The Over 40 Crowd

[babyblue]

Hello to everyone. Thanks for the insight on the Flair protocol. Shorter sounds good. The down regging that you speak of, is that the 14 days of lupron (ovulation suppressant) that you take before starting the stimms? Do you still take some of the suppressant or none at all? I know they will go over all this with me next week, but just trying to sort out in my head.

I guess since I'm new here, I am having trouble keeping up with everyone.

Anna - how far along are you now? Congratulations, since I never got to tell you that.

Jac - Welcome aboard. These ladies are wonderful. I hate you had some OHSS. But great that they were able to freeze your embies. My Dr. said that cryo was out of the question for me because of my age, but I have heard of many women not in the US that are having embies cryoed and successes on FET even into the 40 age bracket. Wonder if this is just my Dr. or a practice in the US? 9 fertilized eggs is great, especially the 8 cells. Take care and get well soon.

Bev - So sorry about the high bp. Take care of yourself and try to concentrate on making yourself get better.

Kat - Sound like a sweet DH. Definitely a keeper. Let me know if the not telling people works for you. I have a really hard time with that one too. Guess I get so excited I feel like I have to share with somebody.

Jen - Best of luck in your decisions about ED. I really don't have any suggestions since I am in the US. I'll keep you in my prayers about your decisions and where.

LuAnne - How did the consult go today? Info overload? Have you already scanned the CDC reports on the clinics you have narrowed it down to? Sometimes these reports can give you some insight as to success rate in several different categories.

Does anyone else get a blank page on the end of this thread that says it is expired, or something like that? Each time I get the reminder e-mail that something has been added, the link takes me to the last page which is blank and I have to manually go to message boards and find the thread.

[teachertam]

Hello Ladies:

I'm doing quite well these days, except for the heartburn and lack of sleep. I get up every night 4-6 times.

Kim: I had 4 eggs frozen during my last IVF cycle, as my doctor will not freeze embies, only eggs. I am 42. I always had the short protocol as well.

LuAnne: I hope your consult went well today. I'm sure that you are ready to start another cycle soon.

Jen: It is good to hear that you are going down the donor path and are going to try another cycle.

JacJac: Welcome to our thread. It sounds like you had a very good cycle with 7 embies to freeze.

Bev: I'm sorry to hear that you had a hospital stay, but it is good that your doctors are monitoring you and your precious boy so closely.

Kat: I'm so excited for you! I'm hoping that you get pregnant in Feb. which is the time that that Bev and Yasmina should be delivering. I am due in March, but I keep having dreams that my little guy will come early.

Anna: It will not be long until your DP feels your baby kick. Once that I started feeling the kicking, it did not take long for the intensity to increase, thus allowing DH to feel it.

Take care all,
Tammy

[children]

Hi all,

My mini vacation to Denver was fun - I went shopping, swimming, and having message while DH was skiing with other friends. I also read a lot of other women’s pregnancy and birth stories. Compared to them, my pregnancy is uneventful and I am still in a slow motion in weight gain (only 134 lbs). I still go swimming three times a week, each time, 30min for 1K. The baby still moves, which is the only way to know my baby is alive - I can’t hear her heartbeat with a stethoscope. The heartburns comes and goes and I have more sleepless nights now, like Tammy, I need to pee almost every hour in the nights and drink a liter of water every night! I also feel some numb/blockage on the top of my right breast, but I was told all these are normal. Three days ago I went to see my ob and he made me wonder why he wants me to come for monthly checkups at all if all he does is so little – his nurse takes blood pressure and weight; he measures belly length and listening to the baby’s heartbeats. The only difference is that this time the nurse fed me a cup of very sweet drink and sent me to have a blood draw one hour later - have not known the result yet, will report later. I have not seen my baby for two months now, I am getting really anxious!

Bev, I am sorry you have to go hospital again and I hope that you won’t develop preeclampsia. I wish I could just tell you to relax, eat healthy, drink plenty water and juice to stay hydrated, eat a lot of vegetables and fruits, cut back salty and fatty food, blah blah blah to make your blood pressure problem go away magically. I wonder if you checked with your ob whether you can still go swimming or do any low impact exercises? Could you do yoga or message or take some days off to help you to relax? Fortunately, you have reached 29’s week, hang in there, few more weeks to go. Let’s hope for the best!

Tammy and Anna, good that you are all OK, wish we have a safe and healthy pregnancy!

To the ones who are seeking and undergoing ivf treatment, I have posted a detailed protocol which worked for my 43’s body. I only went through one fresh cycle and that was all I know from my own experience. If you would like to use my protocol and my response as a reference, click on my profile at the end of any of my post, you can find all my posts there, locate the longest one that has my cycle with E2 levels, egg numbers, and drug doses at each day of stimulation during my ivf cycle. My FSH was 6.8 at the starting point of my ivf and my end result is 25 eggs, 19 fertilized, 1/10 implanted and gave a pregnancy. If any more information is needed, just ask.

Welcome all newbies, new thread members, and whoever are lurking our thread. I wish we all the best.

Oh, yes, babyblue, we get blank page if we go from email links.

Yasmina

[AMck]

Hi Ladies, hope you all had a good weekend.

Jac Jac, welcome to the thread. You are in the right place for help and support. Good luck with your treatment, will it be soon?

Bev, so sorry to see you have been in hospital. Sending you relaxing vibes. Hope the bp behaves itself and you are OK soon. Hope tomorrow's appointment goes well. xx x

Yasmina, good to see you had a great trip. Sounds like you had a good time and that you are sailing through your pregancy. Hope the result of your blood test is OK, when will you get it back?

Tammy, hope you are OK and the heartburn settles down.

Babyblue, thanks for your message. I am 22weeks tomorrow and all going well so far, keeping fingers crossed! When I did a short cycle I did no down regging at all. Good luck to you with this cycle. Keep us posted.

Jen, hope you are Ok. The sonographer didn't mention me being high risk but I had a moment of worry as I saw a note on my file saying...in large letters....'re do anti body blood test' I worried myself silly that something was wrong. The midwife couldn't tell me why we had to do it again. However when I got home I read through my notes (they ask you to look after them and bring them to every appointment) I found out that the anti body test was fine but that the note on the phial of blood had my date of birth wrong so the lab technician couldn't verify the blood as being mine! It said dob 1943 instead of 1963!! So all is well ....... phew...but why couldn't the midwife have checked this and saved me few hours worry?

Kat, good to see how supportive DH is being. I think of you often and truly hope that this time all will go according to plan!!

As for me nothing to report, still doing fine and getting larger by the minute. Beanie kicks a lot and I love the feeling!!!

Hi to all lovely ladies here
Hugs
Anna x

[Sonix]

Hi everyone.

Just recovering from another very busy week at work. I really can’t imagine how I would have been coping had my cycle continued, as I’d have been on my 2WW now. The song “Don’t worry, be happy” which is just happens to be playing on TV, was definitely written for me.

Bev: hope you have had a relaxing weekend and have had some help getting yourself sorted. Take good care of yourself.

LuAnne: thanks a lot for the information on the “mini-ivf”. I looked it up on the internet straight away and it sounds quite an interesting method. However, it uses the oral fertility med clomid I was taking on my 3rd cycle which also had to be cancelled due to lack of response. But I’ll check it out all the same with my consultant.

Caz: have you started on the dhea supplements yet? I can relate to you being impatient. DH and I have decided to go ahead and try dhea too. We sent an email to the clinic a last week with some questions and weren’t too happy to find out that our consultant is away for the week. So more waiting for us too. I’ll be praying hard that it works for us both. Keep us posted and about your cycle in January. Seems like you might be cycling around the same time as Kim and LuAnne. Have you decided yet for flare or natural cycle?

Welcome JacJac: Good luck to you. Hope all’s going well for you.

Jen: Wishing you lots of luck with your decisions. Glad that you’ll be able to get plenty of advice and information from the other ladies here. I’m sure you’ll be quite busy with wedding plans too. 2007 will be an eventful year for you.

Kat: I’m getting really excited for you. Great that DH is giving you so much support.

Welcome Kim. Good luck for your meeting this week! You had a good many eggs last time. Wishing you the best for your next cycle.

Anna, I do like the idea of waiting until birth for the surprise of whether it will be a boy or girl. I suppose it means more work – or fun – choosing names. Congratulations on the 20 week scan. Don’t work too hard. Do you know yet when can you stop work at your school?

Hugs to everyone, including Yasmina and Tammy (sleep well!) and anyone else I haven't mentioned.

Hope everyone is ok – have a good start to the new week!

Love Sonia
xx

[BevT]

Hi everyone, thanks for your kind words and messages of support. My midwife has been in twice over the weekend and my BP has settled down quite nicely now. I am off to hospital in a couple of hours and will post the result when I get home. If you don't hear from me tonight you will know that they have "compounded" me again. In that event I will post again as soon as they let me escape but I am hoping that that will not be the case and I will be around again this evening.

Sorry I am not having time to do personals, as soon as things get back to normal I will catch up with eveyone - although I am managing to read through everything, I just don't seem to have time to reply individually!

Take care all,

Bev xxx

[babyblue]

BevT - Good to hear that BP went down. Continue to take really good care of yourself.

Sonix - Dr. ordered flair protocol for me this cycle. I am so excited about tomorrow's planning meeting. I'll keep you posted on the outcome.

Children - Thank you so much for the info on flair protocol. Repronex is what I used on my 1st IVF. However, I had to use 5 vials each dose. Does the shorter cycle reduce the amount of Repronex, or do you know? I noticed you used only 1 or 2 vials on each dose. Did you use more for a long cycle, or have you had a long cycle? I don't know why I have to know all this now. This is what they will cover with me tomorrow. I am a planning freak. I like to know what, where and how much a month before to prepare my mind. The 1st cycle was stressful for me, because I didn't know how my boss would respond to my frequent Dr. appts, trying to make up all my time (and my Dr. is 2 hours one way), and being somewhat of a perfectionist I wouldn't let DH mix or draw up my meds. He gave the shots, but I was very picky about the mixing. I think I have a good mind set about all that this time, but more curious about whats coming.

Wishing you all a very healthy and happy pregnancy. To all those waiting, I'm right there with you praying.

Kim

[BevT]

Hi all, just got home, BP fine now but have a new concern. At my last scan last Monday the sonographer said that I had a lot of "water" around the baby. She didn't seem unduly worried and checked out other things that could be indicated by the excessive water. All appeared ok.

Today my consultant examined me and asked me to go back on Thursday so he could scan me himself. He then talked about the possibility of doing an amniotic reduction. This is where they drain some of the fluid off in the same way that they do an amniocentisis for chromosone abnormalities. Not a nice proceedure at the best of times. Has anyone out there heard of this before or experienced similar? Apparently it carries a risk of going into premature labour so I would imagine that he will way up the pros and cons of leaving me with excess fluid or risk the baby being born early! Any ideas anyone?

Bev xxx

[children]

Hi Bev,

I hope your fluid problem is not too severe, since your BP is settled, it is a good sign. I went online and found this info:

http://www.marchofdimes.com/professionals/681_4536.asp

Hope it helps. I am sure you have looked it up yourself, according to research, it can resolve itself if the problem is mild. I am so sorry for your situation. As doctors don’t seem to overly worried, closely monitoring may be sufficient for now. I am hypochondriac and I like to read a lot if I have any concerns about my health, although it does not help to reduce my worries, it does help a lot knowing that I am not alone and I especially feel better if I know others’ successful stories. There are some causes for excess fluid as you said, but since your baby is well-being (according to your sonogram), my guess is your treatment at worst scenario is to take out some water if it does not resolve by itself for a short period of time to prevent preterm. The good thing is that you have known this early enough and you are closely monitored, and I believe that you are in good hands. Just make sure you are getting good care and plenty rest. By the way, do you have any idea about your baby’s weight? My friend who just gave a birth to a baby a month ahead of due day because of edema, the baby IS beautiful and healthy, he is 8 lbs! Please keep us updated and wish everything is fine with you soon!

Kim,

I hope the meeting you have today answered all your questions? I think mine was long flair protocol. But I used combination of Gonal-f and Repronex. I think Gonal-F (pure FSH) gives powerful stimulation, and Repronex contains 1/2 LH which slows down the effect of FSH so that eggs have enough time to mature healthily. I had to reduce the amount of both because I was over-stimulated – I had too many eggs! Did you only use Repronex? I am surprised if your RE did not use pure FSH (follistim or Gonal-f) on you. But the type and dose of the drugs used is dif among dif people, I think your RE knows what works on you, but there is no harm to ask why the types of meds chosen. About the mixing, no worries at all, it takes only seconds to dissolve the Repronex because it is lypholized through freezing-dry process, it contains water, it just looks like power, and it is actually highly water soluble. Plus, your dose is adjusted by closely monitoring by sonogram and blood E2 levels every 2 -3 days during the stimulation, you should be fine.

Best of luck to all of us!

Yasmina

[BevT]

Hi Yasmina, thanks for that. I have printed it off so I can show DH. Very useful, and will give me lots of questions to ask my consultant when I see him on Thursday.

Bev xxx

[AMck]

Hi Ladies

Bev, hope you are Ok. Good luck with your appointment tomorrow. Hope all goes well and you can relax. Hugs x

Hope everyone else Ok today. Thinking of you all. Sorry no time for personals.

Bye for now
Anna x

[babyblue]

Bev - Hope things are going good with you. Sleeping any better? I guess as close as you are, it probably isn't going to get much better. Seems like I had to pee at all hours of the night and it got worse the closer to delivery. BP still down? Try not to stress through the holidays.

Yasmina - Went to Dr. yesterday and as soon as AF shows I will start BCP. I start the microlupron on 1/3/07. EC will be around 1/17 and ET will be around 1/23. I am getting excited. We convinced him that we want to be much more aggressive this time. And they did agree to cryo for eggs or embies. I will be on Repronex again this time, but also adding in Bravelle (pure FSH). You are down to the last couple of months, right? Getting uncomfortable yet (sitting and sleeping)?

Sonia - Sorry to hear things are so stressful at work. When will you be starting your next cycle?

Anna - Great news on your 20 wk scan. Guess I am just the opposite on knowing what sex. I want to have the nursery all done before and not have to take clothes back after the baby is born. I admire people that can wait.

LuAnne - When are you planning on cycling again?

JacJac - Where are you at in your cycle now?

Jen - Keep us posted on your progress in ED. You will be in my prayers.

Sorry if I missed someone,
Kim

[BevT]

Hi all,
all went well yesterday at hospital, BP settled right down, my consultant measured the pockets of
fluid and the deepest one was 7.8cm. He said he would be concerned if
they were above 10cm! So he didn't want to take any further action.
Phew, I am so relieved as I didn't want any invasive proceedures
unless it was absolutely of benefit or necessary. Also, they scanned
me with a 3-D scanner and gave me two photo's of our little chap, so
clear, you can see his skin, hair, shape of his nose, mouth, chubby
cheeks etc etc. It is so amazing.

Thanks again for all your messages of support. Another crisis avoided
for the time being. This motherhood game is such a worry, LOL.

Yasmina, after measuring the baby, instead of being 29 weeks in size, he is measuring more like 30 wks and 4 days. Last week they estimated his weight to be 3lb 10 oz, so I guess he will be over 4lb now. I just hope he doesn't grow TOO big, don't fancy delivering a 12lb'er!

I am a bit out of touch with where everyone is at the moment, so I will just say hello to Anna, Sonia, Babyblue, and everyone else.

How are you Tammy, we haven't heard from you for a week, usually you are around more frequently. Hope all is well.

Take care everyone, and good luck with what ever stage you are all at.

Bev xxx

[Kat]

Hi all

No real news from me but just thought I'd say hello or you'll be wondering where I am
Busy at work and sorting things out for our holiday after Christmas as well, where does the time go?
Back in Sept I decided I wanted to lose 2lb a week up to Christmas and I have actually lost about 1/2 lb a week average so am feeling fat
Wish I was fat because I was pg but I'll jus thave to wait won't I

I can't believe all you pg ladies are getting so far along...I really hope I can join you soon, no news from the clinic so maybe the donor they thought might be suitable isn't. Still, we are up there on the top of that list so as soon as they have someone we can start sorting out timings

We are going to a pantomime (I hate pantomimes) tomorrow night because my sister in law is in it, hmmm, looking forward to that one, not.

Still, mustn't grumble, my sister is over from Singapore with my nieces next weekend so that will be fun, it will be lovely to see them. And my Dad is on the mend, having chemo on and off but he seems to be doing OK with it so all looks positive there.

Have a good weekend everyone.
Lots of love
Kat xx

[children]

What a relief; that’s great news, Bev. Your description of clear baby pictures makes me so jealous. I am also very glad that you have passed safe survival zone, 30 weeks and 4 days, another milestone, congratulations!!!

I can not believe that my ob has not scaned me for more than two months now. They also have not called yet about my blood glucose level. My husband tells me that pregnancy is not a disease and I should not worry so much. He is out of his mind, how can anyone live in peace carrying a growing human being inside of the belly!

Kim,

Wish your AF to arrive so you can start your cycle soon! Jan 17 does not sound very far, but any length of wait is too long for me. I am so glad that you clinic is not like mine - my clinic closed down completely for Christmas and New year’s holidays when I was on my cycle last year this time, I had to wait for more than 20 days to start my frozen cycle, that drove me insane! Good luck on your more aggressive cycle and keep us informed about your progress!

Tammy,

Are you lost in your Christmas shopping? Please let us know that you are doing fine?!

Happy weekend, girls!

Yasmina