Cervical and uterine pain and symptoms

[EmmerLooeez]

It breaks my heart reading this Jenny. By all means freeze some embryos if you can afford it, so that you know the option is there, but don't use them until you have healed. The thyroxine will help with your low mood too hopefully.

What therapy are you having currently?

Sometimes when we carry a lot of pain our brain/anxieties create lots of other problems. It knows that something is 'wrong' somewhere so looks out for danger and finds plausibility in everything. The pain won't go away fully but you can process it in a healthy way. That's what you need to do sweet. Sending so much love. Xxx

[O_O]

Thanks so much, Emma. It's not the ideal situation but at least I kind of know what's going on now.

I'm so worried that I won't even get any normal embryos because of the diminished ovarian reserve, but I have to try. The sperm is being delivered end of March! In between now and then I've been referred to see an endocrinologist to hopefully diagnose and treat any underlying autoimmune conditions.

And you're right... I feel slightly less hopeless since I've been on the levothyroxine! I guess my body needed those thyroid hormones.

I'm not actually having any therapy at the moment. If I'm honest I never found it very helpful. I'd be interested in hypnotherapy and EMDR though! But if anything has helped me I think it is simply the passing of time. Also getting some answers to the fertility situation has helped a bit. I knew there was something wrong with my fertility and I'm finally getting somewhere.

Hopefully I will keep on getting better as time passes. And more than anything I've got everything crossed for some healthy embryos and a full term pregnancy one day.

[ErinKC]

I just got sucked into this post and wasted away half my morning! I have so many thoughs.

I think some of what got lost throughout this saga is the idea that someone with anxiety can be suffering both from an anxiety disorder, a true medical problem, and be struggling with real life issues all at the same time.

I also have a particular bone to pick with the way women's health issues are dealt with in general. I know for myself and many with HA it's hard to separate what's "normal" medical follow up and what's in our minds.

Clearly, many if Jenny's actions and thoughts were driven by anxiety and we're destructive. However, many were the very natural response to losing two pregnancies and experiencing hormonal changes, unexplained pain, and a powerful drive to understand why she and her mother both lost multiple babies.

Jenny - I think you are 100% right to push hard to find answers to your fertility problems and your pain. Of course pain can be anxiety related, but I know from experience that women's pain is often dismissed as unexplainable and so many women are expected to just deal with the effects of pregnancy, miscarriage, child birth, hormonal inbalance, etc... Like it's just part of being a woman. Women really need to advocate for themselves and for someone with HA this can become an especially challenging situation to navigate.

I have nothing but sympathy for you, Jenny, and the multiple traumas you've experienced. People aren't wrong to push you hard to get help, but I think you also deserve a huge amount of compassion and empathy. The fear of being alone, not being able to have children, etc... Is real and happens to even the most mentally healthy among us.

I don't think you should "just chill" and accept you'll never have children and I think freezing embryos is the right decision. I hope it helps you feel more in control of your future.

While you say you didn't find therapy helpful I would still recommend giving it another try. Every therapist is different and it can be hard to find a good fit. For me, I just find it comforting to have someone to talk to.

I truly hope you're able to work through the sadness and loss associated with your previous relationship and build a stronger relationship with yourself and eventually find someone to share your life with if that's what you want.

I wish you nothing but the best!

[O_O]

Thank you so much for reading and for your comments, Erin. Sorry you spent so much time on it! This thread really did become a saga of epic proportions. I can't even look back through it reminds how bad things were.


The fear and grief and anger are all still there but at least I have the chance to freeze some embryos now, which is productive. I'm trying not to think about an eventuality where no viable embryos are made :/ Just trying to take it day to day and get all my tests done and medications in place prior to commencing IVF.


One good thing is that (touch wood) I don't have any pain these days. It was just for four months or so after the MVA. I'm actually coming round to the idea that maybe the pain WAS imaginary because I have no idea what could cause uterine pain for four whole months after an MVA and then just suddenly go away again. There's just no condition I can think of that would do that. It was so real though. Just constantly aching and quite bad rebound tenderness every time I touched my abdomen. It's a mystery!


You're probably right and I should give therapy another go. EMDR really does interest me. Thing is... IVF is so expensive so I'm just trying not to spend any money on anything else! But if it helps my mental health then it's probably worth it.

[Violet Blue]

I don't think you should "just chill" and accept you'll never have children and I think freezing embryos is the right decision. I hope it helps you feel more in control of your future.

Hi Erin

I feel I've got to defend my "just chill" comment, and point out that at no point did I say Jenny had to accept she'll never have children. Quite the reverse! She is 29 years old and has not had chemotherapy. She is someone who somehow has the money to have IVF, and some clinic or other is happy to take her money.

As regards relaxing, how often do women go down the IVF/adoption route, only to find themselves falling pregnant naturally soon afterwards? Of course those women are also having sex (!) and Jenny is both young and attractive enough to find someone nice who also wants a family.

Having read this thread you'll know that even on Christmas Day that year Jenny was only banging on about the pain. She was 100% certain she was not only infertile but dying. That's how single minded she is, and how wonderful it is now that she is actually saying what a million (ok, that's an exaggeration) of us were saying at the time which is that the pain was merely a figment of her imagination.

But you make a truly excellent point in that it's highly unlikely that Jenny has both serious fertility issues and health anxiety. It doesn't work like that, if it did so many HAers would be dead after their first imagined fatal illness.

So anyway, just keeping everything crossed Jenny decides to leave things to fate and count her blessings. And you're quite right, spending money on therapy would be far more beneficial than IVF at this stage of her life. Xxx

[ErinKC]

Violet, I thought this comment was rather insensitive to a woman with fertility issues: "Say if you can't actually have children biologically, do you think this has never happened before? Plenty women can't. It's sad, but you deal with it."

Anxiety or not, Jenny's had 2 miscarriages and then been told she has low ovarian reserves which will make it extremely difficult for her to get pregnant in the future. She has a legitimate fertility issue. Unless I read incorrectly, I think her doctor suggested IVF to freeze embryos so she'd have more hope of having a biological child down the road.

Balancing real life health issues with health anxiety is very difficult.

[Violet Blue]

Hi Jenny

I know I sound like a patronising old trout, so forgive me for that.

I actually thought you were 31, so 29 really is young... I get that science has told you your eggs are older, etc etc.

Well, good luck, I mean that very sincerely, and have a lovely Christmas! t

Hi again

Allow me to quote myself this time. Jenny doesn't mind it when I sound a bit harsh with her as she knows I'm coming from a position a love.

I notice you've put both Jenny's and her mum's fertility issues in the same category. Well hello, her mum had Jenny!

It's just all about being realistic with whatever life chucks at us and make the best of what we've got. That's all I'm going to say for now. Xxx

[pulisa]

I think it's important to point out that IVF clinics are a money-making business for people often at the end of their tether after years of fertility issues, some of these being unexplained.

Jenny's situation is unusual but she has the money to pay for any tests she wants. I doubt whether there is a need to test ovarian reserves in the average 29 year old not actively trying to get pregnant and whether this figure would actually equate to potential for future pregnancy? It appears that Jenny can conceive which bodes well for the future as and when the time is right.

As Violet says, there is no chemotherapy issue here . Tests can throw up issues which will never be a problem. I'd advise you to be very careful about how you spend your money at this clinic, Jenny.

[O_O]

It's true that I don't get upset by anything that anyone says! I know that everyone wants to help me.

Thanks, I guess I'm quite attractive, emotional baggage excluded! It would be amazing to meet someone, of course, and I do go on a fair few dates, but I've not yet come anywhere close to meeting anyone I could even imagine having a relationship with. I'll keep trying, of course.

Erin is right that I really do have a fertility problem, though. It is not at all usual for a woman of my age to have diminished ovarian reserve and it was the last thing I expected and not something I'd even heard of until I was diagnosed. The tests for ovarian reserve (AMH and FSH levels) are actually very routinely carried out on women of any age who are having fertility problems but the cause of infertility is more commonly found to be something like PCOS or blocked tubes or endometriosis or male factor. I know personally one other girl my age who was struggling with infertility, which turned out to be male factor. She had IVF and now she's 16 weeks pregnant! Of all fertility problems, diminished ovarian reserve is the one that needs to be treated the most urgently because it will only get worse.

Most women of my age have an AMH of around 20 pmol/l or more. Mine is 8.7. Below 7.1 the chance of getting pregnant naturally is very unlikely. Not to say it's impossible, of course! I have the ovarian reserve of a woman in her early 40s so it's certainly possible.

The problem is that ovarian reserve gets worse every month, and I'm single. In a couple of years I may very well be in the category of women who are statistcially very unlikely to conceive naturally and who respond very poorly to IVF stimulation.

It is also important to note that the fertility clinic I am using (and dozens of others like it) is HFEA accredited and accepts both private and NHS patients. It is absolutely not a dodgy private outfit that just wants desperate women's money. These clinics are very well established with good success rates and overseen by well regarded consultants.

In fact, when I first went to see them I was positively discouraged from proceeding with IVF. The consultant told me that my ovarian reserve was in all likelihood very high and that I had plenty of time to meet someone and have babies. He told me to come back in a few years if I still needed help. It was only when he did an antral follicle count that I literally saw his face literally change. He ordered the AMH test and rang me two days later to tell me that, very unexpectedly, my ovarian reserve was low and I should undergo IVF within a year.

I got an opinion from a consultant at another clinic who told me exactly the same thing.

I don't know what was wrong with my mother but I suspect she had diminshed ovarian reserve too. She had quite an early menopause, at about 45, which makes it seem even more likely. With that in mind, she was lucky to eventually have a child naturally. There is no guarantee that I would be so lucky and I don't particularly want to endure another four miscarriages in the process.

So, I guess I am anxious about it but not in the way that I was anxious about dying a year or so ago. In fact, the word 'anxious' does not do justice to whatever mental catastrophe I was having last year. But, yes, I do have worries that the IVF may not be successful and I will never become a mother. Those worries aren't entirely unfounded, either, given the diagnosis.

Screw leaving it to fate! No thanks. I'm going to do what I can to make sure I have the best chances possible and at least if it doesn't work I'll know I couldn't have done anything more.

[pulisa]

So 2 consultants at private clinics have told you that it is essential to undergo IVF within a year in order to stand a chance of pregnancy? And you have already conceived 4 times?