Fantastic 40+ thread - part 7

[lolfactor]

Shiny new thread - over here everyone

Hi an old friend popping back for a quick hello. I have just looked over the thread looking out for old mates here.

eirehead just to let you know that you cannot get the "baby aspirin" in Ireland without a prescription. There are a few different brands, "Nu-Seals" is the brand I was given.

Irishbreadmammy I have three children and was given the can't do anything for you line, but not all consultants are so pigheaded (most have been in my experience), but there are doctors out there who don't go with the no hope line, and are encouraging. I wuold recommend Dr Raj Rai, at St Mary's london, if you are in England, or the Sims clinic Dublin if you are in Ireland (they don?t just deal with IVF which is what I originally thought). There are plenty of tests that can be done to establish if you have developed issues since your last child. Clotting issues, immunity issues etc, can develop later in life and there are tests that can be done to rule these out.

I am much like hippy here, and no longer trying to conceive, (right now I am trying to actively avoid in order to increase my fitness levels), but I would be open to a wonderful miracle arriving in the future if it happens.
But my journey involved 12 miscarriages on route trying to have dc4. In my journey I have seen many many different doctors and specialists, some encouraging some not, some willing to try to help some just aspirin advice. I am now feeling more at peace with coming to terms, with that my dream family makeup can?t happen now, if I had another child now the age gap would be much more than I ever wanted, and I am realizing that I am older that pregnancy and if successful those early baby days would be so much harder. I feel I have tried everything to get pregnant naturally, progesterone, aspirin, heparin, prednisolone, I am no longer getting pregnant every single attempt as I was previously, so whether my ?unfussy womb? is doing its job better or whether I am starting some annovulatory cycles I don?t know. I am no longer temping, opk-ing or any of that stuff. The years of tracking my cycle means that I am now acutely aware of when I am ovulating without all the other bits.

I did not mean to waffle here for ages, I really did come to support my old mates here ? whoops!

Jollster ? wow, I am sure it has not seemed so to you, but your pregnancy seems to have gone so fast, I am so pleased that you are so close to having your new babe in arms, very exciting.

Goldengirl ? sorry I have come back, hope the GG abbreviations for our names does not cause confusion!

Hopefulgum ? hippy spoke good words to you, she is one wise woman!

Diege ? hi there, good to read that you are enjoying your youngest little treasure.

Itailian - great news on the adoption process getting underway.

Hi to everyone who remembers me (and my infamous lists!). I wish you all the best in your searches and dreams.

Oh Golden, I'm so sorry that mother nature is being such a bitch. It truly sucks. TTC is really not for the faint of heart. It is hard to keep your chin up month after month of trying. But when you do get a BFP and the pregnancy progresses and you get a baby at the end, it is worth all the heartache.

I've just had a look at my charts and here is the info about timed sex:
-last pregnancy (miscarried at 5 weeks) we had sex day before and day of ovulation.
-the second miscarriage we had sex 6,4 and 2 days before ovulation
-the first miscarriage we had sex 6,4,3 days before and twice on day of ovulation
-my sons pregnancy (at 41) we had sex 5,3,1 days before and on the day of ovulation.

As for time between pregnancies:
I had my DS three months before I turned 42. I then fully breastfed him and didn't have my fertility return until May 2010. I fell pregnant Oct 2010(so that was about 6 months ttc). Then I miscarried christmas 2010.Fell pregnant again April 2011(so ttc about 5 months), then the most recent pregnancy was April 1012, so it took 10 months. It has now been 3 or 4 months of ttc and no luck yet.

But I am a lot older than you are and I think it can make a big difference. I was ttc for 7 months at 41, and had an easy pregnancy and healthy baby. I think you will have a baby Golden, but I hope you can find a way to make this easier on yourself and DP, so it doesn't drive you crazy in the meantime.

I don't think any of the things you are doing will be harming your chances. Being healthy helps, but I have taken all the supplements, changed my diet,lost weight, do acupuncture,meditation, yoga etc,etc, and it hasn't worked for me.However, I also did those things at the age of 41 and have a gorgeous son to show for it.Whether those things made any difference, I'll never know.

I also had almost every test available after my second miscarriage and that didn't turn up much except to tell me that my hormones reflect my age.

Jolls I can't believe your baby will be coming earthside so soon!How marvellous.

Waves to Galwaygal - so nice to see you.

Ah, Hopeful, bless you. Thank you for taking the time to write such a lengthy and helpful reply. Really very encouraging xx

Hello, GalwayGirl. Don't sweat about us having the same initials..I am also known as ChickenThief

Hi ladies - welcome to the "new additions" to the thread - this is a good place to come, where everyone understands the trials & tribulations of TTC in your 40's.

Golden I'm sorry AF is visiting - there's no word for it other than: shite. I believe you will become pregnant, but that it will just take a bit longer than you are hoping for.

Even with the best of cycles, it can take 6-12 months or more for over-35's. And when a m/c comes into the mix, playing havoc with cycles, even longer.

I feel that taking a step back a little will help you - and your hubby. TTC can really take it's toll on a relationship, especially your sex life - it becomes a chore & a duty.

And I completely agree with you dropping the temping post-OV, checking cervix (WTF! Never been able to face doing that one).

My "recipe" for getting pregnant has always been DTD every 2nd day from cd 7/8 for a week during my fertile week. I have always got pregnant DTD on days 8-10 of a 23-25 day cycle but have "covered" the week by DTD every 2nd day. Then we have the test of the cycle off as neither of us can be arsed after that!

The optimal BMI for conception is around 24. Below 19 is an issue, as is over 30, if that helps answer your questions.

So enjoy your chocolate! I always like a trivia magazine too - one with lots of celeb pictures & few words!

Cheese, you are very kind, too, to reply at length and rationalise my fears; 6 months is not unusual for anyone of any age to wait for a BFP. I think having got pregnant in January after only 2 months TTC has spoiled me somewhat. Thanks for your encouragement x

Fabulous to see you again, lovie. I'm glad you're ok. Even though i know your story so well it is still heartbreaking to read your stats in print - 12 miscarriages is indeed so sad and unfair. You so deserved a break, my love.

jolls seeing you here is like a blast from the past. You know how i feel about the fact that your baby is going to be here so soon, don't you, matey? :)

golden I'm not sure exactly when I did the deed when i got pregnant. i do remember having ov pains on one of the days i did it with my first born and also with my last pregnancy. But basically I think you need to focus on the fact that sperm lives for a few days and make sure there are some troops in place when you ovulate (even if they have been there a couple of days) - IYSWIM.

Thanks for the welcome....I love the vybe on here.
Grinning at the cougar comment too, never really thought of myself like that but hey, if the cap fits.
Yes apparently you can get clomid online....possibly dodgy but when you feel like time is running out then sometimes desperate measures cross my mind.
My OH will be away on basic training for about 6 months...not allowed home for 6 weeks then the odd weekend. At the end of that he will be posted away and hopefully will see him most weekends....plus the dreaded threat of Afghan. Gah!!!

Lovely to see GalwayGirl, I think of you often.

Erm golden I think you asked about conception drought. IIRC correctly it went like this.
Started TTC in June 2009, got pregnant first month (only SWI twice). MMC at 13 week. ERPC in Sept.
Started TTC in October, got BFP early Jan IIRC (SWI 3x). MMC at 12 weeks, Nat MC in early March.
Started to see an acupuncturist straight away who asked me to abstain for 3 cycles to get to know "me". Did so. Got green light in June, got BFP first month. MMC at 12 weeks. ERPC in September (in the same bed in the same ward exactly one year after the first).
Got really down :(, also moved house into grotty temp rental and generally felt shit :(.

Went for all the tests in the Autumn , IIRC in the November, had my private clinic consult just before Christmas and the NHS one in the January 2011.

Started TTC again in the Feb or March maybe. But a bit half heartedly, have never temped or anything, just SWI every 2/3 days from around day 9 (fairly regular 25ish day cycle). Got a BFP in the May but MC 10 days or so later. Got another in the September. Ditto. Dunno if that helps...

Bloody hell, Jollster, you're one fertile bird! From what you've said it looks like the longest you went without conceiving (when you were actually trying) was four months. What strength & resolve you showed through all that pain. Thanks for the more personal details; it does make me feel more at ease knowing that babies can come from SWI 2/3 times around ovulation - and not necessarily on the day itself. Because of DP's erectile dysfunction on the day of ovulation (after having been raped by me up to four times in the preceding week!) it is a particularly difficult for him, causing him acute anguish when he can't ejaculate. I'm thinking of 'ruling out' ovulation day completely to take the pressure off him. You've also quashed my fear that my ERPC in March this year somehow 'damaged' me or delayed conception. Thanks again for your input - really helpful x

Hippy, again - thank you. Like I said to Jollster, you've all given me a little more faith in relaxing the urgency around needing masses of sperm deposited within hours of ovulation. This just doesn't do DP's anxiety levels any good whatsoever. I'm sure our 'more is more' strategy has actually been counterproductive. If Pre-Seed does its job there should be no reason why 3-day old sperm is not going to do its job.

I'm totally of your ovulation pains. I hold you in the same worshipful regard as those women who can orgasm through penetration alone [bows down in respect]

Calibee, in your situation you're going to need to know excatly when your fertile window is every month so you can be sure to maximise your chances when your OH is home on leave. Do you know the day you ovulate in your cycle? Do you use OPKs? Do you temp? Sorry if I'm patronising you; you may well be finely attuned to your cycle and if that's the case just ignore me

Hi goldengirl.....I'm in third month of using a clearblue fertility monitor, and this is my second month of tracking temps, so a relative newby to it all really.
1st month with CBFM I had peaks on day 13 and 14 and AF on day 27 so a pretty standard cycle. However August was a weird one where I did nt seem to ovulate until cd27 (progesterone test 6 days later was 12.7...although my Gp said this WASN'T indicative of ovulation . I had an HSG scan on cd11, so I wondered if my body was gearing up then held onto the little egg in shock, then let it go 14 days later lol
I spent 15 years on different progesterone only pills followed by a mirena coil which I had removed in Febuary due to constant bleeding. I guess it may take a while for my body to settle.
A good thing about reading this thread is that it has made me decide to try the "every other day" method....we have been busily bonking every day...sometimes twice a day around ovulation (enjoyed every minute of it I have to add), but will be adopting a less frantic approach this time.

I've been slowly catching up with this very long thread and I have to say I'm in total admiration of some of the ladies on here. Such strength and spirit. I only hope I can muster up half of what they have. Some very sad stories and some lovely happy ones too.

...oh meant to ask

Can anybody point me to a good temperature chart that I can print off??

:)

Calibee, can I recommend Zita West's book (again!)? It's her Guide To Getting Pregnant (Amazon) and, although I thought everything I knew about what to expect from my body and how my fertility stood and what my chances of conception were, it was an eye-opening read. There is so much you and your partner could be doing to maximise your chances of getting pregnant (diet, lifestyle choices etc) but Zita's main message is that plenty of well-timed intercourse is key. It sounds like you are having the 'plenty of' and you're using a fertility monitor so maybe it's just a matter of being patient (although that's going to be difficult when your OH goes away). Go to fertilityfriend.com if you want to chart your temp - don't bother with the paper ones. Fertilityfriend is brilliant and has its own education and charting Q&A and also a gallery of others' charts and stories. Plus it analyses your charts for you and indicates each month where your fertile window is. It can become obsessive, charting, but for beginners it's a great source of affirmation that you're doing all you can to get pregnant. Zita West will tell you all the other stuff you may be in denial about: if you're fat, lose weight; if you smoke, quit; drink like a lush? Forget it.

You will be interested to know that each woman has around two anovulatory cycles each year ie. an egg isn't released (even if an OPK detects a surge of LH). This may explain your 'weird' cycle recently and it is perfectly normal.

Google the Sperm Meets Egg Plan (SMEP). It's an excellent strategy for ensuring there is plenty of sperm in place when ovulation occurs (good for those who ovulate all over the place). You'll find the SMEP demands lots of sex (you end up DTD five times in your final week) and so requires that you actually fancy your partner

Hello all, and welcome to calibee. I am one of the ladies here who is fortunate enough to be pg. I am now nearly 28 weeks pg with my second child (naturally conceived) at the age of 42. However, while I have a nice bump, it is emotionally quite difficult, as my beautiful red-headed Mia died last October at the age of 13 months, so it is all still very hard to imagine having another child in my life. It is her 2nd birthday on Saturday.

golden hoping you are finding the stories here useful. Must admit, I have to echo the words that trying for a baby at 40+ is not for the faint-hearted. I would add though, not impossible!! I guess the hardest thing is that every person here is different, with all that entails - lifestyle, previous conceptions, levels of fertility (known or otherwise) - and unless we all have the money to spend on every conceivable test ever invented, and are all following exactly the same diet and lifestyle, in fact unless we are all clones(!), each journey is unique. I say that in an optimistic tone, by the way!

And FWIW, I also believe in the 'every second day' theory of ttc in your fertile period, as eggs can live for 24 hours (I think) and sperm can live for 48 hours - and also, it is too difficult to maintain any sort of fun in sex every day with that pressure! Also found FertilityFriend and the temping very useful. My cycles had suddenly nose-dived from 27 days to 24 days over about 5 months late last year, so I was very worried. I had the day 3 and day 21 tests, which showed (for those cycles) I had good progesterone levels, but my FSH levels were high at 13.1, but considered 'normal' for my age... While the GP didn't say it, all of this made me presume I was becoming peri-menopausal, so we were about to launch into the world of IVF when I got my BFP. Further, at the private scan we had at 8 weeks, the sonographer mentioned that she could see that I probably only had one ovary working, as she could actually see where the egg had come from. When I conceived in March, I was exercising and eating well with a BMI of about 24 and on folic acid tablets, but nothing else.

Right, it's only CD2 for me and I'm already bored out of my fecking mind. I need to devise a plan of action for these doldrum days immediately following my period when the tears have subsided but the numbness from anticipating yet another toilsome cycle descends (sorry to sound depressing, newbies!) I definitely know what I'm doing this weekend, however.....we're getting a kitten!! We already have a darling cat and she is the love of my life (the only creature, bar my mum and DP, who truly understands me), however, this house needs to see some action and chaos. I can't bloody wait.

Karma alert: yesterday I returned from a shopping trip to Aldi (don't fecking ask) and from scrutinising my receipt I discovered I had inadvertently paid £7 for what I thought was a £3.99 tray of chicken fillets! Furthermore, I had been charged (and paid for!) a 39p beetroot which I did not purchase (fecking hate beetroot). So, it seems the gods are avenging my shoplifted chicken after all. I'm going to return to Tesco and pay for the damned thing before some other evil befalls me.

MiasMummy, I'm thinking of you alot today and hoping you are swathed in peace and love xxx

MiasMummy, we crossed posts there. Thank you for your calm and reasoned words. Also very encouraging. You seem such a gentle soul, you know. I thought there was something significant happening for you today regarding Mia (not her birthday) which is why I sent you love. Did I get that wrong? I had Wednesday in my mind.

miasmummy thankyou for the welcome. Such a very sad story but also lovely to see that more positve things are happening for you.
goldengirl wow what can I say? Thankyou so much for all that info. I will definately be scourcing that book. I wonder if its available on Kindle lol.
I'm thinking this is an addictive thread...I'm at work on my phone. Tut tut.
Its so very hard as I've been catching up with all your stories to hear of the many losses and mc's. ...I really hope all of you that have suffered are now feeling more positive . Have there also been a lot of successes?

Calibee, I am also skiving (nothing new there, then). Don't know about Kindle as I refuse to read anything not in real-life book form. I'm sure it will be. This thread has very, very sad losses and what is even sadder is that there are quite a lot of them. This is when we realise the stark, cold facts regarding mscarriage over the age of 40 are, in fact, realistic. There are women on here who have suffered heartache after heartache (and some horrible tragedies, too). There are also women who have triumphed through the statistics and losses to produce lovely bouncing babies. If you read back there is a list somewhere of ladies who have given birth pretty recently over 40. The ones I can remember are: AngelGeorgie; Lolfactor; 10000Fireflies; MaryTheresa (erm...someone help me out here?) Currently pregnant are: Knickyknocks; Somewhere; LotsofCheese; MiaAlexandersMummy; Jollster (sorry if I've missed someone out..I'm sure there's one more?)

There are also women who appear to be super-fertile but who are struggling to find sticky beans. There are others who are struggling to get pregnant at all. The heartache seems more unbearable, of course, when a pregnancy fails for whatever reason. Unfortunately this isn't unusual on a thread like this where age is against us (I hate saying that). It all feels so unfair, but life isn't fair. It's as simple as that. All we can hope for is that Mother Nature will give us a fecking break and that big, fat, happy baby we all want [blows snot into loo roll and dries eyes]

MiasMummy makes an excellent point about the difficulty in maintaining fun during sex taking place every day. As much as we would like to deny it, as the months roll by without a BFP it becomes increasingly difficult to remember what spontaneous, sexy, nonchalant sex feels like. Frantically trying to shag as much as possible during the fertile window brings with it heaps of pressure and zero romance. There is too much baggage attached to each shag. Sex outside of the fertile window can feel pointless, even wasteful (all that lovely sperm and you're not ovulating!) You run out of positions/filthy things to say/techniques when it's the fifth shag of the week and poor DP is pumping away under the fearful gaze of a woman bent on getting pregnant this very cycle (or is that just me?)

My point is, Calibee, take good care of each other during this (often long and disappointing) journey. As much as you try to remain relaxed about the whole thing, the passage of time can eventually wear you down and create fear and panic where there used to be none. So, lots of cuddles, compliments and quality time doing other things with the OH is important - for both your sakes. Of course, you may not be in the least bit neurotic/highly strung/depressive/defeatist by nature, in which case you will find the whole process a complete and utter breeze (bitch)

Haha...that made me both sad and smile at the same time. Am I manic already lol.
Some very sound advice there regarding relationships under pressure. Enough to make me want to be with my man right now and give him a "thankyou for being you" hug....its on my list for later.

Ha ha - glad i can impress you golden - I can do that other thing too - but only with Hubbie, never before. and of course that's a whole other subject!

Right....from now on, if anyone mentions Christmas or orgasms......

...hey I found the book on Kindle goldengirl.....

I used to love the feel of a "real" book but have to admit to reading Fifty Shades and was glad of the anonimity. Fifty shades of S**t I have to say!!!