Fantastic Forty Plus, part 9, this time is our time,bring on the bfp's!

gum ,what about the 25-28% likelihood from dtd 1-2 days before??
sounds like you timed things perfectly!
I don't know how they work out these statistics though.
I suppose it does make sense since sperm takes about 10hrs to mature and will survive a while in the ewcm so it's ready and waiting as soon as the egg arrives.It did surprise me to read there was such a good chance from 3-4 days before.Who knows!
It must be tough for your DD2 suffering from anxiety,it's a tricky age too, on the brink of her teens when they find lots of things to worry about anyway!
Your upside down apricot cake sounds lovely, I tried one with peaches a while ago but it turned out a bit soggy, any tips?
My DD1 is recovering from her surgery, thanks for asking.She's still in quite a lot of pain at times but we're doing a phased return to school this week so she's going in each morning and I'm collecting her at lunchtime so she can come home and lie down.She was getting bored at home and didn't want to have too much to catch up on at school so we're trying to get a balance!

CaliBee what date is your birthday? It's mine in Feb too but I'll be 45 ...eeek!
I don't think you should feel bad about the chocolate and wine ,it's therapeutic! Hope you're ok tonight. x

Isabeller hope you enjoy DPs birthday. Exciting times ahead with your transfer coming up!

Cross-post with gum

I've almost recovered from the Norovirus attack, my digestion is not yet back to what it used to be (but thanks for asking). However, DH came down with it last night, a week after DS brought it home. And our friends' little girl who saw my DS last week got it last night, too - it's a nasty nasty virus. Not life-threatening as such, but if you are already ill or frail, you need to be very careful. So elderly people are especially at risk. The main problem is dehydration, nothing stays down, but everything comes out, at both ends.
For us, the D&V stopped quite quickly, but both DH and I felt really rough for a few days after, achey, shivery and shakey. Wouldn't wish it on anyone!

Evening ladies, just a quick check in, then I'm off to bed.

morien and greenlizard - hats off to you, dealing with stepchildren can't be easy! All very well for your OHs, but they mustn't take you for granted!

greenlizard - I do apologise, but I have to admit that your story did make me chuckle a little bit! Love the bit with you sneaking out of work for a lunchtime shag! But how frustrating, all this effort and no result! Am I alone in thinking that ttc really does make you do the strangest things... I hope your DH recovers from his illness quickly, in every respect.

gum - one step at a time, no one expects you to switch off ttc from one day to another... After so long, you probably need a wind-down, don't go cold turkey. Isn't it always that if you want to avoid one particular thing, it jumps at you from every corner? I had a similar experience to your hairdresser visit when I was at the EPU after having passed the clots, the nurse went to get a doctor to examine me, doctor came in, young, female - and about 6-7months pregnant. Raaaaaa...! There should be a policy that no obviously pregnant people should work at the EPU, right?!

CaliBee - when will your DP be able to visit again? Hope you're not getting too lonely, it must be really hard. How are your DCs dealing with this, are they looking after you a little bit?

So tired, and it's only been my second day back at work. Thankfully, I only work half days on Thursdays and Fridays, and I have a lovely facial booked for tomorrow afternoon, followed by a long-overdue visit to the hairdresser!
And I have sent out my CV last night to apply for a job, as well as started talking to recruitment agents, to get the ball rolling. I've done a few calculations, and unfortunately, we cannot afford me quitting my job without having another one to go to, well, not without me having to heavily dip into my savings, which I don't want to do at the moment... (Still hoping we can get round to have our bathrooms done in the near future!) I could do it, if we took DS out of childcare, but as I'm not planning to stay at home for long, it would be too upsetting for him. So I need to get cracking with the job search while working

In spite of still feeling drained and washed out, my general mood appears to be improving (very tentatively), I don't feel so completely down & destroyed anymore. I hope the trend continues...Amazing what a BFN can do for you, eh?! I bet I'll be cursing it again before long .
Still quite emotional, I have to be careful what I read/watch when people are around, to avoid embarrassment. My colleague at work who knows about the mc gave me a little hug yesterday, and I started welling up...

Very exciting times ahead for you isabeller!

calibee glad your sounding more positive. Be kind to yourself and look forward to your next cycle and enjoy some tlc from DP.

gum I know how you are feeling. I struggle daily with whether or not to go on ttc. But I've concluded that as we are not going to use any contraception anyway, just to go with the flow. However that does not stop me obsessing constantly.

AF due this day week.we Dtd plenty this month but even more irritable at this time of the month than usual. Would .ime to think this is a good sign but I've never seen that onelisted as a sign of pregnancy

Oooooh isabeller how bloody exciting....but nerve racking too.
I made DP watch GoT with me at Christmas....apparently all the army lads love it...some of them even claim to speak Dothrakian lol.

I love Game of Thrones too, recently introduced to it by DP.

Re: how long is process piece of string? Calibee. On the one hand it's taken us 5 years to get to this point on the other we went on the waiting list last Summer, got matched and started treatment just before Christmas. Egg & sperm due to meet next week and if they make an embryo and I make a good womb lining transfer will be early Feb. OMG.

Another Game of Thrones fan eh hopeful dare I say that I had considered naming a girl (if I should ever be so lucky to get one) after Ned Stark's youngest daughter. I managed to see season 2 and thought it was everybit as good as season 1

Ahhhhh AIBU =am I being unreasonable....I never knew that.
I confess to not routing around too deeply on here. I only realised there was a Miscarriage/pregnancy loss thread when I googled it and a thread came up. But have to say its been great to use it.
hopeful I love the "what the heck" attitude....good for you girl. I'm sure you will always have indecisive days but I'm thinking you are far too into your goal to give it up.....just yet :)
Ahhhh isabeller I see now why you have felt so rough. How long does the process take? I'm really very uneducated on the whole subject of IVF/donor eggs etc.
I had to make an emergency dash out for sanitary towel supplies....thank gawd for Kotex nightime in poundworld. I will need a mortgage to fund them at this rate. Alas i have also bought chocolate, egg custards, chilli nuts and a cheeky bottle of wine for when its all over. I will be needing to diet aswell soon...
It suddenly struck me as I was driving back.....I'm 43 in a couple of weeks. OMG!!!

One of the first CBT books I came across was when I was teaching maths about 100 years ago and read "The Optimistic Child" by Martin Seligman, it definitely made me a much more effective teacher. His book Learned Optimism is also very good.

The reviews for this book are also interesting and one of them mentions the Feeling Good Handbook which was recommended to me by a psychiatrist.

I'm not suggesting for a minute you're in need of therapy hopeful! Just that a couple of the ideas in here are quite useful for handling difficult situations.

Hi Calibee thanks for the sympathy and birthday wishes and sorry about the abbreviations.

CBT=Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
DE=Donor Egg

DP and I are in the middle of our first donor egg treatment cycle. We are egg sharing with an anonymous donor who needs IVF for male factor infertility; she will share her eggs with us because she is likely to produce 10-20 and would never use all of them. We will pay both IVF costs and she won't be taking strong medication she wouldn't be having anyway. I'm having a typical but nasty lot of side effects plus have heavy cold threatening to turn into either flu or a chest infection so it might be garlic burgers and orange juice for birthday tea .

AIBU is the very robust Mumsnet Topic:Am I Being Unreasonable? Things can get very heated there but it is also very active so you can get a lot of feedback quickly and might pick up a helpful comment from someone who has been in a similar situation or one of the very wise longstanding Mumsnetters.

Hope you feel better with the dihydrocodeine, pretty strong stuff. This too shall pass xx

hopeful just to clarify that I mean the possiblity of you getting pregnant is not definately not out of the question. As I re-read it, it didnt read right atall...

Good Morning all. First of all thankyou once again for your mentions and thoughts. I seriously could not have have got this far without you all.

morien and lizard I'll be honest and admit that I think I would find stepchildren very difficult especially if they tended to take over my home...you are very patient both of you. lizard tose timing issues must be hellish frustrating!
irish those stats are interesting. My one and only BFP in the time I was ttc happened on what must have been ovulation day. Before that we used to dtd every day...sometimes twice ...oh I miss those days...more
hopeful I so totally feel for you right now. I think a womans natural maternal instinct is a force not to be reckoned with. I wonder if its a decision that can actual be made or weather you will maybe just continue (perhaps in a toned down way) to ttc and have a gradual acceptance of things if you dont become pregnant...which lets face it, its certainly not impossible. Arm yourself with positive stories and outcomes again. I'm prettty sure that when you are in that ttc mode its far more positve for your well being than the perpetual worrying that you are going through just now...bless and big hugs.
isabeller I confess to having missed what your going through and I'm not sure what some of your abbreviations are (aibu?)....could you give me a quick reminder?? Its not nice that you are feeling so damn rough though. Happy birthday to DP though..hope you both get to spend some quality time together.

I am braced for another onslaught of pain and bleeding today. Its so bizaare that by the evening time the pain has subsided to almost ordinary af type pains but as soon as I wake up i feel the crescendo building again...raa. Armed with dihydrocodeine today...yum. I wish DP was here ...I miss him tooso much. I feel like I have been a total drudge for all of this year so far (first scan with inconlusive news was New Years Eve) . I havent been anywhere...I am now confined to the house and I just want to get back to being the fun loving, happy bubbly me.
On the plus side....its so nice to be confined to the house when the snow is lying 6 inches deep outside. Today I'm going to re-watch the first season of Game of Thrones....

Thinking of you JBrd and Calibee and hope the meditating is going well Morien I've recently restarted gently and I think it's helping me float not sink. It's good to moan share greenlizard keep it up!

Your struggles resonate strongly hopeful. Have you considered using a CBT approach to help you handle the rollercoaster? It sounds as if some days you feel detached and accepting that you are not pregnant that day and may have had your last pregnancy and other days you feel acute loss and longing. As I understand it CBT would not be trying to make all days the same but helps to handle the ups and downs. I first came across the ideas in books (although later saw a counsellor) and found them helpful but I'm sure it's not everyone's .

I'm considering donning a hard hat and asking for Mumsnet wisdom on AIBU because I think the wisdom of the crowd might be able to help me on whether I should be forcing myself to exercise at the moment while I'm feeling quite ill. What do you all think? should I ask Mumsnet (someone may have had this protocol with DE)?

Some days I have just had to rest but I'm not sure where to draw the line as I am convinced of the benefits of sticking to my exercise plan and the bad consequences of flaking out.

DPs birthday today and if only I could fit in 72 hours catching up by lunchtime I could utterly relax and enjoy the rest of the day baking a birthday cake and celebrating with him.

I will now go away and meditate on these things x

How frustrating greenlizard ,very bad timing for your DP to be unwell.
I did however read an article on www.babycentre.co.uk about optimal timing of intercourse for conception. The stats for a couple with normal fertility are that the likelihood of conceiving are; 4% if you dtd 5 days before ov, 15% 4 days before ov, 25-28% 1-2 days before ov and only 8-10% if you dtd within 24 hrs of ov. It surprised me that you're much more likely to get pregnant from intercourse well before ovulation than on the actual day, maybe you're still in with a good chance!
Do the smiley faces work like a positive opk stick? I seem to still get a positive opk the day after ovulation.

Glad your first day back at work went well Jbrd, it is a relief in a strange way to get that BFN after a miscarriage.

CaliBee sounds like things are progressing but it must be draining for you ,especially if you're in a lot of pain. I hope it all resolves soon for you.

Sounds like you're sorting out a lot of issues Morien ,being stepmum to three little ones must be complicated but I'm sure must bring it's own joys too.

gum ,I hear you when you say you feel wistful looking at your own baby pictures, I thought that was just me!

I echo morien?s sentiments ? I can?t comment on everyone?s stories as there have been so many. All I can say is that you are made of stern stuff ladies and I salute you!

Given the difficulty of some of your journeys I fear I must warn that I am about to have a moan about really trivial stuff so forgive me! I will endeavour to ?man? up a bit when I get it off my chest?..

So after last month?s weirdo cycle (all 20 days of it) I have started acupuncture to go along with every other thing I am trying in the western hemisphere. I started getting ovulation pains around CD12/13. No CB smiley face but I tried some Tesco?s own brand and it could have been positive (or I just really wanted it to be) but I kept going?.and bingo yesterday, got my smiley face at CD15 and my DP simultaneously becomes ill (not his fault but hello ? timing?! He hasn't been ill for 3 years - why at this exact moment agh!) BD?s was simply out of the question he was running a fever even though he offered with sweat running down his face bless him (reminded me of that scene in Angela?s Ashes when he has sex with a consumptive girl). This morning smiley face number 2 appears who-hoo??DP still lying in bed running a fever and groaning, however DP starts to feel better during the day but going away on business trip tonight?calls me at work - I sneak out and drive 30 miles home at top speed and when we get down to it?.he can?t finish!- I thought we were going to have to get the WD40 out there was almost smoke!.....So I spend 30 mins reassuring him it?s ok then belting it back to work?aghghghghghgh!) What are we doing to ourselves!! Right, rant over and thanks for listening.......

Morien, I know exactly what you mean?my DP has two children and they are great but I am not their mother and he can kind of forget it. You are doing the right thing talking about it; I got to the point where I was seething with frustration feeling like I was being taken for granted?I honestly started to feel like a skivvy and it was not good for our relationship. After a bit of an outburst, we did talk about it and how I felt was all a revelation to him?so good for you for braving the subject. The result was he tries quite hard to take my feelings into consideration along with the kids and things have definitely improved on that score.

Glad going back to work was ok jbrd ? sounds like it went well. My thoughts are with you calibee - keep looking after yourself.

Catching up - you've all been busy! It would take forever for me to comment on everything but I've read it all. A special word for calibee though - so sorry it's dragging on like this. And another for jbrd - yes, under the circumstances a BFN is great news, what a relief.

As for me, I've kind of lost interest. Which doesn't mean that I want a BFP any less (with a baby afterwards, obviously, unlike the last one), just that for the moment I can't be bothered worrying about it. I don't even know what CD I am (I know I announced the arrival of AF here so if I really wanted to know I could trawl back through the thread...but I don't really want to know). I wonder if I'm in some kind of denial as my due date's in mid-Feb; I just imagined I'd sail through it with another pregnancy well on the way and obviously that's not going to happen (even if I get a BFP this month it'll still be really early days on the due date). Anyway, whatever the reason, I don't much care as actually I feel much more relaxed about the whole thing. Also, since my MC I'd got myself into an awful mindset, 'all I've got is my job and even though it's supposed to be my dream job in actual fact I hate it and for a while there I thought I had a baby to look forward to and now there's nothing, just this stupid job'...but over the last couple of weeks I've found myself really enjoying work again.

And something else which is making me less stressed is that a few weeks ago I initiated a huge on-going discussion with DP about what I will and will not do for his DCs (8, 4 and 2.5 - they spend every other week with us). We all get on so well that I think DP kind of forgets that I'm not their mum so he does tend to rely on me a bit much. It's hard because I care about them enormously and I do a lot for them from choice, whilst being acutely aware that they're not 'mine'. Starting a proper discussion about it has made me much more relaxed and may just have taken some of the pressure off TTC - again, not that I want it any less, but I'm feeling a little less desperate.

Well, what do you know? There's clearly more going on in my head than I thought - I wasn't planning to say any of that, I only meant to say hello! (I think it's the meditation that I started a couple of weeks ago - I feel like knots in my head are being unravelled).

jbrd I'm glad you are starting to put those first tentative steps forward to getting your life back. I can absolutely understand you being pleased at the negative test...I'm sure I will feel the same. To me it will almost signify the beginning of a new phase of ttc. Have you thought about if/when you would like to start trying again?

I'm still stuck in this inbetween land. I seem to be sitting in a pattern of getting really intense pains through the morning leading to the passing of clots and debris then it eases off late afternoon. I'm pretty sure the sac has not yet passed. I stupidly arranged for the estate agents to call at midday today to do a house inspection. How on earth I kept a straight face as I tried not to double over with the pain I dont know.

How is every body else doing??

Isabeller - wish I could join you with and ... Never feel guilty about that . Hope you're recovering from the exertion, I feel tired just from reading! What's going to happen next with your medication/treatments?

CaliBee - how are you doing...?

Amberini - hope you're feeling less grotty! Any chance the spotting could be from implantation...?

I'm back at work today (boo) for the first time in over 4 weeks. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Fortunately, things have been plodding along nicely without me, my absence hasn't caused too much disruption, it seems. Trying to catch up with the latest developments now, getting my head around thinking about work stuff again. Need to get rid of quite a few cobwebs!

On a (much) more positive note, I tested this morning and it was negative! A lot sooner than expected, it's only been 10 days since the ERPC. Can't remember the last time I was this happy about a BFN . I feel as if I finally might start turning a corner and go back to normal (whatever that is in the mad world of ttc)

Reading and waving before I go to sleep.

I felt like I was on a bungee to the GP surgery today back and forth up and down a snowy hill, I must have gone in and out of the building half a dozen times. By the time I got home I was too knackered to do anything else, so I didn't . Somehow the snow and medication side effects are making me feel much less guilty about doing nothing with a and .

Gosh ladies, I've missed so much on this thread. Will catch up properly tomorrow...got smiley face on opk, off to dtd. Couldn't feel less in the mood, as my libido has left the building recently, but I want a baby, damn it! Love to all x

Aww jbrd I really feel for you, and so sorry to hear about your Dad. I lost my Dad very suddenly nearly 11 years ago. There isnt a day goes by that I dont think about him and wish to hear his very wise words. My Dad could say in one sentence something that I would struggle to portray in a whole conversation!!!
I have done as you said and stayed away from work today...I ventured to primark to stock up on big knickers and then to the Drs to collect my sick note but as I was out the pain and bleeding increased a lot so I have hurried back home armed with kitkat chunky peanut butters and crisps .
Are you sure you are ready to return to work?? You still sound so drained and your emotions are still up and down by the sounds of it hardly surprisingly. Maybe you could get your sicknote extended??

CaliBee I can only echo what gum and Irish said - you might want the distraction, but I really wouldn't recommend going to work either. With so much going on both physically and emotionally, it's just going to be so hard.

gum - it sounds as if you are starting to make a decision about ttc, I really wish it will bring you some peace of mind finally! It must be so so hard, after all this time and all the longing. But I can also imagine that it could be a relief to finally draw the line and start to focus on other things... Like you say, it's not just us who's in this, other people do get very affected by it all.
Whatever you decide, I hope it'll make you happy!

I've not gone into work today...only feeling slightly guilty about it. My sick note included today (well, that's how I read it anyway, 14-21 Jan ), so I am milking it to the max.
Finally starting to feel more human, this stomach bug has knocked the last remaining wind out of me - not that there was much left! I really feel drained and deflated, wondering how I can get my spirits back, and my health/energy. Might pop into the pharmacy later and see what high boost vitamin cocktails they have, I think I need a bit more clout than just a little extra Vitamin C.

Emotionally, I'm so-so . Good(ish) days and bad... I'm struggling to see how I can pick myself up again after the miscarriage and start ttc again. All linked to my general low feeling mentioned above, I'm sure.
Doesn't help that I'm still bleeding, not a lot, and only brown blood, but it's a reminder of what has happened every time I go to the loo. I felt so relieved when the bleeding stopped after the ERPC, but I celebrated too soon. I know it's normal, I know it all takes time, but I'm struggling to stay rational and matter-of-fact. And I struggle to explain this to DH, which makes it all more difficult, sigh.
To top it all off, the 2nd anniversary of my dad's death is coming up - it doesn't feel that long ago! I miss him dearly, probably more intensely at the moment. He was such a kind and generous person, and part of me will be forever sad that he never got to meet his first grandchild (I was pg with DS when he passed away).

Think I'll try and walk over to the shops now, get some fresh air and blow the cobwebs away!