Sibling round

[2mumlife]

Hi there,

Used to be part of a different thread for sibling round, but thought I'd start a new thread to see if there was anyone else considering a sibling round this year?

Hi @2mumlife we also have 1 frozen embryo remaining. I feel more nervous this time around but trying to manage my nerves. We are unsure if we would want to go through the whole process again, so I really hope it does work. Good luck to us both 😄🍀

@HappyMamma2023 That’s how I felt when TTC our son (second baby). We had 2 embryos frozen and I really didn’t think I had another egg collection in me. First FET stuck! So that’s why we’re going back in with our remaining 1 little embryo. I feel at least this way I won’t spend the rest of my life wondering what would have happened l, whatever the outcome.

It’s very different doing a sibling round I found. Your life is too busy for the cycle to be all-consuming like it is trying for your first baby. It’s actually a lot easier to remain distracted I found, though also need to be kind to yourself as I didn’t do nearly so much of “all the right things” during my sons cycle to be honest and I felt a bit guilty about only doing the basics like folic acid etc

Hi everyone, hoping it’s ok to join! We have just done a FET for a sibling round, and it has stuck! We are currently 5.5weeks pregnant and hoping all keeps going well. My son is only 10.5 months so age gap will be small, but I’m looking forward to hopefully growing our little family.

Hope everyone is doing well x

@Wildflower9 Congrats! Though wow you are in for a ride…..! I have a 25 month age gap between my 2 and it’s definitely been challenging, and physically second pregnancy was harder. I’m a little surprised clinic let you go ahead the normal recommendation is to give you body at least 13 months preferably 18 before conceiving again!

Do you have a first scan booked in?

Can i join? Will be transferring second embryo for second baby next week. Another euploid but 5BC whereas my daughter was 5AA. Bit worried! OP how are you feeling post transfer? @Wildflower9 congratulations! How are you feeling? Did you know grade going in? Xx

@2mumlife I don’t mind a small age gap, especially after spending so long ttc before going down this route, I will take the challenges and the tiredness because we wished for it all for so long 💖
Clinic requested an internal scan and were happy to proceed once everything looked good :)

@AnxiousAndHopeful I am good, just very tired! I did, he/she is a 5Bb ❤️
How are you feeling about the transfer? X

@Wildflower9 That gives me hope as I know 5BB is a lot better than 5BC, it's not THAT far off. Is your heartbeat scan in the next week or so?

I'm doing a natural transfer so hopefully will find out if my transfer is next Thurs or not. Trying to hold onto the hope as it's my last embryo and we can't do another round of IVF until autumn if it fails

Congratualtions @Wildflower9 I hope you're feeling well

I'm due to have my first scan in May and if everything OK go for FET in July. I've been doing some research and have started taking Optibac For Women probiotics. Anyone else got any recommendations to increase success? Also starting yoga again as I'm finding balancing work with our 3yo and preparing for IVF is more stressful than our first time when we were child free

@AnxiousAndHopeful it can be daunting knowing they are of ‘lesser’ quality but honestly I’ve heard of a lot worse grading and they have turned out to be successful live births, so try not to let that get in your head, though I know how hard that is!

@HappyMamma2023 Thank you! 💖
For both of my FETs I made sure I was taking vitamins for a few months beforehand, I never liked the idea of a multivitamin as I was on one before when ttc and it stopped my period!
I now daily take: Omega 3 (x2), vitamin b12 sublingual spray, vitamin d and folic acid. Honestly I swear by them! I also made smoothies, with lots of pineapple (especially the core for bromelian) and made soup so that I was getting a fair amount of fruit and veg as I’m usually not too good for them.
I don’t know if that’s what helped me but I’ve had 2 successful FETs now xx

@AnxiousAndHopeful i don’t actually have my scan for another 3 weeks, by that point I will be about 8 weeks. Makes me a bit nervous as I’d really like to know if there’s a heartbeat and everything looks ok 🙏🏼

Congrats @Wildflower9 that's amazing! We're also going ahead fairly soon for a full fresh round, our son is 7 months so a similar age gap to you by the time we hopefully get to a transfer 💞
Starting to get ready with the supplements and diet, exercise etc. It's so much to try and think about all over again. We've decided on a fresh egg collection but we have 1 embryo frozen from our first round

Hey I’ll join too! I’m transferring 2 embryos on Tuesday .. my baby has just turned 11 months.

Really really hoping we get some luck again on this cycle … transferring a day 5 5BB and a day 6 4BA.. both untested.

@AnxiousAndHopeful Are you still on for a transfer on Thursday? A 5BC is still good! My "best" 5AA embryos were a BFN and a CP, and I have 2 live births from 5Bs (my clinic just uses 1 letter not sure why). Will you do another egg collection if this one doesn't stick?

@Wildflower9 Its lots of fun amongst the choas 😂we did the smaller age gap too, and things are starting to get easier again now. It is amazing watching their wee relationship grow with each other. I hate the wait until the first scan, it always seems to take forever.

@HappyMamma2023 I didn't take any supplements for FETs to be honest other than your general vit D / folic acid etc in my multivitamin and I take an Omega 3 6 and 9 supplement for breastfeeding, only added other things when I was going for egg collection. I did find doing some mindfulness useful though. I'd definitely remcommend being kind to yourself - its very different doing treatment when you have a child/ren as life just needs to go on. In some ways I found it much easier as you're more distracted, but you also need to have campasion for yourself that there are days you cannot lie on the sofa for 30mins for your cyclogest to absrob when you're running around after a 3 yr old! Also be prepared that (at least my!) 3 yr olds are nosy, so you might want to decide what if anything you want to tell them. My daughter understands a fair bit about how a baby is made so we just told her mummy was taking medicine to see if the egg would grow into a baby or not. My daughter watched me take injections and knew the timer on my phone was to remind me to take my medicine. We also talked about not all eggs growing into babies and that it was ok to be disapointed if it didn't grow.

@Magix86 Oh wow I'm really impressed going for egg collection with a 7 month old! To be honest I'd be tempted to transfer that frostie first as it might work without the hassle of another full round! Though understand it depends if you're thinkinf you might want a third later down the line 💛

@Ivfchat Hope transfer goes well today!

We tested on sunday at 10dp5dt which always used to be OTD at our clinic. BFN. I've continued on the meds as 13dp5dt is their new OTD, and whilst I know the chances at this point are basically zero I just want to see it through to the end. Its been an odd cycle. Its the first one I've done since chatGPT became a thing and I found it far too unrealistically positive/optimistic so I'd caution those about to do a transfer about using it. Also its the first time I've had a BFN and not bled before OTD. On every other cycle I've known its not worked as I've had a breakthrough bleed. In fairness the clinic has increased the amount of cyclogest as they don't use lubion injections any more before trasnfer so it might just be that.

Still just trying to get my head around it all still to be honest, as I felt in a fairly comfortable place that whatever the outcome was ok before the transfer, but after transferring I got far more emotionally invested than I was expecting, and its made me realise how strongly I really was banking on getting to do it all again 1 last time. DP and I decided I can wallow tomorrow (we're calling it wallow Wednesday). We'd decided this would be our end point as we don't have any more embryos, but technically we do still have some donor sperm we could use. DP is 41 this year and I think is more ready to stop now, as she doesn't want to be an older mum. I'm feeling a much stronger pull though towards still wanting a last baby. We will see, I need to sit with it for awhile, as I'm not sure what trying again would even look like, as I don't want to do any more egg collections and risk being left with remaining frozen embryos, as I already know I don't feel comfortable destroying or donating them. Which would leave us with IUI but we did 4 medicated IUIs before starting IVF with no success, so I'm not sure if trying that again would just be pointless. A lot of processing to do anyway and contemplating if our family really is done. My 3yr old has been amazing when I told her that the egg wasn't growing into a baby and she said maybe we could find some more eggs. God love her.

@2mumlife yeah he'll probably be about 9 months by the time we go ahead with it all, just in the starting phases now. We would like the possibility of trying for more in future so going for a fresh egg collection now seems the best option for us, especially due to my age.

I'm so sorry your transfer hasn't worked 😔 absolutely understand having the time to process all the feelings and weigh up what you want to do next. Be kind to yourself x

@Magix86 Hope you get lots of freeze! I was 32 when that embryo was frozen and definitely thinking now I’m 5 years older our odds of trying anything more now won’t be so good

@Magix86 And time passes so very quickly!

@2mumlife thank you for the advice I will take it onboard. Esp the being kind to yourself, I think it's very easy as a mum to rush around all the time! I'm sorry the transfer hasn't been successful and I hope you're being kind to yourself today Wallowing Wednesday. Take care xx

@HappyMamma2023 Very easy to spend all the time rushing about! I've had a walk and been sitting out in the sunshine today which has helped

We've had our follow up today and trying to make a decision on next steps which has been more confusing than I'd imagined! We've been given quotes for a single round and also a multicycle package of 2 rounds. The multicycle is only about 2k more than a single round and includes unlimited transfers. The single is only 1 transfer.
We initially thought we'd have a couple of rounds just to try and bank some embryos but this wouldn't be possible with the multicycle option as you have to use all your embryos before moving to the next round.
We have 1 frozen already from our cycle in 2024. I'm turning 40 this year so I'm concerned about our odds to be honest.

Just looking to see if anyone has thoughts on what we should do, or what you would do in this situation? I think we're leaning towards the multicycle just to improve our chances for a second child but the thought of not having any embryos frozen for the possible future does play on my mind quite a bit. For our last cycle we got 16 eggs, 13 mature, 11 fertilised with ICSI and 2 blasts left on day 5.

Did they say what happens to the multi cycle option if you get pregnant in the first round?

That's basically it if you get pregnant on the first round, the second one is no longer available/cannot go ahead

@Magix86 we paid for multicycle (2 rounds) in 2024. You'll need to read the terms and conditions carefully but the way ours worked was: you do the first round, you use up all the frozen embryos, then you do the second round, and the whole process stops at the point you get pregnant (and have a live birth, I think? So could have carried on if I'd miscarried).

I made a spreadsheet of all the different options - single cycle, multicycle, various refund options if it didn't work - and worked out how expensive they'd be (including meds) if we had a child on cycle 1, or cycle 2, or if neither worked. 2 cycle multicycle made the most sense - even though we only needed 1 of the cycles in the end.

If you're wanting to bank embryos it sounds like you'll have to pay for two single cycles. Yes it's pricier but that's because 100% of couples will do both cycles and that's how much a cycle costs. The discount for the multicycle option is because not everyone with use both cycles so the company is gambling that they'll save money that way.

@Magix86 oh also, it's obviously impossible to predict how many blastocysts you'll get, but any left over from a multicycle that has a successful pregnancy are yours to store for the future. So if you're lucky and get more than one blastocyst AND get pg before you've transferred them all, you can save the others for the future. So we paid for 2 cycles, only got to use 1, but got 4 blastocysts. #1 is DC1, and now we have 3 left to try for DC2.

@Magix86 We did a 2 round multicycle previously. Needed both egg collection rounds. Second round was a freeze all and got 3 embryos. First is my DD, second is my DS and the third is the 1 I just had the failed transfer with.

I think it really depends on whether you are set on wanting a third child or not. If you are 100% sure you'd want 3, then I'd pay for a single round, see how many blasts you get, and potentially not do any transfers and do a second egg collection round straight away. Given age you want to bank those embryos now.

I'd also have the conversation though about how you would feel if you had embryos frozen and decided at some point in the future you didn't want more kids. Would you donate them? destroy them? I don't think people think enough about this side of creating embryos, and you need to think carefully about how you feel about your choices at the end of your fertility journey too, as this might help guide you on whether you do want to keep creating embryos you might not use.

If you're more thinking that you want 1 more, and open to, but not set on any after that, then I'd transfer the embryo you have first (its younger, and therefore more likely to work) and if that didn't work then I think I'd just do the multicycle package.