TTC for 10 months and the rest. Ten plussers welcome. Thread 2.

[lucieloos]

We have been so busy chatting I've started a new thread. Welcome all 10+ ladies. Hope we all have some luck on this thread.

Cross posted with Lucie!

Male factor for us is 29.4mil 23% progressively motile and 3% normal morph.

Very similar to yours star! My DH swears he didn't get it all in the sample when the results came back (so they must be wrong..!) but when he did it he swore blind that he did in fact get it all... I think it's really tough on him. He is a mans man and he has a trillion siblings, I never know what to say because it really doesn't matter. I married him not his future children but interestingly he is totally against doner if it ever came to that. Oh well, I'm currently enjoying his new found vigour in trying to get us pregnant. He went off the boil a bit when he thought my tubes were blocked!!

Ah, sorry Star, I forgot about your mf question. I can't remember exact numbers off the top of my head, but I know his count was under 2 million both times, his motility were fine but they couldn't test morphology because there weren't enough in the sample. We're booking a retest in March to see if the fertilaid has helped at all.

Hi ladies

Hope you’re all well

Boris excited for you, it’s really not long now, yay!

star hugs for AF. I don’t know specifically about Proxeed, but I know individual supplements can be really effective for MF (high dose vit C, zinc, selenium, CoQ10 -there’s a whole chapter in It Starts with the Egg about supplements for sperm improvement)

Mpp sorry about AF but very excited about your upcoming wedding and honeymoon - hope you’re planning something fabulous

itsme the aiming in the pot is I think a bigger problem than we think! My DH had a great sample with olympic swimmers but volume is very low so I think it doesn’t matter what the issue is, they feel a lot of male pride about it. But as you say, we don’t marry someone for their fertility - I know I’ve felt completely rubbish because I’ve felt so betrayed by my body, as though the one thing I’m supposed to be able to do, I can’t - it certainly made me feel less of a woman, so can only imagine what it’s like for the blokes where it’s so bound up psychologically with virility.

lucie hope you’re well and gearing up for your NHS cycle. Very smart of you to have your private cycles abroad so you could still get an NHS funded cycle

Hopefull welcome - these ladies are so knowledgeable and really welcoming. Echoing Lucie, it’s quality over quantity all the way. There’s no reason one of those 5 might not be the golden egg

Not much to report here, I don’t feel particularly pregnant!! My third blood test showed hCG levels rising nicely,so now it’s just a question of twiddling my thumbs until my viability scan a week on Tuesday (23rd Feb), when all being well I’ll be 7+1, eek!! I’m massively struggling without all my pain meds, as I’ve been on a whacking great dose of morphine for over 14 years, so OTC co codamol isn’t doing a huge amount for my pain control. Saw the maternal medicine specialist who confirmed I deffo couldn’t have anything stronger in the first trimester, and put us on red alert for my epilepsy, as the danger zone is the first trimester - the chances of me having a seizure go up by as much as a third, but the Drs don’t want to increase my dose unless / until there is an indication that I need it (i.e. if I have a seizure) because of the increased risk of birth defects from higher doses.

Good news is that he will hopefully now be able to treat me on the NHS - as once the GP refers me to the hospital where he is part of the antenatal team, I will be in the system, and will be referred to his obstetric neurology specialist clinic.

I was really reluctant to see the GP and get a referral for antenatal, as it feels incredibly presumptuous to think I will get to 12 weeks at all. But DH says it’s crucial it's all logged with the GP, and that we have to assume I’m pregnant unless we have good reason to think otherwise.

Hope you ladies have lovely weekends

Xx

Morning ladies, I'm home!
Will read through and catch up between unpacking and washing this morning.

I have the morning off as my meds are being delivered today! Xx

Hi everyone.

fruitbat any sign of AF? Have you got your baseline scheduled?

Star and mpp sorry for AF.

Star - not sure what DHs results where, they have varied massively though. His volume has always been low which I think affects the validity of the results. Catching his jizz in a cup must be pretty tricky!

hopeful I don't have any advice but will hold your hand on this journey, my 1st ivf cycle should be starting soon.

banana thinking of you. Go log your pregnancy with the gp. I agree with your DH, you need to get it recorded.

sammy welcome back, how exciting, hope your drugs come ontime.

Hi Sammy, glad you've had a good holiday!

Boris, how long until you get started? Do you have all your meds sorted now?

Banana, great news on your bloods and good luck with the viability scan.

Welcome to the thread Hopeful, I hope your egg collection went ok. I echo what the others said, it really is quality over quantity.

Welcome back Sammy, hope you're feeling refreshed and raring to go after your break.

Sorry for AF Star, it is so hard not to get your hopes up

Good news about being able to be treated on the NHS now Banana, good luck for your scan next week.

Got my results for the immunology blood tests Dr. G recommended and they are within normal range so feeling really pleased. Going to drop a copy in at the hospital tomorrow and see if they have any cancellation appointments.

Hi lucie, I start taking drugs on Friday probably. Af due on Thursday.
Can I ask a realy dumb question about transfer days, how do you calculate the day 5 transfer? If Egg collection was Monday would transfer be Friday or saturday? Is it day 5 or 5 days later?? Really stupid question I realise I just can't work it out dumb blonde

Boris not a stupid question! EC is day 0 and so if EC is Mon day 5 is Saturday. It's like ovulation - think of EC as ovulation day and then Sat would be equivalent to 5dpo xx

Thanks banana! That's how I was working it out but DH assumed it would be one day less....

Thank you everyone, holiday was fab. Although now that I'm back at work it's starting to feel like a distant memory!

So, my boss's daughter had had a baby, and she will not stop showing me the pictures. Even though she knows our situation. And on top of that she told me a colleague is going to be away for a few days and I said 'oh, well that's likely to be when I'll need some time off' and she looked at me like I was insane and said 'well that's not going to work, you'll have to make sure it's not the Wednesday' I was like 'it's not that simple, and anyway I did tell you in January that it would be around then' Gahhhhhhh!
She later apologised, but still.

Sorry to moan, hope everyone's ok?

Trixie - glad your results were all clear!! Fx for your next round now.

Banana - how are you doing? Xx

Boris, wow it's close now! Very exciting! Glad banana was able to help with your question.

Trixie, that's great that your other immune tests were clear. Hopefully some steroids and intralipids with your next treatment and you will be fine.

Sammy, good to have you back. Sorry about work sweetie it's so hard. At the moment 2 of the men I sit right next to have wives who are expecting. One is due next week and they talk about it a lot but my heart sunk today when I found out one of the other guys who sits on the next groups of desks over had also announced his wife is expecting. They are all on their 2nd or 3rd children. It's just so hard and there's times I think this is never going to happen for me so I know how you feel.

In other news I have been in touch with the private fertility clinic I use in the uk for my scans. I want to have intralipids for my NHS cycle but I know because I've had no testing and only one failed transfer they won't give it to me. My Czech clinic however gave me a letter when I was planning a frozen transfer with them which states that I need intralipids as part of my treatment plan. I've sent this to the clinic in the uk in the hope they will accept it and I can plan to have the intralipids with them for my NHS cycle. I'm panicking a bit now though that I will get found out or something

Thanks Lucie, sorry about your work too.
I wish sometimes that I could just leave, but the thought of no pay for over a year terrifies me!

Fx they accept the letter from Czech. Surely you can just say you had some tests with them as they were cheaper? How many private goes can you have before you lose your NHS entitlement? Xx

I could only have one private go, if I had 2 then means I would only get one round on the NHS and then more than 2 would mean nothing on the NHS but that's the beauty of going abroad I guess as they don't know anything about it, well, I've told them I had one go as thought some info might help them decide what to do with me next. My NHS treatment is done in the local hospital and not in the private fertility clinic that I have been using for scans so it doesn't really matter if they know ive had a few tries abroad but I'm not telling them about my NHS treatment just incase so as far as they are concerned I want these intralipids for a frozen treatment abroad whereas really I will be using them on my NHS go so I'm a little worried about that. All very complicated!!

Hello all!

Banana, lovely to hear you're doing OK, and great news about being treated on NHS. Good luck for your scan on Tuesday! :)

Glad you had a good time Sammy, though sorry to hear about work. It must be horribly difficult

Boris, I hope af arrives when she's supposed to, so you can begin your drugs on time! So exciting, and it seems to have come around so fast! Fx for you!

Glad to hear about the blood tests Trixie! That must be a relief for you! :)

Lucie, that does sound complicated, but I'm sure it will work out fine. Sorry to hear about your baby bombs in work too. It must be bloody hard

Hope everyone else is OK!

No real news from me. CD 8 so will be po ov sticks soon, and temping has recommenced. Also booked another SA for DP in mid March to see if there's any improvement, but in general our plan is still to start the ball rolling for ivf abroad as soon as we get back from honeymoon.

Does it depend on the no of cycles your cycles fund as to how many private cycles you can have before your NHS allowance is affected? I live in one of the better London boroughs where they fund a whopping two cycles - but most fund one. It's academic for me as I wasn't eligible for NHS funding before we had our private cycles, and with my ovarian reserves the NHS wouldn't have funded me anyway. But I thought in many CCGs where one cycle is funded, one private cycle and you forfeit your right to NHS funding? Bloody postcode lottery!!

*your CCG funds. Not how many cycles your cycles fund!!

Ignore me I've checked the CCG rules and in London at least they say you don't forfeit your NHS funding in boroughs that fund one cycle as long as you've not had more than two self funded cycles. My GP got confused! So ignore all my waffle!!

Banana, we are entitled to 2 full rounds of treatment and unlimited frosties in my area. I think most ccgs allow you to top up to 3 cycles with private. So for instance because I get 2 attempts on the NHS I could only have one private treatment before it affects my NHS entitlement. However if in my area we only got one NHS round then I would be allowed to have 2 private attempts.

That's pretty insensitive of your boss Sammy. I take it you'll be able to have the days off that you need, if you asked first surely that should take priority.

Yep, hopefully intralipids and pred will do the trick Lucie. The baby talk at work must be really tough. Do you know when you may hear back from the clinic about intralipids? Are there any other clinics you could try? I got the impression from my clinic that if I pushed for intralipids even without the NK cell result then they may well have given them to me. It sounds like its not uncommon to have private immune treatment alongside NHS treatment - Dr G didn't bat an eyelid - and Banana's friend had her treatment alongside NHS treatment. I am sure it will all work out ok.

FX for an improvement MPP!

Thanks trixie, the clinic rang me today and offered me a date to have the intralipids done but it's too late as would only be 3-5 days before transfer and ideally it's meant to be 7-10 days. The nurse is going back to the doctor to see if they can do it any earlier and will get back to me tomorrow. I didn't want to mention to the private clinic that I'm having NHS treatment as they know I've had 4 private treatments as I've had all my scans with them and therefore know I wouldn't be entitled to the NHS treatment so I'm pretending I'm going out to Czech for a frostie but I'm worried that when I go for the intralipids they will ask if I've had my lining scan and will I be having that done with them etc etc. I'm useless at lying about things. I really want to get the intralipids done though. I think the only other option is to go to the West Midlands which will take about 2.5 hours each way and is twice the price so ideally I need my local clinic to do it.

FX they can do the intralipids a bit earlier Lucie, private clinics are usually fairly flexible. Hmm that's a tough one re them asking about scans.
I wonder whether your cycles would all qualify as cycles for the purposes of eligibility since you only had transfer once. Really you've had one cycle and then you've been egg banking.

Yes I thought that trixie but I think theoretically they could tell me I have to use my frosties first and then if they don't work it will have pushed me over the number of cycles anyway. Ahhh none of this is easy.