The Trials & Tribulations of Trying to Conceive when its just not happening (12m+)

JoJo77

Hello Ladies

I've been um-ing and ah-ing whether to post on here as I used to lurk around this thread, posted a couple of times then found the whole TTC thing so hard to bear that stopped reading anything and went for counselling

Anyway...after 9 years of trying everything under the sun (IUI, IVF, acupuncture, reflexology, nutrition..and on and on) I have conceived naturally and am now 13 weeks pregnant with a baby that looks healthy on the scan

I wanted to post because I wanted to give you all hope. I am now 36 and dh is 57. As the years went by I used to g**gle 'conceived after 6 years', 'conceived after 7 years' etc etc to trying to persuade myself that it was still possible. I felt like every month that failed, something died in me that I was grieving for.

We'd never had a diagnosis which in some ways made me feel it must still be possible, but in other ways left me feeling that obviously there was something wrong but how could I try and repair it if I didn't know what 'it' was.

At the end of last year two friends who had been trying for years fell pregnant and I decided I wanted to give it one last shot. We went to see a consultant at a different fertility clinic who mentioned about sperm antibodies as my husband had has his vasectomy reversed after 13 years, and PCOS as I had always strongly responded to the fertility drugs. I'd just had a burst ovarian cyst and he thought I might have presenting symptoms but not the full diagnosis. He told us to come back in 3 months to allow my ovary to heal. I was on the internet straight away!

I bought Fertilaid, Ovaboost and FertileCM for me and bought a book by Marilyne Glenville on PCOS and started the diet. For dh I bought Fertilaid, Countboost and Motilityboost, plus ginkgo and tribulus as I'd read on the internet that these can help with antibodies. I wanted to give us the best chance of ICSI working as I knew in my heart it would be the last try

We never got to the April appointment. To our utter shock I was pregnant! These things might work for you; they might not. But what I wanted to say was that if having a baby is what you dearly want then don't give up hope, and don't stop trying new things to help you achieve it.

I wish you all huge sprinklings of baby dust!!!

benhope

Congratulations jojo, brilliant news!!
Where did you buy them from if you don't mind me asking?? I'm interested in anything which might help!!! I'm not getting any younger!!

skaps

Congrats JoJo77.


Thanks for sharing your story.

tea_lover

vesper wrote: »

Apparently every single of my bf's have turned out gay. Not sure how much reflection that has on me,

Every place I've ever worked, and half of my university, has been knocked down. We're currently in discussions at work about moving offices as this one is being demolished too. Have often wondered what that says about me!

Part_Mouse

Congrats jojo.

9dpiui and not feeling very hopeful. Bloods and scan today.please hurry up weekend.

picklekin

Lovely story Jojo, wishing you a wonderful pregnancy

I just emailed the clinic to go ahead with the IVF, feel oddly excited, who else gets excited about invasive medical procedures?
I'm hoping we can save on the initial consultation (£190!) as we snuck one in on the insurance but not sure if this will work. Very MSE

And code I've found people can be VERY touchy when it comes to genetics, I once asked my sister if it bothered her that the guy she wanted to have kids with (they had only just started dating but she was desperate to have kids) went prematurely grey as that could affect her children and she went mental at me, screaming at me for literally hours until I had to leave. To me it was just a scientific/interesting question but she seemed to think I was talking eugenics..

Fingers tightly crossed for you PM.

Part_Mouse

Pickle I hope your mse plan works and your able to get started ASAP.

I'm feeling super emotional today, argh.the dreaded 2ww is a killer plus I'm dreading the thought of over a months of injections if it doesn't work.

codemonkey

picklekin wrote: »

Lovely story Jojo, wishing you a wonderful pregnancy

I just emailed the clinic to go ahead with the IVF, feel oddly excited, who else gets excited about invasive medical procedures?
I'm hoping we can save on the initial consultation (£190!) as we snuck one in on the insurance but not sure if this will work. Very MSE

And code I've found people can be VERY touchy when it comes to genetics, I once asked my sister if it bothered her that the guy she wanted to have kids with (they had only just started dating but she was desperate to have kids) went prematurely grey as that could affect her children and she went mental at me, screaming at me for literally hours until I had to leave. To me it was just a scientific/interesting question but she seemed to think I was talking eugenics..

Fingers tightly crossed for you PM.

Seems like a bit of an overreaction from your sister. There's a difference between going grey early (have that gene myself, - thanks dad) and a genetic condition which can result in infertility and a higher risk than normal of heart disease and cancer. His brother is getting married next year and they really want kids and part of me thinks they need to know before they get married. Its unlikely his brothers will be affected because it can also arise from a mutation. But they should still know its a possibility. Not my place though.

Congratulations on your pregnancy Jojo. Hopefully it will give a boost to those who are unexplained. However, in some cases you have to give up hope because there is none.

picklekin

Oh I totally agree with you, I was just showing that even a tiny issue can make people prickly. I think its wrong that no one will tell them, and I can understand at you not wanting to as its not your place, can't your OH do it? It doesn't sound like he's a big talker on the subject though, so its tricky. I think the touchiness comes down to feeling like you have done something "wrong" for passing on bad genes.

Sensitive/nosey question so please ignore if you want - do you think you have carried on dating and then getting married if you'd known about this from day 1? It might have been actually a lot easier rather than stumbling upon it far down the line, you'd have talked it over before getting together about what to do I mean, and the options would have maybe been more open.

tea_lover

It is a tricky one. There's a genetic condition on my mum's side and it's brought up some interesting debates.

My sister and I haven't been tested but it's clear from symptoms that she has it and I don't think I do - although there are many degrees of severity so I could develop symptoms later on in life. Her form of it is pretty mild so far but my mum is severly affected and my dad is her full-time carer.

When my sister was thinking about TTC they considered having testing first. In the end she fell pg practically the day she stopped the pill so the decision was pretty much made for her.

When we looked into egg donation it was one of the main factors that made me decide against it - even though I'm 99% certain that I don't have the condition (if I don't have it I can't pass it on).

So basically a lot of rambling there lol.... just to say that there's no easy answers with any of this.

ETA:

picklekin wrote: »

Sensitive/nosey question so please ignore if you want - do you think you have carried on dating and then getting married if you'd known about this from day 1? It might have been actually a lot easier rather than stumbling upon it far down the line, you'd have talked it over before getting together about what to do I mean, and the options would have maybe been more open.

Difficult isn't it? I was diagnosed with endo and pcos shortly after getting together with OH, after years of pain and problems. We knew there could be fertility implications. This was in addition to the knowledge of my mum's genetic condition. We did talk about it all to some extent - but then it was pretty much a moot* point as turns out the severe MFI has caused most of our problems. You just don't know what's round the corner.

*this always makes me think of Friends - Joey's moo point

Man alive I am rambling worse than ever today... I blame co-codamol :rotfl:.