We were blessed and excited about our unplanned pregnancy, but Helen died of a prolapsed cord during labor at full term in Sept '09. Since then we have not used any birth control, and have not conceived. My husband did not want another pregnancy, and therefore we used natural family planning to avoid my most fertile time.

This month, my husband who had previously said "we are done" after we lost Helen, has changed his mind. He has decided that we can "try for a baby" until my 38th birthday...which is just 2 months away (Feb 28th). I am pretty sure we did not conceive this month (day 28 today, waiting for the flow to start). Only two cycles left. I am hoping we will be successful, but am terrified that I won't get the opportunity for a do over. Any and all suggestions for successful conception are appriciated.

Make sure you are tracking your ovulation, if you only have a few months I would do a digital or something so you know for sure. I've heard using Mucinex to make your mucus better helps too. I am no expert in this area but that's my two cents!!

Acupuncture, missionary position, hips in the air, don't get out of bed for twenty minutes after sex, using "fertility friendly" lube if you don't have good cervical mucus...there are a ton of "tricks" that are pretty easily google-able, but they also can be crazy making, trying to control something so seemingly not easily controlled.

I have to say, I think being given a deadline would be really tough. I always approach birthdays with this sense of doom and gloom - I don't like aging and I'm not doing it especially gracefully already, but to have this sense of it being my last day of hope of a future pregnancy, I think that would be really difficult. (I'm also probably a little more sensitive to it because I was a late bloomer to begin with - I turned 38 two weeks before Otis was conceived, and I'm now facing turning 40 next November without a living child...)

Thanks for the tips ladies, and Sarah, my heart goes out to you...blessings on you and yours!

it sounds terribly basic, but make sure you have plenty of sex! you need plenty of sperm available in your tubes/system when you ovulate - sperm takes quite a while to get up into your tubes - so sex when or after you ovulate will be too late to fertilise your egg/s. We found that plenty of sex in the days before ovulating (e.g. day 9, day 11 and day 13 before ovulation on day 14) worked well for us (5 pregnancies in 8 cycles - 3 were lost at around 6 weeks)