TTC #1 over 35

[Clara202]

As the title suggests, if you’re over 35 and TTC your first, I’d love to hear from you! Would be nice to hear from a few of us in the same boat 🙂

Honestly @Clara202im so confused. Here is a photo of my peak test, that was wed evening. I don’t usually get such a clear cut sign, but maybe I just miss it. It fell a little but stayed fairly strong since then. We dtd sat (CD 6) then tues, wed, thurs. A much better run for us than usual as it’s difficult with DP under pressure. Interpreting this is like trying to read runes. Those tests are Tuesday am, Tuesday pm, then Wednesday 7am, 12pm, 6pm.

Apologies, I meant wed/thurs. I’ve been asking chat gpt for help on understanding why it could have happened. It (a robot not a doctor) said it’s highly unlikely I ovulated before the surge, but that there are a few reasons like (rare) early implantation and (!) more than one embryo. Or that I had a “mini surge” that wasn’t detected. Though I did test regularly and they were very faint before.

@Nosejug oh yes I have heard of that, when there’s multiples it shows up a lot sooner! Imagine 🥰

@SquadGoalz yes I used digitals and they always show the surge (annoyingly they sometimes skip the flashing face altogether and go straight to static), but with strips I don’t think I’ve ever had the two lines at a similar depth. According to the digital I’m ovulating today but the strip doesn’t show anything close to that. I did use bbt two months ago and it seemed to match up with the digital so maybe I should just stick with digital and forget about the strips.

Strip is darker and thicker today but still not as dark as the control line. I’d imagine it is positive but will go again later and tomorrow to see if there is a difference.

Hm well it’s already being potentially robbed of me as the fertility doctor is concerned it’s ectopic after such an early positive.

@Nosejug oh dear, did they say anything else? Have they told you to look out for anything in particular?

@Clara202 he was just like, its sort of not possible and to get bloods done. Someone on another thread pointed out that surely an embryo wouldn’t implant any earlier just cause it’s in the tube, as it’s got to get to blast stage before it’s ready. That gave me some hope. I called the gp but they said to call epu who won’t be open till Monday (and I bet they send me back to gp).

no symptoms of ectopic though, no pain or anything, some mild cramping but I’ve had cramping for every reason under the sun!

@Nosejug nothing is ever simple here is it! Earlier ovulation than you thought is still possible, let’s hope that’s what it is

Thanks so much for your replies and support @Clara202 , I really appreciate it.

Fingers crossed 🤞 @Nosejug

@Nosejug it will be a long weekend for you but try to do something to keep your mind off it if you can.

@HollyGolightly4 i am now in the tww also. Had no cm this month so I’m not overly hopeful.
@Toppstileslover great to see you back! Sounds like you’ve been very busy of late.

I got my results back from the consultant and I think they’re positive overall. I think I was so apprehensive going in to the appointment that I didn’t think to ask many questions while there. AMH is 19 (GP got a completely different figure on this a few months ago) and I have 4 on left and 8 on right (I’m not sure what this is, could it be the AFC, and that I add them together to make 12? Perhaps it’s something completely different)

That’s a brilliant amh @Clara202 !! I know people say it doesn’t mean much in terms of quality, but if you ever choose to get treatment it’s great in terms of quantity, and so ivf will be a good option if it comes to it. I think that will be the number of follicles that are developed this month. So every month it varies, but if without ivf meds you have that many follicles detected, that sounds really good to me. In my first round under very high stims I only had 11 follicles, in the second it was like 6 or something.

@Nosejug i was very happy with the AMH but as it was completely different to the one the GP got a few months ago, over double, I’m doubting it a bit. So would you say my AFC that month was 12? She did say she’d expect to see 6 on each side, but I was 4 and 8. Husband was super on quantity and mobility but a bit of work to be done on morphology.

Same with my partner’s morphology but super on other bits.

yeah the way I understand it that means 12 that month.
my most recent baseline scan for upcoming treatment I had 3 and 3. I had 6 and 5 in my very first scan. I don’t know why they’d need to be even, but they did tell me that the follicles might just be too small/were missed and so didn’t get counted sometimes. I don’t think it makes a difference if they’re uneven, seems v common.

It’s really hard to take the info in/ask q’s during appointments. I just got really giddy that someone that could help was paying attention to my fertility issues.

Sorry also, my gp morphology was 2.6, my nhs fertility clinic one was 3.8. I was told it was likely inconsistency in measuring. It does also fluctuate a little and hydration believe it or not makes a difference too even with blood. 1/2 is a very big difference, but even half of 19 is still pretty good, and if you took the median just to be careful, it’s still an excellent number.

Argh not morphology, amh. I need to walk away from my phone haha

Sorry she didn’t say they had to be even, she said looking at my age and all other factors she’d expect to see, or would be looking for 6 on each side. So 8 was high, 4 was a bit lower but together they add up to what she was looking for. Did they recommend anything for your partner to improve morphology? I have ordered more coQ10, I might start giving him one also to see if that helps at all. The only thing I did differently from the first AMH was triple my coQ10 dosage. Might have nothing to do with it. I was 9 and now I’m 19. If I had jumped from 9 to 12 or 13 I wouldn’t have bat an eyelid but but it is a huge leap.

My partner got varicocele treatment which is meant to maybe help but his morphology is exactly the same as it was (just tested). I’m doing the triple ubiquinol too (stopped for now) and taking myoinsitol (I think I said before) which is meant to support egg health and good ovulation. The doctor actually said ubiquinol wouldn’t hurt but wasn’t proven, but that myoinsitol has very strong evidence so to take that instead. Maybe it’s worth considering? I mean goodness, maybe that’s got something to do with my recent weird result. I’ve been taking it 1.5 months

@Clara202 this is brilliant! I would go with what the consultant told you not what the GP said (one is a generalist, one studied ovaries for another 10 years!). As you say it doesn’t mean quality (I find this bit hard to assess?) but quantity gives you options to improve the quality 💖✨ I know the doomscrolling before you have the tests x

@Toppstileslover they were blood tests sent to two different labs so really it’s whether the labs made a mistake or something. Either way we didn’t have anything ‘wrong’ with us as such so we are happy with that. We have planned a hycosy just to be safe and they seemed to really play it down in the clinic as I have looked up stories here and I see people vomiting and passing out from the pain of it so I’m now terrified and praying I’ll get pregnant this month so that I don’t have to get the procedure done

Oh no! The hycosy is fine!! I mean of course everyone experiences things differently, but you’ll probably only find the extremes of experience reported becuase, apart from the result being clear, the experience felt pretty insignificant in terms of fear or pain. I wouldn’t exactly look forward to one but I hate all things smear/scan so it’s not like I’m brave about it. Having a clear result will serve you well in the future in terms of putting fears to rest (one of the reasons I’m resisting worrying too much about ectopic) and on top of all that, pregnancies are common in the first three months after a hycosi becuase even minor blockages are clear, like flushing out a thin line. Sadly for my I couldn’t try out the ttc benifit as I had a lletz the next day and a traumatic event caused by the lletz two weeks later. But if I were you I’d be nervously anticipating it and a little eager for the following chances of ttc!

@Nosejug I was honestly so surprised to see the posts, and there were many of them, describing unbearable pain, and not many posts disagreeing! I know I must do it but I am fearful now. How are you doing today?

Oh sorry @Clara202 i never saw your reply. I mean I really can’t remember much about hycosi and it was only 1.5 years ago. I remember the lletz treatment I had the very next day as being truly terrible so I’m no brave one. Straight after the hycosi I was cheekily taking photos of the screen because it was so cool seeing the dye inside me describe my organs. I really do think it’s just that a board about people who had bad experiences will attract more stories that went that way. I’d def write on a board about lletz treatment with a message full of warning.

myself I’m feeling ok. Spoke to EPU and they don’t see any reason to believe it’s ectopic, especially as I have no symptoms. Scans been brought forward another week which was nice of them. Lots of random pains today in my lower abdomen. My cheap tests have plateaued but I’ve read they (one step) can be really bad for progression so I’ve bought some clear blue to test every few days instead. Trying to keep my sanity…!