Introducing myself **TW: child mentioned**

Momifbysea

Hello! I've been active on the TTC after 35 board since last spring and now that I'm entering treatment versus testing phase with an RE, feel like it's time to join here too. DH and I have one DD who was conceived naturally at my age 38-1/2 by a miracle seemingly. She is now 3. We started TTC #2 in November 2015 and it has not been easy. DH is 44 and I'm 42 so we have age-related challenges and RE has diagnosed MFI in addition. We are having our first IUI sometime next week after OPK surge and I'm on my last day of Femara today. This is my first cycle doing anything other than timing with OPK. I am trying to stay positive that the IUI will be a success, yet grounded in the reality of stats for my age. I think I was hesitant to declare myself with struggling with infertility until I had an RE tell me, so here I am. It's been a roller coaster each cycle so I would really appreciate the support and sharing support with you all as well.

rainbowwishes5

Sorry you find yourself here but IF isn't a dirty word- it's an unfortunate reality. Welcome

funkykey

Welcome @Momifbysea!

A friend and I were talking last night about how hard it was to come to terms with the "infertility" diagnosis. For my friend, she couldn't label herself as "infertile" until she was pregnant after IVF - she said she'd see other pregnant women and think: "I'm not like you".

For me, when my RE told me: "you're infertile", it was tough but also relieving. Like, we actually had tried (and failed) to conceive for a year, so we qualified, so he was correct. And I knew we qualified before he said it, but before he said it, it had seemed like such a stark word, and it had been something I'd been so fearful of, even before we started TTC... "what if we have trouble?". So it was like confirmation of my fears but also throwing me a life raft at the same time. Yes, you have struggled to conceive - so much, we call you "infertile". But now that you have been diagnosed, here is all the support we can offer you. 

The whole process is painful and emotional - all of it. It's a small aspect of your life - I mean, I have a job and hobbies and interests and friends -  so I could be described by 1000 adjectives other than "infertile" - but none would have caused me as much pain as the reality of that adjective.

Anyway, I hope you find support on these boards, and good luck with your IUI! FX!

liljoy-2

I think "infertile" is a misnomer of some sorts because the real diagnosis must be something different (I mean, infertility must be caused by something, being PCOS, anovulation, endometriosis, blocked tubes, older age, etc.)

The most frustrating is the "unexplained IF" label, probably or the guessing of a cause. In my case, everything seems fine, DH has ok-ish SA, but I did have endo removed one year ago. So because they couldn't find anything wrong with me (and I'm relatively young and with lots of follicles and very good response to stimulation) they just assume it must be something related to endo. However, after endo removal a lot of women become pregnant right away. Not my case. It is veeery frustrating, and sometimes I find myself guilty of secretly blaming DH because he is not a typical man in the sense that he doesn't feel the need to BD too often and has (I think) psychological issues that prevent us from having a lot of that (other than the 1-2 times during fertile windows). And no, he's not gay or having things on the side, hehe, I thought of that too. I mean, in order to conceive, you have to do it more than 1 or 2 times during the FW, right? 

Momifbysea

Thanks everyone, so glad this board is here! I agree that it is a comfort of sorts to have a reason to at least try to explain why we haven't conceived. Because with that reason, we can start trying things to see what works. I'm not giving up hope!

funkykey

Oh man @bestofjoy. The ol' different sex drive problem. So frustrating! When we were first together, I wanted to BD all the time. I was heading into my sexual prime, and DH's was like 10 years prior. I'd be like: "Let's go! It's the weekend! We can have sex three times today! And do all sorts of cool acrobatics!" and DH was like: "God, my bum knee. I'm so exhausted. Let's just chill on the couch with the dog." Um.

Sometimes, I even took it personally, like: "are you not attracted to me?" And DH was like: "WHAT?! What are you talking about?" It was not on his radar at all. I think it was more my insecurities making me think that - that and the media, always making things look so sexy all the time.

Anyway, now we don't have the same issue - on the one hand, my sex drive isn't as strong, and sometimes I want to chill on the couch too, but on the other, DH got more into shape and dealt with his knee. If I'm really honest, there were definitely some psychological issues at play for both of us. Sometimes I didn't want to have sex because I actually wanted to, but rather I wanted to because I wanted proof that DH thought I was sexy. I felt like if we didn't have sex for a week, that was a sign that there was no fire between us. Sometimes DH didn't make a move even when he wanted to have sex, etc. Plus he took a medication for a while where one of the side effects was ED, and that was pretty traumatizing - it took us a while to bounce back from that. (It took him forever to be like: "oh, maybe it's this medication with this documented side effect, and not that there's something wrong with me". I was like: "at last!")

But man, if I were dealing with that at the same time as all of our IF? It'd be tough! Hang in there! You know, you start looking for a reason for the IF, and you can make yourself crazy guessing. (eg. Is it that I'm not doing enough acupuncture? Could DH be doing more? Is it that we don't want it enough?) You have to work so hard to tune out the BSC! If I were in the same position, on a bad day, I'd think the same thing.

When you said: I mean, in order to conceive, you have to do it more than 1 or 2 times during the FW, right? 
I thought: "Nope." Lots and lots of people get KU-ed after having unprotected sex one time. My friend and I talked about that too, after talking about the IF label. Can you even imagine getting pregnant after having sex once? Inconceivable! (hahaha) But it happens to so many people!

Sex = babies is so crazy to me now, and I think that's the toll that the IF has taken. Like, cognitively I know it happens, but I just don't believe it.

liljoy-2

@funkykey Yeah, it's crazy how some people get pregnant "accidentally" after 1 time. But I can't help but wonder if our BD 1-2 times/cycle for 12 cycles was enough (especially since DH has a count on the low side), since when I look at the stats of the successes on this board I see 5x/ cycle. Grrr

funkykey

@bestofjoy - I get it, you want to play the odds. More sperm= higher chances. Totally.

I guess I'm coming at it from the other side. We're unexplained, and my DH's counts are high-  they're high enough that I'm pretty sure the issue is on my end, even though we're unexplained. We did the math and estimated DH has probably given it something nuts, like 6 billion shots. We've BD during the FW so many times, we don't want to BD for a month after... I could probably bathe in semen and not get pregnant. If I were you, I'd want to play the odds too, and bump up the BD during the FW too, but in my case, it's not made a difference at all. Go figure.

Polythene Pam

Welcome!! **TW** I'm 32 with a 3.5 year old also who was conceived easily. So when we weren't having the same luck this time around, the word "infertile" scared me. And if I'm being honest my husband refuses to hear that word. In his mind, our daughter was created without meds or shots or appts so we just haven't tried long enough. Umm 2 years is long enough for me! (and he does agree to do treatment since they found the issue but that word still pisses him off

As for the other talk on sex drive, this whole process just kills it, at least for us!! There is nothing less sexy than me telling my husband it's the "window" so get in the mood. Once we decided to pursue IVF quite honestly we've tanked in that area. And we're open about it, we just said we need to rest from that hell, get past this IVF stuff and make it fun again. But anyway doing it more than 2x a week when we were charting etc was literally stressful, my husband would get annoyed like I was nagging him for sex and I was annoyed like "but don't I turn you on??" Anyway a vicious cycle but just saying I think it's normal for the drive to be lower, this stuff is stressful

good luck to all!! 

Momifbysea

Agree on the sex drive when we feel so much pressure. It's like, perform NOW! Kinda takes the fun away. I'm kind of relieved this cycle he can "do his thing" and then I can just show up to RE for " my thing" lol.

liljoy-2

Good luck @Momifbysea with your first IUI. Did your RE give you a longer term plan? Mine didn't even want to try IUIs first, he said probabilities are low so let's go to IVF. But I did try one IUI (failed, of course). In hindsight I should have tried a few more instead of jumping right into IVF...I go back and forth about my past (and future) regrets. 

Momifbysea

@bestofjoy our RE will probably lay out a longer term plan when we have our consult with him Thursday. This IUI was miracle timing...RE left me a voicemail on the SA results Friday which I didn't get until their office closed. So, first thing Monday I called nurse saying he'd recommended IUI but I would probably O the day before our appointment with him and we didn't want to miss a cycle. She asked my cycle day, I said day 4, and she said "you're in luck! I'll call you in the Femara script!" So we are counting our blessings that I called that day. We can't afford lost time now since we are likely moving in June and this would (I think) be considered a pre existing condition if we don't have success while here on this insurance. Sorry for the long post but that's where we are right now.  

PoeMasque

Welcome!! Glad to see you here too (well not glad about the struggle, but glad to be able to support you here as well!)