The Terminology of “Trying”

My husband doesn’t like the phrase “we’re trying to get pregnant”.

I do see his point that it sounds a bit explicit if you think about it too hard (“We’re having lots of sex this month!”). But I’ve never been fond of anything milder.

The phrases “We’re leaving it up to chance” or “We’re letting whatever happens happen” tickle the edge of my brain as… odd, and maybe even naïve. I used to watch a couple communities about pregnancy and the refrain was “If you’re not using protection, then you are trying”.

Obviously there’s quite a gradient between charting and timing sex vs just stopping protection. But in my hyper-self-aware state right now, my logic is: every woman I know knows her cycle and therefore can infer the half-way point and and is deciding to go ahead with sex at the important time (or not). And if she decides to go ahead, she’s not leaving it up to much chance!

The logic falls apart since most women don’t pay as close attention to cycles as couples who want to get pregnant asap.

I understand that what I’m doing is very far from interventions like in vitro, but I feel like I should sound more decisive… take more responsibility? It’s definitely inaccurate to say we just left it to chance.

TTC is the easy way to say it on the web but I don’t feel like out loud, “trying to conceive” sounds different from “trying to get pregnant.” Maybe I could say the letters out loud: “We’re Tee Tee See” and only explaining it means “trying to conceive” if I get weird looks. I guess since it’s more clinical it’s also less explicit.