Preparing for embryo transfer - any advice?

[Alex40]

Hello everyone,

My name is Alessandra. I am 38 and my partner is 44. Last year we got pregnant after our first ICSI (at Homerton). But we lost our baby daugther last November to a genetic diesease (which we are still investigating) 12 days before the due date. I have been here at Mumsnet several times visiting the bereavement threads, but that's my first entry.

Now we are getting prepared for a FET. We have two frozen embies (at blastocyst stage) from last year's treatment. Our first appointment is on 02 March, and we are really hoping to start the treatment on the same month.

Does anyone here have any advice on FET? All I can think at the moment is non-medical - is how I am going to give the memory of our little girl with all respect she deserves while trying to get pregnant again.

Any tips/hints or just comments from any of will be very welcome! It would also be great to share info/experience with other girls doing FET!!

Baby dust to everyone,

Alessandra :)

I haven't had FET, but I've just had a successful IVF cycle. I did acupuncture all the way through, and I would really recommend it - but you have to find a good acupuncturist who knows what they're doing to support fertility treatment, not just a generalist.

I actually had treatments all the way through - kept a lot of the side effects from the drugs at bay, and I was having a stressful time with families too, and it really helped with that.

Good luck!

Many thanks for the tip Fluter and congratulations! :) How far are you?

I have an acupuncture appointment next month, and I am going to discuss with this person our treatment.

All the best in your pregnancy. Keep us posted :)

Warmest regards,

Alessandra

hello,so sorry to hear of the terrible loss of your baby. I had icsi last March which didn't work, then natural fet in Aug which did! I am now 28 weeks. I found the whole fet experience so much easier and less stressful than the icsi,which really helped me to relax and forget about it.

The 2 main pieces of advice I would give would be 1, don't tell family/friends you are doing it. I found this meantt I could have normal conversations with people and not talk about treatment,which helps take your mind off it and takes a lot of the pressure off.
2, I would really recommend the zita west relaxation cd. its especially for ivf treatment and I found it really helped me keep a positive frame of mind.

Hope this helps,and I wish you all the best for your transfer.

Oh, only very early on - 5 weeks - but we weren't supposed to be even able to pop an egg out, so quite honestly everything from there on was a bonus....

Good luck with the acupuncture - I have seen a statistic - from a scientific study (am married to a scientist, so tend to be a tad wary about these things) that acc. straight after embryo transfer can almost double chances of it sticking. :)

All the best for the treatment, though.

I agree about not telling many people you're doing it - but I think both you and DH have to have someone else that you can talk to about it - luckily I had a friend who'd also had fertility problems 20 years ago, and another friend who is a GP.

Wow Shinygiraffe , 28 weeks? Congratulations!

I will follow your advice - no doubt about that! Last year, only a very, very selected few new about the ICSI. This time I am not going to tell a word about the FET. Not sure if my partner is going to to the same, but I will tell him my approach. And I will look for the Zita West relaxation CD on Amazon.

Thank you!

Hi OP. I am so very sorry to hear about the loss of your baby daughter x

I had a natural FET transfer with 2 blastocyst Day 6 embryos and as a result have twins. It was my 3rd IVF attempt (one Fresh, one FET 2 day embryos). I totally agree with shiny. We also decided not to tell anyone we were having the treatment which we had done both times previously which I think did add to the pressure.

Wishing you lots of luck on Wednesday x