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

Oh @thislittlebird I have my fingers-crossed that this isn’t the case. Investigation-wise it seems like they were part way there with getting implantation to initially work, but it seems like there’s still more to do.

@OrangeBengal I know what you mean, I just can’t explain it. I’ve felt like this every time and it’s been negative, bar that one time when I was mildly hungry and nauseated for days and had implantation bleeding so was worried my body and mind was playing tricks on me almost but it wasn’t. I just don’t feel anything here, so I’m not optimistic. I’m really in the tiny minority of people ivf doesn’t work for, I guess.

Hey @thislittlebird your plan sounds like a good one. It may not be over yet though, I had no symptoms when I first found out and had imagined all sorts of symptoms on previous rounds! Symptoms are tricky I think. Plus reckon they body might react differently to each one.

@OrangeBengal we have another round paid for, will probably do it in the spring after months of build up on supplements and exercise/diet improvements.

Reflexology is too much foot stuff for me. We can’t really afford all these extra things at the moment anyway, that’s why I’ve stopped acupuncture. I’d like to go but it’s so expensive, especially now everything has gone up.

I’m pretty sure the transfer hasn’t worked. Every time it hasn’t worked I’ve had mildly sore boobs at most. The one time it did work briefly I was constantly hungry, mildly nauseous and had implantation bleeding. I think this round is a bust. It won’t be exactly a surprise when I do test, it’s been the worst cycle from beginning to end.

@Marvellouslymadmum I used to suffer from urine infections for years, but haven’t had any since I switched to soap only to clean myself and began taking cranberry concentrate tablets and drinking more water, in fact if you just do the first two the water matters less.

@Misty84 sorry you had to be around so many pregnant women, the setup definitely seems insensitive.

@thislittlebird if it doesn’t work this time what are you thinking about doing next? And what’s an andrologist?? Do you think you’ll try reflexology (I think someone on the ERA thread recommended this as an alternative to acupuncture as a way to relax)?

@Misty84 it didn’t tag you properly

@Misty84 ah makes sense. My sister in law asked why I haven’t had lupus anticoagulant (am I making this up???) tests for miscarriage and I said no one offered, probably because I’ve only had one loss.

I’m glad they’re investigating for you. What does the hydroxychloroquine do? Are they testing NK cells with bloods?

That’s frustrating with your other half. Has he been better lately? Mine had been ok, I just worry as he doesn’t share much. I think he’s just tired like I am.

I can understand being resigned. Tbh it’s better to be like that if we can and then if you do every conceive naturally it’s a nice surprise and if you don’t you’ve spent time trying to accept it. My new fear is my nieces and nephews having kids in the future when I’m probably 50 and it’s still fairly raw. Suddenly I’ll have to spend Christmases around babies.

So we had a weird appointment at Guys. We decided not to tell them we’d already done another cycle privately because we didn’t want them to say they couldn’t refer us on somewhere. We withheld that information, and discussed it as if it was the end of cycle 1 not 2.

It was soooo frustrating because she’s saying to me I’m focusing on the wrong thing (the sperm) and we did really well on the first cycle to get 4, great fertilisation rate etc. Said we should transfer two because of my age. I asked for the sedation report and she said it was probably anxiety (it wasn’t!!!). Essentially we’ve done everything they would have suggested (just like the other clinic did) and ended up with this bad result. It was surreal because everything she’s saying is nonsense since we now know I didn’t respond well a second time on higher meds, we know the fertilisation rate and blast rate were poor this time, we know my asthma/breathing issue wasn’t just anxiety since it happened again. And she said i need to find ways to relax which I would love to do but I’m anxious af in life generally and after over 3 years of infertility I’m in a right state so relaxing doesn’t come easily. Sigh. On the plus side she referred us to an andrologist and we’ll get a second opinion on that in the new year.

I’ve become quite resigned to it now I think. I just don’t think we’re destined to be parents. I’m finally on the road to acceptance and as long as I avoid hanging out with mums and their young children then I can cope. I think 😣

@thislittlebird it’s through the miscarriage unit at the hospital, they decided to investigate as I was 10 weeks along and there was a healthy heartbeat beforehand. So they said it was unusual to miscarry at that point. They did a lot of blood tests, and I’m taking Hydroxychloroquine daily and then progesterone after ovulation for 10 days. I’m then supposed to take a pregnancy test (I never bother with that though). After 6 months they repeat the bloods which is now. Don’t know if it’s benefitting me at all but I’m glad they’re trying.

My other half was the same after his shocking sperm performance/stats. Very low and withdrawn. He was ok when he thought the problem was just me! He used to be the rock and now I’ve taken that role.

@Misty84 i think he was struggling with it all after the bad sperm/blast outcomes. He’d had covid and a wisdom tooth infection since our last round, I do think that possibly didn’t help. I said to him we’ll wait months before we try again, do some more investigations and then go again once the sperm has had a 3-6 months clear of all that and time on the supplements.

It just feels unlikely that one would be ok post transfer when they were all not where they should be on day 5, but yeah, there does seem to be a lot of potluck involved. Obviously I’ve had failed implantation multiple times now but at least we’re trying something different with clexane this time, but I know the most likely cause is the embryo.

Didn’t know the nhs would do all that, that’s good. I’m meeting with Guys later today for a review. Need to ask them what they can potentially refer us on to have investigations for. How did you get the nk cells test done? Are you taking prednisolone?

@Alexis7890 Sorry that sounds so frustrating ☹️ Really difficult for you. I hope it starts soon🤞

@thislittlebird I feel like all of it is low odds tbh! Pot luck whether anything works or not😡 Let’s pray your 2 continue to develop🙏 How does your DH feel?

My stuff is immunology investigations on the NHS, and I’m taking medication for elevated NK cells. Luckily it’s free as I still have my maternity exemption from when I was pregnant! That lasts until Oct 2023- I get all my antidepressants on that too! Something positive to come out of it🙄

@Alexis7890 ah I see, hmm that’s extra annoying. I’ve taken it before not had issues but can’t remember how long for, it was a while back. There’s no chance you’re genuinely late though?

The embryologist wasn’t super optimistic. We’d agreed on the phone to transfer the morula because they can make perfectly healthy babies, it could be that it was just a little slow. Or it could be it would have died a few hours later, it’s unclear. On the Monday I went down for EC just after the England game started at 1pm. I came back and saw the end, before it finished (maybe 2.30pm?) and I remember they came in and told us they didn’t have enough sperm after prep to do IMSI. So we agreed to revert to regular ICSI, by which time it was hours since DH has done his sample, they called him to do that at about 11am so technically the embryo hadn’t had the full 5 days by the time we got there at midday on Saturday and had the transfer at 12ish. I will have to hope it would have developed normally.

Then when we were in the room my consultant basically said how do you feel about transferring two and I said yeah let’s do it, because I’d rather give it a chance than the other embryo just dies in the lab. So the morula is the most likely one according to the embryologist, but it doesn’t seem super common to have success/transfer them, not here anyway.

@thislittlebird yeah it’s an alternative to that, norethisterone made me really unwell when I took it once with horrendous headaches so always have provera but should work the same way, and usually does. I feel like I’m on constant edge waiting for signs it’s coming which probably doesn’t help it come!

I don’t know much about the different types of embryo, they must think there is a chance to do the transfer?

@Alexis7890 oh I sounds a bit like norethisterone? Yeah that’s super frustrating when they usually work.

Will know in around a week, but tbh I think I’ll be able to tell sooner. This is embryo 4&5 for us and the only time I had anything different happen was the time it briefly worked. If it gets to the weekend and I have no symptoms I’ll be pretty confident I know the outcome.

@thislittlebird when will you find out if it worked? Yeah it is just progesterone pills so take for 5 days then 3 days later period starts and can start the cycle again, but for some unknown reason they just aren’t working now, I have even started wondering if the batch of tablets had something wrong with them or something! It just feels like a frustrating position to be in as this should be the easy bit

@Misty84 sorry you had that shitty experience. What have you been doing at the hospital with the investigations?

I’m ok. Just kinda feel a bit numb to it all. As soon as I had my second scan and it was only 8 follicles I just knew this cycle wasn’t going to be good. I told myself it might be quantity over quality and then it absolutely wasn’t and I just knew it was bad odds. I know having a transfer is better than nothing but the odds of either of these working is slim. I’ve seen so many people transfer a morula or some kind of not-a-blast and they haven’t worked. And in a week we’ll be back to square one again.

@Alexis7890 it’s just not working? I’ve not used it so not super familiar

@Misty84 that’s good, do you know what happens next? Umm pretty mixed at the moment. I was all ready to start injections after a course of provera to start my period then get jabbing on day 2 onwards. I took 5 days of it like normal, nothing happened after a week so the doctor said do 5 more, he couldn’t see any reason why it wouldn’t work, so I took 5 more days which finished Friday and still nothing. I’ve taken provera for years and it has worked every time with a period within 4 days without fail previously and so I’m just getting frustrated that this is now the bit stopping me and also worrying about if it doesn’t start this week then it’s getting to close to when my consultant will be off for Xmas. So that’s the brain dump of frustration from me!

Thanks @Alexis7890 I’m ok now I’m home!! How are you doing lately? x

Aww@Misty84 thats horrible for you that you had to go there they shouldn’t do that. Hope you’re doing okay

I’m at Epsom hospital pharmacy waiting for my pills. Had to pick up the prescription and a blood form from the antenatal unit so I was in a waiting room SURROUNDED by pregnant women. I’ve been strong recently by avoiding all this but I stood there fighting back tears! Considering these are miscarriage investigations it’s a bloody insensitive place to send someone!😢😣

How are you doing @thislittlebird? xx

Yeah, natural,@thislittlebird, but it makes sense that this would maybe be a final final option, when you’ve tried everything else? I can’t remember who initially recommended this approach as I’m sure they could provide more details.

If you can spend the 3 months getting back on all the supplements it’s probably worthwhile, but I get weighing this against age.

@OrangeBengal no I was on the same stims but more of them. They looked at what worked and replicated it but with a higher dose and then added Cyclogest (the one I used before), clexane and Lubion in. So it should have worked in theory and it didn’t. I feel like I need to push for low stims since based on two cycles 150 Gonal F produced a lot more than 150/225 Gonal F did.

Yeah we do all of that stuff but obviously we didn’t have months to prepare like the first cycle. We sort of assumed it would go better than this since our first went fairly /well/.It happened so fast so there wasn’t much time for all the supplements again. DH also had covid and wisdom teeth removal infection since then which I suspect could be part of the issue. Well going to be more serious about it like the first cycle next time.

I do natural modified yeah, do you mean a fully natural cycle with one egg? Not sure how cost effective it would be tbh.

Apologies, I meant trying natural not natural modified (I know the latter is your standard protocol)