Failed IVF & Infertility early 30s

[EastLondon30s]

Hi lovely people,

I am really struggling and I hope to find some similar people going through the same thing so we can connect and make each other feel less alone!

I am 31, and have been TTC for 2 years. I have been through 6 failed Ovulation Inductions, and recently my first failed IVF round. No-one can find any issues - I got a great harvest of good quality embryos, and I am now going to do genetic screening and Endometrium tests. My period never came back when I came off the pill.

All my friends are getting pregnant at the drop of a hat and I'm struggling with any hope that I'll ever have a baby of my own. I'm young, fit, and healthy so why is this happening? How common is this - is anyone going through the same, I literally feel like I must be the only person so young yet so infertile.

Any help, hope, thoughts, success stories would be amazing. Every day is such a struggle and I'm finding it hard to keep going.

xxx

Sorry to hear about your unsuccessful round
I'm the same age as you and TTC for nearly 4 years, with 2 failed rounds. Although a little different as we have male factor, I have regular periods and no obvious issues had been found with me although in our second cycle about half my eggs were mature but too small to be used, that didn't happen on the first cycle.
I was recommended to have a hysteroscopy and I was in 2 minds about it but there have been cases of silent endometriosis so I decided to have it done. I am assuming on a side note there's been Investigations into not having a period and you have been given medication to induce a bleed?

Whilst our situations are a little different I know what it's like to feel like why isn't this happening to me? I'm young, healthy (although I could definitely cut down my sugar!) and I don't understand why it's happening for everyone else and not me?

Sending hugs, no magic answer but I try to remember that the average couple needs 2-3 rounds of IVF to be successful (it's actually recommended that couples receive NHS funding for 3 rounds but I don't think it happens in most places!) Most people aren't successful on their first round, and it depends for you if emotionally/physically/financially you would want to do another in the future but I would just take things 1 day at a time at the moment, block or remove yourself from social media accounts or situations which are triggering, prioritise your own self care and well being as much as you can.
Xx

Dear @Roo45,

I can't tell you how much it meant to receive this - there is someone out there and I'm not alone! It made me want to give you a massive hug whoever you are :)

I'm so sorry to hear about your challenges, I've always thought having a male factor must be so difficult as I'm a problem solver so at least I feel the problem is in my hands to solve!

You have been really helpful and reassuring in that it's normal to have a first failed IVF attempt (and yes the mental side will break be far before the physical side does!). Also on the sheltering from the outside world, although it's tough when most of my best friends are all pregnant with their 1st or second so there is SO MUCH BABY TALK haha and that just sets me off into tears.

The period thing is odd - i had crohn's disease as a teen, then on the pill for 10 years, then off it for 2 years and it never came back. Drs have said it's 'hypothalamic suppression' i think partly due to leftover inflammation and partly due to my BMI being 18.5-19 (im very petite - only 5ft so- really struggle to get an NHS BMI rating which is 20+).

All the best of luck, please do stay in touch hearing from you has felt like a lifeline xx

Hi @EastLondon30s, I'm the same as you. Had my first round of IVF when I was 31 which failed, then moved onto embryo batching. Even though I am still young, I don't have much success with my embryos - I get good numbers but they don't like being fertilised. This weekend, 3 of my friends texted me to tell me they were pregnant, and whilst j was happy for them, it was a reminder of how rubbish things have been for me.

I've got my next round soon and it's soo hard to stay positive!

@EastLondon30s your not alone I’m in the same boat I’m 31 and just had my first failed ivf cycle I have family who are older/younger then me who managed to conceive quite quickly so I feel exactly the same as you and so frustrated.

Did you have any frozen? Will you be going for another cycle? Xxx

Dear @ohsheglows

Firstly I love your user name! I'm so sorry to hear that but equally thank you so much for sharing - the immediate response from so many of you amazing women has made me feel so much less alone! If only there were infertility groups the same as mother antinatal groups, then we could all hang out and feel less left out when you see those armies of mums with prams in the park!

Dear @Lotusflower1990000

Bless you I'm so so sorry, I always hear the first is the worst! i'm the same as you - my mum conceived first time aged 41 (!!) and both my first cousins have 3 kids, all conceived the first try. GRRRR.

Yes I will absolutely try again - the difficult thing is not knowing what the problem is, until I know that I have nothing to solve! I'm only 31 and not ready to give up on being a mum yet :(

I luckily have a batch of frozen good quality ones, hence thinking the issue is genetics or implantation?? or just bad luck?!

What are your plans?

xxx

@EastLondon30s I know! We definitely need some sort of infertility club - the club that no one wants to be part of 😂

What are your plans - are you going to try another round of IVF?

@ohsheglows

Haha yes so true! Yeah I'm going to do a load of testing (PGA, the embryo trio of era/emma/alice) then another IVF off the back of that

You? :)

I have my next round next month. It'll be my 2nd transfer and I have 2 frozen so far. Haven't done EMMA/ALICE but going to give embryo glue a go and see what happens 🤷🏻‍♀️ we are both female and male factor so the odds are against us, but our consultants are hopeful and they are always banging on about how young we are and how the odds are better because of our age. We'll see...

Hi @EastLondon30s I’m also in my early 30s and I have had two unsuccessful FETs. We were initially diagnosed with MFI after 2 years ttc and never had a bfp. However I’m at a stage where I’m now worried that I may have an issue. I have one more round on NHS and I want to speak with the consultant to see if there is anything we can do differently. For some reason the embryos are just not implanting.

It’s such a tough process but when it gets hard we have regain strength and remain hopeful and keep pushing through because the end goal is so worth it .

Hi @EastLondon30s,
Infertility is f*cking awful and I'm so sorry you're going through this. It's awful, and hard for others who haven't experienced it to understand. Even my husband didn't understand how it mentally hurt to get my period; the inability to 'just don't think about it' when it's your body and you know what time of your cycle it is etc.

Even though your friends might not understand, they can still give hugs and take you out for a meal or do something unrelated to babies. Plenty of my friends with babies were supportive and lovely. Also - some people who seemed to have it easy from afar opened up about miscarriages and IVF themselves.

I started on the fertility journey at 33 and was unexplained fertility too after the usual baselines including explorative laparoscopy. Never got an answer - but unexplained does have higher IVF success rates than diagnosed conditions. So it's a little good that nothing awful is showing up in your tests so far. (Poor consolation sorry)

We had implantation failures of high grade embryos. My lovely doctor said we could do a lot of tests (endometrial biopsy etc) but the evidence wasn't great on how the results would change management - so why not just optimise management and play the numbers game. He recommended PGS (which cuts failed transfers but doesn't increase success of baby/cycle). We didn't do that as I was concerned about the tiny chance of false positive. We did Growth Hormone course he rec'd for our next round and had success. I also took ubiquinol but aware there is little evidence for that.

All the best. Look after yourself

@ohsheglows

I have my next round next month. It'll be my 2nd transfer and I have 2 frozen so far. Haven't done EMMA/ALICE but going to give embryo glue a go and see what happens 🤷🏻‍♀️ we are both female and male factor so the odds are against us, but our consultants are hopeful and they are always banging on about how young we are and how the odds are better because of our age. We'll see...

Oh embryo glue, interesting! I've been looking into that as well as embryo scratching. Can I ask which clinic you're at? All the best of luck let me know how it turns out! I've got my fingers and toes crossed for you

@Faithful789

Hi *@EastLondon30s* I’m also in my early 30s and I have had two unsuccessful FETs. We were initially diagnosed with MFI after 2 years ttc and never had a bfp. However I’m at a stage where I’m now worried that I may have an issue. I have one more round on NHS and I want to speak with the consultant to see if there is anything we can do differently. For some reason the embryos are just not implanting.

It’s such a tough process but when it gets hard we have regain strength and remain hopeful and keep pushing through because the end goal is so worth it .

Hi @Faithful789 bless you it's the hardest process ever! I had my first round in the NHS and it feels like they are limited in terms of what tests they can do- have you thought about investing if you can and doing som tests privately? I know how expensive it is I'm literally using my life savings to fund this!

@indub

Hi *@EastLondon30s*, Infertility is f*cking awful and I'm so sorry you're going through this. It's awful, and hard for others who haven't experienced it to understand. Even my husband didn't understand how it mentally hurt to get my period; the inability to 'just don't think about it' when it's your body and you know what time of your cycle it is etc.

Even though your friends might not understand, they can still give hugs and take you out for a meal or do something unrelated to babies. Plenty of my friends with babies were supportive and lovely. Also - some people who seemed to have it easy from afar opened up about miscarriages and IVF themselves.

I started on the fertility journey at 33 and was unexplained fertility too after the usual baselines including explorative laparoscopy. Never got an answer - but unexplained does have higher IVF success rates than diagnosed conditions. So it's a little good that nothing awful is showing up in your tests so far. (Poor consolation sorry)

We had implantation failures of high grade embryos. My lovely doctor said we could do a lot of tests (endometrial biopsy etc) but the evidence wasn't great on how the results would change management - so why not just optimise management and play the numbers game. He recommended PGS (which cuts failed transfers but doesn't increase success of baby/cycle). We didn't do that as I was concerned about the tiny chance of false positive. We did Growth Hormone course he rec'd for our next round and had success. I also took ubiquinol but aware there is little evidence for that.

All the best. Look after yourself

Hi @indub,

This was just the loveliest message to receive- thank you, so supportive and empathetic and yes you know exactly how life stopping this is!

It's reassuring to know unexplained in fertility is almost a good thing, I also in a way feel like if they can't find any problems surely it is just a chain of bad luck?

I've never heard of Growth hormone therapy but thrilled it worked for you! Can I ask which clinic you were at? And how many years were you ttc?

Thanks for all the support it's really giving me a much needed boost- crying all day everyday gets rather exhausting after a while haha!
❤️

@EastLondon30s sorry for the delay in replying, busy day at work! Here if you every need to talk, I think the only people who understand are those who have/are going through it themselves xx

[quote Roo45]@EastLondon30s sorry for the delay in replying, busy day at work! Here if you every need to talk, I think the only people who understand are those who have/are going through it themselves xx[/quote]
No worries at all (and actually I'm pleased for you as I always find a mental week at work is less headspace left to worry about everything else!). I would love that. I'm pretty alone in my life with this- hubby supportive but passive, friends all pregnant. Not sure what the etiquette is on here for linking up off post (this is my first foray into Mumsnet!) but the offer is incredibly kind, thank you 🙏

Good luck with work!

Hi! Not sure if my story will be of any comfort to you:

I started ttc at 32 and had a couple of chemical pregnancies spread out (coincidentally SIL had an accidental pregnancy the same month as one and best friend got pregnant same month as the other). Two and a half years later we did ivf. Nothing wrong ever found (though just the basic tests we're ever run as ivf 'fixes' all problems other than ovarian reserve etc... according to consultant 🙄).

Dd (now 2 and a half) came from that round. I then became accidentally pregnant with ds (now 6 month) as we thought we couldn't get pregnant. This is not a brag, I am still totally shocked and not a little mortified that we had sex once and boom. Yes, I had a lot of self loathing from that, having spent A LOT of time on these boards. So I apologise if it comes off in an insensitive way, that's not my intention. But I did get my happy ending. Not everyone does.

So started ttc at 32. Ivf at 34 and now, a little over three years from that one cycle and I have two babies.

Infertility is such a mindfuck.

I had secondary infertility for 4 years. Two good books are ‘it starts with the egg’ to get all your vitamins correct for both you and your partner and ‘is your body baby friendly’ I bang on about it here but it’s because it was a discovery for me. Sometimes you can have an overactive immune system which attacks the embryo as foreign dna ( half is not you) there are immune drugs to dampen down that response. Immune tests can be expensive but this was my issue.

@Dreamsupreme

I had secondary infertility for 4 years. Two good books are ‘it starts with the egg’ to get all your vitamins correct for both you and your partner and ‘is your body baby friendly’ I bang on about it here but it’s because it was a discovery for me. Sometimes you can have an overactive immune system which attacks the embryo as foreign dna ( half is not you) there are immune drugs to dampen down that response. Immune tests can be expensive but this was my issue.

Oh brill recommendations, I have bought them both! Although apparently my embryos are all high quality so assume the egg is ok?!

Interesting on immune system, did you have any underlying conditions? I had crohn's when i was a teenager and that is an immuno-condition so this could be a good option. How did they diagnose and what was the treatment?

Thanks for sharing!

@physicskate

Hi! Not sure if my story will be of any comfort to you:

I started ttc at 32 and had a couple of chemical pregnancies spread out (coincidentally SIL had an accidental pregnancy the same month as one and best friend got pregnant same month as the other). Two and a half years later we did ivf. Nothing wrong ever found (though just the basic tests we're ever run as ivf 'fixes' all problems other than ovarian reserve etc... according to consultant 🙄).

Dd (now 2 and a half) came from that round. I then became accidentally pregnant with ds (now 6 month) as we thought we couldn't get pregnant. This is not a brag, I am still totally shocked and not a little mortified that we had sex once and boom. Yes, I had a lot of self loathing from that, having spent A LOT of time on these boards. So I apologise if it comes off in an insensitive way, that's not my intention. But I did get my happy ending. Not everyone does.

So started ttc at 32. Ivf at 34 and now, a little over three years from that one cycle and I have two babies.

Infertility is such a mindfuck.

Oh wow - well i'm so pleased you've had 2 happy endings! Yes it feels so random doesn't it, no logic! Not insensitive at all and nice to think there is hope for all of us :-)

I am sorry you're struggling dear, but please do not give up hope yet. You are very young, and 2 years is not too much time. There are many success stories out there

[quote dutchessmom]I am sorry you're struggling dear, but please do not give up hope yet. You are very young, and 2 years is not too much time. There are many success stories out there

@EastLondon30s hi eastlondon I know this is a old post but I could of nearly wrote it myself! How did you get on did you ever manage to get your baby? Xx

Hello!!

my miracle happened and I am now a blessed mama to a little boy who is 15 months tomorrow 🥰 I had inflammation on my endometrium which was stopping implantation. Just took a course of antibiotics and did IVF in parallel and worked immediately! Feel so so blessed reading back at this thread makes me remember my hopelessness.

Where are you at with it all? Xxx

@EastLondon30s oh wow amazing 😍😍 congratulations! How did you find out you had an infection? Did you have any signs? Xx