IVF/ICSI May or late April (Part 2)

[HopefulllHolly]

Starting a new thread for us!

@AnnieStar12
@2tuxedocats
@Clairehbear
@Cloclo93
@EvaA17
@Feelingmindful

@Ginie2024
@Gnatalie16
@Hollielouise
@PurpleRayne89
@Seasidegirll
@SS2022
@hopefullsosbry
@positivepetal

Cant remember which girls who have already got their result wanted to leave - so have added the majority just in case! ☺️

@positivepetal I am so impressed you’ve held strong. What’s your official test day?
I am doing okay, feel a bit shocked tbh! Won’t feel real until I get to test day and tell my clinic.

@AnnieStar12 official test date is Monday! How about yours?

@positivepetal mine is Saturday

@amkw hi.. 👋🏼I think we spoke on another thread .. about progesterone.. welcome to the group 🥰 best of luck with your FET .. !

Good luck with your tests ladies, super excited for you all, it's such a joyful moment when everything goes to plan ☺️
And good luck with the scan tomorrow @EggsFrozenNow! Mine this morning showed very slow growth again, trigger tomorrow night, EC on Saturday morning, more likely for 3, maybe 4 🤞

@Ginie2024 oh you must be relieved to be at the trigger stage, enjoy the end of injections!

Goodluck to everyone testing ☺️ my OTD is tomorrow. I’m not expecting miracle but very much ready for a follow up consultation.

Hope you get answers today @EvaA17

And good luck @EggsFrozenNow with your scan today!

@HopefulllHolly @Ginie2024 thanks girls! Good luck with EC!

Just had my scan and one follicle is getting too big like 24mm, Dr said we in a dilemma as he would like to drag it on a bit longer so that the other follicles catch up, the second largest is only 15mm, but risk is I ovulate now and all is lost 😣will see blood test results and then decide

Hi,

So my clinic called me yesterday evening and they froze 2 embryos for me yesterday afternoon. They've called again today to say they've frozen a further 2 more, so I have 4 embryos frozen. So fingers crossed at least 1 sticks when the time for my FET comes.
I've been such a nervous wreck, just feel relieved that this stage is over. Now need to get myself all recovered and rested and prep my body for FET at some point in July/August.

I also started my bleed last night - wasn't expecting it to come so quickly, was expecting at least a week or two post EC.
@amkw as you were on a FET did you get your bleed quite quickly? Also, those numbers are brilliant - praying your FET goes well in June xx

@Ginie2024 good luck for your trigger shot tonight - I hope it goes well!

And for all those testing, good luck, really hoping there is positive news all round x

@EvaA17 Thats brilliant news, so pleased for you. And well done for getting to this stage. Rest up the next couple of months and hope to see you get your positive quickly.

@EggsFrozenNow Ah what a predicament! What did the doctor think you should do or did they seem unsure? I guess maybe it would make more sense to try and get all the small ones rather than just the one big egg, but that’s a bit scary when you could naturally ovulate the big one! Annoying they can’t do 2 egg collections isn’t it! Hope the blood tests give you some answers. 🙂

@EvaA17 That's amazing news! Fingers crossed for when you get your first transfered!

Do you mean when did I bleed after EC? I got my EC on 1 April and I started to bleed on 15 April.

I wouldn't worry about bleeding so soon after EC, everyone's body is different!

@EggsFrozenNow Fingers crossed for you!

Hopefully the test results will make this decision clearer for the consultant. Fingers crossed!

I'm popping in here to say that I don't usually hang out on mumsnet, but I checked out the thread for late April / May cycles (as I started my stims on the 26th May) and I came across your story, which is almost exactly my story! In this sea of frustration and disappointment, it was nice to see that someone is going through the same thing as me, and it made me feel less alone. Though in an ideal world, I would have wished for both of us to have a smoother sailing through this whole IVF process.

My journey started with our first stim cycle in August last year. Our tests going in were decent for our ages (both 35 last year, 36 now), and despite my husband having a varicocele, his sperm analysis looked decent so we gave IVF a go as we were. We ended up with 2 blastocysts, one of which resulted in a chemical and the other one failed to implant.

Before entering the second cycle, we did more tests and it showed that my AMH had halved after only 6-7 months dropping to 8.4, FSH increased over normal at 12, and now my husband's sperm analysis looks consistently bad (not terrible, but also not great). It didn't look great last year either on egg / sperm collection day, but we thought it was a fluke. Now it's consistently inferior and the varicocelectomy is recommended. But as you said as well, it's 50/50 whether it will actually lift the sperm parameters and in theory it could improve DNA fragm but no one really knows.

So because my parameters are getting worse, our consultant recommended that we get on with this IVF cycle instead of waiting to do the varicocelectomy (which takes another 3-6 months in recovery as I'm sure you know), but in the end he put the decision back on us which was incredibly frustrating for us. But we went ahead with his suggestion and we started our second cycle on the 26th, then my husband will do the procedure and we'll try again next year for a third time if this one doesn't work. And if the third cycle doesn't work either, we'll call it a day.

So far in this cycle, I've started with 6-7 follicles and today I had my Day 6 scan and it's looking like 6 are around 10 mm and one is smaller so not really counting on that one. I'm on Menopur + Gonal F and after the scan the consultant has decided to decrease my Menopur dose. I'm going back on Sunday and we'll see how that goes.

Good luck to everyone!

Hi @ThePeachGoose hope you’re ok! Your journey sounds stressful! Always annoying when doctors give us too much choice, it’s already hard enough without potentially blaming our decisions for the reason it doesn’t work. Hope this cycle works well for you! My AMH is much lower than yours and I got 2 mature eggs, and I got my BFP - so I don’t think it’s the end of the world and only part of the puzzle but it’s certainly stressful! 6 eggs would be a lovely result! ☺️

Oh my gosh, thank you for reading all of that and for responding to my message. It’s very sweet of you and so reassuring! I think that I forgot along the way to be positive because I’m looking at it all through the prism of last year and how everything got worse. But you’re right, the results are still decent in the context of IVF and maybe this will be the one. We’ve definitely prepared better for this cycle with better diet, exercise, acupuncture and probiotics so maybe all of that will make a difference. Thank you and best of luck for the rest if your journey xx

@ThePeachGoose I think all of us finds it hard to be positive no matter if it’s our first time or we’ve done lots of rounds, IVF and infertility are hard! I’m so pleased you’ve got a good result (even though it might not feel it), I’m sure those eggs are a good quality (sometimes the more eggs means less quality - and lots of clinics aim for being 6-12 eggs max) after all the hard work you’ve done! Keep us posted with how you get on, will keep my fingers crossed for you it’s a good round for you! Who knows, all your eggs might make it to blastocyst and it could surprise you ☺️☺️

@ThePeachGoose Hi there, yes it's comforting to find someone else in the same boat isn't it! And totally agree with what @HopefulllHolly said! We are around the same age (I'm 35), but my AMH is only half of yours, so mine was around your current level a year ago and I was feeling pretty satisfied about it back then :).

So it sounds like you are going ahead with ICSI this cycle is that right? We were hesitating between ICSI vs just egg freezing this cycle and I could feel the consultant prob leaning more towards ICSI, but eventually we decided to freeze just eggs because my husband's varicocele (and DNA fragmentation) is quite severe... Then I think we will try ICSI again later this year and we might try naturally.

Did you try naturally before your first cycle? How many follicles or eggs did you have for your first cycle?

Good luck with your next scan! It sounds like your follicles are growing at a nice even pace :)

Oof sorry, this forum is definitely giving me more perspective on my results!

But I'm impressed that you have 6-7 follicles (is that right?) with an AMH of around 4 - so impressive! What treatment are you on, and what sort of supplements have you been taking beforehand? I've always had fewer follicles than my AMH would indicate and the treatment hasn't been activating any more of the ones I started with. Last time I did Menopur alone, but this time I'm on Menopur + Gonal F. And other than that I just take Proceive Max + extra vit C and zinc + probiotics.

Yes, we're going ahead with ICSI. We were never given the option of egg freezing. I did ask our consultant whether my husband could do several sperm collections, freeze them, and select the best one for my fresh eggs, but he said he doesn't see the value in that so I didn't push for it. The urologist was pushing for the varicocelectomy, the IVF consultant was pushing for going ahead with ICSI to not lose more time, and in the end they met in the middle on going ahead with ICSI, but my husband will do alternative day ejaculation for the week before sperm collection. Then he'll do the procedure and we'll try ICSI again next year. Neither of them recommended doing the DNA frag test because they kinda know in theory that there's damage due to the varicocele, and we don't have a better way to deal with it outside of the usual loose underwear, supplements, varicocelectomy etc so might as well do those anyway.

We've been trying naturally since Jan 2022 with no luck or a single positive. I should probably get my fallopian tubes checked out. We'll continue trying naturally especially after my husband's procedure, as I've seen the studies that they show increased rate of spontaneous pregnancy after that.

During my first cycle I started with 13 follicles, they took out 11, only 7 had eggs, only 4 of those were mature, all fertilised but ended up with 2 blastocysts (one average and one poor). So with those stats, I was disappointed this time round to know I started with 6-7. But hopefully they are better quality than next time, since we did aaaall of this work, and hopefully we'll end up with some good quality embryos. And I hope the same for you! Fingers crossed for everyone!

Just got a call from the clinic and they've decided that I need to trigger tonight for egg extraction on saturday, they are worried about that one that is too big 22mm, got another 2 x 15mm and 2 x 11-13mm, then the rest too small...

I'm sure that I speak for everyone here when I say that we're all rooting for you and wishing you the best of luck for the egg collection, hoping they all have high quality eggs in them!!!!

@ThePeachGoose Thank you! Can I ask if your husband was offered the option of embolization? Cos only embolization was recommended to my husband, they didn't mention varicocelectomy I dont think. We've looked it up and it seems each has pros and cons.

For my first cycle i was on menopur, in this current cycle I'm on pergoveris + human growth hormone, and I was primed with human growth hormone for a month prior. Supplement wise similar to what you are taking, + CoQ10, and DHEA (which really messed with my skin)

The urologist presented both options to my husband and he was leaning towards the surgical procedure at the time, but now that the moment is getting closer, he wants to go back in and ask more questions. You're right that both have pro's and con's. The surgical procedure is usually done by the urologist, whereas the embolisation is done by a radiologist, probably the one that the urologist usually works with. Costs are somewhat similar I think.

Thanks for sharing your treatment and supplements. I should look into CoQ10 and DHEA as well. Despite messing with your skin, it sounds like they made a real difference, as I saw in a previous post that it brought your follicle number back up. Honestly, those AFC scans are so scary, who knows what you'll find in there every time you look!

For CoQ10 I think you should definitely take them, cos they are a general supplement that's good for you, DHEA you should consult with your doctor as it might not suit you. I don't know what exactly helped my AFC increase from 3/4 in march to 6/7 now, clinic is saying it could be just variable between cycles, I do also know that I've been much less stressed in recent months, a combination of acupuncture (never believed in it but it actually worked) and having a different mindset and not caring about work too much. I've heard so much anecdotal evidence that stress is so important for fertility, quite a few gfs got pregnant as soon as they started to relax (quit work, or gave up on trying to get pregnant lol)