Eggsellent Egg buddies! For those having ivf during April, May and June and any others still around :-)

[starsandmoonandback]

Couldn't see another thread so thought I'd make our new one

Thanks for the sympathy Turq and stars

Blood test confirmed it, no baby for me this time.

But I managed to have a nice birthday. As I had been hoping to be pregnant and didn't want to have to explain why I was off the booze I hadn't planned a party or night out, but DH spoiled me with nice presents and we had cake and ice cream and bubbly for brunch and the weather was gorgeous so he did a nice BBQ for us in the evening.

According to the nurse who called with the blood results my doctor will be calling me early next week to talk over the failed cycle and discuss what happens next. So I am trying to figure out what questions to ask him and what to do next. Feeling rather clueless about it all though

Sucking I'm not an expert but google Agate's Fertility Friends thread about failed IVF and what to ask. It really helped me try to understand what went wrong and try to improve things for next time.

ASF I've booked in for an endo scratch at the end of July and looking at a short antagonist cycle with egg collection w/c 18th August. I don't know how they can be that precise as surely it depends when my next cycle starts but we will see.

Good morning ladies, I have been recommended to join this thread as today I took my first buseriln injection for our first IVF cycle.

Things are moving pretty quick as we only sought medical advice in November, & in that time we've had all out tests which have come back normal so we have been out under the heading of "unexplained infertility". The only thing against us is my age, 37. Hence the move straight to IVF & no IUI. Although this is our nhs funded cycle we are paying for a few extras, I've had the Endo-scratch (OMG painful!) & we will go for the the embryoscope monitoring to boost our chances as much as possible. The one advantage of being 37 is that we can have 2 embryos put back.

So here's hoping & fingers crossed.....I know the odds on the first cycle working aren't great, but with a fair wind.... :-)

Welcome Collie. Good luck with your cycle. Hope the jabbing is going ok and you don't suffer any side effects.

Thanks for the tip Turq I had a Google, and it does look like a pretty good list of things to consider.

Agate's thread Here for anyone else who may want to have a look and make note.

It must be encouraging to have some dates to look forward to (well, nobody looks forward to a scratch!) but it really does feel like things are moving forward when you can actually schedule stuff that will hopefully get you closer to that sought after BFP. I hope it all goes smoothly and the doctors are right with their predicted egg collection dates!

Welcome aboard Collyd, hope everything is going well for you. A fair number of people do strike it lucky in their first IVF attempt, so hopefully you will be one of them

Things have gone very quiet on here. How are you doing with the jabbing Collyd?

It is a bit tumbleweedy in here lately.

I guess most people on here are either licking their wounds from failed cycles or waiting to cycle though, so not posting as much.

I'm happy to come and blather about myself for a bit though

I had my phone consult with my doctor on Tuesday. Unfortunately he phoned at a bad time (the cat had just kindly posted a rather angry snake through the cat flap as a pressie for me, and DH was running around naked waving his bollocks and a pair of tweezers at me because he'd found three ticks on his gentleman's vegetables and urgently needed an extraction ) so I didn't ask all the questions I had meant to as I was a bit preoccupied by the unwanted wildlife in my lounge.

Basically though, my cycle went really well. I responded appropriately to the meds, sensible numbers of follicles developed, decent amount of eggs were collected at the right time and a reasonable proportion fertilized, we got four blasts, three of which developed at exactly the right speed. Lining looked fine on ultrasound (apart from the polyp), embryo transfer was very smooth, progesterone levels were fine. Etc. Basically all was as it should be - apart from the BFN of course.

So that leaves us with two obvious possibilities really:

1. Despite looking okay, the embryos we put back were simply 'duds' not capable of implanting, and maybe the two on ice will do better. Nothing we can do there though.

2. Implantation problems - which we can do something about. So the doctor has me booked in for a hysteroscopy on Monday - so my polyp is going to bite the dust and he will hopefully be able to see (and scrape out) any other abnormalities which might possibly have been missed by ultrasounds/HSG.

Then he hopes to give me a month to heal and then we can do our FET.

A snake Sucking?? Where are you again? I love the term gentlemens vegetables!!

It sounds positive though from your discussion. I bet your FET is successful. You won't have all the stress of stimming etc. it's supposed to be a much easier process.

I have no news just waiting for my period early next month so I can get started. My cycle will be right in the middle of my fortnights leave so I'm having the week after off sick I've decided as my holiday will be ruined. Hopefully worth it though.

Hi there, just found this thread. I am DRing at the mo, started on June 15th and am currently doing Buselerin nasal spray and hormone pills.
Feeling a bit bleugh, but guess that's to be expected.
Anyone else?

I'm just on to say my goodbyes (for now but I hope not forever). I wish you all successful treament and good outcomes. This stuff is HARD!

I thought that I'd ruled out further treatment and the plan was to try 'naturally' for a while. We've been told that we have to wait for 6 months to progress any adoption plans (after last cycle). But I'm now in a spin as DH was diagnosed with a tumour in his colon yesterday evening. It is probably cancerous and he'll need surgery and chemo which (i) means that trying naturally is off the books, (ii) might mean that he is infertile afterwards which rules out trying naturally or with assistance again and (iii) probably menas that we wouldn't be approved for adoption. Triple whammy a month after the last miscarriage.

It's been a rough 6 months here - 2 m/cs, death of lovely dog and now this - and I'm teetering on the edge but have to hold it all together for DD.

I look forward to reading your good news.

Bye for now

Res

Oh Res, what a crappy time you've been having. I'm so sorry to hear about your dh. Hope they can remove it and get rid of the nasty bugger.
I hope this doesn't come across as insensitive, but could your dh freeze some sperm just in case you want to do ivf again in the future?
Sending hugs. You're a very strong lady

Hi Phoenix
Sucking, any more snakes appeared?!

Bloody hell res, you just can't catch a break can you? I hope you've got some good people around you who will help prop you up during this hard time.

All the best to your DH for a full and speedy recovery

Hi Phoenix. Hope you are doing okay with your down-regging and the drugs aren't making you feel too grim.

Is it weird that the idea of a nasal spray makes me cringe far more than the injections I had to do for my DR? The very idea of squirting something up my nose makes me want to run away screaming hysterically

Hope your period arrives in a timely manner Turq and yes, if this IVF malarkey is going to bugger up your holiday then I think a week off 'sick' is not an unreasonable idea.

Hi stars no, thankfully no more bloody snakes have been caught - or at least none the furry little bastard has felt the need to share with me.

All the different wildlife beast-cat manages to find to play with still surprises me sometimes, given that we live in one of the biggest cities in Tennessee.

As for me, I had my hysteroscopy on Monday. It all went well apparently, and my doctor very excitedly gave me and DH some lovely colour photos of my insides afterwards - 4 from before and 4 from after. It could be abstract art he gave us for all I know though, as it is all just an amorphous mass of pink blobbiness

He sliced out the big polyp down near the cervix though, and also found a few much smaller ones scattered about too which hadn't showed up on ultrasound, so whipped them out too. So hopefully my chances of implantation have been increased.

It wasn't a bad procedure either, and I genuinely didn't feel any pain afterwards at all - well except for my throat where they had the breathing tube down it. But my undercarriage was 100% fine.

The doctor said he is going to call me on Monday to try to make plans for my FET, so now I am just waiting impatiently for that call... and also suddenly feeling terrified that neither of my frosties will defrost Well, there is always something to drive yourself bonkers about in this process eh?

Res sorry to hear about your DH. You really didn't need that on top of everything. Is sperm freezing a possibility? Things have to get better for you soon, I can't believe all of what you are having to go through. Hugs xx

Sucking good news about the hysteroscopy, that should help with implantation shouldn't it? Hope your frosties defrost nicely when the time comes.

Welcome Phoenix. Lovely to have some new egg buddies. The thread is a bit quiet at the moment. We have a Facebook group too if you'd like to join. Just pm me.
I personally felt horrific on buserelin. It's the devil drug. It was mind altering for me. I've now reached the point that I don't think about another baby everyday and I'm about to put myself through hell again.
Let's hope it's worth it this time!

Thanks for asking turquoise. I've not posted back as nothing to really report, just daily jabbing! I had my baseline scan yesterday & all is as it should be so I've literally just started on the menopur injections. They're not so bad, you just have to get on with it, albeit the mixing the menopur hurts my head (& my leg obviously!). Doing the the very first buserelin injection in my head I was saying "you'll just feel a little scratch" - who was I trying to kid?!

I've not really suffered any major side effects of the buserelin, I have been rather tired but we have a stupid dog who has taken it upon himself to bark at 5-6am (perhaps doing his bit trying to get us used to night feeds!). I was a bit emotional last week but nothing unlike my usual pmt. so I guess I've been quite lucky with that. Although I have the mother of all headaches at the moment! Related? Probably not but this process of TTC gets you that way, analysing every little thing your body does!

Sucking, I sure hope you got your DH's gentleman's area sorted! I had a tick on my boob once, horrific! I was staying with friends in France, the only time my friend allowed her now DH to touch another woman's boob to try and get the damn thing off!

Res, if you're still reading this thread, I do hope things work out for whatever the outcome. Life is so cruel at times.

Does anyone else find the menopur (FSH) injections sting?! Oweee!! Thighs are starting to resemble pin cushions!

...

Hey Turq, hope you're doing okay. Is the FB group more active than this thread?

Hope all is going well for you Collyd even if the injections are stinging. I did Bravelle injections for my stim-phase rather than Menopur, but yes, I did find that they were very slightly stingy - particularly if I was impatient and injected too quickly rather than emptying the syringe really, really slowly. I did all my shots into my belly rather than my thighs though.

Thankfully I did manage to sort out daft DH and his bloody ticks. He'd been helping a friend of his with his horses and had been wading about in some longish grass in the corner of one of the pastures wearing shorts - which is like an engraved invitation to ticks in this part of the world. Thankfully he hasn't come home with any more of the nasty little buggers since. They are horrific I agree, and I nearly sobbed the one occasion I somehow ended up with one tucked under a boob. The little sods do seem to like to get into inconvenient spots that is for sure!

Of course I may murder DH before any more ticks can get to him...

Can't sleep, so can I rant?

DH and I agreed that we would not discuss our IVF attempt with anyone (well, anyone who knows us in RL - MN doesn't count ) unless it worked. Not anyone at all. Not our families, not our friends. Nobody.

Because frankly I'm bloody tired enough of smiling politely and saying: "Oh someday," to all the nice well-meaning people who ask us when we're having kids - as we've been married 2 years, 3 years, almost 4 years now and we're not getting younger, so surely it is time we got on with it... blah blah blah.

So I was convinced that if we were getting quizzed simply because we were married, if we told people we were doing IVF that everyone would then start clamoring at us to know when we were doing it, and how it was going, and has it worked yet and why not and well it won't be long before you have a baby and maybe if you just relaxed it would happen... blah blah fucking blah. No. Didn't want to go there with RL people. Just wanted to quietly do IVF and then (hopefully) get to a relatively 'safe' point like 20 weeks and then very quietly announce my pregnancy.

Well, DH has blabber-mouthed to his oldest brother. Apparently he needed to talk to someone. Well yeah, oldest brother is smart and nice, but oldest brothers wife is just about THE biggest gossip-monger on the planet... and how much do we want to bet that the brother has not told his wife anything about that conversation? (I would not bet a dime myself, because they are so close.)

So I guess in very short order there will probably be a gossip explosion (DH has a huge and close immediate family) and I can expect lots of (well-meant) pestering about something very personal which I DO NOT want to discuss - AT ALL.

DH knows he has fucked up with this (at least he warned me I suppose) and has been hiding from me for much of today... so this may not be a fun family 4th of July BBQ

I am feeling seriously snarly about this actually, and will probably be snotty and snappy if anyone starts trying to have a cozy wee chat to me about IVF or similar, so here's hoping (by some miracle) that DHs bro has kept his mouth shut. Or they might all just get to see my inner-bitch

Sucking feel free to rant!

So, how did the BBQ go? Did anyone get to see your inner bitch or did your bro-in- law keep quiet?

You've done well to not tell anyone. I know people mean well when asking whether we'll have children, what makes me chuckle is the "you don't want to leave it too late to start..." comments (I'm 37 & BF is 35) as if age is not something that's already crossed our minds!

I don't know how much & to who exactly BF has told about us but in a laddish way I know he said he's "had to jizz in a jar" (excuse the terminology) to his mates & boys being boys I think that's enough information! Obviously neither of us are drinking at the moment which hasn't gone unnoticed, people are probably second guessing why I'm not but they are probably a bit flummoxed as to why he isn't, other than I've banned it! I have told my close friends, mum, sister, BF's sister (who did go through fertility investigations) & a lady at work who has had IVF. However I have told them, whilst they know when & what's happening I won't say whether successful or not until later - although I suspect they will know if it's not worked by my demeanour & the big glass of wine in my hand!!

I definitely have not told my employers. Part of me wishes I could say something as they have obvious picked up that I have quite a few hospital appointments but I don't want them poking their noses in my personal business. It's also a mainly male environment as I work in the construction industry.

It's obviously a personal decision whether to tell or not, no right or wrong. Do go to counselling to talk things through? Let's just hope we all have good news to tell everyone before too long!

Sucking, how did the family BBQ go? Hope nothing was mentioned so you didn't have to release your snarl on them all!!
Coly is right, telling people or not telling people is such an individual thing. I can understand your dh needing to talk to someone tho. Luckily my dh and me both felt similar about our approach to telling others and have always been very open about our infertility and ivf, which helped us cope I think. Your dh's choice of person doesn't found the best to talk to tho! Hope he's taking good care of you, making it up to you a bit!!! Which stage are you at now? Sorry my memory is so rubbish and I should know!

I had first scan since taking menopur today & all is well. Plenty of follicles growing & my "womb looks lovely" - not words you hear everyday!! Back again Friday for another scan & all being well retrieval Monday - arrggghh!

I picked up the last of my meds & I'd forgotten about the pessary - oh the indignity of it all! I'd rather inject than do that twice a day, oh well, best I just suck it up (oo-er!) & get on with it I'm sure there's worse to follow!!

I had a migraine Sunday, out of blue the aura arrived & then the pain, I hope it was just a one off & not a side effect of the drugs.

Cx