About to start ICSI and feeling hugely stressed, any advice?

[leanandgreen]

I am about to start my ICSI journey for male factor, next week. It's all become so real now.

I am going through a stressful time at the moment with work etc. I'm worried about it failing due to stress.

Any advice would be so welcome. Do I cut my work hours down whilst I'm going through treatment or is it better to carry on as normal?

If you have anything that you can share that perhaps helped/is helping you go through similar, please share.

Omg. Fabulous news 😍😍😍😍

Congrats

Have never heard of stopping pesseies now. Always take till 12w. It's Coz your body doesn't reliese it's preg due to ivf drugs and they say use till 12w until placenta takes over

Double check this with your clinic

And maybe so a new post asking if anyone didn't use pressies till 12w after ivf

Congrats Lean - that's fantastic! I think it's normal to keep worrying. I think that at every tiny "milestone" (positive test, first scan, second scan, third scan) will make me feel better and it never does. The next one is twelve weeks (week on Monday) and I am already inured to not feeling any less worried after that.

Had a scan yesterday (10 weeks 3 days) and it was there, bouncing around, the right size, could see hands, even fingers and I feel so ill I can barely move. I was relieved for about 2 hours, and then started worrying again .

Re pessaries - yes I am also going to 12 weeks. I can hardly wait to finish - they're hateful and so so gross. Good luck and hang on in there as you say "you just don't know until you find out the facts" - so try not to worry. xxx

Thank you so much Raffles, your journey kept me going. You are so right about the milestones. I wasn't prepared for that at all. I thought everything would be wonderful and worry free as soon as I got my bfp.

I am so happy and excited for you, that is wonderful, I bet it was such an emotional moment at your ten week scan. I am trying really hard to forget about it until my first scan. Otherwise I am worrying about my test lines not being dark, worrying every time I go to the toilet that I'll see blood, worrying about every cramp I get and worrying that I don't have enough symptoms. Etc. Etc. I'm trying to learn how to deal with my anxiety issues without wine for the first time in my life! Haha!

I can't believe that my clinic have taken me off the pessaries, that's so strange. The majority of people seem to still be on them until 12-15 weeks! And yes they are vile things!

The pesseries never bothered me. Stick them up and odd dribble down 😂😂

So they def won't give you any? I don't want to worry you but there is a risk of mc if you don't continue with them

ivf progesterone

If it were the odd dribble down I could live with it. It's waking up (inevitably an hour after waking up to pee) to find that my vagina has become Niagara Falls ...

Lean I seem to remember you are male factor? Lack of ongoing pessaries could be connected to this?!

I have some left over if you would like me to send them to you ?

My gp did them on a normal prescription as I did ivf abroad. Tho my clinic would have been happy for me to collect them via a flight

Just go to doctor and say you are preg and clinic advise you need 800g a day / 400g am and pm / till 12w so 7w worth roughly meaning 2 a day - 14 a week times 7 so 98 x 400g

Eeek I've been off them since last Saturday.

I'm just trying to call them now (again) and see what they say. I want to know what their reasons are for not supplying anymore after 15 days. Thanks guys, I'll let you know and yes male factor Raffles.

Just got through to the nurse and she said that they won't prescribe them because there is no evidence to support using them and she also mentined something along the lines of them doing more harm than good which I know (strongly believe) to be very untrue.

She asked me if I'd had a history of miscarriages - well no because I've never been pregnant was my answer. She said that they only make ladies who go through frozen cycles carry on with them.

How bizarre that clinics vary so much on this issue. Anyway, I've called my doctors surgery up and I'm going to make my doctor prescribe them to me.

I really found it odd stopping them so abruptly as well. I would have thought that I would have had to wean myself off them.

i really do find this weird/odd

you are the only one i know via ivf whose clinic said stop at bfp ......

all the rest, whether local, on mn or fertility boards etc, all on till 12w ish and then yes i weaned off them

so 200g am and pm for a week then 200g in eve for last week

clinic said i didnt need to wean but if i felt happier in doing so then no harm

they said they worry i may feel if i didnt could cause more harm then using extra pesseries

even said one lady used every day till ghave birth as thats what made her happier

glad you are getting them from doc, if nice he should do them on a £8/9 prescription, which then i got free as was preg :)

I agree with you Blonde. I'm disheartened by the fact that they wouldnt just give me them to help me stop myself from worrying. I wouldn't have minded so much also if they had tested my levels and said that my levels are high enough.
Hopefully my doctor will be a lot nicer.

Thanks Blonde

As I said I have some spare if you want them but sure gp will prescribe them

Aww thanks so much. I'll see what the doctor says on Monday and if she doesn't help me, I'll msg you. Thank you thank you X

Hello, mainly been lurking on this thread as due to have IVF rather than ICSI but now being recommended ICSI after DH's second SA even though the count was higher this time. going to ask why things have changed but does anyone have experience of ICSI vs IVF and what the main differences are? I know in terms of what we have to do it's essentially the same. But I'm a little worried.

Nothing wrong with df sperm

In our case 1&2 at same clinic and didn't do icsi. Less eggs fertilised and more died and none made to blasts :(

Cycle 3 at diff clinic insisted on icsi for same price and they select the best sperm into the egg where as first clinic put eggs in dish with sample and let them do as Mother Nature does

The icsi cycle we had all fertilised apart from one and all good grades and all blasted apart from one and two went onto 6days

I would always advise icsi even if good sperm

thanks blondes I'm less worried now as it seems there's no definite reason to use/not use ICSI. Just asking the clinic for clarification. Obviously it is more expensive which really sucks! But don't care if it will give us a better chance!

I think it gives you a better chance as instead if a flukey weak sperm getting into egg and then cells don't multiply or that they do and don't make blast

Where as icsi they study the sperm and injection into egg

Some clinics do it for same price

Others more.

This is useful www.hopeandhopscotch.com/blog/2015/should-i-be-doing-ivf-or-icsi

Hello all. I had success with IVF/ICSI in 2015, baby born 2016. It took 7 egg collections to get him as I went from age 34 to age 38, and it was the most stressful 4 years I have ever been through. Breastfeeding went pear shaped and I really felt like I lost out on a part of motherhood and the bonding. So I have decided I would like to try one more time, even though I am about to turn 40 in July and I was a poor responder when I was younger so I don't feel like I have much hope now at almost 40. But I can't help my desire. The stress has kicked in immediately upon my decision to try IVF again. This mumsnet support was a savior the first time, and I'd love to make some friends here again to get me through. I've spent 10 months breastfeeding with a tube taped to my breast which I just stopped yesterday, so now I am waiting for my period to return (maybe 5-6 weeks) and then will probably have to wait for a full cycle before I start. So 10 long long weeks ahead and I hope you don't mind me joining here to keep me sane while I wait.

Hi she'll, we were on a previous thread in 2015/16, hope you are well and enjoying your little boy

Still plodding on here...

(I've had a copper IUD in since October to try and get me menstruating in an effort to stop me miscarrying. So no chance of pregnancy while I've been on contraception obvs. It's been a long few months!)

Yes I remember you well banana! I had been thinking of you guys on here from time to time and wondered how you were all getting on. So I was happy to see a familiar name and that's why I chose this thread to join. Although I worried it was not happy for you to still be on here... which you have now confirmed. Last we spoke, you had your first m/c. I'm assuming when you're trying to stop m/cing, it means you've since had more? How is the copper IUD going to help with that? Truly does sound like a long few months. I've just decided yesterday to try IVF again and already I feel like today is dragging as I start the long count down!

Sadly yes shell. The baby we lost in Mar turned out to be chromosomally normal, so the problem is me

We had our 4 frozen embryos genetically tested and ALL were abnormal

Did another round in May and got 9 blasts for PGS testing, of which 6 were chromosomally normal

Unfortunately the problem is my crappy lining - it won't grow properly, and it won't shed properly.

I had two cancelled FET cycles to try and put a PGS tested frozen embryo back, due to thin lining

Then finally in Sept we managed to get a frozen embryo back - but the only way we could get my lining to grow was to do a full round of stims, and retrieve the eggs to avoid ohss - we ended up discarding 15 eggs because we didn't want to make any more embryos

Unfortunately that pregnancy also miscarried - only very early, at 5w

But my lining was still not right, because when we stopped meds, I didn't get any kind of bleed at all - just brown / black spotting. The lining all reabsorbed (and the pregnancy tissue didn't get expelled as it was fished out when I had surgery a week later)

Hysteroscopy got rid of the retained products and some minor intrauterine adhesions, and had a copper IUD put in. The copper generates an inflammatory reaction in the endometrium, which is why women with copper coils tend to have heavy periods. Although I didn't have formal ashermans syndrome, we're treating me as if I did, and using the IUD to try and get me menstruating. Because without my lining regenerating, there's no chance of generating a healthy lining that can support a pregnancy

Unfortunately two HRT cycles to try and get my lining growing were a washout. The only way my lining grows is with my body's own natural oestrogen. Because I don't ovulate naturally, that means stimming me every month and triggering ovulation, just to grow my lining, to try and get me bleeding

I've done 3 months of stims, had two periods, and hopefully having the IUD out next week. Then doing a mock FET next month.

Then one last go at a FET - if we can't turn a third euploid embryo into a person then we will have to accept I can't carry and the only way we'll have a baby will be through surrogacy

So since August 2015 I've done 4 IVF cycles, 3 cancelled cycles, 2 embryo transfers, 2 pregnancies, 2 miscarriages, 1 D&C, 2 hysteroscopies, 2 HRT cycles, 3 ovulation induction cycles with stims - and the only time I could have possibly got pregnant was my two embro transfers. So it's been a lot of waiting

Oh and I've been investigated for cancer!

So not really a vintage year

Far out banana. You've been to hell and back. And to add to that, I can't imagine how much all that is costing you. I sincerely hope that now you are close to the stage of finally getting the ball rolling with an actually cycle that could lead to a possible pregnancy, that the IUD has worked and mock FET shows hope. Even if you do get a positive, I can only imagine how stressful every day of the pregnancy would be, knowing your situation and that the body can m/c an euploid embryo. Far out.

Also, hello to everyone else on here with an upcoming IVF cycle. Feel free to give me a run down of your story so I can catch up and get to know you all :)

Blimey bananafish. Cannot imagine going through all that!

My story is that I'm a newbie about all this. Got a lovely DS (2 years old) and desperate for a second. Been trying about a year but getting impatient and wondering why so went for tests etc and the issue is on the male side. Luckily all looks ok on my side. So starting the drugs for ICSI this week.
Whole thing seems like a total emotional minefield, trying almost to detach myself from the process a bit as I'm mentally exhausted from the past year! Obv nothing compared to you guys..