Ivf newbie any tips ?

[cosmo30]

Hi, due to start our ivf with icsi in about 3 weeks, on a short protocol and I have pcos. My amh was 20.4 when it was checked.
This is all new to me and I'm abit nervous tbh about the injections and messing them up in some way! Also obviously worried it isn't going to work, what are the usual reasons ivf fails does anyone know ? I'm convinced my eggs are rubbish as after years of irregular cycles I have one ds but my consultant told me he was likely pure luck of conceiving!

Any advice or tips would be really appreciated, can't really talk to anyone irl about it so for now I only have my partner (who I think gets bored of hearing it lol)

Read tips on improving egg quality ( it starts with the egg book maybe), eat well, drink (water) well, go tee total and caffeine free. Minimise sugar intake. Try to keep calm as much as you can.

Have some spare needles. Sometimes you can blunt the needles when they go through the rubber seal in the medication bottle and they’re painful to inject. If this happens decant back into the bottle and use a fresh needle.

Little tip I picked up that no-one ever told me about!

Oh god dreading the injections 😩 thanks for the tips. I've cut out sugar mostly, only have one cup of coffee per day anyway so is that okay do you think? Don't drink at all and partner hasn't drank now for 8 weeks.
So I'm hoping it will all help.

@cosmo30 I don't actually find the injections that bad - it's just a matter of getting that first one out of the way!

@TTCIVF yeah i know what you mean, I'll probs be okay once I've done it a couple of times. Do they sting?

CARE Fertility have done some extremely useful YouTube videos on the different medications & how to inject them. If you search CARE + injection teach + medication name you should find them. Very useful at 6am when you’re faced with two vials and two needles and not 100% sure if you remember everything from your nurse session!

The other thing I’d recommend is to double check everything. IVF clinics are generally appalling at admin and I’ve been sent away on a fairly regular basis with small comms errors I’ve had to clarify.

@TheMagicDeckchair does your clinic not use mixing (green) needles? I only switch to the giving (yellow) needle after I’ve drawn it out of the vial, so no chance to blunt.

@cosmo30 I never found that they sting, the needles are very thin and small. Well apart from the intramuscular progesterone injections but not everyone has to have those

@jcurve we had vials with a rubber bung and you had to insert the insulin needle through it and draw the liquid through. If you inserted it through the existing hole it was generally ok but if you made a new puncture then the needle blunted.

However it’s been 3 years since I did ICSI and I suspect that all clinics do the medication differently. There were no different coloured needles at my clinic.

I found the fine needles ok. The pre-loaded Fragmin needles were brutal though.

[quote jcurve]@TheMagicDeckchair does your clinic not use mixing (green) needles? I only switch to the giving (yellow) needle after I’ve drawn it out of the vial, so no chance to blunt.[/quote]
Same here

See all this needle talk means nothing to me lol I'm so worried about messing it up!

@jcurve

CARE Fertility have done some extremely useful YouTube videos on the different medications & how to inject them. If you search CARE + injection teach + medication name you should find them. Very useful at 6am when you’re faced with two vials and two needles and not 100% sure if you remember everything from your nurse session!

The other thing I’d recommend is to double check everything. IVF clinics are generally appalling at admin and I’ve been sent away on a fairly regular basis with small comms errors I’ve had to clarify.

Having the teach session over Skype next week so hoping that will still be okay

I'm new too! So I'd love to see the tips people have!

Hi @MF1981 have you started yet ?

Hey @cosmo30. My meds were all delivered on Friday, I have my mock embryo transfer tomorrow, start progynova tablets on Sunday and then as long as AF arrives on time I’m starting injecting on 7th Nov. I’m on short protocol too and we’re having ICSI. Do you know when you’ll start?

Also, I’m on the November and the Nov/Dec threads on here and they’re so helpful so maybe join us on one of those?

@MF1981 exciting stuff !! I think due to start taking northesterone (however it's spelled) around the 9th November. Had abit of a delay so eager to get going now. Yeah that would be helpful thanks. Is the mock embryo transfer an added extra ? How did it go?

Hey @cosmo30 yeah I had to pay extra for it but they wanted to do it as my hsg was so awful. It was absolutely fine! And I had a bit of cramping this afternoon but that’s it really. I’ll tag you on the other threads so you can join x