Sex File: Trying for a baby is starting to feel like a choreYou are absolutely right to focus on bringing closeness and lightness back to your sexual relationship, because stress has a huge impact on ovulation and the menstrual cycle Mon, 14 Sep, 2026 – 02:00Suzi Godson
My partner and I are in our 30s and have been trying to get pregnant for over a year. It’s not just that sex feels more like a chore; I worry that the stress and disappointment every month have stripped away any joy. How can we get some closeness and lightness back in our sex life?
Medical advice suggests that if you have been having unprotected sex for a year and are still not pregnant, you should speak to a doctor. If you are over the age of 35, you should do this after six months.
As teenagers, girls are bombarded with information on safe sex, unplanned pregnancy and contraception. It is a scare strategy disguised as education, which is fine: no one wants 16-year-old girls to get pregnant. But when that 16-year-old is 36 and has been trying to get pregnant for over a year without success, she may begin to feel let down.
All the frantic maths, the desperate bargains made with the universe, all those weeks in her younger years spent worrying, waiting, hoping and praying for her next period may have been a waste of time because it can be more difficult to get pregnant than you thought.
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The HSE pregnancy guide advises couples to have unprotected sex two to three times a week if they are trying to conceive. Knowing when to have sex is a good strategy, and you need to figure it out for yourself rather than simply relying on period tracker apps.
If you have blocked fallopian tubes or your partner has a low sperm count, you will need medical assistance, but infertility is unexplained in up to 30% of cases.
For these couples, a recent study suggests that “fertility awareness methods” — tracking changes in cervical mucus and having sex when yours is clear, wet, stretchy and more penetrable to sperm — has better outcomes than assisted reproductive technology (any treatment or procedure that involves a laboratory to help you get pregnant).
The study, published this year and conducted by Michele Barbato and Fabio Parazzini at the University of Milan, tracked pregnancies in couples with unexplained infertility over 12 months.
They found that the pregnancy rate in women under the age of 34 who used fertility awareness methods was 90.9%, and in women aged 35 to 39 it was 36.7%. By comparison, the pregnancy rate in the assisted reproductive group was 30% for women under the age of 34 and 17.4% for women aged 35 to 39.
You are absolutely right to focus on bringing closeness and lightness back to your sexual relationship, because stress has a huge impact on ovulation and the menstrual cycle.
When it doesn’t happen quickly enough, getting pregnant can become an obsession and spending a year failing at anything is going to send your cortisol levels through the roof.
You have options, but right now I would advise you to give yourselves a break and forget about babies for a bit.
Take a holiday. Focus on yourselves and your relationship. Have fun. Swim in the Aegean. Climb Kilimanjaro. Kayak the Norwegian fjords. Get creative. Get naked. Do all the stuff that you won’t be able to do when you are parents.
It’s not scientific, but when you stop trying, you stop worrying, and your body relaxes. Sometimes that can be all it takes.
- Send your questions to [email protected]
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