FET/IVF - January 2023

[Jane1284]

Hey

I would love to get a group together of some of us who are undergoing IVF or FETs in Jan. I found it really helpful to have the support of those going through similar last time (Nov 2020).

My story: I am due to start my first FET in January of my one and only frozen embryo. The embryo is from a cycle in Nov 2020 when I was almost 36. I have low AMH and AFC and it was my first and only NHS round. I got 4 eggs all which miraculously fertilised, 1 made it to day 5 and was put back in with a fresh transfer. Sadly it did not stick. 1 egg was left until day 6 and it finally made it to blastocyst. It has been frozen. Rather than having a FET back then they advised me to do a banking package of 3 cycles due to my low AMH/AFC so in Jan 2021 we started our first private IVF cycle with the same clinic (Kings). Once again I was on max stims (gonal f and menopur) and it looked like we would get 4 eggs again but when I woke from EC they told me they only got 2. I had a bit of a breakdown. I was so upset going through all that including over £2k worth of drugs injected to only get two eggs. It felt even worse as I had let myself hope it would go well. Out of the 2 eggs only 1 fertilised normally. On day 3 the embryologist told me it was average quality and she wasn't sure it would be good enough to freeze on day 5 if it even made it that far. I couldn't handle the thought of going through all that mental anguish to not have anything to freeze so I made a last minute decision to go in for a day 3 fresh transfer. I had zero expectations but somehow that average embryo stuck. I was so stressed all pregnancy and worried about everything but amazingly I gave birth to my first baby in Sep 2021. He is now 14 months and I am turning 38 in 2 weeks.

Now it is time to get back on the IVF/FET train. I have been for my initial scan and blood tests. The scan was fine. Still not many follicles but not significantly worse. Waiting for a consult with the Dr next week for an update on my AMH (can't wait.... ) where she'll also decide on our protocol. I am leaning towards a medicated FET just so we can plan it a bit better. If that doesn't work then it is back to a 3 cycle package of IVF.

I hope I haven't bored anyone reading this to tears. Would be great if anyone else out there would like to be a cycle buddy? :-)

Thank you lovely, I hope everything goes your way. Am not sure how everything works am new to this and I just do what am told lol . But I feel abit letter now that some people have had 10 . It's my 4th day of injecting so am not sure if you will get more by the end or the ones I already have will grow.

Have not really had a chance tquestions or anything been all kind of uncomfortable 😕

Wishing you all the best sweetie

Had my FET scan today. Didn't go well, lining only increased by 0.2mm in the past 3 days! It's now 7.5 and they want it above an 8. Feel so disappointed. They've got me on estrogen patches now as well as pills. I have to come back again on Tuesday. Feeling so demoralised as my transfer is now pushed back at least a week, maybe week and a half. Ughhhh. So many hurdles.

@acaciabluebell sorry to hear it didn't go to plan, I must admit I'm worried to that could happen.
Fingers crossed these patches will help. They say pomegranate juice and walnut & brazil nuts help build the lining.

@acaciabluebell I’m sorry your scan didn’t go to plan. Hopefully the patches will do the trick for you and you can get your transfer scheduled 🤞🏻

For the ladies injecting, my clinic said it can be a good idea to hold an ice cube on the injection site for 10 seconds or so before injecting. It numbs the area nicely! I found the Gonal-F pen style injections ok but Cetrotide a bit stingy and it really helped.

Hi Lovelies. Still in my 2ww and going a bit crazy wondering. I did a very pointless POAS and of course it's a bright stark negative right now, but that's pretty much all I expected 😁

I've watched SO many youtube videos on self-injecting but finally stumbled on this one that was an absolute game-changer for me. She really shows you how it is for an ordinary person at home to do it and she's very calm and friendly about it.

This would work for anything meant to go in the fat roll 😆which I have plenty of... it's different for the injections into muscle of course.

Oh, and I don't use an alcohol swab as was told it's not necessary. I just make sure everything's clean and then I wipe it with a bit of alcohol hand gel after my ice cube.

I just watched Alex Jones programme - thank you for recommending it. It does help to see others go through a lot too and you are not alone in this struggle. I often feel so alone, possibly because I am doing this on my own, without a partner.

Clinic phoned today to ask me to schedule a scan - it's now on the 25th and hopefully the lining will be progressing as it should. If the result is o.k. my FET will likely be 9th or 10th Feb.

I have acupuncture scheduled for tomorrow - unless I chicken out once I see the needles. I have no idea how you ladies deal with all the injections - I managed with the small, thin ones but the normal ones...I am very afraid if I'll need more progesterone than pessaries offer, I will need injections. 😱

@acaciabluebell sorry to hear your scan wasn't quite whay you needed, and that the extra meds push you over that magic 8mm line

@Greenlee
How long are you going to wait until testing? I'm only on day 3 but I know there is no chance of my managing 2 weeks. I've already bought some pregnancy tests, and was thinking of 7 days. I didn't have a trigger so a pp said it would be reliable earlier than two weeks.
When's your time up? And are you really not going to cheat?

@IVFbeenverylucky I've already cheated on day four! I'm just going to keep testing daily, they aren't expensive tests anyway. My OTD is the 19th, which seems forever away even though it's only six more days. In theory it might be detected tomorrow on the stick, so, well it's something to keep me busy isn't it 😂

We can be cheating buddies!

Cheating buddies! I like that. I'm trying to hold off for 7 days, although four will be tomorrow and it's tempting. Any tram lines yet?

@acaciabluebell sorry to hear that but try not to feel defeated as you want the best conditions for success and you don’t want to waste time and headache further down the line. You’ll get there it’s not far off. Have you also heard of l’arginine for lining thickness? Have heard it helps bring blood to uterus so could help.

Just to chime in on testing early..I have done 4 FETs before and the first I waited until OTD and all others I’ve not been able to wait because I now have more awareness of how stressful it is waiting and what it did to me physically. On this one I caved and tested on day 6 because I was driving myself mad thinking and symptom spotting. And the result was ambiguous so it drove me even more mad but it did also give me a little bit of hope. I felt that I had to test before OTD to prepare myself mentally. It wasn’t worth the stress to wait and I figured it’s better to have an indication. Although these things can go either way and some people really don’t get positives until much later so I would take the result with a pinch of salt. Good luck x

@peonygirl I think if the thought of needles and Accupuncture freak you out don’t put yourself through it. There are other ways to get good blood flow to your uterus, walking being one of them. I don’t mind needles but I didn’t find the experience relaxing and that was causing me stress, plus the financial worry, so I stopped. Easier said than done but don’t stress too much over it and focus on other things. There are some good mediations and positive affirmation videos on YouTube I listened to. X

@Lucy5yearsttc thank you so much for your comment. I went today and we had a long chat before the actual procedure - she took the smallest needles and it wasn't painful, I didn't feel a thing. I am quite proud of myself :) I relaxed quite a bit although as you say, I am also not fully convinced this is for me. I might better use a massage for relaxation and I have already decided to do weekend walks. If you could share any Youtube channels for meditation/positive affirmation that would be fantastic. I am doing yoga already.

Hi all

There are so many of us in this group now, I struggle to keep up with everyones stories. I hope you’re all ok though and it is giving me comfort knowing I’m not alone in this battle.

Day 3 here after stopping norethisterone, currently waiting for a bleed. Was told this would come 2-5 days later and then I would go in for baseline scan, to start injections hopefully. I am frustrated waiting, actually feel worse since stopping the tablets, I’m guessing due to the hormones crashing. Struggling to keep positive at the moment, getting that overwhelming sense of panic at the thought of it failing! I’m hoping I will feel more in control once we can move on to the next step.

Me too, me too, me too @Laur0606 I'm bad remembering people in real life as it is! I was a slow one and also had to sit around waiting for AF to turn up. Hope she surprises you in the morning x and I'm also struggling with the waiting right now as all I'm producing each day is nice white negatives when I POAS. Here's hoping I have just been too impatient... but somehow I don't think this round has worked for me.

Good vibes to everyone xx

Hello ladies
I was waiting impatiently for my cycle to start yesterday so I could start on the meds for my FET. I usually get spotting the day before my full flow starts so I even did a cheap pregnancy test on Saturday when no spotting - it was stark white negative. No period yesterday so decided to test again this morning. Barely a shadow on the cheap test so found an old pack of tests which are a year out of date. All came back as pregnant. Went out on my lunch break and got a different test which was in date and also came back as pregnant. Needless to say I am shocked. I have never had a natural pregnancy and was convinced my tubes were blocked from PID when younger- also have low AMH and only 1-2 follicles on baseline scans.
I am super stressed and worried that something will go wrong. Going to call my clinic tomorrow and see if they will scan me at 7 weeks. I have paid over £2k for my FET so hopefully they will. I honestly was not expecting this at all and I hope I don't upset anyone sharing this.
Positive vibes to you all xxx

@Jane1284
Omg that is such amazing news.. everything crossed that the test is correct and it sticks!

I have had a bit of a shit day. I've been monitoring ovulation this week and I got my surge this morning. I emailed my clinic and they told me to come in at lunch time. They performed the scan but here's where it gets tricky. They should have seen a recently burst follicle but instead they said that it looked like the follicle had released the egg a few days ago and had collapsed. Because of this they can't say for sure when I ovulated. So now I'm canceled for another month. The same thing happened in November. This is really confusing because I've been using a clearblue digital monitor and the cheap strips and neither came up with anything until this morning.
The doctor said she'll try a semi medicated cycle next where I have extra scans and take a trigger shot. Good luck to whoever is still in the running this month xx

Wow @Jane1284 fingers crossed for you, that’s amazing news!!x

@Jane1284 this is great news, I hope it all goes smoothly from here on and all tests come back positive. This is giving us hope too :) Keep us posted.

We was due to start our 3rd FET with my January cycle after two early MC from our 1st and 2nd FROZEN EMBRYO rounds.

January period didn't arrive and I'm nearly 5 weeks with our miracle rainbow baby who was conceived over Christmas just after we got engaged.

Miracles do happen, our first from our fresh round of ICSI and fingers crossed our second and final miracle will be viable and become a healthy baby boy or girl in September.

Wishing you all the best of luck for your fresh or frozen rounds. You've all got this ✨✨✨✨

Amazing news @torypops and @Jane1284, wishing you all the best!!

Sorry to hear that @Piapea I could imagine your frustration, could an option be a medicated cycle? Its so hard to know what to choose

I'm on day 4 of my FET, all going good so far, ...did anyone notice when taking progynova there was a change in their period? I usually have quite heavy painful periods for about 5/6 days, but it seems a lot lighter than usual ,not sure if that's a good sign it's working or not.

@Jane1284 @torypops amazing news and gives so much hope!
@Piapea i can only imagine how frustrated you must be feeling
@Claireabella05 wishing you lots of luck

@Jane1284 and @torypops that is amazing news. Crossing my fingers for you both. I’ve been despairing about my (usually clockwork) period being 2 days late as I’m impatient to start the FET.

Anyway, your posts inspired me to test… and I just got a faint positive. Freaking out and don’t want to get my hopes up. I only have the really shitty cardboard cheap tests so conscious it could be a dud. Trying to save up wee to do another and will get a proper test first thing tomorrow.
We were told a year ago my husband’s sperm was totally obliterated by chemotherapy (so were doing ivf with his frozen sperm) but they said his sperm could technically regenerate so guess it’s not completely impossible. It seems infeasible that our 5aa embryo didn’t even try to stick in November but non-existent/ weak sperm and some totally untuned Christmas shagging could work. Trying to not get hopes up too much!!!