# Natural BFP's over 40's? Any Success stories here?



## babynumber

It would be great to start a thread JUST for successful natural (rather than IVF/Donor Egg) BFP's for us over 40's don't you think? 

It would be really encouraging for those of us still hoping and trying!


Either they are all jumbled all over the place or there are very few of these success stories that I can see.  I know there is a sticky thread titled success stories, but it is a very long thread and it seems to me to be mixed with general chat, plus BFP's (IVF and DE and a couple of natural) so its difficult to wade through and find results.


Would also be good to include possible reasons for success.. ie supplements/using clomid/special diet/etc. How many years/Months trying....


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## Chandlerino

I agree it would be great idea to give us oldies some hope - no chat though just the relevant info similar to the IVF/ICSI success thread.

Chand xx


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## tigershaz

Hello,
I got a shock natural bfp at the end of 2011 and my son is now thriving at six months old. We started ttc seven years ago, after five years we had all of the standard tests and discovered that although my dh has "super sperm" my amh was low so were encouraged to start ivf ASAP, after a couple of unsuccessful iui cycles we then had two ivf cycles but were devastated to find out that I just wasn't responding to stimulation, with only one egg ever recovered which failed to fertilise due to its poor quality.

The clinic sat us down and told us that further treatment was pointless and that we should look at donor egg treatment if I ever wanted to concieve as there was less than a 1 percent chance of conceiving with my own eggs using ivf. We walked away at this point to consider our options, I was having a really hard time getting my head around using donor eggs. 

We decided to take a break from treatment and just live life for a while, eat healthily, the odd glass of wine, pregnacare, royal jelly capsules, lots of walking and talking and we got a labrador puppy! I also started using a clearblue digital fertility monitor every month to track my cycle which was very interesting as it showed that I was ovulating on very different days each month. After six months I conceived naturally during a cycle when I ovulated on day 24 (very late as my cycles were usually only 28 days long). I really do know that the monitor was very accurate as it showed as "ovulating" that morning so I grabbed dh before he went to work and did the necessary, we hadn't dtd for at least two weeks prior to that as dh was away with work so on that one day I did release an egg and it fertilised. 
I was 40 when I conceived and had my son at 41, my clinic were astonished that it had happened giving my response to treatment and said that it just shows that amh is not necessary indicative of quality, and that it really does only take one good egg.

I do believe that taking a break from treatment and trying not to put myself under pressure did help, I am in the process of stopping breastfeeding now and am hoping that once my cycle gets going again we get lucky a second time so back on the healthy living and fertility monitor soon.

Hope that helps, wishing you the best of luck and sending lots of baby dust your way.

Shaz x


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## babynumber

Thank you Shaz - that's exactly the kind of story we like to hear!   

ADMIN - is it possible to put this thread at the top?  With no general chat. JUST TO RECORD SUCCESS STORIES. Thank you


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## Canonlygetbetter1

What a great idea for a thread.

And Shaz your story is fantastic, just what I want to heat today!   xxx


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## Kitty71

Hi ladies,


I am expecting my first baby this June and I will be 42 in March. We started TTC in April 2009 so it took us about 3 and a half years.


I had 3 miscarriages in quite a short space of time and had been told at the recurrent miscarriage clinic that it was likely to be just a case of "old" eggs. Our consultant Suggested CGH might be useful to us and thankfully didn't write us off completely. I have always produced good numbers at ECs and just couldn't believe that that one good egg wasn't in there somewhere. After our last loss we needed a break from TX so decided to try on our own for a few months before planning a trip to see Peny at Serum. I have had a small amount of correspondence with her and after telling her my history she too thought that OE IVF was still something I should try.


I don't know if we just got lucky this time but I will say I am a huge fan of DHEA. I have conceived all 3 times I have taken it so truly believe it has done the trick for us. I know it isn't for everybody but I think it is worth people investigating. My last clinic were very happy for me to take it and even my original NHS clinic were starting trials when I left. I also think clomid is a wonderful drug. Yes it made me murderous at times but it was worth it. 


Now I'm not a believer in the old "relax it will happen" line but I do think that maybe stress has a part to play.  After our last miscarriage we moved house (we'd been living with the inlaws saving for a deposit) and we bought a dog. I didn't really realise how stressful our living arrangements had become until we moved. Don't get me wrong my inlaws were marvellous and we were pretty much self contained but it was like a weight had been lifted when we were back to being just the two of us again in own space. The dog is nuts and went from being an Andrex puppy to a raving lunatic overnight but he changed our lives. Our world had closed in on us (mainly through our own doing) but he got us out of the house again and it was lovely to do normal things like go for a walk or visit the beach and even interact with other people. 


I don't have any diet tips but we always take his and hers Pregnacare and can highly recommend high dose Vit C + Zinc for the guys. It can really improve sperm and our morphology was so vastly improved that straight IVF was offered to us last TX instead of ICSI.


I also think pinpointing ovulation is key. It was only trying for this pregnancy that I actually used OP sticks rather than guess when ovulation might be.


I wish everyone the very best of luck. IF is horrible for everyone whatever their age but I think that once that big old clock starts its deafening  ticking the panic is often just too much to bear. 


Kitty xxx


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## unicorn dust

Hello ladies 
I have never posted before and cant work out how to other than in reply box so I apologise.
I just want to give all you oldies some hope.
I am 46 I had my first son when I was 38 after 2 months of trying. I got pregnant again when he was 4 months old but miscarried at 9 weeks.
I had another 3 miscarriages in the next 18 months.
I then turned to IVF at the lister 2 cycles  I was a poor responder both BFN
continued naturally and had another 5 miscarriages
Tried donner eggs x3 in greece all BFN however I do believe it is due to them I am posting here. They discovered I had sticky blood and I had to be on high dose of clexane to prevent clots.
I had another 3 miscarrages  14 in total and 9 Dand C'S.
last Feb I found an out of date packet of clomid in the bathroom and took them. l found out I was pregnant but fully expected to miscarry again. So much so I insisted a d and c was booked the afternoon of my 9 and 12 week scans.
I spent the first 22 weeks expecting blood every time I went to the loo.
However 13 weeks ago my miracle son was born 12 days after my 46th birthday. I had to inject clexane every day until 10 days before the c section.
My friend who is 45 under went 8 ivf with no success suffering a late miscarriage at 20 weeks having given up and moved on she too had a daughter in Jan this year
I just want to say I have lurked on this site over the years in various sections but sometimes miracles do happen.
I know it does happen to every one but sometimes we oldies do get sprinkled with baby dust!


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## shortbutsosweet

Hi
Lovely thread!
Just after my 40th birthday my on off partner told me he wanted us to try for a baby.  The reason we had been on off in the past was fertility issues, he had had 2 previous courses of Icsi with an ex and had split as it had been unsuccessful.
I went to get various investigations which apart from scan of ovaries and uterus were all terrible.
I was given odds of less than 5% concivecing naturally and advised by one doctor to have donor eggs! That would have been difficult due to my ethic background and my partner.  
However the same doctor recommended HSG and pregnancy vitamins.  My partner took the male vitamins and stopped smoking and three months after the HSG and the week of London riots, our son was concieved!
I was 41 when he was born and my partner 36, apart from a second degree tear it was a normal delivery with gas and airin a birthing centre, me sitting on a birthing chair.
My son is now 10 months old and for someone who knew little to nothing about babies and had never thought I would have one, I am over the moon, it is not easy being a parent, but it's the best thing I have done and I am glad age doesnt always prevent you, it just makes things more challenging.  Good luck


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## A Better Year

unicorn dust - you made my day reading your post.  As I near 43 I fear it's already too late despite all the science and medicine we're trying. 

The question in my mind for ladies like yourself who have miracle births in their early-mid 40s is if having had a child earlier does anything to improve one's chances, over someone like myself who has never* had a child and in fact only got pregnant once.

*the thing is, we got married late and we didn't try to start a family until what may be too late

shortbutsosweet - your story as well is encouraging, which vitamins were you taking?

Kitty71 - another great story, and like you, I take DHEA, 50 or 75mg daily, and I have felt we probably made mistakes re your comment about pinpointing ovulation - I'm sure we missed it many times and use the OP sticks too late in the cycle.


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## shortbutsosweet

Hi
Sorry I took so long to reply I just look at this page once in a while.
I took viabotics trying to concieve vitamins and my partner took the male equivalent.
I had previously never been pregnant and had previously had unprotected sex with my partner for many years without pregnancy. 
We broke up and he met someone else had two unsuccessful courses of Icsi.


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## Fluges

Hi
Am not sure if this will give anyone hope or not! I am 43 and currently 32 weeks pregnant with boy/girl twins following a single FET so it looks like on of our twins is 4 years old than the other one!!


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## Lana7

Hi ladies, I just wrote this on another thread. After trying for three years, I had a cycle in Bulgaria last summer, which unfortunately resulted in an ectopic pregnancy, so I also lost my left Fallopian tube. Tried frozen transfer of three embies in December, nada. As I turned 44 in February we didn't want to waste more time, so booked to have another fresh cycle in March, and I started preparing for it by doing ashtanga yoga, drinking raw vegetable juice with wheatgrass, taking Kelp and really being super healthy. DH who is a social smoker hadn't smoked for a month at all. And... My period was late in the early March, and I was getting really annoyed with my body, as I had a three month holiday from work to do the cycle, and I was going to have to explain to work what I was doing to get any more time off. Next  

So long story short, I am now 13 weeks pregnant and so far going well. On one tube!!! Crazy.

One thing I wonder... I see from some of the signatures Downs results at 6 weeks scans? I just had my combined test and wonder if I should try the harmony test, as I am not sure when I will get my results and it bothers me... Any advise?


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## shortbutsosweet

Lana,
Congrats!
I had Nuchal test at 12 weeks.  Sorry it wasnt clear from my signature.  I was lucky to get a six week scan as I have a friend who is a gynaecologist.


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## eletheomel

I am 41 and have a gorgeous baby boy who will be 2 weeks tomorrow 

I conceived naturally aged 40 and a half, after ttc child number 2 for about 20 months.

I didn't take any supplements or fancy stuff, but I did start using a clearblue fertility monitor at the beginning for 5 months (stopped as was finding it a bit stressful and also they say to contact drs if no success after 6 months and I couldn't face that).

I discovered that although I had a 26 day cycle, I actually ovulated about day 10 rather than day 13 (that i had guessed at). So, I started trying to time intercourse to fall in that fertile period, but had little luck.

Eventually, as I had started to give up hope, I'd scheduled some lunchtime nooky with my DH - and it was that session that did it 

I had ttc child no1 for 3 years and was labelled as having unexplained infertility - but I went on to conceive both my children naturally (gave birth aged 37 and 41).


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## didi7

I posted my story on another thread, but thought I would add it here as well. I have three sons, all conceived naturally in my 40s. I had twins aged 44 and my youngest aged 45. This followed years of unsuccessful fertility treatment. I had cervical cancer when I was younger and was always told that I would probably never conceive. Two years after our last IVF cycle, when I had just about accepted the fact that I would never have children, I found out that I was expecting.


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## Janey waney

Hi ladies iv just had my forth baby  conceived when I was 43 and born 2 weeks after I turned 44  we was sort of tryin for 3 months  I. With a new partner and we decided to have a baby together altho we both had 3 from previous marriages  I was a,ways changing my mind yes I want one no I don't then fate took charge Nd I became pregnant and was in shock for 2 days. Now I have a naughty 17mnth boy but so worth it please don't give up ladies just cos were older dose t mean were over the hill.


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## Bramlass

Thought I'd write on here even though I've posted on another page..
I'm 42 and last week i had a scan that revealed a very active 10week + 1 day pregnancy. My fifth pregnancy in 18 months. I had 3 previous m/c's last yr and an ectopic in February this year. We were told our chances were 10% and ivf with my own eggs would have no better success rate. However we have persevered the natural way after following angel bumps protocol for five months and I think it's made all the difference
I have a long way to go but I'm celebrating that this is the furthest I have got

Best wishes to all


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## DE43

Wow bramlass
Huge congratulations.  I hope you have a very happy and healthy 6 ish months ahead of you.
Take care


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## dizzie

Have just posted this elsewhere, but wanted to share here...

I have just started charting on Fertility.Friend.com and discovered that you can search through the charts posted by other ladies for comparison purposes. By doing a search for 40+ in the 'pregnancy' category you can see the charts of lots of ladies in their forties who have achieved pregnancy naturally. Very inspiring!  You can also see their patterns and what they were taking (eg vits, meds) before getting the positive result (though you may have to be a VIP member - I'm on a free trial).


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## Polarbear72

Me. I'm a success story. My husband and I tried three years to conceive without success. I went down all the routes of testing and it was me having a low AMH of 2.6 that appeared to be the problem.
I had a Hy-cosy and was told to try again the following month and try we did! I mean *really* try. Once, twice a day every day. I had a round of IVF booked for two months time.
I was also taking DHEA and all the vitamins and pills I could get my hands on that would help.
For the 1st time in three years I got a positive on an ovulation stick and I fell pregnant. I gave birth to my son on October 3rd even though I had a very difficult pregnancy and birth. I am 41 years old.
This board and the forums have been a wealth of knowledge and information for me. I hope my story gives someone hope that even with a low AMH dreams do come true.


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## Floss39

Hi ladies, I am currently 22 weeks pregnant at 42, we conceived naturally again this time after 2 cycles of IVF in the previous year, my first child was stillborn at 35 weeks almost 3 years ago, so I am hoping and praying that this will be our take home baby.  I had just collected my script for the pill to start a DE cycle in Prague when i got the BFP, having been told that after 3 mc & a stillbirth that my eggs were too old, so if this bubs makes it we will be just over 7 years TTC.  Natural BFPs for old birds do happen, keep the faith


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## dizzie

Floss 39, thank you for posting your story. I have just m/c at 5 weeks after a natural bfp following three failed cycles of IVF (last one in July).  This was my second m/c but both on both occasions I conceived naturally rather than via treatment. Thanks for giving me the inspiration to carry on trying with my own old eggs.


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## aussiegirl

Hi,
I will just let you know my story briefly as still in shock but I think it may give some hope to those who are trying naturally
I used to use this website as i have endometrosis and my dh and i tried naturally for 4 years with no success. We then were very lucky to have 2 children through IVF( 2 fresh cycles and it worked first time in each!)
My children are now 6 and 4 and though we still had 4 frozen embryos we decided in October that now that i'm 42 we didn't want to have any more children so we let our embryos perish( a very hard descision but the right one for us) I received a letter to say that this had happened on 30th October and then a week later i feel pregnant naturally! First time ever and we were using a condom!!
It was weird as i knew straight away and so tested the first day my period was due. I'm now 5 weeks pregnant and we're still in shock. We have no idea how this pregnancy will go due to the higher risks associated with my fertility history/surgery and age but have to keep positive and try not to worry.
Good luck 
x


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## Cornishrex

Hi, I've just posted this on another thread : I'm 42, 43 in February. Currently. 8 weeks pregnant. Conceived naturally. Only took 3 months of trying. I'm very fit and healthy. No idea about spermatozoa quality or my egg quality. We threw ourselves into the task, temping, fertility monitor etc.  so far all is good, waiting for the Down's syndrome hurdles. I know so many women who have had natural conceptions at the ages of 42 and 43, I never Even thought it could not be done.  I appreciate some of you will have real problems, but others, take heart, don't let yourself give up hope at the first hurdle ! First pregnancy. Never tried to have a child before.


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## ktpen

Thank you for starting this thread.

Its given me hope that miracles do happen


xx


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## Henlie

Hi ladies,

Hope you don't mind me posting, I'm 39 but will be 40 when I give birth.  We had 4 rounds of IVF, all resulted in a BFN, then fell pregnant naturally 6 weeks after the final failed cycle.  Unfortunately this resulted in a miscarriage at 12 weeks.  But then I fell naturally again three months later.  I'm now 16 weeks pregnant and due in July.

My gynaecologist said that women tend to have a surge in fertility after age 39, as the body starts releasing two eggs at a time, hence high numbers of natural twins in ladies aged 40+.  

I did have a Hysteroscopy in September just to check all was ok, my consultant didn't find anything, but he gave me a Scratch whilst I was under.  There's so much strong evidence to support the Scratch helping implantation in both IVF and non-IVF we thought it was worth doing.  We'll never know if this helped me conceive or not but I fell pregnant naturally 6 weeks after this.

Cornishrex - we had the Downs/ other syndrome hurdles to go through too.  My odds from screening came back as 1in10, so we opted for a CVS at 13 weeks.  Not the most pleasant experience, but have no regrets having it done as I needed to know for my peace of mind.  Everything came back clear.

Good luck to everyone.
Love Henlie x


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## Chickabooo

Wanted to share my story.

So, I met my partner late in life (just before turning 36).  Age 34 I froze some eggs just in case I would struggle in the future to meet someone in time.  Even then i had quite a poor respones,  got only 6. After meeting my partner we discussed starting a family and 18 months into our relationship started trying. After years of worrying if I would ever have children I literally did 1 ovulation predictor wee stick and my DD was born 9 months later!  Had absolutely no idea how lucky we were at the time, and looking back we really did get very lucky.

Then we started trying for number 2 when DD was just 6months.  After 9 months of nothing I had the usual crappy NHS tests that showed nothing wrong.  So I self referred to a fertility clinic.  But of course I had my frozen eggs!  well, I discovered that the chance of them turning into a baby was less than 5 per cent as they were frozen in 2006 when they only had an old freezing method.  my eggs would most likely perish on defrosting!  They recommended fresh IVF.  The month we were due to start IVF (18months after trying) I had another natural BFP, but sadly had a missed miscarriage at 8 weeks.  My AMH a month later was found to be 1.6 and there was my explanation - poor ovarian reserve.  Went on to have 2 cycles of IVF, both BFN.  By this point I had temporarily given up work as I found it all so difficult to cope with and wanted to give it my best shot before it was too late.  Being the breadwinner, this in itself was stressful.  

By this point both my partner and I had completely changed our lifestyles.  The usual, no alcohol, caffeine, sugar etc.  plenty of exercise and 8-10 portions of fruit and veg a day and I took a list of supplements.  I had been toying with taking DHEA for ages but my clinic refused to treat anyone who took it!  After 2 failed cycles I decided I would try everything and started DHEA without telling them.  Immediately, I felt my body change.  I started ovulating again (confirmed on blood test).  My AFC doubled compared to a year before and my FSH went from over 10 to less than 5. i used to spot for a week before my period (low progesterone due to lack of ovulation).  That completely stopped.  I suddenly found myself getting my hopes up every month again that I could be pregnant.  4 months after starting DHEA my 3rd cycle of IVF got cancelled over Christmas for the second month in a row.  I spent most of most of Christmas in tears.  I felt it was my best shot that month.  4 weeks later a HPT confirmed a natural BFP!!!  

We have since gone on to discover we are having a healthy girl.  As far as I'm concerned, without a doubt in my mind this baby would not have happened if I had not taken DHEA.  I know it doesn't work for everyone but I guess I am one of the very lucky ones.  I really hope this helps some ladies in the future to go on and get their BFP.  I will be 42 when I have this baby.  We had been trying for 3 years.
I do recommend getting your DHEA levels checked though.  I started taking 75mg and discovered that was too high for me and had to cut the dose.

There have been times in the last 3 years I feel like I have been to hell and back.  My whole life was turned upside down.  Everything was affected - my friendships, my relationship, my family, my job, my sanity.  And yet I know my journey has been relatively easy compared to many women on this site.  It breaks my heart.  I think all the women on here are utterly amazing.

Wishing everyone so much luck in achieving their dreams.

C xx


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## Snowfallz

Hello:
I had two children in my 40's at 42 and 43. I used IUIs and actually had less results with an IVF that failed. I'm back again for a third child using my own eggs and will go IVF route again, but at my older age of 45 and low ovarian reserve, I have a very poor chance. I hope I can do it and share the support to others. It was hard to do the IUIs in the 4o's since there was little information and success stories. Though, I had 2 beautiful children. It is possible, and I tell my story from time to time. There was no special diet or fancy acupuncture. I did a total of 7 IUI's for my babies and am still working on the another baby.


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## Shamrock.

I wanted to post my story here to maybe give someone out there a bit of hope and show that you just never know what life has in store:

When I found out a week before my 40th birthday that my 4th OE cycle was another BFN I had enough of disappointment and I decided to move to using donor eggs to give our 5th cycle a much better chance of working. DHs little swimmers have always been terrible (very low count, low motility, poor morphology and high DNA Fragmentation) so he agreed to fertilizing half the donor eggs with his sperm and half with donor sperm. 
Our donor lady gave us 10 mature eggs - we put 5 with DHs sperm and 5 with donor sperm. 

We got 4 ‘perfect’ donor embryos but out of the 5 with DHs sperm only 3 fertilized and they were fragmented at Day 3 so we decided to transfer all 4 of the donor embryos on Day 3. I felt nothing happening inside during the 2ww so I thought it was going to be yet another BFN and I got a big surprise on OTD when I saw two lines on the test stick. 9 months later I gave birth to my beautiful daughter. She doesn’t share genetic material with myself and DH but she is 100% our daughter and we absolutely adore her  

When I was 41 years old and our little girl was 4 months old my AF was late but I never in a million years thought that I could be pregnant. We had tried to conceive naturally ourselves for nearly two years before our first ICSI cycle and despite being told that we had a less than 1% chance of conceiving naturally because of my very low AMH and DHs sperm problems we had continued to ttc between subsequent ICSI cycles all to no avail.  

Anyhow when my AF was a few days late I took a digital HPT and I nearly died of shock when it showed ‘Pregnant 2-3’   My pregnancy went very smoothly and 1 Year and 20 days after my little donor conceived girl was born I gave birth to my natural miracle little boy. So now I am the incredibly proud, happy and busy mother of two little miracles. Life begins at 40!


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## Floss39

Ladies, my little boy is 10 weeks old having a nap as I type, perfect pregnancy, perfect baby after a natural BFP at 42, keep the faith.  Am hoping to convince DH to try again as we did such a good job with our wee man, DH not convinced tho!


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## Highland

Hello,
I had my baby girl when I was 42. Conceived naturally, but with a long use of acupuncture. I lost a preganacy before our wee girl arrived, and one after too. I was told I had undetectable follicular activity, but nevetheless had our baby, and subsequnently was pregnant to 13 weeks in 2012. I take pregnacare, and fairly recently started taking macca. Since starting macca and my acupuncturist starting to use some different points, my ovulation predictor strips have been indicating much stronger ovulation. Hope springs eternal, but I am also considering donor eggs. Hope everyone's dreams come true. X x


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## babynumber

bumping this up but also wanted to ask if any ladies have had success with Clomid over 40?  It never worked for me, taken it loads of times!!!


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## babynumber

Anyone know the oldest natural BFP on any of our threads ? 
would just be lovely to hear some hope out there for us oldies


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## PopPop8

Hello
I know quite a few over 40 ladies who had successful natural pregnancies. I have two friends who had DSs at 42 (1 it was 1st child, 1 3rd child). I have another friend who had a DS at 43 (1st child) - she had tried for many years. 
I also know a lady who was 46 when she had her DD - she had tried for years, had had two m/cs previously and had given up all hope. 
Plus, not a friend, but there was a 45 year old lady who was having a DS (naturally conceived) at my pre-natal classes. I thought I would be the oldest at 44 (but my DD was ICSI), but no!
Good luck! X


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## babynumber

thank you so much for sharing these stories x


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