ERA/Alice/Emma infertility thread graduates/pregnancies

[seven201]

If you are a regular on the infertility board you may have seen the ERA/Alice/Emma threads for those going through those tests after lots of unsuccessful IVF or recurrent losses. This thread is for the ladies from there who are now pregnant. We can share our worries and joys.

I am useless at remembering who is pregnant from which thread so please do add yourself or tag others. @Janefx40 and @Faithhopelove83.

Also, if anyone who has fully graduated/had their baby, then please feel free to join if you wish. I don't want to tag individuals as I don't want people to feel obliged.

If you've also just had lots of failed ivf and/or recurrent miscarriages you are of course welcome too!

A little bit about me. I have a naturally conceived nearly 7 year old dc. Have been trying for dc2 for 5 1/4 years. One natural early loss, 5 failed ivf, 3 surgeries (main one being an adhesion removed), 2 natural pregnancies and early losses, 1 ivf pregnancy that got to heartbeat stage. This pregnancy is a letrazole round and I'm 9+6 (although measuring 9+0 but that's been consistent) so due early November. I've been spotting brown for the past 3 days but my scan was this afternoon, so reassuring (although still worried). I'm under the CRP clinic in epsom due to the miscarriages.

Good luck to us all!

@Gardenlady543 so lovely to see you on this thread! I think your tests are fine. The cheapies I wouldn't even think about. I had a whole panics with cheapies in this pregnancy too. They are good at picking up hcg I think but not very good at progression. I think I might have even posted on a thread about it but I can remember pouring over tons of online images of other peoples' tests in an attempt to reassure myself.

Your FRER today actually isn't fainter it's just a thinner lined test on both control and test and the background is a different colour. But also at a certain point there isn't that much difference day to day.

Really hoping this all continues well for you xxx

@Faithhopelove83 amazing news about your scan. How lovely that the baby was waving at you!!!

I'm terrible at remembering detail. I think I asked to be weaned off Lubion rather than stopping suddenly so I reduced down from 10 weeks and Mr S had me on cyclogest until 16 weeks so that is the norm. With my first pregnancy I just stopped at 10 or maybe 12 weeks. All was fine with the baby but I did have a day of extreme nausea and migraines!

@seven201 hooray for your low risk NIPT and how lovely to be having a girl! I can't believe these results came so fast. Isn't that less than a week since the redraw?!

@AM08 yes just see how you feel and play it by ear. I am 38+3 today and one week away from my section (eeek!).

I've actually got quite anxious again. Wish they would just take him out now. I'm 46 (another eeek) so the highest risk part is now when much older mothers can have issues with my placenta so I am a bit panicked about something happening when we are so close to the end.

I've also gone against advice and stopped blood thinners that I'm meant to be on to stop blood clots. If I go into labour early on blood thinners, I'd have to have a general anaesthetic for the section and I just don't want to be unconscious when he's born.

The anxiety has been less during the third trimester but it's ramped back up again now!

@Janefx40 hang in there. You've done so well. Being heavily pregnant for many women is really hard (I certainly found it so) and then add on the extra worries. Not long until 16th now!

I really wasn't expecting the results today. Blood draw was weds pm, and they said "end of the week" so it was a very welcome phonecall to receive, and happened to ring while I was on break at school, so I didn't have the very frustrating missed call or answerphone message then the anxious wait. I did then very quickly ring my husband and he answered and said "can I call you back?" But I just blurted out "it's fine and it's a girl" and he replied "Dave's here" as I was on speakerphone while he was driving a colleague, who now knows our news . Ah well!

@seven201 😂let's hope Dave can keep a secret!!! The main thing is that all is well xxx

@Janefx40 

@Gardenlady543 how's the line this morning?

@seven201 I hope it isn't skewed as I used first morning urine for the first time, but the line looks good today! I hope the beta will be back that I took yesterday.

@Gardenlady543 ooo yes looking good. A beta at 13dpo (I always work it out that way!) can be variable tho. The earliest I have done them is 14dpo. You wouldn't expect it to be super high so don't panic!

By the way I'm not sure where you live but I went into TDL to do my hcg tests - it's probably 75 mins all in each way but you get them back quick. There are lots of companies that do it cheaply but I figure if they are using TDL then the results are calibrated the same way whoever you buy them through x

@Janefx40 I'm quite a while from London :( it seems like the only way to get a same day beta is having a clinic that does them (mine can but only do them for potential ectopics on scan day) or to go to somewhere in London. My blood test hasn't been delivered to the lab by Royal Mail so probably won't be back today :(

@Gardenlady543 ah the wait is tough. Would you consider doing a weeks indicator? I have sometimes found them useful at tracking hcg. They have always been accurate for me too.

I don't want you to panic either because I'm not sure that hcg at 13dpo will tell you much. It could be anything from 20-70 and still be fine!

@Janefx40 what's a weeks indicator? I have ordered a hcg and Progesteone test to take yesterday (somewhere in the postal service), tomorrow and Monday. So I'm hoping that should give a good idea of the trend. Of course nothing is going to plan, my kit for tomorrow hasn't arrived yet and medichecks for some reason has me down as ordering 2 kits rather than 3 and said they want evidence of the order which I had to email and now waiting on someone responding to it.

@Gardenlady543 that is a good line!! Hope the blood test comes back soon

Sorry me again, didn't see the past few messages! My medichecks one took a few days to get the results back, I think the second lot took 5 in total (weekend in the way). I personally regret doing a clearblue weeks indicator as it caused me a lot of extra stress when it stayed stuck on 1-2. My lines were very slow to progress but your lines are nice and strong.

Ah a pregnancy test with the weeks indicator! @seven201 you know I had a look on Amazon last night and considered buying a couple, but I think all it's doing is looking at the colour of the line to come up with the weeks and with my fancy t/c calculations I'm doing that anyway. So I may be like you and find it more stressful. Of course I may change my mind in the next 5 minutes!

@Gardenlady543 I agree with @seven201 that weeks indicators can be more stressful so I usually hesitate to recommend them. It is something I have used and as I have also had hcg tests they have been pretty accurate for me. Not sure if they are analysing line ratio or not - they have very specific thresholds. I think they have different test strips inside that activate at different levels of hcg.

But anyway I think it is wise to avoid them if you think they will stress you. I actually didn't use them either this time.

Keep us posted about your results.

Just went in for monitoring as feeling anxious. All fine. They said I can go every day if I want. Seeing midwife tomorrow anyway so made an appointment for Saturday and may go in daily if I get slow movement x

Great news @Janefx40

Oh God, are you guys ready for a bit of a big one... when everything was going wrong I started the surrogacy process as in a long time ago, as in the end of 2021. Somehow after unsuccessful and cancelled cycles in both of us, I got the news today that our surrogate is pregnant with a beta of 1070 on 14dp5dt. Due dates (if things work out for both of us) are 5 days apart. I did think fate might do something like this but I mean you guys know how unlucky I have been, the chance of this happening at the same time was going to be extremely low... But there we go.

@Gardenlady543 oh my goodness! Congratulations and whaaaaaaaat? How do you feel about it? It's amazing!

@Janefx40 worried, nervous, apprehensive, confused and then repeat lol. Like I don't know, it's a lot but then everything that has happened to me has been a lot and I will just need to hope for the best for both me and our surrogate and see what life throws at us. But I mean having known me for a little while, is it any surprise that something like this has happened!

@seven201 Haha, that's funny about Dave! 😂

Thank you @Janefx40 🙂
Sorry to hear the anxiety has ramped up this week. Completely understandable. Glad your monitoring went well today and hopefully that has put you a little bit at ease. It's bound to be daunting as the big day approaches. But just think, you get to meet your DS in 6 days 💙. Hang in there x

@seven201 and @Janefx40 Thank you both for your advice/experience re Lubion and Cyclogest. I'll just have to stop the Lubion dead tomorrow (10+4) but the good news is that I managed to persuade my GP today to prescribe me more Cyclogest to take me up to 16 weeks. I'll carry on taking 3 pessaries a day until 12 weeks then drop to 2 a day. Did you both drop to 1 a day for the last week? Or a similar tapering?

@Gardenlady543 Nice line today! I've never tested HCG in any of my 4 pregnancies, so can't help you there, but hopefully yours come back strong soon. I did do Clearblue digital with weeks indicator this time, and it was reassuring to see the progression from 1-2, to 2-3, to 3+. But I would only recommend testing weekly with that one, and bear in mind that lots of ladies haven't had progression with them so they can cause additional stress. They worked for me though.
Oh my goodness about your surrogate, and to have due dates just 5 days apart, what are the chances?! A lot to take in, I'm sure.

@Gardenlady543 I don't think I even knew you were in the surrogacy process! But hey this is an amazing situation to find yourself in.

I think you just need to take a day at a time and, as you say, hope for good things both for yourself and your surrogate.

Will be willing those little beans on for you xxx

@Gardenlady543 What I meant was not done BETA test. Obvs have tested HCG, but by HPT only not by BETA. My clinic doesn't do BETAs unless it's clinically indicated.

@Faithhopelove83 great that your GP can give you cyclogest. I think I took 2 until 16 weeks and then stopped. Let's just say my body was expressing it's dissatisfaction by then at me taking it 😳

@Gardenlady543 oh my goodness me!!!! What a shocker. You've mentioned surrogacy before but I didn't realise you'd started the process. So that's your egg and DH's sperm (I know you had quite a few good embryos)? Amazing. It's essentially having twins?! Is the surrogate in the UK? How do you think she'll take the news? What has DH said?? Woweeee!!!! Early days of course, but how amazing.

@Janefx40 I'm glad your hospital are being supportive. If it helps, take the extra monitoring.

@Faithhopelove83 that is good news for the cyclogest. I've only ever been on 2 and take both in the evening. I think after 16 weeks I might just do one in the evening for a few days, then that will be it.

@seven201 and @Janefx40 Thanks both x