Underactive thyroid and early pregnancy?

[ExpectantFTB]

Good afternoon all,

I am new here, just joined a few mins ago, and I am looking for some information/guidance about underactive thyroid during early pregnancy.

Me and my wife had been trying for over two years to get pregnant and after going to see the doc and getting referral and we got started on out IVF treatment..

After 2 failed attempts we found out that my wife had a very low egg reserve basically showing as 0 so we needed to find an egg donor but as the test showed my wife was, oh I cant remember the word for it now I?m all in a fluster!!, but my wife was negative so she would need a negative egg donor to help us?

We were told that this was going to be difficult and that we could wait for up to 5 years for a donor to become available.

Anyway?. 5 years later and a failed attempt abroad we found a lovely special person who donated eggs for us and we got pregnant!! Woohoo!!
Now were all over the place with excitement and trying to believe this has happened when we went for checks and tests and they told my wife that she now has an underactive thyroid and that she needed to get checked again soon. That was Jan and no one seemed to have bothered us so we thought it would be OK. Then when my wife went to see the midwife and told her about it she said oh we need to chase this up and get another test done. So my wife chased it up and got the test done, then chased up the results and they come back the same, high.

So my wife is waiting to hear what this means and what to do about it but has now started hitting Google and is getting seriously worried about it and is starting to worry about problems that might be starting from the first test to the second and now seeing as nothing has been done about it. We were 6 weeks at the first test and now we are 13 weeks!

Is there anything to worry about? We are concerned as this was our last go on the NHS IVF as we only got one decent fertilised egg out of 18 so we have no others to go ahead in case of the worse.

I don?t know enough about this to reassure my wife in the mean time so I am here and not Google to see if anyone has been through similar, knows what this all means or is a midwife/doctor and can advise?

Thank you for reading!

PS As you can guess i wrote this without my wife knowing otherwise it would be in better detail and with the correct terms too
PS If this is in the wrong place then please move it to where it needs to be.

Hi there - I'd be interested to know what her latest blood test results are,ie the TSH and T4 readings. She may be borderline hypothyroid or overtly so, which could affect the gravity of the situation. I was borderline underactive before becoming pregnant, and was scared silly by reading too much negative stuff on the Internet! As I understand it, if the thyroid readings show the T4 level to be lower than the top 30% of normal range, and the TSH is higher than about 2.5-3, this should be treated as underactive, and thyroxine would usually be prescribed, which is what I'm on... Thyroxine is effectively artificial T4, and the baby doesn't differentiate where it comes from - mum, or a tablet - so it gets what it needs either way! I think it can cause problems to the pregnancy if left untreated so please urge the midwife / GP to take this seriously straight away! Especially given the previous issues with fertility. Hope all goes well... X

Hi
Do get your wife to go to gp this week and ask about thyroxin. Don't panic but important to act now as it can take several weeks for it to kick in. I imagine the mw would have escalated this though if a problem- maybe she meant the high side of normal rather than actually high? And maybe she just meant keep an eye on it which would make sense as it is common for TSH levels to vary a bit in pregnancy. I get tested every month.
Thyroxin has no side effects and is important in pg if her TSH is higher than 3 though my doc thinks anything up 5 is ok(guidelines vary according to area!). I am pg and underactive and have been frustrated by how not seriously gp has taken it then again it doesn't sound like either of us have very high numbers. Best of luck and do find out the TSH numbers and let us know how you get on. Congrats!

Hi. Congratulations on the pregnancy!

I am 17 weeks pg with my second baby and have underactive thyroids, as I did with my first. I was tested in my first trimester and was given tablets to take at the begining of my second trimester.
As far as I know, as long as you are taking the tablets and are tested to check the dose is right, there should be nothing to worry about. My levels went back to normal after the birth of my first baby and then only went funny again in this pregnancy.

Lots of luck. Let us know how you all get on.