Any older mums ttc (late 30s)?

Hi maisiemog...

Quite early days for TTC - this is our second month of trying (and our first of trying with any real vigour!).

What about you?

Thought I might add myself to this thread - am 36 (and a half!!), and TTC numero uno. DP is 40 (and a quarter!).

Re. thermometers... I bought a Braun digital one from Boots for £9.95. Although it's not an 'official' fertility thermometer, it seems to do the job. It calculates to one decimal place, in centigrade. Not sure about the ones from ebay.

Hi everyone Merry Christmas nearly.
I haven't posted for a while, but we have been actively TTC for a month or so now. Joined the Fertility Friend thing.
The thing is I only have a pathetic little digital thermometer, which isn't very accurate. I know I need to proper BBT one, but I'm not sure where to get one.
Do Boots stock them??
I have seen a couple on Ebay, has anyone tried?
Oh and anyone drinking grapefruit juice - Morrisons have Princes juice 2 for 1 at the moment - it's a steal. I stocked up for over Christmas.
I think Toblerone is a fertility aid as well (I hope )

Eaglebird, so sorry about your m/c

I have had all the blood tests and they were all normal, so I guess we just keep on trying. I will go to the drs again after Christmas and moan some more if nothing happens this month

I have taken HRT since I was 19 I am now 45, I must admit I don't have any problems other than mood swings, but who doesn't? I hope you get sorted soon, I know how you feel, I mc triplets on the 1st IVF treatment but I now have 3 wonderful children, so am blessed!

Oh my goodness, Sleepsooz! 16!! So you started periods at 13ish, and stopped again at 16? Did the doctors work out why?

Have you had to take hormone replacement since then? I'm so glad that IVF exists, and that it worked for you.

I've tried to get my GPs interested in my secondary infertility (we've been trying for well over three years now, since I was 35), but they just brush me off every time. Of course, having a miscarriage after 3 years and 2 months now proves that I am not infertile, merely sub-fertile, so they'll prob be even less interested. One GP ran a day 21 test, which proved that I was ovulating (already knew that from charting temps) and that my levels of progesterone were good for my age (28 at day 21, whatever that means).

It's all the more galling because I got pregnant with the first three very easily, so I am probably getting my comeupance now, as my sister delicately pointed out.

I had IVF for all of my children, DS and DTS DD & DS and am blessed the treatment worked, I went through a premature menopause when I was 16!

As long as you don't give up that hope, I understand the ache and hurt in your heart, the need overtakes everything in your life, that is totally acceptable and nobody can tell you to dust yourself down and carry on with your life!

I'm 38 and dp is 40. 1st pg ended in m/c in October. Hopefully we'll have more luck in 2007.

duchesse and yuletideways!

I am 38 and 6 months now have been trying. It occupies my mental thoughts everyday and I even dream I have a bfp and then wake up nearly crying. I am going this weekend to yet another baby shower and she is having triplets!!! I'm so envious! I work with a lady who unexpectedly got prego at 42 and she just got back from maternity leave so it gives me hope. My cousin was 43 when she had her last so it can happen. I have other children too and am extremely thankful for them but it doesn't take away the emptiness and longing to have another baby. Every time I see a baby at the mall or at work my eyes fill with tears, I am on second dh and he has never had any, he would be wonderful and I so bad want a baby with him. I have had some in between spotting the past two months and a bad case of tonsillitis, doctor put me on antibiotics last week and last time when I was ttc for 6 months I got prego the month after I took antibiotics! I'm hoping in some way that this will happen again. Are you going to do IVF? We will eventually but he just changed jobs so we need to make sure it is secure there before we shell out the money, plus we wanted to give it at least one year of ttc.

I am 45 DH 53 and we have 10yo DS and 3yo twins!!! we are 'KNACKERED' but happy!

Know what you mean duchesse. I am nearly 40 and ttc. I already have one, conceived almost immediately, but struggling now. Refuse to believe it is because of my age

Am getting really neurotic hearing on the radio about how much fertility decreases in our thirties. I am nearly 39, and am beginning to feel that it's all over for me.

I am just so glad to have some children already I cannot imagine what this is like for women trying for their first in their late thirties.

I am trying to be glad for my blessings most of the time, and to stop fixating on this last child, but it is still occupying a lot of my time and mental energy, and has done for over three years.

I'm just not ready to be sure that there won't ever be another baby.

Don't know if this is any help....had miscarriage 2 years ago. TTC after this and nothing happened.
Went to GP who said it's your age, etc etc.
Went back and demanded referral.
Saw expert and found out I wasn't ovulating, but was still having AF. Said a traumatic m/c could send hormones out of kilter. Put me on Clomid (horrible horrible drug). Conceived straight away, now have dd age 4 months.
If you have had m/c do make sure it has not screwed up hormones which is what happened to me. Nothing to do with age, but with m/c sending hormones haywire.

Hi all,
I haven't posted on here in ages, but DP and I have decided we are going to TTC so I've been lecturing him on boxer shorts and zinc.
I've got grapefruit juice, Evening primrose, vitamin B group, fish oil and I'm reluctantly going to cut down my coffee consuption to one little morning cup.
It's all quite complicated.
When we got pregnant last time, it was unplanned, but I was taking agnus castus for a large fibroid (now gone), so I am wondering about that as well??
Has anyone got any good advice for me?

duchesse:
He has not been checked and will get checked next month if I'm not preggo. My first hubby had a low sperm count but I got prego 3 x's the last one took 7 months, let's just hope it's not that but since my doc told me that I have the egg supply of a 20 year old it scares me that its him! My periods are regular, I ovulate on day 11 I have never even had a cyst or anything so he said if not by 6 months then it's his turn so that will be next month

Just a thought, wishing1- have you had husbandio checked out?

I started off full of optimism that I would get pregnant as quickly as I did with the first three (ie- without trying), but it has now been 3.5 years. I wouldn't recommend waiting that long to seek help if that's the route you're going to take. In fact if you're over 35, they say get help after 6 months, I think.

duchesse:

WOW, that's great we have so much in common, I am 38, ttc #4, my children are 20, 16, 13! I started very young, on DH #2 and he has NONE and he has never been married before me. Have you had the bloodwork and all that. I did and everything came back fine but still no baby I just started a new job and guess what...yep...I'm in there with 2 pregnant women I envy them so much and they are young It's scarey when you have a hard time conceiving when your older because that's all I think about it how many times will I ovulate before I turn 40? How sick is that but it's true. Good luck, we are trying preseed this month, hope it works. Hope "something" works

Hi wishing1- I think we may have a fair few details in common- as I've roamed around the ttc boards, I've worked out that you have three children (snap), are ttc a fourth (snap) and are 38 (?) (snap if so). My children are 13, 11 and 9, all born in our twenties. We are hoping for another, but have been trying for 3 and a half years.

duchesse:
It seems everyone "is" pregnant around me as well, two of my neighbors are preg, 2 of my dh colleages at work are preg, my 39 year old friend from highschool is preg (I'm 38, just turned at ttc for 5 months another friend had invitro and is 20 weeks preg with triplets! So...I am sick of going to 'other' peoples baby showers and getting baby pics in the mail and email and hearing it all around me and it's not me, it's so painful and I even dream of seeing those 2 lines on that stupid stick!! I have had all necessary bloodwork and exams, I have a 17 year old and 13 year old and on second dh who has none and wants one and so do I of course. Sometimes you think you will never see that bfp, I think I would scream until I lost my voice if I got one. I would cherish every day of being pregnant even the bad ones Good luck to you as well.

(Qucik hijack......)
Juicy......how are you doing?
Haven't heard from you for AGES!!!!!

Oinker - what did the hospital say?

And I am sorry to hear that you are having trouble acessing investigations. I am too chicken to go there, but I would have thoguht that a medical problem like this woud be treated the same way as any other illness. After all, fertility is affected by a large number of conditions, some of them potentially hazardous for the person concerned. The least they can do is work out why conceiving is being problematic.

I guess that's why I was so pissed off with that GP last year- he ran a thryoid level test and a progesterone level test (both fine) and decided that there was nothing wrong with me. Period. (haha)

The senior partner in the practice has said that he will order a full blood screen on me, but only because my hair is also falling out now. (I have lost half of it in the last two years) That will happen in a few weeks' time, when my iron levels post-miscarriage have returned to normal.

Good luck with your medical battles. I thought they were supposed to speed up the process for us more mature ladies?

Oinker, I have been completely burying my head in the sand about these probably fertility problems. The closest I got to dealing with them was when I mentioned them to my GP last year. He was as high-handed as I'd expected him to be, and told to come back "when I'd decided what I was going to do". Hello? I was there, wasnt I?
Given that it had just taken me two years (and obviously I told him we'd been trying for two years) to pluck up the courage to even approach the medical profession, I feel that his reaction lacked a certain sensitivity.
No idea what did for Vlad (so called because I'd had several bleeds along the way). The ultrasonographer said there was quite a lot of fluid around the back of the neck, so possibly a neural tube defect. Dr Google suggests that it might equally have been a chromosomal abnormality.
So onward, ever onward, I suppose. I'm feeling a little more positive this week, and hoping for a post-miscarriage surge in fertility.

duchese, you are determined so you will get there. I understand what you are saying when you say everyone around you is having babies. it is just made doubley hard because of what you have been thru.
Do you have any idea what if anything is causing the delay in getting pg? Have any investigations been done since the sad loss of Vlad?

I have had a shitty morning of it in hospital regarding me geting sorted out for operative hysteroscopy. There just seems to be one hurdle after another.