Over 40's help for natural fertility and conception please 🙏

[yakder]

Hi

This is my first time posting, I'm sorry for the long post.

I'm floundering and in search of help in our mission to have a sibling for our 6 year old son, who is desperate for a sister, called Lily, who he can play Minecraft with!

I'm 44, partner is 42.

I've had three miscarriages in total, two were after our son was born.

I have abdominal pain throughout my monthly cycles, some months are not so bad, others are worse.

I've had a laparoscopy to check for endometriosis, all fine there but a cyst was removed from my left ovary.

I seem to have recurring cysts on my left ovary, I have one currently which was found during an internal ultrasound. One popped and disappeared on its own.

I'm concerned they might interfere with my fertility.

I was told all of my eggs were normal during my last internal scan, so that's good right?!

I've had a colonoscopy to check why I get the abdominal pains.

Everything was perfect there too.

It feels like my womb is on fire, such heat, and also like period pain.

The consultant has put it down as having IBS and has referred me to a dietician.

I suspect I have leaky gut, as I seem to tick most of the boxes. I've just had a dr's call to discuss it and he's said it's not a medically recognised diagnosis but is refering me to gastrointestinal.

Told me it's probably down to the IBS and perimenopause.

I find dr's are not much help. It seems to be me researching and asking them to do checks and blood tests, referrals etc, rather than them being proactive and ruling things out, looking at my symptoms and joining up the dots.

When you get to my age the dr's just put it down to your age and say it's perimenopause.

My FSH said I am now a withered old hag and have gone through menopause, which I haven't.

I've tested again for FSH but the results have not come back so God knows what happened to those, disappeared into the ether I suppose. I'm going to be retested for that.

All of my hormones have come back normal, apart from the raised FSH recently.

I've been checked for ca-125 because my cyst had blood on it, all came back fine there too, thank goodness.

I have developed a wheat intolerance where I get horrible and painful spots on my back.

I have constipation mostly with occasional diarrhoea.

My cycles are haphazard.

I have been diagnosed with IBS.

I have had an immense amount of stress to have to deal with over the last six or seven years.

We moved into our house, which needs renovating, on the day our son decided to arrive. We're still living in an unfinished house.

We have an alcoholic psycho neighbour who has assaulted me, caused criminal damage to my car, smashed whisky bottles and human excrement on our shared access drive, (I now have to fight for a space on our street to park which is significantly less stressful than the anxiety of parking on our drive because of him), verbally assaulted my son and dad and has been a genuine nuisance and nasty bastar*, this has caused problems between me and partner, all the stress has almost caused us to split up, I've had to have the police involved for over four years, who do next to nothing, only adding insult to injury and have actively taken the piss out of me.

It's been an utter shambles.

I'm in the process of an appeal to the ASB case review, and a formal complaint regarding the police, which has ultimately been swept under the carpet.

My next port of call is an independent police complaint.

My mum died of cancer during the pandemic and I was prevented from being with her during her illness and at her death because of covid and her hideous husband who hated me because mum and I were so close and he hated sharing her with anyone else.

I had to call the police to see my own mum, it was that bad.

It was utterly heartbreaking and devastating.

I've been to hell and back.

I'm currently trying to deal with the fallout of mum's house and the mess that we're in there.

Among other things also going on.

So stress is a high factor in my life which I'm desperately trying to minimise.

We eat as organically and well as possible. I don't drink or smoke.

Partner might have the occasional drink but not very often.

We take our vitamins.

I've taken advice from the book "It starts with the egg".

The only thing we don't take currently is vitamin E and omega 3, which I'm trying to sort out but because they're either sunflower oil, which is not good for you, or soy, which I refuse to have, and omega 3 being made up of ingredients which cause uterine contractions, I'm struggling to find a good solution in the right potency.

I used to take together health algae omega 3 when my son was conceived but they introduced rosemary oil extract now which can cause uterine contractions, so now I have to find an alternative.

I take CBD oil to help with anxiety.

I'm too old for IVF now, not that I would want it anyway, because it seems like such an arduous and tortuous journey and I like to have faith that the universe will provide.

I swim once a week for an hour non stop, just swimming and not over stretching myself. I've been back in the pool for almost two years now and I tend to do 86 or 88 lengths each time.

It was about 46 lengths when I first started swimming again so my stamina has definitely improved.

I walk with the dog, but not every day.

I self heal with reiki every day and I go for reiki healing once a week.

I go for reproflexology once a month.

I'd go more often but the cost prevents me from doing so.

I flip flop between being hopeful and positive that we will have a sibling and desperately sad that it will never happen.

I just desperately want a sibling for our son before my bits completely pack up!

I suppose this is just a vent to people who may understand, a desperate plea for any advice and assistance and any stories of positive outcomes from others who have experienced this 🙏

Thank you so much for getting this far....well done!

[JA-fnuk Partner Nurse Fertility Network UK]

Thinking of you Make sure you have support - take a look at our website fertilitynetworkuk.org "Access Support" then select "Fertility Groups " to find a regional group near you In UK-Wide Groups there is a closed FB group that might be helpful"40 and over fertility group "

Take care

Janet-Partner

[yakder in reply to JA-fnuk]

Thank you so much for your contact and your care, it means a lot 🙏 I appreciate the link and the information, thank you 🙂 xx

[Woolooblue]

You poor thing, you really have been through a lot! As I read your post, I kept thinking you really need someone who you can talk to regularly, like a support group as suggested above, or some counselling. And you need someone to share some of your burdens. You didn't really say much about your partner, other than the relationship has been strained. Is he supportive? Does he do much to ease your stress or could he be doing more?

Sending love and kindness your way ❤️

[Needtochillout]

I totally see you and everything you have been through, and can relate to things. Time to make some hard decisions and big changes, maybe move, maybe ivf with donor but take back control and be your own champion, because anyone who can survive all this trauma and reach out is gutsy and you deserve to be happy!

[Vassi]

I'm sorry to hear about the rough time you've had. I'm 43 and have been on this ttc a sibling roller-coaster for 2.5 years and it truly sucks. I totally relate to your feelings about being hopeful and desperately sad about it. I've been told by my doctors to consider donor eggs but i just don't think im ok with it, i think its more complex when you have a biological child. How do you feel about it, is it something you would consider? I wanted to recommend some supplements which I've recently found out about- nmn, nad+ and resveratol for egg quality. Maybe try a gluten free diet. It sounds like you are doing everything you can and the rest is out of your control 🙏 I see an acupuncturist and fertility massage therapist, that may be something you could look into to relieve the abdominal pain and help ease the stress. I also do meditation daily and feel better for it.

Wishing you all the best, here if you need to chat xx

[yakder in reply to Vassi]

Hey Vassi

Thank you so much for reaching out ☺️ It's lovely to hear from you.

I'm sorry to hear you're in the same boat, it's not much fun is it?

I am truly grateful for the child we have, I'd just love to give him what he wants more than anything, a sister. I'd be happy with either though to be fair 😂🙏

I tend to agree with you about donor eggs.

It's something that doesn't sit quite right with me personally and I can't quite get my head around.

I think it's a wonderful opportunity for some and it is a blessing that it is even an option, but not it's for us.

If it's meant to be then so be it, if not, well, I'll just have to accept it won't happen in this lifetime, for whatever reason that may be, but I would be incredibly sad about it.

I'd be interested to hear about the supplements you take for the things you mentioned.....I have no idea what they are 😂 you'll have to treat me like a complete idiot I'm afraid 😂.

I do a gluten free diet already, which is ok, but it's stupidly expensive.

I'm going to reach out to a woman I used to go to for colonics to hopefully get a better understanding of what's going on with my gut.

I do still go for colonics, just to a different woman, as the first one I went to has taken a step back from that now and just focuses on her supplements line instead.

I'm curious about how to reset my gut microbiome and figure out what's going on.

I've just ordered some different ubiquinol and tablets to help with balancing hormones and restoring ovulation along with a womb wellness tea. Fingers crossed it helps.

I had originally thought that it's best not to mess with my hormones and just let them do their thing, and I do still wonder if it's the right thing to do by taking tablets etc but we've been trying for a long time and I came across this site and felt like the universe was guiding me to it for a reason, so we'll see.

I did read somewhere on here about someone who kept having recurrent miscarriages and eventually discovered that her womb was cold and Chinese medicine and cupping helped. Maybe something like that is going on for me?

Who knows. I often feel like I'm clutching at straws.

I kind of feel like I'm falling apart at the seams but clinging on to the possibility that I can still have another child before my bits officially shrivel up and die 🙈😂🤞

I'm not ready to be in a body that's incapable of having children, I still feel like I'm in my 20's 😂

Wishing you all the best also and likewise, I'm happy to chat too xx

[Vassi in reply to yakder]

I feel all of this 😔 we're so so blessed to have our little boy but the guilt of him maybe not having a sibling is consuming me. My partner is for donor eggs as a last resort but I also can't get my head around it.

At my last egg collection a sweet elderly nurse held my hand and said never lose hope and I think of her everytime I start feeling hopeless. I mean it may not be easy at our age but it's not impossible. A good friend of mine conceived naturally 3 times in her 40s. Her first at 43, she sadly lost the second at 20 weeks but had her last baby at 46, perfectly healthy. So there's always hope 🙏

Here is a post about the supplements I mentioned:

instagram.com/reel/C_kFnPyK...

I hope that link works, I am fairly new to these ones myself and still researching which to buy but I have found some good quality nmn on iherb. There is some promising research about it reversing aging in older eggs. A good probiotic might be worth taking as well xxx

[VeeBee83]

Has your husband had his sperm tested? You seem to have had a lot of tests, but has he? You might consider researching a good holistic nutritionist or natropath? My sister has been seeing one and though expensive they do all sorts of tests the drs don't / won't and have a completely different perspective on things. Like my fertility dr just said "take folic acid", so I take blackmores off the shelf conceive well. But my sisters nutritionist did a blood test and then prescribed her bio-available folic acid "L-5-Methyltetrahydrofolate-Ca (L-5-MTHF)", which is apparently completely different, that's just one example. I would love to go, but can't afford it. When I had leaky gut I had to completely cut out gluten, lactose and sugar, and I cut out meat as well because I couldn't afford it. I also had an Emma and Alice test and they found a bacteria in my uterus that was likely there because of the leaky gut and was detrimental to an embryo.