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.

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original thread

Congratulations icy!

Happy 'We may not ever have a day that acknowledges or celebrates us but we are still worthwhile humans' day!

Hmmm... needs a snappier name or it will never catch on.

Congratulations icy, that's great news!!! Must have been a very romantic setting for a proposal!!

bip, thinking of you today. Hope DH is looking after you. And you can have a cuddle with the cat as long as he doesn't have explosive diarrhoea any more.

Tammy I think the day after MD should be Militant Barren Day. Happy MBD to you!

icy congrats! That's fab news. Plan the wedding and buy a tight fitting dress. Hopefully Mother Irony will pop up and get you too pregnant to fit in it.

bip visiting your DDs grave sounds like a lovely plan. I hope you have a peaceful day. I haven't ventured into aibu yet. Maybe if I feel the need to raise my blood pressure later I'll give it a go.

karla love that cartoon. Might get it made into a sandwich board and wear it to work.

And Harold, well, g'day Harold.

I've just had a bit of a crap Happy Not Mothers Day gift.

Am coming to the end of my ICSI TWW. Am due to test in 3 days' time - and woke up this morning bleeding.

Guess it's game over. Brilliant timing from the cosmos. Ho and indeed hum.

In happier news though, congrats Icy.

And Bip, I'm really sorry to hear that. I hope you are okay today

G'day though, potatoes! That made me smile / cheered me up a bit - thanks.

Baby bombed in Mother's Day. This is the birth not the pg announcement. It's like someone's punched me in the stomach though as its a close friend, and therefore a baby I'll have to see. Gah. Xx

Hello ladies. First post here after long-term lurking. It's the wrong terminology really to say that this is my favourite thread, but you're all awesome and strong and funny and fucking real so actually, despite the subject matter, it's so great to be able to follow you all and listen to the chat of people who get it.

Quick me me me bit: 34, London-based, been TTC#1 since Jan 2014, lots of bullshit time wasting from NHS, then had private IVF cycle in Jan this year that resulted in BFP, was smug insta-IVF-diffa till yesterday when a 9wk scan revealed baby had died, ooh, approx three hours after we'd seen the heartbeat at 6+5.
Going to EPU tomorrow after this excellently fun Mother's Day weekend to try and sort out what to do next.

Then back on the mind-numbingly boring, expensive and heartbreaking IVF bandwagon, I guess. Have a frostie waiting to go but already thinking it won't work. Because life is shit.

Anyway. So, yeah. It's crap. We all know that.

Potatoes I've seen you on some miscarriage threads (having obsessively stalked them this weekend) and hope you're doing ok. Hello to everyone else and hope you're surviving the weekend.

Welcome grumple, sorry you find yourself here but good to have you.

I had a very similar experience - 3 yrs ttc, ivf, scan at 8 wks showed no heartbeat. I'm recovering for an erpc now. PM me if you'd like chat, although I can't claim to be an expert.

Good luck at the EPU. My advice is take a book/magazine, there's a lot of waiting around. Happy Militant Barren Day!

Sorry to hear your news harold. Makes the waiting to test day even harder.

sammy urgh that sucks. Becoming a mother on mother's day. The perfection. Stay in hiding for the rest of the day?

Hi all

Mixed feelings about today but braved it and took mum to see dad and took him for a walk and then went to the local garden centre for a sandwich - mum didn't beat around the bush and said it'll be a miracle if this first round works. Nice. She's probably right but I have to go into it with some positivity I feel.

I know some of you have had right shitty days - I hope you've managed to get some peace at some point.

Congratulations on your engagement Icy it sounds fabulous and very exciting! Really pleased for you!

I've done my first injection today and apparently I'm dead inside - I didn't feel a bloody thing ha! Seriously - not a thing! Full steam ahead - ICSI you can fucking bring it onnnnnnn!

Hey, Harold, how are you feeling this morning?

Grumple welcome, and I'm sorry to hear about your mmc - it's so awful. Do you have private health insurance at all? I've had 2 ERPCs privately and had a very good experience (as these things go) both times - and most policies will cover you for any treatment & investigations you need for a miscarriage (& this is quite a good way to get any tests done the NHS have refused you).

Laura sounds like you had a very hard day yesterday. You need friends & family need to get the right balance of being realistic and encouraging, and it always feels like such a blow when they get it wrong. Good work starting the jabs. And I reckon being dead inside is a distinct advantage under this sort of stress!

Sammy so sorry for the MD baby bomb. The worst ones are the babies you will have to spend time with.

Hi all, thanks for the welcome. Thank Christ the whole Mother's Day bollocks is over with. I had my mum staying with me so that was bloody hard work trying to pretend all was ok so I didn't wreck her weekend as well.

Bip thanks for the ERPC advice. I am actually on DH's BUPA which I always forget about, so that's a v good point about tapping them up, but have an appointment at my local EPU today so will see how that goes. It's a five min walk from my flat so has at least convenience on its side.
Also my phone now autocorrects ERPC and miscarriage- yay.

Laura good luck for the ICSI and hope it remains as straightforward for you. Maybe your stomach is as numbingly bored of all this as the rest of you- handy!

Just catching up on rest of thread, hope everyone is doing ok.

Ooooh Laura I felt nothing the first week and thought I was hard as nails. But in the second week I was full of gunk in my belly fat and it got really tender so I needed the of ice cube

Best of luck for today grumple

Ooh great tip thanks Potatoes! Thanks for the boost everyone too! Xx

Hello ladies, yesterday I purposely avoided all types of social media. The real world was just as crap!
Was thinking of all of you though. bip I had been thinking about you all weekend and how you and DH would get through it. Sorry you have to face that. Hope it wasn't the worst and your ok today. Xx
Will catch up later, when I am not supposed to be working

I actually can't believe my life sometimes. Another 2 baby bombs at work today. Gah, why is everyone else so frigging fertile???
Oh and he has 'super sperm' as he was away all month and only came home for 2 days and managed to impregnate her.
And here I am with progesterone wax everywhere praying that my stupid body accepts a blastocyst on Thursday.

God, sammy that is really very shit! Hope you're ok. It really is the absolute worst. Good luck for Thurs though- great news that you have a blast.

I work in a 80% female office. Everyone's late 20s, early 30s. I get this about once a month. Have perfected the smile and 'congrats' then turn politely back to work technique now, but it's still a punch to the ovaries every time. At least everyone's now stopped telling me I'll be next.

Thanks both, I'm ok. Swinging wildly between hope that it will work and despair at the thought of never being a mum. I hope it's the hormones, either that or I'm going mad!

Fractious - sorry you're feeling like this. Do your clinic offer a counselling service? It might help to talk things through and get it all out in a 'safe space'?
Also (and I didn't believe this till I tried it) adult colouring book can be very relaxing. Xx

Impossible to kill the thread, Fractious. Really sorry you're feeling so anxious, and sorry to leave you hanging! FWIW I think there are a couple of antidepressants that are cleared for use during pregnancy (a friend of mine has been on them forever and had 2 lovely healthy children). I don't remember which ones though. So if you felt like going that route it could be worth talking to your GP.

I'm completely unrelaxable so don't have a lot of ideas - attempts at meditation make me restless or send me to sleep, yoga is fine but I never feel I get the spiritual / psychological benefits from it you hear about. I find complete dissociation from my life helps enormously, though - I'm working my way through a series of very long, absorbing novels at the moment, and some long-running box sets. Spending most of my waking hours immersed in a fictional world far removed from my own life at least takes me out of myself. I really hope you feel better - and I wouldn't underestimate the role of hormones. I've felt incredibly weird and jittery after each of my miscarriages and all the IVF drugs have made me clench my jaw so much that my face hurts. Big changes to your endocrine system can do all sorts of things. As can the general mind-fuckery of infertility, of course.

Sammy I've got everything crossed for Thursday.Laura Hope the stabbing continues to go well. Grmups I hope things went well at the ECU. And Harold and Meh thinking of you out there.

Actually I take that back about meditation - there were a couple of guided meditations I used to listen to which always helped (or at least they helped me get to sleep) - they were from a place called wildmind and the man who reads them has a lovely soothing Scottish voice.

So we have been to see the consultant.
It felt surreal sitting there talking about it all (OH not that great at that sort of thing and isn't as well informed so I get frustrated with him) although the consultant had a tickley cough so spent the whole 30mins watching her try not to cough out loud.
Lots of jargon thrown at us which I need to digest but basically my AMH is slightly better than this time last year at 5.3. AFC was 13. she said results not great but not the worse they have seen so want to do a ??long protocol.
Offered the glue,endo scratching and time lapse monitoring - has anyone tried these things? She also advised to continue to with DHEA to give best chance of good embies.

So waiting for day 1 to arrive and then off we go I suppose!

I'm sorry selfish I haven't mentioned the rest of you while I have been waffling on about myself but will catch up later..

icy congrats to you! 💍

Karla - I had the glue (and am using it again this cycle) as I figured for only an extra £100 why not.
We also used the time lapse imaging, give such a better idea of how normally they develop. It depends on your age as to how much it increases your chances by. The older the are the more the chance increases by.
Are you using a CARE facility? Xx

Thanks sammy
I'm 35.. We are using NURTURE.
My opinion is to go the whole hog on the first cycle and try it all. OH doesn't see the point in spending money unnecessarily so would rather wait and spend it on the second round (if we need one)