I just wanted to let you know that I have a friend at work
who is ttc #2, she is 38 and has been trying for 1yr.
So I told her about the Robitussin that I had read about on your site.
She said that she remembered when she got pregnant with her 1st daughter
that she had been sick and had taken Robi and got pregnant,
so she tried it again this month just before she O'd
and is absolutely Positively Preggers.
She is so excited she is telling everyone it was the Robi.

Sincerely
Melanie

Ladies, don't get your hopes down if after 'o' you don't feel pregnant.
In fact, you may feel like af is coming more than ever.
I had severe cramping (like always) which I still have off and on
(I'm at 6 weeks). Also, this is my second pregnancy and I still
don't "feel" pregnant. The only thing different was severe lower back pain.

Good luck to all and God Bless You!!

Thank you again for running the TTC site
and the Store
it means so much to me and hundreds of women like myself,
you are a Godsend!
I pray that you are doing well and are feeling much better,

Maddie

Thank you for all the helpful information on this site.

I was TTC for 9 months. Went on Clomid 50mg days 5-9 and conceived the first month. Due date is 6-26-2002

Shelly

I took a home pregnancy test at 1: 30 pm on Wednesday, February 13,
the day before Valentine's Day.
Guess what, it's positive!
If all goes well, and there are no complications,
the estimated due date for this baby would be
October 22, 2002.
Our son Bert was born October 15, 1998.
So our son Bert will have just turned
four years old when this baby is born.
This was our 8th month of trying to conceive.
When I took the HPT and saw the positive,
I wasn't really surprised. I would have been shocked,
however, to have seen a negative.

Now that I'm pregnant,
I just wanted to recommend to all of you to
"just relax," and you will get pregnant, too! Ha ha!
That's just an inside joke for the "main board" folks.

Seriously, had I just relaxed, I might have never gotten pregnant.
It was because of this web site,
TryingToConceive.com, and more specifically the "main" message board,
that I owe my being knocked up. My husband says he had something to do with it,
but I've told him that it's a direct result of me learning from you guys.

I thought I knew even more than average about how to make a baby,
but it turns out I really didn't know much.
When I first got here, I hadn't ever charted my temps,
had no idea what an OPK was, etc. Even after I learned what those
things were, it was because of you guys that I was encouraged, on a daily
basis, to actually do them!
And charting and OPK's really helped me.
You can read all you want about charting on line,
but unless you have daily helpers like you guys to answer
all the little yet crucial questions that come up,
you might miss stuff.

I conceived child number one (Bert) because we were BD'ing more like newlyweds.
But now that we've been married over 7 years, we were down to the
completely normal once a week or so. You can consistently miss
your window of conception opportunity month after month with
that kind of sex life. I used ovulation calendars
I found on line for a number of months. They were always
suggesting I BD at the middle of the month.
That's well and good if you have a regular cycle.
To account for your own personal cycle, you've got to chart your temps.
Turns out I was ovulating a good four days later than average.
We had stopped BD'ing too soon each month, is my belief.
Month after month, we just kept missing our window.

When I first started temping, I didn't want to.
It seemed useless and too hard to get into a routine about it.
Thanks to your encouragement, I forced myself to temp each morning.
It became very informative, and for that I thank you.

My symptoms this successful month were: I could see from my chart that I did appear to ovulate. At 5dpo my temps dropped a bit and the next day, 6dpo, I had a strange flutter, and sudden mild cramps and a backache. I don't usually get cramps other than during AF, so this made me immediately hopeful. I continued to have mild cramps on and off, mostly on, through 8dpo, when I also took a nap during that day. I usually don't take naps so I also thought of that as a possible symptom. At 9dpo, I took an HPT. It was a BFN. You guys again encouraged me and told me that it was far too early to test, and keep hope alive. The day of my neg. HPT, my cramps got annoying enough that I took an ibuprofin (although I really try not to take anything during the 2WW). I was discouraged at this point because I thought that if I was having symptoms (cramps) registering in my body, then it should register on an HPT. Since then, I've learned even more from you guys about how HPT's aren't "the law" and they can be at times unreliable for a variety of reasons.

Interestingly, my daytime temps went up each day along with my basal body temps. I know they are supposed to mean nothing, but I found it interesting that at 5dpo, my daytime temp was 98.9, on 9dpo my daytime temp was 99.1, then at 11dpo it was 99.4, then on 13dpo my day temp was 99.5, then the day after that was 99.6. Strange! My waking, or basal body temps continued to rise steadily from a coverline of 98.0 to 99.1 by 14dpo. What made me start taking my daytime temps was that at about 6dpo or so, I could actually detect a "fever" feeling. You know, like when you're getting a cold or flu, and you can just tell because you have a touch of the chills? When searching the net one day, I came across one woman's description of her pregnancy symptoms in the 2WW. She said she just kind of felt like a flu was coming on, but it never came. That's exactly what I had: just a slight malaise feeling, a tad tired, a tad feverish. Now, the "establishment" never lists such a thing when listing pregnancy symptoms, now do they!

My only other symptoms were just the unusual-for-me cramps. Had occasional tugging feeling, but mostly just mild cramps. I had what I would describe as a bit more tender than usual breasts, but tender breasts aren't too unusual as a PMS symptom for me. In the mornings they felt quite turgid, but I was afraid to ascribe any credence to them as a symptom. By 12dpo, however, I couldn't deny that my nipples would occasionally zing. Kind of like at the end of my first pregnancy!

I did repeated research on the 'net to see if cramps were a symptom of early pregnancy. Now, here's another example of how invaluable you guys are: Every "official" site on the 'net said cramps in early pregnancy are not a symptom and are usually considered a bad sign. Yet, so many of you with children described having cramps around implantation time. And, elsewhere on the 'net, wherever I came across people's personal accounts, many women would describe cramps during the 2WW. In fact, I asked the question at misc.kids.pregnancy, and the majority of women with children said, yes, they indeed had cramps during implantation time or the 2WW. Women's personal experiences consistently contrasted with what the medical "facts" cited about pregnancy symptoms. Many of the "success stories" at the TryingToConceive.com website also cited cramps.

The night of 14dpo, I awoke with a start, heard a crash, my eyes shot open and heard and saw someone in my son's room. Someone is in the house, I thought. I tried to wake my husband. As I lay there literally sweating, I ever so slowly realized I had to have been dreaming. But it seemed so real! A vivid dream. Let me just say, I never have hallucinations like that when asleep. So today when going over all the TTC.com "success stories," I couldn't believe how many women reported a "vivid dream" sometime in their pregnant 2WW! Interesting!

And now I'll make a speech like one at the Academy Awards: "Thank you, thank you, yes, I am pregnant. I'd like to thank my mother for making me possible." Ha! That's just a joke I heard Squiggy say on an episode of Laverne & Shirley. It always cracked me up.

When I say thank you to you guys, I mean it totally literally: THANK YOU! I seriously doubt I'd be here if it wasn't for your indispensable help.

---KatyS

I just wanted to say thank you so much for all of the inspiration and support I have gotten from this site over the past few months. After 1 year of trying, we are finally pregnant!!!

I have PCOS, so I knew that it might take awhile for us to conceive. In December, my doctor started me on Provera to jump start my cycle, and then Clomid 50mg on days 3-7 of my cycle. AF visited me in Jan., so we started another cycle (same, 50mg, days 3-7) on Jan. 15th. On Jan.29, I had an appointment for an ultrasound to see if I was ovulating or not. (My doctor had said that if the 50mg wasn't working, he would up my dosage to 100mg for the next month.) That morning, I didn't want to get my hopes up, (as they had been dashed so many times before) but I felt very bloated and almost crampy since the night before. I thought, "Is this what ovulating feels like?"

With PCOS, I hardly ever ovulate, so I wasn't sure. Having a good feeling, I drove to my appointment. However, I still didn't want to get too excited. When I got there I had to wait for a few minutes before they took me back to have the test. While I was waiting, I told the nurse that it was day 17 of my cycle. (Having never had a ultrasound to test for follicle production.) I asked her what would happen if I had already ovulated. She said that not only could the ultrasound determine if I was going to O, but it could also determine if I had already O'd. Finally, I went in for the exam. As the doctor began, I told him of my symptoms that morning and the night before. He said that could very well be signs of ovulation. Then, as he began to scan, he saw it. He said, "OK, look at your left ovary, nothing much going on over here, but look at your right, see that big black blob, that is a follicle that has burst, you have already O'd!!!! I was so excited, I knew that DH and I had BD, just the night b efore. My doctor said that he obviously thought that the 50mg was working for me. He wished me luck and said this could be the month, if not, he said that he would let me try the Clomid for a couple more cycles, and then if still no success we would need an SA for DH and then (if that turned out OK, a possible HSG for me to check for blockage in my tubes.)

Well, to make a long story short(I know this has been soooooo long), I was due to start my period on Sat.Feb. 8th. The 2 week wait leading up to that date was killing me since I knew that I had O'd. I felt some of the classic signs of pregnancy(very sore BB's and cramping, and very slight nausea). I tried to tell myself that it was just AF getting ready to rear her ugly head.

By 9 dpo I was fighting hard the urge to test. It was killing me. At 10 dpo I tested with First Response Early Result, big fat-----Neg. I got sort of down, and then I thought, this is silly, lots of women don't even test ++++ until they are a few days late for AF.

Then, 2 days later(1 day before AF), I tested again, this time with CVS brand. I got a faint ++++++ I was so excited, but went out and bought 2 more kinds of tests (EPT and CONFIRM). I waited about 4 hours and then tested with them. They came up +++++ right away and were much darker. I was beside myself!!!

I couldn't wait for my husband to get home so I could share the good news. When he got home, I showed him the tests and he was so happy and excited. Call us crazy, but before we told our parents, we tested again about 4 more times over that next 24 hrs. When we did tell our parents, everyone was so emotional, we all started crying!!!!

Our baby is due in October (around the 20th)!!!!
I just want to tell everyone, don't give up, miracles still happen every day!
Baby dust to all!!!!!!!!!!!!
Leigh