Assisted Conceptions (and all the bits in-between) Volume 11

[vallinnapod]

I really hope I haven't missed someone else starting this!

Ginger & Lucky, great news about your progress, you both sound so happy and excited. I hope this is 'it' for the two of you

I am eight days into my Cyclo-progynova (HRT) and am having my ultrasound scan next Saturday. I start Utrogestan on the same day. Can someone please tell me what these drugs are for? Am I downregging on the cyclo-prog? Or, because I'm having donor egg IVF, do I not need to downreg? I wish I knew what I was doing

Anyway, flights to Prague are booked and EC is 12th June with ET on 17th

DSB

Hi Ladies
Sorry have been awol. Been flat out at work after being off so long with being so sick. But feeling much better now.
Really exciting things going on here with the cycling ladies.
Jewcy welcome and good luck for your EC and ET coming up. Sorry I don't know about those drugs. I was on a flare cycle and so I didn't down reg on my my recent go.

Luckystar 17 eggs is a great! Well done you. Fingers crossed for more success at EC on Tuesday.

Ginger so exciting it's all go for you too. I know the cocktail of drugs is daunting. Sounds very similar to the stuff ARGC had me on and they love their drugs. But in no time you'll be in your 'drugs routine'. It all sounds very promising my dear.

motorcyclemama I hope you get your donor soon. The waiting must be excruciating.

Vallinna Are you cycling now too?

Scrummy great to hear from you! And so happy your little boy is doing so well. I bet you are loving every minute.

Pocket how many weeks now?

All fine here. 19 weeks now! Feeling nervous about the all important 20 week anomoly scan coming up but fingers crossed all will be well. Not sure if I mentioned we know the sex. One of each! we are very, very blessed.

So cycle ladies (and everyone else) please, please don't stop believing!

Waves and hugs to everyone else oxox

Jewcy the Progynova is to prep your endometrial lining ready to welcome a lovely embryo, and the utrogestan (progesterone) I think also helps support the lining.

Sunny lovely to hear from you, glad you are now feeling better and are approaching that 20 week mark now. Also great to hear you are expecting a boy and girl! How lovely! Thanks for the reassurance on my drugs.. I really, really hope the combination is the key for me this time. Fingers and toes firmly crossed!

Oh Sunny I am so happy for you. Almost at 20 weeks and you've got one of each - how perfect. You really deserve this. Well done for keeping on believing! Hope you're feeling okay now and that the remaining weeks pass quickly and uneventfully

Ooh what an exciting week girlies!

Lucky, best of luck for ec tmw. Will be thinking of you so let us know how you get on.

Wow Jewcy everything crossed for your especially for et Friday.

Huge hello to everyone else. Hope you're all doing well.

I'm 32+3. Starting to organise birth plan/preferences and hospital bag. DP and I had a 3d scan at the weekend - but the little one was facing the wrong way with her feet in front of her face. And she was so fast asleep we couldn't get her to move. What a little madam! Repeat scan booked for Wednesday so hopeful she will behave!

DSB

Ginger, thank you for clarifying for me re drugs.

Expat, welcome back and great news you are moving forward at a rapid pace (I simply don't believe in dragging one's feet with these things!) I feel very fortunate that, due to having donor eggs, I don't have to do the kind of drugs/scanning/EC that other women have to go through. You are all very brave.

Sunny, I read your news about one of each and grinned from ear-to-ear. What a lucky girl you are, absolutely marvellous

Pocket, bless your little girl, fast asleep and ignoring the circus. Good for her (but I hope she gives you a surprise wave on Wednesday). I think you may have misread my last post: I am having ET on 17th June, not this Friday! We fly to Prague in four weeks and are holidaying for around nine days in total.

I'm starting to get anxious/excited/doubtful/optimistic; a myriad of emotions which is part of the deal with IVF, I suppose. I am currently awaiting delivery of all my drugs

DON'T STOP BELIEVING, EH? HMMM..?

Sorry Jewcy must have mixed up dates. Just take the time to relax and try and stay positive. I know it's scary but... What if it all turns out okay... And you get your bfp... How fab will that be

Hi ladies

Just checking in to say what ever you do DSB!!!

19 eggs collected today - 15 mature :-) But guess what, they've only gone and found live sperm in my hubbys TESA collected frozen sample today! (They found ZERO last time) yet today there was enough to fertilise all eggs from just 2 of the 4 remaing vials if we want to!!!

Of course there could still be factors that they don't develop. So to cover all angles we've gone with 7 fertilised with My hubbys sperm and 8 with the donor!

Now the waiting game begins! Much better odds than we could have ever hoped for today :-))

Now to start the pessaries and the gestone - and to cross absolutely everything for be next 5 days.

DO NOT STOP BELIEVING ladies :-))

jewcy did your clinic send you a timetable?? I've sent my cycle info to the clinic, and apparently once they have the same info from the donor, they put a timetable together. How long for you from starting medication to predicted egg transfer?

Lucky, wow! You must feel like the luckiest lady in the land right now! what a thrilling surprise. I have a really good feeling about you..

Motor, yes, a tentative schedule was emailed to me when my period arrived a couple of weeks ago telling me when I would need a scan, when to start Utrogestan and when my mock cycle would end and transfer cycle begin. Now that my drugs have been dispatched I'm expecting a full and detailed schedule (or else I won't know what to do with all this medication or when!) To answer your question: my period started 1st May; I started Cyclo-progynova (HRT) on 5th; my scan is 18th (I also start Utrogestan on this date); EC will be 12th June and ET 17th June.

[waves to Expat, Pocket & Ginger]

Don't Stop Believing!

Motor, to answer your question more succinctly: six weeks!

sunny fab news - couldn't be more perfect than to have one of each! I'm delighted for you!

Pcoket - I hope baby is facing the right way today. Enjoy the moment, sweetie!

Luckystarfour - what brilliant news!! I hope you gets lots of little embies for you/the clinic to choose from.

Sorry this has to be quick so apologies to all those I've missed.

Best wishes everyone!

F
x

Lucky such fab news re the number of eggs and also having some viable sperm from your DH to use on some of the eggs! I have all my fingers and toes crossed for you!

Expat good luck with the upcoming cycle. I'm sure you'll be ok with the self injecting, it seems scary at first but you soon get past that and it is the beginning of your journey, so go for it!

Jewcy I hope you are getting on ok with the drugs, and good luck with the scan on 18th.

Hello to Motor and also hugs to Frosticle, I hope you are doing ok sweetie.

AFM, I am on day 5 of my HRT and Baby Aspirin (along with the Folic Acid and Vits B12 and B6). Tomorrow I start my steroids and my scan is booked for next wed. I have also had my bill for the FET too, so need to ring up and get that paid as I don't want any delays! So far I am feeling ok, just extremely tired, but I'm not sure if that is the drugs or just me!

Waves to everyone else.

DSB

Hi all

Just a quick stop in, thanks for all your good wishes.

Yes so pleased with yesterday's collection and results.

heard from clinic today

3 out of 6 fertilised of ours - this is good still because we have to take into account its frozen sperm and testicular they say.

6 out of 8 of the donors fertilised. Again we have to take into account that the sperm was frozen, where as usually our fertilisation rates have been very very high (90%) based on fresh sperm.

All in all Dr Venkat is happy .

Thank god we had a lt of eggs though hey, as you often seem to etch the numbers diminish!

Next update tomorrow

Expat, juicy and ginger - the very best of luck I shall be back on line rooting for you.

Pocket I so hope you got to see your little girl at her best today :-)

Hugs to all and sort if I've missed anyone tonight xxx

Just wanted say to Lucky it only takes one egg...or in Sunnys case two eggs! It is a bit scary how many you start with though and how many actually end up good.

I am 32 weeks tomorrow crazy to think bubba will be here within the next 8 weeks (apparently they don't let IVF babies go over their due dates)
Good luck everyone else
Don't stop believing!

Lucky woop woop. Fingers crossed that this good luck continues...

Beginning you're exactly one week behind me, amazing hey? How are you feeling?

Ginger you're on your way. Rest and be kind to yourself, you need to be fighting fit next week!

Waves and DSB vibes to Frosticle, Jewcy, Expat and MotorcycleMama

Well the little one was at least facing the right way for the second 3D scan, but kept her arms and feet in front of her face - so we only got one piccie. And that's of her feet. But what lovely feet they are! She's keeping us guessing until she arrives.

Btw, if any of you ever considering a 3D scan, they're best done 27-32 weeks (we're a bit late) and I've been told that its really hit and miss. All those lovely piccies you see of beautiful clear baby faces are actually rather rare... and often due to too much fluid. They are expensive so thought a little heads up was in order - given the money we've all spend on treatment...

DSB
x

Pocket how funny our due dates are so close. I'm feeling good but looking forward to finishing work and feel like I am gonna run out of space for this baby, turns out I should have picked the shorted sperm donor as this baby seems to have been big from the off with especially long legs! :-) x

Shorter sperm donor , not sure what a shorted one is! :-)

Thanks, Ginger, the drugs turned up yesterday and I start progesterone pessaries tomorrow morning - just before my scan!

Pocket, great news about the scan and thanks for the tip-off.

Beginning, good luck with the rest of your pregnancy.

Lucky, good news about the embies? Come give us an update.

Waves to Frosticle.

Hi ladies really quick check in;

Going for embryo transfer this afternoon! Bit bit of a shock yesterday as a new monitoring video system used on the embryos reveals there may be some possible egg factor problems which have been also contributing to previous difficulties :-( not what we wanted to hear at all. This couldn't be picked up before in our previous cycles because it was evaluated all be the naked eye! (Ironically its all in the news today - so in one way thank god we're getting to use this method- cutting edge stuff!)

Our journey dosent seem to get any easier and what's been given on the one hand with this cycle feels like it has been taken away with the other
:-(

But better to know than not to know. Not all embryos are affected so we just have to hope they've put the right egg with the right sperm. As of last night one of my hubbies embryos was unaffected and some of the donors. Equally all could stand a chance of repair as its so early on.

Glad we had some time to take on board this info - had a real good cry last night but feeling upbeat and optimistic again this morning.

So fingers crossed and we are praying for our little miracle today. Keep everything crossed for us today. Transfer at 2pm xxx

Lucky, how did ET go? Which embies did they use and how many days were they? Did you pay for the embryo monitoring? We are having it, too, and are very excited at the results so far that have been reported. It's £750 in the UK for the embryoscope but we are paying £420 for it in the Czech. Hooray!

Take courage in the embryologists decision, Lucky, you've benefited from cutting edge technology there.

Hi Jewcy

Well we have had two put back and would you believe those two are my hubbie's - ecstatic!!

Of all our embryos - one of Hubby's was the best of the them all.

A grade b - 8 cell (nearly a grade a) but the embryologist is a very tough judge in this clinic apparently.

The second put back of my hubby's was a grade d 8 cell - so a bit on the scraggy side but he told us that he has had healthy twins from just one embryo put back like this, which divided.

So what a journey! Now to rest rest rest, pray, pray, pray.

If it wasn't for the release of this embryoscopy talked about in the press today, we would never know what we know from today! Lets hope its fate!

It's taken this to show thy there are some egg factors in our case, where we've always been led to believe thy it was only sperm factors. We paid for so many extras on our last round array CGH, IMSI microscope for sperm selection etc etc. but this embryoscopy has been the MOST informative. £500.00 with our clinic so it appears we may have got a bargain too.

Taking plenty of progesterone to hold onto these previous beans.

Keep you posted and thanks all for all your good wishes.

Ginger and juicy I hope you both get off to a flying start :-) do ask about embryoscopy ginger if you can.

It would be a miracle if we could show our child the news paper cutting from today and say this is what made the difference and fate announced this on the week of our cycle ;-)

It was a day 3 transfer by the way and I would suspect that with this technology we will see more day 3 transfers as no need to decide by the naked eye and wait for blastocyst.

All our previous embryos have reached blastocysts and all our embryos today look like pretty perfect embryos by appearance today - but clearly many have genetic difficulties and would never implant! Thank god for this science!!!

Xxx

Lucky, what an incredible turn of events, you must be gobsmacked and thrilled in equal measure. Well done, old girl, and well done hubby's sperm! I am now worried because my clinic in the Czech uses the embryoscope but also takes the embryos to day-5 blastos. Are you saying that this is unnecessary? What are your thoughts?

Had my scan today and all is well: 'beautiful' uterus and 'terrific' ovaries. Oh yeah? So why the feck am I not pregnant, then?

Started Utrogestan vaginal pessaries today, too

Lucky, when is OTD?