Infertility general chat/support thread

[Roo45]

Not sure if this exists already, but I wondered if people fancied a thread just to vent and/or talk about things that have happened in their day that have either caused them to get upset or think a certain way due to fertility issues, regardless of where you are in the journey.

I feel like my friends who haven't got through this could never understand how infertility affects pretty much every part of my life now!

For example today I attempted to cook something complicated for some family members, it's quite rare that I cook for others even before the pandemic and I only make simple meals for myself. Anyway everything that could go wrong did and what I managed to salvage was largely uneaten.
I told my DH maybe the universe thinks I shouldn't have children because I'm so undomestic and can't cook for other people!

@ChocolatePotCafe I literally came onto Mumsnet to say this 😔💔 I'm there with you 💐💐
Dreading tomorrow. We've gone from going to inlaws for a few hours for Christmas dinner to staying until after 6pm. From compromising to me me doing what DH wants. I really want the whole thing to be over.

@CurbsideProphet God bless. It’s shit. Sending love and hope that 2023 will be our year. Sending hugs, & .

@ChocolatePotCafe 💐💕

Merry Christmas to you all. I'm so sorry we have to go through all this shit. Hope it's bearable, I'm lucky in that I don't have any young relatives to visit this time of year and we visited family last weekend and will just keep to ourselves this weekend. I've deleted social media to avoid the onslaught of all the matching PJ's and baby gifts etc. Next year marks 4 years TTC and I never imaged I'd be in this position with no end in sight.

Just sending Christmas love and support to everyone on this thread.

@SummersInHvar ( gorgeous island!! Great name), I had a missed miscarriage in 2017 after fertility treatment. The shock of that scan was massive. I will say that several years on, it is fully integrated into my history. I wanted to make a website on missed miscarriage but haven’t got round to it yet.

In the end after three failed ivf rounds with nothing to transfer ar the end of them we had a child through egg donation. He is nearly two. But three failed fets this year with 5 say perfect blasts to give him a genetic sibling have really had an impact on me. The knock in your confidence in your body, the fury and rage toward others ease of conception, the shame that I can’t do what I was made to do, the knock on stressful impacts on me and DH and our intimate life. It is not easy.

Plus, as you have all’s shared, this time of year is a punch in the guts. I remember going to a national trust cafe with a friend who had just had her kid after Matt hird failed ivf round. I was surrounded by kids and parents chatting about babies.
I had snot and tears pouring down my face and I ran out into the car and just screamed and screamed.

Infertility is a very painful and hidden grief.
For me, finally having a child was massive but it actually didn’t end the grief of the infertility, it ended the childlessness, if that makes sense.

Just holding a candle for us all tonight xxx

Thanks for the Christmas wishes @Angliski! I’m glad to hear you got your lovely boy in the end, sorry to hear it’s tough all over again. It feels like it never ends.

My Christmas Day has featured two BFNs, so that’s fun, but we’re staying in alone and won’t have the pressure of family stuff, which is quite nice. I will be having a few drinks! I did cry this morning when I heard D:Ream Things Can Only Get Better on the radio, which is new, but here we are. Hopefully they will get better, we start IVF in 4 weeks 😬

Hi girls,
I am sending my love to you all! I am in the same boat, after 2 failed transfers ( 1 CP and 1 BFN) and 3 cancelled transfers. Also trying naturally in between with BFNs every month. I am tired, depressed and hopeless at this point and it is the worst time ever since I have started TTC 3 years ago. I really wish next Christmas we all would get our miracles! Meanwhile, let's enjoy the little things ! Merry Christmas to you all! 🎄💗

It’s a shit club but it really helps to have company and others who understand. Be gentle with yourselves all. I’m definitely having a break for a few months- the steroids have given me a serious amount of weight to shift and I just want to be normal for a bit! We can’t conceive naturally
So no chance of a random there. Sending best x

Thanks for the Christmas wishes girls

@Angliski! I’m so glad to hear you got your wonderful boy. But I am so sorry to hear the pain you have gone through and are still going through. Thanks for sharing your story and offering support to me. Sending so much love.

Happy Christmas all, I hope 2022 is the year which brings us all we have long wished for ❤️ X x x

Ladies, I just wanted to come on here and say that I had begun to hate Christmas ( which used to be my favourite time of year)
I had a long drawn out mmc in 2019 Christmas. I was staying with my in-laws, far from home and it started Christmas and resolved end of jan. so was very traumatic. The following Christmas I had ivf and before this had two further mmc at 9 weeks. I started suffering the worst depression and anxiety and spent Christmas not sleeping and having to leave the relative I was staying with early. I also went on ADs. I then had another round of ivf ( while off work with stress)
This Christmas I got my rainbow.
I had given up almost but I still had this hope that wouldn’t diminish and I had to keep fighting on.
A lovely lady I met on here is now a good friend, she had 7 mcs and 3 ivf euploids not implant and is now in second trimester
FYI we both had immune treatment this time
I just wanted to say it’s awful, lonely, painful and dark but keep going because just around the corner everything might just change

Feeling sad today. Want to have a good cry but can’t as am staying with relatives. Supposed to start treatment in Feb but worried my BMI will be too high and DH keeps wittering about the possibility of a lockdown then which will delay everything. Hurrah. Sending strength to you all

@ChocolatePotCafe I'd hope that IVF isn't affected, I think data is suggesting Omicron isn't as severe as previous variants so I hope we don't go into lockdown like the first wave.
I logged onto my IVF Instagram account only to be created by 3 IVF pregnancy announcements! After only 1 cycle as well, glad it's worked out for them but it just seems like it's working for everyone else and not me?
Thanks @mystical79 I know you are right but it's hard to have hope at the moment.

Gah my post didn't save first time.
Very hard day here. All afternoon and early evening with DH's family watching his sibling enjoying their baby's first Christmas. Like a knife to my soul, especially as they were awful to DH during our first cycle of IVF because he was more focused on me than their pregnancy. Makes me furious to think of how they treated him when it was so ridiculous. Obviously I had to smile and be all nice and by the time we got home after 7.30 I cried from sadness and exhaustion. DH also cried which broke my heart.

Planning a day the two of us tomorrow with a little walk and a lovely roast dinner. Plus our presents to each other. God it's so hard just keeping going isn't it.

God that sounds absolutely awful @CurbsideProphet ! You are saints to have managed to get through that. They sound horrid to have been so self centred during your cycle and surely it’s not rocket science to show some sensitivity to you with their new baby.

@Roo45 It’s so difficult isn’t it. My friend has announced her pregnancy to me today. I’m genuinely pleased for her, but it just feels like it’s working out for everyone except us.

@ChocolatePotCafe I’m hoping full lock downs will be avoided now we know the catastrophic effects on waiting lists etc. I think the most likely risk would be staff shortages due to absence from covid. I hope you’re able to start in Feb.

Well done to all for getting through today. No matter how tough, we did it.

@GodspeedJune 💐💐

@Roo45 ❤️ to you. Yes I feel like everyone does IVF once and then has a baby...

BIL decided to tell us yesterday that a friend of his has a new girlfriend and she's pregnant unexpectedly. "It wasn't even intentional". I mean of all the insensitive and unnecessary things to say 😩

@CurbsideProphet how insensitive! Sorry to hear that :( x

Thank you @Roo45 💐 it's astonishing how unkind people can be isn't it, even if that isn't their intention.

I got a Peak smiley on my OPK for the first time this morning. I've also got cramps on the left side and feeling a bit bloated. I'm not sure that I've properly ovulated since Dec 2019 (I only know I did then because of a chemical pregnancy). Does anyone else get some symptoms around ovulation?

@CurbsideProphet I didn’t realise you had ovulation issues, or am I assuming incorrectly? I don’t get lines on OPKs usually. I do get ovulation symptoms, cramps (on one or both sides) and sometimes I get lovely ovulation migraines . I got one this month and it was awful, 2.5 days of sickness and migraine and general hell. I don’t know what’s wrong with my ovulation really, but I’m fairly sure it’s, for wont of a better word, weak? I don’t have very high progesterone, clearly I can’t get pregnant, and this month my prolactin was slightly high which can cause these issues. Not sure what’s going on really.

CD1 was yesterday for me, one month until IVF begins as long as my prolactin isn’t crazy, I guess.

I also have to agree about the first time IVFers. I don’t know what I’ll be yet, we haven’t got that far and I’m not expecting success first time. A first time success would be the dream, but I don’t know how so many people seem to achieve it, seems very common round here. I certainly don’t think my dumbass body will manage it. I would be over the moon if we can make some embryos, we have three funded transfers.

@thislittlebird no one has been sure if I was definitely ovulating each cycle. Last year my GP thought that perhaps I was having anovulatory cycles (I think that's the right word), so my body was trying to go through the motions but an egg wasn't always being released.
I do wish we could have had a few months with Letrozole to see if that worked while waiting for IVF, but at the time I just followed the advice of the Consultant. Oh how helpful hindsight is 😩 I also wish DH had been advised to take Proxeed (he started earlier this month as I've read about it on here). I think we could have been given more advice and support by the NHS and by the clinic.

@CurbsideProphet did they think that based on progesterone levels?

If it’s any reassurance Letrozole did not work for us, which was disappointing but here we are. You could do it privately if IVF doesn’t work? My DH has been on impryl and ubiquinol (amongst others) for a year in February and I will say he’s seen improvements in his sperm quality since then. Hopefully it’ll give us a better chance of fertilisation. A private consultant told him to take it, I’m sort of wishing I had too.

New to this thread, I am really pleased to find it.
Just been completely floored by photo of SIL and BIL with their baby under the Christmas tree. Feeling very alone and like I can’t talk to friends as they’ll think I’m selfish for not just being happy for SIL. The thing is, DH has two children from prev relationship so they are all not very sensitive towards us as there’s children in our life already but for me it’s not the same, I’m sorry to say and I’m sure I feel the same grief as I would without the step kids, in fact they often make it harder.
Thank you for providing an outreach