The Berries: Projecting the sausage signal and chasing rainbows whilst chanting FUFC in the hunt for that elusive BFP (thread 19)

[happylass]

The smallprint –
Berries have a strict entrance criteria (TTC #1, over 30, TTC for 12+months, NO instadiffers, must have a special pot and def no mention of baby dust or baby dancing UGH !!! Ooooh aren’t we strict!

To be fair Barking these late nights only happen a couple if times a year. My hours are usually 8:30 to 6pm but much less stressful than yours.

Yay to the job offer, always nice to be wanted but not sure I'd change jobs for a 30% pay cut and you'd probably miss the kids after a while. What maternity leave are you teacher berries entitled to?

One blastocyst on board and 2 frosties so really happy. They were running really late and I overdid the full bladder, the wee afterwards was such a relief!

Woo lady - may your PUPO swiftly just become P!!
Can someone please explain to me why they have to have you full of wee???

Great news, lady!

Rain, maybe they use an ultrasound to see where they are going?

Ooh barking I'd be tempted to dump all the teacher stress if I could do something else. Do you enjoy the other job? Would you say more than the teaching? The pay cut is a big one though. Would there be pay progression in future? gilster makes a really good point about the maternity rights. Ours are pretty good. A tricky one! Nice to have the option! In the spirit of f**k it! it would be tempting to go for it.

Well, the clinic phoned today. 8 out of 11 eggs fertilised-yay!! They did half icsi and half conventional Ivf. 4out of 5 icsi fertilised and 4 out of 6 conventional fertilised which is really good!! So it looks like we're on for Friday or Sunday transfer which is great as dh and myself off on Friday and Sunday. Woo hoo! Also means I can go back to work and do one day tom and then off on Friday.

Does anyone know about the no makeup/perfumed thing being more key post transfer? I'm at home today so will give all of that and deo a miss, tomorrow at work I might have to cave for bit of powder to take the shiny red look away and I will def need to wear deo as I get hot and sweaty teaching!!

Did my first rectal pessary today- that was an experience!!

Yay lady!!! I am not looking forward to the full bladder bit as I have the capacity of a hamster!! Go embie go!!!

Barking, sounds like a really difficult decision, especially with your IUI (and subsequent mat leave!) imminent.
Rain, yes, they use an ultrasound, they press it on your full bladder (the full bladder helps give a better picture of the uterus below) while the doctor is at the business end.
Bushy Excellent news on the fertilization! I've not heard of doing half and half before, what made them do that? I was only told not to wear perfume at EC and ET. (And I've only been told to insert my pessaries vaginally, thank goodness!)

lady yup certainly feels very, er, unnatural doing it the back end!
They'd originally said at our consulatations that it would be Ivf, with icsi as back up due to dh's motility and count issues. Now,when they looked at his sample yesterday it was great but because of the historic results they decided to do part icsi. Did you find along with being bloated that cramps and a little flatulence happened after ec?

Well done Lady good to have a blasto on board PUPO...

Bushy that sounds really positive.

So scan one shows 9 follicles over 6mm so another 2 days on the current dose then re-scan for me.

Barking interesting one on the job front; I guess less stress may be better but I can't imagine that a pay cut that big would be good.

Bushy yes I did. Only really felt back to normal yesterday.
Good news, HB. Grow, little follies!

Fab news Lady very best of luck with this one, everything is crossed!

Bushy all sounding great for you too, hope the rectal pessaries are not too awful!

HB great news on your scan, how big do they need to be on your next scan?

Hi Rosie how was your holiday? Hope everything is good with you.

Gill that sounds like an awful day at work! Very very long.

Barking tough choice, how long have you got to consider it?

How's everyone else? Much happening? I have had 2 baby announcements and 2 pregnancy announcements on fb and I had my head up my arse already yesterday so it's a little bit worse now! Need a wang berries, just not in a good place about myself.

Greetings lovely ladies

Just popping in to wish PUPO lady lots of luck.

Good luck to bushy too. TMI Alert - Ref the bum bullets, I was told I could choose where to place them after ET but I found back door less messy. Egg buddies motto is up the bum, yes babies lol

Good luck with your decision making barking when does IUI start.

Keeping everything crossed that this is the start of the next cluster diff x

Beaky block them from your news feed, they don't have to know. Aren't you waiting for IUI as well, when's that happening? I think waiting for medical interventions to happen is really frustrating, hope you feel better soon.
Otters how are you? Are you digi-pregnant yet?
Thanks, Bunny! There's no way I'm getting pregnant with back door action though, I'll stick with the white period

Hope I don't forget anyone...

Gillster, I do from time to time have to pull a very long day. It's not ideal but it cannot be avoided in my line of work.

Lady wishing your blastocyst happy camping!

Bushy it all sounds very exciting!

Blues looks like the follicles are getting nice and fat - how many do they expect to be ready for the collection?

My update is a non-update, really. I've definitely cheered up since Friday when I was told my systems seemed functional. So I've decided to get really proactive about this next cycle and I've been juicing and on an almost vegan diet since. I will reverse all this good work on the weekend when I'm home with DH and DSS, but then on the week leading up to ovulation I'm going on a juice cleanse (with vegan dinners so that I don't keel over). I know three women who got pregnant on the month they did a cleanse, so why not.

barking thanks for the post on Monday. Really resonated with me, my sister is 46 and hasn't found the one and has been too thin to get a period naturally for years so she hasn't had children.

On paper, I am the opposite but I fear I've left it too late. I think my feelings in this regard are really wrapped up in my sadness for her. Think I need to get reading the power of now so I can sort my head out.

Ladies I'd like to ask a question. Do you really think stress prevents conception? I just can't get my head round how you can time sex with ovulation perfectly, but if you are stressed it doesn't happen. It sounds crazy. I mean what does a big stress equivalent of the Thames barrier erect itself in your falop blocking the two from joining??

No surprise I'm a bit anxious by nature, so reducing stress is impossible. Unless I move to Amsterdam and spend my life in a coffee shop!

Stress definitely impacts conception IMO. I've seen plenty of friends get pregnant when they went on holiday, or when they gave up trying. This is anecdote, but the science would also concur: for example, I went to do my CD2 blood tests on a day I hadn't got much sleep and right after a strenuous yoga practice. The result? high prolactine/low testosterone, which can impact fertility (I assume if I kept these levels every day).

OTOH, I guess it depends on how resilient one is to stress. I have friends who thrive on it, while I crumble under it

NO, I DON'T think stress affects conception. And I will punch the next person that tells me to relax and it will happen.

I was very, very relaxed the first year we tried, I didn't have high expectations of getting diffed immediately so we just had fun for a year. No temping, no opks, no monitors, just relaxed fun. I didn't get pg. Roll on to 19 months of trying and I'd starting tracking cycles and obsessing over everything, symptom spotting, crying when AF arrived etc. I'd had a ridiculously hectic and stressful end of summer term at work, a trying encounter with the MiL, a long haul flight that came after a missed coach to the airport, a taxi chase across the country etc etc and then no luggage on arrival. For two days. Including the tent we were supposed to be camping in. I was very stressed and not remotely relaxed. This was the cycle I got pg!

If you are very stressed to the point that your periods are affected then obviously that will affect conception. If you're constantly tied in knots with anxiety etc then that will affect your whole general health including fertility. People are always full of anecdotes about women who got pg when they 'stopped trying'. Bollocks, no-one just stops trying unless they've started using contraception. And if they didn't have identified fertility problems maybe it just took them longer to get pregnant - anything up to 18 months is still classed as 'normal'. How do you explain rape victims who get pg? Women in refugee camps? War zones? Times of famine? None of these women would get pg if stress prevented pregnancy.

Having had my little rant, I do think a positive outlook helps, and relaxation is always a good thing, but telling women that stress affects fertility is A) implying it's their fault and B) will make them more stressed. Fertility is a very complex thing, there are so many factors that could be affecting your chances. Even if stress is a contributing factor it's incredibly unlikely to be the sole reason it's not happening.

^^

bunny IUI starts with a scan on day 2 as soon as my sodding AF arrives. Hopefully tomorrow if my cycle is the same length as the last one. I didn't temp or opk on honeymoon so don't know when I Ov'd to count days from.

I've been madly calculating maternity pay, and what it would be if I took the job offer, and whether I'd qualify if I was already pg when I started full time in Sept given I'm already working with them part time.... Surprisingly, unless my calculations are way out there's potentially less than two grand difference over a full year of maternity given the SMP would be the same. I'm going to do some number crunching with DH tomorrow night to work out just how much difference it would make to our lifestyle. I've also emailed them to ask for more details on contract, holidays, working hours etc. Beaky if I did leave my teaching job I'd have to give notice in by the end of May so they said they'd get all the details to me by the end of the week. I love teaching but this just seems to have landed in my lap, and it might be a good way to have a career break for a couple of years then go back later. I'd still be working in a related field so would be keeping up to date with curriculum stuff etc.

You don't need wanging Beaky

They didn't really say what they wanted but said that we may have to delay EC by a few days.... Frustrated as with the high FSH etc. we were so concerned about OHSS I didn't really think about not progressing. Never mind will see what Friday brings.

Arrbeaky you don't need wanging at all. Announcements are shit. I was totally psycho the last time I had one, it didn't come at a good time being soon after triple whammy of af, Mother's Day and close proximity announcement! I think it's a good idea to block your newsfeed like lady suggested.

Omg laughed my arse off at bum bullets bunny!

barking sounds good! Also know exactly what you mean about people not giving up trying. Still stress is no good for our general health so the more we can relieve it the better IMO.

Thanks to everyone for the welcome backs.

Lady, HB and Bushy, keeping everything crossed for you.

Beaky, I'm with HB, you don't need wanging. It's ok to get down about all these announcements. Be kind to yourself. The holiday was good, it was good to get away for a bit but it was also very emotional with a couple of discussions about ttc, life in general etc as we got the results from the sperm analysis just a couple of hours before we were off. Results were half good/ half bad. Very low sperm count with reduced motility and progression, with those numbers they did not check for morphology. My AMH and ovaries are fine. So, the FC suggests (1) lifestyle changes for a couple of months to get sperm count up and then (2) ICSI. I know Gillster mentioned some vits a while back, I have DP on the Wellman's vits. Any others I should be mixing into his food? I am trying to get my head round the whole IVF thing but am feeling quite a big sense of loss. Am allowing myself to feel sad though and am taking all the Bach sweets I can find to keep me "focused" and "strong" at work. Seems to be working temporarily.

Barking, congrats on the job offer. Always good to feel wanted and if it does not make a massive difference financially, maybe trying out something new might be good. Good luck with the IUI! And I agree with you, positive mental attitude is always good but I do not think that stress can be the sole cause in fertility issues.

Thanks berries, you are a lovely bunch. Will def be blocking happily next time I go on! Lady just waiting on FC to arrange us an appointment to discuss it. Am just into a new cycle now though so would be end of May earliest I think.

HB I hope your follies are ready at the next scan, and fx you avoid ohss too.

Rosie do you feel any better having the sa results? I know obviously they aren't what you would hope but at least it's something you and your dh can try to improve. I know IVF is a bit thing to get your head round. Maybe try and focus on the end result and how you get there maybe doesn't matter all that much.

I think - for what it's worth - that stress can have a big impact on your body, cortisol directly affects your other hormones and their balance. I don't think it's ever a case of "just relax" to resolve that though and I don't think it applies to everyone either. I know when I have severe stress I get physical symptoms that I can see so who knows what's going on inside that I can't see.

beaky I think that's it exactly - stress can mess the body up completely, in the past I have had stomach cramps and nausea that were down to stress I was going through at the time. This is obviously going to mess up the insides as well. However, I think people are so quick to judge and if they find out you're 'desperate' to get pregnant and you're following your cycles etc they diagnose stress and decide that's your problem... There's no problem, I just want to get pg! Doesn't everyone ttc want to get pg?! Ttc is stressful, but no-one starts off stressed, and plenty of people who take more than the average time to get pg but still do get pg will quite possibly have been getting more anxious as time ticked on, not less.

Anyway, I'll shut up as it's something I get really wound up about hiding it really well though aren't I and stress isn't going to help me is it?

Back to the positive thinking and planning my upcoming pregnancy .

Oh, and I meant to add, beaky, I went on my newsfeed for the first time in months today and realised that I've hidden so many people from my newsfeed I only had about 3 friends left! Very safe!

That will be me soon Barking! Also I know you weren't tracking this cycle but overall has it been longish? Can you work out a rough LP from usual ov date to see if it was longer again?