TTC 6+ months plus, part 2

[skeletonbones]

New thread as the old one was getting to 1000. So, 4 BFP's in the last thread, lets see if we can up the total considerably on this one :)

The aspirin is a blood thinner. If your blood is quite clotty, this could cause problems for implantation. My acupuncturist thought from my detailed medical history that the clotting was a possible issue. I take a 75mg tablet (one per day). I would have liked to talk this over with my GP but it is horrendously difficult to get an appointment so I did a lot of my own research and discussed it with my acupuncturist and decided to take it.

So far it has had one interesting effect - I now bruise! I used to bruise very, very rarely. Now I bruise normally. So perhaps there was something in the clotting that was abnormal before.

I have a lot of reservations about self-medicating (as mentioned on my agnus castus thread), but I have a lot of faith in my acupuncturist who is trained in herbal medicine too and has considerable knowledge of western medicine. She specialises in fertility and seems a lot more clued up than my GP (who of course has to cover everything that comes through the surgery, not just fertility issues). I trust her but I still feel uncomfortable about taking anything that hasn't been presecribed by someone with a Western medical degree! I am the kind of person who usually thinks twice before taking a paracetemol for a headache and the only drugs I have wholeheartedly embraced up to now have been the mefenamic acid for period pains, without which I would not be able to function for a good chunk of the month. So taking a number of things every day is completely alien to me.

wow, I can't believe how fast this thread is moving. It is the best thread on mumsnet though Hello to all the newbies, sorry I won't even begin to get all your names or I'll be here all day. I'm so glad you've joined us though because I was worried that I might end up all alone by myself on this thread.

Has anyone else been reading the infertility thread that keeps showing up in active conversations? It's making my blood boil to read of some people's attitudes to fertility treatments.

euro if you are bruising then you maybe should speak to your GP about taking aspirin, one side effect of it is because it thins your blood it does mean that clotting becomes a problem and sometimes clotting is good, ie when you cut yourself. A low dose should be fine though, but I do think it's worth asking a doctor before taking any new medications. Right, sorry will shut up and not nag anymore!

My pregnant with twins friend is no longer pregnant, she had 2 boys last night, both doing really well . I am a little bit jealous though but think I'm hiding it well, my jealousy wasn't helped by the fact she has 'stolen' my favourite boys name that I was going to use for my yet to be conceived boy. Oh well.

On the whole, I'm feeling quite positive. Not positive like I think I'm going to get pregnant but positive like I feel quite happy and content at the moment. Strangely I think knowing that it isn't going to happen for some time has made me want to get on with life. joycep I've been planning lots of childless things to do, we've finally booked a holiday for the autumn and also a couple of weekends away. And I'm enjoying eating and drinking what I like without worrying. When I told my pregnant friend about our holiday she was jealous because it is the type of holiday you can't do with kids and she said she wished she had done more of those things before getting pregnant. So, every cloud . . .

DH seems a bit down though, which is not like him. He has manflu and is stressed at work and is also worrying about seeing the urologist next week I think. I am going to go with him this time because the urologist said that he would talk us through our options. Which I am pretty sure will consist of him saying that once all my tests are completed we will need to see the fertility clinic.

Ta for the welcome.

And well done for positive feelings, mrsden that sounds very good. A bit of peace and calm!!I am not fealous, honest... It must be difficult for your OH, I guess. Good to go together to the urologist.

For my HCG, I was glad DH was there to actually listen (and make sure I walked rather than slumped on a chair whilst waiting). Incidentally, I know Pout has said so on here before, but I was really scared of that test, but it was absolutely fine, in case anyone is worried.

Good to plan fab holidays mrsden and joycep! Where are you going? We are thinking of a long-haul, child-unfriendly trip in the autumn as well and are hunting for ideas!!

Oh euro and others what is the score with blood clotting? I know I clot slightly slower than expected. Has that got any impact on TTC?

Euro that's interesting. I always thought that my blood clotted really fast but I bruise really easily so maybe not!

I know what you mean about self medicating. Though having said that if a "proper" doctor prescribes me anything I have no qualms whatsoever about taking it!

Are you on Metformin? I can't remember.

Mrsden I'm glad that you are feeling quite upbeat. I would love a holiday but because the moving thing is hanging over our heads we daren't book anything. Also DP probably ought to save his holiday time so we can do the move and make the many, many trips to Ikea I have planned! I actually would happily do an Ikea package holiday if such a thing existed.

What an absolute bummer about your baby name. That is one of my biggest fears that someone will nab mine. DP and I only agree on one so it would really be a disaster. It would similarly not be very good having a boy with our selected girls name

I read some awful accounts of the HSG and was totally bricking it before mine Slowbutnice. I actually heard a woman screaming before I went in and then limping out. I just thought my God what kind of butchers have I come to. DP very comfortingly said how "I had to do it for the greater good"
This from the man whose only sacrifice in the whole process is producing a sperm sample!

mrsden I see what you are saying but I think my past lack of bruising was abnormal. I would have liked to check with the doctor but getting an appointment is a nightmare (appointments open at 8am - you have to ring and ring and ring - whilst trying to get ready for work. I usually manage to get through after about 45 minutes by which time all the appointments have gone and I am late for work having taken twice as long to get ready one handed whilst holding the phone.... So then i have to repeat the whole process the next day. Grrrr.). I did a LOT of reading on the internet and also mentioned it to a doctor friend and as a result decided to give it a go. It seems to be the first thing they tell most people to try at miscarriage units anyway.

slow there's lots of info about it online, but the long answer here is quite helpful:

answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071116221750AAhj6EV

I can concur about the HSG - I know no one has really asked but I had one and it was FINE - no worries at all. The staff at our unit were super nice - so much so that I thought it would be worse than it was because they were being soooooooo nice and gentle with me. In any event it really wasn't that bad at all, certainly no worse than having a smear test (mind you I have given birth so smears aren't as bad as they used to be iyswim - sorry if TMI ). During the test itself I had some mild period type pains which passed quickly. I am sure it is different for everyone but certainly I had no worries. I went on my own too and it was just easy.

Afternoon everyone,

Got my blood tests today. GP seems to have tested for more than my letter to from the fertility clinic said I needed but I wasn't about to complain about getting more things checked out. They said that the tests should be back in about 10 days, so can book an appointment to go in in a fortnight when my GP is back from holiday. That way we can go together and get both my and DH's results.

Have been throwing myself into furniture shopping for our house. Have been moved in since October but still things that I want to get. I figure I should spend the money now, because once maternity leaves and childcare come into the equation I won't be able to afford it.

I'm off to find your infertility thread mrsden because I like to make myself really angry before picking up DH from work :o

Madness good luck with the results! Do you have any hunches what they will say? I also moved last year and am still buying, but we had to do the whole house up so no where near finished. The sad thing is that our spare bedroom has stayed in its old condition because it was meant to be the room for our first child

This thread is ace. Hello slow and other newbies. I do take real comfort in how many of us are going through this together.

I am loving this thread!

Thanks to those who posted about the HSG test being ok. I haven?t been referred for it yet but I?m already stressing about it (ridiculous I know) so it is good to hear that it wasn?t horrendously painful or anything.

Buggerlugs ? thanks for the advice, I?m definitely going to go for the get pissed and shag option next cycle. Should be a lot more fun than the cryathon/no-booze plan I?m on at the moment.

Madness ? sorry you had such a hard time when your best friend had her baby, it sounds like you have come through it well though. I will read the posts on the previous thread like you suggest-thanks. Cracking up about your DH having to give his sample with your mother in the house!

Purple, I hope you are feeling a bit better today and hope the wine helped.

Joycep and mrsden ? I love that you are planning lots of child-unfriendly activities, I am going to do a bit of that myself this weekend, the more child-unfriendly the better

Slow ? can?t believed your DH bumped into his mate while giving his sample! On the whole though I do think our DH?s have it easy compared with what we have to go through, and that?s before we?ve even started on being pregnant and giving birth!

Eurochick ? I am also self-medicating with low dose aspirin and agnus castus. The AC is making my hair fall out so I think I will lower my dose. I do feel like it?s sped my most recent cycle up though; my cycles generally are long and feel sluggish but this last one has felt a bit quicker. Apparently the aspirin has been shown in studies to generally increase the chances of conception. Just trying anything and everything at the moment, god knows what I will come up with next :)

popcorn how long have you been trying them?

at the hair falling out! I don't remember that from when I tried it before. I am only on day 2 and it is making me feel a bit "woo". That I do remember from before. The feeling is not dissimilar to when I think I had a chem preg and felt dizzy and spacey for a few days before the symptoms went away.

Evening ladies, wow we're busy!

I'm off for my ultrasound tomorrow. After reading the referral letter it did make me a little bit sad as I think I've only ever seen pregnant ladies having ultrasounds before . Hopefully it won't be long before I'm one of them though.

Not sure where I'm upto with ovulation this month. Last month I had 2 lines on days 14 & 15 of a 25 day cycle on opks, and the one before 2 lines appeared on days 17 & 18 of a 30 day cycle. I've poas from on day 12 this month & had a very faint 2nd line on cd12, but since then - nothing! I guess I either ovulated very early & missed it (though dtd on cd 10 & 12 so maybe not! ) or for some reason or other it's not happened...

Hope you're all ok with your bruises & falling out hair! Love the tales of OHs and their samples Purple, Madness & Slow . I couldn't resist sharing them with my DP, not sure he appreciated them though!

We are very busy arent we??

i'm 8dpo and feeling desperate to POAS! No real symptoms except excessive peeing and slightly sore boobs...not too confident tho

Saw the doctors today. Our pregnant doctor left early today and we ended up with someone we hadn't seen before. I thought he was lovely, dh less so, think he was less keen to talk to another man about his sperm. He even said it had taken 18 months to conceive his first and 9 months with the second. He said that the latest SA, whilst not amazing, did not mean we can't do it, just that it will take longer. We are now referred to the fertility clinic with hsg for me - any ideas on how long this will take? I have a big fear theres something up with my tubes. It isn't grounded in anything, its just there.

Purplelooby - we have a totally undone spare room after renovating our house, full of junk. In my head it's a nursery and will be rather flat if we end up with an office instead! Hello to everyone else. Anyone else at the start of the tww?

purple I am hoping that my results will show that DH is fine and that I have low progesterone levels. Every month for the past 7 I have started bleeding between 7 and 10 dpo, with AF on about 14 dpo. A bit scared that the answer might not be quite so simple as that. Really don't want to have to go down the IVF route, so keeping my fingers crossed for something obvious and easily fixed. How naive am I?

I too have a room in the house that is currently being used as a laundry drying room because it's perfectly placed to the the nursery. It was the previous owner's home office and I can't bring myself to do anything to it. WIll focus on sorting out the rest of it for the time being.

izzy we're just about at the same point in our cycles I think. I am about 7dpo right now. I have given up analysing symptoms because I have had them all before and never been pregnant. My fingers are always crossed though :)

Morning lovely ladies!

Good luck with the results Madness I really hope they show something easily fixed. Fingers crossed. Ours didn't show anything, so I fluctuate from trusting that everything will be just fine to it will never happen, because they just can't diagnose what is wrong with us... (Sound familiar, anyone ?)

Sympathies to all the spare rooms in houses waiting to become nurseries Purple and Peace . We live in a small flat and I have point-blank refused to move until upduffed. I do have a study, but I work from home a lot and even if a small person came along, it would not be replacing me in here! We would be opting for the in our bedroom option until we found a bigger place, near a good school, etc etc. Not so keen living there, when I go down the mad and barren route, so well described by Pout !

Peace no idea about timings, may it be worthwhile to shop around? I understood though that the chances of anything being wrong with tubes are very small if you have not had chlamydia (which was our first blood test) or operations in that region...

Izzy and Madness already wanting to POAS? With me that only happens from day 10 onwards... Thanks to the ultrasound earlier this week, I know I am on 3dpo, so cannot even start to symptom spot :( Pixie I always thought ultrasounds were for preggo ladies only, but if I am honest, I found the dildocam quite interesting, as there is a lot to be seen. I had a lovely growing egg, which did inspire confidence (for about 5 minutes). Where are you in your cycle?

And euro and pixie - oh dear about the hair, woozyness and general scary stuff. Hope the AC does something for you, but it sounds like something, I'd stay well clear off! Good luck in any case!!

Oh en to wake up behind desks this lovely morning! Good day!!

Hi all,

I'm on day 16 of my cycle Slow but don't know whether I ovulated early (& missed it with my opks), or haven't yet. Hopefully I'll find out more later...
Can I ask, did they only use the camera as they couldn't see enough from the ultrasound? I think I'm actually quite looking forward to it!

Morning ladies.

Pixie I think that the internal ultrasound gives them a better view. When I had mine there was a wall of baby pictures. Thank God it was right near the start of TTC or I probably would have struggled with that. I always think it's a bit insensitive. Last time I went to the consultant the waiting areas were full of pregnant people or ladies with tiny newborns (for some reason) and I did get a bit

Lisa I agree that the staff who do the HSG were lovely. In my case I think they were just relieved that I didn't end up a screaming wreck like their previous patient. The nurse even said that HSGs are their least favourite job!
Peace I had to telephone the department on CD1 to see if they had appointments. I was lucky and got a cancellation on my first attempt.

Good luck with the test results Madness. It's good that they have been so thorough from the start.

Izzy I hate that urge to POAS. I find that the best thing is not to have tests in the house. The last time I had some Poundshop cheapies I would do stupid things like pee on them at 3pm in the afternoon after having gone to the toilet 50 million times throughout the day so my wee was about as concentrated as tap water. Then because I didn't like the result I would do another one ten minutes later with my brain screaming at me to stop you nutter. I haven't POAS for a good few cycles now because I just know that there is no point!

Slowbutnice I know exactly what you mean about having normal test results and fluctuating between feeling reassured that all is well and it is just a matter of time before nature comes up trumps and feeling like there HAS to be something wrong and the tests have missed it, aren't sophisticated enough or you haven't been tested for the right things. I find that when my period comes I have a couple of weeks of being convinced that something is broken.

We too have a spare room that was supposed to be a nursery but is now just a junk graveyard. I feel quite sad that now we are on the move it will never be what I thought it would be. I wouldn't have guessed that when we first started TTC.

Oops, I may be mistaken Pixie I thought the camera was the internal ultrasound... That is what I meant in any case. They saw a growing egg and a nice and cushy womb. That in combination with the HSG gave me an overview of all my reproductive bits last week

You are further down the line, cycle wise... I am only on cd15, but I am a short-ish cycler (26/27 days, which makes sense with ovulation about to happen on day 12)...

Oh bugger those evil cats. I love them (but am allergic :( ) but less so when they ruin nice bedding. We have guests all the time and they just sleep on our couch in the living room (cue complicated and very silect SWI :o )

Ladies have great weekends!!

Cross-posted with Pout and just wanted to add, reading here has helped me lots, and you especially, because a) I am clear not that mad, if other people feel similar and b) I love your sense of humour!

Slow This thread has I'm sure saved my sanity over the last few months. I don't feel so alone and like you say it's nice to know that we are not totally barking because other people feel the same things too

I have a house guest ban during SWI time and also in the run up to AF and the first few days of. I truly am an antisocial nightmare. My sister keeps trying to palm off my nephew onto us and I was running out of excuses & she wasn't taking the hint so in the end I just had to tell her straight that I was ovulating and I couldn't babysit. Cue embarrassed silence her end.

I agree with you slow about pout - you always manage to put things into a light that cheers me right up. It also makes me feel better that so many of us are going through this - basically making it 'normal' (even peace's GP!)

bugger my cats have also taken over the spare room - if I don't have children then I am in danger of becoming an old cat woman... already part way there to be fair!

madness I remember you saying about the early bleeding - they really need to look into that - if it is low progesterone then it is so easy for them to treat it.

purple I think you will find the correct term is "kerazy cat lady".

OK ive officially gone crazy!
Just been looking at the positive pregnancy tests on fertility friend and looking at ones which were positive 9DPO in the hope that IF i poas i'd get a positive....i'm nuts arent i??

Slow & Purple you have made me though I think I have may have painted a wrong impression of myself, I am a totally miserable, harbinger of doom in real life!

I agree with Euro about the correct terminology for crazy cat ladies. You do realise that to be a card carrying 'kerazy cat lady' you will have to collect piles of newspapers and let the cats crap everywhere.

Izzy I admire your ingenuity & forward thinking. Failing to prepare is preparing to fail and all that