TTC for 10+ months, part 3

[joycep]

The other thread was just about to fill up and so here we are again with a slightly different name now as many of us have been trying for well over 12 cycles now. We had a few great successes on Part 2, with a couple of people getting bfp's on their 17th and 19th month of trying. So let's hope for more successes on Part 3. (Moaning, crying, sadness, anxiety & bitterness is certainly allowed on here!)

Little catch up post. Have had a very busy two days at work and the thread has been busy. Firstly stasi I'm sure you won't be checking into Mumsnet right now but I really hope the wedding is fantastic and enjoy every minute of your honeymoon. Happy days

I am feeling a bit better. Yay! Had a second acupuncture this week. I have to say that I think the talking is as helpful as the needles. I said I just felt despondent with ttc and that each month was a bit pointless and she counter argued this very kindly. Which I guess is her job? I am trying to give us a bit more time to get there naturally before resigning to IVF. To be reviewed when the summer comes round. I know I need to get my fsh done again on day2 but I'm scared to do it in case it still comes out at 9.5 or even worse.Which is officially 'fair' but I want to be 'good'! You're so right karbea I don't feel remotely old, so feel cross that my womb and ovaries are clearly middle aged.

Sorry about the spotting lemon it SUCKS. I have had ovulation spotting this month I think and now odd spotting again, although don't know exact day. Pah, pathetic, clueless uterus!

Hurray for thread bashing. I don't want to presume that these threads are created out of worries that are any less important than mine but really, sometimes I have to sit on my fingers not to type something unfriendly. More and more lately, I have my sights on just one child (preferably not a dog in a bonnet joycep that made me laugh, as did nelly's tree). I feel sure that I can't put myself through this again and hopes of at least two babies have faded out. I think that I will be so overjoyed with my one baby that I want to enjoy them and start properly living again, I wouldn't want the ttc thing to get in the way of that. Twins run in my family, so I can but hope!

joycep I am reading with excitement about your move. We are city dwellers in an unfinished renovation project. I keep thinking that being pregnant would be the final push we need to finish. I should probably stop that.

kitty I had a similar conversation with my dh at our anniversary. It is such a shame that our first year of being married has actually been quite sad, for no reason other than not getting pregnant as and when I wanted it. And whilst I'm glad we started the testing early...I'm not sure how much of a negative effect it has had on me and I almost wish I'd never had to know. But I'm not sure how to fully make it better. I am trying though. I don't have the energy for Full On Trying anymore and have abandoned charting etc. I don't think it will come back now. But I don't think that should have to be the way you do it according to the buses? I'm hoping it takes the stress away a little.

Today I had my See You Next Tuesday mood and I'm probably half way through the wait. Why does this happen to us. Is it a peak in progesterone? If so, I'm going to be one grumpy fucker when I'm pregnant

It was not a little catch up post. Sorry!

sorry karbea cross post. Don't worry, It sounds scary as hell, but, I think that you probably just kind of 'do it'? I truly hope you get there before that but, if not, we will all be here to hold your hand through it. Also, I don't think that we will all end up going down the IVF route, I think there will be surprise natural bfps scattered liberally over the next year. And a lovely iui bfp for joycep

And then, can we all have a meet up?

karbea nothing will happen at the AGRC that you don't want. You are in charge of the process (esp if you are going private). So keep breathing and work out what you want to do, where you stand and have a good talk and cuddle with your OH about it. Have a un-MN-hug and the last cupcake.

Nelly snakes in prams I do miss pout. I am impressed you found good news in that thread (having babies at my relatively spring-chicken-age 32is done by nearly everyone I know, so those sorts of consolation don't quite do the trick!)

It is a difficult decision, mrsd telling or not telling people. I am impressed with your ability to keep things to yourself... I have had moments when I wondered whether I did the right thing telling my sister early on, but she was badgering us to start trying (when we had been for longer than she has in her life...) But all in all it has worked well. I did need to teach her what is acceptable and now she does well, most of the time. She has learned not to ask whether it has worked (as she did during our bloody holiday several days after late AF, followed by BFN, and horrid period). But today I forgave my sister easily when I had lunch with her and her brood, who I love very dearly. I just cuddled with her 4-month-old and felt better.

Waves at wine who is nearly as good as me in the "short post" department. And I do love you positivity.

Re: IVF of natural BFP. I have the possibly misguided belief that a natural BFP will come our way at some stage. I am just not sure I have the patience to wait 6 years or so (nor whether my DH has the patience to deal with increasingly inpatient Lemons). So the big dilemma in our house is whether to go for IVF asap (possibly next summer after some IUI dabbling) or to give our bodies more time to do the trick naturally. And I waver. On spotty (for me generally 24hrs before proper AF) days, I want to try it NOW and not wait more bloody time. When AF is well on her way or finished I am much happier to take my time... What to do?!?

I think i'm just a bit funny as it's all a bit real, remember earlier this week it felt like we werent trying anymore, I guess getting doctors involved will mean we are trying again, and trying pretty hard iykwim.

I don't seem to spot at all since acupuncture, and I end cleanly as well. I always used to have brownish discharge first few days then my period then brownsih discharge, now i go straight to proper blood... sorry tmi.

lemon I have that dilemma every day. I don't mind waiting two or three years if some oracle could tell me it will happen. My fsh hasn't exactly made me think I've all the time in the world either. But ivf...I am so scared of it. More of it failing and the stress of it I think. It does make you wonder how many women have ivf but would have conceived naturally if they'd waited. I know of two people who have got upduffed naturally after ivf, one, my mums friends daughter two years after her ivf baby (who went on to have a third naturally) and my cousins best friend who got pregnant two months after her first ivf baby, naturally (and didn't see that coming!). Or maybe the ivf baby got the wheels in motion? I know these are anecdotes, but they are real people who I have actually met!

And Kate Silverton!

Who is Kate Silverton?

I'm scared about ivf, because it is a very medical process and I think the emotional and physical toll it takes is huge. Also, it feels like a last resort and I still kid myself sometimes that I will get a natural BFP. But we won't be starting IVF until we've been trying for over 2 years which I think is a reasonable timescale, we will then have given it every chance. If it was going to happen then I think it would have happened within 2 years. If only we had a crystal ball. I would hate to put off IVF and then years down the line be told I'm too old for it to work. Also, we'd like more than one child ideally (although of course I am just desperate for one at the moment) so I think this influences how soon to go for IVF. And age plays a big part. If I was older, I don't think I would be able to wait 2 years. I think I'd want to start IVF sooner if it was going to give me the best chance of having a child.

Evening all and Happy Friday :)

Lemon I'm feeling more comfortable with everything today, although perversely scared that they're going to go in there and say that it isn't endo, but rather something completely unfathomable and that we have to go away and try for another year......

Nelly I am hoping to go for the treatments in about 6 weeks but I don't have a date. I'd like it over with by Christmas. I think that they are doing a hysteroscopy, laparoscopy, endometrial biopsy, vaginal biopsy and sending the dye through my tubes. Quite a lot in just a half an hour!

Karbea I found the doctor at the fertility clinic really lovely. We had a student in as well and all managed to have a bit of a laugh during the process which really eased the tension. It was when my dh had to think for a second about what to say when asked if he'd done iv drugs . He said afterwards that he just had a blank moment where he didn't quite understand what she'd asked him. I think that the look I gave him was probably priceless :)

mrsden I think our philosophy about ivf is quite similar. I really want it to come naturally but after speaking with dh last night I want to go for it privately this summer if the clinic recommends that as the way forward. We'll have been trying for two years in July and if we have a concrete diagnosis which explains why it's taking so long then I think we should just go for it. If we don't and we wait the two years to do it on the NHS then I think I will always wonder, should it fail, whether I would have had a better chance when I was two years younger. As a teacher I also think that I could cope best with the stresses and strains of the process during the summer holidays, including being able to do pretty much nothing during what has got to be the most incredibly stressful 2ww possible!

Have a lovely weekend all!

For me the scariest thing about IVF is the idea of it failing, rather than the medical side of it (although that scares the bejesus out of me too). It would feel like the end of the road if I had repeated IVF failure, even though my acupuncturist assures me that plenty of women get natural BFPs after IVF attempts.

To add to the stories...a friend of a friend had unexplained infertility and had IVF after 4 years ttc...the IVF cycle failed but she conceived naturally the following month - weird huh?

Also wanted to mention a celeb-related thing I read (ignore me if we've done this one before). It was about Joanne something from Hollyoaks - married to the footballer Danny Murphy? She had 4 cycles of IVF to conceive her first, then had a natural BFP with her second. Anyway I was reading her story and one of the things she talked about was her online support group-how great they were as no one else understood what she was going through, etc etc. She went on to say that they had become friends in RL, she was godmother to one of the other ladies' baby, but best of all, all of the women on the thread had ended up with sucessful pregnancies. How cool is that?

Ooh meant to say as well - nelly your post about your sad iTree made me PMSL. I remember ordering a blueberry bush online for my patio, I imagined it would turn up all lovely and green and bushy with plump blueberries :) In fact when it arrived it resembled a dead twig that someone had found on the floor and wrapped in cling film and put in an envelope :( sad times

Hello ladies, hope you don't mind if I butt in? I've always spotted in between my periods too, especially around ovulation and in the week before my period. I've had every test going including the dye one and a laparoscopy and the doctors couldn't give me any proper diagnosis. We had a round of IVF in May but it didn't work. Since then I've been going to accpuncture regularly and my accupuncturist has been tellling me loads about the eastern / chinese medicine philosophy of reproduction and how accupuncture, herbs, diet changes etc are supposed to work and I've become really fascinated - at the moment whilst trying not to get my hopes up too high it feels like this stuff is giving me answers the doctors could not and a treatment that might work. The book I've been working from is by Randine Lewis called 'the infertility cure'. She's trained in both western and eastern medicine and so explains everything really well. I appreciate you're on your own journeys and this might be a bit leftfield, but I'm sort of hoping that some other people might know about the book, or be up for reading it, so I could talk to someone about what it says. E.g. the book says that bleeding before periods is a sign of 'weak spleen', 'kidney yang deficiency' and 'blood stasis' and there's various ways of resolving this. I was hoping to find someone to discuss this stuff with other than bending my accupuncturists's ear once a week! Anyway, wish you all well on your journeys. x x x

I enjoying the talking aspect of my acu sessions too. It is the only time I get to speak to someone in real like who gets it and has time for me.

I am another one who finds IVF rather scary. It's the artificiality of the process and the drugs that scare me. I have one close friend going through it now and my closest friend has 3 IVF kids (from 2 pregnancies). It is a horrible process. Horribly hormonal, horribly stressful. But it gets results.

I've been looking into natural IVF (where you don't take all the drugs to shutdown and stimulate you to produce loads of eggs but just do it with the one egg you produce yoursel). If I am ovulating (as I seem to be), I think it might be better. But the success rates are much lower than for full IVF. And I am getting older. Hmmm.

Just a quick post before I go to bed.
Confused again here, Day 21 come back fine, dh SA come back fine so now what?
Will try reply more when got more time

karbea - I signed up for FF too but decided i would leave it a while before checking out the ARGC posts. Sometimes I come across FF posts on my internet travels and people have a long list of stats at the bottom of their posts. They just look like horror stories quite frankly. It is frightening but as Lemon says I think if you do end up going down that route, you will take it as it comes.

I think 2 years is a good wait period to try and get a natural bfp. Lord Winston says far too many people rush in to ivf. People really can take 2yrs or more for some reason or other. We've all heard of stories. But obviously age and patience does play a role as to how long we all wait. I couldn't wait around for 3 years so next summer is when we will go down that road if of course by any chance nothing has happened!

wine - i am pleased you are feeling a bit better.

lemon - how long have you been trying again?

mrsd - kate Silverton is a bbc breakfast presenter. What I don't understand is she had 4 rounds of unsuccessful IVF and then got a natural bfp aged 40. She had an ovary removed in her 20s. I do wonder whether the ivf helped do something to her body or would she have just got that natural bfp anyway without ivf. I do wonder why 4 rounds failed though. I can see why she thought she would never have children. I think she is due imminently.

kitty - i like that celeb story!! It's quite nice that online friends actually end up becoming friends in RL after going through something so huge as ivf. I can imagine I will definitely want to find people who are going through the same thing and would probably find myself online. .

carebear - so sorry your round of ivf didn't work in May. I haven't heard of that book before but i have heard of the kidney yang / week spleen diagnoses in Eastern medicine. I quite like the idea of all of that sort of stuff working and i'm sure there is some truth in it. anyway, best of luck and i hope you get a bfp very soon.

euro - i also liked the talking part of the acu. I will take it up again once i give the western medicine a rest in December. In fact i saw on another thread that we go to the same place. not stalking you promise! I have also looked in to natural ivf as the drugs scare me. I also think IVM is interseting where they take immature eggs and then develop those in the lab.

Sorry for monster post.

Evening all. I've gone all Christmassy on you .

Loving the mammoth posts! I didn't know who Kate Silverton was either, but it's nice to hear stories like that. And who is Lord Winston .

Planted the iTree . I was expecting it to be bare-rooted kitty, but I'm still dubious about it's overall health. Time will tell though!

Anyway not much to say tonight (which may be due to too much but just thought I'd check in to say hi to everyone and check you were all having a nice weekend. :)

Lord Winston: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Winston

He did some medical programmes on the tellybox a few years ago and is quite well-known in the world of fertility. I think he has also been a govt advisor. He has had a low profile for the last few years though.

Liking eggnognelly! My newly announced pregnant friend is coming to stay next week. When I spoke to her, it transpires she isn't happy to be pregnant like she thought she would be. She doesn't know I'm trying. Have no idea how to play this one. Any suggestions?

Eggnognelly

wine that is a tricky one. I think it depends on how mentally strong you are feeling i.e. could you put up with a weekend of someone moaning about being pregnant. A weekend is quite a long time to spend with someone and you may end up feeling resentful if she doesn't hear your side of the pregnancy coin...but then if you really don't want to tell her about your situation, then maybe it's better to keep quiet...would you have told her about your situation under normal circumstances? It's weird, most of my close friends know we're having problems, and initially I liked being able to talk about it but now I kinda wish I hadn't told so many people, because no one can really understand unless they've been there, which none of them have. And now I feel like they are just thinking 'poor her' and feeling awkward around me :(

If I was your friend I would feel terrible if I went on about it for ages and then found out afterwards you were struggling though. How close are you?

A close, recently married pal phoned me yesterday to tell me she's upduffed (on the first attempt). Weirdly, I was ok about it and even felt a bit happy for her. Am so hoping this is the start of me being a lot more grown up about other people's pregnancies, as it's one of the things I've most struggled with over the last few months.

I've been thinking about recapturing pre-ttc days this weekend. What the hell did I do with all my energy before this started?! All I can remember was things like planning my wedding (that was a biggie),going on holiday, boozing, going to restaurants and occasional bouts of online shopping. Oh and now and again half-hearted attempts to do the house up. Maybe some kind of new project is in order...but nothing expensive as we need to save for fertility treatment...aaargh!!!

Am definitely rambling now-going to go away and listen to zita west's calming words and then eat a mahoosive roast dinner! Love to all x x

Thanks kitty well, we are close. She is one of the few people I haven't told and you're right, I wish I bloody hadn't told anyone now as just like you I worry they feel sorry for me and when they get pregnant they'll feel awkward. She wouldn't understand I don't think and does tend to give out a lot of advice, too much so. And I don't want her to feel bad around me, thats happened to a mate who has pnd - she would always share everything with me before but not lately. I hear she talks to my other friend a lot but has hidden it from me, it's all a bit strange but I think I understand. The friend coming to stay did really want children, so I'm pretty surprised by it. I think I'll just try to listen, but it will be hard not to be jealous! Glad you were ok about the pregnancy, it's the thing I find the hardest of all. And you are good for saving - I'm not! I need to shop to fill a hole at the moment . But, on the plus side when you get your lovely natural bfp you'll have money for baby buying! I am in ivf denial and plan on staying there until at least spring - join me in a swi hibernation! I really really do think we can do this so let's run a few more miles of the marathon x

Oh and yes about capturing pre ttc days. We finally got our weddin DVD from our friend. He'd done a lovely montage and as I watched it I saw a girl from another time who'd just got married and was ectsatically happy and excited about the future. I miss her quite a bit. I'm still reading a lot though! The goodreads website had easily replaced my ttc googling, I love it! And I yearn for being able to get truly pissed without worrying I'm making a rotten egg!

wine you're so right about the reading-the book of the month was a great distraction from googling. I will definitely start a new b

Oops could you tell I posted that by accident! Def start a new book - being absorbed in something (thst isnt obsessive ttc internetting) really helps doesn't it? And it's cheap and healthy!

Hmm well with the saving, we aren't really doing it properly yet, well not specifically for that anyway. I am awful with money but my DH is very good and makes us save, it's really meant to be for our dream home though...

I an definitely up for a mass keep-ivf-at-bay SWI hibernation :) what else is there to do in Jan and feb anyway!?

I know exactly what you mean about thinking back to your wedding. I was so happy to be getting married and so optimistic. It would be so nice to get some of that back. And yes re the getting pissed thing, it's just not the same is it?