Failure stories

[BipBippadotta]

I'm far past the point where I'm interested in fertility success stories. Tales of lucky couples who triumphed over impossible biological odds to have their miracle baby make me want to self-immolate. Help me feel less alone in my utter irreversible barrenness by telling me about all the fertility treatments, supplements, folk remedies, voodoo, etc you've tried, that work for every other fucker on the Internet, but did bugger all for you.

I'll start!

Things that didn't work for us:
Grapefruit juice
Guaifeneisin
COQ10
Acupuncture
Vitamin E
Royal jelly
Wheatgrass
Pycnogenol
Low carbing
Inositol & melatonin
Cutting caffeine and alcohol
L-Arginine
Baby aspirin
Maca
B6
Starflower oil
Soy isoflavones
Clomid for DH (to increase sperm count)
Clomid for me
Clomid & injectables
High doses of antibiotics
Prednisone
IVF with ICSI

Only thing a few things I can add to this list....

Firstly, intralipid infusions to supposedly help with a raised immune system. First time the nurse managed to eff it up so it started pooling in my arm which was rather painful.

I've also tried to get pregnant the cycle post mc as apparently super fertile...

I am scared of Tupperware and use the kleen canteen on the treadmill which mainly results in my drink going all over my face.

Belly button piercing also out but actually pre infertility - I was told a piercing would cause bloating. Now I'm post egg collection and look like a space hopper, I think my piercing was the least of my worries.

Oh and my acupuncturist thinks I'm taking too many supplements so I'm now off my myriad of vits..... And still not pregnant

Ladies you are my people

bip - DH bought the microscope and we too have videos of little swimmers. I nearly died when he showed the consultant

tiger the Mayan woman (aka magic tummy rub) also told me I needed to steam my vagina. I have not and do not plan to steam my yoni vagina

I never got told to take my belly piercing out - maybe that's messed up my feng shui n shit

Although obviously when I was pregnant I made the mistake of buying a pregnancy stretchy belly bar thing. Miscarried the next day. Arrived from Amazon the day after my ERPC. Brilliant.

Sorry to hijack this thread a little, but I had no idea there were dodgy pharmacies online you could buy from until I read this thread. To those of you who tried them, are they safe? As in, not stealing my credit card details safe?

The one I used was safe - drugs worked (well, got me to ovulate 2 eggs even though they turned out to be duds), and card details weren't stolen. Trouble is I think they change URLs every week or so to escape being shut down. I think there's a website where you can check which ones have good reviews for being reliable, but can't remember what it's called. Googling around for reputable online pharmacies should turn it up eventually.

I bought the vaginal viagra from a pharmacist in Malaysia (yes I know this sounds proper dodge) that Serum clinic in Athens commissioned to manufacture vaginal viagra

Basically it only works if it's in the right formulation to be absorbed. We don't have compounding pharmacies in the UK so we can't get the pessaries that they use in the US. Apparently it's not easy to make them in Greece either

So Serum liaise with this dude in Malaysia who makes 'v cream' vaginal viagra gel in these tampon applicators. Being Malaysia apparently you don't need a prescription. So you email this nice guy John Bowen and pay him via Transferwise and he sends you a massive bag of viagra tampons

Now obviously this sounds dodgy as fuck

I have no idea what I am actually shoving up my foof

But Serum get their donor egg and FET patients to buy them as it helps improve thin lining. So if the clinic commissioned their production I'm hoping I'm not self administering arsenic or anything...

I love this thread!! ahhh the nethers above the waterline and self soothing with sperm video So glad I didnt know about home microscope before. Heres the highlights from my list -
sex every other day for a very very long time
a million supplements
acupuncture for months
no caffeine
no alcohol
boozing for that we just relaxed and it happened (it didnt)
going on holiday x 5
quitting dairy and gluten
being suspicious of plastic
drinking bottled water but worrying about the plastic bottles
repeatedly looking at glass britta water filter jug on amazon but not buying as will take up too much room in fridge and am aware I am loosing the plot
avoiding microwave/nailvarnish/till receipts
long courses of antibiotics
surgery
quitting my job
exercise and weight loss
no exercise above gentle walk and weight gain
worrying that spooning will cause too high testicular temp overnight. DH said no cuddling was a step too far
Serums sperm improvement plan (twice)
Ivf with icsi (twice)
and more pathetically -
lighting candles in churches for years despite being a complete athiest
carefully choosing socks from my spotty/stripy sock collection that match the stage of follicle/embryo development we should be at that day (even I am not sure how that worked) for cycle one. chemical pregnancy.
not thinking about socks at all for cycle two. outright bfn.

This cycle we are trying some wildcard ideas that include emergency surgery between ec and et and staying up to 130am screaming at each other last night - not our style and a complete ivf low. I'll let you know how those go...

Oh man, Zippy, really sorry about the screaming row. There's nothing quite like the combination of fuckloads of alien hormones and vast expenditure and intrusive medical procedures and utter desperation to spice up a marriage. After one of my miscarriages this year we ended up smashing a bunch of glasses in a cathartic rage. We still haven't replaced them, and often drink wine out of mugs, having given up giving up booze. (Or at least I have. DH is still valiantly abstaining).

I am also an atheist who lights candles in churches. I also named my IVF embryos. They were called Smithfield & Farringdon (after the neighbourhood where they were conceived, in the tradition of Brooklyn Beckham). I thought it would help if I was rooting for them by name.

Cinnamon tea
Charting bbt
Opks
Grapefruit juice
Cough syrup
No caffeine
No alcohol
No white wine
Lots of alcohol and drunk sex
Holidays
Conceive plus
Pre seed
Menstrual cup as sperm retainer
Low carb diets
No dairy
Acupuncture (both TCM and 5 element)
Vitamins C and D, zinc, huge horse pill multi vitamins, DHA, huge folic acid, alpha lipoic acid, co enzyme Q10
Visualising those embryos implanting
IVF
FET
Endometrial scratch

I have 2 kids so can't really complain but the last 6 years of ttc have been bloody tough. We gave up at one point and I even stopped charting (which is unusual for me). During that time I actually managed to get pregnant by accident but had a miscarriage at 9 weeks (due to a trisomy). It reopened the door and since then we've done IVF. Just had a failed FET and it smarts like hell. It seems no amount of positive thought and cinnamon tea can trump my aged eggs. Sigh.

Ah yes, I forgot the home turkey baster attempts for when we were too knackered to do the deed at the right time. Not to mention cajoling DH to have sex when he was exhausted and clearly just wanted to go to sleep without telling him why we had to do it that day.

This experience has done my marriage a world of good.

Ah, yes, I'd forgotten the menstrual cups to hold the sperm in.
Also just remembered I went through a phase of testing the Ph of my urine several times a day, and trying to 'alkalise' my body - utter bollocks.

These all sound familiar. Not much to add of my own, but my friend told me of her DH wanking into a cup in a hospital car park so the sample would be 'fresh'.

Personally, I believe it's down to drugs and luck.

These all sound familiar. Not much to add of my own, but my friend told me of her DH wanking into a cup in a hospital car park so the sample would be 'fresh'.

Personally, I believe it's down to drugs and luck.

Wow, you guys have done so much! It goes to show how little I/we have done. It also makes me rather ragey at Mr Meh...!

We did the regular sex, the not so regular sex.
Legs in the air after sex
OPKs
We've taken the wellman/woman conception tablets (still doing this)
I bought Mr Meh Proxeed, he is yet to take it - asked me a month ago what to do with it... apparently reading the instructions and/or researching this shit is beneath him...sigh
ICSI x 1 - failed only one egg fertilised normally out of 7...currently in the midst of cycle 2

The only thing I have managed to get Mr Meh to do is stop having baths, he has really hot ones (he goes bright red after them) he had one after the first cycle failed. He still has really hot showers...

He hasn't stopped drinking booze (I did for the first ICSI, this time I've stopped since stabbing), diet is ok...but has definitely put on weight (as have I).

Thanks bip trying to see the positive of the fight - maybe the increased adrenaline will have improved blood flow to the uterus, something like that?!! Anyway we are both feeling much better now so maybe it helped to let off steam. I have an increasingly chipped set of plates we could despatch in the manner of your wine glasses if this cycle goes tits up (I'm increasingly thinking this will have to be our last) Maybe we should start a plate smashing/candle lighting church for atheist infertiles. With wine in mugs. Or just a big old straw in a bottle..
Feel bad for not naming my embryos now although all were conceived in the same place so would have to be place name 1/2/3 which doesn't work as well. With each cycle I find it increasingly hard to root for the embryo, leading to 'I'm wrecking this with my attitude' guilt. I honestly think in the future they will look back with absolute horror at what infertile couples had to go through in the early stages of infertility medicine. to all

Keep remembering more...

Osteopathy (got my pelvis realigned as I'm hypermobile so it wobbles out of place. Apparently this one is not that woo, some women genuinely can't get pg with a tilted pelvis). As a bonus, this also sorted out my knee.

Neal's Yard fertility treatment.

Fertility yoga.

Robber huh, interesting. I'm hypermobile, and I seem to remember bip saying she was too

Maybe it's my buggered pelvis that caused the miscarriage (she says, not really believing this, but desperately looking for reasons as to why her body killed a chromosomally normal baby). Best get back to the physio!!

wandering off topic but Banana have you tried an osteopath? (I have both osteo and physio). The osteo tends to (gently!) manipulate my bones back into place, and the physio helps me strengthen muscles to try and keep them there. Like a bike - osteo unbends the frame, so the physio can then get the chain tension right and working smoothly. The combination works well for me.

robber - thanks! I have a terrific pelvic physio, so will ask her for an osteo recommendation. My hips were buggered by 8w pregnant and even after the ERPC because I had retained products, my ligaments were still like cooked spaghetti for weeks and weeks afterwards. Pelvis is a mess from a spinal injury and surgery to remove my tailbone, plus hypermobility (plus relaxin in pregnancy), so the more I can throw at it, the better! Thanks xx

glad to be able to help you after all the great advice you dish out on these boards. You may find this link helpful www.pelvicpartnership.org.uk/images/Recommended_practitioners.pdf xx

Have any of you tried more IVF/ICSI/IMSI ?

Statistically speaking, just under 15% of 40 year old women IVF patients have a live birth; that's 7 rounds of treatment.

Of course that's a monumental ask emotionally, physically and financially, but don't admit defeat until you've had - statistically speaking - enough clinical treatment.

Men are arses, even when suffering from MFI. Ours said he was disgusted that female patients are willing to try anything including multiple general anaesthetics whilst their male partners can't even bring themselves to turn the shower down 3 degrees.

Sorry that should read our fertility doctor (just to add credibility to my own opinion about men being arses, you understand ).

I thought I'd found a thread for me but having read through your stories I'm left feeling a little guilty. We suffer with male infertility, which led to my DH undergoing some sort of hideous exploratory operation in search of sperm with the conclusion that he has a zero chance of becoming a father. The operation left him pretty sore for quite a while. So we turned to donor sperm, which my DH struggled to come to terms with.

Then we went through IVF/ICSI. I didn't change anything about my life style, although I was pretty healthy anyway, because I figured that 'normal' women get pregnant the world over despite poor diet, drug use etc etc. Also I was trying to protect myself from getting too obsessed.

I developed OHSS during the first cycle. No one noticed how much I was struggling towards the end of the cycle. And no one (I mean people around me, not medical staff) appreciated how ill I was when OHSS was diagnosed. As a result about 11 eggs were collected, only 2 were fertilised and they were frozen at 2 days. Months later, once I'd recovered, they were both transferred because there was such a slim chance of them surviving. They didn't.

I went through a second full cycle with tiny levels of drugs / hormones and I feel guilty on this thread to say that it was successful. My DD feels like a miracle.

One day 6 embryo was frozen and a couple of years later I went through a frozen cycle but the embryo didn't survive being defrosted. I was devastated because realistically, for a number of reasons, but not because of my ability to physically continue, that was my last chance to have another child. It is really hard to come to terms with. I know only too well the desperation to have a first child, it drove me to the edge, however the drive to have more children is incredibly strong. If it wasn't ' normal' people wouldn't bother having multiple children.

And being told to be grateful for what I have is not helpful. As I say my DD is a miracle to me, nobody could be more grateful, but nothing takes away the desire for more children. I'm just left knowing that all that's left for me is the menopause and that is not a comforting thought.

Of course, I realise that for those of you who are still struggling to have a baby my sadness at not having two will seem ridiculous and selfish.

I love this idea! I'm ttc no 1.

Starting off trying when young (29) has not helped.
Getting preg naturally 3 times - didn't work. Mc each one.
accepting dh has hardly any sperm (despite those natural bfp)
Ivf twice - one at Argc. Didn't work. Mc both times.
Mircale bfp - literally a miracle given sperm count. Also mc that one. (So 6mc)
Intralipids
Ivig
Humira
Prednisolone
Vigara
Asprin
Clexane
"Trying to relax"
Tamoxifen for dh
Telling dh to not have a hot shower/bath for years
Aruging over the fact he's had 2 pints this last month rather than none.
Taking every supplement to man
Spending tens and thousands of pounds on immune tx (to find out it's prob chromosmomal as last one was trisomy)
Pgd testing my 3 frozen blasts - 2 abnormal one no result
Having a good fsh, amh and nothing "wrong" with me
Now potential ashermans syndrome from last d and c
Ffs!

Bip ur post about the sperm viewer made me laugh! I may use it as an example to dh of something I have not done when he thinks I'm lost the plot

I thought miracle bfps the ones u get before u start ur ivf cycle
Always worked out?!
NOT TRUE