Fabulous forty + ttc and having success!

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Old thread just about finished. Here is a new one... Fx for lots of well earned BFPs for those ttc over forty. We also welcome stories from those who have successfully had their babies over forty and we love hearing back from our graduates.

Thanks ABABS - fingers crossed for you this month x

Sorry she got you Matts. Don't be hard on yourself - we all do it every month, thinking - this could be the one. What is your history Matts - how old are you, how long have you been trying, have you had any mcs in that time? Sorry, it's probably on here somewhere, but I'm too lazy to scroll back!!
The witch is on her way to me too - I think she's in her taxi on her way to me. I can feel the familiar rumblings down there - will expect a full arrival by the weekend. So boring. What to do next? I am thinking about a hycosy (is that the right term?) - flushing out the tubes. For those who have had it - how did you get it? Did you go to your GP, or straight to a clinic, and therefore did you pay?

Sorry Mattsmamma, think af will show for me in the next few days but still deludely clutching to hope as we all do.

Joey - i had a hycosy privately in london last month, was £450. I can pm details of the clinic if you want. I just self referred.

Matts - sorry AF got you. Next time eh?

Ababs - are you gearing up for SMEP?

Joey - I went here for HyCoSy - paid £350, it was fine: Concept Fertility HyCoSy. But to coin a phrase, other clinics are available ...

Sorry matts I've been there every month - regardless of facts I still hope and test multiple times only to get af every time. I think when you want something this month it's only normal to cling onto any little thing that may indicate a dream come true!
2dpo here in last chance cycle before fet and counting the days til I can test again - bought some frer today lol

'Much' not 'month' !

KK - that is true. Hoping beyond hope - not such a bad thing although it does test one's sanity!! Good luck this month x

JOEY. In response to your questions - I am 46. Had ds1 at 37 and ds2 at 42 both times pregnant relatively quickly. Before ds1 i had my first miscarriage at 14 weeks - absolutely dreadful experience hence age gap before ds2 althougn longer age gap than i wanted because of a second miscarriege at 13 weeks and then chemicals. Had about 8 mc's in total all early apart from the 2 i have mentioned. I have hashimotos hypothyroid and after invesitgations was found to have immune issues. Therefore had to have steroids when pregnant with ds 2. I love them both dearly and they are my world. I would so love one more however this seems to be getting less likely as each month goes by but we will see . I cant bring myself to give up just yet! xx

Kmuppet - how are you doing? I hope you were able to do something special to remember Ruby Rose and it hasn t been too painful a time for you and your dh. Have been thinking of you. Fingers crossed for this month for you X

Mattsmamma - gosh you ve been through so much, so glad you ve got your lovely boys after enduring so many losses. While you still ovulate there s got to be hope, keeping fingers crossed for you too. Also your story gives me hope as i had ds at 36 and am now struggling for no 2 at nearly 41 with immune issues so will also be taking steroids if it happens and would be looking at a similar time frame re age gap. Did you take steriods for bfp with your ds2 or pre ov?

Abas - thinking of you too tomorrow. x

Hi ladies, may I join you? EagleRay kindly sent me a link to this group.
Becoming 40 tomorrow and in first month of TTC. And long distance from DH. I'm working abroad. Stressing about that and my new age of 40.
Hoping to get support from here, words of advice, and get success soon although I'm realistic about my age etc

Welcome Russkispy, you are a youngster compared to most of us! Best of luck to you, it must be hard ttc with a long distance relationship. Are you ttc your first or do you already have dc? Are you armed with opk's etc?

Joey I hope AF has a terrible accident before she gets to you this month. Fx for you.

Thanks Hula, it's a couple of weeks yet. Where are you in your cycle?

Mattsmamma wow, what a lot to go through. You are very brave ttc after multiple miscarriages, I'm not sure I would have the strength. Hopefully this is your month.

Chewy I'm 7dpo today. Smep never quite works for me as I don't always ovulate on the same day. We always end up having to do it several days on the run. Have you had any more discussions with your dh?

Kkmuppet I too hope you managed to do something nice and contemplative on the anniversary of losing Ruby Rose. You have my full admiration too

It's lovely to see everyone supporting each other so well on this thread. I'm sorry I don't always have much to contribute on some of the issues. As we haven't really had any investigative tests I am blissfully unaware of the many issues we could have aside from my advancing age...

TTC for baby #1, never had children before. In 2014 had 2 polyps in cervix, had a procedure done in Riga (grew up there). All my tests are in in IVF Riga clinic, procedures and consultations too. Even took my DH for his tests there and we got his sperm frozen there too. Also, my left tube was blocked, was given some tablets and next I know the tubes is open now! I've been OPK since 2015 and pretty regular with OV on CD13. Been away from DH is a nightmare in terms of fertile window. So going forward, there will be alot of thinking and logistics involved as how soon can I get out of Iraq to be in time for OV etc fingers and toes are crossed.
I'm taking loads of vitamins/supplements. I exercise, keep myself healthy. But totally aware of as to what to expect in terms of TTC, pregnancies, MC etc
I'm in CD6 and will be rushing home next week. Will keep you posted. And thank you for all your support in advance!

Welcome russ - I thought I was bad enough being in Dublin 3 days a week but Iraq!!
hula and ababs thanks. We were both surprisingly fine - I think for me I miss her so much every day that it didn't make much difference! We are going today to see her grave - it's a 3 hour drive from us so this was the first chance we've had.

Kkmuppet - - I hope it may be a little comfort in your sadness to be close to Ruby Rose today

Welcome Russ. I hope that you manage to get your timings sorted out and that you have success soon. I think at 40 you are relatively young on this thread, so I'm sure we will hear some good news from you very soon.
No nasty accidents for af I'm afraid - she arrived on my doorstep yesterday and is making herself at home. I was so hacked off yesterday. I just can't shake the feeling that there is something more to this than just my age. At the age of 40, it took me only 6 months to conceive. Even though that ended in a mc, I then conceived again 3 months later. It's not that long ago (ds is only 4), but in nearly 3 years of trying, I've literally had nothing. No mcs, no chemicals, no period later than 1 day. I find it hard to believe that there is no medical explanation for this. The trouble is that whenever I seen anyone medical about this, they just play the age card. I got myself all psyched up last night and decided that I was going to go and chat with my GP. I've got a new one since I last went to see a GP about this, so wondering whether they might have any new suggestions. But in the cold light of day today, I'm not sure exactly what I am expecting them to suggest. I've tried the IVF, so that door has closed. I don't want to do DE, so that's not an option. I could try the hycosy I suppose (thanks for the info by the way from chewy and hula). They can do it at the clinic I used for IVF for £400.
In some ways I really want to accept that it's not going to happen, but there's that bit of me yelling 'WHY????' and my logical brain can't quite accept that I literally am not having any eggs joining up with sperm. 2 rounds of IVF has proved that there are still eggs there, and DH's sperm is all good, so why isn't it happening????
Sorry for the rant - needed to get that out there!!

Oh Joey - I'm sure we can all empathise with your pain. Can I yell 'WHHHYYYYYYYYYYYYY ????' with you for a bit!

Perhaps the HyCoSy could be useful? Even if they find nothing, at least it's peace of mind and of course there's plenty of anecdotal evidence of conceptions after a flush out. Hope your new GP can help too, even just with updating some fertility tests - which may yet persuade you to have another crack at IVF?

But I know exactly what you mean about the age card. Two stupid examples:
(1) My periods stopped completely last year, but I definitely wasn't pg . Couple of doctor's shrugged and said what did I expect, at my age it must be the menopause. Luckily my endocrinologist is more enlightened, realised my Thyroid had become over-active for first time ever (pneumonia, bereavement, then rapid weight loss had changed my Thyroxine dosage requirement) and once that was sorted, my cycles went back to normal.

(2) Month after month of trying (and failing) to conceive naturally, even when U/S monitoring shows I'm ovulating each month. It must be down to my age right? Well maybe, but then we also find out that DP now has these antibody-wrapped sperm that couldn't get a 20 year old pregnant - not without ICSI. (Not that I'm suggesting he should experiment to find out! . Not whilst we have knives in the house!)

Joey - has your GP tested your Thyroid BTW? I am losing track of who's hypothyroid on this thread!
If you haven't been tested lately - it's worth doing. Thyroid function can definitely change - for example, my DSIL has just been diagnosed age 40, GP has put her straight on 100mcg daily.
Anyway, you probably know that even sub-clinical hypothyroidism (if TSH is say, between 2.5 and 5.5) can adversely affect your fertility. You don't need to have overt hypothyroidism (TSH >5.5) and physical symptoms for it to be causing a problem. And it's easily treated with one teensy daily tablet. Ask MattsMamma - I like to think I've just about understood the basics, but Matts is an expert!

Wellcome - Russkispy and wow that sounds like some serious logistics you ve got to navigate, hope you can work it out for the vital time. I m sure you re prob aware of it but just in case you re not, it s not ideal for men to 'save' the swimmers up for too long as it can affect sperm quality......so if you re only seeing him once a month it might be worth making sure he s aware of that too iykwim !

Joey - i Soooooo get what you re saying. Maybe its something about the insanity of being on this merry-go-round for nearly three years that does it but i keep thinking this too. There MUST be something else other than age so what the bloody hell is it and how do i fix it !! This month perfect cycle in terms of ewcm for 5days, good ov confirmed by scan, tubes cleaned and flushed, perfectly timed dtd every day for four most fertile days (no way one critter couldn t have made it), LP for 14 days and still Af shows her face (you d never have guessed...! . A year of immune modulating drugs also did bugger all (so if its that then i m buggered cos i m not popping steriods for 10 days every month again) and i found it nearly this hard at 35 to get pregnant with ds (took neay 2yrs). So something somewhere ain t working and my logical mind also struggles with not knowing what that is so at least if it s impossible i could just know and get on with the rest of my life.....If you ve got no underlying issue then i don t think age is the big barrier people make out (my friend of 40 ttc no. 1 fell in 3mns, sadly was an ectopic, but you hear of loads of 40 somethings falling in 3-6mns) however if you do have an issue and the infertility worlds main answer is to get round whatever this is with ivf (rather than finding and fixing it) then we come a bit unstuck as our eggs get more battered by this pretty harsh process and the odds then get stacked against us. Sorry had to join the rant !

So what to do ? .....just hang up my ovaries for good and kick back with a large GnT ? ......or maybe i should get my thyroid rechecked.....and maybe iron level...and i m sure there some supplements i haven t tried yet.....oh the schizophrenia of ttc...ahhhh !!!

Thank you Hula. we froze his swimmers for the plan B but really hoping that plan A, i.e naturally without your using the frozen stuff, happens fast enough for us.
The frozen swimmers are in Riga and when DH runs out of his allocated annual leave then either I'll be back in the UK or fly to Riga from work for an IUI. It might sounds confusing and alot to deal with for some but that's my story. Big sigh.

Joey - perhaps the hycosy will make things more clear for you!? I know it's expensive (and happy to chip in :-) )but anything to help resolve your infertility mystery.

I just wanted to stick my head in and say hi. I am 40 (nearly 41) and DH and I have been ttc number 3 for 6 years. In that time, I have only been pregnant twice and both ended in MMC after 9 weeks (due to abnormalities- the second one had trisomy 13). We have just had a failed IVF cycle, two perfect looking hatching blasts transferred but no dice. So our problem looks like doddery old eggs leading to crap embryos. That would be OK (ish) and we could try naturally in hopes of hitting the jackpot- but I also had two ectopics years ago (before DC2) and so have only one tube. I've also got a lot of abdominal adhesions I think and have no confidence that sperm and egg actually meet in any given month. Certainly sometimes when I ovulate on my "good " side it is tremendously painful. To add to all of this, my ovaries are polycystic (I had 37 follies in my lVF although far fewer eggs collected) and who knows if that is affecting quality. I'm gulping Q10, alpha lipoic acid, vit C and folate as though my life depended on it, and the docs have me on thyroxine too (as my TSH was 2.4 but they prefer to see 2.2 or lower).

Was reading last night something by Robert Winston suggesting that women over 40 have a less than 5% chance of a live baby from IVF, so that's cheery. It doesn't seem to fit with the clinic stats but maybe I am being naive. I am clinging to the fact that my family tree is littered with women having babies in their early 40s and hoping there is some genetic advantage there!

We had given up before, but then got pregnant by accident (well we weren't preventing but it seemed unlikely it would happen so no need, right?) and that reopened the door. The IVF was for closure so we'd have no regrets. We have 3 frozen blastocysts so may use those and then reassess. It is hard to give up, but I think may soon get to the point where it is harder to keep going. I truly dread the thought of another miscarriage, though. The last one was so cruel - I couldn't believe that an accidental pregnancy could go so horribly wrong, especially when the baby looked entirely normal on the three early scans I'd had.

for all of you. This is such a tough road, and is so hard to know the right thing to do.

Gosh Notspartacus sounds like you ve had a really rough time. It s incredible what some people have to go through to get their kids (and also incredible how some just pop them out without a second thought or complication). Sounds like if you ve got some frozen blasts then it would make sense to do a FET as i gather often these are more sucessful than fresh rounds but i understand the fear of more heartbreak if you had a mc.

We ve been ttc no 2 now for nearly 3yrs with a 9wk mc and maybe a couple of v early chemicals and i m starting to think about giving up but like you if we did i don t think i could bring myself to actually prevent and if a miracle happened and then got taken away like you that would seem all the more heartbreaking.

I hope you can come to a decision you are comfortable with and i m sorry you ve hard such a hard journey.

Welcome Notspartacus - totally agree with Hula on the frozen blasts, you are v lucky to have the option of FET.

Hula and Joey were saying recently that they suspect something other than advancing age is preventing pregnancy. I'm sure that's very often the case, although it's maddening when you fall into the 'unexplained' / as yet unidentified category.

Anyway, a few things struck me reading your post. No idea if any of this will help, but of course I hope so.

• 6 years is a VERY long time to be trying - really hard - but remember there's always examples of people succeeding. My BFF tried 7 years, two failed IVFs, then two kids post 40 (one ICSI, one surprise), go figure.

• Er, age 40/41 is really NOT OLD! My mum did it in the 1970's, that sibling is now a GP. I conceived my DD first go age 43. I know - I've counted often - SEVEN others in RL who've had kids at 43, without 'help' (including two total accidents who sought termination counselling). I run out of examples at my own advanced age, I'm afraid (although anyone who might have any, please share!).

• As regards TTC naturally you're battling against only having one tube, so zero chance when you ovulate from that side, which might be more than 50% of the time; I don't think it strictly takes turns each side - mine doesn't anyhow, from U/S scans. Also you'll know PCOS can give you anovulatory cycles too.

• You queried whether PCOS can impact quality and what I understand is that it can do massively. Have you heard of Inofolic? It's a daily supplement that can really help. You can buy it online. I noticed leaflets at an IVF clinic I went to recently, so they were obviously recommending it, although I don't have PCOS, so it's not relevant to me. I've also just found a lot of information online from another IVF clinic, MFS, who are obviously very keen on it - they're a good clinic who, for example, were at the vanguard of egg freezing/vitrification techniques, although they refused to treat me as I'm over 44, the bstrds. Anyway, here's some links:

- inofolic.org.uk - midlandfertility - Inofolic for PCOS - midlandfertility - pdf download - Inofolic for PCOS - midlandfertility - pdf download - PCOS ultra low-carb diet plan

• If your FET doesn't work, I'd take Inofolic, maybe continue TTC naturally for a short while to given it chance, then back to IVF. THIRTY SEVEN follicles is ludicrous, I've never heard of so many! Isn't that OHSS? But given that it's a numbers game, you've certainly got the numbers!

Hope everyone else is OK?

For me, I guess I'm just trying to distract myself. I've definitely had the lowest, darkest fortnight in my TTC history. It's certainly in the balance now, whether I'll sink or carry on ...

Sorry to hear about it all , Chewy!
I, on the other hand, Was made redundant yesterday and just landed in the Blighty! And now it's all about DTD and TTC for a baby #1! No Iraq or work related issues and stress involved! Hopefully it will be positive before I know it!

Quick update from me, I'll try and post properly later. Ds is resisting naps so I no longer get my nice quiet after-lunch break!

I'm about 11/12 dpo today I think. I caved and tested on 10 dpo, not fmu but it was an early test from the opk kit. Bfn so not expecting anything this month, AF should be due in the next day or two.

Chewy so sorry things are still crap for you. Have you discussed further?

Russ sorry about your redundancy. I hope you can dtd at the right time and are successful this month.

Hula it couldn't hurt to get things re-tested just to be sure.

NotSpartacus what an awful time you've had of it. I'm sorry for your losses. It's horrible when you mc after a positive early scan, the same thing happened to me last year. As others have mentioned you are young though so don't need to think about giving up yet. I conceived my DS at 41. I wish you the best of luck whatever you decide to do.

And this is my 5th cycle ttc after the mc. Am getting fed up!

Thanks everyone for the welcome . I once joined a long running thread on fertility friends and it promptly died, so am always a bit wary of joining a new one, just in case!!

russkispy a bit more than 7 years ago I was made redundant and was preg with DD2 within 2 weeks (after 2.5 years of trying, ectopics, chem preg etc etc). Fingers crossed that it has the same effect for you!

Chewy thanks for your thoughts on my ramblings. I have the WTF appointment with the clinic next week and will ask them about PCOS and infolic. I don't have a PCOS diagnosis and don't have any symptoms other than the over-production of follies but maybe it will help. Funnily enough I didn't get OHSS, maybe because of some drugs they gave me but maybe also because I didn't get pregnant. It's lucky either way, was very scared of OHSS.

Hula2 I agree with what you say about age. I have a friend who just got pregnant on her first attempt aged 38 (my last "easy" conception was at 33). The thing is, she'd never tried before so her plumbing hadn't taken a bashing from birth, c sections (which I blame for a lot of my problems), IVF, miscarriages, etc. So while the docs can point to my age as the problem, actually everything changed with the emcs birth of dd2 when I was 34. She was my 4th pregnancy in a year. Now I am lucky to get one in 3 years!

ababsurdamum sorry for your BFN. Better luck next month.