2023 TTC 35+ Part 5

[VixFromThe6ix]

Hi lovelies,

New thread!!

Please tag whoever you can so everyone knows we are here.

Ahhh @SnookyPook amazing news!! Congratulations 🥰 everything crossed for you 😘xxx
thank you @Bumblebee413 xxxx

Good morning everyone. So my temperature and rhr are still high and the same as yesterday. I think they normally start to drop at this point. So it is getting my hopes up, not going to lie. But not going to test until AF is late, so on sunday

Morning ladies - officially heading into our favourite two week block of time now, the TWW… I feel like the meme of Pablo Escobar waiting is appropriate - or watching paint dry for how fast the time will go…

i very much feel like this is not our month - we didn’t manage to DTD on ovulation - only 1-2 days before and I’m sick since Monday with a cold so I will just try to ignore everything until my period comes in 13 days ish… (we all know that I won’t make it that long, but that is my intention at least)

@FigandHoney oh I feel like I make stuff up in my head all the time In the TWW - as I think I mentioned before I wander around the apartment squeezing my boobs willing them to be sore 🙈

sending a big hug to everyone today, and wishing you all lots of baby dust!

In terms of frequency of dtd… 10 years ago conceived first cycle with dtd once the day before ovulation (I still have the fertility friend chart!!)
These days we manage 2 or 3 times with fertile week usually but sometimes it’s just once. They do say with no sperm issues then every day is great however for us that would just be totally exhausting and unrealistic! Once you add existing child/ren, work, sleep issues etc into the mix I think 2-3 times is a reasonable target. At the moment approaching ovulation and trying to make sure to dtd at least every 3 days. With irregular ovulation it’s also much less predictable!

Thanks all. I might take some extra vit d along with Proceive. I should say my tests were done in Jan…in the uk so hopefully they are better now. And my holiday should help too!

coming to the end of TWW here. Period due on Tuesday, 8dpo. Once again haven’t tested and haven’t had any symptoms. Got my godsons christening this weekend and would love to have a few drinks (don’t know if anyone remembers but I had the same issue with a wedding in August) but will probs just have a couple of glasses of fizz and call it a day 🥂

Baby dust to all those waiting ✨✨✨✨

Just musing on this … if the main barrier to earlier conception is maternal age, then the quality of the egg and hormone levels are most important. By that reasoning it make less of a difference how many times you dtd before ovulation, as what this does is increases the amount of sperm in the reproductive tract and gives them more opportunities to fertilise the egg. If the reason conception doesn’t occur is actually because of egg quality issues then it doesn’t matter how many sperm there are as it takes just one. Of course it’s likely to be a combination of all of these factors (and older women are likely to have older partners, with sperm quality also declining with age). However in terms of the barriers to conception for the egg itself then it does feel like making that egg and female hormone balance as receptive and high quality as possible might be at least as important as the odds for conception based on frequency of dtd alone.
does that ramble make any sense?!

Yep that does make sense curlywurly. In our case, sperm test was ok really but now and again I think well if my eggs are no good this is a bit pointless! Nagging GP about fertility referral soon.
I do think all the vitamins etc are just extra bits to help, main thing is giving it a go but even with all the best chances, perfect health, younger etc it's not like it happens month 1. Think God causes it but appreciate not everyone will think the same

@CurlyWurly1991 I think that makes a lot of sense. You obviously never can know completely why it might have suddenly worked previously. But when we conceived last time it was after I had been raking vitamins for 3 months. And I did see a difference in my bbt charts. Before then they were really jaggy and it was difficult to tell when I ovulated. But then they became pretty with that perfect curve. Which I put down to my hormones being better regulated and therefore better egg quality. This is all guessing. But that I why I am taking vitamins from the start this time.

@CurlyWurly1991 the ramble makes total sense - this is why I am really trying to optimise what I can re egg quality and I am doing the “difficulty conceiving” supplement plan from it starts with the egg (or I will be when my vitamin c and e arrive 😅

@MrsBP15 i hate that feeling of waiting to know if you can have a glass of wine or bubbles, I usually feel like “well I’m probably not pregnant anyways so why should I have to forego a glass of wine when my husband can have his beer no problemo?” But then I also usually do avoid the glass of wine just in case, and then I’m not pregnant and have the symbolic glass of red of day 1 of AF 🙈 Ugh it’s all so complicated…

@MrsBP15 I go with drink until its pink. In my mind you don't know how long it will take. And you will just get more frustrated depriving yourself. The cycle I got pregnant with my son I did drink a lot, as it happens. There was a lot of celebrations going on. So I know it won't stop me conceiving

Yep
Coq10 helps egg quality in over 35s

Thank you @El1988 and @FigandHoney both very good points. To be honest, with the way I'm feeling at the moment and the fact that it's a christening for people who basically had sex once and got pregnant (I am of course very happy for them and adore my godson but it is what it is) I will inevitably end up having a few bevs to wet the baby's head and let my hair down a bit after what has been a pretty stressful few months...

Woop - just got the news that my vit D is up to 90 - il take that as a win

#littlewins

@Firsttime0727 welcome!! 37 is absolutely not too old. I got pregnant at 37 and gave birth at 38. Now at 40 I am pregnant again (hopefully to stay). If you and your partner are both relatively healthy, I think you got a good chance! Good luck with your OPKs!! Hope all goes well!

@MrsBP15 I would definitely enjoy a bevy. Heck, I even had a few sips this weekend for thanksgiving as I didn't want to make it seem sus to my family lol I used an excuse, red wine makes me sleepy so I'll only take a few sips. Have fun at the christening and good luck for next week!!

@VixFromThe6ix thats good to hear thank you 😊 and huge congratulations to you!
I’ve never been pregnant or even tried so this is all new to me but good have this support.

@El1988 what are the supplements listed on the ' cant concieve bit' lol... did you have your apointments with the other specialists about the hair loss thing?

@Supertrooper101 one second I’ll make a list of them.

re the hair loss tablets, it’s an ongoing saga. So they said topical finastiride is fine to keep using if you’re a man and TTC and then I was like no it’s tablets, so they were like “oh, oops, then we’ll do a blood test when he comes in for the spermiogram next week cos that could mess with hormones” and that is where I currently am with this.

I have made an appointment with a second clinic to get a second opinion on this because I am suspicious...

@El1988 there either all clueless or they dont want to admit that they are in fact bad.... and the topical cream.. surely that absorbs into his blood too, or what happens if he touches you after applying the cream, where do you stand with that because tablet wise, it says if the female touches one it absorbs straigt away.. theres too many unknowns. Has he stopped them now? Mine did when we found out last mth i think it was. Managed to get him a nhs sperm anaylsis 20th nov so that will b interesting 🤦‍♀️. Your right to keep asking questions tho! Will you let me know what the outcome is, if you ever get a proper answer lol

Hmm ladies. I am starting to feel unsure about when I actually ovulated. And what dpo I am.
Normally at 9dpo my temperatures start dipping.
With my son my BBT and RHR staying high were my best indication I was pregnant.
But now I am not sure if it is still high because I might have conceived.
Or if I actually ovulated much later.
My follicular phase bbt and not getting a fully positive opk really make it difficult to determine. But I kept testing with opks until 2 days ago and they never got darker again.
What do you ladies think?

I mean in the end I will just need to wait and see if AF comes. And if she doesn't test.
But this us kind of getting my hopes up and I really don't want to get them up for no good reason. Hate how heartbreaking that is.

Hi @Supertrooper101 and anyone else who is interested!

so the “intermediate” plan for those having difficulty conceiving is as follows (with the caveat I am not any kind of medical professional and this is not medical advice):

1. a prenatal containing at least 800 mcg of folic acid (she says methyl folate but there is other research re folic acid vs methylfolate and which is better so do your own research there - my supplement has 400mcg of both kinds, and I’m happy with that’s but that’s my personal opinion)
2. ubiquinol (coq10) 400 mg per day - 200mg in the morning and 200mg in the evening (I’m still only on the 200mg in the morning from the not advanced plan because it’s expensive 🙈😅)
3. Additional vitamin c 500mg and vitamin e 200 iu.
4. the book Said to consider adding melatonin as an extra antioxidant boost if you want - (micro dose of 300mcg) or alpha-lipoic acid or n-acetylcysteine (but they didn’t specify how much of the last two)
5. and if you’d vitamin d is below the optimal target of 40 ng/ml or 100 nmol/L consider supplementing with 4000 iu of vitamin d3 per day
6. if you have a b12 deficiency, consider supplementing with 1000-2000 mcg per day
7. if you don’t eat oily fish regularly, consider adding an omega three fish oil supplement 500 mg per day

I think it's worth buying the book tbh and reading the research behind the recommendations.

I'm taking 4000iu Vit D @worldwidetravel2017

Did any of you get full blood counts done either after a loss
Or before starting trying to concieve ?

Ive had 3 this year ( full blood counts) for various reasons

Some nhs trusts have some bands so wide

Im concerned re my MCH
In the most recent/ v recent blood test

Spoke to pharmacist in boots about it today

Whilst awaiting a reply from drs
& awaiting folate blood test recent results

Many online sources say 31.8 MCH
Is abnornally high...

If it was just o.2 higher - would be deemed abnormal as per NHS trust band

Mine was not that high in previous full blood counts

Could mean folic acid deficiency / absorbtion issues
Could be b12 absorption issues
Could apparently mean over active thyroid

Had private thyroid function tests done tsh t4 that came back fine

Awaiting NHS thyroid func test results

My medical history has issues absorbing iron

So now nervous tbh if issues absorbing b vitamins

Been on prescription folic acid 4 3 months

@worldwidetravel2017 What type of folic acid do you take. I now always try and get metafolin. As last time I got pregnant after swapping to a multivitamin that contained it on the suggestion of my dad (a pharmacologist). I had taken it for 3 months.

Currently 5 mg folic acid prescription - so its not mixed with a vit.

I looked online this eve and read some folic acid stuff and on Amazon theres one starting with an M but different to what youve mentioned

Because ive got an energy limiting condition & because i had a significant illness last yr - & another year b4 - due to my bmi - im on prescription folic acid - 5 mg - rather than shop folic acid

( im guna see what folate level blood test is from this week when results are online - & conpare to jun folate)