Bus 9 - Donkey Cart departing soon, all aboard with ivf, pcos, endo, sub/unexplained fertility jump on

@thislittlebird I hope your headache has gone now and you’re feeling a little bit better.

I had the same last week, headache turned into a migraine, ended up with a slight fever. Must have caught a bug or something. Bit better now though.

@MIW01 I’m so sorry. You’re right in everything you’ve said. It just doesn’t happen for some of us like it does for others. I hope you find the answers with DE.

Had a blood test today to check my thyroid levels. Hopefully that’s all ok because if it isn’t there’s more waiting, and more fighting with GP about my levo.

Anyone just feel like they’re going through the motions. I was so excited before the last cycle and I’m just not feeling it at the moment. It feels like we’re doing this because it’s our only option, I have no expectations that it’s going to work. I’m fed up of waiting now, I’m just tired, of everything.

@Marvellouslymadmum I think the same thing about us, maybe we just don’t have genes that mix well 🙃

We can make embryos, which is a start, but we can’t seem to grow the buggers.

@Marvellouslymadmum I know, but it never seems to go my way iykwim. Feels like I’m going mad, same shit, different day.

@Marvellouslymadmum dunno tbh. Giving up? Might consider a 4th and final cycle in the autumn because our second one shouldn’t have happened so close to DH being sick so doesn’t really count. Still waiting on the PGT-A testing outcome and have to keep fingers crossed one is normal.

@Marvellouslymadmum yep, I should have been offered a lap at the start but they never bothered.

Well, I started spotting today. This was how my chemical started. Same day and everything, 6dp5dt. Sigh.

@MIW01 I’m sorry to hear your update, the ivf outcome sounds shit and I’m sorry you’re having to go through it. I think you’re right though, IVF stories are dominated by success and no one hears about all the failure, the money pit, and those it doesn’t work for. There’s a number of us in this thread alone that it hasn’t worked for, and you’re right, it’s incredibly unfair.

Good luck on your donor egg journey, I know someone one another thread doing it and a friend in real life who went straight to DE age 40, it worked first time. Her IVF journey was very fast compared to mine, yours, other people’s here.

I think myself and DH are feeling too old and tired and if this late round doesn’t work out we’ll think about calling it a day and accept we’re not having kids and spend our mid life travelling, probably. We’ll all be ok whatever happens, but life doesn’t go to plan for some of us and it fucking sucks.

Hello everyone, I just wanted to give you all an update. This is the last time I will post in this thread for rather sad and disappointing reasons.

On 27th March I had my 4th egg collection via my 1st privately funded round which yielded 0 eggs. We are devastated. The consultant advised that our best bet is now donor eggs. So here we are.

We are now in the process of finding out all about becoming parents via egg donor. I don't wish this shit on anyone. More than once I've wanted to end my time on this Earth now. But I've decided to plod on. I'm happy for people to reach out to me about this journey. Honestly so far finding Information and support is a minefield.

I will self graduate to a donor egg thread now. I wish you all the best in here. I'm very glad that there's been so many happy endings but alas not for me and I think that's important too. To publicise the reality. Keeping it real that we don't all get a happy ending. Sometimes life is a fucking c**t for no fucking reason and it's OK to feel angry and depressed about it. The emotional roller coaster is real. And it's really fucking unfair.

I'm in a literal living nightmare right now on so many levels. Toxic positivity doesn't help, funnily enough. I'm grieving, hard. In the pit and still falling. Maybe I'll write a dark comedy about this and publish it and make millions and wow what a moronic sick fuck life is, but that's something right?! I meditate, spend time in nature, love my husband and wish for better days, hope there is more to this life and have faith in the Universe that it will all be OK in the end and if it isn't, it's not the end.

@Marvellouslymadmum and I kinda get it, they don’t have unlimited resources. But if they tested everyone thoroughly at the start instead of trying to ration tests and send you away it would probably speed things up for a lot of people.

I’m not feeling very positive really. If I had to guess today I’d say it hadn’t worked, but can’t be sure. Everything is clouded by my previous failures anyway. I felt very unwell on Saturday and had a headache that developed into a migraine, that never really bodes well for me so trying to keep expectations low.

@Lauralozzle thanks! It was such a relief. They said we had the best outcome they’d see that day so I was very pleased, went in expecting much worse. It guarantees little for us because this is the 6th!!!! embryo transfer and none have worked to date but hopefully it’s a matter of cumulative success for us.

@thislittlebird That sounds really positive for day 5/6. So much better than your last round! Fingers crossed for you.

I meant we had IMSI, not ICSI, we have that anyway

@Marvellouslymadmum ugh honestly I don’t think the nhs are great with this stuff. They’re fine if you need ivf and it works, but anything more complicated they’re just not set up for/don’t offer or are too slow. We’ve been seeing one of the top andrologists with the nhs which is gods but have to pay for some of the tests privately, but at least they funded some.

Great that you lost a stone! I was doing well until IVF cycle 3 kicked in and I’m sure I put it all back on.

It was our best cycle so far in terms of embryos. I was on higher stims and a double trigger, DH’s sample was prepped differently and we had ICSI.

14 eggs collected
10 mature
9 fertilised
9 made it to day 5!
5 embryos by day 6: 5AA, 4AA, 4BB, 4BB, 5CC

So the 5AA was transferred, the 3 x 4s were biopsied for PGT-A testing because I’m old now. The 5CC wasn’t too great quality wise so froze that one, it’s unlikely to survive biopsy and maybe not survive the thaw either. Really, really hoping at least one of the biopsied ones comes back ok.

@kerrym87 i hope so! It’s just such an unpredictable process. Could end up with none on day 5, dreading Monday tbh. It’s the last cycle we’ve pre-paid for, so it feels like all of our eggs are in this basket. We can’t afford to do more ivf straight away and wouldn’t want to really, it’s been a shitty few months and we need to save up and decide whether to try again in 6 months or so, or just give up.

Test day is Wednesday? Fingers crossed for you!

@kerrym87 Fingers crossed for Wednesday. The 2WW really is difficult!

I’m ok. Nothing is happening here until at least June. I’m in the ‘in between cycles’ stage where time drags on and on!

@thislittlebird it's hard waiting to see how many made it isn't it? Of 14 eggs we got one embryo out of 5 fertilised, hopefully with imsi and great fertilisation rate even with drop-off you will have some spares.

@Lauralozzle I'm in tww post transfer of only viable embryo, OTD is Wednesday, wish it was here but at same time I really don't want to know. Hard keeping occupied with major fatigue and bloating and digestive issues taking a while to settle post EC.
How're you getting on? Sorry if you already said, mind's a mush!

@thislittlebird I’ve got everything crossed for you. It does sound ok so far, hopefully you’ll get a few eggs to test and freeze. Hopefully you’ll get some good news come Monday. I know how hard this is, hopefully the IMSI has helped too.

I put DH on the proxeed before the test, but an extra couple of weeks won’t make much of a difference and it keeps the clinic happy!

Portugal sounds lovely!

@Lauralozzle it went ok so far! Still in the hunger games as we speak, so will know more on Monday. Had higher dose stims (225 Gonal F) and a dual trigger this time, 14 eggs collected, 10 mature, 9 fertilised and 9 are still ok on day 3, but one is a little slow/behind. But day 3-5 is where we might lose quite a few, we shall see. We found out DH has antisperm antibodies in the last few months, which is why his sperm barely move. This explains a lot about why we haven’t conceived naturally, they’re all immobilised by his own immune system. Can’t really believe it took 4 years for someone to tell us that, but I’m pleased???? we now know how unlikely it is we’ll conceive naturally. And knowing about this now we added IMSI in and they prepped his sample a little differently. Hoping to do a fresh transfer on Monday morning but that relies on there being something to transfer. If there’s any excess embryos we’re going to PGT-A test them, since I’m not getting any younger here.

Glad you enjoyed Munich! We are off to Portugal next month, so at least I’ll have recovered by then. Definitely do the proxeed or impryl, I do think it helps.

I was on a weight loss/fitness mission from January and my vaginal ph/thrush/bv issues do seem to have improved since I’ve lost a few pounds, makes me wonder if there’s a connection. Not been very good the last couple of weeks because stims and EC but hopefully I’ll feel better in a week and can be active and eat healthily.

It’s crap waiting, but hopefully you can get in before the holiday, it’s a very frustrating thing anyway without more delays. If not you have another holiday to enjoy!

@Marvellouslymadmum Hi! Last minute move and temporary accommodation sounds like a nightmare! Hope everything is all good for you.

@thislittlebird I hope you get some decent news following your egg collection. How did it go?

So, we have a tiny bit of progress. We went away for a long weekend to Munich, enjoyed ourselves. Didn’t limit anything, so beer and pretzels were an everyday occurrence!

Got back the other week, chased up CARE. Consultant happy for us to start in June, not May, as I had hoped, based on antioxidant sperm test as they wanted DH on proxeed for 3 months from the date of the test.

Finally managed to sort out CAREPAY. The invoice for the multicycle round is in my inbox and we have about a week and a half to pay, so I’ll be sorting a loan out for that soon.

Think I’m going to really try and focus on these next 6-8 weeks to clean up my diet as much as possible. Think I’ll put all the crap in a box somewhere and hide it until this round is sorted. I feel so disgusting and fat at the moment. My period arrived yesterday, so, that’s not helping my mood either.

May will hopefully be when consents and protocol is sorted. I hope my next period isn’t a longer cycle though. If May’s cycle and June’s cycle is same length as this cycle, it’ll be happening in July because we’re away end of June for a break with DH’s family in the Peak District - I don’t really want to spend one of those days coming back to transfer.