Long term Secondary Infertility - anyone want to chat?

[closephine85]

Recently I've been feeling like I don't quite fit on any of the threads currently running. I know there is a support thread for ladies with secondary infertility already which I dip in and out of. However, now having watched many women come and go on that thread and seeing new ones come who haven't been trying for so long and are a lot more hopeful of a happy ending than I am, I just want a place to vent/moan/hate on this crap situation but to also be able to refer to the fact that I am a mother (obviously insensitive to do so on some of the other support threads, but where I actually feel more at home).

About me: I have a 5 year old son and have been ttc a second child for 3.5 years. 3 failed rounds of iui and a recent failed round of ivf/IMSI. We have 2 blasts in the freezer but I'm fairly convinced they aren't going to work either due to DH's high DNA fragmentation, I think they are probably chromasomally defunct. So if/when that doesn't work, we either admit defeat or move on to donor sperm. Both shitty options.

I feel defeated. Like I have failed as a mother. I can't give my son a sibling and even if I do, there will be at least 6.5 years between them. In the meantime he has to put up with me being always just a little bit miserable...

Anyone care to join me for a bitch and a moan?

[closephine85]

Hi all, how is everyone? This thread has gone rather quiet but I’ve found myself in that very familiar desperate place again and rather than keep creating increasing unhinged threads I thought I was better to come back here.

Scipio, I’m sorry I didn’t reply to your message above and I’m so sorry to hear about the loss of your friend

I stupidly had been starting to allow myself hope again. We had our second donor iui. Things were good - 2 decent follicles and 50million count (numbers DH could only dream of). Then I had lots of weird symptoms, everything just felt ‘busy’ down there. Then on Tuesday I had really odd strong pains that lasted all night, I convinced myself they were implantation. Went for day 21 progesterone on Friday and it was 113. Again there’s the hope. Then Saturday as if on cue woke up and my breasts were much less painful and everything has gone quiet. Couldn’t take it any more and sent DH out for tests, telling him if he couldn’t get first response just to get whatever, expecting him to come back with pharmacy own brand. Bless him, best part of £30 later and he came back with 4 clearblue digis. I’ve since taken 2 and both have dutifully informed me that I am ‘not pregnant’. Now I KNOW they aren’t that sensitive. However, based on how early I was thinking I’d felt ‘implantation’ and also on the basis there would be HCG left from my trigger shot 10 days ago, I’m pretty certain they would show a positive by now. FFS why do I still allow myself to get my hopes up and WTF is wrong with me?!

I’m exhausted with all this. We had a party for the royal wedding where we live, obviously didn’t allow myself to drink and just spent the whole tile feeling so miserable. Infertility ruins everything and I don’t know how to make it stop!

(Sorry we’ve not told anyone in real life and I just needed to get this out)

[CatRen27]

Hi closephine, i can't remember if
this is the one I've joined or not so sorry to jump straight in but i totally hear you. 24 cycles trying for #2, surgery, no end of tests and now plans for ivf in August. It is taking over my effing life, i live in fear for announcements of #2 and #3, happy people completing their families just the way they wanted to. I have no clue what to do if ivf fails and how much money we're about to throw away.. its so unfair.

I really hope you've tested too early with your digi and it will be your month. Sending hugs.

[ScipioAfricanus]

Hi close I’m sorry you’ve had such a shit time lately. I really hope you have tested too early. You know the mind and body play some insane tricks and can’t be trusted re breast tenderness etc. Thinking of you whatever happens.

Hi Cat wishing you best of luck too. I’ve sort of got used to number two and number three now but the sense that everything has worked out for people according to their plans when mine are thwarted by infertility and ill health still hurts and it’s just generally rubbish so I know how you feel.

Nothing new here. I haven’t done those lovely planned things as our extended family have kept messsing up arrangements. However I must get on to that!

[closephine85]

Thanks for the replies Scipio and Cat.

Cat - you sort of numb out to the annoucements after a while. I find I meet declarations of ‘so and so is having baby number 15’ with ‘of course she is’ rather than a complete breakdown these days.

I wish I could believe it was too early but I just feel that usual sense of ‘quiet’ now. I wish I knew what the hell went on last week as it was symptoms galore but they were all very early so who knows what all that was about. It’s just so hard as if donor sperm doesn’t work we are just stuck with no real idea what the problem is.

[ScipioAfricanus]

Were you on progesterone, close? I had progesterone pessaries after all my IUIs and it was impossible to tell pregnancy symptoms versus the symptoms from them for me. Sorry if this is old hat to you as I suspect it is.

And just a general sorry all round to you for continued crap.

I am normally blasé about the announcements to some extent but today was like baby central at school drop off. One mum I hadn’t even noticed walls pregant has had one in the past month or two! She wears a lot of ponchos.

I found myself in a foul mood during and after. AF is probably round the corner - that always makes me way more sensitive.

[closephine85]

Scipio I had the same at school a few weeks back. A mum who is on the larger side and always wears a coat. Suddenly it was spring, the coat came off and she was 8.5 months pregnant!! As if by magic

No I wasn’t in progesterone. It manages to jump pretty high all by itself! I’m wondering if it was a cyst that caused the pain. They were very strong. Probably too strong and painful for implantation, I was just being hopeful. My AF is also very heavy and arrived 2 days early so something strange has gone on.

[ThisIsThe1]

Im on the journey as well. TTC baby number 2 for a year now. Have began to spend thousands on fertility treatments. Get this. I have been taking Clomid and Gonal-F for several months and this morning took my trigger shot - the last cycle with natural conception before IVF. My husband and I had an argument last night and he refused to make up this morning to try and conceive. He just got up and went to work. I can’t even express to You how enraged I feel. After all of these months or injections and meds and money and our last opportunity and he chooses to be bull headed and stand on ego. I honestly give up. Help please need some support desperately.

[ScipioAfricanus]

close I’m sorry about weird and heavy AF to top it all off. In my successful IUI I had a cyst the first few months which caused twinges so that may well have been your cause. Crap. Will you try donor again? Wish it had worked for you.

So who knew stealth baby bombing at the school gates was actually a national pastime?

Thisis I’m really sorry. That sounds so tough about your husband. Often the emotional versus practical side of dtd seems to elude men (from what I’ve gleaned form my friends in similar situations). It’s horrid as you feel so unsupported. If I remember rightly you should have 36 hrs after trigger shot so you could resolve things this evening (though understand you may well not want to now!). I always had to do trigger the night or day before IUI so it was between 12-24 hours later I actually had a chance of conception. Anyway, sorry you’re in this horrible boat too.

[newmeplease]

Hi. I have cried through the whole thread, all the posts really resonate with me. I'm sorry to hear everyone else's stories on this thread.

I'm 35 with an almost 5yo DS. I have been trying for nearly 4 years, 4 mcs (2 x mmc at 11 weeks, 1 x chemical, 1 x mc at 8 weeks of twins). I was tested at the Lister over a year ago and I'm on a protocol if I get pregnant. I don't think a pregnancy rate of once per year is particularly fertile, but the Lister don't recommend IVF as an option for me. So I just plod along with mandatory sex each month.

Just lately I am just beginning to realise that I might never have another child and I don't know how to deal with that. I wanted DS to have a sibling but now I wonder if it would be selfish. DS is at a different life stage now and a new baby would never be a playmate. I also have nightmares that i will have a severely disabled baby.

I can't imagine giving up on ttc, but I am emotionally exhausted and I agree with the other posters that I'm damaged as a result of this journey. I feel my memories of DS's upbringing have been tinged with constant sadness. Career choices, holidays, fitness goals, social plans, everything is informed by thoughts of pregnancy. I see babies in the street and my heart hurts.

So I don't know what to do now. There is no next step of IVF, I guess I have to keep trying every month or give up.

[closephine85]

Hi Newme, sorry to hear everything you’ve gone through. Have you had testing done on any of your miscarriages to see if there are any chromosome issues? If not, would IVF with PGS testing not be an option for you? If you are willing to do it, I wouldn’t have thought any clinic would refuse you the IVF based on your history.

I agree, looking back is tinged with sadness. I think it must take a very strong person to give up on this/stop trying. I’m exhausted. But the thought of stopping is so depressing.

We had a family baby bomb the other day. One that is very difficult to swallow and I can see myself distancing myself from these people now. So fed up with it all. I really am.

[newmeplease]

Thanks for replying and sorry about the recent baby news. There is nothing to say to make it better.

The lister's view is I have a mc problem, so IVF is risk of ending in mc too. I suppose I should be pleased they are not just after my money. Because of how down I am feeling now, perhaps I will go back to them, it's been a year, and see what they say now. I hate the helplessness of it all. But I can't stop thinking perhaps it's time to stop trying....

[totorosumbrella]

newmeplease I came on here to start a thread as I'm currently starting my second miscarriage in four months and I feel shattered. So god knows how you must feel. I dont know what the cause could be apart from age (I'm 38) but it seems nobody will investigate until another miscarriage and I don't think I can face trying to get pregnant again and going through early weeks just to tick a 3 miscarriages box. So I think we might give up now but it's a hard choice. I need to focus on my 3 year old dd without this taking up my headspace all the time.

[newmeplease]

totoro - sorry to hear about your miscarriage. I felt the exact same way after my second mc - I didn't want to just wait for the third mc when I could try to do something to prevent it. I got a GP referral after 2 mc and was seen at Coventry, but I didn't feel there was much that could be done for me so I ended up paying to go privately at the Lister for more exhaustive tests.

I have no experience of being able to get pregnant quickly, but I know there can be underlying reasons such as hyper fertility i.e. when your womb allows non viable embryos to implant - Coventry have done work into it as I'm sure other fertility clinics have.

[Hobbes39]

Hi all - I've been on here before, a while ago - and dropped off for a while but am back again.... I haven't read all of the recent posts, but @newmeplease I read yours about thinking it might e time to give up and that your DS childhood is so far tinged with sadness and it struck a chord with me...
my DS is 5 in a couple of months and we have now been trying for a sibling for 3.5 years... we have had 1 ectopic before we went on to ivf and then had a chemical with our first round, nothing with our 2nd, a mmc with our 3rd and miraculously we got pregnant with our last frozen embryo (also from that 3rd round) but while we got further this time, I just found out that the baby appears to had stopped growing between 7 and 8 weeks so I'm going back next week for another scan to confirm and then will stop the pessaries and estrogen pills and will wait to miscarry again. I've been a mess and my wee boy knows it and I feel so bad about putting him through seeing his mummy sad about something he doesn't understand.
I'm 41 now and feel that this might be time to give up, but can't quite accept it and I KNOW my DH def hasn't accepted it yet... I'm so tired tho.
I'm sad that I was on a board for 'pregnant after miscarriage' and it feels like I'm the 1/10 that miscarry after seeing a heartbeat... why does it have to be me? I'm so pleased for them, but still.. just so sad for me. I'm wittering, sorry, just coming to terms with the fact we are losing this one too

[newmeplease]

I'm sorry hobbes. The waiting stage is a awful place to be. I hope someone is looking after you.

[jenny146]

Hello everyone. I can see that nobody has posted on here for some time but hopefully someone will read my message. I think I am in a slightly different situation to some of you in that I have two children already, both conceived naturally. However, we have been ttc no. 3 now for 2.5 years and I am utterly exhausted emotionally and am finding it very difficult to move on and find closure to our secondary infertility. We conceived DS on our first try, so were quite surprised when DD took over a year to conceive. We never, ever imagined that we'd want a third, but we decided to go for it for several reasons. We have a very small extended family and no other children/ cousins in the family. It sounds pathetic really but all I wanted was to create a bigger family unit for my children, so they can look out for each other when me and their dad aren't there anymore. I never had siblings to grow up with and would love to give my children that experience. And although I guess to a lot of people would think we have it made, the feelings that come with infertility are so strong that I just don't know what to do with them. I feel so bitter and angry towards anyone pregnant (obviously without showing it to their face!) I walk around examining sizes of families, feeling inferior to those that are larger than ours. I avoid friends who are expecting or have the family size we so desire. But no matter which number baby it is, I think the emotions that go along with infertility are the same. I feel a complete failure in that I can't provide a bigger family for my children. I hate and resent my body for letting me down. I feel bitter and sad and angry all at the same time. It's taking over my life and every time AF appears I can't handle it and sink into some deep depression. My husband dreads me getting my period as we end up having the same conversation time and time again. It's comforting to know however that others are feeling the same as me, although I know none of us want to be here.

We referred ourselves to a private fertility clinic earlier in the year and had some investigations done. All my bloods came back fine from the GP but my husband has sperm motility issues and over the three samples he provided, had varying results. I have found out that I have scarring in one of my fallopian tubes, following and HSG. So, I think our problem is combination of poor sperm motility and a blocked tube. These could be things that have always been an issue or more recently - I guess we'll never know... We were told by the clinic that our best chance was IVF so we booked this in to begin at the end of July. However, we found out at the consolation that the live birth rate for our age group is 22% (we are both 38), which was much lower than I thought. I decided in the end that I couldn't handle more failure and wasn't up to it emotionally and physically, given that I have my other children to look after. I also felt this massive guilt that I would be concentrating too much of my time chasing a dream that may not happen, rather than on my children, so really gave up before we even started. I think as well I knew that it was unlikely to succeed on the first try, so would need to try several times, which I knew I couldn't cope with.

What's tricky though is that I still have a glimmer of hope that one day I will fall pregnant despite the odds being against us. That's why every month I get my hopes up, only to be dashed. I want to know how to move on and how to be happy with what I've got. How not to compare myself to others and feel like I've failed. How not to feel inferior. I know logically and on the face of it I should be very happy, but I can't shake off these all-consuming feelings of helplessness. I just want to shake the feelings away and live life without feeling so down all the time!

[QueenOfPharts]

Hi all I'm just checking in. I posted ages ago(old user name) with some words of encouragement on one of the secondary infertility threads after finally becoming pregnant after a secondary infertility struggle. My ds now coming up for 2.
@jenny162 I'm really sorry to hear about your struggle for no 3. I'm not exactly in the same boat but me and dh are tentatively thinking about ttc no 3 but given the awful 'journey' I went on for no2 Im just not sure. Im all or nothing and couldnt relax and just see what happened. My problem was short cyles 17-21 days and chemical pregnancies. I started investigations but then got pregnant.
I think its perfectly understandable to feel the way you do and people have many reasons for the no of dc they have/want. Its a personal choice. FWIW during my struggles i took comfort from somebody who said 'families come in all shapes and sizes' . So having 1 or 3 children doesnt make you any more or less a family. In our small rural community there are lots of smaller families and some of the most 'popular' families with the most buzz have 1 or 2 kids. The dynamic is different and the parents can devote time and more money into activities, playdates ect. Bigger families can mean more time at home, less freedom etc. Obviously huge generalisations but bigger doesnt mean better its just different.
Re your tubes. I was booked in for a lap n dye to check for blockages but was pregnant by then so didnt go ahead. There is some suggestion that the procedure in itself could help unblock, could this be an option?
The other thing which did seem to be a common theme in some of the secondary boards was long labours with intervention. If you look up thread or maybe one of the other threads somebody was prescribed something that helped get rid of all sorts of dead tissue in their womb.
I dont know very much about sperm Im afraid again it was on our list when ttc 2 but not followed up. What I did look at was there does seem to be ways of improving sperm count (don't worry not being woo) I mean simple lifestyle changes and supplements etc.
For my particular issue I think the trying for a baby 7 seas vits helped my cycle length a bit...difficult to tell. Also tried dandelion tea too. I never found preseed worked and stoped tempting/using ov sticks and just had sex every other day.
I know its disappointing about the Ivf but hopefully there could be some other things to look at that might help.

[jenny146]

Thank you QueenOfPharts for your kind words. In some ways I wish we’d never even tried for no. 3 as we’d never have known the difficulties we would face! I don’t think there’s much more we can try now apart from try the ivf. Husband is on supplements and we continue to try naturally. My cycles are regular and all my bloods have come back fine and I seem to have the right number of eggs ( can’t remember the name of that test!) for my age. It just sucks for us and wish we’d got going with starting a family sooner. It’s so difficult though to move on from this as technically I can get pregnant, despite a blocked tube and fluctuating sperm quality. There must be something else perhaps that’s not been spotted. Anyway, thanks again for taking the time to reply and wish you good luck if you do decide to try for no.3.

[QueenOfPharts]

I'm sorry its so hard. I think the lack of closure is difficult and I found that with my secondary infertility, as there was no explanation and still a chance. I also got a lot of being fobbed off as wasnt quite 30-your young it will happen which isn't helpful. Equally there have been ladies on secondary threads fobbed off because they are approaching 40. Age is only one of many factors!
Think me and dh will try for a 3rd and really put everything into it but set ourselves a time limit of a year and then review. I know its easier said than done but I dont want it to take over my life.
Have you thought about counselling could maybe help, to discuss get closure if needed. Also heard good things about mindfulness-great for relaxing/positivity.
Please be kind to yourself and if you can reach out to friends and family in rw . My dm, dml and close friend were all a brilliant source of support. Even my dsis who had just had her 4th dc was really supportive and sensitive. It felt like a weight was lifted as bottling up ate away at me.

[closephine85]

Hi Jenny and Queen, whilst I understand that what you are going through would still be classed as ‘secondary’ infertility. This thread was started for women who have been trying for a second child for a (very) long time (5 years in my case) and although I can’t speak for the others on this thread, reading your stories just serves as a reminder that I’m not there yet (and may never be!). So could I respectfully ask that you perhaps start a different thread to discuss this topic. The thread goes quiet from time to time, probably because when you have been trying for so long and not getting anywhere, there comes a point when there is not a lot left to say, but I and probably others too are still here lurking! Thank you

[jenny146]

Hi Closefine85. I'm sorry you feel like my input is misplaced on this discussion. In fact I chose to comment here before I felt the comments people had made and experiences they were going through resonated closely to what I was going through. This is the first time I have ever joined in on a discussion board and thought I had chosen the right one. I have had a really hard time if late emotionally and am hoping to seek counselling to reach some sort of closure. I believe that the emotions that go along with secondary infertility are the same however many children you have. I feel constantly like I have let my family down by not being able to produce another sibling. There are no other children in our family and won't be. I will respect your request to leave the discussion but I would like to add that I am a little upset about it.

[jenny146]

Sorry, I misspelt your name. Can't seem to edit it.

[QueenOfPharts]

Just wanted to say I'm really sorry if I had offended anyone and sorry for being insensitive. I didn't want to read and run on Jenny and just wanted to offer sympathy and share my experience. In case it helped somebody. I'm sorry to everyone that is still struggling and keeping my fingers crossed for good news.

[Rebecca36]

I'd suggest not going on those threads, they only confuse and make you unhappy.

It can be very good having only one child.

[twinkledag]

How many children do you have @Rebecca36?