Hello everyone,
May I join you, or at least drop in to ask some advice?
I've been on MN a while, chatting about this and that but am using a different log-in for this, as it is that bit more personal.
In essence, I feel I've been incredibly naive and complacent and have just fallen back to earth with a bump, with the realisation that it is almost certainly too late for me now, to conceive a second child. I'm wondering what, if anything, might make any difference.
At 43.6 I think I'm well into peri-menopause, which started when I was 40.3 with shortened cycles - went from v reliable 26-28 days to 21-22, then, all over the place, with a mixture of long pauses and short cycles.
I have a 4yo dd, conceived and born while I was 38 (a delight and of course my position is very different to those without dc and who have lost them, to whom 
).
I'd had a pg three months earlier, ending as a MMC at ten weeks. Followed by one period, then conception. We hadn't been trying before that, so my impression was that I conceive fairly easily.
Stupidly, given my age, we didn't start trying again until dd was 1.10, me 40.9. I was experiencing 3 month cycles then - which I saw as perhaps giving me more chances! Was pg again within two months but ended in a MC at 11.5 weeks and it transpired it was 'tissue' not a foetus.
Took two months after that before next period, as had to restore iron levels. Five months later pg again, MC at 7 weeks. Then pg three months later, saw moving foetus in scan at 10ish weeks, MC a week later at 11.5 weeks by when I was 42.2
Saw consultant at recurrent MC clinic four months after that. DP and I both had blood tests, all fine. Her conclusion was it was just a numbers game; time ticking, higher chance of MC but just to keep trying and she thought we had a good chance of success. Prescribed 5mg folic acid.
I'd seen my GP in the year when I was 40 and periods first went awry. Had blood tests and a scan, was told all fine and it was 'just something that happens as you get older'. What no-one said was 'blatant symptom of peri-menopause, which means likely menopause in 3-4 years' (as Google has now informed me). So that's like, now.
Things have been very erratic over the last year, with more gaps. No new pgs. So, now thinking that might be it, the end.
So, what I'd really like advice on, is what drugs or treatments might be a possibility, to scare out any last remaining eggs. I've made a GP appointment.
The whole realm of 'treatment', even timing and measuring, or adjusting lifestyle, has been outside my experience to date. I can always feel very clearly when I'm fertile, (though could have missed any that didn't feel obvious perhaps), so we've just got on with it.
This will sound ridiculous, it is but I have put on a bit of fat around the middle recently and heard a programme this week about the causes of middle-aged spread - drop in oestrogen. Penny dropped. Looked up peri-menopause. Bollocks. I'd always thought I 'knew' that menopause was around 50 (average 52, yes) and, that if you started periods early, you reached MP late, if later, earlier. I started at 12 (quite early when I was that age) so thought I'd reach MP lateish. Of course I knew fertility declines and risk of MC goes up but was still a bit optimistic. Not so now.
Sorry that was very long and thanks in advance for any advice.