December 2025 FET

[CoolSummer89]

Is anyone going to have a FET in December?

I was expecting to have one in January but when I went to the clinic yesterday they are going to try and squeeze a natural FET cycle in before the Christmas break!

I am 36, had my first egg collection last month but wasn't suitable for a fresh transfer. If my cycle plays ball my transfer will be 15th-17th December.

Hopeful for a lovely Christmas present but also being realistic given age and first transfer etc.

the annoying thing is she had a girl and was suuuuuper sick the first trimester and still did her workouts daily so I’m like well a) I’m not a Pilates coach it’s not my job to make sure I do it every day and I’d rather not make myself feel worse (although she claimed it made her feel so much better, but lying down did that for me so joke’s on her lol) and b) leave me alone I’m doing my best woman 😂
her girl is about a month and a half and she has totally bounced back (her abs are rock hard and fully visible already and she’s in crop tops damn her lol) so I’m sure working out consistently had a massive role there (plus her being in her early thirties) but honestly I am very much approaching this as “I am doing this once and I am gonna make it as enjoyable for myself as I can”
Oh, we’re super super close in our pregnancies, 2 days apart! Was your transfer 4th dec?
I deffo started feeling better three days ago (today is day 3 of feeling fine) so if it’s anything like mine you should be very close to being ok! When’s your 12 weeks scan?

I spoke too soon with the nausea, it came back yesterday afternoon and today has been pretty bad, I was sick earlier after eating some chocolate. The waves are less intense, but it’s there almost all day, whereas before I would have periods of feeling fine (mainly in the morning and early afternoon) then very intense waves of nausea, mostly in the evening.

I wish I had enough energy to exercise, I’m on annual leave and have spent most of today exhausted and nauseous in bed trying to find something I could manage to eat so I don’t feel even more sick.

My best friend ran marathons until the last few months of her pregnancy, I have no idea how! I had spotting 6-7.5 weeks so I’ve really limited myself, as I noticed if I had a particularly active day the spotting and back ache would start again, could have been a coincidence though.

@zirafica this made me laugh about your Pilates instructor! My PT said working out made her feel better when she had nausea too, but I really think it's a lot easier if you do it for a living...or that's what I'm telling myself 😂. Plus I haven't had abs since I was about 22 (I'll be 38 when baby is born) so not going to worry about that.

And yes my transfer was on 4th December so super close! Annoyingly my 12 weeks scan is actually at 13.5 weeks so not until Feb 17th.

I had a good day yesterday and thought I was heading in the right direction...nah. @OneQuirkyPanda I'm sorry yours came back too 😢. It really is a resilience battle at this point. One more day 💪. To be honest when I feel really crap I practically forget I'm pregnant, I'm just like...get through the next two hours. And then the next. And so on. Been doing weirdly well eating these fruit puree things recently but lets see how long that lasts 😅.

@whysohardtogetusername hahaha! Honestly I’m sure working out is the right thing to do but let’s be realistic here!
oh goodness my 6 week scan was at 7w5d and I was so annoyed 😂 I completely feel your pain. Luckily my 12w scan is at 12w4d so I’ll take that, but then as mentioned I’ve not seen a midwife yet (my first appointment with them is at 14w) so things are basically all over the place. And 5 weeks between scans is INSANE I’m sorry.
i have a friend (not ivf) who had her 16 week appointment yesterday and they said they wouldn’t do the Doppler “because they’re unreliable and there’s a chance it wouldn’t catch the heartbeat” and she told the midwife she doesn’t care, she wants her to try because he wants to hear the heartbeat and if she doesn’t she’s gonna book a private one so she might as well give it a go cause she wants to check in on the baby. Of course there was a super strong heartbeat and she even managed to record it for a minute so just one more nudge to advocate for yourselves, ladies!
also my nausea is back too, but it was a lovely 3.5 days 😭😭

Hi, I hope you are all doing well and don't mind me messaging but I was wondering if you could help me out a bit.
I am just about to have my FET transfer on Thursday and I'm now freaking out a bit. I never had fresh transfer because of OHSS and so I really don't know what to expect from it. I also started progesterone and haven't had any side effects yet, how long does it usually take for them to come on.

I have joined the February group but felt so much more comfortable in this one.

Again really hope you are all doing well and really pleased for you all about to reach the 2nd trimester.

Hi @RavenWillow
That's so exciting! They will ask you to arrive with a full bladder, but please just drink normally and at a level that you think you can hold for 2 hours, because they made me wait for 40 minutes and then my transfer took a bit longer and I was bursting by the end.
When you go into the room they will all introduce themselves, there is usually a doctor (who does the transfer), an assistant (who will scan your tummy) and an embryologist. The embryologist will confirm your details and then confirm that they have thawed their top choice embryo and confirm (hopefully) that it survived the thaw. I just looked back at your history and as you had 11 (!) embryos you will definitely have at least one survive! They pretty much always survive but there is always a slight risk for each embryo.
Then the embryologist will leave the room and put the embryo in the catheter ready to implant. You'll get on the bed and doctor will prepare you by entering in a speculum. Just a warning because your tummy is being scanned and the doctor is looking at your... business end, you're basically naked from the waist down. I think I had some of that medical paper for decency but it wasn't doing much.
Transfer doesn't take long at all, literally a few seconds. But after that the embryologist checks that it left the catheter. In my case it hadn't so I had to go through the process again. Which meant waiting for embryo to be reloaded while I was half naked. This is rare, but is more common with hatching embryos as they are 'stickier'. If you have any grades starting with a 5 or 6, these are hatching or hatched embryos.

Also: if you find it helpful to watch an embryo transfer. King's fertility had documentary crews in a few years ago and they have a few embryo transfers in this show: https://u.co.uk/shows/alex-jones-making-babies/series-1/episode-1/6369285824112

How much progesterone are you on?

Oh @zirafica so sorry yours is back too!! I feel like the on and off is hopefully a sign it will start to die down? I had a decent day today, although I say that it's hit from about 3pm again...

@RavenWillow I found I had side effects from the progesterone after about a day, with it getting worse over 2/3 days so if you don't have anything yet you might be OK. I had nausea from the progesterone alone, plus fatigue (it's a sedative) and restless sleep.

One thing to be prepared for as well as what others have said above, if you have a few embryos they may not use what you thought was your 'best' graded embryo. They looked at my top 3 and thought on review the second highest graded looked best and used that. As far as I'm aware, I still have all the rest stored so it wasn't a freezing issue, they just had another look and thought that was the best one. Hope all goes well on Thursday 💖.

Progesterone didn't have much impact on me before I was 4 weeks pregnant. I was on 3 pessaries which is on the higher side. When my pregnancy was confirmed the combination of my natural progesterone rising (I was a natural cycle, so had a corpus luteum), the supplementation and rich christmas food meant I had a bit of a digestive crisis. Felt much better when the clinic relented and let me go down to two. My last pessary is Wednesday evening and I cannot wait!

Although I will be on antibiotics from tonight as I have a UTI! I had kidney problems when I was a child and apparently this means I have a 50% chance of developing this in pregnancy, even though I have never had a UTI as an adult. Another risk to add to the list.

@RavenWillow SO EXCITING! And so glad you're back. @CoolSummer89 did such an amazing job explaining the process, there's really nothing to add to that. My clinic (King's) actually told me I can go have a partial wee if I need to (they offered a cup they were ok for me to fill but not over that amount) but I managed ok with what I had in my bladder. And also don't trust the old wives tales that you can't go pee immediately after transfer - you absolutely can!
I had horrible fatigue from the progesterone pessaries (if it's pessaries not injections?) the first couple of days, literally needed a nap about 30min after putting them in. Lasted for about 5 days and then disappeared. Boob pains as well! But you'll soon be wondering what's the progesterone and what might be a sign of implantation, and then everything you google will say it could be the progesterone, and you're absolutely gonna go crazy :D All my fingers and toes crossed for you and I hope in about 10 days we're all cheering for your positive <3

Yes this is a good point from @zirafica. Peeing afterwards actually helps! Having a fully bladder straightens your uterus and then emptying will make it contract, hopefully keeping your embryo all snug and warm. Wishing you the best of luck!

Thank you all so much for your experiences, made me feel so much more settled. As I say I joined the February group but just doesn't feel the same there. I've been on progesterone since Saturday, 3x pessaries a day and so far not noticed anything at all. I am on a fully medicated cycle, they didn't actually offer a natural one in all honesty. Have to get my progesterone checked on Wednesday then will know a time for Thursday. Think I will have a look at that documentary tomorrow when I finish work in the morning :)
How long have you guys got now until your 12 week scans? Have you found this time has gone quite quickly?

@RavenWillow don't worry about having no symptoms, I think they’re a bit less common with a fully medicated cycle so absolutely nothing to worry about. I think best advice I can give is trust your doctors to run you through it the best way possible!
my 12 week scan is next Monday and sadly no, the time has not passed quickly at all! I’m not a panicky person but I wish there were more scans offered, very jealous of countries where they do it once a month, I feel like that would be the perfect amount. However I’m trusting that no bleeding is a sign everything’s ok this far along and hoping to see a healthy growing fetus in 6 days. My worst wait was for the first viability scan (6-8weeks) with the clinic though, as we’ve seen on this forum that one tends to be the big heartbreaker. After that I’ve definitely been more relaxed and (slightly) more patient!

Just taken my last cyclogest pessary! I know a lot of people get nervous about stopping but honestly I can’t wait to see the back of them.

best of luck for your transfer tomorrow @RavenWillow

@CoolSummer89 omg I was over the moon to stop mine too!! Congrats!!
good luck @RavenWillow ♥️♥️

Thank you both 😊 early start for me.
Pleased for you guys, another step forward!

@CoolSummer89 @zirafica so jealous! I can’t wait to stop mine as well, but have another two weeks left.

How are you both feeling?

@OneQuirkyPanda oh man the waiting game is insane 😂 I feel fine, thank you! I think I’ve cracked the nausea - I just have to have breakfast as soon as I wake up. If I do I’m absolutely fine the rest of the day. That being said I am 12 weeks today and I do feel generally a bit more normal (but I’ve said this before and massively regretted it within a day 😂). 12 week scan on Monday, it’s been a LONG wait but can’t wait to have a proper check in.
how are you holding up?
@RavenWillow hope it all went well ♥️♥️

@zirafica glad you’re feeling better! My nausea peaked around 8 weeks exactly, then over the past three days it has reduced a lot, I still gag when brushing my teeth and I feel sick in the evenings, but it’s no where near as bad as it was a week ago.

Im hoping it’s because I’m 10 weeks tomorrow and this is the gradual decline towards the end of the first trimester. I feel like my placenta kicked in around 8-9 weeks as well (I had a scan at 8 weeks and you could see it forming on the scan), because I started getting new symptoms I hadn’t had before, TMI but I’ve started getting a lot of clear white discharge, hot flushes, bad headaches, increased hunger, insomnia. It feels like something changed around this time.

My 12 week scan isn’t for another two and a half weeks, I am nervous for it, trying to put off having another scan (been two weeks since my last one), but I suffer with anxiety so it’s hard to just trust that everything is fine.

@OneQuirkyPanda utilise AI for this it will calm you down a lot!! The white discharge is perfectly normal and expected around 10 weeks (had it myself). AI will definitely help calm your anxiety. I use Claude but I assume ChatGPT would be the same.

Had my transfer yesterday, wasn't the best experience as the Dr couldnt get the catheter in for ages and was really tilting the speculum (I have reteoverted uterus). Eventually they changed to a different type of catheter and it was all a lot better after that and was quite quick.
They seem to use a different grading system at my clinic, they said it was a hatching 2:2 which I think is like a 5BB from how they explained it. The long TWW for me now. Thank you all for your experiences before, it definitely helped, especially the very undignified position and socks being the only thing on from the ribs down 🤦🏻‍♀️😂

Oh gosh @RavenWillow that's the last thing you want at a tense time and with a full bladder!
Best of luck for serenity in the TWW. Easier said than done! Literally nothing you can do will impact the outcome - within reason, obviously make sure you get some sleep and eat a piece of fruit now and then. I went to my work's dinner in the evening, and then had a curry with my friends the night after - including running for the bus at the end of the night!
If you want to take your mind off it keep busy and see mates. If you wanna lie under a blanket the whole time, then do that. Best of luck. It will be the longest 10 days of your life, but the time will pass anyway!

Oh I feel for you this happened to me too!

I was in there for about 45mins and he had to use a stiffer catheter. It was really uncomfortable. Sadly the lack of dignity is just the beginning 🤣 at least socks keep the feet warm.

Trying to eat healthy but not crazy strict otherwise I think I'd go insane. Been for a nice wood walk with one of my dogs today then relaxed the rest of the day, just so tired! Want to try and stay busy thought otherwise I think I may go insane!

12 week scan done and textbook. Did the down’s&co blood test as well despite transferring a euploid as I wanted to be safe, and that came all clean as well so as good as it could be. Apparently the baby is a bit bigger than expected but the lady looked at me and said you’re six feet tall this is not surprising lol
now to start dealing with the emotions

Amazing news! How far along were you when you did the test for downs etc? Was it on the NHS or did you pay private?

I was given a leaflet about NIPT testing at my booking appointment, but haven’t heard anything about it since, my SIL said they only offered it her because following her 12 week scan it said she was high risk?