TTC for 10 months and the rest! 10 plussers welcome! Thread 3 (the one where we all get our bfps!)

[lucieloos]

New thread ready for us chatty ladies! If you have been trying to conceive for over 10 months pop in and join us. We are a friendly bunch!

Hi all Am back in the uk now. Back to work

Lucie great news re strong line. Hurrah!

MPP those look like great test results. Can't help on the prolactin I'm afraid - can your doctor interpret for you?

Afm, I'll have a scan tomorrow and if the lining is looking suitably thin and I'm not oving naturally fat chance I'll start my progynova. If that happens I guess I'll be looking at transfer in a couple of weeks. Fingers crossed!

MPP I had a wobble with my prolactin too, it's not an issue until the number reaches the thousands I believe and it's only a recognised problem if it causes annovalatory cycles.

Bloody hormones.

MPP, I know high prolactin levels can prevent a couple from conceiving but it's pretty easily treated when identified. I think from your results though it sounds like they are saying it's been mis diagnosed as being high because of this interference so should be ok. Can you ring them to double check and query whether you need to get it retested? Your other results are brilliant you should have a nice number of eggs. Well done on sending the form off, the ball is well and truly rolling for you now!

Trixie, hope you've enjoyed some time off from the stresses of ttc. Really excited for you to get going again. I am booked in for another round of intralipids at 8 weeks which I will probably have and would consider 12 weeks as well but will see how things go. They don't do any harm and I would just rather be safe than sorry for the sake of £125.

Hi everyone, will catch up when at home, but wanted to give a quick wave

Thanks all. I've done further googling and I think i have a reason.

'Macroprolactin is a physiologically inactive form of prolactin found in a small proportion of people. It is in fact prolactin bound to IgG. Macroprolactin is important, as some laboratory assays will detect it as prolactin, leading to a falsely elevated prolactin result.'

'Normal' levels when the two kinds are mixed should be under 400. If my understanding is correct, when they get levels in the hundreds, it's usually to do with the different kinds of prolactin being mixed, so they test it again or later or something to determine if it's a high level of monomeric prolactin or if the two are mixed. If mixed, there's no problem because the macroprolactin is inactive, so as itsme said, it's only an issue if it's up in the thousands, and this seems to be confirmed by the note on my blood results. You learn something new every day.

And that concludes this episode of 'things you didn't know, didn't want to know and don't really care about' :) Still, maybe some confused Googler in the future will find this post and make some sense of it.

God, that was hard work! I'm off to write an essay on James Joyce that I should have started this morning instead of googling prolactin now.

Wow mpp that is impressively nerdy googling Does this mean you'll retest prolactin?

In breaking news the lab just called. 10 of our 20 frozen blasts have come back as chromosomally normal. So relieved. There's still a lot that can go wrong, of course, but we've potentially saved ourselves a lot of heartache doing transfers of blasts that were never going to make it.

Good old google

Yes, definitely better to be safe than sorry Lucie.

That's brilliant Stealth!

Hi all, Do you have room for one more? I've met a couple of you on other threads I think (pre IVF limbo and also a cry for help called Loneliness of ttc ...!) I'm 38, nearly 39, been actively ttc number 1 for 15 months, previous year before that taken up with endo surgery and recovery. All unexplained except for age and endo I suppose. Due to have IVF in June. It would be nice to have company in this shitty boat we're all in ... !

Wow stealth that is absolutely amazing news you must be over the moon!

MPP, definitely good googling. Sounds like everything is fine then.

Hi Rebecca, you're in great company here, everyone is very supportive and most in various stages of IVF.

Got my first scan booked in for 19th April eeekk. I'm going to be absolutely terrified when the time comes. We are both taking the day off.

Mpp every day is a school day in here, that's really interesting. Id actually like to know more about James Joyce though. So excited you've sent the form off. Do as much as you can well in advance - Ie get the prescriptions and drugs.

Trixie, that's a good count down to your cycle - your turn will come very soon.

Stealth - wow fab results :) did you get them tested because you thought you would have problems or just to ensure you only transfer the good'uns?

Rebecca welcome you could find a more knowledgable group of women than this!

Lucie hope you are ok.

Lucie thanks for asking. I had massive, curl up on the floor and scream, cramps early Sunday and since then my symptoms have disappeared. I'm trying not to worry but failing. Early scan booked for 2 weeks time.

Brenna - I don't know if this helps at all, tell me to shut up if not. we had Ivf. We had religious concearns about going through it but did it anyhow. Our big issue was about what happens to spare embryos, we chatted this through with the clinic and were reassured that we are very unlikely to have any embryos left that would be destroyed given that we were on relatively gentle stimms. we will transfer all the ones we created at some point. My DSIL isn't having ivf for religious reasons, it's a tough decision to make I respect you for deciding not to do ivf. Anyway I wanted to say that you are not alone in having concearns re ivf and if you want to have the moral discussion (I've had all of them in my head) you can pm me!

rebecca welcome. You're in good company here!

boris I think there are lots of people who have had bad cramps (something about the uterus stretching?). Fx your little bean is hanging in there

We did PGS as my doctor presciently thought that i would get a good number of eggs and also was going to be at sufficiently high risk of ohss that we were definitely going to do a freeze all, and therefore could do PGS without compromising a fresh transfer. Plus the cost (which was appallingly expensive due to having so many blasts - £4k or thereabouts) was covered by insurance, so no hard decisions to make there. No specific issues and all chromosome pairs have been tested which is good. I don't know how much feedback I'll get from the doctor about the ones that didn't make it (eg is there a specific translocation) but am glad we did it as 6 of the 10 that were abnormal were v good looking, top quality blasts so would have all been in contention to be selected for transfer had we not tested.

Thanks stealth. That's so interesting, it's amazing that good looking embryos can be so deceptive.

Boris, try not to worry although i know it's easier said than done. How far along are you now and what were your symptoms before? Like stealth said cramps are normal from all the stretching around your uterus.

My Dr said cramps were perfectly normal and just the uterus growing, and as long as there was no fresh red bleeding not to worry, and that it was fine to take paracetamol.

And yes you can't tell anything by appearance at all. We'll find out the results of the tissue testing but as most miscarriages are due to chromosomal abnormalities, it's likely that our AA blast wasn't genetically right.

Dr told us he didn't recommend PGS on a first cycle - so we didn't do it. We don't know why he recommended it to stealth and told us not to, but certainly something we plan to ask at our follow up.

Waves to Rebecca

Yes banana and I have been wildly speculating trying to analyse why the same doctor told me to do it and not her. We are the same age and our husbands are the same age so can't be anything to do with that. Will be interested to find out the answer!

Lucie I'm 5wk 6 and had been very tired and nauseous. You must be a week behind me?

Thank you all for the welcome. Good wishes to Boris - I always think the first few weeks/months after a BFP must be almost as hard as tww. I'm sure all is well though, fingers Xd.

Banana good luck with your test results and follow up meeting, hope they can give you some helpful info.

Do any of you very knowledgeable people know about the advisability of taking evening primrose oil? I want to take something for my horrendous PMS which really adds to the fun of infertility ... But I read somewhere that it was a bad idea in second half of cycle as it makes fertility gods angry stops implantation or something. Any ideas?

rebecca I had read that evening primrose can cause uterine contractions and was therefore not recommended in the 2ww. But not sure if that's actually true or not!

Oh I thought you were a good couple of weeks ahead of me Boris! I'm 4+3 so not too far behind you. I feel really well at the moment but maybe the nausea and tiredness will kick in next week.

I've been meaning to ask everyone what the thoughts are about staying on the thread when we have a bfp and talking about scans and symptoms and all that. I know this is a ttc thread but more an IVF thread than anything else and I know how hard it is and don't want to upset anyone so please don't be afraid to say. If you would rather no updates then please say and I can limit that to a thread elsewhere but still stay here to support you all on your journeys

And I'm taking an essay break already. This has not turned out to be the productive day I hoped.

Stealth, no I don't think I need a retest. From what I learned, they just retest the same sample before they give the results. That's fantastic news about your blasts! So pleased for you! Strange that you and banana have had different advice from the same person though.

Hi Rebecca! Glad you came to join us :) I read the same as Stealth, that it's not advisable to take in the tww. Also, I only tried it one month, up to ov, but that month I ov'd really really late. No idea if it was the epo, but I didn't try anything else different that month so I didn't take it again, and I've never ov'd that late since. Maybe it was just a coincidence that it just so happened to be the month of epo though.

Really excited for your first scan Lucie!! Not too long to wait, but I bet it feels like forever!

Boris I can imagine that's worrying for you. I'm sure it'll be fine, and as others have said, it's quite normal for cramps at this stage. I hope you are OK.

James Joyce and I are no longer friends. He's stopped being interesting and has become a pain in my arse. I'm hoping our previously amicable relationship will return once I've delivered the 2500 words I'm required to write.

Lucie I can't speak for everyone, obviously, but personally Im really interested in hearing all your updates and news, though after long time stalking lurking, ive seen other threads where people prefer not to have them and completely understand how difficult it can be. If the majority would prefer no updates, please let me know where you'll be updating so I can keep stalking up to date

Its really interesting to hear about your PGS results Stealth. Goes to show to an extent it really is just a numbers game.

Hi and welcome Rebecca. I also struggle with terrible PMS. I didn't really find evening primrose oil helpful. I cut back on sugar a while ago and found that that helped. I will probably be a nightmare this month though after putting away my body weight in chocolate at the weekend.

Sorry to hear about the cramping Boris, like Banana says though, without bleeding I would try not to worry. I hope the next 2 weeks go nice and quickly.

Good question Lucie, personally I really like hearing updates but do find too much talk of symptoms etc. a bit difficult at times - it's hard to know where to draw the line though. Maybe we should have a grads thread for most of the pregnancy talk.

I had to google who James Joyce was....how long have you got until you have to finish your essay MPP?

Ok so maybe it's best to just update on here if there is something major like a scan where we can say how it went but keep any of the other more general chat and info for another thread?

MPP, I'm not really updating anywhere else on mumsnet at the moment. I've had a look at the ante-natal boards but I don't feel ready to join them as it's very early days and also the majority of the ladies have had no problems conceiving. I have been chatting on the fertility friends boards as feel more at home there as its specifically for those who are pregnant after fertility treatment so we all have the same worries. I'll be on the Nov / Dec due date thread if you want to pop by. I will definitely be staying here as well though as want to be here until we all have our bfps and want to help you and star in Brno