BFP after IVF - the journey continues (part 2)

[HopefulllHolly]

SENSITIVE CONTENT

Continuation of previous thread for anyone with a BFP following IVF to support with anxieties and other worries that come along with pregnancy after infertility.

@AnnieStar12
@DippyDuck19
@DogMummy87
@Edf
@Fluffyted
@Leaf86
@LouP87
@Natty2
@SETTC87
@ThePeachGoose
@jas1996
@lemonyfox
@oliviagrace2307
@summerchild92

Please tag anyone else I’ve missed accidentally!

@HopefulllHolly love the bracelet and book ideas. We'll see when we get closer to the date what sort of celebration we'll have. But had a rant in me that I needed to get out lol

You're right, they're community midwives. Once I give birth, I'll get discharged from my maternity of choice / satellite clinic after 10 days I think, and I'll use my local midwives from the maternity I didn't want to go to, and they're based at my GP. Hopefully we all get there and can get stressed or complain about that part of the process lol

@HopefulllHolly I love the bracelet and book ideas.

As for men at baby showers, DP has no choice, if I'm suffering it he is too 😂 also he has been through so much himself, had surgery twice, just so that we could have IVF (and the baby be his biologically rather than donor) So I feel it needs to be a celebration for both of us and not just me because I'm the one that's pregnant. So will also be inviting our dads and his friends etc. my mum has a game for the men - who can down a baby bottle full of beer the quickest. It's surprisingly difficult!

@HopefulllHolly as for your question about what I’m planning to ask the consultant, so far I’ve got questions about dating my pregnancy and a planned c-section as I’m concerned they might book me in too late, also want to ask for reassurance about my 12 week screening results as I don’t feel great about them. I’ll probs ask about whether I’ll have extra growth scans after 20 weeks. Sure ill think of more questions before next week too!

If anyone else has questions they’re thinking of asking at appointments do share as might be useful to help me think of more!

Haha @ThePeachGoose I feel you on the rant! Some people love that gooey baby stuff - definitely my idea of hell!

@DippyDuck19 Yeah they are nice ideas aren’t they! Definitely agree partners need a celebration too. My other half loves it when we get little presents of clothes off my mum (she’s honestly bought an outfit or two every week bless her - all of them are adorable!), so he’d like to celebrate our little miracle I’m sure. Not sure our boy mates would be fussed but I reckon if it’s out for a meal or something they’d come!

@AnnieStar12 Good questions! I need some inspo for when I chat to mine otherwise I don’t get much out of it. Last time she literally just repeated midwives questions and it was about 5 mins long. Sorry you’re still anxious about your screening results - always something to panic about isn’t there! Currently I’m panicking that I feel totally normal, not pregnant at all and keep thinking something is wrong because of that. Thankfully the shooting pains have gone now though!

We had an early anomaly scan at FMU at 17+1 yesterday - all looks fine so far, have been rebooked for 20 weeks. Interesting your experiences with community / satellite midwives @ThePeachGoose @HopefulllHolly - I have to go to the hospital antenatal clinic to see my midwife team (there are five of them) and I won’t see a community midwife until post partum. I also have an anterior placenta, which explains why the movements I have felt have felt quite muffled and different from before (they also haven’t got massively stronger or more frequent than 3 weeks ago!). My placenta is also about 1cm from my cervix so quite low lying. They weren’t concerned as they told me anterior low-lying tend to move upwards. I will have another scan before I fly so will check then too.

@Leaf86 Thats good everything was ok! How come you had an early anomaly scan you lucky duck? I wish I could feel movement - haven’t felt a thing I don’t think. So funny how every place does midwifery differently! Do you live close to the hospital? And yeah my midwife basically said as your tummy stretches the placenta will move lighter, so I’m sure it’s all fine, woohoo!

I’ve been thinking the line up my tummy was because my trousers are too tight but I’ve realised that it’s that line you get when pregnant! lol 😂😂 I’ve had it a few weeks now and hadn’t noticed until today when I was wearing maternity jeans with no seams up them! 😂

Ah it’s because our first pregnancy ended in a termination for medical reasons, so the FMU scans me at 12, 16 and 20 (or as near to those weeks as possible - mainly for reassurance to reduce anxiety and obviously to check for issues at the earliest opportunity @HopefulllHolly Each one is terrifying but it’s obviously lovely to see baby. When is your next scan again? Just a couple of weeks away?

We are about 45 minute drive from the hospital, we actually live a 10 minute walk from one closer, but it’s CQC rating was rubbish and the hospital we chose has a very good adult ICU and NICU which was important to us.

Hahaha that’s brilliant with the pregnancy line - it’s not something I’ve had this time (and I only had a faint one last time). 😂 I’ve resisted buying any maternity stuff yet, apart from a pair of black linen trousers. I am mainly wearing dresses to work and then leggings at the weekend. I managed to get my lululemon leggings to stretch to 39 weeks last time (non-maternity)!

@Leaf86 Oh my gosh yes I’m so sorry! I do remember now. Well I’m glad with each scan you get some more reassurance. So pleased for you as I remember you saying 13-20 weeks was your anxious bit - half way there! Yeah my 20 week is on the 4th so just trying to focus on that now. I hope everything is ok. Then I think once I get to 24 weeks and it’s viable I’ll let myself enjoy it more. I picked a hospital further away because our closest one isn’t the best, we have a little 35/40 min drive too.

Oooh do you mean the aligne leggings? I just bought a second pair of them as I’ve been wearing them round the house and I thought they’d definitely see me through the 9 months as they are so stretchy. Good choice! I’ve only bought a maternity T-shirt and 2 pairs of jeans as seraphine had 15% off, and I was sick of wearing the same drawstring linen ones on repeat even though they are comfy. Plus I’m getting bigger as I don’t need the drawstring now and previously they fell down without it 😂 I’m not a massive dress wearer but bought some midi knitted ones for winter but otherwise I think I can wear my old winter stuff as I love oversized clothes anyway so they all still will look fine I think! Really hoping I don’t spend anymore on maternity clothes tbh - they feel a waste when this is probably going to be my only baby.

@Leaf86 pleased to hear your scan went well!

@ThePeachGoose @AnnieStar12 best of luck for your scans tomorrow too. And hope you got on ok telling work @AnnieStar12!

@HopefulllHolly love the book idea, I've made a note of that as it's such a lovely thought!

Well remembered Natty! Good luck with your scans tomorrow ladies 🥰 @ThePeachGoose @AnnieStar12

We had a very eventful night 😬 I woke up at 3am and went to the toilet and when I wiped there was a pink-ish/brown show and it scared me. And as my gynaecologist doesn’t work on Thursdays, I went straight to the ER in the middle of the night 👀 they checked me, did an ultrasound and they said the baby looks alright still … but as I haven’t had my next check up with my gyn. I didn’t know what blood group I have and they sent me to the lab again. Figures I have 0 rh neg. so I just got a shot to protect the baby in case he/she is rh + 😬💉

They classified this as threatened abortion although it was a very small bleed (only when wiping) so I’m even more anxious now for my next check up which is in 11 days. 🥲 Who knows what can happen in the meantime - hoping for the best obviously. 🥹

Has anyone else had any spotting/bleeding (when wiping) and all turned out okay? 🙏🏻

@summerchild92 How far along are you now? 11 wks-ish? I’m sure it’ll be ok - think there’s a fair few ladies on here who’ve had bleeding. Did you have a haematoma? Can you go to the early pregnancy unit and have a check over to see if they can see where it’s coming from? So sorry must be super stressful!

Yes, I’m 11 + 3days.
The gynaecologist who did an ultrasound said a tiny vessel must have ruptured and that caused a small bleed. It has already stopped I think as I don’t have anything on a pantyliner and the only thing I wipe is some brown residue of the gel I have to insert daily. Usually is white/yellow-ish, but I guess due to the bleed it is now brown-ish. Hoping this was a one time thing as it was super stressful 😥 especially in the middle of the night. My mind went to thing the worst immediately. 😧

@summerchild92 Oh bless you, I’d be exactly the same! Sending big hugs. Baby is ok and it’ll be alright - try and relax and rest today as I’m sure tiredness won’t help either.

@summerchild92 sorry you had such a scary night, but glad it sounds okay!

My scan isn't until much later today, I had horrible dreams about the scan last night. Tbh, I think I might be causing myself more stress at this stage having extra scans as I get worried in the lead up.

@AnnieStar12 oh god yeah … every time before a scan my heart rate goes up. I think on my next check up I’ll have the same one as the baby😬🫣 Tonight my pulse was 124 when they checked my vitals. 😬 Understandable as I was nervous as hell.

@HopefulllHolly I think I’ll just rest/sleep
for the rest if the day. 😳 I’m nervous it will happen again tho 😬😬

But the baby really looked all good and it changed a lot from my 9w scan. It looked like a proper human baby, so that reassured me a little bit. 🫣🫣 Hope there’s still a heartbeat on my next scan. 🙏🏻

@AnnieStar12 Good luck! I’m sure everything is fine and baby is growing away 🥹 be nice to see how big she is now. I kind of wish I’d had a scan this week because it feels like ages still for the 20 week (13 days now) but I know what you mean, I get so anxious before every scan. I’ve not had one where I’ve not cried from relief when they say there’s a baby and a heartbeat. 😅 Im going to be in such a state for the 20 week one with all the checks and things but equally excited to get to that milestone. Don’t stress! It’ll all be ok! 😘
And I’ve been having nightmares loads the last few nights - last night I dreamt the baby hated me and I couldn’t look after her and she grew to the size of a 4 year old in a week and it was horrible 😂😂

Sorry to hear about your eventful and scary night @summerchild92!

A small amount of pink / red bleeding is not usually a cause for concern in early pregnancy (though the diagnosis they gave you sounds particularly scary) and especially if it’s not accompanied by painful cramps / contractions. But it was lucky that you went to the A&E and discovered the Rh-. Maybe they are connected, maybe not. Separately, neither are particularly scary usually, but it’s a good thing that you went in to get checked right away (which you should always do for any pink / red bleed) and a good thing that they acted so quickly to check bloods and give you the antibody injection.

On Rh- I posted a few screenshots from my pregnancy books for someone else a few pages back. Go back and read them. You’ll see that it’s not usually an issue in first pregnancies and there’s a particular protocol for it.

On pink spotting / red bleeding / brown discharge, there’s a million reasons why that could happen. I spotted / bled brown from week 3 to 12, and I had a big episode of red bleeding at 6 weeks that took me to A&E, filling several pads in a few hours and with big clots. All was fine, baby was happy and they discovered a haematoma. The only treatment for bleeding is progesterone which I assume you’re taking due to IVF and if you still have bleeding, they might up your dose or extend your course.

I had another smaller bleed at week 11, this time due to the placenta covering the cervix. I assume that being highly vascularised and so close to the cervix, the blood just got out, but it will move away from the cervix most likely.

Before they found the haematoma, my consultant told me that it was probably a leaky blood vessel or something like that as the uterus is under a lot of stress and hormones, so to avoid activities that elevate my heart rate and intercourse. And flying. The EPU was a bit more chill on activity but I went forward by living my life as normal and listening to my body if I got discomfort, but avoided workouts. I would tend to get more brown discharge if I walked more.

What kept me sane throughout, considering I had brown discharge for most of my pregnancy, was regular scans. And the stats. At 11 weeks and 3 days your miscarriage rate is pretty low at 1.9% - https://datayze.com/miscarriage-reassurer

Everything will be okay 🤗

As an update to the group, my 12 week scan went well today. Baby looks perfectly fine at this stage and is very active. But I clearly threw the sonographer off by bringing along my NIPT result and the nuchal scan + blood test combo result from last week. In the end I just re-did the nuchal blood test on the NHS as well, to have it logged in their system the way they want to do it since it’s all a big formula and no one seems to agree on my due date. In the end they decided my due date will be based on my day 5 transfer, so 28/02/2025 and she said they won’t change it since they have such an accurate date from IVF.

For some reason I thought that today I’ll meet an obstetrician and get to ask all of my questions, but no. It was just a sonographer who took measurements of the baby, and inputted the data in the system for their formula. I barely got to tell her about the heematoma and she said that she can’t see it 🤷🏻‍♀️ i’m not completely sold that it’s not there anymore but either way, I cancelled my flight to be on the safe side and I’m taking progesterone until week 16. The whole appointment felt rushed. There was definitely no time and she wasn’t the right person to ask about planned c-section.

On the plus side, I managed to get my booklet lol, I got to book my 20 week scan, and I hope I will be able to ask more of my questions in Sept when I have my first midwife appt at the satellite clinic, or in Nov when I think I’m actually seeing an obstetrician due to having an IVF pregnancy.

Hope your scan went well today @AnnieStar12

@Leaf86 congratulations on your scan! While terrifying before going in, it must be such a relief to see that the baby is doing well with these extra scans. I went to a hospital further away as well due to the CQC reports of those close to me. But the one I chose has a satellite clinic close to me for midwife visits so can’t complain.

@HopefulllHolly oooh the first pregnancy line!

I haven’t ventured into maternity clothes just yet, but I wonder if anyone has any good recommendations for some soft sports bras, made out of cotton ideally and with adjustable bands, with a thin strip underneath the bra instead of the wide ones that sports bras usually have? I haven’t needed much support in my life and have been getting away with simple fabric ones, but I’m considering of getting something more serious now that my breasts have doubled in size (from a low base, but still 😆)

@ThePeachGoose Yay! I’m so glad baby is all good which is the main thing. Sounds a bit rubbish the rest of it though - but hopefully the haematoma has gone now?! That would be good! I guess sonographers don’t like to say too much as they aren’t experts in pregnancy, so probably for the best you didn’t dive too deeply in! I had the obstetrician at my 12
week appt but tbh it was a waste of time (the appointment was an hour late - I think they forgot - and then she just asked how I was feeling, about the ivf stuff and that was it). I got more out of the midwives personally! I’ll let you know what they cover at my next appointment with the obs though in a couple
of weeks.
Glad you got your booklet so all is not lost 😂😂 I think they talk about birth choices much later so i wouldn’t worry you haven’t raised that. I’ve actually changed my mind and have decided to try for a natural birth. I’ve started hypnobirthing learning and I’ve watched all of the Emma Willis programme “Delivering Babies” and it’s totally calmed me down now.

Have my first pregnancy Pilates tonight and I really can’t be bothered - I’m exhausted today! My eyes won’t stop twitching 😅 but I know I need to get moving and limber up so I can be strong and healthy for baby. Going for a pregnancy massage tomorrow to recover because I know im going to be sore! 🤣🤣 Also my little bump has properly sprouted as of today. I had one before but now it’s massive in the mornings too and a really cute little shape - i love it! Our bodies are amazing 🤩

@ThePeachGoose glad your 12 week scan went well!

@summerchild92 sorry you had a bit of a scare but pleased everything is ok.

@Leaf86 glad your scan went well too!

@HopefulllHolly what are you using for hypnobirthing? I too have decided for a natural birth rather than ELCS. I need to find out if my hospital do mobile epidurals and remifentanyl as I think these are my preferred options compared to other pain killers. I think I want to read up on hypnobirthing too to try and keep me calm!

This time next week I would have had my 20 week scan! I hate the week leading up to the scan. I get really anxious!!! I just can't shake that feeling that something is going to go wrong!! I'm away again for the weekend so hoping that makes the next 4 days go quickly!!

@ThePeachGoose congrats on a successful scan! It’s all a bit hit and miss who you see at each appointment and how helpful they’ll be. I’ve been fairly lucky so far with supportive staff at each appointment. But I’ve certainly experienced many bad ones in previous pregnancies! As for maternity bras, I am living in lindex brand maternity bras. Defo my fav!

My scan went well, baby was sucking her thumb- we could see her little mouth munching away with her hand up there! Was incredible to see. And she was measuring 1 day ahead this time.
I seem to always be 1,2 or 3 days ahead!

@DippyDuck19 My friend told me about this company so I’ve just gone with them and did little research but I like it so far! https://thepositivebirthcompany.com/digital-pack?utm_source=absolutelymama&utm_medium=paid_content&utm_campaign=march2024

I haven’t done any research on painkillers but I’d take an epidural as there are no medals for enduring pain! However it does make me a little concerned as it prevents you from feeling the urge to push. How come you want those drugs so I can do some studying of my own?

So exciting you’re almost at 20 weeks - the fear of the scan will be forgotten and you’ll be feeling like you’re past a massive hurdle in a weeks time! Plus imagine how big baby is going to be now! 😍🥰

Just got back from my Pilates and really enjoyed it. Was very gentle but apparently we build up. Lots of people have done the 6 week course repeatedly so some are 37 weeks so I was the least pregnant one. But will be nice getting to know people - and she does postnatal classes too so I think I’ll keep going 😊 already know I will ache tomorrow despite the movements being very simple!

@AnnieStar12 Awwww what a perfect little scan picture! How amazing! Hope you’re in that lovely little post scan happiness bubble. 😍🥰