We might be over 40 but we are young at heart, taking our supplements, shagging on time and waiting for the precious BFP!Over 40's TTC, join us here...

[Gumblossom]

Starting the new thread, Cloudjumper.

Anyone over 40, trying to conceive, whether it is your first or 6th (or more), we're facing the obstacles together.

I've been at it for 6 years now, but there are plenty of good news stories from these threads over the years.

Come and join us with your worries, woes,successes and milestones, we are here to support one another in our quest.

Grizzer, I am pleased to hear that all is well for you.

I've spent the weekend agonising over every symptom, or lack of, only to have the symptoms return and even amp up a bit. I seem to wake up (super early - 4:30 am - I get this with every pregnancy) feeling only slight symptoms and convince myself that it is definitely over, only to find that by the end of the day I am super tired, have a nasty metallic taste in my mouth, feel a bit queasy,and the boobs are sore again. Today I reach my second milestone: 4+6: when one of my miscarriages started with bleeding (I still had + tests for two weeks afterward which was awfully confusing, but the pregnancy didn't continue).

I went back over the archives of mumsnet and saw that with that pregnancy, not only did I get bleeding at this stage, I never had properly dark tests, so I actually didn't expect the pregnancy to progress. It is different this time as my 16 dpo test was as dark as the control, and I have a clear progression from 10 dpo to 16 dpo. I have one FRER test left, but I am not going to crack it open and use it unless I really need to. Though I am tempted to try a digital which would tell me how many weeks. However I know how scary it is if it doesn't match what I expect, and I don't think I have the courage for that. Right now I'd rather be blind to details and just enjoy the ignorance.

For now I am pregnant.

It is getting increasingly difficult to keep it to myself with DH. It was mother's day yesterday - and guess what he got me as a gift? A bottle of Mumm champagne! Normally a very nice gesture, but how will I put off opening it without him being suspicious? I guess I will think of something... I am not ready to tell him. I want to be sure that I make it past 7 weeks, so I have an appointment with my doctor then, and after talking to her, I will break the news to DH. Although he has been well aware that there was a chance I'd get pregnant, and that I wanted a baby, he really didn't believe it was an actual possibility, so I think it may come as a shock for him. He worries about money, and of course I will have some time off work if all goes well, so that will be foremost in his mind. Of course, as soon as the baby is earthside he will love it as much as me, he just has to do that man thing that involves worrying about money and the future etc.

How is everyone else? It is quiet here.Is anyone coming up to testing time?

Please let me know if talking about this pregnancy is upsetting to anyone and I will stop talking about it constantly. As much as I want to stop thinking about it, it is all I think about and I have noone in RL to talk to about it. I am also definitely not ready to join an antenatal thread. I've been through the heartache often enough that I don't want to tempt fate.

Have a lovely day

Cloud - I cross-post with you.

So pleased to hear you are feeling awful because we know that is a good sign. I really do understand your "scanxiety" - I know that awful dread. I am torn between wanting good news from a scan to reassure me, but fully aware it could have the opposite affect, so wonder if I should just wait until 10 weeks, if I make it that far.

Hang in there - you've every chance that the scan will be good news

It very heartwarming to hear about your positives Gum, Cloud, Annie and Grizzer! Sending positive thoughts to you all.

The mc journey continues, I'm still having very very light bleeding, and testing tomorrow to let EPU know the result.

So feeling more positive and have decided to go all guns blazed for supplements (prenatal, co10 +B6, maca, vitex) and chart for the 1st time, I really don't know how long my cycle is or when I ov, I have taken vitex and maca, and had chinese acupuncture and herbs before when trying to get my FSH levels down. I stopped all that about 6mths before the recent pg.
Has anyone here got any experience of high FSH and successfully lowering it? I'd really like to hear your thoughts :)

Hope you all have a good wk ahead, that all BFP's go from strength to strength, thankyou so much for the welcomes, it's so comforting to be bumping along in good company :)

No bad news is good news from the pg ladies!
Personally I love to hear your pg updates, helps motivate me for the next attempt.
Three weeks after medical management I think I've finally stopped spotting. My blood count results must have been poor as the doctors reception called to tell me I had a prescription waiting and it turned out to be iron tablets. I had already bought myself iron supplements, but these give multiple times the RDA, so the ones I bought myself must have been inadequate.
Is there any reason I shouldn't ttc whilst having this issue? I feel ok generally.

I like hearing about the pregnancies as well as it gives me hope. I'm afraid I can't help at all with the questions about hormones etc.

I'm on cd 70 now. Reminds me of after my mc when my periods took almost a year to return.

well, ladies....guess whos back......
had a very slight bleed at 8+3 so rang the BEP clinic the next morning and they had a cancellation that day, so off I went...still with a skip in my step...after all, ive had slight bleeds like this before, and it was all ok.....

cut to the vag u/s scan....showing only a clump of cells in the sac, indicating 5 weeks or less gestation.....

advised to come back in 10 days, as per new rules (this was a tuesday) weds I started bleeding heavier and on wednesday night, I had the most awful contraction lie cramps....but no loss of clots....so much blood, but nothing solid, which gave me hope.....

sadly, after the 10 days was up, a new scan revealed that there was no baby, and the pregnancy sac had detached itself and was lying at the bottom of my uterus waiting to be released by a cervix that stubbornly refused to open!

they asked me if i wanted to wait to let things happen naturally, or get some help in removing what was left..... but after 10 days of bleeding and changing pads every hour, crying, pleading, praying and sadness, id had enough....

the took me round to the ward, where they were able to ...."do what they needed to do" without any anaesthetic.

this was on friday (when I would have been 10 weeks)....so.....im back on the trail of the holy grail of the 2 pink/blue lines again....or I will be once my bloody discharge has stopped (not very romantic that stuff!!)

hope everyone is well and hope that in my 9 weeks absence, there have been some more BFP's and causes for celebration xxx

So sorry Fatty. It's awful to mc at anytime but so hard when your body holds on & you continue happily thinking everything is ok. Did you notice any change in symptoms?
We've had a few bfps while you've been away, 3 in the last week or so.
Stay with us to vent & cry & all the things you need to do.

Hello everyone, long time lurker here, NC. About to start to try to conceive no. 2. Age 44 - have I any chance??? The internet is full of doom and gloom so any inspirational news is wonderful.

Have gorgeous no. 1 with previous partner, conceived 4 years ago no problem. No idea what state new partner's sperm is in but we've both been on health kick lately and lost some weight so BMI down to 25/26.

I am taking DHEA, Q10 ( but think I have wrong one - Tescos) and prenatal - is there anything else that I should be taking?

I have no idea about AMH levels etc and think it might be worth going for a fertility check or will they laugh me out of the room?
All thoughts welcome. X

So sorry to read your update Fatty. Your situation very much resembles mine, so I can really empathise.

Welcome Emmaline. Sorry I don't know the answers to your questions, but you are in good company here.

thank you ladies!

funnily enough grizzer, the only symptoms i had were, as my post just prior to my BFP in this thread, that of immensely tingly fizzy, sore burning boobs....oh and peeing a lot.

I had joked to a friend at about 7 1/2 weeks, that i could have sworn i wasnt pregnant, because of the lack of morning sickness, so he said well take another test then, which i did, and it confirmed that yes, i was deffo pregnant.......so when i found out that there hadnt been a 'baby' as such, and not for about 3-4 weeks, it was a double whammy

when it was confirmed as a 'blighted ovum - god how i HATE that ugly term.......the nurse in the BEP clinic was wonderful. she told me that there WAS a pregnancy, there WAS fertilisation and there WAS implantation and cell division, so yes there WAS a baby, albeit in its most rudimentary form for a few weeks....

the good news is, it is all down to pure fluke...nothing i did, or didnt do, it has NO bearing on any future pregnancies at all, it has nothing to do with my age, weight or the colour of my hair...just....very sadly....one of those things that is quite common and can happen to anyone of childbearing age, which made me feel a bit better.....

for those that dont know....a blighted ovum is an egg with NO dna from mum at all, thats fertilised with a healthy sperm, making an embryo/zygote with only half the required dna, OR a healthy egg that is somehow fertilised by 2 sperm, thus making 3 lots of dna in the developing embryo, again making an inviable pregnancy

star] star] to the bfps and some and a mahoosive hug for you west xxxxx

Sorry to hear you had a blighted ovum fatty. It's a horrible shock and seems so cruel that you can have all the symptoms but an empty sac. I hadn't a clue that could happen and it took me a good while to get over the shock of it. It's happened to me twice now despite being told it was v v unlikely to happen again.

Part of me is expecting the same to happen. They both grew to 6.5 weeks And I mc'd naturally at 8.5 week.

I'm currently about 5w4d so will probably phone the GP for an appointment next week all being well. It's so early though I feel I could leave it another 2 weeks to see if the sore boobs and nausea fades.

I do feel a bit different this time as the nausea is pretty strong. Clinging on to that as a good sign!

Sorry blabbing on about myself way too much.

Fatty, sorry to hear your news. It is so cruel when the body won't let go, and you continue to believe that you are still pregnant. I am sorry for your loss. As you said, it was just a random thing, so there is no reason for you not to go on and have a healthy pregnancy and baby.

Emmaline - welcome. I think you are definitely in with a chance. I suppose having fertility testing is dependent on a few things: if it is bad news, will it upset you?stop you from ttc? Or would the knowledge help you make decisions about what to do next: consider ivf? get some hormone treatment, other therapies? Or are you happy to just keep trying and see what happens?

When I was 44 I had two miscarriages, so I went ahead and had loads of testing. Honestly - it felt good to be "pro-active", and I did find out one or two things that have caused me to change things a bit, and who knows, maybe helped me get this bfp?

I found out from the tests that I had a + C-anca- which as far as I know, means I might have an autoimmune disease, or may develop one. No one can say conclusively that the result had any bearing on miscarriages. Especially as my first miscarriage was due to chromosomal issues (I don't know about the other 3, though I do know the second one wasn't trisomy 13,18 or 21 - the most common, but it may have been a different one). However, knowing I might get an auto immune condition has sent me off on a research pilgrimage and I have learnt how to eat an anti-inflammatory diet. But the tests also said my AMH was so low it was almost undetectable. I have had 3 BFP's since. I know I don't yet have a baby, but I obviously did still have some eggs in the kitty despite the low amh. Also, at one stage I was told my oestrogen was so low I couldn't possibly be ovulating - however, I think I may have ovulated every month since (I chart and do opks). That news was so devastating that I told my DH that my fertility was so low it was as if I was on the contraceptive pill (hence the reason he still doesn't know I am pregnant, I've no idea how to break the news to him ).

I suppose there are things that you can find out which can make a difference: make sure your vitamin D levels are high enough, that your progesterone is high enough (at 7 days post ovulation), and that your thyroid function is good - because all of those things can make a big difference when ttc and are treatable.

As for supplements, there's so many you can take. Over the years I've tried so many, it is laughable,really! Here's a list of what I was taking before this BFP: pregneolone, B-spectrum vitamins, preconception vitamins, fermented fish oil,folic acid, Co q 10, vit D, VIt C, magnesium, probiotics. In the past I also tried DHEA, wheatgrass, spirulina, maca, vitex, nettle tea.....and other stuff too!

I'm 5 weeks today! I am so excited to have made it this far. I know I've a R-E-A-L-L-Y long way to go, but every little milestone is a baby step towards hope. My next milestone is 6 weeks - around about the time that tests starting to go negative in my third miscarriage. I did my last test last night, despite saying I wouldn't - at 20 dpo, with very dilute wee I got beautiful, dark bfp.

Hi Emmaline - I chose to get tested to eliminate any issues. Saying that sometimes I think I would have been pregnant sooner if I just went for it and didn't think about it too much. It's a difficult one!

Welcome loveandluck and mamaLazarou!

Gum I'm with you on the baby steps.

Hi ladies. I know that I would really appreciate it if the pg ladies stayed with us to keep us updated on their stories. Even though we seem to have had a lot of bfps on here lately, we don't seem to have had many (any??) that have gone to term, so it would be really great and uplifting to hear some good news stories that take us all the way to a baby!!

Welcome Emmaline. You are in exactly the same boat as me. I'm also 44 and ttc#2 (but with same partner!). Good luck in your journey.

Sorry to hear your news Fatty.

I'm afraid that I won't be adding to the recent run of bfps . AF arrived with a vengeance today after a few days of teasing me with some very light spotting which stopped and started enough for me to wonder if it was implantation. But no, full on today. I'm not going to think about it too much, and just focus on this being a new cycle and (another) new start! I've only just done 1 month of full-on supplements, and I've read that it can take 3 months for them to start to have an impact on egg quality, so it was probably too early to expect any results yet!! So, off we go again cd1 - yay (highly sarcastically)!!!

So sorry to hear about your loss fatty Nature can be so cruel sometimes, and having to take extra steps to 'get it out' is so heartbreaking. Hope you will recover quickly, look after yourself.

Sorry about Af, joey! New cycle, new luck. And maybe a big to start you off?!

Welcome emmaline You still have a lot of chances for a healthy pregnancy! According to my consultant, about 50%. Sounds as if you are taking the right stuff in terms of supplement, I guess you are on the folic acid/antenatal vitamins as well?
You could ask you GP to test your progesterone levels as a start, this can be really informative to check if you are ovulating and if the levels can sustain a pregnancy. Do you have regular cycles?
I had my AMH levels tested, but to be honest, I'm not sure that it is really useful. At our age, our egg reserve is bound to be low, and the test can only indicate egg quantity, not quality. I have very low AMH, and still managed to fall pg lots of times (not with a successful outcome, though, so far). The other thing with AMH test is that you'll have to pay for it.

Great progress, gum! One day at a time

I'm 7+1 today. Still feeling really sick more or less constantly. But no more spotting, yay. Still head in the sand - after having the mc at 17 weeks last time, I will not be able to feel really positive about this for a very long time, sigh. However, I am hoping and praying for a good scan on Sunday, that'll be the first milestone - none of my 3 early mcs got that far.

Oh, well done everyone with continuing pregnancies (is it really true there have been no live births in here? For how long? I am pretty disheartened to hear that)!

Fatty, how awful

Good luck with Sunday's scan, cloud.

Afm, I am ovulating today (I assume; my static smiley was yesterday) and we abandoned SMEP this month in favour of eod, although it's hard not to go again the day after the static face appears

flotillas We had a very recent birth on here, back in March - if you scroll up the thread, you will see greenlizard's announcement

Yes I did see that but wasn't an egg donor used?

Sorry, that sounded wrong. Have there been many successes with own eggs naturally conceived?

Thank you for all of your very encouraging replies! I feel slightly excited and terrified to be embarking on this but will regret it if we don't at least try.
I'm going to make a GP appointment for progesterone level test - thank you cloudjumper and will also ask about thyroid function Gumblossom. I have been lying out in the sun for some vit D oomph! Really interested that your consultant says 50% cloudjumper, I still have regular 28 day periods and ovulate on the 14th day, according to clear blue smiley face.

Congrats to all with little bumps and hope the early scans are reassuring. Good luck to all here and again thanks for the encouragement!

thanks for the kind words every one :)

you would wonder why the body would keep hold of a non viable pregnancy wouldnt you? its a strange thing

big hellos to the new threaders :)

Hi Fatty. Just dropping in to say how sorry I was to read of your loss earlier on today. So sad for you.

Hi all newbies and oldies!! Am too knackered to post anything much at the moment.

FF xx

Sorry to hear about mc Fatty.

On live births, i am sure i remember a couple inlast two years, but ppl disappear from here normally if they have their babies. I think Diege, then Morien, there have been others. Also we have had people join, get pg and disappear , presumably went to terme ffortlessly and did not need the cruch this thread provides:-))

So sorry about the MC Fatty, life can be very cruel.
How are you feeling Gum, 5 weeks, very exciting!
Cloud hope your scan goes well on Sunday.
flotillas ,on the subject of live births, I think FF had just had her baby when I joined the thread back in 2012. There was also Sparklysapphire , Notsoold apart from the others jass has mentioned, and I had my DD last year at the age of 46 (natural conception, but I did have four miscarriages leading up to her conception.) I'm sure there are more people I can't remember!