Gather up your fertility spells and sign in for the lentil-weaving BESH woo hippy thread!

[FrankelSaysRelax]

Greetings sisters [puts flowers in hair]

Bring your very best woo & let's see if we can magick up a few baybees (insta-differs not allowed).

New recruits are required to locate the BESH spell aka the BESHtionnaire and submit for further scrutiny.

[dances round bare foot]

Same here jethro. Good job I told everyone also we were having a break after the last one, otherwise I would have gotten some questions by now, I suspect...

if and when I announce I fully intend to leave a clear hint about our troubles TTC in case any of my RL friends are going through this shit without mentioning it

lemons that is my plan too - to gently raise awareness of the fact that some people don't get diffed at the first ping of knicker elastic.

jethro I'm not actually that old. Nearly 32 in fact. But my pct won't fund ivf if you're over 34, and you have to have been trying for 3 years prior to that. So despite the fact that we have been ttc since December 2010 , my ectopic last dec re-sets the clock. By the time I'm 3 years post the ectopic, I'll be too old to qualify. Sigh. Fortunately we both earn a decent wage, so would be able to afford the private option with a bit of saving.

My IVF disaster involved the following. I should have started the Pill on day 1 but because I have had problems with it in the past, I skipped that bit. On day 21, I started Burserelin jabs (not sniffs) for downregging (I can't remember who asked, but downregging= inducing menopause so all your drug levels are the ones you inject, which can be controlled; not used in short protocol IVF). I got my period pretty much as normal (just a day or two late) and then after about 2 weeks of the drucks, had a scan which showed my ovaries were asleep and my lining was very thing (although I was still bleeding). By this point I was an absolute wreck and mentalist. When they told me I would have to take the Burserelin for another week before starting the stimms, until THEY were ready to fit me into their schedule, I had a hairy fit and gave up. I have never felt as bad in my entire life as I did on the Burserelin. But the Pill makes me suicidal, so I think I have an extreme reaction to hormonal stuff. My two closest RL friends have both had IVF and don't remember anything apart from the odd headache on Burserelin. But they both overstimmed and felt bloated and in pain on the stimming part (which I never got to). BTW, I am still carrying the 10 pounds I put on on the drucks. This seems to be pretty common post-IVF.

FSR I hope it all went well. To my cervix dr appointment a couple of weeks ago, I took a file of research papers and a typed list of questions.

Jethro I'm also pretty evangelical about being open about my fertility ishoos. I don't lack the fact that many consider it a taboo. LIke FSR's bloke says, we wear glasses if our eyes are broken without any shame.

Fizzy that is utterly sh1t. What a stupid policy. Although after the disaster described above, I doubt we will ever see if we can continue our NHS IVF treatment. If we do try IVF again, I think I will go to somewhere like Create that is well practised at mild IVF using fewer drugs. That's kind of what I meant by the rigidity of the NHS process - you do their standard protocol and that is it. Their only concession to my problem with hormonal drugs was to skip the 21 days of the Pill. And that might actually have helped - it would have eased my hormones down gently without doing the emergency stop of going straight onto a fairly high dose of Burserelin.

I'm 13 dpo here and my temp fell off a cliff this morning, so Droid is about to arrive. On to cycle twenty-fricking-three.

Hello all, I'm back. I've skived the afternoon off work so have my feet up on the sofa at home.

I actually cried for much of the drive over to the clinic and having composed myself burst into tears at the nurse asking me how I was To make matters worse HWHNN started to tear up too. I felt very bad for upsetting him as well

Long story short, I can't start right away as there is no room in the programme at the moment. I've got to wait until my next cycle which is a bummer, but hey it's all progress.
Drugs are being delivered tomorrow so they'll be taking up room in the fridge for a while!

The nurse was lovely and explained everything thoroughly. She gently explained that the first cycle is often frustrating while they get the dosage of hormones right so she said we need to be a bit patient.

So upshot, I'm feeling better about it all. Not great, but better. I've decided the time has come to tell my work colleagues, I'm not going to be able to hide all the scan appointments and the like from them and I'd rather tell them what is going on than let them jump to conclusions.

Aw frankie, I don't like to think of you crying on your way there. And poor HWHNN as well. I shall send you some nice chickpea and happy drugs brownies to comfort you both.

It's v good you're feeling better now though. I'm always incredibly relieved just to have an appointment over with - the stress of the build up is just exhausting.

Any idea when your next cycle will start? How long was this one?

This one was 48 days. The nurse said if this next one goes over 50 days I'm to phone them and they will arrange for droid inducing drugs to be sent to me to coincide with an available treatment window.

I think things are just getting to both of us at the moment. We really need to just take a deep breath and push on. Who knows, maybe I'll get an ironi-diff in this waiting cycle [wishful thinking]

[scoffs down brownies]

[gets munchies]

Are you still snuggled on the sofa?

Much luff to you frank. It sounds like a tough afternoon but the nurse sounded fab and has hopefully reassured you.

I honestly think the whole 'reset the clock after ectopic' thing is total crap! Not far, at all. In fact it should be taken into account as a reason to think about whether iVF might be a better option.

I have met my midwife and booked in, all good. She is luffly. Has been nominated for awards and stuff. And my BMI was 29!!!! Get in! Just through a bit of exercising and not eating so much crap.
Feel free to tell me to look after myself better though because my blood pressure was in my boots (90/60!, oops!) because I have not eaten or drunk enough today and apparently your blood pressure gets lower in pregnancy anyway due to more fluid!

Oh and they won't do the dyno-rod until after my pregnancy, which I anticipated but is a bit annoying!

I love my epilator. But then I love tweezing things so am well used to that sort of sensation. I do 3/4 legs, upper sort of bikini line (ie I can't quite go underneath) and armpits with mine.

Actually, speaking of hair removal, I really want to ask euro about electrolysis, as I'm sure I read somewhere that she's had it done everywhere...

Bugs it's ovulation induction, which is just below IUI. It's injections to stimulate the follicles and a trigger injection to make me ovulate, but the actual conception is left to us to do the sechs.

I've been told that we should do the sechs on the day of the trigger, rest a day, then do it again. The trigger usually causes ov 36 hours later.

Years of waxing had left me with practically hairless armpits anyway. If only it had done the same for my yeti legs :(

Yeti legs kill fred. They really are that bad.

Morning! I'm a total Yeti too - I blame the PCOS. All my bodily hair is rampant, I have to get my eyebrows and top lip threaded every 3 weeks; my pits and legs need doing every other day and my bikini line is just an absolute nightmare, though at the moment I can only be arsed to deal with it around ov time

In other news, I have decided to give up temping for this cycle to try and reduce the menkul.

Yeah, bastard PCOS here too. Do you also know the joys of chin hair?

Chin hair.

How did this happen to me? (PCOS, of course..). Currently only a few thick black strands I have to pluck once a week or so. This is only going to get worse I fear.

And don't even start me on legs/pits/bikini. And... have stupidly sensitive skin and masses of I growing hairs. Andi exfoliate and moisturise like my life depends on it.

Since when did women have to be bloody hair free any way?

I start each morning with a chin check in the bathroom mirror. And do a lot of paranoid stroking throughout the day. And never go anywhere without my tweezers.

No chin hair, I think [runs to mirror to double check]

Just to pop in to say that I am hairy too sans PCOS. SB is used to me forgetting tweezers and buying them in all sort of forrin parts to get rid of the persistent chin hairs. No tache though

Another hairy Mary here sans PCOS! Especially arms , legs and I get cheek hairs, nice bristly ones that need plucking!

I too have a lovely collection of Tweezers Of The World, lemon.

Cheek hairs, you say? Interesting...