Hello all. Daisy I guess you must have had the egg collection by now, hope it went OK.
sparrow you asked HS about the HSG. I had one last month. It was a bit unpleasant but bearable. I'd say I was on the table for 15 minutes or so, but they did have to give me an injection to see if it relaxed spasm in one of my tubes, then do another x ray so possibly it's shorter if both tubes come up OK the first time they put the dye through. The injection of the dye feels a bit odd - that sort of "internal pain" if that makes sense, in that you are aware of feeling in bits of you that never normally have any sensation but with these things I tend to try to think that if I can't cope with that pain then I will never cope with labour so I had better suck it up! Unfortunately it showed that my right tube is blocked,no idea how or why that happened.
HS the month I had my BFP I felt exactly the same as normal but I don't get any particular pre-menstrual symptoms to be honest, other than being in a bad mood, and of course my pregnancy turned out not to be a strong one so I am probably not the best example. Fingers crossed for you.
So, some concrete news from me at last! Today we saw the doctor at Guy's for a scan and to go through our results and options. Good news and bad news. The extremely unexpected good news was that DH's sperm quality has rocketed from less than 1% normal morphology to 7% normal morphology, which is well within the normal range (4 or above). I had him on vitamins and I think he may have been drinking a bit less but who knows. The test for morphology is done by the human eye,maybe British lab techs are less critical than Hong Kong ones? So that means we don't need ICSI, just normal IVF.
The bad news is that my AMH (blood test for ovarian reserve) has plummeted from 9.8 in February to 3.3. 9.8 was in the middle of the "low but normal for your forties" bracket, 3.3 is right at the bottom of that bracket- below 3 and you are "very low". Doc said that the blood test was a bit unreliable but what they do set more store by is the number of follicles they can see. She saw 6, which is also "lower than we'd like". They prefer 10 to 20. However she said that they had seen good results for women with 6 and it did not change her recommendation. So it's all systems go - I call them when I get my period, then it's 12 days of drugs and monitoring scans, egg collection, fertilisation, transfer and fingers crossed. Doc was pleasant enough, kind but businesslike. It is a bit of a production line. Other than talking about "good results" she did not mention success rates at all, and I didn't press her, I know the reality and frankly did not want to hear it.
I feel bad for saying this but psychologically I am not happy with all the problems now being weighted entirely on my side. Felt better when we both had issues. Obviously DH being nice about it (and it is sort of his problem too for choosing to shackle himself to an old bird, he had a choice!) and I do have to count our blessings that one obstacle has been removed.
Not too sure how I'll juggle all the various appointments with work;in a way it was easier when I was working all the hours God sent as I had more autonomy and time out was proportionately less time away from work, whereas in a 4 day week regular hours job the time in the office does count more. My boss is very pleasant though so I'll just have to play by ear. Hospital is only 15 mins away if I time the buses right, but they are so far utterly crap at keeping to appointment times.
So, that's it from me. It's a bit depressing that this thread has turned into an IVF thread, I really hoped it would be full of fortysomnething ladies conceiving naturally and proving the Daily Mail wrong. Thank God for Froginasock!