Happiness and the green-eyed monster

Funny title for a blog post, huh? Well, I seem to be able to accommodate both huge delight for my pregnant friends and a nagging little green eyed monster making me ask 'when will it be my turn?'

I met up with a couple of friends last weekend for coffee (actually, I don't drink coffee, but you know what I mean!) M was one of the friends I spoke about in my last post - who was lucky enough to become pregnant in the first month of trying. She brought along her gorgeous little girl, who is 16 months old, and her new pregnancy bump (yes, she's pregnant again, already 20 weeks and expecting a boy). I'm so thrilled for her, but burst into ridiculous tears when I arrived home, because I want to be a mum so much. The rational part of my brain says we've only had two unsuccessful months trying and that I'm a loon, but the irrational part of my brain seemed to stage a short but effective take-over of my cranium. (Added to this, my other friend L, who waited so long to get pregnant and was expecting any moment last time I posted gave birth to a gorgeous healthy little girl. Again, thrilled... again, just slightly green-eyed!) The other dear friend who came along to our coffee date would love to have had kids, but couldn't. I feel so sad for her, as R would have been a brilliant mum, and her situation makes me feel all the worse for throwing my silly little pity party, so I've pulled myself together.

Being the total geek that I am (with a background in research), I was curious to see what the stats would say about the likelihood of pregnancy each month of trying. I found the following whilst googling around:

Number of months trying	Overall % of couples having not conceived	Monthly success rate (%)	Proportion (%) who will conceive in the next 12 months
0	100	20	86
6	30	14	77
12	14	11	69
24	4.3	8	57
36	1.9	6	48
48	1	5	41
60	0.6	4	36

http://www.womens-health.co.uk/infertility2.asp

Another site says: 'On average, 20% of all couples trying to get pregnant will not conceive in the first year of trying. According to one study, 25% of couples get pregnant in the first month of trying, while 60% of couples trying to get pregnant do so within six months. On the other hand, 75% of couples get pregnant within nine months while 80% get pregnant within a year. Finally, some 90% of couples get pregnant within eighteen months of trying.' http://www.gettingpregnant.co.uk/howlongwillittake.htm

Rational Brain says 'these numbers look reassuring, calm down and enjoy the trying!' Irrational Brain says: 'blah, blah, blah... bet I'm infertile!' I am a rational woman. Yes I am. But reading this blog you might just question it!! :)

I probably ovulated a couple of days ago, and we've been doing 'the necessary' all week long, so here we go with another two week wait. Whilst I'm waiting I'll be doing my best to blitz my sugars even more, and sticking to caffeine free diet coke in the hope that this might just be third time lucky. And if it isn't, then I'm just going to have to erect some mental barricades so that pesky Irrational Brain can't sneak back in for another take over.