#makeithappen TTC through Donor IUI or Donor IVF or just undecided. All welcome. Thread 8

[kwick]

This thread is for anyone trying to conceive... or thinking about doing so through donor IUI or donor IVF. Nothing TMI - feel free to join, we are a lovely group here to support and help keep the cray-cray away!

Here is the link to the previous thread: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/donor_conception/2886793--makeithappen-TTC-through-Donor-IUI-or-Donor-IVF-or-just-undecided-All-welcome-Thread-7
And the one before that: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/donor_conception/2863056--makeithappen-TTC-through-Donor-IUI-or-Donor-IVF-or-just-undecided-all-welcome-Thread-6
Here is the link to the one before that: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/conception/2832207--makeithappen-TTC-through-Donor-IUI-or-Donor-IVF-or-just-undecided-all-welcome
Here is the link to the one before that one: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/conception/2769549-TTC-through-Donor-IUI-or-Donor-IVF-or-just-undecided-all-welcome-makeithappen-loadsofBFPs
Here is the link to the thread before that: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/conception/2688511-TTC-through-Donor-IUI-or-Donor-IVF-or-just-undecided-all-welcome-makeithappen
Here is the link to the one before that one: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/conception/2587046-TTC-through-Donor-IUI-or-Donor-IVF-or-just-undecided-all-welcome
And the one before that!: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/conception/1877198-Donor-IUI
We also have a weight loss spin off thread:www.mumsnet.com/Talk/donor_conception/2889818-TTC-through-Donor-IUI-or-Donor-IVF-weight-loss-spin-off-thread

@Persipan how exciting!!!

I was so sure we would get at least one BFP with 3 cycling 😢

I know....4 if you include paisley who was a week ahead! Bugger it! Well onwards and upwards!!
Well @PaisleyBE me you and Phoenix may well be a week apart again if your missing out this cycle too

Hi everyone, sorry to have disappeared lately. I did catch up on everyone's story on a daily basis but was too busy fighting nausea and tiredness to respond - still not complaining though ☺️

I'm so sorry to hear about all the BFNs, like kwick I was confident we would get a few this month. It just means more to come for next month and following! Stay positive!!

I'm back in London (and work) after 10 days off on holiday back home and a few more before that I took as sick days. Things are getting slightly easier (I'm enjoying food again!) and I'm starting to relax a little... I'm telling my manager tomorrow and quite nervous about it 😬

Best of luck to everyone running this month!

I hope that when you try again it will be your time. Its hard but have faith, it can and does work. X

Pez how far are you? X

Staying the night at my parents tonight....they went out to buy me a fresh pineapple 😍😍😍

Hi Calz, did I read earlier that you got a BFP?? Sorry i forgot to congratulate you earlier! Hope things are going well, I remember having a lot of cramping during the first 2 weeks following my BFP.

I'm 11 weeks + 1 day today (every single day counts 😉). I have my 12 week scan on 8th June but I've already had a viability scan at 7 weeks and another private one at 9+3 as I wanted to make sure everything was ok before travelling back home for my holiday.

Hey @pez, that's fab! Yes lots of cramping. I still get them. I did last time too. I'm now 6 weeks. I have a early/viability scan 12th June, really keeping my fingers crossed. I think I might end up getting extra scans too make sure everything is going ok. Glad it's going well. Where did you go for your holiday? Hope you had a lovely time. Xx

@munro pineapple is good! Love a fresh one. Xx

@calz and @pez did u get cramping after you got your BFP result or in the lead up to the result (and after)?

I went back to France to stay with my brother and his family (they have 2 daughters). They live on the coast so spent a lot of time on the beach looking after the little ones 😊

If I were to do it again, I would book more annual leave starting from 8 weeks which is when the nausea really kicked in. It's still here, pretty much constantly, but at least I can eat something other than potatoes and bread
Private scans are great for reassurance. I've also looked into the Harmony test; it's expensive but if my nuchal scan comes back as high risk I'm not risking it with an amnio.

Other single ladies in the group, I have to say that you can relax about how people will react to your pregnancy. Every single person I told, young or old, religious or not, is just so excited about my pregnancy and no one judged me, all the contrary, they're really impressed and have all offered their help which I know they really mean. My 9 year old niece asked lots of questions about the donor and is a bit concerned about me doing everything on my own, which is so sweet. I have recovered faith in humanity with this process, starting with meeting you all and now seeing how supportive my own friends are.

Best of luck Munro!!

@Munrowalker , I got really painful cramping (more like a burning pain very low down) from days 7 to 9 following my egg collection (equivalent to ovulation). It woke me up at night and was pretty intense. After that it stopped, I got my BFP on 11dpo and cramping started again around 14dpo, so about a week after the implantation cramping. The cramping from 14dpo was similar to AF cramps

@munro, my cramping was after the bfp. Almost like what you would expect if you were having your af though much milder. Mine has been about a week now on and off. I remeber last time it lasting a couple weeks and then again when I should have been due the following month. All very natural.

@pez that sounds really lovely. Hope you had good weather. I'd love a bit of sun but I'm not going to go anywhere overseas whilst I'm pregnant, I'll stick to the U.K. And see if I can have some time away.
I also have to agree about telling people your doing it alone. The kind of support i got before and after being pregnant was good. No one questioned it really and were almost like in awe that I was doing it alone. I think it's not such a shock these days with the choices people make x x

I also forgot to mention, I had an amnio and was fine. It's an incredibly low risk thing but a risk, of less than 1%. If things this time show there might be a risk again of downs I might do the blood test even though it's going to cost a fortune. I will have to see how I feel at the time.

Hi all
So myself and wife visited a GP back in December, got referred for non funded IUI, we started with a hycosy, but that was unsucsessfull (and painful) so I had a laparoscopy. That came back that both tubes were blocked, so we are now looking at IVF. Luckily in my area due to the tubes I am now eligible for 3 rounds of IVF for free, we would have had to part fund the IUI. we have had the initial meeting to apply for funding. As far as I am aware the next stages are counselling, signing Concent forms, then followed by the IVF.

Has anyone any experience of how much info you get on donors, and any advice on the next stages? We are flying blind a bit?

Thanks

We didn't do IVF (might do for me), and did IUI.

How much info you get on donors depends on the bank you use. I don't know what the NHS does here, but you could, I understand, get the IUI through the NHS with sperm obtained privately.

Some banks (the European, for example), give quite a lot of info and pictures of donors. Others (like the one we used) give a short statement from the donor plus some info about their physical characteristics, education level (!?) and major illnesses. We also got to know whether or not they'd successfully had other children.

Frankly, I don't think donor info really matters much. There's not a lot of choice and it feels very arbitrary, unless I suppose you deeply want the baby to look a specific way - and even then, it's a lottery.

We never did the counselling - we thought it was optional so never bothered. None the worse for it, though.

Good luck!

Welcome Pugmum! All what LRD said below. I didn't have counselling either but I guess that's a personal choice.
I used the ESB so got a lot of info about donor. I mostly wanted to check the family health history and then chose someone on gut feeling. I thought his profile would be a nice one to read for the little one when it's time.

I got pregnant on my first mild ivf cycle (after 3 failed IUIs); i found it easy overall and had no side effects from the meds. Only normal side effect is that my ovaries are still very much enlarged as a result but I've been told it can take up to 20 weeks to settle down. It just means more bloating 😉

Good luck with the TTC journey!

Thanks! Apparently in our area the counselling is compulsory to progress with IVF, stupid really when the major topic is whether or not you will tell the child you used a doner, not so much of an issue in a same sex relationship, but hey ho, I will jump through whichever hoop they want!

We live in Chester and the hospital is setting up there own bank with bought in and donated sperm, if only opens in July so no one seems to know how much info we will get. I know it's a lottery but I'd prefer a bit of info. We can buy sperm and give it to them, can anyone recommend a good HEFA bank?

Pez congratulations!!! Do you mind me asking which bank you used? Have you got any tips for IVF I don't know anyone who has been through it so don't know what to do really? I'm worried about work as well, Iv just had a promotion and am now senior management. I don't want people suspecting until I'm actually pregnant, any suggestions?

Welcome @pugmumfornow. I can't give any advice on ivf as I had iui. I used the London Sperm bank for my donor. They give a brief description of the donor, what kind Of person they are, screening tests. You can also ask for the pen sketch for any donor you are interested in before you buy, if they have written one. Wishing you lots of luck on your journey x

Welcome @pugmum
Are u choosing NHS sperm? That's what we have. I can tell you more about the choices if you'd like

Munrowalker yes please!!! We are thinking NHS at the moment, it's all screened etc. And free ha ha! But I think it would make me nervous if all you get told is like eye colour

Thank you 😊. I used the European Sperm Bank.
I've had to use a few tactics to escape the office for scans. I did all my injections at night so no one could suspect and I said I had to have a small procedure done under general anaesthetic for the egg collection. This way, I managed to work from home the day before and the rest of the week (EC was on a Tuesday). Expect to be a bit bloated so wear loose clothing! I guess colleagues then assumed i was going for medical follow up appointments the weeks after 😉
Hiding nausea and tiredness during pregnancy is a much more difficult exercise!!!

You should start taking folic acid and vitamin D if you're not already on them. And also eat plenty of fertility friendly food and drink lots of water. Mother Nature will do the rest!

Injections were really easy, the needles are very thin and you barely feel them. egg collection was absolutely painless for me, I barely spotted after, it was like no one had been there!

You'll be fine 😁 and we'll be here to help you along the way (there are TWW tips to be followed but we can give you these in due course 😉)

Welcome! My partner has azoospermia- we chose donor via one of the danish sperm banks. What we did was list criteria - like iui and washed, high motility then some characteristics to mimic his eyes, height, education and have they had a successful pregnancy. In the end we chose a gent who already had his own children and had decided with his wife to donate which we thought was nice and meant if our child did locate him he was probably more emotionally prepared than a teenage student donor. We got preg on first medicated iui cycle but had a missed miscarriage.

We also qualify for three rounds- except I am too fat - so they won't let us through the eligibility criteria. So we are private.

Hope that helps! Good luck!

@pugmum I presume the NHS sperm system is the same UK wide.
All NHS donors have compulsory counselling. Sperm is washed and treated etc and kept for 9months (as some medical difficulties don't show till then apparently) before bring able to be 'used
Donors have medical screens and complete a thorough questionairre.
In terms of choice. You get choice of key physical characteristics. Ethnicity, eye colour, hair, build, height etc. This is normally matched to the male partner if there is one. Our clinic strongly recommended not narrowing down the choices as apparently its a higher success rate if they have thr freedom to move between donors.
The clinic will match these criteria to any donors on file. I believe once successful you get provided with whatever the donor wants you to know, normally a small passage about himself and his reasons for donating and sometimes a pencil sketch.
I believe you can also have the nhs treatment with purchased sperm.
Me and my partner are very different looking so any 'natural baby could have had any characteristic. So in the end all we restricted was white European.
Oh they also fill in a form for all your own and partners characteristics and use that to match but it's not your choice it's the clinic ultimately. They will choose the donor that is most likely to have success.

Pugmum welcome! So IVF is different for different people. I think Pez did a IVF lite cycle, so I think thats light levels of medication.

IVF has 4 main forms. (the below are very high level overviews!)
Long Protocol: 7wks ish start to transfer, lots of meds including down regulation where essentially you are put into menopause, then brought out of it, then stimulated, then egg collection, then embryo transfer. (Ive done this and it was a little hardcore in terms of meds side effects (hot flashes on the down reg! so many eggs I felt like a salmon pre collection...but the results were good LOADs of eggs.)

Short protocol: 2wks ish from start to transfer, lots of meds, no down regulation, but straight to stimulation, then egg collection, then transfer. (Ive done this, and loved it! so easy compared to long protocol)

IVF Lite: Pez can give details, but from my understanding its 2ish weeks - light medical stimulation, then egg collection, then egg transfer

Unofficial hybrid: What Im about to start on: 4wks ish from start of meds to transfer. Loads of meds, steroids for lining growth, basically 'lets throw the kitchen sink at this' kind of thing.

Most clinics seem to use a long protocol as a standard starting point, so find out which one they are considering for you.

I didn't do any IUIs, I went straight to a long protocol.

Ive had the counselling and actually it was helpful, it talks about the terms to use with your child in reference to the donor, and really just allows you to talk about any queries you have about how to normalise this situation to your child and to others. I was very sceptical about it, but actually found it super helpful. In fact it was during the session that I decided to write my child a little bedtime story to read them every night about the choices I made and how they came to be.

Its also useful for how to answer questions from other children.

This sounds odd and honestly I thought that the school yard was more diverse than it is, but still some of my friends children have no idea of a family unit outside of 2.4kids and married mum and dad! (they have so many questions about why Im single its hilarious!) So I feel a responsibility to educate children outside of the family within my friend zone that there is no normal in order to make things easier for my (hopefully soon to be) child.
Its also handy to get ideas on how to arm your child to deal with other kids questions about parentage which crops up from a very early age.

I say go with an open mind.

So any other questions re ivf let us know! As Im about to start my third round so Im feeling like a pro now! but others have done it too.

ps, and re donors, I can't speak to the NHS donors, but rather to private clinic banks. I started with a Doctor, an lovely obstetrician who wrote a beautiful letter to his future child. and he didn't work, twice. so Ive moved onto a different clinic and a different donor, I now have a welsh teacher. he has had successful pregnancies in the past, he is a kind man (my consultant has met him a few times). I know his hair and eye colour and height, his education level and his hobbies. thats it. and whereas it was important on my first go of IVF, it is less important now. Hell I know more about my donor than I have about some of my one night stands.... so my point is to try not to fixate on it, as window shopping for a donor can really overtake everything and if you set your heart on one, and he doesn't work, then you'll need to change. Again, an open mind is needed.