IVF/FET May/June 2022

[Coops0406]

Hi,

I'm just starting this thread as i've kept joining previous ones in hope that I would be at the same time but got left behind with the ups and downs of ivf.
After 3 cycles, 2 failed fresh transfers, PGT-A testing to give us 3 euploid embryos and just now getting our results from the ALICE/EMMA/ERA tests, I am now finally in a position to hopefully start FET on my next cycle with a transfer likely to be end of May or early June!! 😍. Would love to have people to chat to who are following a similar timeline.

@Courtjobby they always say a Mediterranean style diet if the best, lots of colourful veg, good fish etc.
I'm not sure with the mixing of probiotics, I've left everything quite simple for me and just followed the advice of my consultant.

@HJen22 where in scotland are you based? Is Glasgow quite far for you? I know when one consultant mentioned donors to me he said there may not be a lot of my ethnicity! (I'm Indian). He mentioned it to me straight after my 1st and only nhs cycle in the review meeting! So I promptly moved to a different consultant for the paid cycles...it was so negative so soon!
Have you got the vitamins info from general reading or nutritionist? I felt like I maybe wasn't doing enough with the nutrition side and a bit guilty as only 3 euploids from 33 eggs in total...I thought I should have had more with that amount of eggs. But the consultant seemed pleased. It's such a minefield as loads of people say you get better quality with less eggs. I felt the fertility clinics don't give you too much info on egg quality and how to help improve it

@MyEasterEggs it's ridiculous how much you spend on the additional vitamins etc. I didn't take much but it still all amounts, especially when you've been doing it for a while!

@MyEasterEggs I know it really adds up doesn't it! I spoke with a nutritionist who advised a whole heap, it's the bare biology I take too which isn't cheap! Oh and zinc and vitamin C! It's easy to feel like it's getting too much, totally understand that. I tried to do a really strict gluten, sugar and dairy free diet again as advised by the nutritionist but it just left me so miserable. So I just picked to stick with the supplements and salmon for extra omega 3!

@Coops0406 based half an hour outside Aberdeen! So Glasgow is only about 2 and a half hours from us. I know, I can imagine the fact they mention it so early on isn't very easy and many of us would want to explore trying with our own eggs a few more times before taking that route. I know a lot of people use donor and have great happy outcomes but for us we're not there.

I had a chat with a nutritionist based in Aberdeen who recommended the supplements and I read about ubiquinol in the book it starts with the egg. I didn't want to just stop taking them, but my clinic were very much of the advice I should just take folic acid and vitD. Yes it really can be quality over quantity a lot of the time. I think any round they see one getting to transfer as great, anything extra a massive added bonus. So don't feel guilty, 3 is great 😊

@HJen22 sounds like you’re being really sensible. I find the gluten, sugar and dairy free thing very hard too so I try to follow it maybe 80% of the time and allow myself the odd treat (a life!) every now and then. Treatment snatches so much joy from us already!

@MyEasterEggs it's way too hard! I don't follow it at all anymore but kept with the supplements. I try to be healthy but I'm not very good at sticking to that these days, just can't get back into it! Yes you're right, it really does, takes over everything and all thoughts. We've just booked a holiday today for the end of August to make sure we get some sun and relaxation xx

Hi girls
I'm very new to all of this and to be honest still a bit in shock we managed to get approval for a funded round on the NHS. The answer has always been NO basically it's tough luck just get on with your life. We got turned down years ago as my FSH was out of the allowed limits by 0.1! As the guidance changed in Jan 2022 my amazing GP has got us pushed through and we are being fast tracked! We have our initial consultation tomorrow. We are already in the frame of mind donor eggs would be our best option as per discussion with referral GP. I have endometriosis and my AMH is really bad. Trying to write a list of all the questions for our meeting I have but having never been in this position its a bit like finding your way through the Fog at the moment. I'm seeing my acupuncturist who is a fertility specialist, on more supplements than I can shake a stick at and sorting out my diet. Although I will do my best to behave the idea of a sugar, dairy and gluten free diet is enough to send me over the edge. Good luck to you all on your journeys x

@Thornbird80 hello and welcome 🥰 that's amazing you've now been approved for funding! Fantastic news. The consultant will be able to give you lots of info tomorrow, I found I got more specific cycle information from the nurses after Dr consult but I'm sure everywhere is different. Where are you based? I read books and listened to lots of podcasts before which were really helpful. Oh yeah it really did send me over the edge, when the strict diet became too much for me to cope with I had to just give it up, it was making me even more miserable and I started crying in a restaurant cos I didn't know what I could eat! Do what's best for you, but when things become too much don't force yourself, this journey can be hard and stressful enough. Xx

Hi ladies, mind if I join you. Had egg collection in April and we were lucky to get 7 embryos to freeze. I will be doing my first transfer at the end of this month all going well. Consultant has recommended transferring two embryos.
I can’t wait to get started although I am dreading the progesterone injections. My husband is a needlephobe.

are you all having medicated cycles?

Out if all our egg collection cycles our worst was the one where I ate super healthily. Frustrating!!

@Thornbird80 welcome! Amazing you finally have funding! Your GP sounds great and so knowledgeable! Mine said I was so young and didn't need to worry! 😩
Good luck for today 🤞🏾
Don't stress too much about diets, try and stay as healthy as possible without causing too much stress or pressure. I'm with @MyEasterEggs and @Courtjobby with that one!!I just stayed off alcohol and caffeine and tried to eat healthily, but to be honest, carbs, chocolate and sweets became a bit of a necessity once on the meds!
There is a great podcast called "all IVF ever wanted" which had an interesting one on egg & sperm health, as well as PGT-A.

@HJen22 great you've booked a holiday! Something to really look forward to!!! It's the best thing I find to stop waiting around for appointments and milestones! Where are you going?

@Hopefull1981 wow! 7 embryos frozen is great! 🥰 How come they have suggested transferring two? It's all getting real! I'm just waiting for AF then starting medicated cycle! Never had the progesterone injections and if I don't need them I won't have them as they're expensive, but it's very likely I will need them as on my second failed transfer I got AF 7 days past transfer whilst still on progesterone which shouldn't have happened!

I had a sickness bug on Friday, it was horrific! But the next day I thought at least I'll have lost a bit of weight to kick start the shifting of a few pounds...about half kg and straight back on! 🤦🏾‍♀️
Had some spotting yesterday which is super early for me, was excited that AF was here but nothing now! Just when you really want it and it teases you!!!

Hope you all had a fab bank holiday weekend! Someone I met on our first egg collections back last year just gave birth yesterday...we met on a forum from our clinic then stayed in touch and met up most months, it's great to know it works 💞

So we had our first meeting today with the consultant, we are at the Agora in Brighton as it's only 7 miles away. She was really nice, slight lack of sense of humour but that's fine, god knows I need one with my medical history! But she was helpful, nice and empathetic. I'm being very realistic about all of this. MY AMH is appalling and dropped to 1 from 3.3 in Oct, but advised this could be my cyst playing havoc and not to overly focus on this. My last FSH was 20.4 and I have mild endometriosis but a large endometrioma on my right side ovary. So i'm stunned we have been approved! So scan next Weds to see what is going on, follicle count etc, I imagine this is a lovely internal scan, I call it ET'S magic finger 😂you can all probably see why having no doubt experienced one by now! So scan will show what the endometrioma is up to and if that is just a no go without it being removed, but i've been on a waiting list to see a gyne at the hospital since Aug 2021!!! Phoned my GP to get it escalated and marked as urgent now. We will then know what we are up against. Egg donation is a real option for us due to my AMH which we are both fine about, but have to do counselling and see egg donor nurse. It seems they need to exhaust using my eggs before we can move on to egg donation, no diubt NHS guidelines as egg donation is pricey. So initial plan if cyst causes no issues is short protocol, but test my FSH on day 2 if below 15 we go for it with injections etc if it's above 15 FSH we wait till next cycle If two cycles my FSH is to high we move on to egg donation waiting list . Also learnt we have more time than we thought as i'm currently 41 and we were told all had to be complete by my birthday in sept but actually we have till my next birthday, so that's brought us some breathing space!

Been in a funny mood since the meeting though. My husband is like Mr Super sperm and knowing it's all my fault takes me to some very dark places in my head. Went up to see my horse to clear my mind tonight, have a very lovely friend there so stood in the field and just cried. She was all excited for me and I just felt deflated knowing how rubbish our odds are if we have to use my eggs as 7% success rate is just terrible for my age group. Just feel totally out of control of my own body and utterly frustrated we have hit so many dead ends and the DR today said I just wish someone had tried to help you sooner! But it wasn't for lack of trying we just didn't have the cash when we first got turned down to go private. Every try prior has just been met with a NO you don't fit criteria. Anyway we are where we are and I may finally at least get the answers I have never had from the team at the Agora. 🙏 Ordered The IVF diet by Zeta West and also It all starts with the egg, have decided to just eat healthy with an odd treat and do all the supplements and acupuncture to help as much as poss.
Sorry just realised how long this post is!
So glad to read some of you have had good egg collections, fingers crossed for you all. Do keep us updated with how you do. x

@Thornbird80 I'm really glad your Dr was nice and they have a plan. I also have low AMH (I didn't even want to know the number cos I knew I'd obsess and google over it) and a follicle count of 6/7 so I know how hard it can be to feel like the one who's responsible for having to go through IVF. My OH also got told he had great sperm and he had a 13yo daughter from a previous relationship. So it hurts knowing it's all because of me.

I also got told statistically we had single figure changes. But a lovely lady on here said something that made a lot of sense and resonated with me. Try not to think about it too much in terms of percentage and chance, because at the end of the day it's either going to be 100% and work or be 0% and not work.

If you haven't already I highly recommend a counsellor. I have one through my clinic who I've spoke with every week/2 weeks since September and she has helped me hugely to cope. I'm gearing up for second full cycle with egg collection and beginning to feel the strain again.

Really glad to hear you have some more time and not as little as you'd thought. That's great, Im the same and I'm just going to try and be healthy from now and still allow some treats. We're going through enough and like @Coops0406 said, the chocolate carbs and sweets saw me through my last cycle. Paying for it now though haha.

@Coops0406 any sign of AF? Xxx

Hey I’ll join in this thread now I have my dates!
i had my egg collection in March. Got 9 eggs and ended up with 7 blastocysts frozen.
we’ve just had the ok to start our FET and my first visit is on Monday. We’re doing a natural cycle so we’ll have bloods every 48hrs from Monday to pick up ovulation then they’ll give me date for transfer. I’m not in any progesterone for the transfer which is concerning me, my clinic just give an injection of ovitrelle on the day of the transfer which will boost your own progesterone production. They would add it in if levels were low I think though.
so looking at timing I think my transfer will be the week after next!! Getting over the initial shock as I had been told I’d have to wait until June so wasn’t expecting to get in this month!!

@Coops0406 sorry to hear you've had two failed fresh transfers but sounds like you are in a good place to get a positive result soon! How did you find the ALICE/EMMA/ERA tests and the PGT-A testing? I have had one failed transfer in December last year (age 35), have just undergone a frozen transfer and waiting for the result next week. I find it hard with the TWW so have already started to plan for my next cycle, my doctor hasn't recommended PGT-A testing due to my age and the quality of embryos transferred (both excellent/top quality) but if this round doesn't work out I'm tempted to do something more for peace of mind and also to increase my chances as I have found IVF quite exhausting!

@Thornbird80 ET's magic finger! 🤣🤣🤣 that cracked me up!
Great you have a plan and back up plan...it's so much easier to focus and feel slightly more in control of something so out of our control.
It's so sad when we know it's our issue...my OH is 10 years younger and I felt like that at first. Now I just look at it as an "us" issue to get our future baby, we are very much a team as he so often reminds me and this is our journey to parenthood.

@HJen22 how long are you on norithisterone for? AF finally arrived today 🥳🥳 after 2 days of spotting! But it came to late to start meds so starting tomorrow and should get info on scan date! I'm hoping either 18th or 20th of May with maybe a view to ET on 27th May...they only do transfers on a Friday so if I miss that one then it will be 2 weeks later as the queen's jubilee is the following Friday!

@LT103 congrats on 7 embryos out of 9 eggs, that's amazing!!! How does it work for a natural cycle? Do they wait until you've ovulated then do transfer 5 days later?

@Whenwillithappen thanks lovely, we're feeling positive and have done what we can to give us the best chance. The ALICE/EMMA/ERA was like bad period pains for about 30 seconds, but has given me peace of mind that my womb is a good environment. When is your OTD? Congrats on being PUPO!!
The podcast I listened to about PGT-A was really interesting. It basically says that it doesn't matter how they are graded as they don't tell you the genetic make up of the embryo...it can have divided perfectly and look great but if not genetically stable then won't work. The opposite goes for that too...it can still be euploid even if not graded as the best. I think the grading can be quite subjective. Luckily you are still at an age where you are likely to have more genetically stable embryos so that's probably why they haven't recommended it. And fingers crossed this one is here to stay with you 🥰 how many others do you have frozen?
I completely understand the peace of mind thing. I also didn't want to go through unnecessary transfers that failed and were what I would call false hope. Out of 7 embryos tested (6 graded very good) we got 3 euploids, there were 4 more potential fails lined up for me if we hadn't tested!

Thanks @HJen22 that makes a lot of sense. Just feel we have to exhaust every avenue and IVF has always been a bit out of reach and although it's late in the day now is when the universe has decided we are given this opportunity. We have to see a counsellor in order to go on the egg donation waiting list so maybe I will speak to her and see if I can see her on my own. Hubby is lovely about it all and mentioned paying for a further round as we know the stats aren't great for round 1, that's if we even get as far as completing 1 round.

@LT103 yours sounds all very positive, with so many at embryo stage and sounds like not much interference with your cycle with additional drugs.

@Hopefull1981 that's awesome you have so many in the freezer. Wishing you all the very best.

Has anyone considered acupuncture to go along side IVF? I'm lucky my acupuncturist has been with me on my journey for some time and she is so knowledgeable on fertility, it's her specialist area, 80% of her patients are on their fertility journey. The success rates of IVF do seem to improve with it. For the sake of a couple of sessions I thought I may aswell add it in to the mix with all the supplements. I just don't seem to read much about it on these forums.

@Coops0406 thanks so much! I honestly haven't felt very hopeful in the last few days but I think the truth is that you really never will know until you take a pregnancy test. In my fresh cycle, I started testing too early so this time I have been holding off. My OTD is Wednesday next week. I have found the FET a lot less stressful than the fresh transfer, almost no appointments, no bad reactions to the meds, really no symptoms at all apart from feeling tired. I thought my progesterone levels would be low on the transfer day due to lack of symptoms but my levels were interestingly much higher this time (180 compared to 70 in my previous cycle). The podcast sounds interesting, what was it called if you don't mind me asking? I had a total of 5 embryos but I used the first one in my fresh cycle and have now used another one so have three left, sadly they don't have the same grading as the first two (but are all in the B+, B- category). If this cycle fails though I may do another harvest and have the embryos tested as we are hoping for a sibling if this works. All fingers crossed for you that your embryo transfer will be successful this time 😍!!

@Coops0406 start norethisterone next Sunday for 12 days, 2 days longer than last time which confused me cos it's the same date as last time, but then February was a short month! Great news AF arrived! Have you for your scan date? I really hope that they get you in before the holiday!!

@Thornbird80 aw your hubby sounds lovely. I had that feeling too for the first round, I was so scared I'd have no follicles, I'd not react well to meds, we'd not make it to egg collection, but we got over all those hurdles so have hope 💕

I did go to an acupuncturist up until the end of last year but haven't been back. I did like him and his faith I liked to begin with, then it just annoyed me that I wasn't falling pregnant when we just needed to "fix my hormones" haha. But I know lots of people do it and if you enjoy it then that's something nice for you to relax. Even better your acupuncturist specialises in IVF. I decided to spend my money on some massages on the lead up to my first cycle as I enjoyed them more. I also tried reflexology at one point a while back but I wasn't a fan xx

@Thornbird80 howling at ET’s magic finger 😂 you really do need a strong sense of humour on this shit show of a ride!

It’s all sounding really positive for everyone in terms of embryo numbers or moving forward with treatment. I’ve been quiet as I’m in that strange period of limbo between consultations. I chat with my consultant at the IVF clinic next week so we can plan for my hysteroscopy and EndomeTRIO and I’ve made an appointment with Dr Shehata about immune testing. As we’ve had multiple losses I’m keen to do everything I can before we put one of our three little embryos back!

@Coops0406 just thought I'd give a positive update, couldn't hold myself this afternoon so took a Clear Blue pregnancy test and it was a very clear BFP!!!! I have been in total shock as I honestly didn't think I was pregnant, but just to give you girls some hope - IT IS POSSIBLE!!!!

The very best of luck to all of you girls!!

@Whenwillithappen 🥳🥳🥳 Wow! Congratulations! Amazing news! Just shows you should never give up hope!

@HJen22 scan booked for Monday16th May! So hopefully all will be okay and I can get in before the bank holiday!
Do they put you on norithisterone to also help schedule for when they want to to the EC?

Hope everyone has a fab weekend!

@Whenwillithappen wonderful news 🥰 massive congratulations!!! So happy for you x

@Coops0406 that's great your scan is booked! Hopefully you'll be in before the bank holiday for transfer. Yeah I think so, scheduling to fit in for scans and for EC, they've estimated week beginning 13th June for EC.

Have a lovely weekend ladies xxx

@Coops0406 @HJen22 thanks so much! I honestly cannot believe it, was convinced it hadn’t worked as had virtually no symptoms but I guess that just goes to show that you truly do never know until you test, there IS hope so really wishing you the best of best of luck! Have a lovely weekend x

So delighted for you!! Amazing news. xx

All of you will see it and laugh now! My friend had to go for a scan a few weeks after I did and when the radiographer said we need to do an internal scan she said oh is that with ET's magic finger! The woman said someone else called it that a while ago and I haven't been able to look at it the same since, she said that's probably my friend Sarah 😂

@MyEasterEggs sorry I missed your last post. Have you seen the thread about ALICE/EMMA/ERA? I think it's on thread 4 now but I saw that Doctor mentioned in there a lot so could be a good one for you...loads of knowledgeable ladies in there in case you wanted to ask them anything.

@HJen22 just over a month away then. Will you have a couple of scans whilst on stims?

@Thornbird80 I'm just going to have an image of ET imprinted on my mind when I go for my next scan! 🤣

@Whenwillithappen it really is amazing news 🥰 Do you have to re-test on OTD too for your clinic? What happens next?