FET - timeline looking for people with previous experience

[egg2410]

Hello! For background I am 32 and my partner is 33, we've been trying for over a year and have had 2 miscarriages one mmc at 10 weeks with the baby measuring 8 weeks and 2 and another in January that never really got off the ground but was probably 5-6 weeks.

We decided to go with IVF and chose ABC IVF for their short protocol and given that we matched the required parameters. I am due for an egg collection tomorrow and frustratingly was told this would have to be a freeze all cycle due to high estrogen, we had been waiting for this cycle already for months as my period was 12 weeks late to arrive after my most recent miscarriage and so this feels like further dreaded waiting and hoping when we were so excited to be doing well at the first part of IVF.

My question is for people with previous experience what was the waiting time for you for a freeze all cycle to your FET? Just want to manage my expectations and try and live my life a little bit inbetween if possible, thanks in advance!

I've not had ivf but have you had the miscarriages investigated? As ivf may not solve your problem if there's something underlying.

For my successful pregnancy, it was the next period following the withdrawal bleed - so July egg collection and September FET. Good luck! I prefer FET and would always choose this as your body can be so impacted from the stims and artificially inflated hormones in a fresh cycle (although I know lots of people have success with fresh too).

@Cariadxx not had any miscarriage investigations yet, NHS has told me they won't do anything until I have a third consecutive miscarriage but myself and my partner have had some basic testing done which has all shown up in normal parameters, part of the reason I wanted to pursue IVF was due to be able to 'fail fast' if we do have another loss as it hasn't been the quickest time for either conceptions, and then we can kick off recurrent miscarriage investigations.

My second miscarriage was really bizarre though and not sure I'd class it as a true miscarriage, I had a full blown 'period' and only tested to make sure that my new batch of easy@home's weren't faulty as I'd been getting what I thought were evap lines, it then progressed to 6 weeks when I had a scan and the EPU were happy there was something in the womb, so gave me progesterone but at that point it was looking like a 5 week gestation, then it just dragged on for 2 weeks and no further progress was made with the embryo so stopped progesterone and bled almost straightaway, if I'd not tested I might have just thought I had had a weird mid cycle bleed I don't know.

@Leaf86 thank you for the information that's really helpful 💖did you find your period after the egg collection arrived on time? I've got previous with waiting forever for my period to come back and honestly I don't think I can cope if it drags on!

@egg2410 After your egg collection you'll stop all medication if doing freeze-all, so your withdrawal bleed will come quite quickly. At the very earliest, you need to wait for your next period and start the FET procedure on that cycle. Be prepared though if your clinic is slow to wait for 2 periods. I often found I needed to 'chase' my clinic to move things along.

I had a fresh transfer from my first egg collection which was a BFN. I've had 3 FETs - 1 from my first egg collection (CP). The second 2 were from my second egg collection, and both have ended in pregnancy (my DD, and my current 19 week pregnancy). FETs are so much easier on your body, and I much preferred them - it allows you to process things as well if you have a drop off in fertilisation, day 3 and day 5 after egg collection. Best of luck!

Thank you for your insight @2mumlife ! And I'm so glad your FETs worked out 😊. Would you say your cycle returned around the expected time after your withdrawal bleed with each FET?

I know what you mean about chasing them, all I seem to do is email my patient coordinator! I am not against a FET per se but when you have a timeline in your head, albeit naively, it's so disappointing to be back in the waiting room so to speak, not to mention it's an extra cost that we hadn't really factored in!

@egg2410 My period was delayed the cycle following my freeze-all egg collection. My cycle length varied a lot but averaged around 32 days, and the cycle following my freeze-all was 40 days.

We had known the plan was to do a freeze-all for my second egg collection but it was still frustrating at the time. But honestly, with hindsight FETs have been so much better for me. Doing a fresh transfer was mentally and physically really hard, as had to deal with an unexpectedly low number of eggs collected, and physically my body was not in a good place. I started bleeding 5dp5dt on my fresh transfer, and kept bleeding until OTD (it was essentially my withdrawl bleed despite being on medication) so I feel my fresh transfer was a total waste of an embryo to be honest. I've felt a lot more confident in being in the best mental and physical space doing FETs We were on an Access Fertility package, so whilst we had additional medication costs, it wasn't that much extra.

@egg2410 my withdrawal bleed was 5-7 days post EC (I used a buselerin trigger which brings it on quicker and reduces chance of OHSS). My period following this took 38 days to arrive, however (torturous waiting!).

Thanks for your insights @2mumlife and @Leaf86 appreciate you taking the time to answer my questions, had my egg collection this morning and it was a bit of a disaster, only 3 eggs collected out of 15 follicles, they said probably because they gave me buserelin instead of ovitrelle due to high estrogen so probably a moot point worrying about FET timelines!

Thank you though for all of your help, it’s nice to be able to speak to people in similar situations ♥️