Fertility Appointments and Beyond: Electric Boogaloo

@Beyondshit I feel guilty for verbally accepting it and then changing my mind. But I don't feel like I have to patience and headspace for a new role right now. I want to know I can go to appointments and work from home when I want to.

Did you get your AMH test back? I'll have to have another one this side of Christmas probably at the new clinic.

The passing of time remains one of the hardest parts of this for me. I think I'm going to try to accept that we'll do two more rounds before quitting. That's how I feel right now anyway. We'll have given it a good shot.

Who was it here that had the varicocele embolisation done for a good price?

@JeanieJ thanks, I think I'm going to take week off work sick.

@99pctpractice I agree, it's too low for my liking. My highest level of 110 was on Letrozole so I'm going to ask to have that when we do frozen transfers (hopefully we get the chance to have some more). I would guess the private clinic will give me injectables, but I now have a fuck ton of Cyclogest. Thinking I might use it while trying naturally between now and end of year/new year when we do an EC again.

There will be other jobs is my thinking too, my career has been on hold for years because of this really, so what's another year.

Speaking of October, it's 3 years since we started trying now, which I absolutely hate.

@beckyCarlos I say this, but then I wonder if I'm even absorbing the progesterone well based on those results. Maybe they'll let me mix it up and give me Lubion or something, but hoping they'll let me do some cyclogest since I might have a lot of it. Oh god, I hadn't thought of that because I've done it rectally throughout. I'm glad I have, bleeding + inserting pessaries sounds...a lot to deal with. It's certainly very sexy of us all to go through this messy infertility stuff.

The job thing is a really tough decision for me, and I will be moaning about my job again soon, but I'm quite worried about giving up a role where I know what I'm doing (even if it bores me) and I am almost entirely free to control my own time and where I work from for one with an unknown manager where I am not. Explaining all of this to a line manager that's a man is also hard to imagine. My basically team all know what I'm doing, I don't want to explain it to new people and hope they understand.

@Tinkerbell098 that's very miserly of them! We all end up with leftovers which is annoying (unless it's me and the piles of progesterone I'm hoping to sit on like a dragon with gold) but that's not much overlap. I hope the new clinic will accept that I have a ton of progesterone instead of trying to make me buy it.

Yeah I'm off work now and I'm thinking I'm going to turn down the job offer. I already accepted but haven't resigned yet so I'm thinking of revoking the acceptance. I currently have a very good mostly wfh situation with a super understanding manager, my job is just boring and my brain isn't engaged. In a normal situation I'd want to move up to the higher grade but right now I think knowing I have a team I can count on, a manager who is fine with me just disappearing to hospital out of the blue and taking time off and the peace of mind around that is probably more valuable to me than a few thousand more per year, which I might not see much of anyway because I'll have to go into the office a lot more. Other jobs will come up too, but I don't feel like I can start all this nonsense over again in a new role where they don't know what's going on, and the manager is a mystery because they haven't been recruited yet.

@beckyCarlos I have a whole plan for the Lister too. I'll work on that more this weekend, but essentially I'm going to ask for prednisolone in my transfer protocol, and also Letrozole plus a trigger for frozen cycles. I got my beta results today. My progesterone was only 30. That's on 3 x 400mg cyclogest per day, that's not a lot if you ask me, it was only 54 after transfer. When I did letrozole + cyclogest (lower dose) cycles and had two follicles popping out eggs I had progesterone of 110. My HCG was 84, so they're retesting me on Friday but we're all assuming it's going down, not up. My bleeding is more like a period now, but light, just waiting for the nod to stop taking the meds.

I don't want to do it all again, especially EC, but feel I need to try before we give up.

@Tinkerbell098 so you run out before they issue it? Harsh of them! Hopefully I can get some, I’m stashing it for when I go private.

@beckyCarlos they said that can be the case for natural conceptions but it’s unlikely for ivf because they know the dates so it’s accurate. They said they should be able to see something at 5 weeks and there’s nothing there, no sac or anything but as usual my follicles look good for a 39 year old 😩. I’m pretty sure my clinic aren’t on it enough to know wtf is going on with me in another hospital so I’m just going to hope they do it and I’ll update them in a few days. They won’t make me do the 7 week scan will they? I hope not. Scan was booked for Oct 20.

The EPU staff were nice and another lady in there had miscarried at 8 weeks and hugged me when she saw I was upset as I was walking out, so we bonded briefly which was nice I guess. As nice as these things can be.

@99pctpractice I’m upset but I’m taking some days off work sick. Kinda glad this has happened now and not a few weeks later, if it wasn’t meant to be, and I suppose it’s good to know I can get pregnant. Next hurdle is finding a good embryo and staying pregnant.

I know what you mean about the EPU but I was lucky not to see too many pregnant women and my corner of the room was more women like me. All very sad still.

This is likely the last experience with the clinic, luckily. I’ll be meeting the Lister on October 13th, seeing the guy who appears on one of the podcasts doing Ask the Expert.

@beckyCarlos after I slagged off the EPU this was pretty decent experience . They got me in and scanned, didn’t have to sit around for ages and they were alright, kind and understanding.

You clinic also sound shit, yes. It’s so robotic to keep saying take Cyclogest and provide no help whatsoever. Honestly the experience for many of us has been awful and we all just have to suck it up.

The clinic have started sending me emails saying I AM an nhs patient after all 🤪. Said they’ll redo my Cyclogest prescription so I won’t tell them about this yet, will get the prescription and tell them in a couple of days.

Well, I never needed to leave here because it looks like it’s all over before it started. I guess I had a chemical. Nothing on the EPU scan, they think Cyclogest is holding off my period. They’ve run HCG bloods but not expecting there to be much HCG tbh. Back to square one we go.

@beckyCarlos the woman said she’d come back to me in three days and I’m hoping she comes back with at least a compromise. When she said about the £2000 for freezing I was just ??????!!!! everyone has that funding if they have more than 1 embryo, why would be paying for the freeze all when you were freezing three or my embryos anyway?

Can I ask what week you got to @beckyCarlos? I wasn’t sure if it was just because it’s very early for me that they don’t give a shit but maybe they just do not give a shit. The experience from beginning to end has been bad overall, the idea of sitting in one of these EPUs seems entirely unnecessary. I guess all I can do now is either pay for some bloods or a six week scan, but I’ll probably just wait for my 7 week one in two weeks. Everything might have resolved itself by then.

I have an appointment with the Lister clinic on Oct 13th. I think I’ll keep it in place for now, but my scan is the week later. I could delay the appointment I guess, the reason I had it is I need to have had a consultation to be able to apply for the Access finance packages.

Oh and consultant led seems to basically be you have their contact details to ask questions, which I had with my Lister consultant but it was included in the price, it wasn’t an uplift. The NHS ivf offering is underwhelmIng.

@99pctpractice hoenstly my infertility and ivf experience with the nhs has been torturous from beginning to end. From the initial fucked up blood tests in 2020 to the evil gynaecologist to fighting for funding, then this shit treatment by my clinic and now more fighting over funding. I’m so tired of it and I can’t wait to go private. I support the nhs fully but the level of care since we started all this has been a joke.

Guys do nhs treatment, then private self funded (same experience as nhs) and then they do consultant led which costs more. Why the hell they think I’ve had consultant led is beyond me.

@99pctpractice you’ve been through this so probably know more than me, it just doesn’t feel good iykwim. The cramping is definitely more present than it was. Man this process is horrendous, but I guess at least I made it beyond implantation, if it all goes tits up.

Feeling less positive now. Cramping and had a clot when I went to the toilet. I think it’s probably over as soon as it started really, I’ll see what the next day brings. The EPU sounds horrendous when I read reviews online, I don’t see any point in going there to wait five hours for them to tell me the obvious.