Bus 9 - Donkey Cart departing soon, all aboard with ivf, pcos, endo, sub/unexplained fertility jump on

[Marvellouslymadmum]

New thread 😊😊

@Marvellouslymadmum ugh honestly I don’t think the nhs are great with this stuff. They’re fine if you need ivf and it works, but anything more complicated they’re just not set up for/don’t offer or are too slow. We’ve been seeing one of the top andrologists with the nhs which is gods but have to pay for some of the tests privately, but at least they funded some.

Great that you lost a stone! I was doing well until IVF cycle 3 kicked in and I’m sure I put it all back on.

It was our best cycle so far in terms of embryos. I was on higher stims and a double trigger, DH’s sample was prepped differently and we had ICSI.

14 eggs collected
10 mature
9 fertilised
9 made it to day 5!
5 embryos by day 6: 5AA, 4AA, 4BB, 4BB, 5CC

So the 5AA was transferred, the 3 x 4s were biopsied for PGT-A testing because I’m old now. The 5CC wasn’t too great quality wise so froze that one, it’s unlikely to survive biopsy and maybe not survive the thaw either. Really, really hoping at least one of the biopsied ones comes back ok.

I meant we had IMSI, not ICSI, we have that anyway

@thislittlebird That sounds really positive for day 5/6. So much better than your last round! Fingers crossed for you.

@Lauralozzle thanks! It was such a relief. They said we had the best outcome they’d see that day so I was very pleased, went in expecting much worse. It guarantees little for us because this is the 6th!!!! embryo transfer and none have worked to date but hopefully it’s a matter of cumulative success for us.

@thislittlebird thats great news about the embryos! I completely agree about the nhs, unless you get lucky there’s not a lot of help to be had.
my Mumsnet app isn’t working for some reason so I’m having to try and navigate the web version to reply lol I’ll keep everything crossed for you 🤞🏻🤞🏻

@Marvellouslymadmum and I kinda get it, they don’t have unlimited resources. But if they tested everyone thoroughly at the start instead of trying to ration tests and send you away it would probably speed things up for a lot of people.

I’m not feeling very positive really. If I had to guess today I’d say it hadn’t worked, but can’t be sure. Everything is clouded by my previous failures anyway. I felt very unwell on Saturday and had a headache that developed into a migraine, that never really bodes well for me so trying to keep expectations low.

Hello everyone, I just wanted to give you all an update. This is the last time I will post in this thread for rather sad and disappointing reasons.

On 27th March I had my 4th egg collection via my 1st privately funded round which yielded 0 eggs. We are devastated. The consultant advised that our best bet is now donor eggs. So here we are.

We are now in the process of finding out all about becoming parents via egg donor. I don't wish this shit on anyone. More than once I've wanted to end my time on this Earth now. But I've decided to plod on. I'm happy for people to reach out to me about this journey. Honestly so far finding Information and support is a minefield.

I will self graduate to a donor egg thread now. I wish you all the best in here. I'm very glad that there's been so many happy endings but alas not for me and I think that's important too. To publicise the reality. Keeping it real that we don't all get a happy ending. Sometimes life is a fucking c**t for no fucking reason and it's OK to feel angry and depressed about it. The emotional roller coaster is real. And it's really fucking unfair.

I'm in a literal living nightmare right now on so many levels. Toxic positivity doesn't help, funnily enough. I'm grieving, hard. In the pit and still falling. Maybe I'll write a dark comedy about this and publish it and make millions and wow what a moronic sick fuck life is, but that's something right?! I meditate, spend time in nature, love my husband and wish for better days, hope there is more to this life and have faith in the Universe that it will all be OK in the end and if it isn't, it's not the end.

@MIW01 I’m sorry to hear your update, the ivf outcome sounds shit and I’m sorry you’re having to go through it. I think you’re right though, IVF stories are dominated by success and no one hears about all the failure, the money pit, and those it doesn’t work for. There’s a number of us in this thread alone that it hasn’t worked for, and you’re right, it’s incredibly unfair.

Good luck on your donor egg journey, I know someone one another thread doing it and a friend in real life who went straight to DE age 40, it worked first time. Her IVF journey was very fast compared to mine, yours, other people’s here.

I think myself and DH are feeling too old and tired and if this late round doesn’t work out we’ll think about calling it a day and accept we’re not having kids and spend our mid life travelling, probably. We’ll all be ok whatever happens, but life doesn’t go to plan for some of us and it fucking sucks.

@thislittlebird exactly! I know they don’t have unlimited resources but I’ve seen others with far less symptoms than me get a laparoscopy for endo, and my particular gynaecologist that I saw for fertility was just never interested in anything because of my age. Then a nurse I saw last week for something unrelated said oh you’ve got plenty of time! Many of my colleagues have had children at your age and beyond! Which was lovely to hear and made a nice change.
i’m still hoping for you, you never know until that test!

@MIW01 so sorry to hear your ivf didn’t go well, I really hope you can come to terms with the de idea, I myself will be looking into this soon and I’m on another thread called ‘trying to conceive over 40 part 3’ where there’s a few going for de and one lady who is the same age as me and went for it last year, it worked first time and she now has triplets! They’re adorable and she says it makes no odds at all that it wasn’t her eggs, it’s really encouraging. I know it’s a horrible situation but you carrying that baby yourself is you giving it life, that baby would not be without you and a certain % of your dna will pass to the baby through micro genetics too. So it takes 3 to make baby but you’re still one of those three, sending hugs x

@Marvellouslymadmum yep, I should have been offered a lap at the start but they never bothered.

Well, I started spotting today. This was how my chemical started. Same day and everything, 6dp5dt. Sigh.

@thislittlebird its just all so inconsistent within the nhs! Everyone I’ve spoken to bar this one consultant has agreed a lap is what’s needed 🙄 I’m really sorry it looks like it hasn’t been successful, what is your next plan if it doesn’t work?

@Marvellouslymadmum dunno tbh. Giving up? Might consider a 4th and final cycle in the autumn because our second one shouldn’t have happened so close to DH being sick so doesn’t really count. Still waiting on the PGT-A testing outcome and have to keep fingers crossed one is normal.

@thislittlebird oh yes you have others don't you? Hopefully they'll come back with good results, but you never know this one may not be out yet! 🤞🏻

@Marvellouslymadmum I know, but it never seems to go my way iykwim. Feels like I’m going mad, same shit, different day.

We can make embryos, which is a start, but we can’t seem to grow the buggers.

@thislittlebird yes I do know what you mean, it’s like me and my oh, we know we are both perfectly capable of doing our bit to make babies my two are now 17 & 18 and his two are 15 & 16 but the only one we ever made together we lost at 6 weeks which was 6 years ago then nothing since! Frustrating isn’t the word! I mean is it our ages now? Or is it just that the two of us together it doesn’t work? I don’t know and I trying not to think about it as on paper there’s nothing really stopping us but who knows what’s actually going on in there 🤷🏼‍♀️

@Marvellouslymadmum I think the same thing about us, maybe we just don’t have genes that mix well 🙃

@thislittlebird I hope your headache has gone now and you’re feeling a little bit better.

I had the same last week, headache turned into a migraine, ended up with a slight fever. Must have caught a bug or something. Bit better now though.

@MIW01 I’m so sorry. You’re right in everything you’ve said. It just doesn’t happen for some of us like it does for others. I hope you find the answers with DE.

Had a blood test today to check my thyroid levels. Hopefully that’s all ok because if it isn’t there’s more waiting, and more fighting with GP about my levo.

Anyone just feel like they’re going through the motions. I was so excited before the last cycle and I’m just not feeling it at the moment. It feels like we’re doing this because it’s our only option, I have no expectations that it’s going to work. I’m fed up of waiting now, I’m just tired, of everything.

@thislittlebird i mean it’s not something that anyone says is a thing but it seems that way doesn’t it?!

@Marvellouslymadmum yeah well something is going on that’s not like everyone else so who knows 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

I’m glad we found out about the antisperm antibodies. I think it’s helped me accept why this won’t work for us naturally, whereas before it just felt like I was incapable of getting pregnant. Now I know I can get pregnant, staying in that condition is another issue, but it kinda helps knowing it’s not my body entirely failing to do this. We have a major sperm issue, but it’s answered questions for us.

@Lauralozzle thanks. It lingered a bit on Sunday morning but eventually went away. It was very odd, my face was flushed and I just had to go to sleep because I was feeling so awful.

I’m so fucking tired of fighting with doctors, it never ends. If we do throw in the towel in a few months, I will not miss that element of all this nonsense. I don’t think one cycle and being done with ivf is comparable to people who have to do it over and over. It all sucks but I found the first cycle to be optimistic and positive, generally, exciting to finally be having a chance. It severely takes its toll on you after multiple attempts, I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.

@Marvellouslymadmum negative again. Nothing to freeze. Like @thislittlebird we can make the embryos just not grow them properly or get them to stick (one usable embryo from 14 eggs!!).

Were looking at private now with some immune testing etc a bit annoyed thinking about my nhs and it feels like on reflection they've just done the same bloody thing not changed my drugs or protocol or anything. Think I'll ask about a different protocol or drugs without lh in as with pcos that can negatively affect the egg development and quality. Think they trigger me too early too. Also considering donor if advice from Dr gorgy and another private clinic says so. I don't care about genetics now, some cells from baby would come to me and visa versa and if I can carry it and love it that's all that matters. Just dint want to spend a shatload of money and it not work to think why did we spend all that. Repeated implantation failure bloods are our first port of call I think

@thislittlebird I understand that, technically we have no answers at all as to why it's not happening for us - could be age, could be adeno/endo, could be something else! Have they said if there's anything they can change to help with the sperm antibodies? I would've thought when it's more than one cycle they change something every time!

@kerrym87 I am sorry, it just seems to me like they go through the motions on the nhs but don't really bother trying to solve things unless you get lucky with a good doctor whereas at least with private they care about their reviews and reputation so I suppose they're more invested in it? I've no idea! That's exactly the way I feel about the de situation, you're growing the baby and micro genetics to pass to it from you so it takes 3 to make the baby, without you it wouldn't work! I'm in another group that has a few that have been/are going for de ivf too and it's great to hear how it's going for them.

@kerrym87 yeah I have to agree about the nhs offering. They basically told me they wouldn’t try any extras if I came back as a private patient, which I find odd. I’m relieved my clinic is trying other stuff, I suppose.

Not that it’s done a lot, another negative test. I just bought one and took it in the toilet at work because the bleeding was increasing a bit. I will try again later tonight after holding with a FRER, I’m not convinced it didn’t implant. It felt like the last chemical I had, cycle wise.

Waiting on PGT-A results so will be pretty devastated if they come back abnormal.

On Friday I had a huge eczema flare up and on Saturday it was a migraine and almost like my body was fighting off something, some sort of immune response. So I have to wonder if it did try to implant it implanted briefly. Feel like I’m wasting good embryos on a potentially hostile environment 😔

@Marvellouslymadmum nothing can be done about the antibodies, basically, just more ivf. Sigh.

Neither of us is very keen on donor so I just can’t see this ending in a kid for us. The only time implantation happened was when I was on pred and I can’t help thinking that it suppresses my overactive immune system.

@thislittlebird well that’s rubbish! I thought there may be something they can do about the antibodies, do you think you have a hostile environment? Is that something they can check?

have you tried asking for prednisolone again to see?

m I just struggle to know what our issue is but my oh has given up smoking again and wants to get back in the gym so that can only help