New girl, over 35, trying for 9 months, one loss

ropro

Hi, I hope you are all well. Like most of you who have been trying for some time, BFN every month is taking a toll psychologically - feelings of confusion, dashed dreams and failure, and I hoped reaching out might help.
I am turning 36 next month and we have been trying continuously for 9 months. I haven’t used any hormonal contraception in 8 years. We had one chemical pregnancy after 6 months, which was very sad and has made the sight of blood every month, when AF arrives, all the more painful. We have had some tests done and basically seems ok, though egg reserve is on the normal-low side. There is no real history in my family of trouble conceiving, which makes this all more confusing and, dare I say, makes me feel ashamed.
How do you “relax” and stay positive, yet keep trying, while dealing with the disappointment every month... I hope this is an appropriate post here.

inthewoods23

@ropro welcome! Are you working with an RE? I know the feeling of no history with family TTC. My mom is 1 of 7 in her family and I had to go through *TW* my sister and 2 cousins having a kid within a month and a half of each other *end TW*. That was a rough time. I had just come off my 3rd failed IUI so there was extra sting.

ropro

Thanks for the welcome. Have you been trying for a long time? Not really working with RE but had some basic tests. There are others still to do like HSG but have been advised to give it a couple more months. 

Yes in my family it has always been fairly quick and with friends who have gone on to have children 5 months seems to be the absolute maximum (I know it can take much longer but that is what I see around me). 

inthewoods23

I'm almost to year 3. Started working with an RE in October 2018. 3 IUIs, an egg retrieval, and 1 FET that failed. After that failure, it took 4 months to do additional testing plus have a biopsy on my lining done. I've spent nearly a year of this time just in wait mode on BC before starting meds for cycles. Every clinic is different though. Some will do FETs back to back but mine wanted to do all the tests before transferring a 2nd time.

cashewchicken

Hi. Just wanted to say I’ve been there. If you are over 35 and have been trying for 9 months, I highly recommend seeing an RE to get a full workup. I’ve never done any fertility treatment through my primary care or gynecologist, but from what I’ve read in the forums, gynecologists seem to not have any sense of urgency when it comes to getting pregnant. Generally it’s recommended that you try on your own for 1 year for those under 35, and 6 months for 35 and older. RE from my experience seems to understand the desire to want to get pregnant ASAP. 

We saw our first RE after trying on our own for six months with an ovulation monitor. All the test results looked good. But we ended up requiring IVF to get pregnant. I still don’t know the cause of my infertility (besides my age, but I had good ovarian reserve for my age). In my experience, unexplained infertility is a tricky diagnosis because good test results don't mean that you are fertile. It just means that based on the tests currently available, doctors can’t find a cause for infertility. So you start with a least invasive treatment, and slowly work your way up to IVF and the whole process could take a while. We saw our first RE in early 2015 and ended up becoming pregnant with my first in the summer of 2017. I know that doesn’t seem like a long time but I was 39 by the time I became pregnant with my son.