To ask for your experiences (+ve and -ve) of IVF?

[StackladysMorphicResonator]

DH and I are about to start IVF after TTC for 2 years and being diagnosed with "unexplained infertility". I think it's fair to say we're a bit shell-shocked - we never expected to be in this position (probably no-one does), and although we understand how the technique works we don't really know what else to expect.

If you have any experience of undergoing IVF please could you share this with us? I'd post on the Infertility boards but those threads are generally people who are going through it currently rather than those who've come out the other side (with or without a child).

Thanks in advance.

We had "unexplained infertility", and after about a year of TTC we went for IVF. At 39.5 I didn't feel we could just wait and see.

I think they only managed to collect six embryos, implanted two, but we were lucky and now have twins!

It is worth remembering that odds-wise IVF puts you back into the realms of a normal couple who conceive naturally

No, this is completely untrue! The chances of success with IVF depend entirely on the couple concerned, their ages, woman's AMH/FSH, Antral follicle count etc etc...

For some couples, IVF will give you significantly higher odds than the general population, for others, it will still be a one in a million longshot.

You could've been us, OP.two years of trying, also an unexplained diagnosis but DH was fine so probably me. It went smoothly for us, we got pregnant the first round of IVF and have 10 frozen embryos if we need to go again for siblings. Once we got the BFP and had the early scan I felt "normal" and enjoyed the pregnancy. Now DD is here (she's 10mo) I have partly, but not completely, forgotten the pain of the waiting. I try to remember it when I'm up for the fifth time in the middle of the night with her :-) but seriously we were lucky but no reason you won't be too.

On a side note it does get my goat a bit that because clinics have got so good at IVF, they perhaps aren't trying so hard at research to find out why us "unexplained" sub-fertiles can't manage it naturally. My body performed perfectly during the cycle, producing 19 eggs and all 19 fertilised in the Petri dish, 11 were still going well enough at day 5 to be used / frozen. Why couldn't they do that in my body?!!

A close friend tried for two years, got pregnant in her first round. Only a few of her eggs proved viable then only a couple of the embryos were good enough to implant, and now she has a lovely DS, born this year. I'm afraid I don't know exactly what their fertility issue was, thou I know it was her, not him.

Sorry to bang on but how can IVF possibly be non-invasive?? You have eggs harvested from your ovaries, embryos implanted into your womb, vaginal scans etc. Of course it's invasive!

Yes I don't understand that either.

Thought I'd give another experience- that of my brother and SIL. She is quite a bit older than me, 40 now. They had two cycles last year but neither were successful; however she got pregnant naturally this year and my niece or nephew is due any day now :-D

My consultant did say that when you're "unexplained", he finds that the younger you are the better. I was 32 when we had our cycle and in his eyes that was on the young side.

I've been through IVF three times. First time I got pregnant but miscarried, second time didn't work. Third time lucky and I have a gorgeous 5 year old daughter.

My infertility was also "unexplained" but by the third round of IVF the doctors had figured out the problem was my eggs which, despite looking absolutely healthy, had a very hard outer which was difficult for sperm to penetrate. To remedy this I had ICSI for the third round, which fertilised 16 out of 19 eggs, giving me enough to gamble going to blastocyst. If you can do this, then blastocyst implantation increases your odds to 50/50, which isn't bad for IVF. However, it is a gamble - of the 16 eggs, only 4 made it to blastocyst.

The best advice I can give is to be as gentle as possible with yourself. IVF usually doesn't work and that is a very sad fact which the clinics often don't mention. Of course, if you can afford more than one round you up your changes of having a succesful pregnancy, and I think most couples will have a good outcome if they can do three or more rounds.

There is also other stuff you can do - diet, acupuncture, etc. These things probably have very little effect on outcome but at least you can feel like you're doing something to help.

Good luck - I hope you get your miracle.

My cousin's dd had 3 rounds on the NHS. The first resulted in a miscarried pregnancy, the second was unsuccessful and the third started in Reception a couple of weeks ago!
My cousin's dd had endometriosis and was unable to conceive naturally.

A very interesting thread. Watching as about to commence IVF myself

Unexplained infertility after 3 years of trying although DH's sperm weren't brilliant. I was 35. Had one round of ivf, 7 eggs fertilised, 2 got to blastocyst, one of which turned out to be DS the other we donated for research.

31 weeks pregnant following 2+ years ttc, an ectopic and one (very expensive) round of IVF. We were also told unexplained infertility. I had a bunch of tests done on the NHS to no avail, then got frustrated at the lack of answers before moving to a private clinic for more tests...but still no answers.

Not sure if I was lucky or not, but I breezed through IVF. I did all my own injections bar weekly intramuscular jabs that my husband had to give me in my bum cheek. Ah - the romance!

The only side effects I had were night sweats during down regulation. I had an uncomfortable embryo transfer (took over an hour - my cervix is not very cooperative!), and developed mild ovarian hyper stimulation, which was uncomfortable, but not painful.

Obviously my opinion has been coloured by the fact it worked first time. I may not have felt so kindly disposed if I'd had to do it multiple times.

Ds is from our 3rd cycle. I also got pregnant on my 2nd cycle. I found the physical side of it straightforward. The emotional side was harder especially after our loss.

I had one round of IVF and have two kids (one from a frozen blastocyst). I preferred IVF to the years of trying (failing) to get pregnant naturally.

It is expensive though, particularly if you have more than one round.

One thing to be aware of - if your clinic is good at what they do, expect to see some small children in the waiting room from time to time. When successful, a couple will often come back for a sibling.

We had our first dc without any problems naturally. Three years later and a second dc was not happening. I was 30 at this point.

Tests showed dh had low motility and next to no normal forms. We were advised to have icsi. Two cycles and twelve grand later and we were no nearer to a baby. The consultant then suggested maybe there was something (?) wrong with me too - perhaps endometriosis from my previous c-section - although I had no symptoms and actually the embryos we made were pretty hopeless. Two thirds of the chances of success come from embryo quality and our embryos were not good. They were slow to develop and none of them made blast. I had 12 eggs collected on the first go and 13 on the second but they outcome from both cycles was the same, most embryos had slowed down after two days and then some had given up all together by day 3. I only ever had two embryos at the right(ish) number of cells by day three, they were 6 or 7 cell. Ideally they should be 8 cells by day three.
We then went for a donor embryo round of treatment in Spain this year. That also failed. Twenty grand later and still no baby.

Then in May this year I fell pregnant ON MY OWN. Three years of trying, three failed rounds of treatment, £20,000 and I got pregnant naturally. I still consider it early days - I'm 21 weeks now - and I won't believe it until if and when I'm holding my daughter.

I had short protocol as I had a high antral follicle count and ovulated naturally every 28 days. The treatment was fine really, just very time consuming. It is invasive, I don't see how it can't be, but you kind of get used to it. I do wish we'd changed clinics after the first go because I wasn't happy with the first cycle but we were constrained by proximity to our house. It was still nearly an hour away and the next nearest was about two hours. It's just not practical to be going back and forth every day when it's that far away and you're working etc.

Do I regret having the treatment? No. At the time it seemed our only hope. We were given odds of around 35% each cycle given that I was relatively young and we'd had a prior natural conception. However with the embryos created I believe the chances were quite a lot lower than that, I don't believe they were ever going to develop into a baby as they were already slow at two or three days.

Good luck. It's a hard thing to get your head around.

Sorry to bang on but how can IVF possibly be non-invasive?? You have eggs harvested from your ovaries, embryos implanted into your womb, vaginal scans etc. Of course it's invasive!

Nobody's saying it is non-invasive

My point is, it is very unhelpful to make out that IVF has to be some horrible, degrading, invasive nightmare and that you should be braced for the worst. It doesn't have to be that way at all.

I had a GA for egg collection, embryo transfer and was very close to having one for each of my scans (in the end, I did the actual probe bit, so no need)

FWIW I am a survivor of a very serious sexual assault, and have suffered with PTSD for the best part of 10 years. If I am able to manage IVF, anybody can. I was actually really surprised that it was as painless as it was (physically and emotionally) and actually feel quite cross with all the people (like you JohnCusacksWife ) who led me to believe it would be so invasive. If I had known what it was really like, I'd have done it years ago.

I agree. I've had a much worse time at the dentist than I ever had at the IVF clinic.

Thank you so much to all of you for sharing, I feel a lot better now I know that so many others have been through it. Hoping and praying for a positive outcome!

Yes, good luck!

That's true! I'd choose ivf over dentist any day of the week!

No story myself I'm afraid but DH and I are also just embarking on the IVF journey ourselves - if you feel like an IVF partner :) If not, the very best of luck.

It's not quite the same, but years ago, I went through fertility treatment - IUI - and despite being terrified of the scans, the drugs, the needles and so on, I coped with it absolutely fine and just focussed on what would, hopefully, be the end result.

The hardest part for me, and I know IVF will have the same challenges for some couples, was the emotional cost. I was upbeat and positive and invested in it 100%. Everything that was asked of me, I did and did so gladly. The heartbreaking element for me was that I felt very alone. My husband, despite being desperate for it to work (or so he said), was emotionally absent. He didn't come to appointments, didn't hold my hand during the tricky parts, refused to help with mixing the drugs, the injecting or anything at all. He wasn't even with me when I was inseminated (eugh, makes me sound like a prize cow) having already been to the clinic and done his bit beforehand.

Our error was that we didn't go through it together. I tried, but you can only make someone be there for you to a point - they need to want to, and I'm sure most couples are fine. We weren't. I never got over how alone I felt during the process, and at no point did it get better. Three tries at IUI failed, and we gave up. We split the next year.

Share the burden, share the hopes and the dreams, and involve him as much as you can. I wish you love and luck OP

Dh had low sperm count and serious mobility issues, he knew this before we met. We knew Ivf was our only solution - first hurdle was considering using a sperm donor, however miraculously dhs sperm when retested was close to normal! We ploughed straight on with icsi anyway as we had tried without success for 2 years.
I got pregnant with twins on our first go - my pregnancy was challenging, loads went wrong but I was well looked after and gave birth to 2 very healthy babies! I don't recall much about the process other than it was easier than I expected. Good luck!

I did IVF twice in 2000 (and 3 times in 2005, plus 2 other operations), so this is probably out of date, but at that time statistics were published and some clinics were way more successful than others, particularly if you were older. So, if possible chose your clinic carefully.

At that time, there were many experimental things my clinic tried (not to me as it happened), so apart from a basic knowledge of what IVF was, there was too much to know and I couldnt become an expert or participate/contribute at all. I found this really frustrating at the start bit of a control freak.

So, I trusted the clinic, asked few questions and did exactly what they said. Actually not knowing too much did mean I also didnt know what there was to worry about, so I was fairly naaively positive about it all.

Dont compare yourself to others, to even yourself on another round, each person, each diagnosis, each round is unique. Give yourself every chance of making it work. Eat well, dont drink, smoke. Rest up, dont stress. Dont give yourself any reason to think its your fault if it fails.

For me at the time, it was all pretty horrible, exhausting, expensive, painful, all consuming etc etc. But I took a breathe and dived in, there was no way I wasnt going to do it. And now, with 2 children, it seems a very small price to have paid.

If you truly want children, then this has to be done. Its a step, hopefully the final one before motherhood - but even if its not, its a step that has to be taken on the journey.

Good luck xx

Haven't read the whole thread and it might have been mentioned. Fertilityfriends.co.uk
Is a very helpful forum. Do check it out.

Thank you for starting this thread.
I start ivf tomorrow so this has been very interesting.