IVF January/February 2021?

[jm2020]

Is it too soon?

Hi Is anyone starting IVF in January/February next year?

We had our first failed IVF cycle in October and looking to go for our second cycle but the way my periods are it falls over xmas when they are shut.

So we are starting in Jan :)

x

Hi @mowglika I’ve had not seen a huge amount of evidence on diet and fertility but seen a few things mentioned. Anecdotally I was told by my clinic that the rates and quality I got in my fresh cycle were very rare. I was on a short protocol as I have a high AFC, I got 12 eggs, all were mature and all were fertilized and 9 developed to blasts. 4 of which were the highest grade. I am a lifelong vegan, my husband is also vegan. We follow a whole foods plants based diet. I try to avoid processed foods, which seems to lead to a reduced gluten intake. I’ve never smoked, I don’t drink any alcohol and I don’t have any caffeine (so no tea or coffee), I do enjoy dark chocolate though. From what I’ve seen my diet seems to tick all the boxes when people talk about diet. I’d highly recommend the information from Dr Michael Gregor, he recommends a daily dozen of foods you should try to eat every day which is really helpful in balancing everything out nicely. He produces videos on evidence for how diet prevents diseases, there are a couple on fertility, I think I found one which looks at the evidence for avoiding milk. nutritionfacts.org/daily-dozen-challenge/

I hope that’s helpful, I’d be interested to hear the evidence for other diets. The book “It starts with an egg” was mentioned and I had a look at the reviews for that and it seems to align with my diet as well. That book also talks about avoiding BPA, I am anti plastic and have only used glass containers for many years now, I’m not sure if the evidence base, but I think avoiding plastic is very easy to do and has other benefits so there’s that as well.

Hi all,

Loads to catch up on!

I hope everyone is well. Welcome to the newcomers :).

Question for those who have had progynova - been taking it since Sunday and last night I had really bad pains in my stomach it woke me up in the middle of the night. Anyone else had this? xx

@Gardenlady543 - i know that feel - darn flashing smiles!!

As we have had a long old slog on the TTC, I treated us to a Love Honey order this week! Hopefully that'll put some spice back into it!

The It starts with An Egg is quite a full on book, I decided it wasn't for me as it made me feel like the worst person ever!

jm2020 I took progynova for my fet but didn’t have that.. is it listed as a side effect?

gardenlady I’d love to try going vegan or eating more fish, and organic but DH would complain the whole time! He also has a massive sweet tooth sadly which sucks me in sometimes (the sweets not the tooth)

Thanks for the recommendation I’ll have a look at the video, I’ve just got enough time to implement some diet changes that will hopefully have a positive effect in feb. Re dairy it’s interesting as ivf clinics often ask you to drink a pint of milk a day during stims to encourage follicle development so you can’t always avoid it completely.

@mowglika yeah I would worry about the milk advice. I have no idea about the evidence for that. Perhaps it’s because it’s so full of hormones, the thought of it makes me shudder.

I think I forgot to mention I only eat organic, I find sainsburys is the best place to get organic fruit and veg. I also don’t have any processed sugar outside of dark chocolate. Try medjool dates for your partner, I blend them into everything! I always have chopped up bananas in the fridge so I can blend them up with dates, nut milk and cacao powder to have a healthy milkshake. I also blend frozen bananas with dates and well whatever else I want to flavor it and I’ve made healthy ice cream. Dates are the best way ever to get a natural sweet hit. What I do is definitely a lifestyle and it’s how I’ve lived for many years, I’m having IVF so it’s clearly doesn’t result in amazing fertility, but I am really healthy and I would probably be in a much worse position if I didn’t follow this lifestyle.

@mowglika I followed the dairy and eat high protein for my first round. So eggs everyday for breakfast and pint of milk etc. I had a terrible round, did intolerance testing and found out I’m highly intolerant to both dairy and eggs!! So not surprised I had a bad round overloading on them.

I’ve had a better response since cutting them out but I also had higher Stims and on DHEA so really who knows what made the difference.

I think eating med diet is best plan and during Stims low carbs and high protein for the ten days etc.

It’s really hard to know what advice to follow - I had decided against dhea as I don’t think I have DOR or low testosterone levels but my consultant has added it to the list of supplements I am to take from next month. I hope it doesn’t have an adverse effect on egg quality.

I think eating med diet is best plan and during Stims low carbs and high protein for the ten days etc. I think this issue great compromise actually, I will try and do this.

I think eating med diet is best plan and during Stims low carbs and high protein for the ten days etc.
I think this is a great compromise actually, I will try and do this.

Hi all,

may I join? I started a new thread for Jan/Feb not seeing this one.
This is my first time doing IVF so a fresh cycle. My first day of my period was yesterday and I now officially have my first appointment in the calendar: Day 21 on the 5th of January to start the meds. Eek! Very exciting.
We've already got an 11 year old and have been TTC for the best part of the last 10 years. Turns out my tubes are pretty much blocked / lots of scar tissue.
Super excited but also very nervous on what's to come.

jonrik we’ve been TTC for 4 years almost, had a failed FET in between. Have an older dc from a fresh cycle.

My DH is the same (replying to your other post ), he’d rather talk about it in terms of what needs to be done and when, whereas I like talking about the maybes and the possibilities. Although we’re going abroad for our cycle so lots of time to talk about things then

@mowglika oh wow, abroad. That adds a new level of complexity to this already stressful process during Covid. Hope that's all going ok!

I think it's quite a different experience for the partner. Even if they're very involved, they're a lot more detached from the process compared to the woman going through it. It'll be interesting to see how it develops

@mowglika apparently DHEA can have a negative impact on egg quality if your testosterone goes above 2. The U.K. have a very lax approach to DHEA. When I took it with my Irish clinic I only got given enough for 3 weeks and had to get my bloods checked each time before getting more! My U.K. consultant gave me 4 months and said sure it’ll be fine! I’ve been getting it checked myself every 3 weeks to make sure it doesn’t get too high. My testosterone was 0.1 and should be nearly 2.0 so I needed it.

Hi everyone hope it’s ok if I join, found out today I’ll be starting my FET protocol in January and hopefully transfer in February.

I’m 33, DH and I have been TTC 4 years and we have unexplained infertility although I do have endometriosis. I’ve been pregnant twice, once naturally in August 2017 and once following my first fresh transfer in August 2020 and both ended in chemical pregnancies. I was really devastated after the one this year and found things really hard for a while. Since then I’ve had thrombophilia testing which came back negative and a thyroid test which showed TSH under 2.5 and I’m feeling much better and ready to get going again.

We’ve got 3 frozen embryos but this one we’ll be transferring (if it defrosts OK) is quite a bit better quality than the other 2 so I kind of have my hopes pinned on it!

Looking forward to enjoying Christmas and then getting started early in the new year. The first thing that will happen is I’ll get a prostap injection- I’ve never down regged before as I did short protocol so I’m not really sure how I’ll find it!

First Buserelin injection done tonight! I haven’t down regged before so didn’t know how this injection was going to be versus stims. It seemed to hurt more going and I felt like I felt every drop of liquid going in. But it didn’t sting quite as much as some of the others have. Any Buserelin tips anyone?!

@MF1981
I've never down regulated before but am this cycle so interested to hear how you are

X

@unknownscot literally just started tonight and they told me I might not experience any symptoms for the first week so I’ll keep you informed! I have found the injection tonight quite achy - like when you have a heavy arm after a flu jab.

[quote willithappen]@jm2020 I'm on short protocol, so start the down reg start of Feb and by around 26th should be egg collection

@Gardenlady543 it's the closest clinic to me. I'm in Scotland so there are only two clinics I believe? Not 100% but it's not too bad. It's the closest city to me [/quote]
I think there are 5 clinics in Scotland? Aberdeen, Dundee, Glasgow and Edinburgh which do NHS and self funded, and GCRM which is Scotland’s only private clinic.

Hi ladies - question for those who have been on progynova- I’ve been taking them for 8 days so far got two days left of them but my period has some today. Has anyone had this before?

My treatment plan says 10 days of the tablets then I’ll bleed but my period has come.

Feel like everything is going wrong 🥲🥲 waiting to hear of the clinic xx

I’m so interested (and sorry) to read that many others have potential progesterone issues that are dismissed. I always think I may have a progesterone problem due to how much spotting I get before AF. With my most recent chemical pregnancy the lines on my FRERs were getting stronger and stronger until 2 days after I stopped progesterone at 10dpt as advised by my clinic when they began getting fainter and fainter. I’ve asked numerous times before and after my chemical whether progesterone could be an issue and am always told no. I’m just glad that for the FET they prescribe it for 12 weeks instead of just 14 days.

@kikisparks my clinic prescribe progesterone for 6 weeks with a fresh transfer and 12 weeks with FET. 14 days seems ridiculously short! I had a long conversation about progesterone with my specialist, having reacted initially with a rash, I was changed onto an injection on the day of the ET and the levels then seemed to drop after a few days, despite me taking 1 x lubion a day, I started spotting at 8dp5dt and I’m convinced that I had implantation symptoms the day before. My specialist maintains that the dose should have been enough and it was right that it wasn’t increased, as it was a fresh cycle so I should have been naturally producing some progesterone. But when it had turned into a full blown bleed on 11dp5dt there were no signs that I had any progesterone in my system, my breasts felt normal and my stools were soft.

She has agreed to a progesterone test the day before the transfer but says there is no point in monitoring after the transfer as my levels will be fluctuating. She is going to proscribe me some anal pessaries and the lubion injection and I am going to be a lot quicker to increase the dose, if I start bleeding early or I think my body is acting like there is no progesterone in it, then I have the pessaries to top up. I won’t take chances in this cycle.

I’m so sorry that you got a BFP and then this happened, I hope your clinic can keep an eye on things for you with progesterone too.

Thanks @Gardenlady543 sorry for what you went through that sounds horrendous. I really hope the testing along with having the lubion and extra pessaries will help for you next time.

I don’t think my clinic will test my progesterone, the doctor is very nice but they aren’t interested in my worries about it. They wouldn’t even test my hcg levels when I was miscarrying, I had to go to the EPU. I’m NHS funded though so don’t really have a choice to go elsewhere at the moment. The good thing is that the pessaries did seem to at least work for me, although I was so worried at the time that a lot of it was coming out, but it was after I stopped them that the miscarriage happened.

The 14 day thing comes from various studies summed up in this study I think:

www.rbmojournal.com/article/S1472-6483(19)30785-0/fulltext

“Others advocate stopping progesterone shortly after the positive pregnancy test, on the basis that trophoblastic-derived HCG should support the corpus lutea to produce progesterone (Kohls et al., 2012). Indeed, some studies have highlighted no detrimental effect of early cessation of progesterone in fresh IVF cycles (Kyrou et al., 2011; Nyboe Andersen et al., 2002; Schmidt et al., 2001)”

However it is also shown in some studies, but not in others, that in women with recurrent miscarriages progesterone supplementation well into the pregnancy can help reduce the risk of a further miscarriage, so some women seem to have a problem making enough of it to sustain a pregnancy themselves. My theory, based on short luteal phase and spotting, is that I’m one of them, but I obviously won’t find out unless I get it tested.

I’ve asked my clinic to test my progesterone on the day of transfer due to my spotting before AF and they said it was fine but I’d have to pay for it. I’m with a private clinic anyway and you have to pay for everything so I agreed for my own peace of mind.

@kikisparks oh thank-you for the reference, I’ve just had a look. I hadn’t actually read any evidence on the length of the progesterone course, I can however cite every paper on progesterone hypersensitivity! I have no idea what happened in my case, firstly reacting to progesterone and then it seems the progesterone wasn’t adequate enough before there was a chance of any HCG production, I was testing daily on a FRER and never got any form of positive, maybe it wasn’t ever going to be, but if I wouldn’t expect such an early bleed. I’m now in the realms of FET, as I have 8 frosties ❄️ (Hopefully they can get it right before I run out as I don’t have any children and would like more than 1). FET seems to be a different ball park, I get the impression they take dosing progesterone more seriously in FET as they can’t rely on endogenous progesterone production to the same extent as they do in a fresh cycle.

I think I’ll be paying for the progesterone test as well, I’m with access fertility and we’re not sure if it’s covered, I don’t know the cost but see a different clinic charges £40 and I’m fine with that for the reassurance.

@Gardenlady543 we’re with Access too and no it’s not covered but my clinic charge £50. As you say I’m happy to pay it for the reassurance.

@MF1981 ah thankyou, my specialist said she wasn’t sure If access cover it, so that’s good to know. With the price at your clinic and the price at the random clinic I found on the internet it seems that I can expect a bill for around £40-50 which is fine, the cost of another unsuccessful cycle if there are progesterone dosing issues will be much higher!