July IVF/ICSI/FET

[DeeKel]

I didn’t see a thread for July IVF yet. I am due to start stims around 18Jul with estrogen priming starting the week before that. Collection will be the end of July all going well.
This will be my second IVF and I will be using ICSI. I will be 40 during treatment and 41 come collection. I have a child from my first IVF 3 years ago. Since then I had a chemical pregnancy Dec 2024 with my only other embryo from my 2022 cycle and a failed IUI in Feb this year.
I found the discussion board really helpful and supportive in my first IVF round as we all understand the crazy ups and downs of this rollercoaster. Wondering if there are any others with similar timing?

Day 3 update -
3 at 8 cells stage and 1 at 12 cells

Cannot stop crying. To be told after my last 2 cycles that I’ll never be a mum to a new clinic allowing this to happen is really taking its mental toll on me

@PlanBFertility This is such wonderful news. But so overwhelming! Pretty scary too that one clinic can take your hope away only for this to then happen… all credit to you for keeping it alive despite the enormous ask that is mentally/emotionally/physically/everything. Do you mind me asking what your new clinic changed please? Only if you have the energy to answer which of course need not be now!

Thanks so much ladies for all the solid advice. I definitely need to set boundaries which I thought i had done but people seem to be able to get around them and thats clearly my own fault. Thank you for letting me have a big rant, I really needed to get it out. I actually feel better for it and have come up with solutions moving forward. I have been meaning to contact the clinic about the pill im on but life has gotten in the way and I just didnt prioritise myself. Im nearly done on them now and just want to move forward from here.

How is everyone else going today?

@PlanBFertility keeping everything crossed for you, its all going in right direction :)

@Miraclemuma03 definitely ivf is the time to put yourself and little family first 💕

@ALittleExpressive how are you feeling? Had a bit of lower back pain yesterday but feel completely normal today

I am out tonight at a concert and need to take my pessary at 7.30. So i just go to the loo and pop it in??? Usually i lie down after inserting it

@Miraclemuma03 ah I hope the spotting stops soon. I've been spotting now past 3 weeks since starting the pill they put me on to control my cycle to fit their timing and I've been bleeding ever since. Anywhere from spotting , to a light period to looking like im fighting a full on flow. I'm sick of constantly bleeding and I have to continue them until the 27th July. when I contacted them about it they told me it was common and can last weeks or months due to hormones changing. Not one person at the clinic discussed this side effect with me which rather irritated me. I've had to take a few days break as apparently can't be on it any longer than 30 something days in one go so now I've got a withdrawal bleed and I've barely been able to get out of bed due to the pain. I rarely even suffer from period like pain. It was my sons 1st birthday and it's meant we couldn't even really celebrate it as they didn't tell me anything about the plan until I'd already started the pills otherwise I would have waited til the following month to start treatment. I don't even know why put me on it as my cycles were going to line up perfectly with their 'schedule' . Feel like im losing my mind already

@PlanBFertility that is such amazing news!! So happy for you and hope the good news keeps coming.

Hi everyone, please can I join? I started my first stims today on day 1 of AF. This is my 3rd private cycle, I had one NHS and 2 private cycles at a previous clinic. Got pregnant on first cycle with twins but it was anembryobic and after that I had two cycles with high fertilisation but none made it to day 5. Now trying again with a different clinic. Not sure I can go through another round with nothing to transfer at the end so hoping for a better outcome.

@FancyGoose so interesting to hear about your results as my partner has a varicocele. We were so excited when we found it as have been trying for so many years but our clinic were quite negative about getting it repaired and said it doesn’t really make a difference.

Catching up with the messages so far on the group

@SummerSolstice25 sorry to hear about your cancelled cycle, it’s so tough when you get that far through it.

@PlanBFertility congrats on your fertilisation rate and your embryos growing well. So amazing to have success after your previous challenges.

I’ve been having acupuncture since January as I have good egg numbers but my maturity isn’t always great and I did get more mature on my third cycle so maybe it helps. But I was also on lots of supplements so it could have been that. I will carry on with it weekly through this cycle but then might take a break as I don’t notice any positive benefits from it.

Hey @Timetotryagain !

I had a couple of twinges in my abdomen yesterday, but back to normal today too. You wouldn't believe how ridic this sounds, but I marched in London Pride today and we did the Nutbush City Limits dance as a group on a whim and I got all flushed. So then, naturally, I was scared that constituted too much physical activity 😬. I also missed my pessary timing by two hours, cause I was out and about, so I feel like I let the embryo down a bit today. My partner reassured me when I got in and I feel okay again. Maybe the embryo absorbed some Pride positivity while being jolted around??

Enjoy your concert! Yeah I would just shoot a pessary up there while you're out and about. It's really hard to sit down/lie down three times a day every day, hey!

@RainbowFluff yes no one ever paid much attention to my partners and it wasn't massive- 'borderline' apparently. But his morphology was poor, the volume very variable (but since he has been diagnosed with some regressive ejaculation), his DNA frag was really high and we just kept having poor results. We went to see Jonathan Ramsey who everyone raves about and he said that we were 'past an embolism' and the only option was surgical sperm retrieval so we did that and the sperm was worse than his normal ejaculate and we had our worst ever round. We then sought a second opinion with Prof Minhas and he recommended the embolism although he was really pragmatic and said it might not work but it's sort of the only thing left to try. We froze some sperm with the clinic after about 2 months (have to wait three for sperm to regenerate fully) and they said the quality was a lot better although still 'not great'. We haven't tested again since as we knew we were using his sperm no matter what so didn't want the extra cost and time delay - but the fresh sperm sample on the day (at the three month mark) was better than the frozen sample (just based on the parameters they can test by sight- we didn't dna fragmentation test). And we got 6 euploid embryos from 15 eggs. We've never tested before but our previous results were: round 1 - 2 day 5 embryos from 10 eggs, 1 miscarriage, 1 BFN; round 2 - 2 day 5 embryos from 10 eggs, 1 miscarriage, 1 BFN; round 3 - 20 eggs but total fertilisation failure. So something has definitely changed for us - might be luck or the clinic but seems too coincidental to have nothing to do with the embolism. Finally, we got the embolism free on my partners healthcare as he said it was hurting so if you have any insurance definitely look into that. The recovery was quick too and I'd highly recommend prof minhas if you're london based. Sorry that was loads of info but hopefully gives you some food for thought 😊

@FancyGoose thank you so much for all the info, I will discuss with my partner. So glad that you found something that seems to have worked for you, whatever it is. It’s so hard when even two doctors at the same clinic seem to give conflicting advice.

@ALittleExpressive I had to do one in the portaloo at a wedding once, that was a particularly challenging position!

How’s everyone doing?

I am beyond anxious waiting for day 5 to come. I’ll email the lab for an update tomorrow as well - I’m sure they’re sick of me by now!

@PlanBFertility Waiting for that update is the worst, even thinking about it makes me feel sick. I really feel for you!

I found out this afternoon that I’m good to go for this cycle and did my first stims. The reality that my clinic now want me in every day for blood tests for the next ten days is starting to sink in now - ugh! Hopefully will be worth it.

Seems as though my spotting has stopped thankfully. I have 1 day to go and then can stop them.

Im so sorry it was hard to celebrate your sons first birthday, that is very difficult. Can you come off them and try something else, surely if you have a pretty good cycle you wouldn't need to be on a pill?

Morning all.

My wonderful clinic have given me a day 4 update. All 4 at the morula stage and the embryologist is ‘quietly confident’ I will make transfer.

@PlanBFertility Hooray! Go go go 🫶🏻

@magpie234 thank you. I am terrified they’re all going to stop growing today

Thats great news.. fingers xd more great news tomorrow.

One more day on this god awful pill. What a ride. Though today seems to have been a better day. Still have headaches, still flustered, still annoyed and short fused but hubby was home today and he took over the household, he usually works 10hr days through the week and 8hrs on a Saturday so we usually share the work load on a Sunday but he took the kids outside with him to do yard work and he did a bit of housework and washing and I caught up on some greys anatomy, I have made it to season 11 episode 14 im pretty sure it said. It has taken years and years to get to this point hahaha because I dont watch telly but I really enjoyed the break and some me time, its a very thing to happen.

@Miraclemuma03 This clinic sync cycles up with other women so they have a very strict schedule and only plan x amount of treatments per month and apparently It was too late to use the other option of norithstherone just to induce a timed bleed before starting and hence reason why they've stuck me the pill for 2 months which is baffling. We now wish we'd went with the other clinic to be honest .
Our son is an ivf baby from our previous nhs round but this private clinic really are a step down from the nhs.
I'd really rather just do what we did the first time as we know at least that gave us a viable embryo but this clinic are a one fits all approach and insist on doing it their way

Any of you ladies done ivf previously and returned for another round ? Is there a minimum amount of time frame they require you to wait ? We're contemplating booking with another clinic just incase this round doesn't work out but they have a few months waiting list. I'm wondering if we should get on the list now so that we could start a month or two after this one, should it fail or do they require you to wait several months for your hormones to settle down or anything

Thank you. I believe this is when biggest drop will be, right?

So far 4/5 have fertilised and made it today 4 ❤️

@PlanBFertility that's wonderful news!!

@VioIetMoon I've never done two egg collections back to back as have always had a FET in between too so had a couple of months in between but they've never been too fussed about leaving time between and I remember being surprised with how quickly they've let us crack on following a BFN so I don't think you'll have to wait too long. However I think every clinic is different and some clinics want mock cycles etc (although think that's fairly unusual!)

Can I join please.
I have one frozen embryo left but it’s a little fragile (6BC)
I was going to transfer it in May but ended up doing the endomeTRIO test as I’ve had minor surgery near my uterus before so wanted to make sure there no infections. I was going to just go ahead with the transfer but the minute the doctor mentioned this as a possibility I thought I should check just in case as it’s my one embryo. My lining and hormone levels all looked good to go ahead that month, so it was a hard decision but I did the test. The results were okay.. I then went back into another cycle in June hoping to transfer then and for some reason my lining didn’t get where it needed to (only got to 5.8mm) and estrogen started going down so god knows what went wrong, hopefully just a duff month but I was devastated when they had to cancel the cycle. I have spent the weekend kicking myself for not going ahead with the transfer In May when everything was looking good, especially because that test was expensive. I feel so deflated putting hormones in my body for 2 months for nothing but trying to get myself geared back up for the next round..
I have an NHS appointment 17th this month and hoping I can jump straight back into another IVF cycle with them (went private last time) If not I’ll transfer my frozen embryo on the 31st July instead.
Whilst I’ve been feeling deflated I also know this is a journey and trying to look forward not back.. It can be hard sometimes!
What are you all doing to support yourselves through this emotional rollercoaster and what you doing otherwise?
I’m taking supplements and may start acupuncture! My friend who just got pregnant with IVF first time also said she did daily circle + bloom meditations which really helped.
Good luck to you all!