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Infertility
Momifbysea
member
Introducing myself **TW: child mentioned**
Momifbysea
member
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.
Re: Introducing myself **TW: child mentioned**
CP #1- due April 2017 lost 5.5 weeks
cp #2- due May 2017 lost at 4.5 weeks
iUI #1- BFN
IUI #2-BFN
IVF#1- transfer 2- BFP! Due October 2017 c/p#3 lost at 3.5 weeks
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!
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?
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.
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.
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.
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!!
TTC#1 since November 2015
9/16/2016 IUI#1 - BFN
10/12/2016 IUI#2 - BFN
1/21/2017 Clomid/IUI#3 - BFN
March 2017 IVF: BFP! (beta#1 191, beta#2 378!) - it's a boy! DS born 12/6/2017
TTC #2 since July 2018
May 2019 IVF #2: BFP! (beta#1 346, beta#2 646) - vanishing twin at 8 weeks. Baby B still going strong - due 2/8/20!