jack79
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jul 31, 2011
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Hi ladies
I always hoped I'd get on here one day to share my story...
My husband and I TTC naturally for about 10 months (I was 30, he was 31 when we started trying) and then when nothing was happening we went to our gp for tests. After months of different tests they put us into the unexplained fertility category. My husband had a very high volume of sperm but there was a high percentage of abnormal sperm (3%, 5% then 6% normal sperm over the course of a year I think). However they said these values were within the normal range and because of the high number of sperm this wasn't really an issue.
Over the next couple of years we tried lots of different things - vitamins, acupuncture, Chinese herbs, changes to diet, cut down our alcohol intake, a few rounds of clomid etc etc. Although we still didn't fall pregnant, at one point (about 2 and a half years in) ,my husbands sperm went up to 18% normality. I believe the main contributor was him stopping smoking (which he did from the very start), cutting down his alcohol intake and possibly the vitamins he took, although it's difficult to know for sure! Despite his sperm being a bit more normal (!) I still wasn't pregnant and so after waiting for around 3 years we were finally eligible for IVF.
We had our first cycle last summer (2013) and ended up with 3 viable embryos, 2 of which we had transferred back in, the other was frozen. We tried not to get our hopes up but were devastated when the pregnancy test came back negative a couple of weeks later.
Then in January of this year we had our little frozen embryo defrosted and transferred back in. The waiting game to find out if it had worked was a killer... After about 11 days I succumbed to testing a little early, convinced it hadn't worked (I had period-like pain the night before testing), and was absolutely shocked (and obviously delighted) when the test showed that I was pregnant. I think I tested 3 times that week just to be sure, and it still didn't really sink it for weeks after.
The only real difference between the first round of IVF and the successful cycle was that we used a frozen embryo and also I paid for an endometrial scratch a few weeks before the FET (I would recommend this to anyone considering it).
So, here I am, due our little IVF miracle in just over 2 weeks time.
The past 4/5 years have been an emotional rollercoaster and I empathise with everyone out there who has struggled with fertility issues.I hope that my story will give some of you ladies belief and hope that it can happen. At times I felt so disheartened and upset, thinking we were never going to be parents. But it happened for us- and it CAN happen for you too. Never stop believing in your dream.
Good luck to all of you ladies out there, I hope you have a success story of your own to share some time soon too...
Xxxxxxxxx
I always hoped I'd get on here one day to share my story...
My husband and I TTC naturally for about 10 months (I was 30, he was 31 when we started trying) and then when nothing was happening we went to our gp for tests. After months of different tests they put us into the unexplained fertility category. My husband had a very high volume of sperm but there was a high percentage of abnormal sperm (3%, 5% then 6% normal sperm over the course of a year I think). However they said these values were within the normal range and because of the high number of sperm this wasn't really an issue.
Over the next couple of years we tried lots of different things - vitamins, acupuncture, Chinese herbs, changes to diet, cut down our alcohol intake, a few rounds of clomid etc etc. Although we still didn't fall pregnant, at one point (about 2 and a half years in) ,my husbands sperm went up to 18% normality. I believe the main contributor was him stopping smoking (which he did from the very start), cutting down his alcohol intake and possibly the vitamins he took, although it's difficult to know for sure! Despite his sperm being a bit more normal (!) I still wasn't pregnant and so after waiting for around 3 years we were finally eligible for IVF.
We had our first cycle last summer (2013) and ended up with 3 viable embryos, 2 of which we had transferred back in, the other was frozen. We tried not to get our hopes up but were devastated when the pregnancy test came back negative a couple of weeks later.
Then in January of this year we had our little frozen embryo defrosted and transferred back in. The waiting game to find out if it had worked was a killer... After about 11 days I succumbed to testing a little early, convinced it hadn't worked (I had period-like pain the night before testing), and was absolutely shocked (and obviously delighted) when the test showed that I was pregnant. I think I tested 3 times that week just to be sure, and it still didn't really sink it for weeks after.
The only real difference between the first round of IVF and the successful cycle was that we used a frozen embryo and also I paid for an endometrial scratch a few weeks before the FET (I would recommend this to anyone considering it).
So, here I am, due our little IVF miracle in just over 2 weeks time.
The past 4/5 years have been an emotional rollercoaster and I empathise with everyone out there who has struggled with fertility issues.I hope that my story will give some of you ladies belief and hope that it can happen. At times I felt so disheartened and upset, thinking we were never going to be parents. But it happened for us- and it CAN happen for you too. Never stop believing in your dream.
Good luck to all of you ladies out there, I hope you have a success story of your own to share some time soon too...
Xxxxxxxxx
