occur.

[msparticularity]

I'm another one who didn't have any hormonal action at all, so took Clomid - but didn't get pregnant until giving up and going off of it. I was  younger than you, but VERY messed up, gynecologically speaking (repeated ovarian cysts, a ruptured follicle and scarred Fallopian tube, weird and wacky hormone levels for years, and so on).

And trying (and failing) to get pregnant is just really, really, really REALLY difficult! It is probably the most crazy-making thing I ever did, in fact, and I still say that even after deciding to get a PhD and go on the job market for a TT position ;).

[tenured_feminist]

As others have said, talk to your doctor, but nine months is way too early to despair. And if this is beginning to bring up other issues in your marriage, it may well be worth a few visits to a couples counselor.

[wegie]

One other point . . . it may not be your eggs that are mouldy. Make sure your husband gets tested for sperm motility as well.

At the age of 44, I've just about got out of the other side of the whole problem. In fact, your post was quite excruciatingly familiar. Like you, we decided to not go for medical intervention and only started trying when I was 39 and we'd been together for three or four years. Like you, a bit of me still screams "couldn't you have bloody well got your act together when the chances were so much better when I was 36 or 37", and I don't think there's much that one can do about that. It is, however, good to get those feelings off your chest, whether in couples counselling or in a long conversation with your husband. If you are going going to be in a child-free marriage, you have to both admit that it was the actions of two people who got you there.

We've decided not to adopt or go for anything ultra-invasive like donor eggs. WH looked at me as if I was mad when I suggested it and pointed out that he wanted children with me, not with some strange woman picked from a catalogue, and that if there weren't going to be any, that was disappointing, but he wasn't going to rush off and find some trophy wife so that he could have kids, thank you very much. Basically, we're now pretty fatalistic about it all and settling down happily in decadent middle age.

[dellaroux]

There are certainly pro's and con's to a lot of the conflicting desires reflected here: wanting one's own children, wanting to experience childbirth and a family, wanting to give one's love and nurture to a new, small human whose life and growth will reflect that love.

Having worked as a staff assistant for a couple of years at a reproductive endocrinology clinic, my strongest observation was that, valuable as having one's own children might be; wonderful as the new possibilities are for helping that to happen; and glad as we all (the staff) were when a new baby picture arrived--the millions of children who live institutionalized lives or bounce from foster home to foster home until age 18 also deserve love, nurture, and care.

My strongest sense from working with some of the clients at the clinic was that they were so frantic to have children that they lost sight of the many other good, strong parts of their lives and sometimes came close to wrecking marriages (and their own sanity) by what sometimes became a nearly monomanaical focus on becoming a parent to the exclusion of all else in their lives.

My own cousin's wife divorced him when it turned out his sperm count was low and the issue couldn't be "fixed" any other way, because "she wanted children before she died." (as if he didn't?)

A few were also almost repulsively hetero/zenophobic about the issue of adopting, insisting (unlike the husband named above, whose response makes good sense to me) that they had to have a child "of their own," just because that child would "prove their ability to become parents" and "preserve their own DNA." (in some, this approached a kind of vanity that was really hard to address.)

Obviously it's not everyone's choice and adoption rates are quite different in terms of availability and location, but to balance things out, it's good to have that in mind as a serious option as well.

I'll never know; I went through early menopause at age 37, (probably inherited), and don't qualify financially as a single adoptive parent so I might be wrong about some of this.

But I do think that adopting the children that are already among us and/or finding ways to work with needy children in more fragile families deserves to be upheld as an equally viable alternative to creating more new ones, important as that might be.

And yes, even some of the nurses at the clinic agreed about this.

[jammer]

Thanks so much, everyone, for your thoughtful replies.  I'm the happy, calm, task oriented person in our relationship, but I know I'm starting to get the crazy eyes.  For some odd reason, it does help to hear that others have felt this craziness. Thanks.

I wonder if part of it isn't just coming to grips with the fact that a lot of this is just out of my control.  I would imagine that a lot of academics are used to having control.  I control my time, what I teach, what I want to study.  Thus far in my life, problems that come up are mostly those of my own making, and if I don't like what's going on, I can make a plan to change it.  This - I suppose compounded by the fact that I turned 40, which is also out of my control - might be the first time that I feel like I'm not in control of a giant life decision.

Your replies have helped me make a list - which makes me feel better (I suppose that's bizarre all by itself; it's a wonder my husband can stand me sometimes).  I will talk my doctor first and then I will start looking more closely at adoption. I have looked at websites, and it seems like foster-to-adopt would work best for us, at least at this early stage.  Thanks again.

[crazybatlady]

Oh jammer, please don't despair. You have likely been told to wait at least a year before trying interventions, although I understand why you might feel the clock is ticking against you. Thus, some things that might keep you feeling like you're actively doing something:

Check out those $30 sperm count tests at drug stores (near the ovulation test kits and pregnancy tests). It's cheap and easy for your hubby to see if there may be a problem on his end of things.

Secondly, it sounds like you've been charting your cycles and watching your fertility signs. Do you see the sharp drop in temperature that marks ovulation? Does that coincide with eggwhite cervical fluid? The other thing I would note is the length of the luteal phase (post ovulation). Is it about 14 days?

If you visit with a fertility specialist she should be able to look at a few months' worth of your charts and tell immediately if you are not ovulating or are ovulating without a long enough luteal phase.

Have an orgasm or two during sex. Seriously. I know it might be difficult when you're focused on making a baby, but one of the best ways to get pregnant may be just to relax and have fun. Also, orgasms contract your uterus and open the cervix, which is thought to assist the sperm toward your egg.

Good luck.

cbl

[edited to add: I take too long to type, and now you've posted again. Ignore everything I've said!]

[jammer]

Oh jammer, please don't despair. You have likely been told to wait at least a year before trying interventions, although I understand why you might feel the clock is ticking against you. Thus, some things that might keep you feeling like you're actively doing something:

Check out those $30 sperm count tests at drug stores (near the ovulation test kits and pregnancy tests). It's cheap and easy for your hubby to see if there may be a problem on his end of things.

Secondly, it sounds like you've been charting your cycles and watching your fertility signs. Do you see the sharp drop in temperature that marks ovulation? Does that coincide with eggwhite cervical fluid? The other thing I would note is the length of the luteal phase (post ovulation). Is it about 14 days?

If you visit with a fertility specialist she should be able to look at a few months' worth of your charts and tell immediately if you are not ovulating or are ovulating without a long enough luteal phase.

Have an orgasm or two during sex. Seriously. I know it might be difficult when you're focused on making a baby, but one of the best ways to get pregnant may be just to relax and have fun. Also, orgasms contract your uterus and open the cervix, which is thought to assist the sperm toward your egg.

Good luck.

cbl

[edited to add: I take too long to type, and now you've posted again. Ignore everything I've said!]

Oh no, no, no.  I shall add these to my list.  I didn't know that you could find over the counter sperm count kits.  And that would be a much more private way for him - at least at the first go round. 

Actually, "Have more orgasms" is by far the best thing I've added to my list.

[crazybatlady]

Actually, "Have more orgasms" is by far the best thing I've added to my list.

That's also my personal favorite. =)

cbl

[llanfair]

Actually, "Have more orgasms" is by far the best thing I've added to my list.

That's also my personal favorite. =)

cbl

Who says laughter is the best medicine? ;)

[cms99]

Hi Jammer,

I'll jump in with a male perspective.  My wife and I went through infertility treatments, and ended up doing IUIs and IVF (5 and 4 respectively) before she conceived and delivered twins.  We were both mid 30s when this occurred.  Some thoughts.
1. Our Ob-GYN noted that as women hit mid 30s, their fertility tends to start to decline, so if you've gone six months without success, get checked out.  In our case we learned that there was nothing wrong with either of us, but still we had no luck.
2. Get your husband checked as well as yourself.  It may be embarassing for him (in his mind), but it's often the easiest thing to fix if it's his problem.  And getting him involved, at least in my case, made me feel more a part of the whole process, that my opinion mattered.
3. Sex on a schedule sucks.  Do what you can to liven it up, but it's hard.  We tried to schedule stuff at lunch time, out of the ordinary type stuff like that, anything to keep it fresh.
4. If you end up going the IVF route, see if your husband will help with injections and the like.  Again, it helps to keep him involved, and makes him feel part of the process.  I felt helpless, so this allowed me to take part.
5. Talk to someone if you need to.  It can be a counselor, a trusted friend, a parent.  Make sure you talk to your husband to.  I delayed wanting to have kids, and I know at times my wife is still resentful.  Talk openly and frankly about your feelings.

If I think of more I'll post.  Good luck.  I hope everything comes naturally and that you don't need any treatments.  Keeping my fingers crossed for you and Mr. Jammer!