Fertility Appointments and Beyond: Electric Boogaloo

@JeanieJ that's brilliant news! hope that the embolisation all goes well and you're booked in soon and fingers crossed you are then able to get pregnant naturally!!

Sorry, cut that short!
I feel like I should make the most of the funding, but I'm really hoping we just conceive naturally! 🤞🏻🤞🏻

@Tillybabs well, if we get booked in by end of the month, that brings me up to December for a 3 month rate & I doubt my clinic will book me in then. So I'll try yes & go for a cycle in Jan/Feb I suppose

@JeanieJ that's really good news. Do you think you will try naturally before trying IVF again?

I hope all goes as well as it can do on Monday xx

Hey everyone!
I only just realised we had a new thread today,
I'm so sorry about your lining @Tillybabs - you poor thing. @Beyondshit @99pctpractice really sorry things haven't gone your way.
This whole process sucks.
@thislittlebird how come you got a microbiome test?

Mini update from me:

Just had my husbands follow up consultation with Dr Ramsay yesterday. He has no other issues that came up in his tests (hormones, infections etc). It's just his high DNA frag which Dr Ramsay believes is caused by a very large varicocele.
Next step is to get his embolisation booked in (hopefully in the next 3 weeks). We should see results after 3 months, but optimum results by about 6-9 months. He believes it will improve my husbands parameters by 80% & we should be able to conceive naturally and bring a baby to term, but we can try IVF/ICSI (we have NHS funding) about 3 months after the surgery if we wanted and hopefully get a good outcome. He said he'd be surprised if we hadn't conceived in 6 months 🥹.
It’s the most positive outcome we could have expected from this consultation, so I’m feeling really hopeful this week 🙏🏻

Also, our baby gets a funeral on Monday in the crematorium 💔

@thislittlebird that's great that you're getting so many things investigated. Really hope this means you catch what the issue is!!!

@thislittlebird oh my word - exactly that. i didn't want to be "that woman". ffs!

@thislittlebird they've given us the option of 1 or 2 to transfer and I think we might stick with 1 as research shows 1 is best

@99pctpractice thanks hun. The Dr asked me if I considered surrogacy and that really killed it for me ( we won't consider that). I did however ask her if she has seen women with my uterus have babies and she said yes! I'm going to throw everything at it so no gluten, eat really well, cut out the intense workouts etc and see how it goes 🙏🏽

Definitely don't rule out adoption but give yourself some time x

@Tillybabs so sorry that your lining didn't do what it was meant to. that's so frustrating - especially when your embryos are just waiting for you!! really hoping that they can sort it out for your next attempt without aggravating the adenomyosis.

thanks @Tinkerbell098 @Tillybabs @thislittlebird it is just pretty shit isn't it. my clinic has been incredibly sensitive about it - i've been really impressed (i thought it was going to be a bit of an impersonal conveyor belt, but the nurses are all so kind). i've spent the weekend trying not to blame myself for being in this situation as we delayed trying by about 9 months because i had to move jobs (my previous job was both toxic and the company was about to go bust) and wanted to be settled in my new role before we started trying. there's no way of knowing if it could have made a difference but it's hard not to kick myself about it. my husband still really wants to have a baby, he has been talking about adoption but I don't think it's that simple and i'm not sure if it would be the right thing for us.

i might have a listen to for trying it out loud, but i might also just take a bit of a break from infertility podcasts. one of the presenters on bfn just had another bfp, which doesn't really bother me ordinarily but she was so unenthusiastic about it, it was odd - it just felt really tone deaf. however helpful i find some of the content, i also don't think i can face listening to her going through the pregnancy updates again....podcasts by middle aged male comedians who don't talk about pregnancy/babies might be more my vibe for a bit!!

@thislittlebird yep we will try a natural cycle so I'm starting progesterone next week to hopefully bring on my period. I'm just praying I have a better lining to work with as I've been here before but not with a longer downreg. I found out our embryos are 4AA and 4BBs but my lining is not playing ball 😭

😭😭😭😭 oh ladies, it has not been a good day. I'm so sorry it hasn't worked out for you @99pctpractice @Beyondshit. @Tillybabs I'm sorry your body isn't playing ball too xxx

@99pctpractice @Beyondshit just cried reading your posts! I totally get it and I'm feeling so deflated about everything. I can't even get to an FET because of my shitty adenomyosis 😭 I have 4 embryos just waiting and my uterus just won't play ball

Hey just a bit of an update from me. My FET has been cancelled as my lining isn't thick enough and also not great quality. I will wait my period and try a natural cycle although the Dr might put me on oestrogen patches but I don't want that as it exacerbates my condition. I think I'm nearing the end of my journey as not sure I can try for much longer tbh

I'm just going to read through the thread now x

BIG hugs to you both @99pctpractice @Beyondshit. I'm so sorry, this process is so cruel and unfair! I still don't know how it can be so easy for some but so so hard or near impossible for some. I'm so sorry X

@Beyondshit I know what you mean. I have so many friends who have successfully had children (more than one!) through ivf. It honestly didn't occur to me when we first started that we wouldn't eventually be successful. I saw ivf as essentially accelerating the process of getting pregnant (which would probably happen eventually anyway...). But I can see from the ivf process that my egg quality has deteriorated even over the course of a year, so age is definitely not on my side now. Emma Barnet also writes newsletters on "trying" and they are really helpful - the latest was a guest writer who hadn't been able to have a child and a lot of it resonated. Sending lots of big hugs your way.

@99pctpractice I'm so sorry for you too. I'm dumping the drugs now. I don't want to keep pumping this stuff in my body if I don't need it.

Was talking to a wonderful girlfriend a while ago about my IVF and she said she'd read that great Emma Barnett piece in The Times about IVF and trying. My friend said she'd gone through life believing IVF works every time, that she didn't know anyone it hadn't worked for... She thought it just 'worked'. Then she realised she must know people, but no one ever says they did it, it didn't work, and they stopped... Are there women like us out there? I'm not sure I know them? Maybe my mum's friend who we all assumed didn't want children then adopted in her late 50s. I don't know. We must exist.

Hi @thislittlebird I'm on 10mg of prednisolone, taken after breakfast because apparently it can keep you up at night.

@Beyondshit I'm sorry you're out. I'm out too. We're at the end of the road. We're not doing any more ivf, it's clear that it just isn't going to work for us and we can't really afford to spend anymore money on it. My egg quality just isn't there and we can't keep flogging a dead horse. The stress has also really started impacting our relationship and that is more important to me than a baby. My husband is devastated. I think I already had an inkling (because my progesterone levels had started going down and I had that feeling earlier this week that it hadn't worked) but I think he was still hoping for triplets 😢 not sure whether to keep taking the meds until my official hcg test tomorrow - feels like a bit of a waste of time and I also don't really want to inject myself with the awful blunt needles anymore. Aaargh, I wish getting pregnant could just be a bit more simple.

Well I'm out. Made it to 13dp, I'm not waiting to 16dp like my clinic want me to.

I've had a really horrid week leading up to this. Two cycles done, nothing left in the freezer. Not sure I can do this again if things don't change at home. This is making me question everything.

Good luck 99 xx