Really good advice. At my fertility clinic, they like to have patients start prenatals three months before a procedure. It’s really important to have all the important stuff, especially folic acid, built up to a good level before conception.
Your problem is that you read too much. 
When you look at stories of pregnancy, you’ll see the problem ones, because those who had no troubles don’t write about it so much.
There is no need to worry when you start. My wife had very irregular periods, but when we started trying she got pregnant the first try. Now she does have a masters in reproductive physiology, so we timed it right. The second one took a bit longer, but was more from not having as many opportunities thanks to the first one.
So don’t worry, not yet.
When we started talking about having kids my wife was worried that we might have trouble conceiving. She got pregnant three times in the space of 17 months (there was a miscarriage in the middle). It’s not always hard to get pregnant. It just seems like it is because you hear so much about people who had difficulty and not much about those who didn’t. When our friends tell their stories of IVF and years of trying I don’t say, “My wife got pregnant right away every time we tried.” That would be rude, but it’s not uncommon for it to work out that way. You haven’t even really started trying yet. Don’t start worrying until you’ve got a reason to worry.
If you’re anything like me though you’ll enjoy the temp charting and all - it’s like hacking into your body’s secret systems. Pretty cool, really.
I admit, though, when we’d gone a couple months with no success I was REALLY pissed off at all that sex ed we had in school with the dire stories about girls getting knocked up before their first menstrual period or via very lucky frottage or whatever. Evidently it “only takes one!” if you’re not trying.
(Don’t freak though. Three months for us and right now he’s kicking a cat in the head through my uterus, layer of fat, skin, etc. hard enough to rock the cat back and give me a dirty look.)
Worked for me! One and done.
I second the suggestion of starting prenatal vitamins now.
I second this. Mrs Pinmin bought a gross of these (seemed like it anyway) from Amazon about 3 years ago. After we got pregnant, she passed the remaining bunch to her friend. Our 2 year old little Pin and their 18 month old are best friends.
You might be overthinking a bit. I echo the prenatal vitamins advice- it’s good to be on them at conception, and that’s always hearsay;)
Among my patients is a woman with pretty bad endometriosis who had been told by her original Ob and the fertility clinic that she would need assisted reproduction to conceive. In her mid 30s, divorced, she had an affair with her boss. He was sub fertile too, with one child he was sure was his, an adult. Resulting child (after listening to her symptoms I told her it probably wasn’t her
thyroid) passed the paternity test (in addition to looking rather like his father, who had um quite distinctive features).
My point is, never say never, enjoy the process, and yes, chart the cycles for all of the very good reasons previously mentioned. I had children at 33 and 36. Couple of miscarriages prior. It was weird being called an “elderly primipara” 
Folic acid is water soluble and does not build up. This is the reason that it is important to take a prenatal daily especially if you do not eat enough foods that are fortified with or naturally contain folic acid. To the OP- don’t worry about the 3 month “build up”
Reader’s Digest Condensed Edition: Take your vitamins and have lots of sex. Sure, you can chart if that makes you feel more in control and in touch with your body, but it hardly changes the outcome - for all that we understand of human biology, some things are mere chance.
Warning ahead: If you are a person who feels the need to be in control? Now’s the time to let that go. Kids aren’t very good at helping their parents live a predictable life!
Maybe a helpful tip, since you’re supposed to take your temp at the same time every day - I was waking up at 4:15 during the week and 8ish on weekends, so I took my temp at 3 am. Hear alarm, stick thermometer in, it beeps, take it out and fall back asleep. Then check the thermometer and chart it whenever during the day. I just used a regular one, too, and the temp jump for ovulation was plenty distinct.
The book I obsessed over was “Taking Charge of Your Fertility”, and it was very educational about pretty much every aspect of ovary-and-uterus-having.
The process really bugged me out because you see I grew up on a farm and we would hire a bull to come over and get our cows pregnant (no kidding) and I kind of felt like that bull.
I just couldnt get into sex when it was about me doing insemination. I was weirded out thru the whole process. I can go along with being a father but “sperm donor” is weird.
Note - I heard about a couple who was trying to get pregnant and when the wifes temperature would go up she would call her husband to come home and do her or she would drive to his worksite (he was in construction) and they would jump into the back of his truck. I cant imagine the look on his face afterwards.
Yeah, why is it a couple of teenagers messing around - she gets pregnant on the first time and goes full term no problem. Yet an adult couple in their 30’s who are all set up to start a family go thru all these problems?
Ummm. Didn’t want to sound condescending.
That’s cool that you are going to chill out about it and let things happen.
Just wait until your baby actually comes. All those resolutions on how you are going to raise the perfect baby will fly out the window!
Anyway, good luck!
Yeah, I think one of the great challenges of my life is learning to cope with uncertainty. I can’t imagine anything layered with more uncertainty than having a kid. So, looks like I’m going to get over that pretty soon. It’s kind of neat, I used to think of uncertainty as purely a bad thing, filled with bad possibilities, but now I see there is a flipside to that, which is the possibility of things more wonderful than I can imagine or predict.
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Ummm. Didn’t want to sound condescending.
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I was just teasing. Older people laugh at me when I say I feel old, but remember, this is the oldest I’ve ever been! I definitely feel old relative to all the ages I’ve been before.
Part of this may be a function of letting my body atrophy for so long before finally starting to get in shape. Two years ago I couldn’t even bend over to sweep dirt into a dustpan. I just pacify myself by reminding myself that if I weren’t taking care of myself now, I’d feel even older.
My standard advice here is to pay less attention to the biology and more attention to the finances. People love to wave their hands and say “Oh, babies don’t need much” and “you find a way”, and it’s true that you do, but having your financial situation–especially being on the same page with your spouse–makes the whole experience tremendously less stressful. Everyone is like “You don’t have to buy all that stuff”, and it’s true, you don’t, but you DO have to buy 1) medical care for yourself and your child 2) some sort of period without a paycheck 3) medical insurance going forward and 4) childcare, either in the form of paid daycare or not having a paycheck yourself. Whether or not you buy a damn Diaper Genie or fancy nursing pillow is really a rounding error on all of those.
People always seem to make the most optimistic estimates going forward on big baby expenses, but this is where the unpredictable comes in in a big way: you can plan to work until your due date, but it’s quite possible to be put on bedrest at 20 or 30 weeks; you can plan a low-cost midwife but end up with a crash-cart C-section; you can plan to take 6 weeks maternity leave, but end up needing 8, or more if baby is sick; you can plan to nurse/pump, but find it’s impossible; you can plan on well-baby checks being covered 100%, but end up with an infant back in the hospital for a week. You can plan on having a mother-in-law eager to take the baby full time, only to have her discover she’s older than she thought once the day-to-day reality starts.
None of those things are likely, but none of them are exactly unheard of, either. Cutting your own lifestyle as far back as possible now will help in two ways–one, you’ll start banking more, and two, you’ll get used to a new normal so that you don’t resent (or, more complexly, worry about whether or not the other person is resenting) having to cut back because of the baby. What with one thing or another, there are almost certainly going to be some significant surprise bills associated with a baby. When they happen, it’s everything to be able to sign and say “It’s only money”–it still hurts, of course, but it’s there.
Buy baby clothing at garage sales. This includes maternity clothes which are often quite expensive and get very little use. The baby won’t notice or care and neither will your co-workers. The same goes for many baby stuff. The only thing you should not buy used is a crib mattress as they have been linked to SIDS.
Also, do NOT have a baby the day after Christmas, the day before Christmas, the day of Christmas or a week anywhere near Christmas as you will give your child a cause for legitimate complaint for many years even if she happens to be Jewish and even if you have muttered under your breath multiple times that despite what *Taking Control of Your Fertility *implies it damned well IS possible to ovulate twice in one month damn it so the Christmas birthday proximity really isn’t your fault damn it. The same goes if you can possibly manage it for the 4th of July, the last two weeks in November and anywhere near Valentine’s Day. My own birthday is on Memorial Day this year which may be the only acceptable holidayish birthday that will not get a parent into trouble.
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Also, do NOT have a baby the day after Christmas, the day before Christmas, the day of Christmas or a week anywhere near Christmas as you will give your child a cause for legitimate complaint for many years even if she happens to be Jewish and even if you have muttered under your breath multiple times that despite what *Taking Control of Your Fertility *implies it damned well IS possible to ovulate twice in one month damn it so the Christmas birthday proximity really isn’t your fault damn it. The same goes if you can possibly manage it for the 4th of July, the last two weeks in November and anywhere near Valentine’s Day. My own birthday is on Memorial Day this year which may be the only acceptable holidayish birthday that will not get a parent into trouble.[/QUOTE]
Yeah, I always hated being born in December.
Now if your kid is stuck being born in December - dont despair. Give them a “half-birthday” during the summer and then just a private acknowledgement on their real birthday.
Well, also don’t buy used:
a car seat unless you KNOW it hasn’t been in ANY accidents (and is within its expiration date)
a breast pump that isn’t a “closed” system unless it’s from a close friend or your sister or something
a crib unless you KNOW it hasn’t been recalled and isn’t drop sided or any other of the millions of things you can’t reuse a crib for these days.
However, cribs all have to follow the same safety regulations. IKEA got one for 70 bucks. It isn’t ugly. Get it. Because people aren’t buying you a specific thing, they’re spending a specific amount of money - let whoever wanted to spend $500 on you spend it on something else.
You’re waaaaay overthinking it. Please don’t do like my sister in law, who the first time around got mad because “women take two years to get pregnant after getting off the Pill! I can’t be pregnant already!” (hole in one for them; not only are her sources dubious but she has no grasp of statistics) and the second time got mad because “we’ve been trying for two months and I’m still not pregnant!”
And I hope you’re as fertile as she is 
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Part of this may be a function of letting my body atrophy for so long before finally starting to get in shape. Two years ago I couldn’t even bend over to sweep dirt into a dustpan. I just pacify myself by reminding myself that if I weren’t taking care of myself now, I’d feel even older.
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We could be timeline twins. I spent the years between 15 and 26 slowly turning myself into a Heffalump, then finally found a lifestyle that let me drop 30 kilos in a year. I spent about a year feeling the best I’ve ever felt, than we decided we were ready to start trying for kids. I hope I get my body back after this little adventure is over, but really - don’t stress about this particular aspect of it. You hear all the time about women who only gain the weight of the baby, and bounce right back after birth. Thing is, I don’t think that’s really an option for us formerly big girls - our bodies want to Heffalump right back up, and I don’t think we can do much except roll with the punches. It’ll be fine.
Oh, and the stats I read up on before going off the pill stated that 70% of women will be pregnant within four months, and 90% within the year, if they have unprotected sex every three days or so. The charting will be great to have if you should be the unlucky 10%, but you won’t be. We’re timeline twins, remember?
It took us exactly four months. My due date is tomorrow. So you’ll be waddling about cursing your own stupidity and wanting to be done sooooo badly by this time next year.
We’re all rooting for you.