Any 40+ ladies out there TTC #1?

[JessieMcJessie]

Have looked at the buses and things but I feel a bit geriatric on them, with all the ages there for all to see, and the "old birds" type threads are lovely and supportive but a lot of the posters are dealing with issues like how to juggle older kids and a later pregnancy, or comparing ttc experiences now with the first time round.

Just wondered if anyone else was like me, basically didn't meet the right person till pretty late in life and now playing catchup and feeling slightly terrified of having left it all too late. I'm 41 (and 3 months) and DH and I got married in June and are now starting TTC. Most of my contemporaries had 2 or 3 kids before they were 40. I'm not afraid of the tiredness/no energy older Mum thing, or even really how old I'd look or feel at the school gates- I have actually been told many times I look younger than I am. No fertility probs that I know of and cycles seem regular and 28 days, but I have this awful dread that if the average time to conceive when young and healthy is 6 months, I just don't have enough time left. Silly to worry I know since we've only just started our 2nd cycle TTC, but would love to hear from anyone else in a similar position.

Before I forget, hello frog and remember! Always great to have newcomers! Good to read your background, remember!

Charlie, I really feel for you. It's one thing to have a problem, but another level of frustration to not know what the problem is! At least you are 'in the system' now and they are trying to find out what's going on. It's very strange, isn't it? If only you could find out that all along you'd been pregnant and it just keeps showing as a BFN!

Annie ... I just don't know what to say. It really sounded like everything was fine from your blood test the other day. I really do feel gutted for you, although let's remember all is not lost yet. The waiting must be just terrible. So wish I could say something to help you! Anyway, just sending lots of love ... and let's see ... :-(

Hi all.

Annie keeping my fingers crossed for you. I can't believe how insensitive your midwife was. Hope you can have a relaxing weekend and take care of yourself. Hope the 2 weeks go by quickly with good news at the end.

Thanks for asking about my DH Jessie. He is still grieving an awful lot but is getting counselling which he says helps a bit. We haven't really talked at all about ttc again after he said he didn't want to anymore. I feel very cowardly and I know I have to mention it especially as I'm coming up to ovulation time again. Keep thinking maybe just won't mention it and then just carry on and see what happens but that's probably not very fair to him is it?

I think it's time for me to go the doctors and check that everything is OK with both of us. I've avoided it (silly I know) because I'm frightened of what they might say to me but this morning I realised we've been ttc for 16 months now so is probably time to get checked out.

Have a really busy (but good) bank holiday weekend coming up so just hoping that will be fun for both of us and help us relax.

Charliegirl sorry about your AF not turning up for ages. That is so frustrating for you. Like HS says - I really wish that all those tests were wrong and you are pregnant after all.

Hi Ladies,

Thanks Jessie, HS & City.

It's becoming very frustrating and really starting to make me worry. I went to yoga last night and ended up crying at the end of the session!

I just wish I knew what was going on, just don't understand why this is happening now.. just when we decide to give a proper go. Mother Nature sure is cruel!

Even the GP said she wished the test had been positive yest.

Just been to the loo and found black discharge when I wiped, which now has me even more worried.

Just want to have a cry.. but scared if I start I wont stop!

Sorry to be so doom and gloom, especially when you all have your trials and tribulations.

City, I think it may be a good thing to get checked out, if all comes back good then at least you wont have to think about it and worry, it could be worry that might be holding you back. If something does turn out to be wrong then you can tackle it head on and keep working to get the result you want. I'm glad DH is getting the counselling, it sounds like it is doing him good.

xx

Delurking to say that black discharge can be a serious warning sign for an ectopic pregnancy CharlieGirl. This may not show up on a urine pregnancy test. I don't want you to be scared and it's probably not that, but an ectopic is a life-threatening situation so I do feel like I need to advise you to get checked out asap. xxx

Thanks Doodle. Don't worry, haven't caused me any worry.. Well no more than I already have! x Has been something that's been on my mind for little while now. Had bit of bleeding after the black stuff so thought AF was finally here! But very dark blood and seems to have gone again now! I have ultrasound appt next Mon so hopefully will get better idea of what's going on then... At least I hope so! x

Hi all. Hope you had a nice Bank Holiday weekend. It was also a BH here, we had visitors and had a very nice time but drank far far too much, so feeling fairly fragile.

AF arrived yesterday; I was fairly sure that it was on its way, a little part of me was hoping that stories about increased fertility after a chemical might be true but no such luck. So now we start IUI - I need to go for a scan in the next day or so when they'll look at my ovaries and lining and send me off with drugs to inject for 2 weeks. Idea is that I should then ovulate 2 eggs, which is handy since DH and I will be apart in July so good we get double chances in June.

All feels a bit clinical but at least we are doing something. Friend who visited at the weekend had IVF for his 2nd child, his partner was early forties and told that she wasn't ovulating at all and it still worked for them (took 3 tries though). I think that if the IUI doesn't work we'll look at going straight to IVF when we get back to London.

charlie hope all OK and the scan helps clear up the mystery - you will go to casualty though if you get any pain in the meantime?

Morning ladies.

Thanks Jessie, yes promise to go if I get any major pain. Had a little pain last night, but nothing curling up on the sofa with a blanket didnt cure.

I really hope this mystery comes to an end soon... really thought AF had come over the weekend, but seems to be just very dark bleeding and eratic. Started a little on Saturday then stopped by Sunday night and then yest passed a rather large dark clot now nothing again. :(

Just counting down the days to Monday now.

Boo hiss to AF lovely. Is this your first AF since the chemical? The stories could well ne true, maybe just takes a month or two to settle back down. Who knows this could well be your month.. x

It is the first AF since the chemical/early mc. The good thing is that counting the first day of mc bleeding (i.e about 10 days after AF was due) as CD1 then both ovulation (verified by OPK) and AF have arived absolutely bang on time. So things are pretty regular again and that has to be good.

IUI scan and first load of drugs now scheduled for Thursday.

That's great Jessie, all looking very promising. :)

Happy you are back to normal, Jessie! That's really good news and as you say means you can get on with the IUI now.

Charlie and Annie, hope you are both doing OK.

I've started with my usual af cramps today, a week before af (yup, my new 'normal') Definitely going to ask the doc about this again - just doesn't seem right. Oh well. I'm still holding onto a tiny bit of hope that my body wouldn't know whether it's preggers or not at this point, only 8 or 9 dpo - well, barely, anyway.

Despite how it might seem, managing not to think about it too much this month, actually. I think I'm finally getting tired of being so upset every time I get af ... just can't be bothered any more! :-)

I know exactly what you mean HS26.
I'm DPO 12 and am just thinking it's never going to happen, should just give up!! :( (PMT signs?!?).
So tired of imagining every little twinge and cramp and reading all the negative statistics online (that seem to be refuted by the amount of women I see who have had babies over 40 naturally.!!)
Sigh! I think I just need to stop thinking about it for a day!

Happy belated bank holiday weekend to those who celebrated one.

I’m empathising with you HS26 and Daisy. I think I’m about 10 DPO today and the only thing I’m feeling is some low but very mild pelvic cramping. I don’t know if it’s week early AF niggles. Or maybe the start of a tummy bug - I’m in SE Asia and not always super rigorous with bottled water. But I got nada else from a symptom point of view. Last week went quickly and some days I almost parked the TTC mental progress updates. I want to channel that again cos today is dragging and there’s still the rest of the week to go. I don’t want to wish my life away but could quite happily fast forward to Monday.

Otherwise the sun is shining, and I should shake off the introspection and enjoy the day. Best wishes to all.

Well, bit of a game-changer this morning. Went for my scan to start the IUI and the doc flicked through the notes and said " we've already explained the sperm issue..." and I said, "er, no, what issue?"

Turns out DH's morphology is only 1%, when 4% is the minimum normal level. (Morphology is when they are the right size and shape). He has high count and motility (speed of swimming) which I understand to be encouraging because although only 1% of his boys are any good, the absolute number is still quite high. But this explains why we've been having problems (though am sure is a combo of us both).

Why we were not told this before I do not know. DH wasn't with me this morning so now I have to explain this to him - he'd seen the results sheet before but we didn't know how to interpret it and my GP had said it was "fine" - NB HS26 hope your GP is better than mine at interpreting results....

At our first appt with the consultant GP had not faxed it over so he didn't have the info during the appointment (though I seem to remember the nurse looking at it when it finally did arrive and saying it was OK.)

Anyway we're going ahead with the IUI so I have had my first gonal-f injection today and four more to do. Totally painless, it's a pen thing, goes into the tummy, but like a clown I managed to prick my finger when the nurse was showing me how to dispose of the needle!

I'm toying with not telling DH until after the insemination in case he gets too anxious and can't perform. But I think honesty is probably the best policy. This will come as a bit of a shock to him, he's only 36 and doesn't smoke or wear tight pants (in fact he is well known for lounging about commando at home, ew). But he does like a drink, isn't always the healthiest eater in the world and could do with losing a stone and doing more exercise. As could I of course. He won't have the first clue what it all means, so I predict a lot of googling tonight.

Consultant says that IUI isn't the best fix for this problem (that would be IVF with ICSI I think) but that IUI will improve the chances beyond natural DTD so we may as well give it a go. However if it doesn't work then we'll be straight to the IVF clinic. And in the meantime get him on vitamins and salads, off booze and caffeine and into the gym. Actually a tiny bit amusing since he was being a bit smug when I was briefly pg about how he would not be giving up alcohol in sympathy with me...

Oh God, I've been reading around this and now I am really scared. Seems 1% is REALLY low and I can't find much to suggest that IUI or even standard IVF has a hope in hell of working with that morphology. Though the above average count and motility are big plusses, if they were bad too then we'd be in much worse trouble.

Clinging on to the fact that we conceived in April and the SA test was on 17 Feb so maybe he just had a bad lot and they have improved now. Also that really you need a couple of tests to get a true picture.

Some info suggests that once the sperm gets into the egg the morphology issue isn't a problem any more, but other stuff suggests that the DNA may be all messed up so the embryo won't develop properly. In other words, I'm wondering if the mc was caused by abnormal sperm, or whether we lucked out with one of the good ones but then the issue was with me.

My big dilemma now is do I tell DH? Is it fair to worry him when I've decided we do the IUI anyway and he can't do a thing to change his sperm before the insemination (takes months for lifestyle changes to affect sperm and none are proven to help anyway).

Will it spoil his last few weeks in HK or make him worry too much when he comes to do the sample? It was only by chance I found out today, if the IUI doesn't work and we go to IVF then they'll retest and we'll be told together and I could just pretend I never knew.

I know that only I know DH and can make this decision, but WWYD?

Jessie, obviously you know your DH well so you should probably go with your instinct, but I know that I would tell my DH because I'm terrible at keeping things from people!

I would say that you could tell him but keep as positive a spin on it as you can. After all, as you said, you did conceive in April, and really there is no way of knowing why the chem happened. Probably it was a chromosome issue (they say most are).

Try not to overthink (easier said than done, but I've been practising 'mindfulness' with my cousellor to avoid over-anxiety and it's all about staying in the moment!!) because you'll drive yourself crazy with all the 'what-ifs'.

I know I've heard/read stories of people who go back for another test after a few months of getting their health back on track and the stats do change.

Stay cool, girl. It isn't happening for most of us, so I think the problem is mostly age (even that of the father). My DH is much older than yours, by the way!!

When is the IUI again (sorry if I missed that in your post above!)? :-)

Thanks HS. Overthinking is my speciality. My bloody GP - doing the FSH on the wrong day, failing to spot a massive red flag on the SA and then not faxing the info to the consultant on time for our first appointment. I used to really like her but I'm changing docs from now on. By the way consultant redid the FSH and it's all fine, confirms I am definitely not perimenopausal.

I'm pretty sure I will tell DH but not looking forward to the conversation. I might play up the fact that the IUI should help with this issue, even though I have read that it 's less likely to help if you have the combo of low morphology and woman over 35.

If the IUI fails then I'll task him with getting more tests done when he goes back to the UK before me, so we know where we are when I arrive.

sorry, to answer your question I am on CD 3 so the IUI should be done around 8th to 10th June. Gonal-f every day now, back on the 2nd to checke the follicles are developing OK.

Did you get your DH's full SA results in the end?

It's all good, Jessie. For now, you're doing what you can and I just keep reminding myself that despite all the 'facts' and doom and gloom (either for our age group or individually) it still can and does happen .... especially over time!! (so much easier to speak like this when it's not you you're thinking about, isn't it?!)

My guess is that we've all probably got an 'issue' or two (known or not), but we still have reason to stay positive and hope. And of course you are at least doing something with the IUI and then the prospect of IVF.

I think I told you about my friend's friend who had 5 IVFs in her 40s and finally got there. She just didn't give up. I think in the end she used 1 of her own eggs and 1 doner and got twins!!

Anyway, good luck with all the injections and the IUI ... am excited for you!! Good luck mostly with telling DH ... it'll be fine, you know. You seem like a girl who's good with words :-)

Oh, and ... STOP GOOGLING!!!!!!!

Told DH last night about the problem, his poor face when I dropped the bombshell. He was fairly upbeat, agreed that we are doing all we can for now and said he'd do some research, but he hasn't really got any sense yet of quite how abnormal his results are and what that means for our options. So we just plough on with the IUI and hope it works, the pregnancy in April being our beacon of hope. If it doesn't then he needs to be retested and we assess our options from there.

This whole thing makes me think though - if we had got an SA done for him as soon as we started TTC back last October then we could have gone straight for ICSI instead of wasting all this time trying naturally when our chances were so low; we've basically lost a year when I did not have a year to lose.

Where is everyone by the way??

It's good you told him, Jessie. I bet he would rather know. Don't forget it could have been a one-off poor result, as well. Getting pregnant in April suggests that could be true ...

I'm due af on Tuesday(ish). Had AWFUL cramps a few days ago, as if af was already here, but now they seem to have gone, or at least are a lot less intense. So weird. Sigh.

Hi jessie, sorry to hear your bad news. Terrible that you weren't told this at the time. Glad you have told your DH, sounds like he has taken it fairly well.

I do think you should seek reassurance in that you have conceived, so something is working.

HS sorry to hear you are cramping... hope AF doesnt show her face! :(

Oh my god! jessie, I know it's not productive but I would be so angry if I were you!!
How could they have not told you this?!?
I agree though, the fact that you got pregnant before is a good sign that it may be a temporary thing, stress perhaps?
If this is your HK based clinic, please PM me the details so I can avoid the clinic or doctor!!
I hope you have the luck you had in April for your IUI. Xxx
HS26 I am in a similar position to you, I'm due tomorrow (or today or yesterday!!) and have been cramping like af if going to start, but nothing! Actually it's a different cramp, more stretching and lower with no back pain that I usually get). But psychologically I'm ignoring it as I don't want to get my hopes up. Even going to have some Friday night wine soon!!
Also I had a temp drop yesterday, so I thought I am out. But it was back up today. I'm expecting temp drop and af tomorrow.
When period comes going to contact a fertility clinic to get some basic hormone tests and ovulation tests

((((Jessie)))) sorry I haven't been around and just read your posts.

It's disgusting that your GP didn't pass on the test result to the consultant but also quite shocking that the clinic didn't wait for SA result or have that as part of your criteria for starting IUI. Did they not ask for tests on both of you?

I agree that IUI is not the right treatment for you now that you have this information and they are most likely to recommend ICSI.

Is it too late to cancel this round of IUI or are you too far into it to stop?

Sorry if you've said it before but have you looked into IVF clinics in the UK? Your husband should try and see a urologist. There are many successes with ICSI as it's so controlled so look into the best clinics in the UK and ring some up to discuss your case and arrange and introductory meeting to get things rolling. There are treatments for him such as steroids I believe.

The first thing you should do it get him tested again as SA results vary each time. The clinic should do it for free as way of any apology stupid idiots.

There is the possibility that IUI will work of course with 1 of 100 little fellas!! Remember there are MILLIONS of them every time in it only takes one.

Thanks all. We're doing the IUI anyway, it can't hurt I suppose, clinic is near my office and we're fortunate in that we both have very well paid jobs and can afford it. I'm basically viewing it as an only slightly better version of natural DTD.

To be honest this is the land where they'll sell you anything and I think that they flog IUI without too much concern about whether it is the right treatment, although I did question the consultant quite carefully when he told me the news and he was adamant that the morphology was not such a big issue given the very high count and motility. That is backed up by some doctors on the internet. He's not a charlatan - trained in the UK and is very well recommended here.

At that point when I spoke to him I hadn't googled anything though - really wish we'd studied the results a bit more carefully when we first got them and not just relied on the GP's "fine" - it's actually quite obvious on the results sheet as it gives both the result and the control, but we didn't know the sigificance of that part of the findings. Pretty pathetic really - DH is an economist and knows all about stats and I am a lawyer and am supposed to specialise in reading small print!

Daisy that sounds quite hopeful fx for you, and hope the time doesn't drag too much for you Frog.

Annie, you haven't mentioned your pregnancy but I can't help myself asking...?

HS sorry about the cramps and hope the doc eventually has something to say.

City if you're out there hope you're feeling OK.