TTC 35+ Thread 6 Cougar and Silver Fox Club

[M4v3r1ck]

Hey ladies, setting up a new thread! 😃 Hope it works! 🤪

Totally understand the devastation and rollercoaster ride every single month. It's been a good two years for us now, and a stressful two years (for other reasons as well). And we sold and bought a house in that time!

But, we are all here believing the same thing and trying out best.

Love and best wishes to you all 💜

Ps: @Pamparam silverback crying is a thing! 🤣

@Pamparam a primate cry actually sounds like it might be quite therapeutic! Maybe we should all try that! ☺️

@thislittlebird @Misty84 @TTCat39 it's so hard isn't it. Making the decision to start a family must be one of the biggest decisions a person can make in life, and then having made that momentous decision to then have zero control over when it will happen (or as my thoughts are turning to more and more, "if" it will happen) is just so hard. It's so difficult to not feel like life is in complete limbo until we can move forward with this, especially in lockdown where there is literally nothing else to do or think about, and nothing in the diary to be looking forward to in the future.

@Geriatric1234 thank you for your positivity! We all appreciate you being here to lift our spirits while we are all feeling a little bit sorry for ourselves today! ☺️

@Kitekat81 Could not agree more!! It consumes everything when there’s nothing else to take our minds off it.

I’m so glad I’ve found this group. Was previously on another TTC thread where everyone was in early 20s moaning after trying for 3 months. It used to just irritate the hell out of me!! 🤪🤬

Oh ladies, I wish I could give you all massive squeezy hugs! No one should apologise for "bringing down the thread"! It's why it's here! 😘 😘😘 Everything's better out - from emotions to farts!!! And tits!!! 🤣🤣🤣 @Geriatric1234 I loved that so much!!! 🤣🤣🤣

I can completely relate to the feelings of fear, devastation, etc, especially now during all this lockdown craziness when we don't have our usual "life things" taking up time. As you said it perfectly @Kitekat81 it's such a huge decision that pretty much relies on chance! Terrifying for a control freak like me! 🤦🏻‍♀️ I keep reassuring myself with "the universe wants me to have a child when lockdown is over, so I can properly enjoy it"! 😃

I'm definitely all for primate crying - it sounds ragey and awesome! I'm such an ugly crier that I probably look like a primate crying anyway! 🤣🤣🤣

Sending much love to you all! You're all fabulous, wonderful, amazing, brilliant, determined Amazons!!! This will happen for us!!! 😘😘😘😘😘😘

Sending hugs to everyone, it's tough and as has been said, unless you know someone in real life who has gone through similar you tend to get sympathetic but not helpful responses.

Anyone else on their 2ww? I have 10 days to go!

@Pamparam primate screams sound fun and it sounds like we all need them. I do wonder if this experience would put me off getting into all this again, if I can get past the first hurdle

Yeah @M4v3r1ck @Kitekat81, the limbo is so damaging. I so want to be able to plan and move and think ahead but I can’t do it and instead I have to worry about when and if I’m ovulating. 🙄

@Misty84 yeah it’s really nice finding some similar age people to share this hell with.

On the plus side I bit the bullet and contacted an acupuncturist yesterday, my friend recommended her. Going to go for a few sessions, I think. I’m hoping it will be relaxing at the very least since I can’t do things like get a massage or run away lol

In other good news, AF seems to have returned to normal for me this cycle. Not sure how this has happened but it has, after months of light periods. Maybe the relief of the good internal scan and blood tests helped put my mind at ease. And I might finally get the doctor to do my fertility clinic referral today (they’re calling me at lunchtime). So today is already better than yesterday.

@thislittlebird I really want to try acupuncture too but didn’t realise they were allowed to operate at the moment! Let me know what you think of it as I’ve never tried it before and would be interested to hear your opinion x

My understand @Misty84 is they’re allowed to see people for “medical” acupuncture. Some would argue none of it is medical, but I guess there’s the therapeutic kind vs seeing you for a condition? My friend’s husband goes for Parkinson’s and dementia and it’s been helpful to him. Maybe infertility falls into “medical”. Going to try to convince my husband to go at some point too, once I’ve been. I will keep you posted on how it goes once I’ve been.

@thislittlebird Ah I see, that’s really good to know. Thank you! I’ll definitely look into it too.

And now I’ve been invited for my covid vaccine (was expecting it yet), it’s all happening today

@thislittlebird @Misty84 I found acupuncture to be amazing for my period pain. It was recommended to me post-MC and my last cycle was bliss in comparison to what I’m used to. I have my last session next week and I cannot recommend highly enough.

I’d never had it before (other than in a recovery room in Denmark after emergency appendectomy where they have allllllll stopped mu post-anaesthesia vomiting in 2 seconds!) and was told to go on recommendations. My guy specialised in period pain and fertility issues so he had the perfect combo!

Every time I’m left to ‘cook’ I have crazy daydreams. It’s lovely! My partner just had two sessions for sciatica and was off meds 24 hours after 2nd session. I’m a convert :-) Enjoy! X

That’s great to hear thank you @Geriatric1234! I tried a session of reflexology for fertility which was relaxing, but unless I’m pregnant the next month I just give up🙈 Which I know won’t achieve anything...but it’s all so expensive😕 Still, I need to find a way to relax as I have a very stressful job (work with autistic children) and obviously ttc is stressful on top of that!

A friend of mine had fertility acupuncture and was successful fairly soon after, after quite a long time of trying. Some helpful vague anecdata for you there.

I’m 2DPO today but if I’m pregnant, it’ll be a Christmas* miracle
*even more miraculous as it’s February.

That’s interesting @Geriatric1234. I’m a hormonal migraine sufferer so my main issue with periods has been migraines for the last 10-15 years, before/around AF but at ovulation sometimes too. My periods went weird and my AF migraines sort of died down too, but now they seem to be longer drawn out headaches instead. Definitely going to ask the acupuncturist about this. This lady specialises in fertility too which is good. how many sessions did you have overall? I’m not sure what frequency would be recommended.

And yeah so expensive @Misty84! We’re saving in case we need ivf and it makes me more aware of the cost.

@thislittlebird The guy I went to said 5/6 sessions and charges £55 an hour. He did say that ongoing treatment can be good for stress but most acupuncturists wouldn’t let someone have too many sessions as it usually fixes things quickly. It’s all about re-wiring the pain/inflammation reactions to the brain by placing needles into areas that are blocked to stimulate a reaction, in the nervous system. So it’s not an ongoing treatment (unless you’re really enjoying it of course!). All fascinating to me!

Yeah really interesting @Geriatric1234. I’m going for my first one on the 16th and looking forward to it.

Just heard from my doctor. They got my day 21 (or day 23 for me) test results back and I have pretty low progesterone. It’s 10, it should be 30. Before that I had a test in the summer that was 17.5 so it’s gone down and this ovulation date was pretty accurate because I was using ovulation tests and temping. So the infertility referral is being put through today and we’ll wait and see how long it will take, but it’s almost good to hear there’s a reason this might not be working? Maybe I should not be pleased to have problems but you know what I mean.

Problems are potentially fixable @thislittlebird, but only when discovered. so it’s always good to know. I’m so glad things are moving for you.

Yeah it’s good to know there’s even a tiny bit of progress @Pamparam. My sister had to have clomid to conceive her first so I do wonder if a similar issue runs in the family. Just wondering how long it’ll take to be seen

I have just taken delivery of a tube of Conceive Plus, on the recommendation of others. It's tiny! This had better work at that price, and quick! I knew children could be expensive, but this TTC malarkey is similarly so.

@thislittlebird sorry about your low progesterone result. What do your temps usually look like after ovulation - do you usually get a fairly obvious and sustained temp rise? I thought it was the progesterone which causes the temp rise? So I would have thought you would have seen it in your bbt if your progesterone was low. That might be something that acupuncture can help with as well? I really want to try it as well, but the one in my town is currently only taking "urgent" cases because of Covid 😣

@TTCat39 I have spent a bloody fortune on fertility lubricant and supplements in the last year! I just keep telling myself that it's cheaper than ivf!!

We’ve nearly run out of conceive plus @TTCat39 and now moved on to pre seed. All I can say is that they’re fine??? I saw people complain about the textures but they’re similar to normal lube.

@Kitekat81 my chart was very weird this month actually. When I temped in the summer for a couple of months I wasn’t very good at it and can’t say how much use those charts are really but there was never a big leap up, more like a slow climb. The last one made FF confused, it would only give me dotted crosshairs. So I’m not sure what’s going on really. I got my Lh peak, I don’t know if my body is just trying to ovulate and failing? No idea.

My sister needed clomid to conceive her first, and with my high follicle count it’s looking a little like I could be borderline PCOS maybe? I really want the nhs referral to hurry up, not sure if I should go back to the private one in the meantime with my progesterone results and ask what they would do next? If I could try something like clomid months earlier than the nhs would give it to me (if I have to wait months for an appointment) then I would do that. Right now TTC might just be pissing into the wind for us if I’m not ovulating

I have had my first covid vaccine 🙌

This is my last one @Kitekat81

Oh and forgot to say, yes, I’m going to mention it to the acupuncturist. It’s a shame about your local acupuncturist, frustrating that they won’t take anyone.

Thanks for sharing your chart @thislittlebird I am really interested to see others' bbt ranges, as I'm new to this and also appear to run very warm. I have mine set to Fahrenheit, but the attached shows a range equivalent to 36.8 - 37.4C. A definite ovulation dip, but not much of a rise afterwards. I started another thread about it earlier today to see if anyone wanted to share examples.