What to do when you’ve run out of hope

[KayReeves]

Hi all, I am about to do IVF cycle 5 and dreading it as it’s likely to be my last although I am way off wanting to stop trying. My little boy was conceived through IUI in 2017 but now my AMH is very low, i’m 39 and my IVF failure so far means I have a poor outlook. Just had a very non sympathetic calls with a consultant which has made me feel awful.

I desperately want us to have another child and this secondary infertility is killing me. I literally don’t want to see friends, have lost motivation and have a heavy sense of heartbreak that I carry around with me. I just wondered how other people have coped if they’ve faced similar?

I love my boy and also feel selfish for wanting another when he is perfect but I feel desperately that I want to grow our little family.

This was me a year ago - the lockdown helped a bit as I was able to spend a lot more time with DD - something I wouldn't have been able to do if it wasn't for lockdown and being furloughed and I realised that actually we'd be perfectly ok as a family of 3 if that's all we'd ever be - I think the thought of not having the family I dreamed of was actually more scary than the reality if that makes sense? - we were through the worst of the childcare costs as she was starting school - I started to plan all the things I'd put off because I was either miscarrying/recovering/doing IVF like move to a bigger house, plan holidays, trips, bigger purchases - silly things like a £250 swing set for the garden. I actually felt a bit resentful that I had one last IVF cycle left to do (our 5th) which had been delayed due to the closure of the clinics. I went into that 5th and final round very much at peace really knowing that we'd done and tried everything we could and there was nothing more we could have done or spent (other than donors or surrogacy which aren't for us anyway)

Thanks for this @ivfgottwins I hope that one day I’ll reach some kind of peace but just trying to get through when you’re not at that point is really weighing me down. I think like you say, for me a big part of it is not having the life I just assumed I would have. Also my 40th birthday is looming and I feel really shit about it to be honest. Thanks for responding x

Have you stuck with the same clinic and protocol or have you changed it around?

Same clinic but different protocols. Going back to the one where I got most eggs previously for this next round.

For me what worked was changing to natural modified - focussing on much fewer eggs - my egg quality improved hugely and that's what gave us success in the end x

How many rounds of regular IVF did you have prior to that if you don’t mind me asking? x

I did 3 rounds of short protocol - less than 30% fertilised out of the 30 eggs in total that I got and that was with ICSI - managed to get 4 average blastocysts.

FET 1 - BFN (non PGS tested)
FET 2 - ruptured ectopic and lost my last tube (non PGS tested)
FET 3 - BFN With a PGS tested embryo which was a mosaic but the clinic agreed to transfer it as my other blastocyst was a complex abnormal and had to be destroyed

Swapped to natural modified - over 2 cycles got 9 eggs - 100% fertilised and 4 top quality blastocysts - transferred 2 non PGS tested embryos and had twins earlier this year and have the best 2 graded ones still frozen (they wouldn't let me do double transfers with AA grade blastocysts so I put 2 slightly lower ones back in - a 5BA and a day 6 4BB)

Oh wow and congrats on your twins!! Which clinic did you do the modified cycles? I did visit Create Fertility but they’re not local to me so managing all the scans around work could be a struggle. I had previously ruled out doing natural modified but I might revisit it

Thankyou! - I stuck with Create through all my 5 cycles x