Fertility Issues

Hi D.

I'm so sorry you're going through this. I was on clomid for 6 months. It wasn't working (I wasn't getting pregnant) so we went to a Reproductive Specialist in GR. He ran a number of tests and we ended up doing In Vitro Fertilization with ICSI.

Infertility is so unfair and emotionally draining/tortuous. Not only is the monthly wondering painful but the drugs themselves threw me for a loop every single month. We've done IVF and frozen embryo transfers 6 times with two "successes" (my 2 boys, 3 yrs and 1 year). Every single time it's hard. I know.

If you want to talk - please email me and we can "talk" as much/little as you'd like. Really.

A.

I'm also on my 4th cycle of Clomid. I need to ask, are you being monitored on it? My first cycle, I took 50MG, unmonitored and nothing happened. Second cycle I took 50MG had a CD 3 ultrasound (to check for cysts) and 7 DPO bloodwork. Third cycle moved to 75MG had a CD 12 ultrasound (saw small eggs) had 7 DPO bloodowork. My OB doesn't feel I produced a good enough egg on 75MG. 4th Cycle I'm up to 100 MG, and I have my CD 12 ultrasound today to see how I'm doing.

Now if I hadn't been monitored, my OB might have kept me on 50MG. Because I was ovulating, BUT my eggs aren't big/quality enough for fertilizing.

One of my friends took 6 cycles to get PG on clomid w/ her son, and one cycle with her second child (due in December). So it can take time, or happen right away.

Good Luck!

D.,

I also had a hard time conceving my first child. I had to go to a fertility specialist who put me on clomid. There are two different ways for clomid. One way is just taking the pill or you can take the pill then the day before you ovulate you get the injection. I am not sure which method you are using. Just taking the pill did not work for me. The second time we used it I got the shot in my leg. That month we were told every other day and for me to rest with my pelvic tilted for 20 minutes. Low and behold it worked. Try not to get disappointed. Stress can be a factor. I understand your frustration. Try and relax it will happen.

A little about me. I am a 33 year old working mom.I've been married for 6 years and have a beautiful 16 month old little girl.

Hi, D.. My name is B. and I'm 34. I was told more than 10 years ago that I would never be able to conceive, despite working with some of the best specialists while living in Chicago. Last November I visited a Naturopathic Doctor in Detroit. She treats all issues naturally and homeopathically and has cured everything from allergies to ADHD to fibromyalgia to cancer. She treated me and I was pregnant by January. I don't know if that was typical or not, but it was definitely worth the time, energy and money, as I am now 31+ weeks pregnant and due Oct. 23rd. Unfortunately, our government and medical world is setup in a way that her services are not allowed to be covered by insurance, so it can be costly. (My one time visit was a $95 office call and upward of $300 for meds) But like I said, it was DEFINITELY worth it. One of the best benefits of working with her, too, was NO SIDE EFFECTS or RISKS from synthetic medications. While working with doctors and their gazillion of meds, my body suffered (as did my emotional self) from all the chemicals from prescriptions. Working with the Naturopathic Doctor was opposite. I not only got the benefit of getting pregnant, but a dozen other complaints about how I felt got resolved, too. I highly encourage it. Please let me know if you're interested and I can send you information directly or share with you further some of the details of my situation and treatment. No matter what you choose, God bless you and yours! B. in Flint

Hi D.!
My name if Jen and I am currently on my 3rd cycle of Clomid and still am unable to ovulate. What dose are you on? Are you seeing a fertility specialist? My doc said that if I don't ovulate by day 14 that he is going to give me the HCG trigger shot and that should do the trick this month. I am really hoping that it works! I know the feeling, emotional roller coaster, but I just think that it is all for the best. They do say that if you do not get pregnant within 3 consecutive months of clomid, that is may not work. But then again, I know a lady who got pregnant on her 6th cycle. Don't loose hope, keep your chin up!

Hi D.. I used rounds of Clomid to get pregnant with my daughter. You are not alone with the emotions...Having fertility issues is so hard. Have you had a dosage increase or ovulated at all? I don't know what your doctor's instructions were, but our doctor told us to take the clomid and do ovulation tests and have sex every other day. Finally, I had a positive ovulation tests after the dosage increase. Good luck and take care. A.

Hi D.,
I am 35 years old and am currently almost 12 weeks pregnant with our first child. I was on Clomid for 3 months, before we got pregnant. We were in a time crunch, since my husband is in the military and was going to be gone for up to a year and a half. He went for a semen analysis (that was fun :)), and I had a ton of blood tests to confirm that we should be able to conceive. We also used the Clear Blue Easy digital fertility monitor, which was awesome! It let us know exactly during which 2 days of my cycle we were most likely to conceive. My only advice to you is to try to be patient, however I know this is easier said than done, as I have been there, hoping every month after we tried that I was pregnant.
Good luck to you,
D.

D.,
I am so sorry for the roller coaster your going through. I am a total believer of stress has a lot to do with getting pregnant. Clomid is great if you totally relax while on it. Give up and perhaps then your body will allow you to become prego. I was trying to get prego with our second child and I was so discouraged, so I gave up completely, I started training for my first triathlon and 4 months into it I found out I was prego since the first week of my training. Good luck, I do hope its only stress related.

I have seen clomid work really well for some people, not so much for others. There are lots of factors that play into fertility...hormones, stress, etc. It says you work in healthcare, what type of healthcare? One thing you may want to consider, if you haven't already, is seeing a chiropractor. Sometimes the bones in your spine can be the culprit as the misalignment can cause the uterus (since it is attached to the tailbone via ligaments) to get rotated or malaligned. There are also many nutritional supplements that can be helpful. A good friend of ours (a male) was just telling me about an herbal supplement that he took that helped him conceive their daughter. I would recommend you both see a Chiropractor and or someone who deals with standard process supplements (you can only get them through a healthcare practicioner). If you are in the Clarkston area, you can give my office a call anytime at ###-###-####! You may also want to consider a good massage therapist. They can sometimes help...specifically someone who does Shiatsu massage. I know our massage therapist has had great success with those kinds of issues, too. It is truly amazing what your body can do given the power of God! Let me know if I can help in any way.

Hi D.,

I too understand your frustrations on fetility. It took my husband and I 10 months to finally get pregnant. Silly question but has your husband been checked to make sure he is good to go? I had my fallopian tubes blown (sorry for the incorrect terminology, can't remember the name of the procedure :-) to make sure they were free of any obstruction and did several other tests and I was fine. So we decided to have my husband tested and come to find out he only had 20% swimmers ( normal is 60%) So he was the culprit, lol. But we thanks be to God, got pregnant shortly after he was tested and now have a 14 month old girl. Hang in there!
J.

I have definetly been there! I can also undertand the severe depression that takes places every which usually starts the first day the "period" comes on. It is truly a roller coster ride. My DH and I went through such treatments about 4 years ago. After about trying to conceive for almost a year we decided to see a specialist. After all the test and treatments the Dr. could not discover nothing wrong with either of us. Finally, they asked us if we were willing to try clomid. My response was "if you don't know what the problem is as to why we are not getting pregnant why would I want to take it." In my opinion they needed to find the cause then address what medication to take to correct it. My periods were regluar and within normal range and I was under the impression (but I could be wrong) that clomid was for women who did not have reglar periods. And it was given so that the Dr. can sort of control or know when things are going to happen each month in order to know when pregnancy can happen. All this just to say to you I hope they know the reason why you are not getting pregnant and that clomid can correct the problem. I had no idea why it was suggested to me. I believe that I eventually got pregnant because of the Ovulation predictor sticks. My husband believes that it happened just because I was not worried about getting pregnant at the time.
As for encouragement, I say don't give up. I feel that as long as a women has not gone through menopause and she is having sex regularly there is an excellent chance she will get pregnant. I believe I am living proof of that. I loss a baby before my infertility. I developed severe preeclampsia in my 5th month and was told not to get pregnant again. I did not have any children at the time. Now I have a 3 year old and 1 year old sons. I never thought it would happen for me in a millon years. After I was finaly able to get pregnant again I never got sick again nor did i experience high blood pressure. Sorry this is so long. Hope I was of some help.

Lots of information available from others in your situation if you want to join a closed forum for women in all levels of infertility as well as those who have survived it and have children now. http://www.chat23.oli.us/miracles/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=;ac...

It is worth it, and they have cycle partners and support for those on monthly meds and such.

Good luck! Unfortunately Clomid never worked for me even with the trigger shots. Glocuphage worked for me both times and I conceived naturally after 6 years of clomid, shots, and IUI's to only bring us 1 miscarriage.

Hope to see you on the other boards!

C.

D. -
My sympathies. It took my husband and I almost two years to get pregnant, with the last year being on clomid. I know how hard it is to be around people with kids as well (my sister got pregnant with her second while we were trying). My best advice would be to be patient and try one of those ovulation predictor kits. All the tests said that I was ovulating each month, but my husband and I just weren't catching it right. I'm pretty sure the clomid plus the kit helped me conceive. Good luck and at least have fun in the trying! :)

Hi D.,

I took clomid and it didn't work at all for me. I was on it for 6 months and they kept increasing the dose and nothing happened. There is hope though....I ended up seeing an excellent fertility specialist who put me on another drug called Femera (its actually a breast cancer drug) and after 2 months on it I got pregnant. Hang in there, try not to worry too much and RELAX as I am sure everyone is telling you!

H.

Hi D.

I too was on clomid and it did not work for me. I suggest talking to your doctor about HSG, which is a procedure to ensure that your fallopian tubes are open (if you have not already done this). Also, laproscopic sugery is an option. It is invasive, but may tell you if there is something going on internally. I didn't know it, but the reason I wasn't getting pregnant was because I had a polyp on my ovary and had endometriosis (please forgive the spelling errors). Through the sugery, my doctor was able to remove the polyp and the endometriosis and assured me within 3 - 4 months I would be pregnant without the use of fertility meds. I got pregnant 4 months later and now have two beautiful boys. Brady is 2 1/2 years old and Carson is 2 1/2 months old!

Don't give up! Keep trying and talk with your doctor about other treatment options!!!!

I too was on Clomid but I was also on another med (can't remember the name) to make me ovulate. If you don't ovulate on your own...clomid wont help. So that may be another option or issue to look into.
We were on our 3rd round of clomid when I got pregnant with my boy/girl twins!
I know it's so hard but hang in there. The mood swings suck...but just remember what you are fighting for! It may also help to join a fertility web/chat site for support. It helped me a lot!

Hi D. -

I have 2 friends who have been on Chlomid (sp?). It worked great for one (gave her twin boys!) and did not work at all for the other. On the plus side to that though, she did get pregnant a few months after she stopped taking the drug.

Have you ever talked to your Dr. or heard anything about Natural Progesterone? I use a progesterone cream, though I have not had conception issues to date. And my girlfriend who tried Chlomid with no success also started using the cream and got pregnant within a few months. Not encouraging it unless you talk to your Dr., but just thought I might throw it out there as an option!

Good luck to you....I know it is hard, but keep thinking positive thoughts :-)

I tried for 2 yrs to get pregnant before it happened with the help of the fertility specialists at Oakwood Medical Center in Dearborn. They had me on clomid up to 250 mg when I started getting awful headaches and couldnt function. Then we decided to switch to follistim, an injectable. They watch you very close on this med as you produce many eggs. I had 6 eggs that were mature and they did a test and found out that not ovulating was not my only problem, my cervical fluid was acidy and killing everything on top of it. There were two choices that I was given, a baking soda douche (I think) and artificial insemination. We chose the artificial insemination, I got pregnant the first time around on the follistim and the AI. I now have a beautiful set of 5 yr old triplets. I was lucky that only 50% took. lol Good luck to you.

Fertility issues suck!! I took Clomid 50mg and got pg the first month with our daughter. We decided to ttc again when she was 10 months old and again took 50mg and got pg the first month, but unfortunately lost our son to Anencephaly. 4 months after I had him we decided to try again. This time we started with 50mg, I ovulated for 2 months but did not conceive, she bumped me up to 100mg which I ovulated for another 2 months but didn't conceive. She referred me to IVF of Michigan (which has an office in Saginaw I believe). Dr Ashraf did a laparoscopy and found out I have PCOS, a cyst on my R tube that he removed, and 2 openings on my L tube which was preventing me from getting pg again. The next month I did injectables (follistim, cetrotide, and trigger shot) and out of 4 eggs released got pg with another baby girl due in November. I would suggest asking for a referral if you dont get pg in the next month on it. Some dr say up to 6 months and others (like IVF of MI) only do 3. If you need more info feel free to contact me!

I am new here and just joined tonight. It is wierd that your post happened to come up right when I signed in.
I went thru fertility issues for 9yrs before having our DD. She is now 7. We tried again but with no sucess. Unfortunatly Clomid did not work for us, we had to take other avenues, only because we are hit with a double whammy. We both have a problem therefore needed a specialist.
Another great web-site you may want to check out and this place really helped me get thru some dark moments in my life is:
www.fertilethoughts.com
Awsome place with a lot of girls in the same boat and lots of info there also!!
Blessings,
R.