Hindsight is a bitch, ain't it?

Hubby and I have been talking recently a lot. Mainly conversations that stem from our efforts to get pregnant. They usually run along these lines:

• If we'd known how long it would take to get pregnant, I should have come off the pill earlier.


• If we'd known, we would have started trying earlier.


• Except we didn't want them before. And so we wish we'd met sooner in life.

The fact of the matter is, though, that we didn't meet in our 20's, and when we first married, we didn't want kids.

I know I went through a broody phase a few years ago (4), and maybe I should have pushed Hubby to want them too, but he wasn't ready and it might have damaged us and the relationship we have.

It's all too easy to blame things we didn't know or had no control over, but it is what it is, and we have to deal with this now.

I am not getting pregnant. My body is not making this easy for us. Every month I dread seeing the "Not Pregnant" on the test. I know that 4 months is not a long time to be trying - a friend of mine has been trying for 18 months. But I worry that time is slipping away from us and is not on our side.

I am going to be 35 this year. I cling to stories of mothers having babies in their late 30's and early 40's, but the truth is that these stories are not very typical. They are miracle babies that women are incredibly grateful for. There are stories about women who have given up trying, given up IVF, and suddenly get pregnant.

The thing is, I have to stop and think about this. What lengths am I prepared to go to? The truth of the matter is that Hubby and I have decided that if we don't become parents naturally, then we don't become parents at all. We are too old to adopt now anyway, and we don't want to go through the stress and expense of IVF.

So, then there's the question of how long do we keep trying before we call it quits. The truth here is that I don't want to be an old mum. A middle aged mum. I want to have babies before I get to my late 30's. Which doesn't give us an awful lot of time. If I don't get pregnant in the next year, I don't think I want to at all.

Does that sound awful? For me, I'd rather know sooner than later if it's even possible, so that if we find out it's not, we can stop planning and just get on and enjoy the cards we have been dealt, rather than living in this limbo we're in. I don't even know if they would do tests on us when we've only been trying for a few months anyway.

There's also the whole logistics of this. The week we need to be getting busy is an awful week for us - I'm out with work one night, we're due at my dad's concert another, the next two I am away for a hen do. Which means that we miss the window of opportunity for another month.

I just feel like everything is out of my control at the moment, and for someone who is usually so in control, I feel so low.

Which is why I have been comfort eating and have gained 6lb in the week that we were away.

On the plus (?) side though, not being pregnant already means that Hubby and I can plan a trip to the USA in September. We're thinking 2 nights in New York, train to Boston, drive to Cape Cod/Nantucket etc. then back around and up the Maine coast to Penobscot, Kennebunkport and Camden before ending up back in Boston and being there for the Red Sox/Tampa Bay Rays game which we can hopefully get tickets to.

We keep saying that each of our holidays will be the last big one before we have kids... but it's just not happening at the moment, so at least we have these trips to look forward to, right?