Getting Pregnant

If you're trying to get pregnant, it's only natural to have a lot of questions. It can be easy to start worrying if you're not pregnant as soon as you'd hoped.

How long is it going to take for me to get pregnant?

Why does it seem like all of my friends get pregnant at the drop of a hat?

Is there something wrong with me?

The good news is that getting pregnant is more common than not.

If you take the average couple -- both of good health, having an average amount of unprotected intercourse (and even in average ways) -- their chances of getting pregnant, on average, are about 1 in 4 per menstrual cycle. After about a year of trying, 80 percent of these "all-average" folks will have conceived.

The flip side is that there are lots of little, seemingly unconnected things that can slip up and cause a larger system to go awry.

How often does such a thing occur? The American Society for Reproductive Medicine estimates that approximately 10 percent of the reproductive age population in the United States experience infertility. (American Society for Reproductive Medicine, 2002)

Bear in mind that the word "infertility" refers to any point on a continuum between people who are fertile but might take longer than others to conceive (sub-fertility) and people who have conditions that will prevent them from ever conceiving (sterility). Infertility and sterility are not the same thing!

So, if you're anxious to get pregnant, should you run out and get tested for every possible glitch, just to make sure everything is in working order?