The final part of IVF

[Zibidee]

So apparently Mumsnet considers the last part of IVF, the final wait, hoping and praying for an official pregnancy, to be nothing to do with infertility, and everything to do with pregnancy.
It is horrible to be in the limbo stage, apparently not being allowed in an infertility group but not actually being pregnant so not wanting to be in a pregnancy group.
Thoughts anyone?

@Zibidee I'm not sure what you mean by the final wait and an official pregnancy (maybe you're meaning after the viability scan, or 12 week scan?)

I think it's a very sensitive time when someone gets their BFP on the infertility threads. It's hard for the person with the BFP waiting and hoping that the pregnancy is viable, but it's also hard for everyone else who isn't pregnant seeing 6 week scans for instance too.

I think the most any of us can do, is try to be as sensitive as we can be, because it's difficult for all sides.

Hi @Zibidee the two week wait is part of infertility, I hope you get a BFP

I agree to both comments, sensitivity is of utmost importance as well as support in whatever stage you are at.
The two week wait is definitely part of infertility but what about the 3 week wait after that? The clinic made it very clear to me that a positive is good but I should not consider myself definitely pregnant until a 7 week scan as it could just be a chemical pregnancy. So I'm I still infertile or pregnant?

As far as I'm concerned you're very welcome here. I'm also in the post-BFP stage (a bit further along though) but the psychological impacts of infertility don't just go away with a positive test. Reach out for support where you need it, be as sensitive as you can (eg. Put a trigger warning) and maybe cautiously reach out into the pregnancy forum as and when you feel ready (which is what I'm trying to do).

I'm keeping my fingers crossed for you.

@Zibidee what do you mean by not actually pregnant, I dream to have BFP.

@Scirocco thank you that's good advice, very helpful.
@tryingandhoping a BFP at 4weeks could go either way by 7 weeks and in my case, 70% likely it will come to nothing by 7 weeks.
So would you call that pregnant? I just don't know. Legally yes, my work have been told so that a risk assessment can be done, as I work in a high risk environment. Yet Im not safely and definitely pregnant according to my clinic.

@Zibidee Do 70% of people who get BFP have miscarriage? I was told 20%. I'm so worried now, I didn't know that people are not pregnant even though they have BFP.

It depends on your individual IVF situation. Mine is 70%. Others may be different.
But I know that success rates increase after the 7week scan so the first 7 weeks are very touch and go. That's not what you hear of non IVF pregnancies, it's all about the 12 week scan. But IVF is different.

@Zibidee What medical problem do you have that makes risk so high, what tests to diagnose? My clinic didn't tell me my risk, I didn't realise everyone had different risks.

Mine is mostly to do with my age, 39.5 and my BMI. So very high chance of genetic abnormalities which would cause miscarriage and higher than average chance of miscarriage for BMI.
I read in a New Scientist mag that 80% of embryos miscarry, it's just most people don't know they are pregnant when it happens so it just seems like nothing happened and your period has come as usual.
In IVF we get the stats from day one of fertilisation so you know everything. For example of my 7eggs, 4 fertilised, 2 survived, so already that's about 35% success, the chance of one getting beyond 7 weeks is still very low.

@Zibidee so medical problem is you overweight? My clinic say you have to have BMI less than 35, they say IVF fine then. I am age 39 and they don't tell me I have 70% risk of miscarriage if I get BFP. You are really scaring me, why has my clinic lied to me, they didn't tell me almost all their patient miscarry.

I do have BMI less than 35, that isn't my medical problem.
Maybe you should speak to your clinic.

@Zibidee I'm worried because you say 70% risk of miscarriage for BFP and I same age, but my clinic didn't tell me this. What tests did you have for the risk calculator?

@tryingandhoping Different people will fall into different risk/success brackets, depending on lots of different factors, so if your clinic has given you an idea of what they expect for people in your demographic and with your medical history, that's likely to be reliable.

I was told the average success rates for my demographic, and then how my individual risk factors could impact upon that, which meant that I was less likely than most women of my age/BMI/ovarian reserve/etc to get a good outcome from IVF. The clinic took into consideration my medical history and the investigations they'd done.

Your clinic won't have lied to you, but if you're wanting reassurance, you could ask them what their success rates are in terms of live births from a cycle? (Sometimes clinics define success as a BFP, but the live birth rate gives a better indicator imo).

Go on HFEA website and you can find live birth rate states for every clinic. But that won't take into account your personal circumstances, that needs to be a conversation with your consultant .

@Scirocco
There not much difference between the positive test and live birth rate statistics so I don't understand why @Zibidee say 70% women miscarry after BFP and that she is not actually pregnant and also say 80% all embryos miscarry. Have you had a lot of miscarriages before for such a high risk?

@tryingandhoping that's reassuring if your clinic has similar outcomes for people like you, so hopefully you can get a good outcome.

For me, I was given around a 30% chance of a successful pregnancy, based on my own circumstances (not to go into too much detail but I've had 2 previous losses and have some autoimmune stuff going on). And I was warned that a positive test didn't guarantee a successful pregnancy, especially in view of my history.

So, during that 3 week wait I kind of felt like I was experiencing Schrödinger's pregnancy - there were positive tests, but I was very aware that that didn't automatically mean a good scan result... I was pregnant on the tests, but it didn't really feel real until the scan (and even after that, tbh).

I think that the 80% of all embryos miscarrying or not implanting is a statistic that is more relevant to the general population rather than to people undergoing IVF. What that refers to is that when sperm and egg meet, there are lots of things that can and do go wrong and fertilised eggs that aren't viable often don't even implant so a person may well not even know that a menstrual cycle produced a fertilised egg because there's no change to their cycle pattern or such a small change that they don't consider it. We (people undergoing IVF) are in a slightly different situation - our bodies are stimulated to produce multiple eggs and we know how many fertilise, and how big the drop-off is between fertilisation and transfer, and that a fertilised egg has been transferred, and when we should test to check if implantation has occurred...But a big chunk of that 80% in the original statistic would be selected out before ever reaching the equivalent of transfer date, so that statistic doesn't mean 80% of transferred embryos in IVF. I hope that makes sense?

Also, I don't think she's saying 70% of women miscarry, but rather that she's been told she personally has that percentage risk (which is similar to what I was told for my circumstances). Your likelihood of success will depend on individual factors, which will probably be different from mine, for example, so a percentage risk that applies to me wouldn't necessarily apply to you.

@Zibidee Having been through a chemical pregnancy myself I understand your worry. I think it's perfectly reasonable to be on the infertility pages until at least the viability scan (though my personal feeling are it's insensitive to share the scan image itself). We all want w everyone to succeed, but we are all sensitive too

@tryingandhoping In the general population 1 in 4 pregnancies will end in misscarriage or stillbirth. The odds can be high for individuals though given their own medical history.