any ladies out there trying to conceive. Its likely to be a stressful journey and we could offer each other support.

Hi there M's mum. We are starting this month. Likely will ovulate in the middle of the month. Husband postponed a work trip so we could try to make this happen. Terrified, hopeful, in denial, feeling guilty...a lot is on my mind right now. I'm worried I'm putting all of my happiness eggs (no pun intended) in this TTC basket and I'm afraid of how I'll feel if it doesn't happen quickly for us.

Ladies, we meet again here, and I hope that we see others join too. I'm waiting for next month, but oh so very much hoping for quick and successful TTC seasons for you both! My husband and I are going on a vacation for a couple of weeks at the beginning of November, and then will be trying after that.

<3

Hi there - We are starting this month as well. I am in a slightly different situation as this will be my third - my son was born still in 2017, my daughter is now a happy and healthy one year old. My son died in labor after his due date apparently because my placenta wasn’t quite enough for him to withstand the stress of labor. My daughter had to be induced at 37+4 when it was clear her growth was slowing and the same thing was probably happening with my placenta. I’m still breastfeeding though and I haven’t got my period yet but we are weaning (almost there) to make this happen. I’d love to wait longer but I’m 37 now and we don’t want to increase risks any more than they already exist for us. I’ve had my fair share of post partum anxiety and not looking forward to diving back into the anxiety mess that is pregnancy after loss. In the past we’ve been lucky to get pregnant the first time we tried so this will be a new experience for us as I suspect it will take longer since we can’t predict ovulation.

Ezra’s Mama - I also worry about getting upset with the timing - though I recognize our situations are different. I hope it happens fast for you. But if it doesn’t I’ll be here to listen and sympathize. I plan to buy some nice bottles of wine that I can share with my husband after each negative test and then tell myself it just gives me another month to get my body more healthy and ready for pregnancy (the wine kind of contradicts that huh?)

SR, I love the wine idea. I am going to get some special bottles tonight. I am also planning a few milestone things to look forward to - weekend getaways, special dinners, concerts, etc. to have something other than TTC to focus on. We also conceived on the first try twice (first ended in miscarriage at 10 weeks, second ended up with HELLP and delivery at 24w3d, our son Ezra lived for about 28 hours in the NICU), but I'm steeling myself for the likely outcome of it taking a little while. As we all know here, nothing is guaranteed.

Fingers crossed and healthy, positive, hopeful vibes for all here.

Hello ladies. I'm ovulating tomorrow. I also have a lot going through my mind. Like what if it takes forever or never happens, how will I cope. With my 3 year old daughter it took 2 years and a diagnosis of unexplained infertility. With M it happened on the first try. On the other hand I think ok if I do get pregnant I have to deal with FEAR. Fear of another dead baby, fear of dying and leaving my daughter. With M I died on the operating table and had to be revived. My doctors said it was a miracle I was alive. 9 months is a long time to live in fear.

Hi ladies,

I am starting to ttc after our wedding on the 26th of this month. Our daughter was stillborn after an EMCS at 28 weeks of pregnancy on the 16th January this year. We conceived her first try but I feel that it won't happen like that again. My periods have been regular but quite light since her birth and I just worry that the stress of it all will mean it will take a while! Either way I feel quite nervous about beginning this journey, whether we fall quickly or it takes a while, either outcome is going to add a whole new layer of anxiety into my life. I feel so ready to be pregnant again but so scared at the same time. I hope all this is normal and maybe we can hold each other's hands through all this! Sending love x

I think for loss mamas, it is completely normal to be nervous and scared about both possibilities - either finding out you are pregnant or it taking a long time to happen. A pregnancy comes with a lot of baggage and anxiety - though for me, last time, the anticipation of that anxiety was much worse than the actuality of it. Some days (especially the last few weeks) were worse than others, but for the most part, I just kept taking it one day at a time and did whatever worked for me to keep my mind off it too much. I haven't faced the second possibility before - but I'm just trying to take it one step at a time and enjoy where I am now.

I don't have my period back yet since I'm still breastfeeding - but I'm down to one small feed a day and about to drop it, so I could be ovulating at any time. I'm trying to decide whether to start taking weekly pregnancy tests to make sure I'm not pregnant before I have a drink on the weekend or whether that will start to make me feel under pressure/anxious (besides being a waste of money and plastic).

Hi again everyone - we've decided to try this cycle instead of waiting for the next at the end of November. It seems like moment to moment my feelings change - one second I feel almost euphoric, and then the next I feel as though I am walking out in front of a bus, knowingly. My husband and I have had the go-ahead from our MFM for a couple of months (suspected incompetent cervix/classical c-section, lots of unknowns) and originally I wanted to wait because of work deadlines next year and things like that but we decided that it's going to be scary and rewarding and all consuming whether we wait another month or a few or we try this month. So here we are. I'm grateful to have people like you all to share this experience with.

<3

*Trigger warning - mentions living baby* I took a test today and it was negative. I'm not surprised since I haven't had my period back since I had my daughter (she's my second) but we are almost done feeding so I was hopeful that maybe we caught the exact right moment. But I was still disappointed. I'm stressed about passing the point where I'd be giving birth after 38 because I feel like the last thing I need is more risk although I know the differences of a few months really don't matter much. But I just couldn't get it together to wean my daughter earlier. And now I'm in this weird place where I have no idea where in any cycle I'm in, and I don't want to take tests too often. I'm afraid we'll have a lot of trouble conceiving this time because of this, and when the pregnancy itself for me is already stressful, the idea of a stressful period before then just makes me want to give up before I start. I was hoping we'd somehow catch the cycle before I got my period back and I wouldn't have to worry about any of that. All to say I'm just mostly feeling very UGH about the whole process today.

@SR The stresses of ttc after loss. Everything hits you harder. You stress about conceiving, then if you get pregnant you stress about the pregnancy. Its just stress though and through. It doesnt seem fair at all.

I also took a number of tests, all negative. Then I found myself crying, thinking I didnt want to be here I already had my baby and should be holding him in my arms. I dont want another baby, I want M back. TTC has brought up a lot of emotions with regards my son. I feel like I've regressed in my grief journey.

SR and M's Mum, I found myself over the last couple of days googling the likelihood of getting pregnant in so and so amount of time, which sent me on this spiral of "doom" basically about how I could have secondary infertility from my c-section, how things may not be as "easy" as last time, articles interviewing OB's that say that it's normal for it to take up to a year to get pregnant, and I got pretty deflated. Ugh. I'd like to think that I can be patient for a few months, but I always have this sense in the back of my head that having a living child is not in the books for me (my first child Francis, died after being born premature and living in the NICU for three days). I don't know how to break the illusion in my head, I think it's probably just a protective measure that is unavoidable, given the level of grief and trauma that pregnancy and birth have brought to my life up until this point. That logical thinking only goes so far, and then I settle back into my normal sense of things never working out.

M's Mum, my husband and I were driving to work together this morning, talking about hope and a future pregnancy, and talking about how people who have not lost a baby just don't understand what it is like to physically, instinctively ache and yearn for their babies, with the promise that we will never get them back. This reality is just so harsh, and it sits in the back of my mind, weighing my shoulders down, and erupts every week or so into a waterfall of grief that I just can't control. I'm with you.

<3

Hi all. M's mum, I'm so sorry TTC has been painful. It is such a vulnerable place to be in the best of times, and after the magnitude of loss and grief we have been through, it can feel like your whole heart is exposed.

Jess, congrats on your upcoming wedding...my husband and I were married on 10/20 :).

Allison, I totally hear you on the google spiral...I find myself obsessively researching uterine rupture rates, similar HELLP/preeclampsia stories, post-classical c-section stories, it goes on and on. It is totally exhausting and unproductive but I feel like information is the only thing I can cling to right now. Nothing I do (aside from taking aspirin) will affect outcomes.

It's TWW time for me...I'm not even sure what I'm hoping for, at this point. Both possibilities bring their own anxieties. I feel insane for putting myself, my husband, my family through this again, but also can't imagine not trying. Hugs to all...

I can empathize with all of these fears. I also had a c section and have worried and googled obsessively. It really is a spiral! I started my period yesterday so am officially TTC this cycle. I get waves of hope and waves of fresh grief that I should have a 6 month old in my arms and TTC should be do far from my thoughts. But I do feel like I can imagine enjoying aspects of being pregnant again, which i couldn't a few months ago. Who knows if that will be the case if it happens of course. Sending you all love xxx

Well I've just started my first period since having my daughter so now I guess I'm in the TTC game for real.

@Allison - I hope that's not true for you but I completely empathise with and share your thinking. Before we decided to TTC after my son died, my husband and I wanted to feel like we knew we would be ok and have happy lives if it happened or it didn't. Throughout the second pregnancy, I refused to make any plans or buy any stuff (we had moved overseas since my first pregnancy and donated everything we collected for my son), or talk about a baby. I was lucky I had friends that gathered what we would need for us and kept it for us so we didn't have to put it in the house until she was born. With this attempt, I am trying to have the same approach - if I get pregnant, we will be happy, if I don't, that's ok. It's hard once you are actually trying to maintain that though.

@EzrasMom - Good luck with the TWW. Google is a dangerous, dangerous place for us - there are horrors behind every link it seems like.

@Jess - I constantly am angry that I am back at this place trying again, racing the clock and my age. I should have a two and a half year old now. I should be done with pregnancy. It is so hard to escape the Sliding Doors replay constantly at the 6 month stage - but sadly, I'm not sure it ever ends though you do it less with more time (and where you'd imagined less detailed pictures of where you would be then).

Ezra's Mama, you're so right that it's unproductive. I have been keeping myself away from the scarier parts of the internet for the past few days and it's helped. I will echo SR's good luck to you with your TWW!

Jess - So much of what I do and the things that are going on in my life are still tied to the timeline with my son's birth that I thought I would have - he would be 9 months now, I'd be well back from maternity leave, he would have been at all of these glorious weddings and mini-vacations with me this summer and early fall and it's just so, so hard to not have him here for any of it. And adding TTC on top of it - ugh - it just all feels weird and out of order.

SR - thank you for your advice. I think it's more of just my general paranoia speaking, but I think that we do have to be open to things not working perfectly this time, and just have to be gentle with ourselves through the weeks/months/years that parenting a living child may take.I'm happy you got your period so you can have a clearer time frame for TTC.

As for me, I expect to get my period today or tomorrow. Yesterday I ran into a fellow loss mom who I work with occasionally and her wife is 12 weeks along with their first baby after loss. It was so refreshing to talk to someone about what their experience has been like (extremely joyous and scary). Then someone decided to chime in about their pregnancy (that resulted in a healthy full term baby who is now 15), saying that she would buy baby clothes when she was pregnant to "bribe" the baby to be born healthy. The fact that she felt she could relate (I work closely with her and she has told me her one child is the only pregnancy she has ever had, no losses, thanks?) was really annoying. As if buying clothes for an unborn baby could have any effect on whether they live or die. Imagine if it was that easy.

Anyways, I think I'm doing okay today. Trying to just breathe through some anxious moments.

<3

Allison - it would have been very difficult for me not to tell that woman to f off. How incredibly obtuse and naive. Sorry if what I wrote read like advice - I find advice generally unhelpful in this ballpark because how you handle TTC/pregnancy after loss is so very individual. I was just sharing my approach - it's how I try to handle it. Some people need to be really positive about it, and I need to be a little fatalistic to cope.

How nice that you know someone else that is on this journey (or a bit ahead of you) to talk to. I know only a few loss moms in real life and their approaches are just very different to mine (e.g., very religious) so it's hard to connect.

I keep forgetting to take a prenatal vitamin and I'm afraid it's a sign that my heart just isn't in TTC right now. I feel so emotionally exhausted from the past three years and taking on more anxiety now is just even more exhausting.

SR - I suppose advice was not the word I was looking for either - I just appreciated hearing your perspective/approach, as I'm just a bit in flux. I agree that handling TTC is very individual, but hearing what others do to cope/get through/make decisions has been helpful to me :)

Well friends...I had a higher than normal BBT this morning and decided to take a test a few days early. Very faint positive. I'm not sure what to feel. For both of my pregnancies - one ended in miscarriage, the other in the death of my son in the NICU - I felt total elation at a positive test. Now it feels...preliminary. And like anything approaching happiness would be tempting fate. I don't think it will feel real until we see a heartbeat on an ultrasound. And yet, there is just a tiny spark of hope at the thought of being able to bring a baby home.

Ezra'sMama - That's exciting and I completely understand that it feels preliminary to let yourself be elated. But gentle congratulations on the tiny spark of hope - I hope it gets bigger soon.

Ezra's Mama, that is such wonderful news, gentle congratulations. I'm sending you hope that this little one continues to grow and grow.

<3

SR and Allison, thank you for the congratulations. I will take all the encouragement I can get right now. Fingers crossed for good news for all of us on this journey.

According to my app, I’m ovulating now so we are getting after it. And just this tiny little step makes me feel my overall grief and anxiety levels start rising and it makes me just wonder if we are crazy. I start thinking about all the things that can go wrong now that I’m older and all the additional problems that could happen that haven’t in the past. It’s one of those days where I think “oh I hope it doesn’t take this week. I’m not sure I’m ready for this again”. It almost feels like the early days in that you just have to keep reminding yourself not to get ahead of yourself, take this moment as it is and don’t borrow trouble. It sucks that this is just all so complicated. I just wanted to share where I am today.

SR, I hear you. This is a little TMI but even as we were uh, in the act, I was questioning whether it was a good idea and doubting our decision to try. Hugs to you this week as trying goes from theoretical to not.

I just found out I’m pregnant...our daughter, Cadence passed away this May one day after she was born. We are due in July, hopeful for a better ending this time. Everyone who has been supportive of my husband and I the past 6 months knows about the pregnancy, I know anything can happen, but my support system is incredible, and for what it’s worth, no matter what I’m pregnant today, and Cadence has a new brother or sister. ❤️ I guess I’m just looking for some people who feel the same way I do right now.