Pregnant after Infertility Tribe

[crazyrunningmama]

Howdy! Anyone else over here who is now pregnant after experiencing infertility (including ART or not)? I feel like the experience is a bit different for me, partly because the whole process is so closely monitored at first eg. I didn't pee on a stick, I get a series of quantitative HcG blood tests. Can you relate? Join me?

[Perdita_in_Ontario]

Hi you

You know my story of course, but for anyone else, this is our second IVF pregnancy - two failed attempts last year after having DD in 2005. I had hoped to have the opportunity to tandem nurse, but after the two attempts last year while nursing, and DD cutting back her sessions to once a day, we ended up weaning. Just another thing infertility took from us

Although the road here was different, it's so nice to be able to put IVF behind us now (this is our last bio child - I'm DONE with ART) and just be somewhat "normal"...

It really gives me genuine joy to see you here - we've been through so much in the Infertility forum...

[claireb]

Hi

I'll join too!! Pregnant with third pregnancy (two previous losses ) and hoping this one sticks!!

IUI with injectables for me, and we were so lucky first round!!

Due April 23rd, how about others?

Claire

[KristinaMarie]

I will join as well even though I am at the end of my pregnancy. We had tried for 3 years suffered one clomid induced ectopic in which I lost my right tube. After that we went to an RE that knew what he was doing. Had all the tests and lo and behold my left tube was blocked with endo and scar tissue. Thus begins our IVF journey.

Everything was so whirlwind for us, moved way faster than I ever imagined. We made our decision on Sept 26, ER Dec 2, ET Dec 7, Pos Beta Dec 16. I can totaly understand the delicateness of a "non normal" conception. There was no way that I was going to get on the treadmill or run and jog, I was not going to risk it. Peace of mind is way better than toned legs to me. I didn't even want to imagine the what ifs.

The thing that I find the most comical about this entire process is in the begining everytime you feel wet you run to the bathroom praying you don't see any blood, and at the end every time I feel wet I go to the bathroom and hope that I have bloody show. I find that people who have not themselves been through IF have no clue what it is like..the defeat we feel month after month. The innocence of not worring about every little thing.

Hope everyone has an uneventful 9 months.

[boobs4milk]

we had just had our first consult and scheduled surgery (endometriosis) when we found out we had conceived on our own. our lost baby was also conceived without help; our 3 1/2 yr old was conceived after surgery. we had been ttc since aug 06 with this one. i'm currently in the hospital awaiting her birth. i've been on bedrest and meds since about 20 wks. so glad you ladies have made it over here!

[BellyBean]

Hi Ladies! Nice to "see" everyone again...and in the best place of all the pregnancy boards!

CRM - Congratulations! I hadn't seen your good news yet!!! :

Kristina - Wow, you are really close! Looking back, time seems to have flown...that's totally looking back of course

[Pearl1]

hi ladies! its nice to see so many familiar faces in one place - thanks for starting this thread, crm. i agree, its hard to feel at home on the ddc boards after IF.

im currently 29w5d pregnant with our daughter, due 10/29. we spent two years getting to this point, including multiple iuis with clomid and injectibles, a fresh ivf cycle that ended in m/c, and finally a FET in february of this year.

krissy - you are so close, how exciting! wishing you lots of luck in these upcoming weeks and a healthy delivery.

jen - hope you're doing okay on bedrest. what kind of things are you doing to stay sane/keep your mind occupied? i was completely stir-crazy after three days of bedrest following my ETs, i cant imagine how difficult 10 weeks straight must be!

hi to everyone else!

~sarah

[cristeen]

I'll join in. We went through 3 years of ART and one loss before getting this one - in an off-month. We were about to progress to IUI and were just waiting for my cycle to start to start the process when I got the BFP.

I'm 35 weeks right now, and so far have had an incredibly uneventful pregnancy.

[fairyandgnome]

I will join in too! Im 11 weeks with Twins after 8.5 years of every treatment under the sun.. finally we got the opportunity to have IVF w/ICSI and it worked! : I am Due March 4th, expected to deliver early Feb.

[gumby74]

CRM: Thanks for starting this!

For those who don't know.....

It took DH and I 4 years and 2 mc's to conceive DS1. My OB at the time just put me on clomid for five cycles and 4 IUI's without doing any bloodwork. After all of the failed cycles I was able to finally convince her that something else was wrong and she sent me to an infertility doc who immediately did some blood work and a SA on DH. Lo and behold they discovered that I am missing a gene that metabolizes folic acid and DH's sperm count was low. Missing a gene that metabolizes folic acid also causes my endo to be thinner than normal so going on clomid was the worst thing I could have done. After injectibles to rebuild my lining, mega doses of folic acid, baby aspirin and progesterone supplements and an IUI, we conceived DS1.

For this one, we were in the process of starting infertility meds while I was on metformin and folic acid when I became pregnant on our own.

Now, i'm 29 weeks pg and looking forward to being not pg anymore because I am soooo uncomfortable. I'm pretty sure this is our last and although I know I will be sad to now have any other babies, I also am extremely thankful that I was blessed with two. Especially when for so long I thought we would never even have one. Congrats to everyone:::

[njsummer01]

It's so nice to hear all these success stories after all the pain of infertility.

I almost can't believe I'm actually reading and posting (!) on the pregnancy board - I always avoided this forum like the plague...

We began our TTC journey with a mc followed by 4 years of infertility. Along the way we adopted my amazing DS. This is our 4th cycle of treatment and were doing IUI and injectables. I honestly gave up on getting pg long ago, but didn't want to regret not trying and now, unexpectedly we're due in late April.

I think I'm still in shock and worrying more than celebrating. I'm waiting on my second Beta numbers today and am telling myself I can finally get excited if the numbers are high enough.

Peace and health to you all!

[MrsReady2bMama]

Hi all! CRM, what a great idea for a tribe! Congratulations to you. When is your next beta??

I think it's neat to see all of you ladies at different stages here too How exciting to see some so close to birth!

As for me, we have a DD who will be two in October, conceived via our first round of IVF (after unsuccessfully trying naturally, Clomid, and IUIs). I am now pregnant via an FET, using the same batch we made with DD back in '07! Just one little bean in there as far as we can tell, and due in March. We are very excited, though a little cautious as I had a m/c this past March after a surprise natural conception. I was only six weeks along at the time, and will be 10 weeks tomorrow with this pregnancy, so I'm feeling pretty confident. (Good thing, because boy I'm like a leaky faucet with the news!)

Congrats to all of you graduates!!! It's wonderful to see so many.

[Julia'sMom]

I'm here too. : : DD was conceive with "only" clomid and metformin. These next beans took 3 cycles of ivf. ivf#1 - miscarried at 12 weeks, ivf#2 - bfn, ivf#3 - success!!! We too are done with any and all ART after this. Should God give us a miracle, yippee! If not, then I'm satisfied. So...22 weeks down and 18 more to go, not that I'm counting or anything.

[boobs4milk]

so happy to see some of my ddc buddies here! sarah...i just pretend like i'm on vacation. i have this computer to keep me busy but i also do a bit of reading, crocheting, catching up with my friends and family via phone and email, i joined facebook and goof off over there some, and i *EMBARRASSED GRIN* have been watching ridiculous amounts of really bad reality t.v.! oh, and the food network is inspiring me to flava up my kitchen when i get home. i didn't have time to stockpile food, but even if i had dh would be using it now. so, when i get home my oven and my crockpot will be blazin while i try to mother and stock up on easy foods for the first few months.

also so happy to see some of my PAL friends over on this side and sharing GOOD news. its wonderful to see you cristeen and julia!!!

[crazyrunningmama]

So nice to see everyone here!!!! :

Sometime in the last year dh and I both found large stashes of expired condoms which we had to throw out. Didn't know whether to laugh or cry, I can't imagine using birth control ever again. This is one of those stories I can only tell you guys.

I guess I didn't say my story (feels like you must all know it by now )

We have severe MFI, which we found out about after about 10 months of TTC. We were told our only chance was IVF w/ICSI. We did an IVF cycle in Jan 05, I had a m/c at around 7 weeks, did a FET that summer and had my dd in spring of 06. I had to wean her to try again. We did an IVF cycle last summer, I had a chemical pregnancy. Then starting in November, we did 3 FETs in a row (ya, for insane amounts of meds). All BFP's, obviously. I took a month off of meds and decided that even though we still had 2 embies frozen, I would rather do another fresh cycle before I get even older. So we transferred two day 5 blastocysts on August 1. We have 2 embies left from our last cycle and 5 frozen from this cycle. Now I am going for my second beta today to make sure things are proceeding as they should. Can you imagine just POAS and then chugging along knowing you are pregnant and not getting any other tests? So hard to imagine, my whole experience with TTC has been so medically monitored. Next after this b/w will be the u/s of course.

I feel barfy again today : Boobs still sore, still tired. All good.

I was reading the exercise thread in the April DDC and I actually started to feel bad for not having been exercising more. Then I remembered, oh ya, my ovaries were the size of grapefruits a couple of weeks ago and I was terrified that I would get OHSS, that's why I haven't been running and doing ab workouts.

Juliasmom, are you super uncomfortable? (And feeling like you shouldn't ever complain?) Hope you are okay.

I know what you mean njsummer01, I go for my second beta today. But then I'll be waiting for the u/s, then worrying about getting out of the 1st tri, etc etc. I am trying to just enjoy it all the way along, hard though.

Back with my beta update tomorrow!!

[Julia'sMom]

Originally Posted by crazyrunningmama

I feel barfy again today : Boobs still sore, still tired. All good.

Juliasmom, are you super uncomfortable? (And feeling like you shouldn't ever complain?) Hope you are okay.

Barfy is great!

I'm uncomfortable, but not super uncomfortable. It just surprised me how much sooner I'd slow down and how big I'd get. Last weekend I just went out and bought some new maternity dresses, as the shirts and pants won't last without that oh-so-beautiful strip of skin showing in-between. Regardless, I'm just thrilled to be pregnany and trying to enjoy each adn every moment. The kicks do almost make me cry. :

I'm so glad you started this thread! It's inspiring to read about all of us strong women who have survived the if roller-coaster and come out successful.

[cristeen]

Originally Posted by crazyrunningmama

Sometime in the last year dh and I both found large stashes of expired condoms which we had to throw out. Didn't know whether to laugh or cry, I can't imagine using birth control ever again. This is one of those stories I can only tell you guys.

I completely understand this. I was on BCPs for the first 5 years we were together... and after 3 years of ART I have to sit here and go WHY?WHY?WHY?! did we waste that time. I cleaned out the medicine cabinet in preparation for baby, and found 2 packs of BCPs in there (which I threw away)... so DH asked me what we were going to do after baby arrives (to avoid) and my answer was: absolutely nothing - ask me that when I'm pregnant with the next baby and we'll discuss options then. No way am I going to actively try to avoid again - what a waste of time and money that turned out to be.

[Julia'sMom]

Originally Posted by cristeen

I completely understand this. I was on BCPs for the first 5 years we were together... and after 3 years of ART I have to sit here and go WHY?WHY?WHY?! did we waste that time. I cleaned out the medicine cabinet in preparation for baby, and found 2 packs of BCPs in there (which I threw away)... so DH asked me what we were going to do after baby arrives (to avoid) and my answer was: absolutely nothing - ask me that when I'm pregnant with the next baby and we'll discuss options then. No way am I going to actively try to avoid again - what a waste of time and money that turned out to be.

I'm with you sista! So...one good thing is dh doesn't have to worry about the snip and I don't have to keep track of cycles or worry about bc ever again.

[Perdita_in_Ontario]

Originally Posted by Julia'sMom

I'm with you sista! So...one good thing is dh doesn't have to worry about the snip and I don't have to keep track of cycles or worry about bc ever again.

Here too. It's a physical impossibility for us to conceive without IVF. A huge PITA for the past few year, but going forward - well, wahoo!!

The Pill always made me very nauseous, and yeah, I think of the months I was sick on the first few days of every pack when DH and I were "young", and all for naught. Ah well.

[boobs4milk]

i will be having a tubal...i can't chance that we will just go one and not get pg, especially with all the complications i have. i'm sort of relieved: no more surgeries to get me pg!!!