Over 40 TTC - lots of baby dust for us...3!

Hi and welcome new peeps!

So I have felt very teary over the last week as friend of mine just had their baby and I also welled up at Harry and Megan's new bubs

Has confirmed that I def want to give this one last shot..

I think I'm due to ovulate tomorrow as got smiley today but typically dh went away with work last night and is not back until Friday ☹️

We did manage to dtd mon night early hours of yesterday morning so hoping that I may still have slim chance. Can sperm hang around a couple of days? I hope so!

Good luck everyone

Interesting. I always used to get a peak, until my mc in October. My cycles are still regular although LP is shorter. I'd be interested to try your opk, see if it works for me

I use the clear blue fertility monitor too, but I very rarely get a peak on that anymore, even though I definitely do ovulate. Not sure why, I guess it would be the same result on yours? Do you know why we would not get a peak in old age, yet still ovulate?

EvelineUK - I use first step (cheapo's) second morning urine. It will usually be as dark as the control, or near enough. The days after it fades to nothing then I get the temp rise which stays up, confirming ovulation

No spelling error! It's a well used phrase here! @Chatbash72

Welcome @kavanaughkj and just cos your sis is menopausal doesn't mean it's anywhere near for you... welcome @Alwaysredlips good luck with coil removal... xx

@Megan2018 I know it was a spelling error.. but loving "spank the savings" 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
@Lexilooo mine had pressure and performance issues about this time last year... and we said hang it... and just do it when we fancy... no issues now... but we do managed to do the SMEP method.. mostly every other day... although after a 5 am start and 14.5hrs and work today and tomorrow I did say he'll have to be in when I get home from work at 10 for there to be any dtd tonight... who says romance is dead.. 🤦‍♀️

@Lexilooo yes something like that. We had a large savings pot from a remortgage last year - in Jan 2018 chose to move 1 mile down the road into a new build cottage by a local builder (so not self build but we were free to influence all of the build so it was bespoke). It took all our time and energy and DH in particular was very stressed as he was onsite most days plus we were both at work full time..
The house is lovely now but we nearly lost the sale of our previous house due to a last minute delay with building control. We had to move out of our previous house as the chain was going to collapse otherwise so had to camp out on the building site until the new house got signed off and we could complete. This was all in July in the heatwave.
Sex was not on the menu very often! Looking at my app we managed it 2-3 times a month at best most months and prob only once at a fertile time (not that I ever knew when I ovulated). In mid Dec when we conceived we had sex twice.

Now we have no money to fund my mat leave so obvs that was the time it happened! But we are delighted and very much hoping we get to the end. It's only money after all!

Lol @megan2018 is that the "grand designs effect"? Seems that being broke and homeless is a pretty guaranteed way to get pregnant!!!

What you say is reassuring - thanks x

Good luck @Lexilooo
We're at 21+6. I am 41, DH is almost 46. We had very infrequent sex last year and still managed it, so there is hope! I'd say it was about 9-10 months but we missed some months out. Turns out we conceived in Dec when we were both shitfaced after 2 weeks of heavy drinking in the Xmas build up.
Obvs we are not out of the woods yet but it goes to show you only need 1!
We did not do any charting or take any vitamins. I do think the more you think about it the harder it is. Not that being relaxed makes it happen (I'm not daft enough to suggest that is all people need to do) but I think the harder you try the harder it is and it makes the whole thing awful.
My advice is to spank all your savings having a hugely stressful house move that involves 3 weeks of homelessness and a nightmare builder. That seemed to do the trick here....

If anyone uses the @ to tag me can they make sure they use Lexilooo not Lexiloo as there is another poster with a similar name! Thanks

@Alwaysredlips

Good luck getting the coil out, but don't worry it is pretty easy and painless. The doctor asked me to cough and that was it, out and didn't feel a thing!!

@EvelineUK any particular sperm health tips? He's 45 but fit, well, good weight, non-smoker. Drinks but not excessively. Takes a decent multi-vitamin. He does cycle a couple of times a week (which involves the obligatory tight lycra shorts) but generally not too bad I don't think.

Unfortunately it isn't as simple as "just taking one for the team" as much as he might want to co-operate if the pressure is too much it won't work out.

EvelineUK - cm is also strange for me as that signals the start of fw so is when we start to dtd but it's usually well and truly gone by LH surge, so a random example of typical cycle this year would be; cd11 & 12 ewcm, cd14 +opk, cd17 temp rise. Odd right?!
I think my overies are struggling.
SMU = second morning urine (anything after that tends to be too diluted)

Thank you very much for having me!
I got my days wrong, today is official "coil out this is bloody real!" Day
Hoping it's less traumatic than having the bugger put in.
Starting to look at my lifestyle properly, I really need to get more sleep.
I hope you are all having a lovely baby dusty day!

Kav - fingers crossed you get to give it a good shot this cycle!
I've been told NHS can do bugger all too, so we're saving those pennies for IVF, hopefully it's not too late!

Mimosa - I take inositol too, not sure if it does anything, but apparentlt Zita West swears by it so must be worth a try.
Have you also tried vitex? That is supposed to help balance things and is said to be good for our age group

EvelineUK - I will usually test FMU every morning over FW with a clear blue advance FM, this has stopped giving me peaks since my mc in October, but I did get a peak last cycle 5 days before my temp shift. I also do cheapo tests (first step) SMU every day, this usually gives me a positive around 3 days before temp rise. It always used to be the day before, so something has changed

Welcome Always. Good to have you here.

Thanks Cleo - I feel the same. Not ready but my body is telling me otherwise it seems. You might not necessarily follow your sister so don’t presume. The positive for you is you’re still having regular cycles so focus on that. Me on the other hand not so much. Am CD5 now and I can feel the hot flashes starting up again. Mild at the moment but so depressing I could cry at any point. This cycle could go any which way, I have no idea anymore on fertile periods etc, it’s just pot luck. I’ve started taking inositol, which is used by PCOS sufferers for irregular cycles. I don’t have PCOS but it’s worth a try as it’s harmless otherwise. I’ll try anything now to get things regular again. If it’s even possible. Maybe I’m just fighting nature. Sad again today.

Kavana- I’m about to turn 43 and have recently been to my gp (I’ve been a few times in the past couple of years re ttc) and have had nothing but support for my cause. It might be worth a trip.

Hi @alwaysredlips - no time like the present and at 40 your chances are better than you think. :) I can identify with not finding the person you want to have kids with until later than you'd hoped - I was 35 I think when I met my DH - so good luck and I hope you don't have long to wait! ... and the same for you @Lexiloo, though I hear you on the pressures of SMEP (though in my case it's me that's knackered, I'm lucky enough to have a DH 9 years younger than me)

@Booseysmum - thanks for the encouragement. I'm sorry you're having such a time of it now though - I had a couple of cycles like that with my DD and I'm still convinced it was just a couple of mega early pregnancies that didn't take. I hope your cycle settles down and is less painful for you now.

Thanks for the welcome @Cleozeta! Hopefully your sister's menopause at 44 doesn't mean the same for you though ... my sister and I are very different so what might prove true for her may not for me (though I'm the eldest and will be more likely to go through it first than she is).

I'm just about to hit my first viable fertile period in months - the last 2 months were out because I had an x-ray booked which would have fried any budding embryos so we didn't bother trying. Fertile period should be later this week and my cycles seem to be back to a regular 27/28 day length - DH is happy to be back in the saddle again, so to speak - but I'm ill again. Sinusitis this time and I could scream ... I can't remember the last time I was healthy for longer than a week! Hoping against hope my body doesn't decide I'm a bad bet for a healthy host again this month as it'll have been a full year of trying with no success if we fail this time - that's longer than it took to have DD, though I was a few years younger back then. Still, I have less than 2 weeks of work and a holiday coming up so even if it doesn't work out this month future ones will be a ton more relaxed. :) I'd go to the GP to ask for help, but with one daughter already the message I seem to be getting is that there's somewhere between bugger and all that they can do for me. It sounds like IVF would be out of personal funds if we decide to go that route.

Hope everybody had a great bank holiday weekend :)

@EvelineUK I track my cycle and monitor cervical mucous so have a fair idea anyway.

I can't do SMEP, we're both in our 40s and no longer in the honeymoon period. Shagging alternate days from CD10 isn't realistic, and will end in tears.

I guess that means I should buy OPKs again to stand a decent chance of timing things correctly but it makes the pressure worse 😕