Five and the Mystery of the Declining Fertility - the BESH engage the services of the Famous Five to track down their baybees and finish with lashings of ginger beer. Topping!

[ArielThePiraticalMermaid]

Morning everyone, just let me wolf down this amazing meal of tinned tongue, hardboiled eggs and ginger beer (don't you find food always tastes so much better outside?) and we'll toddle off on our latest adventure. We'll make sure Anne does the washing up (you'll make a proper little housewife and no doubt the fecund mother of four fine sons one day Anne ) and us boys can have the proper adventures! No, not you George - you're nearly as good as a boy but not quite. Leave the actual procreating to me and Dick. Woof woof! Shut up Timmy!

[Northey]

It's the "haha" that makes me want to find her and kill her.

Probably the SIL told her to stay in the water because she wa secretly planning to drown her.

[maamalady]

We can only hope, norf.

Just out of interest, reading all the intros has made me wonder. Are you all doing/have you all done IUI/IVF etc privately or on the NHS? I am curious as many BESH are several cycles in to various forms of AC, and we are yet to start anything despite TTC for roughly the same time. It may be a postcode lottery, of course, but my area does nothing at all until three years of TTC are up and then the NHS fund three cycles of IVF but nothing else. Do other regions step in earlier?

[ArielThePiraticalMermaid]

I was referred "quickly" ten months ago after two years ttc. I could have gone earlier, being over 35. I get four rounds of IUI and one of IVF on the NHS. Couldn't do private. And now having got to the stage of actually starting, they say no, you have to be allergy tested first. Oh the waiting time for that referral? Another few months. I am 38 in April FFS.

I am so fucking fucked off with it all. Droid arrived just now when I was just starting to think of POAS after making it to day 32 without even the hint of a tint.

[FrankellyMyDearIDontGiveADamn]

Ye gods, some people are shockingly thick!

[maamalady]

Ah, I'd not thought of age coming into it. It is mad that the NHS funds different treatment depending on where you live - that makes no sense.

Droids are just shit. I'm currently day twelve and (fingers crossed) it might actually be on the way out now. FFS I am sick and tired of fortnight-long droids. And I've not had a letter from the gynae yet either, so will have to pester the GP to check they actually sent the referral if I don't get a letter by the end of the week.

[HavingALittleFaithBaby]

Oh dearie me. I saw a Fred on Pregnancy he other day where the girl thought she'd broken her baybee because she woke up on her front

Re AC - obviously a tad different for us but they agreed to refer us for IVF when we'd been TTC for 2 years 6 months and once I'd shed the lbs! Never got that far so I dunno about criteria/waiting times but I know someone who won her (twin!) baybees through IVF locally and she waited nearly 4 years in total.

[FrankellyMyDearIDontGiveADamn]

X-posted with a few there.

I accept that I've been lucky in my NHS dealings so far. I was referred for tests after I had a cycle that lasted over 6 months. Those tests showed PCOS and I've gone on from there.

I get 3 cycles of OI (just starting number 2) and then on to IVF. My NHS don't do IUI and I'm not sure how many cycles of IVF we get. HWHNN says if need be we'll find a way to pay and go private.

[ArielThePiraticalMermaid]

I even hate my sister today. Because she plans babies and then goes ahead and gets them, when I can't even have one.

I realise how thoroughly unattractive I sound by the way. Where else could I say that?

[maamalady]

I wondered if a concrete diagnosis of something would help, Frank - as we're unexplained we basically get left to see what happens on our own, which is massively frustrating.

HOTB and I have a post-NHS-funding IVF savings too. If need be we'll beg from our parents; ILs in particular I'm sure would help as they had trouble TTC too (three years to win HOTB followed by an ectopic and two failed IVFs which must have cost a fortune in the eighties).

What's OI?

[HavingALittleFaithBaby]

My PCT don't offer IUI either.

rie I hadn't realised how bitter I was til I finally got diffed and my perspective changed. It was a cloud that left a shadow over everything :(

[maamalady]

Aww, rie, the whole thing is just shit. I am so bitter and so desperately jealous, and then I'm angry and guilty for feeling like that. I'm lucky that neither HOTB nor I have siblings, so at least it's only cousins and friends to rage about, which is a little less close to home. At least I'm a bit more even-tempered when droid is gone.

[captainmoll]

Morning, bitter and twisted companions. I too am an acid ball of jealous bile when I see all the people I love dropping sprogs like there's no tomorrow.

I haven't yet got the the IUI/ IVF investigations so I've no idea what my area offers. I should probably start looking into that as I sense it is not too far away. We're broke, so private will never be an option for us, unless we win the lottery, which we don't play sooo..

[FrankellyMyDearIDontGiveADamn]

OI is Ovulation Induction, at least that's what they call it here. It seems to go by several different names.

Basically I inject small doses of FSH (much less than for IVF) and get scanned to monitor follicle growth. Once I get some nice sized follicles I have to inject the trigger and go away and have lots of sex. My main issue with my "skinny PCOS" is that I am inclined to over stimulate and if you put up more than 3 follicles over 14mm they will cancel the cycle. First time round I had one 16mm, one 14mm and one 12mm, so it was a close run thing!

[EuroShagmore]

I would be happy to meet some of the luffly BESH. I am in that there fancy london.

Draf we're now private, but could have started NHS IVF last March - 15 months into proper ttc (but they counted it from earlier because we weren't using contraception for a couple of years before that, so we got referred quickly). I first saw a GP after 6 cycles of "proper trying", so 9 months after that I could have been starting IVF but I bottled it. My IUIs last year were private. I wasn't offered that on the NHS. But in my area, we only get one cycle of IVF, not three. So you wait longer but get more funding.

Rie I too feel the bitterness and jealousy. My instadiffer friend mentioned she is getting her coil removed this month. She is thinking of trying for #3 in a few months. I bet she's pregnant by March.

[FrankellyMyDearIDontGiveADamn]

Any sign of Jeffers out there? I'm still sending sticky vibes to Jeffembie!

[KateSMumsnet]

Hi everyone,

We've just deleted a few posts, as we don't think it's in the spirit of Mumsnet to mock a poster from another fred, when they're not here to defend themselves.

[maamalady]

Fortunately for them, though, no differ is ever going to read the BESH threads, because they're just too fucking lucky.

Bitter, me?

[ArielThePiraticalMermaid]

Always gives me a shock if anyone else turns up in here, even MNHQ. Do you think someone complained?

One of the things I hate most about long term TTC is how horrible it makes me.

[FrankellyMyDearIDontGiveADamn]

Oo, were we reported? Is there a spy in our midst?