hi princessjulia. You're not alone, there are many of us gals over 40 in the same boat. Guess what, I'm about to turn 42 in February, I'm the same age as you. I've had 2 miscarriages, one at 11 weeks (after seeing the baby on the scan with the heartbeat ok) Dec 08 and one at 8 weeks, Jan 2010. I'm trying for my first baby. My heart is like a shattered mirror, it's never fully healed. I am so sorry for your loss.
My partner and I only got together 3 years ago so we too feel it's a race against time, we too have nothing wrong on the tests. I'll buddy with you! It's true our eggs are worse quality but there are lots of things we can still do to improve our chances. My consultant said that I will have by now about 40% normal eggs, 60% abnormal. But I've read that young women have 50% abnormal, so it's harder but not impossible. So 2 months in every 5 you will ovulate a normal egg. I personally think it's not just our egg quality but simple things that we can improve like mucus quality that might be impeding our fertility over 40. And if you can improve the environment around the egg at ovulation (below) that should help too. There is still hope! I'll list what I'm doing to help our chances:
1. Do the bd every 2 days in week leading up to ovulation (my cycle is 26 days long, so I ovulate around day 12. We try then to do the bd CD5,7,9,11,13 or 6,8,10,12,14. The key thing is to do the deed every 2 days not daily and make sure the spermies are there before the egg is released as the egg only lasts 12-18 hours. Don't miss a single month no matter how down you feel. Every cycle is another chance.
2. Unless you already make really good egg white mucus for a few days around ovulation why not try something to help (I take evening primrose oil 3000mg daily from CD1 to CD12). Some folk take a cough medicine called robitussin, and there's sperm-friendly lubricants like Preseed and Conceive Plus.
3. Go for missionary or doggie not sitting on top.
4. Lie in bed for at least an hour after or legs up against the wall with your hips on a pillow.
5. Make sure you both drink plenty of water around ovulation time.
6. Exercise: ideally both of you should do some moderate exercise 3-4 times a week, even a little yoga or a brisk walk helps your pelvic blood flow.
7. Switch any semi-skimmed or skimmed milk products to full-fat dairy and try to have 2 portions a day, i.e. one glass ff milk plus one ff yoghurt or scoop ice-cream or portion of ff cheese. This helps regular ovulation (Harvard Uni research study 2008). Skim products may actually hinder ovulation.
8. Supplements. I take Pregnacare Conception (His&Hers), Omega 3 called Eskimo-3 - 7mls liquid daily, Berocca vitamin B/C fizzy tablet, Coenzyme Q10 100mg daily, Royal Jelly/Bee pollen fresh product from Apitherapy called Apimist plus extra bee pollen, 1 teaspoon twice daily, plus EPO as mentioned above. My OH takes the same except no EPO or Coenzyme Q10.
Recently a study of 52 women undergoing IVF showed that the top quality embryos were produced by women taking oily fish in their diets regularly or omega-3 supplements. Also sperm tails are made out of omega 3. The worse were seen in people who ate a lot of trans-fats. So avoid all processed foods that contain hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oil (doughnuts, jelly sweets, certain crackers, biscuits, muesli bars).
The vitamin C in the Berocca has been shown to double men's sperm counts in 2 research studies (must be 1000mg daily).
Make sure you take all supplements with food for best absorption.
9. Something to give you more joy in life. Can you think of one thing in life you can change to improve your quality of life and find your joy again? I have decided to get a little puppy because I think it would be a great little companion and I have read of a lot of women getting pregnant after getting a puppy. Probably it's just such a busy little thing and it helps take people's minds off their troubles, it must really help a lot.
10. The next thing for me to try is acupuncture. I'm going to start an acupuncture over 35 thread.
Good luck, chin up. We'll get there if we remain determined and hopeful, that's for sure.
