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 🍀🙂

@Lepatz, I’m sorry you’re feeling low. It really is such a hard, emotionally draining process. As others have said, allow yourself to grieve and hopefully you can look forward to the next step, be that a new clinic or a furry friend, if that’s what you decide. Hope you’re ok.

I’m also feeling quite low today. Don’t feel any different to my negative cycle so worried it’s not our time... again!

@BambiOnIce80 I'm so sorry 😢 it can be such a shit process! You've always seemed really strong and I'm sure you'll come back fighting for the next FET 💪🏼 how are you feeling about things now? I hope you really enjoyed the gin and tonic 🍹 And fingers crossed you get on that cancellation list!

@unknownscot did the clinic get back in touch about your review before your DH goes away again?

@Lepatz im so sorry 💐 give yourself time to decide what you want to do next. I must say I rely on my two cats to keep me sane and give me a sense of need, a dog might be a good idea at the moment. Definitely don't give up on your dream just yet though, there's still a chance x

@BonTon aww you're still early and don't forget people can get positives with no symptoms at all! I hope you got a good night sleep last night and are feeling a bit better today x

@ivfjourney5

We've had a mad couple of days of phoning the clinic and hearing from admin/nurses and all sorts.

Long story short we are getting booked in for our fresh cycle to hopefully start in January.

We were originally on a freeze all antagonist protocol, we will now be on a Long agonist with fresh transfer.

🤞🏼✨

How are you doing?

How is everyone else?

X

That sounds good that you’ve got a plan and moving so quickly @unknownscot... what’s the difference between the two protocols? If this round doesn’t work I think we’ll be doing another egg collection rather than FET and I’ve wondered if the protocol needs to change...

Ok here thanks feeling quite anxious about the outcome and also got a lot going on a work but trying to be positive! xx

@ivfjourney5 thanks. Are you at OTD yet?

@unknownscot I'm glad you're getting sorted to start again soon, and I hope you're feeling a bit better. I wish you all the best of luck!! I'm okay thank you, although I had a bit of an episode early this morning which freaked me out so i need to phone the nurses to see if they want to see me or not

@BonTon nearly a week in now! Fingers crossed the rest goes quickly for you. Yes it was my OTD yesterday and I smugly rang the nurses with the news

How is everyone doing?

Since our bad news last Monday I've been all sorts of emotions - sad, angry, jealous of others, absolutely fine... it is what it is though and need to get my mind straightened for starting again.

@BonTon
So our new protocol has prostap injection on CD21, then after a bleed we will start only Menopur.

Our previous cycle didn't have prostap, but we had Menopur and Fyremadel.

I'm still not entirely sure what it all means but tbh I don't like reading too much into it. I'll just go with the flow and read and learn as we go.

So I'm having prostap injection on 30 December then should hopefully be able to start menopur around 11 January.

It will be a fresh transfer too unless they get more than 20 eggs. We got 22 eggs last cycle but only 1 made it to day 5.

Does anyone have Information regarding improving egg/embryo quality?

Hi everyone. My clinic just told me that I can't start my second cycle in January because my body won't have enough time to recover from the hormones in the first cycle (November). January would be my first natural period after the miscarriage cycle. I wanted to know how long others who are doing successive cycles had to wait? I am so frustrated that they are making me wait when I feel recovered!

Hello everyone 👋

@Lepatz I'm so sorry 😢 do you know when you're fresh round might be? Sounds like a good plan - I can see your logic! Hope you are okay x

@Geep that's good you've got an appt soon - hopefully you will have a plan pre Christmas? I can understand feeling bummed by being a year older, even though rationally it doesn't make that much difference! I decided after 30 I no longer count 😉😂 no we don't have any other children, and first go at IVF the cycle we've just done. Feeling lucky with a positive first go and keeping 🤞 for our scan

@Gardenlady543 how are you doing? Do you have a plan for the new year? (Apologies if I've missed it somewhere)

It must be OTD soon for you @BonTon ? Keeping everything crossed 🤞🤞🤞 I had no symptoms until a couple of days before when I was certain AF was arriving as it was classic pre-menstrual symptoms. Our bodies can play tricks and no symptoms doesn't = no success. Each cycle can be different, so 🤞 for you x

@unknownscot im glad you have a plan too. That's interesting they've swapped you to a long protocol - did they explain why? Re improving egg quality I think the key bits are eliminating caffeine and alcohol (some schools of thought say caffeine is actually worse)! Then the usual healthy diet, low sugar, low dairy, plenty of plant protein. Vitamin D supplements are usually recommended and the supplement Ubiquinol often gets mentioned as well, but the research for that is pretty sketchy I think. Worth noting it would be important for both you and your partner to follow the lifestyle stuff!

I'm so sorry @EasterBunny7. That must be so frustrating. I'm sure I have read of people doing cycles back to back, but don't have any experience myself. Time feels so precious with IVF doesn't it. I don't think I've ever been aware of the weeks ticking by so much. In general I try to have faith in the person I am under the care of - perhaps they are advising it to maximise your chances? None the less frustrating 😣😢

@EasterBunny7 I’m sorry to hear this, I have just had a unsuccessful cycle and I feel that having to wait for a natural period inbetween seems so long. I just want to get on with it.

@MGee123 Thankyou for checking in, I had a horrible few days towards the end of last week, not eating, not sleeping, not wanting to do anything. I was advised just to get on with things so put my tree up and got some craft kits. This is such a horrible time to be without a child :( but doing these things seem to have helped a bit. I am speaking with the specialist on Thursday, hoping to have FET in January, worried about what she will say about the progesterone issues.

Not sure if anyone feels the same but I want to remove the word failed from the dictionary. I just hate it, I much prefer unsuccessful, whenever I see the word failed mentioned with IVF it feels like I’m being blamed. This comment isn’t aimed at anybody by the way.

@EasterBunny7 my clinic say 1 full cycle. So bfn round withdrawal, cycle, proper period and then I started on day 21 of that cycle.

@unknownscot I would recommend reading the book "It Starts With an Egg" lots of useful information in their about improving egg quality. You can dip in to the bits you feel you could do. It helped me to feel like I was at least doing something and my consultant was behind it too. Be careful with DHEA though as your quantity is not the issue.

I have everything crossed for you @Geep and I hope your staying sane during your tww. 🤞🏻 x

That’s interesting @unknownscot ... am going to push for the doctors to look at my protocol if this transfer doesn’t work out. I’ve also read it starts with the egg and we saw a fertility nutritionist called Melanie Brown who was brilliant - she recommended certain supplements and a diet, which is basically high protein, lots of veg and minimal sugar, processed food etc. Who knows if it made a difference but good to feel like I had control of something.

@MGee123 thanks for the reassurance. Not long until your scan now either - have you told many people yet? Hope all goes well for you on the 23rd xxx

@EasterBunny7 we have to be so patient don’t we?! It’s not fair at all. I didn’t have to wait but had a freeze all cycle and a frozen transfer straight after so I guess maybe the difference is my body had already had a chance to calm down after the stimulation phase but I don’t actually know. Will you be having a frozen transfer?

@Gardenlady543 I agree. - I don’t know if you have read Elizabeth Day’s book How to Fail but she says something similar after going through ivf and miscarriage. Good luck with your appt on Thursday

Sorry @Geep that was meant for @BonTon 🤦🏻‍♀️

Thanks @SpyroC 🙂 hope you’re well! xx

I hope you're holding up okay @BonTon xx

@Gardenlady543 was your review apt yesterday? How did it go? Did you get derails of your next cycle?
My review meeting is next week and just wondering what to expect.

Just about 🥴 thanks @ivfjourney5 🥰

Well remembered @geep ! Yes my review was yesterday, it was only 30 mins which really wasn’t enough to discuss everything that went wrong and educate me on FET which I’ve never had before. This is what we discussed:

1. Progesterone rash, she doesn’t want to risk me on the pessaries even though it looked like I was also reacting to the injection (but that calmed down after a few days). She said I can’t titrate up the dose by spreading out the injection when I first start it, which is a bit annoying.

1. Early bleed, she has agreed to test my progesterone the day before the transfer since the spotting started on8dp5dt and was a full blown bleed by 11dp5dt, she said no to monitoring during the 2ww as the levels are likely to fluctuate. If my progesterone is under 50 on the day before transfer, she won’t cancel the transfer and will just increase me to 2 x lubion/day. She is also going to prescribe a rectal progesterone called cyclogest and the plan is to just try and keep the progesterone stable.

1. PGT-A testing, this will cost £3440 to test my 8 frosties and there is not much point in testing a few of them, as you have to pay £1080 in addition to £295 per embryo. She said I won’t be able to go ahead in Jan with the ET as they will not be setting up a FET at all until the results are back. She said it risks picking up mosaicism (these can self correct and result in a normal live birth, but they will have to be destroyed if they find it), there is also a risk the embryos won’t survive the thaw and could get damaged. She advised to hold off on the testing for now and said it will only increase the chance of a live birth from 46% to 55-60% for my best blast.

1. She said there are 3 protocols for FET, 1 is natural, which could be cancelled so she advised against this and the other 2 are medicated. By this point we were rushing with the appointment and I didn’t really understand the 2 medicated ones, she said the chance of success is the same with all options and I’m just going to leave it to her to decide.

1. Getting the drugs privately, as I’m on lubion my FET is now really expensive. It will cost £120-240 per week. I checked with ASDA pharmacy and they can get that drug for £67-134 a week. I will need to source needles and syringes, but they are cheap and I’m happy to do a bit extra. So the specialist is going to give me a prescription to take to ASDA to get my drugs, I think they charge about £50 for a prescription.

I had made a list of all those points to talk through and kept notes on what she said. So would definitely advise you to do the same, have a list of the 3-4 points you want to know based on what happened in the last cycle and make sure you get the info you need to move forward!

@Gardenlady543 glad you have had your review.

What progesterone were you on before?
I was on cyclogest. It wasn't a problem for me so hopefully you are okay.
Great news that they will test your progesterone levels the day before ET.

My FET was a medicated FET.
I took norethisterone to initiate a bleed.

I had:
progynova CD3 - OTD
fyremadel CD 3-9
Cyclogest CD12 - OTD
Lubion CD12 - day before ET

X

@unknownscot ohhh that’s helpful thankyou! My specialist mentioned HRT and oestrogen but I have no idea of what the protocol will be. She said I will start progesterone 6 days before the transfer I think, which sounds good because it gives enough time to pick up a reaction and stabilize the dose in my body.

In the fresh cycle that I’ve just had, I was on Utrogestan vagina pessaries three times a day but I got a rash on my arms after three days, so I had to be suddenly changed to lubion once a day on the day of the transfer, but still got a bit of a reaction. And then the early bleed and no symptoms of progesterone at the time of the bleed (normal stools and breasts back to normal) meant that it seemed that the bleed was caused by a lack of progesterone. She is maintaining that my body should have been producing progesterone and that the dose was enough, but I think had I been told to increase progesterone on 8dp5dt it wouldn’t have become a full blown bleed by 11dp5dt. I also think it’s weird that I got strange pelvic pains the day before and I wonder if the embryo tried to implant but the lining just wasn’t good enough and it triggered the shedding of the lining.

I think her plan is to assume that I will need lubion twice a day and then have the cyclogest to supplement if needed, so perhaps she will increase to 1 lubion and 1 cyclogest as an initial step before going up 2 lubion.

Hi everyone, I hope you’re all keeping happy and healthy in the run up to Christmas :)

I’ve been working so much since my BFN, I’ve barely had time to process. Today I’ve finally stopped, and it turns out I’m over the worst of it, and able to look to the future again. Last week was utterly dire!! I have a consultation booked in on the 31st to discuss options, still deciding between fresh or FET.

@ChicaXS @Gardenlady543 The FET will need to be transferred privately, although it was made in an NHS round. All the regions have such different processes. So I’ll be private for next steps - regardless of what they are! x

@BonTon how are you? When is your OTD?? I was up by de Beauvoir for a run yesterday and was thinking about you :) x

@ivfjourney5 @TheGlitterFairy I totally get what you mean about furry friends! We got a cat and kitten last year, and have been so thankful for them between lockdown entertainment and IVF comfort :) A dog is kind of inevitable… but I’ll hold out for a dog and a baby for a bit longer!

How is everyone getting along? :) x

I’m stressing out a bit actually - had lots of brown clots in my removed crinone gel yesterday and it’s slightly redder today. Also been having cramps on and off for a few days. Have messaged the nurses but I am worried. Will respond separately to everyone else later but any advice appreciated!

This didn’t happen on my last cycle although I didn’t use crinone and I know my progesterone is high. Was 132 on Sunday, although suppose it’s possible it has dropped since then although I haven’t missed any meds.

Oh no, that is so stressful, I'm sorry to hear it. I'm afraid I can't offer any advice - other than to hang in there xx implantation bleeding strikes differently for some. I read somewhere that if you're on a decent enough dose of progesterone, then it's more likely that any spotting is IB than AF. When are you supposed to test?

Monday morning but it will be my busiest week of the year at work so will test over the weekend. Did you use crinone @lepatz? I’ve read it can cause bleeding...

Oh that's true. I was using cyclogest- which also can cause irritation and possible bleeding.

But not where I was putting them (!)

Good luck with the test over the weekend @BonTon - keeping everything crossed for you x