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

Wow everyone has been through so much. Why don't we all have a medal or a baby or something???
It seems you are on your own with the egg white Bip but I want to applaud you. You and your DH really know how to do foreplay After finally finding a shop I'm imagining your DH saying "So some eggs for the morning too or just for your fanny?"

I'm with Zippy, I've heard of it but just can't bring myself to go there...
Actually my cousin had some endometrios related infertility and tried it. She now has 2 kids but I don't think it was the egg white I'm pretty sure our issues are bigger than an egg white seperation challenge....I think.

I reckon there's some proper contenders here for the infertility Olympics

The competition NO ONE wants to enter

Two new lows this week

1. My fucking acupuncturist is pregnant

1. I pretended to be a bloke with erectile dysfunction to get a private prescription for viagra from the Superdrug online Dr service.

After scan showed lining was doing piss all, I decided enough clinics prescribed viagra for poor uterine lining, and the Serum viagra tampons weren't working, that I might as well try boner pills.

I'm absolutely pissing myself at the eggs for breakfast or just for your vag mental image

The infertility Olympics 😂😂

Oh dear wooty. I have endo. And a dozen eggs in the fridge. might need bips advice as to how the hell you get the egg white from egg to foof?! Is that straight up/fried/scrambled/boiled? Is it not very messy?! Maybe that could be an Olympic sport

Lol. Yeah perhaps a Mary Berry tutorial on egg white separation then....oh god help you. Shove it up there prior? Pretty grim :-)
Good luck, let us know how you get on ....
I'm pretty sure it wasn't this that fixed her endo issue tho.. if you want to spare yourself xx

When I was single I was (ironically) given the awesome book 'Bitter with baggage seeks same': www.teneues.com/shop-us/images/product_images/popup_images/1933427213_MRS.jpg. If I had any artistic talent, I'd create an infertility version (though possibly not the egg white up foof scene, that might be a bit insensitive to the poor chicks).

Banana I'm intrigued by what you had to do to pass as a middle aged erectilly dysfunctional man on the internet. Did you take some time to get in character?

Dismayed by all these pregnant acupuncturists. That happened to Potatoes too a while back I think. My fertility acupuncturist was barren and childless, so at least it was clear from the outset that her services weren't any sort of magic bullet. Yet I still went every week for the better part of a year, and drank mugfuls of retch-inducing hot mud twice a day at her bidding.

lr77 isn't it awful when the ironidiff narrative goes wrong and bites you in the arse and then kicks you in the face for good measure? Ectopic pregnancy on your honeymoon 9 months after chemical really takes the cake. Jesus.

Laura God it's bitter-making to look back on all the hopeful things we've done (e.g preseed & mooncup) in light of new information (e.g. zero sperm count) that makes it clear just how futile it all was.

Wooty I'm loving the idea of your drifting off to sleep to the dulcet tones of Pepe Le Pew purring about your ovaries.

Zippy I learned about the egg white thing on another Mumsnet thread... someone referred to egg-white shagging as making a 'spunk frittata'. And even that didn't put me off. (Though in my experience it was more of a spunk meringue...)

Basically, you get your egg white in a cup, you hoover it up with a sterile needleless syringe (you can get em cheap off Amazon), and then inject it up turkey baster style before sex. Or for the less romantic option you can get your partner to jizz in a pot, add a bit of egg white, and squirt the whole lot up you with a syringe. It's about as messy as Pre-Seed, but a bit stickier. With a slight tendency to foam.

bip I may have to build up to that, not for the faint hearted! Lol at spunk meringue.
I think the next thing we are trying is giving up (for the foreseeable future at least). That seems to work well for lots of people so feeling confident already. I've signed up to the free trial on gateway women (long process that!) and was a bit disappointed it's not as busy as mumsnet (don't know why I thought it would be, in hindsight doh!) but nice to have another barren hangout even just to lurk and read the articles on.

I cannot believe i have only just found this thread! I really need to start checking the infertility topic as well as my watch list

I started reading the thread thinking we haven't tried that much so what will I add? Then I've been ticking the things off the list realising there are loads of things we can still try that we're as desperate as the next couple. I've never heard of the bellybutton thing and I have a piercing so off to look that up!

Microscopes and egg whites aside, the only thing I've tried that I don't see here is scraping my cervical mucus off my knickers to check consistency and keeping a diary of it. Then - worse - being told that the best time to check the consistency of your cervical mucus is after you've had a poo (apparently the pressure/contractions expel mucus out of your cervix) so you can put your fingers up your vag to get some and check it. Ladies, I tried it. At work.

Just writing that down makes me realise how sad I am.

Of course the highlight for me was having vaginismus for thirteen years ie having to learn to have sex. So that's been amazing. From not-able-to-do-it to doing-it-at-scheduled-times in one fell swoop, without stopping at sex-for-fun.

I have also tried "connecting" ie lying on my bed with my hands on my stomach, visualising my healthy uterus being ready for a baby and feeling connected to that blah blah blah

And yes my acupuncturist got pregnant. As well as my hairdresser, and dance teacher (at the class I take to help me relax). Plus all the billion friends who weren't even trying etc etc

Oh and YY to trying extra hard after failed ivf / after miscarriage as that's when you're super fertile and never want to have sex again

Well that's me put off eggs for good, in all forms, breakfast or foof otherwise.

I have laughed so hard at this thread! Thank you all.

I am absolutely PMSL at 'spunk frittata'

In the infertility Olympics I think there's got to be some kind of cooking competition for spunk meringues, frittatas etc

Shot chugging contest for wheatgrass and Chinese herbal eye of lizard and tongue of newt concoctions

Etc

bip it's surprisingly easy to pose as a bloke with erectile dysfunction for regulated UK pharmacy services - bit like that New Yorker cartoon which says 'on the Internet no one knows you're a dog'. Filled out the form with all my own details for DOB, address, mobile number - just gave myself a male name and gave the email address as [email protected] (where everything goes to my inbox anyway), and said I had a limp dick and no other medical conditions. Chose what strength pills I wanted and how many, paid up, got confirmation that the Dr had approved the script and would be ready for collection in store in 3h

Standard dose at most clinics according to The Internet is 50mg twice daily, but as that gave me a stonking headache, followed other posters' example and split the 100mg tablets into 4, and that seems to be much better

No idea if it's doing anything for my endometrium, but unlike the Serum viagra tampons, I can definitely feel that there's, er, increased blood flow in the general area. Will find out at next scan if it's having any other effect other than giving me a ladyboner

potatoes didn't scrape knickers for CM but did, as my acupuncturist put it, 'have to go looking for it'. Gave up checking cervical position very quickly as realised I had no idea what I was looking for, while I was rooting around in there digging for victory

zippy I actually met Jody Day at a fertility arts events thing, she was lovely.

Well my DOR is clearly well and truly gone and my PCOS back in full force, as my skin has exploded in the acne I used to have when I was PCOS.

We haven't actually been able to TTC naturally since Oct last year as have been solidly doing treatment (or being pregnant / miscarrying) since then. Probably just as well right now because I feel about as attractive as a spotty teenage boy. Apparently now with a permanent boner, courtesy of viagra - so quite apt really

I'm so glad to hear someone else couldn't find their cervix! I was never sure whether my problem was stubby fingers or an endless vagina. Was also really confused about what I was looking for (it's always described on the Internet as feeling like 'the tip of a nose', which is among the freakier things I could imagine encountering up my chuff, so I was always a bit relieved not to run into it).

Pmsl at 'ladyboner'

Ta dah!

Oh god def could not find my cervix with a torch and a map. I also did an abdominal massage workshop where they taught you to find your uterus (from the outside!!) and see if it was tilted or whatever. Couldn't find that either. Have to trust that what the doctors showed me on the scan prove it is there otherwise there is a whole other explanation for the infertility.

crosses off viagra from list of 'things to try to thicken lining to avoid another cancelled FET

Adds: experimental G-CSF uterine wash, and potentially 'hysteroscopy + insertion of a copper coil for 1-2 months'

Gotta love the 'put you on contraception to help try and get (& keep) you pregnant' strategy

I'm so sorry, Banana. What a blow.

Did you see the thread about the woman unexpectedly pregnant with her SEVENTH child - despite having a coil inserted after number 5 and her DH having a vasectomy after number 6? Maybe aggressive birth control procedures really are the answer...?! That thread did make me cry though. Outside the infertility ghetto, MN can give you the impression that normal women's lives are a constant, unwinnable battle against endless accidental childbearing. Being barren, despite having last used contraception in 2005, makes me feel like such a freak.

I am a few days away from definitively adding Femara to my list of things that haven't worked.

So sorry about the Femara too Bip - have you been having that in the UK?

Haven't seen that thread but think for my own sanity I will steer well clear. Agree completely on the madness of unplanned pregnancies outside the barren ghetto. I cannot get my head around the idea of accidentally getting pregnant.

With infertility we sadly know far far too much about every aspect of the reproductive process - with so many variables, I don't know how anyone conceives at all tbh. The idea that unprotected sex = a baby just doesn't compute. I often wistfully think how lovely it would be to live in blissful ignorance about egg quality, endometrial lining, immunes reactions, sperm binding and morphology etc

As well as the general 'not living in perpetual sadness at being barren and how everything in your life is taken over with infertility'. I think the toxic nature of what infertility and miscarriage does to your life and relationships is almost as bad if not worse than the ongoing grief of 'will I ever become a parent'

Sent some medical papers on the G-CSF wash as a rescue treatment for thin endometrium to my consultant's secretary - basically some pre-read homework before yesterday's appointment (said I wanted to discuss this and get his thoughts). Although it's still fairly experimental, to my surprise he was totally willing to give it a go.

He's never tried it before, didn't know too much about it, but said the studies I sent him were very compelling and thought we didn't have anything to lose by trying it. So he's ordered the drug in, and seeing me tomorrow evening (after normal clinic hours) to give the procedure a whirl. Even if we end up adding it to the ever growing list of failed treatments, if nothing else it will do the job of a saline ultrasound, which will give him a better look at the uterine cavity, to decide if we need to do another hysteroscopy or not. So at least hopefully not a complete waste of time and money.

Am grateful that I have a Dr who's at least on my side, and really wants to try and make this work. He's been away on holiday and was reviewing my notes while he was away, and wanted to see me asap once he was back - so opened up the clinic specially to see me on Sunday morning.

Wish my body was as enthusiastic as he is!

I love the sound of your consultant banana. Seriously considering stalking you and trying him out... Sorry about the femara bip. I'm torn about that thread. Avoid? Or search it out... Yeah OK search it out.

I'm about add hypnotherapy to the list. Anyone tried it?

OK I found it. Annoyed already. It's in AIBU.

potatoes to my great surprise, I am a total convert to hypnotherapy

I was a massive sceptic, assumed it would be a load of bollocks

The woman I see happens to specialise in fertility stuff, so I do get all the visualisation stuff that Bip mentioned about ovaries like lush bunches of grapes and a pillowy uterus

But mostly it's just guided meditation really

It ain't gonna get me pregnant - but I was very surprised to find it seemed to help with stress levels

Sometimes I go under, sometimes I don't. When I'm under, she could be reading out the shipping forecast for all I know, but it seems to help dial down the levels of batshit anxiety and headfuckery down just a notch

Not that 'hypnofertility' will make any difference to whether I get or stay pregnant, obvs

But it does seem to be helping me get through the experience of trying to do so. A bit. I don't find acupuncture in the slightest bit relaxing, but do find hypnotherapy chills me out. It's the only bit of fertility woo I actually think is worth the time and money for me out of all the things I still throw money at that I get absolutely fuck all from

Thanks banana. It appealed to me and I don't know why. But interested to try it. Of course I can't go for a few weeks until the whooping cough clears up as i won't be able to lie still and quiet. Haha. But then I'll go!

I don't remember everything. What stands out for me:

-Waiting a zillion months for tests.
-Taking bodytemp for months while telling the dr. It's no use when you have diabetes. Shock horror when nothing comprehensable came out of that.
-clomid didnt work

• more clomid didnt work

-clomid for longer didnt work -maximum clomid didnt work (did turn me into a monster though)

• stimming gives me an ovulation if I stim for more than a month!
• stimming for 32 days:nothing. 33 days two follies, 34th day 5 follies, 35th day iui cancelled due to overstimulation.

I took a lot of prenatal vitamins for a couple of years. Couldnt be bothered one cycle and ate wrong stuff and drank some wine on top of that and got pregnant. Miscarried that one but It made me think...