Anyone got a large family following fertility treatment?

[Solaia]

I'm not too sure whether this actually applies to anyone on this board, but I'm just trying to work through some of my feelings and trying to cope with my life at the moment....

Having always wanted at least four children (I'm one of 6, 5 still living) and wanting to be a youngish mum (ie start having them before I'm 30) I now find myself childless and infertile at 29. We've been TTC for 3 years (married 5) and we are awaiting IVF. I'm utterly utterly devastated by this path my life has taken.

I'm now at the stage where I would consider one child to be a miracle, but I still picture myself with a brood. Has anyone on here had their larger family with the help of IVF or fertility treatment? I suppose I'm looking for inspiration or reassurance or something! Is there any hope for my own football team?

Thanks

solaia infertility is shit...

I have been there, my infertility was 'cured' during a hystoscropy. I was trying for 18 months before I fell pregnant with my first child. Unfortunately, our most long-awaited dd was stillborn. My world broke apart as I was told it could take up to 18 months again to fall pregnant.

I was 31 when we started trying, just turned 34 when I fell pregnant with dd1. Miraculously, I was pregnant again only 9 weeks after dd1 was born and died.

My 'luck' was that they could work out what was causing our infertility. I had a large polyp in my womb, almost as big as my womb. I thought I had irregular periods and I would spot a lot, but it turns out I was having lots of very early miscarriages. For us, the operation etc moved very quickly because infertility was covered my dhs work private health insurance.

I brought my first living baby home 3 years after we started trying. I was emotionally very fragile after all we had been through. I was visiting a maternity psyciatrist at the time for PTSD. I wanted to stop bf at 6 months and then try to get pregnant again, she was desperately warning me not too . I finished feeding at 10 months, got my period back straight away, and then got pregnant. I did this three more times, getting pregnant at 11, 12 and 13 months after the previous baby. I was so bloody fortunate to conceive each time. I am now 43 and have a 7, 6 4 and 2 year old.

I know this isn't exactly what you want to hear, as my infertility was easily solved. Though our devastating stillbirth elongated that journey to starting a family in a most painful way. With each pregnancy we had a 20% of losing the baby. With our first surviving pregnancy, we were told to brace ourselves to beagle to fall pregnant but not having a surviving baby. Pretty shit....

However, if you didn't have a baby til you were 35, you still could have 4 children. Hope is not lost, it can be done... And Ivf ups your chances of multiples .

Sorry this is so long... I hope it shows you a glimmer of hope

I am pregnant with Dc1 who was conceived at our first attempt at ivf. We have no diagnosis for our subfertility and tried for 2.5 yrs; we're both 33. But the ivf (with our own eggs and sperm) seemed to work well for us as we have ten good quality blastocyst embryos frozen as well. Because of this I am letting myself hope now that we will be able to have two kids and maybe we will even manage more! (I think 3 would probably be our max though). I don't have to worry about my egg quality decreasing over time as they are all made from 32 yr old's eggs. I think if you have to go through a fresh cycle each time I can see why you wouldn't want to do that more than a handful of times (even aside from the cost as the nhs will only fund childless couples), and they may not all be successful; but if you manage to get some frozen embryos it's a different ball game as there is much less medication involved and the cost is much lower.

I hope your cycle goes smoothly. It's great that you are still young - our consultant put our success partly down to my relatively young age. I got a lot of good support on the fertility friends website as well as the egg buddies thread on here. xxx

My friend has pcos, took her 7 years to conceive her first and she is now expecting number 9 and has had losses along the way

In contrast my sister conceived her dd very quickly but hasn't been able to conceive since.

I hope your get your miracle

I starting trying for children after I was married and had travelled the world with a steady job. By this time I was 29, your age. DH and I tried for two years, I'm impatient and we went to the doctors, he said I wouldn't be able to have children. Two years later I had my DS1. Then I had my DD1. I had two eptopic pregnancies resulting in my not being able to have children naturally. Three years after my DD1 was born, IVF had helped me conceive twins. Now they are four years old. All of my children were miracles and I watch them everyday grow up into their own little personalities. Children are great and everyone deserves the gift if life. I hope that your IVF treatment goes very well and I'm sure one day you'll be a great mother. Good luck,

Aubrey xx

We took 7 years to have our twins (now nearly 5) and had fertility treatment (6 rounds of ovulation induction) and one round of full on private treatment for immune issues. 5 mcs and an ectopic.

In November at the age of 39 I get pregnant from a single act of unprotected sex with DH. Now 40 weeks pg with DS3.

I think we could have a family with four children, which is what we originally wanted but now we are so knackered we'll probably never have sex again

I do hope you get your happy ending and soon :)

Thanks so much for taking the time to reply everyone. I really appreciate it.

I feel like I've used up all of my coping mechanisms and I'm running out of the ability to manage the monthly disappointment. I appreciate tales of unexpected babies and fertility treatment families to give me something to focus on.

Solaia, I didn't cope very well with infertility, everyone I knew was getting pregnant except for me.

I hope this doesn't sound to facetious, I mean it as someone who has been there. I got sick of the no mans land of infertility, like life wasn't progressing. Towards the end of it, after I had my surgery and was waiting to get pregnant naturally, we booked two holidays, one to turkey and then Egypt. On reflection, I'm so pleased we did this. I don't look back and remember the time that I spent constantly stressed, I remember the trips and am glad that I did it. I'm glad I didn't always act like my life was on hold, even though I did for a good year. I'd basically given up at work and wasn't buying clothes, unless I felt it was good for maternity wear.

I guess that helped me cope when I felt my ability to manage it all was slipping... I hope that makes sense...

Hi imip

No, not at all facetious! Thank you for replying.

We are lucky in that we can and do travel a bit and have 'grown up' activities to look forward to. We have had two amazing foreign holidays this year and a few uk weekends away in nice places. We have just booked another weekend in mid-October and the package we have comes with a bottle of prosecco in our room on arrival. As small and daft as it sounds, I can use that bottle of prosecco as a hook to drag myself up with when I'm not pregnant in mid-October. That and the hotel having a sauna etc. It's easier to think 'thank crunchie I'm not pregnant...' whilst sipping fizzy wine in a jacuzzi

Solaia,

I felt really similar to imip - seven years of infertility nearly broke me. I was broken for a long while, especially years 3-6.

The round of treatment that resulted in the twins in our 7th year of 'trying' was our 'last go'. We had a whole 'Plan B' set up - rent out the house, travel to Aus and NZ. We were beginning to move on and plot a life we could enjoy without children (something which 10 years previously would have been unthinkable).

And then we did get pregnant. But we were beginning to see there was an alternative for us. The whole thing was unbearably painful to go through, but there was an end point, either way. That was helpful for us.

lairy

We had a plan b also. When I was pregnant the second time and we were given a 20% chance of losing our next daughter, dh had two close colleagues whose partners were pregnant. We were all due around the same time. We had the plan of packing up and travelling around South America should we lose our daughter. There was no way our life could have continued as normal....

solaia

I'm glad, for a bit there I felt like I wasted life getting caught up in it all. Think big, do those things you really want as a hook to get through til the I've starts.

Btw, I do know families who have had more than a couple of kids via I've after 35. And I know lots of have dcs naturally after having the first by IVF.

Oh, and congrats lairy

It can happen. I have five children. The first via fertility treatment. The following four natural conceptions. The four natural conceptions happened with only one working ovary and pcos..... I lost the other when it ruptured after I'd had the first baby.

If I was to give you any advice it would be to try not to focus your life around trying to get pregnant. Stress does funny things to your body. I know it's easier said than done, but I've heard so many others say how they conceived when they least expected to.

Good luck.

I'm so sorry, I remember the pain.

We TTC for 3 years, that included one early m/c. We had 6 cycles of IUI unsuccessfully and then put on the waiting list for IVF. I was bereft and struggling so much so we decided to concentrate on moving house. We chose a luxury flat with a balcony overlooking a harbour that really didn't suit babies. The place was full of professional, child free couples. I was trying on a new life.

Little did I know at the time i had conceived naturally a few days before we moved in.

Long story short I now have 3 kids under 6. The last was actually a real oops financially but after struggling for so long I just couldn't bring myself to use contraception again

It's the school holidays and I'm grumpy and knackered but also the luckiest woman alive.

Good luck, keep the faith x

Hi Solaia,

I'm so sorry you're going through this. It's unbelievably devastating. I had a couple of miscarriages before having my first child and before I conceived him (aged 33) I was devastated.

I just wanted to say that when you have IVF please ask them to check your NK Cells. I have raised NK cells (basically an overactive immune system) which was making me miscarry. Apparently, some people's NK cells are so high that they can't even conceive. I had to take steroids to suppress my immune system for the first 12 weeks of my pregnancies - after that the placenta takes over.

Please don't give up hope. You are a really good age and have plenty of time left. Just fight and push and make sure they test you for everything. The NHS don't routinely test for raised NK cells, so if I hadn't seen my dr then I really don't think I'd have my 3 children now.

Good luck and don't give up hope. A good friend of mine had her first child after years of infertility last year aged 37. She is pregnant again and due in 2 weeks. It really can happen xx

I don't know if this counts as large, but I have a friend with three. All from a single round of IVF and then the frozen embryos. All singletons.

And lots of people who wanted 4/5 find three is plenty when they are actually the parents. So perhaps that would do you.

Sorry, I cut off a bit there. I wanted to say sorry that you are going through this.