The Over 40 Crowd

[mrscutter]

Yasmina, first let me say that pic is so darn cute. She is beautiful!!! And DH ain't bad either. ha ha.

My ob doc checked my progesterone when the blood work was done. she said the progesterone level was right where it should be. I was thinking 5000 was high for beta, but the nurse said its right on with my period being on Nov. 29th. She said it puts me 4 or 5 weeks. I am having an ultrasound Jan 15th. I was reading about high hcg and molar pregnancy, but the nurse said its normal for my lmp.

I don't know what to expect from this preg with me being 41. I had a child and 21 and 27 last time. So huge difference. With both of them I was terribly sick. I am so worried about getting sick, I keep expecting it any day now. I do feel weird and a little uneasy in my stomach, but not full nausea. Also my boobs were horribly sore back then, but now, no more that AF would give. I don't know if its age thats making the difference or if I not far enough along yet. I would think with a beta of 5000 I would pretty much be getting more symptoms.

Hello to everyone else. I hope you all had a wonderful new year.

Rhonda

[ppt]

Hi
I'm really sad to say, it didnt work i lost it , this was my first ivf but i've done 2 iui's beforhand..
However, they pulled 16 eggs from me, 10 were no good, so i have 5 frozen. I guess now its time to move on and try again xx
Take care
P
xx

[teachertam]

Paula,

I'm sorry to hear that your cycle did not work out. When will do proceed with a FET? I found that frozen cycles are much easier than fresh. All I had to do was take estrace tablets and then the day of the thaw start progesterone injections. Good luck.

Tammy

[children]

ppt,

Sorry for the sad news. Did your RE tell you why you only transferred one this time? My RE always tell me it's a number game when you are at this age. He did not see anyone in my age group using her own eggs resulted multiples so he was pretty confident to transfer more than 4 embryos each time if he has the choice to ensure a life birth. As Tammy said, if you plan on a frozen cycle next time, you will feel it's very different, much easier than fresh cycle. Frozen cycles give equal rate if not better of pg. Both of my pgs resulted from frozen cycles. Good luck on your next cycle.

Rhonda,

Thanks for the compliment about our DD. DH saved his beard to match with my age, what an asshole!

I went back to read your original post and found all the information that you already provided there. Sorry, I was too happy to read it in detail last time! Now, I know you are closely monitored by your dr. and I feel safer. I told Tammy the same thing when she found out her natural pg last time - you got both benefits of fertile and "infertile" women's care, double blessed! I know that you had been through pg twice previously but everyone is different, I hope your this is a much better and easier one! Looking forward to your U/S update!

Catharine,

Looks like you are enjoying your motherhood a lot! You are doing so well with taking care of your little girl! She has not given you any scares yet? I had some panicking experience with our dd, one time she was soaked in my colostrum which made her a blue baby while she was still in hospital. Another time was that she refused to poop for 11 or 13 days. Of course, the fact that she constantly threw up of my milk like a water fountain worried me to death each time too!

Tammy,

Thanks for liking the pic of Eloise too. I thought it was funny that she stuck her tongue out like that. She looked much older than she really is with the long hair now - I normally cut her hair like a boy. Her father is very proud to give her his big ears! She has brownish dark hair which was very beautiful under the sun. What can I say, I am helplessly biased, I love this girl to death!

How is Andrew's speaking ability, btw? Eloise cannot yet make complete sentences but she is able to speak three different languages in almost everything she sees, which amazes me. But every time when I meet any Chinese parents, they all like to tell me how early their kids are able to speak very well at very young age. However, I am not worried at her "delay" at all because I believe each child has her/his own developmental internal clock. She is even too smart for us to catch on - I mean her French is better than me and her Chinese is better than his daddy now already!

Lind,

Thanks for checking back from time to time. Wish you all the best too in 2009!

Tracy,

I can never say enough how kind that I feel you are, you have been so supportive, understanding and encouraging to all of us here on board while burying your own sorrows inside... I am glad that I passed that dreaded 35 weeks now and I am counting on each day and one step a time, I know that you understand how nervous that I am at the moment... will have a 36 week check up coming on this Friday and will update then!

Please keep us updated about your progress as well. You know that we care...


To all ladies that I failed to mention here, take good care of yourself!

Yasmina

[teachertam]

Yasmina: Andrew seems to be on the slow side when it comes to speech. He says quite a few words, but not many phrases and no sentences yet. However, he understands about 80% of what you say. He communicates by pointing many times. It usually does not take me long to figure out what he wants. On Christmas morning I was helping him unwrap his packages. I had wrapped a book about "Tails" and said it was from our dogs and cat. When I was unwrapping the book for Andrew I said, this book is from Max, Katie and Abbey cat. On New Year's Eve, we had some family over and I asked Andrew to bring me the book that he got from "Dogs" and "Dat"; he calls our cat, Dat. He thought about it, and took off walking. In a couple of minutes he came back carrying the book, "Tails". Little rascal is just too smart. I am not worried at all, as my friend Tracy's daughter did not start speaking sentences until she was over 2 years old. She is 9 months older than Eloise and Andrew. She is speaking a lot now.

Take care all,
Tammy

[ppt]

thnaku for yr kind thoughts.. I go back in 6 wks time and I'm gussing it will then start again with the frozen ones... They only put one egg into me this time cos my ovarias were so overstimulated. He was worried i may get OTS.. however, he did say that next time he will put in 2 !!
fingers crossed
lv
p
x

[children]

Tammy,

I got a theory about our "late" speakers, because we parents understand them too quickly so they don't have the pressure to speak! I like the story about Andrew with his tail book! Lovely.

Ppt,

Could you communicate with you RE well? If you could, could you suggest your RE to thaw everything that you have in case some of them don't make it after thawing? Could you suggest him to transfer all the ones which survived? Not every clinic has more than 80% survival rate in thawing, and according to my personal experience, 6 good quality embryos has not given me more than one baby. I would ask my RE to transfer more than 2 next time for sure, if possible - unless you or your direct family members had multiples previously. I don't remember whether you are paying yourself of the insurance covers the cost. If you pay yourself, I would definitely press the RE to give me a live baby instead of just performing a procedure without caring about the outcome! Sorry to sound so pushy, it is my professional hazard - I spent my last 26 years to tell people what to do! Ignore me if I make you uncomfortable.

Good night, everyone! Got to pick up DD from daycare, she was very upset this morning when I dropped her there.

Yasmina

[ppt]

Its no problem, as I have said I'm very new to this so I dont really know whats the norm and what isnt.... I dont have a family of multi births and yes we are paying for all the treatment.
When I go back in 6 wks I will talk with him, however, I know he does not like putting in more than one, he told me that it can cause more problems than not. I only have 5 left, once them 5 are used, we just can not go for it any longer.. Thanks for yr advise xx
p
xx

[mrscutter]

Yasmina, you make me laugh. I know about the age thing remember my DH is 9 years younger than me. But you know what, im sure we look just as good if not better. ha ha.

Rhonda

[mrscutter]

Hey everyone. I had my bloodwork today. 7 days after the first beta. Beta is now 26,000 but my progesterone levels were below a good number. It was 17 last Wednesday, but today it dropped to 13. She said they dont want it below 15. she put me on progesterone two times a day. Did any of you have this happen. do you think this is a really bad sign. I dont go for ultrasound til next thursday. Please let me know what you think.

rhonda

[children]

rhonda,

a sudden drop in P can triger period or mc, but a slow drop won't. Mine lowest point at 10~11 weeks pg (the 1st one) after few (3?) days stopping PIO and suppositories, but my re didn't put me back on PIO and it rose to 17 a week later and then it was never checked again.

I read a lot about P during 1st pg because i was vervous about losing the baby but i saw people had successful pg when their level was at 8. Also, low P normally may mean that you are having a girl! But still, i am glad ur re checked and put u on P quickly enough to prevent its dropping. It is more of a prevcaution than necessity, in my opinion, at this point! So in short, no worries n enjoy the good care that u got from ur dr.

back to sleep now...

[garfieldtracy]

Hey everyone - just an update before I go on vacation. My day 3 BW came back and I was happy to see the FSH drop to 5.1. But they did see some "shinny" things on the US. So I went in today for a hysteroscopy. They found some small things attached to the wall so they took a sample to send to pathology. The DR has no idea of what they are, but they are so small and not all over so we are proceeding with DH and my plan - try to get PG naturally this month on vacation and if that doesn't work go back to the clinic and have ER/ET in Feb.

I don't know if anyone else is having as much fun with the insurance companies as much as I am right now. I ordered the drugs needed 12/30, but since the pharmacy didn't call it in right away - my husband's precription co. changed and my precription co. no longer uses that pharmacy. So I called the "new" pharmacy and they will NOT check both insurances to see which is cheaper - they will just put it all on mine and then make me send everything to the other insurance co. to get a rebate. Also my DH new precription co.'s co-pay on one of the drugs has increased $100.

Ah - but I am too damn stubborn (and broke) to have our money out there just to get it back months later. So I am calling pharmacy #1 (which still has the order) and am going to have them ship the cheaper ones on DH insurance and then call pharmacy #2 to have the rest put on my insurance.

Oh - did I mention the hospital sent a letter asking me to call my insurance because they have not paid for the delivery of Scott back on 11/17/08. So in the first 8 days of 2009 I have already called different insurance companies about 8 times (once a day - how lovely !!).

I am EXTREMELY happy that we have insurance, but man they do make it exhausting sometimes!
Tracy

[teachertam]

Tracy: You are in the same boat as we are. We are going for natural pregnancy too. I hope you are successful getting pregnant on your vacation. I hate dealing with insurance companies too. However, none of my IVF's were covered by insurance and DH and I ended paying for everything out of pocket. Our insurance covered some diagnostic testing, but that was all!!

Hello to Yasmina, Rhonda, Catharine, Socal and Paula

Take care all,
Tammy

[ppt]

Hi All

My heart goes out to u all, it all sounds so difficult with these insurances u have to get. I live in Australia were they have a really good medicare system. Once a year every person gets a $1000 threshhold on the healthcare bills, where u pay 80% of yr bill and medicare will cover the rest. However, once u have reached yr threshhold of a $1000, it then turns around and all u have to pay is the 20% and medicare will pay whats left.... so really on our IVF allthough we had to pay everything upfront, we will get 80% of that back within 2 months of the embie implant .. By hearing what all are saying your system must be so so hard for u xx
Anyhow good luck to u Tracy, I wish u luck on yr hols xx
lv
p
x

[children]

Hi all,

Sorry for not posting for a few days. I had a 36 week check up last Friday and was told that our baby was ready to pop out anytime now. He is BIG and the ob ordered an U/S (finally) to determine the size of him. She is not my regular ob b/c I started to rotate among as many obs as possible in the last month to get familiar with every ob in case my ob won't be the one on call when my time comes. Other than being bigger than schedule, everything else is fine. She also told me that I was 1 cm dilated - identical to last pg.

Tracy,

I am like Tammy's case, none of my tmt was paid by insurance. I did not have to deal with my insurance at all during the whole time. But have fun calling them. Their job is to try not to pay you a penny and they are good at that! Enjoy your vacation and wish you are pg when you are back!

PPT,

You are lucky to have a good health system in Australia. Some of our friends are from UK and they are horrified to know only 6 weeks paid maternity leave is allowed here. I only took 3 weeks full time and 2 additional weeks part time. Fortunately, I kind of work for myself and I could set up my own pace.

Rhonda,

How are udoing w ur pg? Any sign of morning sickness yet? I also will have an U/S on Thurs. Please update then! Looking forward to your good news!

Tammy,

Good luck in trying naturally from now on. I think mentality state is like this: you will get pg at the least possible time. Remember last time, you also did not believe that you could be pg, b/c you were whole heartedly waiting for your next tmt and intercourse just pure pleasure. If you time it accurately, you might not get it unless you did not care about the outcome, which is unlikely. Being relaxed is not something you can tell yourself to do, the more you try to be relaxed, the tense you become. Basically what I believe is as long as you and your DH have good and healthy love life, you will have your baby naturally sooner or later, just don't be stressed about it. Focus on Andrew and future adoption, try to forget as much as natural trying as possible. This way could be the best way to succeed! I call it as mind power, all we need is a state of mind, a transformation from care it intensively to not care it at all. If you can kind of give up, then it's the time you will get it. I read also on another over 40 site, the Hawaiian lady got her pg this way too...

Anyway, if everything else failed, you can always try yoga to calm you mind. In the end, it does not matter how and when you will get Andrew a sibling...Also, even though Andrew won't have a sibling at the age difference as you wished, it may even turn out better. In my own case, I never enjoyed having my brother who is 2 yrs older than me, I love my brother who is 10 yr younger than me. One never know how the siblings get along. Lastly, even Andrew won't have one at all, you know life is just as happy as it can be and he might be the best educated, best behaved, happiest person in the world as he has gotten all your loves without having to share with anyone else!

Sorry for being so preachy. Ignore what I said if you have to. All the best!

Catharine,

Hope you are doing fine with DD? Has she finally started to form a good eat-sleep pattern now?

Everyone else,

Have a good week!

Yasmina