I'm finally a Mum after 6 years of IVF and babyloss- AMA

[wondersofus]

Hi
Thought I'd pop this here; so very often online you can see the start and middle of people's fertility journeys but never hear the outcomes. I know I searched hundreds of times during our journey.
Ask me anything (although no medical advice given) x

Congratulations

Congratulations. Did you have a specific diagnosis? What worked in the end?

Thanks both!

We are a bit of a double whammy. Struggle to get and stay pregnant.

DP has azoospermia and I have incompetent cervix which meant we lost our first pregnancy late on. We then had a number of early losses and chemical pregnancies via IVF before eventually reaching full term.

Morning @wondersofus i would love some words of wisdom if you have time, I’ll fill you in on my quite long story of where we’re up to!

I’m 34, DH is 35. We have just had our first failed IVF which changed to ICSI last minute.
This is our first and only funded round.
I have an AMH of 1, DH has low motility.
The reason for my AMH is previous cancer treatment that resulted in my ovaries being moved and receiving too high a dose of radiotherapy - that’s a story for another time.

During this round, I produced 2 eggs, 1 mature (I suspect too mature as it was at 21mm on the Monday and they collected on the Wednesday) - it didn’t fertilise, they used the ICSI method as DH suddenly had low motility. He tested OK before, but this time hadn’t drunk alcohol for 3 months and abstained for 5 days - somehow it worsened his sperm.

Im feeling desperate (I’m at that horrible stage where literally all my friends are getting pregnant and I can’t muster up any happiness for them, which isn’t like me and I hate myself for it) DH keeps telling me to slow down and process what’s happened but I’m like a mad woman trying to figure out what’s next because I need something to focus on - I hate floating around without a plan because it feels like I’m not being proactive.

I suspect our follow up consultation will suggest we go straight for egg donation now because our chances are so low. I’m becoming more OK with this and quite keen to take the advice of many and go to Greece for treatment.

I suppose I’m hoping for some moral support, my husband doesn’t seem to get it, he’s very logical and supportive in some ways but it’s like getting blood out of a stone!

Any advice, from anyone would be so appreciated I’m questioning every ounce of my being.

Hi @Makinglove I am sorry for the delayed response and also to hear about the difficult time you and your DH have had to date.

I understand all of what you feel about it feeling like the world around you is falling pregnant. It seems to happen at lightning speed as soon as you're actively trying and nothing is working in your favour too.

I have heard some really good success stories including from friends of mine about clinics in Greece. Penny at Serum is lovely. We had a consultation with her during lockdown and very nearly had our treatment there but decided the logistics around travelling (in Covid times!) were too uncertain so we opted to have more treatment at a clinic in the UK.

What I will say is that my experience (from having spoken to lots of clinics overseas) is that they are a lot quicker to suggest moving toward donor eggs than in the UK. Not necessarily a bad thing if that's where you're likely to end up doing anyway.

Regarding the sperm issue. Our experience (our personal opinion) is that IVF clinics aren't always the best at analysing male factor infertility, or at least providing answers. We had a private consultation with a urologist called Johnathan Ramsey (you can Google him) he's based between Windsor or London and honestly he's the best of the best in his field. Of course sometimes there are issues that cannot be resolved but if there is improvements that can be made, he'll be the one to find them. We met with him around 3 years ago and he was heading toward retirement but I understand he's still working, may be worth seeking out his opinion or at very least a private urologist.

If you haven't already found it, there's a massive IVF/infertility community on Instagram. It's a source of support/inspiration/hope for thousands of couples and you may find reading through posts and following accounts really helpful as it's a very difficult experience and one that people struggle to understand if they haven't gone through it themselves.

Wishing you all the best.

@wondersofus thank you so much for kindly taking the time to reply - whilst our family and friends are very supportive, there is a shared understanding between the incredibly strong women that have to endure these challenges that I will forever be grateful for.

I definitely want to investigate the urology side of things, so thank you for that connection.

My sister and her husband came to us over the weekend, who have 4 healthy children, and offered up sister eggs - once we had chatted through how it actually works with DNA, I started to make this a serious consideration.

We’re taking July off to reconnect and discuss our options before we make a firm plan, but feel much better armed with all this new information!

Thanks once again 😘

congrats

Congratulations, how lovely.

So many people experience prolonged periods of TTC and loss and fertility treatment (that's been me for nearly 12 years, though with periods in the middle when I didn't try). And of course for many people the 'end' you mention isn't a baby, but either deciding to stop trying, or hitting a biological hard barrier. So I was wondering: what's your experience of the way people tend to presume that having a baby is 'the end'? Did you find it hard when you were struggling to have a baby, to have people assume that somehow, finally getting pregnant would be the answer you needed? Did you have any ways to manage the hurt of that?

@SarahAndQuack
Hi what an interesting question...
My personal experience is that TTC/fertility treatment/conceiving after loss can become very all encompassing and it can be really hard to then imagine what life might look like to never bring a baby home... however we had been at it for a very long time and IVF isn't something you can do forever, even if you have a huge bank account (which we don't!!) the emotional and physical toll can be huge after many years like we had.

We had started to allow ourselves to imagine a new "end" of the journey and a life without children of our own. In many ways it was a relief to do this and Covid forced many clinics to shut so we had the space to be able to really think and talk about this. That's not to say it would have been easy to have reached that point, but we acknowledged that there had to be an end for us somewhere.

And yes I think many people assume that once you have your baby/babies after a difficult path that everything is automatically erased and for me the opposite has been true. I struggled badly with anxiety during pregnancy and PND after giving birth. I think it was a build up of all the years of pain and then constantly berating myself if I wasn't enjoying every moment or every day didn't look like how I thought it would look. But things are improving.

I hope I've answered your question properly

Thankyou @kieronsmum

@wondersofus - thanks for your reply. No, I was really not asking about how you felt once the baby was there (though, sorry you had PND - that sounds awful!). I was asking about whether you had any strategies for reconsidering what counts as the 'end' of a fertility journey. But I guess, from what you say, that you went part of the way down this path and then fell pregnant, so perhaps I'm just asking the wrong person here!

I do understand it's really personal, but, if you feel able to answer ... what was (or would have been) the end point for you? And how did you rationalise it?

Do you feel (now) that you would have been comfortable with that decision? Or would you have been looking back and wondering?

@SarahAndQuack
We had a late loss in pregnancy a few years ago and I was never sure that I could go through with being pregnant again, and there was no certainty I'd carry to term if I did get pregnant again. During this time we did start to explore adoption options (both privately and through the local authority).

We also explored surrogacy but realises fairly soon that wasn't an option we wanted to pursue.

I think if our IVF hadn't been successful we would have taken some time out and probably moved toward adoption, but we knew that this wasn't an easy route and we also wanted to feel ready.

I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked you to talk about how you felt.

Thanks for what you did say.

Sorry hit end too soon!!

The end point had to be where we actually lived a life that was about feeling joy and not just constantly feeling so out of control and as if we were wishing the months away, like we had been feeling.

I'd like to think we would have been comfortable with it but I think it would have always been a sore point for us. Even now I find pregnancy announcements triggering!

Congratulations! I just had my first fresh transfer with 3 X 4AA embryos Day two. It didnt work, HCG of 1. Im at a loss and unsure of next steps.