Unsuccessful AGAIN

[Maximoo06]

Had my third ivf FET last week and have just come on my period. Why why why is life so cruel and why isn't anything working. I don't know how much longer I can go on and my mental health is at rock bottom..... suicide seems very tempting right now

praga medica Gest

Hi!
Sorry to hear this. I had two fresh and two frozen fail before my successful cycle. In my last cycle I moved to the Lister which gave me my best cycle and my baby. You can dm me about it.
I would recommend that you think about getting a counsellor who specialises in infertility, I did and she kept me ticking over enough to survive all those attempts, it's a marathon emotionally!

A

@Blondeshavemorefun thank you will look into it. I will be using my own eggs as all tests have come back fine. I looked at ivi Madrid and it's a bit pricey can I ask what made you go for them?

@Maximoo06 it was much cheaper then what we paid for a single cycle in UK lol £6k + and icsi was included in Madrid - think was around £4K including flights and drugs

Tbh, we chose it as I am a maternity nurse and two clients that I looked after their babies went there. To be blunt they were both wealthy (must Be to afford me lol) and they researched lots and they both chose that clinic

The families didn’t know each other , and obv worked as I looked after them babies , so df and I emailed the clinic , then went out to meet them , and have few days in sun - was August 2015 and bloody hot

You can Skype but we wanted to do personal iyswim

We liked them and went from there

Plus as both myself and df are self employed we needed ideally someheee that we could fly into in one day /overnight

For ec stayed the night before as they like 9/10ec

And transfers / fets lunchtime

So for fet we got 7am flight. Arrived 10 ish. Clinic 11 ish. Fet 12and flight home maybe 7/8pm

@Blondeshavemorefun

God how did you cope being a maternity nurse, I can't even look at a pregnant person or a baby without crying at the mo!!

Ah okay thanks for the feedback.... yes can imagine a lot cheaper than the uk.

@Amara123 thank you I have just registered to go to an open evening at the lister in a few weeks. Did you find they did things more to the individual?

Sorry to hear this. Don’t give up, life is so testing at times but the end result of having a baby in your arms WILL be worth it. I’ve had treatment at serum in greece (I saw you mentioned it earlier in the thread). Happy to answer any qs if helpful.

Think as I got my baby cuddles

I’m a black and white person

And yes friends getting preg was hard. Total strangers fine

Plus I’ve been a nanny for 28yrs / 10 of them as a mn

Hi Maximoo
It's a big efficient clinic, they are one of the biggest in the UK, which means they have a lot of expertise.
I went to them feeling pretty low and commented in my appointment that I was complicated, and they told me that I was their most straightforward patient that day.
I don't think they game their stats, the women attending with me were mostly older (late thirties, forties).
They spoke to me about add on treatments but didn't pressure me and gave me short documents summarising the current research about the additional treatments so I could make an informed choice.
It wasn't super personal or touchy feely but I don't think many clinics are. But it did work for me and I have a beautiful son now.

I just feel like there is something else wrong with me as to why the embryos aren't implanting. And I know I am so lucky to have a round on the nhs but feel they don't treat cases as individual and everyone has the same program and plan regardless.

I know I have seen a few clinics do money back if it doesn't work does anybody have any experience of this?

Going back into work today and don't know how I'm going to cope I think I'm gonna have to hand my notice in as working along side 2 pregnant women is going to tip me over the edge.

Don’t make any big work decisions right now. Just tell yourself you can hand your notice in a week, or a month so you just need to get through the next few days. Your emotions are probably all over the place and you don’t want to do something you might regret. The reality is there will probably be pregnant women wherever you work (not dismissing how hard it is though).

The refund programme is by Access fertility. They also do multi cycle discounts. They work with lots of clinics so it’s worth having a google. Wishing you lots of luck going forward

Sorry, also to say I did the multi cycle programme with access fertility. Was very happy with it (no success though but that’s a different issue). Maybe start a new thread asking for experiences of the refund programme.

@ImpossibleNovelty
Yes I know your probably right I will try not to make any rash decisions and see how today goes.

Okay will look into access thank you

I'm so sorry to read about your failed cycles, @Maximoo06 and @FingersXssd83 - it's soul destroying. After my third failed cycle I really questioned whether I had the emotional resilience to keep going. It's really hard.

When you're choosing a clinic, I would recommend that you find one that is willing to try some additional meds empirically. Ask them if they'll give you inhixa/clexane (an anticoagulant), prednisone (a steroid), low-dose aspirin etc. None of these meds will do any harm but they will increase your chances if you have any undiagnosed blood clotting issues, autoimmune responses, "sticky blood" etc. My clinic agreed to do this on my 4th cycle and it worked - I'm currently 19 weeks. It turns out I do have elevated levels of natural killer cells so the steroid at least potentially helped a lot (I say potentially because you never know, it might just have been luck).

Also consider having an endometrial scratch before your next cycle - it's one of the few add-on treatments that has been clinically proven to help as it encourages the uterine lining to grow back richer and thicker in the healing process.

Keep your chin up and I agree with not making any big decisions for the next few days 💐

I'm with access fertility, 3 fresh cycles, unlimited FETs. I've had a fresh cycle and an FET so far (both MCs) and it is nice going into the next cycle knowing it's ready paid for (although you pay for the drugs). So sorry you've found yourself here. I'm finding work hard at the moment and had thoughts of quitting.

Thanks ladies!

We have a plan for the future that includes a lap in Sept, further tests with my GP/IVF consultant, and get a second opinion from another IVF specialist once we have all info back.

We'll then do the transfer of our two frozen embies, another OE retrieval if that fails again, followed by moving on to consider embryo or child adoption.

The BFN really has hit me hard. I'm not in work today either - don't physically or mentally feel up to it. My boss has been very supportive and has said to work flexibly or take any days needed off. My team on the other hand do must be wondering what the heck is going on as I've hardly been in. Just need to be by myself right now, am so sleep deprived it's unreal. God, this is such a crappy journey ❤️

Oh and @RedPandaFluff I was on inhixia, steroid and aspirin this transfer,didn't help but glad my consultant was open to trying. Probably going to get the intralipids and definitely get the scratch next time too.

God knows how much all of this is going to cost 🙈

Hi @FingersXssd83 - sorry, thought it was worth mentioning the additional meds in case they hadn't been tried already. I'm glad you have a plan in place - and it's great that you've got some embryos in the freezer, so you can have a couple of goes without all the egg retrieval etc. But you'll definitely need a wee while to get through the devastation of a failed cycle - it gets harder and harder to bounce back from.

Money is a huge issue - I wasn't sure how many more rounds we could have afforded, which added to the pressure. And the tests are so expensive too - abroad is much cheaper, I had a hysteroscopy and some other tests done in Prague, but it was still about £2.5k in addition to the costs of the cycles. Eye-watering :-(

I know @RedPandaFluff - we have a little savings but are certainly not wealthy so it's going to be a struggle.

Can I ask if you ever had a chemical or miscarriage? I'm just so worried that after 3 transfers and not coming close to them implanting, success with either my own eggs or DE is looking very unlikely.

Booked out lap privately for Sept and the nurses have said that we should be able to transfer 1-2 bleeds afterwards so it's looking like this cycle that we started in April could take until the end of the year to complete 🙄 x

I did have one chemical, @FingersXssd83, during cycle 2. I didn't even make it to OTD though - I think I tested 6dp5dt and it never really became a strong positive, it just faded away and by 14dp5dt just a stark negative.

I should point out though that all my cycles have been donor eggs from proven donors, as I don't have any eggs of my own (premature ovarian failure and early menopause). So I knew that my issues were likely to be implantation/problems with me rather than egg quality. That's why I was so keen to have the hysteroscopy, endometrial scratch and take all the meds I could - I knew it was me and my body, rather than just bad luck.

It's so complicated though - there are so many variables that have to click into place before success. Like throwing dice, hoping for a certain combination to come up - it could happen straight away if you're lucky, or it could take many rolls. The waiting is difficult to deal with as well - every day seems like a week, a week seems like a month - and tests can feel like a frustrating delay.

That's another thing of this whole crazy journey is money it's so unfair that some people just don't realise how lucky they are to just be pregnant naturally.... and others have to spend thousands.

I think we are going to have to move back with my partners mum as we will not be able to afford to pay our rent and ivf.

@LillyLeaf I have seen you on previous posts over the year sorry for your losses how have you managed to cope being at work?

Do ask about an era. To check lining is receptive

@Maximoo06 hope you are feeling better. I never got NHS funding, there are 10 year loans, or access fertility insurance. We decided to get our treatment in Czech, you get much more for much less there!

I will do @Blondeshavemorefun

@Viletta I have requested info on abc and have looked at a clinic reprofit on there website

Yes it’s a real financial killer. We spend £27k

We saved , took out loans and yes paying. Back when failed was horrid :( , put on credit card and did as much over time /extra work we could

Now it worked and I’m a mummy obv it was worth it BUT when each cycle failed it broke us emotionally and financially

Getting a loan out for a car holiday new kitchen etc is what most people do - but you have a guaranteed outcome

Ivf isn’t like that - there are no guarantees

As I said previously it took 5 attempts

Sure I read a few years ago a lady had 8 failures

When do you stop