The mind numbing boredom of infertility III

[icy121]

Are you Barren & Bored? You've come to the right place!

We do: swearing, empathy, bitterness, tears, sardonic laughter, glittery shit and mocking idiots who know nothing jon snow.

We don't do: baby dust, relentless positivity, "u ok hun", "I had a friend who..", pithy advice or sentimentality generally.

Previous threads 1 and 2.

Now that you've got all that down, welcome to the barren ghetto.

OHHHHHH ladies I really need your help, I'm not in a good place at all right now and need a bit of hand holding. I've just been baby bombed by my younger sister - they've only been trying a couple of months. We've been ttc 4 years, 4 failed round of ivf. Not coping well at all... we only moved into a new house at the weekend, fresh start and all that. I was happy for the first time in about 6 months and now it's all gone, I'm totally devastated. Help!

Sorry, that was v self centred - I've been following this thread but lurking a bit, hope you're all doing ok xxx

fourpaws I feel your pain - it's so unknown at every point as you just don't know which way it's going to go. Am trying to tell myself that's it's the first round so case of trial and error - does seem like an expensive and disruptive experiment though so that's not providing much comfort. A successful stabber told me I need to remember, it doesn't need to be perfect, ok is good enough which I think is a better approach

Ah chocolate an expensive and disruptive experiment. I am so stealing that. What a journey.

Angel, my complete sympathy. I am still reeling from newly married SIL honeymoon baby bomb last week. See my various rants below. Makes me feel sick just to think about it. I don't know what helps, nothing really.

Oh fourpaws I'm so sorry for what you've been through, your Inlaws sound like a nightmare. It's horrible isn't it? I thought I'd have a bit more time before this happened but it's absolutely floored me. They're not far along no need to tell us yet but I wish they'd left us in blissful ignorance for another couple of weeks.

stealth I'm not sure if I missed that you were pregnant?! Idiotic of me. Anyway congrats! Sorry to hear about the anxiety, it's so hard isn't it, fingers crossed for you.

Zenzie the pregnancy after infertility thread is great. I was also on there and left when I had mc, they are a great group (I missed this thread though!!)

Angelica so so sorry. That must be so tough for you. (luckily I don't have a sister, but was recently faced with news my cousin had had a baby when visiting relatives, and had to try to act pleased.) for you. Do they know what you've been through? If so it seems insensitive.

Hi kiwi yes I am - 14+5 today. I was just joining the pregnancy thread as you were leaving. Hope you are healing, sounds like you're looking to the future

angelica ugh that's so tough. I have 2 younger sisters and it's been small comfort that neither of them are close to wanting to have kids. Uncharitable, I know. Really horrible situation for you.

chocolate - yep, the feeling of being an expensive Guinea pig. You just have to keep thinking that it work for some people. Either way though what you feel about it won't affect the result so I think it's more about being able to accept you don't have control over the outcome I have never managed to even come close to successfully adopting this attitude but I think it's quite helpful

Thanks stealthbanana and congratulations on your pregnancy, I hope you're feeling ok.

kiwiblue I'm incredibly close to both my sisters so she's been there through the whole process. I could tell she was terrified of telling me and thought she was doing the best thing by telling me first, but it's pretty much brought me to my knees. DH is furious - he sees it as her being selfish and telling me early because she wanted to get it off her chest, regardless of whether it was the kindest thing to do. The timing really couldn't be worse, I'm going in for a lap to try and remove endo at the end of July and then more ivf in September. I just want to run away and hide but we've just moved into the same village as them (may out me but I really dont care at this point).

Any update in your EC, fourpaws? Xx

That's awful Angel, I really feel for you. My mil had a go at me last nightshe said she didn't understand why I was upset as SIL was bound to get pregnant at some point. Ah, I see, just me that's destined for this hell then is it. To be honest it doesn't matter what any of them say, I, going to take it the wrong way.

No update here, next scan not till Monday. Frantically trying to grow follicles.

Urgh, mils can be awful, what a horrible thing to say. My dad has said something similar to me in the past (along with telling me its silly to be jealous of pregnant women ).

Fingers crossed for your follies over the weekend - I clamped a warm hot water bottle to my stomach when I was stimming as heat is supposed to help xxxxx

Thank you. I don't have a hot water bottle but I do have a small puppy dog clamped to my tummy cuddled in. I don't care what anyone says this wee dog won't leave my side and knows completely that I am not myself. Big eyes staring at me.

Congrats zenzie and wizzi sorry about the OHSS wizzi, that sounds awful!

How are you doing now fourpaws sorry to hear about the shitty in laws! Angelica welcome and sorry about your baby bomb, that sucks. Take it one day at a time and do whatever you can to make you feel better/happier (well as happy as you can be in this situation!)

How is everyone else doing? I've been trying to catch up with everyone's news - I've been hiding at the moment as work has entered the crazy phase! Not much going on with me, started stabbing on wednesday, apparently I need to hurt myself as the first one I did literally stab myself and it hurt like hell. Yesterday's was much better! As they have doubled my dose of Gonal F, I will have a scan next Wednesday to see how it's all going.

God, i just want to be done with it all.

Morning all,

Had another scan this morning. Follicles have grown a little bit, now around 9mm and still 6 of them but lining really thin still (3.2).

now I am wondering if this is my issue. nobody has looked at the lining before or spoken to me about it but surely after 12 days of gonal f it should be way thicker than that? It may also explain the MC's I previously had as well. Does anyone have any thoughts?

Hi fourpaws

I have chronic thin lining - what does your lining look like in a natural cycle?

That is very thin - what did the clinic say about this? Have they given you oestrogen tablets to thicken the lining up?

In my 2nd cycle (most recent one was freeze all) my lining was borderline - ideally it should be a minimum of 7mm at trigger, preferably 8-9mm. Mine was around 7mm, but compacted to 5.5mm at EC. I was on oestrogen tablets from the day of my last scan onwards, and we had a lining scan on day 4 to assess whether the lining was strong enough to have a fresh transfer, or if we needed to freeze all. My lining had thickened up to 8.5mm, so we proceeded to a transfer. I did get pregnant (but subsequently miscarried)

Thin lining can be related to mc but it's much more likely that an embryo simply won't implant if it's too thin

Worth asking:

• what is the minimum thickness your clinic will transfer at
• how do they intend to support the lining to thicken it up?

I sympathise, as my shitty lining is refusing to cooperate. I'm doing a dummy FET to see how my lining responds, and it's not responding well. After a week of oestrogen tablets it's only 5.8mm, so my Dr has switched me to patches, and we'll see what it looks like at my next scan on Friday

Oestrogen pills or patches can definitely support your lining in a fresh, so push them for an answer. Good luck xx

*day 4 after EC, ie when the embryos were 4 days old - so the day before we would either do a day 5 transfer or put the embryos straight in the freezer

Thank you banana.

They said nothing at all. The Consultant was scanning and she read it out and I said oh, that is not good, and she said no but plenty time yet. Then I came back home and started googling and panicking.

They never gave me anything or suggested anything. They just keep saying give it more time. i have now been on Burserilin since 3 June and Gonal f since 30th June. Not to go back until Friday now.

I have written both your questions down and will ask then. I could kick myself but although I new it was not right I was not sully sure how bad it was. I think I was so wrapped up in follicles growing I was not concentrating on other aspects. Gah.

Oops, ,meant to say I don't know what lining looks like in a natural cycle......should I? Nobody has mentioned lining at all until this morning.

Fourpaws - totally understandable to be focusing on the follicles, and that's completely right! The eggs and the embryos are the priority - if the lining doesn't play ball then the embryos can be frozen and the lining worked on in a FET.

I wasn't able to start on oestrogen tablets until quite late in my cycle, about 10 days of stims in, because I was on a short protocol and we couldn't start them until the Cetrotide had fully kicked in. On a long protocol you can start them any time, because you're down regulated already so the oestrogen can't interfere with the follicle growth

Natural cycle I only asked in case it had ever come up in a pelvic ultrasound in any of your treatment or diagnostics pre IVF. If you haven't had any mid cycle scans then there's no reason you'd know - my periods were scanty to non existent, and mid cycle scans showed the reason I wasn't bleeding was because the lining wasn't growing. If you had normal periods then it's unlikely you'd have had acute thin lining like I did

There's a lot to take in during scans so hope they can answer your questions. Try not to worry - worst case, if the lining is borderline you don't have to transfer into a suboptimal uterine environment, the lining can be worked on in a FET. All dealable -withable xx

gosh banana thank you so much. It's incredible the knowledge on here and the fact I have learnt more from this than the clinic maybe tells me something.

My periods have always been horrendous. I was on the pill forever because of it but since coming off, 4 years ago, they are back to nightmare level. Very very heavy.

I will ask on Friday and see what they say.

fourpaws just to give a slightly more positive view - at 9mm your follies haven't really started growing yet, so it's actually good that your lining is not that thick - you don't want the 2 out of sync. Once the gonal f starts to work its magic it might well thicken up.

Good point by stealth - I'm a moron and hadn't even clocked the 9mm follicles cos I read too fast and I'm a pratt!

Thank you all the bananas

I am hoping I am just a very slow learner........I have been taking this stuff for days now and today some of the people I recognised from starting on the same day were going in for collection.

Last week they were only like 2mm so they are growing, albeit very slowly. The nurse did say some people do take longer but I am starting to worry now.

What dosage of gonal f are you on? And do you know what your amh and fsh are?

12 days in - yes that is a slow start, but slower is not bad (it's not like a natural cycle where the follicles over mature if you leave them too long). I stimmed for 20 days and had v good quality eggs.

I was on 225 days 1-6. Then have been on 300 since then. so 5 doses at 300 I suppose. I'm sorry, I don't know the amh or fsh. I can ask on Friday. They did take bloods today as well.