Planning life + IVF?

[AliceScarlett]

Due to start 1st cycle in January. Have decided we will do at least three. People are starting to invite us to things e.g a.week away in the lake District.
I don't want to put my life on hold, but neither do I want to have to go away when I'm not feeling great (e.g trekking) or have to postpone cycles.

What does everyone else do?

When we were at the stage of starting ivf I didn’t make any plans for going away that year (started in a Feb). It was just my total no 1 priority and I wanted to keep it as that.
In the end we did have a few weekends away but that whole year was taken up with ivf and miscarriage stuff. The ivf that worked happened 12/13 months after the first. Do not regret the decision in the slightest.

It's so hard to plan anything around it. My first cycle was cancelled at the baseline scan, now a month later I might be doing a freeze all cycle and transfering in another cycle, so what I thought would take 1 month will take 3 months. You can't predict how long you will need to down reg, or how long you'll stim for or if you are ready to transfer. For 1 cycle it's best to put aside a good few months just incase dates change around.

We started the process at the beginning of the year and very much put our life on hold. Didn’t commit to anything, thinking it might coincide with treatment or that I could be pregnant by then. We had spent so much on the IVF and didn’t want to risk losing more money by booking things that we couldn’t attend.

We did however take the opportunity to go on holiday when things with treatment went to pot and it was clear that things wouldn’t start happening again for at least a couple of months. We just booked last minute and actually got a great deal.

So my suggestion would be to take each step as it comes and be flexible. Best of luck!