Pregnant (IVF) Worriers (part two)

[Shazzamattazzerly]

Hi everyone,

This thread is for all you incessant worriers out there, not necessarily limited to IVF-ers, although I get the feeling the people who have had trouble TTC are more prone to worrying than others! We have filled our first thread (www.mumsnet.com/Talk/pregnancy/1721178-Pregnant-IVF-Worriers) but there is more worrying to do so here we are.

A few of us graduated from the IVF thread (link below) and are having a go at our own thread to get out of the other IVF-ers hair! So get your roomy jogging bottoms on for some virtual hand holding, mutual symptom spotting and staying sane until the next scan date.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/conception/1691674-Excellent-Egg-Buddies-continued-Anyone-having-IVF-ICSI-in-Jan-Feb-and-March-2013-please-join-us

Thanks ladies - promise to report back. I have a feeling the next 3 and a half hours are going to be horrendous. Still no sickness since Saturday TBH it was never really sickness (and never was with DS) - and with DS I don't really remember if it was every day or when it stopped, only that I didn't really have any. ARGH - kipper me

I also forgot my Oyster card today (still in the changing bag rather that my work bag) so had to pay for my train and tube. I know the train is the same price but that the tube is several pounds more expensive but I spend over £20 just getting to and from work!! Mental note to WFH as often as possible!

Mariana - PMSL at your lack of media rage since CBeebies....I find myself singing songs from Olly the Little White Van and thinking they are quite good

My bus of selebs for the cliff would have to be a double decker....

Salivating over your picnic haul. We are having a couple of nursery friends over on Sunday so I am planning on replicating your feast

Off to clock watch (that is a manic face....not a grin )

vall fingers and toes crossed for you

vallinna i hope your trip to the clinic is reassuring. I didn't have nausea until end of 6 weeks either.

mariana my DS has now decided he's too old for Cbeebies (unless he is feeling a bit overwhelmed by life and wants to lie on the sofa with me and watch something soothing) but for a few years I felt I spent more time with Sid, Alex, Andy and Kerri than anyone else! Thank god none of them are annoying.

can I have your famous list too?

shazza I can only echo the others that you will be a great mum and your relationship with DP will change but the child more than makes up for it. I sometimes long for the years when DH and I popped over to the continent for an easy weekend in Spain or whatever but we will be able to do that again some day when the DCs are teenagers - and perhaps by then we won't spend our holidays sniping at each other either ( ha ha mariana!)

I'm sorry I'm missing your picnic, the food sounds amazing.

I've just had the most hellish 2 weeks at work but the main deadlines have been met now so I am recovering at home this morning. Just a bit of light client emailing and document downloading. Also have started getting heartburn and restless legs in the evening, yay!

I have my first MW appointment today in 13 weeks! We must actually be getting somewhere...

Oh and as if Kirsty Allsop has any idea what it means to have to live 'frugally'. That would be "The Honourable Kirsty Allsop, daughter of the 6th Baron Hindlip"? Those shows are so insulting.

Good luck vall, thinking of you. I had almost no sickness with dd2 after having constant nausea in other pregnancies. They really are all different.

fairy, I miss Sid! Ceri gets on my nerves though. DD2 thinks she's too old for it too (she's 3!) but she's too young for CBBC. The worrying thing is when you actually learn stuff from CBeebies, Nina and the Neurons increased my science knowledge no end.

I'll have to ponder what my current lift list is. Right Hon Kirsty will be in there though.

Sympathy on the restless legs, I had that. I never found a cure but it disappeared afterwards.

DS will still deign to watch Andy's Wild Adventures, which is quite informative. I really liked Sid too but I read he's gone to the South African equivalent to Cbeebies. DS told me that Katie from I Can Cook and Ceri are both now pregnant too. Not that I am too keen...

Quick phone post. Gorgeous fluttery heartbeat seen and measuring as it should for my dates!

And feel sick today!

Celebratory Pizza Express

Great news! Very happy for you Vallinna!

vall great news

Hurrah! That's great, hope it gives you a few days of reassurance.

Ceri pregnant too? Katy is very pregnant but hadn't noticed Ceri. We love all animal shows but especially Deadly 60 on CBBC.

Great news Val!
I've got my 22 week scan in 1 hr and 45 minutes. GAH. I've been so fired up about finding out if it's a boy or a girl that I woke up panicking that I've jinxed everything and there will be something wrong with him/her. That'll learn me for constantly playing the boy vs girl vs boy game. Will report back.

Noks I love your bus. Can I put the following on it please: Ronan Keating (just for 'Life is a Rollercoaster', the most irritating song ever to grace the airwaves), Teenagers who get pregnant the first time they ever have sex round the back of a club/ against a skip, Nicholas Witchell, Toni Terry (wife of Jon Terry) and any Ecclestone daughter.
Thank you.

Good luck MrsH you won't have jinxed anything! Looking forward to hearing what you are cooking!

I am so relieved. I am now feeling exhausted. I can only imagine it is the adrenaline crash. Not only did I have the scan but immediately before I had to have a difficult conversation with a tricky team member so I think my levels were sky high.

She did also see an "anechoic area" inferior to the gestational sac - so to be on bleed watchout. Thankfully it is below the embryo.

MrsH sooooooooooooooooooooo with you on those teenagers so most of my former school 'mates'

I can't believe I am at the wide choice of children's TV you can watch. We are only allowed Fireman Sam or Olly the Little White Van. I tried to introduce Pocoyo (as I love Stephen Fry) but DS is having none of it. This coming from the mother who was never going to let her child watch TV and the DS who had no interest whatsoever in it until about 18 months!

Fairy I hope you are kicking back at work a bit now!

Vall such brilliant news. How exciting. Travel is so expensive isn't it? I hope you enjoyed your well deserved pizza.

Fairy. Do you think ceebeebies might help me when I feel overwhelmed by life? We will miss you at the picnic. I hope your MW appt went well. How come it has been so long?

Mariana I'm laughing at you and fairy with your cebeebie comparisons. I'll look forward to learning more with shazlett

MrsH. Good luck with the scan. So you are going to find out the flavour? What did the Chinese gender predictor predict for you? I will 'see' your life is a rollercoaster and raise it with celine dion's my life will go on which must surely be in the running for one of the most annoying songs ever. It brings me out in a rash when I hear it.

I must confess to being distracted all afternoon by the brilliant 'a girl called jack'. Oh my goodness. Sobering yet completely inspiring. If I think that we are having a lean patch with DP not working at the mo I am reminded to be eternally grateful that we have a nice flat, food on our table and a healthy baby in my tummy. I can afford to pay for fancy hypnobirthing and despite the fact that while we are forgoing our holiday this year to save for shazlett we are still lucky enough to have each other and it's not a hardship at all.

I am going to follow some of her recipe ideas and definitely find out about our local food donation centre.

Have a good evening ladies. I'll report back in hypnobirthing tomorrow. Xx

val that's so great! No wonder you are exhausted, hope you get a good sleep tonight. We had The Year of Fireman Sam in our house when DS was 3 and wouldn't watch anything else. God knows why given there are only about seven episodes, all revolving around some form of mild fire-related peril. We were so relieved when he went on to other things, although I hate Ben 10.

I should be able to scale back at work for a while but when you've been working non stop on a few matters, when that's over you have to pick up the pieces on everything else. Still I left the office at 4 today because I couldn't see straight.

shazza if it's not your first baby and you have no complications there are no MW appts between weeks 16 and 28. Luckily I am fine- blood pressure normal, no GD and no protein in my urine. Baby's heart beat was fine too and she obligingly kicked the Doppler when the MW was listening. My bump even measures exactly 29cm which it is supposed to at 29 weeks. Strange there's a correlation there.

mrsh welll ...................taps foot impatiently

So ladies I down our o called high street anyway I got a few salad bits, but drinks wise, I was thinking abit of Scheoler some juice and I wasn't sure if anyone wanted some coke etc I'm going after work tomorrow if the heat doesn't kill me first

Hello everyone, not sure if you remember me but I came on the thread a while ago to get some advice about ivf.

Well it failed :( found out last week, was heartbroken.

Am now preparing for FET and was wondering if anyone else had this and what I can do to prepare. I have one frozen 5-day blastocyst, grade 4BB.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

twinks hello I am so sorry to hear that, I have not had FET so can not help but here for a hand hold

Hi Twinks. I have recently had an FET. Not sure what grade embryos mine were. Both were frozen from the same IVF round. The first one (in Feb) failed, but I am currently 6.5 weeks with the other one.

In terms of prep, similar to IVF really. I had to go back on the pill to give me a bleed (as no periods) so I used those 3 weeks as a no alcohol/no caffeine/healthy eating etc. kick start.

Your protocol will depend on you clinic but I can give you my (long and boring) one. One thing you need to bear in mind, which I wasn't told until my 3rd abandoned cycle, which it is really common to have issues getting your lining thick enough. I have one on the thin side any way. My successful IVF it was 7.3mm and for this FET I think it was 7.1mm. I had 4 abandoned cycles - 3 as my lining just wasn't responding and 1 because the clinic fucked up.

For this cycle I was on 6mg progynova and 50mg estrogen patches on alternate days for 6 days. I was then scanned and the progynova upped to 8mg a day and the patches changed daily. I was also on baby aspirin daily. I was then scanned after another 3 days and the decided I was good to go. Cyclogest for 5 days prior to transfer, I was on 3 x 400mg a day. All the drugs continue after ET. After my BFP my progesterone levels were low so I am now on a Gestone injection a day also. I will continue on this whole cocktail until 12 weeks.

HTH

Sorry - I meant to add I am really sorry for your failed cycle :(

I also had acupuncture throughout - and before and after ET on the day.

Sorry about the failure twinkle. Look after yourself.

twinkle I'm so sorry for your bad news. As Mariana says, be kind to yourself in the coming weeks.

My FET in May was successful, after a failed fresh cycle in January. In the failed cycle we transferred one "textbook perfect" blast, which didn't stay with us; the frostie, which was a lower grade, was the one which (so far) has stuck.

Apart from quitting caffeine I did nothing particular to prepare for the FET, which I "knew" wouldn't work, given the fresh cycle with the best embryo had already failed. I got pregnant.

With hindsight I wish I had taken a the time between cycles to see the clinic counsellor and mourn the first loss - not that it affected the outcome of the FET cycle but feeling stronger might have made the second cycle easier on me (and DH) mentally.

Like vall I had a medicated FET cycle. My clinic advise the results are better than in natural FET cycles though different clinics may have other views.

vall great news, what a relief.

mrshy I hope all went OK?

So I found the Chinese gender predictor and apparently I am having a girl - whether I input the actual conception date back in Jan before the embie went in the freezer, or the notional one in May. 50:50 it's right I guess! Also, s/he will be a snake, unless s/he is late. Not entirely sure I like that thought - overlaying western culture completely inappropriately on Chinese astrology, it feels like the sorting hat just put my hopefully-to-be child in Slytherin!

shazz that is definitely the perfect stuck-in-lift-with-Kirsty muzak. Aaargh!

Thx val and ceara for replying.

Ceara - your story struck a chord with me. I was told it was going textbook too. Everything was going well, responded well to the drugs, collected 24 eggs, 21 fertilised, had a 5-day blastocyst put back too. Couldn't believe when it failed and have been worried that something was wrong with me seeing as everything else went so well.

I went to see the counsellor this morning and she too said I need to mourn the loss because it is a loss.

I'm already thinking the frozen one won't work because the one they put back was a high grade (marginally, the frozen one is a grade 4BB and the one they put back was 4AB). So your story has given me hope.

Hope to be joining you real soon. Have my consultation in a few weeks and they don't make you wait to put the frozen one back so it shouldn't be too long after.

Giving myself a couple of weeks to grieve and be kind to myself, maybe even have a few drinks. But after that getting straight back into healthy eating, etc, ready for the FET.

Thanks again girls

twinkle that's great you were able to see the counsellor so soon, I hope it helped a little.

I think assuming it didn't work means there is something wrong with how your body handles implantation is completely normal and how lots of us react. My consultant very sternly told me I was not to even think of thinking that after one failed cycle - unless you have genetic testing of the embies pre-transfer there is no way of knowing whether the embryo which looks good or best at 5 days is actually normal (and way more than 50% aren't) so she said the overwhelming likelihood was that we just hadn't found the right embie yet, and there was every reason to be positive about the prognosis over a course of 2 or 3 cycles. Of course I didn't believe her. But she was right in my case and fingers and toes crossed it will be the same for you in the end too. Good luck.

twinkle I'm so sorry. I'll post properly later as after three FETs to get pregnant with this one I feel like a bit of an expert! What I will say now is don't get hung up on the embryo gradings. With our first FET we had 2 x 5AA with 100% thaw rate put back and it didn't work. The one that's now 22 weeks inside me was a 2BB with a 80% thaw rate. So don't worry about the grading AT ALL!

Well- all is well at 22 weeks- and we have a little girl!! So the Chinese Gender Predictor failed for a second time ( said boy for me and girl for my friend- and it's the reverse!) although I don't know why that surprises me :)

We were in there for over an hour as whenever they wanted to scan a certain bit of her she got into the wrong position (madam) and refused to show us all five fingers on one hand for ages (it was either a fist, two fingers or three fingers-madam! Could have sworn she was playing scissor paper stone!).

They did say her legs are very long- in the upper range of normal- not flamingo like or anything but she's definitely going to take after my 6 foot 1 DH and not 5 foot 4 me!!

Totally amazing experience. Xxx