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Infertility

Our Infertility Support forum is a space to connect with others in the same position, discuss causes, treatment and IVF, and share infertility stories of hope and success.

Anyone starting IVF? Join me (5)

505 replies

waitingimpatient · 10/02/2016 21:11

I don't think anyone has started the new thread yet? Apologies if so and ignore this one if its already been done

I'm hoping by the end of this thread I'll be waiting and impatient for a new arrival Smile fingers crossed

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H2016 · 20/03/2016 22:31

5 day transfer. I guess everyone's symptoms are different. I jus don't know how much more I can take. It's heartbreaking when it's the only thing you want in the world. Good luck to you

LHReturns · 20/03/2016 22:45

H2016 the very very best of luck and warm wishes this week. I will be waiting to hear more from you. I am envious of your lovely frozen embryos. I am 40 with low AMH so very nervous about the outcome of my egg collection this week. I would love a result even half of yours!

I hope Friday comes quickly for you...

Shellster52 · 21/03/2016 01:59

Welcome H2016. I am actually currently pregnant after IVF treatment (took me 11 cycles to get here though!). I started this thread when I needed support so I still stay on here as I have spoken to Waiting for a long time and want to follow her journey. I know that I just felt jealous of other pregnant women on here and felt like everything was easy for them to say after they'd had success, so just thought I'd explain and hope you don't mind my presence. I experienced just as you say - that I truly thought my period was coming when I got cramping at 8 days after EC and went to bed in tears expecting my period (as my cycles are usually short). We need some definite signs like purple pee when we are pregnant instead of all this mad symptom spotting! Have you been given a specific day to test or do you have a day you expect your period that you would like to make it past?

LH, will wait for you scan update tomorrow. I can't believe you are going to be so patient to have your embryos frozen and transferred in the Summer. I already couldn't stand the 2ww after my transfers. But your 2ww is going to last until Summer!

LHReturns · 21/03/2016 06:16

Too true Shellster!

Between my past two pregnancies I had 4 hospitalisations for morning sickness (which both times started no later than 5 weeks). With my wedding in June I didn't really fancy that!

We were going to wait until summer to start anything but when my consultant saw my low AMH level she suggested we have a first frozen attempt now (I suspect partly so she can gather some information about my response before we 'get serious' in the summer). She has already said that even if I am successful now and have something to freeze that I might like to do a fresh attempt as well in the summer. Being on a short anatagonist cycle which only started one week ago and looking to EC in 48 hours I would be happy to do that. This has not been too challenging for me physically so perhaps I will do that. Fiancé won't like that though as he already finds the idea of having 'babies in the freezer' very difficult. He hates the idea that only one gets the chance (and we definitely only want one more child).

I am such a fool though as of course I have already plotted my work and travel schedule so October and November are clear for me to be vomiting 30 times a day. And of course it will NEVER work out as planned!

Scan in three hours thank god. I have this niggling fear that I will ovulate too early. Sleep is quite hard to come by while doing all this, eh?

Will let you know how it goes...

H2016 · 21/03/2016 07:37

I tested again this morning. Bfn Sad I just don't think this is the one that's going to stick. The 5 days following egg transfer I had cramping. Now I have nothing at all. Good luck I'm sure u will have a few Frosties

H2016 · 21/03/2016 07:38

Keep us updated LH

H2016 · 21/03/2016 07:41

They said to test on Friday as sometimes frozen embryos take a big longer ( according to the doctor) my period is due around Wednesday. I really will be devastated if it fails again. I don't know how you went through ten cycles u r a very brave woman. I won't have the money :(. This time needs to work. I feel like I'm going crazy.

LHReturns · 21/03/2016 07:59

H2016 I am sorry it isn't looking good but I have seen endless similar posts on here that a few days later turn to a BFP. It isn't over until it's over. It really isn't.

And if it is over then you won't go crazy. You will do what all these other brilliant women in here do which is drink wine and eat pizza for a few tearful days and then pick yourself back up and make a new plan.

Thinking about you.

H2016 · 21/03/2016 09:25

All I want is to be a mum. If I can't have that there's no point to my life. I can't concentrate on anything. No doubt I'll sink in to depression again. Don't know how much I can take. I'm sure there's a lot of women that can relate to how I feel. Thank you though it's jus there's nothing else in life I want.

LHReturns · 21/03/2016 10:19

H2016 then you will get there. I believe it 100%. The anxiety must be excruciating but you will not always feel his way and I know there are women on this thread that will know exactly the way to advise you to think about this- as they have been there. Thinking about you this week and please keep talking to us.

LHReturns · 21/03/2016 10:36

May I ask for some positive thoughts (or at least thoughts!) re this morning's scan and update please?

  • my egg collection is confirmed for Wednesday morning - so trigger at 11pm tonight
  • on Friday I had 10 good follicles of varying but decent sizes
  • this morning just six of those have grown
  • the good news is those six are all a lovely equal size - all between 18mm and 20mm
  • the bad news is that the other four appear to have thrown in the towel and decided they can't be arsed
  • bloods are all fine - no risk of early ovulation, so tonight there will be three injections: final Gonal F, final Cetrotide, then the Ovitrelle

I don't know why but I am disappointed. I have got myself vey hung up on the statistic that in women over 40 only 1 in 10 eggs is healthy. So even if they collect six eggs on Wednesday there is still an enormous chance there will be all duds.

Also the scan lady and nurses were all 'this is fantastic! These are exactly the follicles we had our eye on, and they have all developed perfectly!! You are so ready for egg collection. With your age and low AMH this is better than you could have hoped for'!.

I felt they were just being kind to me. I wasn't really listening....all I was thinking was that six isn't going to be enough - I need ten to have a good one. And that I had better get ordering of all the supplements and DHEA etc and so I can follow bananafish's example and get four months of them behind me before we start all over again in the summer.

Am I being silly?

waitingimpatient · 21/03/2016 21:26

LH I don't pay any attention to statistics like that anymore. Try not to worry (easier said than done)

I got 16 eggs last April at EC. I then only got three embryos frozen at day 2 and one at day 3. None of them worked and I was 33 when I did that cycle so I don't think the statistics mean much! You could only get 6 eggs and end up with much better quality embryos I really think a lot of it is luck. I do believe in all the supplements etc but really really think there's an huge element of luck with all this IVF stuff so don't worry or think it's all over.
I understand the needs plan ahead though. I have always planned my next steps well in advance o think as a way to protect myself from disappointment as then it's easier to pick myself up and get on with my next plan

6 follicles all of a nice even size sounds very promising though and I will keep everything crossed for you !

H2016 please try not to be disheartened it really might be too early to test. I know exactly how you are feeling as I was the same just a couple of weeks ago testing everyday and desperate for that elusive bfp. Sending you lots of strength, it's so so hard in those last few days of the 2ww Flowers

shellster hope you are feeling well? Not long now hopefully! Can't wait for the day I come on here and you have good news for us all !!

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waitingimpatient · 21/03/2016 21:27

banana I hope you are ok too have you had any results back yet?

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Shellster52 · 22/03/2016 07:59

waiting, so very sweet of you to be looking forward to waiting for the news of my baby's arrival when you are in the process of recovering from a failed cycle.

LH, I read a study showing that the first to mature eggs are the most likely to contain a viable egg. These are the ones your body is naturally selecting for this reason. In the study, they had older women who were repeating IVF after responding poorly the first cycle. The women were given a higher dose of meds and while they produced more eggs, the same number of eggs were found to be chromasomally normal as the first cycle. So it definitely doesn't work that if you get 10 eggs then 1 will be normal and if you get 20 then 2 will be normal. Your most likely to be normal eggs are in amongst these 6 that your body has naturally selected to be the best quality. I had a scenario in one of my cycles where I had 2 follicles in the lead but 3 more smaller ones. The two larger ones were allowed to over mature so the three smaller ones could catch up. The result was that I lost my best two eggs (they broke apart with the ICSI process which the Dr said is what happens to over mature eggs) for the sake of 3 inferior eggs that didn't go the distance. So to have all 6 with such even growth at 18-20mm and all perfectly mature size when you trigger truly is fantastic. Hope that is some reassurance xox.

TapDancingPimp · 22/03/2016 14:14

Hi everyone,

I haven't been on in a while. I'm 10dp3dt and tested BFN on a FRER, I'm out. Completely heartbroken. I feel like a massive cloud is following me everywhere and I just can't get out of this rut. I was so confident it would work Sad

We transferred 2 embryos (1 x 6 cell and 1 x 8 cell, not sure of grade) and I was sooo convinced at least one would stick.

Took a week off to relax, basically did everything you can think of to 'help' but turns out it did bugger-all for me Sad

No frozen embryos either.

I'm an endo sufferer so will be interested to find out what happened - are they able to tell if it's endo related?

Hope everyone else is keeping ok.

bananafish81 · 22/03/2016 14:50

LH it sounds like your follies are doing just brilliantly. As shell said, the number of good eggs doesn’t go up exponentially. And too many eggs can mean the stims get spread around too thinly and you get great quantity but poor quality. I hate to trot out the usual line of ‘it only takes one’ but…it really does only take one. My consultant said he’s had women with 18 eggs and no embryos, and women with one follicle, one egg, one embryo and one baby. And you have 6 potential people!

Evenly sized follies is exactly what you want, you have the Goldilocks of follies - not too big (over cooked), not too small (immature), juuuuust right.

There is every chance there will be a good one in there. There are so so many women on my high FSH / low AMH group of a similar age who’ve done mild or natural cycle IVF with just a couple of eggs (or even just one), and had healthy pregnancies as a result

Now everyone on here will affirm that I am a negative nancy when it comes to myself, as I was planning for a BFN - I never once considered the cycle might actually work. Now sadly it didn’t work out for me this time, but we got a hell of a lot further than we ever expected. I know I expect the worst (but hope for the best) as a self defence mechanism, so it feels like there’s further to fall. Neither a positive or negative attitude will make a blind bit of difference to the outcome of a cycle, but perhaps I make myself a bit more miserably by being so pessimistic the whole time. So, do as I say, not do as I do! Wink

H2016 sending love and strength Flowers

shellster wow not long to go! I remember when you got your BFP, so exciting

AFM, I’m….OK. Bleeding started finally at the weekend, which I’m glad about as I was worried that I hadn’t really had anything at all.

Until then, physically I didn’t feel ANY different at all, from when I was pregnant last week with a live baby, to when I was pregnant with a dead baby, to when I’d had the ERPC and wasn’t pregnant any more. So it was only when I started to have some cramping that I finally broke down and let myself have a proper sob, as it finally felt like my body was starting to un-pregnant-itself. Without wishing to be TMI, I’m really pleased I started bleeding, as I kind of needed some physical evidence the slate is being wiped clean to feel some kind of closure, if that makes sense and isn’t too grim? Also as apart from after my first cycle in Oct, I haven't really had a proper period since May, so really felt like things were getting a proper reset.

We got the histology report to say that they have got products of conception to have karyotyping done and that there was no evidence of trophoblastic disease (ie they can do the genetic analysis to see if there are any answers about why the baby died, and there was no evidence of a molar pregnancy). They did however send the full pathology report, which DH is really, really angry about, as it’s really distressing with the full graphic detail about “partially necrotic decidua” and ‘multiple fragments of pale brown tissue’ etc. Urgh. The cover letter summarising the findings would have been enough. They didn’t need to send this to us, DH is fuming

Needless to say I wrote a polite but suitably shitty email with some suggestions of how they could provide couples with some warning, rather than ambushing them with horribly gruesome detail.

I know to them it’s just products of conception, but that’s our dead baby they’re talking about Sad

waitingimpatient · 22/03/2016 15:13

banana that is so insensitive of them and you are right to let them know and hopefully in future they will not just give people upsetting information

I wanted to ask everyone who has had cycles - did you have ICSI?
I read shellsters post and the bit about ICSI splitting eggs....it's made me worry as we have paid for that for our next cycle. The Dr said as we didn't have as many fertilise as they expected but reading up it seems to be for MFI and we don't have that issue? Now I'm wondering whether to tell them we dont actually want it as it seems unnecessary ? What do you all think?

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bananafish81 · 22/03/2016 15:32

waiting I believe that the only risk of ICSI damage is potentially with older, more fragile eggs - or if the embryologist is particularly unskilled.

Some labs do ICSI as standard, although my clinic said they didn’t automatically do ICSI (not least because it costs an extra £1k) unless the quality of the sperm sample indicated it would be beneficial

We knew we had to ICSI our frozen eggs because they have harder shells, but for the fresh eggs, we always agreed we would decide on the day depending on DH’s sample

The sample on the day was great, so the clinic recommended ICSI on the thawed eggs, but standard IVF for the fresh

The purpose of ICSI is to even out the odds in the case of male factor, so as far as I’m concerned, it won’t necessarily increase fertilisation if there aren’t any issues with the swimmers, because whether fertilisation occurs once sperm meets egg is down to the DNA - which is why you don’t automatically get 100% fertilisation with ICSI.

We felt if we didn’t need to do ICSI (although we had already paid for it because of the thawed eggs) we preferred to do IVF where possible, because there was an element of survival of the fittest - i.e. the strongest sperm selected itself, vs the embryologist picking one that looks decent, but isn’t necessarily the strongest genetically. That’s just our gut instinct, I don’t believe there is any firm data to support it

Separate question entirely waiting - may I ask what level your clinic likes your TSH to be at? I am obviously madly considering all the reasons why I could have miscarried, and thyroid function is one of the tests is usually run for recurrent miscarriage. So anticipating that my Dr will rerun it, I managed to get my GP to do the test, which will at least save me a few quid. My thyroid function was last tested in July, and was a smidgen over 2 - which was in normal range (below 4), although I am now panicking because I believe clinics like it to be below 2 for fertility, and I’m shitting myself that it’ll have shot up and that’ll be the reason we lost the baby (when I know that the most likely reason will be chromosomal abnormalities, and it just wasn’t meant to become a person Sad)

waitingimpatient · 22/03/2016 15:43

They like TSH to ideally be 1-2 but def below 2.5

Mine is really stubborn. I keep having to adjust the dose it was fine just before my FET even a bit in lower side so they reduced Levothyroxine and it shot up :( looks like it affected implantation. Would your clinic try a small dose of Levothyroxine and check your TSH 3-4 weeks later and see if it's helped get it nearer to 1. Apparently any change in dose takes at least three weeks to show although in two weeks mine shot right up with a reduction in dose

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waitingimpatient · 22/03/2016 15:45

In regards to ICSI what you have said really cements it for me that I don't think It's needed. We are taking all these supplements to improve egg and sperm quality (dh was ok but there's always room for improvement !) so it seems wrong to then do ICSI on a way id rather leave it to nature to decide which sperm fertilises which egg and like you say the survival of the fittest

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bananafish81 · 22/03/2016 15:52

Thanks re TSH. I will have the results from my GP to take with me to the consult

In July it was 2.3. At that point we weren't thinking IVF and it was when we got the catastrophic FSH and AMH levels

Went back through old results in previous years and it's definitely headed upwards

Aug 10: 0.71
Mar 13: 1.97
Jul 15: 2.3

Will take all my old results with me as well and see what Dr says. I will definitely be asking him about my levels and what we should do about them. My level 1 immunes showed no thyroid antibodies, which is something at least

Even if it wasn't my thyroid that was the problem, certainly don't want to leave anything to chance next time

Elbbob · 22/03/2016 16:12

Hello all
Am re-joining this thread (or previous incarnation of it) as I am starting 2nd IVF. My first was last August which was unsuccessful. I had one follicle from which they collected one egg, which amazingly managed to fertilize and get transferred... but that was the end of the journey at that point, sadly.

I am hoping for better results this time round, and am on the cetrotide protocol this time rather than doing supracur. Anyone else had better success with cetrotide?

One of the things I am stressing most about is having time off work as they don't know about the IVF - anyone have any good excuses up their sleeves for appointments / sudden days off etc?

Also, waiting I notice you mentioned before about trying to maintain / gain weight - any tips? I struggle with this, have never been a big eater and was always exactly the same weight my whole life but have been trying to increase it.

waitingimpatient · 22/03/2016 16:15

It's good you didn't have thyroid antibodies but def worth checking as it has crept up a bit

Mine was checked in 2012 then not again till feb 2015 it was 2.05 in 2012 and 4. Something when I had it checked last feb (can't remember exactly) after 3 weeks on 25mcg Levothyroxine it went down to 2.4 so we stuck with that dose but tested again in August and it was 4. Something again. Increased dose and at lowest it's been 0.48 which was just before my recent FET and dose dropped back to 25 yet TSH shot up to over 5 and now I'm back on an increased dose . It's a bit of a nightmare getting it right. I'm going to be getting it checked much more often though. Fingers crossed I can get it under control for next time and I hope yours is ok too.

I've been out walking again today. Sticking to very healthy diet lots of protein and veg/salad. I'm getting used to less sugar too and not craving cake as much as I was ! It's all for a good cause though so that makes it easier

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bananafish81 · 22/03/2016 16:21

ellbob I did really well on a short antagonist (Cetrotide) protocol. If you have diminished ovarian reserve or are a poor responder, this is usually a much better bet than a long protocol with down regging - unless you were on a short flare protocol where you took the Suprecur at the same time as starting stims? I'm going to assume you were on a long protocol where you took the Suprecur to switch everything off before starting stims - that can leave us with sleepy ovaries over-suppressed, so our ovaries can have a hard time waking back up again. With a short cetrotide protocol the blocker isn't added in to slam the brakes until your follies have got to a certain size

Hope you will have great results this time

waiting that all sounds great. I am not quite back on the IVF higher protein / less carbs regime yet, although I have restarted all my egg quality supplements, on the basis that I may be doing another fresh cycle at some point in the coming weeks / months. At the moment I'm still in miscarriage-drowning-my-sorrows-in-chocolate mode, so not quite so virtuous right now...

waitingimpatient · 22/03/2016 16:40

ellbob I really struggle with my weight. Especially now I'm doing walking for exercise!

Previously I relied heavily on complan shakes and also slim fast ones in between meals but obviously now I'm trying to cut back on sugar they are not ideal as are quite sugary.
I'm now keeping my weight steady by eating little and often snacks like hummous, peanut butter and apple, things like that as snacks in between quite big meals. I have been having a huge breakfast with full fat Greek yogurt too which seems to be keeping my weight steady

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