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

Hello LH. - lovely to hear from you & I hope you're doing OK. Yeah, I've felt like this in all of my pregnancies, so unfortunately nausea is no reassurance. Just need to get through the days and try not to think about any of it.
*
Banana* at that price, I hope your vag-Viagra comes in a velvet presentation box with an applicator made of pure gold!

Potatoes full fat milk must only be taken as hot chocolate! That was the only way I got it down me. Bottoms up!

Bip can we recommend some crappy boxsets to help distract you? I recently watched Nashville, which is gloriously trashy and addictive. Thanks to a thread on here earlier this year, I also rewatched Dawson's Creek (terrible but watchable) and ER series 1 and 2 (great as ever). I do also watch good films, but they aren't as distracting as trash tv...

Banana fuck, that's eye watering! As PP say, I hope you get something orgasmically awesome with it. When's your next scan or appointment? How is your DH?

Potatoes I recommend Sainsbo's TTD Jersey milk. Much nicer than normal full fat. What other woo tricks are you going to try?

Also Bip you've failed to tell us what you did differently this time. Was it whispers the egg trick?

Just done my eighth injection of menopur for this round. The nurse seemed pretty happy with my scan yesterday - lining starting to thicken up, one follicle just over 10mm and a few hovering around 8 and 9. But I'm not optimistic, my last menopur cycle was absolutely textbook (beautiful triple stripe lining, three perfect size follies ready to drop when I triggered, and a progesterone level of 190 a week later) and not one of the bastards fertilised despite DH and I following an Olympic shagging schedule.

I have heard good things about Nashville - this is just the motivation I need to get watching.

Funnily enough, the only 2 cycles I've used egg white I've ended up pregnant. Probably pure coincidence, but I am insisting to myself that it made a difference, mainly to scavenge some dignity. Nobody wants to be a person who squirts animal products up her fanny for no reason.

Good luck with your cycle, Robber - sounds like a good crop of follicles!

I've just read the thread and smiled and laughed along. Spunk frittata, differently spaced undercarriages, superb stuff.
Well, we're skint having given up my job/career in the hope of minimising stress so recent infertility-busters have included:
Sexy every day, every other day, every third day, twice a day and every other recommendation ever made up
Reading the entire Internet for advice/hope
Lighting candles in church
Making a wish while blowing out my birthday candles for five fucking consecutive years
Going on countless holidays
'Relaxing' ffs

I have one blocked tube. I am assured the other side is working well. Not for five fucking years, it hasn't been. Bollocks to all this.

Hello Leccy - ah yes, always fun discovering whether it's work or skintness that makes you most stressed. I'm self employed and have been on a bit of a work go-slow for the past couple of years and am on the fence about whether I'd be better off mentally if I were a bit busier - though I'm definitely less stressed than when I was in the middle of the full-on, in-house rat race.

Just to give you something to add to your list if you haven't tried it already - have you taken serrapeptase for your blocked tube? It's an enzyme that dissolves excess scar tissue & mucus & general gunk in the body. You take it at very high dosages (250k-300k spu twice a day) on an empty stomach and it's meant to help keep inflammation down & chew through adhesions & other stuff that causes blockages. Also really helps if you're prone to sinus infections! Just a thought.

Drs Bip and Banana, I'm aware I'm subverting the point of this thread, but how do you feel about giving up nail varnish and makeup, and changing the skincare you use? I read something the other day which suggested the chemical spf used in 95% of moisturisers is a hormone disruptor. I'm not exactly high maintenance - I'm pale so I like a bit of polish on my toes and wearing tinted moisturiser with high spf.

Also, in my head I have started referring to you both as the Doctors. You're basically the Kermode and Mayo of this board (that's a good thing!)

I went to 'natural' 0% paraben beauty products for about 9 months. Did fuck all for me fertility-wise, and certainly not beauty-wise (or happiness-wise). Finally I decided I'd rather be barren forever than live the rest of my life with revolting stringy, waxy hair & skin, and went back to all my lovely foaming carcinogens. My completely unscientific hunch is that if your hormone profile is OK, you're ovulating etc, then the chemical hormone disruptors that we're all exposed to all the time are unlikely to be the main problem.

It's funny, the months where I took all the fertility stuff most seriously (low carb, no sugar, no caffeine, no booze, acupuncture, full fat milk, all the earnest beauty products) coincided with the longest period of time I went without a spontaneous pregnancy, post-stillbirth.Not to say that any of that stuff harmed my fertility, but it certainly didn't yield the revolutionary results the books always claim ('improve your egg quality in just 3 months with this one easy trick!').

Bear in mind though that it suits me to be cynical: I'm not of the temperament that derives a feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment from discipline and virtue. I'm incredibly lazy, and any form of self-denial just makes me feel sorry for myself. So I didn't find any of the fertility regimes were helpful even as a placebo - they didn't give me the reassuring sense people talk about of doing something positive, or taking charge. I just felt enormously resentful about having shit hair and eating flavourless sawdust and drinking from a stupid metal bottle.

Robber good luck with this stabbing cycle - re: the last one, I’m going to be INCREDIBLY annoying. BUT. Something like 75% of fertilised eggs don’t go on to become people (I realise this is an incredibly depressing thought and obv the inner monologue is ‘how the fuck is this helping me’). If last month was your first month ovulating, even with three eggs, it’s at best the equivalent of a ‘normal’ fertile couple having not diffed within the first 3 months of trying. ie it’s not that the eggs didn’t fertilise, it’s ‘just’ they didn’t implant. I realise that ‘I know you’ve been trying for years but you’re only at the beginning of your fertility journey’ is about as unhelpful as you can get - but if you haven’t even been in with a shot until last month, in some ways last cycle was your first cycle trying. Really, REALLY hope you get a golden egg this month

First scan is on Thu. DH is doing OK, these cycles must be particularly odd for him as there is no literal contribution from him - the buns were baked months ago, they’re sat in the deep freeze, while the oven is completely on the blink. It’s also hard for him to see me in physical pain - the last few months I’ve been constantly tapering down my pain meds in anticipation of a transfer that doesn’t happen. I think he just feels quite helpless - which is not uncommon for our menfolk, I think.

BTW I ignored all the stuff about toiletries. Life is too short and I’m fairly beauty products aren't going to be the deciding factor. My skin is fucked from my PCOS acne being back in full force - so the biggest hormone disruptor is my own bloody body. I’m going full out chemical warfare on the spots, none of your low level natural beauty for me. I’m of the ‘science and luck’ school of thought. Barrenness is hard enough without having unpainted toes.

Potatoes the only way I can drink full fat milk is with Nesquik like a child. I’m sure the sugar is brilliant for my PCOS

Bip and leccy I can totally relate to the self employed dialling work down thing, and whether that’s a good or bad thing. Cos of the pain thing from my spinal injury, and as a freelancer, with possible transfers on the horizon, I’ve not been able to take on any decent contracts, because I can’t take anything on that I would then have to drop out of. I’ve been either doing treatment, pregnancy, miscarrying, or doing more treatment this entire year. So I’m less stressed but also bored shitless and have more time to freak out about, well, everything. Box sets were my saviour when I was laid up unable to sit / walk after transfer & while I was pregnant last time. I’m totally taking the suggestions here. It’s all about the trashy telly - I find my concentration span isn’t good enough for films tbh

leccy with you on reading the entire internet. It’s when every single link in the google search results is coloured purple, because I’ve already read ALL of Google. I keep looking for more internet to read. As though THAT will get me pregnant

I’m going to listen to Wittertainment now BTW Robber - one can only aspire to such lofty heights of awesome!!

Bip I agree about the lazy thing. I've never successfully done a diet in my life. I can't change my habits for more than eight hours. Any sense that there are "rules" immediately makes me want to break them. So I just try not to be too bad on a daily basis rather than being really good for a day then epically bad for a month. I did have Pimms and Green and Black's for dinner last night though. I can probably do better than that diet-wise if I try...

Robber - I'm just reading " it starts with the egg" and all the stuff about plastic and make up etc. Basically I think I'm going to ignore it all. But i somehow feel more empowered having read it waste of £12

The thing I am going to do is start eating chicken 3-4 times a week like a medical pill. I've been vegetarian for almost 25 years so this is big for me. I feel sick at the thought physically, and mentally. I can't even tell anyone IRL as it feels like a total betrayal of my identity and values. I've been saying it for a year and haven't done it. But maybe saying it here will make me do it. I'm desperate for something that might actually work and I feel this is more promising than taking off my mail polish and keeping food in glass not Tupperware

Thanks for the Nesquik tip banana - childhood flashbacks!

Just catching up on this thread, and have seen your news bip. I don't think that there is anything I can say except that I sincerely hope that this time it works out for you.

I struggle with the diet thing too robber. I am fairly healthy, but with a bit of a sugar addiction. I love chocolate and cake, and can't give those up as well as booze, otherwise life isn't really worth living.

I have also read it starts with the egg, and it does seem OTT. The only thing I have done that it suggests is taken CoQ10. When I have started drugs for my cycles, I have taken off any nail varnish, and switched to paraben free shower gel and a natural deodorant. I also try to wear less make up, or none when I am at home. I stop wearing perfume during stims and the 2ww. That feels like enough. I suspect the only outcome is that I look a bit shit and don't smell as nice.

Does it have to be chicken potatoes? I eat meat but I don't think I could eat chicken that often! Do you eat fish at all, or are you fully vegetarian? I'm not too keen on meat, but I do eat fish at least twice a week and loads of eggs to get protein. I drink milk and add protein powder to my morning porridge, and a sprinkle of pistachios. Anything to up the protein that avoids eating too much meat.

My FET is coming up, and I am already feeling the call of the woo -acupuncture booked, thinking about some sort of massage, supplements ordered. A friend has been trying to persuade me to try Reiki, but I don't think I can bring myself to do it!

Now you've confirmed that you are also crap telly people, I can tell you that Cold Feet is on ITV player! I loved it the first time round, so funny and addictive. I can't wait to rewatch it through this cycle. Bip and Banana the first episode of Nashville is a bit cack, but stick with it. By the end of episode 3 you'll have 'Telescope' going round your head all the time .

Potatoes after 12 years of being a fish-eating-veggie, several months ago I started eating chicken or turkey a few times a week. It has made fuck all difference to me, though please do try it in case it is your magic bullet. Like Tiger I also ate lots of fish and eggs and other protein anyway, but I did it just in case. I still can't touch uncooked chicken, I get it at work (which has a great ethical food policy) or DH cooks it. I highly recommend eating it in things like fajitas, where you can't really tell what you're eating. Plus, guacamole = avocado = fertility uber food.

Banana thank you . My clinic did emphasise the whole 1-in-4 thing, and I definitely knew the whole this-is-really-your-first-shot thing, but it went so well I still hoped for the first time, and was then gutted when it didn't work. So this time I'm going with total pessimism. What do they hope to see at the scan on Thu - do you have a target lining thickness?

Bip how's the house move going?

Tiger you've inspired me to book a fertility reflexology session. No real hardship, I love reflexology!

Thanks for your collective wisdom on skincare and makeup. Very happy I don't need to look more like crap than I already do - like some of you, my skin is not happy about fertility treatmnt, and being forced to keep an artificially high BMI is not doing my self confidence any favours.

I don't eat chicken or fish. For me it's not so much the protein as the vitamins and minerals, omega 3 etc. I guess I thought if I was genuinely contemplating nail varnish and Tupperware as culprits, I should consider vegetarianism!

Potatoes you can get vegetarian Omega 3 supplements if the chicken-eating feels like a bridge too far.

Robber When I did an injectables & TI cycle and had 3-4 huge follicles, and literally felt each of them rupture after trigger day (the first time I'd ever had ovulation pain!) I thought we must have it in the bag! So to get my period like clockwork was especially gutting and made me feel like it would never happen. But the next month, on different meds, it did. I think so much of it is trial & error - getting the right dose of the right chemical so that it coaxes the eggs out without damaging them. Plus there's the random luck of getting a good egg. When's your next follicle scan?

Banana good luck for Thursday. God, sometimes I forget that you're weaning off pain meds as well as going through round after round of stims. So impressed by your stoicism and energy.

Our house move is nearly underway! We move the cats to a temporary rental place next Saturday, then complete on our sale a few days later, and then hope to God the survey comes back OK on the new house so we can complete on it & get the floors done and move in by end September. Really hoping I manage to stay pregnant until we are installed in the new house, as I could really do without miscarrying in a strange Airbnb in a different city where I'm not registered with a GP. Since historically I've always had missed miscarriages rather than any spontaneous bleeding, I'm hoping I can just put off dealing with it until I'm ready. Then go for a scan @ 10 weeks & if it's the usual situation I can book the ERPC at my leisure with the lovely lady who does all my ERPCs back in London. However it will be just my luck that this time I erupt on a packed train at rush hour and have to stand there wedged against my fellow commuters, spraying blood and chunks of endometrial lining everywhere for an hour into Liverpool St.

I did think about more supplements. I just think I might give real food a go. It's hard to explain. I read so much bollocks about tiny things that could make difference. I guess this is just something I think could actually change things, and there's the inevitable guilt: how I'll feel if i don't try it and therefore haven't "tried everything". Sucks.

Here's hoping you don't have an explosive miscarriage on a train bip! When I had the haemorrhage I used nappies like sanitary towels as the only thing that could hold the volume. If I ever get pregnant again I'm going to carry one with me in case. You could try that as insurance?? Having your own trusted ERPC consultant sounds like the best plan, but a very sad reflection of your experience.

So hurrah for amazing house move news! Brilliant to have something fun and exciting going on that has nothing to do with babies. Hope the cats enjoy their little vacation too.

I hear you re: constant bargaining with future potential guilt & regret. Absolutely sucks. And constant supplements do become tiresome. Good tip re: nappies. As it is I am wearing the heavy duty nighttime pads every day just in case, and making an awful wrinkly nappy noise when I walk.

Nowhere else on MN do I laugh as much as with you guys in Infertility. You are all such brilliant and stylish writers - what a book these threads could make.

Vag bullets, wrinkly nappy noises and spraying blood and chunks...no wonder I don't read books any more (tho I think it was Banana who said she doesn't have the concentration for a full length film any more. I am just the same - including books.

And don't forget the scent! Why are all these towels perfumes now??? When I had the haemorrhage, I was going through an Always nighttime towel every 10-15 minutes. I could barely get to Boots to buy nappies. But when I did, omg lifesaver. Maybe the first, last and only time I will ever buy nappies. More irony!

Holy shit, that is a lot of blood - I'm surprised you didn't need a transfusion. You must have been absolutely terrified!

And yes, the heady perfume of Always nighttime, with a soupcon of melted progesterone pessary - a scent that will always evoke that exciting post-IVF era, when I was waiting with bated breath to find out whether I was going to die of a ruptured fallopian tube or just have a normal miscarriage. Precious memories.

I actually stood in Sainsbury’s yesterday sniffing different boxes of pantliners, because even the ones that don’t say scented LIE, and have some kind of ‘cotton fresh’ scent added on. The Always liners are by far the worst - my knickers smell like a glade plug in. Or eau de minicab. I did try some Boots own brand ones that were genuinely unscented; unfortunately they were also genuinely unsticky, and threatened to go walkabout.

Good luck with the move Bip, hope this will be a fresh start, and that good stuff will follow in your new home. Everything crossed for a cracking survey and some spanking new floors.

Potatoes the label on the mega omega-3 capsules I take says they’re vegan, gluten free, dairy free, you name it. I totally get the ‘real food’ way of thinking though. I’m taking mega high doses of omega 3 because I read on some forums it’s supposed to help immunes that might affect implantation. Even though my tests showed no immunes issues. And I’ll be on pred and intralipids anyway. But you know. ‘Just in case’

Robber - I’m not sure exactly what we’re hoping to see by day 6, I’d love it if we were close to 7mm, but I doubt that very much…

Bip good luck with the cats! I bet they sulk. How are you doing, healthwise and emotionally?

Potatoes how are you getting on with eating meat?

Banana I'm a box sniffer too. Good luck with the scan tomorrow, I've got everything crossed for you and your lining.

Tiger when is the FET? I know I should read the other thread, but this one is much shorter.

I had a scan on Tuesday, 7mm triple stripe lining ('oooh, lovely') but my ovaries are lagging behind. Just one follie over 10mm still, one hanging round under 10mm, a few around 5mm and some tiddlers. Obvs I'm now googling what will happen if my lining gets too thick before the follies are big enough to trigger. I've got a scan tomorrow, and I bet another on Fri or Sat.

Hey Robber - as of yesterday cats are no longer allowed outside just in case any of them goes walkabout before the move. So I've been up all night while they batter furiously at the locked catflap and cry.

What cycle day were you on Tuesday? I've always had slow growing follicles as well; it's really frustrating when the different parts of the process aren't in sync. Hope those 10mm ones get nice and plump by the next check-in.

Good luck with your scan today, Banana - hope those magic vag bullets have upholstered your uterus nicely! Let us know how it goes.

I'm getting on for 6 weeks. Feel like absolute fucking death. Sick, tired, headachy. For some reason all my fatty tissue hurts - not just my boobs, but my little pockets of bra-lard under my shoulder blades. I'm covered in spots and all puffy with steroids and covered in bruises and big angry purple puncture marks from the blood thinner injections.

I'm feeling pretty down, and resentful that the physical & emotional unpleasantness of this pregnancy is undermining any excitement I've had about the move. I can't think of a single good thing in the past 2 years that hasn't ended up ruined by another thwarted pregnancy.

Meanwhile DH's is enormously anxious - constantly hounding me to wash my hands every time I touch the cats, as he's become obsessed with the idea that I'm going to get toxicoplasmosis and miscarry/die/have a baby with horrific birth defects that cause lifelong pain. He heard something on Women's Hour the other day about a woman who was diagnosed with lymphoma during pregnancy and couldn't have treatment until the baby was born, and that set him off on a fretful spiral that I'll get some aggressive illness and die.

So we're a barrel of laughs at the moment. Fortunately sheer exhaustion & constant sickness means I don't have as much energy for catastrophising as I otherwise might.

Just need to add a mini rant. Thread at the moment about someone's infertile friend letting her know (albeit fairly angrily) how alienating it feels to have a FB feed full of smug mummy memes & baby photos, and all of MN replying how dare she complain, what an unreasonable bitch, what, are we all supposed to never mention our children just in case it makes some over-sensitive barren cry? Boo fucking hoo.

I tried to point out that if you're more or less happy with your life, it shouldn't be so hard to be the bigger person and try to understand where the infertile woman is coming from and see that she's in a very dark place and lashing out. Rather than getting indignant and focusing on how much your own feelings are hurt by her comments on your FB feed.

I've hidden the thread as previous experience tells me I'll just get a fuckload of comments in response along the lines of 'sorry about all your dead babies, but having hundreds of people I barely know constantly validate me by liking my endless torrent of twee family photos is what the internet is actually for, and nobody wants to hear your boring fucking sob story.'

This is the one tiny place in the internet (/world) where I feel like I can express sadness and frustration without everyone telling me it's my civic duty to shut the fuck up and be happy for all the happy people.

You can always rant bip esp on your own thread. Personally I prefer it when you go on a full-on epic give-it-both-barrels rant, but a mini rant will do

FWIW when I saw that dreadful PR thread promo thing Mumsnet did giving one lucky barren the chance to have free ivf in return for going through the whole dreadful process on telly, I wrote an epically awful reply but deleted it. I do that quite a lot. I alienate enough people in real life without making a habit of it here too. One day I reckon I'll hit post by mistake and suffer the consequences

Sorry about the cats, the spots, the worrisome husband, the sickness, and the achy bra lard (??). Can cocaine help or are you too sick even for that?

CHOCOLATE

CAN CHOCOLATE HELP

ARGH FUCKING PHONE

DO NOT TAKE CLASS A DRUGS FOR MORNING SICKNESS IN FIRST TRIMESTER