IVF/FET Pregnancies due Oct 2024

[2mumlife]

Hi, thought I'd start of thread for those of us who have been through fertility treatment and are due in October 2024 :-)

I'm 6 weeks today after FET. This was our first try for a sibling (also a FET pregnancy).

Nausea is kicking my butt this time around. How is everyone else feeling?

How is everyone feeling about their early pregnancy scans?

Thank you! This is so helpful 😃

@Francesmalin I'd start off with the basics really - somewhere for baby to sleep (we loved our Next2me and they are super common to get second hand and just buy a new mattress for). Few clothes in 0-3 (realistically, they're going to just need body suits and sleep suits for the first few weeks). A way to transport baby (stretchy sling is good for the first few weeks - really flexible, easier to breastfeed in than a more structured carrier, and baby wants to stay close). You probably want a pram, though that really depends on how much you want to baby wear. Nowadays they nearly all seem to be fancy travel systems, so if you want an infant car seat you can take out of the car and put on pram, then pram and car seat choice go together. Alternatively, don't bother with an infant car seat that clips out, and choose whatever car seat you like. If you have 2 cars in your family, then you can try both if you want (this is basically what we did). Its useful to have somewhere to put baby down - like a moses basket, or bouncer for instance. But I'd start off simple and not buy 101 things :)

Also, we were surprised how many people gave us stuff when baby arrived - not just baby gifts, but also all their old baby paraphernalia they had stored in attics 😂Its very much a thing to just pass baby stuff from one person to the next, because you really don't use any of it for long.

We already have a next to me and a cot as well as a changing mat. My friends gave it to me! We are planning to buy a Yoyo pram but we'll only get the structure of the pram as another friend of mine has given me the bassinet. I was looking to get a second hand babymore more crib to put the baby in during the day so I don't have to go up and the down the stairs all day. We need to figure our car seat and slings but we'll get there.

I think where I am stuck the most is clothing for the baby but we'll go and browse few shops when I am back to the UK.

@Francesmalin Clothes is the biggest thing you're likely to be gifted to be honest, so wouldn't go too mad. I'd probably suggest just buying 0-3 months. If baby is small, you can always get a few extra newborn/tiny baby bits after they arrive. I'd focus on just getting sleepsuits, body suits, some little socks for winter babies are good for keeping feet cosy, a pramsuit/outdoor suit, and a couple sleepsacks. Those first few weeks thing comfort - for you and baby - all the way. No baby wants to sleep in little outfits with buttons and ribbons and bows all over it. The extra material just gets in the way. You want something comfy, cosy and easy to change :)

The yoyo looks super nifty! It looks like it can actually still fold with the bassinet attached!?! If so that's really cool and super handy, generally the bassinet bit doesn't fold which is always really a pain. Looks like a really nice pram actually. Its worth checking if the bassinet piece can be used like a crib/moses basket. I know the uppababy one we have is technically safe to use as a sleeping space (might save you getting the babymore crib if so). We got gifted a moses basket and even though we live in a bungalow we did use it quite a bit the first few weeks as baby is meant to sleep in the same room as you, so when she did settle in there it was easy to carry her about the house.

How is everyone getting on?

I did the GTT and had first growth scan last week - luckily GTT came back normal. Foetus currently weighing in at an estimated 1.3kg (same as DD did at this stage) so anticipating another ~8.5lb baby 😆 Baby is certainly giving me a good whacking at the moment as well! Since everything is looking good I went ahead and put in order to hire a birthing pool for at home the other day! Its all feeling really quite close now.

Got a notification on my badger notes app that they've approved the RSV vaccine, and its being made available from the 1st September! Definitely something worth asking about at next appointments :)

Hope everyone is doing well

I’ve had to start metformin for my GD and at my Trust I think that means they won’t let you go over (I’ll clarify exactly the week next appointment). Also had a growth scan at 28 weeks 1.1kg - is that the same time you had yours @2mumlife ? Been told he’s got long legs but husband is very tall so no surprise. Still haven’t put the 1stone+ I lost at the beginning back on so essentially I’m plodding round at 30 weeks in size 10-12 clothes but eating 6-8 mini meals a day which seems like madness. People are very quick to point out how I’m ‘carrying neatly’.

We have NCT classes coming up soon and a La Leche breastfeeding course too. Looking forward to those and assembling the next-to-me after the first class :D

How is everyone else?

@TheYorkshirePudding How are you finding the metformin? Remember, its your baby, your birth, your choice. You hospital can't 'tell' you what you can and can't do - they can give you medical advise (which you should listen to) but you ultimately make the choice (sorry, I really, really hate how rife maternity care is with the rhetoric that pregnant people don't have a choice in their medical care!!!!).

Yup my growth scan was 28 weeks. 1.3 is on the chunky side, so 1.1kg sounds perfect :) My DD had long legs too, and I think it sometimes throws out weight estimates a bit. I wouldn't get too concerned about the weight estimates as the accuracy is iffy.

I carried neat my first pregnancy, but definitely bigger this time around. I've avoided weighing myself this time if I'm honest as know I'm far less active that I was before DD. Actually quite looking forward to being done with having babies to be honest, and getting back to the gym etc one of these days. Sort of wish I didn't have the niggle of 1 frostie remaining to be honest, as if we had no embryos left I'd be happy to be 100% done after that one 😂

@2mumlife Yes we have one Frostie left and it’s back to the old IVF what to do line of thinking isn’t it! If we want more children I don’t know whether to go again with a full cycle before I get any older or just use up that one Frostie and see. Otherwise we might be left with several Frosties and then in a dilemma. It makes for difficult thinking and I’m sure the frowning adds to my fine lines 😂

Thank you for you other kind comments

@TheYorkshirePudding Slightly different situation, but when I was pregnant with DD, we did actually have a consultation about whether my wife should go through an egg collection to make more embryos for a sibling. I've always had rubbish numbers at egg collection, and we only had 2 frosties for a sibling. It was interesting though, as consultant helped us talk it through well. As my wife wasn't bothered about being a biological parent, they went for pure stats. So my wife is a little older and they said that even with my poor response, we're better to have fewer eggs from me than more eggs from her, as I'd be the best chance of a viable embryo. And the timeframes we were looking at, if we did do an egg collection when trying for a sibling, I would still have been younger than my wife was when I was pregnant with DD. And most of all consultant said not to write off the frosties we had, that one of them might be the perfect embryo, and we'd put ourselves through a lot of cost and stress potentially making more embryos for nothing. And he was right, as first frostie we transferred worked.

To be honest, if you were looking for a sibling, I'd probably just try your frostie first - it wouldn't delay an egg collection by very long at all in terms of age, and you might get lucky 😍

@2mumlife glad the GTT was normal. How exciting hiring the birthing pool!

@TheYorkshirePudding hope the classes go well!

We’ve just finished our classes this week, we did Bump & Baby and did find them helpful. I’m 32+1 now and we’ve started the nursery and getting things set up, so it’s feeling quite exciting! I am having a c-section so I am assuming I’ll be booked in for week 39, but will be getting the date after my 37 week consultant appointment.

It’s great you both have one frostie left! My husband and I have been thinking forwards about a sibling (which is strange when they haven’t even arrived), but we would need to go through a full round again which feels daunting.

@IVF23 Glad you found the classes helpful! We've never got on well with antenatal classes - my NHS area did 1 (maybe 2?) classes online with we had DD (this was still a bit post-covid so F2F classes weren't running). This pregnancy? I've been given a link to some random Solihull classes (we live in Scotland). No in person NCT classes in our area. So, in essence we've never really done any antenatal classes! Painting the nursery is fun, even if in my experience you won't use it as anything other than a changing room for the first year 😂but saying that DP also is trying to take tomorrow off so we can get a room painted for this one, as it did feel nice having it all set up. We have 2 teeny tiny rooms for kids, so this room will entirely be a changing room for both kids only for the foreseeable future, and probably a bit of a storage space for the books/toys for the baby stage just to have it all in 1 place.

I'd definitely add some meal prep to your getting ready plans - found it really helpful having batch-cooked and frozen meals, and also just generally stocking up cupboard and freezer essentials that could be used to make meals easily and quickly.

Always imagined it must feel very strange once you have a c-section date knowing that baby is coming that day!

Not going to lie - even when we did our FET for a sibling, I was still feeling very much like I was not ready/prepared to go through an egg collection round. But I also responded so poorly to egg collections, and found that period between egg collection and day 5 really difficult emotionally.

@2mumlife oh that’s a shame about availability of classes in your area. One of my main reasons for doing it was to meet other mums really as I don’t have anyone local on maternity leave whilst I will be. Haha yes it will not be used much for a while! But we’ve put a comfy chair in there and a changing dresser which I think will get some use!

Meal prep is on my to do list once I start maternity leave! I’ve heard how helpful it can be.

I feel the same, the period between egg collection and day 5 is so difficult. We’ve had challenges around not many embryos making it to day 5, or too poor quality ones to freeze, so we’ve only had 1 embryo from each of the 2 rounds we’ve done. Luckily this 2nd embryo has stuck 🥰 But it makes me worry about any further ivf of experiencing the same again and I’ll be older to add to the mix too.

@2mumlife Thanks for reasoning it through re: Frosties :)

When is everyone planning on starting maternity leave and how long are you having off?

@IVF23 you’re a week and a day ahead of me, I can’t believe you’ve finished your classes! I’ve also joined for the social aspect too, I think it will be quite important moving from a full
time sociable job to just me and baby.

I’ve already started batch cooking - if we make a curry or something freeze-able then I’ve been making a double batch and slowly but surely the freezer is filling up! Doesn’t feel like too much effort if you’re already chopping the ingredients.

We’ve decided not to do a nursery yet and let baby sleep in our room in a next-to-me which feels like it’s taken the pressure off in more ways than one: DH can focus on other parts of the house in terms of DIY, we don’t have to buy the furniture and I feel content that he’ll be beside me with no other option really. Plus it saves our spare rooms for guests as we live at least 3 hours away from family and people will definitely want to come and stay

@IVF23 How come you’re going for a C if you don’t mind me asking?

@IVF23 I know some people who have made really good friends through antenatal classes and others who haven't. I found it really hard to make proper friends in baby groups/classes to be honest. Quite a few classes don't really encourage socialising, but also, other than the fact you have a baby, you can find you have nothing in common! The best group I found for actually finding some people I'm still friendly with was a buggy walk group that was timed so that after the walk you could go into this little baby group run in a church. It worked really well as you chatted to other parents whilst you walked, and then the baby group was totally unstructured so there was time to chat there too. Isolation is definitely one of the things I found hardest about mat leave, as we moved just before lockdown to an area where we didn't know anyone, I wfh and partner works in the city an hour away so don't have colleagues here, and then lockdown happened, so we have I guess acquaintances now but not really proper friends here, and no family support. That's maybe something in general to be aware of - mat leave can actually be quite lonely. I tried various classes/groups with my DD, so now know which ones I liked, so will do similar to what I did with her and have something each day (combination of free things and paid things).

I can't really imagine having to go through all the egg collections again. If we did ever get to point we were open to a third child and transfer the remaining embryo we've both made an agreement it would be that frostie only - that we would not go through another egg collection again now. Which feels quite a relief really.

@TheYorkshirePudding We're using next2me as well. A friend wanted to buy us a cot when we had DD, and whilst DD has never slept in it as a cot with 4 sides, we by luck got one that we could take 1 side off, and attach to the side of the bed and use as a co-sleeper safely once DD was too big for the next2me which was really handy. We then also eventually used the cot (with 1 side off, on the 'toddler bed' height and a single mattress next to it) when we began to transition her to her own room (I think at about a year). One thing I would say about nursery, is even if you don't do anything else, if you would be wanting to paint the room its worth doing that bit now. Because once you have a tot running about you'll have a lot less time to do it in my experience 😂In terms of furniture we put a changing mat on top of a chest of drawers with babies clothes in for the first while, then when she got bigger we just did nappy changes with the mat on the floor (never bothered with buying a changing table as seemed pointless).

My last day of work will be 12th September, taking annual leave, then starting mat leave on the 1st Oct. My NHS due date is the 6th Oct but IVF due date a few days later. DD was born at 41 weeks (from NHS due date) and I didn't officially start mat leave until my due date with her (took the week before that as annual leave I think), which in hindsight was probably a bit mad! I'm technically ending mat leave in mid July but taking accrued annual leave, and will do a phased return to work from mid September, going back to full time hours mid Oct. This baby is currently due to start nursery on the 1st September 2025, but might push it back a week. From experience with DD, this time around I want a bit of time between baby starting nursery and me starting work, as last time I started work same time as DD started nursery, and it was full on. Also in the first 2-3 months I got so many phone calls from nursery about temperatures and having to pick her up just to bring her home and her be fine, that I really recommend staggering baby starting nursery and returning to work if you can.

Hope everyone is doing well and managing okay in this heat!
I'm so sorry if this has already been asked / talked about a lot. But I'm really struggling with picking a pram. Part of me feels like I'm holding back because I still can't believe we may actually need a pram and part of me is just clueless to what I'll need / want

we had an apt with John Lewis to help pick and still haven't picked one. I live in a rural area so I need an all terrain wheel pram.

we like the silver cross reef 2 and the Icandy 7 but I can't decide between them! Any opinions or suggestions? I'd really appreciate it. I'm nearly 29 weeks so worrying I'm leaving it a tad late xx

@peardeer I am a first time mum so can only speak from my experience of trying out them quite a few times. We were originally looking at the icandy peach 7 but personally didn’t end up going for it as the fold down and up was not the easiest, and the weight was also difficult. We also live rurally so wanted all terrain and have ended up with a Bugaboo fox 5. It’s much more lightweight, very easy fold down and up, which we thought is much easier when holding a baby. The bassinet can be used for occasional overnight sleeping too which is helpful.

@peardeer I would say try not to overthink it too much - every pram is going to have pros and cons. We live rurally (there are no pavements by our house, so we wanted something that would be easy to pull into verge on country roads all year round) and got an Uppababy Vista pram. The thing is a beast - its a heavy pram, with a massive basket and doesn't fold up the smallest. But we got it because it had the sturdiest looking wheels we could find, and I didn't mind it being heavy or taking up space in the car.

I also think buying a pram new is a total rip off to be honest and massively un-environmentally friendly (I know however that for some people buying a new pram is the thing they look forward to the most!). I actually got our Uppababy pram off a local barter page (traded a bottle of gin I wasn't going to be drinking anytime soon for the pram). It had barely been used - the woman lived in a flat in the city, and the pram wasn't practical for them at all, so they'd only used the bassinet, hadn't even used the seat part for when baby is bigger. We've had zero issues with it being a second hand pram, and means I have zero guilt about abusing it slightly by taking it over rough terrain on walks, it getting muddy, wet etc. It also meant that when DD was a bit older and we decided we needed something lighter that folded up more easily (rather than a full blown travel system), I didn't feel bad about getting a second pram (we now have a Cosatto Woosh XL, think it was £50 second hand).

Also, to be honest for the first year we used slings considerably more than a pram.

Has everyone seen about being able to get the RSV vaccine? www.gov.uk/government/publications/respiratory-syncytial-virus-rsv-vaccination-programmes-letter/introduction-of-new-nhs-vaccination-programmes-against-respiratory-syncytial-virus-rsv

They were still doing trials when I was pregnant last time, so really pleased most of us should be able to get it before we're due!

I saw an appointment has appeared on the 22nd August on my BadgerNotes, but it doesn't say what is for. But a notification came up saying an appointment for the vaccine might be appearing, so I'm assuming that's what it is. Has anyone else had any info / appointments made?

Morning everyone, how are you all doing?

On Tuesday I had my GTT at 29+3 and I got the results back last night and it turns out I don't have gestational diabetes but I am IGT (basically pre diabetes). For does that were diagnosed with the gestational diabetes, what did NHS do and recommended? I still haven't received a call from the midwife but I assume they'll refer me to a diabete specialist team and keep me more monitored? Did you have to follow a special diet? I thought I was eating quite healthy but clearly the odd sugary things have been more than I thought. Probably didn't even help that me and husband were away last week and have been quite indulgent with food and sweets 😱😱😱

@Francesmalin GDM is caused by pregnancy hormones not a poor or indulgent diet. There’s not a specific diet, you just need to eat healthily. Wholemeals, wholegrains, fruit, vegetables, lean protein. I was told you either have it or you don’t. I eat healthily and so I was managed by diet alone for the first few weeks, then metformin tablets. What does IGT stand for?

IGT Is impaired glucose intolerance. In concrete terms I don't know what it means but they call it pre-diabetes. Basically the glucose level are higher than normal but not as high to be considered gestational diabetes.

I saw the results of the GTT Test on my portal but but no one from the hospital or my midwife called me. So I don't know what I need to Do. I will definitely call the hospital tomorrow to find out

1bn dollar question for all of you! Our babies are arriving in October/ November and I am wondering about which fabrics should I choose for the baby's outfit? Is cotton one pieces/ sleep suit going to be enough or do I need velour or something even warmer? Of course I will also get body suit as first layer and then some cardigans.

I went to buy few things for the baby today but then I have been thinking I might need warmer clothes!

@Francesmalin I'm no expert but all the sleepsuits I've bought have just been 100% plain cotton. My understanding is that having multiple layers is key - vest, sleepsuit with feet and in-built mitts, cardigan and blanket or pramsuit if it's cold.

I've bought a thick cotton Pramsuit in 0-3 and 3-6 months for the winter. You can't use it in a car seat but it'll be useful for the pram.

Oh and 2.5tog sleeping bags for sleep.

This is what I thought too! But my Italian mum insisted that cotton is not right and it's going to be too cold so I wanted to double check 😂

How is everyone doing?