Considering IVF advice please

[TTCbaby2xox]

Just looking for some experiences of others who have been through IVF. I’m lucky to have 1 child but have been trying for number 2 for close to 18 months and at 38, are now thinking about IVF.
It’s such an emotional decision. If you’ve been through it, how often do you need scans and to be physically present somewhere as there is no clinic that close to me so would need to consider how much time off work as well…which is secondary, but just wanting to know what I’m up against besides the low odds.

I’ve had an AMH test in June that came back 13.40 pmol/L. Which I believe is maybe the low end of the “normal” range, so I don’t want to leave it too long.

I have a way lower amh (you’re is more than 3x higher) which is significant in terms of the amount of time you’d need to be present. If you make lots of eggs (to me “lots” will mean something different than to the next person) then you’ve got a much better chance of needing fewer rounds, which can significantly reduce the amount of time you’d need to be there. I’d say ivf is labour intensive—I did three whole rounds but endured to cancelled rounds so basically 5 this year, and, as I’m self employed, I want able to work my normal job as I would be too flaky. I don’t know how much you need to be there for frozen transfer prep, I never made enough (if any) blasts to get to that stage. I will say, that even with my shitty chances, I’m currently very early pregnant. Unknown viability but still a chance, and your odds are a lot better than mine, and I underperformed even for my stats.

IVF itself, for me, was not as bad as its press. Yes it’s an emotional journey, but it’s underscored by infertility, and that, rather than ivf as a medical process, is what creates such pain. I quickly got used to injections, scans etc, dare I say, enjoyed the process and learning about my body, how to read my ovaries and womb. A clinic nurse once said to me that you bring to it what you experience, in that, without having to be Mrs positivity, you can also avoid expecting and therefore making it an 100% bad experience. And this is from someone who’s done 5 complete rounds, and 7 counting the last minute cancelled rounds.

Thanks so much for taking the time to reply and to share your experience. My first baby took 2 years to conceive but I’m now a bit older again and into the next “odds” bracket. It would be self funded as we already have a child so that’s another hard thing to consider. It’s hard to think of paying all that money and then expecting it to fail, but I totally know what you mean by not having high hopes.
We’ve paid for investigations hence having the AMH results and everything looked ok but the consultant told us to keep trying another few months and then see about IVF but told us the chances of success would only be about 20-25%.

Can I ask what might be a silly question, do IVF “rounds” count as the egg retrieval bit or when you have the embryos is it the course of the medication and implantation? Hope that makes sense.

I hope you get there with your journey and it’s all worthwhile. I like your take on using it to learn more about your body too. Definitely a plus to it all. Good luck with everything. Xx

Hey not a silly question, so a round includes the process of you taking the drugs, scans, egg collection, then making the embryos, then the transfer of all the embryos you make. Round 2 is starting the whole process again, drugs, egg collection, embryo making, transfers. With a decent amh like yours, you could be hoping to make more than a single blastocyst (the day 5 developed embryo you want for transfer), so maybe you’d get a fresh transfer (best quality would be chosen) and the rest would be frozen for subsequently transfers. Even if you made 20, it would still be one round.

Thanks for your luck wishing! Same to you :)

Hey OP, I started IVF at 38 with an AMH of 11.8 (I think, can't quite remember!) and a follice count of 11/12. We knew we wanted to do PGTA testing on embryos, as we had had a TFMR for a chromosomal problem, and to reduce the time to transfer a viable embryo, so did 2 rounds of egg collection, so the injections, scans, retrieval, embryo creation, then biopsying the embryos for testing and freezing them.

We were in a private London clinic, I had 4 or so scans for each egg collection round, and then needed a day off for the retrieval which was done under heavy sedation. So it did take a lot of time, each time I was in for a scan/nurse consult/trip to the pharmacy it was a couple of hours. Luckily my work was very supportive and I was open with them I was doing IVF.

Physically, I found it OK, better than expected, but emotionally hard, especially when initially it seemed we might not get that many eggs, I found the waiting and wondering harder than the injections or medication affects.

With the pgta testing, my consultant was pretty optimistic for our chances - a pgta tested embryo has (for me with my medical background anyway, it may vary) a 65% chance of implanting and of it does, the risk of miscarriage is much lower than an untested embryo. For me it was worth the peace of mind.

What I would say is before IVF, or before a transfer anyway, if you haven't already then do get your thyroid tested, and blood clotting, and maybe look at a uterine environment (a saline scan and a microbiome test) to see if there's anything off there that might be having an impact now, and would also be good to resolve before getting to a stage of transferring embryos