To want to skip to IVF after 3 months TTC?

[HelloKitty76]

I know 3 months is nothing but I'm 37 and so worried about the bio clock. If we don't conceive soon there may well not be time left for another.

We would fund it ourselves obviously. Yet would a clinic be prepared to treat us after only 3 months trying do you think? Would they think we were being ridiculous?

You can always start the process. By the time you see the GP, get referred, see the private consultant, who might ask for more or repeat tests, there might be a couple more months trying naturally anyway.

You do need to consider though that once you really start IVF, you are likely to need to stop ttc naturally. I believe your natural cycle is halted anyway, and then once you receive drugs, you would be in danger of multiple pregnancies which could put your life at risk.

Do you realise though that your chances of a pregnancy with IVF won't be much higher than naturally trying if you don't have any fertility issues? IVF is just bypassing the fertility issues and picking the strongest eggs, but ultimately, even with the best eggs retrieved, at 37, your chance of pregnancy with IVF won't be more than 25/30% at best. Are you prepared to pay £10k for this likelihood?

Have you considered instead of freezing some of your eggs, so that if it doesn't happen in say 12 months, you still have 37yo eggs to try with IVF?

You’ve been trying three months and are considering IVF, yet made a post in January asking people if it would be weird to name your baby after your fertility doctor? I’m extremely confused.

As someone posted upthread, the stats your clinic are giving you seem impossible. Which clinic is it?

I think 3 months is very early to be considering IVF. I understand your concerns but I would wait until you have been ttc for a year before looking at other avenues. I'd focus on making sure you are both as healthy as possible and see how you get on. I've just turned 30 and my DH and I have been ttc for 3 years. Ivf is something we are now looking at but it's not a walk in the park and as others have said, it doesn't guarantee you will have a baby at the end. I wouldn't put yourself through it if you don't need to and I think 3 months is too early to judge whether you need to. Best of luck with whatever you choose xx

See I think 37 is a bit late in the day.

If I was paying privately, could easily afford it and a clinic would be happy to help (I don’t know of this would be possible, they may have rules?) Yes I’d start now due to your age but obviously I’m in the minority

Just to reiterate the excellent point that @diaduittoyou made, I was pretty blasé about IVF and it went as well as it could have done without being successful (no issues, lots of eggs retrieved, plenty of good quality embryos in store now). But it took over 6 months for my cycles to go back to normal after the BFN and I was getting my period every two weeks (and therefore was unlikely to be ovulating properly). I was on a low dose of drugs but I was unprepared for the physical impact. It is really not something to be taken lightly - it's expensive, time consuming and can be very stressful/traumatic.

@AltasCloud - it did work for me. First time. And whilst he's worth it times a million, I'd never recommend that someone with no known fertility issues jumps into it after only TTC for 3 months!

@diaduittoyou it did work for me.

That's honestly wonderful.

But that doesn't change the statistics, and the fact that it doesn't work for the majority of people. I find OP's post really distasteful.

Were you not thinking of naming the baby after your fertility Dr???

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/baby_names/3475721-Naming-your-baby-after-someone-living

And you might want to look at this. I expect nhs statistics to be more reliable than a private clinic desperately competing for business.

IVF isn't usually recommended for women over the age of 42 because the chances of a successful pregnancy are thought to be too low. Between 2014 and 2016 the percentage of IVF treatments that resulted in a live birth was: 29% for women under 35. 23% for women aged 35 to 37.
www.nhs.uk › conditions › ivf
IVF - NHS

YABU. At 37 you are still a lot younger than me when I started TTC, but everything I've researched indicates that in older women without any obvious or diagnosed problems (certainly the over 40s) natural conception is more likely/easier than IVF conception. And 3 months is nothing- you need to give it closer to a year, or at least 7-8 months. IVF is rough on your body by all accounts, and doesn't lower the chance of miscarriage, which is one risk you do run as you get older.

I'm a pregnant 44 year old with a 2 year old, both naturally conceived in a few months (between 4 and 11 months, by the way). Do you think I should have done IVF? Honestly, concentrate on your health and revisit this in 2020.

That's what we did, using temperature charts to predict ovulation and ensuring we at least knew if we'd DTD during the requisite days. That way, our hopes were only raised for approximately 2 weeks every cycle

This doesn't make sense. It's called the two week wait because there's always two weeks of hope each cycle.

@Dickybow321

It means that if you know when you are ovulating, you are only waiting for your period or positive test for 2 weeks. If you don't know, you could be waiting for longer as you might think you ovulated earlier.

As other people have said 3 months may feel like a long time but it really isn't. When I started TTC at 30 I believed that it would only take a few months as I was fit, healthy, didn't drink or smoke.

After a year we sort help and found I had ovarian failure. We were lucky to have 2 IVF rounds on the NHS ( both failed) then had to pay privately for our 3rd round ... We were quoted £12,500 plus meds .... We ended up with a bill of nearly £30,000.

I will be paying off this for a very long time. I wish I had saved and mentally prepared more before starting down this journey.

It worked and I will never regret it but there were several times I told my husband to leave as the medications made me crazy.
Trying to balance all the appointments with work was so awful and added to the stress even though my boss was very understanding.

Please do not rush into it thinking it will be an easy quick fix. If you unfortunately need to go down this road in the future be as mentally prepared as you can. Good luck x

A PP said: Don’t worry yourself about running out of time to conceive a second child - get number one out of the way first!

Of course this does make sense. But I'm one person who has been left in this situation.

A lot depends on age and circumstances: I was 34-5 when we started trying. I really, seriously wish I'd done what you're proposing to do rather than waiting as recommended, then trying clomid which only resulted in a succession of miscarriages. If we'd skipped this stage we might have been saved a lot of heartache; and possibly had the opportunity of having the sibling for DC we so desperately wanted.

Go with what your heart tells you to do, OP. And good luck. Infertility is a hard road, and once you've reached the end of it, you need to look back with no regrets.

Hi @HelloKitty76, can I ask what you ended up doing? Am in a similar position to you now and would love to know.

Thanks!

As others have said, take the given statistics with a pinch of salt.

There are a number of ways to calculate success rate and sadly this can be very misleading. For instance, this ratio is likely to be the rate of pregnancy but not of life birth. Sadly, a number of ivf pregnancies result in miscarriages. They also most likely quoted success rate over a cycle, ie. a number of frozen embryo implementation, bit these alone have a much lower success rate, yet you'll have to pay still quite a bit of money each time. You can easily get to over £10k before you know it.

Realistically, the chances of live pregnancy is likely to be closer to 30% at the absolute best.

Breathe. And give it at least 3 more months. Also do not underestimate ivf. It is not a picknick. Nor a quick fix

@sweetpea2000 Yep, conceived in month 4. Baby is now 3 months old.

I’d forgotten all about this thread. So nice to be able to supply a happy ending.

I did try acupuncture, although who knows if that had any effect?! Maybe try that before progressing to anything more drastic, even if just to feel like you’re doing something positive.

Oh wow - that's lovely news. Congratulations!