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?

I would wait until the evening surely if its the same day it won't make a massive difference to outcome.... My clinic only likes us to preferably take the stims at the same time each day.... Is injecting in the evening an issue for you? Maybe ask at your appointment if you can inject every evening instead of every morning this time? So that way you get a dose in today.

@ChyLL @YellowTack & @Cherryblossom90 that sounds nerve wracking!
@ChyLL I hope your consultation goes well and they give you a green light. Hopefully taking the first dose a bit later is a minor difference! Keep us posted 🤞

Oddly my clinic, or protocol, isn't like that at all: they basically put me in Norethisterone and assumed I'll bleed after stopping it, then blithely scheduled specific dates for me afterwards to take prostap and stims, AND booked 3 "progress" scans to check follicles for early February!

I actually didn't like that when they briefed me, seemed like they are trying really hard to make my cycle fit their opening times, and are making a lot of assumptions in the process. But what you're going through seems even more stressful! You can never win I suppose 😉

@YellowTack i was on 450IU and no side effects 😊

Anyone else on a long cycle? I don’t think I’ll have EC under March! 😥

@ivfjourneyandme I’m on short protocol technically but because they’re doing the norethisterone this cycle I won’t have EC until March either so I’ll be same time as you. Just waiting on period to start sometime this week so I can get my meds delivered and start the tablets on about cd14 I think

@ivfjourneyandme I think I will be the same, EC in March. If I understand the Long Protocol I’m on correctly (which I’m not sure I do lol) I’ll get my Prostap injection on 5th Feb but I don’t start my Buserelin until 25days later so taking me to 1st March and there’s a way to go after that before EC so I will be way into March by that point. Gosh it’s such a long process.

It’s making me anxious how dragged out the long protocol is

@KayEmmSquared @ivfjourneyandme you've both got this. Just remember that long protocol will mean you'll have more eggs collected than in short protocol.

I am doing short protocol however I have low AMH. We have been told with short protocol we'll be lucky to get 3 eggs collected, which is devastating as during the 5 day wait you're left with 50% eggs. So in my circumstance I will only be left with 1, if only 3 are collected to begin with.

To be honest, I hate that we have to go through ivf and how everyone else conceives so easily. But the hope that this is the way we'll have our baby keeps me going.

Sending lots of love and baby dust to you all. 2025 is our year. Is it your first ivf cycles? Do you have any other children?

I’ve calculated it to be about 10weeks from CD1 call for app to the day I take a test, I really wasn’t expecting it to be that long.

I’m glad that was able to get an appointment on my first cycle and didn’t have to add another 4-8weeks onto that.

@lovelivelaugh63 my
first cycle ended in December with total failed fertilisation 😭 This is our last shot if it happens again!

AMH is 1.9pmol so reallllyyyyy low. Managed 4 eggs, all mature. Just none felt like fertilising

Thanks @lovelivelaugh63 same to you.

This is my first cycle and I don’t have any kids, yet!

OH and I have been trying for about 8 years, finally got to the top of the IVF list in March 2020 then covid hit and my clinic said they were putting treatment on hold. After a whole host of clinic delays since then we are finally getting started.

@ivfjourneyandme are you doing ivf with ICSI this time round?

We are doing ivf with ICSI to aid in fertilisation.

@lovelivelaugh63 yep, it was with ICSI. Makes it even more devastating

Im sorry to hear that. Did they say why that happened? @ivfjourneyandme

@lovelivelaugh63 they have no idea. Can happen in around 3% of cases. Just unlucky I’m hoping on first attempt. Gut feeling tells me I’ll never be a mum; but trying to stay positive and hope it doesn’t happen again x

@ivfjourneyandme You will be a mum and this will be your cycle. I manifest it. Don't give up. Sometimes for some of us the journey to motherhood comes with a lot of hurdles and obstacles along the way. But we reach our destination at the end. Stay positive 🤍

@ivfjourneyandme I really hope everything works out for you this time!! Keeping fingers crossed for you!

@KayEmmSquared nice to see another long hauler, 9.5 years for us, I really wish we had been more insistent with the dr after that 1 year of trying tbh but then we moved house, got married, all the things we kept delaying for, then covid hit 🙄 and then last year I was finally like right that’s it, I’m not letting anything else delay me. It feels really surreal that it’s all actually happening now and I keep going between “okay at least it’s soon” and “why didn’t I do this way sooner” 😭

@Cherryblossom90 @ivfjourneyandme thank you for reassuring me on the side effects, I am sure it will be all fine.

@Cherryblossom90 I seem to recall your username from another thread. Were you also part of the September thread?

@ivfjourneyandme @lovelivelaugh63 it’s nice to hear from other ladies with low AMH. It always makes me feel bad about myself when I see other people’s numbers! But as they say it only takes one! During my first round they collected 5 eggs and we ended up with 3 blastocysts so I will be very happy if we can get the same numbers this round!

@ivfjourneyandme I am sorry to hear about your last round, fingers crossed this one will give you better results!

Hi @YellowTack no I wasn't! But I find mumsnet is really helpful during this journey and reading others experiences makes me feel less alone so I have commented on some other threads but not a September one!

@ivfjourneyandme I'm on a long protocol too. I will do my first injection of buserelin tomorrow to start down regulation (eeep!) and they anticipate about 14 days of this before starting stims. It's my first cycle oh IVF so can't give and insights on a long protocol but happy to keep you company on the journey!

Anyone else on Fematab? I'm on it for 2 more days (until 22nd), then I'm onto stim drugs - Provera & Pergoveris. I feel like the Fematab is making me "emotionally fragile" (or volatile 😬) we will say 😅 bloated, sore breasts etc but mood is pretty bad compared to normal tbh. I've a feeling I'll feel even worse when I'm on the stim drugs - anyone any direct experience with Provera & Pergoveris? I think Provera is progesterone I guess. The other one is to develop follicles.

Ps my mother in law is coming to stay with us from the states for 12 days all throughout this egg retrieval process and she doesn't know we are doing ivf - that should be fun 🤭🙃

@spttc wow about your MIL coming to stay. I think you said this is your first IVF cycle so just a heads up re egg retrieval in my experience you will be pretty much wanting to stay in bed for 24hrs after... What are your plans for this? Will you say your not feeling well or something like this? My SIL has just asked if she can stay over with my lovely little niece's over their Feb half term and I haven't replied yet becuase I would love to have them normally and in theory it shouldn't interfere with my schedule but on the other hand I don't want them to find out about the whole IVF thing especially since we have a really bad sucsess rate so it's unfortunately fairly likely this cycle will fail. I wonder how subtle I can be with the appoiment and injections...the menopir needs to be stored in the fridge until used which may be a problem... I defo wouldn't have them over egg retrieval day though! Good luck to you anyway with your MIL💚

@Cherryblossom90 yeh it's really not ideal. Obviously my husband needs to provide sample that day too. And we have a 2yr old. And no childcare 😆😂 I'm laughing but it's not funny really. The plan I guess. Just tell her we both need to work that day or he is working and I have a doctors app as I don't feel well. Drop my daughter off with her cousins as she just doesn't know my mil well enough to be comfortable with her for several hours (my mil lives in the USA). We go, do the damn thing. And then yeh if I feel awful then I stay in bed. I've asked about this in lots of online threads and it seems to just completely vary- some people feel absolutely terrible after, some feel fine. I'm hoping even for somewhere in between but what will be will be. She arrives 3 days before. I wasn't missing a whole month because of it though so it is what it is 🤷🏻‍♀️ yep I'll have meds in the fridge too I'm going to put them in a non see through lunchbox towards the back, not visible.

Okay great sounds like you thought this through @spttc just to say that the whole egg retrieval thing can take more than several hours. Just make sure your Mil is not excepting you back to soon.... One egg retrieval we did they couldn't find a good sperm in the fresh sample and I'm not even joking they kept us for HOURS while they defrosted a frozen sample, that was a looooong day. I'm not sure why we had to stay but we did. Not saying this to worry you but just so your aware!

@Cherryblossom90 yeh no I'm not worried at all. She's pretty chill and tbh even if she wasn't chill - this is much more important than 1 day of her 12 day visit. She can wait. She's American too and they sort of have different attitudes in that they don't really get the annual leave from work we do. When we go visit them they literally can't take a day off so we only see them after work. So she will be good & expect it probably. We plan on running her ragged the first few days anyway, it's my daughters birthday etc and with jet lag I'd say she'll be happy for a quiet day 🤣😅 needs must - if we put off doing this everytime there was an obstacle we would never do it.

@Cherryblossom90 @spttc you are very brave to have/consider having family during your IVF cycles. I totally get not wanting to wait/delay treatment because there will always be something else that will overlap with IVF!

My in laws were supposed to come during my first round. They live abroad but still in Europe, and of course the first time they decide to visit us in 5 years is during my IVF treatment! I was too stressed to have them stay with us and we had to find an excuse to make them reschedule their trip. I am so glad they rescheduled because it would have been very hard to do the injections with them at our home. They wanted to go to restaurants or do activities at night that would have made it very difficult and stressful for me. Plus it would have been very hard for me to hide the medicines in the fridge as I had many boxes, and they would probably have seen me taking my medicines out of the fridge. They are really nosey so I don’t know how I would have explained all the appointments for the scans, EC and ET!
I was lucky to be completely fine after EC!

@spttc your MIL sounds more chilled than mine 😅.