masturbation and TTC

Hi everybody, I wanna share my story with you. I have been TTC for the past 9 months. I'm 41 years old, no children, so I was never sure trying the old fashioned way would work for me! I kind of eased into the process- stopped the pill 9 months ago, downloaded a fertility app 6 months ago, started doing ovulation test kits 4 months ago. when nothing happened by then I started to stress and worry, and started to plan my visit to a fertility doc.

2 months ago my bf let slip to me that he masturbates every day. Now, this isn't necessarily upsetting news... I already knew ALL about his strong sex drive and that he masturbates often. We still have sex every night, and I'm too tired wayyyy more often than he is! BUT...every day though, honey? 🤣 A little research told me that while masturbation does NOT lower sperm count in the long run; in the short term it sure can! Basically, the second time a man ejaculates in a short time period will have markedly less sperm than the first, because his production system hasn't had time to catch up yet. I teased him that I was only getting his worst swimmers, heehee! The slow ones, the ones swimming around in circles... 🤣

We agreed the new plan was no "extracurricular activities" during my fertile window. Any other time, have at it. Now 2 months later I got the BFP, and I'm hoping nothing goes wrong. Maybe not, but I really feel like I found the missing piece to a puzzle! As women we are so hard on ourselves; we question and second guess every little thing we do, and if pregnancy isn't coming it feels automatically like a failure on our part. At the very least it's good to remember that there are 2 players in this game, and both are important.

Now quick, everybody go run and ask DH how often he masturbates! 🤣🤣🤣