I'm 26 years old and Dh and I have been trying to conceive for 2 years. I have polycystic ovaries and low estrogen levels. We finally sought professional help in March 2002 and the second round of clomid worked! I'm now 8 weeks pregnant! I was on 100mg. I completely cut out caffeine and dh took a zinc supplement. I kept a journal, so I will let you all know some symptoms I had:

I started ttcing aged 30 and started charting about 10 months later. I went for an infertility workup which showed everything fine, but DH took a long time to pluck up the courage to give a sample. I dusted the sample jar on his bedside table every week for months. When he eventually did, his live swimmers numbered in the thousands – about 17,000 per ml, and he was diagnosed with a varicocele on his left side. His right testicle had been surgically descended far too late, at the age of 10, and it was assumed to be damaged beyond repair. So in 1994 he had the varicocele removed to try to improve the count from the left testicle. At the same time, he went to live in the Middle East for work reasons (had been unemployed here for over a year and needed to take any job that was offered). I had to stay here because we were in the middle of IF treatment which would not be available there – tough decision, but even knowing what I know now I’d make the same decision again. We were told it would take 12 mo nths to get his count up, by around six months after surgery it was 17 million/ml, still technically “sub-fertile” but lots better. He flew back here regularly and we froze as much as we could so that we could time things correctly – I did three IUIs using his frozen swimmers. By this time I was 35 and the strain was really showing in our relationship, IF had been our focus for five years. We separated (at DH’s request) but agreed that I would continue to ttc with his frozen swimmers. I eventually did three more IUI’s which failed. The consultant then told me that DH’s swimmers only lived for six hours post-thaw. Although they’d managed to improve the count and motility looked good etc., he thought donor sperm was our only option. I was already ttcing alone at that point, going through the separation and then my mother became very ill and died, it all just seemed too difficult for me to handle alone and I gave up for a while.

I met current DP when I was 38 and we started actively ttcing when I was 40. He already had a son (I have to admit this was a big plus). Nothing happened for 12 cycles. I had the whole IF workup again, everything still looked okay. FSH was okay at 6.7 (highest reading), but prolactin was high at around 57.1 . Here they don’t treat high prolactin unless ovulation is inhibited, which mine wasn’t.

I started using herbs (mostly alfalfa) and acupuncture in cycle 12 and conceived that month, didn’t have a beta done but AF eventually arrived at 21 DPO. Cycles 13 to 18 were the same - took the herbs, timed BD, conceived every time, but betas never rose above 95 and I never lasted beyond 5.5 weeks (often much less).

So the next step was recurrent miscarriage investigations – I tested negative for auto-immune issues, we both tested negative for chromosomal disorders. I just couldn’t rest with the “unexplained” tag and insisted they treat my high prolactin (it seemed to be the only thing that wasn’t normal and I’d read articles on the net saying that it causes early losses). I took bromocriptine for three months, tolerated it extremely badly (blood pressure went down to 90/40 and I was constantly sick) but we succeeded in getting prolactin down to 14. However, I had stopped even conceiving at this point and eventually gave up on the bromocriptine, knowing my prolactin would eventually bounce back up – I just didn’t have the belief to keep taking a drug that made me so ill when official medical opinion in this country was that it would be unhelpful for someone like me anyway.

I then self-referred to the most reputable expert I could find on recurrent miscarriage, thinking they HAD to be able to find a reason for the RM, even though at this point I wasn’t conceiving in spite of trying hard each month. She redid the testing and still couldn’t find anything wrong, except that my FSH had jumped to 10.5 – by now I was 41.5 years old and age had become a factor. This was probably why I’d stopped even reaching the chem.. pg stage. She advised me to keep trying naturally – said there was no reason I wouldn’t succeed, she insisted she sees at least six 40+ patients a year with FSH of 13 or higher who go on to conceive naturally and have healthy pregnancies. She warned me strongly against trying IVF, saying “no reputable IVF clinic will treat you if your only problem is moderate age factor”.

Nonetheless, as the months went by, I knew the only way I would ever come to terms with childlessness was to be sure to leave no stone unturned, so I started treatment with an IVF clinic anyway. I’d spent years looking for answers from the medical community, they had tested just about everything that could possibly be tested but not come up with any answers, so my faith in them was very low – I thought I had to try everything.

At the IVF clinic, we did two medicated cycles with timed BD. I was a good responder. At the same time, the IVF clinic retested for auto-immune issues and I got a positive result for anticardiolipins. This was the fifth time this had been tested, but the first time I had tested positive. So with the medicated cycles, I also took heparin and aspirin from 6DPO. Still no conception. We decided to do IVF in September 2000, but they wanted a hysteroscopy done first. I had this done in July 2000 and a very small polyp was removed.

In August 2001 I started taking FUR as well as alfalfa , just to try something different, but I wasn’t holding out any hope – I had reconciled myself to the fact that at the end of September, we would start IVF and this was just a “rest cycle”. I wasn’t even temping. It was my 24th cycle of ttcing with current DP, but 12 years since I started ttcing with former DH. We were incredibly busy at work because my company temporarily shifted some operations from New York to London after September 11th, so I was working very long hours and all through the 2ww it really hadn’t occurred to me to worry about whether or not I might be pregnant – obsessed as I was, I could suddenly see that there were even worse tragedies than my IF happening in the world.

On 16 DPO, still no AF, I realised that something might be up, so I went for the bloodwork at 16DPO which should have been the Day 3 bloodwork for the next cycle but they just did a beta instead. It was 382 – my highest ever beta. I started the heparin immediately and had three more betas over the following weeks and saw a beating heart at 6.5 weeks.

This conception happened naturally in spite of borderline FSH (10.5) and high prolactin (67.1). It’s been a totally, blissfully, astonishingly uneventful nine months. Disapppointment becomes a habit if you ttc unsuccessfully for years, you learn to expect it, you want to stop allowing yourself the luxury of hope. It was the greatest challenge of my life to carry on and keep hope alive when faced with so many disappointments and unanswered questions. I didn’t really start to believe this could all work out well until after the amniocentesis, then I finally stopped worrying and began to really look forward to the birth.

Cameron arrived on 31st May 2002 weighing 8 lbs 5.5 ozs, just three days before my 43rd birthday, a normal delivery. He is my dream come true and worth every moment of despair along the way a million times over.

Good luck to each of you, I am so grateful for the support I received here.

Milly from London, (usually on the 40+ board).

I am 22 and my DH is 24. Here's what we had to do to get pregnant:

I went off the Pill (Desogen) in August 2001.

Did NOT have a period for 4 months. Had pap in November and still no period, so I asked my doctor what to do about it. He prescribed Provera and on the 6th day of pills my period showed up. He thought maybe that would jump start my cycle back so that I would start ovulating again.

I didn't start ovulating again on my own or having a period on my own. I was on Provera a total of 3 times. After 8 months of not having my period naturally or ovulating (they tested my blood to check my hormone levels, etc.) I met with my doctor again about what he wanted me to do about not ovulating. He wrote me a prescription for Clomid 50mgs. I took it for the first time in March and it didn't work. I have never had my blood drawn so many times in my whole entire life. I decided to take it one more time at the same dosage and then was going to take a break but I ovulated and I got pregnant on the second dose. I'm pretty sure I ovulated on CD 20, and the last time we bd'd was CD 17, so I thought there was absolutely no chance through the 2 week wait. I'm almost 9 weeks and have had no problems so far. We saw the baby on the ultrasound at my 8 week appointment and I was measuring 7 weeks 3 days, which was about what I thought by my ovulation date. We also saw the heartbeat, which was the most AMAZING thing I have ever seen in my entire life. I am truly blessed and I just wanted to share what I went through. It's possible, just don't give up. We got pregnant after 10 months, and it seemed like an eternity, but really we are VERY lucky that it was that soon.

Lindsey
Due Date: 1/10/03

I had not menstuated between Aug 1998 and April 2001 - due to pregnancy and birth at first,
then I don't know why. Depo provera, possibly, then Micronor?
Whatever.
Since May 2001 we have been BD, often with KY jelly or something.
My periods were very irregular until about December 2001.
Then I got TCOYF and started charting in April 2002 -
the first month was a mess, I was just getting the hang of it.
I noticed that my cervical fluid was in some cycles egg-whitey
but mostly never got past creamy/lotiony.
So, my new cycle starting May 5,
I kept an eagle eye out for the cervical fluid signs
indicating approaching ovulation.
Very frustrating - sticky/almost creamy/sticky etc.
Temps tell you AFTER that you ovulated,
but I really needed the clue from the CF to tell!
I had used an OPK for three prior months to no avail.
Perhaps my actual O was off-set by enough to confuse things.
Anyway, we BD twice - on CD12 and on CD 16, both times using chicken egg whites.
I noticed my temperature rise on CD 16 so I probably O'ed on CD15.
The Monday BDing was of the "What the heck" variety,
since TCOYF tells you to do it UP THROUGH the day of the rise.
I had pretty much written off this cycle and gotten my Robitussen and
grapefruit juice stocked up for next cycle, when...
I noticed at 9 DPO - I could SMELL things too well.
Suddenly I had atrcious BO - I asked my mom and DH -
do I smell? They said no, you're fine.
Then next day I swam in an indoor chlorinated pool
which I SWEAR smelled fishy. The garbage smelled weird,
different than before, new clean baby wipes smelled icky.

By 11 DPO I thought, "OK, we passed 10 days so at least my luteal phase is OK".
I studied my chart and noticed a higher level of temperatures starting up on CD 9
and thought maybe triphasic? At 11 DPO the HPT was ++++++!
I am not sure entirely, whether the BD on day of temp rise did it,
or whether thanks to egg whites some sperm survived from CD 12 to CD 15 -
but WHATEVER! My theory is, if it's a girl,
my money's on the sperm surviving from CD12
but if it's a boy I bet it was the BD on CD16.

What we did this month was use egg whites.
Not nearly as messy and difficult to do as you might think.
And keeping it at room temperature for an hour prior is not necessary -
by the time you put it into a bowl, pull it up into the medicine dropper,
and put it in, it's warm enough. And a little goes a long way.
You don't neeed more than about a teaspoon.

Figured I could add my two cents and hopefully add some insight to what can be a very frustrating experience...not to mention emotional.
We had been trying to conceive since August 2001, and like a lot of people I just figured it would be 'no problem'... I'm in good shape and I'm only 33, so it should be a piece of cake. Well, up until this month (May 2002) we still hadn't conceived and I was starting to configure all sorts of images in my head about what could be wrong with me.

I started using OPK's every month about 5 months ago, and charting temps. I was pretty regular so figuring out when I ovulated was quite simple...and yet I still wasn't preg.

ANYWAY, this month was the month!!!
Actually I still can't believe it.
Here are what my symptoms were: