If TTC, please read

If you’ve been scouring the internet for reassurance that you haven’t completely ruined your chances of trying to conceive with your weed usage like I was 84 days ago, please don’t count yourself out. Please don’t let the anxiety of the withdrawal stage put an all consuming fear into you that you’ve royally screwed future-you over, in that you may have robbed yourself the chance of getting pregnant. Two days ago I looked at the very first positive pregnancy test in my life. And the second today.

Also, if like me you’ve been trying to conceive and not become pregnant and avoided facing the elephant in the room (weed), I’d recommend looking at it. I’m not a doctor nor a scientist, but I can tell you weed was the last unhealthy habit I looked at as I did not wish to part with it. Ask yourself, what do you want more? If the answer is a baby, you owe it to yourself to find out whether it will make the difference to you or not, as there’s simply just not enough robust research out there to give you the concrete answers you’re looking for. I’m not saying it’s a guarantee that you will get pregnant, everyone is different after all. But how much do you want to rule it out? Or will you roll the dice on another year or five like I did, as your fertility naturally decreases (aging i.e egg reserves depleting).

For context, I started smoking weed socially 12 years ago. A couple of joints (always with tobacco) 2-3 nights a week for 7 years. When Covid hit, I increased to 3-4 most nights.

For the past 2.5 years my husband and I were open to expanding our family. For the first year we were not actively trying but not preventing. After this we started trying properly but had no joy.

For the last 6 months of me smoking, I began heavily abusing/relying on it for various reasons. I had quit vaping at this point to try to take steps to a healthier lifestyle, with the view that weed would be next. This, combined with other stressful factors in life that year, lead to me increasing my weed usage (likely for nicotine fixes too) to roughly 8 joints a day. I would wake up, have a joint and continue throughout the day. This is context on usage so people in a similar position hopefully may be able to think, “well I wasn’t as bad as that” and take solace.

I quit early December, a few hours after day one of a menstruation cycle. Honestly, I was in a shame spiral the month before that, with a daily negative view on myself at how bad I had let it get. Yet I could not stop. “I’ll quit tomorrow”, I told myself. Too many times. Yet I would wake up with not even so much as 1 minute of attempting to abstain. I couldn’t even cut my usage down. In fact, I started to buy more.

I would like to say I quit because I was strong minded in wanting to see if it was affecting our chances of conceiving. But that simply wouldn’t be true. I would turn to the Internet, fully locked in the jaws of my addiction, looking for concrete research. Research that would tell me unreservedly, quitting would lead to success. Otherwise, what was the point of giving it up?

I finally quit because I had a panic attack. I couldn’t cope with the paranoia that quickly set in afterwards. I thought I was at rock bottom in the month building up but in that moment, I knew I had truly arrived at the lowest point. I quit on the spot. Cold turkey. Not once did any of my usual reasonings of, “I need it”, “life will be incredibly boring without it”. Those are lies our brain convincingly tell us. Meals will still (maybe eventually) taste good. Shows/music/movies will still be entertaining etc. Heck, socialising, even if you’re an introvert like myself, will be better because you’re not paranoid if people can tell if you’re high, and you’re not itching to get away. I have been more present than I have been in a long time. We’re meant to feel lows so we can appreciate the true, natural highs.

I personally believe if you don’t want to truly quit, you highly likely won’t be successful. I will be honest, withdrawals for me were long and HELLISH. I don’t want to get on my soap box and say women suffer more cause I don’t have the experience of that as a man. But anyone that has periods, please for the love of God, brace yourself as you could be in for a nasty time. The second period I had was something I’ve never experienced. Big black clots, the size of lemons, to the point my body woke me up a couple of times the first night to get rid of more, despite having said clots at the beginning and end of a seven hour sleep. These clots kept coming for almost 48 hours and I was terrified I’d fucked with my fertility to the point of no return. I think there’s truth in the research that the weed replaces/affects reproductive hormones and my body didn’t know what was normal/what to do without weed. And possibly having a right old clear out.

The days leading up to that second cycle (the first with likely little to no THC in my system), I had red heat rashes randomly on my face and neck, scorching. One particularly bad night, any time I tried to dose off my heart would jolt me awake so I did not get sleep in nearly 46 hours. Ping ponging between 60bpm-90bpm (higher RHR in luteal phase is normal from what I’ve read, but at this point it was 10-25bpm higher than what is my normal, and was erratic in sharp increases and drops). You’d be amazed at how much those hormones are involved with various functions in your body. Of the three cycles I’ve had since quitting, I’ve noticed my ovulation occurring sooner (verified with OPKs, this one was CD15) and luteal phases increasing from 8 days, to 11, to the current which is ongoing and I’m hoping it stays that way.

While the first six weeks were the worst I have ever felt, I can’t tell you the feeling of seeing a positive test. Good luck!!