Looking for Fertile Minds to Discuss Fertility!

November 19, 2010 7:21 PM

Trying to Conceive communities: alternatives to babycenter.com?

I'm trying to conceive and I'm looking for communities that aren't babycenter.com and babyandbump.com. Unfortunately, it seems like most websites are focused around pregnancy or infertility, whereas i'd like what Babycenter.com has to offer in regards to trying to conceive support but with a different vibe. Anonymous 'cause my SO is on here and I don't want him knowing how stressed I am about this - I need to vent to others that aren't him!

posted by anonymous to Health & Fitness (11 answers total)

Taking Charge of your Fertility had communities as did LiveJournal.
posted by k8t at 7:29 PM on November 19, 2010

Have you looked at The Bump? They seem to have a section and a forum area dealing with getting pregnant. I don't know if it has a different vibe, but I have enjoyed their sister site, The Nest.
posted by elerina at 7:35 PM on November 19, 2010

I'd head to Livejournal, they have a few pretty active TTC communities, and people there are pretty nice and can usually type in coherent sentences. There's still the people who insist on using cutesy acronyms like DD and DS and CM (ugh, cervical mucus, seriously, can we not be adults and spell that out), but it's generally a little more substantial than babycenter and seems better moderated than anything thebump or thenest has.
posted by kpht at 7:46 PM on November 19, 2010

the altdotlife forums are VERY active in TTC/fertility/pregnancy/kids - most user pictures are of babies. You need to sign up to read/post in the forums, but it's free.
posted by missmary6 at 8:06 PM on November 19, 2010 [2 favorites]

Mothering.com has TTC forums, and within that, some very specific threads/tribes.
posted by meringue at 8:58 PM on November 19, 2010 [2 favorites]

I knew a group of about ten women who met on fertilityfriend.com. As a bonus, they all ended up with babies within 5 years.

Good luck!
posted by MeiraV at 9:49 PM on November 19, 2010

(mothering.com is largely bananas, so, I'd avoid).
posted by moxiedoll at 9:56 PM on November 19, 2010 [3 favorites]

I just came here to recommend the mothering.com forums. but see I've been beaten to it. They do have some super-crunchy-granola women at that site, but it's still a great resource.
posted by Asparagirl at 10:44 PM on November 19, 2010

It really depends on the vibe you want. It is very hard to find forums that are not all baby dust and angels and "forver mommies" and that stuff makes me INSANE. Smothering.com has some of that and is a little woo-woo for me; the forums at ADL always seemed a lot more reality grounded while being very supportive and friendly.
posted by DarlingBri at 1:39 AM on November 20, 2010

The forums at mothering.com have worked for me to a certain degree--they're often a little too crunchy for me but if you take them with a grain of salt, there's some good discussions.

When I was trying to conceive and then pregnant I spent a ridiculous amount of my time on the forums at fertilityfriend. I found that site to be a pretty good balance--not too crunchy, not too giddy, if that makes sense. (I also used their charting tools obsessively!)

Good luck!
posted by devotion+doubt at 7:51 AM on November 20, 2010

My wife really likes the community at "Baby's Named a Bad, Bad Thing. The putative raison d'etre of the board is to discuss/snark on bad baby names, but the other sections of the board are very active. The "Pregnancy/Parenting" board there is subtitled "TTC to DD/DS, but without the annoying acronyms", so it sounds like it might be a good fit. (I've always thought that community had a MeFi-like vibe, FWIW.)
posted by QuantumMeruit at 8:29 AM on November 20, 2010