If you’re riding the TTC rollercoaster, you know that it can be hard to stay positive and not let the whole crazy scenario get to you. The first thing you must do is realize that although there are steps you can take to improve your chances, ultimately, this is something that is beyond your control. That can be very frustrating to deal with, but if you can accept this, you’re a step closer to getting through this without going crazy.

When you first start trying to conceive, whether it’s for your first child, or your fifth, you feel excited and so very hopeful. If it takes you a while to conceive, the endless cycles get become hard to cope with. The month becomes broken up into very specific sections. First, you wait to ovulate. You pee on a stick every morning, looking for that surge. You take your temperature before you get out of bed and every day you look at your chart, trying to decipher what it means. Then you procreate like rabbits to try to catch that egg. After the exhausting days of sex on a schedule, you must wait. Those two weeks before your period are often the hardest. You spend all your time gauging how your body feels – are my breasts more tender than usual? Are those cramps or an expanding uterus? Then you face disappointment if you get your period and impatiently wait for it to end so you can start trying again. It’s a difficult cycle.

If you’re using medical assistance, not only are you dealing with all of the above, but you have the added discord that drugs and procedures add. What is supposed to be a completely natural and simple act becomes something that must be managed. And when you seek help from a doctor is often when you first face the guilt trip that is about being plus-sized. You’re weighed and there’s discussion of how losing even a small amount of weight can help you conceive. Your doctor is most definitely trying to help you, but being told that you need to lose weight at a time when you facing the most stressful cycles ever seems absurd sometimes.

The drugs can make you feel like a lunatic and when you find yourself having conversations with doctors and nurses about sex positions, cervical mucous, and sperm sample sizes, you know this has gone from an act of love between two people to an invasion of strangers into your private life.

You can stay positive through all of this though. You’re going to have difficult days, so accept that. But what you must do is look at your life and recognize all the good things in it. All of your happiness cannot be pinned to a possible pregnancy. If it happens, it happens, and if it doesn’t, you will go on. It takes most women an average of six months to get pregnant, and if you have PCOS, ovulation problems, or other medical issues, you should expect it to take longer. This is by no means an instantaneous process for many plus-size women. But you can get pregnant, and there is a lot of help available if you need it. Many, many women are able to quickly get pregnant by taking Clomid, a fertility drug that is the first line of treatment. If that doesn’t work, there are many more options available.