Fertility Appointments and Beyond: Electric Boogaloo

[thislittlebird]

Hit capacity on the old thread, will tag you in!

@99pctpractice i don’t seem able to DM pics at all 😂. I can’t work out if it’s me or my phone or if I need the app. Anyway, link to photo is here on imgur so I don’t force it upon anyone’s eyes: imgur.com/a/4VtpQb4

I have an imgur from when I had insane eczema and was asking people on Reddit to look at photos 😭

It’s funny you mention those groups. I put my head in and they were a different world and I exited quickly. Not for me! Did you join any of the ivf graduate ones? I think you fell naturally, right? I feel like other infertile people are the only people who will get it. But I get what you mean about the collective anxiety, did not think of that. I have enough on my own here.

YOU BOUGHT EGGS?! omg that’s so exciting. How did you buy the eggs? The eyes thing is so cute, I love it. My dh has very light blue eyes. Testing sounds like a good call, I agree with you it makes sense. Especially when you’re in our age bracket. I am very excited to hear more. I will hang around to follow you all and hope I won’t be back properly but it’s early days so might well be.

@99pctpractice OMG YOU BOUGHT EGGS!!!!! this is so exciting! Which clinic/bank did you use? I will be (obsessively) following your journey as literally the only other person I know using DE!

@thislittlebird sorry, I've never actually DMd an image before, just assumed you could lol. That is DEFINITELY a line, and a clearer one than on the clear blue the other day. Its strong and there and I would be very happy if that was mine :) x x x x x

@99pctpractice also, how did the matching work, did they do you a shortlist and you got to pick? Did they 'interview' you first? And when did you pay (like was there a consultation fee then the fee for the eggs?) Sorry for all the questions, clinics are kinda cagey about the process 🙄

@beckyCarlos thank you, it’s a relief for someone else to see it and not say it’s too light 😩.

This donor eggs development is very exciting, I am looking forward to hearing more on this!

@thislittlebird that is a very clear line! I’d be thrilled if I got that! That is definitely not a chemical! Cautious congratulations to you!!

@99pctpractice how exciting! That’s amazing you found a match I didn’t even know they did that!

@Tinkerbell098 🙏 thank you. I’m definitely in cautious/tentative/pragmatic world.

When is your OTD?

@thislittlebird friday 7th 😬

@Tinkerbell098 that’s soon! Will you wait it out? Will yours be on 11dp5dt?

@thislittlebird its definitely there, and not at all questionable 😊 its hard though when you've waited so long (and there's all that noise about unless they're basically neon and flashing it doesnt count). I always like to remind myself that if I was 18 and seeing that I'd be worried af 🤣

@beckyCarlos good point 😂. I’ve spent too long on the conception threads and you see so much about dye stealers and chemicals and it’s scary af when you suddenly have to interpret it. I mentioned it to the clinic who were like whatevs, we’ve booked you in for a scan and here’s a bill for £200 byyeeee.

@thislittlebird that line looks very strong!! Especially given that it's still early - def stronger than the one you posted the other day. Lots of fingers crossed for you over here!! Yes, it was natural pregnancy, but tbh I wasn't even aware of the pregnancy after ivf ones and they might have been a better fit as I had already done 2 rounds of ivf by then! I totally agree that people who haven't experienced infertility won't understand how you're feeling. Ttc for 3 months is not the same as 2+yrs and all the stress that has gone into that time and process!!

@beckyCarlos we went with London egg bank. You get loads of info on the donors just by registering with their website, but you have to have a consultation (paid for, obviously) and fill in all their forms before you can actually buy eggs (also v v expensive). Then, you can send some photos of yourself to their matching team and email them with the donors you like and then they tell you the age at the time of donation, whether or not they have proven fertility (they won't tell you whether own children or via egg donation but you can generally tell that from the profile) and whether they are a good physical match or, even if they're not a match, for one they said that their features wouldn't look out of place in our family. They let you know when new eggs are being added to the site so you can keep an eye out. We had a couple of previous potential matches that we weren't sure about and then they were gone - it's basically first come first served, there's no reserve process. But you do have 5 days after you buy to change your mind....

We looked at other clinics but only Care had a frozen egg bank and you had to pay £500 just to look at their bank and they wouldn't tell me how many sets of donor eggs they had and I was nervous paying that much without any certainty that they'd have any decent matches. And though fresh donation is meant to be better than frozen ( because there isn't the same attrition when they defrost the frozen eggs (which is 93% survival or something), I couldn't face waiting an unknown number of months to find a donor and then the uncertainty of whether their ivf cycle would produce any eggs/they'd get coronavirus mid-cycle or whatever. I thought about using altrui to speed it up as they're like a donor search firm but it adds another £5-6k to the process and we just don't have that kind of money lying around after all the ivf!!

@thislittlebird it’ll be 9dp5dt. So quite soon X

@99pctpractice thank you, that's really helpful! Do LEB have clinics all over or do you have to go down to London? We're with Care for IVF anyway so it would be easier to stay with them for ED, but like you say, if there's no guarantee there'll be a match its £500 down the drain... its hard isnt it!

@beckyCarlos they are twinned with the London women's clinic who I think have clinics all over. That would be easier for you to go with care if you're already with them. Maybe they'll give you a bit more info about their donor list if you're already with them?!?

That's a good FRER line @thislittlebird 😊

I hope so @99pctpractice! 🤞 on their website they claim to have one of the leading egg banks i europe and you can search it online (I assume after the £500 fee - although this hasnt been mentioned to us yet...)

Wow @thislittlebird amazing news! So happy for you xx

Thanks @dogmam, how are you getting on? Are you prepping for your next round? I know you were seeing an andrologist.

Oh wow!!! Congratulations @thislittlebird 😍 I'm so very pleased for you!! Amazing news 😁 congrats on the job offers too 🙌

@99pctpractice amazing!! I love that you have bought your eggs. What an exciting step to have made ☺️

Just an FYI for you all, but my IVF cycle has been cancelled. I monumentally fucked up my Stims dosage and my ovaries weren't responding 😖

It's 100% my own fault. I've had too much on and my mind clearly wasn't in the right place to be focusing on IVF, hence my silly error.

I need to call back with my next CD1 and start over. So my egg collection is now likely to be in December. I'm going to use these months to get my life back on track and to get myself physically and mentally into the best place to start a round of IVF.

@99pctpractice yeah it's totally different. If it happens naturally again I'd say just join the ivf threads, you've been through the wringer with IVF.

On the egg donor bank site, do you get people who are donating their leftover IVF eggs?

@Tinkerbell098 super soon! The second half of the (sort of ) tww is not much fun!

@IWillBeWaxingAnOwl thanks, it's hard to relax. What's happening for you now?

@Kay00 Thanks! It's a lot to take in at once. I'm going to accept an offer on Monday, I guess. Which will mean going into the office a lot more, but at least it's a bit more money. But not a lot more.

Oh no, what happened? Did you drop them too low? I know you've had a lot going on. That sounds like a good pre-IVF plan, get your head in the right place.

@Kay00 oh no!! Hope you’re ok? That’s a good plan to take some time off ivf world and focus on yourself. We are here if you want to chat X

@thislittlebird I'm in a bit of an odd place as I'm actually ~7 weeks pregnant. I was getting NHS medication cycles, trying to get some kind of ovulation going, which was repeatedly failing through all the doses... then inexplicably conceived whilst on norethisterone trying to end a failed cycle 🤔. Took the 10 days worth and period never came. Had a scan at 4-5 weeks due to the ectopic risk that comes with norethisterone, which showed it's in the correct location and have another in a week to see if this has actually gotten off the ground.

Given its taken 2 years to fall pregnant again, and the last one ended in an 11 week loss, I am of course incredibly anxious. But all I can do is wait and see!

@IWillBeWaxingAnOwl oh wow, that’s a good development at least, but yes, unnerving. Tentative congrats! How strange it all happened on norethisterone when you weren’t expecting it.

@thislittlebird thank you, and tentative congrats to you too. Sorry, I really didn't mean to appear back here just to say "so actually..." It's been a weird few weeks!

@IWillBeWaxingAnOwl I can imagine! It’s a very strange process all this.