The decision to try for a baby is one of the most significant a person or couple can make. It is also one that is surrounded by enormous amounts of well-meaning but often incomplete advice — too much of it focused on the logistics and not enough on the financial realities, emotional landscape, and relationship dynamics that actually shape the experience. Here are seven things worth genuinely knowing before you start.
1. It May Take Longer Than You Expect
One of the most common sources of unexpected distress for people trying to conceive is the gap between expectation and reality. Many people assume that stopping contraception will lead to pregnancy relatively quickly. In reality, for a healthy couple in their early thirties, the average time to conception is around six months. For women over 35, this extends further. Only about 30% of couples who are actively trying conceive in the first month of trying.
This is not pessimism — it is important preparation. Understanding that it may take a year or more for a healthy couple to conceive shifts the emotional experience from month-by-month desperation to a more sustainable perspective. It also means that if you have been trying for a year without success (six months if you are over 35), seeing a healthcare provider is appropriate and recommended, not a sign of catastrophe.
2. Your Relationship Will Be Tested
Trying to conceive, especially if it does not happen quickly, places significant pressure on a couple’s relationship. Sex can shift from an expression of desire to a scheduled, outcome-focused obligation. Grief and disappointment around each negative test can be experienced very differently by each partner, creating disconnection at moments of shared loss. The emotional weight of uncertainty can make communication difficult, particularly if one partner is more anxious or more invested in timing than the other.
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None of this means the process will damage your relationship. But knowing it in advance means you can approach the journey with more deliberate relational care — maintaining connection outside of the trying-to-conceive context, communicating openly about how you are each experiencing the process, and seeking support together if things become difficult. The foundation of a genuinely healthy relationship is what carries a couple through the more challenging seasons.
3. Start the Financial Preparation Now
The financial implications of having a baby extend well beyond what most people initially plan for. The visible costs — pram, cot, car seat, clothes — are relatively easy to anticipate. The invisible ones are where most people are caught off-guard: the drop in income during parental leave, the cost of childcare (which in many cities consumes a significant proportion of one income), the healthcare expenses that appear with a small baby, and the lifestyle adjustments that come with a fundamentally changed set of daily needs.
Financial preparation ideally begins well before conception: building an emergency fund, paying down high-interest debt, understanding your employer’s parental leave provisions, and making a realistic month-by-month cash flow projection for the twelve months following your due date. The financial adjustment to parenthood is easier when you enter it with clarity rather than encountering it as a series of unwelcome surprises. The 8 hidden costs of having a baby article is essential reading for anyone planning ahead.
4. Preconception Health Matters for Both Partners
Preconception health is often framed entirely around the woman — folic acid, alcohol reduction, avoiding certain medications. But the health of the sperm-producing partner at the time of conception also significantly affects fertility and the health of the pregnancy. Male factor infertility accounts for approximately 40–50% of all fertility challenges. Sperm quality is significantly affected by factors including alcohol consumption, smoking, heat exposure, stress levels, diet, and body weight.
Both partners benefit from beginning preconception health improvements at least three months before starting to try — the time it takes to complete a full sperm production cycle. This means moderating alcohol, stopping smoking, optimising diet and weight if relevant, managing stress, and avoiding recreational substances that may affect fertility. These are investments that benefit the pregnancy and the child’s long-term health, not just conception itself.
5. Your Mental Health Needs Attention Before and During
Perinatal mental health — the emotional wellbeing of parents from conception through the first year after birth — is significantly underserved in most healthcare systems. Antenatal anxiety and depression (depression during pregnancy, not just postpartum) are more common than most people realise and more likely in people with pre-existing mental health challenges. If you have a history of depression, anxiety, OCD, or trauma, discussing this proactively with a healthcare provider before you start trying is genuinely important.
The same applies to the trying-to-conceive period itself. The emotional experience of monthly cycles of hope and disappointment, of tracking and timing and waiting, can be genuinely depleting. Having professional support in place — a therapist who specialises in fertility, a support group, or simply a GP who is informed about your mental health history — before you need it is far better than scrambling for it in the midst of distress. Understanding why self-care is non-negotiable is especially relevant during this emotionally demanding period.
6. Not Everyone Finds Pregnancy a Joyful Experience
The cultural narrative around pregnancy tends to be relentlessly positive: a glowing, joyful journey full of anticipation and wonder. For many people, the reality is more complicated. Hyperemesis gravidarum (severe pregnancy sickness) can be debilitating. Pregnancy anxiety — often not taken as seriously as postnatal anxiety — is common, particularly after a previous loss or fertility challenge. Physical discomfort, body image changes, and the loss of a previous sense of physical self affect many pregnant people in ways that feel shameful to admit in a culture that insists pregnancy should be a celebration.
Knowing this in advance can reduce the guilt that compounds difficult experiences. Struggling with pregnancy does not make you a bad parent. It makes you a person having a genuinely hard experience that is more common than the Instagram version of pregnancy suggests.
7. Your Identity Will Change — and That Is Not a Loss
Becoming a parent involves a profound identity transition — what developmental psychologist Dan McAdams calls a narrative identity shift. The person you were before is not erased, but the centre of gravity of your sense of self moves significantly. This is not a loss, although it can feel like one in the early months. It is an expansion — one that most parents describe, looking back, as one of the most significant and ultimately meaningful transformations of their lives.
Knowing this in advance means you can hold the disorientation of early parenthood with more equanimity — understanding that feeling lost, changed, and uncertain about who you now are is normal and temporary, not a sign that you have made a mistake. The process of rebuilding a sense of self in a new chapter of life is explored in how to rebuild when everything changes — and parental identity shifts, while chosen, involve many of the same psychological dynamics.
Frequently Asked Questions
When should I start taking folic acid?
Current guidelines recommend beginning folic acid supplementation (400 micrograms daily) at least one month before conception and continuing through the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. Folic acid significantly reduces the risk of neural tube defects including spina bifida. People with certain medical conditions or on certain medications may require a higher dose — discuss this with your GP before starting to try.
Does stress affect fertility?
The relationship between stress and fertility is complex and still being researched. There is evidence that severe, chronic stress can disrupt the hormonal environment necessary for ovulation and implantation in some women. However, normal life stress — the kind most people experience — is unlikely to be a primary cause of fertility challenges. The “just relax and it will happen” advice is both unhelpful and often factually inaccurate. If fertility concerns are present, they deserve proper medical investigation rather than reassurance.
How do I support a partner who is more anxious about the process than I am?
The most important thing is genuine, non-dismissive listening. Resist the urge to fix, reassure, or problem-solve when your partner needs to express anxiety — validate their feelings first. Attend appointments together where possible. Agree on how much you will discuss the trying-to-conceive process outside of dedicated “fertility conversation” times, to prevent it from colonising all of your shared time. And honestly share your own feelings — the partner who appears more relaxed often has their own unexpressed anxieties, and naming those can reduce the gulf between two people experiencing the same journey differently.
Sources & further reading: NHS: Trying for a Baby Guide | American Academy of Pediatrics: Family Planning | Psychology Today: Preparing for Parenthood.
Cassandra Simpson is a wellbeing and relationship writer with a BSc in Psychology and five years of experience working in community mental health support. She writes about love, friendship, boundaries, and the emotional work of belonging — drawing on both academic grounding and the hard-won perspective that comes from navigating her own relationship patterns, friendships, and personal growth in real time. Cassandra trained as a peer support facilitator and has spent years exploring attachment theory, interpersonal dynamics, and the psychology of connection. Her writing is shaped by a deep belief that most relationship struggles come not from failure, but from the absence of honest, accessible information about how human connection actually works.
