TTC after recurrent miscarriage

[LisaSimpsonsbff]

Hi, just wondering if anyone else was in a similar place to me and wanted to chat about it? I'm 30, TTC my first and have had three miscarriages, all early (two natural MCs at five weeks, then a MMC where a scan at 6+5 revealed development had again stopped at 5 weeks). I've had RMC tests and am just waiting on the results of that but hoping to be able to TTC again from my next period, which should come any day now. I've found throughout the whole thing (have been TTC just over a year now) that it's really helped me to chat with people in similar positions, so if anyone wants to be TTC buddies please let me know!

Keep - that sounds like quick recovery, glad you are feeling well enough for a run.

Hello Sugar. Sounds like you have had a tough year. I agree about the fear of ttc but also couldn't bear not to try again.

Academic contracts / insecurity sounds like extra uncertainty but also interesting working with different people / places and good for learning. I've worked at same place since uni! I'm definitely overly settled there.

Miami - sounds like a good balance of vits. I was recommended magnesium for leg cramps, but reading about it I discovered it is also good ttc and when pregnant. You could add that to the mix.

Yes I think we're quite often switched too.

Yes I was told folic acid just gets excreted in your wee if you have too much.

Yes magnesium reduces cramping, I was given it with my first miscarriage, obviously it didn't help! But nice to feel like I was doing something. B vitamins of all kinds are supposed to be good. There's some preliminary research about B6 but it's not officially recommended yet so we don't know in what dose it's okay to take.

I'm sorry foxtrot but hoping the cramping doesn't mean what you think - when is AF due? For what it's worth OPKs did teach me that my ovulation doesn't line up nearly as well with my fertile mucus as I would have assumed, so it might be helpful in timing. Of course, even when your timing is perfect there's still a less than 50% chance of pregnancy, which is the most frustrating bit of all of this.

Vitamin-wise, I take pregnacare (pregnancy, not conception - the ones that come with omega-3) and ubiquinol. It costs a sodding fortune, though!

My latest worry is my diet, and whether I'm giving myself wildly fluctuating blood sugar and that's messing things up. I tend to go relatively long periods without eating - I often don't first eat in a day until 4 or 5pm and sometimes - and this is my worst habit - I have something sweet not as an occasional add-on, but instead of lunch. I know it's not good, but I find it hard to get myself organised enough to take my packed lunch into work (I know, it's not exactly rocket science!) and then I end up grabbing a coffee and a slice of cake at 4pm to keep me going rather than eating proper, nutritious meals. I've always been more careful when I've known I'm pregnant, but I guess if I do have spiking blood sugar it might be doing damage before then. So I am going to try to eat proper meals!

BFN for me too at 13DPO. I have mixed feelings, disappointed obviously but I'd already decided to take the next 2 cycles off (can't face another christmas pregnant and in and out of the EPU) so it's nice to think I can actually make plans for the next 2 months. We're going to go on some sort of adventure holiday, something that I definitely would not be able to do if pregnant!
I think blood sugar can be important Lisa, I try hard not to eat too much sugary stuff but it doesn't always work. I do force myself to eat breakfast though - I take my many vitamins straight after and imagine they absorb better with food. Just made that up I think though!
I take high dose folic, ubiquinol, vit E, high strength D3 and B12. Miami definitely don't worry about the extra folic in your multivit, I am on 5mg a day (compared to the 0.4mg in a normal pill) and dr said it's fine to take the extra pregnancy vitamin on top of that.

Sorry about the BFN, caramella.

I take them because someone else who had miscarriages at the same time as me on Mumsnet told me her doctor said they were the best ones to take (it was Dr Shehata, who seems to be a really popular - and astonishingly expensive - choice of private miscarriage doctor), which is hardly compelling evidence, I know! I've just looked and they're very, very similar to the conception ones so I don't think there's much in it either way. It's quite convenient to have the omega-3 in the same packet, but it would probably be cheaper to buy them separately.

I also have DH on a fairly strict vitamin regimen! He takes a multivitamin including zinc and selenium, flaxseed oil and ubiquinol. I suggested he take the multivitamin three months after we started TTC, and three months after that I started getting pregnant, which is probably just coincidence but has made us both a bit superstitious about them! He does also think he's picked up fewer bugs since he's been taking the vitamins.

@LisaSimpsonsbff
I have those pregnacare ones in the cupboard. Along with three packs of normal pregnancy ones, I just found that they really didn’t agree with me when I was pregnant (they have iron in which I just can’t seem to stomach at all). Will give them a whirl maybe next week and see how I get on with them. Happy to post them on if they don’t work for me.
My acupuncture lady definitely thinks spikes in blood sugar aren’t great. She gave me a handout with the low gi stuff on. Which is quite simple really and when I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes I started back on that and it seemed to be controlling blood sugar quite well. Can take pics and pm to you if you wish. I also did gf for the first 12-14 weeks with Eilidh. I know that it might sound mental to be giving advise based on a pregnancy that ended in stillbirth but she was the furthest I had ever gotten and she is all I have to base things on.
I spent £30 on vitamins yesterday and that doesn’t even include the ubiquinol! And I will be going back to acupuncture and reflexology but that is mainly because they do calm me down quite a bit, and I did find the acupuncture quite healing after the last mc. It all costs money but at this stage I just think fuck it, we have money saved and if it helps salvage our sanity we should spend some of it.
I have the dreads of Christmas, it was our due date with Eilidh and last year I was just recovering from my second mc. I am having a complete fuck my life moment about Christmas to be honest. I normally love it too.
But I think I will try and focus on Anne’s advice from previous post. I need this time to heal mentally and physically so I think we might try and organise a few nice things to do over Christmas. And just try and not have every day be a fml day. I can’t believe how quickly time is moving. I need to stop thinking that today I should be xx weeks pregnant, I don’t think it is doing my mental health any good.
Sorry for bfn caramella we took a break during last Christmas from the ttc and just really tried to enjoy our time together as a couple. I think it really helped us heal from the mc’s in that I just ignored temping and opk’s and various other things and just really focussed on each other and life outside the ttc bubble. I do find that when we lose sight of each other the ttc side of things gets difficult and we can be quite snarky with each other.

AF came but not really a surprise as I've been spotting for three days.

Feeling quite positive and almost like this waiting may have a purpose today. A lady in the BT facebook group mentioned that she was having a Percept NIPT test done, which is currently only available in Australia and it came back clear for her which was lovely to read. So I was reading up about these and this one in particular is really new and works for all translocations, which actually gives me some hope for now. All of these changes in the science/technology are happening so fast and it kind of makes me think that the waiting will have been worth it if it means we have access to better information.

I do think I need to get DH back on the vitamins. I'm sure he was taking them the first few months when we conceived easily.

Oops, that was me posting above as Carabella - changed back to old username to post on an old thread and then got distracted by this one . Confused today as temp usually plummets on 14dpo and AF starts but instead it has gone way up - I'm now googling all the "late BFP" stories. I am ridiculous!

We've come up with an amazing holiday plan though so as soon as AF arrives, we're booking!

Hope everyone is doing ok today xx

Ooh intriguing scary! I'm at the docs because I've got a uti again. I thought it had gone but apparently not, so antibiotics it is. Sigh.

Oh, rubbish Bertie, hope the antibiotics kick in quickly.

Miami the vitamins cost a ridiculous amount! I alternate ubiquinol with CoQ10 which keeps the cost down a little bit but they all add up. Sometimes I think about how much I have spent on acupuncture in the last 2 years and it horrifies me. Like you say though, it's one of the only things that helps me so it's worth it.

So sorry about the UTI, bertie - I'm quite prone to cystitis and it really is a pain, in every sense.

Scary I did think 'oh, this caramella person hasn't introduced herself, just dived right in, slightly odd!'. Fingers crossed that temp stays up and this is good news for you!

I was a bit pathetic last night. Friend's girlfriend has just had baby (first month trying, natch) and I sent another friend a text asking him to send a message round to organise a group present - I really thought someone should and I'm normally the one who tends to set that sort of thing going, but I just couldn't face organising it myself and looking at baby stuff. My brother's baby is due any day now and I won't be able to get out of it for that, and I felt I just couldn't face it for this one too. Friend was nice about it and this way I can just give money and forget about it.

Oh Miami I think it would be impossible to stop yourself thinking about how many weeks pregnant you should be. It is so horribly unfair that you aren't still pregnant. I still do it for time to time with my last pregnancy and it is over 5 months since my MC. Maybe just try and acknowledge it each day somehow? Please be kind to yourself.

I was totally wondering who Carbella was too!

Lisa you are not pathetic. I am also one of life's organisers and generally DH and I are responsible for arranging group get togethers. I think if there is someone else who can do a job which would be difficult for you then why not. And well done you for asking them to rather than just grinning and bearing it.

I need to get myself back on some folic acid. I did take Pregnacare conception for a while but I always spot for a few days before AF and for some reason when I was on it the spotting would start a week before. Went back to bog standard folic acid and it settled back down. I'm taking Ubiquinol too. I ordered some online from Woods recently and they had a 3 for 2 offer so it was a bit better. But as you say, if it helps it'll be worth it.

Haha, sorry for the confusion - you are all very nice to have replied even though you had no idea who my alter ego was!

Not pathetic at all Lisa. I just remove myself from any pregnancy/baby related situation these days, or at least as much as I can. Not always easy but you need to look out for yourself, there is no point doing something you will find upsetting or that makes life harder than it is. Buying baby presents definitely fits into those categories. My new-baby-present these days is flowers and chocolates so I don't need to go anywhere near the cute baby clothes and toys.

MIL, brightly, in the middle of today's pub lunch, out of absolutely fucking nowhere: 'Oh, by the way, my friend Jane said that cat litter can cause miscarriages!'. DH valiantly tried to explain that a) it's toxoplasmosis, not the litter itself b) that it can't possibly cause repeated miscarriage and c) that I haven't touched the litter trays since we started TTC. I just gazed silently into my pearl barley risotto, but wtf?! Why did she think that was an ideal titbit of information to share over lunch?!

Hi guys
I hope you don't mind I've had one m/c but I've just been no where near as brave as you all to try again ! But thought i would share this about a girl who was at my school who was in the local paper

I love pearl barley, good choice! And what a pointless, stupid, thoughtless thing to share. Some people... Glad DH handled it. Does she often come out with tripe like that?

Hope your UTI is on the way out and you're feeling okay Bertie.

Glad you're bearing up Miami. I'm not in any way suggesting painting your nails or taking a walk is going to heal your pain, of course not, but there's a lot to be said for feeling like you're looking after yourself, even just the little things. In the wake of my mmc I made a point to myself of taking nice baths and making myself get up, putting a good book by the sofa in case I felt like diving into something, and checking in with nice friends.

Nothing to report here, got busy few days with the DSC for half term, then a nice night away next weekend just us which coincides with FF predicted ov day. Going to follow the age old advice of having a few drinks and a lot of sex .

And I agree with keepon, Lisa, you have to do what you need to minimise the pain of other people's new arrivals. It was a thoughtful sensible plan to contact someone to arrange gifts. And I hope your brother and SIL are sensitive about theirs. Take care of yourself first x

Thanks Anne - really annoyingly the Facebook chat my friend started to discuss presents has seemed to grind to a halt, so I think I'm going to have to get involved to kickstart it again...

MIL is a funny one, it all sorts of ways - she means really, really well but can be a slightly difficult person. She had to have a TFMR very late on in a pregnancy before she had DH, so I think she (understandably) struggled to sympathise much with the first miscarriage because it was so early ('so really just like a late period', she said to DH - which I wish he hadn't told me!), but now that it's happened twice more I think she is quite worried for us. I think she probably did mean well - I'm sure her idiot friend did tell her that it was because of cat litter, and I guess she felt morally bound to pass it on before we lost any more! - but it was just so ill-timed and oddly put.

Glad that you have a nice weekend away to look forward to, and hope the DSC don't wear you out too much! I was hoping to take a couple of days off while DH was on half term but I think it's now looking like work is too busy for that, boo!

Hi All,
I’ve never actually written on a forum before today. I am currently going through my 3rd m/c found out on Thursday so I am playing the waiting game, to see if my body will do it naturally.

I do have a beautiful DS who is 2, but now 3 m/c in a year. Don’t know what’s going on with me. I will be referred for testing now.

Don’t know how mentally I will feel about TTC again, this last pregnancy I wasn’t hopeful and felt very robotic about it.

Glad I’ve found somewhere I can talk about it as we have kept our losses fairly quiet.

So sorry for your losses kimmi

There's a lot of support on the miscarriage board on MN for people going through this which you might find helpful.

A few of us have had RMC testing and it varies a lot across the country.

Everyone feels differently about how much they choose to share. I've shared some but not all of my mcs with friends and family and real life support can be hugely helpful if there is anyone you can open up to. The miscarriage association has a number you can call too to discuss options. Look after yourself.

I've never been able to get on board with pearly barley although I do like the idea of it. I just find it a bit tasteless and chewy.

Sorry for your losses Kimmi. I hope you find some support here.

Not much to report from me. Starting to get impatient now and want to get back on with TTC. DH is in uproar because one of his friends got engaged on Friday and is planning to get married in December. He was engaged to someone else at the start of the year! Anyway, the weekend their getting married is when we were planning to have our annual Christmas party. And it'll be in Cardiff and we live in the North East. I think it is quite good that he has got someone else's dramas to occupy himself with!

I hope everyone has had a good weekend.