IUI & Fertility in SSC

[solanks]

Hi everyone,

I've struggled to find any groups that are focussed specifically on same sex couples trying to conceive (that do not have any fertility issues).

My partner and I are currently on round three of IUI using donor sperm. The first two tries we did we attempted the natural route (so no medication and no ovulation trigger injection). We decided to go down the medicated route on our third try and are currently in the two week wait, waiting for our results today!

This whole process has been emotionally, physically and financially challenging, so much more than we ever expected, and we would love to hear from other same sex couples on this topic who are in a similar situation to ours. We want to exchange stories, offer each other support, give advice and also recommendations (as there is so much conflicting information out there and each clinic's protocols vary too, which we found bizarre).

Looking forward to hearing your stories; be they successful, unsuccessful, or even if you are completely new to this journey ✨

@Twomumfamily Oh wow, that is a change of plans. Good luck with that. How strange you now have to wait for 6 months.

@strawberrylaces12 Good luck starting!

@Mumplus01 Congratulations! Enjoy it!

That sounds like everything is progressing well, @solanks

I've started my IVF cycle and so has my wife. Coming home from the pharmacy was something else! Bags and Bags of medication and the veg drawer in our fridge is full of medication. We seem to be on slightly different regimes, but were expecting that because I have borderline PCOS and very high AMH so they were worried about hyperstimulation. Mad to think we might have embryos next month.

@Quickdraw23 Thank you! Yeah hopefully in the next month or two we'll be starting treatment at a guess but we'll see what they say next week at the appointment!

Fingers crossed it starts soon, that can't be comfortable. Look after yourself whilst you're feeling all bloated and tender!

@solanks yeah it's at a private IVF clinic but I think because the NHS clinic (where we had the IUI) started the paperwork on our 6th cycle just in case it's all gone through very fast.

I'm feeling quite apprehensive about it being more invasive than IUI but equally very happy to do whatever is needed, it really is something I've wanted since I can remember.

Ooh excited for your update! 😊

@ProfessorplumBilliardroomCandlestick thank you! Wow time is flying, 15 weeks! How are you finding pregnancy and symptoms? I know you weren't having the best time before, I hope it settles soon.

Congratulations!! Aww so pleased for you. Enjoy every moment, even if you are sleep deprived 😅

@Twomumfamily thank you! I'm not sure yet, I'd imagine in the next month or two. We have our consultant appointment to go over the treatment plan next week so hopefully that'll give us more of a timeline and idea of when!

Sorry to hear about your injury, really hope that your recovery journey goes as well as possible. Exciting about still moving forward with things. 6 months seems like a while, did they give a reason for it? But summer will be here before you know it! 😊

Thank you! Ooh best of luck! How are you finding the medication? I'm a but apprehensive about the medication and high doses but obviously it's needed.

@rivierliedje and @strawberrylaces12 Thank you! Yep it’s a bit of a change but feeling lucky that we can power on.
The embryos were created in Jan so it’s a 6 month quarantine from then. It’s just our clinics protocol as it’s an NHS clinic (we have to pay now we are doing reciprocal of course). I think we could have skipped it but we would have had to have lots of extra tests which were costly so we are happy to wait as it’s just a month or two.

@rivierliedje Good luck for starting your treatment. Are you carrying first? Such a wild ride isn’t it!

I'm only on progesterone tablets which are fine at the moment. My wife is on oestrogen, so we're joking that she got the fun tablets.😅
Then when our next periods start we go on to the stimulation meds. The plan is (all being well) for us both to create embryos now and then for me to carry first.

It all feels quite quick now, but in reality we went for our first appointment back in November and then dilly dallied over choosing a donor.
I'm trying not to get too far ahead of myself as my brain is immediately off planning the pregnancy and looking at dates.

@Twomumfamily hopefully they'll book you in asap for the transfer once the waiting period has finished

Had a good consultation today to chat over the treatment process. My head feels pretty full now though! My AMH came back as a good result, on the higher level of normal so the consultant was pleased with that and that it correlates well with my AFC.

We're now onto our admin cycle (as I'm on day 2 of this current cycle). Need to sort the sperm donor, hoping to use the same donor as we did for our last few IUIs as this clinics options are quite limited and not really as suitable for us. I've contacted the previous clinic to see if we can sort that. Also need some tests like thyroid levels which I'm sorting. Just hoping the timings of it all comes together but we'll see. I'm just pleased the consultant said my ovaries and egg reserve is looking good and healthy.

Also turns out our NHS funding covers one egg collection but multiple attempts of embryo transfer if needed, so that's good.

How's everyone getting on? 😊

Had some more tests like my thyroid which have come back normal. I think we're going to be a bit delayed by the process of our new clinic receiving the donor sperm from our IUI clinic, looks like there's lots of paperwork for them to sort. So I think it'll delay it a cycle in terms of timing, but I've sort of come to terms with that. Just trying to make the most of having a break from stuff like the medication/hormones and tww.

@strawberrylaces12 It always feels like things take forever when there are extra tests and waiting for admin and appointments!

I think we are most of the way through our stimulation meds and looking at egg collection sometime this week, for both of us!

Oh that's good! How are you both finding the stimulation medication? Are you both having quite regular scans?

We've had two scans each, my partner's egg collection is ready to go and I will need another scan to see how things develop.
The medication isn't so bad, though the injections seem to be getting more painful with time, probably just the little bruises. I'll be glad to see the end of those. Otherwise just quite tired on them.

Ooh exciting! How many days of injections have you had to do? I know with my medicated IUI I found that too, some spots were more painful than others.

Our cycles happened to line up, so we both started stimulation injections on the same day. Had 6 days of one jab and one day of a second before the first scan. Those both continued then for another three days and then had another scan and bloods. Then my wife was told she was good to go, and had to take timed injections that night and nothing yesterday. Whereas I'm not quite there so have had another two days of two jabs and a scan today again.

Oh, I feel quite downhearted now. The egg collection itself went okay and was physically fine. But we both had good to high AMH and 23 and 25 Antral follicle counts respectively, but only got 11 (my wife} and 6 (me} eggs. 9 of hers have fertilised and we'll know that about mine tomorrow. But I was naively hoping we'd only need one round each and have enough for a whole family😶. We'll be lucky to have one or two good blastocysts, going by the statistics.

Sorry to hear that it's not the outcome that you were hoping for so far. Have you heard back about your eggs yet? Keeping my fingers crossed for you both 🤞

Thanks. Only three of mine fertilised. So now waiting to hear what makes it to blastocyst stage.

It only takes one, so fingers crossed for you! 🤞 keep us updated on how you get on 😊

Out of interest (if you don't mind sharing), roughly what were yours and your wife's AMH levels? I know you put the AFC ones. And what dosage of medication were you on?

When it comes to starting treatment I've been told that I'm going to be on a slightly lower dose due to high (high side of normal) AMH and AFC to try and avoid OHSS.

Thanks.
I was told I would be on lower doses too and I was. My AMH was 49, my wife's was 19 or 20 I think. And we were on Pergoveris 150 and 225 respectively. Same dose of cetrotide (0.25} and buseralin 0.5 as the trigger.

Hi everyone,

Apologies for the radio silence over the past several weeks. As many of you know, my partner and I were undergoing IVF, and I decided to step away from the internet for a bit. I've been checking in occasionally to see how everyone is doing and following your journeys.

I’m mentally in a better position now to share our update, and I still can’t quite believe it I’m saying this, but we are pregnant and expecting a baby girl in the new year ✨ We've had a few private early scans already, and everything seems to be progressing well. The big 12 week scan via the NHS will be in a few weeks.

It all feels really surreal, especially after experiencing some setbacks, but we are overjoyed and overwhelmed with excitement as I’m sure you can imagine.

Regarding the IVF process, we followed the mild protocol. My partner’s AMH levels were (around 7 pmol/L), so on the low side, but still considered “normal rage” for her age. Despite our concerns to how well she’d respond, she developed around 10 follicles in total, and we hoped to retrieve 8-10 eggs from these give or take.

On the day of the egg collection, we somehow only ended up with only 5 eggs, which was initially really disappointing. However, we were surprised to find out the following day that all 5 eggs fertilised and seemed to be doing well! We were semi-prepared for a day 3 transfer (depending on how they progressed), and on our day 3 phone call we found out that 4 embryos were developing well with 1 on the slow side, so we were therefore able to proceed with a day 5 transfer.

We did a fresh transfer on day 5 with the one embryo that was developed enough, and popped the other 3 embryos in the freezer later that day (as they needed more time to develop). All embryos were great quality so we felt hopeful that one of them would hopefully stick!

During the two-week wait, my partner woke up one night around 5 days post-transfer, worried that her period was coming. Out of curiosity, we took an early pregnancy test and saw a faint line. We tested daily after that, and the lines kept getting darker. We couldn’t wait for our scheduled pregnancy appointment, so we had an early scan at around 6 weeks, where we saw our tiny baby with a heartbeat. Despite some light bleeding early on, which scared us, we were reassured that it was normal.

Now, we are comfortably into the pregnancy, and the little bump is starting to show! We found out the sex just yesterday and have shared the news with close friends and family. No official announcements yet.

I will keep you all updated on our journey and continue to follow your stories. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask!

This thread has been such a great support for me throughout this daunting, and sometimes, lonely, process. So thank you to everyone who has posted 💜

Baby dust to everyone ✨

@solanks aaaaaaaah congratulations. That's such a lovely update! I wish you all the best and hope pregnancy symptoms are/have been kind to you.

Ah fab that's really useful to know thank you! Hoping things are going as okay as they can be 😊

Thank you! @ProfessorplumBilliardroomCandlestick

Classic pregnancy symptoms are there but on the mild side I’d say. Morning sickness tends to be mainly in the evenings, which is handy as my partner will just go to bed and sleep it off! Then sore boobs, hunger like never before, tiredness. These have all started to ease now though as we approach the end of the first trimester.

How are you and (probably now not so little) bump getting on?

Congratulations!! That's so exciting 😊I did wonder if something was progressing positively and you were waiting to let us know, completely makes sense why you'd taken a step back for a bit. I'm so pleased for you both 🥰 at what point are you/will you start to buy some baby stuff? Really exciting! Xx

Thanks so much @strawberrylaces12 It’s hard to know how things will go during the process, and for us, we just took one day at a time and celebrated every little win that came our way. Found the persistency of waiting so difficult during IVF, hence why I just decided to step away for a bit.

I’d be lying if I said I haven’t already started to look for bits and bobs, but we’ve agreed to wait until we’re a little further into the pregnancy before we buy anything. I’d say 4-5 months or so. If I’m honest, I’m still so scared to allow myself to get too excited or ahead of myself!

How are you feeling about your upcoming treatment? When do you start? X