Toot, Toot. Calling all dirty chicks! Jump aboard the charabanc with Barry & The Berries. Destination BFP" (thread 26)

[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 definitely no mention of baby dust or baby dancing).
Those not abiding by the rules may be escorted from the premises.

Current passengers:

Happylass, 37, TTC since Aug 2012. 2 failed ICSIs. Time to defrost the spare.
Beaky 35, ttc coming up 3 yrs, 2x failed iui 1x long protocol ivf cancelled due to poor response. Awaiting follow up with FC and possibly short protocol IVF next.
Minx, 34, both tubes blocked, 1 buried ovary, appointment with consultant early March.
Nolly, 33, TTC 2.5 years, BFP Christmas Eve, MC New Years Eve. Awaiting "spontaneous conception" before IVF starts, August 2015.
Wild 40 - TTC for three years. IVF double-stimms freeze all embryos cycle started in February - due to complete May/June.
HampshireBlues 36 TTC 3.5 years, unexplained. Cycle 1 chemical pregnancy, cycle 2 abandoned due to cyst, cycle 3 failed. Plan thrombotic profile, scratch and short protocol.
Lumen, 35, ttc since Nov 2011, unexplained, two IVF cycles in 2014, both bfns, waiting for lap&dye and results of numerous bloods, aiming for one last IVF cycle in the summer.
Tigerdog, 34 ttc since Jan 2013. Unexplained. Starting ivf in March.
Gillster, 40, TTC since Feb 2012. Had IVF in Feb 14 and had 6 one cell embies frozen due to polyp. Cancelled FET cycles in Sept 14 and Dec 14 due to more polyps. Awaiting hysteroscopy before commencing natural cycle FET. Hoping to be at least PUPO on the 4th attempt!
Smidge, 38, TTC since Jan 2013. Unexplained. IVF#1 Short protocol July 2014 yielded 1 blasto, BFN. IVF#2 in process - Long Protocol Oct/Nov 2014
Kuma - 40. TTC 2 years. Low AMH high FSH - DH antisperm ABs. Failed IVF June 14 and two cancelled IVFs Nov and Dec 14 due to poor blood results. Hoping for another try at natural cycle IVF end of Jan.
Jelliebabe - 40, Threw the pills away 8 years ago. Unexplained but have a very low AMH, 1st IVF with clinic in Prague, 2 embryo's, chemical pregnancy. 2nd IVF in London branch of clinic - 1 embryo, BFN. BFP Feb '15

at knobstick nolly! Good luck with the Colombian wrestling

Have a lovely time in the sun beaky and hope your homelessness is short lived! We lived with our in laws for 3 months during our building work phase never again and survived, just. It will all be worth it. Our house is filthy because plasters have been traipsing dirt in today, Grrrr.

I don't know gill despite frantically googling 'high ovaries' I have not found any internet wisdom. I might email my Mayan massage lady and see if she has any tips. My acu lady had a poke too. Trying not to worry but there were hardly any follicles of note on the left...

My brother keeps ringing me. Touched and honoured that I am his only confidante about their pregnancy but having to hold in some . Turns out they are 13 weeks along probably and weren't really trying and his gf wasn't even taking folic acid. Oh to have a baby just drop in your lap like that in blissful ignorance. And she's my age too. Family announcement next weekend then it'll be scan pics all over Facebook no doubt. Sigh.

Congrats on being PUPO Lucie. As others have said only 20% of cycles produce frosties so it really should be seen as a bonus. Fantastic news that you have 2 great blasts back on board.
Great news on your haul too Wild.
Tiger sorry to hear you've had such a scare with your sister and also that you're having a tough time with your brothers news. I found it so difficult when my SIL was pg - way too close to home. Hopefully they'll locate that pesky right ovary soon. I too had a rubbish left ovary - just a few follies each time. Ironically at my scan yesterday the only follie she could locate was on the left - the mind boggles
Hope you're both hanging in there Gill and Spare. Not too long left now but I know it'll seem like an eternity to you
Beaky where are you headed? I'm well
Hope everyone else is doing ok. It's the weeeeeeekend!! have a good one all.

Hello berries. I've just had a massive catch up session reading (and taking notes!) the past week's worth of posts. I've missed so much! But all good news by the sounds of it.

Wild hope you are enjoying your real champagne! Sounds very well deserved. Like Gill's comment re five a side! I'm imagining a very sporty healthy brood now

Can't believe so many berries so are PUPO. Congrats Gill Spare and Lucie, I'm really excited for you! Lucie amazing you had a fully hatched blasto, were you on steroids?! that's brilliant.

Spare I'm really sorry to hear you couldn't referee the others. I'm a bit at the concept actually. I now have 2 frosties, one better than the other, and AliG has said we'd go ahead with the better one first. ie that they'd simply defrost that one and leave the other in the freezer. (As it happens we're going to push to have both transfered at the same time as I can't cope with the thought of the back up being lower quality).

But then to add to the confusion at the different processes, Gill's FC won't leave one in the freezer...?! What's that about Gill? I loved your lonely comment, but seriously - what if only one had been good enough to freeze in the first place... Don't they bother freezing unless you get 2? This seems really odd.

Tiger good luck with the continued stimming. And your FCs comments have made me realise I must have had the same issue (just not told in advance). On my second (I think) EC apparently they had to up my anaesthetic as the nurse had to push so hard on my abdomen that she could feel the probe thing through my body!! It did the trick though, so I reckon you'll be fine (but that was the time I was sick in the taxi home ).

Beaky enjoy your time away and I hope you're not homeless for long. The apartment MrSmidge and I bought last month as an investment is now ours - we picked up the keys on Tuesday. Only one group viewed it though so we don't yet have tenants... Might be a bit of a commute for you though

Barking I think I agree with you on the statistics theory re 2SET vs 1DET. My A Level Maths said you add together the probabilities so if single is say 20% then 2 lots of single would actually be 40% chance. But I realise nothing in the world of TTC follows any laws of fairness/probability or general decency. .
Anyway, I'm going against my own maths understanding with wanting both our frosties transferred together anyway

Rain seems I completely understand your fortnightly mahoosive posting - Look at me!

Referee?!!! Re-freeze!

Ha ha smidge you made me chuckle. I promise I'm not on steroids I don't know, is a fully hatched blast not usual then?

I think all 4 blasts I've had back have been fully hatched. My clinic offers assisted hatching but I was told we didn't need it as they'd done it by themselves.
Ps - I've no idea what hatching actually means or why it's significant

Oh wow - no I didn't think fully hatched was usual at day 5 (fairly common for 'partial', but thought fully hatched was more usual for day 6)

Apparently the embryo literally has to hatch out of the outser shell in order to implant in the lining. With assisted hatching they use a little laser to cut a small hole in the shell so it's easier for the embryo to hatch out (they need a fair bit of energy to hatch themselves). After my first failure I asked for assisted hatching just in case my issues were low energy embryos . I think assisted hatching can also be suggested for older eggs that have been frozen as there's some evidence to suggest the shell can harden and therefore be more difficult to hatch out.

Really does make me think I have little chicks in the freezer though.

The one that was fully hatched was a 9 cell on day 3 so maybe it was a little ahead in the growth stakes! The hatching one was 7 cell on day 3.

Smidge my ETs were both in the afternoon of day 5 and given that some of my embies were 10-12 cell in day 3 maybe they were just developing faster than normal. Though I'm now worrying that this is a bad thing!
Tiger hang on in there. It does get seriously uncomfortable towards the end but you're almost there. Is ET Wednesday for you?

I read between 6 and 9-10 cells is fine happy. Although we didn't have any luck with any of our 6 cells so I think at least 8 is better. I think our 7 which was the hatching blast was just turning into an 8 on day 3. 12 seems quite a lot for day 3.

What's the next step for you happy? Would you consider having aCGH testing to see if the blasts are chromosomally abnormal? That way if you knew you had a normal one put back you could probably narrow it down to an implantation / immune problem? Did you have endo scratch and embryo glue? Have you had a hysterscopy?

Lucie the I asked the embryologist if it was worrying that some of our embies had more than 8 cells on day 3 and she said no - just that they look for a minimum of 6-8. I think it was just the one 12 cell we had and I've no idea if that one went back. The clinic don't seem at all worried about our embies - in fact they keep saying how perfect they look but I'm well aware that things can go wrong after ET. They also don't really advise any investigations until you've had 3 failed attempts - they say it could just be 'bad luck' at this stage. Having said that I had the scratch last cycle and I took aspirin to try to increase blood flow too. CRGW use embryo glue as standard. For the FET I'll be taking Clexane afterwards. I've never had a hysteroscopy but I had a HSG and all was well. My womb lining is apparently 'perfect' too. So it's all a bit of an annoying mystery as to why it's failed twice! But we will definitely look in to some further investigations if the FET doesn't work. Will probably go for a endometrial biopsy to check for NK cells. If we do have an issue my money is on some kind of immune problem. Not sure if it would be linked but I suffer from a lot of allergies - hayfever, eczema, nut allergy so I wouldn't be surprised if there's something causing a problem there.

It's difficult isn't it, like you say it could all just be down to luck. Whilst you had perfect looking blasts there's no way of telling without testing if they are chromosomally normal so it could just be bad luck that the ones you had so far weren't and maybe your FET will be the lucky one. I'm not sure about the nk stuff but I have read of a lot of women having success after having treatment.

Are you at CRGW in llantrisant? Grrr I don't like the sonographer there who said if I were having treatment there then she would advise me to cancel and start again as I wasn't responding well. Well I had 7 eggs collected, 6 mature, all 6 fertilised and still going by day 3 and 2 perfect blasts so stick that lol. Just annoyed me as she wasn't my doctor and it wasn't her place to say. She caused a lot of unnecessary worry and distress. Other than that though I have found the others to be lovely. My friend got pregnant first time with twins there.

Ah happy yes I think the extra few hours can make a big difference actually. Our embryologist said the span of fertilisation can be something like 4hours diff, so couple an early-fertilised with an afternoon ET and perhaps there's no surprise your embies all hatched. (Or equally maybe mine were late fertilising and our transfer early .)

Tiger I'm not sure when we'll do our FET... Either this month or next I think.
(Bit scared about trying this month though - I've not had much luck with clusterdiffs in the past!! superstitious much?! But June may not work with planned travel. Can't wait til july though...

Yes Lucie I'm in CRGW Llantrisant. The nurse you had did my scan on Friday. I've always found her the less personable of the 3 but she was far nicer and more chatty on Friday. Maybe you should let them know about your experience, just for some feedback. Seems a bit contradictory as they told me they like between 3-15 follies.
Smidge I'm also a bit paranoid about the clusterdiff situation! I think everyone else will have tested (and hopefully flown off in the chopper) by the time I have ET though, apart from the lovely Tiger of course.

Yes a few people have said I should get in touch with them but I probably won't. They would probably say it's just one of those things and I got lucky or something. It was just difficult as on my first scan one of the other, really lovely nurses (you prob know which one lol) told me I had 8 follicles. I was really worried and actually cried on her as I thought it wasn't enough but she was so nice and reassured me that was perfectly fine and also told me that they look for between 3-15 follicles and for my age and amh 8 was brilliant and then 2 days later I see the other one who says the complete opposite and that I should cancel. If I do have to go there again I will definitely be asking to only see the first one. Can't be doing with the stress on top of everything else. I don't know if it was because she didn't like that I was having treatment abroad as everything that I said I was having or taking she kind of put down and indicated that they wouldn't have done that there but she's not even a doctor! Never mind though rant over. Of course there's no knowing if it will work out for me this time but I absolutely got what I aimed for when I started which was to have 2 decent blasts transferred.

Wow, got a lot to catch up as I've been awol with head in the sand.... Will be back!

Just a little rant! I'm a member of a Slow Cooker Recipe group on FB. There are over 112,000 members so it's not like everyone knows each other. Today someone posted "Not slow cooker related but I just wanted to share that I had my daughter today, on her due date" along with 3 pictures of said new born. Is nowhere safe?!?

No berry left behind happy - we'll bust out of this joint sooner or later! Nowhere is safe, fact.

Yo minx hope you've been enjoying life that doesn't revolve around ttc.

barking hello! Hope that head in the sand has had some benefits and you've been having some fun

It's quiet in here....Any lurking newbies?

I made healthy sweet potatoe brownies today - no sugar, butter, chocolate etc. they were nice but butter, sugar and chocolate are better!

*potato

beaky I'm due Ov today/tomorrow - acne even worse!! The most painful ones will just about stop hurting by the time the AF acne arrives

lucie PUPO!!! And TWO excellent blastos on board, congrats!

wild double figures!! Amazing! [grinl]

nolly hope your weekend wrestling with colombian builders was productive!

gil how are you doing?

tiger good luck for the next scan, hope your ovary has jiggled a bit and dropped down a little! Not sure I can supply the surprise bfp, cd20 and no temp rise yet so my cycle hasn't miraculously righted itself just yet... Sounds really tough with your brother, is it worth saying something?

minx sun's been out, why would it be too early for pims?!

smidge I feel the same about the clusterdiffs - I got a bfp with the first berry clusterdiff (baby would have been 1 now ) and as a result I kept my head down when the second iui coincided with a lot of other berry iui/ivf rounds. Too paranoid of getting left behind again!
I hadn't heard of assisted hatching, this thread is such an education!

happy I have a feeling there's something linked with allergies as well - I have hayfever and a shellfish allergy as well as an allergy to cats and various medicines. My consultant dismissed it though. I was hoping that the IVF would at least come up with a reason why we couldn't get pg naturally, but that's still a mystery (other than my late ovulation and short LP which no medical professional has done more than pay brief lip service to). I didn't have the scratch (paying for it next time) but I had embryo glue.

rain are you away for a week or a weekend?

We can't do the nk cells testing this cycle as there's a chance I could be pg ha ha , but I keep telling myself it would be best not to do it immediately post ivf anyway, to give the body a cycle to get over the hormones. The trouble is, 7-9 days after ov next month is most likely to be while we're away for 6 days . They will only do it in that 3 day window. This pushes it forward to June, which means ivf wouldn't be until July, and DH is away for 4 weeks at the end of July/Aug so I'd have to go through it all on my own, or wait until September. September seems a bloody long way away!!! But then if I'm positive for raised nk cells we're put back a couple of months anyway while they give me steroids and test again. More patience required... We'll have been trying 4 years by the time we do the FET at this rate!

I've also realised a potentially amusing situation. As I said earlier I might end up doing our frozen round of ivf in July, when DH will be away for a month, otherwise I'd have to wait until September. If by some miracle it works, and we end up announcing we're pg, everyone will know DH wasn't in the country at the time of conception!! It's a good thing we're open about the ivf!!

xpost. happy that is not only totally unnecessary, it's bloody rude!

cd21 and still no temp rise. Face full of acne, ovulation pain and +opk on cd19. If you don't ovulate on a cycle, can you still have all the symptoms of ovulation?!