BFP after IVF: any other nervous ladies in need of a handhold?

[wombats]

I've had my BFP after our first FET and in a bit of a state analysing symptoms/lack of symptoms. Had two losses prior to starting IVF so really can't get my head round what might be normal or not. Clinic will scan me at six weeks, but that is two very long weeks away! Anyone else in a similar position? xxx

@DameSylvieKrin have a good day at work xxx

Good luck for your day at work Dame, good to hear you're feeling a bit better. Rational how did you get on telling your mum last night? Hope the spotting has stopped.

I'm 6+4 today, still just slightly sore boobs and burping alot after eating. Feel bit nauseous now and again but think it's anxiety more than anything. I'm on prednisolone, is anyone else? My friend who's a doctor said it could be masking symptoms like sickness and tiredness but think she might have just been trying to make me feel better because I'm worried about having no symptoms!

Happy Friday to everyone x

Dame I’m desperately hoping I feel a bit better when I stop my cyclogest as well. I have to continue for at least another 11 days now. Hope work goes well for you.

Bruges My Mum was over the moon. She proceeded to tell me how it took so long to conceive me that she went to the doctor (7 months! Unsurprisingly the doctor told her to go away!) and her eyes were like saucers as I explained what IVF involves. She also confirmed that she was really sick when pregnant with me and gave up work after just a few weeks because she couldn’t handle the bus journey. She was also sure I wouldn’t be able to go on a planned short break at the end of May which involves flying, so I had to firmly explain that it’s perfectly safe to fly. She is very much of the “pregnant women should be practically on bed rest” generation and was horrified I’d put up a curtain pole last week! 😂

I hope you’re not worrying too much about your lack of symptoms. I know sooo many people who didn’t get any sickness or anything. A friend of mine is a midwife and during her degree she discovered she was pregnant. 25 weeks pregnant. She hadn’t noticed any symptoms until she became tired, which turned out to be anaemia as a result of pregnancy. Her little boy was fine.

My spotting seems to have stopped at the moment, phew.

Happy Friday everyone!

Thanks for words of reassurance rational! Lovely to hear about your mum's reaction too x

Hi all,

Dame, how was work today?

Rational, fab you've told your mum. Hope the spotting stays away and you have a restful weekend without any curtain poles

Decaf, how was the car journey?

Becky, how's the cough and congestion?

Daisy, how's your cramping and nausea? I'm 6+4 today, still having on and off cramps but no bleeding. Scan next week, feels like we've been waiting forever.

Bruges, didn't realise we're both 6+4, we're twins. I've had the same symptoms, burping more than usual (esp after eating), on/off nausea, sore nipples. I'm not on prednisolone but wonder if my anxiety and adrenalin are making me too panicked to feel symptoms! Also heard that some symptoms start around 7-8 weeks, and some women don't have any at all.

I left work early today as was feeling a bit rough, slept two hours on the sofa and woke covered in drool! Been feeling queasy since and nibbling crackers, will stay home tonight with DH and a duvet.

Sending good thoughts to all xxx

@wombats bless you Hun, feel better soon. Is it morning sickness? I feel a bit better, always cough more in the evenings though. I have a 12 hour shift tomorrow. I'm 5 weeks and 4 days do exactly a week behind you guys xxx

Thanks @becky114. If I'm honest I'm actually a bit relieved to be feeling so poorly, feels reassuring somehow. I hope your cough gets better and you manage alright on your shift. Have you got to be on your feet or can you rest a bit?

@wombats I would prefer to feel sick because I can link it to pregnancy. I worry about this cough because I cough so much I'm scared I will dislodge baby and I had absolutely no symptoms yesterday and I'm worried. Yes I will be sitting down for the most of the day luckily, hopefully minimal stress but I doubt it with my job lol xxxx

@becky114, it's hard not to worry. I've had symptoms on and off the whole time, reassured when I have them and panic when I don't. Unfortunately no way to know until scan. Hope your work isn't too stressful today xxx

Works ok, but someone has used bleach and I can smell it!!!! Lol I don't want to be around it, have opened window and keep covering my face with my scarf lol xxx

Hello all,

Rational - so great to hear telling your mum went so well and fingers crossed the spotting now stays away.

Becky - my symptoms definitely come and go. Thursday I was really nauseous and had to force down food and yesterday I couldn't stop eating! Hope your cough eases up and work isn't too bad.

Bruges - I do sometimes think my nausea could be related to anxiety as well. These first few weeks are so confusing. I really did expect to feel much more pregnant by now and was worried I wasn't tired but then I did sleep for 11 hours last night and was still tired this morning, so that may suggest otherwise!

Wombats - I bet you can't wait for your scan to come round, days seem to be taking forever at the moment. How are you feeling today? Still tired? I've had no cramping since Thursday but today I have these weird shooting/pulsing pains up my vagina. Lasts for a few seconds on and off. Anyone else had these and know what they are?

I'm off to get some vitamin D on a long walk in a minute - such a lovely day. Ordinarily I would have done park run and then a yoga class on a Saturday but too scared to exercise much now. Ridiculous I know!

Have lovely Saturdays, ladies x

I think that there are also a lot of pregnancy symptoms that aren’t so well known. For example, a cough is definitely supposed to be one, and I would imagine that burping also is and would be caused in the same way that heartburn is.
My first pregnancy symptom at 3 weeks was feeling incredibly cold all the time. I had no idea that this could be a symptom until I googled it later.
It’s just that some symptoms get more attention I suppose, in the same way that every birth in a film starts with the waters breaking.

@DameSylvieKrin thanks Hun that was a really reassuring thing to say. I will take the cough if it's a pregnancy symptom lol. Xxx

Hi lovelies, hope everyone's having a nice weekend.

Daisy, I think I had those same vagina pains, I thought it might be the uterus stretching and pressing on a nerve? Also had it a bit on my left side. I'm also too nervous to exercise much, I think if I make it past 12 weeks, will increase a bit but defo not now.

Becky hope you made it through your shift alright. How are you feeling today?

Dame I've been having cold and hot flushes throughout the pregnancy. I reckon it's all down to hormones?

I had a bit of a wobble last night, as my nipples were much less sore (though I'm having more nausea), and I started worrying about a silent miscarriage. I've been so confident this cycle, my intuition really told me this would finally be our turn, and I've got no information to the contrary, but worried I've just been deluding myself so we could get through it. I think as we get closer to the scan date, the possibility of this not working feels more real, so I'm absolutely dreading it. I feel like I just couldn't manage seeing an empty sac or a tiny foetus with no motion, let alone being back to not being pregnant and not any closer to having our baby.

Sorry for the moan...not sure if anyone else has felt the same way.
Sending positive thoughts to all xxx

Hi everyone.
wombats i have been the opposite of you, nausea has reduced over the last couple of days, but my boobs are super sore. Also feeling a lot more pulling pains in my general mid section. The only sign of my mmc last cycle was a sudden reduction in nausea- so everytime i feel less sick i panic. Like you, i dont think i can take another loss.
Nothing we can do, just take our meds & try to stay sane. Consider me holding on tightly to your hand as we wait. X
Glad you feeling better dame.
How lovely for you to be finally able to tell your mom rational.
becky i’m in awe of your stamina to get through those long shifts!
Love to all

Wombats I completely relate to how you're feeling. Worrying myself silly that I haven't got enough symptoms or comparing myself to others at the same stage. Dreading bad news at our scan although I know we'd pick ourselves up somehow like we always have before.

So for now I'm just trying to think there is no reason why it shouldn't be good news, it works out well for lots of people at this stage so just got to keep waiting and hoping!

Decaf thanks for the hand hold, sending one back to you. I hope the pulling is good, I have it too. Learned today in my obsessive googling that the womb has doubled in size by 7 weeks so makes sense to have so many odd sensations down there.

Bruges, thanks. It's so hard not to compare, isn't it? DH says the same, that there's no reason it shouldn't be good news, so we'll focus on that for now. I've forgotten when your scan is?

Not sure if anyone has seen this, but I found this website, that shows the chance of miscarriage by day. Today, I'm at 9.8% chance, and instead of focussing on chance of miscarriage, I'm choosing to think I have a 91.2% chance of a successful pregnancy at this point! If I see a heartbeat on scan this week (at 7+2), chances of miscarriage drop to 3.5% or so. So can only wait and try to be positive.

Thanks again for the kind thoughts and support, sending good thoughts to all xxx

Sorry I disappeared for a bit, was a hectic weekend entertaining my Mum. It was good but I can’t keep up with her at the best of times, so this weekend I had no chance! Had a 2 hour nap yesterday afternoon while she went out shopping!

Sounds like lots of people are with me in the nausea and tiredness phase. I seem to have one or two reasonably alive days followed by one super duper shattered day when I go to bed early and sleep for aaaages and then feel a bit better again. Feel I’m managing a bit better though and getting used to what I need to do to get through each day.

Wombats and Bruges are you both having scans this week? Scanxiety is hard. I am trying to chill this week as mine is not til next Tues but I know I’ll be really anxious when it comes to it. Time seems like it is almost standing still at the mo!

Did you get some sickness bands, decaf? Hope your trip went ok.

All the best to everyone else. Hope this week skips by quickly and you’re all feeling reassuringly (but not horrendously) sick and not spotting or anything else stressful!

I’m also on that miscarriage stats page almost every day, the probability of birth column is oddly reassuring.
I had my booking in appointment yesterday and ended up having the combined test as I don’t have the NIPT results yet so they couldn’t tick the box without doing it. I’m in terrible pain again, I have been all weekend and am back on sick leave as I can’t sit up long enough to work from home so wasn’t going to turn down a chance to see if things were ok. They were fine, but the doctor who did the scan was completely unempathetic (no such thing as sonographers where I live, don’t know why). It was my seventh scan and I’ve noticed that the other doctors show you the heartbeat first as I guess they realise that that’s what you are waiting to see. This doctor showed the heart last, and the baby was completely and utterly motionless, I really thought the worst for a few minutes until I thought that he wouldn’t be bothering to make all the measurements if he didn’t know the baby was alive. So it must have been fast asleep. Then at the end of the test he basically said that I shouldn’t be reassured by the good test results at all because of the high false negative rate. I’m lucky that I could have the NIPT but it makes me angry to think that he’s making these comments to women who can’t. I realise they have to be honest about the limitations of the test but there’s better ways to do that!
Anyway, I know I’m very lucky to get this far. I hope everyone having a scan this week has nice sonographers and wonderful news.

Awww Dame I’m sorry you’re in so much pain and also had an idiot doctor to deal with. I’ve had a few doctors who have made me feel rubbish in the past - it’s so hard when you’re already anxious and then someone just doesn’t seem to get that. Small things can make such a difference. I had a doctor a few weeks who didn’t even say hello or anything, just walked in, sat down and stuck the scanner up my vagina! Obviously I knew that was what I was there for and I’d had plenty of scans and wotnot before, but a bit of politeness wouldn’t go amiss!

Makes you wonder what the point of the tests is really if they are telling you not to be reassured by them! Glad you will have the NIPT result to hopefully reassure.

I do hope you are able to rest up and feel better soon

Sorry you are in pain dame. Like you and rational unfortunately i have met a couple of insensitive medical personnel too. There was a doc at my last clinic who used to do internal scans like he was setting the hand break in an old car! Crank right ovary, crank left ovary, I actually cried out in shock & pain, and he looked at me like he was surprised i could react! Sometimes they seem to forget we are people not a collective of ovaries, wombs and hormones they are managing. Luckily the good ones out number the bad.
Love to all

Sorry to hear all these experiences of insensitive doctors and painful scans. I have a retroverted uterus so scans during stims can be really painful for me. At my first clinic I would sometimes be crying in pain whilst they were prodding around for my ovaries. I moved to a new clinic this time and all the scan ladies have been so patient and careful, I had no pain at all. Made the whole experience much easier.

Hope everyone is holding up with symptoms, anxiety, waiting for scans. My scan is on Monday when I should be 8 weeks. Seems a very long time since OTD but the clinic says they wait till then so if heartbeat is seen miscarriage risk is much less. No idea if anything going on in there and switch from optimism to despair on an hourly basis. Nothing to do but wait!

Wombats is your scan tomorrow?

Sounds like it's going to be a busy week for us all! @Bruges21 we have the same scan date but I am a week behind you. Still no symptoms this end so hopefully there is still a baby inside me. I feel a bit hopeless sometimes but today has been a good day, as went to lunch with my mum who was excited and talking babies which got me a little excited to.

Sorry to here all the insensitive doctor stories. My consultant made me cry in our consent form meeting, then I was told it was him doing the transfer and I couldn't hide the worry from my face, luckily he had had an attitude check on that day.... phew!

Good luck everyone xxx

Hello all,

Wombats and Bruges – I feel completely the same as you both. I’m 7 weeks tomorrow and one more week to go until my scan. I keep flitting from feeling confident to feeling absolutely wretched and convinced I’m going to miscarry. Permanently knicker -watching and prodding my boobs and trying to guess whether I do actually feel nauseous or its in my head! Good luck for both of your scans. your scan

Dame – Sorry to hear about your horrible experience. It sounds so stressful and upsetting. One of the nurses at my scan last week almost made me cry. Bedside manner really does seem to be in short supply. The receptionists at my fertility clinic were the worst. Absolutely terrifying!

Becky – Glad you had a nice time with your mum and hope time moves quickly to your scan. Think you are a week behind me? I didn’t have many symptoms at all then so try to keep confident

I have had some weird symptoms in the last few days and when I say symptoms, I’m not actually sure if they are. Yesterday I had lots of clear jelly discharge and then today I have had almost painful sharp shooting pains in my breasts, almost feels like an electric shock.

Has anyone had anything similar?

Good luck and thinking of you all x

Wow, the surprise internal ultrasound has me crossing my legs. And I also had a doctor with a gift for jabbing you in the ovaries somehow. I didn’t know until my third cycle that internal scans didn’t always hurt.
I also met some awful nurses and receptionists along the way (when I went for the seven week scan the receptionist said to me with a sneer “Oh, you’re here to find out whether it’s a real pregnancy” which completely knocked my attitude of just being glad to be able to get pregnant even if this time doesn’t work out, given that they told me last year I had a 1 in a 1000 chance of IVF working out).
Really makes you wonder why people go into that field. Sorry to hear that you’ve all run into these characters.
The combined test is 90% accurate after all (nuchal fold only is 70%) which doesn’t seem bad so I have decided to feel reassured anyway.
I’m in a lot less pain now and am working from home again, so feeling more optimistic. And even though the doctor doing the prenatal diagnostics I saw was awful, all the midwives in the actual maternity unit were really lovely, which is the main thing.
Daisy, I had have sharp shooting pains in the breasts and ribs since being pregnant so maybe it’s a symptom?