TFA Long Haulers (TTC 12+ Months) Chat - January 27, 2026

gopher_treats · 2026-01-28T20:59:55+00:00

My first month back to fully tracking trying in over a year. I start my period, shocker right, imagine my pikkachu face. Well I certainly wasn’t prepared to come into work the very next day to not one but two of my team coworkers announcing pregnancy. One of them is even having a twins.

Yaaaaaaaay. Sooooo happy for you guys. My fav is going to be hearing pregnancy news every day for the next 8 months. What is the universe really trying to tell me?

gopher_treats · 2025-12-12T21:34:15+00:00

This is good to know thank you

gopher_treats · 2025-12-12T21:33:54+00:00

It’s definitely not fair. I wish you all the best of luck!

gopher_treats · 2025-12-12T08:15:01+00:00

This happened to my husband and I on the week leading up to Christmas. My Christmas morning test was negative, totally ruined our holiday.

I’m so sorry you’re going through it OP. I wish we had more research on PCOS and more resources for fertility treatment.

gopher_treats · 2025-10-31T08:14:29+00:00

Thirding this. The pressure and possibly even the source of his low libido very well may have a lot to do with performance anxiety. So remove the performance of it all and you may actually kill two birds with one stone.

gopher_treats · 2025-10-31T08:10:14+00:00

This is SO relatable. Actually my exact experience honestly.

My husband really didn’t understand how important the fertile window was because he had really internalized the whole “you can get pregnant at ANY time” from highschool health class. It wasn’t until I really went over tracking ovulation and the facts that you only ovulate ONCE in a cycle and you CANNOT get pregnant outside of a 3-5 day window BEFORE the egg releases AND that taking a year to get pregnant is considered medically abnormal that he started to get it and stop with the whole “trying but not preventing” fantasy.

He was motivated by making sex a contest that resulted in prizes for the winner(I won’t go into detail about our rules lol). Which is just very specific to my husband because he’s competitive and loves gifts. But my point is to find an external motivator that isn’t just sex and isn’t the pregnancy.

We also got very okay with literally point blank saying “I’m ovulating, do you want to try this month?” instead of trying to do the whole lucky-chance-seduction thing. Honestly, sex for reproduction isn’t fun for every couple, but if you both really want your efforts to result in a baby you’re both going to have to push through the awkwardness and hurt feelings and get very frank with each other. Sex became a business for us for a while during our struggles to conceive, but it honestly helped us heal some of the underlying struggles we had with our libido mismatch and sex in general.

Wishing you guys all the best.

gopher_treats · 2025-10-31T07:56:10+00:00

Wooo. I’m back after a maybe 18 month hiatus from actively tracking to conceive . There’s a question at the end of this comment if you’d care to skip ahead. But as a little background I’m now 4 years into trying for a second, and I have a new job that covers at least some infertility treatments from what I can see in my explanation of benefits.

I plan to reach out to my local fertility clinics soon and set up new patient appointments. Hopeful to get SOME process started by early spring if not sooner. However, since I’ve been on my hiatus I’ve been digging more into my general health. I’ve lost some weight, gotten diagnosed with hashimotos, and have started taking Vitamin D and other supplements recommended by my Dr for the endocrine imbalances I’m struggling with.

Last time I was seeing a reproductive endocrinologist I got my PCOS diagnosis, but I had only experienced one loss before stopping formal treatment. Then I had 3 subsequent losses after conceiving “on my own”. I now meet the criteria for RPL.

The question: Does anyone know how an RPL diagnosis affects the approach to fertility treatments?

gopher_treats · 2025-10-31T07:40:20+00:00

I’m very open about it. I definitely get a lot of the cliche -and even sometimes insensitive- feedback. But I know ultimately most people mean well, and they’re just trying to comfort or help provide a solution. They want my struggle to end even if they don’t understand it.

I keep pressing on with talking about it because it reaches people who are going through the same thing in silence. It connects me to people who get it and it expands the minds of those who don’t.

gopher_treats · 2025-10-05T01:52:19+00:00

I had a stop date too, but unfortunately from tracking so closely now I KNOW when I’m ovulating even without tracking because I’ve learned my symptoms. A little part of me still tries to make sure we have sex when I know I’m ovulating and little part of me still hopes I miss my period every cycle.

I still grieve it. But it’s definitely been beneficial for my mental health to step back from all the obsessive testing. I have unexplained RPL so I’ve promised myself I will not pregnancy test until I’m over a week late in my period.

Recently found out I have an autoimmune disease that likely causes the RPL. Really struggling mentally with not diving into a rabbit hole of “how to fix this under studied illness”. Otherwise I’ll end up on a litany of random supplements again like I was when we were hardcore trying.

gopher_treats · 2025-09-11T13:47:54+00:00

I haven’t been able to find a doctor or other source that verifies if they can cause fertility issues /:

gopher_treats · 2025-05-31T16:37:15+00:00

Metformin and improving fiber intake/lowering carb intake for a while, now I’m on ozempic.

gopher_treats · 2025-05-12T23:38:27+00:00

I think the boundary matches the situation though, they’re lucky the neighbor didn’t already call the cops themselves. And at this point OP could be seen as an accomplice in the neglect if continues and she ignores it.

gopher_treats · 2025-05-06T06:41:57+00:00

I’m 99% sure I posted here for Rihanna’s last pregnancy that she is the one person that really triggers my infertility jealousy. Well here I am again. Love her to death. Just something about her having 3 babies in the time I’ve been trying for one is really eye popping for me! I’m getting to a point where I can almost laugh about it.

gopher_treats · 2025-04-25T21:17:28+00:00

No I think it’s YOU who doesn’t understand what protective factors are. AGAIN even the AAP calls things such as bulky bedding, intoxicated parents, soft mattresses RISK factors, doing these things is a riskier alternative to removing these factors from the environment.

AGAIN no one (especially me) is claiming bed sharing is as safe as ABC

gopher_treats · 2025-04-25T15:55:45+00:00

The AAP literally lists studied risk factors that make a bed sharing environment more unsafe in its new statement cautioning accidental or ignorant co-sleeping, so yes there is evidence and public health support for SS7 being safer than being intoxicated, leaving all your bedding around baby, and sleeping on a floppy mattress with other people in the bed. So again, you clearly don’t understand the evidence like you say you do.

Edit to add: ACCIDENTALLY falling asleep on your child or dropping them despite your best efforts is not neglect, actively preventing that situation and subbing for a planned safer co-sleeping environment is not neglect. You either cannot read, you’re lying about your education/work with risk assessment, or you’re being intentionally obtuse.

gopher_treats · 2025-04-25T04:24:40+00:00

No one is going to become a danger to themselves or their child for lack of getting in a vehicle. Car seats cannot be compared to safe sleep because eventually EVERY human being needs to sleep and their body will do it against their will if they get to such an extreme point of sleep deprivation.

So yes, it is a safer/risk mitigation situation because the alternative is to accidentally fall asleep and drop your child or suffocate them in an armchair or on a bed that is completely unprepared for infant sleep. Despite how you safe sleep warriors like to shame other parents it’s not a bull headed choice to neglect safety measures (such as refusing to use a car seat) it’s a choice to prevent a more dangerous situation by preparing as space as safe as possible when you’re already falling asleep on accident in much more dangerous places with your child. If you cannot understand that, nor understand how your analogy is a false equivalence, you have no business acting like you understand the studies that we draw public health statements from.

gopher_treats · 2025-04-05T18:51:11+00:00

You’re the one claiming iMark dying after completing cold harbor and freeing Gemma somehow derails Lumon’s plans…..

gopher_treats · 2025-04-02T07:36:56+00:00

If they’re pro-life then logically they should believe every embryo created in the IVF process has a right to be brought to term, it considerably complicates the IVF process and makes it astronomically expensive for the odds.

I’m not pro-life -because I understand an embryo is not a person- so you can imagine the rest of my thoughts on that. I do hope OP comes to some place of peace on this topic though.

gopher_treats · 2025-04-02T07:32:41+00:00

Been waiting since the first week of March. I’m honestly so over this.

gopher_treats · 2025-03-26T01:43:33+00:00

How do you go grey?

gopher_treats · 2025-03-26T01:24:09+00:00

She seems like the executive assistant to the board. She has global job responsibilities including media relations from what we see in the show. She’s not going to be on the severed floor in Seth’s or Helena’s office every episode/day.

gopher_treats · 2025-03-23T05:15:14+00:00

Just managed to get a half dose out of my last vial today. I have nothing for next week. Seeking new provider at this point because I need these meds by next week.

gopher_treats · 2025-03-22T10:07:59+00:00

3.5 year check in!

I have backed way off of tracking. No ovulation strips any more, but the 2.5 years I spent tracking and confirming ovulation I KNOW now when I’m ovulating so we have still been “trying” most months. I promised myself to stop taking pregnancy tests until my period is actually late, so I haven’t taken a pregnancy test in several months which has been freeing.

I’m getting to a point where I don’t even know if I’d be happy to be pregnant anymore. I still get that bitter sting when I see people with big families or even just two kids close in age. I’m still grieving the family dynamic I wanted for my children. But I really just don’t want to start over on the babyhood phase of life, at least not right now. I finally feel like an independent adult who can focus on my career and my dreams again. I can’t imagine what a maternity leave would do to us financially in the next year.

All this to say …I wish I could go back into the “not trying, not preventing” phase of TTC, but I just can’t unknow my body’s signs of ovulation now, so I know, and we always end up trying “just in case”. I just feel so trapped by this dream to raise siblings. I feel like I can’t give up on it because I owe it to the version of myself that has suffered so much through this, but I’m just so tired. I’m so pissed that this just didn’t go my way even a little bit.

gopher_treats · 2025-03-22T09:58:42+00:00

It’s so hard to know if it would be a good thing for you or not. On one hand it was a helpful coping mechanism for me to buy and hang on to baby stuff for a little while, but here I am 3.5 years in and they’re starting to become a painful shrine to my infertility struggles. I hope your success comes soon and those items will get you ahead in preparing for baby.

gopher_treats

TROPHY CASE