Any tips for dealing with long term infertility - another Christmas around the corner

[Racinglikeapronow]

So we’ve been trying to conceive for 3 years now and are on our 4th IVF. We have both male and female issues. This year marks another Christmas with no baby and not even a pregnancy.

I have two friends who found out this year they needed ivf. Both did their first round of IVF a few months ago and both are pregnant. I have another friend last year who did ivf and also worked first time and she has her baby now.

I’m struggling with how not only are we in the small number of couples who need fertility treatment we’re in the even smaller group for whom ivf doesn’t work easily. I have one more friend who is struggling to ttc and she has said they’re doing IVf now too so no doubt she will also be first time lucky and I’ll not only be the only one of my friends not pregnant or with children but I’ll be the only one out of 5 of us who needed fertility treatment to not have it work.

I don’t know what I’m looking for with this post. I just feel down and alone. We’re now doing 3 rounds of embryo banking so I know the absolute earliest I would have a baby is 2022 and that’s if we get good quality embryos and our first FET works which seems nearly impossible at this stage.

Has anyone been in a similar situation? How did you cope?

I was in the exact same situation last year - 2 egg collections, 3 failed transfers, a ruptured ectopic where I lost my final tube and a miscarriage under my belt - all in 2019. (Previous years were equally as shitty) We had abysmal PGS results in the November and then a failed FET but signed up to a 3 cycle package of embryo banking starting the first week of January. All the ladies who I knew going through IVF with me were one hit wonders - successful on their first cycle and first transfer so I did feel very much the odd one out and actually envious of them as I couldn't understand why It worked for them and not me and we had already spent over £20k by that point and was scrabbling around to get a bank loan for the final 3 cycle package. It was very lonely as i felt that whilst they knew what it was like to go through IVF they had no clue what it was like to go through it again and again

For me a year ago I had already reached the point mentally and emotionally that I was ready to stop after the embryo banking. I was at peace with that decision as by that point we'd have given it everything we could. Whatever we got and transferred would be it. So I set myself a sort of "target" of getting 2 blastocysts per collection and no PGS. I started to plan what life would look like with no IVF - we planned to do our cycles back to back so over and done with no later than the Summer. So do all the things we'd put off - holidays, weekends away, experiences, moving house, changing job, getting back into the hobbies I used to do - horse riding etc, getting fit again!. Getting back in touch with family who we'd grown a bit distant from throughout this process. It helped to have this little "life" ready to move onto as the next chapter in our lives.

Thanks for your kind reply. You have really been through the mill and I know you are right about thinking about what life would look like but I just can’t do it. It looks so empty.

It’s just very hard to make peace with giving up when we don’t have a child as in your situation. It means never being called Mam and Dad, never getting to bring a child up, never being able to talk about the kids with all our friends, never having a child to celebrate Christmas with. I don’t know how to even envisage life without this when it’s all we wanted.

It’s just so lonely when you end up being the only one. Wondering if you will ever know what it’s like to be a parent, if you will ever get there when everyone else makes it look so easy - even those with fertility issues who get such an easy resolution with one round of treatment.

@Racinglikeapronow

I can understand that. We did already have 1 DD so for us so planning for the future looked different even if it wasn't with the family we'd always dreamed of

Before we had DD we suffered a long period of infertility and losses and I know I was scared about what our future meant with no children. At the time we were in a completely different financial situation but I remember doing the same - setting a timeline, agreeing with DH what our limits were financially, emotionally and physically, agreeing at what point would we say we'd tried everything, there was nothing that we could have done but didn't do and at which point could we say we had no regrets at stopping. For us that was as much IVF as we could afford even if it meant gaps of years in between, trying all the different protocols, all the different tests, I would even have explored surrogacy. We both agreed no use of donor eggs or sperm though. That was our one limit.
We looked at what we could do with our lives without children in it. It was painful and forced us to even look at our marriage and whether we were enough for each other on our own. We were very fortunate that it didn't come to that in the end but it did make our marriage stronger for the trials that were to come after DD x

@Racinglikeapronow yes, i understand what this is like. I've wanted to have children for a long time. With my husband, we've been trying for 2.5 years and no luck. We've only just started treatment for one reason or another.

I hope that it will work but it's just the beginning of the second stage (maybe third, as the first was desperately wanting a child after losing a pregnancy almost a decade ago) so it could be long and drawn out.

And yes, it's hard seeing other people have children, particularly (in my case anyway!) when you know they didn't even start trying until after you did! I find that hard.

We've discussed our options. We definitely want to be parents so would look at donor eggs or sperm (though our infertility is unexplained), as well as adoption. It's a long road but we'll get there.

Have you considered seeing a counsellor? I got counselling through my work (through their Employee Assistance Programme) and it helped me so so much. Just before counselling I had 7 friends/colleagues/acquaintances announce their pregnancies in the space of 2 weeks, we had been TTC for 18 months at that point, unexplained infertility. On the 7th pregnancy announcement I just broke down, physically and emotionally, and DH and I agreed I needed to see someone. Even after the first session I had started to feel better.

Good luck and look after yourself

Eugh Christmas is one of the worst times of year in all of this. Hopefully this will better than last year -last 1st of December l found our IVF had failed.

I freely admit lm bitter about those people who can conceive easily or 1 round of IVF all sorted with embryos to spare. No constant hoop jumping for them.

Not sure what to suggest? We’ve had counselling before but it didn’t work for me. I was resentful that it was yet another thing l had to spend time and effort on. I’m trying to think of the positives -less expenditure (bar pointless IVF!), more freedom, get my body back without it being ruined more (still trying to shift Clomid / IVF weight though), not compromising my lifestyle and career freedom (lm thinking of doing an additional qualification related to my job).

This is our last Christmas of this position so it’s a bit different for us. We are either giving up or 1 last ditch attempt that will definitely done by December 2021. Zero interest in adoption so that won’t be a thing. My fiancé is changing his job so no more Christmas working and shifts. So hopefully we might go away next Christmas and have an indulgent adults only Christmas.

None of our siblings have children and are unlikely to (my fiancé is an only child and my brother seems to have zero interest). So it’s not rubbed our face a lot. Social media is obviously a different story so it’s still not great