November IVF/FET

[BambiOnIce80]

... Too soon?! 😁😉

Been waiting on a FET since we were put on July's list and I've heard from our clinic this week that I've to call them when AF rocks up in October for a November FET. We had our fresh cycle in January, had a BFP, but found there was no heartbeat at the 11 week scan in March (MMC) - it's been a bit of a roller-coaster so far this year (as if covid craziness wasn't enough!).

Found having a thread to go through it all with a massive emotional support, so looking for some MN buddies to do it all again with. Good luck ladies and looking forward to 'meeting' you 🍀🙂

@SpyroC Glad someone is with me of this side effect! 😂😂

@ivfjourney5 My sister is able to get the day off work which I'm so grateful to her boss for.
I spoke to a girl at my clinic who had transfer a few weeks ago. They were discouraging partners coming from transfer but were allowing it.
I think I'll definitely be asking for my sister to be allowed in. It's nerve wracking enough and to then have my husband offshore is just not great. So I'll be pushing for her to be allowed in.

X

@ivfjourney5 DH was allowed in my cubicle for both ec and et. He came into the et with me too. They put a stop to it when they first reopened but it didn't last long (probably got fed up of having to deal with hysterical women!) I forgot to ask if he's allowed in to the scan though. I suspect not. My clinic is in an area that had just entered T3 before lockdown 2.0 was announced.

@bonton oh great! It's nice to be cycle buddies 😊 Great news that you get another nhs cycle if you need it too (but obvs hope this one is the one)!

@mf1981 glad you've got some good progress with the embryos! It must be frustrating to have a freeze all but in retrospect I really wish I'd been offered one - my body really wasn't in a good state for a fresh cycle and so I feel we wasted our best embryo. So hopefully a freeze all will work out better, although I'm sure it doesn't feel like it right now!

@gardenlady543 oh yes definitely. I'm with ARGC now and they monitor everything militantly. I had to do one whole cycle of just monitoring so they could tailor my protocol for me. Now I'm on the real thing, I had one scan and bloods on CD3, one on CD7 today (this one is usually a CD10 but my cycle is 25 days so they did it early for safety) and then once I get a peak on my OPK they monitor prog and oest daily to check it's rising okay. So I will know for sure probably about a day before the transfer. It's definitely felt better than the medicated one overall, and I'm really liking the monitoring as I feel I'm being taken care of more.

@mgee123 agreed! I think mine might top up my progesterone if needes but I guess one advantage of me not absorbing Cyclogest will mean not having pessaries (obvs doesn't outweigh the disadvantage of having wasted an embryo though!) Congrats on being PUPO. It's always difficult to know how to take mixed news, but remember it only takes one, and that the embryo grade doesn't always matter if it's good enough to put back in 🤞🤞

@ivfjourney5 yes the lining issue is really tough! That was exactly what I had - my lining only just about reached 7mm on Progynova but last month naturally it was 8.4mm on CD12, huge difference. Not sure how it'd work with PCOS but definitely worth asking. I really hope you don't need to though and that this one sticks 😊

I’ve had a conversation with the consultant this morning. I have read a lot around single vs double transfers and hoped to have a double on Thursday ET, depending on blast numbers. Clinics are very much against this because of HFEA targets to reduce the rate of multiple pregnancies. It ended up as a non-decision effectively: I can decide to have a double if I want, but also I’m not allowed a double. We discussed the possibility of putting a good and a bad blast in Eg if the blast can’t be frozen then it’s going to be thrown away anyway.

She told me I need to be positive about it working first time, but I told her that I need to be realistic, if something has a 40% chance of success then it’s more likely that it won’t work, but there will be a cumulative success rate over time. I have an arculate uterus, and it does make me think that perhaps implantation is going to be the biggest hurdle, especially with 100% of my eggs being mature and 100% fertilization.

We also discussed FET if it doesn’t work, she said I need to have a natural period inbetween so we’re looking at February which seems a very long time away. I asked about natural FET and she said it’s not something the clinic like to do and that access fertility probably won’t fund it. She told me I could have oral medications as opposed to injections if I wanted in a FET cycle though.

@Gardenlady543 sorry to hear about your chat not going how you wanted 😔 The clinic are right though about the HFEA, they get monitored closely about multiple births unfortunately. I've also read a bit about transferring two that are different quality, and that transferring one good quality is better than transferring a good and a poor, because the poor one has an impact on the good one.
This attempt could work (and we'll all have our fingers crossed that it does!), but if it doesn't couldn't you start on the Dec bleed at the end of the month? Or is it because the clinic is shut for Christmas? 😔

@ivfjourney5 I think it’s because the clinic have some kind of natural period inbetween cycles policy. From reading around I think that other clinics are happy to go back to back. I don’t really know how periods work if you’re unsuccessful. I presume there will be a bleed but then you’ll have to have another bleed in order to have had a natural period, so we’ll be looking at next year.

There’s only been the one paper that looked at good-good double blast transfer vs good-poor double blast transfer vs good single blast transfer, there were no real differences with good-poor compared with the good single, so the poor blast didn’t seem to have a detrimental effect.

It’s a difficult one, I’m trying to decide what’s best for me based on the evidence and the clinic are swayed with adhering to HFEA targets.

@Gardenlady543 sorry I think I got confused with your timelines, I was thinking the withdraw bleed would be the end of Nov, so then you'd have the natural cycle and bleed again end of Dec, and you could start then. As you know I'm going against my clinics advice in even just having one transfer as they wanted to cancel the cycle, I know it is a hard decision but you seem to be thinking through the different options which is good x

@ivfjourney5 thanks for your message, I thought people may say I should listen to the clinic. But I think this can be such a difficult journey and we need to make the right decisions for us. Who knows what will happen now, as obviously me and the specialist are on different pages. I know there will be a psychological impact if I’m not successful, after the physical pain I was in this cycle and because I know there will be a need for more medications. My friend told me she faired worse with oral medications compared with injections and I had my heart set on natural FET, which doesn’t appear to be an option. Plus I hadn’t anticipated a wait of several months before I could try again.

Still, I’m not in that position yet, so I guess it’s a hope for the best, but prepare for the worst scenario.

Thanks @BonTon very true. I need to keep the faith!

Congrats on being pupo @MGee123 thats great news. Hope that the call with the clinic goes well today and they're able to freeze the others you have. Fingers crossed and good luck on the tww!

@ivfjourney5 DH was allowed in for my ET too and the appt re the ass injection; he wasn't allowed in for any of the scans up to the transfer though.

@SpyroC not sure what caused the doom and gloom yesterday - think I'm overthinking and reading too many horror stories on mumsnet tbh so need to just regroup and think positively! I didn't sleep well over the weekend so that prob didn't help! Had an early night last night and feeling much more on top of things today which is a relief! Great you have your scan on the 7th too! Yay! I'll be 7+1 then; they do it 2 weeks and 5 days after the ET, which is actually the Sunday so it's on the Monday instead. It seems a long way away! How's your wait going? Hope you're ok!!

@BambiOnIce80 hope you're faring well too - I think you may have an appt today so good luck with it if thats the case!

Oh yes indeed @unknownscot, the dreams the last few night have been quite explicit! 😂 I'm glad your sister is there to support you, that's really lovely of her 😊

Glad to hear your day 7 scan went well @PineappleC 💪 Hopefully the next 10-12 days will fly by 🤞

The waiting/anxiety literally never ends @TheGlitterFairy 😏 May the next 2 weeks of ass injections go quickly for you 🍑💉 🤞🍑💉🤞

Definitely sounds like a freeze all is the best course of action with you being so poorly @MF1981 💐 How are you feeling today?

Congrats on being pupo @MGee123! 🤩🥳🤩🥳 Have you had your call about the other 2 embies? I hope they make it to the freezer 🤞❄️🍀 When is OTD?

I ended up asking the nurse today about whether I should be avoiding any particular foods (dairy, sugar, whatever!) @SpyroC because I could foresee me driving myself nuts obsessing over if I'm eating the right/wrong things! 🤪 She said to just avoid the things that a pregnant person would and to leave off doing any excessive exercise (running included, even though I normally run... quite glad she said that because I was wondering whether I should keep going 🏃🏻‍♀️🚫). If you're anything like I was in that first few weeks after the BFP, you won't have to worry about gaining weight! 😂 I found the only thing that stopped me feeling queasy was to eat frequently... I'm normally slim, but I was piling it on 😬

They can definitely tell how the lining is doing at transfer @ivfjourney5 because the doc commented on mine today 👍 The CM sounds like a good sign 🤞🤞🤞 Sorry I can't help on the decongestant, but would say to avoid anything with ibuprofen or antihistamines in them (the clinic said to avoid those). Not long now to go until the progesterone pessary fun starts for you! 🩲🍀🩲🍀

@Gardenlady543 I'm sorry to hear that the clinic aren't on the same page as you - adds an extra element of stress in an already stressful process 😔 I'm very much a 'hope for the best, plan for the worse' kind of girl, so I get the wanting to know the plan for every eventually.x

Thanks @BonTon @ivfjourney5 @TheGlitterFairy for the good luck shouts 💖 I have a 4BA ICSI embie on board (we did a split cycle, so we have a mixture in the freezer) 👍 The embryologist this time was very, very chatty (the fresh cycle guy was practically mute 🤐), which I usually love knowing all the sciencey facts... but 😬 She mentioned that when they freeze the embies they collapse down on themselves, then when they defrost them they look for them to re-expand. Ours has, but not fully (which I am of course now f🤬king obsessing over 😣😖😣😖). She said it's absolutely fine and she expects it to continue expanding whilst it's back in me, but I'll obviously be fixating on that if it's a BFN 🤦🏻‍♀️

So another disappointing conversation with the specialist, she has spoken with the medical director who says it’s the clinic’s policy to not do any double transfers (even for women who are advised to have them), because of the recent HFEA statement, which basically says ease pressure on the NHS by avoiding high risk pregnancies. I’m not aware of any other clinic who have put that policy into place. And I feel so bad for women who now can’t have the double they need, because of this policy. She basically said I have no option but to go with a fresh single transfer on Thursday as I’m under Access Fertility, so you have to go ahead, there is no freeze all option and who knows when they will lift this policy, which only came into place after my cycle had started.

She then did the “oh it could work” speech, she said it feels like a clash because she assumes things will work whereas I am more realistic, I told her that if I go into this situation assuming it will work, when statistically it is more likely to not work, than work, then the psychological toil of it not working will be massive. Not a great situation to be in two days before the transfer. I’ve spent so long reading the medical literature based on conversations we’d had before my treatment started, where she said it was my choice, I’d decided what was right for me, based on the evidence and now I’m told at the last minute everything has changed.

@SpyroC thank you - it's a weird feeling isn't it! I'm just trying to be positive, balanced with some realism. Day 1 and okay so far 😂

@ivfjourney5 head over a bowl of boiling water and inhaling the steam, in and out through your nose, should help with the congestion if you're worried about drugs 👍

@unknownscot glad you will have a companion 😊

@PineappleC thank you for the reassurance 😊 yes of course doesn't make up for that disappointment, sorry if my comment was a bit insensitive 😢

I'm sorry @Gardenlady543 - it sounds very stressful for you. Finding the balance of optimism vs reality is really hard isn't it. I think you should just think and feel about it however works for you, don't worry about what the specialist says. I can totally understand your frustration - we have so little control over most of this process anyway 😢 hope you feel better on day of transfer - all fingers crossed for the embryo that gets to go back in!

@BambiOnIce80 @TheGlitterFairy thank you 🙏😊

Unfortunately neither of the remaining embryos had picked up today so we don't have any to freeze. All eggs in one basket! I felt a bit despondent after the news and said this to the embryologist, but she was very reassuring. Essentially what will be will be, and they've put the best one back in, so we've done what we can. OTD is Fri 4th. I'm not going to run until then either, as per their advice. Am going to make a concentrated effort with the healthy diet and yoga each day though (just to keep my mum quiet if nothing else)!! 🤞

Sorry @TheGlitterFairy I missed your update at the bottom of your post! Brilliant news and congrats! Join me in the obsessing corner...I'm relentlessly googling about blastocyst development and slow embryo growth 😂 it's so daft. The embryologist said if I'd come 2 hours later it might have reached full blast stage and we'd have a totally different conversation. That helped remind me how quickly things change and how what happens to one embryo has no bearing on another! I think this will be a long 9 days 😂

Hey all. Hope you dont mind me joining late on. Had my transfer yesterday and already finding the tww tough (and im only a day in). Thinking being with others in a similar situation might help the time pass a little quicker

Ah not @TheGlitterFairy 🙈🤦‍♀️ @BambiOnIce80 I meant! Sorry ladies!

Welcome @Geep 👋 I had my transfer yesterday too. Is this your first round? When is your OTD? Wishing you luck 🤞😊

Thanks @MGee123 I’m on day 2 of progesterone pessaries which clearly isn’t helping, I’m really tearful, so this has just pushed me over the edge. I’m just so upset that I’ve been told at the last minute and that the company aren’t transparent about this policy, it’s not on the website and Was only mentioned to be when I asked about a double at the weekend. It’s difficult for me to know this is the wrong decision for me and it’s being made so that the clinic’s statistics are good.

I’m sorry to hear that the embryos can’t be frozen, I’m so glad you got one to put in though. Yoga and healthy diet sounds like a good plan! Try and take it easy, I do a lot of exercise usually and tailed everything back while trying naturally and even more so now. I miss the gym!!

@geep Hi and welcome, I only joined close to my egg collection and I’m so glad I did, I’ve found it really supportive!

This is my first round, I’m due to have a transfer on Thursday. How have you found everything so far?

@Gardenlady543 I'm sorry you've had such a stressful time. You'd think they'd of made you aware of this policy straight away 😬In my case my embryos are never great quality so my chances for a single have been 15-20%. If they've said 40% that's actually quite good in the wacky world of ivf. I also asked about the good and bad embryo study and she said it was relatively small scale and the impact was only when the difference in quality was massive in which case they'd not allow a double transfer for my age group anyway. The point that I find frustrating on your behalf is, as you say, other clinics don't seem to be doing it. It seems weird to link to covid as they really try to avoid twin pregnancies irrespective of that. I guess not doing them at all reduces the already small risk.
🤞🏻 that the one that goes back is nice and strong.

@TheGlitterFairy I'm glad your feeling better 🙂 I am definitely struggling with sleep. I had a morning mini wobble as my boobs had deflated again (despite me knowing it's normal to come and go) then I had a sharper twinge this afternoon that scared me but I think it was likely bowel/endo related. Other than that I'm feeling good! Work is super busy so that helps. I've avoided horror stories and just looked up stats and they are in our favour (for once!) I asked the nurse what the chances are of it going well but she wouldn't but a number on it.

@BambiOnIce80 i reckon you can have all the gluten you like! 🙌🏻 My diet is driven by endometriosis/ anti inflammatory and egg quality. I think if I make it to 12 weeks I'll reintroduce it gradually. I miss it! I weighed myself yesterday as promoted by a tracking app and I've never been so light 😳 hopefully I'm like you were! More importantly...congratulations on being pupo! 🥳 try to let go of the expansion thing for now (easier said I know) and have faith in your little fighter! I gave everything crossed 🤞🏻. X

@MGee123 I'm sorry you have no Frosties (again like me) but I'm sure you have a cracker on board! I am cheerleading for all the embies!

Welcome @Geep 🙂

Hi
Yes @MGee123 this is my first round. OTD is the 3rd Dec, so not even a full 2 weeks. But still feels a long way away. Good luck to you to. How is your round going so far (sorrynif you've explained all previously).

Hi @Gardenlady543. Thats good to hear you've found it supportive. We havent told any family or friends that we are doing this, so good to have other in a similar place to talk with. Tbh the round didnt go as well as id hope. From 10 eggs collected, only 3 were mature and only 1 fertilised. But that 1 made it to day 5 and able to transfer so i really cant complain. I was convinced we'd have nothing to transfer. How are you finding it so far?

@Gardenlady543, just read a few posts. Im Sorry to hear you're having to deal with additional stress on top of what is already a stressful time.

@geep well it sounds like you have a fighter of an embryo on board! I haven’t told family and only a few friends, I’ve found my friends that don’t have children and aren’t interested in having any, have been the most supportive! I had a lot of pain during my cycle because I have a high AFC, I hadn’t planned on physical pain, luckily that’s settled now. Are you on the progesterone pessaries, I think mine have made me really emotional today, after speaking with the specialist I sat outside in my car for 2 hours (not normal behaviour for me!), my DH has to come and lure me in the house by telling me my dogs were upset that I wasn’t in the house!!

@SpyroC ah Thankyou for the message, I suspect my emotions are making this whole situation worse. But I don’t think the clinic have handled it in the best way either way. To be honest I think the 40% was plucked from thin air because it’s higher than the clinic’s statistics and I won’t know anything about the quality of the blasts until Thursday.

@Gardenlady543 i do have nagging doubt in the back of my mind as the embryologist said the embryo was acting strangely on day 1/day 2 - apparently it spilt in 5 cells then went back to 4 before spilting again. But maybe that just means its adaptable lol (trying to be positive)
Oh no, that's not good about the pain but good its settled now. Hopefully it stays away. Did you have any pain, discomfort after the ET?
Im using progesterone gel, its not so bad so far. I've seen other people saying the pessaries are messy and difficult to use - how you finding them?

@Gardenlady543 you have every right to be frustrated. I agree it doesn't sound like it's been handled well. The % must just be based on age and stats. They should give you a more specific one on day 5 (mine don't unless I ask but they've always have the answer on the tip of their tongues so they've obviously considered it)