The ongoing search for BFPs now leads the BESH to the barren polar wastes, in the footsteps of Scott, Shackleton and Franklin.

[ArielThePiraticalMermaid]

Pack those reindeer sleeping bags, huskies and skis - we're off to the Antarctic to look for our BFPs. Unlike Scott, we'll eat the poniez if necessary (topical joke). Let's huddle together through the Antarctic night and we'll try not to kidnap one of the emperor penguin toddlers for our very own. Bring on blizzards, pack ice, shipwreck, attacking leopard seals, voyages across the Southern Ocean in rowing boats and hazardous traverses of South Georgia in search of rescue - just like the Shackleton expedition, NO BESH WILL BE LEFT BEHIND.

(do I win the prize for most random fred ever?)

[Northey]

There are some quite special people on it, mave. Including one who thinks ariel is "jumped up", the little hussy!

[LazyMachine]

Sorry to hear about the wonky sticks Franks.

[maamalady]

Morning all.

I'm not sure I can go back to that thread now, someone has just said that infertility treatment shouldn't be a priority, and the money should be spent on maternity and children's services instead. That hits me somewhere extraordinarily painful. As if you don't become worthy of help until you're a parent, as if the infertile are second class. Holy crap. I think I need a sit down.

[Northey]

Oh fuck. I had just persuaded myself to leave it, if it was only that nit blackswan left. Now I want to go in all over again.

[SinkyMalinks]

I read the first few pages then left. I am Not Good with fools on the Internet (foti).

Given all the husky puppies and fluffy penguins around we should change the E of besh from Evil to Entitled..

[Northey]

Oh good, someone has told her she is disgusting. Mwahahahahaha.



What news on the spotting and clinic-phoning, aries?

[maamalady]

I want to go and shout at that poster, but I'm not going to. It won't end well, and I'll only end up more upset and probably in tears. Not that that matters, what with me being second class and all.

[Northey]

[Northey]

I think we've done our bit yesterday, draf, and the whole thing is just going to drift permanently off topic now.

[maamalady]

Yesterday it was pretty balanced and polite, from people of varying opinions. It's turning into a bunfight now. It's so easy for parents to say "childlessness is a choice for many, just get on with it" - it's incredibly short-sighted as well as callous.

[EuroShagmore]

I think we should build a barricade of fluffy penguins and husky pups between us and that thread and let it crowd our thoughts no more.

[captainmoll]

Euro - I'm with you there. We've got better things to think about, like cheering on sticky Barrys and finding the ponies who ran off in the night.

BE gets his test results this evening - unless he cancels again in which case I will throw him out of the tent and eat all the tins of food without him.

[TWinklyLittleStar]

I agree with euro, as is so often the case.

I am feeling a lot less poorly today. Yay.

[Northey]

Are these the jizz scores, moll?

I am obsessively reading ivf early symptoms on twoweekwait. All utterly pointless, as the whole damned lot are generally also the result of taking progesterone. Speaking of which, oh my God, the fanny wax. We could use it to grease the sled runners, perhaps.

[captainmoll]

They are indeed the spunk stats, and also blood test results

On the ivf subject, there are two interesting articles in the guardian today - one by Suzanne Moore and one by katherine Baldwin. I point it out because after the uninformed ranting that has been part of the mn thread, (present company excepted, obvs) I found it a relief to read some well structured and researched points of view.

Im on my phone so can't do the links, but google should find them.

[EuroShagmore]

norf that made me literally LOL! It is fecking grim isn't it?

I had pretty much no symptoms. One very vivid filthy dream, shortly after ET. Some scratchy womble feelings (but I would get those every month). Murderous PMT, near the end of the 2ww. Sore boobs, but I always get those post ov anyway (btw, since BFP the soreness has ramped up hugely - anyone who so much as brushes them on my commute is likely to get punched hard in the face). After 28 cycles of avid symptom spotting, I have concluded it is pointless. The only thing that I can really put down to probably being related is the sechs dream.

Twink I am glad you are feeling a bit better lovely.

[EuroShagmore]

moll but that would mean I'd have to read the Grauniad...

[JethroTull]

Euro I had a sechs dream too! Weird.

I still don't feel diffed. Nothing. Nada. If I wasn't anymore the progresterone would stop anything falling out too wouldn't it?

I wrote one comment on the IVF thread and then had to walk away.

[EuroShagmore]

jeff it is quite common I think. I very rarely remember my dreams and I never have interesting dreams so it was noteworthy!

I know what you mean about not feeling diffed. I just have sore boobs and insomnia, none of the classic symptoms like throwing up. Isn't your scan on Monday? I was testing every other day or so for the first week, to make sure the line is getting darker, but I have forced myself to stop and just wait for the scan now.

[maamalady]

Grauniad links here:

General index page

Suzanne Moore article

Katherine Baldwin article

[maamalady]

The Katherine Baldwin one confuses me. Are people really so ill-informed that they don't realise fertility declines after 30 and declines even more after 35? Perhaps I just knew this because I have a science-based education, but I find it staggering to think that that is not obvious.

Not that it made bugger all difference, mind you. I started getting broody at 24, but HOTB didn't want to start trying then. We got married at 26, started TTC a few months later by which time we were both 27. I always wanted to have three children and to have had them all by the time I was 30 - I've felt that for a good fifteen years. If I'm not pregnant in the next month I won't have any children before turning 31, and the last vestige of my life plan will be gone. It proves how silly it is to plan your life, but by god it hurts all the same.

I can't help wondering what would have happened had we started TTC a few years earlier, but I refuse to blame HOTB for delaying our start - that way madness lies.

[ArielThePiraticalMermaid]

I never realised. I thought you were more or less fertile until the menopause. Only when we'd started TTC and looking into things on the internet did I realise. And I'm by no means unintelligent. I think it's what features on your radar. If you weren't broody before say 34, you won't have been reading the fertility articles because you weren't interested. Doesn't mean you're deserving of less help than someone who's been broody since their 20s. I had far to many parent related ishoos in my 20s to want to be one myself.

[JethroTull]

Yes, on Monday. I have been POAmultipleSticks but the line was dark right from the begining so I can't see if anything is changing.

Is insomnia a symptom? I have it too, I keep waking up at 4ish & not getting back to sleep.

Draff the comments that pissed me off the most on that thread were those that related to women who should start TTC earlier, they didn't seem to take having the right partner into consideration! If I'd had a child with boyfriends I was with in my 20's it would have been a disaster!! I knew when I met SSG that if we wanted to have children we'd better get a move on - I was only 30 though.Before I met him I was pretty sure I didn't want them. I never had a life plan - maybe I should have done.

[2cats222]

I have been stalking since Jan and decided to come out of the closet... Can I offer up some gin and join the BESH brigade? In need of something to make me laugh today as am currently clinging on to the spinning sofa with a terrible hangover

[EuroShagmore]

Thanks for the links. It is good to read some non-frothing intelligent comment on the subject.

Moore misses the mark IMO. She is harping on the old point that women are putting off having babies to focus on their careers. Baldwin is also talking about women leaving it too late for career and other reasons. I know a lot of very ambitious career-minded women (I include myself in that) but I have to say I don't know a single one who planned their family around her career. I'm sure there will be a few out there, but I think it is a massive red-herring. I think if people do delay having a family in some cases, it is more to do with finding a man who is ready and having a stable position in life (moved out of parents' house, which people are doing later and later due to finances and so on).

Draf I was personally very aware of declining fertility (prolly cos my parents read the Daily Heil at home and there were always articles in it about DOOOM post-35 for all those selfish women who were Leaving It Too Late). I was in no way ready for babies in my 20s. But I would have liked to start trying around 31/32. It took KFZK a bit longer to get there, and we started trying when I was 34. I do sometimes wonder if those couple of years would have made a difference, but I try not to think about it because otherwise I would start blaming him when I don't want to go down that road. I wasn't ready for years, so I completely understand why he needed to be before we started trying. I myself had run for the hills when the boyfriend I had in my early 20s got broody. It's not something you can be forced into (well, not if you want it to end happily).

Jeff I'd never heard of it, but apparently it is (according to Dr Google). Mine started when I woke up daftly early at 12dpEC, the morning I had decided to POAS. I put that down to being stressed about POAS. But I haven't had a decent night's sleep since. Last night's was the best yet - I think gym in the evening knocked my out. But I still work up about 4 times and finally gave up trying to sleep about half an hour before my alarm. Some nights I have been awake since about 4am!