Anyone waiting to start IVF/FET in 2020?

[Lemongrass1]

As it says on the title really! Wondering if anyone else twiddling their thumbs and wanted to keep each other company?
Me- 40, was TTC for 4 years (unexplained infertility)- short protocol in 2018- fresh transfer resulted in an ectopic pregnancy followed by a successful FET later in the year. We have 8 frosties which we hope to use in another FET starting Feb/March 2020. First consultation next month. Feels so daunting to be starting the process again! X

@C88M hi. So sorry for your loss. I can’t imagine what you have went through. Hope you can find the positivity again.

I bought pomegranate juice. Not sure when to start drinking it for a FET... do you need a thin lining at any point? I remember drinking it too early for a fresh, then needed down reg another week because my lining was too thick! Xx

Hi all, @Rubyredwren any news?

Oh, hey @Mischali!
Unfortunately it was a negative for me. I’m feeling okay about it. Most annoying thing is not knowing why it failed.
I’m going to do some research on the weekend into other clinics. I have been taking supplements for egg quality since the beginning of the year.
I’m also going to look into any other tests that might tell what’s going on but I’m not sure there are any.
I’m ready to keep trying. Every BFN brings me closer to my BFP! ❤️

Please can I join? DH and I waiting on a date for IVF (first round).

Recently we had sperm donor information sent to us and have picked a donor. ( that was a bit of a head turn).

Waiting on group session ready to sign paperwork

Really sorry to hear your news @Rubyredwren. That’s a great attitude to have. Will your clinic give you any feedback on why they think it didn’t work? I have an appointment with my clinic in a week to talk about what we can do next time.

Welcome @thefishthatcouldwish! Hope you are feeling ok about it all. We are just gearing up for our second IVF attempt next month. Do you know roughly when your date will be?

@thefishthatcouldwish Welcome! Good luck with your upcoming cycle.

@Tryin4no2 the clinic have said I can arrange a follow up appointment. I don’t know how much they will be able to tell me though. It was a 5 day hatching blasto of decent quality and they used embryo glue. They were happy with the lining, they were happy with the procedure and placement. I know that my blood tests 7dpt were a little low but they told me that wouldn’t affect the outcome.
My acupuncturist thinks we need to nourish my blood as her work shows I’m blood deficient according to Chinese medicine.
If it’s not the embryo and it’s not the thickness of the lining, I guess it’s not the right environment in there?

Good luck with your appointment and let me know how you go! We can do this!

@rubyredwren - so sorry to read that you got a BFN. It's such a difficult process, and as you say, the not knowing what went wrong is very hard. Unfortunately they must likely explanation is simply chromosomal abnormalities in the embryo which can't be seen and are often present even in embryos that appear to be very good quality. Don't give up - my first cycle sounds very similar to yours with no apparent reason for the failure, but our second cycle was successful because the right eggs came along.
Welcome @thefishthatcouldwish

Your clinic sounds better than mine @Rubyredwren as I don’t think mine even measured my lining (when I asked they said it looked fine....) and didn’t check my hormone levels in 2WW - I was convinced I didn’t have enough progesterone as I was really cold but they dismissed that - maybe I am just looking for a reason and one they can address! Do you have any views on a scratch and whether may help? May ask at my appointment about it. I would have thought worth a follow up - although I know what you mean - not sure what info I will get about mine. I don’t know much about Chinese medicine - I did have acupuncture years ago but found it stressful as the acupuncturist told me my husband would leave me if I didn’t get pregnant! I may look into another one..... I was told by my clinic that there is a slightly elevated fertility the month after a failed IVF so to try naturally but sex is agony (it isn’t usually...) so that’s making it a lot more tricky (not that I am really expecting it to just happen like that anyway...) xx

@Rubyredwren

I am sorry about the news.
Take some time to process it, take care of yourself and when ready think about the next steps.

My clinic told me that given my age and statistics most likely it was the quality of the embryo.
I have asked if we can change the treatment, they said no, as it is already the maximum they tend to do.

I have asked what can we do to find out what went wrong. They mentioned biopsy but he did not recommend it.

So, we will try again next month, this time I will do accupuncture as well and lets see how it will go.

We can do this. Best of luck to everyone.

@Tryin4no2

No date yet waiting on date for form signing and then will be just after that

@tryin4no2 @AM2020 after my first unsuccessful round, I started on the supplements in the book it’s about the egg (or whatever it’s called), and acupuncture. Even though they collected less eggs second time round, my quality was ridiculously up, but even though all 5 were blastocysts only one was normal. I’m currently on my two week wait, and got faint positive, and praying it continues. Really believe the supplements, removal of plastic and acupuncture is important. If you’ve had a bad experience with one acupuncturist please google search fertility acupuncture in your area. Best of luck to you both, this process is hell xx

Good luck @Woodcottage1 - a positive however faint is good news! How close are you to the end of the 2WW? Yeah I agree the book starts with the egg is great. Unfortunately as I have been doing the supplements and a low carb, high protein diet for about a year (with a few little periods off - Xmas for example!) I am not sure what else I can really do on that front to improve egg quality. I did realise my water intake could have been better (obviously was high during IVF) so I’m focussing on that to improve. I have low AMH so our prospects aren’t high..... Anyway, 🤞your positive continues!

So sorry, this is just completely shit what we have to go through. Just checking your doing DHEA, 25mg three times a day? I’m 40 and amh not great. I like watching this chaps films, . Xx

I’m 8 day post 5 day transfer xx

@CritterTamer thank you so much for your encouragement. I’m just going to keep doing everything I can to improve egg quality and lining.

@Tryin4no2 I’ve heard mixed things about the scratch but I think a couple of people on this thread have said it worked for them. I hadn’t done it because I didn’t want to miss a month of trying. I might pull out my info sheet and read up on it again.

@AM2020 thanks so much and good luck next month!

@Woodcottage1 That’s great on your faint positive! I have heard of that book haven’t read that book but might do now. Haven’t heard of DHEA either. How long did you take it before your cycle?

Hello @rubyredwren, I took it for about 5/6 weeks up to egg retrieval, it makes your skin really greasy but I didn’t have any side effects other than that. I became a bit ridiculous about plastic, there’s a report in the book about plastic entering mice food affected their fertility by a huge amount. I’m also a lover of Coke Zero and put a stop to it until egg retrieval for the 5 weeks or so. My first egg retrieval with no supplements, no acupuncture etc was 14, 11 mature, 8 fertilised, 2 x bc 6 day blastocysts, I didn’t get them tested. They didn’t take. My second round after the supplements, acupuncture and removal of plastic was 8 eggs, 5 mature, 5 fertilised and all 5 blastocysts, 3 x 5 day and 2 x 6 day, I had all 5 tested and only one normal. But to go from my first results to all 5 becoming blastocysts I couldn’t believe it. My acupuncture chap insists it’s the weekly acupuncture and the DHEA. What we have to go though is pure torture. Those videos which I’ve included one I think are really good x

Joining in here if that's okay?
It'll likely be end of 2020 before I get anywhere :(
Had a HyCoSy on Tuesday, all clear. Was told then I wouldn't be put on the list and had to go back in two months for my partner to show he had stopped smoking and at that point we would then be put on the waiting list (6 month list) so it's gonna be another 8 months before they do anything with us again :(

Hi @willithappen - I’ve heard that the hycosy can increase fertility and we got pregnant with our DD after we had it (after 3 years of TTC) - although it didn’t work for us this time. Could have been a coincidence but no harm in continuing to try? Good luck. @Woodcottage1 - I haven’t tried DHEA - did your Dr prescribe them/ did you have your levels checked before taking them? Sounds like they have had good results and I have heard it can help. Yes it totally sucks all of this. Let’s hope it comes good in the end. X

No unfortunately my doctor hasn’t, they don’t agree with much including acupuncture. I use a clinic in cyprus. It makes sense to get bloods done to check, but I didn’t. My acupuncture chap mentioned to me to look into DHEA, purely for my age group, and then I read it in the book we both have and it sort of made sense. With the book I bought pretty much everything for worse case including what they suggested for my partner. It was about 12 supplements I took for those 5 weeks, and about 5 supplements for my partner. I did a post on instragram after my results improved and a family friend who is a breast cancer survivor said that quite a few of the supplements are what she takes. Do check out the YouTube videos of the guy I put on for you and what he says about DHEA. I stopped the supplements as soon as I’d done the collection just in case, I noticed the DHEA did make my face greasy. X

@Tryin4no2 if you don't mind me asking do you have any known issues at present? I only ask because my partner has 1% morphology and although they treat it as though nothing is wrong I feel it must have an affect. I have heard about the HyCoSy increasing fertility but not optimistic in our case because of it.
How long after yours did you succeed?
I think I was ovulating the day of the test or perhaps away to ovulate. Don't know if it will have affected anything this month. We dtd a couple of hours after the test anyway just in case

Hi @willithappen - we were in explained the first time but now I have low AMH and also am a bit older (37) but my AMH is low for my age. I don’t know that much about male factor infertility to know how significant 1% morphology is I’m afraid. We got pregnant the month after the hycosy - but I read that it has an effect for up to 6 months - tapering off. I know it’s definitely not a guarantee - and didn’t work for us now, but if it were me I would want to maximise everything for that window and then at least there is no looking back wondering - I am a bit obsessive about this though....

thanks for sharing about Your experiences with DHEA @Woodcottage1 - I want to give it a go but feel a bit scared as I have hormonal acne and tend towards the greasy side at points in the month as it is (after IVF it all seems worse than ever - which is a lovely bonus - look swollen/ a bit pregnant, can’t have sex due to pain and now bad skin - the gift that keeps on giving!!) I would take the side effects if I knew it was the right choice for my levels but my Dr is v conservative and thinks supplements, diet (basically anything he isn’t responsible for) don’t have any impact - so he isn’t going to help with that I doubt. I may ask for the test and if I have low DHEA levels then just go for it anyway (my DH is really against it and thinks I am already self-medicating - but it’s really hard to just do nothing....) x

@willithappen - for full disclosure the hycosy wasn’t the only thing we changed when we got pregnant - also took cervical mucus tablets as I didn’t seem to have much - gross though it sounds they do the job!

@tryin4no2 I’m so sorry, it’s a horrible business this :( :( Whilst my clinic is in cyprus, I use the birth company in the uk, with a clinic luckily near me for bloods and scans and they are good and just do whatever scans or bloods your interested in, and you pay for the service. Please read up on DHEA, the medical essays say who shouldn’t take it and who should. One article I read said 50mg level can be taken for up to 2 years. Men and women are taking it as a supplement to increase muscle and bone mass, decrease fat etc, trying to reverse middle age. I’d just really read up on it, and if you do decide to try it, just supplement for a month/5 weeks up to collection. Anyway enough about dhea, hope you have a lovely weekend x

Thanks v much @Woodcottage1- good advice - I think I do need to try something different, I had just 3 eggs retrieved, one fertilised, which got to day 5 blastocyst but didn’t take.... totally expecting them to say can’t really change anything, and prob chromosome issues... How far off the official test date are you? Have a great weekend too x

I’m suppose to test on Sunday and bloods Tuesday and Thursday 🤞🤞....it’s so bloody scary isn’t it, everything we want and we have no control. Good odds on your one though, to go though the whole process and be a 5 day blastocyst 🙌....I’m thinking of mini ivf if this round doesn’t work out. Ended up having a wee at 5am and wasn’t ready to test 🙈🙈, I’ll do a test in a bit and see what happens xx