The CBFM Graduates Vol 1

[StormBird]

We have got to know each other pretty well during our TTC journey's so have created this thread on Chocciechips advice (hope she doesn't mind!!) so we can all contintue to support one another through our pregnancies.

Welcome................

Hi everyone

Happy New Year to you all. Hope everyone is feeling as good as their personal circumstances allow. hmmm, that sounded kind of cold and weird, struggling to phrase, know a few of you have had recent MCs and Bobas mum is gravely ill. thinking of you, anway.

keziah glad all is progressing smoothly, i was so scared for you at the beginning of this pregnancy where it seemed that a cocktail of meds was keeping baby safe, and then all the other hitches along the way. we will all breathe easy once your little one is born.

my little monster is teething and has had a particularly grouchy day, currently lying across my lap like a newborn doing a bit of mummy staring whilst chewing on dummy for dear life!poor little bear.

2012 has started with a diet finally. at my current size i look set to be hungry for quite some time!

Keziah Good luck for your next scan. I am sure all will be well!

Kitty I know what you mean about after Christmas diet. I'll be joining you with the hunger pangs!

Well we returned to the FC today, and as long as our frostie thaws (we've been told 70% chance) we will have it replaced on my next cycle, which is due to start on 14/01. As I have a regular cycle it will be unmedicated, and I don't need a scan or bloods until day 11 of my cycle! Blastocyst will probably be replaced around day 19, which will be at the beginning of Feb. We're really chuffed so have everything crossed. Also, we saw the grading of all our embryos. We thought the blastocyst put back initially was a 4Bb, but it turns out it was actually a 4Ab. The best you can get is an Aa. We were told that 4 means it was well expanded and close to hatching. Turns out the one they froze was a 4Ab/a so almost perfect. We're feeling a bit more buoyant now, at least.

Back at work after the Christmas break and finding it exhausting. Can't wait till Easter now.

thanks - baby had massive growth spurt, now at 90th centile, ouch!!!

KC how great your frostie is a blast and to know its rating as well is very encouraging. Hope the thawing goes well for you and all the best for your cycle -unmedicated sounds great x

Keziah That's great news, although sounds like you might give birth to a monster x

keziah Z been 91st centile since birth (9lb5oz) and it wasn't too bad. I've heard bigger babies are easier to deliver so look on bright side! x x

Thanks for that Boba - just had 7 days on maternity ward due to a nasty bacterial infection and was much calmer knowing this baby is 4-5lb at 32 weeks already in case he had to be born early. Home now.

KC, wishing you all the lcuk in the world for your FET.

Keziah, glad things are well with baby. Hope you are feeling better after your hospital stay [how awful:(!].

We are 15 weeks tomorrow and all is well. I just have to find the right moment to tell work :s.

Look after yourselves, all.

Keziah So sorry to hear you've had an infection, but glad to hear you and bump are back home safe and sound Good to know that baby is a good weight at 32 weeks.

Thanks for good wishes Lychees. Wow, 15 weeks. How exciting!

Boba How's things for you at the moment?

Lychees - 15 weeks, wow - how is it going for you? I told work at about 15 weeks I think but would have waited longer if I could. Yes being on the post-natal ward was not what I had planned at this stage and it scared me a bit. Strange that I was on it longer than I will be after birth!!

KC - hope your FET goes well and that precious embryo defrosts well for you. Yes I had pseudonomos which is not so good if you are immunosuppressed, hence very strong iv drugs for a week (they made me sick ). This is one very big baby I think!

Sorry to hear you were ill keziah glad you're home now. I think big babies are more the norm these days. Are you or your DH tall? Although Z was 9lb 5oz was also 57cm so very tall. My DH is quite short but I'm 5'11'' so we're hoping he'll inherit my height!
Lychees Wow 15 weeks already. How you feeling?
KC good luck with everything. Things not great with me. My mum has gotten drastically worse over weekend. Think it is a matter of days now rather than weeks. I go from feeling so angry to completely distraught. It just feels so surreal just now. I'm afraid of what's going to happen once she goes Still I know I must be strong for Zach but I'm just so so sad atm.

boba im so sorry to read this and think of what a terrible time you are having. try not to worry about how you will cope, you will. you will be sad but you're a wonderful mother and your little boy will give you great comfort and a reason to keep smiling even on the darkest days. Im so sorry you have to go through this and im thinking of you xxx

Hi ladies just wanted to update you. We lost my lovely lovely mum on Tuesday morning. We are all devastated and Zach is helping us through this awful time. Am now just in limbo until funeral on Wednesday.

I hope everyone else is doing ok?

x x x

boba am so so sorry to hear of your loss. Am so glad she got to meet Zach and I hope he continues to comfort you in the coming weeks.

Am ok here, though having been in hospital for 6 days last week with pseudonomos and just heard about it on the news it concerned me slightly. 33 weeks.

oh boba im so sorry to hear the news that i have known would be here soon. im glad she got to meet little Zach and im glad hes there to comfort you now. please come and talk to us if you feel you arent coping. thinking of you lots and sending lots of love x

keziah you will be glad when that baby is out safe and sound! i hope you have an uneventful week. when will you be finished at work?

all is well here at puree central! sams had a nasty cough and i was a little worried so he spent our wedding anniversary night in a travel cot in our room...i dont know how people actually keep them in their room until 6 months...we did about 6 weeks, and that felt like 6 weeks too long!

Boba I am so very sorry to hear of the loss of your mum. You must be devastated and my thoughts are with you at this time. I'm glad to hear that she got to meet Zach, but so sorry to hear that the precious time she had with him was so short.

Wishing you strength for the funeral tomorrow. xxx

Keziah hope all is well for you now. Getting close to term! How very exciting.

Kitty Hope Sam is feeling a little better. Are you planning anything for a delayed wedding anniversary?

Well I'm booked in for frostie transfer on Monday, if it survives the thaw. FX

Boba thinking of you for the funeral tomorrow xx

Our frozen embryo didn't thaw

Really feeling floored. So wish I'd pushed for a DET with only one to freeze - told embryologist that I felt we were pushed into a eSET when the risk was too high that our other embryo wouldn't defrost.

hi KC - so sorry to hear that. Unfortunatley if too young (and you are in NHS terms) the NHS will only allow a SET and freeze the rest. We too lost our only other 2nd viable embryo as NHS funded and only allowed one back and our 2nd blast wasn't good enough quality to even freeze (but good enough to put back). Even privately now it is harder to get 2 put back, as NHS fines clinics if they go above a certain number of multiple births, as these cost the NHS much more money than single pregnancies.

Will they give you a review? You got quite a few eggs, they could stimulate you more to give you more options? Or do more tests to see why this happened? Now you have had surgery is there any option of clomid or other treatments working that you can try in the meantime? Do they fund more than one cycle on NHS where you are? For us it was one cycle, hence we spent years saving for a 2nd cycle (before we started so we could do more than one in a row - which was silly as I was much older when started = grrr)

Just thinking out loud, know you very happy at the good hospital you been at. But there is a private clinic not far from you who do free open evenings once a month - would it be worth going to the clinic as then you can ask them questions (for free) as it is always a consultant who does the evening, plus you get to talk to embryologists etc --- and I found I could ask lots of questions that normally you would have to pay for etc and see what they would do etc, with no commitments. They also do egg donation - not saying it is right for everyone - but it significantly reduces costs etc etc and you get well looked after.

Sorry - feel free to ignore any of my insensitive comments. Take good care of you right now xxx

Thanks for your kind words Keziah. There is a target set by HFEA for singletons, which is around 20% for 2010. All the data is on the HFEA's site in the area for healthcare professionals. Interestingly, the clinic I am with had a 13.5% rate in 2009. The lowest in the country!

DH and I talked a lot last night, and he thinks they are perhaps an outlier because they are too aggressive on their strategy. Their eSET rate is the second highest in the country. Their pregnancy rate is not significantly different from average. Shows you it could be much greater if perhaps they weren't so harsh. DH thinks they are perhaps a bit too clinical and don't take into account the psychological impact. He went as far as to say he didn't think we were properly consented. At the end of the day, they are our embryos and you can force a DET, but it's tough when you feel vulnerable.

When they "persuaded" us that an eSET was the best option, they kept saying we will freeze the other embryos (plural). There's a small chance they might not all thaw. What they didn't do was state there is a "significant risk of 30 to 40%" that your embryo may not thaw and so although we advise an eSET for your first round of IVF, you may wish to consider that risk if you only have two good quality embryos." DH says that's how you do informed consent.

Obviously, DH is a GP and he said failing to consent properly which technically makes our consent void. I just wish I'd done my homework more thoroughly and actually asked about thawing rates. The first time they mentioned they were only 60 - 70% was when we were booked in for the FET.

Now have to find £3k for a round of IVF. We're moving house soon so we've decided to release equity and mortgage for a greater amount to do it. Seems really extreme to be paying for IVF for the next 25 years! I don't feel emotionally strong enough to do egg share (they do it at our clinic and I'm not against it for any ethical reason) because after ending up with only 2 good blasts for 12 eggs makes me worried about giving half my eggs away. Also, they couldn't access my left ovary very well, so we should have had about 16 eggs but I was in so much pain they had to stop the EC after 8 from right and 4 from left.

Despite everything, we are going to stay with the clinic as my surgery was quite complicated, which means egg collections are technically difficult, and would be especially so for somebody who doesn't know where my left ovary is (not where it should be). They do have one of the best embryologists in the country, which is why I think they manage a healthy 30% pregnancy rate despite having such a high eSET rate. I think they become a lot less stringent on your second round too if you've lost embryos to thawing. We have decided on the next round to force a DET unless we have 4 or more top quality embryos at day 5, in which case we're happy to take the risk of an eSET as we'd have 3 to freeze and the likelihood is at least one will make it!

Gosh, sorry I've ranted so much.

How are you doing?

KC glad you and dh have a plan. Totally understand about not egg sharing - it does reduce your own chances if you don't have lots of eggs. Could you ask for increased sedation for egg collection to increase the eggs they harvest? I was so sedated I slept totally through it and felt no pain whatsoever so they could take all eggs... just a drug in my hand, not an anaesethic.

If you are paying you can definitely insist on a DET!! I agree with lack of information. What we were told to do was to take all 4 eggs to blast, as NHS preferred that option, meaning there were none to freeze so NHS didn't have to pay for any frozen ones to be returned. If I had known that I would have insisted on not going to blast so could have had at least a FET on the NHS.

Good you happy with your embryologists - sounds a good clinic!! Keep ranting away.

I have had a horrible day with midwives and professionals - when calmed down may rant myself!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I had fentanyl (the drug in the back of the hand), and two lots! 100 units in total. They normally do 50. Didn't have a massive effect on me - think it was painful because of the adhesions I have around ovaries. Also, just think the drug doesn't really work with me. I had three temazepam (one night before) and two in the morning of EC and I was wide awake! One of my friends said she was completely out of it on the same amount. Think I'm just a bit odd.

Seems harsh what your clinic did. Whether to do SET at blast or not is supposed to take into account the number of embryos and the quality. Surprised they took you to blast though. My clinic doesn't with that number. I was taken to blast because we had 8 embryos on day 2, and 6 on day 3. 4 made it to blast, but only two good quality. Other two were D/E grades.

The embryologist phoned us every day and we had to be on standby for embryo transfer on days 2 and 3 because they assessed daily whether to transfer or risk going to blast. On day 2, we had 8 that looked good so they then said it would be a 3 or 5 day transfer depending on how they progressed. I know they had minimum threshold levels of whether to take you through to the next day, which depended on quality too. 4 eggs seems really low to risk trying to get to blast stage. You must have been a nervous wreck. I'm pretty sure my clinic doesn't take you that far on that small quantity.

Rant away when you feel ready.

KC - gosh, that is quite a lot of sedation!! Temazepam did nothing for me though, and forgot about your adhesions.

My rants are massive now but struggling for words - if you pop to mental health you can read the thread I have posted, have no energy to even namechange

OK hun, will do that.

Saw doctor at clinic today, he was lovely and the one that did my EC - brilliant for continuity. Said pain level to be expected with adhesions. He's now suggesting frontloading with 100 units of fentanyl with a 50 unit top up part way through - and a bit more temazepam. Said it that wouldn't have even touched the sides with my amount of scarring! He actually bothered to read my operation notes, which made a fab change. He really was fab.

Also, booked in for another cycle of IVF. Got a cancellation so booked in to start next week! He didn't discuss egg share, think he judged it probably wasn't appropriate after my mc and loss of frosty. Because my oestrogen levels were high during IVF, any further stimulation would put me at risk of OHSS, and fewer eggs probably wouldn't give me enough top quality blasts so egg share unlikely to be a viable option. Let's hope it works this time as can fund this, but not a third cycle (unless we win the lottery)!

They've also agreed to a DET if we only have 2 or 3 top quality blasts. Have agreed to eSET if we get 4 as figure 3 in the freezer is worth the risk of a single transfer.

Will pop over and read your posts now. Hope you are holding up. I am sure I shall probably feel really insensitive in a minute. x

wow KC you are certainly going through it. I haven't been through anything like that, but it's really just shocking to hear that you are told 'slim chance' for something that is actually remarkably significant. to me, slim chance is 5-10%. how very frustrating. i hope this next round is 'the one'. am i right in thinking that you are trying for a second child and things were fairly straightforward last time, or am i getting you confused. im so sad when i read what you are going through it just doesnt seem fair. thinknig of you next week x

KC - what great news (you cheered me up, so please don't feel insensitive!), especially knowing they will change things to reduce pain and help collect more of your precious eggs. Sounds really positive and great they are listening to you.

Ilovekitty it is KC's first they are trying for (just posting in case KC too busy to reply!!).

Well am 35 weeks and physically things are great, apart from baby has a tummy that is off all centile charts!! So estimated weight earlier in the week ws 6lb 8oz so far