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

robber - still here! Like the Hotel California anaolgy!! That's completely it! 9 week scan on Friday, all looked fine. Being discharged to the local normal NHS stuff now. Trust no one, or anything. Ducked back out of pregnancy after being barren thread. Had a peek in the "normal" pregnancy thread I'd go on and literally shuddered.

EGT hello - and YES wtf is wrong with people bringing their kids to the waiting room?! On a similar note, my FET was 5 mins late because some woman brought in her baby for photos with the consultant & nurse team. I could hear them in the reception area clucking and laughing away. Seethed. Maybe some people would think "oooh see it works", but I just found it offensive. Going into a process with pretty shit odds of success, and being delayed by a lottery winner -how about NO? Also, see 'photos of babies in frames in clinic' 😡 Every time had to avert my eyes.

It's just a question of sensitivity. So on Friday when I had my scan and went back to the waiting room I didn't get the pictures out there and then, surrounded by couples clutching their implications folder... in many ways it a total cunt, but my etiquette in the barrens waiting room of doom is 10/10.

I find baby photos in infertility waiting rooms more offensive than actual babies, but that might be because on the odd time I've seen real children, the parent has looked horribly stressed and like they are falling apart and so I've figured they must have had no choice. But the photos - what possesses the clinics?! Just give me a crap landscape painting to stare at please.

Icy! Glad you're doing ok. I also looked at the proper antenatal thread and laughed myself out of there. The one I should be on is colour coded (Team Blue! Team Pink! Team Yellow!). It is the most Netmumsy thing I've ever seen on Mumsnet.

I hate the baby photos in clinic. I'm also far from a fan of actual children there too. I have however had to take our daughter once when we had to go in on the day of failed fertilisation. It was that or go alone with husband. However, we didn't sit in the waiting room with her, just lurked up the corridor.

Scan ok I think. 11 small follicles (between 5-9mm). Consultant seems happy enough. Start cetriotide tonight and next scan on Tuesday

Hi robber, I'm still around, just lurking at present as nothing to report from me except waiting for our FET sometime in the new year. Waves to everyone.

I don't like babies in the waiting room either, glad it's not just me. Recently while nervously waiting for my endometrial scratch, I shared a waiting room with a lady who had brought her mother and her toddler. It sounded like they had travelled some distance, but the clinic is small (waiting room has 8 chairs) so I endured hearing several peppa pig stories to calm down the boy while his mum was having her appointment as he was running around otherwise. The clinic is near Regents Park, couldn't help thinking child would much rather be running around outdoors...

I think I have been at the same clinic blue if it is near regents park. When I was waiting for ET there was an italian couple showing off their baby. Like, expecting everyone in the waiting room to be as delighted as they were. Of course, it must be pretty amazing to have your baby in your arms after treatment and infertility, but for fucks sake - have they already forgotten??

Hope everyone is ok this rather grim Monday morning.

Potatoes that is exactly what I would have done with the fertility ball. Your DH’s teacher sounds like my acupuncturist, who was most bemused that her electrostim acupuncture hadn’t helped my lining, as she’d NEVER had that before. Well, I’m a mystery to science, so funnily enough your magic needles aren’t a miracle cure, who knew?! FFS

Robber hope you and DH are doing well? Completely agree on the antenatal threads - that’s why I started the pregnancy after infertility thread, as I just found those normal preggo threads completely alien to me, and full of instadiffers planning their maternity leave. Loving the Hotel California analogy

Hope you are hanging in there Blue

Hello to everyone (and Jason Isaacs)

AFM, well no birthday bloodbath for me. It’s a telling statement about the state of our lives that I hadn’t seen DH look as excited in weeks since he asked for a status update on knicker watch on Friday, and I said I was having some red spotting, and he sat bolt upright and looked like we’d won the lottery

Sadly the promise of red spotting and a lot of cramping on Sat didn’t go anywhere - nothing remotely resembling a bleed.

Thankfully my post hysto follow up was this morning, so didn’t have too long to shit myself before we could discuss further.

We agreed it was too early to write anything off yet after just one month, and we've added in oestrogen patches for this month on top of the HRT.

But we agreed that if we've still not been able to generate a bleed in 6 months time - via whatever combination of drugs we end up trying - that if it's not happened by then, we would have to accept that it's not going to happen.

If we get to that point, it's very unlikely we would try another FET - because if we can't get a decent enough lining to have a bleed, it's not going to be able to propagate and sustain a pregnancy, and it would be folly to waste our precious embryos.

If we do get me to have withdrawal bleeds then we would do a dummy FET with endometrial biopsies. And only then if we were sufficiently confident in the integrity of the oven would we try and put back a frozen bun. If we do get that far, then one more go and then that's it. If we put back another genetically perfect embryo and it fails or I miscarry again, it would be clear that I can't carry

So no FET for me any time in the foreseeable future. Or potentially at all.

Ironically the waiting has been the killer to date. Now I’m terrified the next 6 months will fly by - with no progress - and we’ll have reached the end of the road. By spring latest we will know if there's a chance my uterus is potentially up to the job. Or that it definitely isn't, and that our only chance of having a baby is to transfer into someone else's 😓

Bean how was the scan on Tuesday?

Banana happy belated birthday! Though I'm so sorry it didn't bring a river of blood. I presume it hasn't suddenly started flowing this week? I won't give you platitudes about 'I'm sure it'll happen', because that is not helpful. In the next six months will you do any more investigation of surrogacy, or will you give yourself a few more months to see if the patches/drugs work? I hope the job is still going well?

Hello to everyone else, hope you're not freezing to death on this chilly night. Thanks to everyone who dropped by so I can stop worrying about them (speaking of which, is Bip ok?).

I went to see the women's health physio tonight, who was comforting and helpful. She assessed me and gave me exercises and also delivered a lecture: 'I know that you've had a lot of shit to get here, but there's no point wishing problems on yourself'. So basically, be aware of pgp/cervical shortening, get checked, be careful, but don't stop my life for the next however many months that this lasts.

Ok so me, ttc now for almost 3 years.

Things I have tried:

Green Tea
Preseed
Vit b6 in high doses for my luteal phase
Acupuncture
Vitamins full stop
Pineapple
Grapefruit juice
Losing weight
Reading everyu book possible
Giving up caffeine and soya then saying sod it
Trying nothing
Clomid with progesterone supplements.

One round of clomid worked (2nd one) when I ate like a pig, drank like a fish and generally was a waste of space for a month (it was my 40th birthday). Ended in an early miscarriage in April/May.

Currently on soy isoflavones (day 4 today) while waiting for IVF.

Why does no one ever talk about this stuff, my issue is I ovulate too late and I have a short luteal phase. However according to the NHS I am lying, and none of that is possible at all.

Hi robber. Not going to well actually. Dose had to be increased on Tuesday as not responding and from starting with 14 follicles I'm down to 7. This cycle has been such a disaster and I'm so upset. The nurses have been really difficult as I've been speaking to the consultant directly and she's tweaking things so they seem to think I don't trust them.

Bean that sounds rough. Do you have a date for EC yet?

Kaz welcome. The NHS doesn't seem to grasp all the different flavours of infertility and contributing factors. Do you know how long you have to wait for IVF? What are soy isoflavones?! I haven't heard of them.

Robber I'm glad the physio was helpful to you. Though that kind of advice drives me up the wall if I feel my anxieties are being trivialised. It's lovely that you're checking up on everyone too.

Banana 😢 Don't know what to say that might help but I really want it to work out for you, one way or another.

AFM I've booked tomorrow off for some R&R, as I'm trying to control my stress and anxiety. I have a blood test on Saturday to see if I'm responding to the stims and on standby for scans next week.

Oh Bean I'm so sorry. It is good that a consultant is watching it closely, ignore the grumpy nurses. I know it isn't much comfort (it wasn't to me when I took weeks to respond on my second cycle) but much better to go very slowly than to take off like a rocket. Also - and I'm sorry if this isn't helpful and not in the spirit of this thread - I had a lot less follies on my second cycle than my first cycle, but it was the 'textbook' first round that failed and the this-looks-like-it-is-failing second one that worked.I've got everything crossed for you. And I hope the above doesn't upset you, I really don't mean that. What are you on? Going by previous rounds, do you think it is the right dose?

Blue enjoy tomorrow! Her advice was a little bit condescending but she wasn't trivialising my worries (she encouraged me to fight for the extra tests), she was nicely telling me to stop worrying my life away.

Robber it's not upsetting so please don't worry. As for doses I don't know as this is short and Ng first cycle was long. I do worry that I was over suppressed with the prolonged failed dr. And whilst my amh is on the low side for my age at 12 it isn't that bad and so I wouldn't have expected to need 450 as my dose. I also only have one follicle on the right. I don't know. I just can't get my head together. Feel constantly on the verge of tears.

Hi All,

Waves to Bananafish and Blueroses 👋🏼

I've been lurking on this thread for some time and finally ready to tell my failure story and hope to get some empathy or at the very least some unmumsnetty hugs.

After two years (I was 26 at the time, my partner was 41) of ttc we went for IVF. They only allowed me to do IVF at my insistence and pushing. I was "too young" and "hadn't been trying long enough", especially after all the various tests we did showed we were both healthy and capable humans of producing life.

The NHS didn't even touch me as my partner has a son from his first marriage, so we were immediately deemed ineligible.

First round of IVF, the meds made me incredibly ill to the point I was kept in overnight at the hospital after EC but I'd happily do it all over again because it resulted in a pregnancy.

At 20 weeks I lost my son due to bungles by the NHS. My booking-in midwife failed to flag-up key points in my medical history which meant I should have been under consultant-led care with monitoring every two weeks. I was classified "low risk", again attributed mainly to my age (28 by now) and a bang-on healthy bmi.

At 17+6 and 19+1 I presented myself to A&E after bleeding. Baby was growing with strong HB. I was sent home both times. No one noticed (until later on my A&E medical records) that my cervix at 19+1 was just 20mm. 5 days later I went in to labour and delivered a perfect, albeit small, boy whose heart beat for 3 minutes before giving up.

Legally we were required to have a birth and death certificate for him (that was a fun day at the council!) and bury or cremate him. He's buried with relatives and his birth certificate is locked in a safe along with photos taken of him that I'm not strong enough to look at yet.

We had later been told by senior NHS staff this was all preventable had the booking-in midwife followed protocol.

8 weeks later I got a BFP. Our miracle baby! We were one of those lucky couples who try IVF then get pregnant naturally.

...only then to result in a chem pregnancy.

4 week later we did FET. Out of our two frozen blasts only one survived. This resulted in a BFN today (9dpt).

I'm a complete mess. My life has been ruined and I don't know where to go from here.

Hello again.
Didn't want to read and run. I'm so sorry for your loss. It sounds horrendous xx

Hello all - been off for a while (nothing sinister, just a self-imposed MN ban after I found myself being unnecessarily wankerish on some stupid AIBU thread that wound me up for no particular reason).

Banana I'd missed that it was your birthday... hope it wasn't too awful in its entanglements with menstrual disappointment. It's just heartbreaking that it didn't improve this time and I don't know how you're getting through the relentlessness of it all. Fingers crossed for a better result with the patches.

AgainPlease so, so sorry to hear about the loss of your son, and its preventability. I know how fucking awful it is to have to go and sit in a registry office with all the happy newlyweds and new parents and their gurgling babies when you're there to fill in the paperwork for your baby who didn't make it. It's just awful. I'm so sorry you find yourself here. And the chemical pregnancy and BFN on top of it all. I've been through a similar string of losses and absolutely know that feeling that your life has been ruined through too much grief.

Really feeling you re: 'low risk' nonsense from the NHS as well. I'm pregnant after much difficulty & have just had a maddening appt with a midwife who insists I'm 'low risk' and should be under midwife led care despite a stillbirth, recurrent miscarriages, advanced maternal age (39), a family history of diabetes, and anemia.

Like every other person I've encountered this go-round, she asked 'is this your first baby?' and I asked if they could please, please add something to my computerised notes to indicate that I've had a stillbirth. Her response was 'oh don't worry, there's a huge red note here - it's the first thing that comes up on the screen when I open your record. You can't miss it!' Big smile. No sign of any slowly dawning self-awareness or recognition that she had, in fact, managed to miss it. It's like dealing with fucking robots.

And if they can miss a huge fucking red note at the top of my record saying that I am HIGH RISK because of a previous late loss... what the fuck else are they going to miss, through just not fucking looking at what's right in fucking front of them? AAARGH

Told a friend (who's had 2 healthy, uneventful pregnancies) about my frustration with this and she said, 'oh well, that's just your standard NHS chaos!' Which I guess you have the luxury of feeling pretty cavalier about if it hasn't resulted in the death of your baby.

After the stillbirth I was promised the moon in terms of extra monitoring in a subsequent pregnancy. I now realise they only said that to keep me from suing them. This time around the hospital have told me they might be able to arrange an extra scan or two in the third trimester, just because they know I must be anxious - like they're doing me an enormous favour. Don't do it to ease my anxiety - do it to save a life. Do it because you are actually looking at the screen to identify anything that might be amiss. And actually fucking look when you look.

At this point I would feel safer cutting this baby out of my abdomen with a rusty fucking stanley knife than letting the NHS anywhere near me again. I don't know what I'm going to do.

Kaz welcome & sorry you're here. I am also a late ovulator with short luteal phase and no doctor I saw would ever entertain the idea that this might be any sort of problem, though I'm sure it was a symptom of something or other.

Bean and Blue good luck and I hope things look up treatment-wise.

Tiger, Robber hope you're all right.

Pea, Zippy thinking of you. & to anyone I've missed.

Bip the fact that the NHS still considered your case to be low-risk actually made me laugh. LAUGH! Because it's just too inconceivable they'd advise this and shows an utter lack of understanding or regard for your situation. Fucking wenches.

I was told to my face by a leading preterm loss consultant: "you slipped through the cracks of the NHS". Well isn't that just fucking dandy. So a pregnant 16 year old crackhead who gets knocked up by someone she can't recall will automatically receive better care because of drug addiction, age, and mental health reasons, than the couple who are utterly desperate to be parents that they've spent thousands of pounds on fertility treatment (with more to come)?

I don't want to be a bitter but sometimes it's bloody hard

Thanks bip. Had another scan today and they've delayed ec until weds. Hoping I'll get a few eggs and we can actually get to the embryo stage this time.

Bean, I was just about to ask. Did they sound optimistic?

Bip, I'm glad you're ok. Can you afford to go private for the rest of the pg? Or can you switch hospitals? I can't believe your treatment.

Blue, what did your blood test show yesterday?

Again and Kaz, welcome to the best shit place to be. Really sorry to read about what you have been through. Again, do they know what caused the cervical shortening?

Wave to everyone else.

Dunno robber. Think they are "managing expectations". I'm not holding out any hope.

Bip I'm sorry that you're not being looked after better, especially after everything you've been through, I'm so angry for you

Bean I can only hope that things work out for you

I had my blood test yesterday, day 5 of stims. The consultant seems to be happy with the result and is keeping me on the same doses and booked me in for a scan on Wednesday. EC possibly Saturday or the following Monday, depending on how it goes over the next few days. (If Saturday, OTD will be on DH's birthday...!)

Bean I've got everything crossed for you. Is there a plan b if this round doesn't work? Are you NHS or private?

Blue good luck! I wouldn't worry about your DH's birthday, not many people hold out til OTD!

I know I'm in the minority but I held out til OTD both times before 😇 I can't handle the uncertainty of testing early!

Bip & Again - I'm just seething in your behalves at the "treatment" you've received. As Again said, it's laughable (in a wide-eyed hysterical way) that the NHS would want to classify you as low risk. And the nurses etc you're coming across just seem like the absolute pits. Dealing with that level of incompetence rightly leaves you fearful.

Bip - would a private hospital birth be an option this time? Or wouldn't it help (even if you had the £15k or whatever to spend on it)?

Again - no words to make you feel better. How could there be. But there are supportive people here who totally 'get' it, and the knowledge from some quarters looking at banana is better than you'd find in 95% of GPs start charging!

Thanks for the welcome robber and icy. Yes, cervix was short as the previous year I had surgery to remove part of it. Dickhead mid-wife wrote it down in my mat notes but didn't bother to flag it up and appropriately assess my risk... ON TOP OF THE FACT it was an IVF pregnancy and as such was incredibly precious to me.

If I ever get pregnant again they'll whack a stitch in at 14 weeks and sow my cervix up like a coin purse clasp.