So sorry that getting your thyroid on track wasn’t the answer, Antigen. If misery loves company, we’re still trying too, now with two chemical pregnancies under our belt.
Oh, duh. Thanks.
By that rule, the maternal side(s) of my family would have stopped generations ago… :rolleyes:
We started with a RE (reproductive endocrinologist) at a fertility center this summer and we both underwent an exhaustive battery of tests. As far as they’ve been able to tell, both my husband and I are normal. Of course, they’re careful to point out that they can only test a few things, and conception and implantation is ridiculously complex and not well understood, so they may very well be missing something. I assume I’ve been checked out for PCOS since it’s so common, but I will look over my tests again. What should I be looking for?
Infertility-board-based woo says pineapple core is supposed to help with implantation. As rational and scientific as I am, I find myself trying a bunch of the superstitious woo shit because, well, it can’t hurt, right? That’s another reason to hate infertility. It’s making me crazy.
I’m so sorry about your losses. 
PM me anytime, if you want.
My thyroid may have been part of the problem… we did manage a natural pregnancy, after all. I think that’s why my husband wants to try a while longer, because I’ve only been on the thyroid medication for 6 months or so.
Your aunt is lucky that you have better manners than she does. You’re lucky, too, if you look at it that way. The only possible response to “were you sexually molested as child?” is, “Were you dropped on your head repeatedly as a child or just once from a great height?”
Have you tried charting? If your cycles are long and unpredictable it could help you with timing ovulation more accurately (as well as checking CM daily to find egg white conditions). Have you had a vaginal ultrasound to check out your ovaries for PCOS as well? Not sure if that was one of the tests you went through.
Beyond that, yes, it sucks. We identified very quickly we had sperm issues and went straight to ICSI in Australia where waiting times are nil and costs are comparatively low. We had 2 babies in 3 cycles (now 3yrs and 11 months) which we know is great results and we are very lucky. But the process is still not easy and it makes sense to find your own coping mechanisms.
For me this was being by open and honest with people about the procedures - you’ll be amazed how many people struggle silently who will come our of the woodwork once you mention it. Plus, for me I knew there were people I would want the support of whether we had success or not - and for me it normalised our situation.
Approach it like a marathon. Looking at the mountain from the bottom can make it seem unsurmountable, but every day just one step is manageable and small achievements can keep you feeling positive. After all, you do need to feel positive that it can work, otherwise you wouldn’t bother. Aaaaand at the same time, a little compartment of your brain should be left for planning wha you will do should it all not work out. The life that you will lead then which needs to be designed to be fulfilling and joyful, even without kids. Remember to plan non-baby related milestones to look forward to, so that your year is ‘the year we went to Cambodia’ or ‘the year I did the 160km bike race’, rather than ‘the year I didn’t get pregnant’.
Best of luck.
I’ve been charting for about a year now, which is how I know I only ovulated on day 27 of this last cycle. Between that and the ovulation tests I’ve been using, our timing is spot on every cycle. I’m doing everything possible, and we’ve both been tested for everything and given a “normal” label, and we’re still not getting pregnant. “Unexplained infertility” is a bullshit diagnosis that just means “huh, you should be pregnant by now but you’re not. weird.”
As for the vaginal ultrasound, between all the testing and the miscarriage, I’ve had that goddamn wand stuffed up my happy place enough times to make me wonder why anyone, anywhere would ever ever want a dildo for fun.
They never figured out why I wasn’t conceiving either. My husband’s sperm count was low, but within the range that makes conception probable. My hormones were fine. I ovulated. In fact, I appear to be someone with a propensity towards fraternal twins, since when they looked at me without clomid, I released multiple eggs.
After a year of tests and treatment, they finally decided I must have some sort of implantation issue, but marked me down as “unexplained.”
I think that may have been the most frustrating thing, had we known what it was, we’d know if it was addressable or not.
Well, the trouble with PCOS is that, being a syndrome, it’s just a collection of symptoms. There is no one test that can pinpoint a PCOS diagnosis, and it doesn’t take all the symptoms to make the diagnosis. Generally, what a woman with PCOS sees is:
- lengthy times between periods (oligomenorrhea) or no periods (amenorrhea)
- unwanted body hair
- excessive acne
- obesity, often with an apple shaped figure
- high cholesterol
- high blood glucose
- insulin resistance
- infertility
A doctor can confirm the diagnosis by doing an ultrasound of the ovaries. Because the ovaries often have multiple follicles in an arrested stage of development, they appear on the ultrasound as a ring of pearls. However, up to 30% of women with PCOS don’t have polycystic ovaries. Other tests include blood tests for fasting insulin, androgens, and luteinizing hormone.
There are some treatments for PCOS-related infertility. Mostly, it’s treating the major symptoms - insulin tolerance, anovulation, obesity. Apparently, ovulation prediction kits are not accurate in women with PCOS. It may be necessary to test mid-luteal phase progesterone to determine if there’s a problem with the luteal phase.
Antigen (and everyone else too) I’m so sorry what you’re going through. I’ve only recently considered the possibility that I might want children some day and about a month later I found out that I have PCOS. I’m still not ready to try but I’m worried about mentioning it to my fiance because of the possibility of getting his hopes up for nothing.
When I found my current GYN, she suspected PCOS because of my extremely heavy, long, painful periods, and irregular. My birth control at the time wasn’t doing anything to help. I’d have a period last two weeks and then go three weeks without one then have a period last 1 week and then only one week before the next started. It was insane.
She had me get a transvaginal ultrasound which showed the cystic ovaries. I don’t have any physical symptoms of high androgen levels (which is nice), except apparently difficulty losing weight is related as well. Once she saw my ovary pictures, she changed my birth control and life is good.
So, that’s just one way of finding out you have PCOS. I’m sure there must be others too.
I really think that if PCOS was my problem, it would have been pointed out to me by now by the gynecologists and reproductive specialists I’ve seen. It’s not exactly a rare new disorder that some doctors won’t have heard of yet. I do have a couple of the symptoms, but my thyroid has been out of whack for a while and that can cause a lot of the same issues. My ovaries are gorgeous and cyst-free. I had labs (including hormones) done at the beginning and middle of my cycle, and nothing made my doctor suspicious. Maybe it is my problem, I guess, but I have to think that the specialist I most recently saw is qualified to diagnose it and would have if he thought it was present here. I’d almost prefer if I had something with a name and a treatment plan, but for now I don’t, and I have to deal with it.
I see so many PCOS diagnoses on the infertility boards that sometimes I wonder if some doctors aren’t using it as a convenient label (instead of “unexplained infertility”) for some women who are chubby and having trouble getting pregnant.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised. I honestly thought that was the case for me (in regards to period problems, not infertility). I didn’t believe it until I saw my ovaries and even I could tell, with no experience at all, that they were some totally f’d-up looking ovaries. I wonder about the people who have normal ovaries but have the diagnosis of PCOS. Doesn’t having it kind of indicate that the ovaries will be filled with abnormal amounts of follicles? It just doesn’t compute in my mind.
Anyway, I tend to agree that with as much poking, prodding, and bloodletting as you’ve had already, they’d know by now if you had it.
I’m so sorry for all the couples dealing with infertility and the gay men who have to jump through a thousand hoops to hopefully, maybe have a child. Or never get the chance to. I feel your pain and I’ve dealt with the stupid comments from people myself.
In my case, I found out I was infertile in my early 20’s due to exploratory surgery. I went on Clomid to kick in ovulation, but it didn’t work. Through the years it killed me seeing my friends get married and have kids and baby showers while I remained unmarried and childless.
For 20-something years I lied to myself and others saying I didn’t want kids. What a pain in the ass kids are…etc. Deep down I truly wanted the family and white picket fence, but I was afraid to admit it to others, because being infertile made me feel, well defective.
When I reached my mid-forties I had finally come to terms with being childless. I had lost friends along the way because their lives had becomes all about their kids and I just had nothing in common with them anymore.
I reunited with an old boyfriend a few years back and holy crap…I got pregnant. I have no idea why during my fertile years I got nothin’ and then when all my friends my age are becoming grandmas and entering menopause, suddenly I have a kid. I delivered a week before my 46th birthday.
I love my son more than anything, but I still envy the couples whose lives are perfectly planned, where everything falls into place in the right order. I’ve been asked if I’m my sons grandmother a few times, but I expected that. I also wish I could give him a sibling, but too risky. Even though my life didn’t go the way I had hoped, I’m still grateful for my boy no matter how late in life I got him.
I just want you to know my heart breaks for you and I have felt pain similar to yours.
I have nothing but sympathy for you. I’m trying to understand one thing though. All the stories I’ve heard about IVF is that its extremely expensive. Since its a real medical problem, why doesn’t insurance cover the majority of the cost? How much does insurance usually cover for IVF?
Sorry to hear about it, but I do believe your solution is crying out for help, not to hold it in. I believe though that you will get help and I wish you well.
Peace
It’s a medical problem as far as I and the medical community are concerned, but the insurance companies disagree. It’s not something that will kill you, and it’s not preventative care that will keep your eventual medical costs down, so they’re not interested in paying for it.
My new insurance that kicks in January 1st will cover 50% of IUI and IVF costs but IVF only if we’ve been trying for two years or have a sperm issue or three (I’m not sure about that number) failed IUIs. My old insurance covered 70% but only up to a lifetime maximum of 10k. I’m lucky. Many insurance plans don’t cover anything other than the infertility testing. Treatment is all out-of-pocket for a lot of people. At the center I’ve been going to for my tests, an IUI procedure (including all meds, monitoring, semen processing, transfer, and post-insemination blood tests) is about 2k total. One round of basic IVF without intracytoplasmic injection is about 7k. The center offers a flat fee plan as well, where you pay 20k (I think) for up to 6 rounds of IVF and if you’re not pregnant after all that, you get your money back.
Got it. When you said your husband didn’t want to move on to anything else, I thought you literally meant you hadn’t even talked to a doctor about it and that your husband wanted to keep on keeping on without any medical advice for the foreseeable future. I’ve known people who have dragged their feet about even simple screenings because they dread falling down a rabbit-hole of fertility treatment nightmares, when in many cases–most cases–it doesn’t take IVF and a brass band to solve the problem.
One thing we did while waiting was to work on improving ourselves. It was “for the baby”, but all stuff that was good in general. We used those years to save like motherfuckers, and generally get our financial house in order. We both lost a lot of weight and started exercising. My husband learned a second language. I worked on work/life balance. Even if the treatments hadn’t worked, those things left us in a position to take our lives in a new direction, and I think that really helped my peace of mind. There’s so, so much we didn’t have control over in this process that finding things we could control in a positive way was helpful for us.
Antigen, I kinda wish you were still in Montreal. Here, apparently, fertility treatment is now paid for in part by the government.
I’m afraid I can’t offer you much advice, but I do wish you the best of luck.
My wife and I suffered through infertility for years. The only thing I would suggest is that you try as hard as you can to find and join a support group. The stress was very hard on our marriage, the support group really helped to ease the pain.
When I say a support group, I don’t mean online. I mean live, in person group meetings where you can see that there are real people going through the same struggles as you, with the same emotional reactions to good news and bad news.
No, what happened is this summer after finishing all the testing, they told us we were unlikely to conceive on our own since we hadn’t managed in a year. They gave us odds of 3-5% with each cycle. My husband and I talked about it a lot and decided that there was at least a small chance they were trying to push us towards IUI and such, because it’s what they do. I mean, if you go to a surgeon with a problem, he’ll suggest surgery, you know? So we decided to wait a little longer and keep trying now that I am getting my thyroid straightened out. We gave ourselves a November deadline - not pregnant by then, and move on to IUI. Well, we got pregnant in September, lost the baby, and now I want to jump right to IUI because of the original timeline and because the process is getting harder and harder on me and I want to do anything I can to improve our chances. He thinks that the pregnancy is proof we don’t need help, and he thinks I need to be more patient. I understand his side of it, but I’m so frustrated.
I like your advice on self-improvement as a different set of goals for ourselves, but at this point it’s very hard for me to get any momentum going. I need to crawl out of this funk first, because my depression and anxiety are crushing me again after having them under better control for years. I think I might try a different therapist. Mine is wonderful but she doesn’t specialize in infertility or loss, and she’s never been through any of this personally, so she can’t really relate. I’ll start asking around.
Thanks, everyone, for the support. This is a good place.