I am sending my very best wishes.
Thank you all again. This has been a very encouraging thread.
I go in tomorrow morning for an ultrasound to see if my body is doing what it’s supposed to be doing and then, if it is, time for the trigger shot. Fingers crossed everything works out well.
Crossing my fingers for a happy ending, of whatever kind.
Fingers crossed for good news!
Ultrasound showed mature follicle so I responded to the femara. One hurdle down! Ovulation shot tonight.
I really hope I get pregnant this cycle because this process has sucked lol. It’ll be worth it in the end either way but I’m grumpy in the mean time.
To the extent it’s helpful, I had some endometrial surgery to remove cysts, including having 3/4s of one ovary removed. I was on birth control pills while healing. As soon as the OB/Gyn told me I was healed and we could try to conceive, I became pregnant.
To my MD’s surprise I had no trouble conceiving and carrying both S and D. That is all we wanted. I had no idea my fertility was even a question, but guess it was.
Good luck to you, @romanigypsyeyes!
Romani, keeping my fingers crossed for your family!
Wishing you and your DH all the best, Romani. You’ve had so many challenges-you are past due for some of the good stuff!
The Cup of Jo website (Joanna Goddard) has featured posts by people struggling with infertility in a variety of cultural, medical, and other contexts. The comment sections on these posts reflect an extremely thoughtful, diverse, and caring online community. I hope you’ll find the community that works for you! Best wishes.
@romanigypsyeyes - keeping you in my thoughts.
My fertility struggles are now 17 and 15 year old teenagers… but I remember how frustrating and emotional the struggle can be…(I have endometriosis). Looks like everyone above has offered good tips…just sending positive thoughts and a hug your way!!
Count me in. I had approx. 5 early miscarriages in my 30’s before seeking treatment. The fertility docs were so thorough. It was amazing. Long story short, eventually I had the salinography (??) where you basically got a pressure wash of the uterus and progesterone following conception and now have a kid who just got her drivers license.
I was on a very active TTC board (trying to conceive) for years and MOST of the women eventually did have children (3 who did not come to mind). Two of the women who did not both adopted (one via her church -now multiple kids- and one adopted very young sibs via foster system). They are happily posting about college and high school now and it is long in the past.
Best of luck (and medicine!) to you both.
It took us nine years of treatments to have a viable PG. I don’t know how many rounds of meds, then IUIs, and three IVFs. Throw in a few early miscarriages to add to the misery. It was a devastating process, especially for DW. We went to at least three different doctors/clinics in two cities. Nothing worked and no one ever found a problem in all the testing.
When our second IVF failed and the embryos weren’t high quality, the doc flat out told us to give up. I’ll never forget how DW let out a loud “uhh”, like he had punched her in the gut. I rarely get very angry but this was too much. It wasn’t a screaming out loud angry, just a realization that this guy has no idea what’s going on with us, so I had him go through the entire PG process in detail to try to figure where things went wrong. I had no respect left and was just using him as an encyclopedia.
We canned his a** even though he was one of the two founders of the clinic (really, the only one to go to in ATL back then) and switched to the other founder. I told the new guy we were going to try the new blastocyst transfer protocol, ICSI, and also add in steroids for DW’s arthritis (which would flare up occasionally, especially after an emotional event). The third IVF retrieval went well but the clinic called on the second/third day and said to get in there quick for transfer – the embryos weren’t doing well and they were aborting the blast/5-day xfer. Three embryos were transferred – one was perfect, another was okay, and the third wasn’t good. The first PG test showed a strong HCG level, second showed a good doubling time, and we were off and running. It was a twin PG but one was abnormal and failed later on (causing much trouble). The perfect embryo is now studying abroad in Oxford!
Two pieces of advice from a veteran of this devastating process:
- Do not put complete trust in your doctors. A viable PG is a complex process that's not well understood ... and if you really look at the details, it's a miracle it ever works. Have your RE go through the entire process from fertilization through, say, 10 weeks to figure out how Lupus can affect a PG. If you don't see any lightbulbs go off in their head, find a different RE.
- Men and women may handle this situation differently. I don't know you or your DH but we're equally devastated by it ... however, our response may be different. It is extremely difficult to recognize this in such a personal situation, especially when you're surrounded by "fertile myrtles". It doesn't matter where the identified cause exists, you're both in this together. Don't accept or place blame for anything. This is probably my biggest regret. My response to the failure every ... freaking ... month was to read thousands of articles and studies on idiopathic infertility in an effort to solve the problem. I should have acknowledged the pain and devastation ... but I thought that doing so would cause DW to spiral even deeper down.
Final note. I would do it all again, mistakes and all, given the end result. It was worth it.
Crossing fingers for you! We had the opposite of some others here. First PG happened easily. When we wanted to try for a 2nd, it was not happening. I still don’t know why. We tried the clomid and IUI, ended up later trying IVF. Only 3 eggs retrieved, so it wasn’t super successful in that way, but the one embryo that developed and and transferred did take and became a successful pregnancy. Kind of a miracle really, since some people end up with a dozen embryos and get to freeze some so they can try again with those. I have a friend who, at 50 with 4 IVF kids, still has frozen embryos she needs to make decisions about. The process was so awful emotionally. Even though we already had a kid, I remember how sad we were, and that everyone I knew was pregnant at the time. I do have several friends who also ended up using IVF, and all but one eventually had successful pregnancies. The other one was able to adopt a baby boy. I am sorry you are having this trouble! Hugs.
Recommending the book Fertility, Cycles, and Nutrition by Marilyn Shannon. Maybe you’ve seen it all before, but it has a section on PCOS that might be useful.
I also have many friends, relatives, and acquaintances who struggled with infertility–some for 5 or 10 years, some with multiple miscarriages. All eventually had one or more children. Several became pregnant shortly after adopting. One was given Clomid after 5 years of trying. She had twins. She never had any treatment again, but ended up with 11 children in all–including 2 more sets of twins! (I know this is not your goal!)
I have also witnessed the wonderful contributions that childless aunts and uncles make when they are involved in their nieces’ and nephews’ lives.
Wishing you and your husband the best, and hoping you have good news soon!
(And could we please have the old CC back? This is not user friendly, to put it mildly. More difficult to read, post, and find threads. Why?)
Best wishes. The infertility workup involves so much time and effort (some of it fun, most not). Lucky enough to have one (endometriosis), the older drug next try might have worked, sigh. Did not go beyond drugs like many do. Adoption becomes much more complicated with different ethnicities (his or hers…) and after a child- others were better for that. Life isn’t fair.
Hi everyone.
I’m trying to keep up with this thread but honestly, the new interface is just killing my eyes and I don’t see the notifications on the mobile page like I used to without pushing additional buttons. I’m not used to that so I normally just pop over to mobile for a second, see no new red marks, and exit - forgetting that it’s no longer on the front page and I actually have to do some digging.
No news yet. I will be able to start testing on Wednesday this week and I took a test today to confirm that the HCG from the trigger shot was out of my system so I don’t get a false positive. (I have a bulk of test strips, not actual tests, so the tests are super cheap - I’m not using the tests that cost way too much money lol.)
FWIW, I think I had a glimpse into pregnant life with the hcg coursing through my system. I started crying at everything for a solid 2 days. I cried over the fact that my dog and niblings exist, among many other reasons.
Fingers crossed for good news!!
Oh yes. Hallmark commercials brought on the tears
…and that Diet Coke commercial where he’s just being a good Dad. 