Would you be my Infertility/Clomid/Follicle tracking friend please?!

[scienceteachergeek]

Hi there ladies

I’m really looking for a ‘clomid friend’ or ‘infertility pal’!

I’m 30, DH is 38. I came off the pill July 2013 to regulate my cycles and ended 15yrs of antidepressants in March 2014 as I’d read that was the best plan if possible.

I’d been having regular 27/30day cycles since I came off the pill but after no positive tests, buying OPKs and the Clearblue Advanced Fertility Monitor, plus charting temps and monitoring my cervix and mucus it quickly became apparent that I wasn’t ovulating. After all the blood tests, sperm analysis, trans-vaginal scans and the HSG it showed that he was fine but I wasn’t ovulating, but there was not obvious reason why.

Fast forward to now, 2yrs since coming off the pill, I have been prescribed clomid and have taken my first 5 tablets. I’m day 12 today and have been having follicle tracking to check if the drugs have worked. My largest follicle was 16.4mm today and have to go back on Wednesday to check it again.

Do any of you know if that’s a good size? Or have any experiences of being further down the clomid path? Or are you in a similar position? I just feel like I’m going out of my mind and could really use a buddy!

Thanks for reading and hugs to you all. Interested in hearing from any of you xxx

Arch! Can't sleep! Dp woke me up at 4 flushing the loo and can't get back to sleep now.

Welcome back birchy I thought you'd gone. When will you be testing? Good job you came back now we are all a lot more upbeat and not at the end of last week when we were all down in the dumps!

Vanishing twin science never heard of that before so googled it. Very interesting. Looking forward to hearing about any appointments you have. Please don't go anywhere! Wait for us all to get our bfps and we can all join the bfp forum together

So I've decided I absolutely must be pregnant this month storing myself up some trouble for about 8 days time. Tmi alert - Yesterday I had a gush of cm which was very strange for me considering the time of month (probably about 5dpo if I even o'd in the 1st place). Thick and creamy. So of course I turned to Dr Google which informs me that I absolutely must be pregnant, haha. I also did an opk thinking maybe it's just late as it's such a strange cycle, a real squinter showed up so discounted that idea but decided we needed to dtd just in case. Dp was well up for it! Great! And, sorry, tmi again, we dtd with no "extra" lubrication at all, which almost never happens. So of course, as I was saying, absolutely must be pregnant cringing at the thought of af

Good luck to all!

Sounds like it's myself or birchy up 1st to test. Anyone else convinced they are pregnant or otherwise?

My DH woke me at 3! I have a bit of a cold and so was apparently breathing heavily and keeping him awake. I've barely slept in over a week and the man wants to wake me! I told him that in future he'd need to leave and take a bed in one of the spare rooms or take a sofa. That was greeted with, "If you're the one keeping me awake you should move rooms!" I was not impressed with this, told him so and he moved. The cheek of it! Finally fell back to sleep at 4.

Great to have you back birchy.

Vap0 I had a massive load of random ewcm yesterday so fingers and toes crossed for you. Also found that my cervix incredibly low! Wanted sex yesterday but didn't think it was wise to try with it being so low!

I had a look at the other forums yesterday. I certainly won't be moving over there for a while....all to scary. They're talking about things i know nothing about!

Have a great Monday guys!

Hi Vap0 all sounds very promising! I am due to test around 3rd Oct but think I might test next Wed which will be the 30th. Mainly as my parents are visiting and if it was good news i would like to tell them before they leave as I wont see them again until Xmas.

science - ugh men!

What is wrong with these bloody men? Outrageous!

Birchy - that's so annoying about the EWCM and not knowing about ovulation. I'm in the same boat re: ovulation this month, although I never get much EWCM (or indeed any!). How are you doing generally? Hope you're keeping it together ok!

Vap - I really hope this turns out to be a good sign. Keep us posted!

ScienceTeacher - you absolutely have to stay with us and keep us updated! We all need a little bit of positivity and hope. It will also be lovely to see how "one of us" gets on without all the doom and gloom and horrible updates .

Urghhhh, I also slept very badly last night. I'm really struggling to focus at work .

P.S. NewLeaf - I know what you mean. I sometimes think I should name change as there are so many oddballs out there with too much time on their hands. I just don't know what to change it to!x

P.P.S. Thirds (decaf) coffee of the day. This is not a good month...

Well, been awake since 3.50am and Cadbury's chocolate now tastes vile! Walked into the art room today and told her the room really stank...nobody else could smell it! Don't know if these are signs or just coincidences but it'd be a strange few months without chocolate if so!

I doubt any of us know each other in life and by the sound of it you've all got mates that pop them out frequently so they wouldn't be on here anyway!

I wondered about telling you the name DH has given 'it' because of it being an amalgamation of our names but I did it anyway. It doesn't take a genius to figure out my name from that!

Ooo, this might make you smile...on looking back at the pics I uploaded at the weekend you can see the tactically placed bedside loo roll and a small section of my Rampant Rabbit! Both still in place from last month TTC...the loo roll for the mess and the Rabbit to help things along a bit during the worst sex sessions!

Ha ha ha. I totally missed the rampant rabbit! That's hilarious!

I bet those are symptoms. Omg - 9 months without chocolate?! I can't even imagine such hell :p

I thought the 'Nou' name was clever...as you could be a Louise or he could be a Lou...and there are SO many names beginning with 'N'. I agree that most of our friends seem to just pop them out, so probably aren't on here anyway!

haha - I love the photo bobo - I didnt even notice! Glad to see it has worked though!

Flatwhite - I am good - have become a little disinterested. Have 3 months of clomid to do before they will look at my tubes (which I have a feeling there is an issue - just an intuition though). So I am on my second month and am not expecting any BFP. I guess that is why I am disinterested. 3 friends popped out babies last week! I did have a little cry at that. Not only are they having babies but they are stealing my favorite names as well!! Very unfair lol

Oh no! Stealing your names is not good. I was getting more and more bored of infertility as the clomid months were passing. I was so full of hope and optimism the first month and this month (my third) I was so convinced I hadn't ovulated that when I did my test I was expecting nothing! I was so upset that I felt it'd been a waste of time I was very disinterested. You can hear it in my posts. Then we all know what happened there!

Maybe being bored and chilled out about will help.

You might just be right about my real name Flat

Oh no Birchy that sucks. I'm sorry it made you tearful; it happens to the best of us. How do all these people keep getting pregnant? What is their bloody secret?! All the baby bombs, pregnancies, births, baby pics on fb etc are just relentless. I want to quit Facebook until I'm in a better place, but I am completely addicted to it. I don't know why because I never see anything interesting but I see a hell of a lot that really annoys/frustrates me! I really hope you feel a bit better soon.

I agree about stealing your name(s). That really sucks! I'm a bit worried about that as we have chosen names for both 1st girl and 1st boy (and have quite a few for the 2nd, 3rds, 4ths!). My SIL is giving birth in Jan and part of me wants to say "Erm...please could you pick any name in the world but not 'M' or 'O'?" :p

Ha ha Science - that's brave of you to come out. That's also my middle name, so we're basically infertility twins. Apart from the fact you've bloody deserted us with your fertility and baby making skills says FlatWhite, giving dirty look at Science while rummaging in cupboard for misplaced rampant rabbit

Going off topic a bit (hmm...actually...do we have a topic?), it's kind of nice that a few slebs have come out about their infertility problems (Chrissy Teigen, Tyra Banks, Jamie King - although she's managed to have kids). Hopefully by hearing from "normal" (i.e. relatively young, healthy, outwardly fertile) actresses, some people might learn that this whole TTC thing isn't as simple as inserting penis sans condom.

Although maybe don't read the Daily Mail online about it. Standard level of DM IQ on there with "If Chrissy needs a bag of oats I'm all game". Seriously? Some people should be banned from procreating for the good of the nation.

Hi all

I've already chosen a name too! For some reason I'm convinced I'll have boys when I have babies hopeful thinking there that I'll actually be able to have 2 when I'm struggling so much to have 1. Henry is my name! I have never met anyone called Henry and hope I don't until I have my baby! No idea what to do if it's a girl.

birch I hope you get your good news to tell your parents! Fingers crossed for this 2nd round of clomid! Have you used opk's or had a blood test for ovulation? Or are you taking the stress free approach and trying to not think about it?

science I'm liking hearing about your symptoms, you read about people with funny smells and tastes but I suppose it's one of those things you have to experience. How many weeks and days are you now? Any news on any appointments?

So my oldest friend had twins last weekend and the sodding picture keeps popping to the top of my news feed on FB, argh. I haven't liked it or commented as I'm trying to ignore it but it keeps jumping out at me! I wish you could have a block for no babies or pregnancy stuff to appear in your news feed like you can with games. Ha.

flat I'm going to guess your reserved names -
boy - Oliver, Matthew
girl - Olivia, Matilda

I wonder if I'm right! You can tell us, we don't know each other (that we now of) and even if we did, it's still a race to get upduffed!

That's good to hear about the celebrity infertility stores, it will make people more aware of how devastating it is, hopefully one of them will do a release and talk about how shit and heart breaking it is. That would hopefull make people understand more!

So, dp went walking with a friend from London over the weekend and he told him of our issues. I'm really pleased he has been talking about it as I was starting to think he doesn't give a shit. Anyway, his London friend says that he knows lots of people who try for 6 months or so and go straight to private IVF, I suppose they all earn so much down there the odd £7k per session isn't that much. And they are all waking around with twins too! Ha!

I have to say whenever I see people with twins now I automatically assume (totally wrongly I know) that they have had issues conceiving and have had some form of medical intervention. I never knew about the likelihood of all of these things until the years of reading about all this shit for years! I know this has all changed me, I'm hoping for the better, and it's made me more compassionate and empathetic for other people's situations. A retailer of mine told me today that he had a daughter 7 years ago and she never left the hospital and died at 1 yr 3 months old. It was a heart breaking story and I don't think I could have dealt with that story (or the unexpected and slightly weird opening up he did) before all of this.

I'm feeling less optimistic about a bfp today, been feeling very much like af is on her way. Will test tomorrow, too early but I'm an addict, what can I say!

newleaf how are you doing?

Oh forgot to mention, I was at another place today and another retailer brought in a new baby today, 3 months old. Totally gorgeous! For some reason pregnant people get to me more than actual babies. Or maybe babies under 3 months are harder tha. 3 months plus too.

No explanation for my craziness!

Hi Vap0, I have been temping and using my cbfm - but its such a chore this month! It has also confused me lots as temp says i ovulated cd13, got EWCM cd12 and cbfm peak on cd 14 - so you have to be a wizard to guess when I ovulated!

My temps are much more normal this month though - last month they were crazily high. I keep up with temping as well though as I have reflexology and she looks at whats been happening with me. But my reflexologist is also pregnant!! I am surrounded - a conspiracy I think hahaha

My friend in work is pregnant and i have been trying to catch her baby movements - I am so happy for her but total jealous as well. I do think though I cant wait until that is me so I have to say my mindset isnt that its not going to happen - just wish it would hurry up.

Hello wonderfully lovely ladies!
I am back in London and currently on tube with the rest of the city rats...

Feeling very fat and bloated!

Good luck Vap fingers are crossed for your testing. And Welcome Bacl to BirxhyGoo.

No news here just busy with work while away from DH sojust as well to keep busy is better I guess!

Still spying in the background on here when I get the chance though! we also have names picked out although won't tell til that BFP comes... Seems so far away now....

Hi all

So, I'm going to use my frer tomorrow morning, used an ic this morning and nothing at all but I am going to have a jolly good drink this weekend and so am testing at what would be about 11 dpo (if I ovulated) and so that should mean that it will show something if it is going to be a positive month.

I go to a lot of John Lewis stores as part of my job and they are a hive of pregnant women and babies.

Bet you're pleased to be home newleaf! How long are you back in the uk for?

birch is temping easy enough to do? I've been toying with the idea for ages but can just see it will be another thing for me to over analyse and not make any sense. If you wake at different times every day will it work still?

Welcome!e home newleaf-

Vap temping is very easy - fertility friend app does it all for you. It doesn't matter if your temp is out one day as it looks at averages. Although I find I wake at different times and it doesn't matter at all.

I like it as you def know you have ovulated when your temps rise - its very obvious! Opks etc only tell you that your body is preparing to ovulate not that it actually does. I got really into it for about 3 months - now it's a chore, but one month I didn't do it I was cracking up not knowing if I had ovulated - so I'm stuck with it!

birch can you get accurate results in month 1 of temping?

Been up since 5

Frer bfn

Another month of punishing myself and not drinking, eating runny eggs and not going to a cheese and wine night for fear of soft cheese.

Not doing that again, back to life as normal until that bfp. I had to give it a go this month after reading the stats on increased fertility.

I'm thinking that i didn't ovulate at all.

So, I'm drinking tonight. Hoping to hell that I ovulate this month!

I think I knew it was going to be negative. I'm not too distraught at the minute. Having the weekend ahead of me makes it easier now I know I can drink.

Looking at my app I'm away on an important date training in head office, gonna do everything I can to cancel it. I can't afford to be away on such an important time again.

If temping can give good results in month 1 I'll buy one now so it arrives in time for af.

birch which thermometer do you have and would you recommend it? Been searching online all this time and don't know which to buy. Would rather buy one in a shop if I can?

Hi vap - yes if you start temping after AF arrives you will know when you ovulate. I did start out oral temping but moved to vag temping which grossed me out but i got use to it- you get much more accurate temps.

I use babymad thermometer - from amazon was cheap and does the job wonderfully. However all you need is a thermometer which reads to 2 decimal places.

If you want to see some of my charts you can see them here www.fertilityfriend.com/home/5ad39d/%22%3EMy%20Ovulation%20Chart%3C/a%3E

as you can see the temps are like the rocky mountains but you can still see a trend. It does also take 3 days after ovulation to show that you ovulated (as you need 3 increased temps in a row) - so it cannot be used to show when ovulation is occurring, only that it has occurred.

Sorry for the BFN Vap, just enjoy the drink and have fun... It definitely eases the pain of the BFN...

Pregnant women and babies EVeRYWHeRE in London ??????.

I tried temping but for me it just confused my fertility friend. I sleep reeeeallly badly so for me it just doesn't work as u are supposed to do it at the same time each day and supposed to do it after 3 hours of uninterrupted sleep!

Welcome home Newleaf!

Vap0 is it all over this month? I read that boys take longer to show on pregnancy tests because boys produce less hcg.

I was no good at temping, it was all over the place unless I picked up the thermometer the second I woke up.

I found feeling my cervix easier. It should go really soft and high up when you're ovulating. I'd give you my fertility monitor but I'm so scared that I'm still pissing on sticks every 2 days to check everything is ok!

Still barely sleeping, really don't know how I'm functioning!

Flat, some other folk who have had trouble are Cat Deeley and Ant McPartlin's wife.

With the upcoming 3rd wedding anniversary I've been asked by an array of people, at least once a day, about when we might start a family. Bloody nosey folk!

Hope you're all doing ok xx

science Yep, I'm well out, spotting started only a couple of hours after wasting my frer! And af started this evening. In a way I feel lucky that my cycle hasn't been too upset by this whole load of crap. So, back to a 26 day cycle which I should be grateful for, less waiting to try again.

So I'm on my 2nd bottle of prosecco and meeting friends in the pub tomorrow at 2pm! Yes, 2pm! Can't wait! All day drinking is the order of the day this weekend!

No more waiting for this bfp! That's it! Now life carries on until that 2nd line shows up!

birch thanks for the info! I expect to receive my thermometer next week some time! Will update when it arrives! Looked at those baby mad ones but was annoyed to pay more for shipping than for the product itself do chose a different product with free shipping. Did all of this research between the hours of 5-8 this morning! I'll certainly look at ur charts soon (not tonight -too much prosecco). I need to start understanding it all for if to help me understand anything. Is there an app which helps temping? I use ovia, not sure if that will help...

newleaf they are everywhere! Dp says they have always been there but I've just never noticed them before! I don't believe that! I reckon we must be in a baby boom the amounts I see every-bloody-where! I won't be surprised if temping doesn't work for me but have been toying with the idea of giving it a try for about a year so think now is the time!

science this cervix thing freaks me out a bit, how long did it take you to get to grips with it? Whenever I've been in for smears or scans they have always struggled to find things themselves which made me think that if they can't do it then how the hell will I do it??

I totally understand the continued testing, I did the same, i was testing every day! Have you noticed the lines getting darker? Don't blame you wanting to keep hold of it! I almost bought one today but read reviews and people were generally saying the ic opk's were just as accurate if not more and after you saying your kit didn't detect your ovulation I decided not to bother. By the way, I've been following them on eBay and they still sell for around £50 per piece for 2nd hand ones! Plus postage!

I hope you start being able to sleep better soon! Also, must be so much easier hearing these Nosey Parkers asking you questions now you have your bfp! It would be so much harder if you didn't have a baby on board! But these people piss me off! How dare they ask questions like this which will always make the person feel uncomfortable at best, or worse make them feel like a failure if they are trying!!??? How dare they!

My mum asked me the other day why they didn't see much of me anymore, wish I'd told her the truth, i will next time she asks. I'm staying away because she makes me feel so uncomfortable! Always looking at my tummy trying to make her own decision whether im pregnant or not (especially when I turn down a drink) rather than actually asking me! And also the constant stories of the growth/progress of my niece who is about 4months old which destroys me because it rubs in how much of a failure I am at this whole baby making business! Considering this baby wasn't even thought of before we had had 9 months of torturous months of ttc and now at 26 months later my mum doesn't seem to get that!

Hoping that we conceive soon so I can enjoy being there again! I should take comfort in the knowledge that she will be a doting grandma but it's little consolation now.

I'm still so excited for you! Can't wait to hear about your 1st scan! Have you had any other appointments yet? Any booked?

flat how are you doing?

Who is up to test/af next?

I have my first midwife appointment on the 6th...nothing until then. My doctors believe me that I've done the test right! The doctor said she'd see me but I figured that Google could answer any questions I had but the midwife appointment is a whole hour long!

I wish you didn't feel like a failure but I totally understand why you do. My 26yr old single sister joked she was pregnant a few months ago, none of them knew my situation but I couldn't stop crying for hours afterwards with just the thought of it all and the associated failure.

The whole cervix thing took me a month to figure out. I would put myself in the same position every time I checked...if I could get the whole finger in and it was squishy then it was time to DTD! If it was lower but hard then I didn't need to bother! Sorry for the TMI! Also, Birchy, going back to a previous post, you said you got EWCM on day 12 then your monitor said you'd ovulated day 14. That was pretty standard for me...EWCM 2 days before the peak.

In other news, I had to restrain a pupil on Wednesday, that was pretty scary. I was terrified of getting hurt. DH thinks I should tell work so they don't expect me to do that. It's a special school for essentially really fucked up kids, so there's quite a lot of need for physical intervention. The silly man is being crazy over protective at the moment, hopefully it wares off! He won't have sex with me either in case it causes a mc!

Hope you're enjoying all your sex...looking forward to him going to work tomorrow as I'll get some time to get the rabbit out!