Yo yo!! Calling all Ladybros over 30 TTC #1. Join the Berries aboard the Charabanc of lurrrve. Bring real Champagne, from the actual Champagne region. No Colombian builders allowed.

[happylass]

The small print:

The Berries have strict entrance criteria: TTC #1 for 12 months+, over 30, NO instadiffers, must have a special pimping pot and absolutely no mention of baby dust/dancing. Not that we're fussy

Current passengers

WildflowerMarmalade 40 - TTC for three years. FET done in June with immune treatments - waiting for result... Six embryos in the freezer after two freeze all cycles.

Minx 35 in August - TTC 2 years. Stage 4 endometriosis, both tubes blocked, 1 buried ovary, IVF booking in appt in July, hoping to start IVF soon after

Smidge 39, TTC since Jan '13. Unexplained. IVF#1 Short protocol July '14 BFN, IVF#2 Nov'14 and IVF#3 Feb '15 both Long protocol BFNs. High NK cell immune treatment. Natural FET in June '15, awaiting result.

Happylass, 37, TTC since Aug 2012. 2 failed ICSI cycles and 1 failed FET. Hoping to start long awaited NHS cycles in late August provided pesky smear test is sorted by then.

Beaky 35, ttc coming up 3 yrs, 2x failed iui 1x long protocol ivf cancelled 1 BFN following IVF

Tigerdog, 34 (soon to be 35) TTC since Jan 2013. Unexplained. IVF#1 May 2015 resulted in a chemical pregnancy. Now transferring clinics in the hope of a second round of IVF on the NHS and considering an NK cells biopsy in July/August.

barkingtreefrog 36, ttc 3.5 years. clomid bfp summer 2013 then mc @7 weeks, iui bfp summer 2014 then mc @6 weeks. Factor V leiden thrombophilia diagnosed at the repeat mc clinic. IUI bfn Jan 2015, IVF bfn April/May 2015. Currently awaiting nk cells results before a FET possibly in August/September.

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.

Kuma - 40. TTC 2.5 years. Low AMH high FSH - DH antisperm ABs. Failed IVF June 14 and March 15. Looking to change clinic and try another natural cycle in June 2015.

Lucieloos, 35, TTC 18 months, low AMH & sperm motility. 1st ICSI in Czech Republic in April BFN.

Rain, 33 ttc since March 2012. unexplained. mystery bfp oct 13, MMC Nov 13. NHS IVF starting in June

Fx for you Dizzy!

Rain did you keep the syringe depressed when you withdrew it? That can cause bleeding if not. I would always inject quite slowly and didn't have a problem with that in itself but occasionally would bruise or get an itchy small lump for no reason.

Sesame what stims will you be on then? I'm still gonal-f although I did ask if a variation may work better.

Berries who've had a scratch, did you bleed much afterwards? I've had a range of bright red to brownish spotting all week, but nothing for the first couple of days after the scratch?!

Yes me, I had bleeding after the scratch. Just like that, nothing, then spotting, then eventually it turned into my period. For stims we're looking at adding some LH. Doc doesn't think would make blind bit of difference but doesn't think it would do any harm either.

sesame what a plum I am, yes I did know that! That would be quite a story tho eh? Haven't had a good immaculate conception story for a good, ooh, 2,000 years? . There's so many of us on here at the mo my brain gets a bit foggy remembering all the deets, we need a Gil style runners and riders update I think!

Thanks so much to you and beaky for the tips. I think I did keep the syringe depressed when I pulled it out, so won't do that again and will remember to try a different spot if the one I pick seems 'tough' (the first one went in literally like a hot knife through butter). Can't wait till I'm doing double jabs!

PS I am at a BBQ today with pretty much all of my dearest old friends, which is quite a feat given how far apart we all are. Can't wait to see them all but pretty much all of them are sprogged/diffed and will have babies with them etc. They all know our situation but last time we were together the chat was 90% kid related (there's a couple in particular who have gone down the path of becoming parenting 'experts' now they've had a baby and love to lecture everyone else). I can't even drink all the gin to get through it, so wish me luck please!

Ugh, rain I wish you lots of luck. The parent experts drive me mad. I actually know a bit about looking after babies as I have a huge family, but some of my friends had never even held a baby until they had one of their own, and they're the worst!

I found stabbing went well by aiming it straight down, no angle and then injecting slowly. Hope it's all going ok.

Which Hampshire CCG are you dizzy? They used to have a restrictive policy where the cut off age is 35 for funding, not sure if that is still the case, or if that would affect you? You can check entitlement on fertility fairness. I also have a friend who had pcos and credited acu with getting her ovulating with more regularity and getting diffed. Fingers crossed for an FUFC anyway.

Yo sesame, you are also making me think I need to get off my lazy ass, running and yoga, walking sounds good to me! I lost weight during IVF, but put it back on due to eating/drinking less healthily since then.

I think a cut off is difficult to contemplate for me at the moment. Do you think you might just know when enough is enough, although the chances are you may never have to make that decision as it will work for you. Gosh, I envy people that don't have to deal with all this heartache.

Right, off to walk the dog and buy a sander. Excitement galore!

Got sporadic reception here at the festival so apologies if I miss anyone, I can't go forwards and backwards in the app as usual as the page takes 20 minutes to load up each time!

beaky when my friend came with me to the clinic we passed a couple walking out past us with new baby and she remarked that you'd think they'd have it somewhere else so you didn't have to walk past maternity. I said the worst bit was walking past the pregnant women with massive bumps, stood outside with a fag in the smoking shelter. We went round the corner and there they all were...

sesame I set myself a cut off point last year. When we hit 2.5 years and had just had our second mc I said one more year then I want my life back. I was very adament. That was 2 months ago and I've just self referred to a new clinic... dh will find out about that when he gets home I think you'll know when you're done. For me, with the embryos not coping with the cold, I don't feel like we've had the chance we should have done. The fresh cycle made three blastocysts, but we only had one decent one in, and they didn't try the fragmin with that round. This time I'm on the fragmin but the embryo is very poor quality, so still not a decent chance. I want to go somewhere with a better success rate, and this clinic claim to be very good with patients who have had failed ivf and rmc.

spare I'm on the 'no exercise' front again, just walking... Although there's an 80k sportive with the startline cycling distance from my house in a couple of weeks. If it's a bfn I want to go straight out for that the next week, but it's the same day dh is arriving back and I'm not sure being out on my bike when he arrives back home would go down well....

tiger excellent pester power! At least it's one step forward, fingers crossed the wait isn't as bad as you fear.

rain I don't think there's necessarily one best way to stab, just whatever works for you within reason and safety

I'm feeling much better about things today. DH got into a town yesterday and managed to buy a sim card and call me on the land line. He said he's missing me and worrying about me all the time and wishes he'd not gone.
Anyway, currently coping okay with two young brothers at the festival. Trying to inject in the 'bedroom' area of the tent while they sat in the porch and argued was not great, but only one more injection today, even if I end up doing it in a pub toilet tomorrow when I meet Mum to drop then off, I won't have two kids to supervise at the same time....
Really not liking the new progesterone stuff, leaky and messy and you have to remember 3 times a day . I asked the nurse why they'd switched from cyclogest and she said it was purely the preference of the pharmacy, not a clinical decision .

Right, here's hoping I've got enough data reception to actually post this...

Barking did you not use cyclogest 3 times a day before? Good luck with your next injection, it sounds like you're managing really well considering. Glad you got to speak to MrB too, I bet he can't wait to get back. Having said that I think if things don't go your way which obviously won't be the case, you should go for it on the bike ride front, I bet he wouldn't mind. But, things will so you won't be able to!

Tiger enjoy your sanding! I think for me re the cut off point I feel like I've got very limited time because of a really low amh, but also we are skinto. I find this so hard too so in my head I think another year max.

Rain good luck for that BBQ! I have people that are really lectury when they've done something once.

Sesame thanks, I was worried my spotting was odd. I'm on the pill now before this next cycle so not really going to have a period either.

Hope everyone is having a lovely weekend, and I can thoroughly recommend taking a sledgehammer to wall as the most therapeutic thing I've done in years.

Barking glad you're feeling s but better about things and that you got to speak to Monsieur Barking. I much preferred the Utrogestan to the Cyclogest (which I also took 3 times a day). Apart from the fact that it irritated my cervix and made me spot. That wasn't so good .
Tiger my cut off point of one more year is only theoretical. If we happen to have embies in the freezer or haven't completed all our NHS treatments plus the options we want to explore abroad then I know I'll find it impossible to stop. Im just hoping that I can get all this done in the next year....,

Haven't read through the last few posts properly yet but just saw Rains question... I push in slowly. If it hurts then I stop and find somewhere else. For some reason the left side of my belly seems less sensitive. I also have to sit down. I did it once in standing and this hurt loads more... Sit down, grab a bit of the muffin too, slowly insert needle into the side of the skin you are grabbing. Keep holding onto skin and slowly depress needle. Once all the way in, leave for 10 seconds and then slowly withdraw. i don't stop pinching my skin until the needle is completely withdrawn.

Apologies, my thread hasn't updated properly so Rains post was the last one when I looked a few mins ago!
I've been thinking of you Barking and hoping your embie is a fighter. I hope you feel somewhat better after chatting with your Dh. Which private clinic are you arranging to go to? Really hope you won't need to though!
Tiger, that's great that you got your appointment moved forwards. Not long to wait and you can start making your plans. Nice one.
Beaky, I spotted for a good few days after the scratch. I think that's to be expected.

Hope you got on ok at the BBQ rain. One of the instructors bought in her teeny tiny new born baby to my yoga studio this morning. I tried my best to avoid, but by the time I sat down on my mat I was so it took me ages to get into my class.

barking don’t beat yourself up over the quality of the embryo. I think quality is only ever meant to be very rough correlation with success. I’ve had 2 transfers of top quality embryos and nothing, but it was the poor quality one that gave me a bfp.

beaky at the sledgehammer… I was also on the pill – the scratch spotting continued for a week and sort of became my withdrawal bleed when I stopped the tablets.

On cut off, I’m worried that I won’t realise when enough is enough. I started with the idea that I would consider a maximum of 3 rounds of IVF. That’s the number of cycles meant to give the majority of women with good prognosis a successful baby. But I didn’t respond well to treatment. After the first cycle, my clinic told me I should switch to donor, but I went back for a second which ended with failed fertilization. I felt like I never had a proper go that time, so I switched clinics and had another try before I turned 40 and got a bfn. I also thought I wouldn’t continue beyond 40 as that’s when the success rates really take a dip. Then I did some thinking about how much it means to me to have my own biological child and read something about cumulative pregnancy rates, where more cycles increases the chance of success. So I went back again, got a bfp and thought I’d beaten all the odds. Then I had to try again after mc. My plan was to keep going just as long as they can still get eggs out of my body, and while I can still manage to scrape together enough pennies to do it. But this time they didn’t get anything out and I still want to go again. A little more rational thinking voice in my head says that it would be healthier to stop. I have been grieving for over 2 years and my life has been on hold all this time.

Tiger: “I envy people that don't have to deal with all this heartache.” This!

Aww Sesame it's so hard. I think you will know when it's enough, but I hope you never get to that point because you get your sticky bfp this time.

Funky Is Mr Funk back now? are you feeling ok about the dildocam on Monday? Fx for a lovely thick lining!

tiger North Hampshire. This is useful info, thankyou. I will make sure i ask to set my expectation asap. I'm 32, so hopefully it won't be an issue if I need IVF.

sesame/tiger yes on the of people who don't have to go through this. I've got a friend going through the adoption process at the moment. When they went for fertility tests after trying a while they found so many different problems with her they didn't think it was worth pursuing and went straight for adoption. She said to me she was grateful she didn't have to go through what dh and I had been through first, that there was a hidden blessing in having such a conclusive end point for them, relatively early on. Obviously not the same as instadiffers and I'm not saying I'm of their situation, just an example of it being easier to accept an end point when there isn't that glimmer of hope remaining, however small. I think we might have moved to adoption by now if I hadn't managed to get pg twice. So near yet so far... That small glimmer of hope keeps me going, and if I don't have a little fighter inside me already, I have hope that the private clinic can make it happen for us thanks to MiL who is happy to buy herself a grandchild

happy with the cyclogest I was always a back door fan. Zero mess. And only twice a day. The Utrogestan has to go up the front and is just messy as well as having an applicator you have to carry round and then dispose of (and bear in mind I'm camping at a festival and using portaloos ). TMI alert - I actually had so much leakage a pantyliner wasn't enough, it had gone right through to my pants. Can't wait to get home and have a shower and use my own toilet later today!!!!! Camping I can do for weeks, festival camping not so much...

funky it's Care Fertility I've got my 'insurance' referral to . Having filled in the online self referral I've got an email, but not enough Internet to open it and read it....

sesame, barking I think it is the glimmer of hope that keeps us going. Although I know that I would do at least another two cycles, I do think a lot about how I would like my life to look if it doesn't include children. I've not really come to any firm conclusions though, except that it would need to change.

dizzy I had to do an FOI request to my CCG to try and get the most up to date info about the changes they were making to funding, after struggling to find the details of a review they supposedly did. Still haven't had the full story though.

T-dog gave us a scare today. She went very morose yesterday, didn't want food or company, just took herself off to lie on her bed. This morning the kitchen was a bombsite - piles of puke and several wees. She was sick again twice more, so I called the emergency vets who advised us to bring her in. £280 quid later, she seems ok, although her bloods came back with a few things that need further checks. It was probably an overreaction but I couldn't bear to leave it and then be away in London if she was genuinely poorly.

Hoping the day gets better (and less expensive) from here onwards!

Oh no, poor tiger dog, I hope she's feeling better soon. Hope it's something minor. My brother has a greyhound who recently snuck a half eaten box of takeaway vindaloo out of their kitchen bin overnight. I don't think I need to describe the scene they came down to in the morning....

BBQ was great in the end, I forget sometimes how brilliant my friends are - goes to show how much of the angst I put myself through is actually just in my head. There were a zillion kids there tho, enough to totally put you off them actually!! utter chaos!!

Hope everyone is having a good weekend

tiger dogs give you such a scare when they're not well. At least a child can tell you what's wrong!

rain glad the bbq was much better than expected.

I'm now home and clean!! Still got my brothers, got to pick up the dog, go for a walk and then drive over to drop then all off - then I can relax...

hi berries , hope you are all having a nice weekend.

well, after a week of hardly any af type symptoms, af turned up very suddenly and heavy yesterday (sat). to say we are very down about this, is an understatement.

it really felt like this month was the one...but yet again, its just not meant to be at the moment. no matter how much we try/say we won't get our hopes up, its still crushing when this happens. I think I have also decided to stop doing google searches on different symptoms, to see if they are a possibly a sign of early pregnancy (every little thing I was feeling, I was checking, and everything was coming up as possibly a sign of early pregnancy (which quite obviously it wasn't). google is not my friend at the mo.

was very low yesterday (really, really wanted a drink, but decided against it, as I've stopped drinking whilst ttc), and feel a bit better having slept last night. not had a chance to catch up on all the posts (not really in the right head space at the mo, but will later on/tomorrow.

sorry to be so down.

Understandable. Problem with hormonal symptoms is they are all similar. The months following my coming off the pill I was so nauseous and got so excited. It was only when i lookes back again that I realised i was also nauseous when I went on it. That, along with my irregular cycles make me wonder how I'm ever supposed to realise - I've seen people say 'they just knew' but they may just be trying to tell me how they felt when they saw a unicorn...

Hugs for you Clementine. Hope you feel better soon.

Clem big hug for you it never gets any easier for sure.

Tiger I hope tigerdog is ok, it makes you so worried when they aren't themselves. Hopefully it'll be a little bug that clears off quickly.

Rain glad the BBQ went well, sometimes I do think I build that kind of thing up in my head but it's never as bad as I think!

Barking I hope you have a nice relaxing evening now you're back without having to run round after everyone/the dog!

Funky good luck for your scan tomorrow

Hope everyone's had a nice weekend!

Dizzy good luck for your appointment tomorrow, let us know what they say.

Hug for you clem. I'm really sorry this wasn't your time. Sometimes it is just soul destroying. I remember sobbing on the bathroom floor on Christmas day morning because I so hoped I was pregnant but af turned up early instead. That was my first anniversary of ttc, and what prompted me to join the berries. Paw hold from me.

Glad the BBQ was good rain. I think you're right about the worst of it being what you put yourself through.

barking time to get those feet up!

dizzy I hope the appointment goes well tomorrow.

funky are you reunited?!

Tiger dog is doing a lot better, thanks beaky although she's been feeling very sorry for herself most of the day. I was so worried this morning!

Weekend almost over but only 2.5 days and then I'm off! Not doing a full week at work for a few weeks, visiting various friends and family. Can't wait!

Thanks guys.

But.

It looks like i'm a FUFC.

Can the piss stick be trusted. Looks like i try again tomorrow and keep you informes.

Massive shock.

Amazing news dizzy! It's been a while since we had one!