I have had five rounds of IVF - AMA

[Soopertooter]

Just that really. If I can help anyone going through the process or help others to understand it better, I'm an open book.

[tillytoodles1]

How old are you? My daughter is almost 39 and is too scared to go through all the fertility stuff and it not working.x

[Soopertooter]

I had my first round aged 28, and my last aged 32.

It is a lot to go through, but one round only lasts a few weeks depending on the protocol used, so it's a short period of disruption.

[DC18]

Sorry I have a few questions; what prompted you to try IVF?
Have any of your IVF treatments been successful? Have they all been the same procedure? At what point do you think you may look at other options ie surrogate, adoption etc... hope these are not too personal x

[ClaryFray]

Do you get emotional support?
Is it hard to fail and keep trying?

I'm currently exploring options and worried this will be one.

[Soopertooter]

DC18, we had been trying for a year without any luck, so went to the GP and started the ball rolling. Further down the line tests showed that we would never have conceived naturally.
From five cycles i have been pregnant three times and two of those pregnancies were successful.
We had to go private for all our treatment as there was no nhs funding for ivf in our area, so i always had the same treatment (short protocol with gonal f). The first round was a flop but increasing the stimulation hormones in future cycles was more successful.

Claryfray, we didn't receive any emotional support from the nhs. We could have paid privately for mental health services, but the treatment itself was very draining financially that we just muddled through.
It is an emotional and hormonal rollercoaster. It is very difficult, but if it works it's worth it and my view was always that if it didn't work at least i had tried and would have no regrets.

[TheDeadlineIsFriday]

Can you explain the reason why you say you would never have naturally conceived please?

[EthelHallowsBroomstick]

What can friends do to support someone going through infertility? I try to just listen but sometimes feel like it might be hard for them to even see me when I have children

[bananafish81]

@EthelHallowsBroomstick I've got a blog post I've written that's going to go up this week for Fertility Week, about how to support a friend going through infertility treatment - I'll post the link here when it's up if that's of any interest

(4 cycles of IVF, 7 cancelled cycles, 2 miscarriages and £45,000 of treatment total - no baby. Only way forward is surrogacy if we want to try and turn any of our frozen embryos into a person, as my uterus simply isn't up to the job)

Sorry to hijack your thread OP!

[ClaryFray]

Yes please for the blog post!

[Hedgehog80]

Same I also had 5 but none of mine worked

[Hedgehog80]

Not even a sniff of pregnancy from ivf. I had been sterilised though so had that reversed in the end to get pregnant

One thing I found unpalatable was the aggressive pushing of ‘extras’ by clinics. None worked for us. I’m not sure they would have helped .....things like £350 each time for embryoglue..... but you’re scared so you say yes......