Strain on your relationship

[clazbear]

Hi everyone, just wanted to ask how you cope with the strain IVF/infertility puts on your relationship? We are struggling at the moment, having been TTC for over 4 years and doing IVF for 2 years with no success. I think if my husband is honest, he is ready to give up but I just can’t yet. I feel like it has put us emotionally in such different places on this journey and we’re really struggling to connect and understand each other. Anybody in the same boat or out the other side and can give me some hope that things get better?

I don’t have a solution but it is really hard. An example would be that I wanted to get all sorts of tests and my husband was telling me to calm down. I couldn’t stop researching and he wanted to trust the doctors. The emotions around infertility are so complex that I don’t think both partners ever feel the same thing at the same time. I just tried not to look too far ahead but it was hard. Miraculously I did have a baby boy last year and that obviously helped but it is also emotional having a baby after a long journey.

I hope that you are able to support each other and that you get your good news as soon as possible.

IVF is an emotional and stressful journey. During our IVF process (we had 4 transfers) me and my partner split for several weeks.
He had 2 grown children, I had none so it was never as important to him as it was to me. He never felt the deep upset as I did already having 2 children.
Deep down I know he only continued the IVF for my sake and to give me my dream of being a mum.
I was totally prepared to do it alone when we split but thankfully we got back together and he finally seen how important the process and being a mum was to me. Then onwards he attended every meeting and made every effort to support me.
We now have a beautiful 11 week old son and he’s the best dad you could ask for.
Hang on in there, if you give up before you’re ready then you might live to regret that decision. Do what’s best for you, no one else x

@clazbear I'm sorry you're going through this. Does he already have children? If he does, I can see why it's easier for him. Is money a strain? IVF is really expensive.

For context, I'm also in the same journey for 5.5 years with IVF for +4 years, changed clinics 4 times, etc.

It may be good for both of you to make a plan. As in, try this clinic and this new treatment 2 times, then change clinic, try this new treatment or ultimately donors or adoption. As hard as it is, we made that plan and it gave us more clarity on what to do and that it would ultimately have an end, even if that wasn't our first choice. We both agreed and have followed that plan.

If you don't mind sharing, why it has been so long? Is it implantation failure, not getting embryos, etc? I've seen lots of specialists unfortunately so may be able to advice a little.

Hey, no advice on the other side but I can sympathise and say that most couple going through this will have gone through something similar. It’s definitely hard and does take a toll. I struggle with just how much it consumes our lives and feels like we don’t really ‘enjoy’ life in the same way as we just live and wait for each next stage.would suggest to try and take some time for each other than is outside the process. Date again. Have some fun ( I know it’s hard when your in the middle of such a traumatic road) remind each other why you love each other.
try to schedule time for talking about ‘it’ and only speak about it then so it doesn’t dominate every conversation. I know my partner struggles with how much it affects me so I try to not go on about it too much and allow myself to vent and talk and then go okay let’s talk about something and do something else

know your not alone
x

Thank you so much, there is some amazing advice here! We had a conversation yesterday where he said that he doesn’t know what to do because he feels that I am just so sad all the time and he doesn’t know how to help. We are currently on holiday and I’m not sure if it has just magnified it because in day to day life we are not together 24/7.

@Olivie12 I have blocked fallopian tubes which is the problem, but I also have Crohn’s disease and the blocked tubes are caused by past surgeries. I’ve seen 4 surgeons now but none of them are prepared to operate as they say I’m too high risk, one said I would need to be in ICU and could end up with a stoma which was quite scary. Anyway, the outcome of that seems to be that the only suggestion is just to keep doing egg collections and transfers until one sticks. We’ve done 4 so far and none have worked, and have one frozen embryo left from the last collection and then I’m not sure what we’ll do. I think one of the hardest things is that every appointment I go to, every doctor that I see just tells me all the things that are wrong with my body and how it doesn’t work properly, but no one can seem to offer me a solution on how to fix it!

I think part of the difficulty is that there is no end in sight. When we just keep doing the same thing over and over and it doesn’t work, it’s hard not to feel a bit hopeless really. Plus there is also the financial impact of a plan that never ends!

@SH998 he doesn’t already have children but I know he is less bothered about this than I am. He has been quite honest about it from the beginning. I think if/when we finally have a baby, he will be a fantastic dad and it will be less of an issue, but right now it feels like a big problem when we have different feelings on it. If you don’t mind me asking, how did you manage to resolve things after you split?

@clazbear i feel you, it’s awful to want something so badly and it’s completely out of control, that with what you think could be an unsupportive partner just adds to the stress of it.
I was unexplained so didn’t really have any answers on how to resolve the issue.
After we split I told him I was prepared to do it alone and use a sperm donor if needed. That really hit home to him just how much I wanted to be a mum. It was never guaranteed but his lack of support just made the situation more difficult.
After that I think he realised that I was prepared to walk away for good and maybe he was afraid I actually would.
His attitude changed then and he became more supportive, thankfully we were one of the lucky ones IVF worked for and we now have our happy ever after.
Is it definately due to your medical history preventing you from catching? I wouldn’t want them to use this as the cause when it might be something else which hasn’t been explored.
Have you had all other bloods etc taken? Xx

@SH998 we have had all the usual tests and everything has come back normal. We did not test our embryos which is something I might consider in the future as the endless cycles of transfers that don’t work is really starting to take its toll. We have had reasonably good results at egg collections though.

I have often thought I might end up in a situation similar to yours where I was happy to go it alone if it came to it. To be fair, I am maybe being a bit harsh on my husband here, he has done everything I have asked of him up until now, he comes to every appointment, I know he would love for this to happen as he knows it’s what I want. But as well as all of those things, he’s very black and white about a situation and matter of fact. For example, the last failed transfer we did a couple of weeks ago, I said on the transfer day that I didn’t think it would work as so many things had gone wrong (the embryo wasn’t quite how they wanted it to be when it defrosted, the equipment kept breaking and then she said I had a tilted uterus which made it much harder to put the embryo where it needed to be). He took this so literally that when it didn’t work, he was very much like ‘oh well, we did say it probably wouldn’t work this time, we have one more still to try’. I know he doesn’t mean anything by this, but I can’t be as relaxed and simplistic as that, for me it feels like one more failed attempt, and I’m starting to doubt if it will ever work!

@clazbear if it's just the blocked tubes IVF would have worked. Have you had a hysteroscopy? Checked for endometritis? NK cells? If those 4 transfers were PGT embryos you should see a Reproductive Immunologist, that would be Implant Failure. They can give extra medicines along IVF to help your immune system receive/accept an embryo.

Now if the problem is also not making enough embryos per round, after a set time of IVF rounds you could go with DE. You have to do something different, can't expect to do all the same IVF rounds and get different outcomes. Something different could even be a different protocol to try to get more eggs, using a primer before your cycle even starts, etc.

You have to both be clear of the end goal, what is the maximum you would go for. As in, how much more time, how much money, etc. you do need to see a final date or procedure. We both agreed that we would try until we ran out of money; however, we made a plan of try 3 cycles with this clinic, other 2 with a different doctor that has the best embryo development equipment up to the last being getting a surrogate.