IVF/ICSI February 2025 🌟 ❤️

[ivfjourneyandme]

Hi ladies,

Starting early with this thread in hope some are on a similar time frame!

36yo, been trying to conceive for 2yrs. Severe MFI as well as AFC of 3 and AMH of 1.9pmol/l

First IVF cycle with ICSI ended with a total failed fertilisation - 4 eggs collected, all mature but no fertilisation.

We have now switched to long cycle and added in DHEA, COQ10, melatonin, vitamin D, omega 3 alongside our fertility vitamins.

I should start my period end of Jan; and then start down-regulating February with transfer hopefully late February if I’ve worked it out right!

Anyone else on this mental torture of a ride?

@captainsmal ah ok - I'm taking provera for 26 days so maybe it was due to the length of time taking it for me. Makes more sense I guess.

@Raegs could be! Tbf I never told them that I get migraines though lol

Hi ladies,

I had my scan this morning and got the green light to trigger tonight for my collection on Friday.

I had one 27mm follicle, two 23mm, two 14mm and some small ones that will probably not contain an egg.

I am a bit worried at the size of my bigger follicles and really hope they will not be overmature at the time of collection! With such small numbers I don’t really want to loose any even though I know it’s a possibility!

Oh wow @YellowTack exciting! Collection on Friday! I hope it all goes well for you and you get lots of mature eggs! I can't remember what follicle size is 'good' did they say what the ideal size is?

AF arrived last night tg, so day 1 of my cycle today! Will start stims tomorrow, truly relieved to have finally got to here as time had dragggged over the past couple of weeks, you know how it is!

Iv always had to stim for 14+ days in the past cycles so I'm hoping I will be okay to do EC on the 11th of Feb (which would be day 14 of my cycle) but I'm not holding my breath to much for that one as I know it might be later. @Happibara and @LuckyFlash how are you doing in terms of starting stims I think you were on similar dates to me?

@Cherryblossom90 great news for the start of your cycle!

My clinic said they like to trigger when they see 2/3 follicles reach 18mm, so I can’t help thinking I should maybe have triggered yesterday but there is no way to know as I had a scan on Monday but no scan yesterday!

@Cherryblossom90 amazing to have got underway! Good luck with the start of stims.

AF hasn’t arrived yet for me. In the last year of tracking it has never been this late so totally typical! I’ve had to cancel my baseline scan tomorrow. Really hoping it comes today or tomorrow so I can rebook my scan and start stims this week I’m getting impatient!

@YellowTack that's fantastic! Keeping everything crossed for your EC Friday. Let us know how it was, if you feel up to it afterwards.

I completely sympathise with your follicle anxiety, it's a shame the scans aren't offered every day. I hope it will turn out okay! 🤞

I'd happily show up for a scan day after day, but as it is they are scheduled Wednesday-Friday-Monday. So I'm already worried about what will happen if they are large but not quite ready on Friday and then overmature on Monday 😱

@Cherryblossom90 Congrats on CD1! And good luck tomorrow with day one on meds. I'll start my stims just 1 day after you, on Friday.

I've given myself my first injection today! It was Prostap, which is supposed to shut my ovaries off (after they had a few days to work normally and hopefully make some of my own FSH), and allow the stims to take over.

I was really apprehensive: it's a 2-phase drug where solution and powder have to be mixed before injection, and the syringe comes with a full-size needle, which my clinic insisted I only jab into myself to half-length.

All that seemed very fiddly and stressful, and the syringe was too big for my hands to comfortably inject! In the end, I was so stressed about doing everything right that I barely felt the injection itself, and wasn't sore after either 😊 So I'll mark that as a success.

After this, the stims injections, which are a pen with tiniest of needles, seem like a breeze in comparison 😁

@YellowTack great news about Friday!

I had my scan today too and I’m all set to trigger tonight at 10:30 and then have my EC on Friday!

Im not sure on ideal follicle size either but my clinic like 2-3 over 17mm. They are estimating I’ll have approx 8 collected so I’m really keeping my fingers crossed…

Will keel my fingers crossed for us both! Keep us updated it you can ❤️

@YellowTack and @ChyLL good luck for Friday!!

My clinic said 3 follicles over 17mm for me so I’m having my scan 10/3 and hopefully trigger then EC 12/3 but if not it’ll be 14/3 after another scan instead. I’m having literally no monitoring scans except that one before trigger so I’m a bit nervous now 😬 I didn’t realise over mature eggs could be a thing!

Good luck everyone who’s waiting for AF to come, I know how frustrating it is, that was me last week! Then it was here for all of 2/3 days and already over 😅 I’m now counting down til meds delivery and norethisterone which starts on 13th Feb so two weeks tomorrow!

Well done and good luck to those who have just done first injections and started stims too! 🤞🏻🤞🏻 for everyone that these are the cycles it happens for us all!!

I’ve been having a weird time tbh, I don’t know if it’s just been bad PMS mood swings or not but even though I’ve been really positive and optimistic about this whole thing leading up to it, I think it being so close now has hit me and I’ve started getting some sort of imposter syndrome I guess? Keep freaking out about the stupidest stuff and then questioning whether I can do this. Really hoping I’m not going to be like this all through the norethisterone and stims too if it is hormone related 😬

Hey lovely ladies!

Exciting and excellent news for those having EC on Friday 😁 🌟

Ive had my clinic call today. Got a nurse appointment 11th Feb to discuss my protocol, start down regulating on 14th Feb and scan on 26th to see if my ovaries have switched off

Good luck everyone, lots of ECs this week, and hopefully lots of transfers in the coming week or so 🤞🏻

@captainsmal & @ivfjourneyandme you guys are about a week behind me so we could all be EC and transferring about the same time 😊

@ivfjourneyandme exciting!!
@KayEmmSquared thats awesome, it’s been so great having other people who are going through it at the same time! I do have a WhatsApp group for my area but they’re all vastly different stages in the journey, some have had their kids, some still waiting etc so I’m really enjoying this thread 😁 my transfer would be 17th-19th March if they let me do a fresh one 🤞🏻

Hi, how is everyone feeling today? Good luck to everyone having egg collection tomorrow!
I'm on day 10 of down regulation and it's really starting to hit now. I'm feeling pretty exhausted and I've had a mild headache since yesterday. I'm hoping my period will hurry up so I can contact my clinic to arrange a scan to check everything has shut down ready to start stims.

Good luck for tomorrow everyone doing EC!
How many more days of down reg do you have to do @Allnew2021 ?

@captainsmal about a week I think. I have to contact them today to let them know my period started this morning (finally!) and they will book me in for a scan next week at some point to check everything has shut down so I can start stims. I have to continue the buserelin but they said with the stims added in the side effects should lessen.

@Allnew2021 thats not too bad then. Yay your period came! So weird that we’re celebrating periods coming during ttc right!! 😅
I start priming in 13 days time now and stims in 4 weeks time, it’s all feeling very real now 😱

I’ve never wanted my period to come more! I’m now 2 days late which is very unlike me. Willing it to come on today so I can book my baseline scan before they shut for the weekend! 😬

Good luck for those having EC today and good luck @Happibara with starting stims today! Hope period come soon for you @LuckyFlash .

I know clinics are different but in my clinic we come in for a scan, blood test and a chat with the nurse on monitoring days while in stims. I was told this all takes max 1.5hrs. After my appointment yesterday I'm a bit sceptical about this!

If you are on stims and going in for monitoring while on them how long are you finding you are in the clinic?

@YellowTack @ChyLL Good luck today!!!!

@Cherryblossom90 thank you, I'll be doing the injection in the evening.

How was your stim day 1? And your appointment?

Your clinic seems a bit more comprehensive than mine, for me it will by just scans on scheduled days, no blood tests and probably minimal review unless I call them with questions.

I really like the idea that there's opportunity to talk to the nurse, I think that would be reassuring. But to be fair 1.5 hours for all that seems a bit long? Let us know how you find it!

I had my monitoring scan today. 14 follicles- but 3 of those aren't big enough so they might increase my stim dosage from this evening. Not sure if this is a good or bad result tbh the sonographer almost seemed disappointed but I was probably imagining it, maybe she was just concerned about the 3 not big enough 🤔 I'm hoping they do up my dose tbh. Back in for another scan on Monday.

@captainsmal i know! It makes a change to be impatient for a period to come! Your getting really close now, that's exciting 😊. My scan has been booked for next Friday now so looking like just 1 more week before stims 🤞.

@YellowTack and @ChyLL I hope today goes well for you both!

@spttc 11 follicles is a good number, and hopefully they will increase your dose and those extra 3 will get caught up.

Good luck with your first stims @Happibara!

Good luck everyone starting stims today!

How were peoples egg collections if you’re back home yet?

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

@spttc what day of stims are you on?
They could still grow! But agree with pp 11 good sized follicles is excellent news! The maths/stats is that about half of the eggs retrieved will be mature and then half of those will fertilise so 11 follicles/eggs should be enough for you to get at least one good quality embryo to transfer at the end of this. Of course that's just the theory, me personally I had 17 eggs retrieved in the past and total failed fertilisation 😭 But anyway that's the maths. So hopefully you should be fine with 11 good follicles!

@Cherryblossom90 I'm on day 8. Yeh it seems to vary hugely person to person I've seen people getting 30 and ending up with 0 and people getting 5 and ending up with multiple live births. There's studies showing a greater number can reduce quality etc. Depending how my numbers pan out I might do a 2nd egg retrieval.

Do you know what caused the failed fertilization? I'd say that was a shock 😞

I made the mistake of asking on an American board and apparently over there they're all getting 40 + follicles 🤣🤣🤣 what's that about? More drugs? I just deleted the question as it was depressing me / kind of freaking me out tbh. Then they all started trying to one up each other lol