First month TTC...If we have s*x every day or every other day?

Question

I know a lot of married people grow tired of each other's company or feel like "it's the same old thing every time" (that's what I've been told by many). But my husband and I are going on two years and we still have s*x at least every other day. This is our first month of "trying". I'd been on the pill until April 8th. My cycle got back to normal and we used condoms and/or spermicides up till this month. I know that the pill's hormones are completely out of my system because we've used the OPK's a few times, just to get a general idea of when I ovulate and what the physical signs are. The goal was to wait till October to "try", but we've decided that an extra month won't hurt anything =)

I don't want to be all insane about checking temperatures and charting this and that and eating certain foods and using cerain positions and yada yada yada. I've been reading some questions in this forum and it seems like the people who obsess over it are the ones who've been trying 1 year + with no success.

Should we just continue to have s*x every other day and hope for the best? Or should I use OPK's and all?

Answer 1

I would try for a while on your own without worrying about opk's and such.  I have been told my both my ob/gyn and my RE that every other day is optimal for conceiving.  However every day won't hurt if hubby has a normal or above normal sperm count.  I do want to stress to you that nothing is a guarantee even if you do or don't obsess over ttc.  It is normal for a perfectly healthy couple to take up to 1 year to conceive and sometimes longer.  I just relaxed and went with the flow for the first 10-12 months of ttc.  I didn't even know what an opk was LOL!!  I had also been off birth control for over a year before ttc and had normal periods.  We have now been ttc our first for 26 months.  I have gone through my months of being desperate and trying everything I knew and that didn't work.  Hubby and I have taken the last 3 cycles off ttc and will be heading back for cycle 3 of treatments.

Best wishes ttc!!!

Answer 2

I think the general consensus these days is to have s*x every day during your fertile period, not every other day.

Answer 3

You should have s*x everyday when you're fertile. Recent studies have proven that it doesn't lower your sperm count but actually makes for higher quality sperm.

Answer 4

I bought an OPK..the Clearblue Easy electronic kind. It's expensive but hey..this is a baby you're talking about.  I found it easy to read and I knew exactly when high fertility and ovulation happened.

I was on the pill before that...and it took me about a year to conceive.  My husband and I both had a clean bill of health...IE no fertility problems that they could tell.   My OPK test showed a time or two where I didn't ovulate at all in that month..I was glad to know.

I've heard that s*x every other day is optimal.  More often than that reduces the sperm count.   At one point they were going to see what kind of swimmers my husband had... and give us advice on whether or not he had Fast Swimmers or Strong Swimmers..and then tell us the s*x patterns we should be following.

So...be patient. It sometimes takes a while..especially if you've been on the pill. My cycle was 28 days before the pill..and 45 days after the pill...so you can see how coming off of it can really change things. I don't think we would have gotten pregnant without the Clearblue Easy electronic ovulation tester.