Create Fertility - Experiences (Part 3)

[Sunflower360]

Hi 👋

A thread for anyone who wants to discuss their Create Fertility experiences.

I'm 38, have had 3 egg collections with Create (2x natural modified and 1 x mild) and am about to go through my first FET following embryo banking and after having a Hysteroscopy and discovering I have thyroid antibodies...joys of fertility challenges.

Tagging as follows from previous chat, please tag any others I may have forgot.

New joiners to the thread welcome to share your experiences - it's a never ending learning curve for all!

@Maddie23
@gemso2020
@Doxy21
@Plantymcplant
@Jennaqua
@Hopesandsunshine
@jolly86
@VenusStarr
@muddlingthrou
@junieS
@littlebitsocial

G'day all.

There appear to be so many different journeys reflected on this thread. I recognise I'm entering mid-thread and don't want to take the focus away from the conversations above. I hope every poster finds answers to their questions and every reader finds a sense of support in these threads.

I'm a 36 y/o gay lady in a relationship and we are starting our first round of IVF with CREATE. I have 17 AMH and between 15 - 18 follicles. I am midway through my first stims cycle and things seem to be tracking pretty well. I may have egg collection this Friday and hopefully a fresh transfer the same cycle.

Just looking for a likeminded community to feel connected during this process.

I intend to update this thread as we progress. I've found it very useful to be a reader to date, so hopefully others can learn from our journey now that I've turned into a poster ☺️

@ALittleExpressiveHi! Hope your stims cycle is going well, all sounds very positive

Daw, thanks @Sunflower360 , kind of you to check in.

A bit of good and a bit of not-so-good news thus far. Taking my trigger shot tonight for a Saturday egg collection, but cannot proceed with a fresh transfer because a solid black circle unexpectedly appeared in my uterus 48 hours ago. Consultants believe it's a cyst, which would likely affect an embryo's ability to attach.

Hopefully the cyst will clear itself up without intervention and we can proceed with an embryo transfer next cycle.

Also up against my very vascular pelvic system. Physical access to my ovaries might be quite tricky on Saturday, so I'm kinda preparing for waking up to the message that only one (or neither) ovary could be drained. Here's hoping everything just 'falls into place' literally and figuratively on Saturday in the first instance!

@ALittleExpressive Welcome to the chat! Wishing you all the best for tomorrow. I hope you have a great result.

We decided to try something different this month. I have very low AMH, and had only one follicle this month (the most I've had is 3, which is normal), so we converted our ivf cycle into an IUI cycle. I had the IUI on Tues. I know its very low odds because of my age etc, but, nevertheless, I'm feeling excited and hopeful.

Has anyone else done IUI at Create?

@Sunflower360 Do you have any choice as to which doctor performs the transfer? How did you/they prepare you for it? And, did you have anything like progesterone and/or heparin after the transfer to support a potential pregnancy? I ask, because we have two ivf cycles to go before we start our transfers and I want to be in the best possible position, as we have low numbers of embryos. Thank you!

@GingerRCDI didn't choose the Dr to do the FET, it was whoever was on duty that day to do it. But when I had a ovary that would be hard to reach the senior Dr said he would do it if the one on duty struggled to access it. Preparation wise I just stuck to the same diet ets as the egg collection generally but added more pomegranate juice and beetroot/watermelon/ginger juice. I also had progesterone and steroids (I had thyroid antibodies) to support pregnancy. Good luck with the IUI, hopefully you will not need IVF!@ALittleExpressiveGood luck today with your EC!

Firstly, best of luck @GingerRCD with your IUI round. I think it's really healthy to lean into your positivity. Thanks for connecting ☺️

Thanks also to @Sunflower360 for your wellwishes today with my EC!

Guess what team? I made it though EC and it felt look a milestone to be proud of. I'm very grateful that both ovaries could be drained, which'll hopefully let my system come down gracefully.

They collected 8 eggs today (Mild IVF protocol). On the ultrasound 48 hours ago, 4-5 follicles appeared to be mature enough by my interpretation of the growth chart and the threshold dotted line on the results screen.

They'll now just watch to see if fertilisation occurs overnight and how embryo progression goes this week.

I'm pretty sure that cyst is still there in my uterus, though, so they'll freeze the embryos and check the cyst on my next cycle to see if it has disappeared so they can attempt a FET.

I'm very glad stims are over for the next four weeks. I normally feel like a pretty regulated person, but on the Mild IVF protocol I really felt a range of magnified emotions.

For those yet to go through egg collection, know I had a really supportive experience today. The staff were excellent and I felt fully asleep with the deep aneasthetic. I have two vasovagal-type responses to the aneasthetic in the hours after the procedure, but as I was still in the care of the nurses, they dealt with that quickly and professionally (bed head down; legs up; bag in). I'm now recovering really well at home.

Thanks again for peoples' support ☺️

Hi @ALittleExpressive I hope you're recovering well after the EC. How have you got on? Wishing you all the best x

Thanks @Sunflower360 - it would be amazing if the IUI did work. I can do a home pregnancy test at the weekend, so here's hoping x

Hey @GingerRCD , I'll be sending heaps of positive vibes over your way this weekend ✨️

Here's my Day 3 read out (36 y/o, 17 AMH on Mild IVF protocol) with 8 eggs retrieved, 6 of which fertilised:

4 x embryos, each have 8 cells and are grade 2 (good).

1 x embryo, which has 6 cells and is grade 3 (less good).

1 x embryo, which has 4 cells and is grade 3 (less good).

They will freeze 1 of the 4 x embryos with 8 cells that is grade 2 (good).

So.... no top performers (i.e. grade 1, very good), however I reckon there's still a bit of time and space for the 4 x grade 2 embryos to hustle. From what I've read, it's still technically possible for an embryo to go from grade 2 at Day 3 to grade AA at Day 5/6.

Will revert back on Day 5/6...

Hi @ALittleExpressive Thank you so much for the well wishes!

That sounds like a pretty good result for a mild cycle, especially with 4 good embryos. Remember that they are looking at something that is absolutely miniscule through a microscope, so it's more of a "beauty parade" - those embryos may well look better on day 5/6 and could be chromosomally perfect, too. I often read stories on here of women getting pregnant with much lower grade embryos than their top quality ones.

Wishing you all the best for the next few days. Keep us posted x

Appreciate the gentle reminder, @GingerRCD, cause it prepared me for receiving our news today ☺️

From the Mild IVF protocol, which generates 8 eggs, we ended up with:

1 x 4BB (frozen on day 6)
1 X 3BC (frozen on day 6)
1 x 8 cell grade 2 (frozen on day 3)

So, not perfect, but we're still really happy with our first round results. The embryos were really slow to develop into blasts (perhaps the 2 x day 6 ones will be girls?), but got to the finish line and that's all we could ask for.

We've got a chat with the consultant mid next week where they will discuss the FET. Hoping to schedule it as soon as possible, but it can only commence once the uterus cyst/liquid disappears.

Really wishing you well this weekend @GingerRCD with your test! I could imagine you're chomping at the bit to find out. Hang in there.

Thinking of your news @GingerRCD in hindsight 😌. Happy to listen if you feel like expressing your thoughts (although sitting quietly is also very valid).

We just had a mock FET, which happened to go surprisingly well. The catheter passed through without drama and the staff were very kind and supportive (I was a bit scared).

Luckily the fluid/cyst in my uterus had gone. My uterine lining is a bit thin, so I've got one more ultrasound next week to check whether it's become more pillow like (any tips on plumping it up would be greatly appreciated). If all goes to plan, we can attempt the FET on my next bleed.

Q1) We're torn between natural FET or medicated FET (weighing up risk of pre-eclampsia versus the benefit to my mild adenomiosis). Anyone have any experiences/thoughts one way or the other?

Q2) We're weighing up whether to transfer our Day 3, 8-cell grade 2 embryo (letting it develop to Day 5 before insertion), or transfer our Day 6 4BB embryo. Welcome any thoughts on that too.

@ALittleExpressive I had a medicated FET, and prolonged medication at that, due to a thin lining. I was on tablets and then patches were added too, I can’t remember the duration now but it was far longer than originally estimated and getting to the point where the cycle was going to be abandoned as they couldn’t/wouldn’t keep me on it any longer. It worked, thank goodness, and our one and only embryo from 3x ECs, successfully implanted - but I did get preeclampsia. Of course I have no way of knowing whether the medicated FET caused that, and frankly I don’t care. In my case I don’t believe my son would be here otherwise.
Ours was a day 3 grade 2.

Good luck xx

Thanks so much @HopefulElle ! Really appreciate the context you provided! Everyone's stories/experience helps us build the information picture.

Wow, what a treasured outcome to have your one embryo work, after 3ECs! You must have been so worried in the lead up knowing all your eggs were in one basket, so to speak. Helpful to know he was a day 3 grade 2 too. Preeclampsia sounds a bit scary, but a relief that your kiddo came to be nonetheless ☺️

Given this is our first shot at FET, we're thinking perhaps of trying Natural FET, with progesterone support (vaginal pessaries) plus Letrizole to heighten the chance of ovulation and increase endometrial receptivity. Our clinic also recommends steroids for me because of my auto immune skin history. A low dose asprin will be used too I think.

Then to help with my lining, we're thinking of supplementing with, Vitamin E, Omega-3 fatty acids, CoQ-10... and a whole lot of stress reduction (easier said than done 😹).

Leaning toward using the Day 3 grade 2 embryo too (letting it develop to Day 5 blast before transfer). I feels like this is what the clinic recommend, but they haven't mentioned this outright as yet.

Hey they all 👋

Just a quick note to say I'm going to transition writing about our journey over to this thread, because we're on track for a late JUN 25 FET:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/infertility/5344003-fets-june-2025

Thanks so much for chiming in when you did and best of luck with your respective journeys. Hope to reconnect with you on the other thread!

P.S. we're not going with Letrizole anymore to control the risk of it causing my dominant follicle to ovulate before my lining is ready (still not the pillowy-est of linings).

hey @Sunflower360 it was around January you gave me some good advice and hope re: create, which we acted on and are now in a 3 cycle package. Just had my first EC on friday, and was deeply surprised to get 5 eggs (all fertilised but we have 4 as of day 3, and two of them are v slow, two good) but still, with our last (funded) full stims round we only got 1 egg (despite 5 large follicles) and 3 eggs on the previous cycle. So at the very least I'm very pleased with Create's egg retrieving skills!

I remember you achieved a pregnancy and are quite far along? I hope everything is going very well.

How has everyone found 3 back to back retrievals if they've had them? I wonder about my ovary's recovery – only the right one responded, and in fact I had an ectopic pregnancy on that side two cycles ago. They had to give me transexamic acid to stop the ovary bleeding post collection, did anyone else have that? I had a near catastrophic haemorrhage (cervical) 1.5 years ago so internal bleeding freaks me out a bit.

Hope anyone in stims/near collections/transfers is doing well.

@Nosejug I had two back to back retrievals and definitely found the second one worse. The egg collection wasn’t significantly different but the recovery was longer and I also felt a lot more unwell during the cycle itself. But they say every cycle is different so it could be coincidence and hopefully you won’t experience that. We got the 3 cycle package but I stopped before the 3rd cycle as we just weren’t getting anywhere.

@Nosejuggood to hear its going well! I had DC earlier this year and all is well. I found doing the ECs close together good mainly as I felt it kept the process moving and in the months I did not have a EC I had other investigatory tests done to rule things out (like blood tests etc), but if a break of a month or so is needed medically do not push it-everyone responds differently

Thanks for the advice @Sunflower360 . Unfortunately all the embryos stopped growing. Got to day three with two strong candidates and two a little behind, but the two strong guys also slowed after that point, one just reaching early blast then stopping. Gutted isn’t the word.

@Nosejugreally sorry about that. Each cycle is different so hopefully things can be tweaked to help next time round. Take the time to review and recover, good luck with the next round

Hello everyone. sorry to hop on here, but after 5 years of trying for a second child, we’ve just been given an appointment with create via NHS in September. I know we don’t qualify for IVF, but I’m hoping we will find out what’s going on least? I know I have PCOS. Thanks!

@Disneybridehope your appointment with Create goes ok

Hi,

I found this thread about Create.
I am Age 39 soon to be 40
We had 1 EC - 3 eggs collected , 3 fertilised , one was transferred fresh on day 3 Fresh and then Frozen with Create both failed..

Now we are going for 3 cycle Mild ICSI round with PGTA. It's really expensive and I am worried about the outcomes. They are saying , they do PGTA after 3 cycles of egg collections . Is this right? This means embryos will be frozen and thawed twice.
Any experience with them with PGTA?

Thanks!

Hi @Minnie213
I’m currently doing the 3 cycle package with PGTA. We’ve just done our first round and they biopsied the embryos before freezing so at the end of the 3 cycles all our biopsy’s will be done at the same time. No thawing twice from my understanding.
It’s so expensive and we also had to spend an extra £1,000 on additional medication the last round which we hadn’t factored in.
I also had one previous NHS round and got pregnant but our baby arrived at 26 weeks and she passed away a few days later which is why we are doing the PGTA this time.

@tillyxxx I am so sorry for your loss . Wish you all the best and hope it all goes well for you. Thank you so much for your response.
That makes sense about sending biopsies but our patient coordinator and nurse keep saying they will be sending all embryos at the end of 3 cycle . We are still waiting for their confirmation that this is not the case.
We had one fresh and one frozen both failed.
Fresh was failed as my lining thickened due to stimulations to which they thought I had polyps and still decided to transfer on day 3 to give us chance.

We don’t know why frozen failed as lining was good as per them.

so now we are starting 3 cycle with PGTA.