Hi everyone,
Well, after 18 months my OH and I have finally managed to get pregnant! Baby is due on Christmas Day no less
(I did loads of online due date calculators as some were saying Boxing Day, but Christmas Day got more results in the end!).
I've decided to go into all the details below, because I hope it will help somebody else, not least by giving them hope. I have spent so many months poring over TTC stuff on the internet, spending hour upon hour reading other people's stories and getting inspired by them. I would feel guilty if I didn't give something back! If you have a few moments and would like to read my story, here it is.
I am 35 and already have a son who is 9 from my marriage to my ex-husband. My OH is 31 and has two boys aged 9 and 7. We have been trying to conceive for about 18 months, and about 8 months ago nothing was happening so we went to the doctors. OH gave two sperm samples which came back fine and, via numerous blood samples, I was tested for everything including all of the hormone levels (prolactin, progesterone, etc etc). I got tested for chlamydia (apparently, if you have had that in the past, it can cause scar tissue thickening of the fallopian tubes). I didn't have, and haven't had, chlamydia (pheww!). Then around Christmas time I went for a vaginal ultrasound and a HSG (hysterosalpingogram) where they basically put some dye up and then x-rayed my tubes to check whether they were clear, which they were. So, nothing was obviously wrong, and all tests came back good.
I have always tracked my basal body temperature (BBT - every morning, 7am sharp!) and used ovulation prediction kits ever since we started trying, and so I knew that I was ovulating every month on my own. I usually ovulated around CD17, but it had varied between days 16 and 24 on occasion. I think I had one annovulatory cycle about a year ago, where I did not actually ovulate, and that cycle lasted around 46 days. One thing I did know was that my fertile fluid never seemed to tie in with ovulation - I always seemed to get it about a week beforehand, which I always thought was a little strange.
So, apart from that, everything seemed fine but nothing was happening. In January this year the consultant at the hospital decided to put me on 50mg Clomid for three months. even though I was already ovulating. He said that even though Clomid is normally intended for women who do not ovulate (it helps to stimulate the ovaries into releasing an egg) it was also known to help women who already ovulate, so I was happy to give it a go. There are risks though - if you have Clomid for too long or at too high a dosage (even if you don't ovulate on your own) it can over-stimulate your ovaries (called hyper-stimulation) and that can bring on cysts and, in extreme circumstances, lead to ovarian cancer.
I took the Clomid for five days from CD2 to CD6. The first month, I ovulated on CD13 (which is extremely early for me), however after ovulation my temperatures were up and down like the rocky mountains, and because of that I knew I hadn't got pregnant. AF came and went.
On the second month, I didn't ovulate until CD24 - I was gutted up until then! Thought it wasn't going to happen. Again, after ovulation my temps did the rocky mountain thing, and 12 days later I got my period.
On the third month, I ovulated on CD16, and this month I knew something was different because I always get a temperature dip around 4 days after ovulation. I didn't get one this month, however I got one at 6dpo which shot up again the next day, and so I got suspicious (implantation dip!). I also felt really hot all the time immediately after ovulation this third month, and my temperatures weren't any higher than previous luteal phase temperatures, it's just that my body felt hotter.
Then, at 11dpo, I got the faintest of BFPs on an internet cheapie. It was so faint I told myself it was just a shadow of the test line, showing up under the top white layer. At 12dpo it didn't look like a shadow, it looked more like a line but again it was incredibly faint and if I'm honest with you, I only really saw it after the 10 minutes was up. Then, at 13dpo, I did my third internet cheapie and there was definitely another faint line there so I thought sod it, and dug my one remaining Clearblue Digital out
Not believing for one minute that the result could be correct, I pulled it apart and took a photograph of the inner cartridge .... utterly gobsmacked! Almost as gobsmacked as realising that for the three months I was on Clomid, my fertile fluid appeared like clockwork exactly one day before I ovulated. Without Clomid, I was getting the fertile fluid about a week beforehand .........
So that's it so far. I went to the doctors last week to have it confirmed, but he didn't even do a pregnancy test or give me a due date! I was so flustered I didn't even realise this until I had got home. He just told me to make an antenatal appointment for between 10-13 weeks and that I would be called for a scan at 18 weeks! 18 weeks!
With my son I had my first routine scan at around 12 weeks. He did say that the consultant may call me for an earlier scan because I have been on fertility treatment, but he didn't really know for sure 
I haven't really had any symptoms as yet, to be honest - I didn't get sore boobs until last week which would have been about 16dpo or so. I normally get them a few days before AF, but didn't this time.
Anyway, I hope the above gives you some hope, and I also want to wish all of you ladies in our TTC section the very best of luck in getting your BFP, and I hope it doesn't take this long for you!
Laura B
xxx
Well, after 18 months my OH and I have finally managed to get pregnant! Baby is due on Christmas Day no less
(I did loads of online due date calculators as some were saying Boxing Day, but Christmas Day got more results in the end!).I've decided to go into all the details below, because I hope it will help somebody else, not least by giving them hope. I have spent so many months poring over TTC stuff on the internet, spending hour upon hour reading other people's stories and getting inspired by them. I would feel guilty if I didn't give something back! If you have a few moments and would like to read my story, here it is.
I am 35 and already have a son who is 9 from my marriage to my ex-husband. My OH is 31 and has two boys aged 9 and 7. We have been trying to conceive for about 18 months, and about 8 months ago nothing was happening so we went to the doctors. OH gave two sperm samples which came back fine and, via numerous blood samples, I was tested for everything including all of the hormone levels (prolactin, progesterone, etc etc). I got tested for chlamydia (apparently, if you have had that in the past, it can cause scar tissue thickening of the fallopian tubes). I didn't have, and haven't had, chlamydia (pheww!). Then around Christmas time I went for a vaginal ultrasound and a HSG (hysterosalpingogram) where they basically put some dye up and then x-rayed my tubes to check whether they were clear, which they were. So, nothing was obviously wrong, and all tests came back good.
I have always tracked my basal body temperature (BBT - every morning, 7am sharp!) and used ovulation prediction kits ever since we started trying, and so I knew that I was ovulating every month on my own. I usually ovulated around CD17, but it had varied between days 16 and 24 on occasion. I think I had one annovulatory cycle about a year ago, where I did not actually ovulate, and that cycle lasted around 46 days. One thing I did know was that my fertile fluid never seemed to tie in with ovulation - I always seemed to get it about a week beforehand, which I always thought was a little strange.
So, apart from that, everything seemed fine but nothing was happening. In January this year the consultant at the hospital decided to put me on 50mg Clomid for three months. even though I was already ovulating. He said that even though Clomid is normally intended for women who do not ovulate (it helps to stimulate the ovaries into releasing an egg) it was also known to help women who already ovulate, so I was happy to give it a go. There are risks though - if you have Clomid for too long or at too high a dosage (even if you don't ovulate on your own) it can over-stimulate your ovaries (called hyper-stimulation) and that can bring on cysts and, in extreme circumstances, lead to ovarian cancer.
I took the Clomid for five days from CD2 to CD6. The first month, I ovulated on CD13 (which is extremely early for me), however after ovulation my temperatures were up and down like the rocky mountains, and because of that I knew I hadn't got pregnant. AF came and went.
On the second month, I didn't ovulate until CD24 - I was gutted up until then! Thought it wasn't going to happen. Again, after ovulation my temps did the rocky mountain thing, and 12 days later I got my period.
On the third month, I ovulated on CD16, and this month I knew something was different because I always get a temperature dip around 4 days after ovulation. I didn't get one this month, however I got one at 6dpo which shot up again the next day, and so I got suspicious (implantation dip!). I also felt really hot all the time immediately after ovulation this third month, and my temperatures weren't any higher than previous luteal phase temperatures, it's just that my body felt hotter.
Then, at 11dpo, I got the faintest of BFPs on an internet cheapie. It was so faint I told myself it was just a shadow of the test line, showing up under the top white layer. At 12dpo it didn't look like a shadow, it looked more like a line but again it was incredibly faint and if I'm honest with you, I only really saw it after the 10 minutes was up. Then, at 13dpo, I did my third internet cheapie and there was definitely another faint line there so I thought sod it, and dug my one remaining Clearblue Digital out
Not believing for one minute that the result could be correct, I pulled it apart and took a photograph of the inner cartridge
.... utterly gobsmacked! Almost as gobsmacked as realising that for the three months I was on Clomid, my fertile fluid appeared like clockwork exactly one day before I ovulated. Without Clomid, I was getting the fertile fluid about a week beforehand .........So that's it so far. I went to the doctors last week to have it confirmed, but he didn't even do a pregnancy test or give me a due date! I was so flustered I didn't even realise this until I had got home. He just told me to make an antenatal appointment for between 10-13 weeks and that I would be called for a scan at 18 weeks! 18 weeks!
With my son I had my first routine scan at around 12 weeks. He did say that the consultant may call me for an earlier scan because I have been on fertility treatment, but he didn't really know for sure I haven't really had any symptoms as yet, to be honest - I didn't get sore boobs until last week which would have been about 16dpo or so. I normally get them a few days before AF, but didn't this time.
Anyway, I hope the above gives you some hope, and I also want to wish all of you ladies in our TTC section the very best of luck in getting your BFP, and I hope it doesn't take this long for you!
Laura B
xxx
