Impatient to start IVF!

[lisbeth1]

After three failed IUIs my wife and I have decided to move to IVF. We have no known infertility (just same sex couple) and didn't want to go through another IUI only to have it potentially fail again. We have just paid the enormous amount to start IVF (GULP) so hopefully next week our clinic will set up an appointment to get us underway.

As I have polycystic ovaries, our doctor wants us to do frozen embryo transfer to prevent risk of OHSS. This means there will be a wait between egg collection and implantation.

I don't know if others can relate but I'm just feeling so impatient! I want to start immediately the second we've decided something but my period is due in a week and I know we won't be starting at least until the next one. I know good things come to those who wait and in the grand scheme of everyone else who has been TTC for years, it's only a short time we've been trying but I am struggling with the wait! I'm quite an impatient person anyway when I set my mind on something.

Anyone got any wise words on how to chill out lol?

Hope you're all doing ok.

I’m also waiting for IVF! Started at the beginning of August but got COVID so it was cancelled, now have to wait until it is October. You just have to try and plan lots of things to do to keep you distracted. I also find thinking of benefits of the wait helps like knowing that there won’t be a heat wave while I am doing stims etc.

Yeah I was at risk of OHSS and had to wait an extra month before the transfer as well so I totally get the frustration of being told that. I was also very impatient (still am as we're waiting for the next transfer!) The only thing that helped was queuing up lots of activities to fill up the weekends. I did a lot of sewing and house decoration 😂

We have just gone through IVF as a same sex couple - had our first consultation in December and the retrieval/transfer beginning of August.

I won’t lie, it does feel like forever especially at the beginning. For us though the longest part was us picking a sperm donor (that will keep you busy for a bit! 😅)

Once we picked a donor, we completed our consent forms and then was a case of waiting to start - my wife’s period also came literally 3 days after signing the consent forms and we didn’t yet have the medications to start 😑Once you begin meds we found the process went much quicker! We kept busy with renovating and little trips away!

something to mention though is that we did ‘mild’ IVF due to OHSS risk however we were lucky that she didn’t overstimulate and we could do a fresh transfer! Good luck x

@Hopingforno2in2023 sorry to hear it got cancelled, how incredibly frustrating! But October is but a pumpkin spiced latte away 😂have you had IVF before?

@TheBirdintheCave I bet your house is looking good now though 😂I will have to think of some free activities now that we’ve spent all our cash on IVF lol. I’m trying to lose a bit of weight at the moment so hopefully that’ll be another thing to think about…perhaps a DIY project?!

@Alittlebitofhope aw good luck to you! How has it gone so far with transfer?

We have the donor picked already (already had three IUIs) and I agree it took a good while! I just hope we don’t have to pick a new donor at some point as that’ll be another turmoil 😂

That’s good news you got to do fresh transfer! Our dr seems to think I need time to let my body rest between retrieval and transfer but not yet sure how long that’ll be!

No my first cycle @lisbeth1 :)

Ah yes i did see - I didn’t realise the same type of sperm could be used between IUI/IVF so that’s good 😁It was our first IVF (went straight to that for a few reasons) and currently 4.5 weeks pregnant. We got 9 eggs retrieved (after expecting 25+ due to OHSS risk) and 5 could be used/freezed so it worked out well for us and we feel extremely lucky.

Do you know yet if you’ll be doing the short or long protocol?

@Hopingforno2in2023 good luck! It will be our first IUI too :)

@Alittlebitofhope oh congrats!!! Was that on your first transfer?

Yes you can use the same donor which is good :) the problem is going the other way (IVF to IUI) if you don’t select a high enough motility - minimum is 10million for IUI which luckily we got. And IVF can cope with a smaller measure.

We are going to be doing short protocol due to my polycystic ovaries, apparently it mean a less likely chance of OHSS

Yeah, first transfer (feels surreal that it actually worked) 😊

My wife was on short protocol but I didn’t know that may be why!

Are you nervous about any part of IVF? I suppose you’re familiar with your clinic at least, if you’ve had IUI already. We went in worrying about collection after reading about other people’s experiences but it actually was so much better than we were expecting!

@Alittlebitofhope oh that’s so lovely it worked - did you keep any blasts in freezer for future sibs? That’s our hope. Don’t feel you have to answer if that’s too personal!

I’m most nervous about injecting myself…it seems a big responsibility, like what if I accidentally inject a bit of air in or something. It feels crazy we do it ourselves 😂

Yes luckily know our clinic well and hopefully should be bypassing all the initial bloods and screens as they are still valid from the IUIs so that should speed things up a bit.

@lisbeth1 We're sorting the shed currently. Just bought the shelving from IKEA today. I'm so excited to actually be able to walk into it 😂

Yeah we have 4 frozen! We found putting the needle in quickly helped with discomfort but overall it was not as sore as my wife was expecting as the needles were quite short & thin 😊we did do an injection which spilled out and went everywhere except into her belly as I didn’t screw it on properly, so ended up ringing the out of hours doctor for advice - a stressful 10 minutes for us but the doctor was pretty unphased 😅

@TheBirdintheCave haha fantastic, hope the shelves turn out good!

@Alittlebitofhope ok that makes me feel better ...well not the injection spill bit 😂but I'm glad it wasn't a big deal. Did you have a spare injection at all? I would be so panicked.

We didn’t need to inject again as the doctor was pretty sure some would have gone in 🤔we did stim for 14 days instead of expected 10 days so ended up buying more meds anyway.

@Alittlebitofhope Do you mind telling me how much meds were? I’m hoping not to be too shocked but they’re not included in the price so preparing myself for a lot £££

So 10 days of stimulation medication, trigger shot and half of post-transfer progesterone pessaries and medication were included in our IVF package (which cost us £3K)

I already had this written down however I wouldn’t trust my calculations but obviously could be different for you depending on type of medication/dose…

It would have cost £1356 just for 15 days of pre-transfer medication (usually only 10/12 days for most people):

• Northisterone 30 tablets (but only needed to take 15): £4.50
• Bemfola per syringe (needed 15): £60 (150iu)
• Ganirelix/Fyremadel per syringe (needed 15): £30
• Suprecur trigger: £20
• Diazepam 5mg tablet before collection….. £2 🤣

Post transfer meds for 12 weeks would have cost us another £428 (luckily half of this is included for us):

• Cyclogest 400mg pessaries x 15 - 1x twice daily for 12 weeks: £14
• Oestrodiol tablet x 84 - 1xtwice daily until wife runs out: £8
• Utrogestan 200mg x 21 - 3xdaily for 12 weeks: £22

When it’s written down like that it makes me feel a bit ill 😬 this was the cheapest round of IVF we could find in our area… by like £1.5K!

@Alittlebitofhope thank you so so much for taking the time to detail that all out! Wow £3K for your IVF with meds included?! I'm starting to think we've been stung, ours is a lot more than that without meds.

Will have to scrimp and save the next month!

No problem - yeah £3K… sounds like a scam right? 😆 but my wife qualified for ‘mild’ IVF which supposedly involved less meds 🤔Needed a normal/high AMH level, be aged 32 or 35 and under and have a BMI less than 30. The only difference to other clinics in our area was that we had to travel to south wales for collection/transfer and had all our other monitoring scans at their satellite clinic, which is local to us. A small inconvenience but saved us a tonne of money!

Have you also considered IVF refund packages? I have a friend going through the same but they’ve done it this way instead.

@Alittlebitofhope that's interesting as we meet all those criteria but wasn't offered to us...I think we are having mild IVF if that is the same thing as short protocol...anyway we've paid now for a multi cycle package which includes two IVF cycles and "unlimited" transfers with any blastos we do get. Keep your fingers crossed for us!!

Whereas we will be paying for any further collections and transfers so maybe the costs would level out anyway. Sounds good though! Best of luck😊

thank you so much <3 and good luck with the pregnancy! Thanks again for all the answers :)