Ivf nov/dec cycle buddies

[ivfhope3]

Hi.. I'm starting my third round of ivf First didn't stick second did an ended with a miscarriage.. I'm about to have my third round so throught is start a thread if anyone would like to share there journey or is awaiting ivf. Etc. Let do it together. I was on a thread before an really helped.
❤️

Hi all, Had my day 13 scan today. Yes day 13!

They want me to trigger tonight at 10:15pm and egg collection is now confirmed for Friday 10:15am. I can't believe I'm typing this actually!

I'm very grateful I've made it to this stage. At some point I was doubting whether any of my follicles would make it this far. Fingers crossed all 6 follicles have mature eggs in them.

Xx

@lucymills1234 Hello. Your numbers look really good! I had a 6mm after 6 injections. It grew to 8mm after 8 injections and 13mm after 11 injections. It’s now at 16mm after 13 injections and they are happy it’s good for collection on Friday.

They also told me today that they’ll try to get an egg from every follicle that’s accessible. The question I think would then be whether the egg in it will be mature? I’ve read about cases where all follicles above 14mm produced mature eggs. I’ll know on Friday for sure so will let you know then. X

@lucymills1234 just wanted to add the rate of growth (at least in my case) was much faster post 8 injections than the first 7 injections. X

@dragonfly1978 I'm so sorry to hear about your POAS test. However, I just want to echo what @EasterBunny7 said. Please don't stop the pessaries before OTD. You never know it might all be ok. Even if there is a 1% chance you're pregnant you don't want to risk that after all the hard work you put in getting to this point xx

Hi @Jane1284 👋 I am on another thread but scan through lots of them (as I'm sure we all do)! I just wanted to say not to lose hope with your number of follicles or worry too much about the size. I was on a similar protocol to you and on day 7 only had 2 fair sized follicles responding well, with 2 a bit further behind and several others still less than 6mm. With a further 4 days of stims the smaller one caught up and 2 more appeared out of nowhere! The consultant also explained that follicle size isn't everything. Follicle maturity is important too and that doesn't always correlate with the biggest sizes. They just like to see some follicles getting to a bigger size to indicate appropriate levels of maturity, but this doesn't mean some smaller follicles won't contain eggs. We ended up with 6 eggs at egg collection, from follicles which were still various sizes on the last scan (48 hours before collection), and 5 eggs fertilised. You've definitely still got scope for more to appear so try not to worry too much just yet. Fingers crossed for you 🤞

@BrandyM that's amazing news - excited for you! Xx

Yay @BrandyM good luck!

Hi @BrandyM thanks for that, it's really encouraging! I've mentally written off the few newbies that are under 6mm but if some of the five in the 6-10mm range catch up it may give me a little more chance of something to transfer at the end. I hope I'm not overconfident to assume the 14mm and two 12mm follicles will make it! Likewise, good to know that they'll try to collect everything accessible.

@MGee123 your comment to @Jane1284 was really good to read, too - actually a nurse told me today that follicles can be slow to start and then speed up (same as BrandyM said). Fingers crossed for you.

@Roo45 I hope that those embryos stick. As others said any grade can do so we keep thinking good things for you.

@dragonfly1978 I also think you should keep up the pessaries and see what Friday brings then you’ll know for sure.

Good thoughts to everyone

@ofpalestsilver thank you, and good luck test day is soon! Hope you are coping ok. Mine won't be too much longer after yours actually!
I'm trying to put it out of my mind but it's been hard today, I feel like all the stress isn't going to help me!
Need to try and distract myself somehow apparently it was a difficult transfer too and I've not been feeling well since so I've decided to take tomorrow off work and try and rest up/dose up on painkillers!

@Roo45 a good idea to take time off work. I’ve booked next Wednesday off so I can deal with the news good or bad. The pandemic situation isn’t helping much with all this either. I’m just so utterly bored and despondent at the moment. Wish I could do more to distract myself!

Hi all, can I join? I am 6 days into Stims, on menopur and fyremadel and had my first scan yesterday on day 5. I have 18 follicles but all different sizes going from 14-16mm down to tiny lower than 6mm. She says she thinks egg collection will be next Wednesday, with 5 day transfer then on Monday 7th Dec.
I’ve had a bumpy road recently as a large polyp was seen in my womb on my baseline scan which I had to have removed, and biopsied but luckily it came back clear.

@Gensola Welcome! Sounds like you are responding well to stims and are on track for lots of eggs. Sorry you had a bad start with a large polyp but looks like you're on track now. When is your next scan?

@lucymills1234 sounds like your first scan went really well! Plenty of time to get all your follicles to a decent size. When is your next progress scan? I look forward to hearing how you get on.

@BrandyM - So exciting. Will be keeping everything crossed for you tomorrow. I hope all your follicles have nice mature eggs in there and fertilise well. Sending lots of positive vibes for tomorrow.

@MGee123 thank you for your kind words. I really wish it was the case that I had some small ones that needed to catch up but from what they showed me at the scan I actually only had 3 follicles that had responded to meds and there were no smaller ones lagging behind. I asked if there was any chance of some smaller ones popping up and she said no and even if by some miracle they did they would be far too far behind the others by EC.

Oh well. It is my first round and i guess I wasn't expecting much but hopefully they can learn something from this one for future rounds. My worry is that because I am already on really high stims there won't be much they can change. Wondering if since I get such low numbers anyway whether something like mild IVF or even natural IVF would be better suited to me. Something worth speaking to them about after this round.

Hope everyone is going well xx

@Jane1284 thanks I have another scan tomorrow morning - hoping the follicles will have grown and evened out in size.
I have started to get pains in my ovaries the last day or so, up until now I haven’t had much in the way of symptoms.

What have people told their work? I am reluctant to tell them I’m having IVF as they will immediately start thinking of maternity leave etc and it may take ages to work/not even work at all, so I’d rather they didn’t know. So far I’ve gotten away with it by timetabling around work but for egg collection I will need time off. Argh.

@Gensola In regards to telling work, I was thinking about keeping it to myself, it actually would have been quite easy as all my scans have been in the middle of my day and I am working from home so able to just put an hour out in the diary and just go. I ended up telling my boss a couple of weeks ago so I had his support if I suddenly needed to take a day or two off. I am so glad I did. He told me his brother and his wife had been through multiple rounds of IVF for years and are now going through the process of adoption. So there is definitely a level of understanding there. I felt like a weight had been lifted telling him and he was very supportive. Is there someone in HR you can tell? Some companies have policies in place. Or if you really don't want to tell them could take sick leave or say you have a medical procedure?

@Jane1284 thank you! I have another scan tomorrow and they said they'd probably do another on Monday so that's 5 further injections between yesterday's scan and what could be the final scan - hopefully that's enough time, who knows! When is your next scan, is it today?

@Gensola welcome! It sounds as though you're on track for really good numbers. Do you have any holiday left you could use for EC? It's obviously different for every person but I am not sure I'd want to tell my employer, either, but would probably feel more comfortable taking holiday than worry about having to explain sick leave. I work for myself which is useful in terms of managing appointments, the downside of course is that when I take time out I don't get paid, and I won't get any maternity pay beyond the small statutory amount. Not great as I am doing this solo. One bridge at a time...

Welcome @Gensola it's so tricky with work isn't it? I really don't want to tell my boss as I want to keep everything private and only announce once I get to twelve weeks (positive thinking)

I'm thinking of saying I have to take an elderly relative to some hospital appointments and as soon as I have the dates I'll book them as leave and give her a rough idea?? It's a slight fib but the less people I can tell the better.

But as @Jane1284 said it may take the pressure off depending on the relationship you have with your boss?

Hi @Gensola welcome. I don't want to tell work either right now. They are quite old fashioned and not child friendly in terms of flexible hours etc. I'm also in quite a senior position and being over 40, i think they have ruled out the possibility of me going on maternity! Not a very nice thought, but that's the way they are.

I wanted to give some kind of warning to pre-empt questions, so i told them i would be having several hospital appts over the next few months, as i need some monitoring and investigations. I thought that sounded sufficiently serious enough for them not to push for further info, but also vague! I get a certain amount of paid sick leave, so i wanted to use that. If it was annual leave, i wouldn't tell them anything.

Can i ask if your polyp was removed at your clinic or under NHS, not sure if you are private patient? I have a small cyst which may need removing if it doesn't go away on it's own.

@81Poppy good plan with your story - ive been hinting vague gynae problems which means my male boss immediately flees from the conversation!

@Jane1284 I don’t get annual leave because I work for a university so my time off is dictated by term/holidays even though I work full time, a bit like teachers I guess.

@IslandStars I had my polyp removed privately because we were told the NHS wait was a year + due to Covid backlogs and I couldn’t wait that long.

I am 35 and DH is 50, it’s our first child (probably only child tbh) and we have to have IVF because he had a vasectomy in his previous marriage as his ExW didn’t want kids. He had to have surgical sperm removal which wasn’t pretty but I actually think it’s good he had to go through something too tbh.

@Gensola thanks for the info, i'm so hoping my cyst disappears on it's own after my next bleed, as i won't be able to wait for NHS either. Yet more expense thrown into the mix.

One thing my clinic mentioned in their open evening was how even if fertility issues are related to the man, it is still the woman who has to go through IVF and endure the majority of the physical toll, so i can see what you mean about your DH sharing some of the pain!

Hi @IslandStars I don't know if it's helpful, but I am midway through treatment at the moment and I have a small cyst. They checked bloods and it's not giving off any hormones (haemorrhagic, if that's the spelling) so I was told it was fine to continue. It was about 20mm.

@lucymills1234 Thank you, that's useful info for me to check on. Mine is only 10mm and didn't appear in my first two scans, so i think it could have been caused by the stims. Clinic wasn't keen to confirm that, but from research, i've heard it's possible. I know many small cysts come and go, so i'm hoping this one one of them.

My polyp was huge, almost 2cm! But totally benign and gone now anyway I had the same sedation and local anaesthesia as I will have for the egg collection, it was great - felt lovely as I was drifting off and dont remember the surgery at all now.

Anyone had bloating and abdo cramps after FET? I've been fine throughout the injections and EC but after my transfer I've felt awful. Yesterday the pain was horrendous and I phoned the clinic as it wasn't settling with codeine and they said if it wasn't improving I'd have to speak to the consultant- luckily it's much better now but still pretty uncomfortable. I expected some degree of discomfort as it was a difficult transfer apparently but I'd have hoped it would settle within a day or 2?

For those wondering about work obviously it's really personal decision, I was worried about telling work but they were so supportive and actually I found out my manager had had IVF themselves and was so helpful in moving things around for me and allowing me to work from home