Things I wish I knew before starting IVF

I wished the clinic had given more upfront information about the details of the procedures, and the risks. They were very vague early on, and I had to research things myself. The detailed consent forms were only shared after I'd paid a chunk of the money, which feels a bit unethical to me.

I’ve done an ama if that helps :)

It was physically fine for us, the worse being the waiting afterwards. I loved finally feeling in control. It can be very demoralising though if it doesn’t work. Take lots of time off to rest.

OP, I’m really sorry to hear about your dad, it is really shit. It may be worth getting some support, it sounds like this is the real reason why you want to rush into IVF and why you want to have a baby so soon.
Im not sure anyone on this thread (it may be on others) has told you to relax, but if you do go onto suffer from infertility you will need to come to terms with the fact it is a marathon not a sprint. Honestly 5 months is not enough time to try before starting IVF and IVF should really be a last thing to try after you have exhausted everything else.
You are putting so much pressure on yourself and in all probability you will be pregnant in the next few months. Personally, I would spend as much quality time with your dad as you can making some great memories, you don’t want to look back and regret that you didn’t spend the time with him because you were doing IVF. It it all consuming whilst you are going through it and you sound quite overwhelmed at the moment. Alongside this focus on the supplements, eating healthily/exercising and use some of the money you have set aside to see a grief counsellor - you need to be mentally strong to do IVF.
I know it’s not the same, but my gran is on end of life care, I used to see her every week, but since being pregnant I’ve only seen her 3 times in almost 7 months. I’ve been very ill with the pregnancy and I am fairly sure she won’t survive the next 12 weeks to meet the baby. You may find yourself in a similar situation where you are in and out of hospital and not well enough to see your dad during the pregnancy.

That you’re basically a walking wallet and the clinic will not care less about you. I would suggest not jumping into IVF thinking it’s a magic cure for infertility. Has your OH had his DNA fragmentation checked?

You will need to be educated enough to ask the right questions and suggest alternatives if treatment doesn’t work the way it’s expected. Be prepared to question everything and make sure there is scientific reasoning behind the protocol they use for you and that they don’t just churn out one size fits all treatments.

Injections were fine, egg collection was fine, clinic was rubbish. We ended up going with another consultant who was certain that we could get pregnant ourselves and after a year and several mcs we did!

I would suggest ovulation induction with timed intercourse to begin with before going straight to IVF. Actually I’d find any consultant that recommends or allows you to go straight to IVF after 5 months with no other interventions as unethical and money-grabbing.

Very kindly OP, at only 5 months I wouldn't be jumping straight to IVF as the answer.

Whilst I had a relatively 'easy' IVF experience, it was 7 years of trying for us before we got to that point

As we had been for so long the NHS didn't do to many tests for us and jumped straight to IVF.
I wish I knew beforehand about the wait. By god it's a lot of waiting and Constantine waiting at each stage. The wait to find out how many fertilise and make it to day 5 embryo stage was one of the worst waits I have had

It didn't cause havoc in our life, but again I had it 'easy' (I say that but no IVF is really easy) in that everything worked first time and no set backs. We have three day 5 embryos in the freezer and one 20 month old DD from our round

I think perhaps we could have tried other things than just IVF but because of how long.

I was also awake for egg collection, they do them all with you awake in Scotland

I think this is the 3rd thread I've read from this OP. And your advice is spot on. After 5 months it's more likely a patience problem than a fertility problem.

Honestly OP. This is the second post I’ve seen from you. You’re really getting ahead of yourself. If you start launching yourself into researching IVF at 5 months of trying you’re going to be fecking exhausted if you end up actually needing it. You do not have a fertility problem at the moment. You have a patience problem. And tbh, it’s a little bit disrespectful of those who have to go through what can be the absolute horror of IVF when actually, at the moment, there is no reason why you should ever have to turn to it.

I'm always a bit wary of the 'relax' advice not least if you're suffering from long term infertility, it's the most annoying thing anyone can say to you ever. After three years and failed IVF, I conceived when I was signed off work due to a breakdown. I was 'relaxed' in the sense that I wasn't thinking about TTC because my mental health was in the toilet but I was hardly 'relaxed'!

He was told to take selenium, vitamin E, vitamin D, zinc, vitamin C but your partner may be different. Did your consultant not tell you what vitamins to take after he had his results?

So how did you start
took us 6 months to begin treatment cycle (had to wait for consult/consent forms/donor sperm) and then the cycle took us about 1 month start to finish (short protocol).

how were the hormone injections
Better than i was expecting. Recommend putting the needle in fast rather than slowly, but release the liquid slowly as it strings less/not at all. I took one in the evening and towards the end, had another in the morning.

how did you feel, how long did each round take? I may have just been lucky but i felt generally fine. Maybe a headache now and then and my stomach was a bit bruised and tender but that was it. IVF cycle took about 1 month.

egg collection I was sedated and don’t remember a thing.

embryo transfer I was awake and it just felt like a bit of pressure, no pain.

The BIGGEST surprise I had and actually the worse part of it all for me is the post-transfer progesterone pessaries - not something that was really spoken about before my IVF cycle. For 12 weeks after embryo transfer I have to take 3 x a day vaginal pessary, 2 x day rectal pessary and two tablets of a different hormone. This is the part I find is most affecting my day to day life but obviously it will be worth it!!

Wtf! And if a woman has infertility issues a man should just dump her and get someone else?!

I wouldn’t casually opt for it. We tried for 18 months with unexplained infertility.

Physically I found it fine apart from every other day appointments. Your life has the pause for these and the injections as they have to be done at the same time daily.

Mentally it’s very challenging. The waits between collection to transfer to testing to scans is awful. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.

Try all other options first. Oh and it’s also cost us £15k so far… 🙃

I've never been through it but I've seen my friend go though it due to her dh being infertile and it was so hard on her. The hardest part for her was when it didn't work , all that pain , hope and money and it was all for nothing. She was broke and broken hearted. It's definitely not something that should be entered into lightly

It takes so much longer than you think. You’re told 1 month total for treatment/transfer/pregnancy but that’s IF you don’t get OHSS (add on 2 month wait), IF it works first time (unlikely - add another 2 month wait), IF you respond well etc. The waiting was the worst bit for me, physically no problem.

Also don’t assume because you are young with no known fertility issues it will work easily. I wrongly did assume that (I am actually very naturally fertile but 2 ectopics have left me unable to conceive naturally anymore) but I got way less embryos than expected and have had less success.

We did four rounds (one on NHS). I would say it wasn’t nearly as bad as it’s made put.
Certainly, I could have gone back to work after the last egg collection.
Emotionally miscarriage after IVF is ghastly.

Only put one embryo back.

It's crazy for women to be putting themselves through this due to male infertility.

Donor sperm or new DP.

I wouldn't start after only 5 months of trying. It's brutal. Physically it's manageable, the injections are fine etc. I had / have secondary infertility. I've had 2 rounds of unsuccessful IVF. I found that the result of unsuccessful IVF was far tougher to cope with than the miscarriages I experienced from natural conception. The mental load that goes into the process is immense. It fills every waking moment so the loss when it doesn't work is almost unbearable. We were lucky to conceive our DD naturally prior to IVF after 4 years of trying. After the 2nd unsuccessful round I refused to do anymore. The toll on your mental health and your body can't really be explained. I will always feel a loss that I wasn't able to have more children but I couldn't do IVF again.

I’ve done 3 rounds, had 12 miscarriages (natural and IVF) over 7 years.
IVF will take longer than you expect and cost more than you’re told!
I think initial consultation to actual test date if you are doing a collection is about 3-4 months depending on timing of your periods. During this time you won’t be able to try naturally. It will likely cost about £8k for one round with no frostie transfers.
Things I found the most difficult:
the number of appointments/scans, I’m 45 mins from our clinic each way, you will need scans every few days in the stimulation phase, plus blood tests. I work full time so getting time off for these with 1-2 days notice was hard. They give you your next scan date at the previous scan because they don’t know how you’ll develop. You get about 3 days notice of egg collection, which for me was sedated so I needed 2 days off.
It is really hard on your body, the drugs gave me massive mood swings and hot flushes (they give you HRT but in bigger doses to control your cycle) coupled with the stress of worry about cost and it not working, I was also really constipated and bloated from all the drugs.
The devastation when it doesn’t work is so much harder than a natural cycle as you’ve spent thousands of pounds and months going through it and you need to go again. I found the counselling fairly rubbish TBH but I guess for some this might help.
Finally the impact on your relationship, you are going through it, your partner is just watching (and possibly doing your injections) my husband is my rock but he really struggled watching me go through it, the failures, the fact that it consumed my life, I’d not want to go out because I felt shit and we were saving all our money for treatment. Essentially, I just was no longer fun to be around and all I talked about was treatment because we’d not told anyone else.
Even if you are an average couple the odds of IVF working are 30% so you are likely to need at least 3 transfers. Trying naturally is not much less odds, and in the 7-8 months you get 3 rounds of IVF and spend a ton of money you’ll have 7-8 tries naturally.
I honestly wouldn’t consider it until I’ve tried at least a year (possibly even 18 months). It’s hard having negative tests, I’ve been there, but IVF isn’t a miracle solution and I would literally try everything else first - for you it sounds like improved sperm quality. My DH was worse than yours and he got it from 2% to 8% morphology through supplements and doubled the concentration - the supplements take at least 3 months to work according to our clinic but we avoided ICSI.
Im now 26 weeks, but if I’m really honest with myself IVF has materially changed our relationship and probably my outlook on life and I prefer the old me. I’m not sure if I knew what it was like at the beginning I’d do it again even if that meant no baby - this was our last shot, we both knew I couldn’t do a 4th round.

OP, i read your previous thread. My DH has the same scores as your partner and i have PCOS but we still managed to conceive naturally for our 2nd child (for our first child, DH scores were fine but i wasnt ovulating so we did letrozole). We are also significantly older than you (37 and 40).

Has your DH done everything that is recommended? No caffeine, stop drinking, no smoking, loose boxers, male conception vitamins (DH used pregnacare for men), no laptops on his knee, lost weight if overweight etc. Sperm replenishes in the testes every 3 months so following all the advice for 3 months can make a huge difference to semen analysis results. We were TTC for 8 months when we were successful.

So was I and requested diazepam beforehand, rare to be under for it especially when NHS

You were AWAKE during egg collection? Is that common?