FertilityZone

Hi everyone

I just want to tell you about a couple of things I learned recently, just when I thought I knew everything about TTC. It hasn't helped me to conceive, after about 2.5 years of trying, incl 2 IVF's etc, and I'm sure you all already know, but I thought I would post in the hope it helps someone.

In my IVF cycles, we had sucessful fertilisation, with one embryo replaced the first time, and one blastocyst the second time and then a FET. After that I decided to go down the chinese medicine route which focuses on the lining of the uterus as much as the eggs etc. So I started focussing on that and asking questions thinking maybe my embryos were ok but my lining might not be.

The first thing I learned was that you can have a procedure at your fertility clinic where they expand your uterus (i think) with saline solution and check that it is the right shape. Sometimes apparantly the sides can get stuck together e.g. imagine a balloon where parts of the inside stick together, once the saline is in, you can see this on the scan. They don't offer this scan by routine as it seldom shows anything, still if you're desparate like me you might want to ask for it. It didnt show any issues for me.

I have had a ton of clomid cycles and after I read some more about chinese medicine etc, when I went for the scans, I started asking about lining and one day a doctor actually looked and said 'you have no lining there at all !' Basically when you go for a clomid scan they have 5 minutes per patient and look only at the egg size, so I learned that you have to ask them specifically whether your lining looks ok (the required size), as if it is not there then there are other medicines you can take or you might be better not to be on clomid.

So through my obsessive requests for them to also check the lining, we discovered something else interesting. There was an area near where the eggs were, that appeared to be filled with fluid. This means there was some kind of obstruction that had 'caught' fluid. I had to have an operation (under general anesthetic) to check what it was. Turned out to be adhesions which blocked one of the overies, and also could stop an embryo attaching. These are often caused by D&C's, I had a D&C about 2 years ago. They were able to remove these adhesions. It was only because I was focussing on lining and it was randomly filled with fluid that day, that we noticed the issue. It wouldnt show up on the saline procedure as the whole uterus is filled with water so looks the same on the scan.

Anyway, hope that helps someone and all the very best of luck to you all. I am finding this experience so hard and so random, its tough to be trying everything but not succeeding. I keep expecting to hear a miracle cure announced. Maybe next month for all of us, fingers crossed x