How long does it take to conceive?

How long?

It's the million dollar question and one that most couples naturally want to know when they decide to have a baby, how long will it take us to conceive? It might make planning your life that little bit harder, but there's no answer to this question: some couples conceive in their first month of trying, or of not using contraception, others can take months or even years and some couples will be unable to conceive naturally. For many women, after years of worrying about unwanted pregnancy, it can come as some surprise to find out that getting pregnant might not be as easy as we thought. To put some perspective on this, an averagely fertile couple has a 20-25% chance of conceiving with each cycle. Around 92% of couples conceive within 24 months of trying for a baby with regular unprotected sex and doctors usually won't start investigating possible fertility problems until a couple has been trying to conceive for a year with no success.

Why is it taking so long?

Medical conditions affecting fertility aside, the main factor affecting fertility is age. It might not be what women in their thirties and delaying starting a family want to hear, but age does play a part in how fertile you are, for the simple reason that as you age, so do your eggs, making fewer eggs are 'viable' (that is, capable of sustaining a pregnancy). According to the UK's National Health Service, a woman in her early twenties is twice as fertile as a woman in her late thirties, with the biggest drop off in fertility happening in the mid-thirties. It's also the case that as you get older the rate of miscarriage rises dramatically. The general rate of miscarriage is believed to be about one-in-five (though it's very difficult to say how many early miscarriages occur that are never noticed because the woman isn't aware that she's pregnant), by the time women reach their forties the rate of miscarriage could be as high as one-in-two.