secondary infertility

[mumtosammy]

i have been trying for a second baby for 2 years with no luck (it took 12 months with DS - he's now 3.8). i've just been referred by my dr to an infertility clinic, as he thinks i'm probably not ovulating (tests have not shown anything else up). anyone else out there had an experience of this? think the next steps will be a hycosy and then clomid, any tips or advice on what to ask at the appointment much appreciated!
anyone else out there struggling with the thought of a growing age gap and sadness that their DS might not have another sibling? also feeling that we're getting further and further away from the 'baby stage', it seems so long ago.
also the process of infertility appointments seems so long! we've already been in the system months having the gp appointments and still not got the hospital date.
anyone else feel like this?

Thanks laptopgirl. Not sure how I deal with pregnancy announcements really, probably not that well! I totally understand how you feel. I think family ones are the hardest too.
How are things going with you other than that?
I'm on day 33 now with clomid cycle, no sign of anything but had the negative progesterone test at day 21 so know there's no point hoping!

I'm similar place in my cycle. Waiting for AF to rock up! I'm sure she will just to disappoint!

Friend just text me to say she's 7 weeks. Apparently she wanted to tell me to my face - luckily she didn't!!! Feeling so hormonal ATM so I'm pretty sure my period is on route. Will start round 3 of clomid by end of the week - hoping it's the lucky round people mention.

I'm feeling quite down about the baby making Sh!t at the moment.

Hi Laptopgirl. Yes I find pregnancy announcements very hard. I know my Dsis is trying so I'm kind of dreading her announcing she is (although I feel really mean saying that). The hardest bit for me was when each of my NCT friends gradually announced their second pregnancies. Seeing all the photos of their new babies on FB makes me feel so left out.
Surely one of us has got to get lucky soon!

hi laptopgirl, oh dear, that was bad timing with your friend's annoucement. it's not easy. i know what you mean, i'm starting to think it's all just a bit rubbish doing all this.
my af came today, quite a relief in the end as I was such a terrible hormonal mess. now looking at starting taking double the dose tomorrow night. not keen at all.
i'm already thinking i might not take the clomid for 6 months.
my son starts school in september, i'm wondering if the best thing really would be to give up and move on to the next stage of our lives and just be grateful that we have him.
it's so difficult to decide what to do for the best.
hope you are feeling ok about your appointment on monday sheddie.

Hi all. Well I had my appt at the private clinic today. They did a scan of my ovaries and counted the follicles - 5 on one 4 on the other (apparently that's ok). They could also tell I had ovulated this month which is once to know I guess.
Consultant said in cases like ours if you haven't conceived after two years of trying the chances after that are about 1% per month! Her advice was to move on to IVF (although I guess she would say that)! Apparently as there is nothing physically wrong with me and I have carried a pregnancy before there is a better than average chance of being successful (still only about 50% though).
So she had given me a tonne of paperwork to read but basically we can do it as early as six weeks time if we want to. It'll cost about £4000. It's a bit scary really. I'm not sure what I expected….but it all seems so real now.
What do think you would do? Would you start immediately or try a couple more months naturally?

Was thinking of you Shreddie.

Remind me how old you are again? If you can afford it now and feel ready, I'd start the wheels in motion tbh. Xx

Whoops! Sorry sheddie xxx

Hi sheddie

I haven't posted for a few weeks but saw your post and thought I would give you my thoughts. At least you know the odds and the options. For me it would depend entirely on age.

We saw a consultant a few weeks ago who basically said we could start iui the following day (I was due on). We decided that was too early, and after a few discussions have decided to take a couple of months break from ttc altogether. We are going to have a couple of nice breaks and enjoy being our little family before starting on the next rollercoaster. However if I were even a year older I think we wouldn't be delaying.

Good luck with your decision. From everything I've heard the emotional side of ivf is worse than the physical impact.

Thanks laptop and tomato. I'm 37 so I think time is probably of the essence. Watched OBEM tonight with DP and turned to him and said 'let's just get on with it'. He agreed so looks like May will be the month for it. Only issue now is talking to my work. I have a very full on job so really need them to be ok with me doing it then as well.
Hope you're all ok. Enjoy your few months break from it all tomato.

Think you have both made the best decisions for you. Wishing you both lots of luck! ??

For me I'm starting round 3 of clomid I'm hoping it's a lucky month as my 40th in November seems to be galloping closer.

Wonder how the rest of this thread posters are doing?

hi sheddie, it sounds like you've definitely made the right decision. if it's any help, i think i'd do the same in your shoes.
it sounds like the appointment went really well too, with the folicles and the fact you ovulated - that's great. Good luck with talking to work about it. I hope that goes really well.
Even though it's scary, it must be exciting as well? 50% is a brilliant chance. I had no idea that the chances varied so much depending on your own history (although it seems obvious now I've thought about it! ) I just thought the clinic's rates were the rates that applied to you, so that's made me feel more positive about that too if we end up going down that road.
On round 2 clomid now, 100mg, so far the increased dose hasn't made me feel any worse, so that's good!
i'm having a bit of a blip at the moment about the age gap. it would now be 5 years. it seems far too much and i dont know how it would work... i'm also starting to think i feel too old myself - has anyone felt like that? i think it's just because i'm very tired at the moment, i'm starting to wonder if i could hack it again!

Hi everyone,

Sorry, I haven't posted since the thread was initially started, and I need to catch up on all your journeys. Long story short we've discovered I'm in ovarian failure and we start ivf this week. I'm incredibly nervous but also a little hopeful that we might get our longed for second bfp soon.

Sheddie, completely sympathise with your situation, the timing isn't ideal with us work wise but as I don't have time on my side we have decided its now or never. £4000 is quite a bit less than it's costing us but I am on the max dose of stims, so perhaps its the drug costs pushing ours up. It is a really scary amount of money. OBEM always tugs at my heart strings too, DH always tells me off for watching it.

Laptop girl, I hope you're feeling ok on clomid and round 3 is a success!

Mumtosammy, the age gap is such a hard thing. It would be 4 years for us now, but I just can't let go yet. Our DS has started asking for a sibling now which is hard. I know what you mean about tiredness though, its hard to imagine having a newborn at times.

Hope everyone else on the thread is doing well, wishing you all lots of luck.

Thanks for the encouragement everyone.
mumtosammy I'm glad to hear your 100mg dose isn't any worse in terms of symptoms for you. I don't think you should let the age gap put you off. There are 6 years between me and my Dsis and I just remember being so excited when she was born. I totally know what you mean about feeling too old and tired though! Part of me really doesn't love the idea of starting all over again!

Good luck with the start of IVF juggling. Maybe you could let me know what it is like doing the injections etc? Yes I was quite surprised at the price, but I'm not on the highest level of drugs and we shouldn't need ICSI (which would have added another £1000).

Good luck with round 3 laptop. Fingers crossed for you.

thanks sheddie, that's good to know about your 6 year age gap. i think a lot of the problem is that, growing up, i only knew people with 2-3 year age gaps like me, and my dh is the same! i can't imagine what it would be like in a way, in terms of day trips and holidays that everyone would enjoy. i guess the truth is though that you never know what the family dynamic would be like, as all children have completely different personalities anyway.
good luck with getting things started with ivf.
hope everyone else is ok too.

hope everyone had a good easter. how is the start of your ivf going, keeponjuggling? hope you're doing ok.
i'm in the middle of my cycle now on clomid 100mg, trying our best to meet the every 2 days requirements!!
how are you feeling after your decision to go ahead Sheddie?

Hi, happy Easter.
Well s far the injections are much easier than I anticipated Sheddie. I can hardly feel them at all, which is a relief. I start the second injection tomorrow. So far I've done them myself, I planned on having OH do them but when it came to it I couldn't let him. Will have to get over that if we get to transfer though, as I'm going to be on prontogest injections (intramuscular). I will definitely wimp out there. So far just bloating and a few slitting headaches, but nothing much to complain about.

Mumtosammy, every two days is tough going when you have another little one to run after all day! Good luck, hope you're feeling ok on the Clomid?

Hope everyone had a nice weekend!

Pleased to read all is going 'ok' for your injections.

Mummy to Shreddie think we are in similar cycle stages again. I had a massive wobble last week hormonal to the extreme. ???? I upped my clomid dose to 100 it's made me so teary. Anyone else suffer with clomid tears?

Laptopgirl yes we really are in sync, I had a massive wobble last week too on 100mg, from the day I took my last pill for about 4 days. I felt quite depressed and couldnt enjoy anything. I started saying to my dh that I didnt want to take clomid again next month as it felt really bad. I feel better now but Im still not convinced about taking it for 6 months.
I also get teary. Do you find you feel jittery at all? I find that I get quite jittery and cant settle, and find it difficult sitting down doing the slow relaxed stuff with ds its like I need to keep moving and keep busy all the time.
Do you find it a lot of pressure with the every 2 days instructions? Im finding that quite difficult.
Anyway, hopefully we will get some success from all the hard work were putting in! Im on day 13 now, how about you? Im having another blood test on day 21 to see if its had any effect, are you?
Keeponjuggling, glad your injections are not too bad. Good luck with it all, fingers and toes all crossed for you here.

I'm glad to hear the injections aren't too bad juggling. I think I'll do them myself. I think I would find the anticipation too awful if DP was doing it! I contacted the clinic today about setting up my cycle for next month. They won't do anything until we've both had HIV and Hep B tests done, so need to get that organised now! I think I'll bite the bullet and have that done privately too to save the stress.
mumtosammy and laptop, I totally get where your coming from about being on Clomid. After 5 months I really couldn't bear to take any more. The 'every 2 days' thing is a nightmare too. I found we started off well but after four or five days it got more difficult to keep the momentum going!

Thanks sheddie, it’s good to know I’m not the only one finding every other day quite tricky! Good luck with your tests, hope you can get started soon.
I found out yesterday my mum had an early menopause (all over by 45) and I’m now wondering whether my problems conceiving could be the very start of mine. I am sure the consultant said I had a good AMH score though for egg reserve, and think this is what they judge it on?
Does anyone have any experience of this and do you know if they can test for early menopause in any other way?
I’m still trying to take it one month at a time but I’m finding myself wondering over and over at the moment whether we should just quit or go for IVF if the clomid doesn’t work… it’s such a hard decision and I waver from thinking ‘why wouldn’t we, we should try everything’ to ‘we should just be happy with what we have and move on’. I shouldn’t even be thinking about it yet, we should just see what happens, but I find the not knowing and the lack of ability to plan ahead really hard about this whole process.
Hope everyone else is ok.

That's a coincidence mumtosammy. My Mum had an early menopause too - she was only 40. It's something I have raised with the consultants I have met. None of the tests so far have shown that I'm heading towards it but it definitely plays on my mind.
I know exactly how you're feeling. I think the months on Clomid were the hardest for me, because as the months were going by with no success it just started to feel a bit hopeless. I must admit I feel better now that we are on to IVF because I know in my head that this will be the end (whether we are successful or not). I will probably set a limit of 3 attempts and then if it doesn't work that is the end of it and we will have to get on with our lives and be thankful for what we have.
The lack of planning for the future is awful. My DP and I always agreed that we would get married before our DD goes to school (next year). I'm sure if it weren't TTC we would be getting on with planning a wedding but I don't want to in case we get pregnant. Then there are holidays that you put off booking just in case you're pregnant. It's a nightmare.

How is everything going juggling? When are you having your egg collection?

Hi, I have collection Monday or Tuesday, scan showed poor response so it's been a difficult day. So disappointed. Decided to carry on and hope we get a few good eggs, I feel we've come too far to cancel now. Sorry for downer post.

Hope you're all ok? They usually use amh as a good menopause indicator, but fsh and lh are also considered, so if you're results are ok there you probably don't have to worry about that too much. Hope that helps a little.

Just sitting thinking up plans for the wknd to keep busy! Have a good one everyone.

If it's any help juggling, I've got a friend who had a bad response on her second round of IVF (after 1st attempt failed), and only got a very small number of eggs. However she has gone on to have two babies from that small batch (one frozen), so don't lose hope.
Hope everyone has good weekends.

Keeponjuggling - try to remain positive, I think you've made the right decision to carry on and I hope all goes well this coming week for you. ??

Shreddie - I'm trying the every other night thing too, have you been advised to increase to daily during predicted ovulation?

And probably a crazy question but do or did any of you ladies lay with your legs up the wall after sex? I remember doing this when TTC for my first DC but haven't done it since and wondering was I a crazy lady or am I crazy lady not to be! ??

Hope you have all been enjoying the lovely weather. ??

Sorry missed my message to mummy toSammy - try to stick with the clomid for a bit longer, it might be the clomid woos making you feel so down. I hate clomid so much but my first DC is a clomid baby so I try to hold that close to my thoughts when I'm having a wobble. Coming up to 'fertile' time in my cycle now I'm guessing your be approaching yours? My cycle is normally 33 days ish.

Anyway baby dust to all ??????