What to expect from first discussion with GP

[Minibea]

Hi everyone. I was hoping that you might be able to share your experiences of what I might expect from going to the GP to discuss tests etc following on from TTC for over a year.

The backstory is that my husband and I already have a 3yo DD who was conceived in our first cycle of TTC. Over a year ago now we started trying for #2 not expecting it to happen so quickly but I guess we didn’t think there would be major problems. At that point I had regular 28 day cycles with ovulation falling on day 14 or 15. I had a chemical pregnancy in August but bounced back pretty quickly and had a positive test again in October. That pregnancy never felt “right” and after some slight brown spotting at 8 weeks a private scan showed two empty sacs. I miscarried naturally about a fortnight later and bled on and off for about 6 weeks. I’ve now had 4 full cycles since the MC where I have ovulated on time but my cycles are now shorter at 25/26 days.

AF arrived again today and that now marks 13 months of TTC with no success so I’m steeling myself to call the GP next week and start the process, but I have no idea what to expect and whether the fact we already have a child will mean that the support might be more limited?

If anyone can shed any light and share their stories that would really help my nerves. The other thing is that I am overweight - I was when my DD was conceived and born so it’s not new, but will I just be told to loose weight before they will entertain any tests?

Thanks in advance and sorry for the epic essay/backstory!

I’m not too sure about whether they’ll be less helpful because you have a child, but your GP will ask how long you’ve been trying, how often you have sex, whether either of you smoke and things like that. I was at the upper end of the healthy weight range and my GP suggested that I lose weight (which I did) but she didn’t weigh me - this was purely by looking at me.
She referred me and DH for tests without waiting for me to lose weight (although I suppose it depends how overweight you are whether yours will want you to lose weight first). DH was referred for a sperm analysis, while I had to have blood tests at the start of my cycle then on day 21 to check whether I’d ovulated. They were taken pretty soon afterwards so she must have ordered them straight away.
When I still hadn’t fallen pregnant, about 6 months later, an appointment was made to check whether my fallopian tubes had any blockages, although I did become pregnant before that one so I don’t know what the test is like. Good luck!

Just jumping in this thread as we're on our 13th cycle now too TTC#1. Also want to see the GP to start things moving but not sure if they're seeing non-urgent patients due to coronavirus?

My GP is lovely and after trying for over 13 months he referred myself and DH.

The GP ran some bloods but hospital repeated.

Unfortunately you need to be realistic that there is limited support from the NHS when you already have a child - as ultimately you won't be entitled to fertility treatment on the NHS

Also and this is a big one - your miscarriages count as getting pregnant therefore they will say you haven't actually been trying for the required 12 months (or 6 months if over 35) - the timeline only counts if you don't have a BFP during the 6 or 12 months

IF you get a sympathetic GP you MAY be referred for some blood tests to check you are ovulating (which you are if you've been getting BFPs) or maybe a sperm test for your partner. And that's IT. Or you MAY get a referral to a recurrent miscarriage clinic but the waiting time to be seen even before the pandemic was at least 3 months and again they are limited to what they will test for with it being the NHS and they won't test for things like progesterone, sperm fragmentation or NK cells. You are are waved off with a call us when you next get a BFP and we'll scan you at 6 weeks (by which point it's a bit late to make much of a difference)

We experienced all of the above and moved on to privately paid for IVF

@ivfgottostaypositive thanks for sharing your wisdom. I have to say, I’m not totally surprised that the NHS support would not be overwhelming and we are taking about whether private IVF is something that we could/would/should pursue.

I do have a feeling that something isn’t quite right with me since my MC but having had a round of blood tests fairly recently to check for other things and as you say being almost certain that I am ovulating, I can see that the GP might not be prepared to do much more, especially at the moment.

I hadn’t appreciated that the miscarriages would count as successes for the purposes of 12m TTC - oh the irony. Will call on Monday and will see what the surgery says.

Would you mind sharing your experiences of starting the IVF journey - only if you’re comfortable of course?

Thanks for everyone’s input and sorry that you all find yourself here too xxx

@Minibea

Not at all. I had a miscarriage at 12 weeks then naturally conceived my DD who is now 4. When she was about 12-15 months we started TTC #2 and had 2 miscarriages followed by a ruptured ectopic where I lost my left tube. After 12 months of nothing we decided to move onto IVF with Create - my first round showed lower than expected egg quality for being 36 (which could explain the miscarriages) we got 3 blastocysts from that cycle - first transfer was BFN and then I fell pregnant naturally afterwards but went on to miscarry again. We then did a double transfer and ended up with another ruptured ectopic this time on the Right and lost my last tube. We then did another IVF cycle and decided to PGS test the 2 blastocysts we got - both come back with chromosomal issues - one we weren't allowed to transfer and the other we were but that was also a BFN. I thought I was done with it all then but I decided to sign up to a 3 cycle package of natural modified IVF again with Create as clearly there is no point forcing my body to create loads of eggs that are poor quality - natural modified means a lot less drugs and fewer eggs but actually on the 2 cycles we have done so far we have got the same number of blastocysts as last years cycles but the quality has been loads better (we've gone from 30% fertilisation even with ICSI to 100%). We have one more egg collection to do hopefully next month and then hoping to have in total 6 blastocysts we can transfer. (In a 3 cycle package you have to do all the egg collections first before you transfer) If none of these take then we are calling it a day but I'm more than ready for that and will be at peace that we tried everything and gave it everything and will have no regrets or coulda/woulda/shouldas

To let you know costs we've spent £35k so far! We remortgaged and took out a loan.
Create have been amazing and I can't fault them - they also have some really good new patient deals at the moment and also do some finance options. This last 3 cycle package all in cost £13.5k including ICSI - the bank loan over 5 years is £275 a month which I'm sure you'll appreciate significantly cheaper than the cost of childcare or one parent giving up a salary to stay at home with a child which is why we decided to go for it especially with DD starting school shortly and no more childcare costs x

Hi @Minibea can I ask did you get in contact with your GP and how did you get on? Ive been trying for 13 months now and hoping to get the ball rolling with testing but didn’t know if I can talk to GP about fertility in this current crisis! Thanks

@marlie89 I spoke to my GP over the phone last week as we've been trying over a year now - she was so helpful and said they're definitely still doing tests for this! So I've got some blood tests to do. Only thing is the semen analysis has to wait until the fertility clinics are open, but at least the referrals been sent. Good luck.