FFS, CD 28 and obssessing

Boring post for anyone who choses to read this. I should do posts like this on the TTC website I go on, but don't want to for some reason.

Yesterday I was convinced I was pregnant, today I don't think I am. "Symptoms" have gone, no more sore boobs (I should know, I keep on poking them) and a dull ache from down below. Sure sign that the witch is on the way.

I am CD 28, so she will arrive today or tomorrow (the longest cycle I have had is 28 days). I don't mind that much, so I would rather she just comes, so I can move on, start my pill and have a glass of wine this weekend.

Someone told me that M&S Food do a Bellini syrup that you add to fizz to make it a Bellini. I will go and get some of that and have my favourite cocktail.

Interesting...

Well, as usually happens when I announce on here that my AF is due, she arrived yesterday (a bit) then in full force today.

This is the strange part, I do not feel like I normally do (emotionally that is, physically worse than ever, but I shall gloss over that for now). Usually, when the witch arrives, I feel an emotion that has no name. It is made up of many feelings, disappointment, sadness, dispair, depression, the belief that I will never ever be a mum etc etc. I usually walk around on the verge of tears all day. Yesterday I felt a bit down at first, then, it slowly dawned on me that for some reason, this month I do not feel like jumping off the nearest bridge, crying endlessly or telling every living soul to do one. Honestly. No sadness. In fact I was relieved she didn't arrive later (thus ruining my relaxing holiday in the woods).


I don't know why, or what my thought process is, but I genuinely feel "normal". I feel like I used to, before TTC. I wish I did know why, if I did, I would bottle it and use it again! That's the worst thing about the TTC business, every cycle that fails, so many thoughts and emotions crowd my mind making me feel like a freak. I have said so often to my other half, "I can't just press a switch and make these feelings go away. I wish I could."

This month I have. I don't know how I have pressed the switch, but I am not complaining!

luteal phase, caffeine and TTC

After a couple of months of TTC I found out that it is beneficial to give up caffeine so I did- I switched to de-caff... around this time I started tracking my cycles and using ovulation predictor kits (OPKs)... I soon discovered that I had a short luteal phase. The women’s cycle is one of two halves, the first half is the body gearing up for ovulation and is dominated by estrogen, the second half is gearing up for implantation and is dominated by progesterone. The part of the cycle following ovulation is called the luteal phase and should be between 10-16 days long. If the luteal phase is not long enough the womb lining starts to break down before the implantation of successfully fertilised egg can take place. In monitoring my cycles, I discovered that my luteal phase is border-line and varies from 9-11 days.

I have been diagnosed with “unexplained fertility”, this means that both myself and my other half have been tested and all seems to be fine. When I asked the doctor about luteal phase defect she looked at me like I was mad. She said that as long as I am producing enough progesterone 7 days post ovulation (I am ) then if an egg were to be fertilised my body would produce extra progesterone to nourish the pregnancy.

I say that perhaps my infertility is not unexplained! I wonder why there has not been more research into this. There is properly done medical research that shows luteal phase defect to be a problem, but NHS doctors don’t seem to accredit it.

There are natural supplements that can be taken for luteal phase defect and I have tried them to no avail (agnus castus, evening primrose, soya isoflavones). The only thing I haven’t tried is progesterone pessaries- these are prescription only. I won’t be able to get a prescription because my doctor doesn’t think I have a problem.

I tell you what I have noticed, my luteal phase is shorter when I eliminate caffeine from my diet. I don’t know what the link is, but I am convinced that there is one. I had no caffeine last month and my luteal phase was 9 days, this month I have had caffeine and I am on 11dpo and counting...

10 dpo and symptom spotting like mad :-/

I hate symptom spotting. I have mental conversations with myself that go something like this:


me: oooh, your boobs are sore today
me: stop it, your boobs are sore every month around this time
me: I have cramps
me: stop it, you have cramps every month around this time...
me: yes, but this month it could mean something
me: no, it means nothing, you're infertile, remember? 


ad nauseum...

queue frantic typing of "10 dpo cramps" and "10 dpo sore boobs" into Google.



10 DPO and have had the above conversation with myself several times. And I have spent a good hour on google trying to find out if my CM could indicate pregnancy.

I will do a test tomorrow AM, no doubt it will be a BFN and then my AF will arrive later that day (this is what usually happens...

Phrases I hate and other stories...

If there's a phrase I hate more than "relax and it will happen" it must be "chin up".

For some reason, when someone says, "chin up" I feel insulted. I wonder why this is? I think perhaps it is the implication that I am wallowing in self-pity, or that I am upsetting myself over nothing. It is a stupid archaic phrase that belongs in a Enid Blyton novel:

"Mother, I was going to the shop with my ha'penny to purchase some ginger beer when I tripped over Betsy's skipping rope and hurt my knee."
"There there Susan, it is only a grazed knee. Worse things happen at sea, now chin up."

I have been in a funny mood lately. Normally I keep my woes to myself, but this past couple of days I have poured my heart out to two random people. One of them is a friend on a wedding forum who didn't know what to say (look, my AF had arrived and I was in a bad place OK) and the other is a relative in Australia whom I haven't seen for years and years. Said relative is 33-ish and had just got engaged so I sent an email to congratulate her. She replied asking how my wedding plans are going and whether I want kids. So I sent her a massive email telling her everything. The reply? Something along the lines of, "Oh, I am so sorry. My friend had a baby by IVF. There is hope. Chin up."

I think I will go back to keeping things to myself.

Alcohol and its impact on fertility

This is something I have been thinking a lot about lately.

I love a drink. I drink socially and sometimes at home. I love wine and beer and yes, I actually like the taste of it (unlike some of my friends who don't like the taste and so only drink alcohol that doesn't taste of alcohol).

I am social person and I love meeting with my friends in the pub. If you meet in the pub and everyone is drinking, it is difficult to say no. Not only are you surrounded by temptation, your friends want to know why you are not drinking. My biggest fear is that they will think I am pregnant when I am not.

I had an ectopic pregnancy last year, before I knew it was ectopic (but after I knew there may be a problem with the pregnancy) were were at a games night. Those at the games night are big drinkers and wanted to know why I wasn't drinking. I had to lie and say I was on antibiotics.

When I went to the fertility clinic, I was told I shouldn't be drinking at all. Not even in moderation. The NHS's line is, if you are trying for a baby, you should drink like a pregnant lady. Apparently it affects your fertility. I wouldn't mind giving up if pregnant, there would be a reason. Giving up drinking completely in the hope of getting pregnant seems crazy to me. We have been trying for a year and a half. Does that mean that I shouldn't have been drinking all that time?

Studies have shown that even light drinking (1-5 units a week) can affect fertilty. Reasons given are that it can affect hormones, delay ovulation or prevent ovulation altogether.

I will give up again, but it is very difficult. Especially when I know that many women who drink far more than me fall pregnant despite the fact that they drink.

Still, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Here is a link to one of the recent studies:

http://www.bmj.com/content/317/7157/505.full

The Royal Wedding

Well, in case you hadn't noticed, there's a bit of an event occurring in London tomorrow. Not fussed either way, but hey ho, we get a day off work, so great!

I will be spending the day with my two bridesmaids-to-be making eating scones and jam and making bunting for my own wedding in September.

This wedding has got me thinking though. The media are going on about it (as one would expect), but I think they will be worse after the wedding. Poor Kate, she will be the most watched newlywed in the world. "Is she?" "Isn't she?", what if she puts on a few pounds during the honeymoon? Will she be offended that the press are speculating about whether or not she is pregnant? Then my biggest fear of all, that she does fall pregnant immediately. Then we will have months of pregnancy bump photos etc- Kate stroking her bump, Wills and Kate holding hands, walking on the beach- bump proudly displayed, Wills stroking Kate's bump. Urgh. Pass me the sick bucket.

I myself am dreading this part of married life. I remember when my partner's brother got married, everyone was constantly looking at his wife's stomach and making comments behind her back or noticing if she wasn't drinking. This speculation went on for 3 years (that's how long it took her to get pregnant).

Before we were engaged we were constantly getting asked when we were going to start a family. My mum would say things like, "don't leave it too long, it might be too late"... (sadly she may be right :-/). I would always coyly say, "oh, sometime in the future" rather than, "we're trying it's not happening, it's got nothing to do with you, so PISS OFF!". Worse than this is my other half's Mum. We have loads of neices and nephews now, whenever I hold them or play with them I get comments like, "that suits you", "you're a natural" or the most hurtful of all, "you'd make a good mum". I am sure I would, I wish/hope that one day I will get the chance to be. I can never say this, just smile politely and change the subject.

Now we are engaged, the pressure is off for now, but I know it will be back on the minute we step out of that register office. A (male) colleague made a comment along the lines of "after you get married, it won't be long before you are the familiy way". If only it was that simple.

general thoughts and musings on getting pregnant

At school we are taught, if you EVER have sex without protection YOU WILL get pregnant straight away and it will ruin your life forever.

Before we started trying, I assumed it would happen for us straight away. Of course, I had heard of people having trouble conceiving, but that was them not us. We were in our late twenties, had the correct BMI, healthy, liked exercising and no-one in either family had fertility problems to the best of our knowledge. When we tried, we would fall quickly, I would have a trouble-free pregnancy and a quick birth.

Getting pregnant is not always easy. It is easy for most but not all. I should have known we would have problems. It is just typical.

We have been a couple for 10 years now, why the hell did we not start trying 5 years ago? Oh the arrogance of youth. I remember saying to him (a year before we started trying), "I think we should try in January, that way we can have the baby before Christmas, I don't want to be pregnant over Christmas."

Now, I don't care when I am pregnant as long as it happens. I really hope it does and that this is a blog with a happy ending.

quickly obsessive- the danger of ttc websites

I don't know how it is for other ladies who decide to try for a baby, but in my case, the minute we decided, I suddenly wanted a baby straight away. I wanted it to happen quickly.

I started to go on TTC (trying to conceive) websites simply to get tips as to how to get it to happen quickly. Unfortunately, I am the type of person who gets addicted to web forums. Before I could say "ovualtion kit" I was checking the forums several times a day.

I can honestly say that I really wish that I had never done this. I become obsessive, and every month that ticked by, I become convinced that something was wrong with me. These websites have every kind of ttc lady on there from the young, lithe 22 year old who falls really quickly (and tells everyone about it) to the 30-something who has PCOS and a partner with abnormal sperm. The "actively trying" boards are fast moving and get posted on every minute of the day. Therefore, on any given day, you get a girls posting their "BFP"s (Big Fat Positive) amongst posts of girls who have been waiting anything from 3-34 months for their positive pregnancy test.

After 4 months, I was convinced that there was something wrong with me. Then I had a period only 16 days after my last one. I went to the doctor.