IVF Scotland - thread 6

[IVFlife]

That last thread filled up quickly without us noticing. So here is a new one for Scotland.

@KayEmmSquared2 beautiful news 🌞
and yes 25+4 and still hanging in there, hoping to clear 28 weeks and I can start to relax a little! Oooh just enjoy this moment!xxx

This makes me so happy @Nosejug you've totally got this! This is your time ❤️

@KayEmmSquared2 massive congratulations, what lovely news. Enjoy being in your wee baby boy bubble 💙

@KayEmmSquared2 Congratulations!

@Nosejug so nearly at 28 weeks! Hope you’re doing well.

Started meds for our FET and first lining scan today was good, so our final little embryo is being transferred on Thursday 🤞. Still seems very surreal that it’s the end of the road. It’s also crazy that my first little sticky embryo is now a 3yr old asking me questions about the medicine mummy is taking 🤯🤪 so it feels very full circle at the minute.

Hello, I'm hoping to join in. Looking to do IVF with GRI for second child. Have a 3yr old already.

Will need everything medicated as I do not produce any natural cycle myself at present. Then the consultant (Dr Khan) said she would consider fresh transfer if the conditions are all perfect (high OHSS risk due to sky high AMH) but frozen if not.

Not sure of the timelines from consultation to treatment at present. They want a repeat AMH and semen analysis as frustratingly we are JUST outside the 1yr mark. Then we will get a treatment outline letter/invoice.

Also, any advice in the preparation? Need to lose some weight, and I know coq10 is recommended?

@IWillBeWaxingAnOwl we had a consultation with GRI although ended up going elsewhere.
Dr Khan is lovely and gave some advice on supplements so she would defo give you that if you asked. I’ll see if I can find my list but coq10 was
defo one of them.
From consultation in Jan our transfer was going to be June with them but that was 2 years ago,
so hopefully you won’t have long to wait !
good luck

@KP1091 unfortunately that's still the wait! The consult was in June and it's Nov or Jan start. GRI are our only hope as GCRM won't take us. Is that where you ended up?

@IWillBeWaxingAnOwl yes we went with GCRM.
I just checked and after out GRI consult, Dr Khan sent out a letter of recommended supplements for me.
oh that’s a shame, I thought GCRM was fairly good at accepting most people.
Best of luck with GRI

Yeah @KP1091 we actually have had two rounds of all the assessments under them and they were great. It's a no from them due to a highly specific medication thing; so I don't want to say as it likely identifies us IRL.

What stage are you at in your pathway? I read back the last 6 months but didn't see posts by you ☺️

Just to say, our beautiful baby girl was born 12 days ago. We had ten days in neonatal, but discharged now and in bliss with our wee baba at home. She was just over 3 weeks early, had some breathing support and jaundice treatment and help with feeding, but building strength on the breast now!! X

@Nosejug oh my goodness! Congratulations! I’ve been checking this thread regularly waiting for this amazing news. Over the moon for you and so glad you finally got your wish! Enjoy every moment! Sending you, baby girl and family all the love xx

Thank you @KayEmmSquared2 ♥️ we are still in disbelief that it’s all true! Too scared to pinch myself in case I wake up! She’s wonderful.

Hope you’re getting on well with your own blissful bubble xx

Congratulations!!!! Thats fantastic news. I'm so glad you've finally got your baby in your arms (though sorry you had a bit of a traumatic start to things). Embrace that baby bubblw and soak it all in - days are long but the weeks and months and years go by so qucikly.

A little update from us - after trying to sit with the decision not to go for another, I feel I need to give it 1 last shot. Still adament I dont want to create embryos again, so DW and I have come to an agreeement to try 2 last rounds of medicated IUI. We have our planning appointment in 2 weeks, so I'm hoping we might be able to go on my next period at the end of July but it depends on processing incoming donor sperm so it might be August instead. I've just started taking coq10 and myo-inisotol. Not sure how much benefit we'll get as wont have the full 3 months on them, but at least I feel like I'm trying.

Could anyone recommend where they got their supplements? GRI/GRFC have recommend:

For me: 400 ug of Folic acid (5mg for women with a BMI greater than 30 kg/m2), 400 mg of
Coenzyme Q10, 200 mg of Alpha lipoic acid, 600 mg of N-acetyl cysteine, 200 IU of Vitamin E, 500
mg of Vitamin C and 10 µg of Vitamin D. For people with difficulty sleeping 3 mg of Melatonin at night can also be useful.

For DH: a multivitamin supplement, 400mg CoQ10, at least 900mg of DHA, 300mg r-alpha lipoic acid and 1000mg L-carnitine. Try to minimise exposure to toxins like BPA and thalates and optimise your diet with lots of fruit and vegetables. Reduce your alcohol intake and try to keep your testes cool by avoiding saunas and keeping your phone out of your front pocket.

That’s similar to what we were on and we got most things in Holland and Barrett. The last couple from Amazon.
your gp will prescribe the folic acid if GRI send them a letter

@IWillBeWaxingAnOwl Same here a combo on Amazon and Holland and Barrett.

I got these for coq10 https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08F77HQ91?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title as they use kaneka ubiquinol which is the active form and these worked out the best value I could find.

For folic acid, L-methyfolate is meant to have better absorption. These are 3 for 2 at the moment: https://www.hollandandbarrett.com/shop/product/active-folic-capsules-60044519

We now have our "ART appt" (?!) and consenting in august, then will be booked in to start after. There's two swabs to take to the ART appt but I have absolutely no idea what they are for... Great informed consent 🤣

They said as I have absolutely no cycle (no period in 3.5 yrs now) that this may actually be quite quick after as they don't have to match clinic availability to my cycle.

The outline protocol GRI sent says scan/bloods every 1-2 days (!). From anyone with experience - is this accurate? I'm not sure how I'm going to be able to work...

@IWillBeWaxingAnOwl from memory I had scans every 3rd day for around 7 days but I wasn’t responding well to the stims in terms of follicle growth. I don’t recall having any bloods done just the initial bloods pre treatment

ART will just be Assisted reproduction technology - it'll just be an appointment to plan what your meds will be etc. I assume (GCRM call it a planning appointmet). Never been asked to do a self-swab, but doing STI screening is normal before treatment.

I have a cycle so different, but GCRM its always been 7-10 days of stims before scans and bloods (for IVF), and then sometimes repeat scans 2 or 3 days later. I've normally only needed 2 scans before egg collection.

An increasing number of work places have a fertility policy (my work place have just put one in) formalising time off for appointments. You can tell your line manager you will have a number of appointments you need to attend that you wont have much notice about. You can decide if you want to explain its for fertility treatment or not

Thanks @2mumlife and @IndigoBluey (we love bluey in this house too). I'm NHS so technically private IVF leave is manager's discretion but mine has approved. I have a meeting with them after the ART to discuss how it'll work, I think I just have to be a bit patient...

I've been working on weight loss and it is creeping down but bloody slowly!!!

@IWillBeWaxingAnOwl Yes it can be 1-2 days, I’ve def had that myself but it’s not for the whole stim period, but if you’re getting close to being ready. So like the first few might be a good few days apart and the last maybe every two days or one if you’re close to ready and they done want to risk your eggs. I’ve now had all sorts of stim packages, but with down reg and max protocol I had 15 days of drugs, and with no down reg and minimum protocol (done privately) I only had about 3 injections and I was ready! Every body and cycle is difficult. On the work front, I’m self employed which is good for ivf in a way as I can just stop working, but bad as I obvs made no money for a while.

oh and the swabs, they’re the usual and I think stds as 2mumlife said, they also check you for group strep b which is handy as they don’t do that for women’s health in general (it’s not harmful and a huge % of women have it, but can be important to know for giving birth).

things move slowly until they don’t, good luck with your first round. I was so excited to get going! You learn a lot about your body.

Just catching up. Congratulations @Nosejug x

That was meant to say “every body and cycle is different” not “difficult” @IWillBeWaxingAnOwl sorry!

and thanks @IVFlife :-)

Hi all,
I've just had a cycle with GRI and we only had one embryo for transfer (the other 2 were not suitable for freezing) and the transfer failed.

They said my treatment would be reviewed over the next few weeks and they'd be in touch by password protected email.

I was wondering if anyone could tell me how long I should realistically expect to wait before they get back in touch with the outcome of the review?
Thanks!

@ThatAmberSeal hopefully you’ve already heard from them, but I was in a similar scenario (though I only got 3 eggs and one that made it to embryo) and it wasn’t long till we heard we could go again. I was already on maximum protocol so there were no changes to consider.

sorry your first cycle failed. Did they retrieve 3 eggs or was it 3 that made it to day 5? Maybe they can tweak your protocol. Best of luck.