First ever FET - medicated & ovulation?

[mumtrovert]

Hi all,

I’m sorry if this has been asked a million times.. I’ve been lurking the threads here recently getting myself all excited for our medicated FET next month, but I keep seeing some statements about triggers and ovulation in medicated cycles & have gotten all confused.

From what I understand from my clinic, I’ll be using Evorel patches and Cyclogest (the latter after a monitoring scan, I assume for my lining). It’s been explained to me that this will stop me from ovulating. There hasn’t been any discussion about ovulation or any other medication. Am I supposed to be not ovulating at all?

I know I could just ask my clinic and they all do different things, but not ovulating and ovulating seem like a big difference. I know obviously my fresh IVF transfer (which thankfully was successful), included a trigger shot.

Thanks in advance!

Hi OP, I’ve had 3 medicated FETs. You don’t ovulate. The meds essentially suppress your natural ovulation and cycle and instead the meds mimic the hormones needed for your cycle, so starting with estrogen to build up your womb lining and then they introduce progesterone from 5 days before your transfer (assuming you are using a 5 day frozen embryo). The benefit is they can manage the timing better and have better control over hormone levels. But some prefer a natural cycle as it involves less meds and you get a corpus luteum (see below).

The upshot with a medicated FET is that you don’t have a corpus luteum which is usually formed from the follicle that released your egg each month, if you don’t get pregnant in a natural cycle this is just absorbed back into your body. If you do get pregnant on a natural cycle the corpus luteum then produces the estrogen and progesterone needed to sustain the pregnancy until the placenta is formed around weeks 10-12. For this reason in a medicated cycle you stay on the meds until weeks 10-14 ish. There is some limited research indicating that the corpus luteum also releases small amounts of other hormones beyond progesterone and estrogen but it seems we don’t fully understand this yet.

Hope that makes sense and good luck!

sorry should have said - meds wise what I have had are estrogen tablets and evorel patches from the start of the cycle (after baseline scan). Then added progesterone via cyclogest pessaries and lubion injections from 5 days before transfer. I also took a daily blood thinner injection (Arovi aka clexane) from just before the transfer.

Thanks so much! That’s really helpful. This is all so complicated, hey? 😂