Follow my IVF journey

[ivfertility]

Hi

I'm 32, and have just started stims for first ever round of IVF. I'm so new to this process and hoped to start a thread to air my fears and thoughts. Hopefully meet people who are going through this at the same time?

I'm on 125 Gonal F - is that low? Day three and no side effects as yet - is that normal!?

Worried about anything and everything. Suffering so much from infertility trauma now, nightmares, isolate myself a lot from all pregnant or new parent friends and no idea how we will cope when (inevitably and most likely) the round doesn't result in a positive.

These boards really help - anyone else going through their cycle now would be good to hear from you Xxxx

@ivfertility I'm 35 and preparing to start again for my second try, so not at the same stage as you yet.

I can really sympathise though about how all encompassing it is. I haven't seen any friends in 2021. I find it really difficult to pretend to be myself and for some reason no one seems to have educated themselves on what is / is not useful or appropriate to say. I physically cannot take anyone else telling me to relax, or having to hear about how their cousin's friend went on holiday and relaxed before she started IVF and got pregnant naturally 🙄

My sister in law is pregnant and I feel physically sick about having to meet the baby next month. I'm going to have to put a plan in place ie. we will go for the set amount of time that I feel I can pretend to be absolutely fine and normal.

Does your clinic offer a counselling service? We should have used ours sooner in hindsight. I'm also finding acupuncture helpful, as it relaxes me and I don't have to pretend that I'm fine with her. Do you have anything like that to help with the mental stress?

One thing a consultant told me which helped is that IVF is stressful, so don't get upset with yourself for feeling stressed. It is a normal reaction to such a huge life changing event.

Hi @CurbsideProphet

Your message really resonated with me it was so comforting, thank you. We are in the same boat but a few months apart. My SIL who never wanted children got pregnant on a whim, and that has flawed me - and she is now the source of deep trauma given exposure to a painful 1.5hour detailed outpouring of the conception plus photos of pregnancy tests... all while we thought she was our decidedly child free friend. I have been ignoring her for self preservation. How do you handle interaction with yours? It's sad infertility has this all consuming affect on every facet of our lives.

Also agree that I don't want any more inappropriate comments - don't want anyone asking when we're trying or if we're trying etc. I'm such a hermit right now. Seeing my best friends today, one with a baby... and I feel so much anxiety about seeing them, when they've done nothing wrong and should be my supports, infertility steals your life!!

Have you told many people you are doing IVF/are on this journey? Thank you for the tip on having counselling sooner. We are going abroad but have found a counsellor who we've set up an appointment with - had a therapy session last week with a woman who thought telling me her friend conceiving at 54 through IVF would help... que 20 more years of mental pain then aye.

What day of your stims are you? Did you feel any side effects to your medication first time round, or this time round? I don't feel anything so query if it's even doing anything...

What a mind eff. I only feel safe and off my guard with other ladies going through this ❤️.

I will look forward to hearing your updates on this round and hope it can be a positive experience for you, for us - eventually for everyone in this community no one wants to be in but everyone feels so much support in.

Thank you for replying!

Xxxxx

@ivfertility I don't start my injections for a few weeks. We didn't tell lots of people, but DH started really struggling with the stress and he felt better for telling a couple of close friends. We've both told our employers, DH has told some close colleagues who have been really supportive.

It does feel like it steals your life 😬 I'm finding it very difficult to concentrate on work - luckily I'm at home. I'm also finding it difficult to even think about friends / family who decide they want to have a baby and then just have one. We've got friends who had babies without even trying. It does feel very unfair and like a punishment.

Luckily DH is determinedly optimistic and keeps telling me everything will be ok and work out in the end. It does help, as when we were both negative we just went down a spiral of misery.