Fertility Appointments and Beyond: Electric Boogaloo

Hi guys, Hope you don't mind me landing back in momentarily. Reading away in the background with the fingers crossed for everyone. Best of luck this Sunday @thislittlebird!!!!

So sorry you're being hit with such bad news @Beyondshit! We're based in Ireland so obviously costs are different but we did two back to back dual stim cycles that averaged one embryo each time. We maxed out stims, trialed testosterone priming, estrogen priming, HGH, adding clomid and a number of other things across the different cycles. Each dual stim in our clinic was €10k so €20k for all of that plus additional drugs costs etc. Massively expensive and if things hadn't gone to plan or we went through our embryos, we were then going to move to donor egg. For some reason similar to @beckycarlos, I could get my head around donor egg but not surrogacy. No logic to it but think everyone has different views/feelings. If we were moving to donor egg, any additional procedures etc were going to be done elsewhere in Europe where prices are cheaper as tbh we're broke after shelling out approx €30k in total over the last couple years, mainly in back to back rounds earlier this year. Not sure if this is any help to you at all but happy to chat through some of what we tried or next avenues we had planned etc if it's any help at all. Other options might be that some clinics do a kind of insurance plan where you pay something like 10k for a guaranteed number of rounds/result 🤷‍♀️ no cheap of doing it though from what I've seen but going abroad (prague, athens etc) seems to be much better financially too.

@thislittlebird everything crossed for you for your transfer! Let us know how you go x x x

@beyondshit I think you know, deep down, immediately if its for you. My husband is a flat no to donor sperm (not that we need it), theres something about genetics for him, but he's on board with donor eggs if I am. Your own personal lines are funny arent they. I'd happily have donor eggs (but have a big fat self pitying cry about it), but I'm not sure I could get behind surrogacy.

I'm about to preface this statement with something I hate 'I'm not a doctor, but...' maybe do one round, see what changes can be made, and take it from there? You really do just need one egg, and pumping yourself full of drugs and spending ALL that money might not be necessary. I know @gracie202 did back to back stims but she's in Ireland and the funding is different, but she might be able to say why it was suggested.

@bebeckyCarlos Yes the consultant mentioned donor eggs to me and my instinctive response was absolutely not... I just don't see myself going down that road. There's so much to think about with IVF and the ethics of it aren't there. The whole process has made me think about surrogacy, donor eggs and sperm... I think I've decided against it all.

@beckyCarlos that's great not too long to wait now. When's your next scan?

@timkerbell098 I'm scheduled for w/c 19th, but anytime that week, on my long protocol I had about 16 days of stims 😅 but hopefully this won't be that long! I'm tajing 450 meriofert for 6 days, then 450 ovaleap for at least three days after (im acared about ovaleap, theres cartridges and a pen!)

@Beyondshit that's crazy! I still don't know why NHS won't pump more money into IVF. Who has that kind of money to spare especially if that money is going to be needed when you do finally start a family. I'm so so sorry about what you're going through. Definitely take some time off work, you need it.

@99pctpractice I don't think anyone should regret the decisions they made at the time, as no one knows, it could go either way, and you only make those decisions with the best information you have at that time. It's just so unfair and cruel that we have to go through this.

@beckyCarlos yey! IVF buddies! Egg collection will possibly be 26th Sept. When is yours? They will do a blood test on Friday and depending on that will adjust my stims. So I won't know. I'm on 300 IU Menopur in the eve at the minute.

@beyondshit jesus fing christ. Maybe try a consult somewhere else?! My consultant was very frank from the start, this is our second and final go with my eggs, if this doesnt work I just dont respond to IVF (and drew the short straw husband wise, if his stuff was 'normal' we'd probably have two kids by now) and will need donor eggs (although I know thats not for everyone). I'd call in sick from work for a couple of days if you can, this is real and it hurts and it definitely warrants some time x x x

@99pctpractice I have to pinch myself when I get the 'I should have...' thoughts, its so hard isnt it x x x

@Beyondshit I'm so sorry. Nobody ever seems to know why it didn't go to plan. My initial 3 cycles (booked as 3 cycles) ended up costing £25k in total. Not sure if I could have done it cheaper if it was scheduled as batching rather than individual cycles. It's not cheap - though pales in comparison to the £15k I spent on one round at Argc.....the clinics have literally taken all our money 🤣

My oh last night basically told me that he blames himself for not pushing me harder to start trying when I moved jobs and didn't want to be pregnant immediately after starting. I feel responsible anyway, so not helpful to know that he views it as being my decision to wait and therefore my fault that it hasn't happened for us. Lots of tears. Both of us are just very sad and don't really know what to do next. We are starting to think about donor eggs but it just depresses both of us to think about it. Plus scraping together the money for another round that still might not be successful (even with donor eggs we could come out with nothing) will be a struggle.

@bebeckyCarlos Full cycles, so £10k x 3/4? So £30-40k probably more, plus £5k for every frozen embryo transfer.

I'm not coping very well. I'm not sure I can be at work.

Sorry I've been quiet, been scared about starting again and needed some time off 🙈

@tinkerbell098 we can be buddies! I'm on day 3 of stims!! Your baseline sounds ace! Hope things go ok for you :) whens your egg collection likely to be? Are you on the same stims all the way through?

@beyondshit what even is the charge for that?! Like is it 'just' one full ivf cycle charge (so my cycle is somewhere between 6 and 8k), and then 3/4 sets of drug charges (so for me, thats another 2k)? Thats crazy money as it is, but if each cycle is the druga plus the full cycle charge 🤯 did they say anything about a payment plan or those funding companies you can use?!

@thislittlebird thats really interesting! Hopefully it might change things a bit for you x

Hi everyone. I havent posted since my negative test so catching up. Had an appointment with the consultant today which I asked for before the NHS boot me out of the system. They're going to give me another AMH test and she doesn't think they can give me anymore treatment. She said if I want to start going privately then to get cracking and she'd recommend three or four cycles of stims back to back... This just isn't financially possible for us. Who does this??

Frustratingly no idea why the last round was so awful - apart from the fact I seem to respond poorly to stims. Little consideration that my partner's fertility could be the issue and why hadn't they tested it more?

I don't know what to do. I think DP would happily knock the whole thing on the head.

@tinkerbell098 good luck as you start stims. I hope it's bearable for you and you get good results.

@thislittlebird interesting stuff on the micro biome thing... Will have to do some reading.

@kay00 good luck to you too as you start!

@jeanieJ did you book in with Ramsey? Hope it makes a good difference for your partner

@99pctpractice thank you :)

So baseline scan went well, 8 on left, 10 on right. Have been given the go ahead to start stims this evening! I'm surprised next scan isn't until Wednesday next week, although have a blood test on Friday to see if things are ok. I'd have thought they'd want to monitor me more than that.

Good luck @Tinkerbell098 really hoping everything is on track for you!!

@Kay00 great that you're on the way!! I hope it all goes smoothly for you 🤞

@thislittlebird so interesting. The microbiome seems to play into so many immune conditions. Hopefully you'll be able to use the results to get a positive outcome this time!!!

@Kay00 @thislittlebird Thanks girls just in the waiting room now. Will report back. Really hope everything is ok for me to start stimming.

@Tinkerbell098 good luck with your baseline scan tomorrow!!

@thislittlebird very interesting results!! I wonder how many of us ladies who struggle TTC have in imbalanced microbiome? Did they give any tips on how to improve things? Exciting that your FET is just around the corner xx

@thislittlebird interesting about your results. Hope you can discuss it with your clinic to see if there is any impact to fertility and what they can do about it.

@Kay00 glad you’ve started now. Not long to go X

I rang up the clinic yesterday as it was my day 1 and they’ve booked me in for a scan on Monday morning.

@thislittlebird the more tests you have, the better an understanding of your body you will have. Hopefully you get some answers xx exciting that you will be implanting two!

My IVF meds are delivered tomorrow and I start Norethisterone on Friday. So I'm on track to have my egg collection in early Oct... not long now!

Thank you @thislittlebird interesting about that test ... I've never heard of it.
Good luck this week with everything 🤞🏻
Do you know when the transfer would be?

My husbands now booked in for exactly 2 weeks time 😌 🤞🏻🤞🏻

Thank you 🙏🏻
I don't want to sound naive about the whole thing. I'm well aware we might be walking into a cycle in about 4 months, but at least we'll know that the semen quality is better 🤞🏻🤞🏻
xx

Thinking of you both for Monday @JeanieJ xx

Great news from the doctor though!! 🤞