LTTTC #1 - Support Group *Please share your story

[Myshelsong]

I know there is a thread out there somewhere for LTTTC Baby #1 but we have had a few new members join our ranks and thought this could be a good fresh start and place where we could vent our frustrations and tell our stories.

Although all LTTTC members struggle daily with infertility issues, those who have never had the experience of childbirth or pregnancy carry their own unique and heartbreaking stories.

Resentment, jealousy, depression, anger which can play a havoc on our relationships are just a sample of emotional toll this journey plays on each and everyone of us.

I know that I would love to have a group of women who struggle and feel the same way that I do each and every cycle.

Please share your stories and heartache so that we can all join together and hopefully celebrate a miracle or two amongst our ranks.

 

[Myshelsong]

I will get this started.
My Story. My name is Michelle

I came off of birth control October 2010. We were married June 11, 2011 and began trying to conceive right away.

One year later still noting, no chemicals, no mc’s, no BFP’s so in August I go to the Drs. Blood work is perfect, Ultrasound shows one cyst but that disappears by November. December HSG shows one blocked tube. Hubbies SA shows perfect super sperm (Jerk). I had a lap scheduled for April but it was cancelled and rescheduled for this month. FX the surgeon shows up this time!

This journey – which I expected to be an easy one – has broken my spirit and my self worth. The loneliness that plagues me has crippled my friendships and relationships with my family and worse with my hubby. I don’t go out, I don't do what I use to love to do because honestly it is to hard. I feel completely and utterly broken. I have anxiety attacks during the worst part and I have never ever been like that. Little things in life are overwhelming and I struggle to just keep up with the monotony of my life.
Over the last month I have tried to get out of the house, walk the dog, phone my friends again but I am struggling. Hubby is trying to keep my positive, but he is also struggling with this as well even though he puts on a brave face.

This is the hardest thing I have ever done and I am barely even starting it.
To top it off, over the last year I put on a good 35 – 40 lbs …. Started WWatchers but having a hard time losing it because all I do is sit at my desk at work and watch tv.

There, that is my sad and pathetic story. That is what is hidden inside my pleasant smile and laughing manner.


Ok, now you!

 

[pbl_ge]

Oooh, I'm excited to see this! I just started coming to this forum and was sad that there didn't seem to be an active group like this.

I've spent most of my time in the TTC after 35 forum, and people there call me Pebble. Most of my story is in my siggie--we started TTCing May 2012, got a quick BFP that turned out to be ectopic, and then there's been a whole helluva lot of nothing ever since. We just started seeing a FS/RE. So far all tests results (blood, U/Ss, HSG, SA) have been great, although I have had a small pinching pain since last July that the doc thinks might be endo (no other endo symptoms). Lap/hysteroscopy is happening in a couple of weeks. I'm finishing up my first Femara/progesterone cycle, and I'm 99% positive it's a bfn. I also only had one follie, suggesting that the Femara did nothing for me.

Like everyone else, I never suspected this would be difficult for me. OH and I are in great health and I've always had clockwork periods. We started out so optimistic, even after the loss--I got pregnant so quickly so it'll happen again, right? Never occurred to me I'd hit the would-have-been-due date without another bfp. This whole nonsense has really started to take its toll. I have very little structure to my job; my progress relies on my own concentration and self-discipline, which has really eroded since all this started. I'm tired of the resentment of others, the preoccupation, and the rollercoaster of each cycle. I'm sick of seeing other people flit in and out of here with quick, sticky bfps. And this has only been a little over a year for me! I know other people here likely roll their eyes at my sob story. I can understand that.

Myshel, I'm sorry to hear of everything you've gone through. I hope your journey has a happy ending soon. Why was your lap cancelled?

 

[pbl_ge]

Oh, and this!!!

Hubbies SA shows perfect super sperm (Jerk).

 

[oneday87]

HI

I'll join. think we can all use a little support.

So i was married july 8th 2011 that is when we started to try.
we where relaxed and didnt really put much thought into. we thought this was going to be a easy. a couple of months of unprotected sex and wam bam thank wou mam and lovely baby bump.
so when christmas came and went without even a sniff of a bfp i started to get a little bit concerned. so out came the opk charting and a hell of a lot of other things. a new obsession devolped.

October 2012 i decided it was time to go to the docs. my bloods came back i wasnt ammune to rubella and i do not ov. so i had to have a boaster which meant we could try for 2 months and we where refered to the hosptial.

dec 3rd 2012 our first hospital appoinment. i got booked in for scans hubby had his sa. which came back fine.

My scans showed a large cyst which got bigger over christmas so in feb 2013 i had an op to remove it.
while i was under i had a scopy and hsg.
found out my right tube is twisted and scarred. talks of removing it followed. but i had to wait until april for my next appionment. i had 6 months of knowing i didnt ovulated. 6 months for hopelessness. knowing each month my chances where very very slim actually depressed me. there was nothing i could do. no amount of planning or bding or anything was going to help because my bloody body wasnt working!!!

any way april 29th we got some good news some hope. my tube isnt being removed as my age is in my favour. if we need to go further down this road then yes i will have to say good bye to my right tube. but not yet. and i was give 3 month of clomid!! i was finally going to ov!!!

so may was my 1st month of clomid unfortunatly af showed.
but i did o! i had 3 scans monitoring my reaction. but will not be having my second month. as all looked good.

So for this first time in a very long time i see light at the end of the tunnel. im enjoying being hopeful for a change.

essay sorry

Hi Michelle, i am sorry sorry to read your story. this is a horrible journey to be taking. and im trully surprised by how many of us taking it. this world has opened m eyes alot.

I get what you are saying. i to pulled into myslef. i became very isolated. my own doing. its hard very hard. women that have been doing this for 6 year like ive seen on this forum need some kind of medal for strength!!!

i honestly wish you all the luck in world.

 

[Myshelsong]

Hello Ladies, thank you for joining the conversation!

Hello Pebble - It is nice to meet you. Sorry to hear about your etopic, that is so horrible. Hopefully with your upcoming tests they will see what is going on.
Mine was cancelled for no reason except my surgeon/Dr had something come up maybe a emergency surgery. Either way I am excited / impatient for this to happen.

Oneday - yeah you are ovulating! I know that getting the BFN (I say the f* word whenever I write this in my head) is horrible, but seeing some progress has to be fantastic. Congrats! Sorry about the tube, my righty is also shot. not fun knowing I can only catch it 1/2 the time!

 

[pipilotta]

Hello Ladies, can I join?

I'm fairly new to Bb, but not to our ttc journey. Dh and me have been together for over 11 years, and got married a year ago. We have been activly trying for over 18 months now, but haven't used bc for about 5 years. I started posting in the ttc section, but I quickly felt a bit sad over threre, too many success stories, and I feel more comfortable in the Lttc forum.
We had our first doctors appointment early this year, and he referred us to a fertility clinic. My tests so far seem all ok, but my husband was diagnosed with a low sperm count, poor shape of sperm and he said our chances conceiving naturally was so low, he put us on the waiting list for ivf. As far as I understood our first cycle is to begin in january next year.
Because of my dh age (he turned 50 this year (eek, but he never looked his age, and I love him dearly haha, and he is young in is heart) and I'm 35) he recommended a scsa (sperm chromatin structure assay) test, which tests for dna damage in the sperm, and aparently because it measures thousands of sperm at once it is suposed to be more accurate than other tests. We will do the test in the next few weeks some time.
We are very lucky living in New Zealand, as we get two free ivf cycles funded by the public health system for couples like us.
We still have to get our heads around all this, and learn the new language, and actually understand what is happening. In the meantime we are continuing trying, and hope it might still happen all naturally.

 

[Myshelsong]

Yes you can join! Nice to meet you

There is a really good thread on hear about improving sperm quality. If you are really wanting to conceive naturally I would definitely recommend him trying some of the vitamins suggested. There have been lots of medical studies on ways to improve this quality and some real success stories here. There is still hope!

It was a recent thread so If you cant find it I will do a search and post it for you.

Edit: I found the link to the thread I was talking about Just click below!

https://babyandbump.momtastic.com/trying-to-conceive/1863775-vitamins-minerals-dh.html

 

[pipilotta]

I'm sorry myshel, that you are feeling so down. It is easy to lose yourself in this journey, and it is important that we try and don't lose use completely.
Thank you for the link, this is really helpful, pbl_ge was talking about this in the other thread, and I was keen to do some research. For losing weight, there is a great free app for android, called noom, it works a bit like ww people say, but actually tries to get you active as well. I used it to get back to my normal weight after I gained 10 Kg from stopping smoking. And I actually started running fairly regularly (no marathons, haha, but little runs made for me), and I have become more active. It really helped me during mt ttc journey, and the ups and downs too.

Oneday, great that you o'd this month!

Pbl_ge it's hard to motivate yourself, and find inspiration if your job is like this. I try and focus on other things when I have had jobs like this, but it really can drain you

 

[pbl_ge]

Hi, pipi!

Myshel, I think if I were all ready for the surgery and it got cancelled I would completely lose my ... marble. That's terrible! Did you notice our laps are one day apart? We can share the ice cream and the remote!

 

[Myshelsong]

I did notice but totally forgot to mention it

Glad I will not be going through it totally alone, cant wait to catch up on some cheesy movies Ones where I can cry and not be looked at funny. Also really excited about pain killers. FX they give me good ones.

 

[ilovegoob]

Hello ladies. Thank you for sharing your stories. Me and DH were married 2008 but didnt start trying until 2010. I knew something was wrong when I was younger, around 25, but i didnt know what. I had never been pregnant, never even had a scare. Come to find out i have BOTH tubes blocked. I was on BC for 2 years for no reason!!A lap in november confirmed the blockages and my doc couldn't remove them. They told us we would only conceive with IVF, which costs 15,000. We dont have that kinda money. I was devastated. Hurt, annoyed, broken. I decided that I wanted to try and unblock myself and took an enzyme and did castor oil packs for 4 months. In April I had an hsg that showed my right tube open!!!!! Elation! We have a chance to do it naturally. In may i did 100mg clomid but it didnt work. I just met with my doc who advised me that iui may not work (its much cheaper, only 1500) because the cilia in my tubes may not push the egg to the uterus. It may be damaged because of the blockages. Heartbroken. Again. So here I am. Not pregnant. With a younger sister that has two beautiful kids and a brother who may get married soon. I am terrified she will be preggo before me.

 

[J_Lynn]

I love this!

My story ... we were married Feb of 2012, but we went to the doctor summer prior because I just had to get my regular annual done and I wanted to see about getting pregnant because we sure weren't ever using protection and there was never even a "oh I may be pregnant" scare so I knew after a year of that mess it was time to escalate it lol. I've known I've had PCOS since I was about 16, so I knew it wasn't going to be easy or fast so I wanted to ask. Well, with that pap they found abnormal cells. Turned out to be right on the cusp of cervical cancer, so they had to schedule a LEEP for a few weeks to remove the pre-cancerous cells.

After that, we spoke and I had an HSG where both of my tubes were blocked. The HSG unblocked one tube fully and partially unblocked the other. Boo. But, better than nothing After talking to my Dr he wanted to go in and do a laproscopy, d&c, in-depth HSG and see if I have endo and see what is going on with my tubes. So we did that. Then we monitored everything for a while and make sure all the surgeries were covered and then finally in Feb of this year we started clomid after doing the Creighton Model Family Planning charting and classes. LOVE THEM. I have had nothing but BFNs. I don't make fertile type CM which sucks - but we are working on it. So now I take a handful of pills every day and I start femara this month after 4 months of clomid getting nowhere.

My husband has 2 children already, but he is with me at every appointment and is absolutely my rock during all of this. He lets me cry, get mad, vent, bitch, complain, whine, pity myself, etc and just always is so positive and tells me over and over it will happen. He wants a baby just as bad as I do - and I love that because he doesn't have to be like that, he has two kids already, he doesn't have to want another one - but he does. And with how he acts, you'd swear this would be his first. I love him so much. TTC has taken a toll on my mental stability - and I am angry a lot, I hate being around his kids, I get angry beyond all belief when he talks about them as babies, I don't want to play happy family ... the whole 9. Like I don't want any part of it because it's a constant reminder to me about how his horrid exwife (she has put me through hell the last few years, I have had to press charges and take her to court multiple times) can have kids but I can't.

I'm turning 30 in November, my DH is 37 in October. And that's the cliffsnote version of my story

 

[pipilotta]

Hi, pipi!

Hi pbl_ge!
Great to see you are here too!

So nice to see so many stories coming through, it makes me feel not so alone!

 

[pbl_ge]

Myshel - Sounds like we have similar plans for our recovery. Maybe we should share cheesy movie lists! A good cheesy movie is hard to find.

ilovegoob - That's amazing that you had such success with the castor oil packs! I hope you catch up with your sister soon.

J_Lynn - Wow, what a story! I also saw that you're responding really well to the Femara! Perhaps you'll even get lucky soon! Btw, I'm originally from Chattanooga, and lived in Nashville for several years--still my favorite place I've ever lived. If you don't mind me asking, where are you?

Pippi - I agree! This thread is great.

Monday is test day for me, but I'm not optimistic. Then I'm headed to visit the in-laws on Cape Cod to help the days leading up to the lap speed by.

 

[J_Lynn]

J_Lynn - Wow, what a story! I also saw that you're responding really well to the Femara! Perhaps you'll even get lucky soon! Btw, I'm originally from Chattanooga, and lived in Nashville for several years--still my favorite place I've ever lived. If you don't mind me asking, where are you?

I'm between Memphis and Nashville in the Jackson area

My daddy used to own a house up on the mountain in Chattanooga - I LOVE Chattanooga. I also adore Nashville, we go there from time to time ... we stay the heck out of Memphis though haha

 

[Madgirl]

Hi ladies! Can I join you and share my story as well?

I have been married since August 2002. Me (34) and DH (41) started TTC in January 2006. In 2010 I did 6 cycles of clomid and ovulated only 2 of those cycles. September of 2012 I started my first cycle of femara and ovulated beautifully! I have since then done 5 total cycles of femara, but obviously no baby lol.

I am currently in the TWW and hoping for a BFP. Its been a long 7 1/2 years.

I have recently been exercising with cardio every day and doing yoga, in hopes that it will help my PCOS. Also DH recently had a S/A and it came back with 137 million sperm, 60% rapid progression motility, 10% slow progression motility, 30% immotile, and 50% normal morphology, normal viscosity, and grade 3+ forward progression.

So yea, its me not him lol.

 

[Myshelsong]

Hello ladies and welcome Mad, Jay, Goob ... Sorry if I forget anyone I am on my mobile.
I am so glad I an not totally alone in this!

I haven't decided on my movie list yet but pretty sure I am going to have Pride and Prejudice the long version for sure mixed in somewhere.

Good luck for all that are testing this weekend. I fondly got a positive opk yesterday, three months of blank ones so we are giving it a solid try this weekend.

 

[Madgirl]

Michelle, Good luck this weekend!! I hope yall catch an egg!

 

[Lemonade]

It is so good to read everyone's stories. You have all been through so much!

DH and I have been married since August 2011, and only officially TTC since last October but we didn't really prevent before that because we kind of always knew we would have problems conceiving. My periods have never been regular - I go months and sometimes years between them. My GP suspected PCOS when I was 15, but I didn't get officially diagnosed until 2009 (age 23).

This month is our first cycle of Clomid 50mg and we are waiting to see if I ovulate. What a rollercoaster TTC is, I feel emotionally exhausted already.

Good luck everybody, fingers crossed we all get our BFPs soon!