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Infertility

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ERA EMMA ALICE testing thread 8

1000 replies

Gardenlady543 · 25/04/2023 18:23

@2021ivfagain @kerrym87 @Janefx40 @seven201 @thislittlebird @Spin101 @Enfys23
@CailinInUK @BewilderedBee @Loz2467 @Lori2022 @VenusStarr @clhiu @Faithhopelove83 @APSR @ChickenT2b @Mina209 @IVF22 @Lizzybeth1988 @AM08 @Fluffykins33 @Sar1010

Continued in from thread 7 :)

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2021ivfagain · 07/07/2023 08:15

@Gardenlady543 I’m sorry you’re not feeling well. Hope you feel better soon.

Last time in March they saw corpus luteum and I had one mature follicle only and estradiol was 510. This time I had 4 mature follicles 2 on each side. However, the issue is they couldn’t see corpus luteum. I was just worried as the person doing scan said I was on the cusp of ovulating and had to take bloods. The doctor said I had ovulated from the bloods that were taken 20 minutes after the scan. It’s very worrying as if the timing is wrong it won’t work at all.

Gardenlady543 · 07/07/2023 08:41

@Enfys23 it sucks, I've had to use annual leave for everything and not had a holiday, aside from my last min trip away when my cycle was cancelled, but that was only because they wouldn't let me carry the leave over. There should be policies to support people but most workplaces don't have them :(

@2021ivfagain I think the window of implantation is longer in these kind of cycles, I am sure this is all fine, there wouldn't be this much estradiol if you hadn't got a mature follicle.

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Enfys23 · 07/07/2023 09:18

Mature follicle about to pop vs corpus luteum is very difficult to distinguish on scans at this point in cycle. Corpus luteum because more obvious as it develops through luteal phase. The way your blood levels change are going to be the most accurate way to make sure you have ovulated @2021ivfagain and the timing of transfer is based on your trigger anyway. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fendo.2021.688237/full

Preparation of the Endometrium for Frozen Embryo Transfer: A Systematic Review

Despite the worldwide increase in frozen embryo transfer, the search for the best protocol to prime endometrium continues. Well-designed trials comparing various frozen embryo transfer protocols in terms of live birth rates, maternal, obstetric and neo...

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fendo.2021.688237/full

Enfys23 · 07/07/2023 09:21

@Gardenlady543 it is sad and so true. Problem is they’re even being difficult about the need to take annual leave for EC day. Practically all my leave last year went on treatments, investigations and appts. It left me feeling exhausted. It’s hardly a holiday to have a hysteroscopy.

Sar1010 · 07/07/2023 09:46

I’m back with the age old question… how much alcohol have people been drinking during the 3 months before stims??

I’m planning on my 2nd EC at the end of sept. 1st time my mums partner suddenly passed away so I had a few (literally 3) in the month before but was TT before that. We managed to get 4 normal PG tested embryos out of 9 fertilised and all day 5.

this time round I’m fed up of all the sacrifices and have a birthday meal on Monday and my wedding anniversary party in a few weeks. What would you do? I don’t want to waste the EC either- the money, the time, the emotional effort. Ah it’s just so frustrating sometimes.

hopefully by sept we will have results from sperm fragmentation and hysterocopy.

@Gardenlady543 glad to hear about the vegan ice cream! Yum. Hope the cold buggers off soon for you.
Weird about your hospital not reaching out about 12 week scan? Do they just not answer the phone?

@Enfys23 ive been there when it comes to work not understanding…. It’s so hard. Sending you love today.

happy Friday !!

Gardenlady543 · 07/07/2023 10:54

I get this @Enfys23 :( people have said use sick leave but then I'd be hitting triggers. Some companies have a policy and say you can have x about if days for fertility treatment, but most don't :(

@Sar1010 it's just an answer phone, I have the midwifes mobile number so I text her and she said she'd look into it but I haven't heard back. I stopped drinking when I started IVF treatment but lots of people carry on because they don't want to change their life too much when this process can take a long time.

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clhiu · 07/07/2023 11:39

@Enfys23 I am so sorry to hear your work is so shitty and unsupportive, I literally do not know what I would do or had done with a different employer through 2 years of miscarriages, infertility and appointments. Within what really is nothing but a terrible predicament I wish I wasn't finding myself in, I count my blessing that my work has been very understanding about it all and have good fertility treatment, maternity and women's health policies in place, plus my manager has been very supportive and flexible outside that. But it's really upsetting to hear that some just won't get it and won't help, have you already tried escalating things? I don't know how helpful that may be of course, I am so sorry.

@Gardenlady543 sorry to hear about your cough and cold, I guess you'll be a little more prone to that sort of thing with all immuno-suppressant? I hope it passes soon.

@2021ivfagain good luck with your transfer next week and sorry about the continued reasons to stress and something new cropping up every day. For my FET at CRGH, I also ended up getting scanned and having bloods for 3 days in a row at the end of stims/trigger as they could not pinpoint my ovulation exactly on the scan alone, but eventually were happy with the bloods. Of course my transfer didn't result in a successful pregnancy, but implantation did occur so hopefully they have got it right even if they cannot see the CL, which may be hard to spot sometimes.

@Spin101 tell me about it! so sick of constant sacrifices. If you had a few drinks and still managed to get 4 euploids on your last collection, I think probably alcohol does not impact you that much as long as you don't have a massive binge or drink several times a week you're probably fine? I don't remember the exact details, but I massively cut down to just maybe 2-3 glasses of wine a week when initially TTC. After my first miscarriage, for pregnancy 2 and 3 I drank no alcohol at all for 2 and 3 months respectively and still miscarried (the third being a confirmed aneuploidy). In the run-up to pregnancy 4 I drank mostly nothing except for the week prior to conception as we treated ourselves to a rare short holiday, I drank a bottle of this 2% lager a night with my meal for the 4 days we were away, on the first night I also had one small cocktail. I do not thing that amount of alcohol would really do that much damage to eggs! For my EC cycle I touched absolutely zero alcohol for almost the whole 3 months leading up to it and our of 12 mature eggs, I got just one single euploid so...
Have a friend who has 3 beautiful children naturally and she always enjoyed quite the drink, definitely did not stop before trying and was even enjoying the odd beer or glass of wine whilst pregnant in the second and third trimester.
The thing is, it's so so super hard to sacrifice everything all the time for a long time and there's the filp side to that too, the stress from quitting everything and trying to be perfect may make things worst for you anyway, so hard!
I really doesn't seem to have made much of a difference to me either way so in the run up to this natural cycle, I've had the odd drink - none at all since AF arrived. But I had about maybe 6 units when visiting some old friends at the end of May and another 6 last weekend when visiting another old friend, plus a couple of occasions in between when I might have had literally 2-3 at the time with food, but that's it.

kerrym87 · 07/07/2023 11:52

@Enfys23 @Spin101 @Sar1010 @Gardenlady543 in terms of drinks I rhought 4 years in I've sacrificed so much and it didn't seem to make much difference what I did with alcohol. I now have one a week or a couple in special occasions as a compromise . Fingers crossed for peoples transfers.
As for time off, I realised that although work was getting better and realised there was support lacking they cannot control the job physically. Being in charge of a neonatal unit is stressful and so busy sometimes and the nature of it is hard and unpredictable. Therefore after tying to work through most of stims etc I realised I shouldn't worry about sick leave percentage anymore as I would regret later on not giving myself the time to nurture myself and hopefully a sticky embryo. Its taken me 3 cycles to get to this point, besides can you imagine the backlash from legal challenge to discrimination of this kind? Not that we'd have the energy or time or money...🙄 I found it so much easier and less stressful, better MH when I just had in my mind I'd let work know when I was going for baselines and likely start (we had 2 false starts last cycle) and then was off. I did one shift 3days into stims as it was very short notice to cover then that was it. Sending you all hugs

I'm just frustrated as I'm laising via email with clinic as they aren't always free to talk on phone, asked for an official list/email attachment with their details on so I can get as much done with GP. I told them we had nothing frozen from 19 embryos as they were buggered. They then said you don't need these tests if you're using frozen.....🤯 we've never had frozen!!!! I don't know how much clearer I could have been. They have just said you can get immune tests done at gp....I told them they need specifics as well as there's more than one immune test too. Any tips anyone?????

clhiu · 07/07/2023 12:01

@kerrym87 not much advice sorry, only that my GP was really useless even with just basic screening tests and I would not even want to try asking them for immune testing, besides, I believe some of those you're having done are quite detailed and extensive? Except for maybe TSH and thyroid anti-bodies I'd be surprised if they did anything else, but worth asking to skim off as much as possible for sure.
Is your clinic The Fertility Academy of Dr Gorgy or are you just having testing and PRP done there?

Enfys23 · 07/07/2023 14:12

Thank you @Gardenlady543 @clhiu @kerrym87 @Sar1010
I understand that from point of EC in fresh cycle where you do a transfer in that cycle, or from point of embryo transfer in FET, that they cannot count any sickness absence against you as you are protected by pregnancy related rights. I know what you mean @kerrym87 , I’m in similar situation and my appraiser who’d also gone through IVF has told me to look after myself more. This is the last cycle in our 3 cycle package and so really need to feel I’ve given it everything and not regret having those kinds of days in work (like this week that’s just been) where it’s so busy and stressful and I don’t stop, don’t wee, don’t eat and don’t drink enough! To be fair my GP is nice. I really don’t want to take more sick leave than I have to though but I might be forced to make that call.

@Sar1010 I’m not much help as I don’t drink at all but it sounds to me like a couple of special of occasions really won’t make a big difference. My issue is my sweet tooth but you can’t be perfect 100% time when you go through a long journey like we do. Life becomes too hard miserable and stressful otherwise.

@kerrym87 I found my GP willing to do the basics that they had access to request. Do you know roughly what you’re needing? I had Lupus Anticoagulant
anti-β-2-Glycoprotein-1 antibodies
anti-Cardiolipin antibodies, ANA and Anti-TPO via the GP.

@clhiu how are you?

kerrym87 · 07/07/2023 15:02

@Enfys23 I asked gp before we'd made contact with clinic but they won't do any tests without formal notification of tests needed from clinic - the nurse has just said 'antibodies/immune tests'. I told them i need specifics as there are many different immune screens from coeliac, thyroid, rheumatoid , it goes on.

It is fertility academy and we had booked an initial consult with Dr gorgy, there was a cockup, it was 45 mins past appt until Dr anu came on as they both thought the other one had done it. Didn't even offer to refund part of consultation or discount off next. We had free consult with Dr gorgy before that where he was lovely and said we could ideally do one or two visits only down south and explire using local clinics. Noone else there seems to have any notion of how this would work (even though theyve done it before) and not sure even when they've looked at notes that a) people have written notes on plan or they b) just aren't reading properly.

It was a simple mistake but I'm fed up of clearly stating things and then they just don't pay attention. Like our first ever ivf at nhs and nurse said so you're coming for a frozen transfer? And we were like...erm no we haven't had anything yet. So she had to get all different paperwork and didn't know her arse from her elbow. It's just such a hard journey and maybe I'm too harsh but as a nurse myself I expect (like we do in our service) to know about the patient before we talk to them. Just makes you feel even more alone and insignificant 😪

Enfys23 · 07/07/2023 16:08

I’m sorry to hear this @kerrym87 I completely get what you mean. I had some issues with my clinic recently and a not insignificant part of that was them just not bothering to look at my notes properly before calling/making plans sometimes leading to really upsetting comments or complete mess ups.

Spin101 · 07/07/2023 21:00

@Enfys23 thank you. So sorry your manager hasn’t been understanding. I feel no one will understand this unless they have been through or are going through a similar journey. It’s not fair you’ve had to use all your annual leave on appointments and for your hysteroscopy!

@2021ivfagain Thank you! Sorry you have so much more to worry about and organise on top. When is your transfer? I only started fertility acupuncture 3 weeks ago and have had one session a week. Do you feel it helped? I’m taking vit e 400IU, ubiquinol 200mg (only just realised I was doing 100mg), omega 3 but haven’t taken NAC. I’ll look into this.

@Gardenlady543 I hope you feel better really soon. I agree that employers should have policies for fertility treatment. I think it’s rare to find this in the UK at the moment. I think you asked me if I’ve had moxibustion. The lady I have started seeing does do this but hasn’t said I need to have it yet.

My lining was 4.2mm today which is the same as before my last FET. I asked for an oestradial blood test and was told they don’t ever do this for medicated cycles.

As expected they said they don’t think they can do anything else to thicken my lining and have booked me in for a transfer next week. I’ll be going in for a progesterone blood test the day before transfer. I’m not positive but will go ahead and not have high hopes. I will also plan what I will do next.

@Gardenlady543 @Enfys23 Do you think it’s ok to still use Progynova vaginally 2 times a day and use Cyclogest rectally?

Have any of you had issues with patches peeling/falling off before the date you’re due to change them? Last time I was fine but this time they fall off within a couple of days. It could be the heat

Enfys23 · 07/07/2023 21:41

@Spin101 I am sorry there isn’t more flexibility from them especially as I know you’ve said you’d pay separately for add ons to your NHS treatment.
I don’t think there’s any issue with continuing. Would you be able to get your oestradiol checked now yourself? Just for future reference as to what your levels get to with these doses and routes.
I was prescribed my patches to change every other day anyway - I did find they started peeling at the edges by end of second day but then I was changing them anyway by then. Could you maybe flag this up to them and ask if you could have extra to change every other day?

Spin101 · 07/07/2023 21:56

@Enfys23 The inflexibility is very frustrating! Do you think it’s ok test oestradiol levels after I’ve started cyclogest (which I will be doing tomorrow? I asked the doctor for more patches and will collect them next week with lubion if I need it. I was not a fan of the lubion injections so not looking forward to that. Are you feeling better at all?

Enfys23 · 07/07/2023 22:08

@Spin101 I think it will be fine as in a medicated cycle they have fully taken over your cycle so your oestradiol level is pretty much just based on what the drugs you’re given are creating and I don’t believe this will be influenced by the Cyclogest.

Thanks for checking in. My head feels sensitive but I felt quite a bit better today x

Spin101 · 07/07/2023 22:30

@Enfys23 thank you. I’ll order a test then. Glad to hear you’re feeling a bit better. Hope you carry on feeling better! x

Gardenlady543 · 08/07/2023 07:33

@Enfys23 the point after embryos transfer is the only point with protection in IVF, but the hard bit is before that point with all the investigations, procedures and operations :( when I had the stress at work a couple of weeks ago I feel the only reason they did anything is because I'm now pregnant and there is so much workplace legislation.

@kerrym87 unfortunately these kind of admin type issues at this clinic are common, this is why I recently said for people to do the immune treatment there but not IVF, the immune stuff they do, nobody else in the UK does, like LIT.

@Spin101 moxibustion is supposed to help with blood flow and thicken lining. That's fine to do the meds like this way, I only use cyclogest rectally. Ah yes it may well be the heat causing the estradiol patch to come off, all I can think is to shave the area in advance make sure it's stuck down well, try and put some cycling shorts over it or something to help it stay stuck.

OP posts:
2021ivfagain · 08/07/2023 21:19

@Enfys23 @Gardenlady543 @clhiu Thank you. I definitely had 4 follicles that were mature and 2 that were larger. The issue is they could not find corpus luteum on the scan. It was only when I called stressed the next day that they said the follicles were starting to pop and nurse said bloods detected an lh rise. Will corpus luteum take awhile to show if ovulation is happening?

@clhiu Did they just use your blood test results in the end to detect ovulation?

I suppose I just have to trust that they detected ovulation with a blood test.

Enfys23 · 08/07/2023 22:54

@2021ivfagain the corpus luteum develops over days to the structure that is more easily seen towards the end of the luteal phase. At the point it’s just formed it’s really hard to tell it apart from a follicle that’s about to or just popped.

A gross TMI query but… I was putting in the 4th dose for the day of viagra this evening (I’ve been prescribed 25mg four times a day) and when I felt up near my cervix I felt a big clump of stuff which came out on my finger and is clearly lots of the residue from the viagra tablets I’ve put up there over past 2 days. I’ve removed the film coating and inserted them high like my clinic told me to. Will I still have absorbed some of the drug do you think? I guess most of the powdery white stuff is just the delivery medium for the drug? What’s people’s experience with vaginal oestrogen? I did get some residue in my underwear but clearly most has just accumulated up in there. Worried now I’m not absorbing it.

Enfys23 · 08/07/2023 22:54

Absolutely @Gardenlady543 its so hard and unfair on us all.

Gardenlady543 · 09/07/2023 06:46

@Enfys23 I think this is normal, I've heard some people say they put their finger up to get it out to stop it accumulating, you would have absorbed the active ingredient. It's like the cyclogest pessaries, they are supposed to get absorbed within 20 mins, clearly a lot of stuff comes out after though.

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Enfys23 · 09/07/2023 06:56

Thank you @Gardenlady543 thinking of you today and hope you’re feeling better to attend too 💕

Spin101 · 09/07/2023 09:30

@Gardenlady543 cycling shorts are a great idea! I’ll ask my acupuncturist about moxibustion when I see her next. Do you have a scan today?

@Enfys23 the Prognova does leave white chalky stains in my underwear and I worried about it not getting absorbed given how small the pill is too. The Cyclogest was a lot messier vaginally last time and I recall some clumps coming out. I hope that it is and it’s residue like you and @Gardenlady543 say.

Have your clinic asked you to take viagra pre EC?

Gardenlady543 · 09/07/2023 10:53

@Spin101 yep scan today which was fine which is a relief with the rubbish cold :( my throat is fine now but I'm congested still. Still no sign of the nhs scan.

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