The mind numbing boredom of infertility II

[PotatoesPastaAndBread]

This is a thread for peole who really want to get pregnant but can't, who have tried pretty much everything, and are really fucked off about it.

Have you ever nearly punched someone for advising you to "relax", "go on holiday" or "just get drunk - that's what we did"? Well then this is the thread for you.

You won't find much sentimentality here and there's no baby dust, but there is empathy, a lot of swearing and a surpirsing amount of glittery dog shit.

Link to the original thread
original thread

Mehmeh a lovely lady called Rosebud on a PCOS thread I'm on had incredible results with her DH's very low sperm count, over 6 months of supplements and lifestyle changes as outlined in 'it starts with the egg' (the chapter about sperm!) her DH got his count up from something like 9m to 56m or something completely bonkers like that

CoQ10 was a big part of that

It's an antioxidant (which is why it's brilliant for egg quality). My DH doesn't have any male factor but our Dr told him to take vitamin C, zinc and selenium as anti oxidants were important for swimmers.

The book has lots of great advice and from a sample (haha) of one, seems to have worked brilliantly

Congrats on ET laura

Happy Easter everyone else

Thanks everyone! Grumpel what's PUPO!?

Welcome Posey, yep it feels like a lot of waiting but actually once I got into protocol & started injections on 6th March it's flown by. Great that you can devote your time and mind to the job in hand too!

Meh it's Co-Enzyme Q10 - red bottle in Holland & Barrett. I just saw it on lots of threads and thought it was worth a go. I've also taken it sporadically as its great for egg quality boosting too!

My DH has been on Wellman Conception, CoQ10, and 1000mg vitamin C for about 6 months, maybe slightly longer. You saw the previous results - the first 2 were dating from Nov 14 and Feb 15, the 3rd was from Feb 16 and then this super-count was from last week. I also had him give up his drinking coke habit and put him on caff-free Coke but he still drinks a fair amount of tea daily. Good luck with boosting that count!

Cannot wait to fly home in the morning; it'll be just my luck to run into storm Katie as we head to Luton airport...!

P regnant
U ntil
P roven
O therwise

Wow Lauraqc! That's amazing how you improved your hubby's sperm! Well done! I've had mine on Maca root, l'argentine and a fertility supplement with loads of stuff in. I'm really hoping it will improve things as his motility was really really low! Thanks for the reassurance - I'm sure it goes quickly once it starts! Did you find injecting was ok? I feel that most people here are further on than me so I hope it is going well for everyone. It's a tough thing to go through and we need to do what we can to stay sane! x

Correction - l'arginine (damn auto correct!!)

Thanks ladies, I'm not sure if it will work with Mr Meh, the problem with his sperm is due to radiotherapy fucking everything up. Might try and convince him to take these too.

Unfor consultant wasn't very optimistic on the impact of Mr Meh taking supplements or cutting down/stopping his booze intake...so that doesn't help!

Coq10 is also in my hubby's supplements! Hurrah! How much did you give him per day? Thanks x

The book 'it starts with the egg' recommends 200mg of CoQ10 as ubiquinol daily for sperm - if you're taking regular CoQ10 (if it doesn't say ubiquinol on the label it's the regular kind, called ubiquinone) then that's double, ie 400mg a day

The same dose principle applies for eggs. I take the dose recommended for women with diminished ovarian reserve, which is 300mg daily of ubiquinol (or 600mg of regular CoQ10)

Thanks banana! Only 30mg in supplements so off to the health food shop tomorrow!!

Thanks Sammy that's exactly it!

Posey I have no idea what dose I'm afraid I just bought a couple of the bottles in the 'buy one get other for a penny' sale thigh figuring it was worth a go...they were quite expensive from what I remember so just bought them to test them really. But Banana has covered it for you

Meh if Mr Meh is willing to start rattling then I reckon it's worth a go...I know the history is very different but I'm in the land of 'what if'...

Ah banana you gem, you know everything! Have run out of my Holland & Barratt CoQ10 100mgs today so off to order the 200mg ubiquinol online . And will start force feeding DH too. He's got relatively shit motility so worth dosing him up in case we need to do another fresh cycle.

Love how we're all necking the CoQ10 as well as instead of the Easter eggs.

Also I misled you all on the cost of this treatment (stupid Euro/£ conversion); it was more like £1730 odd. I've added up everything - meds, scans in UK, flights, hotels, spending money and the treatment and we've spent roughly £4.5k. So probably a saving of at least £1.5k on a UK round. Just in case anyone (live or lurking) is considering it.

That's the handy thing about kindle books. Just load up the app on my phone, load 'it starts with the egg', skip to the sperm chapter and boom!

Basically says take a multivitamin plus CoQ10 for sperm quality

But there's an all in one called Proxeed that clinics sometimes recommend for improving sperm quality before doing a repeat SA. This has definitely got l'arginine (as posey mentions) in it, I can't remember what else. I remember it's pretty expensive so it might be cheaper to look at the ingredients, and just buy any massively key ingredients separately. Although the benefit of an all in one is that it's easier to get the blokes to take it!

Hey Lauraqc - where did you have this treatment? Sounds good!
Can I ask a question - do people on here have really up and down days? Like most of the time I feel really positive and excited but then suddenly crash and worry that it won't work! Am I mad or is that normal?

DH is on Biocare ASC Plus currently which has l'arginine, zinc and selenium in it. Was recommended by my acupuncturist, back when I could be arsed with that.

Posey of course it's totally normal to feel up and down. It's a v emotional and draining time. Ranting on here helps

Hi posey it's normal! I had a lot of ups and downs before treatment and after it failed. Our official test date was early March but I never really dealt with it as we had other stuff going on. Last week it hit me, I spent most of Tuesday and Wednesday bawling - real loud wailing etc. Mr Meh ended up crying with me.

By Thursday i felt better and even a little optimistic. This weekend though - feel a little shit and fed up of it all. Ups and downs are normal.

I need to find a way to not think about this all the time. I am trying to find something to focus on each month. I also need to lose weight...A lot of it now. But that's Tuesday's issue. Heheh

Thanks guys! Meh I'm sorry you have had a hard time of it! it is so hard to get support from people not going through it! Friends try to help but don't realise that ivf takes so much out of you! I'm currently on Amazon ordering funny DVDs and box sets! I've exhausted Downton and Ab Fab already!

Hope Easter break is chilling everyone the fuck out. I know I've had a few more glasses of white, spurred on by OH... "Everyone gets pregnant drunk". Thanks for that babe. He's a total sperminator at 97m, which makes me VERY much The Barren One (ironic given I'm 19 years younger...)

Nowt to report here apart from I got my nails done and I'm always astounded at quite how happy it makes me to get a shellac. Just feel more in control somehow so feeling remarkably positive. Also bought a new dress for a black tie I need to go to with OH work. As I'll be midway through ivf I got one which will be forgiving for any bloating/gunt (I LOVE that word) issues.

laura yay for 2 embryos, all the best wishes and wow £1,500 is def NOT to be sniffed at!

posey welcome! sort of. Wish you weren't here but since you are...! Best place to feel shit. Friends IRL apparently seem to turn into twats so just lower your expectations to, er, zero and you'll be about right.

meh sorry it continues to be a shitty period for you. Needing to lose weight is a ball ache too, it just takes so fucking long to see the results. Have you tried the lean in 15 die plan? It's basically high fat high protein low carb low low sugar. I didn't get on with it (diets make me irrationally angry) but there no questioning the results that can be obtained in a healthyish way. You're right about needing a focus. I think I wrote on here before about sticking one to The Man... My way was to secretly ebay stepkids' shit and pos it through the work franking machine to double dip on postage.... But whatever works.

Getting late (fucking clock change argh!!!) at least tomorrow is a day off.

Oh god. Another fucking baby bomb. A sensitive, nice one from one of my best friends who knows my situ and is presumably worried and guilty-feeling about sharing her news, but still, fuuuuuuuck offffffff.
So now that's two really good friends who are due around the same week I would have been. Seems so bloody UNFAIR, especially with having to watch them get bigger in the months ahead and thinking all the fucking time 'that's what I would have been doing/looking like'. Hate the entire smug, fertile world. I literally have no one not pregnant left to see or talk to. Bastards.

Morning! Sorry to hear your news grumple! It's the way I'm afraid and I'm sure soon you will be joining them!!! I find it really hard too but here's a positive (!??) holding babies increases a hormone which helps you get pregnant so view meeting up with friends who have babies as a 'top up' of baby friendly hormones! It sucks that you have watch them through pregnancy but you have to be a bit selfish now - why not treat yourself to something else? Get a massage or book a weekend away? I know it doesn't compare at all but it will feel good to do something for yourself. I may not have a baby (yet) but my wardrobe has massively improved through all this! (failing that I bet Easter eggs are in sale today!!) x

Ah FFS Grumpel, that is epically shit. Sending you a bathtub full of glittery dogshit and airlifting a care package of medicinal chocolate

Agree with you and fractious on the ‘everyone else is breeding except me’. Most of my friends are sprogged and spend their weekends doing kids’ play dates and other things with their other friends with kids - it’s not that they’re not welcoming, it’s just, well, you feel like a bit of a paedo/barren spinster rocking up to kids events just to see your friends. And tbh I just have NO chat any more. My life for the past 6 months has been IVF, IVF, pregnancy (and off work on semi bed rest for 2 months because I have chronic pain from a spinal injury and couldn’t take my pain meds), miscarriage. I have absolutely nothing of any interest to talk about. And though my friends with kids don’t exclude me from their lives, I find myself voluntarily excluding myself.

I have however, discovered that by being very open about my infertility woes, not only have people been really, really sensitive and thoughtful towards me, which I have been SO grateful for in the last 2 weeks since we lost the baby. I have found out that people I thought were smug instadiffers based on their family photos on FB with gorgeous smiling children, were in fact, fellow infertiles who’d been through the trenches. One friend it turns out has had 3 miscarriages in the space of 11 months. Another struggled for 5 years, had 7 IUIs, 1 failed IVF, 1 IVF BFP (first child), a FET BFP that miscarried and one FET BFP (second child). So I’ve learned that I really am not the only one - and that they DID get there eventually.

posey totally normal to be up and down. Infertility is most definitely a rollercoaster!

icy with you on the ‘oh so I’m definitely the barren one out of us two’ thing. DH is 11 years older than me, and despite a, shall we say, hedonistic time in our young days, he has Olympic swimmers. When I told him he had a sperm count of 168m/ml he was understandably, proud as a peacock. I am grateful that at least only one of us is broken, but at the same, only one of us is broken, and that’s 34-year-old-but-with-perimenopausal-ovaries me

Hello All! I've eaten my body weight and more in chocolate and don't think I can look at another chocolate egg again for a long time...

My SIL gave birth yesterday to her first child. I am happy for her and her DP, particularly as they've gone through lots of stress this past year. But i still had to go and have a cry in the bathroom as I was so sad too. I hate feeling jealous and bitter like this, but just couldn't help thinking how it wasn't fair that she got pregnant by accident when I've been trying so hard these past 2 years. It's all so bloody unfair - and I know that makes me sound like a petulant little child!

Banana I totally know what you mean in that it's really hard to have anything else to talk about! All I think about is ivf and timelines! It's weird when friends want to talk about other things because you feel like your whole world is in pause. I also find myself wishing time away!
Anyway, a bit of something to make you laugh! So today I went arse over tit and fell over in the middle of town. I have two scabby knees to show for it and a bruised ego. It did make me laugh afterwards though (a long time after!) and it kinda jolted me out of feeling sorry for myself (weirdly!). Lying on the bed eating mini Lindt eggs and drinking tea. what next eh!?

Oh zenoush it IS epically unfair! And shit. Sorry you're feeling it too this weekend. It must be so hard when it's family. At least I can shun friends for a bit!

I am very much in a self-indulgent emotional spiral at the mo (have you noticed, much?!! Maybe preg hormones are finally dropping) and am having all the same jealous, bitter feelings. So much so that I catch myself hoping that at some point there will be someone in my social circle who will get a little bit of a clue about this vast world of unhappiness and stress we inhabit so that I'll not be the only shit, barren, struggling one. I'm not wishing anything on anyone specifically of course, who would when you've gone through it, but it is fucking ridiculous how fertile all of my lot are. I totally get your point banana that you never quite know what goes on behind closed doors.
However. My perfect fertile friends all get married and then immediately up the duff within three months, or are laughing about how they never thought it would happen the first month, or are planning and executing ideal sibling gaps etc etc. And they all sail through- happy scans, easy pregnancies.

At some point it would be quite reassuring to just hear of someone taking more than six months to conceive. Statistically WTAF is going on here.

I'm not explaining this right at all and am presumably coming across as a vindictive nutter, but it's hard being so alone in the struggle, as I'm sure you all understand.
Ah ffs, am off to the Hotel Chocolat sale.