TTC 10+ months Part 13

[buzzybee123]

A very friendly and supportive thread for those taking way longer than they had ever expected to make a baby.

Joy I am so pleased you've found a way to look forward, for now at least. I hope you are rewarded in the best possible way.

Pout goodness I forgot to say well done on the stabbing. It will soon become routine. What did the clinic say about MrP?

MrsDen what great news on the AMH. Those 3 letters literally still tear my heart apart. You must feel more confident now?

Buzzy I hope the migraine goes soon.

TMI but this period is very bright red and coming out fast. Does this mean anything?

And in other news, I've just had an A announcement. Not full on A* but it makes me want to cry. I'm sick of this. Make room in the tent.

On the plus side it is Friday

mrsd you have been really brave about your lap and it's wonderful that you've healed so well and that your AMH is good. It's reassuring that your body is healing and doing what it should. I'm sorry you're feeling meh - but you've taken huge leaps forward over the past couple of months and that's really good as you progress towards IVF. I have every confidence that this will be a good spring for you.

joy Add me to the list of people who felt emotional reading about the two tiny heartbeats. I think you've been extremely courageous through all this, and wise. I can understand the terror - I would be a gibbering wreck. The uncertainty must be very difficult to manage. It is wonderful that you're going to see your acupuncturist - anything that helps you feel calm right now has to be a good thing.

euro sorry you can't sleep and sorry about the worry. I do hope things settle down and you can get some rest over the weekend at least. It's been one hell of a week for you and I'm sure you're looking forward to some time to process, drink hot chocolate, and sleep in.

buzzy I am so sorry about the migraine. That's the worst. Huge sympathies. Hope you can have a calm quiet evening tonight.

rabbit I am sad about your poor furbaby. Hope you have some time to do yoga this weekend and that your little fellow is resting comfortably. And sorry you've had such a rough time recently. I am leaving some princess brown diet semi-approved coconut sorbet outside your tent.

pout what did the clinic say? Congratulations on successful injections - sorry that it made you feel crap. It does get easier! Funny what one gets used to.

doll I'm still grinning from ear to ear about your news this week. Just amazing. And about putting three or four embies back in!!

Waves to gin, lemon, sea, madness, nelly, sar, art and the rest of the gang - apols to those I have missed. I emailed my doctor to ask him how long he'd need for an IVF cycle so I can plan my holidays and to tell him about the surprise ovulation in December. He emailed back to say he could work around my schedule and that he was excited that I had spontaneously ovulated. I went in this morning for a blood test to see what's going on. No results yet, but I was really surprised at how fast he was able to book me in. So looks like I'm back on the AC horse. It's coming up to a three-day weekend here and I can't wait. Beautiful sunny weather and blue skies outside.

xpost nelly - oh I am sorry about the announcement. Deep breaths. You will get there, I know you will. For now I am leaving a post-honeymoon pina colada with a little umbrella outside your zippy tent door flap.

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That's fab about such quick service. What are they testing today? Progesterone? Sweet at your doc being so happy about your spontaneous ovulation .

nelly sorry about A+ announcement

critter glad your doc was pleased about your ovulation and that he is willing to work around your schedule and so quickly

nelly
I thought the doc would be annoyed with me for going rogue and not going back in to see him when I said I would so was pleasantly surprised! I don't know what they're testing today - I guess progesterone and oestrogen? He said it was 'to see what your body is doing'.

buzzy hope you're feeling better. Maybe a nice cold flannel on the forehead?

joy positive thoughts to you my love.

critter I can't quite shake it but Kayla is looking after me :)

awww, does kayla make a good nurse? I'm sure cats know when we're not well.

critter it's lovely that your dr was excited for you. Spontaneous ovulation does sound exciting. That's great that your dr can work around your schedule, I wonder when you'll start?

nelly sorry that you want some time in the tent, I've budged up and made room for you. I think bright red blood is ok, just means the flow is fast I think so it's fresh and not hanging around before exiting. Is it unusual for you? Boo to A pregnancy. I heard of one yesterday, it's a B one. I know they have been trying for 5 months, wail - it's not fair!

Oi Gin that's mine . Actually, I think beating cystitis into submission with booze is a Good Plan. *

*disclaimer. I have no medical training.

Thanks for the reassurance on the bleeding. It's definitely faster and redder than normal MrsD but suspect its just drug related as Gin says. The weird thing is I wouldn't say it's heavier, which sounds kind of contradictory (is that a confused face? They all look the same on my phone). Anyway what with the 8 days spotting and now this it was either just drug related or (and I prefer this version) my body tried to make it work this cycle. Though the non stripy hobnob would refute this. Oh well. Let's just say I was pregnant for a minute or two.

I'm glad Kayla is in charge of nurse duties Buzzy.

Kayla has been all snuggly today which helps

gin if you PM me your address I can take a look and see if I can find the amazing anti-cystitis painkillers that you can buy over the counter in the US and send you a pack. They do turn your pee sunset orange but work a charm at stopping the stinging. In the meantime, a gin fizz sounds positively medicinal! Actually when I was in Florida they made an amazing gin cocktail with tea (no milk, obvs!) orange and lemon peel muddled in sugar, gin, vodka, and soda water. It was called 'The Third Man' and was divine. Recipe (with insanely large quantities) here... I might try to make it for my next party.

Sorry nelly about the gory period. When do you go for cycle number two?

buzzy a snuggly cat sounds like an excellent hangover cure.

mrsd I'm not sure when I would start - would be lovely if you and I were cycle buddies. Would love a paw to cling to!

Listening to my favourite very cheesy early 2000s reggae (inspired by the pina colada idea) and working on a report... four more hours til the weekend!

Joy - my heart breaks to hear of the ongoing stress that you and Roy are under. But there is hope, and reason to be hopeful. Seeing those 2 heartbeats must have been awesome yet so frightening. I agree with others, I don't know how you are marching in to work each day - much respect to you lady. I am sorry I wasn't around to post yesterday but my thoughts are with you many times each day at the moment - that is honestly true. I think your positive attitude is brill. You may as well relax a little whislt you are waiting and try to distract yourselves the best you can. Maybe consider a sneaky cinema trip or walk in the park etc. The acu idea is brilliany too. Kepp going, hang on in there lovely lovely Joy. xxxxxxxxxx

Den - sorry you are a little in the tent too. I know exactly what you mean about day dreaming about being on maternity leave. I regularly (and not in an on purpose way) day dream of my home water birth and giving birth to a baby boy. Sigh. Great news about the scan and amh. No stopping you now Den - your turn is just around the corner.

Oh Nelly - I am so sorry for the a+ announcement, what a shitter. Big hand holds and passing the wine as a cocktail chaser.

Pout - well done on the stabbings and sorry for the stress about Mr Pout's 'poorlyness'. I wonder if antibiotics may even be a good thing and give the old swimmers a bit of a spring clean? Keep plodding on with it my lovely. It is all very promising. xx

Gin - sorry to hear you have been on antibiotics too - it never rains, ey? How are you feeling now? And how are you feeling generally about fet and stuff?

Euro - gosh I read about the spotting. I think more than 30% of women do spot in early pregnancy. I know that doesn't take the fear away but things still sound normal. I hope you manage to get a bit more sleep.

Rabbit - big hugs, and I can hug you as I am in the tent too, more about that later. Right, you have glandular fever and a weird hormonal cycle thing going on - it is bound to play havoc with your mood and mental health. I am 100% sure things will settle down. But do you know what - there is no harm in telling the Dr either. Buzzy has some wise words about how this would have no negative impact on your records if required for future use. Let us know how you got on. Sorry for the poorly furry freind too - not nice at all.

Buzz - ouch to the migraine. Hope you can relax this weekend and feel better very soon. I can't believe how close you are to Brno.

Nelly - enjoy the long sunny weekend. Spontanious ovulation is a great sign as it shows you body needs a little bit of help only and has great potential for AC.

OK self indulgent moan alert coming up......I am in the tent big style. I was convinced I would be posting about another valentine BFP. We were really excitied as this post lap cycle has been really different. I have no doubts I became pregnant this month and experienced implantation but the hob nob says otherwise. At 6dpo I had zappy tingles followed by dull achy cramps radiating from the ovary and then in to the womb followed by stingy womb pains the next day - exactly as they describe on the countdown to pregnancy type websites. I have had ongoing ovary pain from both ovaries, sore (but not agnony boobs), throbbing cervix type pain, swollen inner vaginal walls (sorry, gross) mild cramps at 10 dpo and mild sea sickness twice. But BFN and now I sit and await AF. Even though these symptoms are not as strong as the time I really was pregnant, my last pregnany was abnormal and the symptoms were exadurated by 100 which I now know in hine sight indicated something was very a miss.

I sobbed for 3 hours last night. I didn't realise how much emphasis I had placed on my post operation body. Something was different this month. DH said yesterday that he didn't feel we should do another round of IVF (just use the FETs we have left). Partly because in thoery we shouldn't need IVF based on lap results and partly because we have produced many top quality blastocysys already and we still can't get them to stick. Although he said if I wanted to do do IVF again, he would. In my heart of hearts I am not sure I see us going for it again after the FET.

Somewhere deep inside it feels like we are coming to the end of something. After nearly 3 years of ttc and failed IVF and many natural cycles, alternative treatments etc I don't know what else to do. We are not going to stop trying but I fear we have much chance of a baby. Please just let me say this out loud - I had perfect fertility which was damaged by my miscarried baby. This is a rare thing and an unfair thing and I have to live with this forever. It makes me very sad. I am also very embarressed.

Adoption isn't an option for us - partly because our hearts just aren't it and and partly because they would never let us adopt a baby anyway (DH's age and our age gap). Although they would probably let us adopt a 10 year old I guess. I know I am being premature, we still have FET next month and a post operative body in general, but I am feeling sad, humiliated and beaten.

Hope you don't mind my moans and self pity. Just feeling down. Will be ok. xx

oops - meant Critter not Nelly in the sunshine and spontanious ovulation - sorry gals.

sar big hugs sweetpea, is it too early to be sure, when did you ovulate?? As for adoption the rules have changed quite alot recently so you would need to find out if your age would be an issue

sar just popping back to give you a pink girly cocktail too and a tail feather fluff. Remember when princess's brown diet ended and we were all hoping she'd get pregnant the first month? And then she wasn't, and she wasn't again the month after that - but then she did get pregnant. It hasn't happened this month but that doesn't mean that it won't happen full stop. You have the FET coming up - one step at a time. You don't have to decide anything right this moment. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other. And huge paw squeeze - I know you're going through so much sadness and it's bloody hard. Really thinking of you - you will get through this. And you will get your little one.

Just spoke to the clinic - my hormone levels are all low, so nothing's happening. I would start now but as am going on hols at Easter they said it might be tight, so better to wait and start later. So I'm going to go back in for another baseline blood test on March 26th and start taking the pill then.

critter sorry the results were low but yay to starting in March :)

Big squeeze for sar you will get there, I know it.

critter we might be cycling together if you have your scan in march too. I can stretch my paw over the pond to you. Will you be doing long protocol? Why do you have to take the pill first? Is it to stop cysts forming? I'm sorry that your hormones are low, was it progesterone they checked?

mrsd it's an excellent question and I don't actually know why I would be on the pill first - I'm ashamed to say that I didn't ask . It would be three weeks of the pill, with injections to downreg starting the third week. All a bit confusing and I probably ought to have a clearer idea of why I would be LP, but am assuming it's to do with my PCOS. They checked progesterone and oestrogen and both were low. It's ok, I don't mind. It kind of takes the pressure off to be 'outsourcing' the conception part of my sex life like this. I guess I'll be doing the egg retrieval and transfer around the beginning of May... would be lovely to have your transatlantic paw to clutch.

I reckon outsourcing is the way to go. It does take the pressure off. Today, I had a good look at all the other couples in the waiting room (my apt was 30 mins late again so I had plenty of time) and my conclusion is that the ac bunch are normal, attractive, well dressed and sort of cool people. So, I'm happy to be part of that. My confidence had been so dented by this big thing I couldn't manage to do that I'd started to think I wasn't normal. But looking at all these lovely people today, I thought they're normal and ttc is not who they are. There was a couple who had just got lovely news, it was nice to see their joy and the dr congratulating them and wishing them a great weekend as he said goodbye (the dr walks you out to reception, I have no idea why so everyone gets to hear the parting words) there was another couple who obviously had been given bad news, she was in tears and I really wanted to go over and give her a hug.

I'm rambling, sorry. Oh, critter my dr has a faux mahogany desk. It's nearly as big as the room though, and he had a lovely vase of tulips that sort of made me smile.i wonder of it was a valentines gift.

Oh Sar, lovely lovely Sar. I echo what Critter said. There are no rules that say you need to make a plan and stick to it. Just one step at a time. Sometimes, yes, it's helpful to stop, take a step back, and see whether you are still on a path that feels right for you. But you don't need to make decisions that are cast in stone. If you want to step off the train, you can do so at any time you choose. But you don't need to set that in advance. You will know when the time is right. Open Heart, remember :). Also...AF hasn't arrived yet? And sometimes sticks don't tell the story exactly the way we expect. And also, also.... I know it's hard to remember, but lots of otherwise normally fertile couples have months where an embryo implants but it's not quite top notch. It's just so much harder for us, because where for the normals that might mean 3 months of failed cycles, for us it takes 3/5/10 years to achieve the same rate. But for all you know, the lap has done it's job, and this month was just one of those "not quite right" months, where next one will sort it out. There's the FET too, so all is not lost. Big paw squeeze.

Critter - I'm sorry about the bloods. I was reflecting on this earlier and thinking of you. I often feel very down when I think about my AMH, and my age, wish I'd started so much earlier; I get very "woe is me" about it. But the sad truth is, it doesn't matter why we aren't getting pregnant, it's as tough for all of us. The fact you don't ovulate is such a ridiculous blocker, and you are so upbeat about it all, you have my utmost admiration. But the great thing is that ovulation problems are really surmountable, and I believe IVF is just a formality to getting pregnant for you :) Little baby critter dungarees by early in 2014 I reckon.

We are watching the most ridiculously rubbish film this evening, Aliens are invading Hawaii dontcha know .

Wank! Just had a birth announcement. Yet another of our favourite baby names used. And by a couple that got married about 15 months after us (and got together many years after us). Arsebiscuits. Sorry for all the other crappy announcements people are getting. I know the name thing pales in comparison to some of them - it is a B- announcement rather than an A+!

nelly according to my acu lady, that is a good thing. My periods used to be 7-9 days with a long slow tail. She worked it get it to about 5 days, of which two were ridiculously heavy. I was not sure that it was an improvement from my point of view, but she seemed happy! Apparently slow, brown, clotty bleeding is bad, fast, red bleeding is good (at least from a Chinese medicine point of view).

sarlat I'm sorry to hear you are feeling low. Has AF arrrived? I suspect you are experiencing a horrible hormonal dip, exacerbated by the hope from it being a post-lap cycle. Your emotions will lift in a few days. You just need to hide in the tent until then!

critter sorry your hormones were low, but it's great that you will get a nice holiday before starting and that you have a plan. (I like having a plan.) I'll be there in April to offer a bit of RL handholding!

BTW, it was standard protocol at my NHS clinic to take the Pill from day 1-20 and then start the downregging drugs on day 21. My clinic told me to skip the Pill and just start on day 21 because I had had to stop the Pill twice when I was younger because I had symptoms of blood clots (and I was then advised not to take it again). Other clinics do long protocol the way I did it, starting on day 21. It's all about shutting down the hormones, just different ways of getting there I think. I have quite negative views after my experience and Create saying LP was often used for the convenience of clinic timing, but I think it can help the clinic control hormone levels where there is a tendency to overstim, e.g. with PCOS. But some clinics (including my old one) do it for everyone regardless of circumstances, which I disapprove of now I have looked into it a bit more.

critter and mrsd I think I will be cycling with you two

euro I still plan to use the baby name that my ex husband stole from me

mrsd I know exactly what you mean about AC waiting rooms. I think everyone is sneaking looks at one another and drawing the same conclusion.

nelly I'm astonished Mr Euro hasn't made me watch that. It sounds like his kind of crap thing.

It's not on TV euro which makes it even worse .

Arsebiscuits indeed on the name stealing, but in a few months you can do some of your own! Good to know about the bleeding change being a good thing - although I don't normally have too much of a tail. And of course, I'd really rather there was none at all .

Did someone ask me about cycle 2 upthread? We go in next week for our (belated, due to wedding/honeymoon) review of the previous round, at which I am going to say I don't want the norethisterone, and I do want progesterone support (I had an ovitrelle injection on 7DPEC). Other than that, I want to have a more normal next cycle, and to start again the one after.