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 ✨

@solanks Congratulations, such wonderful news and such an exciting update!!

@rivierliedje It really does only take one, sending all the positive thoughts to your blasts that they will progress well. IVF is really is a rollercoaster of a journey, will be thinking of you over the next few days.

xx

@solanks thank goodness for mild symptoms. I hope that continues! Bump and I are muddling along. 20 week scan next week! Halfway through! It's very surreal. My hyperemesis is fading though and I'm feeling some kicks so I'm hoping to enjoy 2nd trimester a bit more 🤣

Thank you! @Twomumfamily

Hopefully not too much longer for you both to wait now for your little embryos to be free from quarantine! ✨

Yeah, I mean, the nauseousness does look horrendous lol, but I know she’s doing better than some others I know who had it so bad 😖 (she hasn’t thankfully physically been sick). Have you? I’ve heard good stories about second trimester and I hope my partner enjoys that stage a little more 🤞🏽 I hope you enjoy it a little more too now your symptoms are easing a bit ✨

@solanks Thank you! One month and counting aha. Glad your partner hasn't had too many symptoms!

That sounds very sensible, sounds like a good plan!

Lots of waiting currently (which I'm not good at but like to think I'm getting better at). There was a lot of paperwork and some delay sorting the donor sperm, that's due to be transported to the new clinic tomorrow all being well. Then it looks like we need another admin cycle to have some more appointments to go over the treatment plan in detail and sort meds. They were waiting for the sperm to be received before doing too much. So looks like it'll be at least another 2 cycles before we can start anything, so end of July/start of August I would imagine. Until then I'm just having nice plans booked in, eating relatively healthy (with some treats), trying to stay quite active, not drinking, avoiding caffeine, taking supplements etc. Not much more I can do! Anything that you'd suggest in this time? 😊

Fingers crossed it stays that way for your partner. Pregnancy sickness is no joke and there's no such thing as "just nausea"! Exciting times ahead for you 😊🎉

Hey, how did things go in the end with your donor sperm and transport? Hope your clinic received it as planned 🤞🏽 Do you know anything at this stage about your treatment plan? July/Aug will be here in no time, providing you don’t start sooner! In the meantime, it sounds like you are certainly keeping busy and doing a good job of looking after yourself 🤗

Yes it was received yesterday, so that's a big thing sorted and ticked off 😊I now have a phone call next week from the nursing team to wait on. I also had a load of information videos to watch and so many forms to read and sign, which I did last night. I ended up getting a bit overwhelmed about it all and having a little cry on my wife but she was fab and reassured me one step at a time. I think I'm a bit PMS-y so that probably didn’t help. The thing is, none of it was really new information but of course they have to cover the risks to cover themselves so I think that part didn't help.

The protocol is the short antagonist one which the consultant did talk through with us and we have a handy flowchart for it. But it's just about getting all of the admin stuff, like appointments with the nursing team, sorting meds, to time out/line up with cycles. So we'll see!

@solanks That's such brilliant news! Congratulations! I can imagine being a bit anxious to fully believe it.

@ProfessorplumBilliardroomCandlestick Wow, 20 week mark! I'm sorry you had hyperemesis, that looks absolutely horrid. Hopefully it is settling down a bit?

@strawberrylaces12 We also had loads of videos to watch and things to sign for consent which overwhelmed us both at different points. What is the short/long protocol thing? We never heard anything about these two things, but I've seen it here a few times.

@Twomumfamily Thanks. Waiting like that really illustrates again how much patience you need in this IVF/fertility thing.
We have 7 embryos frozen now, 5 from my wife and 2 from me. We couldn't do a fresh transfer because of timing. So they are all frozen.

Does anyone know anything about IDAscores for embryos? Our clinic gives both the usual grading (I have a 5AB and 4BA}, but also IDAscores, which I can find very little about, apart from that it is AI that correlates with an embryos chance of becoming a live birth.

@rivierliedje great to hear about the embryos that you've got! How are you feeling about it?

Yeah it's just like an information dump isn't it! So from my understanding (long vs short wasn't actually covered in the many videos that I had to watch) the short protocol is where you start stims straight away once your period starts. The long is where you may take additional medication before hand to regulate your cycle/help to make the start of your period more predictable. So in the long one people may go on the pill or similar before the stims injections. I may be wrong but I think I'm on the short protocol as my cycles are regular and I'm at a higher risk of hyperstimulation. I'm sure someone else can answer this with more accuracy/detail though!

Edit: I think the long protocol also stops the body from ovulating. But also I believe I will be taking some medication in the short protocol to prevent this too. So now I've confused myself 😂

I’ve heard about iDAScores but our clinic didn’t/doesn’t use it — we just got the normal grading from the embryology team. A friend of mine did get iDAScores though and these grades coincided with the results that came back from when they got their embryos sent off for genetic testing.

@rivierliedje Congrats at your embryos, must be a relief to have them all frozen. When are you planning to do a transfer do you think? Do you know if you will be doing a natural transfer or a medicated (we are going medicated I think, although there isn't much in it success wise)

I don't know anything about IDAscores I am afraid, but your embryos are all good quality, which is brilliant, as they have more chance of implanting!

Thanks all.
I think our clinic only does medicated cycles. Because I've already got a pile of injections for the transfer cycle which I got at the same time as the IVF meds. This makes financial sense here in Ireland, where these meds fall under a scheme where there is a cap on the amount you spend per family on medications per month (so as we got all our medication at once, we spent 80€ for both of our cycles together}
I have to say, I have been most affected emotionally in this week after the egg collection. Which I really wasn't expecting.
I am happy about the frozen embryos, but can't help thinking about the stats for the grading and the IDAscores, which is silly really.

Hi everyone,

I have taken a break from mumsnet because I’ve found that pushing the fertility treatment to the back of my mind has been helpful in long run up to our second ivf cycle.

so pleased to here the lovely news @solanks and that everything is going well for you @ProfessorplumBilliardroomCandlestick

i hope you’re doing ok @strawberrylaces12, I really sympathise with the long waiting to get started time!

@rivierliedje i don’t think we have spoken yet, as I have been a bit absent. I am glad to hear of your 7 good blastocysts. That sounds like a great position to be in. I hope that everything goes well for you going onwards.

to recap, i did a round of mild IVF last year, within my natural cycle. I had 8 eggs collected, 5 fertilised, 3 became blastocysts and were transferred individually and sadly none of them became pregnancies/babies 😞

we have waited a year to pay that off, and I am trying one more time. I am with a new clinic now and on a different protocol. I did 7 days or norethisterone (sp?) which made my ovaries “quiet” ie no dominant follicles.

i am now 4 days into stim injections, meriofert 150. Can’t really say I have noticed any effects of this yet, but it is still early. I start a suppression injection tomorrow in addition to the stim, and then have a scan on Wednesday to see the lay of the land.

now that it’s happening I am finding it harder to avoid dwelling on the unsuccessful round last year, and the fear that we might have the same outcome again, but trying to stay busy and distracted as much as possible.

although I have been quiet, I really appreciate this thread. I don’t know any other same sex couple of has had as much difficulty with fertility treatment as we have so far, and it’s a valuable place to come to chat things through.

very best wishes to all of you, and got everything crossed for good outcomes all round xx

@Quickdraw23 lovely to hear from you! Sending you lots of good luck! How are you doing with the stims? Sorry to hear that you're feeling like that, definitely natural to feel that way though. Remember that it's still very possible and the changes generally increase with each attempt. Easier said than thought though! I definitely keep dwelling on the previous unsuccessful IUI attempts and worry that IVF may not work either, but we'll see.

I had a call from the nurse today just to book in an appointment mid July for them to go over everything. Also arranged for my meds to be delivered next week ready. So I won't start any treatment until towards the end of July but hopefully things will be ready and in place for then. Just got some screening blood tests to do and then should be ready. I'm thinking that it should hopefully time out well work wise as I'll be a bit less busy and full on with work over the summer holidays and I'll take some leave around it too.

Hi @strawberrylaces12 hope you’re well. Glad to hear your clinic seem very organised!

Stims were actually fine, I did feel quite bloated by the end and then actually called time a couple of days early because I had so many follicles. They got 20 eggs which seems a lot - last time I had 8 collected. Because the number is so high I can’t have a fresh transfer because of OHSS risk, but I’m actually quite relieved as I think I could do with a break and let my body recover a bit. Getting that many eggs is not always a good thing - sometimes when there’s that many there can be a big drop off between fertilisation and blastocyst stage, so I’m not counting any chickens! They are going to call tomorrow to let us know how many of them fertilised.

i don’t know if it’s hormonal or what but the last couple of days I seem to be having an existential crisis about the idea of actually having a child, and the massive change it will have on life! My logical side is telling me this is just my subconscious trying to protect me from more disappointment. And maybe I’ve seen too much negative parenting content online 🙄

@Quickdraw23 hi yes thanks, had all of the medication delivered yesterday so that's ready at least. Also sorted my Chlamydia test at the GP as it had just run out since we went to the GP originally in June 2023 about steps to having a child and they did a load of tests then but it has to be within 12 months. Otherwise it costs at the clinic as some tests are not NHS funded (we're not in out NHS funded cycle) and since we've already paid so much I'm just getting whatever I can on the NHS now haha. Tbf my GP has been great at sorting tests so we don't have to pay for them privately. Other than that just a waiting game now, got an appointment with the nurse in a couple of weeks before we hopefully start treatment next cycle all being well.

Glad to hear the stims were okay. How was the egg collection itself? Wow that is good, fingers crossed a good amount fertilise and you hear back asap about it!

Completely normal in my opinion. I had similar during the IUI especially after unsuccessful rounds. I kept thinking well maybe I don't even want children, which was definitely a self defence and preservation mechanism to try and help me feel less sad - because all I've ever wanted is to be a Mum, I can't remember a time when I didn't want that. So yeah, take some time after all of the hormones and stress of it all. It can be a massive change but not necessarily in a bad way. Life changes so often anyway. And it's not like life stops, children can fit around many plans that you want to do. But keep talking about it and how you're feeling, it's important 😊

How's everyone getting on? 😊

Got our nurse appointment tomorrow to talk over the treatment plan and have HIV/hep blood tests. I'm due my period in about a week or so. Got the meds delivered last week. So hopefully will be good to go for the next cycle 🤞

@strawberrylaces12 You might be on a similar timeline to us, we are due to start the FET meds this week. Just waiting for my Wife’s period to start which should be in the next day or two.

@Quickdraw23 Been thinking of you, I hope you had a positive outcome with some lovely frozen blasts!

@Twomumfamily ooh exciting, not long now then! I'm feeling quite nervous and apprehensive about the upcoming process but I'm ready to see how it goes. I feel like I've already sometimes gone into self protection mode and thought 'well don't get your hopes up, lots could go wrong' sort of thing 😅 but I guess I just need to go with the flow as best as I can! How are you feeling?

@strawberrylaces12 I think that is totally normal, hopefully you can just take it one step at a time! This whole process is emotionally draining.

I am feeling positive (well trying to) new embryo and all that. At least we will know either way in a month. Feels easier for me as my Wife is doing the transfer this time, so just doing my best to support her.

Fingers crossed for us all going into treatment this month!

Hey @strawberrylaces12 thanks for your reply to my last post sorry I didn’t answer! Glad things are moving forward for you now 😊

thanks so much @Twomumfamily! I am doing well. It did take me over a week to feel normal after egg collection, I felt so bloated! Good news is we have 7 blasts in the freezer, which is amazing and a much better outcome so far than the last round. I realise it’s a very lucky position to be in, but as I have had 3 transfers fail already I am not letting myself get my hopes up yet.

I am still waiting for my withdrawal bleed post stim cycle, then I have to wait for my real period before we can get the ball rolling on a FET. I have enjoyed a few delish beers 😋

got absolutely everything crossed for you this month! How is your wife doing?

@strawberrylaces12 to answer your question - egg collection was absolutely fine! They give you some lovely sedatives and pain killers and I had a lovely sleep, knew nothing about it! Easily managed a bit of post collection soreness with paracetamol, nothing worse than a period pain wise!

@Quickdraw23 Thats absolutely brilliant news, really buzzing for you both. After everything you have been through, having 7 embabies is a fabulous outcome!! Whenever I say I have 4 in the freezer, people assume it’s in my one at home which makes me giggle!

Beers are much needed I am sure! When do you think you will be doing the FET, do you think you will do medicated or natural?

Thank you, my wife is incredibly chill (far more than myself) so she is feeling really positive about this try! Trying to channel her energy. Two weeks and counting!