TTC 10 months + Part 17.

[MuddyWellyNelly]

For all the lovely 10+ers, and anyone else lurking, who has been trying for long enough to start worrying. This is a great place to rest until the elusive BFP shows up.

sea my clinic would support you with your immune programme but they didn't offer it along with your treatment, I am under Shehata in Epsom. I have decided that I would finish intralipids at 27 weeks, usually you take it up to week 16 unless advised to take it longer.

I just wondered if it was only ARGC that say your cytokines need to be under 30, I think Shehata also does Humeria, maybe the pred thread ladies can shed more light on it,

Lemon I was so pleased to read your news, may your pregnancy be smooth, sickless with an easy birth. Do keep coming on here and tell us how you are.

Of course af came with very little warning over the weekend so stabbing starts today. I am intermittently feeling hopeless, scared and oddly calm. Sometimes you fear something so much that when its upon you. Your aerie kind of surrended to it. We have discussed The Plan again and are trying to view this as further diagnostic investigation with an outside chance of success. Depending on how it goes we may move on to donor quite quickly and have mapped out when we would like to cycle again. I would have immune tests and may do the first round via my gp if poss with the list Joyce gave me. In a year to eighteen months time I think it will be give up, take a year out (and have a big holiday) and then start the adoption process. It scares me to think that as 18 months doesn't feel very long. But I when I FINALLY quit the gym last year I did a happy dance when I left. Maybe there will be echoes of that. That isn't meant to sound glib but I would rather like my life back please without having to live like a nun with no return.

I'm warbling on. I'm off work for most of this week so today am going shopping. I fear I may buy things to make me feel better. I was horrified to see the Just Shagging thread in the news as the 'dark underbelly' of mumsnet. It was taken totally out of context and and felt like an abuse of all the people who post there for support. It's made me have yet another wave of panic that I pour my heart out on here for all the world to see. Every day people who care not a jot about infertility are browsing threads and taking what they feel can make them a story. I hate that.

I send a big hello to all ten plussers today. To den my stabbing friend, I hope you are ok - wise words on here about eggs and rates and that sounds like a good number to me. To pregnant plussers (wave to Sar, gin, buzzy, mad, critter and surely doll must have a tiny doll now?) to ongoing battlers and those on the other side. Euro, cos and sea, hope you are feeing less glum. Loves to nelly, pout, coco, rum, ten and anyone else forgotten).

God, today I actually start IVF

Good luck today rabbit. My body always did headf**kery things in the weeks before starting any kind of treatment. Of course go and buy things to make you happy!! I have been doing that for years with all this cap as my justification. Even if it just meant going to the nicer (and more expensive) cafe for lunch while window shopping. You and Hare will get through this and hopefully your plan will be left on a dusty shelf. Our plan was very similar and good to have though xx

lemon don't think I've congratulated you yet! So pleased and hopeful for an.uneventful.pregnancy.

Big waves to all. Mrsd hope scans are encouraging now. Must run.or will be late for work. Sorry for all the full stops. Stupid tiny phone keyboard.

Morning all, and congrats to lemon - hope all calm and peaceful. Rabbit - best of luck for today. Hope they are nice to you.

It was so nice to come on here this morning and see all the nice messages. Thanks so much ladies. Seeing so much support and goodwill is a massive boost of a Monday morning.

Sea, re your cytokines. are there any guidelines (eg from nice) about what they have to be? I bet all clinics have different limits on what acceptable levels are...

Cos, re pcos. I had an external ultrasound, went back to gp who said "you have lots of follicles,so we coudl be looking at pcos". i said "how will you confirm diagnosis" and he said "that is the diagnosis". but I'm not convinced because it's usually associated with things like other hormanal imbalance, overweight etc. and who knows how many women with lumpy ovaries get pregnant and never know about it?

Hello Ladies! Wow so much to catch up on!

Lemon – that is simply amazing news, I hope that you have a totally uneventful and glowing pregnancy! You deserve it.

Rabbit – This is the beginning of a new chapter, fingers crossed this round works for you, I can sympathise with the confused emotions, mine fluctuated between total shock that I was in the position to fear and self pity back through totally fine and forgetting I was even doing it at times!

Sea – I am sorry about Cytokines, it must be extremely frustrating waiting to cycle, I too would be tempted to do an nhs round to feel like I was moving forward.

Nolly – sorry you have found your way here, hopefully your stay will be short lived!

Euro – I think there is something to be said for staying at a clinic where they know you and you are comfortable, if a little rough around the edges, the staff are all lovely and I have felt comfortable there through my cycle. This doesn’t help if they haven’t been successful with you, but definitely one more shot sounds like a good plan. Sorry about the sad date, and hurrah for besties and wine.

Cos- sorry you are feeling low, it is tough when you work with a bunch of people who pull you down. Moving jobs and doing more IVF rounds does sound a bit stressful, this is the part I found the hardest was managing work (and them not finding out). This is about to become a whole lot harder as I am being put on a project which is a plane ride away…..ho hum.

Buzzy – Sorry to hear you have been unwell, that sucks and sounds like scary stuff. You battled to win your BFP so I figure you are welcome to moan here, no one could possibly resent you that!

Joy – Urgh to thrush. It is so annoying, also I have found that usually my diet is super healthy, but on IVF all I ate was beige food……. Not sure this is ideal, but I was soooooooo tired, it was just bonkers.

AFM we did IVF but I got OHSS despite my tiny doses, so all the embies were straight into the freezer. I think we have 5 we will hopefully do an FET this month if everything is back to normal or we may have to wait a month. Weirdly I have started spotting today which is a week early, and I am not really sure what to do. I am meant to call them on day 1, but not sure yet if this is or isn’t day 1….ah well. In other news I have a puppy, which is simply the best distraction from IVF I can ever imagine, I highly recommend it.

Small comedy moment, I came round from the anaesthetic to be told I had to use antibiotics as there had been some bleeding, and I had to use the back door, my response to a truly gobsmacked nurse ‘why is it always the back door, are we in france or something they shove everything up there’. To be clear I have no idea where this rant came from, it might have been tramadol induced (I had quite a lot of that as there was quite some pain)…..luckily she saw the funny side

Apologies to everyone I have missed, I am reading and cheering but work and puppies are getting in the way of posting!

rabbit where was that news report? It's awful if it was misconstrued.

Sorry about AF's arrival. But you are on your way with IVF. Hurrah!

nolly the scan can confirm PCO. You will only have the syndrome, PCOS, if you have a few of the symptoms and lumpy ovaries is just one of them. GPs are often a bit crap about fertility stuff.

Re: cytokines, the vast manjority of clinics don't deal with the immune stuff and I am pretty sure there are no NICE guidelines, so sea is pretty much in the hands of the ARGY on that one.

ten well done for getting 5 in the freezer. That's amazing! How many eggs did you get and how did they do along the way, if you don't mind me asking. I hope you get to bring one home very soon. Sorry about the OHSS. What dose were you on?

And hurrah for a puppy! How exciting. What kind?

Have we all survived the storm? Other than a somewhat disrupted journey to work, everything seems fine here. The wind and rain did keep waking me up though!

Thanks Euro I am not sure whether it is as good as it sounds as they all went in the freezer immediately so I don’t know what any of them were in terms of grading or anything – not sure they even would have been graded so early??….. I have basically taken a need to know approach to this cycle. So I didn’t really ask any questions just totally surrendered myself to letting them do their thing, I think they were a bit confused as they kept telling me information about numbers of follies etc and were met by a blank looks in response as I don’t know whether these things are good bad or indifferent! I think they were also worried about telling me that we couldn’t do a transfer this month but for the first time in a long time I just had a thought process of ‘well I cant do anything about this so I am just letting it go’ (again hugely helped by small fur monster as distraction).

They retrieved 7 eggs one was immature and one didn’t fertilise. I was on 125 of gonal f and I stimmed from day 3 until day 10, then I added in the Clexane at some point for 3 days or so (god I cant even remember the details and it was only a few days ago!).

She is a cocker spaniel pup and she is bonkers, she also hates the wind and rain, which make the current weather a bit difficult in terms of house training. Today is my first day back at work after getting her and I miss her, despite thinking I would be glad to hand over the pee and poo duties to someone else!

Congrats Lemon on the fabulous news!

Well, we finally heard back from the gyn. I'm fine - progesterone levels are normal etc. (good news!) but DH has abnormally shaped sperm, so is devastated (this is after the same result a few months ago, and him making lifestyle changes). The gyn has suggested IVF, but I think we might need to switch to someone who's actually an expert on fertility issues (this guy is a PCOS expert) for men. But poor DH, he found out this morning and is having to go through a whole day of work feeling crap.

euro the pathetic article to which rabbit refers was in The Independent a few days ago, with a few more sensible comments to follow in The Guardian in response to the general wank surrounding the whole thing.
Go, rabbit go (no he is not here yet). Waves to all.

Sorry, sympathies absy I didn't see your post when I pressed send.

doll I think that is the grumpiest post I have ever read from you, which must mean labour is imminent! Best of luck. You will meet mini-doll very soon!

absy I'm sorry to hear that. I know joy recommended Andrology Solutions for male stuff and we have looked at it and might well go there.

ten that sounds pretty good to me! I think I will be on the same protocol.

AF just arrived for me so I'm trying to get through to the clinic to make my scratch appointment. Here we go again....

Sea - what a nightmare for you. Have you decided what you are going to do ? They may suggest ivig for you perhaps? Does that have effect on cytokines ? It doesn't mean you won't get pregnant because plenty of people do there even though their cytokines are not brought down.

Rabbit - I am sorry about AF but hurrah to starting. You are on to a new chapter now and may this be a better one. By god you deserve it.

Ten - serious puppy envy. I grew up with cockers and now my parents have working cockers and I love them!! I am constantly trying to figure out how I can be at home to have one- have a baby basically! Sorry about the ohss but fab about all the frozen embies.

Euro - so is your next round this month or is it scratch this month!

Cos - how was the scan on Sat? Are you ok?

Mrsd - hope tomorrow goes ok.

Absy - If you are in london, i highly recommend sheryl homer at Andrology Solutions. She knows everything about sperm and had ivf herself. Lovely woman.

Bit nervous of being too open on here knowing that journo's have been snooping on boards. Have had to go cold turkey with the sugar to try and combat the songbird issue. Poor Roy has it too. Every single time I start drinking alcohol and eating fruit and other sugary foods, it comes back with a vengeance. So perculiar this only started when we ttc.

This newspaper referencing these threads business is certainly scary stuff - hence sneaky name change - no one would ever know .

Joy I'm so sorry about the songbird. Does stress affect it too? How are you otherwise?

Rabbit sorry for AF coming and start of Ivf but i agree once you get started it becomes less surreal - just deal with one day at a time. Big squeeze and SO much luck.

Ten that sounds like a good result to get 5 embies, and this boards had quite a good bit if luck with FET rounds.

Buzzy sorry you've been unwell you poor love, may you have the easiest baby ever to make up for a stressful and poorly pg!

Euro that's interesting about the job, good luck with it, what do you think your decision will depend on? Will you have the scratch this month and do another round next month? Always good to keep doing something and moving forwards.

Waves to Doll, you must be nearly there!

I did go to the epu on sat, they took a urine sample first and did a couple of pg tests in it and said they were both -ve so as no pain or bleeding said I was fine and no need to scan! Initially was relieved at the no scan but on leaving felt a bit like they could have checked seeing as I was there and no one else was, but anyway. It's all def over and back to normal I guess. I have a confession that as all my usual ov signs were the same this month I've decided to have a try at taking some of my leftover progesterone. I'm not sure how wise this is (my bestie was slightly horrified at the self medicating - funny how your sense of normal changes) I think it might be somewhat desperate but hey how much harm can it do?!

Waves and best wishes to everyone else.

I read the article thought it was rather pathetic, not really sure what the article was really hoping to achieve, it was hardly shocking, although I was suprised that they used peoples online usernames in the article, I imagineif some people might make their threads private.

I hate the thought of people snooping, I forget sometimes this thread isn't private. I did wonder if it was possible to ask for previous threads to be deleted because of the amount of info we've shared.

Ten well done on the five embies, that's great news. Can I ask how they diagnosed the ohss? Did they think that this was likely to happen with you? What is the treatment for it?

Absy, it's a shock when you get a reason. Do you mean the morphology is poor? What is the total count like? There isn't really anything you can do to improve it, although it will fluctuate. Ivf with icsi will probably be recommended and my advice would be not to waste time if that is their recommendation because no other treatments will get round the problem. Male infertility is very poorly understood so you'll probably find that you aren't given much advice other than go for icsi.

Rabbits, yay to Ivf. I know it's not what any of us wanted to do but it's a wonderful option for us to have.

Joy, yuk at the songbird. I found a bath with bicarbonate of soda helped a bit when I had it after Ivf.

Cos, you've been so brave. I don't think using progesterone is a big deal, I've considered using it for its boob boosting powers. I had the best boobs ever when I took it. Journalist - this is a joke.

I'm so nervous about tomorrow's scan. I feel like it's going to go wrong again and i might not even get to ec this time, please send me your positive thoughts tomorrow morning, I've reached a point where I'm feeling quite desperate for it to work. I'm fed up of ttc, come on give me a baby! I've had more ewcm than I've ever seen in my life, literally long ribbons of egg white gloop. That's got to be a good sign, surely?

MrsD that's a great sign, I'm feeling very positive for you, it's got to be your turn for things to go smoothly surely?! Wishing you all the best for tomorrow.

cos I'm loving the incognito name change. Annoying that the EPU didn't bother to check you over, but they must be confident that everything is ok.

mrsd the EWCM is a really good sign!

joy it's CD1 of cycle 37 (gulp) today. Scratch will be towards the end of this cycle. And then cycle 38 will be IVF#4 of 2013. Probably with a test date around Xmas. Which I am dreading anyway, so it can't make it worse but there is a teeny chance it might make it better!

How annoying that the nosy journos are making us feel inhibited on here. Being able to be open about very personal physical and emotional things has been a lifeline for me.

Den I am taking your ewcm as a good sign. I'm already bricking it that my scan on Saturday will show nothing so you have my empathies. But there are eggs in there and there may even be some more by now. I feel very positive for you.

Absy what was the morphology? It really can vary far more than I thought. Hope you and dh are ok.

Cos I would do it. But I'd maybe think about how to get more if you might end up needing it for a whole trimester. I'm sorry there wasn't a put your mind at rest scan.

I've just had my first stabbing. There was a quite a bit of blood and it really stung. Is this normal? It's still a bit sore and there is a small bruise. I think because at my practice with water at the clinic I felt nothing and there was no mark I'm a bit surprised. Any tips for no pain stabbing? I'm at the blood, as I've shared on here before I am quite phobic about it.

Rabbit, my top stabbing tips are pinch a fold of belly flab. I have discovered that the area about two cms below and to the right or left of my belly button is the least sensitive. Go in at a 90 degree angle! push the plunger slowly gradually letting go of the flab as you do. Wipe with a swab straight after. I've never had blood but it does sting a little. I think you said hare was doing it for you, I do mine myself. Mrdens prepares it then I stab it is actually less painful when I'm in control.

rabbit I found that around 50% of the time I bled and the rest of the time I didn't at all. I think if you hit a little capillary there will be some blood, but there is no way of locating them so it is pot luck! I found some of the drugs stung and others didn't at all. Well done on doing the first one - that's the hardest bit of stabbing done!

Can you just jam a bit of cotton wool on the site next time for a couple of minutes. Then when you remove it, it will have stopped and you won't have to see anything if you pop it straight in the bin.

Different drugs do sting more that others. The one I've used this time is really quite stingy compared to the gonal f. It gets better and easier each day so well done on getting the first one out the way.

Thank you both. I feel pathetic about the blood. I felt like crying when I saw it but thought that might be a bit traumatising for H! I will do the cotton wool covering tomorrow. I am surprised at how eek I felt when he walked in with a needle - I wanted to run away! I'm lying here wondering what my poor body is thinking at the onslaught of hormones. I feel like I've betrayed it.

rabbit I felt completely mizz about putting all the hormones into my body too. It's hard to think this way when you are in the middle of it, but it is only a few weeks out of an entire lifetime and it's for a good cause.

I'm glad you understand. I have just had a normal spotting free ovulating cycle so it feels a bit criminal to throw everything off kilter. I think knowing there is every chance I'll still only make one egg adds to the feeling of why am I doing this. I had perfect cycles til I started ttc. This will always be a mystery to me. Though lately I wonder at what point I became fertility unviable. I was trying at 33. I was careless with contraception 27-30. If It dwindled in my late twenties and would have buggered up uni/career having a kid before 23 that leaves a window of 4 years where having a child might have 'worked'. I was with a nob then. Life is a funny thing.

rabbit good advice from others, I found plunging slowly then leaving the needle in and counting to 10 helped. You're not betraying you're body just giving it a helping hand

mrsd hand hold for tomorrow, ewcm is a good sign

euro Xmas BFP here you come :)

joy it took me a while to work out your songbird hope it is short lived

the article is just a snap shot of one thread not an indication of the whole website, I agree that it does make you think about what you will post, mrsd maybe we can ask for our old threads to be deleted